Ready Set Rogue by Manda Collins

Narrated by Beverley A. Crick

Ready Set Rogue is the first book in Manda Collins’ new Studies in Scandal series, which features four young ladies – all known as bluestockings – who unexpectedly inherit a country estate. Lady Celeste Beauchamp, a lady of some erudition, wished to enable the women to pursue their studies unencumbered by the responsibilities they all bear towards their families and bequeathed them her home – complete with its marvellous library and collections of artefacts – for the period of one year, at the end of which one of them will inherit outright.

Needless to say, Lady Celeste’s closest relative, her nephew, Torquil, the Marquess of Kerr, is not at all pleased at the prospect of the property going out of the family, and he is determined to find a way to counter his aunt’s instructions. To this end, he travels to Beauchamp House in order to confront the women and get rid of them if he can, and is frustrated when bad weather interrupts his journey and means he is stranded for longer than he would like at a coaching inn en route. While there, he comes to the aid of an attractive young woman who is being accosted by a ruffian in one of the public rooms. He assumes, given her drab clothing and the fact she is travelling with several trunks full of books, that she must be a governess, so discovering she is actually one of the scheming women he has set out to thwart does nothing to improve his mood.

When the weather lets up enough to allow them to resume their journey, Quill begrudgingly escorts the lady to Beauchamp Hall, making very clear to her his disapproval of his aunt’s plans and his intention to send all the ladies packing.

Aphrodite Wareham –usually called Ivy – is thrilled at the prospect of being able to pursue her studies without interruption for the next year. One of eight siblings, she spends most of her time helping her mother at home and has little time for the translation work she so loves, so the idea of being able to spend a year pleasing herself is a very attractive one. She is delighted when she arrives at Beauchamp Hall to meet her fellow scholars – a mathematician, Daphne, whose mouth doesn’t appear to be connected to her brain, and sisters Gemma and Sophia, an artist and a geologist – and their chaperone, the widowed Lady Serena, Quill’s cousin, who had lived with Lady Celeste for the last few years.

Ivy and Quill are drawn to each other – although neither of them will admit it – and Quill is especially determined not to let his inconvenient attraction to the lovely Ivy affect his purpose. Things change, however, when Ivy finds a letter from the late Lady Celeste in her room, a letter which tells Ivy that the latter’s death did not occur as the result of natural causes. Lady Celeste believed that she was being very slowly poisoned, but did not know how or why, and in her letter, she asks Ivy to solve the mystery while also telling her not to involve her fellow scholars. She also says that Ivy should inform Quill of the request and that she can trust him absolutely.

The investigation naturally throws Ivy and Quill together frequently, and in spite of their initial animosity, they are drawn together by their shared concern over getting justice for Lady Celeste. The latent attraction between them is also fostered by their growing awareness of and respect for each other’s strengths and finer qualities. But one of the biggest problems I had with the book is that they act on that attraction when they have known each other for little more than ONE DAY. Yes. They meet, they snipe, they declare a truce, they shag. In an abandoned hut during a storm. As if the use of HR cliché #578943 and the implausibility of the situation weren’t bad enough, other than a couple of lingering glances, there’s no sense that these two people are in the throes of anything other than a mild attraction. There’s no emotional connection established between them, no escalation of sexual tension… they just sort of fall on each other when the opportunity arises. Ivy doesn’t even pause to consider the consequences, or even that perhaps going to bed with someone you’ve just met is something that goes completely against propriety. She’s supposed to be clever, yet it’s Quill who mentions the possibility of pregnancy, which she admits hadn’t even occurred to her. Even though the author hints that Ivy’s upbringing – she’s the daughter of a scholar and was allowed to pursue a line of study not normally open to women – was unconventional, I find it difficult to believe that a young woman raised in an overwhelmingly female household (she has SEVEN sisters – I think. Maybe.) could ever have formed the idea that it would be acceptable to go to bed with a man she’d just met.

And this brings me to another issue, which is that there are some glaring inconsistencies in the timeline of the story. After the shagging, Quill is appalled to think that he’s irretrievably compromised a young woman he’s known for little more than twenty-four hours. Yet not long before this, we’re told that Ivy hasn’t seen him for a week, and thinks he was deliberately avoiding her company. Whichever is correct, this is a big slip-up on the part of the book’s editing team which has been carried across into the audio version. I also found references to different numbers of sisters, mention of a brother who was never referred to again and a few instances where people were referred to wrongly (i.e at one point a cousin is referred to as a sister). Ms. Collins, you need a better editor.

I should also point out that this book is heavily weighted towards the murder mystery, which perhaps explains why the romance feels as though it has been pushed into second place. I am not averse to historical mysteries – I’ve enjoyed many of them – but this book is billed as an historical romance and it doesn’t deliver on that score. The mystery element is quite well done, but Ms. Collins fails to inject any of the romantic and sexual tension I expect to find in a romance, and there is very little chemistry between Quill and Ivy.

Thanks to the skilled and enjoyable narration by Beverley A. Crick, I was at least able to reach the end of this audiobook feeling reasonably satisfied and as though I hadn’t quite wasted the nine hours it took to listen to it. The sense of enthusiasm she injects into her performances always carries across to this listener, making this one of those audios in which a strong narration enhances the story and helps paper over some of the cracks in the storytelling. Her pacing and delivery feel very natural, and her character differentiation – especially between Ivy and her fellow scholars – is very good; there is never any confusion in the scenes in which they appear together. She does an equally good job voicing Quill; she doesn’t lower her pitch a great deal, yet she manages to convey his masculinity in other ways, by adding a harder edge to her timbre and employing a more deliberate manner of speech. I frequently mention that Ms. Crick has great skills as a vocal actress in the way she adds the “stage directions” to the dialogue in an unobtrusive manner – that’s definitely the case here, and once again added much to my enjoyment of her performance.

Ready Set Rogue isn’t a terrible book by any means. Manda Collins can certainly write and tell an interesting story, but ultimately, the lack of chemistry between the leads and the inconsistencies – in terms of the editing and the poor handling of the initial love scene – are things I couldn’t ignore and pulled down my content grade. Ms. Crick saves the audiobook from being a dud, but unless you’re on a mission to listen to every single one of her recordings, you might want to give this one a miss or – if you can – get it from the library.

Caz