Narrated by Gary Furlong
Cat Sebastian’s début historical romance, The Soldier’s Scoundrel, was one of my favourite books of 2016 in both print and audio, so I’ve been eagerly awaiting the release of her second, The Lawrence Browne Affair in audiobook format. Like its predecessor, this book is very well-written, sharply observed, strongly characterised, and contains a beautifully developed and sensual romance between two people who, at first, would seem to have little – or nothing – in common.
We met Georgie Turner – swindler, thief and con-artist extraordinaire – in the first book, and at the beginning of this one, he’s in big trouble with the local crimelord. Georgie has discovered that at the ripe old age of twenty-five, he’s developed a conscience, and it’s a real pain in the arse because it’s rendered him unable to see through his latest scheme to con an elderly lady out of all her money. Without that payoff, he can’t pay his ‘dues’ and if he can’t pay up, then he’s as good as dead. Fortunately for him, his older brother, Jack – a private investigator – has a job for Georgie that will take him all the way to Cornwall where he can lie low while he works out what to do next while also making himself useful by sending back reports to London on the mental state of his new employer, the Earl of Radnor.
Said earl – Lawrence Browne – is plagued by a family history of madness, and lives alone in his dilapidated family home, Penkellis Castle, where he devotes himself to his scientific interests. His current project of developing what we would recognise as an early form of telegraphy, has led to several explosions, fires and other mayhem, dangers which add fuel to the fire that he is mentally unbalanced and gives the locals even more of a reason to give Lawrence a wide berth. But that suits him. He likes solitude and doesn’t react well to change; and as long as he gets his tray of ham, bread and apples each day, he doesn’t much care about anything other than his work. The one person with whom he interacts is the local vicar, the Reverend Halliwell, who, fortunately for Lawrence, is concerned with more than his immortal soul. Halliwell has heard rumblings that the earl’s family may be taking steps to have him declared legally incompetent and locked up, so he approaches his old school friend, Oliver Rivington for help, suggesting that if perhaps they can find Radnor a secretary, the earl will at least have someone to vouch for him should that eventuality come to pass. Besides – Radnor really, really needs a secretary.
Rivington is Jack Turner’s lover, which proves fortuitous for Georgie’s continued existence. When Georgie turns up needing a bolt hole, and in spite of the fact that he has no real idea of what being a secretary involves, he agrees to go to Cornwall to babysit the so-called Mad Earl. The man lives in a castle, he’s rich… he might turn out to be an easy mark, and if not, there’s bound to be plenty of valuable stuff Georgie can make off with and sell to pay off his debt. Once a con-man, always a con-man, that’s Georgie. Or so he thinks.
Arrived at the crumbling Penkellis Castle, fastidious, well turned-out Georgie is horrified at the state of both the building and its owner, who doesn’t give a damn about his clothes, his personal hygiene or the state of his home. Nonetheless, Georgie gets straight to work and sets about organising the earl’s papers and correspondence despite his employer’s resistance to change and his attempts to scare him off. Georgie is surprised to learn that not only does he quite enjoy his secretarial duties, he’s rather good at them, and it also doesn’t take him long to learn that while Radnor is different, surly, and quite, quite brilliant, he is not insane. Gradually, Lawrence begins to accept and to value Georgie’s presence, and the pair falls into a comfortable working relationship that becomes a genuine friendship. There’s a strong undercurrent of attraction running between the two from the start, too, but because of his ‘madness’, Lawrence doesn’t believe himself fit to have any sort of personal relationship with anyone, and in any case, refuses to allow himself to be attracted to another man, seeing his sexual preference as part of his insanity. Georgie understands that Lawrence struggles to adapt to change – we’d no doubt recognise Lawrence’s condition as being the result of severe anxiety, and the episodes of what he terms madness as bad panic attacks – so Georgie cleverly and subtly begins to make small changes to his employer’s daily life in order to make things easier for him, without attempting to change the man himself. Lawrence badly needs a haircut, a shave, servants, and a very ordered environment, but what he needs most of all is to accept that he is not mad, and that he is just as entitled to love and be loved as anyone else.
There are a couple of secondary plotlines running throughout the story (it’s Cornwall so there must be smuggling, right?!) but The Lawrence Browne Affair is, at heart, a love story between two people who need to make some major re-evaluations of their self-perception if they are to be able to love each other and make a future together. Lawrence realises that Georgie has spent so many years thieving and swindling that he is trapped by his view of himself as nothing but a worthless thief, while Georgie wants to free Lawrence from his view of himself as a dangerous madman who is undeserving of love or friendship. Watching each man gradually start to see himself differently because of the love and support of the other is genuinely touching and the relationship between them is by turns tender, funny, sensual and sweet. The only false note struck is the speed at which Lawrence goes from not wanting to admit an attraction to Georgie to embarking on a physical relationship with him, but that’s the one flaw I can find in an otherwise extremely well developed romance.
I was very pleased to see Gary Furlong listed as the narrator for this audiobook as I’d very much enjoyed his work on The Soldier’s Scoundrel. His speaking voice is pleasant to listen to and the pacing issues I mentioned in my review of the earlier book (that he sometimes spoke too quickly) have been eliminated, as I didn’t feel that the narrative was rushed in any way. His character differentiation is generally good, although there were times that Georgie and Lawrence sounded a little too similar, the differences between them too subtle to always be apparent right away. Generally, Mr. Furlong assigns a slightly lower pitch to the earl while Georgie’s dialogue is delivered at a pitch and tone much closer to his own; but unfortunately, that meant that there were times in the earlier stages of the listen when I sometimes found it tricky to work out when I was listening to narrative and when to Georgie’s dialogue. In all honesty, though, those are quite minor issues; they don’t happen often and I didn’t notice any more of them once I really got into the listen.
Most of the story consists of interaction between Georgie and Lawrence, but there is a handful of supporting characters – notably Lady Standish, her brother and Lawrence’s brother-in-law, the dissolute Lord Courtenay (whose story is told in the next book in the series, The Ruin of a Rake). Lady Standish and the other female characters – servants, mostly – are portrayed by means of a slight hike in pitch, with the locals being given appropriate West-Country sounding accents, while Lady Standish’s accent is appropriately aristocratic. Courtenay’s manner of speech is described as being “cold, urbane, and tinged with a vaguely foreign accent” – which Mr. Furlong gets exactly right, and he’s also very good when it comes to portraying young Simon, Lawrence’s eight or nine year-old heir.
It’s a solid performance all round, although there were times I would have liked it to have been a little more animated, and some of the “stage directions” interpreted more literally. I noted one particular point when a character is said to be shouting but doesn’t, for example, and there were a small number of other occasions where I felt a lack of emotional expression. (I know narrators don’t actually shout, but most have a way of fake-shouting that works without blowing the microphone!)
But those moments were few and far between, and certainly didn’t happen often enough to prevent me from giving this audiobook a strong recommendation. The Lawrence Browne Affair is a must for anyone who enjoys strongly written, character-driven historicals featuring fully-rounded, complex characters and a beautifully developed romance.
Caz
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