Merry Measure by Lily Morton

Merry Measure by Lily Morton

Narrated by Joel Leslie

A sweet, fluffy and charming romance between an accident-prone primary school teacher and his brother’s best friend, Merry Measure was one of my favourite Christmassy romances of last year, so I was delighted to see it make its way into audio just in time for the festive season this year. Fans of the author will know what I mean when I say it’s typical Lily Morton: funny, snarky and sexy with endearing leads, fun secondary characters and well-written familial relationships and friendships. Coming in at somewhere under six hours, it’s a relatively short listen, but it nonetheless manages to provide just the right amount of feel-good vibes and festive cheer – and with the supremely talented Joel Leslie at the microphone, you know you can just kick back and enjoy the show!

Arlo Wright just about makes it to the airport in time to catch his flight to Amsterdam, where he’s to join his brother Tom, Tom’s boyfriend, Bee, and a couple of other friends for a pre-Christmas jaunt to the city to celebrate Tom and Bee’s engagement. Although Tom has yet to propose; he’s hoping for the perfect moment while they’re on the trip. Arlo hates flying, so he was extremely relieved when Tom’s best friend Jack Cooper (on whom Arlo once had a massive crush) offered to travel with him.

Jack and Arlo arrive at the hotel Tom has arranged to find there’s been a mix up with the rooms. Jack had originally been planning to travel with his boyfriend Steven, but they’re not together anymore, and when Jack called the hotel to change from a double occupancy to a single, the hotel mistakenly cancelled his room booking altogether. This close to Christmas, there are no other rooms free, and the same is likely true of all the other hotels in the area, but Jack is about to start looking anyway when Bee suggests Jack can share Arlo’s room. It’s got two beds and it’s not as if they’re strangers – it’s the perfect solution.

No prizes for guessing how this is going to go, but Ms. Morton makes good use of her chosen tropes and injects plenty of genuine warmth and affection along the way. Arlo and Jack are extremely likeable both individually, and as a couple, and while their romance happens quickly, it doesn’t feel rushed or forced because of the fact that they’ve known each other for so long and have always held a special place in each other’s lives. They’re total opposites in many ways, and it’s easy to see how their different personalities and outlooks complement each other; as one character says, Arlo is the “Merry” to Jack’s “Measure”. Arlo is outgoing, vibrant, funny, more than a bit scatty and sometimes seems to have no brain-to-mouth filter, where Jack is quieter and more reserved, his penchant for tidiness and meticulous planning manifesting more strongly whenever he’s anxious. He’s well aware that Arlo used to have a crush on him and knows he’s grown out of it, but the previous Christmas, something shifted, and Jack was suddenly blindsided by a strong pull of attraction towards Arlo that he hoped would go away. The Wrights have been more like family to Jack than his own has ever been, and the last thing he wants is to screw that up by getting involved with his best friend’s little brother – but a year later, he’s as drawn to Arlo as ever and he suspects that isn’t going to change any time soon.

Jack and Arlo have scorching chemistry and I absolutely loved that they speak and act like grown adults and that they talk openly and honestly in moments of trust and intimacy that serve to reinforce just how right they are for each other. There are a couple of moments where Arlo jumps to unwarranted conclusions born of his own insecurities, but thankfully, those aren’t allowed to become too drawn out or overblown.

Lily Morton’s books often feature close-knit friendships and/or familial relationships, and Merry Measure is no exception. The small but superbly crafted supporting cast is yet another example of her talent for writing those sorts of ride-or-die relationships, a group of people who tease each other mercilessly, but who will always be there to offer love and support.

I’ve said this several times, but Lily Morton struck gold when she decided to use Joel Leslie to narrate her audiobooks. He completely ‘gets’ her style, demonstrates a deep understanding of what makes her characters tick and displays excellent comic timing as he handles her trademark snarky dialogue with (seemingly) effortless ease. His portrayal of Arlo is especially good here, his tone light, upbeat and infused with good-humour, but with just a hint of vulnerability lurking beneath. The lower pitch and rich tones he uses for Jack provide a nice contrast and work well to depict the character’s more reserved nature and his very dry sense of humour. The secondary cast is clearly differentiated – there’s only one female character among them, but Mr. Leslie’s female voices are always good – and he does a good job with the Dutch-accented English spoken by a handful of the people our heroes meet along the way. The only very tiny criticism I can level is that while Mr. Leslie’s English accent is always spot on, he does sometimes give himself away by pronouncing certain words in the American manner – here it’s pronouncing Van Gogh as “Van GO”, whereas we Brits generally say it as “Van Goff”. That isn’t technically correct either (the “g” should be pronounced in the back of the throat, rather like the soft “ch” in “loch”) but we never say “Van GO”. I know that’s a teeny-tiny thing in an excellent performance (and it hasn’t affected my grade at all) but it’s probably because it’s such an excellent performance that it stuck out for me.

Merry Measure is full of warmth, humour and festive spirit (the bottled kind as well as the other!) and I enjoyed it very much. The Amsterdam locations are vividly described, the characters are adorable, the romance is delightful and the narration is superb. Grab yourself a hot chocolate, snuggle up with a warm blanket and settle in for the perfect start to your seasonal listening.

Caz


Buy Merry Measure by Lily Morton on Amazon

6 thoughts on “Merry Measure by Lily Morton

  1. I was trying to convince myself that I don’t need to get this on audio since I just reread it in print last month. Gah! But, this is such a sweet, funny read and Joel Leslie is so good that I lost the battle and bought it! It’s whipersynced on Amazon US. The book is available on KU, the audio was only $7.95 to add on. Totally worth it! I think I’ll save it for a day when I need something cozy to listen to.

  2. I would have reversed the grades on this one – I much preferred the story to the narration, which I found really fast. Also, the voice for Jack didn’t match my imagined voice for him. I don’t think that he would have had a glottal stop-py accent at all (his mother would have had him at elocution lessons!) and I don’t really like those kind of accents when Joel Leslie does them. He did it with Levi too and I didn’t find it convincing.

    1. I remember you’d said you found the narration fast in this one; I had that in mind when I started but honestly don’t think it’s any faster than any of JL’s other LM narrations. That said, I speak quickly myself, so it felt perfectly normal! I didn’t have a problem with Jack’s accent – if it had been glottal stops all the time, I might have, but it wasn’t (as far as I remember), although I do think that maybe standard RP might have been better. As it didn’t really worry me, I didn’t mark it down.

      Joel Leslie has explained in interviews that his “natural” accent is neither typically English nor American (he was born in the Commonwealth to American parents, and went to a school mostly populated by Brits) but is somewhere in between, although he usually adopts a standard US accent when speaking (unless he’s narrating books set elsewhere of course!) The only times his English accent comes a-cropper is that he sometimes pronounces English words in the American way (d’-TAILS instead of DEE-tails, LEE-zhur instead of LEH-zhur, were-ent and are-ent instead of “wernt” and “arnt” (those trip up Greg Tremblay as well!)) Those things stick out because he’s so good otherwise – and I think there’s always a danger – for me, anyway, as a reviewer – of holding the really outstanding performers to a higher standard and knocking grade points off for things that I might let other, not quite as good narrators get away with, precisely because I expect so much more from the former group.

      Eh, it’s all subjective at the end of the day. Thanks for letting me waffle!!

      1. I listened to Merry Measure between two Harper Fox books – The Salisbury Key, narrated by Hamish Long, and Seven Summer Nights, narrated by Chris Clog. Both of those books are much slower paced, so it could have just been an unfortunate comparison that made MM seem very fast. I don’t think that I’ve ever thought that any narrations seem fast before – I even checked to see if I’d changed the play speed by accident!
        I’ve heard interviews where Joel Leslie has described his upbringing too. I think he does RP really well and would have preferred him to use it for both Jack and Levi’s voices.

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