Voyageurs by Keira Andrews

Narrated by Joel Leslie

I suppose saying “it was too short” is a form of praise – right? I recently reviewed another novella by Keira Andrews – Arctic Fire – and said exactly that; I enjoyed it and would have loved to have listened to a longer story featuring those characters. The same is true of Voyageurs, an historical romance which is more of a short story than a novella, coming in at just over ninety minutes in audio. I don’t often review ultra-short audiobooks like this one, but Keira Andrews has become a favourite author and with Joel Leslie narrating… Pfft. No brainer.

It’s July 1793, and Simon Cavendish, formerly of the East India Company, has arrived – a month late owing to bad weather and a ship in need of repairs – at the offices of the North West Company in Montréal, from where he is to travel to take up a post at Fort Charlotte, a thousand miles away. Simon is eager to take up his new position, but unfortunately, the delay in his arrival means that the party of voyageurs (young men hired to transport goods to trading posts) he was to have joined for the journey had to leave without him. Simon is disappointed to learn that he will have to wait until next spring to travel safely – and jumps on the idea of maybe travelling with just one or two voyageurs if they can be found and persuaded to make the trip.

Later that day, Simon opens his hotel room door to a tall, unsmiling young man who tells him simply that he has been sent to take him to Grand Portage and that they’re leaving the next morning. Simon is enthused at the prospect of setting out; the other man – who introduces himself as Christian Smith and tells Simon bluntly that he’s being paid five times his usual rate to undertake the journey – is far less sanguine, which isn’t surprising as it’s immediately clear that Simon has no idea what the journey will involve and how hard it will be.

Thrown together for weeks on end, forced to rely on each other if they’re going to reach their destination, Simon finds himself increasingly attracted to Christian. The story is told entirely in Simon’s PoV, so we don’t get Christian’s thoughts, but it’s clear he’s aware of Simon’s interest, and what starts out as taunting him about his desires ends with Christian fulfilling them. (A word of caution here – this sex scene is dub-con at best.) After this, the two men become closer emotionally as well as physically – but their lives are so different it’s hard to see how they can possibly mesh them together.

I knew nothing about the voyageurs before listening to this book, and the author does a terrific job of describing the gruelling work and physical hardships – paddling a canoe for fourteen hours a day for days on end, sleeping in the open, portaging – carrying – the canoe for long distances between one body of water and the next – of such a long journey and the very real dangers posed by illness or injury.

This is, as I said at the start, a short story and a short listen, but the author packs in a good amount of historical detail and information about the journey as well as fleshing out the characters of Simon and Christian to a reasonable degree. Simon is a man of his times, albeit somewhat more enlightened than many of his compatriots in his attitudes towards indigenous peoples, but despite being well-educated and widely travelled, he’s naïve in some ways and arrogant in dismissing advice about undertaking such a perilous journey. Christian thinks Simon isn’t going to be last two days on the water, and clearly has no love for the English. He refers to himself as a “half-breed”, telling Simon his English father thought it would “aid my heathen soul to call me ‘Christian’” and then how he abandoned his Ojibwe “country wife” to return to England and his real family. As the long journey passes, the men find themselves adjusting their conceptions of each other and their transformations – Simon from spoiled outsider to competent outdoorsman, Christian from surly resentment to caring and acceptance – are believable and well done. The story ends with an equally convincing HFN, although there’s a bit of a bum note struck before that when Simon does something ridiculously TSTL, just to prove a point.

Joel Leslie narrates with his customary skill, somehow making this ninety-six minute listen feel longer and more expansive, giving depth to the story and really fleshing-out the characters and their connection. Christian’s dialogue is spoken with a very slight French accent and a more-than-slight, very Gallic attitude that perfectly conveys his obvious disdain for Simon and belief he won’t be able to hack it on the journey. Simon is equally well-portrayed, his enthusiasm and naïveté tempered by an edge of arrogance which gradually disappears as he begins to realise what he’s up against and to fall in love with Christian. The small number of secondary characters are expertly characterised and clearly differentiated, and the pacing is spot on – it’s a flawless performance and one that added considerably to my enjoyment of the story.

This is a little gem of an audiobook – wonderful narration and a story built on an unusual premise set in a world and featuring characters I’d love to have spent more time in and with. That’s my main reservation really – I recommend Voyageurs, but wish it had been longer.

Caz

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