To Hold a Hidden Pearl by Fearne Hill

Narrated by Richard Stranks

Fearne Hill’s To Hold a Hidden Pearl is a lovely, character-driven contemporary romance featuring an eccentric grief-stricken earl and a big-hearted regular bloke who, in the time-honoured way of romance novels, hook-up one night only to discover, a week later, that they’re going to be working together. It’s warm, funny, poignant and beautifully written, and the performance by new-to-me narrator Richard Stranks is a perfect fit.

 Jay Sorrentino has been questioning his sexuality for quite a while now, but with his wedding rapidly approaching he decides he needs to finally get some answers. He’s bottled his previous two attempts at confirming his suspicions – but on his third visit to a London gay club, a quick hook-up with the most beautiful man he’s ever seen tells him everything he needs to know, and he calls off his wedding the next day. To say it doesn’t go down well is an understatement – he’s not ready to tell anyone the real reason – so he just accepts the disappointment, disapproval and downright hostility of his fiancée, most of his friends and his family. The one person who’s still speaking to him is his former best man, and even he’s not particularly sympathetic.

It’s been a good couple of years since Lucien Duchamps-Avery, sixteenth Earl of Rossingley, has been for a night out, and he’s honestly not sure what he’s doing at Spangles on this particular night. Since the tragic deaths of his parents and his older brother and his wife and their unborn child, he’s not done much of anything except work, drink and sleep; he’s numb and going through life on auto-pilot. But when a gorgeous hunk of a man – who is so not his usual type – approaches him in the club and offers him a blow job, well… It’s been a long time since he’s felt even the faintest interest in anyone, so Lucien thinks, why not?

Consultant anaesthesiologist Dr. Lucien Avery has a well-deserved reputation for being short-tempered, sharp-tongued and an all-round grumpy bastard. Every year, it’s part of his job to act as mentor to a junior doctor, and when it’s time to meet his next victim mentee, he’s shocked when he turns out to be the mysterious stranger who’d sucked him off so eagerly and then disappeared.

It’s not exactly difficult to work out where the story goes from here, but the journey Fearne Hill takes us on is filled with tenderness, understanding and acceptance. Lucien and Jay are complex, endearing and easy to fall in love with, and the author plays with our preconceptions a bit by turning the grumpy/sunshine trope on its head. Lucien isn’t your average alphahole, but is instead an androgynous aristocrat with a penchant for wearing negligées, pearls and eyeliner, and while Jay might be the more physically imposing of the two, he’s a big softie at heart with a protective streak a mile wide. He finds Lucien intimidating at first – as he’s meant to – but it doesn’t take him too long to work out that Lucien uses his prickliness to keep people at bay, and that deep down, he’s hurting, lost and very lonely.

I enjoyed pretty much everything about this audiobook; the romance is superbly developed and while there are definitely a few bumps along the way, I appreciated the lack of a Big Mis or third-act break-up – there’s sufficient tension throughout to negate the need for some big, contrived dramatic moment. Instead we get a sexy, slow-burn romance featuring two individuals who talk things through and behave like adults, a very sensitive portrayal of grief and a story with emotional depth and plenty of humour to lighten the heavier moments. There’s also a very moving sub-plot about a young man in intensive care with whom Lucien – against his better judgement – forms an emotional bond which will definitely bring a lump to the throat.

I have two criticisms really. One: there’s a really odd conversation in which Jay asks Lucien if he’s a “tranny”. I seem to remember it comes at a moment where Lucien is drawing back into himself and that maybe Jay is just trying to provoke a reaction, but it’s incredibly jarring and made me uncomfortable. And given Jay is so accepting and appreciative of who Lucien is, it made no sense.

As I said at the beginning, narrator Richard Stranks is a perfect fit for this book and he delivers an excellent performance on all counts. It’s well paced, his characterisations are on point, his vocal acting is very good and he differentiates well between all the characters. The real standout however, is his portrayal of Lucien; along with a cut-glass accent, he adopts the perfect aristocratic drawl that either drips with ennui and scorn or is loaded with a kind of deadly flirtatiousness, depending on who he’s talking to! Mr. Stranks also does a wonderful job of conveying the vulnerability Lucien works so hard to hide, and, in his scenes with Jay, revealing how brittle that sarcastic, world-weary exterior really is. His interpretation of Jay is equally good, slightly accented with a bit of gruffness here and there to describe him as a big man, and full of good-humour and affection – but not without his own insecurities. The handful of secondary characters are all voiced appropriately – his female voices are pretty good, too – and in fact, the only thing I can mark him down on is a handful of mispronunciations (“tirade” is “tye-raid” not “Ti-RAHD” “Berkley” is pronounced “Barkley”, “libido” is “li-BEE-do”, not “li-BYE-do”, “orangery” is “OR-ange’ry” not “or-AN-gery”) – most of which are what I’d regard as ‘standard’ vocabulary and which should have been picked up in post-production.

To Hold a Hidden Pearl is a gem of an audiobook. The sensual, opposites-attract romance is beautifully developed, the characters are likeable and the narration is excellent. Highly recommended.

Caz