Enjoyable Tale!

I enjoyed this book
Engaging characters, a lively heroine and attractively brooding male interest !
Narrated well, bringing all characters to life
I look forward to following these characters in future stories

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1 person found this helpful

easy listening

set in the distant past, enjoyable yarn. Nicely read, kept my interest throughout the telling.

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Lovely simple story and book series

Loved the series. Sad last book not there yet! Really nice to hear different languages, accents and historical references.
Easy listening, good read!

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1 person found this helpful

Disappointing narration

Found the narration spoiled the audio experience, which at times became a strange mix of accents. This diminished overall credibility in the characterisation.

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1 person found this helpful

Good story

Enjoyed this one though ending predictable thought the narration was fine though didn't like initially

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Narration might sound OK to anyone who isn't British

I was looking forward to an English location story. But. When American authors write books set in British environs, whether in current eras or earlier centuries, they so often make major errors. Take these examples: no English home of any era would have pillows anywhere else but on a bed. Cushions adorn sofas, couches and chairs. Never would you hear anyone call earrings "earbobs", although the word was first used in the 17th century and is,apparently, a common word in southern USA, it was never heard in England and I, for one, had never heard of earbobs in my 70+ existence! Also the archaic word for autumn is "fall", taken to the US by the pilgrims but fell out of use in Britain. In addition to these glaring mistakes the narrator has horrible, over exaggerated pronunciations of so many words, any British person will cringe hearing her say "aw-ringe" (orange), "worch" (watch), "scrawlwork" (scrollwork), "margrin" (migraine), to name but a few. Such a shame as the storyline is mildly intriguing and may well entertain those who are unfamiliar with English accents of any region (the cockney accent misplaced as an aristocrat's character is truly awful).

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2 people found this helpful

Truly awful accents

Although the ending was easy to guess it was enjoyable, once I got past the terrible accents. The reader wandered round the phonemic script as the characters wandered around the English speaking world. The Scottish Marquis was particularly confused!

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A Refreshing Protagonist

What I liked most about this book was the fact that Lady Violet is middle aged with a large dollop of emotional intelligence.

After becoming reclusive after her husband died, and recently out of mourning, she has been persuaded to attend a house party by Hugh St Sever, a friend and physician.

Also at the house party was Sebastian McHeath, Marquess of Dunkeld, a friend from Lady Violet’s youth; there are hints of a romantic interest never he went to war and she married but now they have a frosty relationship.

Her marriage wasn’t happy but at the same time, she recognises that it wasn’t desperately unhappy either. She is able to reflect on her emerging feelings, both emotional and physical, without it feeling like she was a hopeless romantic or someone absolutely set on denying herself either.

The plot itself is a bit sparse and for me, it took second place to Lady Violet’s life journey and discovering more about who she is now. Pieces of jewellery go missing, a potential death, and a blinkered magistrate who has decided who the thief is.

What also made a refreshing change was that there was no endangerment of the protagonist, being suddenly saved at the last minute.

My one niggle was the narration; Kirsten Potter did a very good impression of an aristocratic accent in Georgian Britain, but every now and then she didn’t hit the mark and it jarred slightly. Also, why on earth didn’t anyone correct her pronunciation of ‘migraine’ (my-grain), unless mee-grum is a form of headache that I’ve never heard of.

The niggle about the accent is a recurring theme for me, if the characters have a distinct to a country or location, whatever that might be, please use a narrator that natively speaks in that accent.

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violet's attitude.

it all came together so neatly at the end, quite unbelievable for the time. Violet had 2 suitors!

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Mystery class differences add to red herrings

Closed minds snobbery lead to plenty of red herrings in this house party problems of being single in a class society

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