I was transported

I was introduced to the author by a really mature lady who read the author in her youth. Because I do audio books the narrator is a big issue. The reviews for the first novel were not that great so went for this one.
I felt that the narrator fitted the book.
Just a great story and I was there with all the fops and dandys.!!!

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Beautifully narrated

Thoroughly enjoyed the narration that brought all the characters vividly to life. It's my first Heyer novel, but loved the detailed descriptions that created a charming sense of high society in the eighteenth century. There are some brilliantly comic parts too that had me laughing out loud.

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Delightful!

I've read this story at least four times in the past 60 years as it's an enjoyable romp. Jot Davies brought it to life.

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Good narration

This is not the best of the genre but is entertainingly read and excellent escapism.

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4 people found this helpful

Hero and heroine bit spin-less

Good mix of characters but the main ones were just a bit too wet!
Nice group of older generation who must have collapsed breathing thank God, at the end - not her best !

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A classic Georgette Heyer and brilliantly voiced

I just binged this in a single day. Wonderful escapism. Now I’m off so see which other books this narrator has read…

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Quite fun but nowhere near her best

Firstly - great narration. Narrator worked hard to create a suitably arch atmosphere while taking the book as seriously as possible.

This is one of the few Heyers I had left, having read / listened to most others. It’s one of her earliest books, and I was unsurprised to read afterwards that it was originally published as a Mills and Boon - it was very much more of a “swooning silly heroine” book than any others I’ve read, and there have been plenty of daft ones.

The heroine has some reasonable complaints about her nice but chippy admirer, who takes her for granted and can’t ever be bothered to pay her a compliment (not the same but made me think of Edward Yardley, Venetia’s boring suitor who just assumed she’d marry him one day). So when she asks him if he could possibly act in a slightly more gentlemanly way, he goes absolutely off on one and flounces off to France to turn himself into a caricature to serve her right.

And within an unreasonably short length of time, he’s learnt French fluently, become an expert swordsman, and figured out how to flirt and charm his way through society with the best of them, from being a somewhat tongue tied and awkward man. Proper montage scene.

Then he returns and makes her sorry for “what she wished for” despite it not being at all what she’d asked. Confusion ensues, we learn from an otherwise entertaining Aunt character that women are all silly things without the capacity to reason, and that we all want a Man to just Take Charge, against our will if need be, and that men won’t mind if we are silly and foolish because they wouldn’t love us if they didn’t need to feel manly by taking care of us.

I did like the older characters on the whole. The uncle, dad and aunt are good fun and are supposed to be the wise older generation (they are.. in comparison).

I’m just glad for all our sakes that Heyer kept going and wrote so many more much much better, far more nuanced and varied books, with variously daft, entertaining, but real and three dimensional characters of both sexes. Read all the other ones first, don’t expect too much, but don’t leave this out - a bad Heyer is still quite good fun!

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Absolutely brilliant narration.

Having been a fan of Georgette Heyer for many years this narration took this novel to another level. Can’t praise it enough.

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Least favourite of her romances

Disappointed with the story - unlike her usual heroines this one lacks all agency. The change in the hero’s character is unbelievable and the whole story feels very contrived. The narration was fine for the narrator and the women’s parts, but a strange drawl for the men - very grating.

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2 people found this helpful