Narrated by Kate Reading

Caz recommended Mia Vincy to me and suggested I listen to A Beastly Kind of Earl. She knows I’ve been on the lookout for new-to-me historical romance authors. As I’m a fan of Kate Reading’s narrations as well, it felt like a low-risk exercise so I said “sign me up!”.

Thea Knight is the daughter of merchant
whose fortunes have waxed and waned over the years. For most of her life, she
believed her family would stick together through thick and thin no matter what
but three years earlier she became embroiled in a scandal and was effectively
disowned. She has a plan to restore her reputation, to her family and hopefully
also to society and to gain a measure of justice. But first she will impersonate
her sister, Helen, for a few days so that Helen can run off and elope with Beau
Russell, a son of Viscount Ventnor. To add to the sticky mess, Percy Russell,
Beau’s brother was one of the main antagonists in the scandal which caused
Thea’s banishment.

Viscount Ventnor is against the match
between Beau and Helen and has set a watch on her, so Thea enters an inn
disguised as a man and swaps clothing with the waiting Helen. Helen leaves with
the watchers none the wiser and Thea plans to take Helen’s place at a house
party until the nuptials have been sealed and cannot be undone.

The Earl of Luxborough also has a
connection to the Russell family, having married the viscount’s daughter.
Katherine died nine years earlier in mysterious circumstances and the earl left
England immediately thereafter, exploring the jungles of South America. In that
time he was attacked by a jaguar and bears the scars of his ordeal on his face
and body – the “devil’s mark”.

As it happens, the earl has need of a
temporary wife and, having been tasked with keeping Helen away from Beau by the
viscount, decides to use the situation to his advantage. He’s no fan of the
viscount for reason which become clear later in the book and the opportunity to
tweak his nose is a bonus. Rafe Landcross (the earl) knows full well Thea is
not Helen, but if he marries her as Helen, then the marriage will not be valid.
He can obtain the funds tied up in his mother’s trust (which require him to
wed) then restore himself to singledom and the viscount will believe Helen is
safely out of Beau’s reach while the lovebird flee to Scotland to elope. Win
win.

Through various somewhat improbable devices,
Rafe and Thea fake-marry and travel to his remote estate where Thea meets the
diverse staff Rafe has assembled. There they get to know one another and Rafe
becomes charmed by Thea’s relentless optimism and perennial curiosity. Thea can
be ridiculous in a very endearing way and Rafe is somewhat befuddled and
fascinated by her.

Of course, they fall in love but there is
the sticky issue of her identity and who knows it, plus Lord Ventnor is angry
and there’s also scandal which ruined Thea’s reputation three years earlier to
be sorted out.

There are themes of found family, loyalty,
trust and recovery from grief. Note also, there is some discussion of mental
illness. While aspects of the story are light and farcical (Thea’s storytelling
at the inn for example), other parts are deeper and heavier – Thea’s pain at
her parents’ rejection and her realisation of just who they were, Rafe’s
memories of Katherine’s death are a couple of them. The book charts a somewhat
unusual course between the two moods but overall navigates it well.

The narration is excellent of course. Kate
Reading is one of the best in the business, delivering both the humour and
pathos with skill and nuance. It seemed to me she had particular fun with the
theatre at the inn.

The one thing I wasn’t quite sure about was
the accent given to Martha. Martha is a woman of colour from Peru who creates
medicines under Rafe’s sponsorship. I understood her to have an ancestry of
enslaved African people. I wasn’t clear exactly on whether she was Black or
Afro-Latinx. I’m not exactly sure what accent Martha ought to have had but I
found the one here unconvincing and a little too generic. However, while Martha
played a pivotal role in the novel, she was not a character with a tremendous
amount of dialogue, so this wasn’t a huge issue in the overall context of the
listen.

I did very much enjoy the way Ms. Reading
voiced Thea and the Bishop (a delightful secondary or tertiary character) in
particular. Poor Rafe, being caught between the two. He really had no hope.

Parts of the story dragged a little for me from
time to time but the narration was always engaging and that kept me listening.
I was a little dubious about one of the tactics utilised near the end of the
book (at least it wasn’t Thea’s idea) but even so I loved the way it all worked
out in the end. I’m very interested to read/listen to Arabella’s book when it
comes out – there are intriguing hints of her story peppered throughout A
Beastly Kind of Earl.