Narrated by Alex Wyndham

A Convenient Fiction is book three in Mimi Matthews’ Parish Orphans of Devon series, and the first of the set I’ve listened to (I read the first book, A Matrimonial Advertisement), and I confess I picked it up for review principally because Alex Wyndham is the narrator (the earlier books in the series were narrated by someone I don’t care to listen to). The author has a reputation as someone who pays attention to historical detail and accuracy in her novels, and her characters speak and behave in a way that is very period-appropriate – which isn’t something I can say about a lot of the historical romances published recently. Her writing is smooth and engaging and she has the knack for creating nicely simmering romantic chemistry between her protagonists – but if you’re someone who likes a bit of on-page action between the sheets in your romances, then you won’t find that here, as Ms. Matthews closes the bedroom door very firmly once the characters make it that far!

As the series title suggests, the novels
focus on characters who grew up in an orphanage. The four boys forged strong friendships
during their time there, and three of them have kept in touch since their
childhoods, but one of them – Alex Archer, the hero of this book – disappeared
without trace as soon as he left the place and his friends have heard nothing
from him since. Living off his wits since the age of thirteen, Alex is now
living a reasonably comfortable life in Paris, making his money (mostly) at the
gambling tables. But this isn’t enough for him – he wants something more stable
and to that end decides that he needs to find himself a wife with land and
property. Perhaps having something of his own will enable him to find some sort
of purpose in life and will fill the void he feels within himself.

But finding a rich wife is going to be
difficult given that Alex is a nobody as far as society is concerned, and
certainly doesn’t move in the circles that could afford him the sort of
introduction he needs. But that changes when he meets George Wright in a French
gambling club; in his cups, George talks about his childhood friend, young,
beautiful Henrietta Talbot, heiress to Edgington Park in Surrey, and Alex
seizes the chance to get what he wants. He manoeuvres George into deep play and
by the end of the evening, George is in his debt to the tune of ten thousand
pounds – a debt Alex says he will consider repaid if George will introduce him
to Henrietta.

Since the death of her father over three years earlier, Laura Hayes has been struggling to keep a roof over her head, that of her invalid brother Teddy and her spinster aunt. When her father was alive they lived comfortably; Hayes senior ran a successful and profitable business, with a factory in London and a distillery in France producing Hayes Lavender Water and Hayes Lavender Soap, but some poor business decisions prior to his death have left Laura and Teddy in very reduced circumstances. The terms of their father’s will stipulate that if Laura is unmarried on her twenty-fifth birthday, then the whole of the business interests will go to Teddy when he turns twenty-one; as this is about to happen, Laura visits Harold Weatherwax, the family solicitor, who has been managing those interests since Mr. Hayes’ death, and is horrified to discover that Weatherwax is prepared to have Teddy declared legally incompetent so as to keep control of what remains of the business. But what can she do? Her twenty-fifth birthday is just two weeks away, and with no husband – and fearful that Weatherwax will carry out his threat against Teddy – she cannot challenge the terms of the will.

The story treads the expected path as Alex
finds himself drawn far more to Laura than to Henrietta, whom he quickly
discovers is self-centred and rather spoiled, but where it really impresses in
is the author’s decision to make Alex something of a villain and then to slowly
reveal the truth about what drives him and eventually redeem him. His actions
in manipulating George are unpleasant to say the least, and Alex knows it; he
knows (or rather, believes) he’s not a good man, carrying a shedload of guilt
for past actions he keeps running from but can never escape.

Laura is a strong heroine; quiet, caring,
dignified and determined, she has a plan to restart the family business and the
know-how and fortitude to carry it out. She’s down-to-earth and, in a way,
extraordinary in her ordinariness – she’s a woman of her time, but is no
shrinking violet either.

With two such well-drawn protagonists and
Alex’s redemption story woven into the mix, A Convenient Fiction should have merited a higher content grade, but
the problem is that the romance is a bit dull, and after the half-way point, I
began to get bored. I really liked the first part of the story, as Laura and
Alex try to fight their mutual attraction because it doesn’t fit their plans – and
find it impossible. They develop a caring friendship of sorts before finally
admitting that they can’t do without one another and want to be together, even
though (for a while) Alex tries desperately to cling to the fact that their
relationship is really nothing more than the eponymous convenient fiction. I greatly
appreciated their honesty and ability to communicate so that the stumbling
blocks that might normally arise in a story like this are dealt with and
avoided; but, and this is something I’ve found with other books I’ve read by
this author – a great first half moves to a second which just… fizzles out. Just
to be clear – I’m not talking about the lack of bedroom action; some authors
can create as much heat with a kiss or touch as others can achieve in a full-blown
sex scene – it’s a lack of intensity in the emotional attachment between the
couple that brought this one into the ‘average’ bracket for me. That said,
there are loads of four and five star reviews for the book on Goodreads, so I’m
clearly a dissenting voice here.

As I said at the beginning, I picked up A Convenient Fiction for review mostly
because of the involvement of Alex Wyndham, a narrator I’ve enjoyed listening
to on a number of occasions. As ever, he delivers a polished and accomplished performance,
differentiating effectively between all the characters, both male and female,
and portraying the women in a believable manner through a softening of tone and
small rise in pitch. He’s spot on with the emotional nuances, too and his
interpretation of Alex is especially good, the character’s self-loathing
evident in his voice and manner of speech in the early parts of the story, his
confusion over his conflicted feelings for Laura and finally, his complete
devotion to her all readily coming across. But I’m sorry to say that there were
certain aspects of his performance that didn’t really work for me; one is that
almost all the dialogue – and some of the narrative – is delivered in a kind of
half-whisper, and the other is that there’s an element of repetitive intonation
in some passages that I found distracting. I’m not sure if this is something
Mr. Wyndham has begun to do recently (it’s been a while since I last listened
to him) or it he’s always done it and I’ve not noticed because I’ve been more
engaged by the material, so I listened to a few parts of some of his other
recordings, but I didn’t notice it in those, so I’m hoping that perhaps it’s a
one-off.

I’m not quite sure whether I’m can honestly
recommend A Convenient Fiction. I’m
sure it will work better for some listeners than it did for me (the ratings on
Goodreads indicate I’m in the minority in not being overly keen on the story)
and the narration, while flawed, is still a lot better than some of the
performances I’ve heard lately. I didn’t hate it, but it wasn’t one of those
audiobooks I wanted to pick up at every opportunity. If you’ve listened to it,
drop by and let me know how it was for you!