Narrated by Susan Ericksen

Barrister Nick Blackshear is the brother of Will Blackshear (A Gentleman Undone) and Martha Mirkwood (A Lady Awakened).  In A Gentleman Undone, Will got his own HEA and married a former courtesan – a completely disrespectable connection – while Nick had broken the relationship with his brother in an attempt to limit the damage to his own social standing, his career, and his political ambitions.

Kate Westbrook is the daughter of the son of an Earl and an actress. Because of her father’s “unfortunate” marriage, the elder Westbrooks had cut connections with Kate’s father and they had had no interaction for 23 years. Kate’s father is a barrister and is in chambers with Nick. He has been a mentor and friend to Nick for the previous three years.

Kate is beautiful. She’s not vain about it, but she’s not blind either and knows she’s lovely to look at. Kate has ambitions of restoring her family to their rightful place in society and, as part of that plan, she had written to her Aunt, the Countess of Harringdon, on each occasion of a birth, death, marriage, or engagement in the lofty family, in hopes of fostering a relationship. Kate has plans to make a good marriage and thus be in a position to bring her three sisters and her brother back to “respectability.”

Nick has had a tendre for Kate almost since meeting her but she discouraged him before he could raise his hopes very high. She is bound for a better marriage than to a mere Mr. who works for a living. She isn’t exactly a snob. Well, she kind of is, but she’s not terribly mean about it. All her life, she has felt the social stigma of her parent’s marriage. As much as her parents are deeply in love and their marriage extremely successful and happy, their decision to put love first, led to problems for Kate and her siblings. The situation is contrasted with Nick’s current near ostracisation – the fallout from Will and Lydia’s happy marriage is social disaster for the rest of the Blackshear family.

I found the story a little slow to start and the pacing overall was much the same. I liked the back half of the book better when there seemed to be a little more action. As a study of the hypocrisy of the ton, the book excels. Nick’s brother is a social pariah because he married a former courtesan. Because he dealt with her respectably, he and the rest of his family, were outcasts. But here’s the weird thing – if Will had merely kept Lydia as his mistress, all would have been fine. As the kids say these days, that’s whack.

Kate does manage to inveigle her way into the Countess of Harringdon’s parlor and various other social engagements and there she meets Miss Louisa Smith. Kate is beautiful but lacks social status; Louisa has the requisite social status but is not beautiful. Both are advised by the Countess not to look too far beyond themselves, given their respective shortcomings. For Kate, she advises a position as a Lady’s Companion and for Miss Smith, marriage but she is not to aim too high. It did bring home to me what an unpleasant society the ton often was.

I did struggle a little with Kate’s desire to associate with people who basically think her mother is a whore. I’m not sure I ever received a good answer to that. And I felt Kate’s motivations for her social climbing were not always clear. At first it was presented as her taking her rightful place in society and also assisting her younger siblings. Later it was presented as her desire to heal the breach between her father and the Earl. The first motivation was the least attractive and the least likely to be satisfied by a HEA with Nick. I kind of felt that the latter was inserted into the book to make the HEA more palatable.

I didn’t find Kate unlikeable – her saving grace was her self-awareness. She didn’t hide anything from herself. So, when she did something in furtherance of her goals, she was not blind to the way it might be perceived or the consequences of it. And she was not unmindful of the feelings of others.

Nick has been punished for having a brother with an unfortunate connection to the extent that it hardly seems to matter that he’d cut his brother off. As Nick ponders his own failings and the plain fact that he misses his brother, he makes changes.

As a romance, A Woman Entangled is a bit of a mixed bag. I didn’t quite catch what exactly changed on Kate’s part that made Nick suddenly attractive to her. I didn’t believe it was merely being together in the dark. Once the kissing started however, I was able to buy into the romance.

The narration is good but not outstanding. The characters weren’t terribly distinct to my ear, with only very subtle variations even between the male and female depictions and there were quite a few times when one voice bled into another making what distinctions there were, murky. So, for example, Nick would be talking to Kate and Kate’s voice would become Nick’s while she was still speaking her line, or Kate’s voice would bleed into the narrative voice.

The second love scene was superb however. Ms. Ericksen intoned the slow build of sexual tension, the leisurely exploration of each other’s bodies, the gradual rise to completion so very well. I am certain this scene was enhanced on audio and that the narrator brought something particularly special to this scene. It was so good in fact, that I didn’t even notice that having pre-marital sex seemed out of character for Kate and Nick (well, for Nick with Kate at least) – I just went with it.

Ms. Ericksen’s British accent is good and she keeps it up even in the general narrative. In The Spymaster’s Lady for example (Joanna Bourne – excellent book and audiobook), Kirsten Potter used an English accent for the appropriate characters and a French one for those from France. It bothered me that although there were no American characters in that story, Ms. Potter chose to use an American accent for the narrative. It jarred and took some getting used to. Here, Ms. Ericksen keeps the English accent and the story flows smoothly.

In the end, I’m left with mixed feelings about the book. I felt it was more a cerebral listening experience than one involving my emotions. But I did end up enjoying it, no matter the slowish beginning.

Kaetrin