Narrated by Cornell Collins

The Demons of Wychwood is a fairly short Victorian historical romance, coming in at a little under six hours in audio. Its protagonist is Felix Lazarus, a former soldier who now works as a clerk for the General Post Office and who has a side hustle as a kind of general factotum at the very discreet Club 55 in Primrose Hill, a place that caters to the desires of gentlemen who enjoy the company of other gentlemen.

The work pays well and comes with perks Felix has only recently discovered. One day, he’d stumbled across a set of plans for the house which showed a number of secret passages, and when he’d gone to investigate, he’d discovered the peepholes in the walls in some of the upstairs rooms – the rooms to which the gentlemen retire once they’ve dined and had their fill of the other entertainment on offer. Having had little sexual experience – just the odd rushed hand-job from a fellow soldier in a dark corner – Felix takes the opportunity to indulge his curiosity about what goes on behind the closed doors at the club. He sees some kinky stuff, sure, but what interests him most are the obviously loving relationships that some of the men have, the tenderness and affection lying between them something of a revelation given his own furtive experiences. Most of all, however, he’s intrigued by the handsome gentleman he knows only as “number 27”, who Felix has watched having sex with his companion, an older man who dominates him and treats and speaks to him very roughly. Felix doesn’t really understand the dynamic between them, but he’s utterly captivated by 27’s beauty and by the air of desperation he exudes during his encounters with number 45.

But when, at the end of one of these encounters and after 45 has left, Felix sees an agitated and distraught 27 take a knife to his wrist, clearly intending to end his life, he can’t simply stand by and watch. Hurriedly, he runs back through the secret passages and into the room, wrapping the now insensible man’s wound to stanch the bleeding before going to get help. He doesn’t know when – or if – he’ll see 27 again.

A few weeks later, a postal mix-up sees Felix having to hand-deliver a missive to a nob’s house in St. James’s. One of the names on the letter is startlingly familiar – Penheligon. Felix’s sister had been a maid at Penheligon Hall in Devon, and been thrown out when she had become pregnant. Could this Lord Penheligon be connected to that house? Felix’s musings are interrupted by the arrival of a carriage – and the arrival of the man who has haunted his dreams. Who is, according to the address on the letter, Christopher (Kit) Havelock, the Duke of Penheligon.

This is a fairly short story in which the plot boils down to Felix helping Kit to shake free from his step-father’s coercive control and then their working together to deliver a much-deserved comeuppance to the villain of the piece (no prizes for guessing who 45 is.) The pacing is a bit off – the story is slow to start because there’s a lot of exposition in the first couple of chapters and there are a lot of sex scenes and sexual thoughts, which can slow things down. Felix is a likeable character who longs for love without really expecting ever to find it, but Kit is rather two-dimensional and the romance between them is rushed and lacks chemistry. I found it strange that nobody bats an eyelid when Kit – a duke –  introduces Felix, clearly a man of the lower classes, as a “dear friend” and there are several instances where the cross-class element of their relationship is just handwaved away. The biggest stretch, however, is in having Kit, whose step-father has been pouring poison into his ear for years, telling him his attraction to men is unnatural and an abomination and that his desire for them is down to some kind of demonic possession that can only be appeased by letting step-daddy pound him into the mattress every so often – could shrug off several years of emotional abuse in just one day.

The narration by Cornell Collins is excellent, of course. His performance is well-paced, and expertly differntiated; he has a good range of character voices and a voice type I always feel is particularly appropriate for historicals. I particularly liked his interpretation of Felix; he rounds out the character extremely well, his rough, London accent marking him clearly as a no-nonsense working man and serving as a good contrast to the softer, cut-glass tones used to portray Kit. The raspy, gravelly growl he gives the villain is the perfect reflection of the man’s horrible personality, and the handful of secondary characters are all clearly differentiated.

The Demons of Wychwood was a quick and entertaining listen, but I’d have liked there to have been more development of the central love story and a slower, more plausible recovery from trauma for Kit. The villain is a real lip-smacking moustache-twirler and I was pleased to see him get his just desserts, but like Kit, he’s a pretty one-note character and could have been more strongly characterised. I enjoyed Cornell Collins’ performance but when it comes to the story, I’d have liked a bit less sex and a bit more plot.

Breakdown of Grade:  Narration – A-; Story – C+

Running Time: 5 hours, 33 minutes