Narrated by Simon Goldhill

Unnatural is a childhood-friends-to-lovers story featuring Iain Sinclair and James Hart, whose years-long friendship goes disastrously wrong and causes them to spend several years deliberately avoiding each other.

It’s 1824, and Iain has just resigned his army commission and accepted a post as a government agent in India. He will be leaving in a matter of weeks, and realises he needs to see James one last time – and make peace with him if he can – before he goes.

The story is told in both the ‘now’ and the ‘then’, as we witness various key events in the lives of these men and are shown how two such firm friends have reached a point at which they are so dreadfully estranged. Their path back to each other is not an easy one and not without heartbreak, and I will admit that Iain’s guilt over his sexuality and his continual refrain of “I don’t want to ruin our friendship” is somewhat repetitive. But despite that, I enjoyed the story; the characters are well-rounded and engaging – even if Iain is a bit of a prick at times – and the romance is nicely done, with sensual and emotional love scenes which fit the overall tone of the story very nicely.

This new audio version of the book is narrated by Simon Goldhill, who has also narrated the author’s A Gathering Storm and her co-authored Creative Types series, so I knew I’d be able to kick back and enjoy the story without worrying about there being any narrator faux-pas. Mr. Goldhill has a very smooth, pleasant voice, and I enjoyed his performance overall, although there are a few places where his character differentiation is a bit too understated; most of the time James and Iain are easy to identify aurally, but not always, and I would have liked to have been able to hear the differences in their dialogue more obviously. But that’s a minor point – the dialogue tags helped avoid any confusion and all in all, it’s an excellent performance.

Unnatural is a gently-paced character-driven story in which the relationship between the protagonists evolves slowly but satisfyingly, and Simon Goldhill’s narration makes a definite case for experiencing it in audio.

Breakdown of Grade: Narration – B+; Story – B-

Running Time: 7 hours 26 minutes