Narrated by Jayne Entwistle

I’ve Got Your Number is a hilarious British rom-com in the style of Bridget Jones’ Diary (I totally imagined Sam as Colin Firth too). If you like Bridget Jones, you will like this one.

Two weeks before her wedding, physiotherapist Poppy Wyatt has not only lost her engagement ring, she’s also lost her phone. In order to get news of her missing ring, she needs a phone and, when she spots an abandoned phone in a rubbish bin in the hotel lobby, she snatches it up. The engagement ring has been in her fiancé’s family for three generations so it’s a BIG DEAL. To add to the pressure, the toffy and academic parents of Poppy’s fiancé (Magnus) are coming back to town after months away. They will expect to see the ring. What to do?

To add more hijinks into the mix, the phone belongs to the PA of businessman Sam Roxton. It gets all his emails and text messages and he needs it back. Poppy, desperate, makes a deal with him to forward on his messages for the few days she will need so she can receive news about the missing ring (hopefully). Poppy cannot leave well enough alone and pretty soon she’s not only reading Sam’s messages, she responding to them too. Cue hijinks and hilarity. That’s not a criticism – I was laughing out loud throughout the book. The scenes involving the Scrabble game and the replica ring were so funny I was wheezing and snort-laughing. Just as well I was alone at the time!

It is a romance and there is a happy and hopeful ending, but there is nothing explicit and, in the circumstances (as can probably be guessed) I’d describe the romance more as “developing”. It was nevertheless satisfying. Which I didn’t quite expect, but there you go.

I had been a little concerned that the main characters wouldn’t spend enough time together and I wouldn’t get enough of the hero, but that wasn’t the case at all. Through text messages, emails, and phone calls and in person meetings, the hero is very present in the story. I think it would make a wonderful movie actually. With Colin Firth. Ahem.

The narration was wonderful. Jayne Entwistle (who is new to me) delivered the natural British accent and chatty friendly personality that nailed Poppy exactly. The male characters had slightly deeper voices but were mainly differentiated by tone (slightly stern). The various female characters were distinctive and there were various British accents showcased as well.

For the first time ever, there was an occasion where I felt it was entirely appropriate to give a narrative laugh and then deliver the words. And Ms. Entwistle did this only the once – the other times the laughter was clearly bubbling away under her voice but there was not a separate “heh heh” (this is a Very. Good. Thing). Something about the conversational style of this first person narrative lends itself so well to audio – I’m sure it was more fun for me to hear it than read it (even though I would have enjoyed it either way).

The production values were clean and I didn’t notice any mistakes or vocal errors.

I think the combination of this story and this narrator was a perfect marriage and I expect I will be listening to both again.  Win.

Kaetrin

Narration:  B+

Book Content:  B+

Steam Factor:  You Can Play it Out Loud (though there is some profanity)

Violence:  None

Genre:  General Fiction

Publisher:  Random House Audio