Narrated by Rosalyn Landor

What a wonderful and intriguing story!

The Duke of Clermont, Robert, is behind a plot to end the aristocracy, publishing worker-organizing flyers under a pseudonym. Minnie – Wilhemina Pursling – is a dowdy mouse of a woman, who is actually trying her best to live under the radar, to hide her scandalous past and real name. When she is accused of writing the seditious flyers herself, she goes on a mission to uncover the real author, and in the midst of her search, falls in love in spite of herself.

Minnie and Robert are both scarred protagonists – she bears a physical scar on her face from a stoning at age 12, as well as the emotional scars from her father. When I read of her father’s betrayal, I was shocked; when I learned the depths of Robert’s emotional abuse as a child, however, I was unprepared for the real horror of what his parents had done. The author puts both her protagonists in completely untenable situations, having to choose not between their own happiness and another low-impact outcome, but between the lives and reputations of others, and each decision seems to sacrifice any chance at happiness at all. At the touching epilogue, I wasn’t able to stop the goose-egg that rose in my throat and the tears that filled my eyes. There is great redemption.

Narrator Rosalyn Landor was a wonderful choice – her upper-class British and various regional accents are perfection, and her delivery and pacing is professional. I’ve always liked her female voices – she differentiates ages and stations extremely well. And just as I’ve always liked her females, I often do not like her hero voices. She does produce a credible male range. But in general they come across as stuffy and older, and so I have often felt they lost the charm with which the author has written them. When the hero is portrayed as a stuffy, creaky old fellow, I don’t find it romantic in the least. In this case, I found Robert mostly likable, only slightly stuffy and maybe a little older sounding than he should be. He is, after all, only 28. But Landor’s storytelling is very good, with a slight tendency towards vocal patterning at the beginning of sentences. She’s an extremely experienced and accomplished narrator, and many listeners find all her characterizations to their taste.

This is the first full book in a series that starts with a novella (The Governess Affair), and is followed by The Duchess War, then another novella (A Kiss for Midwinter), and the second full book, released this month (The Heiress Effect). All are voiced by Rosalyn Landor.

Melinda