A Month of Romance Audio Favorites Selection

Narrated by Kirsten Potter

Old favorite? That doesn’t quite capture what Joanna Bourne’s The Spymaster’s Lady is to me. Old+favorite makes me think of my broken-in pair of wedges. While the wedges are comfortable enough for a day on my feet, this audio performance by Kirsten Potter is to be savored and not merely borne (name pun intended).

To begin with, you have Joanna Bourne’s unforgettable characters, unexpected twists, tight plotting, and rich historical atmosphere. Then it’s narrated to you by a classically trained Shakespearean actor. It’s one of those experiences that made me love audiobooks!

Set in the Napoleonic Wars (1802), The Spymaster’s Lady is Annique Villiers, easily one of my favorite heroines. Annique is unique — innocent yet deadly, courageous yet pragmatic, resourceful, witty and of course beautiful. She’s been a French spy since childhood, raised by revolutionaries and like them, a true believer in the ideals of liberty and equality. When we meet Annique, she is in a French prison about to be tortured for a secret she carries: Napoleon’s detailed plans for an invasion of England.

Meanwhile British spymaster Robert Grey, the powerful Head of British Section, is on a mission to get those plans. He finds himself sharing a prison cell with Annique. Grey, his comrade Adrian, and Annique quickly form an uneasy alliance to escape their captors. Even as these corrupt villains pursue them into tight do-or-die spots between Paris and London, Annique and Grey discover soul mates —“the other half of the egg”— in each other. But they are Romeo and Juliet set in the spy game of France vs. England. Annique herself is faced with a tough choice, what to do with Napoleon’s plans. The delicious contrasts of loyalties, ethics vs. morals, intrigue balanced with adrenaline-filled action, betrayals, friendships and sweet romance line the road to Annique and Grey’s HEA.

And, Kirsten Potter delivers a perfectly nuanced performance of all these layers! She doesn’t over-dramatize an already full narrative. She totally gets the characters. Annique sounds sexy, as real and unique as Ms. Bourne wrote her, Grey her strong protective hero. All the secondary characters are distinct. Ms. Potter is the character in the dialogs, and also the well-paced narrator moving the story along.

But what pushed this into my must-re-listen pile is Ms. Potter’s handling of multiple accents. Annique is French, of course, and Grey British. Just to bowl you over, though, with Ms. Potter’s wicked crazy talent, she pulls off accented dialect on top of another. Really! There’s a scene when Grey, his crew, and Annique are on the road from Paris to the French coast. To escape detection by French gendarmes questioning their passage, they pretend to be German with heavy Bavarian accents. So Ms. Potter delivers Annique’s lines (in English) with a French accent overlaid just so with Bavarian dialect. Grey and Adrian’s distinct low voices are also German dialect-accented but still somehow British.

You can enjoy the audiobook of The Spymaster’s Lady without distinguishing the accent on top of accent. But it becomes an awesome experience when all that talent just comes together.

So, yes, I suppose The Spymaster’s Lady does count as an old favorite. Just like my favorite wedges that I couldn’t bear to lose, this audiobook is a must-listen experience.

Megan

Narration: A+

Book Content: A+

Steam Factor: Glad I had my ear buds in

Violence: Minimal, Fighting

Genre: Historical Romance

Publisher: Penguin Audio