SandyH

First I have to say, this story turned out to be much different than I had invisioned by reading the description, not sure if that was just the "reader" in me always looking for the hiden meaning or twist. The basics of the story is about Eliza who was kidnapped when she was 15 years old and now her kidnapper is on death row (close to execution) for the murder of another girl, which occurred while she was being held. Her kidnapper, Walter, and his advocate, Barbara, find Eliza with the purpose of trying to get her to "admit" her memory has cleared and now remembers the events of that day differently. It really turns out to be interesting how all the parties (Eliza and her family, the vicitims family, the advocate, and Walter) to the crime have their own unique perspective.

I do have one knock on the story, there were a few characters introduced into the story, i.e. Iso the daughter, Albie the son, Trudy the victim's mother, that had the beginings of interesting stories, but nothing ever happened. Mostly Eliza's daughter, Iso, there was always something going on with her, I was expecting some twist in the story concerning her, waiting for the preverbal "other shoe to drop". Even though that shoe never dropped, the story is still a very good one.

A big 5-star+ rating for the narrator, Linda Emond, she did a spectacular job!

Short Darcy and Elizabeth stories, all wonderful. Stories all written in true Abigail Reynolds' style, if which I am a big fan! Narrator does a really nice job. Great for when you need a quick Darcy and Elizabeth fix and don't have time to get in a full length story

Charming, lovely, wonderful

Oddly enough, for me the most memorable moment was not between Darcy and Elizabeth (even though there were several of those) but the conversation between Georgiana and Elizabeth when Georgiana is telling Elizabeth about what happened with her and Wickham. I can just picture Elizabeth's face when she understands the truth of what she falsely believed about Darcy.

Pearl Hewitt does a great job of getting the correct emotion into each character.

As I love the characters of Darcy and Elizabeth, the good stories make me sigh....I sighed!

Great story, great characters

I love Darcy as no other... Wait, is there any other....uhhhh no!! Darcy while feeling that his love for Elizabeth will never be returned is too much to pass up.

I really liked Vanessa Johansson's narration. At first I could not pin point what it was about her voice that I liked so much until a friend came upon me while I was finishing listening to a chapter and commented that her voice had emotion in it, I agree

When Darcy is leaving the country to try to forget about Elizabeth, the goodbye was delicious

Never miss an Abigail Reynolds' book if at all possible!

Finally, out of all Abigail Reynolds' books, this is the one I was most looking forward to in audio. As I have gone on and on about in the past (if you read any of my past reviews) I love all her books, but this one has always been is my absolute favorite. Darcy proposes to Elizabeth in Huntsford but before she makes it clear to him that her answer is no, he kisses her and they are seen by others. I know, big deal right, well it is in the time of this story. Basically, Elizabeth agrees to marry him to prevent scandal and all the conflict between the two in the orginial P&P story happens after they are married. Of course, Darcy thinks she married him because she wanted to, making the story at times quite heart wenching, especially when Elizabeth finally confronts him about all she holds against him and why she agreed to marry him. I will not give away anymore, but I have to say that I have read this story several times, it gets to me everytime! Rachel Hurley as the narrator does a great job. Listening to it was just as wonderful as reading it!

Did I mention this was funny!? In short, a scottish uncle, who has no children to leave his "castle" to only two nephews, decides to take matters into his own hands and kidnap suitable scottish heiress for his nephews to marry. One nephew is "tainted" with English blood and the other "French" blood, but they are his only heirs. You can just guess how well the kidnapping scheme went over, but no one could do anything about it because they where stuck there in a storm. Yes, yes, it is a predicable story and outcome, but it is written so well that you don't mind.

The narrator, Susan Duerden, was EXCELLENT....a 5+ star performance!

I always feel like I have to start with a disclaimer, I LOVE all Abigail Reynolds' stories, no, we are not related, she is just an amazing writer. In Mr Darcy's Refuge the P&P story is assumed the same as the orginial up to the point Darcy goes to make his first, horribly done proposal. At that point all hell breaks loose due to a flood, they are stuck together, Elizabeth is bascially put into a situation where she has little choice but to eventually except Darcy's proposal. Well, you know that it isn't going to be that easy! Without giving away the story, several of the usual characters, ie Mr Bennet, Col Fitzwilliam, and with the addition of Lord Matlock and to some extent later, Lady Matlock all play into the back story between the characters and the current impediment to Darcy and Elizabeth. There are truly some really interesting twists to normal characters that we are used to, even Bingley and Jane are transformed outside of their norm but their story is not a large part of this story.

As usual I am always amazed how Ms Reynolds comes up with all these clever ideas. I hope she never stops, I just enjoy them too much, If the secret can be kept, this is still not my favorite story of Ms Reynolds library of work, if/when that one is made into audio I will simply have to jump up and down and squeal with delight!

Pearl Hewitt does another good job bring the characters to life.

I love Abigial Reynolds stories, I have read this prior to listening to the audio. The story starts after Darcy returns to London from Hunsford and his botched marriage proposal to Elizabeth. He is convinced to go and try to win her instead of sitting around feeling sorry for himself. Let's just say the poor Elizabeth never stood a chance (though she did try) once Darcy set on his course. It is a lovely story, reminding me again and again why I love P&P and the great characters.

If I have to nit-pick, I was not sold on the narrator at the beginning. I had a bit of a time distinguishing which character was saying what, there wasn't a big differential in the voice used for each, but soon got with the flow of her voice and ended up enjoying it.

I downloaded this as a beach listen, well, I couldn't stop once I started. Absolutley clever dialouge, the banter between the characters had me laughing out loud, more than once I had my fellow beach goers laughing at me laughing! As with any good romance, there were parts that were truly heartbreaking. To top it off for me, a pathtically loveable dog, you have to love the dog! All and all, no big surprises, but the story was so clever and witty that you don't mind it being the typical romance story!

I really liked the first book by Chevy Stevens (Still Missing) so I decided to try this one too. While I liked the story, I found myself getting irriated at the main character, Sara, it seemed like she was whinning or having a pity party all the time. None of the other characters did much for me either. All and all it was a good story, just think there had to be a better way to tell it.