Isabelle and Alexander

By: Rebecca Anderson

Narrated by: Antonia Bath

Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins

Publisher's summary

London, 1850.

Isabelle Rackham knows she will not marry for love. Though arranged marriages have fallen out of fashion, hers has been settled for some time to combine the upper-middle-class wealth of her father’s coal mines with Alexander Osgood’s prospering Northern country textile mills. Though not a man prone to romantic gestures, Alexander is well known as an eligible bachelor. His good looks have turned more than one head, so Isabelle is content to think of herself as Alexander’s wife.

However, her marriage is not what she expected. Northern England is nothing like her home farther west in the lake country. Cold, dreary, and dark, the soot from the textile mills creates a gray hue that seems to cling to everything in the city of Manchester. Alexander is distant and aloof, preferring to spend his time at the mill rather than with her at home. Their few conversations are brief, polite, and lacking any emotion, leaving Isabelle lonely and desperately homesick.

Sensing his wife’s unhappiness, Alexander suggests a trip to his country estate. Isabelle hopes this will be an opportunity to get to know her new husband without the distractions of his business. But the change of scenery doesn’t bring them any closer. While riding together on horses, Alexander is thrown from his and becomes paralyzed. Tragedy or destiny? The help and care that Alexander now needs is Isabelle’s opportunity to forge a connection and create a deep and romantic love where nothing else could.

©2021 Becca White (P)2021 Blackstone Publishing

The Will to Recover and Love

This was such an heart felt story of 2 people overcoming adversity and falling in love. I also appreciated the inclusion of the family with a young lady with special needs and their love for her.
The narrator was good. She was expressive and I could hear her. So many narrators use a soft breathy voice that is annoying so thank you.
I recommend this to anyone who wants to feel good after listening.

Warm and Original

Time was taken to unravel the characters. I loved the tenderness with the treatment of the various disabilities. I hated Alexander. It was hard to redeem him. But the end was very moving.

Great listen!

What a wonderful listen. The narrator does an amazing job of distinguishing characters and helping the listener imagine the characters, their struggles, and their joys!

EXCELLENT!

Loved this darling love story. I loved that through all the adversity of an arranged loveless marriage, health issues and misplaced priorities love can bud & blossom into a healthy relationship & grow.It gives hope to humanity.

Hit the Spot for a Historical Romance

I was both anticipating the release of this book and nervous to read it. This historical romance seemed right up my alley of reads but it seemed almost too perfect of a choice. I was pretty certain this book wouldn’t be as good as I hoped it would so decided to stay away from it. I succeeded in staying away from it for 2 months then caved once I saw there was an audio and ebook sale on it.

To be honest, this wasn’t a perfect book for me but it hit my desire for an enjoyable historical romance. The building of Isabelle and Alexander’s relationship was nicely done. We got to see Alexander’s servants and friends root and bolstering of the romance and support of their individual bosses. It would have been nice to see more of Isabelle’s family and friends support her. She faced hardships and started a new phase in her life basically alone. It would have been nice to see a mature development between Isabelle and her family. Her relationships between her parents and her have always been distant it seems and i guess it’s okay that they’ll remain so. Her deep loving friendship with her cousin seemed to cool as she matured though. I wish it could have developed more. Instead they both seemed to separate and become more dependent on their romances. Luckily I loved seeing Isabelle and Alexander falling in love but didn’t see any reason to care about Edwin and his bride.

The audio was a little off with pauses but they were easy to look past. Definitely think the ebook was the better choice but feel the audio made for a nice experience.

Beautiful Story

This book was quite different than most regency romances and I found this delightfully refreshing. It was raw and realistic in a way that most are not, both in the struggles Isabelle and Alexander face as well as in their insecurities. Both characters are very…..human. I also thought the issues surrounding them in the supporting characters were compelling and truthful as well. I loved this book! And I found the end to be plausible (not at all “miraculous” as other readers have claimed in their reviews) and very satisfying. The narration was very well done which is incredibly important as a poor narrator can ruin a good story. This book is clean and sweet. Do your heart a favor and read it.

Great Premise

I thought this was a pretty good book. I like how it considered how a massive injury might impact somebody in Regency times. It seems like the author did a good job with her research. As for family development, it makes sense to me that her family was distant since her husband was a very private person, she sought to protect his dignity, and they lived a long way from her family. Plus, they all had very different interests in life. As for the cousin, when you find new love, you don’t have so much feeling or spend much time with old loves—or sometimes even relatives, especially if your new spouse doesn’t like them.  It isn’t necessarily right, but it’s pretty realistic. I didn’t think there was a massive miracle at the end of this book. Certainly there were good things that happened (and one particularly good thing that was going to come about), but no different than good things that happen to people in our times who experience and have some recovery from the same physical tragedy. I didn’t think the heroine was whiny. I think she did a pretty good job dealing with a massive loss and tragic change in her life.  overall, it was a good read. 

Mature and clean

Clean and mature is just so unbelievably rare I really suggest you give this a try. To truly understand this book you may have to understand the time period beyond balls and high society. Depending on how read this it can be heavy. He is a workaholic who grew up with very little who had to work for what he had in a time that what he had could also be lost very easily as he was not part of peerage. He was 'new money' and not really accepted. She was part of the peerage and didn't understand the value of work and her best friend was never expect to have a real job.

On to the story
He was very much a workaholic with a somewhat of an inferiority complex and somewhat stunted emotionally. They weren't a good match. She didn't understand his love of for his mill and he didn't understand why she wasn't proud of the mill. They were both very immature in that they had no idea how to talk across class lines. She was unhappy and he didn't understand why. she wouldn't tell him because she thought he should be trying harder to make her happy. They had no common ground to start from.
Just as things are starting to come together he has a terrible accident. How they work this out is the story. They turn inward to deal with this crisis But much of the story is what you bring and know about heartache and over coming adversity. Marriages are long and have horrible things intersperse thought out so knowing that helps bring it together more. They do love each other but they don't notice because they are looking inward instead of outward.
I liked how immature she started and her growth and development. I liked how the love came so slowly and how she kept looking to swept up and had to put that away.
It's good and deep enough to distract .

It's just ok

I liked all of the characters, but didn't necessarily love anyone. It's a fine clean English read. All of the supporting characters, also liked but not necessarily loved. It is a very OK book.

Disappointing characters

I listened to this book, hoping at some point the main character would stop being so insipid and there would be something I could relate to. I did not find the story to be of some great romance but rather a story of uncomfortable failure until a miraculous (of course) ending.