Bewitching

By: Jill Barnett

Narrated by: Anne Johnstonbrown

Length: 14 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's summary

What's a duke to do when a carefully selected bride rejects him rather than marry without love? He salvages his pride by marrying the next woman who falls into his arms.

Joyous Fiona MacQuarrie bewitched the Duke of Belmore the moment she appeared from nowhere and knocked him over...literally. Joyous MacQuarrie is a Scottish witch whose powers of white magic are not always easy for her to control. When Alec's pride makes him choose to marry her, Joy turns the life of the most serious and snobbish duke in England upside down.

Too soon Alec finds his well ordered and controlled life a mess, because he married a witch - one who turns him to fire when he kisses her, who charms everyone around her, and threatens to destroy both their lives as scandal looms over her.

Too late, Joy discovers she's desperately in love and not even the strongest magic can seem to turn her into a proper duchess, or make her husband love her. Passion holds them spellbound in an irresistiblely funny and tender tale of two opposite but lonely hearts.

©1993 Jill Barnett (P)2013 Bell Bridge Books

Great narration for the most entertaining story!

Where does Bewitching rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

In the top 20 and I have read thousands of books, but listening to this one was a rare pleasure.

What other book might you compare Bewitching to and why?

I'm not sure I can compare Bewitching to any other book at this time. I just know I laughed out loud every few minutes while listening to this book and had people looking at me as though I was ready for the funny farm! The humor in this book was wonderful. Anne Johnstonbrown is the perfect narrator for this type of book. I can only hope she does the next of Jill Barnestt's books- Dreaming.

What does Anne Johnstonbrown bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

While I both listened and read along with much of the book, Anne Johnstonbrown brought the story alive with the expression she put in the text. I could actually see in my min'd eye the Duke's reactions to Joyous (Joy). I could never have read the book in the same manner and found it so entertaining. Great job, Ms. Johnstonbrown!

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Oh, my goodness!

Any additional comments?

I loved this book so much that I was extremely unhappy when I looked for her next book, Dreaming, and saw it was not offered. I don't know if it is in audiobooks or if Audible.com just hasn't acquired it, but I plan to find out. These books are worth the money and some!

Light listen

Not a real deep polt, but cute. Laughed outloud a few times and enjyed the story.

Over-articulated, but bearable.

I would have enjoyed this enchanting, heartwarming, and occasionally funny paranormal regency romance much more if I'd read it, because the narrator gradually wore me down with her über-articulation. Every syllable sits up straight — even the ones that should be more relaxed — every t is ttttotttally sharp, every d is dddistinct. She pronounced the word ducal wrong every single time -- at least a dozen. "Doo-call" she said. The doo-call crest. Gahh. And she totally mispronounced livery! Hello?

What a shame, because this narrator has a voice I could listen to for hours on end with pleasure. Mellifluous. Expressive. Authentic portrayal of various emotions. Male voices are credible.

But the overly stressed pronunciation distracted me from the story.

An amusing yet poignant story, if predictable and redundant. I thought the heroine was stupid at times, but I liked her interaction with Stephan. Wish he'd shown up earlier.

Lots of explicit sex. Lots of roses.

Nothing to sneeze at. ;-)

Delightful, Entertaining, Humorous & Romantic

This was Absolutely Fantabulous. It has Humor, Angst & Romance.
Jill Barnett did a Fantabulous job writing this book. The Characters were wonderful & the Story is well written.

Wish i was told this was smut

Not that smut is a bad thing. Its just not what I was in the mood for when I got this book and smut isn't my thing.

A Tale of an Air Head

It was probably meant to be charming and funny, but the author portraying the main female character as a flighty dim wit was beyond annoying. It followed the same path as so many others who did versions of the same theme (Clueless idiot tries to help, but make matters worse. Doesn't learn so does the same thing that made it worse over and over again). Writing this as a regency romance with a little magic did nothing to interest me into finding out what happens to the characters.

Sad about this one

I tried three times to get in to this book and I just couldn't. I found it slow, oh so slow and in my mind's eye couldn't picture the movement of this one. In fact, it made no sense to me.
I may be missing something here but; there it is.

Absolutely didn't like it

I love historic romances and characters with magic powers so this story should have been a fun read for me, but it wasn't.
It had an unimpressive female lead and unmemorable male lead.
I didn't feel connected to the characters and didn't care about their story. I actually listened at x3 speed and the story was still too slow so I skipped chapters.
Also, the writing is very wordy, some people like that, not me.
The narrator made mistakes reading words and they kept it in as is, seemed unprofessional to me.

Wrong category-fantasy or paranoma genre

What would have made Bewitching better?

Did not finish-not a historical romance -bumbling heroines irritating !

Has Bewitching turned you off from other books in this genre?

Not true historical!

Have you listened to any of Anne Johnstonbrown’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Disappointment

Any additional comments?

Miss original audible before Amazon took over.

I was bored out of my mind!

I like this author but this book was so boring. Here is my summary of the book: he is a stick up his butt duke. Don't worry if you forget that he is a duke because he will remind you every page of the book! And she is a joyful ( Joyous) witch. Again, don't worry if you have the brain of a flea because he will constantly remind you. And that he is A DUKE! Don't want you to forget that.
The narrator was fine, I had no problem there at all. It is the storyline that killed the book.
I have put this book down over a hundred times and keep picking it up again thinking this is Jill Barnett it has to get better, but no. I can't take anymore. I am just going to assume he gets joyful and Joyous and stop. I think I will try something funner like getting a tooth pulled or something.