Desired

Lisa Kleypas is one of my favorite historical romance authors, but having read all of her books, I have been looking for someone with similar stories/style for years--well here she is! And--manna from heaven--she has a trove of books already written, although only two available on Audible. Would love to see more by Nicola Cornick on Audible.

I haven't read a historical romance in quite some time. This one was a perfect change from my usual fare. Light and romantic with humorous quirks sprinkled in. I really enjoyed it.

Really liked the H and H. Good character development.

Thought the narrator was excellent. She sounded like Ashford MacNab who is one of my favorite narrators.

Freedom of speech. We have always had it, so it was shocking to really realize how one could actually be hanged for having the audicicasity to draw political cartoons.
Very good story and well done.

I don't think I would. The narrator wasn't the best. I like animation in my readers, but this one was less so than others.

I LOVED Tess. I love that she was strong, stubborn, and willful. She didn't allow society to dictate her actions. She did what she needed to in order to survive. However, I love that she softened and let Owen into her life and into her past to help her out!

I might give her another chance. The book wasn't totally ruined by Lee. I just feel she needs to up her enthusiasm. Especially for her male characters

The storyline and plot were pretty good. I imagine if this book had been read by some of audio's best, this book would have had better reviews from me!

This is my second book by Nicola Cornick and I will definitely be reading and listening to more. I like that she has a sub-story playing out in addition to the main story line and this book definitely leaves the sub-story hanging. I can't wait to see how it plays out in the next book --- I sure hope it plays out in the next book.

I like Nicola's characters and the plot. I think she is a very talented story-teller and I wish that more of her books were available through Audible.

Polly Lee did not bring the male voices to life in this particular book. I've listened to her narrate other books and she has done a much better job male voices. I think that since the main male character had an American accent instead of a British accent it through her off a bit. I'll definitely continue to listen to other books narrated by Polly Lee.

The first half was pretty good. But the second half had me wishing it were over. I wanted to skim but I couldn’t because it was an audiobook. Too much heroine stupidity. Too many stupid events were not well supported. For example, parents are mad at daughter D and don’t want son to visit D. Son could have visited D by saying he was going to a club or elsewhere. Instead Tess pretends to be having an affair with son, and this is done openly in public, so people would think son was going out with Tess, when really he was going to visit D. Tess continued doing this after she was engaged to Owen? Making Owen look like a fool? Is this heroine stupidity or just stupid plotting? I don’t know what to call it. A number of things similar to this occurred which made me dislike the book.

Too many things were told, not shown - a lot of past events, but some current as well. We are missing dialogue from those. The plot and events are interesting but since they are told, we don’t feel it. Examples are Tessa’s past and Tom Bradshaw’s past.

I wanted more development of Tom’s actions at the end. It felt like a convenient thrown-in ending.

I’m willing to accept weak characters and characters with problems, but I didn’t like Tessa’s actions. For the first half of the book she lies to Owen which was ok. It’s supposed to be a cat and mouse game. He’s trying to catch a criminal who happens to be Tess. But later as they fall in love, she continues to lie and do stupid things. One of these: Tess specifically promised something to Owen. Then she broke her promise which caused the worst crisis in the book. Her reason was stupid. I was mad at her. I didn’t like her. I liked Owen. He was such a nice guy - caring, patient, understanding. I wished Owen loved someone else.

Tess fears intimacy due to sexual abuse in the past. When she eventually has sex with Owen it’s not believable. There had been some touching but no sex. All of a sudden she decides she wants to seduce him. It didn’t feel right.

NARRATOR:
I was unhappy with the narrator Polly Lee. Several times a voice should have sounded demanding, fearful, or wailing, but the narrator used a calm quiet voice. Her voices for some of the men sounded weird - a pinched high nasal voice, or a hold-your-breath voice for the butler. She didn’t show the right emotion for Owen. His sentences should have been stronger. Instead he sounded like a calm, soft, female, with a how-do-you-feel concern. It didn’t sound like a man.

Genre: historical romance.

The story itself may have been good, but I could not finish due to the narration. It was very hard to keep up with who was speaking when there was very little change in voice deflection

Rosalyn Landor or Bianca Amato