A Calf for Venus

By: Norah Lofts

Narrated by: Gareth Armstrong

The Coffee House was a warm, brightly lit place. The serving girls were pretty, and the men who visited the rooms seemed polite enough. But still there were whispers, ugly disquieting rumours about what happened at night when the big oak door was closed.

The young doctor had never been inside the Coffee House - and indeed had no wish to - until he met the frail, shabbily dressed girl on the Newmarket coach. And when he learned she was joining the girls who worked in the serving rooms, he decided it was time to visit the strange, secretive house on the other side of the square.

©1949 Norah Lofts (P)2009 Soundings

even an old man can beat the gods

I have read a lot of recent romance novels and this one was a nice change of pace. It has a story that kept me listening to the end and, although the title is a dead giveaway if you know anything about sacrifices to the gods, it was extremely well done. It made me remember what it was like to be young and feel everything so intensely. If you like Georgette Heyer, I think you'll like this one.

Pretty Awful

I read several books by Lofts when I was young. I remember few details beyond feeling fairly certain I liked them. So I expected to enjoy her audio books as well. This book, my first pass at a Lofts audio book, must have been new to me. If I had read it before, no longer how many years had passed, I would still have a bad taste in my mouth.

The 2 main characters are idiots, both operating under extreme confusion and naivet??. Neither one was sympathetic. Nor were any of the secondary characters. There was really no plot and what was supposed to pass for the plot - the hero's attempts to remove the heroine from a brothel and save her wasn't plausible, because there was little evidence that the place was a brothel and that she needed saving.

Not a positive experience.