Storming the Castle

An Original Short Story

By: Eloisa James

Narrated by: Nicola Barber

Length: 3 hrs and 17 mins

Publisher's summary

Featuring the handsome and mysterious Wick from A Kiss At Midnight.What Miss Phillipa Damson needs is a good, old fashioned knight in shining armor. What she has is a fiancé she never wanted and a compelling urge to run away. But if she manages to escape, will she find her happily ever after?

©2011 Eloisa James (P)2011 HarperCollins Publishers

Wick gets his happily ever after

This is a spinoff of Eloisa James' A Kiss at Midnight. I would definitely recommend reading that first so you know all the characters beforehand. It was so nice to see Wick get his happily ever after since he was such a likeable character in the previous book. I also preferred the narrator in this (Nicola Barber) to Susan Duerden who narrated A Kiss at Midnight. Barber is just as good at the German accents as Duerden was but without her annoying sing song inflections. This book was amusing and gripping from the very beginning and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It is only 3 hours and 20 minutes long so it's a nice quick read.

great ending of series

i enjoyed it, incorporated characters well and was a good story, a little too much self doubt but still enjoyed

DELIGHTFUL

I wish it were longer. This was a happy romance about a young woman determined to control her own destiny. It was funny, never was there a dull moment and performed by one of my favorite narrator's.

So Sweet

A great listen The story, the characters, the narrator.
I LOVED the mother-in-law, she was hyserical.
It's great when a romance novel has LOL scenes.

3 ½ stars. Sweet, nice, enjoyable romance story.

STORY BRIEF:
Phillipa and Rodney had been friends since childhood. Their parents want them to marry. Phillipa does not want to marry Rodney and runs away. She loves babies and hears that the nearby Prince and his bride have a newborn baby with problems. Phillipa goes there to work as the baby’s nursemaid. She meets Wick the butler. Wick is the Prince’s half brother. He feels he can never marry a lady due to his servant-station in life.

REVIEWER’S OPINION:
I liked Phillipa’s actions and conversation when she arrived at the castle and did things for the baby. The story and how it resolved was good. It’s a short story - maybe a fourth of the length of a regular book. The narrator was excellent. There were two sex scenes which were ok, but don’t expect hot. The purpose was showing relationships, not to steam up the reader.

This book can be read as a stand-alone, but it’s better if you read “A Kiss at Midnight” first. I enjoyed getting to know Wick in the first book which flowed into this book.

Genre: regency romance.

Everything I love about Eloisa James

Who was your favorite character and why?

Phillipa was hilarious. Her character was candid and bold.

What about Nicola Barber’s performance did you like?

She made both the male and female characters seem believable and managed the accent of Wick well.

Early work?

This is fairly uninteresting and somewhat shallow sequel to "A Kiss at Midnight", James' lovely fairy tale adaptation of the Cinderella story. Unfortunately, I found the plot very thin and the characters uninteresting. She didn't bring much of the charm of "A Kiss" and none of the humor.

The best part of the story was the first part, where Phillipa arrives at the castle and helps baby Jonas. As soon as the "love story" part began, the plot disintegrated and the story went flat.

Unfortunately, the not-very-good story was not helped by Nicola Barber. Her Phillipa was little-girl, tiny-voiced, whiny and Wick's oddly-accented voice was strange and flat.

All in all, I'm not recommending this. Fortunately, James is usually brilliant, so I'm not holding this against her.

Bastard or Doctor

Eloisa James almost always pleases and this story is no exception. A little bit fairytale blended with a heroine with contemporary ideas The issues are real and so are the solutions. A royal bastard wins
Out but you'll have to listen to understand the role medicine plays in the story. Enjoy. I did

Lovely fairy tale!

Nicola Barber makes this lovely fairy tale come to life beautifully and engagingly captivating.

Excellent narration, Poor Storyline

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

Anyone willing to suspend belief in the unreal way that the characters talk and behave in a historical fiction romance.

Would you ever listen to anything by Eloisa James again?

No.

What about Nicola Barber’s performance did you like?

She read all the characters voices very well. I would look for other books read by her.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

The last 10 minutes of the book was cute.

Any additional comments?

Be ready to hear and hear again about colic and the color and texture of baby doo doo for the first 5 chapters. After that, the hero and heroine start to connect. I had issues with the heroine mascarading as a " caring" nanny but was unwilling to have her uncle who is a Doctor come and aid the ill baby because she did not want her family to know where she was. That and her constant need to drop her knickers anytime the butler was around.