Minerva

The Six Sisters, Book 1

By: M. C. Beaton

Narrated by: Charlotte Anne Dore

Minerva marks the delightful debut of The Six Sisters, a family saga in six volumes that will recount the romantic adventures of the six marriageable daughters of a country vicar, the Reverend Charles Armitage, in Regency England. The eldest, Minerva, is enchantingly beautiful - but a prude. She lives in the country looking after her siblings while her mother reclines on a chaise longue happily inventing new malaises. Her father, a vicar of decidedly secular inclinations, indulges a hearty passion for hunting instead of worrying about the girls' dowries. But when he wants to send his boys to Eton, the money must be found - and how better than by marrying Minerva off to a man of fortune?

Dispatched to Town, Minerva experiences her first season under the wing of an elderly relative. But age, it seems, is no guarantee of respectability, and Lady Godolphin's plan for a good time scandalize her young charge. Finally Minerva's moralizing ways make her the subject of a shocking wager among the rakes and dandies of Regency London.

Meanwhile, the handsome Lord Sylvester Comfrey is observing her progress in the marriage market. For such a virtuous girl, Minerva unaccountably finds herself in some extremely compromising situations with this gentleman, who alas professes not to be the marrying kind.

©1994 Marion Chesney (P)2012 AudioGO

For those who haven't read Georgette Heyer

This is a typical regency romance. A good way to wile away a rainy day, or a workout on the treadmill.

Entertaining light romance written in 1980s about the 19th century

Voicing various characters in challenging, so I disagree that the narrator was not up to the job..
While there were a few seconds where a listener might not be clear who was speaking, subsequent text by the AUTHOR’s WRITTEN word clarifies. This would be the same if I were reading a page in a book.


The author tries to show some awareness racism, imperialism, and sexism in a story she wrote mainly to be escapist entertainment. I winced at the scenes of affection as they reflected the perspective of a different time. I liked it overall because i just wanted something light to listen to ad I washed the car.

If you like Emma, you'll like this one

I do really like a good comedy of Victorian Manners story and I loved this one. I'm looking forward to reading the whole series. M.C. Beaton put a good effort into this one!
I liked the narrator too, especially when she was doing the men's voices.
And I love finding a new narrator that I like!

Unlistenable

I have enjoyed other Beaton books and audios but this narrator led me to abandon the effort.

Hard to believe

It’s hard to believe that Davina Porter is a celebrated narrator based on this performance. The story was just ok. Characters were unlikeable and coupled with the stilted narration was hard pressed to finish.

Okay story, Bad reader.

I don't expect much from Beaton's regency romances, at their best, they are lighthearted distractions from real life, but this is NOT one of her best. The main characters are not particularly likable or compelling and you get almost no insight into the love interest's thoughts making his actions unfathomable, especially if you are not acquainted with the tropes of this genre.

The reader is bad. It's as if she is just sitting down to read the book out loud for the first time with no prep work. Not only does she mispronounce words, but she is inconsistent in those mispronunciations. Her stilted delivery adds to nothing to the froth of a story, and pretty much eliminates the humor of elements clearly added to lighten the mood.

I'd skip this one unless you are determined to hear everything by this author. She's written better books which are read by better performers.

Predictable cheesy romance

This would be right at home as a Harlequin romance. Totally predictable plot and 2 dimensional characters. I won't be listening to the other 5 in this series. Not my cup of tea at all.

Traditional Regency Romance

The heroine had a lot of growing up to do, and ultimately did so. The narrator did well with the voices of characters, but paused in odd places at times, making it harder to follow the meaning.

I really enjoyed this book.

I loved it. Definitely going to the next book in the series. The family is just adorably annoying and funny. I would absolutely recommend to friends.

Rengency tale not up to scratch.

Is there anything you would change about this book?

As for the book itself, if you are looking for Georgette Heyer, well, this is not the worst. But it's not great, either. Beaton uses the requisite amount of Regency vocabulary, imitates many of the features of Heyer's heros and heroines and surrounding characters, but the book just never quite feels genuine. Minerva isn't really all that sympathetic (most of the plot turns upon the fact that she is a prig, which makes her the target of the malevolent machinations of a pack of evil dandies), and Sylvester borrows the pallid, distant charm of one of Heyer's aristocratic heroes but lacks the humor and warmth that might redeem him, in spite of an overbaked sex scene that seemed really out of place for the period. Finally, seeming to have run out of options, Beaton paints herself in to a corner by nonsensically separating her lovers but then has to resort to a plot trick to get them back together.

But the writing was workmanlike, at least, and I might have found it amusing had not the reading been marred, at least initially, by peculiarities in the reading by Charlotte Anne Dore. Making use of a nice, throaty voice and a pleasant, almost intimate tone, Dore does a very nice job of creating different voices for her characters (and is particularly adept whenever a child speaks in the story), but I do so wish that she had better breath control and had done a spot more homework on the correct pronunciation of words with which she seems to have been unfamiliar.

Dore often put annoying pauses in between words in illogical places, breathing sometimes several times in one sentence, rather than with the punctuation, so that the sense of what she was saying was often interrupted, a habit that became really grating. Many times, she pronounced "a" as "ay" rather than "uh" before common nouns ( in, for example, "there was ay cook, ay housekeeper..."), put a "k" on the end of "anything" and "something" ( and not when a lower class person was speaking, which would perhaps make sense, but when the narrator was speaking, who presumably ought to know better), and didn't know how to pronounce many words at all, for example (among many): curricle (cuh-ricle as in curry, NOT kyoo-ricle as in curate or cuticle); marquess (markwess NOT markess); parental (pah-rental NOT pair-ental); portrait NOT portrayt; and more egregiously, parsiMONIous NOT parSIMonous (I suppose Dore just read this one wrong, skipping over a syllable, but that begs the question, where were her editors? Was there no one in the sound booth listening in?)

A little more planning, dictionary work, and practice before the recording would be well worth the time of this otherwise very appealing and often charming performer. As it was, I really don't think I could do it again and would avoid her readings in the future. Just too distracting!

Alas, taken altogether, not quite worth the price of admission, and I doubt I will spring for the rest of series.

Would you ever listen to anything by M. C. Beaton again?

Not in this series.

What three words best describe Charlotte Anne Dore’s voice?

Throaty and sympathetic, but under-rehearsed.

Did Minerva inspire you to do anything?

Nope. Not to be a prig?

Any additional comments?

I think I've said more than enough.