Ransomed Jewels

Ransomed Jewels, Book 1

By: Laura Landon

Narrated by: Rosalyn Landor

Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's summary

With her husband's dying words, "My marchioness has it," the Marchioness of Huntingdon is thrown into a nightmare of intrigue and danger. But even those who are holding her brother ransom can't force her to do the impossible - hand over a necklace she doesn't have.

Major Samuel Bennett believes the newly widowed Lady Claire Huntingdon is a traitor. He intends to get the necklace he's convinced she has, before sending her to the gallows. But when he meets the captivating widow, he discovers that nothing is as it seems.

Claire knows she can't trust anyone, but she isn't given a choice when Major Bennett arrives, demanding she give him the necklace. And it isn't until she's forced to put her life in his hands that she realizes it isn't only her life she's in danger of losing - but her heart as well.

©2016 Laura Landon (P)2016 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

Should have been a short story

Rosalyn Landor was terrific as always and was the main reason I chose the book. However, story was SO weak. Agree with one review about being repetitive. And, really, by the end I was pretty tired of hearing *for 7 years*. Good grief we knew that. Also, NO ONE uses first names this much. Every sentence the hero uttered he said Claire. We KNOW her name is Claire. What, he couldn't remember? I liked the hero at first but he degraded into the dumbest spy ever. Inspector Clouseau wouldn't have missed some of the *clues* our hero missed. Had some okay moments but overall the only reason to listen is Rosalyn Landor.

Randsomed Jewels

Pretty good story with a few surprises.

I really enjoyed the narrration, I liked the voice of the narrator

ransomed Jewels

Roslyn Landor gave a extraordinary performance. her talent is Priceless. Story was amusing, less cliche.

Good plot

Enjoyed the story, even if it did seem excessively drawn out. Sentiments were expressed repeatedly; Ms. Landon is somewhat skilled in the art of tautology.

Fair book and not so good narration..

I’ve read a couple of books with this theme and I can honestly say I didn’t like them. Sam tells Claire that the necklace he thinks she has could save thousands of lives but all she cares about is her brother, who has been kidnapped by the owner of the necklace, and he wants it back. That makes her looks selfish when it comes to all the soldiers she could save BUT it’s still understandable that she wants to save her brother. At 17% I was wondering if the author was going to make us read 300 pages of them arguing over this stupid necklace and if that’s the way it was going to be I wasn’t going to read the remainder of the book.

As I went along it was rather silly how Claire kept telling herself she should tell Sam about Alex being kidnapped, and then she’d talk herself out of it. Again and again this went on. I hate repetitiveness that just makes up the page count in a book.

Overall, this was a decent read and a pretty good mystery but it was nearly ruined by Sam being so freaking dense. Talk about someone being TSTL! Good grief, that man got so many things wrong it was unbelievable. Sooo many misunderstandings and angst. As much as I liked the spies, the mystery, the search for the traitor this author is way to angsty for me.

It was made much better by keeping you guessing as to who the traitor was until the end and I was really shocked.

There was a good amount of desire in this, which made it even better, and a beautiful bedroom scene. Of course, there was no swearing.

As to the narration: I know a lot of you are fans of Rosalyn Landor, and think she can do no wrong, BUT her male voices are just terrible. The men sounded like they’re constipated or something and trying to grunt through it. This could have been a fantastic book with a different narrator. Even with all her emotions she reads with she really needs to work on her male voices.

Horrible Narration

Narrator was so pompous, annoying and, at times, so difficult to understand that I deleted the audio version before the end of the first chapter. I may go back and read the book later but completely put off it for now.

Great Love Story with Wonderful Narration!

I really enjoyed this book - not your "run of the mill historical romance". It had spies, suspense, danger, treason, stolen jewels & coded documents naming surprising guilty person. Major Samuel Bennett believes the newly widowed Lady Claire Huntingdon is a traitor & he intends to get the necklace & coded papers away from her before sending her to prison. After the two meet, he is captivated by the widow & she may or may not be as guilty as he first thought. Claire is strong, intelligent, brave & beautiful & little by little & many adventures, they find themselves in love.. I loved all of the twists & turns in the plot & the chameleon characters were great. The ending was a definite surprise to me, I never would have guessed this character was the traitor. I felt all the characters were well developed & I hope we get to see some of them down the road in this series. I have read many of Laura Landon's books & find her style of writing very enjoyable - I highly recommend this series.

More Romance Than Risk

I love the old “genteel” mysteries, however, this book was more mushy than mysterious. Tedious towards the end,—the first book in a long time that I almost ended before finishing.

Story is good

While I liked the story I found myself rolling my eyes at many cliche phrases used describing Claire's thought/emotions. Maybe I've just read too many historical fiction....

Extremely enjoyable

This was a wonderful story. Strong enjoyable characters with a captivating story line. I would highly recommend the story. The audible narrator is also very good.