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Lessons in French  By  cover art

Lessons in French

By: Laura Kinsale
Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton
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Publisher's summary

Laura Kinsale's best romantic comedy, narrated in Nick Boulton's sexy, wicked voice....

Trevelyan d'Augustin and Lady Callista Talliafaire were secret sweethearts, until the day her father dismissed him with a whip across the face. Ten years and three jiltings later, shy Callie is resigned to a quiet village life as the late earl's spinster daughter. But now Trev has returned from his estates in France, upending everything, dragging her into adventures, stealing Hubert the prize-winning bull, and flinging Callie's heart into mayhem again.

Laura and Nick fans who enjoy a practical, witty heroine will love shy Lady Callista with her cattle and daydreams, and believe dashing Trev will be a lucky man if he can win her back...or perhaps just kidnap her instead!

©2010 Laura Kinsale (P)2014 Hedgehog Inc

Critic reviews

  • Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award
"Boulton's delivery and pacing not only capture the growing emotional and sometimes breathless physical attraction between the star-crossed lovers, but also convey their tantalizingly sharp and witty repartee." ( Audiofile Magazine)
"A rich and rewarding romance from the legendary Laura Kinsale!" (Mary Jo Putney, New York Times best-selling author of Loving a Lost Lord)
"Laura Kinsale creates magic. Her characters live, breathe, charm, and seduce, and her writing is as delicious and perfectly served as wine in a crystal glass." (Best-selling author, Lisa Kleypas)

What listeners say about Lessons in French

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  • Overall
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    5 out of 5 stars

Holy Cow!! What A Lovely Romance!! ;-)


I was a little surprised to find this book very different than other Laura Kinsale books. This story is not dark or has characters that are deeply distressed. Rather, it is a lighter more balanced story with characters that are charming, witty, fun, and true to life.

Trevelyan (Trev) is a dashing Frenchman who has loved Callista (Callie) since he was 16. He has a devil-may-care attitude that is endearing and very amusing. Callie is spinster Englishwoman who is practical, loyal, and loves animals. They have a unique “cat and mouse” relationship immersed with clever joking/bantering conversations that are very amusing.

Nicholas Boulton is a top-notch narrator!! (He is the perfect narrator for LK’s books).

This is truly a well written love adventure that is filled with friendship, loyalty, loss, laughter, mischief, fun, love, and even a cow! It's worth a credit.


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47 people found this helpful

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Incredibly well written, Superbly narrated

I have always LOVED LK books, but I admit the stories usually have a darker side to them. Characters are never perfect and may even have a physical challenge. Not so here. The hero has done some things in the past he is not proud of, but it is all in the past.
Both the hero and heroine are loyal, sweet and giving making it very easy as a reader to fall in love with them. As always you will also enjoy well developed supporting characters in addition to a main animal, in this case a bull, as depicted in the cover. If you enjoy LK, NB duo, this book will not disappoint.

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17 people found this helpful

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Nicholas Boulton is a God!

Since I can only read via Audiobook the narrator is just as important as the author.
The Laura Kinsale & Nicholas Boulton combination is one of my 2 favorite. I own and have read every book she's released to audio between 3 and 4 times each. I absolutely despise angsty reads and for the most part Laura hits the nail on the head. That said this one is a little angsty/wishy-washy but still amazing.

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10 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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So Happy I found this!

If you could sum up Lessons in French in three words, what would they be?

Charming, funny, marvelous

Have you listened to any of Nicholas Boulton’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

This was my first Nicholas Boulton book and I'm hooked. I bought other Laura Kinsale books because of this reading. Nicholas could read the phone book and it would be worth it.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

YES!

Any additional comments?

I'm a huge fan of Stephanie Laurens' books read by Simon Prebble. I'm so very happy to find another great author with an absolutely fabulous narrator like Nicholas Boulton. Many happy hours of listening in my future. I couldn't be happier.

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A Good Lesson Indeed...

This is a beautiful book and I loved it very much. It's seems hard to find a good saucy love story that has one whit of intelligence and plot, but this exceeded my expectations with an abundance of both. Kinsale spins a great tale with interesting historical details. Callie is smart and sweet and brave, and Trev the rogue Frenchman seems to be the only man with sense enough to see what a real catch she is. The ensuing adventures were great fun to read.

And, the caper of the bull is pretty funny. Kinsale's descriptions of animals are so endearing, from this book's Hubert the bull, to Nemo the wolf in The Prince of Midnight (another 5 star read I do recommend.)

I listened to the audio version with narration by Nicolas Boulton. Oh my, his voice is perfect. Someone finally happened on to the idea of: oh, these books are geared towards women, and what if we employed a narrator who is actually male with a voice that will make the readers swoon, and what a bonus, he doesn't narrate female voices in a way that makes them sound like absolute ninnies... Thank you Mr. Boulton. :)

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9 people found this helpful

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CUTE COUPLE AWARD

My favorite Kinsale book so far and my favorite couple. And . . surprise, surprise, neither one is impaired in any way. They are amazingly normal - a definite change from the author's usual lovers.

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9 people found this helpful

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Favorite Kinsale Book yet

What did you love best about Lessons in French?

I enjoyed both the story and the characters. Read like a my favorite books from Georgette Heyer. Less suspenseful than some of the other Kinsale books which I prefer when I wish to relax.

Any additional comments?

Hope there are more of this type still to come from Laura Kinsale.

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8 people found this helpful

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Everything an audio book should be!

Once again an audio version of a beloved novel from Laura Kinsale has not disappointed me. I really recommend if you haven’t discovered Laura Kinsale yet, that you jump on the band wagon immediately. Kinsale is THE master craftsman in this genre and nothing she touches can be less than magical.

Lessons in French is Laura Kinsale’s light-hearted romance novel. (She usually writes some pretty serious stuff, characters with lots of creeping darkness lurking in their hearts or their past.) And although LIF is romantic comedy, it is not fluff. The main characters must have gone through some serious emotional pain before we get to their present circumstances and I think that their grief is painstakingly highlighted in several scenes. But it’s still incredibly funny at times and thanks to the narrator, Nicholas Boulton, the comedic parts in the book come roaring to life thanks to his skill at acting out some pretty ridiculous characters. Boulton is great at mimicking varied English accents; in my rather limited imagination I never heard them sound like they do in the audio while I was reading the book. I’m currently listening to another novel on audio where the male reader makes all the females sound like falsetto prize fighters. Makes me appreciate how well Boulton does female voices, only a slight pitch change and no breathy trembling. His talent adds so much to the experience that I wish all audio books would use such a good actor and not just a boring reader. It is almost as good as having a movie made of a Kinsale book. We can never even hope, I suppose, that some Hollywood bigwig would understand what a monumentally fantastic decision it would be to put some money into adapting any Laura Kinsale book into a movie rather than Dukes of Hazzard Pt. 4!! But I digress.

One of my favorite things about any story that comes from the pen and mind of Laura Kinsale is how intelligent it is. Her writing is charming but always disciplined and she never relies on tropes. The plot of Lessons in French is simple. The heroine, Callista, is in her late twenties, a wallflower, she is socially awkward, and she has been jilted 3 times, yet she gets on with the business of life without considering herself unhappy. She is unhappy, but she has internalized it and has learned to live around it and not pity herself. Right away you admire her and she is completely loveable. Trevelyan d'Augustin is the hero of the book, a French expat, who has known Callista most of his life, was once her neighbor and burgeoning lover, and has just come back to town after abandoning her almost a decade earlier when Callista’s father made clear his disgust at any union between the two. Trev is not your usual regency hero, he isn’t a rake or a scoundrel, but a man who has made some bad decisions and just wants to keep people from knowing that he isn’t all he should be.

Their love story is sweet, sad, and fulfilling.

Thank you LK for such a wonderful novel and thank you NB for making it so much fun!

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My favorite Laura Kinsale

Fantastic story. Incredible narration. Romance and adventure while light and fun. (Adult sexual content not for underage readers.)

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Delightful Emotional Roller Coaster!

As always the pairing of Laura Kinsale and the brilliant Nicholas Boulton has resulted in a 5 star experience. They say this book is supposed to be "lighter" than Laura's other books and contain more humor but don't for one minute think that you'll be robbed of the heart wrenching ride that we've come to expect from Ms. Kinsale. Watching the two main characters try to reconcile their current life and perceptions with their past love was a delight. And quite frankly I always feel as if I'm listening to a movie when Nicholas Boulton narrates - he doesn't read the book - he becomes the characters. To hear the catch in their throat or the uncertainty in their voices - he makes you feel as if you're listening to real people.

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