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Love Only Once  By  cover art

Love Only Once

By: Johanna Lindsey
Narrated by: Laural Merlington
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Publisher's summary

The exquisite niece of Lord Edward and Lady Charlotte Malory, Regina Ashton, is outraged over her abduction by the arrogant, devilishly handsome Nicholas Eden - and is determined to make the rogue pay...with his heart.

A golden-haired seducer, Nicholas has been hardened by a painful secret in his past. And now that he has besmirched Reggie's good name, the hot-tempered lady has vowed to wed him.

Her fiery beauty stirs Nicholas as no woman ever has - and the rake arouses Reggie's passion to an unendurable level. Such uncontrolled desires can lead only to dangerous misunderstandings...and, perhaps, to a love that can live only once in a lifetime.

©1985 Johanna Lindsey (P)2008 Brilliance Audio

Critic reviews

"[Johanna Lindsey] creates fairy tales that come true!" ( Romantic Times)

What listeners say about Love Only Once

Average customer ratings
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

FANTASTIC

Loved it from start to finish, was actually sad to finish. Loved every character. It has a bit of everything, drama, love, secrets, interfering family members that make you laugh alot, misunderstandings, triumph. The main characters are great, actually all the characters are great. Some of the voices are shrill but there are so many different characters the poor narrator probably was unable to talk for a few days, lol. I loved it, hope you do.

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12 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

UGH! Read it rather than listen to it.

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

i would recommend someone read this book. the narration detracted from the story.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

The hero of the book sounded like an old woman -- as did every other man. And every now and then I'd detect a bit of "less than proper aristocratic" accent on the hero as the narrator was affecting a British accent (it was not natural). I may have enjoyed the story more with the right narrator. As it is, this is the first Johanna Lindsey book I've listened to (I've read and enjoyed her stories) and I'm seriously doubting I can get through the series with this narrator. What a shame as the reviews indicate the series is a good one.

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9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Love Only Once

This story is wonderful! I laughed, I cried, and could not stop listening to it until it was finished. It's about time Johanna Lindsay's books were narrated.

This narrator is excellent, she brings it to life with her wonderful voices. I plan to keep a hopeful watch out for the other Malory family books to become available in audio, as well. Thank you for the great listening experience!

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9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Great book

I really enjoyed this book, right amount of smut to story.

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

Not if it's the last book on the shelf

Life is too short to spend 7 hours listening to this. Bad plot, bad characters and dreadful - DREADFUL - writing. The main characters are unlikable because of their pomposity (man) and insipidity (woman) and the supporting cast is just as dull. If I heard the expressions "Famous!" and "Hell's bells" one more time - and then I did. So I shut it off with 2 hours to go. I get my credit back at the first of the month, but those 5 hours? Never.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Entertaining beginning to a series

This book has a nice story but more important it introduces some very interesting characters - the Mallorys - who will be the characters of the series. It is a good intro that definitely captured my interest and made me want the next one.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Captivating story

Johanna Lindsey always delivers an appealing story. I always look forward to her next book.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Why are they in love?

Is there anything you would change about this book?

Humm, I don't know about you but when listening or reading a romance book, I do need the main characters to be interesting and forge a relationship of some sort - either of friendship, mutual understanding, sexual attraction...etc. I wanted these main characters to develop some type of emotional tether but it never happens, at least I didn't think so. I never really got their union or why they were in love. They spent most of it fighting and not the fun, snarky type of fighting that leads to a greater physical connection, which is so commonplace in romance. This was just fighting over something that didn't seem to matter. When the big

Would you listen to another book narrated by Laural Merlington?

Maybe. I did enjoy it when the Mallory men, Regina's uncles and cousins had their turn. They, by far were more interesting then the actual romance story.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

No.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

One of my favorites by Johanna Lindsey

What did you love best about Love Only Once?

Love the characters....good development

What did you like best about this story?

Love the interactions between the main characters...very entertaining.

What about Laural Merlington’s performance did you like?

She did a great job differentiating characters. very talented lady!

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

not enough hero/heroine action

one of the worst romance novels I've ever read. Even though the hero/heroine interaction was quite good, there was sooooo little of it, and soooo much of other characters doing irrelevant things (e.g. men plotting revenge and violence). The reconciliation between hero/heroine came all at once at the very end and felt contrived and too easy after a book where they spent so little time together, I'm not sure why they thought themselves in love.

I was at first not crazy about an American narrator doing English voices, but she did them quite well and it made the narration easier to follow as it was easy to differentiate from the characters' voices.

Very poor from Johanna Lindsey, and I'm surprised it's got some good reviews!

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3 people found this helpful