The Chaperon

Sisters of Woodside Mysteries, Book 2

By: Mary Kingswood

Narrated by: Joanna Stephens

Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's Summary

A traditional Regency romance, drawing room rather than bedroom.
 

Poor and widowed, Lucy finds a post as chaperon to two young ladies while their mother is awaiting the birth of her child. It sounds like easy work, well suited to her sociable nature, but the sisters squabble over their suitors, and there are tensions below the surface of the seemingly happy family. Then there is the charming Mr Audley, who is more interested in flirting with Lucy than in discovering where his sisters have disappeared to. And as for Lucy’s uncle, who lives nearby, she’s quite convinced he is hiding something. Curiosity is Lucy’s abiding sin, and one day it will get her into trouble.
 

Mr Leo Audley is rich, handsome and very successful with the ladies - until he meets widow Lucy Price, who isn’t the least bit susceptible to his flirtatious charm. His pride is piqued - surely he can find a way to seduce her? But Lucy challenges everything about him, and he finds himself unexpectedly falling for her. He’s never been in love before, but can he convince her that he’s more than a heartless rake? And when she draws him into her investigations of the mysteries surrounding his family and hers, they find themselves in deeper trouble than they could have imagined, and facing the possibility that someone in the family is a murderer.
 

Book 2 of the 5-book Sisters of Woodside Mysteries series, each a complete story with a HEA, but listen to all of them to find out all the secrets of the Winterton family!

©2018 Mary Kingswood (P)2019 Mary Kingswood

Reader was horrid.

Good story ruined by grating performsnce. I yearned to kill thre main character, not see her wed, in chapter one
The choice to use a high, squeeky voice for her was bad.

Another good one.

My only complaint about this one is that Lucy’s voice seemed to get squeakier in the last third of the story. It’s one thing that she chatters on a bit as part of her personality. It’s another to narrate her with an ear-cringing squeak. Otherwise, excellent narration on everything else as usual, plus it was an entertaining enough read to look forward to the next in line.

Dreadful narration and lacklustre plot

Started off well but soon began to drag and the characters made stupid choices that didn’t make any sense. Painfully predictable towards the end, although I can’t face the final 45m.

The narration was not at all suited to the style of book. The heroine is permanently an octave too high and sounds either continually hysterical or inane. She sounds like a bumbling decrepit spinster! Willerton-Forbes is so bad I assume it’s a joke!

I don’t know whether it’s the book or the narrator but the characters sound like they’re at best wryly smiling or at worst outright laughing about murder and infanticide.

Terrible.