The Desirable Duchess

Dukes and Desires, Book 1

By: M. C. Beaton

Narrated by: Justine Eyre

Length: 4 hrs and 24 mins

Publisher's summary

Lovely Alice Lacey was a true incomparable, and her marriage to the Duke of Ferrant was the event of the season. Almost no one realized, however, that Alice was secretly in love with someone else - or that she had confided her feelings to a clever talking mynah bird who announces these intimacies at the moment of the couple's wedding.

Now the gossip mongers are relentless. Alice's marriage started out, and has remained, cold and impersonal, and her new husband is already rumored to be taken with another woman.

Before she even realizes what is happening, Alice finds herself in a world of opposites: The man she thought she loved is something other than he seems; and the man she married, something far more than she hoped. Her last hope and redemption has to be convincing the man she wedded that they are in love.

©1993 M. C. Beaton (P)2014 AudioGO

Punishing man to a young niave woman

First, I made the mistake of thinking this was a clean romance. The first sex scene was not described in detail and I continued thinking maybe that was the only instance. Then, a few minutes later the husband is described to have made love to her in such a punishing way because of his jealousy that she cried in pain. I turned it off after that. I refuse to read a book where the characters are abusive and yet everything turns out all right in the end and the wife "finally realizes the worth of her husband", as I saw it described. He has no worth. An abusive man is worthless.

Vapid, characterless pap

Reading a few Heyers does not constitute a sufficient background for writing a historical novel. As well as being criminally inaccurate in details and tin-eared in tone and dialogue, the characters are flat, inane, and stupid beyond belief. The best things I can say are that the narrator has an attractive voice, and that listening to this sludge did not actually cause physical injury.

My favorite Narrator of MC Beaton so far!

Loved this narrator!!! The story was about the same as usual. Good but with a really horrible, rude man and an immature naive woman. I'm starting to resent the patriarchy hardcore.

Insufferable narration

I like this author and have read most of her books. But I simply cannot deal with this shaky, guttural, and intense, vocal fry narration. So, back it goes.

Horrible Characters and Unhappy Story

Basically nobody really loves the main character except perhaps the stupid bird who tells all her secrets. This story is pathetically sad as the main character never really finds love. I don't count the resolution with the duke as love. He treats her as a possession from start to finish. Her parents use her for social climbing. Her initial beau saw her as a cash cow. Her friends are shallow although they do try to help. Her bird should be shot. She is a moron to keep telling it anything of importance. Unhappy book. I like witty books with happy endings, or somber books with character growth and a happy ending. The main character ended in a better situation than at the start of book, but far from real love and happiness. There is no way the duke would ever stop being a life long vindictive, possessive control freak. Poor Alice .

Good grief.

I can’t believe I managed to get through to the end. The Duke was a jerk, the Duchess was silly, and the narrator was difficult to listen to.

Narrator is the worst.

I love MC Beaton Regency book series - just finished both Poor Relation and House for the Season - but this is very hard to listen to. The narrator has a terrible fake accent and does a constant vocal fry. When I start to get into the story her choice of pronunciation of a word or an extremely creaky moment in her voice takes me right back out again. I looked her up and she's supposed to be known for her great accents, judging from this book I have no idea why anyone would think so. There's a part where she says the word, "tears" and it took me a minute to even understand the word.

Too formulaic

This story of jealousy & misunderstandings plus miscommunications is not new nor is it told in an intriguing manner. Justine Eyre’s fine performance definitely helped but can not overcome the overall weakness.

bad

performance absalouty horrible 😢 it's really bad that you give up listening to the story because you only hear the terrible voice like nasal.

Do listen

Really liked this one. I do love this author. Do have a listen to this sweet story.