The Lady by His Side

The Devil’s Brood Trilogy, Book 1

By: Stephanie Laurens

Narrated by: Matthew Brenher

Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins

Publisher's summary

Sebastian Cynster knows time is running out. If he doesn't choose a wife soon, his female relatives will line up to assist him. Yet the current debutantes do not appeal. Where is he to find the right lady to be his marchioness? Then Drake Varisey, eldest son of the Duke of Wolverstone, asks for Sebastian's aid.

Having assumed his father's mantle in protecting queen and country, Drake must go to Ireland in pursuit of a dangerous plot. But he's received an urgent missive from Lord Ennis, an Irish peer - Ennis has heard something Drake needs to know and insists Drake attend an upcoming house party at his Kent estate so he can reveal his information face-to-face.

Sebastian has assisted Drake before and, long ago, had a liaison with Lady Ennis. Drake insists Sebastian is just the man to be his surrogate at the house party - the guests will imagine all manner of possibilities and be blind to Sebastian's true purpose.

Unsurprisingly, Sebastian is reluctant, but Drake's need is real. And with only more debutantes on his horizon, Sebastian allows himself to be persuaded.

His first task is to inveigle Antonia Rawlings, a lady he has known all her life, to include him as her escort to the house party. Although he's seen little of Antonia in recent years, Sebastian is confident of gaining her support.

Eldest daughter of the Earl of Chillingworth, Antonia has abandoned the search for a husband and plans to use the week of the house party to decide what to do with her life. There has to be some purpose, some role, she can claim for her own.

Consequently, on hearing Sebastian's request and an explanation of what lies behind it, she seizes on the call to action. Suppressing her senses' idiotic reaction to Sebastian's nearness, she agrees to be his partner in intrigue.

But while joining the house party proves easy, the gathering is thrown into chaos when Lord Ennis is murdered - just before he was to speak with Sebastian. Worse, Ennis's last words, gasped to Sebastian, are "Gunpowder. Here."

Gunpowder? And here? Where?

With a killer continuing to stalk the halls, side by side Sebastian and Antonia search for answers, and all the while the childhood connection that has always existed between them strengthens and blooms into something so much more.

©2017 Stephanie Laurens (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

boring

Way too slow, and the narrator has an annoying voice. i fell asleep in chapter 1.

Performance disappointing

Found the performance tedious. Also far too much time devoted to the physical attraction between the central characters that would have been better spent moving the plot along.

Droning narration was no friend to this book

In my opinion this was not one of Ms. Lauren’s best. It was in need of editing and went on and on - not helped by the drone of narration

Book is excellent, but better narrator needed.

I really liked this book, and I would haven't hesitated to give it 5 stars if the narrator had been better. There were several mispronounced words as well as some obvious word omissions that were rather glaring to me.

My biggest issue was the "voice" used for one of the characters. While it was only used in the first and last parts of the books, it was EXTREMELY jarring to me-- pulled me out of the story to roll my eyes and mutter imprecations while trying to force myself to listen because what the character had to say was important to the story.

Wouldn't spend the credit

Any additional comments?

I usually love Stephanie Laurens but this book was not one that I enjoyed. While I love a double plot of romance and mystery there is really no romance in this one and the mystery just didn't keep my attention. I would look elsewhere if you are wanting a good romantic escape.

Not a. Reader by its side

Adisappointiment. Not worthy of the Cynster clan. Narrator no cadence or warmth.or youth in his voice

Well written and read.

I loved the book but I wished part of the story didn't end yet. I will get the next 2 in this series to answer my questions.

couldn't listen to the narrator after 2 minutes

The narrator completely ruined the experience for me. even on faster speed I couldn't enjoy the story enough to listen

Irritating problem

I've listened to many dozens of books, and very seldom do a review unless I can praise both the author and narrator. In this case, I will make an exception in hopes that it will be constructive.
Most people listen to books while they drive. The narration here varied in volume to the extent that here's how listening went: turn the sound up, turn it down, back up, turn it way up really loud, back up, turn it up even more, frantically turn it down, listen a moment, back up again and adjust sound, turn it down, then back up,....
Just because an author says, "...in a low tone...." does not mean the narator needs to drop his voice to barely audible. There is such a thing as over-dramatization in audio books.
I challenge both the author and the narrator to take a road trip and listen to this book with road noise in the background. Even in my quiet country home, I had the back up and try again several times, but in the car, I had to "rewind" some conversations repeatedly, and with the volume all the way up, I still have no idea what was said.
I have excellent hearing, but the almost constant need to adjust , back up, repeat was distracting. Doing it while driving was a royal pain.
I've listened to almost all this author's books, and many books done by this narrator. He does this a little on most books, but this time, it was ridiculous, especially when speaking as Sebastian "in a low tone". Since the plot involves intrigue and danger, there is a lot of quiet talking and the need to change the volume was excessive. Since Sebastion is the main male character, losing some of what he said seriously detracted from my enjoyment of the book.
Other than that, the romantic end of the book was rather blah. They're planning a wedding...**yawn**. The cliffhanger was well done. My personal preference is less rather than more when it comes to graphic sex scenes. In this case, the scenes were quite detailed and extremely long to the point they seemed like filler to increase the length of a plot being artificially stretched into a series.
I like this author's work and this narrator is very talented, but neither are shown to best advantage this time around.

Good one

I am a Stephanie Laurens fan. I love her stories. I've read so many of them and have enjoyed all of her mysteries. This one notwithstanding. I'm anxious to read the next one, since this one ended with a question.