The Matrimonial Advertisement

By: Mimi Matthews

Narrated by: Justine Eyre

Length: 10 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's Summary

"Matthews has a knack for creating slow-building chemistry and an intriguing plot with a social history twist." -Library Journal  

She wanted sanctuary...  

Helena Reynolds will do anything to escape her life in London, even if that means traveling to a remote cliffside estate on the North Devon coast and marrying a complete stranger. But Greyfriar's Abbey isn't the sort of refuge she imagined. And ex-army captain Justin Thornhill - though he may be tall, dark, and devastatingly handsome - is anything but a romantic hero.  

He needed redemption...  

Justin has spent the last two decades making his fortune, settling scores, and suffering a prolonged period of torture in an Indian prison. Now, he needs someone to smooth the way for him with the villagers. Someone to manage his household - and warm his bed on occasion. What he needs, in short, is a wife and a matrimonial advertisement seems the perfect way to acquire one. Their marriage was meant to be a business arrangement and nothing more. A dispassionate union free from the entanglements of love and affection. But when Helena's past threatens, will Justin's burgeoning feelings for his new bride compel him to come to her rescue? Or will dark secrets of his own force him to let her go?

©2018 Mimi Matthews (P)2018 Audible, Inc.

Excellent story!

I love this author! She doesn't rely on gratuitous sex scenes to engage an audience. She uses her story!

Excellent Storyline. Excellent Narration. Excellent Price!

From the very beginning my interest was caught and held. This story addresses more than one social issue of that time period: circumvention of the law by some who can afford to pay for that circumvention in order to increase their wealth; cruel treatment of persons confined to mental institutions; treatment of women as chattel; and the ease with which even sane individuals could be confined to mental institutions on the instigation of the wealthy and powerful. The author managed to reveal so many social issues while still presenting a romantic story with strong male and female characters who had to work through the effects of life experiences that contributed to the shaping of their individual characters. I thoroughly enjoyed this Audible recording. I give it a 5-star rating and a strong recommendation. I look forward to a possible series.

Loved it!

What a wonderful love story. It had me laughing, angry, full of nerves and emotional, and happy. A wonderfully written and narrated story...and CLEAN. I will definitely look into listening to more from this author and narrator.

English bride

I enjoy a mindless hopeful romance and this fits the bill. Not over the top sexual which is a nice change who needs all that throbbing in every paragraph anyway. Voice affliction during the story was great! Overall a nice cozy read

engaging read

Beautiful story with very solid writing. Justine Eyre does a wonderful job narrating both male and female voices, and her voice lends just the right amount of angst to the story,

Adored!

I love the classics and felt throughout this book that I was caught up in the wonderful world of a Bronte sister or Jane Austen! Mimi’s style is beautiful, poignant, romantic, humorous, and I loved that there was actually so much that was true to the time period as opposed to so many historical romances that take such liberties with customs and the proprieties of the time.
The narrator did a superb job and I actually quite liked her intonations for the hero of the story, very appealing and full of emotion. NOT a sexually explicit novel, which was great as that would have sullied the story and felt inauthentic, instead the romance was slow and sweet with just enough heat passion between the hero and heroine and enough twist and excitement in the plot to keep me engaged. One of the best fiction books I’ve heard or read in a long while!

So-so

I finished, so 3 stars are awarded. This is a tale of a virgin Lady, a Beauty, about to be thrown into a mid-1800's asylum who answers a matrimonial advertisement from an untitled Captain newly returned from the British wars in India. He isolates himself in a remote manor. Think Beast.

Bear in mind that women are property in England in those days.

No unexpected plot twists or tension points.

Should be acceptable for reading groups who prefer their romances without explicit sex.

Can't wait for the next book!

Just keep writing, Mimi! Love all of your stories. And the narrator, Justin Eyre, is exceptional! She has a voice like velvet whisky and her cadence and timing are flawless.

An okay read..

First of all, I thought this book would never end. It didn't have to be 388 pages. It went on and on and nothing ever happened. For all that Helena’s uncle and Mr. Glyde had done to her it was just stupid that nothing even happened to them for punishment. It was almost 400 pages of nothing happening. And Helena was a coward for almost the entire story. I liked her but, seriously, she could have gotten braver sooner.

I really liked Justin and Mr. Finchley, two of the boys who grew up as orphans. I liked Neville, another orphan, and Mr. Boothroyd, too. Jenny, Helena’s companion was a great secondary character. There were some good characters, but it was just too long. When you look forward to something happening to the bad guys and nothing does it’s pretty disappointing. It should have been cut by about 150 pages. But, that’s my opinion.

No swearing and absolutely no sex. Definitely, very clean.

As to the narration: Justine Eyre is not horrible BUT not that good either. I might read that second book, A Modest Independence, Tom Finchley’s story, because it has a male narrator.

Really great book

While this was a great story with well-developed characters, Justine Eye made for a great listening experience.

Awful narration

This story wasn't too bad and was quite enjoyable. However, the narration was awful. Very strange pronunciation and accent and that distracted from listening to the story and characters.

Ok, but not brilliant, end a bit bland

I am not too fond of books who try to sell me the next one in the Epilogue.
Especially not when I found the book's finale a bit anti climatic.

And I did fall asleep in the middle and did not wind back and still could follow the story, so it was overall a bit slow.

I have listened to two books of this author but will only listen to another one if narrated by Alex Wyndham, he can save a story with is narration, the narrator of this one did nothing to improve the story.

This is a clean book, I do have nothing against clean, after all who has not listened and enjoyed Heyer. But somehow in this book it was not well done. If you keep the bedroom door closed that is fine with me, just do not add nebulous sentences like in the last two months they shared a bedroom.

Love this book.

Loved the very Romantic fell of the story, with the passionate underdone. Can't wait for next book with the explanation of her brothers disappearance.

Women narrators

The story line was good if not riveting but the narrators pronunciation was odd and her male voices were not convincing.

In My Opinion, this is a very dull book

I’m at chapter 7, it’s taken THAT LONG for them to get married and move to the marital home!

It just keeps harping on that she is hiding a secret - we suspect that we know what it is, but nothing is being said. He has a secret: apparently he’s not a nice person and she has been told that he is nice and protective.

Unfortunately we’re just going around in circles, restating the same things! It doesn’t feel as if it’s progressing.

This has some good reviews, but this isn’t one of them.

Worth listening too.

The hero and heroine are both strong characters and are thrown together because of circumstances.
She is desperate to find a protector and safety. His friends have arranged a marriage though advertisement.
They have to work through a lot of problems and grief, but come out the other end.
The narrator is not good with male voices, so they get mixed up.
The secondary characters are varied and support the story well.

3.5 stars - not as good as this author’s other books

Recently listened to The Work of Art and Gentleman Jim by this author and they were both excellent and I rated them 5 stars. This story was a little disappointing by comparison. It was ok, and parts were nice, but not a patch on the other books I mentioned. I’ll still get more in this series though, and I’m glad to see it’s a different narrator in the following books. Justine Eyre’s narration was better in this than other books I’ve heard her narrate, but Alex Wyndham is superb with Mimi Matthews’ other books.

Predictable story read in an off-putting accent

This story was long winded and predictable but I didn't mind that. I was looking for a story that wasn't challenging and I got that here. The narration was quite poor - lots of words and sentences ending with a questioning uplift. I think the narrator would do well to work out what her accent is at the outset and stick with that rather than making it up as she goes along.

quite enjoyable, bit dragging

quite enjoyable, but at times the whining of the characters of how unworthy they are for eachother is a bit dragging. otherwise lovely story, lovely characters. nice light way to spend your time.

Enjoyable

Well I have just discovered this author and I must say I am loving her stories. First of 'the orphans' series, all the books are wonderful and have happy endings. I would recommend this or any of the other titles in this series if you like a good yarn with a lovely ending.

I had to drop one star on the performance from Justine Eyre because of the strange pronunciations.But I enjoyed the story anyway.