Lord of Temptation by Lorraine Heath

Narrated by Faye Adele

This is book 2 of the Lost Lords of Pembrooke series – 3 sons of the Duke of Keswick who go on the lam as children to escape torture and death at the hands of their bloodthirsty title-seeking uncle. Apparently Book 1, She Tempts the Duke, hasn’t been recorded for audio (yet) and I also didn’t read it. This one works well enough as a stand-alone, although the duke and his wife appear and get a fair amount of audio real estate to get you caught up. (Don’t get this confused with another series by Lorraine Heath “The Lost Lords” from 2005!)

Lord Tristan Easton is the younger twin of the future Duke of Keswick when the 3 brothers scattered to the winds to hide from the evil uncle – he went to sea and became a ship captain. The brothers all tried to return to polite society ten years later (I guess in the previous book) but failed to meet the expectations of London society, so Tristan and younger brother Rafe remain on the outside with Tristan at sea and Rafe running some other business. Lady Anne Hayworth hires Tristan as Crimson Jack to take her to Scutari – short historical note: Crimean War, Turkey, Florence Nightingale – where her fiancé is buried so that she can finally get past her grief and broken heart.

The story is not so unusual: the rakish society castoff hero, passing himself off as nothing more than a crude sea captain; the overly pampered society heroine with loutish brothers and a father who cares more about his clubs than his sensitive daughter. Anne must marry before she expires of old age (she is about 23, I believe) so she doesn’t embarrass the family, but she cannot face a loveless marriage while she still carries the torch for poor Walter, dead in Scutari. Lorraine Heath’s writing truly convinces you that the sparks are there between Tristan and Anne, even though they both know there cannot be a true relationship between them. She lets them smolder and flame up occasionally. The angst and the emotion levels are high, and Tristan’s small gestures – the starfish (sigh!) among them – make him a wonderful, almost-besotted hero, one of my very favorite types.

Faye Adele is new to me, and I couldn’t find much about her except for about half a dozen books, all in the romance genre, on Audible. I really liked her! She had a number of different British accents for all the various characters, with subtle differences that made it easy to keep track. Her heroine voice is so fetching! However – she tripped me up a few times. For one thing, she does this odd, complete pause thing, right in the middle of phrases, as though she came to the end of the sentence. For another, she doesn’t know the proper pronunciation of the word “mischievous” which is a pet peeve of mine. It’s not mis CHEE vee-ous; it does not rhyme with devious. And her British accents were all so good, I was convinced she was a native British speaker, but then she said a few words – “schedule” for one – in the American pronunciation.

Truthfully, I’m really being nitpicky here, because overall I loved her narration! The pauses, the OMG pronunciations – although those things can throw me out of the story, in this case, I feel obliged to point them out. I was able to overlook them and enjoy the story. The narration, the book – a lovely read overall.

Melinda


Narration: B+

Book Content: B+

Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in

Violence: Minimal to none – there was a scene where Anne’s brothers beat up Tristan, and there are references to his beatings as a child.

Genre: Historical Romance

Publisher: Harper Audio

 

2 thoughts on “Lord of Temptation by Lorraine Heath

  1. Faye Adele was new to me before I listened to Meljean Brook’s ‘The Iron Duke’ and I absolutely loved her performance. I agree that it wasn’t flawless, but she still made it an A+ read for me. I read the first book in this series but never picked up the second. Knowing that Adele reads it, I may have to check this one out ASAP!

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