Aunt Dimity and the Duke

An Aunt Dimity Mystery

By: Nancy Atherton

Narrated by: Teri Clark Linden

Emma Porter is 40, fat, frumpy, and a passionate amateur gardener. When her longtime lover dumps her for a younger woman, Emma escapes the cloying sympathy of family and friends by setting out on a summer-long driving tour of England's glorious gardens. A Dimity-contrived coincidence brings her to Penford Hall, a sprawling Gothic mansion in Cornwall, where she finds a duke in search of a missing lantern with extraordinary powers.

Suspecting there's more than one mystery to be solved at Penford Hall, Emma accepts the duke's invitation to stay on and restore the once glorious chapel garden to its former beauty. The dark rumors surrounding a rock star and the near-death of the duke's beautiful cousin confirm Emma's suspicions, and set her - with Aunt Dimity's ghostly guidance - on the path to Penford Hall's secrets and the pleasure of unexpected love.

©1994 Nancy T. Atherton (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Cute, with good twist!

The narrator is not my favorite but I had to look past the way it is read and concentrate on the story. It is well written, with great banter and wit.

Poorest narration for a good book

The narrator continually misreads and mispronounces simply words. The word quay is pronounced “kee” not “q-way”. Her stilted is clearly enunciated, but so awkward that it is distracting. Occasionally she relaxes and the narration improves. Then she reverts to the same abrupt and clipped reading.
Hope the remain Aunt Dimity books don’t have her as narrator.

Aunt Dimity and the Duke

This was my second Aunt novel, so expected a continuation from the first, but it wasn't. I enjoyed the new characters of this book, along with the audible narration as well. There was a couple of negative reviews that didn't like the narration. Please ignore that, and purchase the audible narration, Teri Clark Linden did well.

A different cast of characters to like.

Initially, I was a little disappointed that Lori Shepherd wasn't in the book but quickly stopped caring because Emma Porter is a fine heroine. Emma has a chance encounter with the Pym sisters and ends up getting sucked into a project to restore a unique garden that has been neglected for years. There are brave boys and clever girls. Some characters are charming and others less so but they work to enrich the story. There is wit and mystery. I liked Aunt Dimity and the Duke enough that I immediately bought the next book in the series.

FYI - that narrator is fine. Listen to her in the audio sample if you have any doubts but I have not found her to distract from the story at all.

Stick with it...

I’ve listened to the entire Aunt Dimity series. They are charming stories, and always make me feel good. However, I almost quit in the middle of the first one because of the narrator’s slow, fussy, pedantic style. I found that if I increase the listening speed to 1.5x, I can listen without constantly being distracted by the narrator’s irritating attempts to differentiate the voices of the various characters.

I love this series ... wonderful cozy feel good

What I like about this book is that our ' hero ' Emma is overweight and middle aged, something many of us can identify with in a society that seems to value youth and starvation in the name of beauty.

Despite her faults Emma finds love and a new home, and in the process helps solving a mystery and gives 2 children and their father a loving home.

Emma's long term boyfriend walks out on her to marry a much younger women.

Emma decides to go on vacation and while touring English gardens, which she adores meets the ancient twin sisters from the small village of Finch.

The sisters recommend for Emma to check out a garden of one of the estates, little does she know that she just past a ' job interview '.

Upon arrival to the hall Emma is given a room and the job to build the Halls Gardens back to its prior beauty.

Things are complicated by a snobby model (outer beauty - inner beast), and the mystery of a rock star who disappeared in the nobleman's yacht one stormy night.

One of the most charming things about this mystery series is of course as always aunt Dimity's presence.

Worst. Narrator. Ever.

If. You. Want. To. Hear. Someone. Perform. This. Book. The. Way. I. Have. Written. This. Sentence. You. Are. In. The. Right. Place. Listening to Teri Clark Linden is like listening to an old school text to speech application. No one actually talks the way she reads. Her individual enunciation of each word makes every word an island. It is truly unfortunate that she appears to be the performer for the following books in this series as well.

Also, the author has written a shockingly bad case of insta-love into this book. I can overlook it to some degree, because of when it was written, but it is an especially egregious case.

Terrible narration!

So glad I got this book on reward points because this narration is the worst I’ve experienced since signing up for audible!
I’ll check the book out from the library to follow the story line.

Why-oh-Why use Teri Clark Linden?

I adore Aunt Dimity!!

But, the narrator - Teri Clark Linden’s halting, over emphasis on some words narration makes it so painful to listen to that I almost gave up on Aunt Dimity!

Sadly, she has narrated several of the books in the series .

I truly hope that at some point they will reissue these books using a better narrator that will allow these lovely books to shine.

My thanks to Nancy Atherton for the wonderful series.
If you can get past the awful narration, the book is a neat addition to the series!

Delightful Romance and Mystery

I loved the characters and the twists and turns of the story which never ceased to surprise me.