Rondo Allegro

By: Sherwood Smith

Narrated by: Fenella Fudge

In 1799 all of Europe is at war. In Palermo, 16-year-old singer-in-training Anna Maria Ludovisi is married by her dying father to Captain Henry Duncannon, the perennial bachelor. Minutes after the wedding, he sets sail. The threat of French invasion causes Anna to flee to Paris. At the end of the revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte is transforming France; Anna must transform herself into a professional singer in order to survive.

In 1805 Anna's opera company is traveling through Spain when events bring the long-missing Captain Duncannon and his forgotten wife back together again, as the English, Spanish, and French fleets converge for battle off the Cape of Trafalgar. For Henry Duncannon as well as Anna, everything changes: the demands of war, the obligation of family, the meaning of love, and the concept of home. Can they find a new life together? A romantic Napoleonic-period historical from Sherwood Smith, author of Danse de la Folie.

©2014 Sherwood Smith (P)2015 Audible, Inc.

Good story, narration not great

Where does Rondo Allegro rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

I liked the story. It's above average, good story line. It was interesting enough for me to keep going to find out the HEA.

Any additional comments?

The narration esp the part of Anna's maid was overly done, too 'foreign' to understand what the narrator was saying. I had to go over same lines again and again. So frustrating. Just keep it in simple in easy-to-understand English with slight accent would do!

Squeaky

Okay story, but I truly wish the narrator had not given the two predominant women (h and her maid) squeaky high children’s voices. The other voices were quite good, as was the narration. But it’s incredibly hard to bond to a main character with such a large role, when she sounds like a Disney character with a thick, overly done childlike voice.

A good story ruined - beware

What disappointed you about Rondo Allegro?

Fenella Fudge uses an overwrought Italian accent for the heroine that makes listening to this unbearable for me. I tried speeding the narration up to see if it would be listenable and it helped but not enough. I really dislike narrators/producers who think they are putting on a play or making a film instead of providing an enjoyable but unobtrusive reading of a book. It is too bad because this is book worth being well read. Get the print version!