Splendid

Blydon, Book 1

By: Julia Quinn

Narrated by: Lucy Rayner

Based on the phenomenal growth of Quinn's popularity and her four-week stint on the New York Times best-seller list with Romancing Mr. Bridgerton, it's the perfect time to revisit Ms. Quinn's "splendid" storytelling.

American heiress Emma Dunster has always been fun-loving and independent, with no wish to settle into marriage. She plans to enjoy her Season in London in more unconventional ways than husband hunting. But this time Emma's high jinks lead her into dangerous temptation.

Alexander Ridgely, the Duke of Ashbourne, is a notorious rake who carefully avoids the risk of love until he plants one reckless kiss on the sensuous lips of this high-spirited innocent and condemns himself to delicious torment. Little does he know that his passion has touched the very soul of the lovely enchantress and committed them both to a lifetime of splendid ecstasy.

©1995 Julie Cotler (P)2016 HarperCollins Publishers

Narration could have been better

The book was ok, not as good as the Bridgeton series but I didn't like the narration

Splendid indeed.....

A tiny bit slow and a wee bit sedate but in the end so very good.

Narrator: Very good. A splendid performance.

Heat factor: tepid with a few steaming scenes.

Creditworthy? I say yes, a comfortable listen.

Not my favorite story , did not care for narrator.

Will not buy series. Not enough of an interesting storyline, lots of words and hard to get through.

Bad "male" voices

The "male" voices were horrible. I often thought I was listening to a grandmother speak, not a male voice. I almost discontinued listening, but the story became more interesting, so I bit the bullet and continued. Quinn's much later stories/recordings were MUCH better. Glad I didn't begin with the earliest books!

Not Rosalind

The story was good but not as good as most of the others. Not my favorite narrator so it was tough to get through after almost every other book having the same narrator.

Male lead wasn’t likeable

Male love interest was a bit of a jerk, and female lead is stubborn to the point of it being unbearable

Narrator’s high pitch voice gives me headaches.

The narrator was skillful, but her voice was very high and it pierces my ears very uncomfortably. The story is pretty good, not JQ’s best work, but also not the worst.

Disappointed

I've really enjoyed Julia Quinn's books in the past, but this one for me was really lacking. The dialogue at the beginning was trite and somewhat irritating, nothing like I've seen from Julia Quinn in the past. For me, the two main characters just didn't mesh and the heroin was annoying and a total contradiction. The consistency problem Ms. Quinn has been having with her other books appears to be continuing in this one as well. For example, Alex never acknowledges he's courting Emma and never formally asked to court her, but later in the story he says he's courting her, but doesn't want to marry her. At that time period, in England, if he said he was courting her, then he had stated his intention to her guardian and he would have had every intention of marrying her. I actually stopped the recording twice to see if this WAS actually the author because it didn't seem like her at all. Her last few books totally lack her personality and I miss the Julia Quinn who wrote Romancing Mr. Briderton. I just hope the author goes back to her original writing style because I don't think I'll be purchasing any more of her books if they're anything like this one; she just seems like she's writing them to meet a deadline. I'm sadly disappointed, because this used to be one of my favorite authors.

Interaction between the Duke and Emma.

Hang in there. A little slow at first. But I really loved the love story.

Good

I didn’t like the reader, her different voices got messed up at times. That is all that was wrong. Story was good.