The Reluctant Widow

Gossip, scandal and an unforgettable Regency romance

By: Georgette Heyer

Narrated by: Daon Broni

Brought to you by Penguin.

One of the best-known and most beloved historical novelists, Georgette Heyer, as ever, captures a whole new audience's heart.

Stepping into the wrong carriage at a Sussex village, Elinor Rochdale is swept up in a thrilling and dangerous adventure. Overnight the would-be governess becomes mistress of a ruined estate and partner in a secret conspiracy to save a family's name. By midnight, she is a bride, by dawn, a widow.

A typically thrilling and sweeping tale of romance and tragedy, The Reluctant Widow is Georgette Heyer at her best - the undisputed queen of historical romance.

©1946 Georgette Heyer (P)2021 Penguin Audio

Not a good Georgette Heyer

Oh this is so disappointing! I am a fan of GH and love 90% of her stories but this one did not work for me. The only good thing was Nicky and his dog. If you are choosing between this GH and any other (I have read them all) choose another!

The narrator did not help. Very stilted.

Unpleasant narration

Love Georgette Heyer and this book, but I couldn’t stand the narration. All the voices sound the same, and the tone is off.

Very Good Story

The reason I gave this book only four stars is because I really could not like the heroine. I believe a woman living in her time and circumstances would have been more appreciative of events that had occurred but all she could do is whine and complain even when others pointed out the good that would come of the circumstances. Otherwise the story is very good and the performance is excellently done. If the heroine hadn't been so irritating it would have definitely been a five-star book.

this is my favorite or her books;

I absolutely love this book! it is her best one. such a delightful story! can't praise it enough!

always a fun time

One of my favourite Georgette Heyer's - amusing from start to finish.
Narration could've been better, but is far better than some attempts of other Heyer novels (unfortunately). At least I'm not constantly correcting his reading of one passage or another, and I can pardon all his errors because he hits the exact right tone for the supposed villian of the piece (with hilarious results, imo)

Humorous and Witty

I've read this before but this time I listened to the audiobook. The narrator perfectly captures the humor and wit, and I thoroughly enjoyed this.

Not the best of Heyer

I’ve liked most of this author’s works, but this was not one of her stronger offerings. **SPOILERS**
Intriguing premise of a young woman in desperate straits choosing to marry a scoundrel on his deathbed, for a variety of benefits. Complications ensue.
That’s all fine, but the rest of it seemed vastly contrived. Storyline too weak. Way too much chattering, way too much complaining about how ill-used the title character was, leading up to, of course, the romantic marriage proposal at the end—what a shockeroo (NOT).
It wasn’t a complete waste of time, but it was disappointing.

good story, terrible narration

love this story, but the narration is one of the worst I've heard. monotone, weird pauses, don't waste your money.

Painful narration

Look, I try to give narrators a pass. Their job is something I could never do. This guy does a passable job at emotions, and there aren't any noticeable mistakes.
But.
The voices are almost all the same. Thankfully he reads the dialogue tags, or I might have missed a couple changes.
That's nothing, however, when compared to the...
...
...almost full-second pauses...
...
...at the end of every sentence.
Like, this is Georgette Heyer.
We've got people cutting each other off, which sounds like:
"But I told you I was-"
(full-second pause)
"I don't care where you were!" (Full-second pause.) "I asked you to come right away!"
And then we've got a character whose whole THING is talking quickly and smoothly, stream-of-consciousness style, so no one suspects he has a thought in his head which isn't said out loud.
That effect is ruined and kinda painful to hear...
When every couple of words...
There's a full break...
In the narration.
Seriously, this is the first time I've considered stopping a book halfway through and demanding my money back, it was so bad.
I'd bet a solid hour of the runtime is blank space.
If there is ANY other audio version of this book out there, get that one instead. I bet versions where someone's reading it into their phone mic to put on YouTube are less painful to hear than this.

This is one of my fav GH novels!

This is one of my fav GH novels! The narrator did a good job with male voices, but not so much the female. Wish they would get Mary Jane Wells to do them all!