The Reluctant Widow

Gossip, scandal and an unforgettable Regency romance

By: Georgette Heyer

Narrated by: Daon Broni

Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's summary

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

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.

Another fun Heyer romp

Fun and well read. Story failed to keep my interest in a few sections compared to her best books, but is overall very good.

one of my favorite Geotgette Heyer regencies

Well performed overall but it was slightly annoying that the surname of the title character kept getting pronounced in several variations.

Rochdale is ROTCH-dayl.
It's similar to the start of the name Rochester.
It's not a "sh" like in Rochelle nor a "k" sound as if for a rock.

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.

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.

Excellent story read by an indifferent narrator

Skip this one, If you pick a guy on the bus to read to you, he'd do just as well. The narration by Daon Broni is distracting. It's impossible to become lost in the story--and it IS a good story--because the narration is uneven, he rarely makes the attempt to make the voices of women sound like women, and generally the tone of the narration does not match the tone of any given scene. Unfortunately I cannot return this, because I didn't use a credit. Lesson learned!