I read this book about 2 years ago, and wrote the following review. I recently got the audio with narrator Steven Crossley, who was superb! Audio notes, such as they were, at the end:
ORIGINAL REVIEW FROM OCTOBER 2008:
Ah, I'm in love! With this book! It was soooo wonderful and fun, and, hmmmm, it reminded me in many ways of Ms. Ivory's other book, The Indiscretion, which I also loved. In fact, since I listened to the marvelous Barbara Rosenblat read The Indiscretion, I kept hearing her in my head for this book as well. What fun!
The premise is similar but not the same in the 2 books. In this book, there's both a Pygmalion (think My Fair Lady) element and a Cinderella element, with both the hero and the heroine cast in the role of Cinderella.
Our heroine, almost 6-feet-tall Edwina, is an orphan and a spinster. When her father died, when she was 17, he left no male issue so his title (Marquis, I believe) went to a second cousin, Xavier. Xavier was a mean old bastard who pretty much threw Edwina out, although she did manage to keep a place to live. She supports herself as, of all things, a linguist, mostly by teaching young women how to behave and speak for their coming-out into the bon ton. She's a little gawky, and bookish, and thin, and thinks of herself as all that and less. She really suffers from a lack of self-esteem.
Mick first sees only Edwina's legs, from a prone position in a women's shop, where he is doing his job - ratcatcher. He can see under the screen where she is changing, and he's entranced. Later, through a little mixup, he is chased into the tea room next door where the folks chasing him manage to completely trash the place, chasing after him and his rat-catching ferret. A pair of twin brothers step in to save the day - although no one can understand Mick because of his thick Cockney/Cornish accent (which intrigues Edwina), the brothers decide Mick would make an excellent bet - can he, or can he not, become a proper gentleman under Edwina's tutelage? They pay off the tea room owner and the folks chasing Mick, and proceed to make The Proposition: They will pay Mick 120 pounds, all of Edwina's expenses, and buy him clothes if she can take him to the Uelle Ball in 6 weeks and pass him off as a viscount.
And wouldn't you know, the fanciest ball around, the most coveted, and it's given by mean ol' cousin Xavier too?
Of course, Edwina is interested. Mick is, well, maybe interested. So they bite - and Mick moves into Edwina's home so they can spend 12 hours a day getting him polished. He brings along his helpers - his faitherful rat terrier Magic, who is truly a Notable Pet, Freddie the aging ferret, and his other dogs and ferrets that he needs to run his ratcatching business.
Over the course of the 6 weeks, Ivory paints a delightful tale of Mick and Winnie (his pet name for her) as their relationship morphs from teacher and student to friends to his teaching her... Well, it's truly marvelous as they both grow and change into their new roles as more than friends. At one point, Mick takes Winnie to his side of town where they dance for hours in a pub and she truly learns to let down her hair and enjoy life.
Meanwhile, there's a question of the true identity of the twin brothers who started the whole thing, and the real reason behind The Proposition.
And also meanwhile, there's the underlying problem of Mick falling in love with Winnie but realizing he isn't her station, and will never be. Winnie suffers from the same problem - she is fast falling in love with the handsome ratcatcher, but she's not even sure she recognizes this new person, Michael, that she is creating.
When they finally, finally make it to the ball.....
Ya gotta just read it to find out. Right there at the end is a dash of suspense and intrigue and I sat at the edge of my seat wondering, wondering. Then there's a nice long and satisfying epilogue with a very funny ending. I loved it!
5 stars!
-------
So, as I've said before, there's only one thing better than a favorite book - it's a favorite book read by a fabulous narrator! Steven Crossley did such a marvelous job with Mick's and Winnie's voices - he used the tone of the character in the narration from his or her POV - he has a wonderful way of using pauses to great effect (see my review of Mackenzie's Mountain new narrator, who just sort of barreled through without pausing). I love the story so much, and loved his voice and his narration! 10 stars!
Showing posts with label Judith Ivory. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Judith Ivory. Show all posts
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Sleeping Beauty by Judith Ivory ****
This was one of my first forays into romance novels, and I got it as an audio book - almost exactly 2 years ago! I don't recall liking it all that much, even though my original rating was 4 stars, so I figured I would revisit it now to see if it had changed.
I didn't make any notes about it or review it at all, but this time it struck me that the narrator, Violet Primm, must be Davina Porter. I mean, it's just not that possible for a woman to so completely copy everything about another's voice for a 10-12 hour audio book, it just isn't! The speaking patterns, the pronunciations, everything about her voice screamed Davina Porter - and since I have listened to 5 of the 7 books in the Outlander series at least 4 times (I don't own the other 2 in audio) as well as 4 of the books in Alexander McCall Smith's Isabel Dalhousie series, I think I can recognize her voice! (that would several hundred hours of this woman's voice directly in my ears, mind you) In fact, I found 2 other references from people online saying exactly the same thing.
Some of Ivory's other books are favorites, but - 4 stars notwithstanding - this one isn't. I think it's sort of a 3.5 star. Of course, the narration was superb, so that didn't count against it! But the storyline - even if it was fable-based - just didn't "speak" to me. OK, it is supposed to be Sleeping Beauty. I found it hard to think of Coco as a Sleeping Beauty. For one thing, she was an extremely poor French child who was ruined by her employer and then tossed out on her ear, to raise her child alone. It soon became obvious to her that her charms were best used to make money, so she became a courtesan. (a very lucky woman to be able to do that in her teens - although perhaps we are supposed to believe first she was just a common prostitute?) In fact, she became a very well-known courtesan and then at some point married well, to man who gave her son his name.
The hero is James, a young scholar just returned from an ill-fated journey to Africa where he was the only survivor of his rather large contingent of scholars. He is lauded for his scholarly efforts, invited to all the best parties, has private meetings with Queen Victoria and is given a rather high post at Cambridge. He also had humble beginnings but will soon have an earlship, or is it earldom, bestowed on him. But the politics at play here go against his own wishes - to leave the Africans who helped him survive and their gold alone.
I listened very hard and paid close attention to the story to see if it would be better, seem a little different this time. Coco was in no way sleeping, or hidden away from the world, so I still didn't find the Sleeping Beauty metaphor. Oh, and there was this disparity in their ages - Coco a worldly 37, and James a naive, wet-behind-the-ears 29, who even admits that Coco is only his 4th sex partner. Oo la la, you would think she had some things to teach him.
He does seem to have a problem with the fact that apparently she has already slept with most of the men he knows - his mentor, the bishop, various other dons at the college. Yeah, frankly, I can see where this would be a problem. I kept trying to do that math in my head - it's been more than a decade since she slept with men for money; her son is 22; she has just turned 37; she was married to someone who gave him a name (when was that?); she's been a widow for, if I recall correctly, 3 years. So, she gave birth at age 15; she stopped sleeping around at age 27 when the child was 12, but when was she being a courtesan and entertaining the Duke of Wales and when was she married?
So the story is, James and Coco meet at the dentist - he becomes besotted with her, not knowing a thing about her past since he's been in Africa - then he learns about her past - then she tries to shoo him away - and he's having to deal with the politics of people accusing him of wrong-doings associated with the Africa trip - and... then they do get together and then there's some things that keep them apart and then... they go to France? I dunno.
It was a little too disjointed for me. Then there is the ending. I read some complaints that it was done too quickly, ended too abruptly. Au contraire - once he publicly declared his love, I was ready for a short epilogue and then the HEA statement, not 3 more chapters of blah blah blah.
I think that was my last re-read of this book, and I'll save my Ivory re-reads for The Indiscretion and Untie My Heart. Oh, and probably The Proposition.
I didn't make any notes about it or review it at all, but this time it struck me that the narrator, Violet Primm, must be Davina Porter. I mean, it's just not that possible for a woman to so completely copy everything about another's voice for a 10-12 hour audio book, it just isn't! The speaking patterns, the pronunciations, everything about her voice screamed Davina Porter - and since I have listened to 5 of the 7 books in the Outlander series at least 4 times (I don't own the other 2 in audio) as well as 4 of the books in Alexander McCall Smith's Isabel Dalhousie series, I think I can recognize her voice! (that would several hundred hours of this woman's voice directly in my ears, mind you) In fact, I found 2 other references from people online saying exactly the same thing.
Some of Ivory's other books are favorites, but - 4 stars notwithstanding - this one isn't. I think it's sort of a 3.5 star. Of course, the narration was superb, so that didn't count against it! But the storyline - even if it was fable-based - just didn't "speak" to me. OK, it is supposed to be Sleeping Beauty. I found it hard to think of Coco as a Sleeping Beauty. For one thing, she was an extremely poor French child who was ruined by her employer and then tossed out on her ear, to raise her child alone. It soon became obvious to her that her charms were best used to make money, so she became a courtesan. (a very lucky woman to be able to do that in her teens - although perhaps we are supposed to believe first she was just a common prostitute?) In fact, she became a very well-known courtesan and then at some point married well, to man who gave her son his name.
The hero is James, a young scholar just returned from an ill-fated journey to Africa where he was the only survivor of his rather large contingent of scholars. He is lauded for his scholarly efforts, invited to all the best parties, has private meetings with Queen Victoria and is given a rather high post at Cambridge. He also had humble beginnings but will soon have an earlship, or is it earldom, bestowed on him. But the politics at play here go against his own wishes - to leave the Africans who helped him survive and their gold alone.
I listened very hard and paid close attention to the story to see if it would be better, seem a little different this time. Coco was in no way sleeping, or hidden away from the world, so I still didn't find the Sleeping Beauty metaphor. Oh, and there was this disparity in their ages - Coco a worldly 37, and James a naive, wet-behind-the-ears 29, who even admits that Coco is only his 4th sex partner. Oo la la, you would think she had some things to teach him.
He does seem to have a problem with the fact that apparently she has already slept with most of the men he knows - his mentor, the bishop, various other dons at the college. Yeah, frankly, I can see where this would be a problem. I kept trying to do that math in my head - it's been more than a decade since she slept with men for money; her son is 22; she has just turned 37; she was married to someone who gave him a name (when was that?); she's been a widow for, if I recall correctly, 3 years. So, she gave birth at age 15; she stopped sleeping around at age 27 when the child was 12, but when was she being a courtesan and entertaining the Duke of Wales and when was she married?
So the story is, James and Coco meet at the dentist - he becomes besotted with her, not knowing a thing about her past since he's been in Africa - then he learns about her past - then she tries to shoo him away - and he's having to deal with the politics of people accusing him of wrong-doings associated with the Africa trip - and... then they do get together and then there's some things that keep them apart and then... they go to France? I dunno.
It was a little too disjointed for me. Then there is the ending. I read some complaints that it was done too quickly, ended too abruptly. Au contraire - once he publicly declared his love, I was ready for a short epilogue and then the HEA statement, not 3 more chapters of blah blah blah.
I think that was my last re-read of this book, and I'll save my Ivory re-reads for The Indiscretion and Untie My Heart. Oh, and probably The Proposition.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Beast by Judith Ivory ***
I'm conflicted by my reaction to Beast. It reminded me in many ways of The Indiscretion by the same author, which is a true keeper for me - the 2 people meeting under unplanned and less than ideal circumstances, with secret identities, then meeting later as they should have and coming to terms with their new relationship. And the heroines are similar - young, rich, spoiled, intelligent, insecure.
But somehow, the more Louise held on to her feelings for the man she thought she met first, and the worse she treated Charles, the less I liked her and the less I liked the story.
Louise - as I said - is a rich young American woman who is betrothed to Charles in her absence by her parents. She is uncommonly beautiful, and also willful and spoiled. Their concern for her well-being seems to be the real reason behind their convincing Charles, Prince d'Harcourt of France, to marry her, rather than a real greed to have someone of royal blood in the family. Well, that is also a nice benefit, and to convince him, they offer him quite a lot in return: a large shipment of ambergris, used in his perfume business. After the betrothal, the entire family travels by ship from America to meet Charles in France for the wedding.
On the same ship, however, is Charles who is pursuing his married mistress. Both to keep her husband from discovering he is there and to keep his fiancée's family from the same discovery, he hides in a luxury suite onboard the ship and has a cousin in France send telegrams to the family from himself. But he is intrigued by sight of his fiancée onboard, and manages to interest her in a little dalliance with him, as a prank. To hide both his identity and his physical scars and handicap, he insists on meeting her only in the dark, so that she never sees his face. He speaks in English with a slight accent that she decides is Arabic, and she develops the fantasy that he is her pasha.
Once he has seduced her, he realizes he too is seduced by her - but he cannot now reveal himself without making her the fool of his prank, so he decides never to tell her. Unfortunately for both of them, she has fallen in love with the pasha. When they meet for real, he speaks only French to her, knowing she will recognize his English. But she has created such a fantasy of her Arabic lover that she doesn't even see the real Charles for anything beyond his physical disabilities - a blind eye and a limp. She refuses to even let him kiss her, and forget about sleeping together, because she longs for the Arabic lover instead and finds Charles repulsive.
Now, maybe some would feel that since Charles did make a fool of her, duping her that way, that he deserves her treatment. And maybe he should have come clean earlier. But when he finally does, she won't listen - and then once it sinks in, she refuses to forgive him unless he does say out loud to her that he was the shipboard lover. WTF? He DID try to tell her and she wouldn't listen!! I found her willfulness petty and immature (well, she was only 18) and frustrating beyond belief from the moment she refused him on their wedding day. So while I truly enjoyed the first half, it just slid downhill from that moment on, and then it dropped into 3 star territory when she refused to forgive him until he told her he was the shipboard lover - not that she ASKED him, she just waited for him to admit it. Sheeesh.
I read this as my first book in the Winter 2008 Reading Challenge for the arranged marriage category. 3 stars and grrrrr, I wanted a more satisfying ending! Interestingly, author Sherry Thomas wrote the AAR DIK review for this book - she obviously was not put off as I was by the exceedingly annoying and petulant behavior of Louise after the wedding.
And there was a pet... but not really a Notable Pet - he should have gotten higher billing all the way through to warrant Notable Pet status, I think.
But somehow, the more Louise held on to her feelings for the man she thought she met first, and the worse she treated Charles, the less I liked her and the less I liked the story.
Louise - as I said - is a rich young American woman who is betrothed to Charles in her absence by her parents. She is uncommonly beautiful, and also willful and spoiled. Their concern for her well-being seems to be the real reason behind their convincing Charles, Prince d'Harcourt of France, to marry her, rather than a real greed to have someone of royal blood in the family. Well, that is also a nice benefit, and to convince him, they offer him quite a lot in return: a large shipment of ambergris, used in his perfume business. After the betrothal, the entire family travels by ship from America to meet Charles in France for the wedding.
On the same ship, however, is Charles who is pursuing his married mistress. Both to keep her husband from discovering he is there and to keep his fiancée's family from the same discovery, he hides in a luxury suite onboard the ship and has a cousin in France send telegrams to the family from himself. But he is intrigued by sight of his fiancée onboard, and manages to interest her in a little dalliance with him, as a prank. To hide both his identity and his physical scars and handicap, he insists on meeting her only in the dark, so that she never sees his face. He speaks in English with a slight accent that she decides is Arabic, and she develops the fantasy that he is her pasha.
Once he has seduced her, he realizes he too is seduced by her - but he cannot now reveal himself without making her the fool of his prank, so he decides never to tell her. Unfortunately for both of them, she has fallen in love with the pasha. When they meet for real, he speaks only French to her, knowing she will recognize his English. But she has created such a fantasy of her Arabic lover that she doesn't even see the real Charles for anything beyond his physical disabilities - a blind eye and a limp. She refuses to even let him kiss her, and forget about sleeping together, because she longs for the Arabic lover instead and finds Charles repulsive.
Now, maybe some would feel that since Charles did make a fool of her, duping her that way, that he deserves her treatment. And maybe he should have come clean earlier. But when he finally does, she won't listen - and then once it sinks in, she refuses to forgive him unless he does say out loud to her that he was the shipboard lover. WTF? He DID try to tell her and she wouldn't listen!! I found her willfulness petty and immature (well, she was only 18) and frustrating beyond belief from the moment she refused him on their wedding day. So while I truly enjoyed the first half, it just slid downhill from that moment on, and then it dropped into 3 star territory when she refused to forgive him until he told her he was the shipboard lover - not that she ASKED him, she just waited for him to admit it. Sheeesh.
I read this as my first book in the Winter 2008 Reading Challenge for the arranged marriage category. 3 stars and grrrrr, I wanted a more satisfying ending! Interestingly, author Sherry Thomas wrote the AAR DIK review for this book - she obviously was not put off as I was by the exceedingly annoying and petulant behavior of Louise after the wedding.
And there was a pet... but not really a Notable Pet - he should have gotten higher billing all the way through to warrant Notable Pet status, I think.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
The Indiscretion by Judith Ivory *****
I listened to this on my iPod on the plane trip to Cairo, Egypt, and WOW! It's truly a new top favorite, maybe top 3 with To Die For (LH) and A Season To Be Sinful (JG). To be honest, I think Barbara Rosenblat's incredible narration raised it ABOVE what I might have felt about reading it! Her Sam Cody voice was a masterpiece and her Liddy simply perfection - a heroine who could have been read as spoiled and willful came across as whimsical, credible, witty - really, delightful, even when she was being really too hard on Sam.
Plot redux: Texas cowboy and titled Brit heiress meet in a coach on the moor. It's 1899 - the driver falls off at some point, a few miles later the coach is wrecked, and as the only passengers, they have to spend 4 days roughing it before being rescued. Miss Prissy Brit is none too honest about her background, and later we learn Sam, while technically honest, wasn't as forthcoming as he might have been about his. Part I is on the moor, where they develop a friendship and then step beyond the boundary (The Indiscretion, as it were). Part II is, well, the reckoning of all their actions - the truths, half-truths and outright lies as well as The Indiscretion itself.
I laughed out loud several times - again, Rosenblat's narration was so - perfect - I can't even describe it. She flipped from hung-over, raspy Texan male drawl to prissy Brit aristocrat to common ladies' maid to stuffy Brit boyfriend to... well, she nailed every character. Even her intake of breath was meaningful in her narration.
There was an odd background noise that, if I recall, some reviewers on audible.com thought was the narrator sucking on candy. I have no idea what that noise was (papers rattling?) but there's no way it was Rosenblat making that noise, because she speaks and breathes while the noise is being made.
5 stars and definitely worth a re-read! (update, 2/23/09, I did do a re-read/listen!)
Plot redux: Texas cowboy and titled Brit heiress meet in a coach on the moor. It's 1899 - the driver falls off at some point, a few miles later the coach is wrecked, and as the only passengers, they have to spend 4 days roughing it before being rescued. Miss Prissy Brit is none too honest about her background, and later we learn Sam, while technically honest, wasn't as forthcoming as he might have been about his. Part I is on the moor, where they develop a friendship and then step beyond the boundary (The Indiscretion, as it were). Part II is, well, the reckoning of all their actions - the truths, half-truths and outright lies as well as The Indiscretion itself.
I laughed out loud several times - again, Rosenblat's narration was so - perfect - I can't even describe it. She flipped from hung-over, raspy Texan male drawl to prissy Brit aristocrat to common ladies' maid to stuffy Brit boyfriend to... well, she nailed every character. Even her intake of breath was meaningful in her narration.
There was an odd background noise that, if I recall, some reviewers on audible.com thought was the narrator sucking on candy. I have no idea what that noise was (papers rattling?) but there's no way it was Rosenblat making that noise, because she speaks and breathes while the noise is being made.
5 stars and definitely worth a re-read! (update, 2/23/09, I did do a re-read/listen!)
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Untie My Heart by Judith Ivory *****
Whew!! I was really starting to think I had a bad attitude, and that every new author I read on the AAR Top 100 was going to be something I didn't like.
Imagine my relief to say, I loved Untie My Heart! It was a fun romp, incredibly romantic with some unusual and hot love scenes.
The heroine is Emma. She's the vicar's widow, a sheep farmer in a small village far from London. Oh wait, and she's also a former con artist, with talents in forgery and stolen art and such. Yep - no blushing virgins here!
Our yummy hero is Stuart, the Viscount of something or other. He had a miserable childhood, and as soon as he was able, left England to roam the world as an adult. He could hardly get far away enough from his father - well, he managed to get far away enough to almost be declared dead after his father's death left him the heir. His rascally uncle managed to steal some things and lots of money from his estate before he showed up, alive and well.
It was fun too to have it set in the 1890s, so there were lots of things around that we don't get to hear about in the usual historicals set in the Regency period.
It's Stuart's bad luck - or maybe his good luck, but the lamb's bad luck - that his coach kills Emma's lamb. In the area, this is taken very seriously, and the usual penalty would be the sum of several sheep that the male lamb would have sired. However, since the coach was the Viscount's, the local law is hesitant to do anything, which really riles Emma up. She manages to make an enemy of the new Viscount while trying to get him to cough up the dough for the lamb, and then she falls back on her old ways and finds a clever way to swindle him out of it. It makes sense that he will never miss the mere 56 lbs that comes from a bank account she manages to create. Unfortunately, he does remember the 56 lb cheque and follows up on it...
Once he has caught her in the act (he assumed it was the uncle doing it, which is why he was so adamant about following up), he decides to blackmail her into helping him retrieve the items the uncle stole. He also manages to befuddle and addle her into a little challenge - I loved this scene, where afterwards he thinks he's accidentally shagged her.
It did walk perilously close to forced seduction which, if you aren't in the right mood, sounds perilously like rape. Frankly, Stuart's sexual tastes and proclivities are a little outside most romance novels I've read - and it's actually refreshing if a little edgy.
The writing and the humor were really delightful - Emma uses first the alias Molly Muffin, and Stuart has many hysterical thoughts and innuendos involving this name. Her next alias is Peep, although she did not use Bo as the first name. When Stuart asks her, "Whatever will Mother Goose think?", I laughed out loud.
Wow. I'm really overjoyed - another great book, a new-to-me author, and I liked it a lot even though it's on the AAR Top 100! As soon as I get my REAL computer back, I'll have to do some research and maybe some glomming on Judith Ivory/Judy Cuevas.
5 stars.
Imagine my relief to say, I loved Untie My Heart! It was a fun romp, incredibly romantic with some unusual and hot love scenes.
The heroine is Emma. She's the vicar's widow, a sheep farmer in a small village far from London. Oh wait, and she's also a former con artist, with talents in forgery and stolen art and such. Yep - no blushing virgins here!
Our yummy hero is Stuart, the Viscount of something or other. He had a miserable childhood, and as soon as he was able, left England to roam the world as an adult. He could hardly get far away enough from his father - well, he managed to get far away enough to almost be declared dead after his father's death left him the heir. His rascally uncle managed to steal some things and lots of money from his estate before he showed up, alive and well.
It was fun too to have it set in the 1890s, so there were lots of things around that we don't get to hear about in the usual historicals set in the Regency period.
It's Stuart's bad luck - or maybe his good luck, but the lamb's bad luck - that his coach kills Emma's lamb. In the area, this is taken very seriously, and the usual penalty would be the sum of several sheep that the male lamb would have sired. However, since the coach was the Viscount's, the local law is hesitant to do anything, which really riles Emma up. She manages to make an enemy of the new Viscount while trying to get him to cough up the dough for the lamb, and then she falls back on her old ways and finds a clever way to swindle him out of it. It makes sense that he will never miss the mere 56 lbs that comes from a bank account she manages to create. Unfortunately, he does remember the 56 lb cheque and follows up on it...
Once he has caught her in the act (he assumed it was the uncle doing it, which is why he was so adamant about following up), he decides to blackmail her into helping him retrieve the items the uncle stole. He also manages to befuddle and addle her into a little challenge - I loved this scene, where afterwards he thinks he's accidentally shagged her.
It did walk perilously close to forced seduction which, if you aren't in the right mood, sounds perilously like rape. Frankly, Stuart's sexual tastes and proclivities are a little outside most romance novels I've read - and it's actually refreshing if a little edgy.
The writing and the humor were really delightful - Emma uses first the alias Molly Muffin, and Stuart has many hysterical thoughts and innuendos involving this name. Her next alias is Peep, although she did not use Bo as the first name. When Stuart asks her, "Whatever will Mother Goose think?", I laughed out loud.
Wow. I'm really overjoyed - another great book, a new-to-me author, and I liked it a lot even though it's on the AAR Top 100! As soon as I get my REAL computer back, I'll have to do some research and maybe some glomming on Judith Ivory/Judy Cuevas.
5 stars.
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