The Reluctant Widow Audiobook By Georgette Heyer cover art

The Reluctant Widow

Gossip, scandal and an unforgettable Regency romance

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The Reluctant Widow

By: Georgette Heyer
Narrated by: Daon Broni
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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 Historical Historical Fiction Regency Regency Romance Romance Heartfelt
Intriguing Premise • Amusing Story • Endearing Characters • Enjoyable Love Story • Good Mystery • Complex Hero
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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.

Not a good Georgette Heyer

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

Unpleasant narration

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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.

Very Good Story

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

this is my favorite or her books;

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characters were fun. sorry well paced. the love match was a little light. but delightful nonetheless.

intrigue and humor

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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)

always a fun time

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Georgette Heyer is one of my favorite authors,, and this is a favorite of mine among her works. However, I will be careful never again to purchase a book read by this narrator! The leading make character speaks in a nearly flat tone most of the time. The companion to the heroine, a retired governess, speaks with the accent of an uneducated person- one who would not have been hired by a nobleman to educate his only child. The narrator really missed the mark on this one! I’m not sure I can finish the book!

Disappointing performance

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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.

Painful narration

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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!

This is one of my fav GH novels!

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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.

one of my favorite Geotgette Heyer regencies

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