I definitely enjoyed this new-to-me narrator, Deborah Balm. Her narration and performance is very very good. Her cadence and pace is excellent. Highly recommend the audiobook.
Book Review:
This is the first book of a planned series by the author—The Montford Cousins. In Book 1, we learn that Jane and Elizabeth are daughters of the first Mrs Bennet, Sophie, who was daughter to the Earl and Countess of Richmond (Montford). Elizabeth and Jane have been raised by Mr Bennet and the second Mrs Bennet, who has never shown much kindness to Elizabeth. Mr Bennet has really never stopped grieving for his first wife and is as indolent as ever.
Elizabeth has just arrived in London to stay with her grandparents for the season. Jane is currently with the Gardiners. They have two Montford adult cousins who appear in this book—Amelia and Nicholas, now the Viscount Hatton. Their parents were killed in a carriage accident, and they also reside with their grandparents.
Since Darcy’s parents were friends of the Earl and Countess, he is well-known to them and they consider him part of their family. Elizabeth and Darcy cross paths almost immediately upon Elizabeth’s arrival to town and they manage to quickly forgive one another for past bad impressions. A little shoving by the various Montford relations doesn’t hurt.
Elizabeth likes this different away-from-Meryton Darcy—as do I—but still has to understand these new feelings she has for him. Darcy knows he must “endeavour to be worthy” of her and convince her his feelings for her existed before he knew of her connections. There is a lot of page time for the couple. The good dialogue among all the characters flows well throughout the book and makes this a fast moving story—not an over abundance of narrative, which I always prefer. There is a major surprise in this book, at least it was for me. I think I’m still recovering from the shock of it! Ms Diamond often provides a surprise or two—recall Uncle Gardiner in An Unwavering Trust, and Colonel Fitzwilliam in Undoing, as perfect examples.
The non-canon Montford family characters are all very likeable and are lovingly portrayed. I greatly anticipate any future books in the series which I can only guess will feature the cousins’ individual stories in greater detail—and Jane too, I hope.
This is another great read from L.L. (Leslie) Diamond. Highly recommend.
Mature content.