Eternally Yours – Roxton Letters, Vol.1 by Lucinda Brant

Narrated by Alex Wyndham

First off, I have to say that if you haven’t read or listened to the first three books in Lucinda Brant’s Roxton Family Saga ( Noble Satyr, Midnight Marriage and Autumn Duchess), then this companion volume won’t make much sense to you. If, however, you are up to speed with the series, then Eternally Yours is an enjoyable and informative series of vignettes in the form of letters and diary entries from various characters in those books that supply some of the background information to the events that take place or are referred to “off stage” in each book.

If you’re curious to know what was in the letters that Antonia wrote to Roxton asking for his help upon the imminent death of her grandfather, or what was in the letters she wrote to him from London (which were never sent), then you’ll find out here.  We’re privy to the final letter from her grandfather, the Earl of Strathsay to his estranged wife, the Countess, who is shown to be a thoroughly nasty piece of work in Noble Satyr; but my favourite of the letters from that section of the book is the one from Roxton’s sister, Estée, to her aunt, in which she describes the duke’s desolation after he sends Antonia to London. I felt a bit cheated that we didn’t see his reaction to her loss in Satyr, so this was an especially welcome inclusion.

In the section relating to Midnight Marriage, another letter from Estée – one written in a state of terrible upset – describes the incident which led to the Roxton’s decision to marry off his son and then send him out of the country. There is correspondence from Martin Ellacott, the duke’s one-time valet who now acts as Julian’s companion, in which he expresses his concern for his charge and his involvement with a notorious widow, and a touching letter from Julian to his father in which he talks about his love for his wife and his desire for a family. The most poignant and touching letters – the Duke of Roxton’s last to his son and his wife – come in this section of the book, and I admit that I blubbed for practically the entire fifteen minutes or so it took to listen to them. The letter to Antonia is referred to in Autumn Duchess, but heard in full, it is heart-breaking and incredibly touching.

The third section relates to Autumn Duchess, with diary entries from Antonia, letters from her future husband, Jonathon Strang, and from Charles Fitzstuart to his brother, Alasdair. The collection ends on an upbeat note, with a diary entry written by Antonia to her beloved Monseigneur on the morning of her second marriage.

Essentially a set of vignettes, Eternally Yours works slightly differently in terms of the narration to the full-length stories in the series, as each of the chapters features only one character. This means that rather than switching from dialogue to narrative, Mr Wyndham spends several minutes at a time inhabiting the persona of each writer. I don’t know whether this is easier or harder to perform; I imagine that it perhaps presents a different challenge, but whatever the case, Mr Wyndham rises to it admirably, and voices the different letter writers and diarists consistently with those characters as performed in the books in which they appear. Once again, I have to make special note of his performance of Roxton, this time in the different phases of his life. The duke as an older man sounds somewhat different to the younger version, but he is entirely recognisible as the same man.

In short, Eternally Yours is a terrific companion piece to the first three Roxton books, and I’d certainly encourage those who have enjoyed them to seek this out.

Caz

Narration: A+

Book Content: B+

Steam Factor: You can play it out loud

Violence Rating: None

Genre: Historical Romance

Publisher: Sprigleaf Pty Ltd

Eternally Yours - Roxton Letters, Vol 1 was provided to AudioGals by for a review.