Narration by Louise Jane Underwood
Part historical romance and part suspense thriller, ‘Til Death Do Us Part is sure to appeal to a diverse audiobook loving audience. This being my first experience with Amanda Quick, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I really enjoyed her talent of mixing an intriguing mystery – and somewhat morose story – with a romance undercurrent (though perhaps the lesser of the two focuses). Further enhancing the allure of this audiobook is the well performed narration by Louise Jane Underwood, making this a natural title to enjoy in audio format.
Set in Victorian London, Ms. Quick tells the tale of a somewhat unusual heroine, Calista Langley, a proprietor of a high priced, exclusive matchmaking service (though she states it is not solely for romantic connections). Calista is used to being in charge and having had huge success with her business, she begins to feel out of control when mysterious death/funeral linked gifts begin arriving at her home. Each gift is clearly intended for her, as it is engraved with her initials, and yet she can’t seem to piece together who would be delivering such threatening harbingers of death. Could it be a former lover, an aggrieved customer of her introductions agency, or someone completely unconnected?
Fortunately, Trent Hastings, one of her client’s brother’s and a man who initially is dubious of her dealings with his sister, in an interesting turn of events surprises Calista by offering his help in discreetly uncovering who is behind the evil gifts. Being that Trent is a well-known and loved crime novelist no less, Calista eagerly takes Trent up on his offer to share his sleuthing aptitude to try and aid her in apprehending the culprit before it is too late. However, as they begin to work side by side, and adrenaline runs high as the circumstances slowly get more and more dangerous, will they be able to ignore the electric chemistry that draws each to the other together even if any distraction could lead to deathly consequences?
This was my first audiobook by Louise Jane Underwood and I was generally impressed with her narration. Ms. Underwood has a decent range of voices. I particularly enjoyed her “evil” sounding ones which help animate the story. I loved that you can tell, just from her voice, who were the good characters and the bad ones from the intonation she used to portray them. Perhaps my only observation is that Ms. Underwood doesn’t vary her narrator’s voice much from the heroine’s which sometimes I find makes the natural division between dialogue and narrative difficult to distinguish.
Ms. Underwood’s timing also makes the story flow well, and she uses appropriate changes in pacing to heighten the mood of certain scenes, though she doesn’t overly dramatize the action, which works well in striking a good balance between telling the story without sounding like a fake sense of urgency.
All in all, I have found a new author to explore romantic suspense titles by. I especially like that Ms. Quick writes her stories with a historical background as many of my go to romantic suspense authors tend to stick to a contemporary romance setting. I also enjoyed Ms. Underwood’s narration and look forward to exploring more of her listens.
BJ
Narration: B+
Book Content: B+
Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in
Violence Rating: Minimal
Genre: Historical Romance
Publisher: Recorded Books
'Til Death Do Us Part was provided to AudioGals by Recorded Books for a review.
[jwl-utmce-widget id=32435]
