Narrated by Mary Jane Wells
I have a confession. I have had a book crush on West Ravenel from the very first time I met him in Cold-Hearted Rake. So I was so excited to finally listen to his book, Devil’s Daughter. Sure, it’s called “Devil’s Daughter” and not “West gets his HEA” but it means the same thing to me.
My other confession is that I still haven’t read Devil in Winter. The devil in that title is Sebastian, Duke of Kingston. And the heroine of Devil’s Daughter is his eldest daughter, Phoebe, Lady Clare. One doesn’t have to know the previous story to enjoy this listen however. What is significant is that Sebastian was a rake and an all around not-nice-guy at the beginning of his book but by the end, he had been redeemed (this, I gather is a matter of some debate in parts of Romancelandia) and got his HEA.
It was kind of fitting therefore that West’s HEA is with Sebastian’s daughter. Because when we first met West, he was not a nice guy either. He was a drunkard rakehell, with a history of being a bully. But after his elder brother, Devon, inherited the Trenear title, Eversby Priory and everything else that went with it, West stepped up. He has been the de facto estate manager at the Priory since Devon decided to take on the estate and not sell everything off (which had been West’s suggestion – see previous: not a nice guy).
West stopped drinking and womanising and started working. He worked side by side with the tenant farmers to understand what they did and what they needed. He worked, for at least a brief time, in every role in the Prior to understand it. And while he did that, he earned the love and respect of everyone there. He also lost weight (because he was a chubby unhealthy man from the all the food and drink and self-indulgence) and started to respect himself. West’s past however causes him angst and shame. While he is a good man now (and he really is), it is precisely because he has come to realise the error of his previous ways that he believes no-one deserves to be shackled to him and the scandals of his past.
Both he and Devon were abused by their father and then their uncles, with regular beatings and other displays of violent temper. West has long been convinced he would inevitably turn out just like those men if he ever became a dad. Added to that, West has no property or money of his own. The earldom does not belong to him. Eversby Priory is Devon’s. So, he has sworn off marriage and children for himself.
Until he meets, Phoebe, Lady Clare. Phoebe and the rest of the Challon family attend Eversby Prior for the wedding of Pandora and Gabriel (Devil in Spring). (By the way, the timelines of this book, Devil in Spring and Hello Stranger do overlap a bit.)
Phoebe is a widow of two years, her husband, Henry, having died of an unnamed wasting disease which had afflicted him his entire life. Phoebe and Henry had loved each other deeply and it was a happy marriage. She has two sons, Justin and Stephen. She was pregnant with Stephen when Henry died in fact.
Henry and West knew each other in boarding school and Henry hated him because West was a bully. The bullying was mostly pranks, name-calling and the like and didn’t extend to beatings but bullying is bullying and West did it. It was not a case of Henry over-reacting or misunderstanding. So, when Phoebe first meets West, she is disposed to dislike him. A lot. However, the West of boarding school is not the West of Pandora’s wedding and Phoebe quickly realises that. I liked the way this was handled in the book very much.
Since Henry died, Phoebe has been staying with her parents and family at their estate but after the wedding she will be returning to the Clare lands to take the reins of the estate on behalf of her son, Justin. While at Eversby Priory she and West bond over land management. It doesn’t sound sexy but it actually really worked for me. It showed West’s competence and his diligence and, the historical detail (which I had no difficulty accepting as accurate) was fascinating to me.
While all this was happening, West, Justin and Stephen all formed an attachment too and the scenes when they are together are just lovely.
West falls hard for Phoebe and the boys but he believes they are too far beyond his touch. She’s too good for him and he does not wish for her or the boys to ever suffer a moment’s pain or embarrassment for his own past sins – something which would be inevitable. West used to have affairs with married women (he destroyed marriages, he says), he got blackout drunk and did other embarrassing things like urinate in public fountains and he won’t mar Phoebe, Justin and Stephen with that.
After Phoebe gets over her initial dislike (which doesn’t take long) she comes to recognise West for the man he is. They have a scorching chemistry and West introduces Phoebe to a passion she had never previously known.
Even though West and Phoebe have a different dynamic, Henry is never demonised and this was something I greatly appreciated.
Essentially the main conflict of the audiobook is that West has to believe he is worthy of Phoebe and that he can be good for her and the boys. It takes a while. To say the least.
I found the book delightful right up until the end where everything was wrapped up far too quickly. There were literally ten minutes left in the listen and all the HEA stuff still had to happen. While there are lovely scenes earlier in the book of Phoebe and West together (and him/them with the boys too) I would have liked more of the good stuff at the end. Also, there was a curious passivity about the resolution with a deus ex Sebastian – I’d have liked West to have been more active about things.
I had some questions about various little aspects of the plot (what will Georgiana’s (Henry’s mother) reaction to West and Phoebe’s upcoming nuptials be??) but I’m hoping they’ll be at least mentioned in the next book (or books) and those loose ends will be wrapped up for me.
The narration, by Mary Jane Wells, was very good, with a wide range of accents and character voices utilised and her usual strong delivery of the emotions and tension of the story. However, there were times when the pacing was too fast and as a result, she seemed to stumble over her words a little. There were also some occasions, particularly in the earlier part of the book, where in a conversation one person’s dialogue was a lot louder. That may have been an editing/pick-up issue I suppose.
There were also some unusual pronunciations occasionally and a few times where the wrong character voice seems to have been used in a conversation. (Although I can’t be sure of that as I don’t have the print version so I could not check against the text.)
I still enjoyed the narration but I wasn’t as quite good as other performances I’ve heard from Ms Wells.
Where the narration particularly excelled was in the interactions between Phoebe and West and the audible display of their growing feelings for one another. I could hear them falling in love and it gave me all the feels.
Sure there were a few issues with the narration (though nothing huge) and I’d have liked an epilogue to bask in the glory a little more – the ending was far too fast, but overall Devil’s Daughter was pretty much a delight.
Kaetrin
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