It Takes Two to Tumble by Cat Sebastian

Narrated by Joel Leslie

I enjoyed reading Cat Sebastian’s It Takes Two to Tumble when it was published back in 2017, so naturally, I was pleased to see it make its way into audio with the always reliable Joel Leslie at the helm. It’s the first book in the Seducing the Sedgwicks series about a group of siblings who had a very unconventional upbringing in a household comprising their father – a poet and advocate of free love – his wife and his mistress and various hangers-on. Things were fairly chaotic; the Sedgwick offspring had mostly to fend for themselves and as they grew to adulthood, the eldest, Benedict, shouldered the responsibility for looking out for his brothers. It’s an engaging story in which the parallels with The Sound of Music are impossible to miss (country-vicar-meets-grouchy-sea-captain-with-unruly-children) in spite of the absence of Dame Julie Andrews and ‘Do, Re, Mi’!

Benedict Sedgwick is content with his ordered, comfortable and ordinary life as vicar of the parish of St. Aelred’s in Cumberland. He’s liked and respected by his parishioners, he has a secure living and is engaged to marry Alice Crawford, a young woman he’s known since childhood and whose parents have been more mother and father to Benedict than his own have been. Alice is his best friend and Benedict loves her dearly; she’ll make him a splendid wife, even though he doesn’t feel the slightest spark of physical desire for her. But many couples marry without being in love, and he’ll be a good and faithful husband, the knowledge that he’s attracted to men rather than women an ill-defined desire he’s learned to suppress and – mostly – ignore.

Captain Philip Dacre has spent most of his life at sea and returns to England as infrequently as possible. The closer he gets to home, the more the long-buried feelings of inadequacy he rarely feels whilst at sea start to close in on him. Owing to a learning disability, he is unable to read and write, something he is able to hide fairly well aboard ship, but the thought of having to deal with all the paperwork that goes along with maintaining his home and estate fills him with dread. Until two years before, his wife Caroline ran things in his absence, but this is the first time Philip has been to England since her death and he has no idea what to expect. For a man used to being in charge and having everything under control, it’s a daunting prospect. In addition to this, he’s still grieving the death, just over a year earlier, of a fellow officer he clearly loved, and he also has no idea what to do about his three children (Edward, thirteen, and James and Margaret, nine), who are, according to his sister, a bunch of ill-disciplined hellions who terrorise the neighbourhood and have run off countless governesses.

Ben and Philip don’t hit it off to start with; Philip thinks the vicar is letting the children run wild, and Ben thinks Philip is overly stern and unbending, but before long they’re coming to realise that their initial impressions were wrong, and the stirrings of attraction that have been rumbling beneath the surface begin to grow stronger. Ms. Sebastian does a great job of building the sexual tension between them through lingering, heated looks and accidental and not-so-accidental touches, but I did feel that they went from dislike to acting on their mutual attraction a bit too quickly, even though I did enjoy listening to the brooding, taciturn Philip fall – sometimes begrudgingly – under the spell of the sunny-natured vicar. It’s perhaps a bit of a stretch to believe that a member of the clergy at this point in time could accept his sexuality without a crisis of conscience, but it makes sense given Ben’s bohemian upbringing, and I’m choosing to believe that there were open-minded, enlightened men like him around. He’s someone whose faith is love and for whom doing actual good within the parish by visiting the sick and helping those in need is every bit as important as what he preaches from the pulpit.

I liked Ben and Philip, who are strongly characterised, three-dimensional individuals, and I enjoyed the story, although the author does overegg the pudding by cramming in too many under-developed sub-plots and contrivances. Philip’s children, for instance, are rehabilitated extremely quickly, the problem of Ben’s engagement to Alice is very easily and conveniently dealt with, and the ending is a little too pat. But even with those criticisms I enjoyed the story, which is enhanced considerably by a wonderfully warm and engaging performance from Joel Leslie, someone I always enjoy listening to.

Mr. Leslie’s smooth tones are easy on the ear, his narration is well paced and he differentiates effectively between all the characters, using a variety of tone and accent to portray them according to gender, age and station. The deep, slightly gruff note in Philip’s voice works well to depict him as older and somewhat world-weary, and contrasts well with Ben’s lighter, gentler tone – although there were a couple of times when their voices sounded too similar and I needed the dialogue tags to work out who was speaking. The crackling chemistry between the leads is conveyed extremely well, and Mr. Leslie imbues their connection with true warmth and affection, which helped quite a lot when it came to accepting the speed with which Ben and Philip fall for each other. His characterisation of the children is good, too, their voices pitched in higher registers (but not too high) and sounding just the right degree of “childlike”; and I especially liked his portrayal of Alice, whose warm, witty and no-nonsense nature is captured perfectly.

It Takes Two to Tumble isn’t without its faults, but is ultimately a charming and engaging story about finding love in unexpected places and learning to accept that we all need a little help sometimes.

Caz