The Bachelor by Sabrina Jeffries

Narrated by Beverley A. Crick

The Bachelor is book two in Sabrina Jeffries’ Duke’s Dynasty series, which features the offspring of a duchess who was married three times, to three different dukes. I’d planned to review book one, Project Duchess, when it came out last year, but problems with my review copy meant I wasn’t able to finish it; I do think there are overarching plotlines relating to a mystery begun in book one, but those don’t come into play here until fairly late on and don’t have any real bearing on the central storyline or romance.

I’ve read and listened to a number of books by this author and have enjoyed them, but unfortunately, I can’t say the same of The Bachelor, which is short on plot, shorter on romantic chemistry and long on boredom.

The heroine of this book is Lady Gwyn Drake, twin sister of the Duke of Thornstock and the only female of the duchess’ five children. Gwyn and her brother have spent most of their lives in Berlin and returned to England only recently; she is thirty-years-old and doesn’t expect to marry, but as the sister of a newly-minted duke, is preparing to make her début in London society. When the book opens, she has agreed to meet with a former… er… acquaintance, Lionel Malet, in response to the letter he sent demanding money to keep quiet about the secrets which could ruin her good name. It’s not explicitly stated at this stage what those secrets are, but it’s easy to guess.

Her meeting is witnessed by Joshua Wolfe, a Major in the Royal Marines who, owing to a leg injury, is currently working as gamekeeper on the estate of his (and Gwyn’s) cousin, the Duke of Armitage. He intervenes when Malet’s behaviour becomes threatening and then escorts Gwyn home; when they arrive and Joshua makes her brother aware of what he saw – even though Gwyn had asked him not to – Thornstock has the brilliant idea of asking Joshua to accompany them when they remove to London and act as Gwyn’s bodyguard. Gwyn is not at all keen – she had hoped, once in London, to be able to sneak away in order to meet with Malet to give him the money he’s demanded – but can’t find a way to refuse. And Joshua has his own reasons for wanting to go to London, so even though he suspects there is something either Thornstock or his sister aren’t telling him, he agrees to the duke’s request.

And that’s pretty much the entire plot. There are TWENTY-SIX chapters in this book (including prologue and epilogue), and what I’ve described takes place in the first chapter. Once Gwyn and Joshua arrive in London, he foils what may have turned into an attempt to kidnap her, but otherwise not much happens, other than lots of mental lusting and a fair amount of snogging, fondling, groping and shagging. Oh, and then we have “If he discovers my secret, he will abandon me forever!” on Gwyn’s part and “I am but a lowly half-pay officer and am not worthy of the lady” on Joshua’s (even though he’s a duke’s grandson). I didn’t feel any connection or chemistry between Gwyn and Joshua, and while I do love a grumpy hero, I didn’t like the way he kept ‘blaming’ Gwyn for the fact that he was attracted to her; at one point (after their first make-out session in the woods), he even accuses her of not really being interested in him and just using her “womanly wiles” on him so she can get her own way. And Gwyn was quite brattish at times for a woman in her early thirties.

Alrighty, then.

Beverley A. Crick is an excellent narrator and a personal favourite, but even her lively, intelligent performance couldn’t make listening to this less of a chore. Her pacing is just right, and she employs a good variety of timbre and accent to differentiate between all the characters, so it’s easy to identify them all without having to refer to the dialogue tags (or not very often, anyway). Joshua’s speech is appropriately gruff and has just a hint of a northern accent, which makes him easy to pick out, and the supercilious, nasal tone she gives to Malet makes him sound every bit the smarmy git he is. I always enjoy the amount of emotion and expression Ms. Crick injects into her performances, but whereas I’ve often said that poor narration can detract from a story, the reverse is rarely (if ever) true. I found the dullness of the story meant I kept zoning out (to discover not much had happened in the meantime!) which meant I never quite connected with the performance either.

Ms. Crick does her best, but even a narrator as talented as she is can’t disguise the stilted dialogue, tissue-thin plot, bland characters and lacklustre romance that comprise The Bachelor. Leave this one on the shelf.

Caz

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