Happily Bedded Bliss by Tracy Anne Warren

Narrated by Charlotte Anne Dore

I enjoyed Happily Bedded Bliss when I read it a couple of months ago and was looking forward to listening to the audiobook version. The previous book in the series, The Bedding Proposal, boasted both an unusual and deliciously angsty storyline and was also excellently narrated by Barrie Kreinik. I had been hoping for more of the same, but for some inexplicable reason, Tantor has used a different narrator for this second book. I have only listened to Charlotte Anne Dore once before – her lacklustre narration more or less ruined Sherry Thomas’ My Beautiful Enemy – but I believe in giving people a second chance, just to see if maybe I was having a bad day when listening, or if they have improved. I can’t remember what sort of mood I was in when I listened to My Beautiful Enemy, but I’m afraid that Ms Dore’s performance here is every bit as uninspiring as it was the last time I listened to her, and her narration has completely ruined what is, in print, an enjoyable, well-developed romance.

The premise is simple and uses one of my favourite tropes – that of two people who are compromised into marriage and have to find a way to adjust to their new situation. At just twenty, Lady Esme Byron is the baby of the large Byron family, and as such is indulged by her eldest brother, the Duke of Clybourne, who has promised that she will be allowed to choose her own husband rather than have to make a bloodless, dynastic match. That decision is taken away from her however, when, on one of her frequent and long rambles, she strays onto the neighbouring estate and sees a gorgeous, naked man emerging from a lake. Desperate not to be caught spying, she remains where she is until he falls asleep – and immediately, her artist’s eye is caught. As a young, unmarried woman, she is never likely to get another opportunity to draw such a beautiful specimen from life, and she can’t resist sketching him, even though she knows she will be ruined if she is caught.

And of course, in the way of the best laid plans, her scheme to keep the sketch hidden fails miserably and spectacularly, when it is inadvertently shown to a large gathering of family and guests. After that, there is only one thing to be done. Esme’s brothers all march over to the see the man in question to demand that he do the right thing by their sister.

Gabriel Landsdowne, Lord Northcote, is acquainted with the youngest two male Byrons, Leo and Lawrence, as he lives next door to them in London. He is certain, however, that he has never even met their sisters, let alone debauched one of them, so is at a complete loss as to why they are all glowering at him and demanding a quick wedding.

When Gabriel finally meets Esme and discovers her to be lovely, intelligent and quick-witted, he thinks that perhaps he might not have made such a bad bargain after all. The couple marries within a few days, and then departs for Gabriel’s estate where they spend an idyllic few weeks making passionate love and getting to know each other better. Gabriel is wonderfully supportive of Esme’s artistic talent and her dedication to taking care of wounded animals, and she comes to see that her previous fears about marriage – that a man would curb her spirit and independence – were unfounded. But the longer they spend together, the more Esme senses that Gabriel is holding something of himself apart from her, a wounded, jaded part of himself that seems to be waiting for her to find him unworthy and reject him.

Gabriel is one in a long line of heroes who has forsworn love because of the circumstances of his past, which were truly unpleasant. A love-affair gone wrong only served to reinforce his belief that love was not for him, but while his actions in trying to keep Esme at a distance might be rather stereotypical, hers are not, and I liked the way she worms herself into Gabriel’s heart and refuses to allow him to give up on himself or their marriage.

In print, Happily Bedded Bliss is a well-written, sensual and romantic story, but in audio it’s a disaster.

Even when reviewing a narration I don’t like, I try to find something positive to say, but that’s a tough ask here. I suppose I can say that Ms Dore has a pleasant speaking voice, and that she performs Esme reasonably well, but that’s about it. Her performance of Gabriel is disappointing to say the least; he doesn’t sound at all masculine or even remotely attractive, and because she doesn’t lower the pitch of her voice much – or at all – in order to portray him, it is sometimes difficult to hear the difference between his dialogue and her narration. In the early scene in which Gabriel is confronted by six, large, angry Byron men, she is able to differentiate between some of them, but not all, and her portrayal of the oldest brother is utterly laughable. He’s supposed to be a suave, handsome, authoritative forty year old man, yet he sounds like the rotund, pompous comic relief.

Most of the problems, however, are to do with the pacing – which is too slow – and with the fact that both narrative and dialogue are almost completely devoid of any natural rhythm and inflection, giving Ms Dore’s delivery a robotic quality. In fact, I could probably write down her speech patterns using simple musical notation because her delivery is so very mechanical.

And this leads me to the biggest problem of all, which is the overwhelming sense of emotional detachment I experienced while listening. I didn’t feel as though Ms Dore was at all involved in the story, and as a result, I wasn’t interested in it either. This detachment communicates itself to the listener very quickly – within the first few minutes – and I will admit that I found myself zoning in and out throughout the listen, simply because there was absolutely nothing in the performance to engage me.

The love scenes are absolutely horrible and there is no hint whatsoever of the sexual chemistry that is so strongly present between the couple in the book and… I could go on, but basically, the audio version of Happily Bedded Bliss is a masterclass in how to ruin a perfectly good story.

I know that when it comes to narration, one man’s meat is another man’s poison and that everyone has their own personal preference. But surely the one thing a narrator of romance absolutely MUST possess is the ability to imbue their performances with the requisite emotional substance so that they can draw the audience into becoming invested in the central relationship. A romance without emotion isn’t a romance at all. In fact, if you take away the actual words and just listen to the tone of Ms Dore’s voice, the rhythm of her speech and her vocal inflection, you’d think she was reading an instruction manual.

I hate being so negative about a book I liked and about an audio publisher who has done so much to promote and grow the market for romance audiobooks. But they’ve made a serious error of judgement with this, and I don’t anticipate listening to this narrator ever again. I have given the story the same grade I gave the book because it’s unfair to penalize an author for something over which she has no control. Had I not read the book first, I suspect this audio would have been a DNF.

Caz

Narration: F

Book Content: B

Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in

Violence Rating: None

Genre: Historical Romance

Publisher: Tantor Audio

Happily Bedded Bliss was provided to AudioGals by Tantor Audio for a review.