Narrator Steve West completes the author’s Frobisher stories with his best performance yet. Ship captain Royd Frobisher seeks a second chance with his handfast bride, Isobel Carmichael, as they travel to Freetown, West Africa, to rescue captives at a remote diamond mine. West parses the story’s lyrical language for maximum clarity. He expresses Royd’s aristocratic privilege with a sexy formality while maintaining the fluidity necessary for a natural conversational style. His voice for Isobel is feminine but not caricatured. West carefully balances Royd’s power and authority with Isobel’s independent nature, respecting Laurens’s portrayal of an equal partnership. Overall, West delivers a majestic reading, recounting moments of hand-to-hand combat as skillfully as he depicts nineteenth-century British formality. Listen to the entire series for a great audio love affair.
Pub Date: Dec. 27, 2016
Duration: 16 hrs, 15 mins
DD ISBN: 9781504779517
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
A model and a mogul get married in Vegas on a bet, and Diana Luke narrates their story with élan. While it would be easy to portray Leila Darling as a scheming caricature or Carter Bain as a ruthless businessman, Luke never crosses that line. Her portrayal of Leila is generous and encompasses the full range of her character--from the formidable professional at the top of her game to the vulnerable woman who is unsure if she can trust a man with her heart. Likewise, Luke's portrayal of Carter showcases both his business acumen and his emotional vulnerability as he opens himself up to Leila. While loosely connected to the previous Unconventional Brides volumes, this can easily stand alone.
Pub Date: N/A
Duration: 9 hrs
DD ISBN: 9781501968471
Publisher: Recorded Books Inc.
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
After her divorce, Roberta Jewett, with her three daughters, returns to Camden, Maine, to start a new life. Such an independent move in 1916 brings difficulties with her mother, her in-laws and the townspeople. Dukes's performance, while skillful, sometimes suffer in scenes of emotional content. His pace slows, and his reading acquires the peculiar emphasis of someone trying to get instructions across to a non-English-speaking person. The effect is disturbingly laughable. When he resumes his normal pace, the story revives and personalities emerge again, but the awkwardness remains as an odd interruption to Spencer's drama of pain and love, dispelling Dukes's carefully constructed characterizations.
Pub Date: N/A
Duration: 3 hrs
Publisher: Dove
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
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