A Scandalous Deception: A Regency Cozy
Series: Beatrice Hyde-Clare Mysteries, Book 2
By: Lynn Messina / Narrated By: Jill Smith
Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
Ahhh, Beatrice, you crazy git, you! A woman after my own heart!
It’s like this, see: In A Brazen Curiosity, Book 1 of the Beatrice Hyde-Clare Mysteries, Beatrice got all wily and spun a yarn to tease info outta a reluctant person. She said she was a star-crossed lover of a lowly law clerk, and it all didn’t end well. Did it get the info she was looking for?
…nooooot quiiiiite…
But it did start A Scandalous Deception off with a bang as now all Bea’s relatives think she’s jilted and lovelorn and they really really want her to see this guy again. They want to see him, thinking perhaps he’s just the sort of man Bea would fall for, and it’s driving Beatrice loony. Enter her next big idea: She’ll just off the imaginary guy.
So when she gets to the newspaper offices to submit an obituary for her imaginary lover, imagine her surprise when some rich dandy wobbles inside and drops dead at her feet, an ornate knife sticking out of his back.
Well, we know from Book 1 that Beatrice BLOSSOMS when a corpse has been found. She’s neither shy nor retiring, nor does she worry about every little thing that miiiiight come out of her mouth. And here it’s no different, once she decides the dead guy deserves to have his murder solved.
But how did, and why does, the Duke of Kesgrave turn up, over and over and over and OVER again? She’s but a spinster, orphaned and living with her aunt and uncle. She’s plain, has broad shoulders, has a disconcerting spray of freckles on her cheeks that she once thought might be considered dashing but were pronounced DRAB during her first Season.
Doesn’t matter. The book is one fantastic jaunt filled with some sleuthing, plenty of drop dead witty banter between Bea and Kesgrave, and a whole LOTTA Bea getting in major trouble with her family who wonder where the Quiet Bea Who Knew Her Place went.
But it’s just this vocal Beatrice that gets her noticed by her betters in Society, to the point where some even take her under their wing. Ahh, but can they be trusted? Everyone is a suspect or person of interest, and everyone comes under Bea’s ferocious, if sometimes ill-judged, scrutiny. And too bad Beatrice has a tendency of jumping in first, and thinking later. Usually, that type of character would annoy me, but Bea is so earnest and so clever (Dressing like a man, anyone?), that I found her charming and humorous instead.
Jill Smith does her usual spectacular job with narrating this, the second book, and if I thought she did male voices, particularly the Duke’s, well before? Here, she’s drop dead spot-on. His voice is still very much swoon-worthy, plus Smith captures the verrrrry subtly nuanced inflections of a Duke confused by his own actions, or a Duke who thinks he may very well have been offended. Then too, there’s a bit to die for where Bea simply LOATHES a person of interest, and after he scathingly trashes her, she finds herself unable to hold back words and goes on to taunt the blue blazes outta him, mocking, mocking, mocking him. She gets carried away, and we hear it in the way Smith narrates it, and it’s hilarious.
Don’t even go there, if you think I’m gonna take a break between Books and maybe listen to another genre or something different for my weekly Listening to Now bit. Noooooooo! Verily no, I say! It’s on to Book 3 of this marvelous series. What WILL Beatrice get up to next?!?!!!
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