A Worthy Wife
By: Barbara Metzger / Narrated By: Pippa Rathborne
Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins
LOVE B. Metzger -BUT- this ain’t her best… still? Pretty sure she ain’t capable o’ duds!!!
Here’s the thing—Life is coming at me HARD! with all sorts o’ Change on the Horizon (Like, imMEDiately!). Now, this Change is vastly welcome, but, that said? Change is hard, y’all, and the BEST way I’ve found to deal with that? Dude! a Regency Romance. That said? A Barbara Metzger/Pippa Rathborne combo is usually certain to give me a Take Me Away From All This experience.
Metzger’s specialty is the Farcical Romp, with everything, the Kitchen Sink! thrown in, and said Romp is simply packed with ridiculous situations, fun and funny side characters, hilarious quips… AND… suggestive and downright BAWDY innuendo which Rathborne always delivers perfectly, in just the right way so as to inspire a mildly shocked (Remember: I’m a Prude!) and delighted guffaw.
So I went into A Worthy Wife with high expectations, which is NEVER a good thing as far as Reality goes.
I was okay with this one, but I gotta tell ya: Yeh yeh yeh, there were outrageous occurrences galore, outrageous side characters out the wazoo, there was the outrageously bold language, but… At only 8 1/2 hours? It totally felt rushed.
Now, this had me pondering, was Metzger getting lazy? So I hot-footed it over to check Publication Date and found that A Worthy Wife lands just in between some o’ my very faves of hers. So, dunno—p’raps she just had a deadline to meet…?
Aurora Halle McPhee, a young lady of minor Gentry, is all agog, thrilled with her very great good fortune to be just aboooouuut to wed her dashing Harland Podell. All is going swimmingly when along comes the whole: Does anyone know why these two shall not wed; let them speak now or forever hold their peace. And nooo, that is NOT Aurora’s loving heart hammering; rather? It’s the ridiculously loud striding footsteps of one Kenyon Warriner, Earl of Windham. He does INDEED have a reason as it turns out Podell is already married to his sister, and at least one other woman besides. Chaos, bedlam, and Aurora bending over to Cast Up Her Accounts in as ladylike a fashion as is possible… but not before braining Podell with one o’ the flower vases.
As Aurora has shouted, “But I shall be ruined!!!” during this fiasco, the pragmatic Windham, who requires a wife but is too lazy to look for one, chivalrously steps in and gives her but an hour to decide whether she’d like to wed HIM -OR- if she’s just gonna hang around, wallow in the certain scandal… you know: Fun Regency Mores.
And so begins Metzger’s crafting of farcical happenings, odd-duck characters, and a miscommunication between Hero and heroine that runs the entirety of the story.
But you see, it’s all too easy. And Metzger’s usual genius for the Farcical Romp is that she takes her sweet time developing characters and absurd happenings so we see WHY the characters behave as they do, and just HOW the nonsensical events actually DO make sense. Further, the romance? Seriously, that miscommunication coulda been dealt with in a single discussion between Windham and Aurora, so that winds up being not so much Urgent as it is Mildly Annoying.
Worst? Metzger’s usual penchant for believable character arcs is kinda sorta sorely lacking here. Windham from the get-go is good-natured (Aside from one post-nuptials Consent Scene that left me deeply uncomfortable), and Aurora morphs from Shocked and A Tad Twittery to Assertive and Uber Competent.
Now, all this grousing might leave you thinking that I didn’t enjoy myself, when it’s well nigh imPOSsible to dislike B. Metzger esPECially when Pippa, Dear Pippa, is narrating. Her perfection in understanding each and every character is ALWAYS evident, and her delivery of all Ribald Remarks NEVER ceases to coax, at the very leeeeaast: A chuckle, a chortle, a guilty giggle, if not the flat-out belly laugh. Her voices for all Heroes are swoon-worthy; her rendition of heroines growing into themselves always inspires a Stand Up And Cheer Moment (Or two, or three!). And she just seems like she enjoys narrating a Barbara Metzger Confection.
So, Not The BEST I’ve listened to, but still: It was truly a delightful way to while away 8 1/2 hours. And it CERtainly was a vaaaastly preferable manner of getting through Change… you know, by AVOIDING it altogether…!
NOTHING better than a Regency Romance for that; they are truly m’ Stress Remedy O’ Choice!!!
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