Beatrice Goes to Brighton
Series: The Traveling Matchmaker, Book 4
By: Marion Chesney / Narrated By: Helen Lisanti
Length: 5 hrs and 31 mins
Okay, not my favorite thus far, but I do sooo love Miss Pym… and Benjamin!
Well, I’ve gotta just say Beatrice Goes to Brighton was just a bit of a letdown after the unbridled sweetness and merriment and drama of Penelope Goes to Portsmouth which seemed to have looooads of everything that I like.
This, Book Four of The Traveling Matchmaker series, has two of my least favorite things: A Hero and heroine who initially despise each other. I mean, I know ya gotta start from somewhere, but loathing isn’t something I like listening to, especially when it swells into my second least favorite thing: Smoldering passion.
It’s like this, see. Lady Beatrice Marsham just became a free woman as the husband she’s hated has finally dropped dead after leading a dissipated life of drink and gambling. Alas, her parents have already sold her off to a high-bidder, a vile brute of a man. She fleeeees to Brighton, on the stagecoach, hoping that by the time she gets back to London, her parents will have changed their minds. Unfortunately, at 28-years old, she’s still young enough to breed an heir for the family fortune. So she’s miffed, and she really, really, REALLY haaaates men. Which is unfortunate as our Hero happens to be a Man.
Lord Alistair Munro, who helps Miss Pym after a stagecoach mishap and is delighted with her good nature and tales of extraordinary adventure, has heard of Beatrice and is disgusted with her. She was a shameless and heartless flirt all through her distasteful marriage, even made a friend of his fall in love with her before spurning the gentleman most cruelly after he declared his love for her. So he really, really, REALLY haaaates her.
To Hannah Pym, however, she thinks the two are well-suited and desperately tries to arrange things so that they’d see the best in each other. After all, in Miss Pym’s company, Beatrice finds her old warmth, her old laugh, finds new joys in the way Hannah sees the world. And to Miss Pym, Lord Alistair is all that is just and generous.
The book, though the beginnings of the romance are exasperating, is quite good because of everything that goes on surrounding those blighted starts and stops. Most important is that Benjamin, Hannah’s “deaf and dumb” footman actually has a voice. This she discovers as a booming cockney accented voice belts out vile admonishments at other stagecoach passengers who have been taunting and tormenting Miss Pym as being high-and-mighty. From there, Benjamin simply does NOT shut up; his new voice? Well, a confounded Hannah doesn’t know if it’s a good thing or a very very baaaad thing. Cuz most of what Benjamin says should NOT be repeated, and some of what Benjamin says gets Hannah into some truly embarrassing situations.
Say for instance, his telling a posh dressmaker that Hannah is really royalty traveling incognito; not only that, but she’s Prinny’s latest love (And I learned so much about Prinny from this week’s Prince of Pleasure!) , so can’t he just borrow the grand gown for a night, without paying, telling everyone that the Prince’s latest amour gets all her gowns from her? This leads Brighton Society to come barreling to her door, bowing and scraping, making an in-the-dark Hannah wonder what the heck is going on. Fortunately, it’s Lord Alistair to the rescue, leading to a meeting at a ball which leaves Hannah almost fainting with delight.
There are all sorts of adventures in this book as well. There are attempted kidnappings, attempted highway robberies.
And at the end of it all, as the journey ends with a Happily Ever After, spinster Hannah Pym returns to London, bursting with eagerness to tell of all these new adventures to Sir George Clarence. But Sir George has news of his own, leaving a heartbroken Hannah, who’d thought she was done with traveling, declaring to Benjamin that they need to leave, she must have time away.
So narrator Helen Lisanti leaves this book on tragic notes, but not before leaving the listener with all sorts of fun characters also. I will forever be grateful to her for the voice she gives to Benjamin as that cheeky footman, who behaves really quite shamelessly for a servant, supports Hannah and loyally follows her on to her next travels.
Ahhhh, and so it goes. To Book 5, fellow Accomplice; we’re off to Book 5!!!
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