Felicity and the Damaged Reputation

By: Alicia Cameron / Narrated By: Helen Taylor

Length: 8 hrs and 22 mins

An almost too sweet heroine, but the plethora of Happily Ever Afters ALWAYS gets me!

One thing I think you should know, or p’raps you’re already aware of it: When you get old(er), that beer you’re itching for does NOT give you a delightful buzz or make you all giddy and giggly. No, dear Accomplice: One gets bloated, belches in a MOST unfortunate manner, feels full, gets a headache to beat aaaaallll headaches, and, well, it’s just not pleasant.

I’m telling you this for a reason, and it’s like this, see: I’d just finished St. Paddy’s Day Listens, and Irish authors? Dunno what it is about them but what with all This Year’s spousal abuse, murder, death by famine? Well good golly gosh, I danged sooo wanted a beer after the reviews, like, BAD!

UnFORtunately, ‘tis not to be, what with me getting on in years and being all squeamish about belching in public. What to do, what to do.

Wellll, the next best mind-cleanser is a Regency Romance! Huzzah!

Now, I’d also just finished an absolutely gut-wrenching audiobook about a grunt’s experiences in Vietnam, so I knew it couldn’t be just any old Regency. I could NOT risk listening all tra la la la only to get hit upside the head with passion and steam and just general Ick-ishness that’d make m’ poor toes curl in agonized embarrassment. This left me scrolling around and lo and behold, wouldn’t ya know it? Alicia Cameron’s newest, and fourth, addition to The Fentons Series was released on March 11th! Huzzah!

Off to listen to the second in the series! Oh DOUBLE HUZZAH!

But it’s like this, I’d tried listening to Felicity and the Damaged Reputation some time ago, and? Holy cow, I fell asleep. And I don’t think I’d even downed a truckload of sugar that I could blame it on. So tho’ I was delighted and excited to give it a go again, I was a trifle leery and hesitant. I do NOT like to be disappointed…

Young Felicity’s papa has kicked the bucket, and her self-absorbed twin sisters won’t take her in. Without a dowry, and pretty much sans even a shilling or two, she’s off to London where she’s to apply as a governess for a decent-to-do family. On the way, at a stop along the stagecoach journey, she’s abducted! It’s nothing nefarious, just a grim gentleman who wants her to pretend to be his young cousin so that he might finish up the purchase for her (The cousin’s) new home. All goes well, Felicity is taken back to resume her journey, but then! It turns out she shan’t Do At All, and she’s not given the position of governess. Did I mention that she’s broke? Yes?

Soon she’s accosted, then she’s waylaid and almost sold into slavery, and soon she’s abducted again, this time by Aurora and Wilbert Fenton, two of the best characters from Book One of the Series. And right here I should add that Helen Taylor starts us off loving Felicity because as the young girl is adding up all the nasty doings, she not crestfallen, she’s whazzaaa? DeLIGHTed? Taylor adds a gurgle of laughter as Felicity lists it all off and finds she couldn’t be more excited, such adventures! This will all go with Taylor’s ability to add tears as characters speak, grins to cheeky bon mots, and sneers to go with petty slights. Brava!

Soon, Felicity is ensconced in her crotchety Aunt’s home where she’s ignored by the woman (Aurora had to shaaaame her into taking Felicity) but finds a true and lovely friend in Aunt’s companion, the timid and somewhat retiring Miss Fleet.

All is going swimmingly with Felicity spending her days with Aurora, shopping for glorious gowns and dresses and pelisses and boots and gloves, never knowing it’s the Fentons who are lovingly footing the bill. She shops by day then talks exciting novels at night with the good Miss Fleet.

But things cannot last as she’s spied having such fun with her new companions (Here Benedict and Genevieve, also from Honoria and the Family Obligation plus the wounded Sloan) as they dance on a terrace. The niece of the grim gentleman (Durant, as we’ve come to know him) who abducted her, sneers and tells the mean-spirited friend she’s with about Felicity jaunting off in a carriage, unchaperoned, like the lowest female of the low.

DAMAGED! Felicity’s reputation, since she canNOT refute the charge, is in tatters. And the rest of the book is of the girl surviving as those who love her, esPECially Aurora and Wilbert who’ve come to think of her as the daughter they’d always wished for, kick into overdrive with schemes and machinations to save her.

This could all go away if only Durant would offer for her but, alas, he’s secretly engaged to one Anne Clarence who will come more into the story for the latter part. Mostly, this is a tale of good friendships and a very sweet girl.

She’s almost too sweet, and I started wondering if maybe I’d wandered into a saccharine story, but it’s saved by the wit and charm of the writing. Cameron doesn’t say a young girl blushes; no, she “rouges”. And some gentlemen who might be on the unsavory side have large-jawed feral looks to their faces. Plus, as Taylor’s narration comes to the fraught ending where EVERYthing is hitting the fan and there are a million (and six) characters in one place, the banter is lively even as it’s delightfully confusing. The best part was Anne and her friend the curate Joyce watching it all from the sidelines, tickled to death to see such dramatic and utterly ridiculous goings-on.

This is all further enlivened by the fact that no Cameron book would be complete without several other characters forming their own attachments throughout as it all evolves so that we have many Happily Ever Afters. So charming, the curate, the wounded soldier, Benedict who is now a man, his soul scarred after seeing too much at war.

Does this sound like too much? It’s actually not; it was just enough to keep me engaged and thinking that I MUST’ve downed a lot of sugar to make me doze off during my first listening attempt. It’s not my favorite of Cameron’s, Felicity is a little too sweet (She always ends up comforting those who set out to comfort her), and our Hero Durant is a bit of a toad (No offense to toads) in that he truuuuuly doesn’t think before he acts, showing such a disregard for his fellow man (Or woman!) that I couldn’t comPLETEly get onboard with him, and theirs is a verrrrry slow-building romance.

But hey! If the servants are on Felicity’s side then she’s a grand heroine to me. I’m still all devastated by Jo Baker’s Longbourn where we see just how miserably the servants BelowStairs suffer, so I was all-in for our heroine really thanking the butlers and footmen and lady’s maids and so forth.

Nope, I couldn’t have a beer to soothe my wounded soul this year, but I COULD dip into a fine Regency.

I’m calm now, and do note: I’m not belching in a MOST unfortunate manner…!