Hot Listens (Romance Audiobooks): Surrender to the Devil #Audiobook Review

Audiobook Review

By: Lorraine Heath

Narrated by: Susan Ericksen

Published by: HarperCollins February 8, 2012

warm

Scoundrels of St. James Series # 3

8 hrs and 51 mins

Whispersync for Voice: Enable

A Devilish Duke on a Quest for Pleasure...

Frannie Darling was once a child of London's roughest streets, surrounded by petty thieves, pickpockets, and worse. But though she survived this harsh upbringing to become a woman of incomparable beauty, Frannie wants nothing to do with the men who lust for her, the rogues who frequent the gaming hall where she works. She can take care of herself and feels perfectly safe on her own-safe, that is, until he strides into her world, and once again it becomes a very dangerous place indeed.

To bed her but not wed her.

That's what Sterling Mabry, the eighth Duke of Greystone, wants. But Frannie abhors arrogant aristocrats interested only in their own pleasure. So why then does the thought of an illicit tryst with the devilish duke leave her trembling with desire? Her willing body begs for release . . . and a wicked, wonderful surrender.

©2009, 2011 Jan Nowasky (P)2012 HarperCollinsPublishers

I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about Susan Ericksen reading another book to me except one of the In Death series by Nora Roberts. However, once I let go of that, I really enjoyed her narration. Her diction is perfect and, as an amateur linguist, she can pull off both men’s and women’s voices smoothly. She has a delightful way of delivering children’s voices, too. Nevertheless, this one seems a little slow, so I increased the speed just a tad.

From the beginning I was pretty sure I was going to give this book three or three and a half stars; however, the last half of the book was just too wonderful and I had to kick it up a notch. I even cried, when I least expected it, not once, but twice. The Romance Master, Lorraine Heath knows how to write a Romance; that is why she can pull off changing a character from an unlikable fellow in the previous two books to a hero in this one. Ms. Heath does an admirable job of bringing the memorable fictional characters from Charles Dickens’ Victorian underworld to RomanceLandia.

Sterling Mabry, Duke of Greystone, isn’t a very likeable character. He hits on Frannie Darling right off the bat. While this is typical duke “sense of entitlement” behavior, which I usually love, I was shaking my head and rolling my eyes here. It isn’t that I loathed him; he just didn’t do “it” for me.

Until you get his history, watch his character development, see him open up to heroine and his environment. Then he became good enough for the kindhearted Frannie Darling.

In this third installment of Lorraine Heath’s Scoundrels of St. James series you learn just how kindhearted Frannie truly is. At one point her forgiveness quotient made me cry unexpected tears.

Loved the epilogue, too.