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  • Sommersgate House

  • By: Kristen Ashley
  • Narrated by: Abby Craden
  • Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (50 ratings)
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Sommersgate House cover art

Sommersgate House

By: Kristen Ashley
Narrated by: Abby Craden
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Summary

Douglas Ashton is the cold and unfeeling owner of the gothic Victorian Mansion, Sommersgate House. Julia Fairfax is his stubborn American sister-in-law. After tragedy strikes, Douglas and Julia are forced to live together at Sommersgate and raise their newly orphaned nieces and nephew.

Douglas has no desire to raise his dead sister's children, nor does he want the distraction of the tempting Julia living under his roof. Julia is struggling with grief and trying to make a go in a new country without much help from impossibly handsome, but even more impossibly remote Douglas. Not to mention, she has to deal with the active hostility of Douglas's frosty, Attila-the-Hun-in-a-skirt mother, Monique. Douglas decides the best way to give the children what they need, get his mother to behave, and give himself what he wants is to marry Julia. When he tells her (yes, tells her) she will be his wife, Julia thinks Douglas is (probably) insane. And anyway, she's decided if she ever has another husband (since the last one wasn't so great), he was going to be short, balding, have a paunch, and worship the ground she walks on (none of these characteristics define Douglas in the slightest).

One more thing, Sommersgate House is haunted by the ghosts of the man who built the house and the woman who was the love of his life. They both died mysteriously at Sommersgate months after it was finished. When they did, a curse settled on the house, making it seem strangely alive. And the only way for the beautiful but frightening house to rid itself of this curse is for its owner to find true love.

©2016 Kristen Ashley (P)2016 Audible, Inc.

What listeners say about Sommersgate House

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A much better listen - Far fewer accents to murder!

Whilst the narrators is still lacking and rather irritating at times there are far fewer accents for her to murder and her natural speaking voice is very pleasant to listen to.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Welcome back 80s style romance

This book was like a throwback to romance novels of the 80s: Douglas, the arrogant English Baron, has the requisite wicked mother, cute parentless kids and loyal servants. They all live in the obligatory haunted mansion. Their lives are changed by arrival of perky American Julia, who is of course unimpressed by wealth and status and (shock, horror) is actually nice to the staff. Julia is, naturally, completely unaware of how beautiful she is and fails to understand how the arrogant Douglas can possibly want her. Douglas, on the other hand, straddles an uncomfortably fine line between seduction and coercion, and in true retro 80s fashion, has decided that Julia will make a “suitable” wife for him and is somewhat taken aback when she doesn’t instantly agree. Julia, meanwhile, is fighting her natural urge to swoon into his arms because she has fallen in love, of course, and it will hurt too much when he get bored with her.

One memorable seduction scene has the unwilling Julia physically trying to push Douglas away and my recollection of her verbal reaction is as follows “No…No…No….No…Stop it…No…Don’t kiss me…Stop…Please stop….No…No…No…You bast***…No….No…” How times have changed! Hundreds of years of womens’ liberation felled in one passionate embrace as she did, naturally, succumb to his passion – eventually. “Protection” was only thought of after the event, with pregnancy being discussed as the only possible consequence and both ignoring the fact that her ex- husband was unfaithful and Douglas had a reputation as a womaniser.

I have to admit to being bored with the audio version of this book, probably because I cannot “skim read” thru the tedious bits. The narrator tried hard but the voices for the kids were distractedly awful. I also disliked Julia, who had actually had a pretty good life but somehow was “damaged” by having an absentee father and verbally abusive husband; I guess I prefer my book heroines to be a bit tougher. Douglas also was apparently “damaged” by neglectful parenting but again, I found it difficult to sympathise. There was a weird subplot with Douglas being James Bond in his spare time, and a fairly decent haunting storyline. The epilogue stretched way into the future which I guess may not appeal to some readers but I did enjoy this part.

This is not a bad book, and I do remember enjoying the kindle version, but I found everything a bit much of a book cliché and the narration really spoiled this audio version

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

English accents....

If I'm being picky the English accents were not great and put me off a bit but I love this story so it was still worth listening

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Being a bully is OK if you give your victim gifts.

No Option For ZERO stars.
The Hero is an abusive man who picks on a woman he decides he is going to marry, despite her trying to keep him at arms length. He forbids her from talking with, or writing to other men.

The Heroine is a wet drip who despite her protestations allows the man to 'make love' to her.

What do we learn from this story?
1) when a woman says no, just push harder, she really means yes.
2) Its OK to be a bullying abusive man as long as you can buy your victims jewellery. (my Mother had a name for that kind of woman).

What happened to 'Me Too' ?

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Terrible narration

The story is ok, but not helped by a very disjointed, narration, sometimes so awkward that it left the sentences meaningless

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • de
  • 02-08-19

well worth a read

Little ruby is my favourite character, her zeal and strength for a 4 year old . This is a story of grief, abuse and love. by coming to terms with these feelings and accepting them for all the main characters. Douglas is a wonderful character, his strength and vulnerability shows through the whole novel, but with masculine ability not to show his emotions.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Lovely Classic KA

Wow read this on Kindle years ago, loved it then , pure KA alpha goodness,
Wonderful to listen too !
epilogue excellent as usual.

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