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The Bargain

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About this listen

Forced to wed to keep her inheritance, independent Lady Jocelyn Kendal finds an outrageous solution: she proposes marriage to Major David Lancaster, an officer dying from his Waterloo wounds. In return for making her his wife, she will provide for his governess sister. But after the bargain is struck and the marriage is made, the major makes a shocking, miraculous recovery. Though they agree to an annulment, such matters take time...time enough for David to realize he is irrevocably in love with his wife. Haunted by her past, Jocelyn refuses to trust the desire David ignites in her. She never counted on a real husband, least of all one who would entice her to be a real wife. But some bargains are made to be broken - and his skilled courtship is impossible to resist....

©All Mary Jo Putney (P)All Mary Jo Putney Fiction Historical Historical Fiction Regency Regency Romance Romance Marriage
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Most relevant
Whilst I agree with many others that the narrator isn’t the best, especially distinguishing between male/female voices, let alone the various females. Personally I didn’t find the various accents too offensive although they’re perhaps as weak as the overall narrating.

That said, I don’t think the narrating was any worse than if we were reading to ourselves..! But then part of what we like of an audiobook IS the voices. But despite it all I enjoyed the story well enough

Ignore the narrator, the story is worth it

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I very much enjoyed the story and plot - I would have loved the book to go on for much longer when finally the two most important characters realise that they belong to each other!!

THE NARRATOR DOES A VERY GOOD JOB and I feel sorry that so many here leave such bad remarks regarding the narrator…

Listen into the trial section and judge for yourself…

You will enjoy the story and the way it is presented!!!

Most enjoyable

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Would you try another book written by Mary Jo Putney or narrated by Emma Newman?

I like this story and I've enjoyed other titles by this author, but I won't be listening to Emma Newman again, I'm afraid. Her performance is flat and emotionless and there is practically zero differentiation between the characters (the men and women basically sound the same, apart from the few characters to whom Ms Newman gives dodgy regional accents) and there is no difference between narration and dialogue.

Would you be willing to try another one of Emma Newman’s performances?

Sorry, but no, for the reasons I've given above.

Any additional comments?

Audible - if you want to cut down on the number of returns you receive because of poor narration, you really need to start thinking hard about the way you select samples for this site, and stop just running it through a computer programme which just gives us the first few minutes. We need to hear a selection of character voices (hero and heroine especially if it's a romance), which are rarely found within the first few pages of any book.

Poor narration ruins a good book

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