A Christmas Courting
By: Jennifer Moore, Chalon Linton, Jen Geigle Johnson, Heidi Kimball / Narrated By: Aubrey Warner
Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
Pretty sure the stories are this side of lame, but DANG is the narration what makes this an atrocity, or what?!
I downloaded A Christmas Courting for this week’s/this year’s Listening, and imagine my surprise when I discovered that the app went to my last listened to spot. Whazzis? I’d started it some time before and gave up on it? Whyyyyy on earth did I do that?
Oh gosh, cuz o’ the narration, as I imMEDiately found out. Seriously, this is s’posed to be a quartet of Regency Christmas stories, Regency as in: ENGLAND, and narrator Aubrey Warner is unabashedly American.
Cripes, took me right outta the stories. But I’ll get to Warner’s performance in a second, and I’ll just give ya a heads up as to the four tales.
First one is about a family of orphans spending Christmas at the estate of one of the Ton; this gentleman is stodgy and ill-tempered about it cuz his family knew tragedy around the time of the Holidays yeeeears earlier. He shouts and grouses, but when he realizes that his grieving mum saw fit to invite them? Well, he and the beautiful eldest of the orphaned bunch make a pact: With so much grief meant in this time of year, the two will make concerted efforts to Make The Season Merry and Bright. …yawn…
Second one is mightily yawn-inducing. First, damsel Keturah (Named cuz obviously her parents are into Hebrew?) is totally smitten with the childhood pal who’ll be spending Christmas with her and her family as he seeks to win the hand of his lady love. Oh Noooo! Can Keturah (Yikes!) possibly let him go, help him as he attempts to woo the unspecified young woman? …could NOT get past the name… and the narration was appalling, and I’ll deal with THAT in a bit…
Third? I’m getting bored with this, so I’ll combine third and fourth, shall I? THIRD—a young woman tainted by scandal has to deal with loss as she’s been forced to give up on the newly-minted and returned to England Duke who was ALSO a childhood pal. FOURTH—’NOTHER childhood pal proposes to, and is spurned by, his bud who sloooowly realizes that dude! why on earth did she diss him, and gosh how attractive he is now that there’s another girl in the picture… NOW onto the narration cuz it was truly atrocious that an American was chosen.
Okay, like, Warner reads totally as an American but then dons a Brit accent for the dialogue. EGADS, just get a Brit for freak’s sake. -AND- in the fourth story, the Hero is named Gerard… If you’re British, that’s GERard, okay? Warner says GERard when the characters are talking but then falls back on the American GerARD for the main narrative, like Americans wouldn’t be able to understand GERard or something. Good cow!
Just UBER silly, a reprehensible choice as an English narrator usually ups my Yes Factor, but here there’s an absoLUTE DEARTH of charm to be had. Ho-hum stories with farrrr toooo much of an emphasis on the childhood buddies trope left me sooo bored (And annoyed, can you tell?).
Oh Jiminy H. Freaking Cricket, could NOT get m’ Regency Romance Ya-Yas out on this one. Lemme help ya out on this one with a reSOUNding Oh Gosh Nooooo!!!
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