Clarissa and the Poor Relations
By: Alicia Cameron / Narrated By: Heath Miller
Length: 5 hrs and 19 mins
After a failed first attempt? Here, this second Listen was awwwww, soooo nice!
Here’s the thing: Tho’ I recently re-listened to Georgette and the Unrequited Love and neeeed to Update the HECK outta that review to include a resounding: Boooooo, I gotta tell ya that I’m truly fond of Alicia Cameron’s frothy Regency delights. With Cameron, you’re usually in for not just the main romance but plenty of delightful side-characters developing through the story and winding up with their own Happily Ever Afters. What’s not to love? The more the merrier in my book.
So after discovering her wonderful writing with Honoria and the Family Obligation, I dashed, POSTHASTE! to see what-all else Cameron had put out. Clarissa and the Poor Relations? Charming name! charming premise! I was soooo THERE!
Alas, I’d also, in discovering how much I liked Cameron, discovered how much, how very much, I’d aDORed narrator Helen Taylor.
And this was NOT Helen Taylor narrating here. Noooo, it was >GASP< a dude! Heath Miller! Please believe me when I tell you that, early on, after purchasing this audiobook, I tried, I tell you! I really tried! to listen to Clarissa and the Poor Relations. But OY! how I missed Ms. Taylor, and I soon gave up.
Okay, so here’s where we get to the part where I just grew the heck up and gave Mr. Miller a fighting chance, or, well, a slight chance at the very least.
And I enjoyed this story well enough, indeed. If that doesn’t sound like high praise, well please consider: Helen Freaking Taylor is m’ danged high bar for judging Ms. Cameron’s works (Plus, Rafe Beckley did goshawfully well in his one foray with Cameron!).
Clarissa and her three companions who’ve taught and served at a progressive school for girls/young women are plum outta jobs with the death of Clarissa’s mama the year before. All are NOT looking forward to pursuing their only option: Each to become poor relations, dependent upon the goodwill and forbearance of relatives for their meager sustenance, and sure to be used and misused as unpaid help in the families.
NOT SO! Clarissa proclaims. Cuz she just inherited a shambling old, rickety falling-apart estate and house, and she’s determined all four of them shall travel there and shall make a Go of it all. Tho’ all are hesitant, really, what choice do they have? and p’raps it’ll be a trifle exciting… if they can make sure to keep the high-spirited Clarissa from blowing it all when she goes toe-to-toe with her demanding and imperious brother.
ImMEDiately the steward of the property makes all feel at home and welcome, and Clarissa, who can’t help but notice that he’s also really quite handsome, finds herself trusting him implicitly. And that one of this little quartet of companions is the incomparably gorgeous Oriana has the young bucks flocking to visit them. An old family friend of hers, the Earl of Grandiston, soon makes himself and his chums at home, and it all elevates the class of visitors the friends have.
This class of the elites has Clarissa’s brother coming for an exteeeended visit, and it attracts his ODIOUS wife’s attentions as well. Soon all is going helter skelter, and Clarissa is sorely challenged to keep her tongue still. It’ll be yeeeears until she’s safely of age, and her brother would just dashed-well drag her back to the country and take over all her finances should she step even a toe out of line. Ahhh, if only she could find a husband… one she trusts… one whom will view her as an equal and would respect her opinions, her desires, her keen intelligence. And her sharp wit!
Heath Miller actually did quite well, despite m’ earlier woes and wails about him. Tho’ he doesn’t have the exACt perfect tones for an audiobook that is primarily women, he does jolly well indeed. And Cameron writes well enough, does engagingly witty dialogue, that wound up serving Miller’s style quite decently. Nooo, he ain’t no Taylor, and no, not Beckley either. But he solidly stands his ground as a capable narrator in his own right. I have no other Health Miller narrations in my Library, but I’d not turn away from another outing with him, esPECially if the audiobook happened to be on sale. On Sale? Oh yesssss!!!
At only a tad over 5-hours long, this was a real treat of a story, even tho’ I did wanna throttle Clarissa’s sister-in-law. But the witty banter had me charmed, the situations had me interested, and the characters were developed well and were engaging.
And this had NO Booooo! attached to it.
Yeh, gotta get back to Update that Older Review.
But I’m fairly certain that Clarissa and the Poor Relations was, if not a super duper knockout, then enticing, enjoyable, and really really sweet and fun!
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