Lady Osbaldestone’s Christmas Intrigue
Series: The Lady Osbaldestone's Christmas Chronicles, Book 4
By: Stephanie Laurens / Narrated By: Helen Lloyd
Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
Wellllll… at least I’m not mourning the End of these toooo terribly much…
While there’s a kinda sorta Fifth Book out, there’s NO WAY I was going to listen to it. Cuz it’s of Lady O’s granddaughter Melissa grown up and getting together, quite carnally, with her childhood beau, and ICK!!! Who wants THAT?!?
So I was afraid that this fourth book in the series, where Jamie, George and Lottie would be coming to spend the weeks leading up to Christmas with their grandmother, Therese, Lady Osbaldestone, in the village of Little Moseley might be too, well, freaking SAD. You know, the final Hurrah in what has been an unutterably charming series. In the three books prior, they’ve been sleuthing SOMEthing, all the while unwittingly assisting Lady O in her matchmaking pursuits. Some lovely individuals becoming lovely, absolutely aDORable couples. Such humor, such charm.
Pure fun, wonderfully delightful!
This one?
Uhm, not quiiiiiiite….
Lady O’s grown (And unmarried) son, Christopher, has had to hotfoot it outta London as his occupation as a Secret Agent for the Foreign Office has been compromised. Enemy agents have sussed his identity out, and with peace fiiiiiinely in the balance (Think Wellington on Napoleon’s heels), he must be kept safe at all costs. What better place to go than tiny Little Moseley where strangers would be noticed? And where his keen-eyed mater can keep a watch?
There. That’s it. That this has Christmas Intrigue in the title? Well, yeh. That’s the bulk of this. Meetings, shady neighbors, anonymous individuals with skin in the diplomatic game. And one young woman, firmly on the shelf at the ripe old age of 28, hot on Christopher’s heels. Christopher is trying desperately to avoid her what with him being one of the most sought after Bachelors, like, EVER.
>YAWN<
And Jamie, George and Lottie are growing up, so they’re settling down and are not as whimsically enjoyable as they once were. Further? They suss out waaaay more than the adults around them who are sent to keep Christopher safe, than the adults who are s’posed to be In Hiding, protecting their identities. It’s just eye-roll inducing how the adults come to THEM for information. It’s all very Yeah-Right-ish.
None of the lovely musings of Lady O; Christopher is far too serious (And DENSE!); our spinster-ish heroine is somewhat dull.
Where’s the charm?
Narrator Helen Lloyd is topnotch as usual. But the characters aren’t lively in the least, and this just drags, one disappointment after another.
I’d re-listened to Book 3 right before this, just to ground m’self in Little Moseley and the laughter and joy of Christmas in the village, and it was sooooo delightful. The characters were charming, and the mystery was beguiling and well-done. But this?
No, I s’pose it’s nowhere near granddaughter Melissa Doing The Dirty most graphically on her wedding night. But it WAS enough of a letdown that I can honestly say, and FEEL, that I’m okay with the series ending. The children are getting so old that they need to adopt the manners befitting their stations, so they ain’t gonna be all merry and carefree anymore, so there’s no hope of a return to the jolliness, the free-spirited joys of the first three stories.
So? DONE.
Time to find a new Christmas series…? Oh, I doooo hope to stumble across some…!!!
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