Manners and Monsters

By: Tilly Wallace / Narrated By: Marian Hussey

Length: 7 hrs and 31 mins

Hmmm… Nope, not much depth; nope, not much of a mystery; nope, not gory… Then why did I wind up enjoying this little ditty?!?

Well, maaaaybe, for starters, let’s go with Marian Hussey doing an awesome job with narration! The woman has done an awful lot of the Regency audiobooks that I do so love (There’s one series in particular that I’ll eveeeentually be getting around to), and she’s just really, really good. I wouldn’t call her fearless, there’s no absolutely tossing herself into the story, but she does indeed seem to take a good amount of pleasure in what she’s reading. Here in Manners and Monsters she does our Hero (Viscount Wycliff) as just as much an imperious prig that he really is… until he starts thawing… just a tad. And she doesn’t make our heroine, Hannah Miles, as whiny and woebegone as she might sometimes sound. Rather, each character is made engaging through Hussey’s expert narration, and I do believe that added to the pleasure.

An Affliction has struck mostly well-born women of the ton (Expensive face powder was turned into a bio-weapon by the French and now those who used it are… undead…!), and they need to nibble or maw down on human brains to keep their bodies from decomposing into heaps. Unfortunately, at Hannah’s best friend’s engagement ball, ‘twould appear that one of the Afflicted has clobbered a footman and has scarfed his brain straight from his head. This sends Viscount Wycliff on a whodunnit hunt, but he has to take along Hannah as a buffer between himself and all the women he must interview (He’s reprehensibly abrasive). Hannah, on the shelf due to her plain looks, her unfortunate family (Mother was once a powerful Mage but is now an undead, and Father is the Mad Scientist for spending his time autopsying corpses and looking for a cure), and her own penchant for joining dear ol’ dad as he slices and dices, is biddable, can apologize profusely, and can spot an undead corpse from a mile off.

There’s a liiiiiiittle bit of a connection that slowly forms as the two take on the ton, but the story takes its time with this, and the lack of relationship bonds simply screams: First book! There will be sequels! Which is also where the lack of depth comes in: There’s scarce little character development going on; yup, just waiting for the sequels. This is unfortunate as this minimizes Hannah’s personality to that of a young woman bemoaning her fate as a soon-to-be spinster. It could all be whining (But with Hussey’s narration it’s not). And Wycliff is very much a jerk the whole time (But Hussey saves the day the few times he considers his actions and warms slightly). The most interesting character was Hannah’s mother who is using her, uhm, as she’s undead I hesitate to say she’s using her brain… is using her smarts to seek a cure for all of this.

The story winds up being a bit interesting in that it shows that the fact that it’s well-born ladies gives the Affliction the attention it deserves; if it were happening in the lower classes, nobody would care. It also shows how even the high-born can be viewed as disposable property: A woman is just a woman after all. So there’s that going for it. Also, while the writing goes out of its way to explain how things worked in the Regency era, Wallace let enough of the details go and treated it as a Regency first, mystery second. Cuz while I’m into Regencies, I’m a complete dolt when it comes to Mysteries. And that said, however, even I could figure out whodunnit well before the conclusion. How about that?!?

So not much depth as we’re waiting for the sequels, and Hannah didn’t have a chance to really shine and to grow.

So whyyyyy did I like it?

1) I do so love a series… and

2) It’s a Regency! -DUH- !!!!!