Mortal Follies: A Novel
Series: The Mortal Follies, Book 1
By: Alexis Hall / Narrated by: Nneka Okoye
Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
A delight… even tho’ I had to speed it up to get past the Toe-Curling scenes! Few, yeh: But THERE
1814, a Regency world that co-exists with the world of Faerie, and Miss Maelys Mitchelmore is just hanging around at the ball, looking decidedly beautiful, a diamond of the first water, when whazzis? Her ball gown is sloooowly unmaking itself. Like, FAST! Like, COMPLETELY?
After running stark naked into a garden outside, weeping copious amounts of tears, whom should run across her but the lascivious and scandalous Lady Georgiana Landrake, otherwise known as the Duke of Annadale? Slowly smoking a cigar, the Duke considers the situation, shamelessly ogles Miss Mitchelmore, and struts back inside, leaving Maelys nude and shivering behind shrubs.
Oh, and then she comes back, after a sufficient amount of time for Maelys to completely break down, to chuck her cloak at the poor girl, and to give her a ride to Mae’s home.
Next day, Mae finds herself deep in conversation with her cousin and her bestie, and the trio begin to consider who might have called a curse down upon Mae.
And so does Mortal Follies begin, narrated wonderfully, WONDERFULLY well by Nneka Okoye who is just this side of Perfect as the unreliable narrator of our tale, a hobgoblin Puck-ish type character named Robin. Okoye completely captures each cleverly-written character, each fraught and magical scene, each wry statement, each sly glance, in this Queer romance that’s a devilishly good mash-up of genres.
Author Alexis Hall? New to me, but this will certainly not be the last of her creations I’ll take on. It’s just that, uhm, well, Hall apparently has noooo problem getting graphic. But dude! if I could listen to Band Sinister and like it? With all of that book’s groans and moans and writhing around in pleasure on the floor, against the door, bent over a table? Well then, my friend, I can jolly well bite my lip, hope m’ toes don’t freeze in a clenched position, and get through the disrobing of Mae, the tying together of her hands with sewing ribbon (The Duke sews! whoulda thunk it?!), and the absolute debauching of her, mind, body, soul. Yeh yeh yeh, prude that I am, I had to jack up my listening speed, but that’s cuz there’s a fair amount of moaning that went on, and that’s always embarrassing to be overheard by a husband who doesn’t want his soccer games disturbed.
So there’s that.
Still, more often, there are curses one right after another, there are sprites and Faeries and evil spirits, and truly, truly, TRULY, peeved-off goddesses. And the Waters at Bath have NEVER been written like this in ANY other Regency I’ve come across (Here? Well, our intrepid trio attempt Goddess Pacification with, whazzis? An eighth of a cow…?). The Waters of Bath, here, bubble and roil and boil, and they part so that bloody hunks o’ human villain and/or innocent can be devoured in messy pools. Likewise said eighth of cow…
At 11-hours 49-minutes, this is just the length of Regency romance that I like. Hall has taken her time to write situation after situation, to develop characters and their relationships to each other, to make all curses mysterious… and ofttimes hiLARious, to make the sussing out of clues interesting and compelling, and yeh yeh yeh, to get some graphic sensual awakenings in at the same time. At least, for me at any rate, git that I am, all that disrobing and debauchery didn’t start until 4-hours left in the audiobook. What this prude is trying to say is: There’s PLENTY of story and MANY stories that are crafted and explored before anything gets titillating. So, PHEW!!!
Okay okay okay. This makes it sound like things get slick and messy and downright egregiously graphic, when actually? Mortal Follies ain’t no Band Sinister, not by a long shot. It’s just that I haaaate my toes curling, and I haaaate m’ husband looking over his shoulder and exasperatedly asking, “What on earth are you listening to?!?” Still, please believe me when I say that, yeh, there’s THAT, but there’s oh so much more!
Genre-blurring, a Mash-Up Extraordinaire, clever curses, and a narrator to die for…
It all looks like the start to a fun Huzzah-ish new series! Go Hall, go!!!
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