The Lady and the Highwayman

Series: The Proper Romance Victorian Series, Book 2; The Dread Penny Society, Book 1

By: Sarah M. Eden / Narrated By: Justine Eyre

Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins

BeYONd charming. Eeeeven a bit Clever!

Okay so, like, THIS was the audiobook I was DYING to listen to whenst I spied that it was NOT a Book 1 but was listed as a Book 2. Soooo, I dutifully listened to (And truly enjoyed!) Ashes on the Moor, discovered that it had nothing! zip! nada! to do with writers of Penny Dreadfuls. Still, as I said, I enjoyed that one so I might as well just shut up and stop complaining, shall I? -Plus- whenst scrolling over on Amazon for this particular book, IT has BOTH series, so, wait! I’m still talking and complaining, am I not?

On to what I’m s’posed to be doing, reviewing The Lady and the Highwayman!

DeLIGHTful!

Elizabeth Black, by day, is a prim and proper woman who has a school for girls of middling status/wealth. She MUST keep to the strict moral codes of that era, the Victorian era, esPECially since educating females is ALWAYS a sore subject and most DEFinitely is not a given. She writes novels for and about upper class ladies, and this helps fund her school. By night, however? Yesssss, she is Mr. King, the Newly Dubbed “king” of those deplorable Penny Dreadfuls, the tales of adventure and salacious what-alls that the lower classes can’t snap up quick enough. Should she ever be outed as Mr. King, her place in Society would be in jeopardy, and she can just say b’bye to her school.

Fletcher Walker, once a street urchin but now a writer, has juuuuust been toppled from his throne as Top Seller of the Dreadfuls by Mr. King. ‘Tain’t a blow to the ego, but it’s problematic cuz the income his best sellers generated goes to funding good efforts by the oh sooo secretive Dread Penny Society. They’re a close knit group of writers who see to getting urchins out of exceeeedingly abusive situations, save young girls from being snatched into brothels, etc etc. It all takes money, and this verrrry hush hush group are forEVEr on the lookout for the forgotten of the harsh Victorian streets. A chance meeting with Elizabeth at a posh function has Fletcher feeling he can approach her to find out just who Mr. King is. The point? Well, he canNOT tell Elizabeth -but- it’s all in an effort to see if this Mr. King might join The Dread Penny Society.

All well and good, right. But m’ Feeling Blurb above states that I thought this vastly enjoyable audiobook was Clever as well. Turns out that author Sarah M. Eden writes not only one entertaining ditty, but she includes Elizabeth’s newest Penny Dreadful in little installments to go with Fletcher’s own Dreadful as well. So while we have the charming unfolding relationship of our two protagonists, we get scintillating stories of near-Gothic tales of horror and derring-do! I LOVED how Elizabeth’s creation portrayed a woman as having courage and just a weeee bit of a swagger. Fletcher’s own work is by far more grim; even tho’ it has the >gasp< vampire in it? Well, it has the bleak reality of life for street urchins, the day-to-day struggle for the merest survival.

Okay so, in my intro here I mentioned Ashes on the Moor, and I bring it up once again now so that I might weigh and compare Justine Eyre’s performances in each. She was magNIFicent in that one, juggled some reeeally difficult accents, plus she made the Hero swoon-worthy. So while she was sooo very good here, I can’t help but feel just a smidgen o’ disappointment because, seriously, she was THAT good over there. Here, Eden has a rollocking cast o’ characters what with the many male members of the Dread Penny Society, the oodles of urchins, the young and somewhat coarse country girls juuuuust missing out on being chucked into brothels, and aaaallll of these go alongside the upper crust and well-to-do. Both genders done? Excellent. Even a DP Society member who is an escaped slave from some state from the South. All riiiight, for him I got Western twang rather than Southern drawl, but dude! Ms. Eyre stayed true to the accent and slipped not one bit. Stellar, right? So once again, I must shut m’self up and stop whinging; instead I shall verily applaud, and boy do I look forward to the next in the Series.

Clean stories, jazzed up a bit with Monsters and a Vampire, and ALWAYS the TRUE terror of life on the streets for most of Society. I enjoyed the sloooowly building relationship between Elizabeth and Fletcher, and oh how I DID get a kick outta the ending. Clever! Well done! Lovely banter!

You name it, this has it. NOT a heavy Listen but just enough gloomy reality to be historically true to form.

Yessss, and soon? Oh my! it’s on to Book 2… or er…. uhm… is it 3 now? Whichever, I’m THERE!!!