excellent story, strange narration!

i am a huge fan of Marion Zimmer Bradley and after "The Mists of Avalon" was looking for other titles written by her to enjoy. This one is very different from her others but an eerie and compelling tale nonetheless.

Set in the early 1900s, an old man of nearly 70 marries a young girl of 17 who's been left orphaned and alone in the world. He then proceeds to have her replace his lost daughter Judith. Poor Sybil is compelled to join him in the pretence that she is the departed Judith and dress like a schoolgirl in frills and hair ribbons. I kept expecting ravishment, thinking maybe he's just an old perv - but no, he treats her with knightly courtesy and indulgent fatherliness......apart from his jealous rages if she so much as looks at or speaks to another man. It's all pretty creepy! The tension builds as disturbing elements of his past are gradually uncovered, until poor terrified Sybil feels she's going mad. The finale is slightly anticlimactic but ties up all the loose ends neatly. It kept me gripped.

This is a very intriguing and unusual story, but is somewhat marred by the odd delivery of the narrator. she enunciates every word very distinctly and precisely in measured, genteel, mildly American tones - a little like a machine that's been programmed to use expression. But the way she pronounces many of the words is quite distracting and off putting, so that "learned" becomes "allaurrund", lovely becomes "alovely", "rush" becomes "arrush". Normalcy, "anormalcy". Slowly is pronounced "Salowley". It really gets quite irritating.

Also, there is a maid in the story who comes from Inverness - so we might expect a Scottish accent - but this is so excruciatingly and unrecognisably mangled that I felt like laughing and screaming at the same time! PLEASE dear, if you can't do accents, don't narrate books that contain them!! 😬

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

Interesting plot with a rushed and disappointing conclusion

A very well-written story from the perspective of an orphaned young girl who marries an older gentleman, whose sanity is slowly fading as he more and more believes her to be his late daughter Judith.

I listened to this audio book on a long bus ride home, and finished it the same night. The characters are well written as usual for the author, and the story gives an interesting glimpse into the time and society the story takes place in.

However, the grand finale, the conclusion of the mystery, fell a bit flat. Being rushed through in the last 20min of this audio book, I was almost disappointed to find the answer so simple.

All in all a nice story with a pleasant narrator.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!