So everyone keeps telling me Rosalyn Landor is the queen of Regency audiobook narration, and I went in expecting to be completely wrecked. I'd just finished Slightly Sinful in the same series and literally had to pause my Illustrator work because I was crying too hard to see my screen. Surely Slightly Tempted would deliver the same gut-punch, right?
It didn't. And I need to talk about why, because this is a complicated one.
Landor's French Accent Did Things to Me
Let me start with what works, because Rosalyn Landor genuinely earns her reputation here. Gervase is half-French, and Landor gives him this crisp-but-warm accent that sits somewhere between aristocratic English and Continental charm - you can hear the French lilt curling around certain vowels while keeping his English razor-sharp. It's subtle enough that you believe this man moves between worlds. And then when she shifts to Morgan Bedwyn? Completely different energy. Morgan sounds young and stubborn and a little too sure of herself, which is exactly right for a Bedwyn who's been raised to believe her family name is basically a personality trait.
The thing Landor does better than almost anyone is social station. You can hear the difference between a drawing room conversation and a battlefield aftermath in how she pitches her voice. She doesn't do big theatrical shifts - it's all in the tension of the jaw, the breath between words. I was designing event flyers for a client (boring corporate stuff, needed something lush in my ears) and Landor's voice was genuinely keeping me company in the best way.
But here's where I got stuck.
A Revenge Plot That Forgot to Be Dangerous
Gervase is supposed to be this notorious rake with a revenge scheme against Morgan's family. The setup is actually pretty electric - Brussels on the eve of Waterloo, a ballroom, a man who sees a beautiful Bedwyn and thinks perfect, she's my weapon. That premise? Chef's kiss. I was ready to be destroyed.
Except Balogh pulls the teeth out of the revenge plot almost immediately. Gervase never really feels threatening. He never feels like a man capable of using someone and discarding them. He's too decent too fast, and while I love a reformed rake, the reformation needs to cost something. That bone-deep cost is exactly what Chasin' Eight gets right about its own damaged hero - you feel every consequence of who he's been before the softening earns your trust. It needs to hurt. I kept waiting for that moment where the floor drops out - where Morgan discovers his true motives and you feel her betrayal in your chest like a physical thing. And the scene happens, sort of, but it lands soft. Like a pillow falling off a couch instead of a glass shattering on tile.
Morgan herself is fire, though. I loved her refusal to just... accept a proposal because society says she should. She's stubborn to the point of being infuriating, and I mean that as a compliment. There's a scene after the scandal breaks where she basically tells everyone - her terrifying Bedwyn brothers included - that she'll handle her own life, thank you very much. That felt real to me. That felt like every woman in my family who ever had to stand in a room full of men and say no, actually, I decide.
Abuela would have loved Morgan. She would have hated Gervase for being too soft about his scheming, though. Abuela liked her telenovela villains COMMITTED.
The Slow Burn That Simmers Without Quite Boiling
At 11 and a half hours, this book takes its time. And normally I'm here for that - I listen at 1.0x, I want to marinate in a love story. But the pacing in the middle third genuinely tested me. There's a long stretch of social calls and family dinners and drawing room conversations that feel like Balogh is moving chess pieces around a board rather than building toward something inevitable. The chemistry between Gervase and Morgan is there in flashes - a look across a room, a conversation that runs a little too honest - but it doesn't sustain the way I needed it to.
I didn't cry. Not once. And for me, with a romance audiobook, that's... notable. I wanted to. There were moments that brushed up against real emotion - Gervase's backstory about his family, Morgan's complicated loyalty to the Bedwyns - but nothing broke through.
Landor is doing everything she can. Her emotional delivery in the quieter scenes is genuinely lovely, and she handles the Regency dialogue without making it sound stiff or performative. But even she can't manufacture chemistry that the text doesn't fully support.
Who This Is For (and Who Should Start Elsewhere)
If you're already deep in the Bedwyn Saga and love this family, you'll want Morgan's story. Period. She's worth spending time with. And if Rosalyn Landor's voice is your comfort listen - that crisp, soothing, I'm-being-read-to-by-someone-who-actually-understands-Regency-England quality - you'll enjoy the experience even when the plot idles.
But if this is your first Balogh? Start with Slightly Sinful or Slightly Dangerous instead. Those books earned my tears. This one just made me wish it had.
Still Glad I Listened, But My Spreadsheet Stays Dry
A beautiful narrator carrying a story that needed sharper edges. Landor's performance is the reason to show up. The love story is the reason you leave feeling a little unfulfilled. My heart wanted more. It deserved more. Morgan deserved a hero as fierce as she is.
