Masked Ball at Broxley Manor

A Royal Spyness Novella

A delectable prequel to the national best-selling Royal Spyness mysteries featuring Lady Georgiana Rannoch - 34th in line to the throne, and England’s poorest heiress. At the end of her first unsuccessful season out in society, Lady Georgiana has all but given up on attracting a suitable man - until she receives an invitation to a masked Halloween ball at Broxley Manor. Georgie is uncertain why she was invited, until she learns that the royal family intends to marry her off to a foreign prince, one reputed to be mad. When the prince, dressed as the devil, rescues her from an embarrassing situation at the ball, Georgie is surprised to find her unwanted suitor to be a dashing, charming man - especially when he pulls her aside and gives her the kiss of a lifetime. But as the time comes for the unmasking, Georgie’s rescuer vanishes and the party is thrown into chaos, making it clear that everything at Broxley Manor is not as it appears…

©2012 Janet Quin-Harkin (P)2014 Audible Inc.

Last 30min are preview of "Her Royals Spyness"

This is a short describing a particular ball of Georgie's season, with a touch of all the usual elements--Georgie's accomplishments from finishing school (or lack thereof), Binky & Fig, Georgie's virginity, Queen Mary's scheming, a house party, cameo by Mrs. Simpson, and something bigger going on in the background.

The series is not particularly consistent overall and this short is no exception. While she meets a couple of the series staples here for the first time, in later books her thoughts/reactions imply that she has no memory of this meeting. There are also a few more general inconsistencies--for instance, she receives what should probably be called a very acceptable proposal in this short, when a consistent refrain through the first few books is that no one acceptable to the family made her an offer.

So the good news is this story is not forced into a prequel situation where nothing interesting is allowed to happen. The bad news is that almost everyone in universe apparently suffers collective amnesia about what did happen. It also has some pacing issues as the usual introductory build up made up a good portion of the first 30min, and a preview of "Her Royal Spyness" made up the last 30min, leaving little room for a plot or interesting mystery.

I had fun listening, but I do wish I had known it was effectively a 1hr book instead of what appears to be almost 2hrs. If you are new to the series, I would recommend skipping over this until you have finished at least the second book.

Spy mystery

I loved it...I love all her royal spyness mysteries. The narrator was amazing and really plays THE part on audible books.

Fun story for fans!

The Royal Spyness series is my favorite and I quite enjoyed this short story that takes place before the first book.

The performance was distracting. I appreciated the different voices for different characters and the attention to detail regarding what accent to use, but it was really over the top. I did not like the inflection and interpretation of how things were said. It didn’t sound like these characters were real regarding intonation.

Good story, bad voices

Story kept my attention, wanted more. The high pitch English accents were annoying. Next time tone the pitch down.

I LOVE RHYS BOWEN AND LADY GEORGIANA!

Where does Masked Ball at Broxley Manor rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Please do yourself a favor and get every book in this series. The characters are delightful, the stories are funny, and it's an overall joyful experience~!

Who was your favorite character and why?

Can't help but love Georigiana--she is so sweet, hapless, earnest....fun.

What does Katherine Kellgren bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

I adore Katherine Kellgren! She does a fantastic job of narrating each character as if they were a person. I look forward to these voices in each book.

Any additional comments?

LOVe!