A Heart's Secret

A Pride and Prejudice Variation (In Want of a Wife)

By: Ali Scott

Narrated by: Naomi Rose-Mock

Mr FD of Derbyshire has been paying a great deal of attention to a certain Miss B. Has one of England’s wealthiest bachelors finally been ensnared?

FITZWILLIAM DARCY HAS A SECRET, one that haunts him at every turn. Against his better judgement, he accepts an invitation to a house party in Hertfordshire where he encounters the beautiful Miss Elizabeth Bennet of Longbourn, whose lively spirits prove a welcome distraction from his sorrowful past. Yet his peace is disturbed by threats to his family and to his good name. Elizabeth is unexpectedly implicated, but should he suspect Elizabeth…or protect her?

AFTER THEIR FIRST MEETING at the assembly in Meryton, Elizabeth Bennet is convinced there can be no ruder man than Mr Darcy. But a series of encounters at Netherfield Park forces her to reconsider her opinion of him, and she soon learns that Mr Darcy is a man with hidden depths.

WHEN THE MYSTERIOUS ANNOUNCEMENT of their engagement is published in a London newspaper, she has no choice but to place her trust in him. They strike a deal, and suddenly Elizabeth is drawn into a web of deceit. Who is behind the malicious gossip column? What pain lies in Mr Darcy’s past? And what secret lies deep within her own heart?

A Heart's Secret is a forced engagement, wounded hero variation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. The content is clean and the angst level is moderate.

©2025 Ali Scott (P)2025 Quills & Quartos Publishing

Good story! Not so good narration!

I thought the storyline was very good. There was good dialog among the very interesting characters. I would have liked to have seen more dialog and romance between Darcy and Elizabeth regarding their relationship. The narrator was not the best. She slurred words and just did not annunciate well. She did do a pretty job of making the character voices distinctly different. I think her performance took away from the story. I don’t feel I wasted my money, but this will not be a story I listen to a second time.

Narrator needs more training.

The story and the characters are well-crafted enough. But the narrator slurs conjunctions and other small words, as well as multi-syllabic ones, so you have to listen very carefully. I usually listen to books in about 1.2 or 1.25 speed with no problem, but even at 1.00 this narrator is often a challenge to follow. She does not enunciate properly. It's too bad because her style is sort of charming otherwise (that clipped Kate Beckinsale-ish speech), but she really needs to get those consonants and word endings nailed down. By chapter 18 it was getting pretty annoying the way she swallows parts of words and mumbles at times, but the love story and the mystery, if a little predictable, was engaging enough to keep me listening. Barely.

Story was really hampered by a narrator who mumbles

Multiple characters were intoxicated and yet the narrator sounded more impaired at certain points. There were a lot of editing issues here and there (repeatedly lines, etc) that made the entire thing feel rushed and sloppy. Really pulled me out of enjoying the book itself

Enjoy

I wish Darcy would have been vulnerable enough to admit he wated to marry Elizabeth. Her journey to love would have been much easier. My favorite part of the story was watching them solve the mystery together. I enjoyed that there was a mystery along with the romance. The culprit was pretty obvious but there was more to just that. The cousin's death was sad and the awful characters were indeed awful! But I enjoyed the story anyway.

Darcy & Elizabeth stand united

I enjoyed this story. Vicious gossip in a London newspaper force Darcy and Elizabeth to become engaged to save her reputation. Solving the mystery of the source and reason for articles in the paper strengthens their relationship and understanding of each other. The narrator did a good job.