No Fond Return of Love

A Novel

By: Barbara Pym

Narrated by: Mary Sarah

Three lonely people come together in this poignant, witty novel of star-crossed romance from the New York Times best-selling author of Jane and Prudence.

After being jilted by her fiance, Dulcie Mainwaring despairs of ever finding true love. For a distraction, she goes to a publishing conference, where she meets Viola Dace, a dramatic woman who refuses to live without romance, as well as Aylwin Forbes, an editor whom Viola adores. 

The fact that Aylwin is married doesn't stop Viola. When her amorous pursuit prompts Aylwin's wife to leave him, the academic heartthrob is wide open to Viola's romantic attentions. That is, until Dulcie's 18-year-old niece moves in with Viola, and the young girl soon catches Aylwin's roving eye.   

Set in London in the early 1960s, No Fond Return of Love is a delightful comedy of manners that comes full circle as Dulcie discovers a love as unexpected as it is liberating.

©1961 The Estate of Barbara Pym (P)2020 Tantor

Please get a different narrator

Such a disappointment to listen to the same narrator as the narrator of Less Than Angels by Barbara Pym.

Wonderful story!

Wonderful story! The characters are very believable and captivating. They are fully developed along with the storyline. The story kept my attention and I found myself that I couldn’t put it down! EXCELLENT! But not fond of narrating.

Delightful English novel of manners and life

Long my favorite Barbara Pym..though Some Tame Gazelle may be tied...I cannot overstate how rich, delightful, insightful and absorbing this deceptively simple tale is. I love it madly! I adore Dulcie and her observations on the rest of the world and herself--both mild and disarmingly straight forward. ALL of the supporting cast (as with every Pym novel) is stunningly well depicted with minimal but perfectly selected words through behavior even more than description, in very small but extremely memorable scenes. Pym is a genius and I feel this book best exemplifies it.

And...just a super fun read!

Now...I am spoiled by years of listening to my Chivers Audio recording on cassette. I am so delighted to finally have this from Audible. But, though the new narrator is pleasant, Angela Pleasance gave perfect voice to all the odd and eccentric supporting cast in the book. This is especially true of whiny Viola Dace, gruff and indignant Grace Willington, odd Mrs. Beltane, and the very eccentric Mrs. Forbes, plus so very many more. I missed how Angela Pleasance voiced them so very much. The new narrator has a soft-spoken voice that is not suited. It is like having your mother read Harry Potter after hearing Jim Dale read it. And the chapter announcements...are meant to be quite comical? Or almost as if she is bored reading! At any rate, I have grown tolerant, on re-listening but it was a missed opportunity to bring these books to a wider audience. The overall book, well, nothing can mar its exquisite writing.

A Welsh Reader?

All of Pym's titles are read by Mary Sarah, a reader with a very pronounced Welsh accent. This might work for the Britisih, for whom Welsh speakers aren't unusual or foreign-sounding, but for the average American listener, she is very, very hard to follow. More to the point, a good reader would at least try to approximate the Oxbridge accent that most of Pym's main characters would naturally speak. A Welsh Dulcie Mainwaring just doesn't make any more sense than an Irish or Bostonian or Australian Dulcie Mainwaring.

The brilliant writing and appalling reader

Barbara pym is very funny and writes about the English middle class. This reader seems to have no idea of the humor and reads in a faky, simpering tone with the most startling , ludicrous mispronunciations that arrive thick and fast. She seems to be trying to do an English accent, but her mangling of English is spectacularly bad. Please get an English person with a sense of humor to read Barbara Pym’s work.