The Ace of Hearts

Larkhall Letters, Book 1

By: Ashtyn Newbold

Narrated by: Christine Rendel

When faced with an unwanted marriage, Alice Rosemeyer accepts an invitation to the estate of Larkhall. Determined to earn her future security without a husband, she begins operating as the anonymous Ace of Hearts, writing letters and offering advice on behalf of the men eager to secure a match at the close of the London season. If she can manage to keep her identity secret, her reputation intact, and avoid the arrogant house guest, Mr. Thomas Herring, she might just call herself successful.

When Thomas Herring's sister marries an indebted man because of a love letter, he has no choice but to marry into money himself. Invited to stay at Larkhall, he sets his sights on the wealthy sister of his host. When she appears indifferent, he stumbles upon an advertisement: a gentleman offering assistance in matters of the heart. An ace, so he is called. But when he turns out to be she, and also a guest at the same house, his task is further complicated—especially as Alice proves herself to be as captivating as she is clever.

With reputations, secrets, and more than one heart at risk, Alice and Thomas become trapped in a game with no rules, a game neither intended to play. Had they been wrong to play love for a fool?

©2020 Ashtyn Newbold (P)2023 Tantor

Clean Romance

Good story. Clean and full of misunderstandings by the characters. Enjoy everything but the narration. She sounded way to old for the voices she portrayed.

Clean Romance

Clean romance. Story of lots of miscommunication between the two main characters.
Didn’t love the voice for this story. She didn’t seem as young as the character.

Narration is all wrong

I’ve listened to plenty of Ashtyn Newbold’s books and have enjoyed the clean romance and regency era stories. However, for this particular series I cannot get past the voice of a woman in her 60/70’s voicing young girls. I appreciate the attempt to change voices between characters but in these, everyone just comes out all wrong. Even with the men it’s like she’s trying too hard. It’s distracting to the actual story.
I’m an avid audible book listener and I don’t think I’ve ever had to rewind a book so much because I’ve lost what’s happening or my brain just can’t handle listening to the voices. I know Christine is a pretty acclaimed narrator, but I just don’t think her voice works for these books.

entertaining but very wordy

The character development was very good and the interweaving of characters was very good. It was overly wordy at times, to the point of being tedious occasionally but overall entertaining

DNF

I hate to start a book and not finish it, but I just couldn't endure any more of this book. I don't know if it was the writing, or the narration...or both. But it is so boring and uninteresting. I made it halfway through and still hadn't gotten into the storyline. Deleted