Marriage on Madison Avenue by Lauren Layne

Title:  Marriage on Madison Avenue

Author: Lauren Layne

Read by:  Kelsey Navarro and Kyle Tate

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Length: Approximately 7 hours

Source: Review Copy from Simon & Schuster Audio.  Thank-you!

With all of the craziness in the world right now, I needed a light hearted book to take my mind off the news.  Marriage on Madison Avenue fit the bill!

Audrey Tate and Clarke West have been best friends since childhood.  Now as adults, Audrey is finding herself on the wrong end of gossip as her latest two romances have been with married men.  Audrey has grown up as a Madison Avenue Princess and she now makes her living as an Instagram influencer.  Clarke is a playboy around town and got his degree in computer science, which he has worked in to help his father’s publishing company.  Clarke’s mother was disappointed in both of their career paths, and really wants Clarke to marry his old girlfriend, Elizabeth, who is back in town.  To stop the gossip about Audrey and stop Clarke’s mother from interfering with his love life, they pretend to be engaged.  To call them on their bluff, Clarke’s mother arranges an engagement party and a wedding planner.  As they keep up the fake engagement, both begin to wonder, would it be so bad if they were engaged “for real?”  Should they make the leap from friends to lovers?

This was the final book of the Central Park Pack series, but I read it as a stand alone and it worked perfectly.  I do want to go back and listen to the other books in the series as I found it to be a very enjoyable book.  I liked that the story was engaging, light, and very romantic.

I also enjoyed that the audiobook had two narrators.  Kelsey Navarro narrated Audrey’s chapters and Kyle Tate narrated Clarke’s chapter.  This gave the book a personal feel like we were listening to Audrey and Clarke’s thoughts. 

Overall, Marriage on Madison Avenue is a perfect romance escapism read / listen for these crazy times.

Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer

Title:  Regency Buck

Author: Georgette Heyer

Read by:  June Barrie

Publisher: Brilliance Audio

Length: Approximately 12 hours and 37 minutes (10 CDs)

Source: Christmas Present from my Best Friend Jenn 

Georgette Heyer novels are the next best thing to a new Jane Austen novel.   They take place in the same Regency world and are filled with delightful comedy and witty dialogue.

In Regency Buck, siblings Peregrine and Judith Taverner have lost their father and are surprised to learn they have been assigned a guardian, Lord Worth, whom they have never met.  They travel to London to meet their guardian only to discover the elderly Lord Worth has passed away, and his young and attractive son has taken over.  Peregrine and Judith learn how to navigate high society, “the ton,” with the help of their wealth paving the way.  Judith learns from Beau Brummel that she needs to own her eccentric behavior to really make her way in society.  She then drives her own carriage much to Lord Worth’s dismay and uses snuff.  A series of unfortunate incidents starts to befall Peregrine.  Are they accidents or is someone trying to get rid of Peregrine to get his fortune?  Will Judith and Lord Worth learn to stop their verbal sparring and allow love to take hold?

June Barrie was a fabulous narrator giving a voice to each character with a great British accent.  I enjoyed that this novel had real historical characters in it such as Beau Brummel and the Duke of Clarence.  I also enjoyed Judith and Peregrine’s scraps.  Lord Worth felt too high handed at times with Judith, but I’m looking at it with a 21^st century perspective.  I did want the two to get together, but he was not my favorite romantic lead.  Georgette Heyer’s novels are a great look into the world that the upper class of Regency era England lived in.  I do sometimes wish we could also take a look into the life that the other social classes lived.  It must be my years of watching Downton Abby have me wondering about the other half of the story.

Overall, Regency Buck is a classic Heyer novel full of great characters, witty dialogue, and comedy.  This novel is different from past Heyer novels that I’ve read as it has more real historical figures included.

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

Title:  Oliver Twist

Author: Charles Dickens

Read by:  Fiona Hardingham

Publisher: AmazonClassics Edition

Length: Approximately 16 hours and 14 minutes

Source: Purchased from Amazon.com. 

Oliver Twist was the Back to the Classics pick for January.  While I’ve read several Dickens novels, I had never read Oliver Twist.  I have a hatred for the musical after being forced to watch it in middle school, but I surprisingly didn’t remember much of the story besides, “Please Sir, I’d like some more.”  I both read and listened to this book.  I really like the Amazon feature that links together the audiobook and the kindle edition.  It was a great way to experience this novel.

We had a small book club gathering in January due to the warm weather of the South calling away some of our members from our northern Wisconsin clime.  We still had a good discussion and I look forward to discussing Dickens again in the future with the Back to the Classics Book Club.

Oliver Twist was a surprising look into the dark side of Victorian England.  The Poor Act had just been passed as society was sure that the poor were taking advantage of the system.  Dickens used his experiences as a child to show what life was life for the poor in England.  Oliver Twist was born in a poor house by his unwed mother who passes away shortly after his birth.  Oliver lives in a system where those in charge take advantage of the system.  They complain about the poor while they feast on fine food with fine silver.  The woman attending his mother at this birth stole the medicine that was left.  Alcohol meant for medicine for the poor was used for fun by those in charge.  I was horrified, but it was interesting to see corruption has not started just in modern times. 

After a series of unfortunate events, Oliver runs away to London, he was taken in by Fagan’s gang.  Fagan is referred to as “The Jew” throughout the novel, which was jarring.  This novel was published as a serial.  Audiences reading it at the time complained and Dickens lessoned his use of the term.  Oliver is an innocent amongst the thieves. It had a great adventure story with Fagan’s gang, and how Oliver kept getting swept into and out of the gang.  Bill Sykes is one of the evilest villains in literature.  The story of his and Nancy’s relationship is an interesting and sad look into domestic abuse.

This was only the second novel written by Dickens, and we discussed that you could certainly tell.  The end of the novel was very scattered, and frankly parts did not make sense.  I also watched a couple of film versions of Oliver Twist.  It was interesting how they tightened up the ending and made it make more sense.  I thought it was interesting that the 2005 version didn’t look at all in Oliver Twist’s heritage, which was a major focus of the novel.  We also discussed how this would have been one of the first “social” novels that took a look at how the lower classes lived at the time.  It would have been very different than other literature at the time.

Favorite Quotes:

“Please, sir, I want some more.”

“For the rest of his life, Oliver Twist remembers a single word of blessing spoken to him by another child because this word stood out so strikingly from the consistent discouragement around him.”

“You shall read them if you behave well,” said the old gentleman kindly; “and you will like that, better than looking at the outsides, - that is, in some cases, because there are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.”

Overall, Oliver Twist was a great look into the dark depths of social despair in Victorian England as well as a good adventure story. I’m glad I read it, but David Copperfield and A Tale of Two Cities are still my favorite Dickens novels.

Book Source:  E-book and Audiobook purchased from Amazon.com and I also read from an old antique copy I purchased from an antique store years ago.