When “The Mister
There will be spoilers on this review, hence I will mention now that Dominic Thorburn was great voicing Maxim Trevelyan. He had the posh English accent down pat. And quite frankly, he is the reason why I finished the book. His voice is like drinking sweetened iced tea in a hot summer day in Dallas.
Jessica O’Hara-Baker as Alessia Demachi was touch and go. Her voice was great, but the first person/third person shift was very hard to get listen to. I had to rewind at times because I did not know whether O’Hara-Baker was talking as Alessia Demachi or the storyteller. This does not reflect on O’Hara-Baker’s ability as an audiobook narrator. It is really more of how the story was written.
SPOILER ALERT! After this line, there will be spoilers. Read with caution.
For those of you who are into Regency romances and wondering what the 21st century members of the peerage are doing, “The Mister
The younger of two sons, Maxim was the “Spare.” His older brother Kit was the Heir; thus he was prepared for the role by their parents. But, less than two weeks ago, Kit died in a car accident, making Maxim the new Earl.
It is really a good premise for a story. Unfortunately, it stayed that way… a good premise. Maxim has all the flaws of the Millennials that had been bestowed to them by demographers. Self-centered and still living at home (though for Maxim, he has his own flat that not surprisingly is being paid for by the earldom), Maxim just dabbled as a DJ and model. In short, at 28, he is jobless.
On the other hand, his late brother Kit has all the responsibilities of being the Earl, meaning he runs a business empire that employs several hundred people while still have time to be a hedge fund manager. Please note that Kit is also a Millennial and the youngest Trevelyan who is a girl, also a Millennial is a medical doctor.
In the beginning, I thought of Maxim as the “bad boy” romantic hero. It’s a very popular choice in romance novels. But Maxim fell short of that one. He is not bad enough. In fact, he is shallow. All throughout the book, his internal dialogue of not being good enough to be the Earl became boring after the fifth time he said it.
Instead of showing an internal struggle, it showed weakness of character. I wanted to love Maxim. In fact, in one way or another, I started to like him. But, as a romantic hero, I have “seen” enough bad boys in contemporary romance to really know what a bad boy should be. In Regency romance, the bad boys are called rogues, and again, Maxim is not “rouge enough” to be lovable.
All through the book, his one obsession is Alessia Demachi. She could have been the saving grace in the novel. But the switch between first person/third person when the book is on her POV is so jarring that Alessia also lost her appeal.
Even her emergence as a sex siren was so slow and protracted that it was almost painful for me to listen when she could finally look directly at Maxim’s penis without blushing or being self-conscious. This was actually quite surprising because Alessia bragged that she watched a lot of American TV and Netflix… Netflix with its full-frontal nudity for both male and female. And I’m not even going to talk about Starz’s Outlander which also feature a full-frontal nudity.
That said, the book ended with so many unresolved issues that it will not be surprising if there is a sequel. I believe it will be a trilogy like Fifty Shades of Grey. If there is a book 2, I hope that both Maxim and Alessia become full-pledged romantic hero and heroine.
“The Mister
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The Mister
When “The Mister” became available for pre-order at Audible, I immediately read the Publisher’s Summary. It sounded so interesting that I pre-ordered it. When it arrived on April 16th, I started listening to it, but the pacing was so slow that the 16 hours 28 minutes expanded to double that because when I got bored, I would listen to something else.
Publisher’s Summary: The Mister
The passionate new romance from E L James, author of the phenomenal number-one best-selling Fifty Shades Trilogy
London, 2019. Life has been easy for Maxim Trevelyan. With his good looks, aristocratic connections, and money, he’s never had to work, and he’s rarely slept alone. But all that changes when tragedy strikes and Maxim inherits his family’s noble title, wealth, and estates, and all the responsibility that entails. It’s a role he’s not prepared for and one that he struggles to face.
But his biggest challenge is fighting his desire for an unexpected, enigmatic young woman who’s recently arrived in England, possessing little more than a dangerous and troublesome past. Reticent, beautiful, and musically gifted, she’s an alluring mystery, and Maxim’s longing for her deepens into a passion that he’s never experienced and dares not name. Just who is Alessia Demachi? Can Maxim protect her from the malevolence that threatens her? And what will she do when she learns that he’s been hiding secrets of his own?
From the heart of London through wild, rural Cornwall to the bleak, forbidding beauty of the Balkans, The Mister is a roller-coaster ride of danger and desire that leaves the listener breathless to the very last moment.
