Crystal Gardens

Ladies of Lantern Street, Book 1

By: Amanda Quick

Narrated by: Mary Jane Wells

New York Times bestselling author Amanda Quick delivers "a promising start to a Victorian-era series" with the first Ladies of Lantern Street novel

Evangeline Ames has rented a country cottage far from the London streets where she was recently attacked. Fascinated by the paranormal energy of nearby Crystal Gardens, she finds pleasure in sneaking past the wall to explore the grounds. And when her life is threatened again, she instinctively goes to the gardens for safety.

Lucas Sebastian has never been one to ignore a lady in danger, even if she is trespassing on his property. Quickly disposing of her would-be assassin, he insists they keep the matter private. There are rumors enough already, about treasure buried under his garden and occult botanical experiments performed by his uncle—who died of mysterious causes. With Evangeline's skill for detection, and Lucas's sense of the criminal mind, they soon discover that they have a common enemy. And as the energy emanating from Crystal Gardens intensifies, they realize that to survive they must unearth what has been buried for too long.

©2012 Jayne Ann Krentz (P)2026 Tantor Media

Mary Jane Wells is superb.

I already owned a previously-recorded version of this book by Amanda Quick. I wasn't all that fond of the first narrator. However, when I saw that Mary Jane was narrator for this one, I had to buy the book again. She's one of my favorite narrators of all time!

Confused by the FMC’s accent

I adore this narrator. She is one of my absolute favorites but I am very confused on why she made a class distinction with her accent choice for Evangeline. I am no dialect expert but Evangeline has a decidedly more cockney accent than the other characters which would be an indication of class in this time period. I didn’t notice anything in the text to explain this choice. It seems like the way she speaks would cause significant plot problems considering what she does and who she associates with. I know this narrator is great at distinguishing between characters within the same class and region so that couldn’t be the reason. Baffling.

The storyline was good

Pro- I enjoyed the storyline.
Con- The narrators voice. Evangeline’s voice sounded weird - high pitched,too fast.