Midsummer Moon

By: Laura Kinsale

Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton

When a powerful, decisive aristocrat undertakes to protect an absent-minded young inventress from England's enemies, he finds his orderly world turned into chaos. Merlin Lambourne's stubborn dream of flight puts her at risk, not to mention driving Ransom crazy. In spite of himself, he's oddly enchanted by this muddled miss and her eccentric ways... but can he overcome his own fears and realize her invention may be the answer to saving both their lives?

A whimsical Regency-era tale of flying machines, fancy, and love among the hedgehogs.

Laura Kinsale personally chose the exceptional talent of Nicholas Boulton to narrate Midsummer Moon as a fully voiced audiobook, creating a unique work that brings all the life and color of the original to audio.

©1987, 2010 Hedgehog Inc (P)2013 Hedgehog Inc

Critic reviews

Earphones Award Winner and Editor’s Choice

“…personalities and wit expertly delivered, further adding to the charm of this delightful performance.” ( Audiofile Magazine)

I loved this story. And I not usually a fan of romance

Richly plotted romance with appealing characters. A fun read.
Richly plotted romance with appealing characters

Totally entertaining!

The title really doesn’t do it justice—I laughed so hard tears were rolling down my face! I always loved this author, but wasn’t prepared for the fine tuned humor and totally unique plot and characters. Merlin is the ultimate female absent minded professor—delightful!!!!! I was enthralled and entertained from start to finish and didn’t want it to end. Of course the narrator is my all time favorite male narrator and I could listen to his well modulated baritone all day. Bravo!!!

Mediocre compared to some of her others.

Flowers from the Storm and The Prince of Midnight turned me on to Kinsale and Boulton and I will still listen to her work but this story, for me, did not come close to those above.

Cute & Odd & Delightful

Kinsale is a WONDERFUL writer. Her books seem to be just a bit better written than most.(not to take away from any other writers) Her romances are DEEP and usually way off from the norm. This is one of those books. So not what you expect. But you'll find yourself wrapped up in a story with many players - not just a H&H. This is a book about ALL relationships.

Try not to take too many reviews to heart - listen for yourself. If you like Kinsale - you will like and appreciate this one. The love scenes are pretty hot, but it is NOT about that at all. If you want a simple to listen to - run of the mill romance - this is NOT it. If you want a really well written story of life and love and relationships - this is a good one.

Worth a credit if you have already listened and like Kinsale. I would NOT use this as my first Kinsale book though. Try another first because this is good - but not as good as some of her other books. IMO

Excellent performance!

While I didn't love the book, Nicholas Boulton is most certainly worth a listen. Simply outstanding. I look forward to listening to anything else he might record.

Amazing narration

I finished this book because of the amazing narration by Nicholas Boulton and the hedgehog.

I picked it up because Laura Kinsale is an excellent writer and I was intrigued by the heroine, an absent-minded inventor named Merlin who was raised by her eccentric uncle, a brilliant chemist who apparently dabbled in aphrodisiacs, but that comes into play later. Her uncle respected Merlin’s mathematical genius and was sure she would be the one to design a working flying machine.

Duke Ransom Falconer works for the Napoleanic Wars equivalent of MI6 and is tracking down who he thinks is an elderly male inventor, when he meets Merlin. His spies have confided Merlin with her elderly servants, a pair of cantankerous twins who helped her uncle raise her. Merlin has invested an electric speaking box, which she doesn’t think much of, because her true passion is her flying machine prototype, but both the French and English governments are very interested. In order to convince Merlin to continue her experiments at his estate, where he can keep her safe, the Duke stays for dinner. He happens to use some table salt which has inexplicably been infused with some sort of powerful aphrodisiac and appetite stimulant, so his civilized walls crumble and he seduces Merlin. The consensuality is iffy, tho she does go along with it at the end and he does make an effort to give her pleasure.

Merlin is obviously not just absent-minded, she’s somewhere on the autistic spectrum, so she doesn’t understand or care about the social or moral ramifications of sex. Ransom is wracked with guilt after he comes down from the euphoria of the sex and the aphrodisiac and uses his influence to organize an immediate wedding, but she’s put off by the moralizing of the officiant and worries that she won’t be able to invent things if she’s married. Her house is invaded by a nefarious French agent while everyone is asleep, but he’s foiled by Ransom, who uses the opportunity of danger to whisk Merlin and her inventions to his estate.

Ransom has been trained from a young age to be a Duke, so he’s autocratic, controlling, high handed and condescending. He has a big heart but it doesn’t show to advantage. He also has a paralytic fear of heights that he refuses to admit to anyone, since he can’t be seen as weak. This fear causes him to defensively look at flying machines and anything involving heights as ridiculously childish, which causes him to completely overlook the possible military applications of Merlin’s flying machine, although he does dedicate a spare ballroom to her use.

Merlin and Ramsom are intriguing and have believable chemistry but his benign bully behavior is hard to deal with. He walks all over his family members too, causing lots of family drama which could be avoided if he’d just listen to and respect their opinions. There are a lot of great supporting characters in this book, and a lovely second chance romance between Ransom’s younger brother and his estranged French wife, whose theatrical background their grandfather disapproved of and its suggested that he engineered the circumstances leading to their divorce. So Ransom has a family heritage of “I know better” manipulativeness.

There is a French spy among the houseguests. I figured out who it was but there were some good red herrings that fooled the characters. The spy tampers with Merlin’s flying machine, so when she takes it on a maiden flight, it crashes and she ends up hurt and unconscious. Ransom is beside himself, he genuinely loves her at this point, (she loves him too, but still won’t marry him because he’s so disapproving of her flying machine and seems to want to remake her into societally acceptable Duchess material). In his grief, because the prognosis isn’t good, Ransom orders her flying machine and notes to be destroyed. The ass.

Merlin is in a coma for some time. There’s some interesting 19th century medical information about how they dealt with keeping her alive. She wakes up with amnesia, which Ransom decides to take advantage of to get her to marry him. The cad.

When her memory starts to come back, and she finds out Ransom burnt her flying machine She Is Pissed. Rightly so. They have a big fight and have make up sex in a fountain. She runs away while he’s asleep and is captured by the French spy and brought to a nearby castle where another inventor she’s been sort of competing with is building a flying machine, unaware that his patron is a French agent.

With the help of Ransom’s adorable, massively intelligent nephew (budding scientific genius with a stutter who is very attached to Merlin) and the hedgehog, Ransom figures out where Merlin is being held and has to face his extreme fear of heights to rescue her. There are some great fight scenes and they end up having to escape an exploding castle in the flying machine. Ransom realizes his fear has made him stupid and apologizes. Everyone makes up, the spy and his lackeys are caught and happily ever after seems possible.

Nicholas Boulton did an absolutely amazing narration job. I think he made Ransom more sympathetic than I would have read him off the page, and all the distinct character voices were fantastic. It’s definitely a great listening experience, Ransom is just a bit of an alphahole, tho he does grow and evolve.

I never wanted this book to end!

What a wonderful group of “characters “ you will meet when you enter Ms Kinsale’s world in Midsummer Moon. I loved each one of them and laughed out loud throughout. I’m so glad Nicholas Boulton narrates your books - he brings every character and your words to life. Ms. Kinsale, please keep writing you are a treasure.

Loved it

I find it a breath of fresh air found a new favorite narrator has turn me back into wanting to hear men vs women. A must listen you won't be disappointed makes you shock, happy,sad,laugh, irrated for me it was a perfect combination.

Felt it was the author who crashed on this one!

Any additional comments?

If you want to listen to an entertaining story written by Laura Kinsale, that when you finish, you feel you did not waste 13+ hours of your time or your precious audio credit, don't purchase this one! Go for "Flowers from the Storm" or "The Prince of Midnight". Sometimes I thought the female character was mentally challenged to the point of being physically taken advantage of because she was soo naive. Sure she is written as a genius inventor but something just felt wrong about her intimacy with the male character.
While I feel the author crashed on the story, her choice of NIcholas Boulton as narrator have her flying to the stars... 5 stars for "performance" rating that is!

One of my favorite Kinsale's

This novel has a strange sense of humor and chemistry between heroine and hero. It makes Midsummer Moon one of my favorite Kisale's novels.