Title: Enlightened
Series: Enlightenment: Book Three
Author: Joanna Chambers
Narrator: Hamish McKinlay
Publisher: Self-Published
Run Time: 6 hours and 24 minutes
Category: Historical
At a Glance: Hamish McKinlay returns for the final book in the series, and his performance is not to be missed. This is a masterful telling of a story fraught with excitement, intrigue, and love.
Reviewed By: Mike
Blurb: David Lauriston has been recuperating at Lord Murdo Balfour’s Laverock estate for the last five months. At Laverock, he has regained his health and confidence and has found – with Murdo – more happiness and contentment than he has never known before.
David is all too aware that some day soon he will have to leave Laverock – and Murdo – and return to his legal practice in Edinburgh, just as Murdo will have to return to his life in London. But when David’s mentor, Patrick Chalmers, asks David to return to Edinburgh to visit him on his deathbed, it seems that day has come sooner than either David or Murdo would have wished.
Chalmers begs David to undertake one last piece of business for him: to secure the future of Chalmers’s daughter Elizabeth. But to carry out his old mentor’s wishes, David must travel to London, with Murdo.
No sooner have the two men arrived in the capital than they encounter Murdo’s ruthlessly manipulative father, who reveals a shocking secret that rocks David to his foundations. What’s more, when David discovers Elizabeth is facing far greater danger than even her father feared, he is determined to help her, no matter the cost to his own safety.
As the stakes rise, it is Murdo who must choose what he is prepared to sacrifice to keep David at his side, and ask whether there is any possibility of lasting happiness for men like them.
This is a second edition of a book previously published by Samhain Publishing.
Review: After a devastating trampling by a horse, David Lauriston is saved and taken in by his lover, Lord Murdo Balfour. David was working to free his former would-be love, Elizabeth, from her abusive husband. Murdo takes David into his loving care, and as soon as they are able, he transports David to his Scottish estate, Laverock. There, under the care of doctors, a watchful staff, and in the loving arms of Murdo, David begins to recover.
The relationship between the two men becomes a true love affair during David’s recuperation, but pressure from the outside world, and the realities of late 18th century life, come calling all too soon in the sanctuary the two men have come to thrive on. But the political life of Murdo’s father, and the fate of David’s mentor, Patrick Chalmers, now hang in the balance. So, the men reluctantly return to the outside world. Once back in the reality of Edinburg, David discovers Patrick near death, and his daughter, Elizabeth, once again in peril. The situation forces David to travel further south, to London, to warn Elizabeth she is no longer safe and to bring her news of her father’s impending death. Elizabeth is happy for the first time in her life, and the pregnant lover of one of the best men she has ever known.
Events come to a head as plots cross, and Murdo must decide on a life of ease and politics in London, with a wife, or if his choice is David, the only one who holds his heart. David must once again rely on Murdo’s influence to rescue Elizabeth and finally set her free of her abusive husband. A matter of honor decides the fate of them all.
Hamish McKinlay returns for the final book in the series, and his performance is not to be missed. There are so many good things here. Once again, the Scots accents and characters are so crisp and clear; one hopes for many more narrations by McKinlay. His voice makes the story reverberate in the listener’s ears. This is a masterful telling of a story fraught with excitement, intrigue, and love. Not a word of it rings false in McKinlay’s talented voice.
This entire series is a definite buy. As a historical romance it is accurate, and as an exposé of the life of the middle and upper classes in Georgian England. The love affair is deep and true, and the final chapters of this series do not disappoint, and leave the listener with a satisfied smile. Buy the book and hope for more from both author and narrator.
You can buy Enlightened here:
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