The Duncan Sisters Trilogy - Jane Feather

Written by Jane Feather
Read by Madeline Buzzard
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

THE BACHELOR LIST – 10hrs approx.

1906 - Constance Duncan and her two sisters are trying to manage household funds as their father’s spendthrift ways threaten their late-nineteenth-century social status. In order to make money, the sisters secretly write a newspaper and start a matchmaking service for wealthy Londoners. Constance uses the gossipy newspaper as a forum for her suffragette cause, attracting the attention of Max Ensor, a newly elected member of Parliament. He has antiquated ideas about women, and suspects that Constance is involved with the women’s movement. He hopes to use her as entree to the group, while Constance sees him as someone she can sway and use to support her cause. What neither of them counts on is the immediate and very physical attraction between them.

THE BRIDE HUNT – 11HRS 48MIN

The paper that the sisters publish to maintain their aristocratic lifestyle in early twentieth-century London is being sued for libel by the very man who caused their economic downturn, and Prudence has approached the best lawyer their nonexistent funds can buy. Tenacious barrister Sir Gideon Malvern almost refuses the case until he decides that Prudence herself is a challenge worth taking. She sees Gideon as a disagreeable means to win the suit and offers to find him a bride in exchange for his services. Amused, he agrees. While Prudence tries to figure out what kind of woman will interest the divorced father of a 10-year-old daughter, Gideon tries to discern what kind of woman Prudence really is behind her prim facade.

Readers may be surprised by the setting, which is unusual for historical romances; here the automobile and the telephone have already been invented. One amusing scene centers on a drive to the country, which takes three hours in Gideon’s car (moving at its top speed of 20 miles an hour).

THE WEDDING GAME - 10HRS 24MIN

The Duncan sisters may have curbed their morose father’s spending, but only Chastity has to live with him in their London home at the beginning of the twentieth-century because her sisters, Prudence and Constance, from The Bride Hunt and The Bachelor List are each happily married. To generate income, the sisters produce a newspaper and act as matchmakers. Chastity meets a prospective client, Dr. Douglas Farrell, who is only interested in a marriage of convenience so that his new wife can produce clients for his medical practice. She is put off by his mercenary goal, but can’t turn down a paying client. Douglas actually needs a wealthy wife to fund his true passion: helping the poor. Chastity soon realizes that there is more than meets the eye with the handsome doctor, but she has already found a rich, if annoying, woman who meets his qualifications. This is a perfect ending to a delightful trilogy.

All recordings are NLS for the blind and physically handicapped,