The Lion's Lady (Crown's Spies, #1)

by Julie Garwood

[stacey_is_sassy]

I forgot how funny this story was...

Julie Garwood was one of the first romance authors I read as a teenager and her historical romances are still my favourites. Sassy heroines and bossy heroes are something that Ms Garwood excels at.

The Lion's Lady gives us a fantastic and original character in Christina, who sleeps on the floor (because it's more comfortable), with a knife under her pillow. Lyon is gruff and snarly on the outside with a loving inside that he shares only with Christina. The two of them appear so different but as we get to know them, realise they're both warriors. I loved that Lyon could scream the house down in displeasure and Christina would yell right back. She wasn't intimidated and gave back as good as she got.

Unfortunately, the narrator did not live up to my expectations. Her reading was fine but her character portrayals when doing the dialogue was not my favourite. Every time Christina has to whisper something it made me shudder and she did a LOT of whispering. Lyon was a bit nasally. Not all accents or characters were bad but the worst ones were Lyon's and Christina's which alas were the most used.

Even though the narrator wasn't my favourite, listening to The Lion's Lady was a lot of fun. I was laughing out loud at the clashes between combatants when Lyon wanted to protect his lioness and his lioness had just sharpened her claws for the fight. I did not remember laughing this much when I was younger but maybe I didn't get married humour back in the day.

I will definitely listen to more in this series sometime in the future.

Not changing my rating here as I love the story. I would allocate 3 stars for the audio, though.