Absolutely awful

I will never listen to a book narrated by Rebecca Cortney again. Her delivery was bland, monotonous and she made all the characters seem snooty and obnoxious. When I read Emily many moons again Emily was young, hopeful, naive and ditsy. In the audio book she was a totally different character thanks to the narrators delivery. She was spoilt, unlikeable and one dimensional. The whole plot is silly and inconsequential as all JC stories are but what charm the story had was spoilt for me by the narrator.

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What a shame

Would not recommend this book. Pauses between chapters far too long. Story line poor. If this is the future of Jilly cooper I shall not be listening ,!,

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Awful Narration.

dreadful intonation reading this story. Words mispronounced and sentences read with the wrong manner

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A great book ruined by terrible narration

I love these old Jilly Cooper books, which I have read repeatedly over the years. The narration on this is terrible - incorrect pronunciation, misread text, and mainly terrible accents. You’d honestly think the narrator was reading the book for the first time, and making a hash of it even if that were the scenario. Honestly, buy the book and read it yourself - the terrible narrator will put you off the story for life otherwise.

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1 person found this helpful

Terribly outdated story

What did I like? Not very much. Certainly not the incestuous, rude, abusive, woman-attacking, bad-tempered “hero”. How times have changed - I read this book when it first came out and accepted him as absolutely fine. Now - and never mind the smoking, dangerous driving, excess drinking and general endangerment to anyone within half a mile of the “hero” - it’s just unbelievable anyone ever thought this was a blueprint for romance.

Meanwhile our heroine, who is constantly looking for any man to look after her, moons about after Rory, why is a mystery. She is merely a bystander in her life, waiting for different people - mainly men - to wash over her and toss her in a new direction. Even our sub-hero, Finn the doctor, is pretty dreadful.

And lastly - did we really wear those clothes and feel that hair washing was something to record? Oh the 1970s!

I prefer not to criticise narration, but some of the pronunciations are very strange.

Thus the memories of youth…

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How to ruin a good story

Story is classic Jilly and just about stands the test of time.
I remember reading this first time round and loving it but the audible narration is horrendous! The narrator putting full stops where there shouldn’t be any. “ come hither” became “come Heather” Celtic one of the many mispronunciations, and as for the strange accents, was it never listened to before publication?
So glad it was included in audible membership and I hadn’t paid for it!

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Nice short story from Jilly

Well told, easy listen, slight plot twist which breaks the author’s usual patterns. Overall good but not one I’ll listen to again.

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Terrible narration it was so bad it was funny

It was written back in 70s I think. I found Emily a bit of a sop. The characters weren’t very likeable but was it was easy to listen to though the accents were hilarious. But sometimes it’s just good to have a story that you don’t have to invest too much concentration on

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narrator sounded bored

Dreadful narration. Slow and boring. I read a lot of Jilly Cooper before losing my eyesight, so I was looking forward to this. The narrator completely ruined it.

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4 people found this helpful

Awful narration

This is without doubt the worst narration of an audio book I’ve experienced. Flat monotone. Totally ignores punctuation, including full stops, which completely alters the meaning of sentences sometimes nonsensically. (particularly galling given Jilly Coopers witty style) Had the same feel as a primary age child reading out something in assembly. Shame as it’s a great favourite for many Jilly fans.

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