She will make you smile so unexpectedly (when Sarah daydreams about why more authors don’t write heroes that love a woman with an extra “vestigial toe”, for example). The “back-and-forth” between Hugh and Sarah flows naturally and Landor portrays each of their characters distinctly, making their developing romance easy to follow and allowing me to enjoy Julia Quinn’s fun plot lines.Īll-in-all, I really enjoy Quinn’s historical romances, and recommend this one along with the others. Landor knows how to time her delivery to provide the listener with the full effect of the author’s words. Despite this stuffiness, Landor is very skilled at differentiating her characters and you can easily distinguish one male character from another Even though I would imagine that male figures of aristocracy really did have that air of affected entitlement, it was too prevalent to really let me sympathize with Hugh. Landor’s enactment of the male characters, however, is just too stilted and stuffy for me.

She gives Lady Sarah a voice that starts out like the drama queen that she is, and evolves believably into a passionate risk-taker defending those she loves. As an example, her portrayal of the Countess of Danbury, enables you to quite easily picture, “the most terrifying old dragon of the ton”. Rosalyn Landor is an expert at performing all her female characters and very entertaining as well. No worries, The Sum of All Kisses can stand alone as an introduction into the family of Smythe-Smith, friends of the Bridgertons (a popular previous series from Julia Quinn). This is the third book in the Smythe-Smith Quartet, and actually a partner book to Quinn’s second in the series, A Night Like This, told from Daniel’s point of view. Sarah becomes Hugh’s unwilling ally as they struggle against their affection and the evil machinations of Hugh’s father. As Hugh battles his way back from his injury, reenters society, and stands up to all of the damage done by his father, his finds only one person with enough spirit and fight to capture his attention – Lady Sarah Pleinsworth.

As events unfold, Hugh is faced with a debilitating injury to his leg and his best friend, Daniel Smythe-Smith, is injured and runs for his life from Hugh’s father, the Marquess of Ramsgate. The Sum of All Kisses begins with a duel between two inebriated friends, from the point of view of the hero, Lord Hugh Prentice. She breathed life and emotion into her heroine and consequently, I had no worries about choosing this latest Quinn release and was excited to start listening. As an added bonus, when I listened to Susanna Kearsley’s The Winter Sea (a wonderfully mystical book), I fell in love with narrator Rosalyn Landor. From the moment I first read a Julia Quinn historical romance, I was hooked her historical romances are full of flawed and funny characters who value family and friendship above all things.

The sum of all kisses by julia quinn