Matchless Margaret by Christina Dudley, narrated by Katherine Anderson
#4 The Hapgoods of Bramleigh
Historical RomCom
Publisher: Tantor Audio
Published: 8.19.25
Time: 11 hours 11 minutes
Rating: 4.5 stars
Format: audio
Source: Tantor Audio
Sellers: Amazon
ADD TO: GoodReads
GoodReads Synopsis:
Book 4 in the award-winning series called "enchanting" and "sparkling" by Austenprose and Austenesque Reviews
With her two older sisters married, managing family affairs has fallen to capable Miss Margaret Hapgood, leaving little time for thoughts of marriage. But a trip to Bath to find her uncle a wealthy bride throws her in the path of a handsome recuperating soldier, who is equally determined to keep his mother's fortune out of grasping hands.
Sophia Rose's Review:
Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey meets Georgette Heyer’s Black Sheep to a splendiferous result in Christina Dudley’s fourth Hapgoods of Bramleigh, Matchless Margaret.
Margaret is the third of the now notorious Hapgood sisters because her older sisters both eloped for love and scandalized society for a time. That was a few years back and, now Bramleigh drowses quietly and calmly in the countryside with the Squire enjoying his hounds and hunting, her mama reposing on her chaise, and Margaret firmly in charge of the household.
Naturally, this state of affairs can’t last and it all changes when one of her mother’s spendthrift rakish brothers suddenly passes away and her Uncle Alwyn informs them that the creditors have closed in at the family’s London townhouse. The Squire’s weak heart is a concern and he can’t be allowed to be importuned by her uncle so a plan is devised to sell the townhouse and pay off the debts and get her uncle to Bath where he can live less expensively while getting him married off to a rich wife who can afford her uncle’s extravagances.
The trip to Bath includes her mama who can’t be parted from her remaining brother while grief is fresh and Margaret who is put in charge of the purse and must keep her uncle and mother from large expenses. In a fun twist of fate, Alwyn has already found just such a woman, with complications, of course. Margaret must pull off the match or another equally successful, no matter what.
Dashiel Waite has just returned from war, healing from a leg wound. He finds his mother being pursued by a fortune hunter and his longtime-fiancée and cousin, Charmaine Blakely seemingly as indifferent to getting married as he is. A trip to Bath is in order for him to heal and his mother to be away from London at the present. His cousin and her mother join them.
In true Hapgood fashion, Margaret bumps into Dashiel and its inevitable that their family’s mix and mingle for the Bath social season. This becomes a fun Regency romp with all the amusing encounters and entertaining plot twists as Margaret and Dashiel secretly fall for one another, Charmaine willfully is determined to get her way, Alwyn and mama get Margaret into a scrape, and Margaret gets flirting tips and unwanted suitors. It was a tangle worthy of Heyer and Charmaine gave Austen’s Isabella Thorpe a run for her money when all was said and done.
Sparkling, witty, and lightly mischievous with a talented Katherine Anderson delivering the audio narrator with a naturalness so that I was highly entertained from start to finish.
Author’s Bio:
Christina Hwang Dudley is the author of clean historical and contemporary romance.
Her historical romances include the Hapgoods of Bramleigh and Ellsworth Assortment series of Regency romances, including THE NATURALIST and TEMPTED BY FOLLY.
In contemporary romance, her forthcoming PRIDE AND PRESTON LIN (Third State Books, 2024) riffs on Austen, but this time the story is set in the San Francisco Bay Area, with Asian American protagonists who hail from different ends of the economic spectrum.
Website: https://christinadudley.com/
Sophia’s Bio:
Sophia is a quiet though curious gal who dabbles in cooking, book reviewing, piano-playing, and gardening. Road trips and campouts, museums and monuments, restaurants and theaters are her jam. Encouraged and supported by an incredible man and loving family. A Northern Californian transplant to the Great Lakes Region of the US. Lover of Jane Austen, Baseball, Cats, Scooby Doo, and Chocolate.
As a lifelong reader, it was inevitable that Sophia would discover book blogs and the joy of blog reviewing. Sophia is a prolific reader and audiobook listener which allows her to experience so many wonderful books, authors, and narrators. Few genres are outside her reading tastes, but her true love is fiction particularly history, mystery, sci-fi, and romance. Though, sorry, no horror or she will run like Shaggy and Scooby.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sophia.rose.7587
Twitter: https://twitter.com/sophiarose1816
GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13418187.Sophia_Rose
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