Whereas it was NOT explicitly sexual it has a LOT of unsavory situations, It talks about them as something the bad characters are involved with and is not overly graphic, but is still not nice. I would NOT recommend it to much of anyone. Also, Lackey has used the Beauty and the Beast scenario before in her Five Hundred Kingdoms series with the same man-beast combination, and I think that she did better there than here. As one who's endured myopia most of my life, I'm here to tell you that we just ain't all that helpless without our glasses! Not the best in the series, but not the worst, either, and the narration is fine. Whom should she believe-her new employer's private secretary, who characterizes the master of the place as depraved, or the horse gifted to their employer who obviously finds the secretary less than trustworthy? And just what does she think about all the esoteric volumes she's expected to read? Not a bad story, but the depiction of the lady's near-sightedness had me shaking my head with disgust. When she learns that the children do not exist, but instead her new employer wishes her to read to him through a speaking tube she's not certain what to think. The offer to become a governess to two children living in an isolated home north of San Francisco sounds almost too good to be true.

The daughter of a professor and a scholar of medieval literature and languages in her own right, Rosalind Hawkins is uncertain as to what her future holds when her father dies unexpectedly and she learns his creditors intend to take everything he'd ever owned. (4 stars for the book, 1 star for the narrator for a total of 2.5 stars) I will also preview books by this producer more thoroughly before purchasing. I will not purchase another book read by this narrator, and am very glad the rest of the books in this series have different performers.

I'm surprised the audio editor didn't pay closer attention, considering the number of production staff listed at the end of the book. Finding pronunciations is as easy as going to a dictionary website, where the word will be pronounced for you. But these errors so permeated the 'performance' that I was all-to-often jerked out of the world of the book. Minor errors are to be expected in recorded books as an occasional typo might be found it the printed version.

Words are mispronounced throughout the recording and some are even transposed or changed ('appeal' for 'appear', 'or' for 'on', 'she' for 'he'). As mentioned in a previous review, the narrator is wooden and does not clearly differentiate the various characters. I cannot recommend this version of the book due to the very poor narration. I too love this tale, as well as the rest of the Elemental Master series, and have read it a number of times in book format.

The Fire Rose by Mercedes Lackey