Shades of Milk and Honey

By: Mary Robinette Kowal

Narrated by: Mary Robinette Kowal

Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins

Publisher's summary

The fantasy novel you’ve always wished Jane Austen had written, Shades of Milk and Honey is exactly what we could expect from Austen if she had been a fantasy writer: Pride and Prejudice meets Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. It is an intimate portrait of a woman, Jane, and her quest for love in a world where the manipulation of glamour is considered an essential skill for a lady of quality.

Jane and her sister Melody vie for the attentions of eligible men, and while Jane’s skill with glamour is remarkable, it is her sister who is fair of face.

When Jane realizes that one of Melody’s suitors is set on taking advantage of her sister for the sake of her dowry, she pushes her skills to the limit of what her body can withstand in order to set things right—and, in the process, accidentally wanders into a love story of her own.

©2010 Mary Robinette Kowal (P)2010 Macmillan Audio

Delightful story, Awful reader

What did you like best about Shades of Milk and Honey? What did you like least?

This was a light and frothy alternate-universe take on the Jane Austen formula, artfully weaving a single fantasy element into the familiar setting of Regency England.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

This audiobook is narrated by the author, and while her reading is actually quite good, her insistence on using a TERRIBLE faux-British accent nearly ruins the whole thing. She is American, as American as apple pie and trillion dollar debt, and her attempt at a British accent is so horrible it's not even laughable. She weaves in and out of it, sometimes reverting to her American voice then afterwards reasserting her faux-British voice with a vengeance, but the fact that we as listeners hear how this book COULD have sounded had she simply narrated it without attempted embellishment -- well, it makes it very hard to focus on the narrative or the characters. They either needed to get her to stick to her American accent or hire a proper British woman to narrate in her stead.

Excellent narration for an excellent story

I’ve enjoyed this story for several years as it combines two of my favorite type of fiction- clean historical romances & fantasy. Ms Kowal did a wonderful job developing the characters and plot.

While I’ve read this story several time, I found that the narration brought additional depth and life to the story. Would definitely recommend.

My favorite audio book yet

Where does Shades of Milk and Honey rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

I tend to like it when authors read their own work as you get more of an insight into how they envisioned the characters, but Mary Robinette Kowal's reading is beyond the best. Her voices are consistent through out the whole book and her narration is full of feeling. It really held my attention.

What other book might you compare Shades of Milk and Honey to and why?

It is like Jane Austen meets "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel"

A Must for Austen Fans

This book is a rare treat to Jane Austen fans - a wonderful story, full of fun references and great, original characters. An absolute must!

Light Version of Sense and Sensibility with Magic

This has been called Jane Austen with magic, and for the most part I will agree.

Although it has less of the intrigue, gossip, and societal analysis of Austen, and more of a light thriller romance in it.

While not terribly captivating, I did enjoy it, and would recommend it to anyone who likes a light read. I like this book, but won't be reading the sequels

Great if you love speculative fiction and Austen

I was a little worried that I wouldn't like this book, but overall I was pleasantly surprised. I'm not a complete Austen fangirl, but I love her writing enough that I would have been entirely put off if the characters, setting, etc, had seemed fake or over the top. The characters were familiar, but this was mostly a positive and only occasionally distracting. I liked the addition of glamour to the world, which was a relief as that could have easily ruined everything if not done well.

The author's reading was great, although the accent was a little distracting occasionally. I could tell when she'd had a break and started again, but she soon settled into the voices and I would forgot about it until the next time. Overall it gets better as you go along.

I listened to this recording all in one day, with only a couple of breaks. It was exactly what I needed that day, as I pottered around the house doing odd jobs and a bit of drawing. To begin with it was a nice backdrop to my other activities, but by the end it had drawn me in so I was sitting by the computer with my stomach in a knot, wanting a good outcome for my favourite characters.

Overall the author has taken on a concept which would have been very easy to do wrong, and has delivered an entertaining read/listen. I'm looking forward to her next book in this series being released on Audible, and hope she will be reading it herself.

OK Story, Not Ok Narration

Is there anything you would change about this book?

Given it to a stronger editor. This book basically felt like a really good second draft. Lots of interesting ideas, but a very underdeveloped romance and characters that never really clicked.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

Just given it more time in the oven, really. It needed a lot more story editing. The romance not being fleshed out is a big one I mentioned above. It never felt like it built properly. They just kind of...didn't like each other, then were in love. OK? I guess?

The author also didn't do great at researching the regency period, in ways that were occasionally obvious and drew you out of the book. For example, declaring someone was experiencing "not simple melancholia, but depression!" This ignores the fact that melancholia WAS depression at this time; not some separate, lesser disorder. In fact, it's extremely unlikely the term depression would have been used to refer to a mood disorder at all in the early 1800s, let alone by a lay-person. Nit-picky? Yeah, totally. But blunders in historical accuracy like that are exactly the kind of thing that pull you out of a text, and should be caught before publication.

What didn’t you like about Mary Robinette Kowal’s performance?

The accent was forced. The voices were often poorly distinguishable or kind of annoying, particularly the baby doll voices given to young women. She did a poor job of conveying emotion and nuance. A few times, at critical moments, she mixed up voices for characters in a way that made things confusing.

Do you think Shades of Milk and Honey needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

I might be interested to see what happens next; but if I decide to I will absolutely (barring a change in narrator) be reading the physical book rather than listening to the audiobook.

Any additional comments?

Despite my kvetching, it's not a terrible book. A lot of the writing is solid enough, and the idea of glamour is intriguing. It's entertaining enough that I don't totally begrudge the credit spent on it. But I do still really recommend anyone interested in reading the book buy a physical copy rather than listening.

You become more invested as story goes on

I’ll be honest it took me a little while to warm up to the story but once I got into it I could not stop listening

Delightful

That was wonderfully adorable and fluffy. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

The light touch of magic. The main character. Her eccentric family. The awful antagonists.

Very good. 7/10

Not for me

This was not what I thought it would be at all. At first I thought glamour was some sort of Regency art form I wasn’t aware of and looked it up. Then discovered it is just some made up form magic. Although everyone seems to be enthralled with it, it’s strange thrown into a Regency novel, as if magic were an everyday art form all young ladies should be pursuing.
Just too weird for me and off putting. I tried to keep going, but the stranger it got, and I felt I couldn’t waste my time with it.