Acquired Audiobook By: I started to listen to audiobooks in [2016] as a way to offset my readings of print books whilst noting there was a rumour about how audiobooks could help curb chronic migraines as you are switching up how your reading rather than allowing only one format to be your bookish choice. As I found colouring, knitting and playing solitaire agreeable companions to listening to audiobooks, I embarked on a new chapter of my reading life where I spend time outside of print editions of the stories I love reading and exchange them for audio versions.
Through hosting for Audiobookworm Promotions, I’ve expanded my knowledge of authors who are producing audio versions of their stories whilst finding podcasters who are sharing their bookish lives through pods. Meanwhile, I am also curating my own wanderings in audio via my local library who uses Overdrive for their digital audiobook catalogue wherein I can also request new digital audiobooks to become added to their OverDrive selections. Aside from OverDrive I also enjoy having Audible & Scribd memberships as my budget allows. It is a wonderful new journey and one I enjoy sharing – I have been able to expand the percentage of how many audios I listen to per year since 2018.
I received a complimentary audiobook copy of “The Adventures of Tom Finch, Gentleman” via Audiobookworm Promotion who is working with Lucy May Lennox on this blog tour in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.
Why I took a chance on “Tom Finch”:
I love finding different routes into History and of finding stories of Historical Fiction which focus on different eras whilst giving us a new sub-interest to explore History through a lens we might not otherwise meet if the writer hadn’t addressed the plot they’ve written. For me, it felt like this was one story that would combine both humour and comedy in a way that would lend itself into an interesting portal into this side of the 18th Century.
The fact it was an audiobook with a larger cast than most seemed most intriguing as it is interesting to hear how multiple persons would approach narrating the story but also curate a way to entertain us as well as this is one of the longest audiobooks I’ve undertaken to listen to as well.
The Adventures of Tom Finch, Gentleman
Subtitle: 18th Century Opera Comes to Life
by Lucy May Lennox
Source: Audiobook via Audiobookworm Promotions
Narrator: Duke DeFoix
London, 1735. Covent Garden offers a world of pleasures and diversions, even for a blind man. Tom Finch approaches life with boundless good cheer and resilience, whether he’s pursuing a musical career or pursuing women. And as for his blindness, to him it’s merely an inconvenience.
Join Tom for a picaresque romp through high and low Georgian society among rakes, rovers, thieving whores and demi-reps, highway robbers, bigamists, and duelists, bisexual opera divas, castrati, mollies, and cross-dressers, lecherous aristocrats, and headstrong ladies. This meticulously researched, witty and lively tale overturns stereotypes about disability and revels in the spectacle and excitement of 18th century opera.
Places to find the book:
Published by Self Published
on 10th October, 2020
Format: Audiobook | Digital
Length: 14 hours and 56 minutes (unabridged)
Formats Available: Trade Paperback, Audiobook and Ebook
Converse via: #AudioReads, #Audiobook and #AudiobookwormPromotions
as well as #HistoricalFiction or #HistFic
a note from jorie:
I’ve been quietly advocating for Character & Cast listings for audiobooks – as it would help those of us whom hear and interpret the sound of what we hear differently from other listeners as much as when if we’re book bloggers and/or reviewers, or just listeners who like to talk about what we’re hearing via social media, we’d be better informed about the proper spellings of the characters within the stories themselves. I’ve made a few errors along the route of becoming an audiobook listener as not all characters are spelt out for listeners to know who is whom and it is sometimes tricky if say you’re dyslexic like me and spelling isn’t your forte!
Ergo, I want to champion the production of this audiobook – as they disclosed a cast listing for those of us on the blog tour and I wanted to pass along the information to my readers – especially if you’re deciding to give this a listen yourself and/or were curious how these could become put together as I am finding them a necessary need as an audiobook listener but this is one of the few scant times I’ve seen one produced for us. I applaud knowing these can be put together as it would be wickedly brilliant if more audiobooks had Cast & Character listings – as to take it a step further, if it could start to be disclosed which narrator on multi-cast audiobooks are portraying which voice/character (depending if its Fiction or Non-Fiction) within the story itself, I’d be wicked happy!
Tom Finch: Composer of broadside ballads, music master and conductor in the opera houses around Covent Garden, London. Illegitimate son of a poxy earl and a commoner, raised by his uncle who gave him a thorough education in music, drinking, and seducing women. Blind since early childhood but independent and self-reliant, he gets about using echolocation, a walking stick, and a mental map of Covent Garden. Unflaggingly cheerful, good-natured and optimistic, given to libertinism and wantonness but finds his rake’s progress continually interrupted by his musical talent and innate decency…
age: 30 | height: 6 feet | appearance: very thin and tall, with sandy brown hair worn long and tied in a queue, always dressed stylishly in a surcoat, brocade waistcoat, white hose, and tricorne hat
Tess Turnbridge: Aspiring opera diva with a burning ambition to become prima donna of the Theatre Royal. Daughter of a famous Italian soprano and an English composer. Recently returned to London, having left Naples under somewhat scandalous circumstances. Kind-hearted and level-headed, but not above giving into temptation, from either men or women…
age: 25 | height: 5 feet 3 inches | appearance: slender but very feminine, with dark brown curls and dark eyes, usually dressed in a robe a la francaise
Sally Salisbury: Infamous whore, part time pickpocket, shoplifter, and house breaker, with occasional forays into forgery and highway robbery. Fearless, fun-loving and with no pretense to polite manners, she lets most men know she’s only after their money. But she always treats Tom as an equal and without a trace of pity, and he can’t help but love her for it, even though he knows he shouldn’t trust her…
age: maybe 25 or so? She’s not sure. | height: 5 feet 7 inches | appearance: tall and angular, not very feminine, lank blonde hair and blue eyes, sometimes dresses in men’s clothing
Jem Castleton: Tom’s crony and amanuensis, an unrepentant rogue, often found lushing it with the whores around Covent Garden, but also not averse to visiting a molly house.
Lady Sarah Grey: Tom’s dowager aunt and chief benefactor. A keen patron of the opera, she encourages his career but he often finds her aid is not without some emotional price.
Captain Philip Moorehouse, RN: Tom’s half-brother, another of the earl’s many illegitimate sons. Post captain without a ship. Closeted gay man in a relationship with a Marine captain.
Charlotte Carstone: Tom’s half-sister, one of the cast-off daughters of the earl’s first wife. Comes to Tom for aid in fleeing her abusive husband.
why i am spotlighting the adventures of tom finch: gentleman:
When I first researched this audiobook – I thought it was going to be a wicked new variant of how Historical Fiction can be explored through a multi-cast production of the story itself and fused to the historical era in which it is set. I still stand by that assessment but for me, I had issues with the story through its produced presentation as soon as I started to listening to it. I am unsure if it is the voices in my ears which distracted me or if their tone of infliction was working against me – whatever first started to distract me from the story, I felt this was one audiobook which took more out of me to concentrate on than it was to enjoy listening too.
The reason I mention the tone and delivery of the narrators is because I sometimes hear the narrators differently than other readers who are listening to audiobooks. Being dyslexic sometimes I interpret what I hear differently than others and sometimes I find certain tones of voice can be distinctively distracting to me as well.
I knew there were issues in the production of this audiobook which were addressed early-on ahead of my tour date for the blog tour but what I had trouble wrestling more than the technical issues was the fact that despite the appearances of this being a Historical story I would gallop into enjoying to listen to throughout the fourteen hours it had to give me – I found myself circling through the chapters and never finding myself truly anchoured inside them. It isn’t the fault of the narrators as their performances are top notch – it is just either the story or the ways in which the narrators approached this presentation was my cuppa tea to be honest. These are narrators who are wonderful performers across their chosen disciplines as they work in a variety of media outside of audiobooks – and yet, for me, I found something lacking in why I couldn’t root myself to the characters or to the overall arc of the story.
It was frustrating me greatly because I wanted to hear this story and see it as it was meant to be seen and yet, I was finding myself struggling to connect with it as it played on in my ears. Clearly this is meant for other listeners than I and I would suggest it would be a good romp of enjoyment for those who appreciate Historical Fiction with equal measures of humour and comedy. For whichever reason, the hours I tried to hear this story did not resonate with as much as I had hoped but I cannot fault the actors behind the voices. They each took on their characters with such an intensity of focus that it was interesting to see how their personas and their personalities shined through the characters themselves whilst they uniquely played off each other as well!
This blog tour is courtesy of Audiobookworm Promotions:
Be sure to follow the blog tour route to see what else awaits you!
NOTE: Similar to blog tours wherein I feature book reviews, book spotlights (with or without extracts), book announcements (or Cover Reveals) – I may elect to feature an author, editor, narrator, publisher or other creative person connected to the book, audiobook, Indie film project or otherwise creative publishing medium being featured wherein the supplemental content on my blog is never compensated monetarily nor am I ever obligated to feature this kind of content. I provide (98.5%) of all questions and guest topics regularly featured on Jorie Loves A Story. I receive direct responses back to those enquiries by publicists, literary agents, authors, blog tour companies, etc of whom I am working with to bring these supplemental features and showcases to my blog. I am naturally curious about the ‘behind-the-scenes’ of stories and the writers who pen them: I have a heap of joy bringing this content to my readers. Whenever there is a conflict of connection I do disclose those connections per post and disclose the connection as it applies.
{SOURCES: Book Cover for “The Adventures of Tom Finch: Gentleman, the biography of the author and the narrators; the cast of characters list as well as the blog tour banner, the audiobook promo banner and the host badge were provided by Audiobookworm Promotions and are used with permission. Post dividers by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination. Tweets embedded by codes provided by Twitter. Blog graphics created by Jorie via Canva: Audiobook Spotlight banner and the Comment Box Banner.}
Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2020.
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