North and South ~ Elizabeth Gaskell

Juliet Stevenson’s narration is a work of art.  (5) (Classic) 

I switched between audio & e.book. 

By purchasing the $0.00 kindle edition I ended up with a 'price reduced' selection of audiobook options to chose from.  For Lower North Island New Zealanders, epukapuka has the audiobook narrated by Clare Wille available for loan.

This book was a restart read for me, I had laid it aside for other reading in 2016,  and I’m so glad I picked it back up to re-wrestle with this year.   The first portion of the book tends to drag and so I had to just knuckle down and navigate through the first four chapters.
It feels rather satisfying to have completed this particular sip read which I ended up enjoying as the themes in North & South seem to be similar to those found in Pride and Prejudice… though Thornton ‘voices’ his feelings for Margaret with panting passion - something Darcy would never do ;)

It was nice to find the same portion from one of Michael Drayton’s sonnet, Idea 61: [Since There’s No Help] that I’d first encountered in a Georgette Heyer book, she gifted it to Lord Damarel to quote in Venetia, and Elizabeth Gaskell used in part 3 of North & South: 

Since there’s no help, come let us kiss and part.

Nay, I have done, you get no more of me;