Ian has Asperger’s Syndrome – a high functioning form of autism. Ian Mackenzie leads a privileged life as the youngest brother of the Duke of Kilmorgan but it’s a challenging one. Not only was Dawe’s interpretation of Ian all I my mind envisioned when reading the print version (twice), but her depiction of Beth was stellar as well, exhibiting her strength and sensitivity without words.īefore I continue raving about the audio version, I’ll back up a bit and talk a bit about the setup. I was absolutely thrilled with her performance. I just tried to play him as humanly as possible, and let his actions do a lot of the talking. A character like Ian, whose behavior is so broad and who’s drawn with such broad strokes, really speaks for himself. Lea: Did you find performing his character particularly challenging?Īngela: I didn’t. I hope that that vulnerability shows in the way I performed him. For that reason, I made his voice a little on the soft side. His autistic nature made him so vulnerable, and the way he cared for Beth showed such a tenderness, I wanted to make sure that tenderness shone through in the characterization. How did you prepare for your performance of Ian?Īngela: I really wanted Ian to have a softness about him, despite his description as being hard in every way physically. He touches the reader with his outright maleness as well as his autistic nature, which makes him both an outspoken and truly vulnerable character.

Lea: Ian Mackenzie is most definitely a complex hero. Here are a few of her thoughts on performing Ian: I interviewed Angela over at Speaking of Audiobooks in March of 2012 as we anxiously awaited the release of TMOLIM. He’s one of the most complex and unusual romance heroes I’ve encountered – talk about high expectations for an audio performance! And Tantor did an excellent job casting Angela Dawe in the role. It had “big hit possibilities” written all over it if only a narrator could capture the complexity of Ian, a sexy yet autistic hero. When I heard that Tantor was releasing TMOLIM in audio format, I was what can be best described as guardedly enthusiastic. I wasn’t alone in my adoration as romance readers at All About Romance chose it as Best Romance of 2009. Such was the case with Jennifer Ashley’s The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie (TMOLIM) when I read in print format shortly after its release in 2009. There are those times when an author writes a book so perfectly fit to one’s reading tastes that you smile in amazement as you read and miss it greatly once you have turned the final page.

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