I came to The Colonel's Daughter without having read the Senator's Wife series, which is perhaps the most honest testing ground for a prequel. Can it function as its own story, or does it exist only as supplemental material for an established readership? The answer, I am glad to report, is that it mostly stands on its own. Jen Lyon builds Cate Brooks with enough specificity that you understand her as a person before you understand what she becomes, and what she becomes is shaped so clearly by what she survives here that the prequel structure feels genuinely motivated rather than commercially opportunistic.
The book opens at Oxford in the ancient halls Lyon evokes with precise sensory detail and moves to Bordeaux and eventually to the political pressures of Washington D.C., tracing Cate's first love, her relationship with Nathalie, across a landscape of institutions that are always, in some form, demanding something from her. Her father, the Colonel, is the book's great antagonist: a man who loves power and nothing else, as one reviewer put it, who has structured his daughter's entire existence around the continuation of his own authority. Everything Cate is, scholar, rower, promising pianist, dutiful heir, has been shaped by what he requires of her.
Destroyed Slowly by Who They Both Are
Lyon writes love stories, not romances, and the distinction matters. The relationship between Cate and Nathalie does not follow the grammar of genre romance: there is no guaranteed destination, no satisfying resolution. The outcome is known from the series context, and Lyon does not pretend otherwise. What the book offers instead is the texture of a first love that is profound and real and systematically destroyed, not by a single dramatic betrayal, but by the accumulated weight of who both women are and what they were born into. The pain is the right kind of pain, the kind that comes from recognizing that two people who deserved better did not get it.
The class dimension is handled with care. Cate's wealth and privilege are real; she has access to Oxford, to Bordeaux, to social worlds that Nathalie navigates differently. Lyon does not flatten this into simple dynamics of power. Both women are constrained by different systems, and the book is interested in the specific shape each constraint takes rather than offering a generalized critique.
Craden Shifts From Oxford Control to Bordeaux Warmth
Abby Craden's narration is the audiobook's central pleasure. She brings to Cate a quality of controlled emotion that suits the character perfectly, someone who has learned to hold everything carefully because letting it slip would be too costly. The Oxford passages feel genuinely inhabited; Craden handles the layered register of a young woman performing adequacy while quietly desperate in a way that requires real craft. The Bordeaux sections have a looser, warmer quality that she captures without losing continuity of character. At nearly twelve hours, this is a sustained performance, and Craden maintains it without losing the detail work that makes the character portrait coherent.
Reviewers who have read the Senator's Wife series consistently report that this prequel retroactively deepens the earlier books, making Catharine and Nathalie more understandable in their adult behavior by illuminating what formed them. That kind of layering is hard to pull off, and the fact that Lyon achieves it here suggests a level of structural planning across the series that is genuinely impressive.
Anticipatory Heartbreak Held in a Minor Key
This is a book that operates in a minor key for long stretches. The anticipatory heartbreak noted by multiple reviewers is real; you know where this is going, and Lyon does not rush toward it. Readers who need narrative momentum maintained through forward motion may find the pace frustrating. This is a book about constraint, and it enacts that constraint formally as well as thematically.
Content warning notes are linked through the author's website rather than included in the text, which means audiobook-only listeners will need to seek those out separately before beginning if they are relevant to their experience. The book addresses control, abuse, and emotional damage in ways that are not graphic but are sustained and serious.
Fans of Craden Will Call This Her Best
Existing readers of the Senator's Wife series will find this essential, and the series context enriches it considerably. LGBTQ fiction readers looking for literary-register sapphic romance, one concerned with interiority and consequence rather than genre convention, will find it rewarding. Abby Craden fans specifically will want this; it is among her best work. Skip it if you need narrative resolution or if the premise of a love story whose outcome is already known in advance diminishes rather than deepens your investment.
Key Details
- Narrator: Abby Craden is exceptional here - she captures the emotional precision of a young woman learning to hold herself together across three continents, and the Oxford and Bordeaux passages in particular feel fully inhabited.
- Subjects: First love and class constraint, the violence of expectation on a woman's selfhood, the long shadow of a controlling father
- Tone: Aching and elegant, laced with anticipatory heartbreak
- Bottom line: A prequel that earns its existence by deepening an already-established world - complex character work that rewards readers who have followed the Senator's Wife series but also holds up independently.
Good to Know
Do I need to read the Senator's Wife series before listening to The Colonel's Daughter?
You can listen without prior series knowledge. Lyon provides enough character context that the story is coherent independently. However, existing series readers will find the prequel significantly richer, and the retroactive deepening of Catharine and Nathalie as characters is reportedly one of the book's main rewards for returning readers.
How does the LGBTQ romance element function in the context of the story's setting across Oxford and Bordeaux?
The relationship between Cate and Nathalie is central to the book, but Lyon treats it as a love story defined by its specific social and familial constraints rather than by its sapphic nature per se. The setting's class and institutional pressures shape how the relationship can exist, which is integral to the book's emotional logic.
Is The Colonel's Daughter a satisfying standalone listen, or does it end on an unresolved note?
It has emotional coherence as a standalone, though it functions as a prequel whose outcome is partly telegraphed by series context. The ending is not abrupt, but this is not a story with a tidy resolution. Reviewers describe it as painful and angsty in the best sense of those words.
How does Abby Craden handle the transition between Cate's emotional performance for her father and her more private moments?
This is one of the narration's strengths. Craden maintains a consistent quality of controlled emotion that reads as Cate's learned self-containment, with private moments carrying a slightly different register that makes the contrast feel genuine rather than imposed. Several reviewers specifically highlight the narration as exceptional for this character.
