Do you happen to remember who recorded it? There’s a famous guy who did a lot of recordings of the Aubrey Maturin series and I’m told he did fantastic accents and good dramatic flair. What did you think?
It was read by John Lee, published in 2003. (I looked on the library catalog.) There’s an earlier recording (1991) by Patrick Tull.
I liked the reader on the discs I had ... pleasant voice, and the characters were reasonably distinct. However, I didn’t notice accents, especially, nor great dramatic flair. It could be the 1991 set that you were told about.