Mistress [Kindle Edition]

Amanda Quick has written an awful lot of Regencies and over time the similarities become apparent; her heroes all have harsh faces, are rather alpha male, for some reason believe they can't love and deflower the heroine before marriage. The heroines are usually bluestocking women who aren't conventionally attractive but are witty and singleminded. There's also usually some kind of mystery to be solved that helps bring hero and heroine together.

Mistress is another such book. It started off very well, with the Earl of Masters, Marcus Cloud, discovering that a woman named Mrs Bright is going around in society in London saying that she is his latest mistress and that they have quarrelled. Masters knows very well she isn't - he has never met her - but he's intrigued enough to return to London from his estates in Yorkshire to find out what's going on.

When he arrives at a Ball that Iphiginia Bright is attending she is more than slightly startled - she had been informed by a blackmailer that Masters had been murdered. He walks in, sweeps her off her feet (literally, not emotionally) and delivers her home, asking her why she's masquerading as his mistress. She explains the blackmail plot and although he doesn't initially believe her one of his other friends soon becomes a target of the same blackmailer and so he and Iphiginia join forces.

Amanda Quick (aka Jayne Ann Krentz and Jayne Castle) likes to add mystery plots to her regencies and I suppose it gives an extra focus for the book but so often in her books, and this is one of them, it's all too easily solved. Despite our heroine being rather a bluestocking (a former schoolmistress) she seems to see everything rather simply and in a black and white manner. In fact the whole book is like this - nothing deep and complicated; Iphiginia sets up an investment pool and of course it is wildly successful, she decides that a lady that Masters' brother Bennet likes is right for him on an acquaintance of about two seconds and she pushes her way into Masters' life, causing him to break some of the rules by which he lives his life, with little reflection as to whether they might actually serve him well. We also have the traditional Amanda Quick heroine giving up her virginity at the drop of a hat, having saved it up for ages.

Amanda Quick's regencies are not ones to read for historical accuracy. Our characters call each other by their first names, they speak American rather than English to each other, they talk in rather 20th century words about love and other stuff and their sexual morality definitely doesn't feel like that of the Regency period. But if you just want a fun and fluffy book to read this one will probably do.

Blackmail, murder, a headstrong heroine and a intriging hero. A real good book. Not to be missed!!

This was the first Amanda Quick book I read. I've read at least 5 more since -- Scandal, Surrender, Ravished, Deception, and Dangerous. Her books are really wonderful, she brings her spirited characters to life, and each story has lots of intrigue! Try her, you'll love it!