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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Bluestocking Brides, 16 Jun 2008
Book 1 The Notorius Lord - Cory Newlyn and Justin Kestrel
Book 2 One Night of Scandal - Richard Kestrel
Deborah Stratton is a respectable widow, but she hides a secret which means she'll never marry again. Lord Richard Kestrel is London's most notorious rake. A man who has already shockingly offered to make Deborah his mistress. Now Richard has come to realise it is Deborah's hand in marriage he wants - but not before they share on night of scandal!
Book 3 The Rake's Mistress - Lucas Kestrel
Lord Lucas Kestrel's anger turns to desire when he meets Miss Rebecca Raleigh. He believes that she's one of the Scandalous Archangel courtesans, but he quickly discovers that not only is she innocent she is, in fact, the woman he's been seeking... But Lucas, the rake without a heart, hasn't bargained on falling in love with the one woman he can't have...
Book 4 The Pirate's Kiss Short Storey in Christmas Belles - Daniel Delancy
Book 5 The Last Rake in London - Jack Kestrel
The above books tell the storey of the Kestrel Brothers and Friends during the 1800 and with the final book into the 20th Century.
I have only read One Night of Scandal which I have found to Have a very good story line hope the others are as good.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Intelligent Romance, 14 July 2008
Nicola Cornick has written two wonderful, fast paced books which almost transcend the romance genre with robust characterization.No swooning maids or wicked step-parents.The heroes are not chauvinistic and the heroines are wonderfully independent minded in a period not renowned for female emancipation.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Conclusion to the "Bluestocking Brides" trilogy of romantic intrigues, 12 Jan 2010
"The Rake's Mistress" is the third and last of three romances set in Suffolk in 1803, which was a time when Napoleon had an army ready to invade England at any opportunity and Britain was very exercised with the question of how to repel any such attack.
The three books in the trilogy and their main romantic protagonists are
1) "The Notorious Lord (Historical Romance)", Rachel Odell and Lord Cory Newlyn.
2) "One Night of Scandal (Historical Romance)" Deborah Stratton and Lord Richard Kestrel.
3) "The Rake's Mistress (Historical Romance)" Rebecca Raleigh and Lord Lucas Kestrel.
All three books have been published individually, but the second and third volumes of the trilogy have also been published together as volume 23 of Mills & Boon's "Regency Lords and ladies" collection of Georgian romance double bills. (Link: The Regency Lords & Ladies Collection (MB CONTINUITIES - Regency Lords & Ladies 2-in-1) (Regency Lords and Ladies Collection)).
I originally wrote this review as a commentary just on book three, but as it also appears on the Amazon pages for the double bill, I have added a couple of sentences below about the second volume.
The whole of the trilogy is slightly greater than the sum of the parts as the espionage story and a couple of additional romantic sub-plots build through the three books.
(I am told that there are two more stories in the saga of the Kestrel family and their friends: "The Pirate's Kiss" which is a short story in the collection "Christmas Wedding Belles: The Pirate's Kiss\A Smuggler's Tale\The Sailor's Bride (Harlequin Historical)and "The Last Rake in London (Historical Romance)."
The background to the "Bluestocking Brides" trilogy is that the British government believes that Napoleon has a spy operating in the "Midwinter villages" area of the Suffolk Coast who is sending details of local defence arrangements to France. They believe that the spy may be a woman, but do not know her identity.
It is never explained how the government knows this: the reader is left to guess that perhaps a British double agent in France has learned that Napoleon's invasion planners have an intelligence source in Suffolk and has reported this to London. The espionage elements of all three books in the trilogy are rather contrived and implausible, but this does not matter too much because the stories are really romances. The spycatching aspect is mostly there to provide an excuse for the heroes to be interested in the heroines.
The government asks Justin, Duke of Kestrel, whose family seat at Kestrel Court, is in the area where the spy is operating, to investigate. (First major boo-boo in the background reserch - Ducal titles are NEVER taken from family names. Both Royal and non-Royal Dukes in Britain invariably take their title from a county or from a county town.) The Duke ropes in his brothers, Lord Richard Kestrel and Lord Lucas Kestrel, and his friend Lord Cory Newlyn to help him investigate.
The Duke believes that the spy may be one of the literary circle run by his tenant and old flame, Lady Sally Saltire, so he encourages his friend and brothers to court the ladies of this circle and, while so doing, keep their eyes and ears open for anything unusual which might lead them to anyone who is selling secrets to Napoleon.
In the second volume, "One night of scandal" the Duke's brother, retired naval officer Lord Richard Kestrel, is keeping an eye on local widow Deborah Stratton, a member of the literary circle. Mrs Stratton needs help with an embarrassing family problem - but accepting assistance from Lord Richard soon becomes far more embarrassing ...
The heroine of "The Rake's Mistress," Rebecca Raleigh, is an artisan: she has just inherited her late uncle's glass engraving business and is trying with some difficulty to keep it afloat. At the start of the book she is on her way home from a business meeting at a notorious gentleman's club, the Archangel, in a carriage provided by the club. A young man, little more than a boy, takes refuge in her carriage from a delicate situation.
Taking pity on the lad, she drops him off at his home, which turns out to be the London residence of the Duke of Kestrel. The young man is Lord Stephen Kestrel, the Duke's youngest brother. And the Duke's second brother, Lord Lucas Kestrel, is also at home. Lucas is horrified to see his little brother dropped off, in an embarrassing state of undress, by a carriage in the livery of the Archangel club, accompanied by a beautiful woman who he initially assumes must be one of the Cyprians of the Archangel club.
After a brief exchange of angry words, during which Rebecca is furious to be taken for a courtesan because of her act of kindness to Stephen, Lucas soon realises that she is actually an honest artisan - but that she may be connected, knowingly or not, with the Suffolk spy ring.
I had better not say why Lucas believes this for fear of spoiling the story - to be honest the spying aspect of the book are pretty ridiculous anyway. For the purposes of the book it doesn't really matter: the point is that he realises that he needs to keep an eye on Rebecca so he commissions some work from her.
Lucas and Rebecca soon become much more intimately involved than either had intended - but will the fact that he suspects she may be connected with a spy ring come between them?
This being the concluding volume of the trilogy, several sub-plots as well as the romance between Lucas and Rebecca are resolved at the end of it. The three books of the trilogy are best read in sequence.
Period research in these novels is very much a curate's egg throughout the series as hinted above. Some very good nuggets and some rather embarrassing howlers. In particular, Rebecca's brother is captain of a privateer: the book reads as if privateers were still little better than pirates, and consequently that he would be regarded as highly suspect by the British authorities.
There certainly were periods of history, particularly about a hundred and fifty years before the time when this novel is set, when the line between (legitimate) privateering and (illegitimate) piracy was a thin one. But that was not the case in 1803.
Outright piracy had largely been stamped out decades before: privateers were widely licenced by the governments of Britain, France and the USA in the Napoleonic era as a means of franchising out attacks on the commerce of their enemies. However, privateers of the period operated fairly strictly within the terms of the "letters of marque" from their governments which authorised them to attack enemy shipping, and enemy shipping only. So privateering at the time was a respectable, even patriotic occupation.
However, the characterisation and buildup of romantic tension in these novels is quite well done.
Reasonably entertaining if you like period romances and are not too bothered by the lack of meticulous historical accuracy.
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