Customer Reviews

His Lordship's Mistress (Signet Regency Romance)

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Jessica O'Neill had mortgaged her family's horse farm to the hilt in an effort to buy time for the stock's reputation to become known to the fashionable world. With 2 brothers to take care of and her parents both dead, Jessica was at her wit's end. To make matters worse, the kindly neighbor who held the deed to the farm, died and his heir was a lecherous creep. Jessica knew the only way to save her family was to marry him, but she just couldn't make herself do it. Jessica takes to the London with a vague idea of employment and falls into the idea of going on stage. Because of her beauty, speaking voice and creativity, Jessica gives fabulous performances, and her legion of admirers grows. Jessica is so unique that she eventually captures the admiration and attention of the handsome, wealthy Earl of Linton. Soon he convinces Jessica to move in with him and become his mistress. Both fall madly in love with each other, but Jessica especially realizes that the Earl of Linton can look as high in the land as any peer and his family would never approve of an actress.

Really, what makes this book so wonderful is the focus is almost totally on the relationship between Jessica and the Earl. I love a romance where the couple are featured constantly, and the rest of the story is just used as a backdrop. You can see the feelings grow between Jessica and Linton and you can absolutely understand why each other falls in love. When she is on her game, Joan Wolf can say more in a couple of sentences than most authors can do in pages of descriptions. I have always been amazed at her understated writing style which simply sparkles with feeling and emotion. I quite love a great number of Wolf's romances, but this is one of my favorites.

This is a typical Joan Wolf regency plot, in that the hero and heroine face some very real life issues and obstacles to their love. It is in the vein of "A Difficult Truce" and "Highland Sunset". If you like those, you will probably like this one. One of my favorites because the hero and heroine are both people of great character and personality.

To me, this was the quintessential Regency romance. The weight of society, the tender affection, the impediments to true love. Saying this book has no plot is like saying Moby Dick is a book about a fish. The construct (young woman forced to take to the stage in order to save her beloved home) sounded trite in the brief description here, but the main character's actions are made clear and admirable and the love she shares with the hero is delectably real. There are no lost letters or crossed wires; they must simply and honorably overcome the very real barriers to their happily ever after. I also appreciated lots of timely references to politics, international relations, and economics of the period. Great!

This book was originally released in 1982 - it was very racy for the time period in which it was relased. I have read Joan Wolf's books for years and this is one of my favorites. I'm delighted to be able to purchase this as well as her other Signet books as e-books.

Jessica is determined to save her family's horse farm for her brother. They have lost everything and she is determined to care for her family. Instead of accepting an offer from a replusive neighbor who has inherited the mortgage on her farm, along with her neighbors estate, she decides to earn the money in the only way she can. She will go to London, accept a role as a minor actress in the theatre and become the mistress of a wealthy patron. She would rather pick the man, she will give her body to than become the wife of a man she hates. And there begins a tale...

Jessica becomes the hit of London and accepts the Earl of Linton as her protector. He is a wonderful gentleman who respects women and treats his mistress with courtesy. She sets the price for her 'services' and plans to save everything she receives to pay off the mortgage, then she will return home with a inheritance from the 'wealthy relative', she is supposed to be visiting.

This is a wonderful romantic story, Jessica is a very independant woman but she is not headstrong or foolish, she makes a plan and sticks with it. I admire her determination! She didn't look for someone to rescue her family she did it herself and she was aware that her choice would ruin all her chances of marriage for the future. This story doesn't have a lot of silliness and poor decisions that so many books have now. This is a woman who knows herself and is willing to make sacrifices for her dreams. I love it!

These books were the step-up from Georgette Heyer and Barbara Cartland, the sex scenes are not graphic or overly explicit.

Book description:

Jessica O'neill's stage career made her the toast of London society. But no one suspected her true identity as a high-born young lady risking her good name to save her family from total ruin. And when the handsome Earl of Linton approaches her with an offer she can't possibly reject, jessica must learn to play a wealth- hunting wanton to the hilt- and avoid falling in love.....

I was expecting so much more from this book since it had one of my favorite themes of the heroine as a mistress to the hero before the inevitable marriage, but there was nothing exciting about this book, on the contrary it was quite boring. The hero lacked personality and the storyline did not have that spark I was hoping for. If you like laid back romance without alot of serious conflict, then you might appreciate this book more than I did.

His Lordship's Mistress is a typical short regency of about 200 pages. Some authors can manage to cram quite detailed plots and characters into this short format, but not in this case. This is a very shallow novel. Jessica Andover, who is 20, is left financially in a bad way when her step father dies. She has Winchcombe, a property, plus the care of two younger half-brothers. Her character comprises of the usual cliches of young, beautiful and fearless. She sells of her tenant farms (I found that a bit hard to swallow, no responsible gentleman farmer at the time would have done such a thing, also she is underage and yet her guardian, a kindly neighbour lets her do as she pleases.) In addition, she mortgages what is left of the estate to the kindly neighbour. This is so she can have the money to breed horses. So of course we know see her openly dressed in breeches in front of her conservative neighbours training horses (very historically unlikely). Her kindly neighbour dies, and a villain who wants to marry her inherits. He threatens to foreclose on the mortgage if she won't marry him. But don't worry, Jessica is fearless, she knows exactly what to do to save her property and herself. She will go to London and find a rich protector and be a mistress. Luckily, she has a beautiful Shakespearean speaking voice, thanks to her governess's training. So of she goes to London, gets a moneylender to lend her money by mortgaging her property (um, thought it was already mortgaged...) walks into the best theatre in town and of course instantly gets hired on the spot as a leading actress and yes, she instantly becomes the reigning toast of London. She becomes a rich lord's mistress and you can guess the rest. No problems for Jessica ever.