Mistress By Mistake
Author: Susan Gee Heino
Publisher: Berkley Sensation
Pub. Date: December 1, 2009
ISBN-13: 978-0425231517
Retail Price: $7.99
368 pagesViscount Randolph Dashford isn’t a bad person; he’s simply pretending to be one to avoid matrimony.
Heiress Evaline Pinchley isn’t usually a sotted wanton; she’s merely celebrating her birthday.
One full moon and one empty Madeira bottle later, Evaline wakes to find herself in Dashford’s bed!
While Evaline tries to salvage what dignity she can from this colossal blunder, family secrets and would- be fiancés run rampant around her. Just when it seems she might find a way out of the mess she’s made, Evaline realizes things are worse than imagined.
She’s lost her heart to Dashford, and that could be the biggest mistake of them all.
~*~*~
How many of follies can be summed up to a night of too might drinking and to be left in the morning with a feeling of “what the hell did I do last night”. This is pretty much what happens to heiress Evaline Pinchley. Evaline, who has playboy bunny blood flowing through her veins, indulges in bunny hood for one glorious night with the help of some wine. Too bad she can’t remember who her Hugh Hefner is in the morning when she wakes up in a stranger’s bed.
Lord Randolf Dashford is in a bind. In his grief over his father’s death years ago, he gets himself engaged to a Miss Claudia Graeley. Now he will do anything to get out of the engagement. His grand plan for this—made when he is drunk—is to make himself so wholly undesirable that Miss Graeley will call off the engagement. He spends years making himself appear a first class rogue, womanizer, and a very money poor one at that. Unfortunately for him, his plan is not working too well and his fiancée still wants to marry him.
“Imagine what he could have come up with if he was sober when I was thinking of how to ditch the girl without getting shot.”
Lord Dashford’s mother calls him back home for an “emergency”, which he later learns is her “up to her ears in shame and here is a nice young lady to marry” lingo. Dashford, in an effort to avoid the new heiress his mother has caught for him, decides to take a trip to the gardens where he meets a very drunk servant—or so he believes. The servant, being no servant of course,but Miss Pinchley. Thus the story truly begins.
I have to admit this book was quite an effort to read. The author had me hooked at the beginning, but the never ending talk of sex got old. Fast. Thoughts of sex and anything to do with sex shows up in almost every single chapter. I don’t see myself as a prude, but it was too much for my tastes.
Between Miss Graeley, Miss Pinchley’s ex-fiance, Miss Pinchley’s grandmother (who is a courtesan), a book about sex that is repeatedly found in the library, and another young man we later learn has eyes for Miss Graeley, and you got a lot of sex. Talk of sex really drags down the main story and became so annoying, I got tired of reading the book.
I will give Ms. Heino her due and say she is quite capable of writing humorous scenes. There are many times in the book when I found myself laughing out loud. I will also give props to Ms. Heino because when she was not writing about the “s” word she can write very entertaining dialogue. There is also an entertaining side story about a lost “Dashford” treasure that I really wished she had spent more time on. Instead it felt a bit rushed. All in all, Mistress by Mistake was not really my cup of tea. Far too much spice in it and not enough sugar. Those who like spicy tea will enjoy this book immensely though. Those who like sweeter and more subdued teas, will probably not.
Rating: 6 (Satisfactory) For those who like their teas spicy.
Heat Level: 4 (Hot)
Buy Links: Book Depository ~ $6.73 | Amazon Kindle $6.39
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