MY FAIR MISTRESS BY (WARREN, TRACY ANNE)[BALLANTINE BOOKS]JAN-1900 [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

if you're a seasoned veteran of romance novel reading, then you've read this plot a hundred times.

lady julianna hawthorne is a beautiful widow forced to desperate actions because of her gambling younger brother. she approaches financier rafe pendragon in an attempt to gain extra time for her brother to come up with money in order to pay off the debt owed to him. pendragon says no and instead asks her to be his mistress to pay off the debt(hoping she'll leave in outrage). however, he underestimates her desperation. she says yes. they agree to meet once a week for the next six months.

what follows is alot of sensual encounters (taking place primarily in the convenient house tucked away on a secluded street). almost immediately they begin an affair. because julianna was previously married to a cold and heartless man (haven't we heard that one before), she has no idea the act of lovemaking could be so rewarding and physically satisfactory. rafe has never found such sexual bliss with anyone prior to julianna. they're slowly falling for each other.

meanwhile, julianna has a younger sister currently experiencing her first season. the sister is being pursued by a bad guy who just so happens to be rafe's mortal enemy. julianna's brother is also on the cusp of becoming a chronic gambler.

what the author gets right:

the chemistry between hero and heroine is explosive and the intimate scenes are rendered with just the right balance of emotional engagement and physical description. they never feel clinical and i was easily pulled into each moment.

what the author struggles with:

the triteness of the plot. it isn't so much the bit regarding the heroine being forced into being the hero's mistress. i've seen that done plenty of times and with good writing and other unexpected elements, this can be pulled off in a way where it won't feel rote. however, in this case, the author pulls out every overused device romance readers have cringed at over the years, i.e. the heroine who thinks she's barren because she was married x number of years and didn't conceive (so of course there's no need for them to take precautionary measures to prevent pregnancy). then there's the 'noble sacrifice' which means instant misunderstanding because no one bothers to communicate the whys behind the actions which in turn guarantees someone being placed in peril unnecessarily. finally, the villian is so heinous he's almost a caricature.

in addition, the dialogue between hero and heroine is rather limited to the affair and the situation regarding the villian. the relationship doesn't experience much growth outside of the bedroom, which made it hard for me to believe in the love match.

i was hopeful this story wouldn't prove to be so predictable, but that wasn't the case. while it did start off rather promising and i enjoyed the intimate encounters and found the hero to be especially charismatic and confident regarding sexual matters, the writing couldn't distract me from the fact that this story is unremarkable and, while not a bad book overall, just doesn't bring anything new or exciting to the table.

i'd recommend it for new readers of romance who have yet to encounter this storyline before...or readers who like alot of sensual encounters in their romances with little care for much else.

I have to admit, I have never read Ms. Warren's "Trap" series, so when I picked this book up I had no idea what to expect. As it stands now, I can't foresee ever picking up the "Trap" series.

Lady Julianna Hawthorne is thinking only of saving her rakehell brother from financial ruin when she visits Rafe Pendragon, financier. After all, she doesn't want her sister forced into the same situation she herself had faced, saving the family by making a financially-prudent marriage match. When jewels and paintings can't cover the debt to the Dragon, however, Rafe offers her another deal: six months as his mistress. Rafe has his own demons to deal with, and in order to protect her, he drives her away. But in an amazing twist that a blind man could see coming, the widowed Lady Hawthorne - thought to be barren - is carrying his child. However, a threat still looms: Rafe's half-brother, Burton St. George, Viscount Middleton, is hell-bent on destroying any happiness Rafe makes for himself with apparently no motive at all except that their father favored the illegitimate Rafe over his legitimate heir. We are led to believe that he also has some level of madness, but his crimes seem far too premeditated for that.

The first half of this book is extremely lackluster, but I perservered in order to get my full $6.99 out of the experience. The last half is slightly more interesting, only because it is amazingly frustrating to find that some authors still think constant misunderstandings between the two protagonists is an intriguing conflit. I'm sorry, it isn't. If either Rafe or Julianna had just flat out asked the other what was going on, the book could have been cut in half. The villain, St. George, is not very well fleshed out, and the conflict and resolution was like a house of cards, all of it falling, but not really into the right order. Lackluster and a little disheartening from an author I've heard so many good things about.

Ms. Warren has used nearly every over-used plot device in the romance genre for this book: The "misunderstanding", the "woman who thinks she's barren because her husband had kids before", the "troubled hero because of a loss in his past", the "barter of body to repay debt", the "very evil villain who did horrible things to another person to hurt the hero", the "break up to spare feelings which actually hurts things more", the "TSTL heroine who assumes that there's no reason for the restrictions her husband gives", the "heroine who is sexually innocent because her previous husband wasn't good in bed and called her frigid". I could go on and on, really.

Why 3 stars then? Well, if you've seen some of the awful books I've read recently, you'd understand why I would feel guilty giving it the same rating as some of those whoppers. I will say that I personally think it deserves about a 2 1/2, but a three is more accurate.

As is my typical style, I choose not to rehash the plot. It's always covered numerous times by other reviewers and sources.

As is also my style, I have to quote something from the book that stands out to me. Mainly that, while I don't mind having a character give birth in a book, there are times when LESS description is better.

"He felt her entire body shake as she forced the baby from her body in a slick rush of agony."

Well then. That doesn't sound pleasant! Look, I've got 2 kids. I birthed them both naturally, sans any meds. I understand the process of childbirth. But we really could have done without some of the descriptive text.

The sex scenes were average. Not overly hot, but didn't include any horrifying descriptions of oddly-colored genitalia or crying vulvas. The characters appeared to have a genuine affection for eachother, although that was more stated than made self-evident. The relationship between St. George and Maris was, as much of the other plot devices in the book, a bit over-used, but not horribly so. The whole "secret past" with Pamela is something I think I've read in 5 different books in the last year alone, but I can accept it, I suppose.

I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend this book or author to anyone (I think I've read 2 others of her books, so clearly I don't dislike her in general), but I wouldn't try to dissuade someone from reading it. It's just important that you go into it knowing that you'll see a lot of repetition, and no fresh/new ideas.

Also, since this is something that drives me crazy with other books, and contributed to this receiving 3 stars instead of 2, the editing was fairly well done. That's always nice to see!