I couldn’t agree more about the new Julia London book. I liked 7/8 of the book. I liked the H/H. But the ending?? Are you kidding? It was asinine in every way and amazingly unsatisfying.

Fallen from Grace has moved up on my “to purchase” list and ANYTHING containing the words Laura and Kinsale is immediately purchased read without delay.

Thank you, that’s two votes for the Fallen from Grace book now.

So, I always remember The Wicked Lover for a heroine that is scandalously FALLEN and really unapologetic about it.

I don't fully understand why to Jane, Jessica (also a virgin at the beginning of the book, and then becomes the hero's kept woman) is more of a real mistress than Bel (who is a virgin, then raped once by a villain, and then becomes the hero's kept woman). To me, if Jessica is a real mistress, then Bel is too.

I am not sure why that would be either. They both belong in the same bin as far as I can tell. Perhaps she meant that Bel is a faux-courtesan, not a faux-mistress. I would agree to that one.

Elle, as I recall, yes, initially, in Dancing w/Clara, Tenby asked Harriet, an poor companion altho a “lady”, to be his mistress and she turned him down. However, in Tempting Harriet, which takes place six years later, she is the wealthy widow of a baronet. Clearly not of his social stature (but then who is, with a duke?) but not by any means needing his money. When he ripped into her verbally for visiting his aunt at his ducal mansion, she slapped him and said don't you dare treat me that way. I am a lady (or words to that effect) and he apologized.

Yes. Tenby definitely offered to make Harriet his mistress (in the kept woman sense) twice in Dancing With Clara, but despite the fact that he is not supporting her financially in Tempting Harriet, she is referred to multiple times during the story as his mistress, both by Tenby and Harriet herself.

(Harriet’s POV (thinking about her upcoming meeting with Tenby in Kew near the beginning of the book):
She was going to say yes. She was going to become his mistress. Just for a short time. Just for long enough to satisfy her curiosity and craving.

Tenby’s POV (the next day):
He had been about to offer her marriage the day before, but she had forestalled him and offered herself as his mistress instead.

Tenby’s POV (after their first sexual encounter):
No longer the pure, unattainable Harriet of his dreams. She was his mistress. She had become very thoroughly so during the past hour and a half.

Tenby (to Harriet):
“It was unspeakably improper for you, my mistress, to set foot inside my home,” he said, “and to impose your company on my unsuspecting grandmother and aunt.”

And yes, Harriet lets him have it for his arrogance in this instance, but when Tenby ultimately tells her that she is not a whore, doxy or even his mistress, since it implies a kept woman, but his lover, Harriet thinks to herself:
The word caressed her. And mocked her. They were not lovers. Lovers loved. The very word suggested that. They did not love. They merely had sexual relations.

The word “mistress” is used throughout the story, and I think that Balogh does so deliberately to establish Harriet and Tenby’s relationship as being something other than a love affair. Certainly Harriet never feels comfortable with the relationship and Tenby finds himself strangely disappointed (despite the good sex) while at the same time increasingly desperate for the relationship not to end.

I really loved this story, but I am a sucker for this type of angsty set-up with social disparity between the hero and heroine. I consider this story (and Wolf’s The Arrangement) to be mistress tales, since in each case the heroine is in love with the hero and would gladly marry him if he asked, but the hero does not (initially) offer marriage due to the inequality in their social status. But I can see why others may not agree with this interpretation.

I love mistress/courtesan/fallen women stories. The heroines tend to have complicated, interesting pasts (I love characters with pasts) and there’s wonderful tensions and conflict and angst. If a happy ending can be believably reached, it can be particularly powerful. And for me a happy ending doesn’t necessarily have to mean social acceptance. I found the ending of Madensky Square quite satisfying.

I don’t necessarily think of a mistress being a kept woman. (A courtesan, on the other hand, I think of as a woman who supports herself by being kept by a series of protectors). I’d refer to Emily Cowper being Lord Palmerston’s mistress, but he certainly wasn’t supporting her. Historically the word mistress was even sometimes used for a beloved with whom the man in question wasn’t sleeping. A sort “mistress of my heart” usage. I remember being very confused when I first read Goldsmith’s “She Stoops to Conquer” and the hero’s best friend informs the hero that their “mistresses” (meaning the well-born young women they both plan to marry) are at the inn they’re staying at. I was about ten at the time, but I knew what the word mistress usually signified. My mom and I had a talk about how it could have other usages :-).

@janine -’ so given those 5 qualifiers, would you see Tempting Harriet as a mistress story? Because only number one seems potentially a problem -’ the societal disapproval -’ but that doesn't put her in a mistress box for me. She was his lover -’ and honestly, even though his grandmother didn't want him to look lower than the daughter of an earl, it's not like the earth would stop turning in its tracks were they to marry.

To be truthful, I didn’t finish reading Tempting Harriet, so I’m not sure my answer would be valid. However, the reason I had trouble reading it was precisely because I felt that although Harriet wanted to be Archie’s lover, and perhaps that was even what he wanted as well, he was in effect making her into his mistress, and this was the source of the angst in the story. I love many of Balogh’s regencies; they are such emotional stories, but in this case the I felt Harriet’s shame and hurt so acutely that I couldn’t keep reading.

What if she's married, but he's not? Or if he's married and she's widowed. I don't know that I automatically agree with ‘if he's married'=then she's a mistress. I think he can be married and she still his lover rather than a kept woman, which is what mistress says to me.

As I just said to joanne, it’s not an automatic “if…then” to me either. It’s just a circumstance that can make a woman a mistress in my mind, depending on the situation.

For example, in Eva Ibbotson’s Madensky Square the heroine is involved with a man who loves her very much, but cannot divorce his wife, whom he is already separated from. IMO that makes the heroine a mistress.

OTOH, in LaVyrle Spencer’s Bitter Sweet, the heroine is also romantically involved with a married man (the hero). Still, I didn’t see that heroine as a mistress.

Both heroines are financially independent business owners, so why the difference? Well, Madensky Square is set in 1911 Vienna, Austria, while Bitter Sweet takes place in 1990 United States. Also, the hero of Bitter Sweet can divorce his wife — it is much more commonplace in that setting. In my mind, that is enough to tip Madensky Square into the mistress story category while Bitter Sweet remains in the triangle/adultery category.

I also hate to disagree with Janine but “social disapproval” wouldn't make me consider a woman a mistress. Many of us despise my niece's bum-boyfriend -’ but since he's always out of work there is no way she's his mistress. His idiot, maybe, but not his mistress.

LOL! I didn’t say that social disapproval alone would always be enough to make a woman a mistress. I said that it can be enough. There’s a distinction there.

For example, take the women who slept with the popes in previous centuries and bore them children. Even if they hadn’t been financially supported, even though the popes didn’t have wives, even if there was love on both sides, I think society would have viewed such women as mistresses.

And I can't remember the title, but there was an In Death book where the horrid British diplomat forced his daughter's nanny to sleep with him

Imitation In Death — not that I’m obsessed with the series much.
She wasn’t his mistress but rather his victim, or at least that’s the way I thought of her and do think of others in her position.

I also hate to disagree with Janine but “social disapproval” wouldn’t make me consider a woman a mistress. Many of us despise my niece’s bum-boyfriend — but since he’s always out of work there is no way she’s his mistress. His idiot, maybe, but not his mistress.

I think of ‘mistress’ as a woman who exchanges ‘favors’, most specifically sex, for money. It is also almost always the men, at least in romance books, who end the relationships.
The Way Home by Linda Howard is one of only a very few favorites in this trope.

I have no idea how authentic that setting was but it certainly drew me in! And the hero, basically a Venice police comissioner, if you think about it just worked. I didn’t even mind the age difference, it rang true for me because of the time it was set in. And all the intrigues!

And that the heroine is an excellent painter! I loved the idea of a woman of the times so self-possessed as to go after her dreams without thinking of the current morals.

P.S. I much prefer the older cover.

As for Bel, I agree — she and Jessica seems very much alike: both reluctantly deciding for financial reasons to become a wealthy nobleman’s mistress and doing it publically. At least in His Lordship’s Mistress, the solution was feasible because of the support of Philip’s very well connected sister (a patroness of Almacks).

@magdalenb — thanks for sharing your thoughts on THATH — that’s what I was trying to say, not very effectively. She was an exploited employee who became someone who was very much loved. And yes, to the outside world, she was a whore altho as one reads in Book III, it’s amazing how much whitewashing is available when you’re married to a wealthy viscount.

There are a couple Mary Balogh books that come to mind — The Ideal Wife and The Temporary Wife — where the heroines had to leave their last governess posts because of sticking up for an abused and exploited chambermaid. And I can’t remember the title, but there was an In Death book where the horrid British diplomat forced his daughter’s nanny to sleep with him. He has always stood out for me as one of the creepiest villains ever.

I re-read ‘Lord Gresham’s Lady’ and I now know why I forgot about it, even though I read it for the first time only a few months ago. That relationship is so unequal and I felt so uncomfortable with the whole thing that I sublimated it right away.

I’ve enjoyed a number of her books, but this one leaves me feeling a sense of impotent fury at the lot of women then and even today. That said, reading her again reminded me how sad I am that she died before she could write Willy’s story. I’d really have loved to read about him.