Mistress Of Pleasure by Delilah Marvelle
Kensington, Zebra
Historical
Full Length, Hot
Review by Viscaria

♥ ♥ ♥

Mistress Of Pleasure was a pleasure to read from start to finish. I thoroughly enjoyed every tantalizing page.

Maybelle de Maitenon was a refreshing heroine, and I had a grand time getting to know her. Maybelle was quite charming, innocent in a way not expected considering her upbringing. She carried herself with a considerable amount of grace and aplomb that I admired greatly. Raised to be independent and smart, something unheard of at that time, she had a very straightforward attitude about life and how she wanted to live it. A past fraught with tragedy has convinced her that to love would be to give up all independence, and she is far too fond of her independence to ever give in to love. Lust and pleasure on the other hand are quite alright. I found Maybelle to be quite witty and her self-determination was a breath of fresh air. Her interactions with Edmund kept me (not to mention Edmund) on my toes wondering what would come out of her mouth next.

Edmund Worthington, The Duke of Rutherford, was a bit more clichéd but still a fun hero all the same. He has allowed the scandal of his father’s death to taint his own future happiness. While I understand that the time period demands certain concessions to the Ton and all that entails, I found that his stiff-necked outlook on how he needed to “change” the woman he was falling for a bit irritating. Edmund did however redeem himself when he got creative in his courtship of the most unwilling Maybelle. When he goes beyond worrying so much what would be worse than marrying the granddaughter of a courtesan and realizes that it would be worse to be without her, I fell for him every bit as hard as Maybelle did. Edmund’s love for his mother, and his unwillingness to hurt her any more than she already has been was really quite sweet, as was the fact that even a grown man was still afraid of his mother. Even when he knows she is maneuvering him, and shamelessly exploiting his loyalty, he loves her and does his best to please her. Edmund has hidden depths of tenderness that further endeared him to me. I loved to see him totally flummox Maybelle when he didn’t do what she expected of him, and vice versa.

An even brighter spot in this tale was created by the secondary characters of Maybelle’s grandmother, Edmund’s mother and the four other students enrolled in the School Of Gallantry. These characters all brought individual entertainment with their machinations of the two main characters. Maybelle’s grandmother was utterly irascible, full of mischief and knew just how to work her granddaughter around to what she wanted Maybelle to do. More than once I wondered what her next grand scheme would be and how she would pull Maybelle in. The fact that she loves her granddaughter very much was readily apparent, as was the love her granddaughter had for her. The Duchess was a force to be reckoned with, and her son had a hard time getting out of her way when she had set her mind on a course of action. Again, we witness the love shared between these two characters and I thought that the Duchess’ reasons for pushing so hard were that she wanted her son to be happy… well, that and she wanted grandchildren. Finally, we come to the other men enrolled in The School of Gallantry. What an intriguing cast of men. We are given just a snippet of each of their lives and what might be their motivation for enrolling… just enough to make me hope that their stories will be coming soon. Each man plays a part in one way or another in helping to further the courtship between Maybelle and Edmund. I can’t wait to read more about them. PLEASE, let there be more about them!

Now, a word of warning. While this story is not promoted as an “Erotic” romance there are however extremely erotic leanings throughout the book. This is not a read for the faint of heart, and one should expect a very hot read when you pick this book up. Now, I personally have no problem with this, and in fact found that it was done quite tastefully, even playfully, bringing about affection between the two main characters. I just felt the need to warn those who may not be comfortable with the more earthy parts of this tale.

That being said, Delilah Marvelle is a fantastic author with incredible wit. I found that I was chuckling out loud almost from the beginning to the end of this book. The witty repartee between Maybelle and Edmund was riveting and kept me turning the pages just to see what would next come from their mouths. Mistress of Pleasure was very well-written, with in-depth characters that held my interest the entire time. If you are looking for a Hot, historical read with unconventional, fun characters than this is the book for you.

Date:  Thu, Sep 4, 2008 at 6:55 AM

Your Name: Maureen
Your Comment: Thank you for the review. This looks like an unusual story and different than anything I've read before.