The Mistress

Title: The Mistress (2000)
Author: Susan Wiggs (Mira)
Period: American-Victorian (1871-2 Chicago)
Grade: B

I always forget about Susan Wiggs. I feel like her contemporaries are better known, but her historicals are always consistently good. Yet, I never include her in my list of "must-read" authors. Maybe it is that her books are plot/storytelling driven rather than character driven. In a character-based genre like romance that can make it harder to personally connect with books, and by extension, the author.

The Mistress is one book in a trilogy set amid the Great Chicago Fire. Why she chose the title still confuses me. Kathleen O'Leary (the daughter of the famous Mrs. O'Leary) works as lady's maid for an elite Chicago family's daughter. She has accompanied her employer to her finishing school where Kathleen, obsessed with wealth and privilege, has learned to imitate the manners and diction of the students. The fateful night of the fire she, on a bet between two society misses, attend a ball ala Cinderella. Kathleen so convinces everyone of her place in society that she captures the eye of Dylan Kennedy, a much-desired wealthy bachelor. Does this charade make Kathleen The Mistress?

When the fire spreads across the city the young couples flees for their lives. They marry in a spur of the moment ceremony believing they are about to die. When Kathleen confesses she is only a lady's maid Dylan reveals that he is frequently married con man who was attempting to beguile a fortune from a wealthy family when he wed her. His plans thwarted he attempts to abandon her. Repeatedly. Is Kathleen the Mistress because Dylan tries to reject their marriage? Kathleen stubbornly refuses to accept that his feeling for her aren't real. Her relationship with Dylan, and her family, reflects her growth from a young girl interested in aping the elites to a woman who learns the importance of love.

She is a bit too relentless and cheerful in her insistence they are truly wed. But Dylan isn't presented as a straight villain, but rather as a man with no family or resources who doesn't want to tie a good and generous young woman like Kathleen to his rootless criminal life. The bulk of the book takes place over only a few days, but the reader can feel the metamorphosis in Dylan as he comes to care about someone more than his own survival. Scenes with Kathleen's family (and the cow) are well-done with out resulting in the saccharine schmaltz that most author use to write about happy families or children.

The HEA, a necessity for all romance novels, takes too long to develop both in text and timeline. Dylan fear of love and his refusal to accept his marriage to Kathleen is a central crisis of the book, yet it seems to resolve itself in an abrupt and lazy fashion. He almost comes around by accident. The Mistress doesn't feel complete even though it pushes 400 pages! A great historical novel, but only a good romantic one.

A Fire in the Heart

Title: A Fire in the Heart (1990)
Author: Katherine Sutcliffe (Avon)
Period: European Historical-Victorian (1861 England)
Grade: B

Another day, another positive English Victorian review. A Fire in the Heart isn't quite epic, but it is certainly grander in scope than most historical romance. Sutcliffe, who when I previously read I was not a fan, has crafted a dark novel that embodies the poverty and hardship of the period. It isn't a perfect novel. The hero is Alpha to the extreme, there are some weird age of consent issues, and some of the research/wording is lax but that will only bother a rabid history buff (i.e. me). In some respects it reminds me of Samantha James' Gabriel's Bride when a heroine from dire circumstances joins a noble family. It has many similar plot point but A Fire in the Heart has more texture of both character and setting.

Bonnie is an orphan fleeing horrid workhouse conditions. She finds refuge at Middleham Castle where she is sheltered and nursed back to health. Damien, the Earl of Warwick (also his last name, boo!), plans to return her to the workhouse once her health returns. The two bicker constantly as a front for their growing attraction. Bonnie loathes the upper class and isn't suitable grateful to the Earl. Her anger and distrust aren't artificial plot contrivances, but the result of her traumatic life experience. Damien, meanwhile, is conflict about embracing the family heritage or returning to America. He was burned in love before and refuses to acknowledge his feeling for Bonnie until it is too late. Also, he believes her to be younger than her age. After they make love he is stunned to learn she is eighteen because he had assumed she was fourteen. I know age of consent was different in the past, but gross!

She tells an enormous lie to preserve her safety that furthers his animosity. He is an Alphas-Alpha with much demanding and ordering and seducing abound. The novel then takes a Pygmalion twist when Damien becomes her guardian and attempts to marry her off. Misadventure turns tragic and the two are separated. There is also the mystery of Bonnie's past and her father's murder that neither predictable, nor an encumbrance to the plot.

Sutcliffe has done considerable research on the political entanglement of prosperous Englishmen and the American Confederacy. Damien isn't only a mill owner, but also a Mississippi plantation owner. Yet he isn’t a slave owner, Damien is morally opposed to the institution and only employs free blacks on his plantation. Southern history and African-American history are particular interests of mine so perhaps I'm the only one to notice how ridiculous this plot point. Mississippi has fewer free blacks than any Southern state, a mere 775 in the 1860 census. As the largest cotton plantations employed hundreds of slaves, that would mean almost every free black in the Magnolia State was in his employ! I know romance authors are terrified of making their characters slave owners because they fear it makes them unsympathetic, but abandoning historical accuracy to allow (the always white) hero and heroine to appear progressive just belittles the overall slave experience, IMO.

Tangents on slavery in romance novels aside, it was a good historical and I've now moved on to her sequel, My Only Love.