Mistress of My Fate
By the award-winning and Sunday Times bestselling author of THE FIVE
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4.2 • 5 Ratings
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- £2.99
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- £2.99
Publisher Description
Perfect fiction for fans of BBC TV's hit series BRIDGERTON and HARLOTS
'A remarkable picture of a fascinating age' Daily Express
'A full-blooded historical' Independent
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My tale is not for the faint of heart.
Born illegitimate in eighteenth-century England, the scandalous Henrietta Lightfoot gives us her version of the truth about her criminal life in this delicious coming-of-age.
Fleeing her childhood home for the big city, Henrietta is now swimming in the London underworld of rakes, rogues, sharks, pimps and courtesans - she quickly sees that true liberty is a man's privilege.
What must Henrietta do to survive in a world designed for men?
Gripping, twisty, shocking, MISTRESS OF MY FATE illuminates the dark lives of the women written out by the masters of eighteenth-century literature. Vibrant and full-blooded, it is an irresistible picaresque story for our times
'Two parts Lizzie Bennett and Tom Jones's Sophia Western to one part Moll Flanders' INDEPENDENT
'Combines extraordinary bawdiness with silky sophistication' DAILY EXPRESS
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Rubenhold's first novel reads like a very pleasing and well-researched game of dress up. All the hoped-for characters appear, from innocent ladies and dashing heroes, to scheming cousins and rakish rogues. The story is set in 18th century Britain and follows Henrietta Lightfoot, nee Ingerton, from her sheltered upbringing as the orphaned ward of a weathy uncle, into love and loss of reputation, and the difficulty of surviving in London as a lovely young woman without means of her own. The details of scene and costume are rich and engaging, and everyone does mostly what you expect of them to very satisfying effect. If the prose drags in places, Rubenhold makes up for it with a knack for keeping familiar types from slipping entirely into the two-dimensional. Rubenhold has also authored critically-acclaimed works of non-fiction, and her expert knowledge of the period and its literature is apparent in her novel. The richness of historical detail provides a good leavening against the more predictable elements of the plot: a good-natured romp among beautiful dresses, gothic turns, willful lovers, dastardly plots, lusty bon vivants, and even a ghost.
