I feel like this is how debutante heroines should be written. Balogh captures the youthful enthusiasm and leaves behind most of the childishness and extreme naivete that so many young heroines are comprised of. Angeline sees herself as frivolous, and she does have a lot of light-hearted tendencies like her extravagant hats, but the reader is allowed to also see her greater depths, so she doesn't feel like some caricature of a teenager. I also liked that the hero isn't the usual rogue, and that the heroine appreciates him for his steadfast, upstanding nature. It's good to have the variety, and there is more than one type of person who gets to find love. The characters are oblivious to things sometimes, but it's done in a way that invites the reader to be in on the humor of it, so I didn't feel frustrated with them for not understanding everything sooner. ( )

This started out good and then fizzled. The conflict that kept them apart just basically fizzled out. He spent most of the book wanting to marry someone else and I nearly missed the line or two where he decided he was in love with the heroine. The "villain" was not a villain. The desperate situation the hero needed to rescue the heroine from was not desperate and there is no way the hero could have thought it was. The secret mistress part was shoe horned in. Dang I'm disappointed. I have loved MB for years but it's been at least 10 or so since I've loved anything she's written. ( )

Lady Angelina Dudley espera en una posada a que su hermano, el duque de Tresham, la recoja para escoltarla hasta Londres, donde será presentada en sociedad. Edward Ailsbury también viaja a Londres para asumir sus obligaciones como nuevo conde de Heyward, y al vislumbrar a aquella joven tan bella queda impresionado. Cuando aparece el notorio lord Windrow e intenta propasarse con ella, Edward interviene sin dudarlo. Este será el primero de una serie de encuentros entre Angelina y Edward, pues la familia de él, empeñada en buscarle esposa, ha decidido que ella es la candidata ideal. Angelina, por su parte, cree haber encontrado en este caballero decoroso y formal el complemento perfecto a su propia naturaleza impetuosa. Pero Edward siempre había dado por sentado que se casaría con Eunice, su amiga de la infancia. Convencida de que no puede aceptar una propuesta de matrimonio impulsada solo por el deber y de que Edward está enamorado Eunice, Angelina decide intervenir para que se case con su amiga... Sin embargo, un beso robado despierta algo poderoso e insospechado, y las cosas se complicarán todavía más. De pronto aparecerá el amor donde nadie lo espera. Con esta nueva historia de seducción, escándalo y malos entendidos, y con el suntuoso trasfondo de la alta sociedad inglesa del siglo XIX, Mary Balogh cierra la trilogía «Amantes» y nos vuelve a brindar unos momentos inolvidables.

read this book in the bath as I drank red wine, nothing but my best life around here ( )

For quotes, comments, and deeper review - The Secret Mistress Buddy Read

I usually love Balogh, so I don't know what happened with this one. A lot of the story is spent in the heroine and hero's head and when there were scenes in present time acted out, they were dragged on.

I enjoyed the heroine, she was sheltered from growing up in the country but her naivety, openness, and honesty felt very genuine and not Mary Sue-ish. She also made friends with who she thinks the hero loves and it wasn't done in maliciousness but because she genuinely liked aspects of the women's personality.

The hero is thought to be dull, in comparison to his wild brother, and I honestly had to agree, he did come off dull. His character didn't get colored in until towards the ending.

There was a secondary romance that had way more spark and chemistry and I wished this had been their story instead. ( )