The Actress and the Rake (a Regency Romance‪)‬

A sweet, true Regency romance by a mistress of the form

I’m not using ‘sweet’ as the opposite of ‘steamy’, but in its usual meaning.

I know I must have read it when originally published, but one joy of having read more books than I have lived months is to read a story anew over 20 years later and still find it delightful.

After having read too many recently where the author is poorly acquainted with the mores, fashion, peerage styling, and all the other details, in narrative as in dialogue, it is such a relief and satisfying to read a Regency romance done correctly!

For instance, no gentlemen’s club nor noble house will be serving whisky (Scots) or whiskey (the rest of the world), unless the gentleman serves whisky in his home due to connexions in Scotland. Just Not Done for at least two decades after Prinny is crowned King George IV. Might as well serve sacramental wine, for inappropriateness. Now, pour me some Rhenish hock to get the taste from my mouth!

Sir Barnaby, is now a ghost, and set the turn of events which precede the novel. He wrote his will in such a way as to poke many of his family in the ego, and to set up for failure the two protagonists.

The two are not what he, or members of his family residing at Adderscombe, thinks they are, disreputable sorts at the core.

Nerissa’s parents may be actors and run a theatre, but she can’t act due to complete stage fright, and was reared more as a baronet’s granddaughter than not. She’s the wardrobe mistress, and she hates sewing.

Miles seems to be a hardened gamester and rake, but it turns out than he games rather better and more sensibly than his father, who wasted the family estate, which Miles would have liked to run.

There are some hateful petty people in the house—but none of them are servants, who seem to think Nerissa can do no wrong. Given who came before her, that’s no surprise. Miles helps her learn what a lady of the house should know, and he learns about the lands and tenants, and what they’ve needed for too long.

Sir Barnaby is, by the end of this novel, regretting several actions he made in pride when he lived.

The clause that is enacted should Miles and Nerissa fail to meet the terms set for them in the will, tweaks the noses of most of the family assembled for the final reading, six months after the first part is read.

Carola Dunn has a extensively productive (and therefore expensive for me to complete her work in e-format*) line of Regency romances (all well-researched: there will be a note if she’s played with the timing or details of events and people of the time), a series of mysteries set between The Wars, a series set in mid-20th c. Cornwall—and maybe a few I haven’t discovered yet.

Biased as I am, I think you’ll enjoy whatever she writes, as I have.

*Moved to houses with no room for all my books to be unpacked, then to one half the size with NO room for books, and all mine are packed. Grrr.