The Perfect Royal Mistress: A Novel Review

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(More customer reviews)This is a quick, fun, easy to read romance to appeal to your Cinderella side.
Nell Gwynne grew up in a brothel and is scarred by watching her intoxicated mother, and later her older sister, succumb to the perils of prostitution and promises herself something better. As a teen she sells oranges to the crowds at the King's Theatre and eventually makes her way to the stage. From there she catches the roving eye of the Rogue King (King Charles II of England) and captures the heart of the London crowd. The well documented `rags to riches' romance they embarked upon lasted until the King's death nearly 20 years later.
History has portrayed Nell Gwynne as the original "whore with a heart of gold" (though she is undeserving of being called a whore). Despite Charles' insatiable appetite for other women, she maintained her cheekiness, clever wit and showed him only compassion. He loved her for her unedited honesty, quick and bawdy humor, and simple non-aristocratic self. Though Haeger does not tell the reader which elements of this novel are established facts and which are purely fictional, her presentation of the King is consistent with that of observers of the time (Sam Pepys, etc.). He had a knack for living through nostalgia rather than the present, an inability to separate familial and political needs, a dread of conflict, and an unquenchable thirst for all things hedonistic. To Nell Gwynne he was a mortal flawed man, not just the King, and Nell loved him for himself.
One drawback - Haeger attempted to write Nell's dialogue phonetically by merely dropping the "H" sound from words which begin with the same letter. There is more to the accent than that! While it made the point that Nell never forgot who she was or where she came from, I found this to be distracting. It is a small flaw to an otherwise enjoyable love story.

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