A Man without a Mistress (The Penningtons, Book Two)

Written by Bliss Bennet
Review by Anne McNulty

A man determined to atone for the past by immersing himself in political work — and by avoiding all entanglements with the ladies of the ton.  A woman who will risk anything for the future. Raised to be a political wife, but denied the opportunity by her father’s untimely death…”

A Man Without a Mistress, the second in Bliss Bennet’s effervescent “Penningtons” saga, stars fiery-spirited, independent Sibilla Pennington, who is determined, in the wake of her father’s death, to resist her brother’s plans to marry her off as soon as she puts off formal mourning and re-enters the social world of the ton.

To thwart his designs, she insists that her future husband be as canny a political expert operator as her father was – and that her future husband be a man who’s never had a mistress. Such a man might be Sir Peregrine Sayre, but he has a complicated history of his own to overcome.

As in the previous volume, Bliss Bennet does a wonderful job of keeping her plot and dialogue frothing along at a canter from start to finish. These are very densely-plotted and pleasingly insightful Regencies, a series well worth following.