Diane Haeger, The Perfect Royal Mistress

The Perfect Royal Mistress

Diane Haeger

Crown Three Rivers Press, Mar 2007, $13.95

ISBN: 0307237516

Nell Gwynne grew up in impoverished fire and plague racked London. She supported herself selling oranges outside the King's Theater. There she gains a reputation for her intelligent tongue that uses double entendres that catch the extra attention of her male customers. Soon her lewd wit leads Nell onto the stage itself where her humorous bawdy asides and physical charm catches the attention of womanizing King Charles II, who has left a horde of illegit offspring wherever he visits. King Charles II not so shockingly makes her his mistress as many other men coveted doing, but the stunner is he also makes her his most trusted advisor. Even when French King Louis XIV sends a beautiful noble to court Charles, he may use the visitor's obvious allure, but it is Nell he turns to in crisis.

This is a fabulous Restoration historical due to THE PERFECT ROYAL MISTRESS as Diane Haeger catches the era by capturing the essence of Nell Gwynne, especially after her performance in a 1668 John Dryden play. The storyline focuses on the heroine, especially her relationship with Charles. Though the plot implies that if she was a blueblood she would have been Queen of England not just in the royal boudoir; that concept is based on her personality remaining as bawdy as it was when she sold oranges. Still, readers will appreciate a deep look at late-seventeenth century London through the eyes of a woman who went from barely surviving the 1666 inferno that destroyed much of London to becoming in just a couple of years the most influential woman, make that person, at the court of King Charles II.

Harriet Klausner