Review: This "miss" missed the mark.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 09 29, 2013
(Maybe 2.5 stars?)  After recently readingFortune's Mistressby this same author, I found myself disappointed by this 1993 Comstock effort.  It has all the ingredients to be an enjoyable, although not original, read but it fell flat for me.Our impetuous miss, heroine Catherine Mansard, is an orphaned heiress.  When she turns 20 she expects to gain full control of her inheritance (monies and estate) and marry or not, depending on whether she can ever find anyone deserving of her regard.  Well, Cat is not so much impetuous as she is rude, outspoken and not particularly likeable.  She's supposedly intelligent, but I picked up no wit in her interactions with others.Cat goes merrily along, living happily in the country, scorning town life and the "ton", treading on people's feelings at will, until the day she comes of age and discovers that, for full control of all her assets, the will requires her to spend each social Season in London until she finds a husband. Knowing all about honey and vinegar and attraction, she practices social graces with her friend and companion, goes to spend the Season in London at her godmother's home, and the usual stuff happens.There are bad guys who want control of Cat's wealth, cute dogs, a variety of suitors to Cat's hand, an appealing hero who is, go figure, attracted to Cat's acerbic personality, some one-note suitors for her hand, the requisite abduction (which, happily enough and to give credit to the author, Cat saves herself from instead of sitting around waiting for the white knight hero to show up), etc.  And there are two romances here for the price of one, since Cat's companion also finds true love.It's a typical Regency and I expected to like it in spite of its predictability because of the excellent job Comstock did in FORTUNE'S MISTRESS, but no.  The writing is more tell than show, the dialogue is not witty, the characters have little depth, and, although there are only 135 pages here, it seemed like so many more to me.  This was a bit of a slog to read.