I often find that the negative reviews are as helpful as the positive ones, and sometimes more so. Both English reviewers of this book were dead on in their assessment of it. The plot was tissue thin. The characters were shallow, their actions were not credible, and their development was nonexistent. How the marquess came to the conclusion he loved Lucinda seemed driven simply by the fact that it was the end of the book, and therefore time to wrap things up. As a minor note, a lot of the regencies I've read have fairly dense, small type, which is necessary to get a fully fleshed out story into the usual number of pages. The type in this book is rather large, and there is a lot more unoccupied space on a page than I'm accustomed to seeing in other regencies, which I think is rather telling. I've come to enjoy regencies as pleasant entertainment, but some are definitely better than others. This is the first one by Ms. Chesney that I've read, and she seems to have a decent reputation so perhaps I'll seek out another one and give it a try. However, with better books out there, I cannot recommend this one.

Is Chesney simply a lousy writer, or is she trying to play a joke on lovers of Regency romances? This book is so bad, its plot so farcical, its characterisation so thin and unrealistic that I can't help wondering whether someone's passing off a spoof here.

*No-one* in Regency times behaved as Chesney's characters do. Lucinda's actions are completely out of place for a young lady of quality of that time. The idea that she would ask a Marquess to marry her, let alone that she would speak to his mother as she did, is completely unbelievable. And as for the Marquess himself, he seems totally irredeemable - so how could she possibly fall in love with him? There is no motivation, either, for his sudden chage of character.

And the other elements to the plot - the servant, the jewellery theft, the attempted murder... I was rolling my eyes in disbelief.

Chesney also needs to take some lessons in technical writing skills: her sentence structure and grammar need a lot of attention.

Finally, I'd suggest that if she's going to write any more, she needs to take a sabbatical first and go and read some English social and political history, brush up on her grammar and period language, and read some books by much better writers such as Balogh, Kelly, Oliver and so on.

Publishers: please be more choosy in what you publish!

This is a very poorly-written book, in a number of ways. To take the plot first, Chesney has created a set of completely unbelievable characters: caricatures, especially the secondary characters who are portrayed in a one-dimensional manner with not one redeeming feature between them. The hero and heroine aren't particularly credible either, and as a reader I had little sympathy for them. As for the events depicted, I find it hard to believe that they are remotely credible within the Regency setting. The heroine, in particular, speaks and behaves in a way no lady of the period would have done whatever the provocation; and the Marquess's mother is similarly incredible.

Leaving aside the thin and barely believable plot, the author seems to me to have little skill at her craft. Her writing style: sentence structure, command of vocabulary and so on, is immature and distracts from the content of the book. While she tries to provide some history for the hero to explain his motivations, her attempts at doing this are very poorly done; in this respect, she has not one-hundredth of the skill of Patricia Oliver, for example.

Finally, there are numerous inaccuracies, both to the period and to the language and vocabulary; a British-born writer such as Chesney should certainly be able to do better at avoiding Americanisms in the dialogue of English Regency characters. And young unmarried ladies in that period would know little or nothing about mistresses or sex.

I have already disposed of my copy, and I cannot recommend this book to any other reader.

I'm not a great fan of Chesney, her books are generally too incredible and move far too fast for my taste. 'His Lordship's Pleasure' is particularly guilty of this. Though only a 200 page regency it moves swiftly through a complex and yet completely meaningless plot and so wastes precious time that could be spent developing the somewhat two dimensional characters. If you want an enjoyable romance however and do not ask for believability or an immersing read then you may well still enjoy this as it has some charm. It is nothing like a Georgette Heyer however (which the publisher claims) and frankly the comparison is an insult to Heyer. A mildly enjoyable adventure.

I used to own all of Marion Chesney's novels.... all 80 or 90
of them, however many there were. When I couldn't find some of
her books new at bookstores, I would search them out at second
hand stores until I had the entire collection. While admittedly
perhaps a dozen of these 90 novels are a bit frothy and appear
to have been written in a bit of a hurry with not enough
development of the characters. I still enjoyed each and every
one of her books. Later my relatives after reading a book I
loaned them, discovered that they were also Marion Chesney fans
and I loaned out my entire collection of books to relatives for
them to enjoy. Marion Chesney has a quirky sense of humor which
I enjoy, and I also like her characters and the romance scenes
she writes. (I recall reading Georgette Heyer books a few years
ago and thought them a crashing bore.) For those unfamiliar to
Marion Chesney I would recommend one of her 6 book series,
particularly the one about the six sisters which was excellent.
The nice thing about Chesney is she doesn't write one of those
syrupy, sugary regency novels or one of those prim repressed
style regencies. Her books are fun and make me laugh. I like
them a lot.

Normally I quite enjoy Marion Chesney's Regency romances. They often feature witty dialogue and absolutely hilarious secondary characters. This book features neither of these. Unfortunately, the heroine I found unsympathetic and the hero was quite dull. The only funny moments came from the little menagerie the heroine builds for herself, and those were few and far between. The overall tone of the story was lonely and disaffected. This isn't the best example of Chesney's work. To see her in much better form I would recommend any of the books in the School for Manners or Six Sisters series, which are all far superior to this one.

While Chesney does put more work into her six book series of
novels. I can think of a couple of her novels put out in the
1990's that were a little slapped together like she had written
them too quickly and hadn't put the usual effort into them.
I liked this one, thought it was cute and liked the characters,
sure the one woman in the book was selfish and wasn't nice, but
she was an interesting character psychologicaly. I thought the
parrot who repeated things and either ruined romances or brought
people together was a rather cute and amusing addition to the book. Worth a read in my opinion.

Really! I thought I was getting a page turner for my first e-book and this was so formula and boring. Don't make the same mistake I did.

This has got to be one of the worst Historical Romances I've ever read -- don't bother!

Lord Charles demands Patricia act the part of a proper and boring young Miss. Worse, she has to spend all her waking hours in cultivating her mind with a horrid governess. Rebellion is the name of her game, and he soon sends her off to America to prevent a terrible disgrace! A few years later... SHE'S BACK ! And determined to turn this hateful tyrant into her lovelorn servent!

Chesney's characters are delightful, adorable, and funny. The situations she creates rival Jane Austen's. In this book, I found Belinda's circumstances wholly uncreditable. After four previous sisters have gone through such contretemps to retrieve the house of Mannerling, I would think that it was time o stop. After the third book I thought perhaps she had expounded on the subject to its full extent. I would recommend one of Chesney's other sextets before continuing this one. Specifically the one about the Tribbles and their School of Manners.

let me count the ways. no depth to the characters, even the main characters, everything written in a distant 3rd person, no way to get involved in the story. the only thing good about it is that it's short.

Since I live outside of the US I love having books available for download (hint - more! more!). Hence, I downloaded this one. Big mistake. BIIIIIG mistake. I couldn't finish it and I truly thought it was one of the worst pieces of fiction that I've read since 'The Ginger Man', which was better written but of repugnant character.

Don't bother. I'm only giving it one star because the electronic form wouldn't allow me to give it no stars.