Well now this is more like it! After several installments in Silhouette Desire’s Dynasties: The Ashtons miniseries that were dull, and populated with boring characters, this book – Mistaken For A Mistress is full of events, and the characters are likable as can be. I enjoyed this one very much.

When the evil Spencer Ashton was killed, his estranged son Grant was charged with the murder and taken into custody. Grant is a good and decent man who raised his nephew and niece (Ford and Abigail) from childhood and Ford is not about to let his uncle be railroaded for a crime he did not commit. Ford has his own suspect, Kerry Roarke, who was Spencer’s last assistant, whom Ford believes was also Spencer’s mistress.

Ford arranges to bump into Kerry and, playing the part of a lost tourist, he gets her to show him around San Francisco. There’s an almost immediate attraction between them, and as they get to know each other, Ford realizes that Kerry hated Spencer as much as he does and there is no way she could have been his mistress. But who did kill Spencer? Who has framed Grant? And what will Kerry do when she finds out that Ford is Spencer’s grandson?

Kerry has had a very difficult past. She was an abused teen, was homeless for a time, was assaulted by a stranger and finally taken in by Milly – a retired actress. Since she has never felt like she really belonged anywhere, above all things, Kerry longs for a home of her own. She has a strong sense of honor, and could not abide Spencer’s dishonesty and lecherous behaviour. Her reaction when she finds out Ford’s lying to her is perfectly normal and understandable. In so many romance novels, characters fly off the handle, act TSTL and generally carry on like a child in a tantrum. Not Kerry. She acts like an adult.

Ford’s motivation for his initial lying to Kerry is understandable. Grant has been mother and father to Ford ever since his own mother abandoned him and his sister. Grant has put his own life on hold – never marrying and living for his niece and nephew. Ford owes him everything and does not scruple at lying to Kerry at first. But as he gets to know her, his fundamental honor comes to the forefront and he confesses. Ford is a good man and one who has a lot of love to offer someone like Kerry. They make a good pair and the sexual tension between them is sizzling.

Ford and Kerry are a great pair but there’s a few things that didn’t quite ring true involving the case against Grant. The evidence against him is very, very flimsy, he had no prior convictions and it didn’t seem logical that he’d have been held without bond and not allowed any visitors at all. Also, a witness whose testimony frees Grant pops up very conveniently – but this is a very short book with a lot going on in it.

Mistaken For A Mistress does a very good job of recapping the events of the past books without letting the backstory take over the love story of Ford and Kerry. It also gives us a hint of the next book which will feature Spencer’s daughter Mercedes from his second marriage. Will we find out more about the mystery of who killed Spencer? I hope so as there are only four more books in the series.

While it’s not a masterpiece, Mistaken For A Mistress is a good, solid and sexy book that kept me happily entertained all the time I was reading it. I’ll be back next month with the next installment of Dynasties: The Ashtons

– I hope it’s as enjoyable as this one.