It’s always a pleasure to come across a new-to-me author with a real knack for telling a story. While Lisa Higdon clearly has that gift, unfortunately, the story she tells here features so many screamingly generic elements that Until You’re Mine ultimately ranks as no more than an average read.

Trying to scrape together a living by working as an actress in a third-rate London theater, Virginia-born Laura Lancaster is fortunate when a friend secures the down on her luck young woman a small part in a new play after her show abruptly closes. Virtually penniless and living in a London hovel, Laura longs to return home to America – a dream she soon enough realizes isn’t going to happen anytime soon on her salary as an actress. Reluctantly, Laura eventually begins to consider earning the money she needs to pay for her passage home in a different – and potentially far more lucrative – way.

Fortunately for Laura, on her first night at a demi-monde reception, she meets James Norcliff, Earl of Lockwood, a handsome nobleman who just happens to need a woman to play the part of his mistress. Under suspicion over the mysterious death of a man who may or may not have been her lover, James’s estranged wife was recently ordered by her husband into exile abroad to avoid an inquest and possible prosecution. Angry over her banishment and set on seeking revenge, her malicious tongue results in “scandalous” rumors regarding James and his male secretary. As a man who takes his role in Parliament seriously, James is determined to avoid any negative repercussions those rumors would undoubtedly have on his political effectiveness. His secretary’s suggestion to pretend to take a mistress – a mistress he will then very publicly flaunt in London society – seems like the perfect plan to defuse the rumors.

Despite some initial qualms, Laura knows a good proposition when she hears it and she agrees to be James’s mistress in name only. But, despite their budding relationship and the security she enjoys from her arrangement with James, there are secrets in Laura’s past that may come back to haunt both Laura and the man who “employs” her.

Even though Until You’re Mine features some unusual plot elements (not many heroes are forced to discredit rumors of homosexuality), the book felt familiar from the first moment to the last. Laura endures assault after assault on her virtue, but she’s a good girl, she is! Rakes leer, villains hiss, a dissolute brother wallows in gaming hells, and a plucky low-born friend offers sage advice. Especially hokey is the character of James’s maid-slapping wife, portrayed here as something of a cross between Lucretia Borgia and Aileen Wuornous. And, though Ms. Higdon makes a good effort to write in what feels like correct Regency-speak, one offer to “give someone a lift” in a carriage obliterates five “shan’ts,” “surfeits,” and “modicums” when it comes to pulling me out of a story.

Still, despite the familiarity of matters here, the story does move along at a brisk pace and the love scenes are nicely done. Both James and Laura are fully three-dimensional characters, despite the fact that I never did quite understand why James was so insistent on keeping their relationship innocent and why Laura’s “secret” would initially seem to be such a threat to James. And, even though they were also people we’ve met before, the author’s cast of secondary characters came to life quite effectively as well.

When all is said and done, Ms. Higdon has an appealing voice and and readers of European Historicals can certainly do far worse than choosing to spend a few hours with Until You’re Mine. As for me, I’ll consider trying a book by Ms. Higdon again, but will hope to see something a bit less generic and a bit more memorable next time out.