title: The Mistress: Histories, Myths and Interpretations of the "Other Woman"
author:  Victoria Griffin 
description: "My primary reason for writing this book," explains <a href="/exec/obidos/exact-author=Griffin%2c%20Victoria/${0}">Victoria Griffin</a> at the beginning of her fascinating study <I>The Mistress</I>, "is self-examination." Writing as a "mistress", Griffin is keen to focus on the personal, cultural, and historical dimensions of her role: "As long as there is Marriage," she concludes, "there will also be the Mistress." Conjuring up the quasi-mythical dimensions of an arrangement between men and women that, in one form or another, has existed for centuries, Griffin tracks her subject back through the figures of Hera (the wife) and the followers of Aphrodite (the women claimed by love and passion) in order to reconsider the changing role of the mistress in late-20th-century culture. Drawing on the lives of a number of creative, often unconventional, women--<a href="/exec/obidos/exact-author=Eliot%2c%20George/${0}">George Eliot</a>, <a href="/exec/obidos/exact-author=West%2c%20Rebecca/${0}">Rebecca West</a>, and <a href="/exec/obidos/exact-author=Rhys%2c%20Jean/${0}">Jean Rhys</a> amongst others--Griffin complicates the emotional scripts allotted to those who play out the drama of a m&eacute;nage-&agrave;-trois. As such, she offers a cogent challenge to the conventional image of the mistress as a wife-in-waiting, a woman hoping to displace her lover's family in the name of her own. Passion--and relationships--are more complex than that. This book explores the act of being a mistress in terms of a different way of living: a refusal, or inability, to conform to social demands, certainly, but also a commitment to a love that resists possession. <I>--Vicky Lebeau, Amazon.co.uk</I>
zlib_text: 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > > THE LAIRD’S ANGEL
  
  > > CAROLINE LEE
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  >
  
  
  > ABOUT THIS BOOK
  
  
   As a member of the Queen’s Angels—an elite trio of secret agents,
  masquerading as ladies-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth Bruce—Melisandre Lamond
  has a most useful skill: Seduction. Mayhap ‘tis her ability to understand
  others’ desires, or mayhap a yearning for acceptance; whatever the root,
  Mellie has become skilled in the art of love, and knows all the right ways to
  get a man to spill all his…secrets.
  
  
  
   After an assassination attempt on the Queen, all evidence points to the
  Frasers of Lovat, surely under orders from their new laird, the deceptively
  handsome Lachlan Fraser. But even Mellie is surprised when the Queen announces
  the seductive Angel’s betrothal to the traitor, wondering how far her loyalty
  to the Crown really extends. Can Mellie tempt Lachlan into revealing his
  treasonous plans, before she’s forced to actually marry the man?
  
  
  
   After the Scottish War for Independence, all Lachlan F