The Mistress Experiment by Elizabeth Otto

 A wealthy British doctor with an innocent bet:
Transform a girl from the streets into a high society mistress.

A sassy Latina who makes the agreement:
Pretend to be someone else and get a ticket out of hell.

The rules:
No sex.
No lies.
No falling in love.

As truths become twisted, and passion turns dominant and all-consuming, playing the game becomes playing for keeps. Someone must fall, leaving one question:

Who loses the Mistress Experiment?

I love retellings of classic stories, and when I read the description for this I was really intrigued.  Remember “My Fair Lady”?  Well, this book was like an updated telling (sprinkled with a little kink) of that story and it did a pretty good job with that.

Dr. Isaac Kimball is a nice guy.  A pediatric surgeon with an interest in charity, he is given a proposition by a friend.  In exchange for support of a charity close to his heart that he cannot directly support, Isaac is to transform a woman from the street to a high society mistress.  In essence, he has to mold this woman and fool London high society with her.  He balks at first – how ridiculous!  But when he meets Mila, he meets a woman he thinks could be the one to make it happen.  Mila is offended at first, but the offer by Isaac was too good to be true.  She needs to escape her life, and this seems like the ticket to make that happen.  What neither of them counted on was for true feelings to develop between them.  It is all an illusion, or could what they have been real?

First off, the most important thing – the chemistry.  Oh lordy, it’s there.  It’s really, really there.  The dialogue, banter and sexual chemistry between these two are really well done and it carried the whole book for me.  It was the slow burn that I love in books that this that really made this a great story.

The characters were also very likeable.  They had depth and really transcended the typical description of rich man/poor woman.  Also, the writing flowed and made the story hard to put down.  Isaac is one hot doctor, and he’s also a bit kinky.  I know what you’re thinking, “Another kinky rich man story???”  I know, I think that too.  But this story manages to separate itself from the pack with how well written and well developed the characters are.  And have I mentioned the sex is hot?

One thing I would have liked to have seen in this book is Isaac giving a little bit more in the end.  After a bunch of things come out, I didn’t particularly like how it felt like he held all the power in his decision about how things would end.  I kind of wanted Mila to tell him to shove it, but I also understood his reaction.  Overall, I enjoyed this book very much.  4 stars.

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