Mistress of my Fate

Born illegitimate in eighteenth-century England, Henrietta Lightfoot reveals the truth about the events that shaped her in this candid confessional of a wide-eyed girl's journey to worldliness. Forced to flee her childhood home for the capital, Henrietta falls face first into a demi-monde of rakes, rogues, wits, pimps and courtesans. It is not long before she realizes that true liberty is a privilege to be enjoyed by men. But Henrietta is determined to find independence. 

In this deliciously deviant novel, Rubenhold illuminates the dark lives of the women written out of eighteenth-century literature by the great male writers. Vibrant and full-blooded, it is an unputdownable picaresque story for our times.