Book Review: A Courtesan’s Guide to Getting Your Man by Celeste Bradley and Susan Donovan
A Courtesan’s Guide to Getting Your Man by Celeste Bradley and Susan Donovan. © 2011 St. Martin‘s Paperbacks. ISBN 9780312532567. Mass Media Paperback. Erotic Romance. 384 pages. Source: ARC provided by the publishers via LibraryThing Early Readers.
Synopsis: A modern woman find the scandalous secret memoirs from a woman of another era. These decadent tales of a life lived freely in a rigid time send her on a surprising journey to unshackle her own sensual potential.
Review: As one can tell from the succinct synopsis, this book is told in two parts: Piper from the present day and Ophelia from the early 19th century. Ophelia was being married off to a man she didn’t love and thus she escaped by becoming a courtesan so she could have some say-so about her own life. Ophelia was an amazing woman, she was strong and lived on her own terms despite the decorum of her time.
Piper stumbles onto Ophelia’s risqué memoir as she’s setting up an exhibit about Ophelia, who was a well-known anti-slavery activist in Boston, at the museum where she works. The diary—belonging to “The Blackbird“, a famous London courtesan—was hidden in a secret compartment of one of Ophelia’s traveling trunks, leading Piper to the conclusion that Ophelia led a double life. Piper decides to read the diary and it inspires her to let loose her own desires.
There is a great deal of sex in this book—though it is handled very tastefully—so if that sort of thing turns you off, you’ve been warned. I, however, loved it (Blackbird is Belle from Secret Diary of a Call Girl meets Satine from Moulin Rouge) and I think I’ll be hanging onto this book, even if the end was predictable and Piper‘s story weak (Ophelia makes this book worth reading!). 4/5.
