Scandalous Lovers

One of five books chosen by RUSQ (Reference & User Services Quarterly, a division of the American Library Association) to represent historical fiction in romance. “If you could alter one moment in your life...what would it be?” “On my wedding night,” she said slowly, “I laid in the dark with my nightgown folded around my waist and waited for my husband to come to me. I remember thinking how ugly the sex of a man and a woman must be, otherwise, why would they lie together in darkness, and hide their bodies from each other in the daytime? “But most of all, James, I remember lying there. That was all that was expected of me. To lie still with my gown folded around my waist, and my legs spread apart. I wasn’t expected to enjoy what was going to be done to me; I wasn’t expected to not enjoy it. What I experienced was irrelevant. My submission, my mother told me, was my gift to my husband. And I never once questioned the wisdom of what she said. “That night set the pattern of my entire adult life. But I wish it didn’t. I wish I could replace that image.” “There’s a lot more than explicit sex—although there is plenty of that—to this frankly erotic romance, which takes a hard look at Victorian double standards and the penalties for women who ignore them and with feminist aplomb puts everything into perspective.”-Library Journal