If you’ve ever tried to promote a book, chances are, you’ve had to do some mandatory five-star reviews. For all of those who have stretched the truth once or twice when trading reviews, this post is for you.

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All right, I’m giving this book a five-star review, for two reasons. 1. My wife made me read it. 2. She says I have to like it too. Lords and Ladies is probably the 25th most popular romance series set in the Victorian age on the market today. It’s no wonder given just how many sex scenes there are. Now, the author says in a foreword that he wanted the book to be historically accurate, and that’s why half of the scenes involve sex with prostitutes. My wife made me skip over those.

No, she’s really into the parts where the lady and the lord play croquet in the backyard and then end up having sex in a shed. Yes, that part was okay. She tells me that it’s to give me ideas. I don’t know how it could do that. We don’t even have a shed. Our home is on a hill. She doesn’t know how to play croquet.

More interesting is the plot. You see, the male protagonist, Count Bufort, doesn’t want to give his heart to anyone because his father died after getting a blister from playing tennis on his foot, and dies from the infection. The Count doesn’t want to lose someone again, so he avoids connections like falling in love. The climax of the book occurs when the female protagonist gets a blister in the same place on her foot and nearly dies. It’s truly a testament to how primitive medical care and hygiene was in the 19th Century. The doctor even uses leeches.

True love prevails in the end, however. Lady Lisandra survives the infection, in spite of her doctors, and she marries Count Bufort, followed by forty pages of graphic descriptions of carnal lust. These were the sex scenes I was allowed to read, and yes, they have sex everywhere. The beach, at church, in the middle of Hyde Park in London. I would have thought that Victorian sexual mores would prohibit this, or at least cause the lady to protest, but the author keeps repeating how they are married now, and supposedly that makes all of this fine in the eyes of God and man. I do wonder how historically accurate it was for Lady Lisandra to ask the Count where babies come from.

Th story ends with the Count and his wife have nine children, the Count becoming the richest man in London, and Lady Lisandra being raised up on a pedestal in front of the rest of high society and showered in roses. A little on the nose for my taste, but why not? This book is a female fantasy, and my wife seems to like it. It succeeds on that level. Five stars.