The Ravishing of Lady May
Charlotte Lovejoy
Signet, May 3 2011, $15.00
ISBN: 9780451233141
Having been orphaned as a baby, May Roseberry grew up at an abbey. By 1530 she prays every day for a life outside the monastery as she refuses to stay there. When she is seventeen years old the Countess of Wilyse visits the abbey. She takes the teen with her to the court of King Henry VIII.
Lady Wilyse instructs her eager ward on life amidst the aristocracy and how to be a woman of pleasure without giving away her jewel. An earl, Wilyse’s brother Jasper Carliegh is especially attracted to the innocent, but has vowed off marriage. Meanwhile as May learns to appreciate a life of pleasure and affluence, she is unaware that her mentor has plans to make her the royal’s next dalliance even as she and Jasper fall in love.
This engaging Tudor erotic romance is fast-paced from the moment May comes to court and never slows down. That pace is two edged as it makes a for a fun fast read, but also lacks depth to May’s coming of age tale. Still with a nod to John Cleland’s classic Fanny Hill Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, The Ravishing of Lady May is an enjoyable sixteenth century frolic.
Harriet Klausner
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