The Harlot
Saskia Walker
Spice (Harlequin), May 24 2011, $14.00
ISBN: 9780373605569
In 1715 in the squalid Dundee inn, Gregor Ramsay enjoyed the cat fight between the Harlot and another wench due to the fine butt of the former. With all sorts of wagering going on, Gregor’s favorite pins the other. Gregor learns that the winner Jessie Taskill is known as the wild Harlot of Dundee. The loser Eliza accuses Jesse of witchcraft. She is arrested and taken to the jail to be burned like her late mom at the stakes.
A minister enters her cell not to give her a chance to repent, but instead an opportunity to escape. Gregor believes she is the one with spirit and intelligence who can help him fulfill his decade long thirst for revenge against the man who destroyed his family. His plan is simple; she will seduce his enemy. She agrees to his plan but plots to seduce her business partner while concealing that Eliza’s words of accusation are not false though she never used witchcraft to win the wrestling match.
This is an exciting, enticing eighteenth century romance with a touch of whimsical witchcraft. The lead couple is an ideal pairing of an obsessed avenger and a vigorous harlot who understands supply and demand as her body is the only commodity she can sell without being burned to death. Readers will appreciate Saskia Walker’s bawdy historical with a bewitching nod to the Memoirs of A Woman of Pleasure.
Harriet Klausner
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