Georgian London evokes images of elegant mannered buildings, but it was also a city where prostitution was rife and houses of ill repute widespread in a sex trade that employed thousands. In London's Sinful Secret, Dan Cruickshank explores this erotic Georgian underworld and shows how it affected almost every aspect of life and culture in the city from the smart new streets that sprang up in Marylebone, to the squalid alleys around Charing Cross to the coffee houses, where prostitutes plied their trade, to the work of artists such as William Hogarth and Joshua Reynolds. Cruickshank uses memoirs, newspaper accounts and court records to create a surprisingly bawdy portrait of London at its most-mannered and, for the first time, exposes its secret, sinful underside. "A lively work of social history, full of surprises and memorable characters." - Kirkus Reviews

Thea Devine blends the heated sensuality of the finest Victorian erotic novels with the suspense and chilling aura of an Ann Rice tale.

The secret she never told... Her heart racing, Logan Copeland cannot look away from tycoon Rowan Argyros as he declares that her life is in danger. All she can think is that Rowan took her virginity, heartlessly rejected her after a night of reckless abandon...and is the father of her child. She must reveal the truth before she's whisked away to Rowan's castle for safety... Isolated with Rowan, Logan finds herself at the mercy of his unrelenting need to claim her. She has known no touch but his, and yearns to feel it again...but to do so she must agree to meet him at the altar!

A hundred years has passed since the bitter rivalry between the St. Claires and the Huntingtons began. But in London, the feud goes on . .. Lady Sophia Huntington isn't what she appears to be. Born into a noble family, the impulsive, wild-hearted beauty has fallen on difficult times. Banished from her home, Sophia dreams of the day she can finally win her father's forgiveness and return to London. Until the sudden appearance of a suitor from the scandalous St. Claire family threatens to reveal her darkest secrets . . . Dominic St. Claire vows to exact revenge upon the Huntingtons, who destroyed his family's fortune generations ago. His perfect target is the lovely but proud Lady Sophia. After using her to discover the Huntingtons' financial secrets, he will cause a great scandal by eloping-and then abandoning his bride. But his plot soon unravels when he finds his own heart ensnared-in a trap not of his own making.

Betrothed to one brother, then married to another, Julianne Sutton finds herself a pawn in an unknown game. The enigmatic new Marquess of Longhaven knows all about the art of deception but he's baffled by innocence. His new wife is trusting, lovely, and utterly bewitching. Imagine his surprise when he discovers that she has secrets of her own. As he battles a ruthless enemy, he quickly learns that love has an entirely different set of rules.

Colonial documents and works of literature from early modern Spain are rife with references to public women, whores, and prostitutes. In Profit and Passion, Nicole von Germeten offers a new history of the women who carried and resisted these labels of ill repute. The elusive, ever-changing terminology for prosecuted women voiced by kings, jurists, magistrates, inquisitors, and bishops, as well as disgruntled husbands and neighbors, foreshadows the increasing regulation, criminalization, and polarizing politics of modern global transactional sex. The author’s analysis concentrates on the words women spoke in depositions and court appearances and on how their language changed over time, pointing to a broader transformation in the history of sexuality, gender, and the ways in which courts and law enforcement processes affected women.

One of our leading historians describes how Georgian London was shaped by the sex industry