Trades of the Flesh
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- £4.99
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- £4.99
Publisher Description
Preston, 1888: as the century draws to a close, the prostitute murders in London have made young Lydia Ketch’s ‘trade’ a political issue. Lydia, the tough but optimistic daughter of a former workhouse inmate, has spent a year working in the ‘introduction house’ of Kathleen Tanner, a job that has given her an income few others could match.
When Lydia meets Henry Shadwell, a young surgeon with a passionate interest in biology, the two develop an instant – and non-professional – bond. And Henry soon enlists Lydia’s help in his underground sidelines; first as a model for pornographic photography; then as an assistant in procuring corpses for medical experimentation.
With the dangers of her own line of work becoming clearer by the day, and her newfound delight in her own sexuality burgeoning, Lydia becomes disillusioned with her life as a prostitute. And it soon become clear that her trade – and Henry’s – are even more dangerous than either had imagined.
Trades of the Flesh is a gripping novel about the body and its desires, from a precocious voice in historical fiction.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Lydia Ketch turns to the oldest profession in the world to keep her sister Annabel and herself out of a Victorian England workhouse after their mother's death. As a prostitute, Lydia encounters sadomasochism, disease, counterfeiting, pornography, and body snatching. When one of her clients, Henry Shadwell, a young surgeon, anatomy teacher, and photographer, asks her to pose as a pornographic model, she agrees, and eventually helps him procure corpses for experiments. Their sexual relationship remains strictly business even though Lydia has fallen in love with him and he seems to care for her. Lydia most of all wants out of the trade and wants to rescue her sister and friends from poverty. Booth (Cover the Mirrors) hits the mark with a historical that leaves behind the lords and ladies and focuses on a young girl with the odds stacked against her slowly figuring out her desires and plans for her future .
