Customer Reviews

Trades of the Flesh

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was taking my own advice when I didn't judge this book by it's cover...mistake! The writing is so amateurish that I'm surprised this book ever got published. The awful cover is a good indicator for what you will find inside.

I thought this was going to be a gritty look at the life of a prostitute in Victorian England, with a bit of grave-robbing and pornography thrown in. And, yes, that does sound good to me. In my mind I thought of it as The 'Dress Lodger', 'The Mephisto Club' and 'Fingersmith' rolled into one. That would be good wouldn't it? Well, sadly this was not.

There was no character development, the dialog was unrealistic and awful, the situations the author created for the characters were completely unrealistic, the events that unfolded were often illogical and never had any explanation, and the behavior of the characters was frequently ridiculous.

In order for this story to be believed you would need to accept what the author has conjured up as remotely possible and I just couldn't do it. You'd have to believe that a madam could run a house of prostitution without any muscle for protection. You'd have to believe that leaving a life of prostitution is an easy thing to do and that all it takes is the ability to save a little bit of your money and then get yourself into the newspaper business...simple, especially for a young girl. Then you'd have to believe that a man who has run a successful pornographic photography business would abruptly walk away from it once he got married. Can all of those things happen, well sure, but not in the way this author writes them.

Here is an example of the writing in this book, granted I picked my least favorite example but still it'll give you a good idea about the writing. 'Lydia devoured everything she was offered, and more than once she noticed Henry watching her as she ate. Her sex flickered in recognition of the dark look of desire in his eyes.'

So, if all of that doesn't sound too bad to you, you might have a chance of enjoying this novel...Sadly I wasted my time and my money on this one.

I looked at the cover and read the description, expecting to find the typical young woman becomes a prostitute to feed herself, meets a man, falls in love, marries, lives happily ever after. This book is anything but typical. It's a rough, raw read, with the language and sexual content to make give it an R rating if it was a movie. I absolutely hate to rate it as poorly as three stars, I honestly love the descriptive parts of her book, it's the only reason I rated it so highly. Without her vivid descriptions of the sights, sounds and smells, I would have rated it 1 star.

Much of the story line seems to jerk around, it throws in bits of flashbacks and side tragedies into the scenes that don't seem to flow with the story of heroine meets hero. It would have been preferable if the author had simply discussed what happened at the work house when it was first mentioned, instead of allowing it to blandly hinted at as something "bad", leaving the reader guessing at what happened for most of the book. The hospital and what happens there, again hinted at, but the tale is never told. Hinting at her younger sister's life outside the "house". Hints at her friend's troubles, again described too much to be ignored, but then not enough to really explain all of my questions. This book is all over the map with several story lines happening at once, as if the author had several stories to tell, but could not decide which was the most important so she just dumped them all into this book.

As noted, while the story has a raw feel to it, it is not quite literotica and not quite a romance novel. To be honest, I feel that either this author tried to tone down a book that could be a very good literotic novel or she doesn't quite have what it takes to write the dark, gritty scenes needed for a true wild ride. For instance, she hints at the "Mistress Birch" and uses many curse words, including several "f-bombs", graphic words for sex and sexual body parts, but she doesn't quite follow through. Autopsies and body parts in jars are described in almost more detail than the sex.

It was a book I wanted to love, it was a book that if it was "fleshed" out into either a true literotic novel or prettied up into a less bland, less gritty romance would fly off the shelves. As it is, I think it's destined to become one of those books that sells because people want to like it, but it left me with unanswered questions, and a feeling of "It's over, that's it? What was the big deal?"

She did her research on Victorian life, the descriptions in the book prove that but she would have done better to put her lovely descriptions into two or three main characters, instead of trying to tell everyone's stories poorly. Her editor could have done a better job at editing and directing her efforts into firming up the main story line, and side-lining most of the other stories.

I was very disappointed in this book. I had hoped it would be a dark and realistic story of a historical prostitute that eventually fell in love and left that life. The story is ruined by poor writing. I didn't feel pulled into the book or the characters at all. In addition to that the story just didn't work for me. Too many details were left out. I didn't get the romantic feel I wanted from the book. It was just ... odd, not historical, not dark enough, not romantic, not much of anything. I don't really recommend reading this book.

It would be nice to be able to report that, despite this books lurid premise and rather too "spot-on" title, it was actually an historically fascinating study of the underside of 19th century English life.

But, alas, I cannot.

It's not that the writing is fairly uninteresting and continually feels (badly) anachronistic (note: I don't know that it IS, mind, it just feels it!);

It's not that the story tries to be a sort of semi-smutty Dickensian tale... and fails the Dickensian part;

It's not that the lead character, Lydia Ketch (forced into prostitution to protect herself and her sister from the workhouse) is wildly uninteresting;

Nor that her "co-star" Dr. Henry Shadwell, makes Lydia look like the most fascinating person in literature;

No, it's not any of these.... Oh, wait a minute... yes, it is!

Trades of the Flesh takes place just over three decades after Faye L. Booth's debut novel, Cover the Mirrors. Both books are set in Preston, a slum in Liverpool in England, during the second half of the 19th century. While her first novel looked at the Spiritualist movement and the role of scam artists in them, her second novel focuses on the sex trade in various degrees beginning in 1888 through 1889, less than a year of time.

If that year seems familiar, it is because that is the year that Jack the Ripper's most famous murders occurred in Whitechapel in London. While Liverpool is not London and travel was not as quick or cheap as today, it is quite true that the murders showed up in newspapers not only around England but also throughout Europe and even popping up in the American and Canadian papers. Talk about the Ripper though also turned attention toward prostitution, pornography, venereal diseases, and the conditions of the poor in both salacious and humane ways.

All of these issues are part of the narrative that Booth weaves as she tells the story of one young poor woman, Lydia Ketch, who promises her mother to become a prostitute to support her younger sister, Annabel who shows promise in school. It was less common for girls to receive an education but there were indeed new professions for educated young women that the age of Industrialization has created. While a modern reader might cringe at Mother Ketch's demands and her daughters' obedience it is considered an evil necessity by all the characters we meet just as it would very likely have been by the people living in the area during this period.

The Ripper is there, in the background, but our Lydia hardly has time to worry when she needs to be more concerned with pleasing her Madame, pleasing clients, and trying to think of her future. This is where Booth does a good job of taking us out of a world of merely feeling sorrow or horror at the conditions of the world and letting us see the honest possibilities open to people of various classes. This is not a romance for there is not happily ever after nor do our two main characters, Lydia and Henry, start off disliking let alone hating each other as that genre often requires. It is not a mystery for no one is truly invested in finding the Ripper and other mysteries are really just the lies people tell to maintain their own sense of self or to protect those they love.

Instead this is a historical novel with some elements of erotica and romance but never taken beyond what the characters in their position could seriously expect to happen. Their interactions may seem stilted to us only if we do not understand that at every moment, even up to the end of the novel, the person's true thoughts, true feelings, and true self are hidden behind a complex drama that clients, prostitutes, the middle class and the poor play out with each other on a day to day basis. This agreed to yet un-discussed play re-enforced the roles and keep the divisions between classes clear, a necessary part of English society at this time. This is not to say that the book is perfect, there are certainly comments that struck this reviewer as odd given the context but the vast majority of the books flows quite well if you understand the history and culture of the setting.

One cannot call either Lydia or Henry a hero; they simply are too far removed from any altruistic motive to be considered that. They are two people who find each other and encourage each other, as best their differences allow, to strive for something beyond their prescribed roles. This is primarily true for Lydia whose concern for her future starts to pay off by the novel's end. Unfortunately this means that the book feels unfinished, unsatisfactory for readers who can connect to her on some level. However this book also does not seem to be a set up for a sequel since we do come to conclusions, however sad, for each of our characters. Many readers will simply be left curious to know if Lydia will succeed in her plans.

Lydia Ketch is a prostitute in 1888 in London, England. She's found herself in this life as a means of survival for herself, and her little sister Annabel, after their mother died, their mother didn't want them to be taken back to the workhouses. Over the year since her mother's death, Lydia has become very skilled in the ways of pleasuring a man.

In the course of things, she meets a man named Henry Shadwell, a doctor to be exact. While the public knows him as a man of medicine, he has a sideline as a teacher to barbers, apothecaries, and other laymen that would benefit from basic medical knowledge. He teaches them because he knows not everyone can afford a doctor, and he'd rather that someone that they could, be able to help them. If he were to be found out, his license would be revoked. Shadwell also takes nude pictures of women and sells them to several gentalmen's papers, and that's how he and Lydia first meet, he hires her from her madam Kathleen, to pose for him after he's paid for and had sex with Lydia.

At first it's just the pictures that bring these two together but soon Henry sees that Lydia, while not as educated as him, is a rather smart woman and he soon enlists her help in procuring a body to teach his final lessons to a small group of men. Doing so is dangerous, but so is Lydia's own job, it is the time of Jack the Ripper, and the town's Society Against Vice is cracking down on prostitution as well. Lydia has had one of her own friends taken away by them on the suspicion that she's spreading disease. Lydia begins to form ideas of other employment and seeks Henry's help in making it happen.

Faye Booth has written a different kind of historical romance. It's set in Victorian days, but this is no tale of a poor but genteel woman rescued by a duke or lord. Protagonist Lydia Ketch is only a teen when her mother dies in wretched poverty, with her last words to Lydia being to take care of her younger sister Annabel- the brains of the family, the one with a future. There aren't many options for poor girls with no family in that era, so Lydia picks the one that looks to be the most lucrative- she enters `the trade'.

Good luck is a relative thing; most people wouldn't think of working in a brothel as `good luck'. But in that time and place, the stability, comfort and safety of a brothel is a downright luxurious situation compared to working the streets. Preston may not be London, where the Ripper is on the loose, but the streets still present dangers to women. The fact that Lydia finds a madam who is good to her `girls'- and even allows Annabel to work there as a maid while finishing her schooling- is a huge bonus. The working girls and Annabel all dream of a fairy tale ending to their lives.

Lydia knows there is no such thing, especially for such as her. When she meets Henry Shadwell, a young surgeon who is making extra money with both pornographic photography and illicit anatomy lessons- stolen bodies and all- she finds her world expanding, both sexually and financially. She's smart, ambitious, hard working and ready to take on any new situation, and makes the most of her opportunities. Life is looking up. But not too far up; she is to know tragic loss, and while Henry is a kind man with a passion for Lydia, he is still a man of his time and class, not a prince on a white horse.

There are no caricatures here, no black or white. The world and the characters are shades of gray as all real people are. Booth has done a lot of research of the era and it shows in her novel. Recommended!

I loved this book. The novel starts with the main character becoming a prostitute after her mother's death to support her and her sister. She quickly moves to posing nude for photographs. The plot is fast paced and deepens as you read the book. I was up all night with this book, it was so good I couldn't put it down. The novel is dark, but with the plot line that is to be expected. It is also very well written. The writer's dialogue never seems forced and the eroticism of the novel does not go unnoticed. I definitely recommend this book.

Plot Summary: When her mother dies, Lydia Ketch finds her way to an "introduction house" in order to support herself and her younger sister. After one-year on the job, Lydia finds being a prostitute tolerable, and she's starting to build up a bankroll on the side. She's never felt desire on the job until she meets young surgeon, Henry Shadwell, who gives Lydia her first orgasm to satisfy a bet with one of his friends. Henry is also an amateur pornographer, and he hires Lydia as his model. As Lydia develops feelings for Henry, he shares his other secret with her-Henry teaches anatomy in secret, and he needs a body for his next class. Meanwhile, Lydia has plans to leave the brothel and set herself up independently as a writer of scandalous stories for men.

The first problem with Trades of the Flesh is that it has an identity crisis. It doesn't know if it wants to be a romance novel or a historical novel, and to further muck things up, my review copy states that the publicity campaign will target mystery aficionados. What mystery? There's absolutely no mystery within this story, so I'm completely baffled as to the target audience for this book. I suppose it doesn't really matter, because it doesn't succeed as either a romance, mystery, or historical novel. No romance fan will swallow the relationship story between Lydia and Henry, and no historical fan wants to read a story with this much sex.

I picked up Trades of the Flesh because I was intrigued to read a story told from a Victorian-era prostitute's point of view. Too many stories set in England focus on the aristocracy, and I appreciated Faye L. Booth's unique approach. While her heroine had one of the cushiest setups for a young woman in this position (she wasn't beaten, drugged, or abused), Lydia still had to deal with all of the mental and physical indignities of loaning her body out for a pound a pop. In these sexual encounters, Lydia was completely distanced from the act, and it was broken down into a series of mechanical steps. I have no trouble believing this is how prostitutes approach their work.

I was expecting a strong contrast between the sex Lydia performed on the job, to the sex she had with her love-interest, Henry, and there wasn't much difference at all. Furthermore, I can't even tell if the author was trying to achieve the kind of artistry and sensuality that seasoned romance writers bring to their sex scenes. The romance itself was weak and uninspiring, and as I said above, the ending won't satisfy a romance fan anyway.

Lydia's characterization is the strongest, but she didn't evoke any sense of pity from me, which is a major failing. I should have been deeply invested in her fate, but she was never endearing or plucky. Henry was even worse, because he was a surgeon, a pornographer, and a body-snatcher (the type who dug up graves to teach dissection). It was just too much, and he turns out to be no better than any of Lydia's clients. The reader is left with only one person to admire, and Lydia isn't inspiring enough to carry that burden.

In 1887 in Preston, dying Nell Ketch tells her oldest daughter Lydia to take care of her younger sister Annabel. Her mom suggests Lydia use her comely body to make a living. Lydia's only other choice is the brutal workhouse.

In 1888, Lydia works for brothel owner Kathleen Tanner, as she takes care of herself and her sibling. Client Henry Shadwell makes an intriguing offer as a photographer he wants to take pornographic pictures of her. Realizing this is an easier means to make money she agrees. Over time she assists him in obtaining corpses for his anatomy class because he is a surgeon that he teaches. As she falls in love with him and he wants only her, they keep their sexual relationship as it always has been with him being her paying customer.

This is a superb Victorian historical tale starring a young woman desperately trying to keep herself and her sister out of the workhouse though the protagonist hopes to leave the brothel business soonest too. The story is character driven, but its the Dickensian descriptions of Victorian England even two decades after the writer's death that grips the audience; as being a woman of ill repute is less acceptable even with her patrons (and their families) than dying young at the workhouse. With a powerful unexpected final twist, readers will appreciate Trades of the Flesh, one of the few ways an impoverished woman can make a living.

Harriet Klausner