cover image Trades of the Flesh

Trades of the Flesh

Faye L. Booth, Forge, $14.99 trade paper (304) ISBN 978-0-7653-2784-0

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 . (Mar.)