Book Report: The Bookseller's Daughter

I went to the library last night, looking for a summer book. A "beach novel," although I'm not going to the beach. A "trashy novel," a "bodice ripper," a book of the type a woman I once worked with described as "chewing gum for the eyes."

I found it.

The title intrigued me: The Bookseller's Daughter. The author is Pam Rosenthal. I stayed up until 2:00 a.m. this morning to finish it. The story is standard: the lovely bookseller's daughter has been reduced to working as a scullery maid for the local aristocracy. She falls in love with the youngest son of said aristocrats. He lusts after her and--surprise, surprise!--falls in love with her. This is one of the better novels of this type I've read: the erotica is pretty explicit, but it worked for me! . The setting is pre-Revolutionary France in 1783, so there are class issues as well as sexual ones.

Three bookmarks out of five.