Chase has demonstrated her genius yet again. Set in 1820's Venice, YSW is a wonderful book full of charm and wit. Francesa Bonnard is an unapologetic courtesan. In fact, she calls herself a "great whore". After she is publicly humiliated and divorced by her husband, she flees to the Continent and becomes a notorious and much sought after woman. James Cordier is a spy for the English government and is anxious to retire and return to England. But his last assignment is to steal a packet of letters from Francesca that are potentially damaging to her ex-husband's political career. Francesca and James are wonderfully intelligent characters, the dialog is witty and the setting was so unusual and realistically portrayed. The humor is wonderfully written as well. This is a very funny book. Here is the first paragraph:

"Penises. Everywhere."

Ha! That caught my interest immediately and the story never let me go. And the sex scenes are nice and steamy. But there is a lot of depth to this story too. (GRADE: A) ( )

Another good Regency-era romance from Chase, this one set in Venice. Francesca is a courtesan, disgraced after being divorced by her traitorous husband. She doesn't trust men, any men. James is a British agent, charged with recovering some incriminating letters that Francesca stole from her ex. He just wants a quiet life. Hijinks ensue. ( )

Loretta Chase really doesn't disappoint! Another fun historical romp - this time set in Venice and starring a courtesan and a spy. A delightful, quick read. ( )

I'm the odd one out here ( among the other 7 reviewers) but this was the first Loretta Chase book I hated... with a PASSION!!! Every other book of hers that I've ever read has been charming, wonderful and thoroughly enjoyable. She's an auto-read for me and I'm sure she will be again but this book was very strange and weird. I guess the biggest problem that I had was that the heroine was a whore. Yup a grandiose, over the top courtesan that made no bones about being... a whore. In fact there was hardly a page where she didn't refer to herself as a whore or that someone didn't call her that. I disliked her personality and her role. Not all my romance book heroines have to be squeaky-clean virgins but a bit of pride and self-respect is definitely called for. Anyway, enough ranting. Because I detested Francesca, I never felt she was good enough for the quite wonderful hero, James Cordier. He was smart, witty, brave and handsome. Just what I expect from a Chase hero. But he wasn't enough to hold the story together for me. I gave up half-way and will be a bit careful re: Chase in the future. ( )

I read this because Dear Author had given it an A review as one of the best of the year. I did think the first half was pretty interesting, the female heroine WAS a scandalous and seductive "great whore", and you could believe she had made it up in the world on her own willpower. You could feel the feminine sensual power she exuded. However, Franchesca seemed to lose that power as the novel went on, and she dreamed of starting with a "clean slate", and I thought that was disingenuous. Basically she wanted to go back to her girlish, virginish state after she had fallen in love with the hero. She didn't seem to retain any of her earned power by the end, nor want to - which was a disappointment. The male hero was sexy, very alpha male, but still could follow the right *ahem* commands on how to please a lady. Francesca's fall from grace could have been expanded, as there was a lot of unanswered questions which seemed jarring because the author kept sprinkling snippets of info about it. Still, it was an unusual historical romance that didn't follow all the "typical" plots and it was well written. ( )