This HaBO request is from Rose, who is searching for a historical romance:
Heroine is being forced to marry or she is betrothed to someone she doesn’t want to marry.
She decides to rebel and become a courtesan. She begins to be trained in the “art” by a masked man.
At the end of the book, we learn that the masked man was her betrothed all along.
Well, this is certainly something.
“we learn that the masked man was her betrothed all along” but WHY??
A Courtesan’s Guide to Getting Your Man by Celeste Bradley and Susan Donovan.
I think this was the first Celeste Bradley book I hated, when she took a sharp turn into 50 Shades territory and I just could not go there.
Just once I would like the heroine to actually follow through with being a courtesan for financial independence, the hero to not get weirdly jealous but to be like, “yup, I’ve taught you everything I know, good luck!” and then for them to meet again later when she forms a literary salon or something. Or the guy’s just a friend doing her a favor and she saves up some money and runs off with a fellow courtesan. There are so many options!
@SusanE – I hated this one too. It occupies a sort of legendary status in my memory.
In addition to the whole 50 Shades whatever, there’s a dual timeline, and the authors try to draw a parallel between the historical hero saving the heroine’s life via Exciting Courtroom Drama, which he was completely responsible for in the first place, and the contemporary hero skipping a long-sought meeting to get funding for his own fledgling family business, thus risking not only his own future livelihood but that of at least one sibling with dependent children, in order to… be a silent supportive presence at an event the heroine had planned for a job she had already decided to quit at which her entire family and also her friends were already going to be silently supportively present.
I can’t get behind equating “wow you were minimally decent enough to save my life after risking it which was totally the least you could do, you really DO love me” with “wow you completely unnecessarily possibly blew up your life and that of some innocent children for something that is not going to matter to me in literally ten minutes, you really DO love me.” Also I can’t really get behind either half of that equation in isolation???, except for dramatically different reasons. Like honestly the sheer breadth and diversity of the myriad ways this book managed to piss me off was perversely why I kept reading it; it was kind of awe-inspiring somehow.
It’s called Breathless in the UK, I found out when I searched for it.
It seems like many authors went through a fifty shades phase in the 2010’s and not with great results. I suspect a hint of publisher meddling there.
I haven’t read this book, but was looking through the reviews on Goodreads, and it looks like the plot is what Emily is asking for? He trains her to be a courtesan, and then she is one for a few years (the cover calls her “London’s most celebrated courtesan”), and only after she’s been a courtesan does she finally learn who he really was. Is that the case? The HaBo description does make it sound like she finds out her trainer is her betrothed and doesn’t have to follow through what’s she’s training for, but the reviews indicate otherwise. (Or maybe there’s more than one book with the plot. I know Donovan herself had a short story where the heroine decides to have sex with a stranger…who turns out to be her husband in the end and they’re just role-playing, so this kind of thing may be common.)
@Emily: I would totally go for a book where a courtesan falls for another courtesan and they start a literary salon. Can maybe Olivia Waite hook us up?
@NT:
If I remember right, he originally meant to tell her and marry her after the training was finished, but then as a favor to her he decided to let her go do her own thing. (Personally, I would have liked to know so I could make an informed choice but whatever).
She had a long career as a courtesan before she found out who he was. This was supposed to be a big surprise but actually it was pretty obvious to me when he was first introduced as the tutor.
I don’t think she had ever met him under his original name. By the time he showed up without the mask he had changed his last name for no apparent reason except to keep the reader in the dark. Just one more annoying thing about this book.
I know a fine short story which kinda more or less fits the description (right down to starting a literary salon): “Knotting Grass, Holding Ring” by Ken Liu … Set during the Manchu takeover of China, and during the sack of Yangzhou (fair warning: it does depict some of the horrors of that event), it’s about a courtesan named Green Siskin and her servant Sparrow and how Green Siskin used her wits to save some of the inhabitants of the conquered city. A beautiful story, do check it out if you can obtain a copy of the anthologies “Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History” or “Heiresses of Russ 2015: The Year’s Best Lesbian Speculative Fiction.”
[addendum] I meant, “fits the description of the story people wanted to read instead.”
Thank you, SusanE.
I’m curious how the masked man originally shows up. Does she put an ad on Craig’s list for “Masked Courtesan Trainer”? If anyone can explain, I would be most grateful.
Mastering the Marchioness has a similar plot but the MCs are already married.
@Carol – I was waiting for someone who has a copy of the book for reference to answer your question, but until then, here goes: I think she went to a brothel and asked the madam for career advice. The madam set her up with the tutor, and the lessons took place in the brothel. I don’t remember how she knew about the brothel in the first place.