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TITLE: Royal Sex: Mistresses and Lovers of the British Royal Family

AUTHOR: Roger Powell

RELEASE DATE: June 1st, 2010 by Amberley Publishing

GENRE: Non-Fiction/History

TAGS: Non-Fiction, History, England, Monarchy, Royal Mistresses, Tudors, Stuarts, Hanover, Windsors

RATING (1-5): ★★★

A sometimes meandering, other times choppy run down of some of the more well known mistresses dating from the Tudor to the Windsor Dynasties. I generally love these sorts of collective biographies, and royal mistresses & courtesans are probably my all time favorite topic, but this one fell a little flat for me- the research, to be fair, is there, and that is primarily why it gets three stars. The caveat being, unless you're entirely new to the aforementioned women, it's just a dry rehash- and if you aren't familiar, this dry rehash is just going to seem a little dull. It's not Michael Farquhar (thank god); I think it wanted to be Eleanor Herman. Powell definitely knows his stuff, and perhaps that's the issue- as a genealogist who studies the royal family, he sometimes can forget to throw in the parts that make biographies entertaining. I commend him for not submitting to the pressure of the bottom line by including conjecture or rumors, but there were plenty of amusing anecdotes that, had they been included, would have made this a better read.

I kept a copy on my bookshelves, as makes a handy reference- but I'm a collector on the topic. If you're looking for something about Royal mistresses to cut your teeth on, and you tend to favor more textbook-style reads, then you'll like it, even if you don't read it in one swoop and just keep it for thumbing through. If you're at all familiar with the protagonists, or just looking for some basic introductions to these women, with the intent of finding more detailed biographies of the ones who interest you, its not a bad start, but I'd suggest going with Herman instead- she at least covers a wider range and region.

This book was dry considering the topic chosen. One of the most infamous affairs in British history was handle like an session of Cspan. Who watch's Cspan and think this the best show ever?! What happen between King Henry VIII and Ann Boleyn change history in such that a ripple effect was created that manifested for years to come all after he stopped shagging her. This book should have been about shagging , politics, and royalty. How do you mess that up? Congrats to the author because he did.