Princesses were raised to be devout, obedient, (sic) and faithful.

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(I am slacking off. I finished this book almost a week ago.)

Sex with the Queen: Nine Hundred Years of Vile Kings, Virile Lovers, (sic) and Passionate Politics by Eleanor Herman
Release date: April, 2005

The follow-up to Sex with Kings, everybody’s favorite history book of royal mistresses. Here she examines the situations of the queens and princesses who took lovers. And you know, I can’t recommend these books enough. Learning is even more fun when it’s titillating. Inevitably, the fact that this book was about female adulterers instead of male meant a lot of the stories ended tragically.

I think Eleanor Herman took the advice of the LibraryThing.com reviewers when she organized this book chronologically instead of by theme. This meant I didn’t confuse people as much, but it also read like a handful of short biographies. And I don’t know if you guys know this, but I hate biographies AND short stories. So while I was able to keep everyone straight, I didn’t much care for the organization. You know, if I wasn’t enjoying one of the subjects (say, the Catherine the Great one because I’ve read a biography on her and didn’t want to read another one, albeit much shorter), I would just have to keep plugging along, instead of being comforted by the fact that in a few paragraphs Herman would jump to someone else. I will reiterate what I said in my review of Sex with Kings on LibraryThing.com: I think it’s better organized by theme, but would have liked to have a cast of “characters” and timeline in the book.

Also, she CLEARLY does not care for Princess Diana, and it was really interesting to read an opinion about her that I’ve never heard before.

Recommended to everyone who likes history and sex. Read both books. They are just good fun.

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Tags: catherine the great, eleanor herman, librarything.com, princess diana, sex with kings, sex with the queen