Meet Emma Hamilton, the sparkling society hostess who has climbed out of debilitating poverty to become England’s first celebrity as well as Nelson’s mistress. There is not a young lady in Georgian London who doesn’t want to be like her.

She comes to London to start her career as a domestic servant. She then works in the theatre and a high-class brothel where she is adopted by an aristocrat who appreciates her body and her witty personality. Learning how to act like a lady, she becomes portrait painter Romney’s favourite model. Emma’s next break is in Naples where she meets Horatio Nelson. Later he lives with her and her husband, Sir William Hamilton, in a ménage-à-trois but then her husband dies and Nelson is killed at the Battle of Trafalgar. Can Emma find another patron? Will her wit and looks save her from poverty yet again?

This riveting, entertaining and meticulously researched novel will take you into the heart of Emma Hamilton’s seductive world. David Lawrence-Young shows how the racy but cruel Georgian society treated the rich and famous while ignoring the fate of the downtrodden poor.