Like a darker, Gothic version of Jane Austen's social commentaries on women's marriage prospects, this bawdy excursion into the sexual politics of bourgeois matchmaking in Georgian London subverts our expectations. Echoing the social upheavals of the French Revolution, taboo themes of transgressive sex, seduction, violence, incest and rape provide plenty of material for book clubs to explore.

... the foolishness of men. How strong they seemed; how authoritative. They owned their wives and children. They could start a war with a nod. Yet all the while they were powerless against a reflexive judder which made them ludicrous.