Royal Affairs

A Lusty Romp Through the Extramarital Adventures That...

by Leslie Carroll

NAL

Non-Fiction

June 3, 2008

ISBN-13: 0451223985

Available in: Trade Size

Read an Excerpt

Royal Affairs
by Leslie Carroll

A Lusty Romp Through the Extramarital Adventures That Rocked the British Monarchy

A funny, raucous, and delightfully dirty history of 1,000 years of bedroom-hopping secrets and scandals of Britain's royals.

Insatiable kings, lecherous queens, kissing cousins, and wanton consorts—history has never been so much fun.

Royal unions have always been the stuff of scintillating gossip, from the passionate Plantagenets to Henry VIII's alarming head count of wives and mistresses, to the Sapphic crushes of Mary and Anne Stuart right on up through the scandal-blighted coupling of Prince Charles and Princess Diana. Thrown into loveless, arranged marriages for political and economic gain, many royals were driven to indulge their pleasures outside the marital bed, engaging in delicious flirtations, lurid love letters, and rampant sex with voluptuous and willing partners.

This nearly pathological lust made for some of the most titillating scandals in Great Britain's history. Hardly harmless, these affairs have disrupted dynastic alliances, endangered lives, and most of all, fed the salacious curiosity of the public for centuries. Royal Affairs will satiate that curiosity by bringing this arousing history alive.



Leslie Carroll's Bio

Leslie Carroll was born and raised in New York City. A professional actress as well as a novelist, over the years she has also worked in politics, advertising, public relations, law, and journalism. She has a Bachelor of Arts from Cornell University.

Although she always amused herself on long car trips by making up stories in her head and populating them with imaginary friends, Leslie's writing career gathered steam in 1998, when, during a long car trip, she proclaimed that she would like to be paid to write. What followed was the impetus for a career as a novelist as well as a return to the world of journalism: a stint as an Associate Editor at Back Stage, New York's leading trade paper for the Theatre professional, where Leslie wrote and edited industry news and features.

On stage, Leslie has played classical and contemporary virgins, vixens, and villainesses in New York and in regional theatre. She has appeared in commercials, voice- overs and talking books, and daytime dramas. Under the auspices of Survivor Productions, a not-for-profit professional theatre company that she founded in 1989, Leslie produced several seasons of "neglected" plays of the 19th century. She is also the author of three stage adaptations of 19th century/early 20th century English novels: Ivanhoe, The Prisoner of Zenda, and The Scarlet Pimpernel. Additionally, Leslie is the dramatist of The Diaries of Adam and Eve, based upon the humorous writing of Mark Twain, and the author of The Anglophile's Guide to Afternoon Tea in New York, cheerfully co-researched by close tea-sipping, scone- munching friends. Leslie considers herself more or less "the ultimate anglophile," with a particular penchant for Bath. Her occasional wanderlust has led her to other favorite (and wildly romantic) locales such as Venice and New Orleans.

Surrounded by hundreds of books, her own needlework, family mementos, and a plethora of pre-Raphaelite prints, Leslie lives on Manhattan's Upper West Side in a rambling pre-war apartment once shared with her grandmother. "Three generations of my family have lived here over the years. I jokingly refer to it as 'Tara.' "

She is a member of the Dramatists' Guild and both the national and New York chapters of Romance Writers of America.