Seductress: Women who Ravished the World and Their Lost Art of Love

How did the seductresses of western history love-addle men and keep them in their pockets for life? The surprising answers explode all the myths. Instead of dim blondes or shark-hearted vamps, the top fascinators were nonbeauties, older women, and swanky artists, intellectuals, politicas, and adventurers. Each chapter in Prioleau's bold, inspiring book recounts the sexy stories of these love maestras-some familiar like Cleopatra, Lola Montez, and Wallis Simpson; others less so, like the infamous Violet Gordon Woodhouse, who lived in a menage with four men. With their alpha personhood and their joint mastery of love and work, these seductresses practiced an ancient, long-forgotten erotic art that is 99 percent mental sorcery-a cocktail of wit, eloquence, and joie de vivre. Prioleau's thrilling, thorough, and engaging analysis of these women supplies all the voltage necessary to upend every regressive how-to primer and shows the women of today-mired in an epic crisis of confidence-how to recoup their sexual birthright and achieve combine romantic and personal success.