Showing results by author "Jessica Cale" in All Categories

From acclaimed historian and host of the Dirty Sexy History podcast Jessica Cale comes the gripping and untold history of contraception and abortion pre-Roe v. Wade that finally puts the intelligent, overlooked women who exercised unimaginable control over their fertility at the forefront...

Sally Green is about to die. She sees Death in the streets. She can taste it in her gin. She can feel it in the very walls of the ramshackle brothel where she is kept to satisfy the perversions of the wealthy. She had come to London as a runaway in search of her Cavalier father. Instead, she found Wrath, a sadistic nobleman determined to use her to fulfill a sinister ambition. As the last of her friends are murdered one by one, survival hinges on escape.

After saving the life of the glamorous Marquise de Harfleur, painfully shy barmaid Alice Henshawe is employed as the lady’s companion and whisked away to Versailles. There, she catches King Louis’ eye and quickly becomes a court favorite as the muse for Charles Perrault’s Cinderella. The palace appears to be heaven itself, but there is danger hidden beneath the façade and Alice soon finds herself thrust into a world of intrigue, murder, and Satanism at the heart of the French court.

After being rescued from her kidnapping by a handsome highwayman, she returns home only to find her marriage prospects drastically reduced. Her father expects her to marry the repulsive Lord Lewes, but Jane has other plans. All she can think about is her highwayman, and she is determined to find him again.

When Evie Henshawe agreed to sit as an artist’s model for the eccentric Marquess of Ashcombe, she was expecting to lose her clothes and her reputation. She wasn’t counting on losing her mind—or her heart. As a second son, Ash was never meant to be a marquess. Bookish, circumspect, and devoted to his art, he’s a visionary, not a landlord. Horrified by the realities of the Industrial Revolution, he buries himself in the past and uses his resources to build a Gothic Revival Camelot in north London, a place where he can disappear into his dreams.

Actress Charlotte Halfpenny is in trouble. Pregnant, abandoned by her lover, and out of a job, Charlotte faces eviction two weeks before Christmas. When the reclusive Earl of Somerton makes her an outrageous offer, she has no choice but to accept. Could he be the man of her dreams, or is the nightmare just beginning?

Rival. Sister. Barmaid. Whore. Meg Henshawe has been a lot of things in her life, and few of them good. As proprietress of The Rose and Crown in Restoration Southwark, she has squandered her life catering to the comfort of workmen and thieves. Famous for her beauty as much as her reputation for rage, Meg has been coveted, abused, and discarded more than once. She is resigned to fighting alone until a passing boxer offers a helping hand.

After years of failed auditions, rum heiress Andromeda Archambault gives it one last try at The Crow's Nest in Shoreditch against her better judgment. She may be a lady, but to director Frank Creighton, she's the Queen of Night, and she's perfect for a starring role in his theatre and his life. But Andie isn't who she says she is, and neither is Frank. Will their Phantasmagoria be a success, or will the skeletons in their closets close the show before it begins?

The moment Lady Emilia sets eyes on the Chevalier d’Aubusson, she knows their fates are tied together. For good or ill, she cannot say. A mysterious aristocrat with a tragic past, the chevalier makes waves with his considerable charm. But the chevalier is not as he seems. There are cracks in his story, and Emilia never could resist a mystery. Whether he’s a gentleman or a bounder, he might just be the man for her.

Going beyond the sanitized and idealized to the dirty reality of human history with Jessica Cale. There's more to history than what you learned in high school, and we're going to skip to the good stuff together.