Nectar: A Novel of Temptation - Hardcover

Prior, Lily

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0066212596 ISBN 13: 9780066212593

Publisher: Ecco, 2002

Synopsis

Ramona Drottoveo, an albino with unusual looks, is a chambermaid at a lush Italian estate, La Casa. Further distinguished by the intoxicating scent she exudes, Ramona effortlessly bewitches all men, who are driven into an erotic frenzy each time they inhale her aroma. Ramona -- haughty and misguided -- eagerly satisfies their inexhaustible lust, while the women at the estate scold and despise her.

Ramona's life changes when she marries a sweet beekeeper, a victim of her enchantment. But the marriage doesn't last long: the beekeeper dies after discovering his bride with a new lover on their wedding day. When the beekeeper's body disappears, the superstitious villagers blame Ramona and her lover and exile the couple from the estate to the neighboring city of Naples. The story follows Ramona through her tragicomic misadventures in Naples, where her life is transformed once again. by the birth of an unwanted daughter, Blandina, who "steals" Ramona's scent, depriving her mother of her only asset in life. No longer able to seduce men into blind submission, Ramona returns humbly to La Casa to an unexpected welcome -- and revenge.

A hilarious and naughty celebration of the senses and the strange places they can lead us, Nectar is a wildly entertaining fable on the mystery and cruelty of sexual attraction and the frivolous nature of divine justice.

About this title

About the Author:

Lily Prior is the author of La Cucina, Ardor, and Nectar and she divides her time between London and Italy.

From Publishers Weekly:

To visualize Prior's rambunctious novel, imagine a grand, erotic opera buffa, bursting with outsized passion and populated by 99 fancifully named and generally grotesque characters, including a disappearing corpse and his vengeful ghost, a love-starved humpback and the protagonist, a femme fatale in every sense of the word. The temptress is fat, albino Ramona Drottoveo, whose repulsive appearance (her skin is a violent shade of pink, as are her piggy eyes) is no deterrent to the tumescent reaction of any man who gets close enough to inhale the maddening sexual aroma she exudes. Vain, selfish and monumentally stupid, Ramona takes great delight in the hordes of aroused men she attracts. The elderly Signor of la Casa, where she works as a chambermaid, regularly has his way with her, but Ramona decides to marry the lowly beekeeper on the estate so she can quit her job and loaf. The day after her wedding, however, she is surprised with the beekeeper's new assistant, Rinaldo Buffi, a veritable Adonis, inspiring her cuckolded husband to commit suicide. Cast out from la Casa, Ramona and Rinaldo go to Naples, where further adventures await the seductive antiheroine. Prior (La Cucina) propels this larky but dark tale with sensuous descriptions of opulent banquets, hurly-burly street scenes, horrendous natural disasters and providential encounters. Yet the narrative seems less constructed than jerry-built; whenever the plot drives into a corner, magical intervention occurs. Despite its farcical tone, this Technicolor fairy tale is based on the lowest and most venal aspects of human nature, and one may tire of Ramona long before she gets her well-deserved comeuppance.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Ecco
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0066212596
• ISBN 13: 9780066212593
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272