SWOON!! Review, Guest Post + GIVEAWAY!

Some Men just Know what it takes...

Swoon

by Betsy Prioleau

As part of the TLC Book Tour,

Here is my Review:

SWOON, Great Seducers and Why Women Love Them, by Betsy Prioleau

There’s nothing simplistic about the female brain, body and soul- intricately divine and sublimely refined, it really does take a grand master in love to figure out what makes us Venuses…Swoon!

Betsy Prioleau presents us with the great seducers of all times to figure out what it is that makes some men really ‘get’ what women want.  From the very beginning, even the Greek gods, moved heaven and earth for love.  But by far, the grandest of all lovers in history was Giacomo Casanova.  The perfect ladies’ man, Casanova captured women’s minds, their heart, their fantasies and ultimately their soul. He was genuinely interested and completely devoted to pleasing women- he understood what they needed and wanted. (Scroll down to Read Betsy's guest post on Casanova!)

Betsy Prioleau’s research brings us closer to the men in history and their captivating ways. The men she describes (tons of historical figures, which include Voltaire, Gabriele D’Annunzio, the 18^th c. duc de Richelieu, to name a few- and the modern ones as well- Warren Beatty, Mick Jagger and Woody Allen too!)-all of them devoted to being ladies’ men.

SWOON grabs you from the very beginning.  It’s everything you want to know about the great lovers in history.  Definitely a sexy read, Swoon will have you admitting that yes! this really is what women want- from way back,  and that there really is a recipe for love.  It leads you to the realization that some things will never really change when it comes to love from a woman’s point of view.  Women need and crave to be loved to the most heightened of their senses- passionately, completely yes, but a true lover knows that he’ll have to get through her mind first (but not solely)- Betsy Prioleau has a chapter on that.  It’s called, Mental Intercourse…hmmm

The writing is of superb and impeccable taste.  Prioleau takes us through the history of love in flowing chapters that reveal what women already know and what the most intuitive men are fortunate enough to unravel.  SWOON is filled with these great seducers who have mastered their art and understood the cue by becoming completely enthralled with love for their lady, their muse.

I particularly enjoyed how the author takes the art of love and the historical seducers through an almost scientifc analysis- but the stuff she writes is incredibly interesting! There is nothing dry about this book- a definite page turner that will keep the facts coming as you're kept in attention by the quick pace and sharp  clever writing (...guarantees a glued smile on your face;)

Brilliantly researched, witty and deliciously sexy, SWOON is recommended to all aspiring seducers and the lucky women who will undoubtedly and most willingly swoon into their bliss.

5 Star -Exquisite!

As part of the TLC Tour, Betsy has graciously agreed to write a post for this Venetian girl, on the world's greatest lover, Casanova!!

Please Welcome Betsy Prioleau!

Think Casanova and what comes to mind?  Hollywood rakes in satin waistcoats, slick romancers, cheating wastrels, and misogynistic players who nail and bail.  A “Casanova,” by definition, is a “promiscuous, unscrupulous lover,” a man with a “complex” incapable of love.

            But who was Casanova?  It may come as a surprise to know that he was a real person and not the person he’s taken to be.  The actual Giacomo Casanova, a Venetian born in 1725, had more than boudoir conquests to his name.  Accomplished and acquainted with great figures of the eighteenth century like Voltaire, he was an entrepreneur, violinist, scientist, scholar, alchemist, diplomat, and author of poems, novels, and a 3,700 page autobiography.

            This is the memoir that accounts for his infamous reputation. But it’s undeserved—the result of botched translations and mythology. Contrary to rumor, Casanova adored and appreciated women.  He believed he “was born” for the opposite sex: “I have always loved it,” he wrote, “and have done everything I could to make myself loved by it.”

            To that end, he treated women as equals, courted them with gifts and gallantry, and specialized in female pleasure, once delivering fourteen orgasms in a single night. Far from a compulsive womanizer, he picked intelligent women (he refused to sleep with someone he couldn’t talk to), and was a fool for love.

            At twenty-four he met the brilliant “Henriette,” a Frenchwoman travelling incognito to escape her family, and fell helplessly in love.  When they parted, he nearly lost his mind and life.  He fled to a remote inn, refused to eat, and would have died if a stranger hadn’t broken into his room and saved him.  Sixteen years later, she called him the “most honorable man she had known in this world.”

            Although no saint (Casanova engaged in scams, gambling, and spying), he was a far cry from a ruthless predator.  In his love affairs, sentiments were mutual; liaisons, long; and partings, without rancor.  If anything, Casanova was more pursued than the pursuer. “I continued,” he remarked, “to be the dupe of women until the age of sixty.”

            By then, his grand amours were over.  He retreated to nether Bohemia where he served as Count Waldstein’s librarian until his death at seventy-three.  Even then, women sought him out and cherished his company, sending him delicacies and fond letters.  And there he had the final word on the men we now call “Casanovas”: “The professional seducer is an abominable man,” he wrote, “a true criminal who if he has the qualities required to seduce, renders himself unworthy of them by abusing them to make a woman wretched.”            

Thank you, Betsy for this terrific post:))

GIVEAWAY TIME!!!

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Good Luck!!!

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