Beautiful, quick-witted, good humoured and sexually magnetic, Nell Gwyn remains one of England's great folk-heroines. The story of her exceptional rise from an impoverished childhood (she was the fatherless daughter of an alcholic bawd) to the wealth and connections that came with being the lover of one history's most louche kings, is a highly charged mix of lust, money, high politics and love.

Possibly a child prostitute, 'pretty Nelly', as Samuel Pepys called her in his diary, was famously spotted selling oranges in the first Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. She took to the stage and became the most successful commedienne of her day with parts written for her by the great dramatists of the age. It was while she was performing that she caught the eye of Charles II, the newly restored, pleasure-seeking, 'merry monarch' of a nation in full hedonistic reaction to puritan rule. Their affair earned her his undying devotion and, despite the other women in his life, the intense intrigues of court, the fire of London, the great plague and the constant threat of rebellion, their genuine love lasted until their deaths.

Charles Beauclerk has brilliantly recreated the heady, licentious atmosphere of Charles's court and reveals to us the true nature of Nell Gwyn's world and her relationship with Charles. This is both quintessential restoration romp and epic love story; an account that far exceeds the colour and excitements of the best historical fiction.