This book is fascinating at the beginning, even with all its debauchery it hooks you into a real slice of Victorian life more realistically than some may desire. Sugar's character requires suspension of belief in how she acquires such wisdom and wide literary/business knowledge at 19, considering she is a prostitute forced into the business at 13 years. Even so, one cant help but love and admire her, with her earnest drive to escape that life. My other quarrel with her, is how she left Christopher behind. William is a hateful man, utterly selfish and masterfully depicted as a representation of men in general who t use, abuse and discard women particularly those who stupidly fortify them with the means to do so. Men like him are the reason many women prefer to be lesbians.

I was hoping he would have been permanently maimed or catch syphilis, anything that would publicly humiliate him and bring him to his knees, though being outwitted by Sugar when she kidnaps Sophie is a small taste of what he deserved

Other than these two, most other characters are one sided and undeveloped in the book. The ending runs out of steam and leaves one with regret for bothering to care about the characters and for wasting time reading it. Perhaps the author was deliberate in slicing it abruptly short to make room for a sequel ( one which I would not care to read, because of this disappointing end).