Maestra (book)

Maestra

Cover for the Zaffre Publishing edition
Author	L.S. Hilton
Audio read by	Emilia Fox
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Published	2016
Publisher	Zaffre Publishing, G.P. Putnam's Sons
Media type	Print (hardback, paperback), e-book, audiobook
Pages	352 pages (UK edition)
ISBN	(UK)

Maestra is a 2016 erotic thriller novel by British author Lisa Hilton, writing under the penname of L.S. Hilton, and the first book in a trilogy. The book was first published in the United Kingdom on 10 March 2016 through Zaffre Publishing and was released in the United States on 19 April of the same year, through G.P. Putnam's Sons, who also re-released Maestra in the UK.Maestra has received comparisons to E. L. James's popular Fifty Shades trilogy, and Hilton received a three-book deal and a prospective film based on Maestra's first draft. Sales for Maestra have been strong and the work has reached bestselling status in the United Kingdom.

Of the book, Hilton has stated that "My novel doesn’t set out to provoke, nor is it precisely a feminist polemic – I merely attempted to write about a modern female character who is unapologetic about desire and who feels no shame or conflict about its fulfilment."

Eager to leave behind her poor and mostly unhappy childhood, Judith Rashleigh has moved to London in the hopes of reinventing herself. She has taken a job as an assistant at an elite art auction house, but this job only barely allows her to pay her bills and the majority of her coworkers treat her with disdain. Her boss Rupert is the most dismissive of her coworkers, as he has no problem sending her to a client that fully expected Judith to have sex with him in exchange for selling his paintings through the auction house. It's after this last act that Judith meets up with an old acquaintance named Leanne, who introduces her to the a hostess bar where its women serve as non-sexual companions to wealthy clients. The pay from this job is quite good and allows Judith to better make ends meet. It's through this job that she meets James, an obese older man that proves to be her most lucrative customer. One day Judith discovers that the auction house is slated to sell a rare painting by George Stubbs, however she's savvy enough to spot that the painting is likely fake. When her investigations prove this to be true, Judith is promptly fired from the art house by Rupert. This pains her, as she truly loved art and wanted to succeed at her job.

Disheartened and eager to leave town, Judith persuades James to take her and Leanne to France in exchange for sexual favors. Leanne comes up with the idea of drugging James in order to have more time to explore and play in France on their own, only for this to backfire and end in James's death. The two women manage to make it appear like James died of natural causes and Leanne goes back to England while Judith remains in France. Using money she took from James's wallet, Judith travels throughout Europe and seduces various men, giving off the impression that she had a wealthier and more cultured background than she actually possesses. Eventually Judith comes across the same Stubbs painting and realizes that the forgery's appearance at the auction house was part of a larger scam to sell the painting for millions of dollars to Alonso Moncado, a vicious mafioso that specializes in forged paintings. She manages to trick the seller, Cameron Fitzpatrick, into going to a secluded location with her, where she murders him in order to gain access to his personal effects, which tell her when and where the sale will occur. Judith then goes in his place to a meeting point in Italy, passing herself off as his assistant, and manages to sell the painting and quickly transfer the funds into a private account she had set up earlier.