Title: Uncle Charles’ Girls (A Novel of Victorian Discipline)
Author: Anne Randolph (foreword by Alice Liddell)
Publisher: Blushing Books (30 June 2012)
ISBN: 9781609686963

If you have a bit of a thing for spanking and punishment, Uncle Charles’ Girls should be at the very top of your ‘to read’ list. Although penned approximately ten years ago, this little novella was only available via a private membership site until it was published as an eBook in June of this year and I can only thank Alice Liddell, who wrote the foreword, for encouraging Randolph to make this story more widely available.

To say that Uncle Charles’ Girls got me hot and bothered would be something of an understatement. It literally had me squirming in my seat – and I mean that in a good way. Such was its impact (sorry, couldn’t resist) that I had to lock myself in the bedroom during and after reading it. Windows were steamed. Sheets were wrinkled.

Set in Victorian England, the story focuses on eighteen-year-old Lady Clara Smithson and nineteen-year-old Lady Louise Wellington. Although not related by blood, an unfortunate series of events throws the girls quite unexpectedly into the guardianship of Louise’s half-brother, Charles – otherwise known as Baron Cladwell. Louise has little knowledge of her half-brother, having had no real contact with him during the course of her life, and both she and Clara are extremely curious about the man who is to oversee the remainder of their education and their introduction to society. Never in their wildest dreams (or nightmares), however, do they imagine that the Baron has a decided predilection for birching and that he intends to discipline their bare, youthful bottoms whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Charles can’t believe his good fortune at having two pretty young women – whom he can cane at his leisure – fall into his hands. It all seems too good to be true and is the ultimate realisation of a fantasy that he has harboured for nearly fourteen years:

 

‘One of the aims of Charles’ life became obtaining a well-bred young woman to ‘raise’, a young woman whose chastisement would be under his direct supervision. However, Charles always felt that this aim would never be realised, and that his love of the rod would be manifested only in the occasional discipline of a housemaid. He could have hired a whore, certainly, who would have been happy to ‘play’ for a price, but this Charles found offensive. Only truly-deserved punishment of a downcast, apprehensive miscreant, chastisement earned through genuine misbehavior, was interesting to Charles.’

Despite weighing in at just 115 pages Uncle Charles’ Girls packs a hefty punch. The pace is good and the discipline scenes are off-the-charts erotic. Anne Randolph’s imagery is brilliant and the explicit descriptions of the various birchings and spankings enacted in the novella are breathtaking. The build-up to each is carefully done and it is oh-so-easy, not to mention enjoyable, to picture in your mind’s eye the encounters taking place. It’s very much a ‘skirts up, drawers down’ affair and the titillation is firmly rooted in the descriptive, voyeuristic detail:

 

‘Reluctantly, slowly, sniffing audibly, the girls reached under their full skirts and petticoats, and gathered them up and around. Within seconds, the three of them stood holding a froth of dark skirt and white petticoats around their waists, bare from hip down to just above their knees, where their plain dark stockings were gartered with simple ribbons.’

Charles is a wonderfully drawn character and his enthusiasm for the birch rod fairly leaps off the pages. There’s undoubtedly a sense of outrage on the part of the reader for treating his charges in the way that he does – using them inappropriately to obtain his own sexual gratification – but his actions are skilfully offset by the erotic landscape created by Randolph’s words. And as Alice Liddell points out in her foreword:

 

‘In the Victorian period in which the story is set, many young ladies did actually live under precisely the sort of supervision described in these pages. And if a husband felt it necessary to correct his wife with physical chastisement, this was both legally permitted and socially condoned.’

In the entirety of the book there are only two penetrative scenes – neither of which involve either Clara or Louise – but this doesn’t mean that Uncle Charles’ Girls is lacking in sexual charge. If you’re a bit of a fan of impact play – or the idea of it gives you lovely butterflies in your stomach – you should definitely be making a date with Uncle Charles. Make no mistake, though: this book is not for the faint of heart. If you’re at all offended by raw language (including the ‘c’ word), euphemistic Victorian names for body parts, explicit anatomical descriptions, or the idea of BDSM-style punishment leaves you cold, this may not be a good choice for you. Per the Amazon product description warning:

 

‘Uncle Charles’ Girls is an authentic piece of Victorian erotica. It contains explicit BDSM themes, severe punishment by spanking and birching, dubious consent, and explicitly-described anal sex.’

And just to touch on the ‘explicitly-described anal sex’ referenced above, there is a brilliant little Author’s Note at the end of the novella, which cites the following historical source for ‘Dr. Young’s Rectal Dilators’:

The best bit? Uncle Charles’ Girls has a sequel, Uncle Charles’ Brides, scheduled for release this August.

Can’t wait.

Tickle your fancy? Click on the following links to buy this book from: Amazon.co.uk (Kindle), Amazon.com (Kindle).

Related posts: