Tag: book reviews

17

Slave – Sherri Hayes

Title: Slave (Finding Anna)
Author: Sherri Hayes
Publisher: The Writer’s Coffee Shop Publishing House (27 July 2011)
ISBN: 978-1-61213-049-1

I’m beginning to realise that I have a bit of thing for the darker stuff. All of the books I’ve really enjoyed recently have had distinct edges to them; they’ve been the tales that don’t quite sit comfortably and stay with me for hours and days afterwards as I turn the actions of the characters over and over in my head.

Slave definitely falls into the murky category; as the title suggests, it’s not a hearts and flowers read. Rather, it’s a wrenching tale about a girl, Brianna Reeves, who has been forced against her will into a form of modern sexual slavery. A hollow shell, ravaged and scoured – both physically and mentally – by the man she belongs to, Ian Pierce, she is mentally and emotionally buried beneath the weight of the experiences she’s endured at his hands. Enter Stephan, a sexual Dominant who finds that he cannot leave Brianna in the situation he finds her. For although on the surface he inhabits the same world as Ian, his approach, outlook and philosophy on dominance and submission is light-years apart.  The question is, will his sense of caring and compassion be enough to pull Briana out of the deep mental abyss she has fallen into? And if it is, will she be able to accept that the man who helps her is part of a lifestyle that has, thus far, only shown her abuse? Continue reading →

15

Uncle Charles’ Girls – Anne Randolph

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. Continue reading →

14

Back to our regularly scheduled programme

You’ll be pleased to know that Chintz is back to normal from today; we’ve had a short short posting break as I’ve (Jane) been on holiday in Italy for the past week or so.

Although I did quite a bit of lazing about, I managed to get a fair amount of holiday reading in amidst all the olive and wine consumption and had the joy of discovering three stand-out erotica books: Slave and Need (both from Sherri Hayes’s Finding Anna series) and Uncle Charles’ Girls by Anne Randolph – all of which I’ll be writing reviews for over the next few days. There are some new toy reviews on the way, too, and The Garden of Earthly Delights [*no longer available on the blog] is also due some further instalments. (Unfortunately, the latter suffered a bit in the forty degree Umbrian heat and I didn’t get as many new episodes written as I planned!)

Finally, a word on the image heading up this post (if you follow the Chintz Facebook page you may have spotted this picture already) … As I wandered though the picturesque hilltop town of Urbino (birthplace of the famous Renaissance painter Raphael, home of Piero della Francesca’s iconic ‘Flagellation of Christ’ and site of Federico da Montefeltro’s breathtaking Ducal Palace) what did I see for sale?

Cinquanta sfumature di Grigio.

I wonder if it’s better in Italian?

02

Breaking Free – Cherise Sinclair

Title: Breaking Free (Masters of the Shadowlands)
Author: Cherise Sinclair
Publisher: Loose Id LLC (30 Mar 2010)
ISBN: 978-1-59632-965-2

How’s this for an opening line:

‘Music, beer, tie up a willing woman, maybe use a flogger lightly … should be a no-stress evening.’

Breaking Free was the first book that I read of Cherise Sinclair’s and it made me an absolutely devoted fan of her Masters of the Shadowlands series. It’s well written, has excellent characterisation, a wonderful sense of tension and is hot with a capital ‘H’. (Did I mention it’s hot?)

Where to start? Well, I’m actually going to kick off with the message that Cherise Sinclair includes at the beginning of the book (and indeed all her others that involve BDSM):

‘This book is fiction, not reality … Good Doms don’t grow on trees and there’s some strange people out there. So while you’re looking for that special Dom, please, be careful.
.
.
.
When you find him, realize he can’t read your mind.’
You will have a safeword, am I clear? Use protection. Have a back-up person. Communicate.
Remember: safe, sane and consensual.’

For this alone, I applaud Ms Sinclair. Before the book has even begun, she’s taken a socially responsible approach to the reader and made it clear that, while Breaking Free is a contemporary erotic romance, it is fiction and you shouldn’t be running out to your nearest fetish club and asking the first person you encounter to tie you up and take a cane to your behind. This may sound like a no-brainer but a lot of people use books as inspiration – just look at the rise in sex toy sales since Fifty Shades of Grey hit the mainstream – and Cherise’s message is an important one. That’s not to say that other books don’t include disclaimers (many do) but the personal approach to the reader from the author, I think, is commendable. Continue reading →

01

Tied Up, Tied Down – Lorelei James

Title: Tied Up, Tied Down (Rough Riders)
Author: Lorelei James
Publisher: Samhain Publishing, Ltd. (July 2008)
ISBN: 9781605040646

What is it about men who work the land, round up cattle, and ride horses? Cowboys, in a word. Why is it that they’re so compelling? Is it because they seem capable? In touch with nature? Able to withstand the elements and whatever other hardships are thrown at them? Whatever the source of their appeal, Lorelei James captures the essence of the modern cowboy in her Rough Riders series and Tied Up, Tied Down features one of my absolute favourite Rough Riders characters, Kade McKay.

A brief synopsis … Skylar Ellison is a transplant from California, having moved to Wyoming to start a skincare manufacturing business on land left to her by her maternal grandmother. Bright and savvy, she’s determined to make a go of things despite having suffered recent traumas in her personal life, including the breakup of her marriage and the death of her mother and grandmother. But an encounter in a carpark with local cowboy Kade McKay leaves her with a baby to manage as well as a company, and when she can’t find Kade to tell him she’s expecting, she resigns herself to raising the child on her own. Continue reading →

25

Defy the Eagle – Lynn Bartlett

Title: Defy the Eagle
Author: Lynn Bartlett
ISBN: 978-0263850765
Publisher: Mills & Boon (19 May 2006) – re-issue. (Originally published by Worldwide Library (1986))

It’s not an erotic novel per se, but if you have a bit of a thing for capture/slave fantasies and enjoy historicals, I think it’s highly likely that you’ll enjoy this book.

Defy the Eagle wasn’t the first romance I ever read but it’s most definitely the one that’s stuck in my head over the years and set the standard for all that have followed. Highly implausible plot? Check. Uber Alpha hero bordering on total wanker? Check. Cover art embarrassing enough in execution to make me hide behind a crate of avocados in order to read it (more on that later)? Check.

The official synopsis from the 2006 edition:

62AD

And Britannia is at war…

Queen Boadicea and her fearless Iceni troops face the disciplined Roman Empire and her sworn enemy Emperor Nero in their fight for freedom. The battle begins in the town of Venta Icenorum, where the beautiful and rebellious Jilana waits to be married and fulfil her duties as an honourable Roman wife and daughter.

Everything changes when Jilana meets Caddaric, an Iceni warrior, who takes her as his slave. Separated by their blood allegiances but brought together through their mutual desire, Jilana and Caddaric are unwittingly caught in a battle of their own.

As Boadicea’s army rages through Londinium and finally on towards Rome, politics and passion collide as Jilana and Caddaric race to stay together and survive the ever increasing threat of the Roman army.

My 14-year-old self stumbled across this doorstop of a novel whilst staying with my dad during the summer holidays. He was renting a furnished flat at the time and Defy the Eagle was languishing on a bookshelf, hidden amidst a seemingly endless row of The Reader’s Digest. Unable to stomach the latter (pun intended), I did what any self-respecting adolescent girl would do: I grabbed the book with the cover that featured a red-haired woman in a ‘toga’ – read: pink mini dress that wouldn’t have been out of place in an Ann Summers catalogue – languishing in the arms of a guy whose stomach appeared to be stuffed with paint rollers. (Interestingly, he also seemed to have had a run-in with a vat of St Tropez, although, I’ll hazard that as advanced as the Romans were, they hadn’t discovered the joys of fake tan.) Continue reading →

18

Dark Lover (A Novel of the Black Dagger Brotherhood) – J.R. Ward

Title: Dark Lover (A Novel of the Black Dagger Brotherhood)
Author: J.R. Ward
Publisher: Piatkus (3 Feb 2011)
ISBN: 978-0749955229

When I told a very good friend of mine (who is almost as book-obsessed as I am) that I was starting this website, one of the first things out of her mouth was ‘Don’t you dare forget the Brotherhood!’.

Of all the book series’ I’ve recommended to people over the years, this one has proved by far and away to be the most popular. I don’t know what it is – the characters, the writing, the world-building – but when readers describe the Black Dagger Brotherhood as ‘book crack’, they’re not far wrong. Like a bunch of addicts, we’re on top of the latest release in J.R. Ward’s bestselling series the moment it comes out and are soon clamouring for our next fix, regardless of whether the hit we had last was as spectacular as we imagined it would be. (Because, truth be told, some of the instalments are better than others.)

Dark Lover is the very first book in the Brotherhood line-up and although it was initially published in 2005, I was a bit late to the party and didn’t discover it until 2007. In fact, I actually read book three (Lover Awakened) first after seeing it pop up on various recommended lists on Amazon. I um’d and ah’d about buying it – I was put off by the cheesy title and the cover art – but I’m so pleased I did; I went on to devour Awakened and the other three Brotherhood books that were available at the time (Dark Lover, Lover Eternal and Lover Revealed) in less than a week. Book crack indeed. Continue reading →

11

Captive in the Dark: The Dark Duet (Volume 1) – C.J. Roberts

Title: Captive in the Dark: The Dark Duet (Volume 1)
Author: C.J. Roberts
Publisher: C.J. Roberts (29 Aug 2011)
ISBN: 978-0615429502

I’m pretty bombproof when it comes to subject matter – there’s not a lot that can shock me – but if I’m going to tackle something harrowing, the balance has to be absolutely perfect: the writing has to be solid, the story clever, the characters worth the emotional investment. So having read the synopsis for this book on Amazon and come face-to-face with the pretty blunt warning about its content (‘This book contains very disturbing situations, dubious consent, strong language, and graphic violence’), I wondered how I would get on with Captive in the Dark and what I might be letting myself in for.

An amazing book, as it turned it. I am not exaggerating when I say C.J. Roberts – who wrote and published Captive in the Dark herself – had me in the palm of her hand from the prologue. Lately, it’s been a bit of a struggle to find BDSM erotica books that stand out from the crowd and have something truly unique about them (one power exchange plot can start to feel very much like another) but Captive had me absolutely glued. To the point that I couldn’t even put it down to do the dishes – and let me tell you, scrubbing a dirty pot one-handed is hard. I devoured the entire book in a day, that’s how good it was, and then immediately visited C.J. Roberts’s website to find out when Volume 2, Seduced in the Dark, was due. (As you’ve probably guessed from the title, Captive in the Dark is part of a series.) Continue reading →

09

The 52 Seductions – Betty Herbert

Title: The 52 Seductions
Author: Betty Herbert
Publisher: Headline (19 Jan 2012)
ISBN: 978-0755362530

It’s a ‘fifty’ book, but not the one you’re thinking of. The 52 Seductions began life as a blog, with the author, Betty Herbert, recording a series of seductions that she and her husband perform in in an attempt to kick-start their waning sex life.

Realising that, sexually speaking, things have started to go off the boil in their relationship despite them still being very much in love with one another (‘I am not prudish; I have just been married for ten years’), Betty talks ‘Herbert’, her husband, into engaging in a seduction every week for a year. Her theory is that sex begets more sex, and by ‘forcing’ themselves to make love, their desire for each other will increase in proportion to the amount they’re actually having. They agree that they’ll take turns devising them, with Betty dreaming up and organising a seduction one week and Herbert the next. What unfolds is book that charts Betty and Herbert’s rediscovery of one another and an examination of their attitudes towards sex in general.

One of the things this book does well is to highlight – very accurately – the hum-drum of long term partnerships while also pointing out that said hum-drum doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve fallen out of love with your significant other. It boldly acknowledges what’s likely true for a lot of long-term couples: that you’ve gone through the first, frenzied flush of sexual discovery, things have settled into a routine, and going outside of the status quo when you’ve been plodding along the same road at the same pace for some time takes some guts. Continue reading →

04

The Dirty Bits for Girls – India Knight

Title: The Dirty Bits for Girls
Author: India Knight (editor)
ISBN: 978-1844082285
Publisher: Virago UK (March 1, 2009)

The Dirty Bits for Girls has been around for a while – it was first published in 2006 – but I’m offering it up because 1) it’s a great read and 2) because it gives you enlightening glimpses into books that you might not have considered picking up otherwise.

This collection of ‘dirty’ excerpts runs the gamut – Georgette Heyer, Anaïs Nin, John Cleland, Jilly Cooper, to name just a few of the authors whose work appears in it – and, as such, caters to pretty much every taste. From the over-the-top soap opera sex of 80s Judith Krantz (Scruples) to the dark eroticism of Pauline Reage’s Story of O, Dirty Bits serves up a tasting menu of sex in literature and is perfect as means of steering you towards the books that do it for you and away from the ones that don’t.

The extract from Georgette Heyer’s Regency Buck with its smouldering, rakish hero, the Earl of Worth (a.k.a. Julian St John Audley), is toe-curlingly good. At the risk of sounding like a giddy thirteen-year-old, the guy is hot. He’s handsome. He’s arrogant. He’s dominating.  He’s insolent. There’s not a single ‘traditional’ sex scene in the excerpt (or in the entire book for that matter) – the raciest it gets is a raised hem and a kiss in the back of a curricle-and-four – but the sexual frisson between him and Judith, the heroine, is brilliant. Reading this particular snippet sent me into something of a Heyer frenzy and I consumed a number of her Regency ton romances in short order after reading the Dirty Bits taster. A perfect and satisfying example of Alpha male versus feisty, spirited heroine, with sexual chemistry to boot. Continue reading →