Tag Archives: erotica

Book Review of Sharon Page’s Erotic Vampire Novel, Blood Red

I grabbed a practically new (maybe even new) paperback copy of this book at the secondhand shop.

Description from Goodreads:
Take a bite of desire…

Althea Yates is a vampire hunter, skilled with the crossbow and the stake. But she knows nothing of a man’s touch—or how to control the unladylike dreams that haunt her sleep. That is when they come, two men of unearthly beauty who ravish her in sweet carnal games, taking her to the precipice of exquisite desire and unimaginable erotic pleasure. It is scandalous. Forbidden. Unholy. For her lovers are not men, but vampires—the very beasts she and her father have sworn to destroy.

It is only a dream…until the elegant carriage arrives at the inn, drawn by four black horses. Until Yannick de Wynter, Earl of Brookshire, alights, silver-eyed, determined, and hungry for something she cannot name. And suddenly, Althea is no longer certain whether she has had a dream… or a dangerously erotic premonition…

Review:
I’m gonna use a star rating here and go with three stars for this book. But that needs to be understood as three stars on the erotica rating scale. I’m not really suggesting there is a whole different grading system for erotica, but we all know to expect less plotting, character development and world-building from an erotica than from, say, literary fiction. So a three star erotica is still going to have less of all of the above and readers accept that as par for the course.

I can sum this book up in seven short words: sex, sex, sex,sex, and more sex. Yep, that’s about it. I realise I can’t reasonable complain about too much sex in an erotica and I’m not. But even by erotic standards the plot was pretty flimsy for a full length book. A lot was left unexplained, such as exactly what special skills Bastien had that was supposed to help him battle Zayan or what exactly vampire were. Somehow demons and Lucifer came into play and I never really figured out how.

So, you’re doing the math in your head, aren’t you? There wasn’t a lot of plot, but the book is 300 pages long. Wow, there really must have been a lot of sex, you think. Yep, and surprisingly the author manages to put enough variety in to keep it from getting too stale. (I admit that by the end I was ready to finish, but I never quite reached the ‘Oh, bloody hell, not another one’ stage.) There is M/F sex, M/M sex, F/F sex, M/F/M sex, a M/M/F/M/M/M orgy, and even a little light bondage, S&M and breeding thrown it. Having said that, some of it just felt a little ridiculous–as if Ms. Page was trying desperately to create situations to add something more. The orgy especially felt this way. You see it coming a mile away, and then just watch it unfold with a mental eye roll and move on.

For all the forced variety there was also a certain innocence to the book. Maybe it’s because it is a couple years old and the current publishing rage is questionable consensuality, forced seduction, heavy BDSM, dominate men and simpering submissive women. I really appreciated that every sex scene in this book is clearly consensual. Althea (what the hell kind of name is that BTW) may be a virgin when she meets Yannick, but she takes to sex with enthusiasm. I did begin to wonder just how much she could experience before she lost that same innocence that the twins love so much, but it’s hardly a point worth thinking too deeply about.

I could have done without the sappy, happy ending. But, all-in-all for a full length erotic novel it wasn’t too darned bad.

Book Review of Alana Davis’ Bonds of Attraction and Livia Royce’s EMMAncipation

Since neither of these books really rang my bell I thought I might combine them into one post. Both came from the Amazon KDP list. You can find Alana Davis’ Bonds of Attraction (still free) here, but Livia Royce‘s EMMAncipation seems to have been removed from Amazon.

Description from Goodreads:
“It was always strictly business. I had never slept with a client. I wasn’t about to start now.”

Julie Facet runs the hottest matchmaking agency in Los Angeles, but she doesn’t quite believe in happily ever afters. Despite the file cabinets full of clients she has found matches for, she isn’t interested in anything beyond simply satisfying her own physical needs. When Julie meets the wealthy Leon Christensen, her professionalism is pushed to the brink. Leon is charismatic and cocky, and does everything he can to get under Julie’s skin. Not to mention that he owns the Poison Ivy, a nightclub that’s designed for every sexual proclivity and uses his own sexuality to push women away.

Will she able to find a suitable partner for Leon, who prides himself in his no-strings-attached relationships?

And what will Julie do when she discovers that her feelings for Leon extend beyond the professional?

Review:
I really like this book’s cover but there are probably readers out there that will enjoy the book itself a lot more than me. Me, I couldn’t figure out where Julie’s attraction came from. Leon was a dick to her from the first moment they met, and that’s really putting it lightly. Then she spends most of the book building elaborate sexual fantasies about him that have nothing, and I mean nothing, to do with the reality of the man she’d met. (By the end I was skimming, if not skipping them.)

Suddenly she ‘has feelings.’ What? She may have fallen in love with her fantasy, but the real deal (who she’d spoken to 3, maybe 4 times) was still calling her a whore and propositioning her in increasingly horrific ways. Unattractive doesn’t start to cover it. I imagine we’re supposed to understand he’s wounded and emotionally damaged. Our soft feminine urges to heal the injured male should be kicking in. Um…no. Just no. And when I thought Julie was finally gonna wise up and walk away he suddenly decided to bear his soul and the hearts and flowers start popping out all over the place. I think I got whiplash from trying to follow his sudden change of heart!

Now, I’ll credit the book with having a lead female that is comfortable with her body, even though it’s curvy and not a stick and with portraying a woman who is unashamed of her own sexuality. That really was refreshing, as was the fact that she wasn’t gagging to give up her control and cater to all of his BDSM fetishes. In fact, the subtext seemed to be that Leon craved the bondage because of his unhealthy self-image and within the confines of a safe, loving relationship a rather more vanilla scene still filled the bill. There are so many Shades Of Grey clones out there that it was nice to see female sexuality as something other than the weak-willed desire to submit and male sexuality as predatory. Don’t get me wrong, there is a little of this but it’s nowhere near as strong as it often is.

I’ll also admit that I might not have hated Leon as much if we were given any of his thoughts, feeling, opinions, etc. But the book is in first person, from the perspective of Julie and the reader isn’t given a single insight into Leon that isn’t mitigated through her. He feels very much like the creepy, life-sized cardboard cutout that she hangs in the corner and dreams about. He has no depth at all.

Add writing like this, “When my eyes finally adjusted to the darkness of the, shock stabbed my heart.” Or instances like the time I counted the word ‘car’ used 8 times in two brief paragraphs and I start to loose the will to read on. These latter matters I really could and would overlook. But I found the interactions between Julie and Leon really quite repulsive. Nope, there wasn’t a lot in this book that attracted me. I expect others to like it and fully acknowledge my opinion to be nothing more than that, but this was definitely not for me.
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Book Review of S.K. Hart’s Swordmaster Dasan

Swordmaster dasan 2

swordmaster dasan short
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Some time ago I grabbed free copies of S. Hart‘s Swordmaster Dasan short stories. Being the manga addict I am, I adore the covers. I tend to avoid posting about short stories/novellas/novelettes (whatever you want to call them), but these deserve a little attention so I’m making an exception. All three are currently free on Smashwords and the first is also free on Amazon.

Deciding how to structure this was a little awkward, so just try to bear with me.

Descriptions:

Book One:
Swordmaster Kyo Dasan is known for both his abilities and bitterness regarding visitors throughout the territory, seemingly comfortable only when alone.

Localem Arada, nicknamed Loki for his tendency to find trouble wherever he goes, finds himself at the mercy of the man he needs totrain him. Despite his reluctance, he agrees to the Swordmaster’soffer regarding alternative means of payment.

Book Two:
It has been three years since Kyo has seen his student when an opportunity to cross paths with him presents itself. He immediatelydiscovers that Loki has gotten into trouble again, and intervenes.

Reviews:

Book One:
I find that I really like Hart’s writing and characters. Granted there is little to this story except A LOT of sex, but hey that’s what I picked it up for so it’s not really anything to complain about. The world building felt a little week, but especially so since there appeared to be some quite detailed races/peoples/societies involved. This book is apparently set in the same universe as Hart’s Playing with Tigers series, which I haven’t read yet. I get the feeling that a lot of the lacking social details are set out in those Tigers books, because the author has obviously taken the time to develop them even if not seen here. Either way I still found the story easily followable and I adored Loki and Kyo.

I had to drop a star because some of the earlier sex scenes felt almost like rapes even if Loki had consented. I had a hard time relaxing into that. That’s just me though. Hart even warns in the introduction that the Swordmaster Dasan books arn’t “meant to display safe or proper bondage practices,” so I can’t claim to have been unprepared. It’s fiction afterall. I can appreciate that. But like everyone, I have my own personal limits.

A fun, well-written read.

(As an aside I actually couldn’t help by imagine Kyo as the Onime-no-Kyo from Samurai Deeper Kyo. They really look nothing alike, but between the name and the constant cruelties my mind made the leap and wouldn’t let it go.)

Book Two:
Yep, it just keeps getting better. Kyo and Loki are wonderful characters. Hart seems to excel at creating situational tension that tugs at the readers heart strings without ever feeling sappy or over played. Often I’m not even certain where it comes from, only that it’s there. Here you really feel both Kyo and Loki’s frustration, even as they steadfastly refuse to acknowledge it. They simply drive each-other to distraction…and are very very hot together.

Loki does seem to have accomplished A LOT in the three years he was separated from Kyo. He seems to have accrued too much experience in so little time. But he also grew up and returned very much a man…very much the man Kyo needs. If only Kyo would get out of his own way on the subject. I love their dynamic.

The writing here is just as crisp and wonderful as in the previous book. I did notice a minor tendency to reuse stock phrases, but nothing off putting or technically incorrect in any manner. The plot thickens up a bit in this volume too, which is nice. The books ends at a fairly natural point, but there is obviously going to be a third book. (There better be a book three and I’m fairly sure I’ve seen mention of it somewhere.) I can’t wait.

Yunan Holliday:

At barely 20 pages there isn’t much to it, but it’s a fun little short to tide us over until book three comes out. Plus, I think we should all start celebrating Divainya Rekeshna.