LADY BETH by Anonymous

PUBLISHER: Grove Press, 9/1984
GENRE: Fiction/Historical Erotica
SERIES: Grove Press Victorian Library
SETTING: Africa/Sudan, late 1880s
PURCHASE: link
MY GRADE: B

FROM PUBLISHER: The terrifying, sanguinary account of a young lady's abduction into slavery. No sooner does the lovely virgin meet her betrothed-- a British officer stationed on duty outside of Khartoum--than she and her entire entourage are captured in the desert by fierce nomads. Prized for her beauty and golden tresses, Lady Beth is forced to endure the erotic demands of feared and virile leaders. Stalwart throughout, and cunning enough to execute one of her captors, Lady Beth caters to their whims until the day arrives for her own escape.

MY THOUGHTS: Nineteen-year-old Lady Beth is traveling with her cousin Pamela and their two servants, Kitty, 23, and Rose, 18. Another servant was sent to help Beth, a very young girl named Zohara. They all get captured in the desert by a group of men and there is plenty of rape, most of which is anal, and murder. One of the ladies meets a gruesome end. There are a few vile things that happen that I'm not comfortable even mentioning, they're that foul. Once the ladies are sold at auction, things tame down quite a bit when they settle in at their new home. They seem happy despite the situation.

Excessive brutality's the name of the game. There was so much violence in the first 138 pages that it almost ruined the book. All but the last 70 pages or so are very brutal. Time span is a year.

This old series from the 80's is pure erotica and this one is hardcore. It's the only one I've ever seen (I think) that has an illustrated cover and I do love this cover.

HER LADYSHIP'S COMPANION by Evangeline Collins

PUBLISHER: Berkley Sensation, 5/2009
GENRE: Fiction/Historical Romance
SETTING: England and Scotland, 1816
AUTHOR SITE: link
PURCHASE: link
MY GRADE: B

FROM PUBLISHER: In the Scottish countryside of Selkirk, Lady Isabella Stirling resides at Bowhill Park, serving penance for a sin that nearly ruined her family. For five years she has been condemned to a loveless marriage and confined to the estate where she does little more than tend her rose garden. With her husband absent for months at a time and few visitors, Bella lives a lonely existence, denying the passions that burn within her very soul.

Then her cousin comes for a visit and makes an outrageous suggestion: what Bella needs is a lover. A hired lover. Despite her need, Bella says no. But soon Mr. Gideon Rosedale arrives-and he is at her service for two weeks. Indulging in what she intends to be a harmless flirtation, Bella is overcome by Gideon’s intoxicating presence. And when she at last permits him to satisfy her desires, she discovers she’s done the unthinkable-she’s fallen in love.

MY THOUGHTS: The story takes place in England and Scotland in 1816 and spans about ten months. The heroine is Isabella ‘Bella’ Stirling. She’s 24 and has been married to Lord Stirling, 34, for almost five years. He’s impotent and they have no relationship of any kind with each other and he’s rarely at home. He’s both physically and verbally abusive toward her. Bella is 5’8″ and has pale blond and violet eyes. She’s terribly unhappy. Her parents are dead and she’s got two brothers and two sisters who have never come to visit her.

The hero is Gideon Rosedale. He’s twenty-seven, 6’1″ and has dark brown hair and brown eyes. He’s a prostitute and has been for ten years. His mother was one and he doesn’t know who his father is. He was raised up in a brothel. Bella’s cousin, Esmé, hires him to ‘service’ Bella for two weeks. That’s how the hero and heroine meet.

Bella is so lonely and isolated. I think she became a bit obsessed with Gideon, especially after their original two week stay was over. She was so starved or affection that once she warmed up to him, she was not emotionally prepared to let him go. To me, she showed signs of being mentally unbalanced and seemed a bit immature. She also seems hypersexual. That combined with her overall emotional state made me wonder if she was mentally ill. I feel she was a bit of a weak character, pretty passive with things that had nothing to do with Gideon.

Gideon seemed a little bland to me. I’d have liked to have known a bit more about his upbringing. I don’t think his character was developed quite enough. Bella’s surely wasn’t. We weren’t told a thing about her past; childhood, upbringing, nothing. I want to know why her siblings never came to visit her.

The sex scenes were very explicit but ordinary and there were plenty of them. I was a bit surprised by one scene near the end involving something the hero did to the heroine.

Overall, there wasn’t much going on in this story but sex. No real plot at all except toward the end when Bella’s husband pays her a visit. Though the heroine is married to another, she and Gideon have their happily-ever-after.

I received this from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

PASSION by Lisa Valdez

PUBLISHER: Berkley, July 2005
SETTING: England, 1851
HEROINE: Passion Dare
HERO: Mark Hawkemore
PART OF SERIES? Yes, book one of three
GRADE: A

SYNOPSIS: A woman called Passion. A man who would make her true to her name. In her second year of mourning, lovely young widow Passion Elizabeth Dare never dreamed she would be with a man again–and certainly not a complete stranger. But amidst the crowds of London’s Crystal Palace, Passion finds herself discreetly, yet insistently, pursued by a sensual gentleman who awakens her long-supressed desires. After a loveless marriage of restrained propriety, Passion abandons herself to true bliss for the first time.

Intoxicated by his encounter with the beautiful stranger, Mark Randolph Hawkmore, Earl of Langley, cannot wait to see her again. As a series of rapturous rendezvous follows, he and his mystery lover find something rare and wonderful blossoming between them. But a blackmail scheme against the Earl threatens to destroy everything. As a scandal brews, each will have to choose between duty and desire…their love for their families–and their love for each other.

MY THOUGHTS: Based on the extremely graphic sex, I'd give this book five stars. I liked the blackmail plot too so for that, I'd give it four stars. I liked all the main characters, including Mark's cold mother and Charlotte's scheming mother Abigail.

Passion was supposed to be so in love with Mark but I never once felt it. Even when she was crying her eyes out to him, I never once felt it was believable. An example of why I don't think she was that into him is when she'd told him that after her two months of visiting her aunt were up and she had to go back home, their affair had to end. He was upset at hearing that and like me, didn't understand why it had to end. They could have continued to see each other discreetly. That right there told me she wasn't too into him. Matt was clearly obsessed with Passion, right from the start. I really liked his intensity when it came to Passion. She didn't seem to feel the same way about him to me. But they had their happily-ever-after, so I guess she did love him.

Though this wasn't the greatest book ever written, it held my interest and had likeable characters. I never once got bored with it.