Beauty's Punishment - book discontinued by Dutton - review by meezerosity

I am very familiar with the works of this author as she is one of my favorites so I couldn't wait to finish this trilogy. Chances are if you are reading the second installment of this trilogy you are also familiar with the author by now. If not, Anne Rice is the creator of the Vampire Chronicles, the mind behind Lestat de Lioncourt, aka the Brat Prince, and her novel Interview with the Vampire is also well known film starring Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise. Most of her other works are not explicitly sexual but do contain homosexual themes between her male characters and occasional heterosexual relationships between the others.

Expect wonderfully written narratives, Gothic tones, dark twisted storytelling, and finding yourself sucked in to this world of passion, pleasure, dominance, submission, slavery, and punishment.

The second novel of three, this story picks up immediately where the first one left off. If you haven't read the first one you will be very confused and have no idea what is going on, both in style and overall plot. This takes the levels of BDSM even further than the first story. Beauty, the main character and captive princess from the first novel has been sentenced to 'The Village', considered one of the ultimate punishments for pleasure slaves in the castle of the Queen.

Here in the Village, Beauty is no longer a pampered plaything like she was in the comfort of the castle. She is expected to work hard for commoners when she herself was born of noble blood. Sold on an auction block, she is treated like livestock. The villagers are every bit as twisted as their lords, if not more so. Human "ponies" drive the carts around the village, usually men required to trot nude wearing only a bit gag and a horsetail anal plug. They are punished if not erect at all times. There is a slight theme of beastiality, as a warning for those who may be uncomfortable with it. The scene is brief and you can skip over it if you still want to read this but may have issues with that portion. The bisexual themes are also still present in this installment to the series as in the last.

As all three parts of this trilogy, the cover contains a Renaissance style painting of a woman nude from the waist up on the cover. It is a standard paperback book, nice quality paper and easy to read print. It is segmented chapter by chapter, each containing a title that sets the theme and drives the story onwards.

Due to the nudity on the cover of the book you may want to be selective as to where you read this in public or wrap some plain paper over the front as not to receive questions about it. Although the cover is styled more artistic, it is still nudity and not very discreet as it clearly states it is erotic fiction on the cover.

I enjoyed this one every bit as much as the first. This one definitely takes the kink and BDSM even further and does an excellent job of portraying the common villagers as even more twisted than their castle lords, taking great joy in having beautiful playthings at their disposal. I feel that the author wanted to further emphasize the punishment of the captive princes and princesses by having their status lowered below that of even the most lowly of commoner. During the narration it is expressed that one of the slaves feels even more humiliated in The Village than in the castle. They could bear punishment from those that were considered their equal, but to someone who would bow to them in proper attire now enjoying them naked and at their mercy was too much to handle. Anne Rice keeps the plot moving on top of providing you with erotic scenes of BDSM.

As with the first book I knew I just had to finish the trilogy and read Beauty's Release. Some of the plot during this book was a little slow but I felt it important as this is a fairly long series for erotica. What will become of the captive princess after she endures both the punishments and pleasures of the castle and village? Will her release change her forever? How can she adapt to the normal life of a princess after experiencing what she has? The story is in no way over and again leaves you on a cliffhanger where you ache for more and have to have closure to the story.