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

Anne Rice is one of my favorite authors. After success with The Interview With the Vampire in 1976, Anne wrote two more books, The Feast Of All Saints in 1979 and Cry to Heaven in 1982. Neither of them did very well critically speaking.

In the 1980s many feminists denounced pornography as violations of women's rights, but Anne Rice firmly believed that women should have the freedom to read and write whatever they pleased, and considered the trilogy her political statement.

This book was published by E.P. Dutton/Plume March of 1984.

Beauty's Punishment is a good follow-up to the Claiming of Sleeping Beauty. It takes place in a picturesque country village where humiliated royal slaves are commonly seen and endure hard work and even harder punishments. They were found to be not worthy of palace life and sent to the village to serve as complete slaves to the men and women living in the village for a number of years.

This book recounts the day to day life of a total slave and brings to light the concept of human ponies through Tristan's trials and tribulations. Here's an excerpt from Chapter 11, page 74 to give just a taste of what I mentioned:

"..But no real belief in resistance galvanized me. I was in the power of these villagers, who placed the long thick bit firmly back in my mouth and the reins over my shoulders. The thick phallus ground into me as it was shifted up, and I felt a finely made harness coming down over my shoulders with thin straps that went down to a band around my hips, which was buckled at once very securely to the ring of the phallus. I couldn't now push the thing out. In fact, it was rammed hard into me and bound to me, and I felt a firm tugging that almost pulled me off my feet as a pair of reins was obviously fixed to this hook and given to those behind me, who could now control both the bit and the phallus as they drove me."

This book is definitely my favorite one out of the trilogy because the writing is less sentimental and sappy and just seems to move along more smoothly. I also greatly enjoyed the emphasis on male/male sex and group sex. They turned me on immensely and I must admit I had to take care of business a few times while reading through it.

The cover of Beauty's Punishment is nicely adorned with some more erotic art. The pages within are a lightweight paper that have been printed with a black ink. There are 233 pages making this book a good read for just about anyone since it's not too long.

My copy of this book is quite tattered, had tape on the binding and the pages are a little stained. My husband and I both read through this, but he tends to be harder on books than myself.

The layout of the book is easy to follow and read. The contents page lists out all the chapters so that you can refer back if you like with ease.

Personally I would recommend this book to anyone who likes to read erotica, bdsm-themed story lines or just enjoys a good book.