Foxhawke wrote:Anne Rice? That sure piqued my interest. Will check these ones out for sure.
This is from a review at Amazon:
Many years ago, as rumor has it, Anne Rice set out to prove that the world of erotica was not limited to male writers. It was her contention, so the story goes, that a women could contribute to this genre just as well, if not better.
And so, under the pen name A. N. Roquelaure, Anne created a trilogy of intense sado-masochistic erotic novels loosely based on the fairytale "Sleeping Beauty."
To say that these books are overwhelmingly intense is not to state the case. It is possible to read them without having a predeliction toward the acts that are graphically described on almost every page, but be warned that Anne, aka Roquelaure, pulls no punches, and there is absolutely nothing subtle or hinted at in these books.
Like everything Anne wrote before "Memnoch the Devil," the Beauty Chronicles are works of genius, in my opinion. They contain the same richness, the same historical detail, the same darkness as all of her later books to come, including her chronicles of the witches, and the vampires. I am not a regular reader of such novels, so I cannot compare them to others of the genre, but I venture to say that these books have to stand out as unique at the least, mind-blowing at the most.
It is easy to understand the deep eroticism of Rice's witch and vampire books after sampling the Beauty chronicles. For many many years, I imagined Rice as a veritable cauldron of bubbling thoughts, erotic and otherwise, sane and otherwise, struggling to break free. These three books seem to prove the point, which is why I can view them as more than trash.
Anne knew what she was doing, and she did it, as only she can, in a spectacular manner. Again, be warned: If you are going to read the Beauty Chronicles, expect pure, savage erotica, with nothing hidden or explained away. I read these novels to gain more insight into what makes Rice tick. I did not come away unshocked or unscathed, but I certainly read her later works with a new understanding.
