'The King's Pleasure' by Kitty Thomas

Received from the Author

From the BLURB:

In the kingdom of Himeros, Abigail is despised for her gypsy heritage. Pushed to the fringes of society, she’s forced to break the law in order to help feed her family. When a castle guard catches her stealing bread, he intends to cut off her hand for the offense.

Niall has just taken the throne and is determined to prove he isn’t a monster like his father. Awakened by the cries of a gypsy, he spares her from the guard’s blade and takes her as his slave instead. When he learns she doesn’t understand the kingdom’s carnal ways, he becomes determined to strip her of all inhibitions until her every desire is in service to the king’s pleasure.

Abigail has just been spared, upon mercy of the King. Caught stealing bread from within the palace walls, punishment should be swift and merciless, an eye for an eye. Abigail’s punishment should be especially severe, since she is part-gypsy. But King Niall has intervened, desperate to show his people he’s not the tyrant his father was.

But Niall has big plans for Abigail. Because he’s not sparing her life for nothing; he intends to make her his slave – the first (and quite possibly only) woman in his harem. With Abigail by his side, Niall intends to mend the discrimination against gypsies and set the kingdom of Himeros on a new, peaceful, course.

‘The King’s Pleasure’ is the new novella from literary erotica author, Kitty Thomas.

The novella is set in an alternate world that is at once like ours, but with a skewed history. There is limited technology, a feudal system and very different outlooks on sexuality. In the kingdom of Himeros to be one of the King’s slaves is a great honour. Women are groomed for the harem from birth. But the new king, Niall, is uneasy with the customs of the harem. The women are robotic and calculating, they play at love and lust like a masterful game of chess, and Niall can’t help but feel more like the pawn than the king.

And then he meets Abigail, in the most unusual of circumstances. True, when Niall first discovers Abigail, stealing from the palace kitchen, he is quick to spare a beggar girl an unnecessarily cruel punishment. But when Niall discovers that she is also part gypsy, an idea forms in his head . . .

When she looked up, her long, raven locks fell away from her face. The king almost took a step back in reaction to the brilliant green of her eyes and the trembling in her full lips. Tears tracked down her face, and he was already lost.

The Himeros elite expect Niall to treat Abigail and the other gypsies the same way as his father, the former King, did. But although Niall is an expert warrior, he has no wish for such unnecessary cruelty in his kingdom. Through Abigail he has found a way to mend the wrongs of the past, and set his kingdom on a peaceful path. But Niall gets more than he bargained for when he starts to feel for Abigail as more than a political ploy. . .

As with all of Kitty Thomas’s erotica novellas, ‘The King’s Pleasure’ is a world unto itself and a succulent little slice of story. There’s so much packed into this little novella; politics, love, romance and a beautifully erotic tale between a king and his ‘slave’ (whose love turns a kingdom on its head). Beautiful, as always, I can’t wait for Thomas’s next novel, ‘The Last Girl’, coming early in 2012.

5/5

Coming in 2012

'Awakening' by Kitty Thomas

Received from the Author

From the BLURB:

Nerina has lived all her life as a mermaid, fascinated by humans and land but also repulsed by sex and unable to understand love. Her curiosity gets her captured by a human male intent on awakening her lust and turning her human. But Nerina doesn’t believe the legend is real and fears Kyros will kill her when he learns she can’t transform.

Nerina, a beautiful mermaid, has been caught. Tangled in a net and exposed to the lascivious gazes of fishermen – she is at their mercy, and could end up as a delicacy on their banquet table, or subjected to their monstrous human rutting.

But then the captain arrives – a dark and beautiful man called Kyros. He has been fascinated by sea nymphs, sirens and mermaids for a long time … and has often wondered what he would do if he ever caught one.

Now that Nerina is in his clutches, he intends to replace her fin with feet and introduce her to mankind’s baser pleasures.

‘Awakening’ is the new novella from dark literary erotica author, Kitty Thomas.
I love Kitty Thomas. Everything she writes is a delightfully dark delicacy and ‘Awakening’ is more of the same.

In the past, Thomas has written to the extremes of BDSM and fetishism. From captive/torturer plots to an island community dedicated to the master/slave dynamic. By comparison, ‘Awakening’ is tame-Kitty. The 21,500-word novella is sort of Kitty-lite, and would be a great ‘beginners’ novel for those who want to dip their toes in the pool of darker erotica.

‘Awakening’ definitely leans toward the more ‘literary’ end of Thomas’s usual literary-erotica genre. The novella is based around the idea of transformation and contradiction – mermaid to human, sea to land, innocence to guiltiness. Thomas explores these concepts through the ancient mythology of mermaids, who are in themselves a contradiction. On the one hand they are sexless – fins instead of genitalia. Yet, sea nymphs and sirens have been written as lurers of men to their watery graves.

With the character of Nerina, Thomas takes the traditional mermaid legend and twists it to romance and lust. The dastardly captain, Kyros, decides to force a human metamorphosis on the sea nymph Nerina and have his carnal way with her.

I knew Kyros was watching me, but I didn’t care. Let the human watch the only real pleasure he could ever give me. I wondered if he would become jealous of the water, how it made me come to life and caused bliss to spread across my features. Bliss he would never be capable of with his own hands. I was sure of it.

‘Awakening’ is less about domination than Thomas’s other works, as it has a far more romantic bent, as both Nerina and Kyros learn something about themselves with her transformation;

I sobbed into his mouth because I was afraid he was right. I feared he was awakening me from a long slumber caused by all my years living deep in the ocean, where maybe we didn’t dream because it was all a dream down there. Everything from my time in the sea somehow felt unreal and fuzzy in his arms. I couldn’t think with his mouth moving over mine like that. The way he held me. His possessive, proprietary kiss.

Kitty Thomas has done it again. She takes what would otherwise be an uncomfortable and squirm-inducing idea and crafts it into a beautiful tale of human dynamics and lust, exploring the many facets of want and craving. Divine.

5/5

'The Auction' novella by Kitty Thomas

Received from the author

From the BLURB:

Belle Walker lives in a strict society where women are treated as property, sold to the highest bidder soon after their eighteenth birthday. But the auction isn’t the only danger. Though she’s never seen them, she knows monsters live outside the city. These creatures have allowed the humans a small area to inhabit with the promise to leave them in peace as long as they never cross the boundary. On the day Belle is sold, one of the monsters breaks that promise and enters the city, intent on having her as his own.

Set in an ambiguous future, humanity has left behind the ‘source planet’ and settled in a new and backwards world. Science and technology have regressed, books are artefacts and women are commodities once again. On her eighteenth birthday Annabelle ‘Belle’ Walker, along with other ripe young women, are being auctioned to the highest bidder. Under the pretence of redistributing city funds, nubile young women are put on the block and sold for a price – the lucky ones have family members and lovers who will buy them back and set them free. But for the unlucky sold it’s a life of quiet humiliation . . . or, as Belle is about to discover, something much worse.

Belle’s fiery spirit attracts the wrong sort of buyer – a monster from the city outskirts, a dragon-man with red skin and orange eyes, sharp teeth and an impressive wing-span. Belle is taken back to his cave, where she will pleasure both him and his blue-skinned brother, referring to them as ‘Master’ and ‘Sir’ respectively.

But will this monster be Belle’s end, or will he help set her free?

‘The Auction’ is a new novella from dark literary erotica author, Kitty Thomas.

I love Kitty Thomas. Honestly, she can do no wrong. I haven’t read a novel of hers that I haven’t loved, and ‘The Auction’ is another slice of perfection from her deliciously dark pen.

You wouldn’t know it to look at the beautiful front cover, but ‘The Auction’ is actually a sci-fi/dark erotica novelette. Although this gorgeous renaissance-feel cover doesn’t scream ‘sci-fi’, it actually leads into the world-building of ‘The Auction’. In this indeterminate future, humanity has had to relocate from Earth and in the process society has taken a giant leap backwards. Women are property once again – to be traded and sold according to the gavel of the auctioneer. Thomas does swift world-building and orientation for the reader with regards to this new-world/old-world society – almost conjuring the universe of Joss Whedon’s ‘Firelfy’.

We see this strangely regressed world through the eyes of Belle Walker. She is a young woman who has found fascination in the books of the past, and has come to articulate the auctioning of women as a barbaric and bizarre – likening it to virginal sacrifice and debutante balls. Belle has been dreading her auction and has been preparing for her day of sale. She has been strategically pleasuring the city’s richest sons; in the meagre hopes of gaining their coin and her freedom upon purchase. But she doesn’t count on an outskirts monster raising his hand for the highest bid.

When Belle is taken to the monster Master’s cave and introduced to his brother, ‘Sir’ (her other bed-mate) she is shocked, horrified . . . and aroused. These men are dragon-like, with wings, blue and red-tinged skin and reddened eyes. But they are also thoroughly masculine; lean and muscled to perfection. Belle cannot believe the way she wants them, and is willing to succumb to them. Her obvious arousal in captivity perverts her conscience and she wonders if she is losing a bit of her soul and dignity, bit by bit, every time she wantonly and willingly succumbs to these brothers . . .

He loomed, his shadow spreading over me like something that was separately alive and sentient, something that might want to do wicked things with my body. Something I might invite inside.

“Come, now,” he snarled.

I loved the world Kitty Thomas created. It’s a little bit sci-fi, with a touch of historic slavery and plenty of dark erotica. I thought the inclusion of ‘monster masters’ was quite ingenious – so often in Kitty’s works the dominant (human) male is bordering on demonic (‘Comfort Food’, being a prime example). But in ‘The Auction’ the heroine’s sexual partners are, literally, monsters – and one of them even has a devilish resemblance. It’s a nice bit of fantasy to play with. And, this being a Kitty Thomas novel(la); the sex scenes are divinely delicious. This is a short story, 20000 words, but she takes the time to write languorous and decadently-detailed sex scenes that will leave readers sizzling.

My only complaint about ‘The Auction’ is that it was too short! I wanted more, more, more! I would love to read another novella set in this universe (perhaps revisiting the monster family?) or even a full-length novel set in the same world. ‘The Auction’ was another lovely bit of sexy-sinister writing from the darkly talented erotica author, Kitty Thomas.

5/5

Kitty's next novella is coming soon, and is mermaid-themed. I can't wait!

'Tender Mercies' by Kitty Thomas

Received from the Author

From the BLURB:

“Grace. That word that finally meant something again. Mercy. Favor. Good will.”

Fed up with play kink, Grace Warner moves to an island that embraces erotic slavery to be with a man she met online. Within hours of her arrival, everything is ripped from her, and she quickly learns play is preferable to the realities of actual enslavement.

Asher Collins has spent the past year mourning and blaming himself for the death of his slave, Darcy. When Grace catches his eye at a showing, obviously abused, he becomes obsessed with buying her and finding a way to atone for his own past sins.

DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fiction, and the author does not endorse or condone any behaviour done to another human being without their consent. This work contains subject matter which is not appropriate for minors including depictions of abuse, slavery, dubious consent, and anal play.

Grace Warner has tried to live kink. She has been to clubs and given herself over to BDSM and her perverse fascinations with the lifestyle. But it’s not enough; it’s too much like ‘tie-me-up-tie-me-down’ play. And then Grace meets Lucas Stone online, and starts chatting to him about the island of Eleu.

Populated by the rich and reclusive, Eleu is Private Island inhabited by natives and extreme BDSM participants. There are no embassies on Eleu, and citizenship is revoked the moment you step onto the island – effectively turning a person into a refugee. The little island is made up of large mansions and plantations, owned by rich ‘Masters’ who seek willing masochists to be their slaves and live with them on the island.

This is what Grace wants and needs. To give herself fully to Lucas and live with him on Eleu . . . she needs to give herself over to the fantasy, completely and totally.

But eight months later and Grace is a broken, bleeding shell of her former self. Lucas is no Master; he is a tyrant intent on pushing Grace until she is beyond repair . . . but before all hope is lost, Grace is sold to a fellow Eleu resident – Asher Collins.

There are rumours about what happened to Asher’s last slave girl . . . rumours that set Grace’s frayed nerves on edge and have her believing she will die in Asher’s dungeons.

But it is in Asher that Grace finds a true Master. Someone to banish Lucas’s nightmares and show her the difference between hurt and harm . . .

‘Tender Mercies’ is the new darkly erotic literary novel from Kitty Thomas, due for release on May 15th.

I discovered Kitty Thomas last year with her novel ‘Comfort Food’. I likened that erotica novel (about extreme Stockholm syndrome) to literary wasabi – sinus clearing and somewhat unsettling, but also incredibly, breathtakingly powerful. So I went into ‘Tender Mercies’ excitedly knowing that Kitty Thomas writes at the extreme-end of the erotica scale. She intrudes upon reader’s comfort zones and pulls you (kicking and screaming) into an abrasive and compelling world of fetishism and erotica . . .

‘Tender Mercies’ is actually a very nice complement and follow-up to Thomas’s ‘Comfort Food’. Both novels explore captivity, trust, BDSM and the extremities of that lifestyle. ‘Comfort Food’ was all about a woman accidentally finding love in the most unconventional and disturbing of ways, ‘Tender Mercies’ acts as the complete flipside to that story. Grace Warner is actively seeking an extreme BDSM lifestyle – and she believes she has found her perfect new life on the island of Eleu, which is a refuge for Masters and their slaves. But while Grace signed up for a secluded life of masochism, she was utterly unprepared for the horrors that lay in Lucas Stone’s dungeons . . . she is beaten, humiliated and subjected to perverse forms of torture (seriously, I'm talking ‘American Psycho’ levels of disturbing). Lucas Stone is no Master – he is the devil incarnate.

“Did he tell you pretty lies online for that year about how your life would be?”

“Yes, Master.”

He could hear the tears in her voice as she forced the words out of her mouth. Of course she must think he was toying with her, but he had to know how bad it was.

“He made you believe you’d have lovely things and live kinkily ever after, didn’t he?”

She hesitated a moment and then said, “Yes, Master.”

It is only when Lucas sells Grace to the island’s resident ‘killer’, Asher Collins, that she starts to learn the true BDSM lifestyle . . . for Asher is a kind and intuitive Master. He is still reeling from the accidental death of his last slave (and lover), and is determined to treat Grace with the utmost care while also introducing her to the wicked carnality of the Master/Slave relationship.

Together, Grace and Asher learn to trust and love again. Grace comes to accept her fetishes and explore them in the safe and trusting relationship that Asher establishes. Meanwhile, Asher begins to let go of his guilt and rebuild his life, with Grace kneeling by his side;

“This won’t bring Darcy back.”

Asher suppressed a growl. “I know that. Do you think I don’t know that? I don’t have any illusions I can fix her. I just need . . .” He searched for a word or sentiment he couldn’t bring himself to say. Still, the word stole into his mind and bloomed into full existence in the silence of the room – forgiveness.

I loved the romance between Grace and Asher. It’s partly ‘white knight syndrome’ – that Asher rides in to save Grace from the devilish clutches of Lucas Stone. But it’s also the fact that Asher has his own disturbing problems with guilt and forgiveness. He was a very tender and enticing Master, but underneath his firm hand lay a broken heart. His rebuilding of Grace’s confidence and love is dramatic and romantic and made for such a compelling storyline.

Dare I say . . . Kitty Thomas is fast becoming the erotica novelist du jour. Her books of extremism, BDSM and fetishism are the very best examples of the erotica genre – as she writes smartly sexy books that explore the darkest facets of sexual gratification and perversion while also weaving a marvellously compelling storyline with intense romance.

‘Tender Mercies’ is more bitter brilliance from Kitty Thomas. Yes, there are some very disturbing aspects to the novel – not least of which is an island dedicated to promoting a Master/Slave society where only the death of a slave warrants punishment . . . but Kitty Thomas is, above all else, a literary erotica novelist. In ‘Tender Mercies’ she is exploring the ‘perversions’ of kink and the traumas of captivity, followed by the struggles of post-traumatic stress. I feel it’s important to stress that Kitty Thomas doesn’t write ‘smut’ – her novels are above all that. She instead writes insanely powerful sex scenes that flip between being sensuous and serious, delicious and disturbing. Her sex scenes make you think, as they lead into the subliminal storyline of trust and captivity, of surrendering yourself to another human being and opening yourself to pain in return.

Kitty Thomas is one of the most audaciously brilliant erotica novelists I have ever read. Her third novel, ‘Tender Mercies’, is another example of her brilliance as she weaves a twisted tale of punishment and betrayal, redemption and understanding – all against the kinky backdrop of a BDSM island wonderland.

5/5

Kitty Thomas’s next novella is called ‘The Auction’ and does not yet have a release date.

'Comfort Food' by Kitty THOMAS

From the BLURB:

Emily Vargas has been taken captive. As part of his conditioning methods, her captor refuses to speak to her, knowing how much she craves human contact. He's far too beautiful to be a monster. Combined with his lack of violence toward her, this has her walking a fine line at the edge of sanity. Told in the first person from Emily's perspective, Comfort Food explores what happens when all expectations of pleasure and pain are turned upside down, as whips become comfort and chicken soup becomes punishment.

I’d been hearing a lot of hype about this book ‘Comfort Food’ by Kitty Thomas. A lot of bloggers were writing some very bizarre reviews and recommending it to me. I did get the feeling that people’s encouragement was being given with knowing smirks and wink-winks. I really wanted in on the joke, so I gave the book a go...

Emily Vargas has been captured. She is thrown in a cell and blindfolded. Her captor does not speak. He does not beat her, he does not threaten her. He is mute. He is silent. And that makes him all the more terrifying...

‘Comfort Food’ is dark erotica. Kitty Thomas is writing extreme BDSM erotic fiction – master/slave masochism without the simulated ‘tie me up, tie me down’ sex games. This is a story about a captured woman who is raped, and subjected to psychological torture. Her ordeal is made all the worse for the fact that she likes it. She comes to crave the pain and silence of her captor; she even ends up calling him ‘Master’.

‘Comfort Food’ is dark erotica, but it has quite a literary bent. The same way ‘Master’ plays with Emily’s emotions and warps her feelings, Kitty Thomas provokes similar reactions in her readers in a strange case of art imitating life.

In the beginning of the novel I was frightened for Emily. We meet her on the first day of her captivity, and read the confused jumble of her thoughts as she tries to retrace the steps that led to her capture. We read Emily through every momentous experience of her captivity – the day she exchanges sexual favours for food. The day her captor swaps her barren cell for a plush suite. The day she reads the rule-book and learns the reward/punishment scheme. We are right there with her... even when the bullwhips and chains start to feel more pleasurable than painful. And when she comfortably slips into the habit of referring to, and thinking of him as her ‘Master’, when she starts to crave his touch... As a reader we go with Emily into this downward spiral of complacency and acceptance. To the point where the sex scenes are delicious and evocative and you hardly even notice that it’s still sex under duress...

I didn’t move toward the door. I held his gaze and said, “I’ll do whatever you want.”
I could see evidence of his arousal outlined through the pants he’d put back on. He was wearing only jeans, the muscles of his chest so beautiful I could hardly stand to look at him.
Still, he didn’t move. I walked to the door and shut it, and then panicked because I’d just locked myself into a sadistic torture chamber with my captor. My captor who I trusted not to hurt me because he never had before, not physically anyway.

The same way Emily surrenders to Stockholm syndrome, readers are likewise thrown into this odd conundrum of finding the story almost romantic, and not being as disturbed by the content as our conscience tells us we should be... I was really quite taken aback when I realized, halfway through the novel, that I was finding the sex scenes ‘sexy’. They are still a form of rape. Emily is still a prisoner. But Kitty Thomas has written such a masterful mind-fuck that I didn’t consciously notice my perverse reactions to the story until I finished it and was able to reflect.
It's especially weird that I (and many others) liked the book when, in recent years, monsters like Josef Fritzl have dominated news headlines. I must admit, Kitty Thomas does take a somewhat easy 'out' by making the Master a very handsome and rich man. Emily likens him to being the Patrick Bateman of psychos.

Oddly enough my one complaint about the novel was Kitty Thomas revealing the Master’s psyche. I thought the novel would have been all the more disturbing without a glimpse into this man’s thinking and motivation, and I’m not sure anything was gained by including his perspective that I hadn’t already assumed from his silence...? How strange that my only niggling complaint was to do with Kitty Thomas offering the ‘villain’s’ point of view, because I wanted the book to be even *darker*. How’s that for twisted?!

For me, reading ‘Comfort Food’ upon recommendation of fellow bloggers was somewhat similar to your friends suggesting you put a dollop of wasabi on your sushi if you’re never tried it before. You may very well say “but it’s green and it smells weird - are you sure I’ll like it?” and your friends all nod and say “yeah, it’s great! It’s like mustard. It’s Japanese mustard. It’s great.”
Well that was kind of my reaction to ‘Comfort Food’. The novel was like wasabi, a literary shock to my senses... but not awful, and surprisingly sinus-clearing.

To be honest, this book is a bit of a head-trip. It’s an uncomfortably sexy read and upon finishing the novel you will question your own personality and head-space. But darn, this is a fine piece of storytelling – equal parts intricate and invasive, evocative and eerie.
‘Comfort Food’ is a deliciously dark and disturbing piece of erotica. It is the dark-chocolate of erotica... definitely not for beginners and possibly not for the faint of heart either.

4/5