between these parchment pages
So Sabrina Darby. On These Silken Sheets. Being Regency erotica. Who I discovered from the First Sale post on Dear Author and then went to read the excerpt on her site and thought "Ooh, I like her style! Gotta give this one a go."
When I got it from Intrigue Romance, I even delayed the gratification a while, read other crappier stuff so I could fully appreciate the excellence I kinda suspected this would be. Because, aside from the style, the structure of four linked novellas gave me hope and some small confidence that this would be done well and thoroughly intrigued me.
And boy, it did not disappoint.
I made sure to stop after each novella and write down my reactions, just so they wouldn't blur into each other. So here goes. From the Moleskine.
Well.
Just finished the first story in the Sabrina Darby, the story called Against The Wall. Quite remarkably good. Some overuse of cliches and phrases that became shortcut stock phrases but the cleanness and intensity of the prose was quite fabulous. And my rising alarm about the girl's recklessness was properly vindicated with an excellent dose of reality.
Similarly, just as I began to feel slightly discomfited by all the sex without emotion, especially on his part, these lovely little hints started to surface. That was very nicely done. I liked that subtlety. And just when I began to fear about our heroine being a complete milksop who was going to be completely ruined by this unforgivable rake, she slapped him down with truly awesome force.
Mind you, the pace was so fast I did feel a bit rushed. And I would have liked a little more of an intellectual connection between them but that's just me being quibbly.
The kink of our heroine was pretty bloody wonderful, even shocked me a little and then filled me with such delight, that Sabrina Darby was clearly willing to go to these kinky places and was nicely flagging that without plunging the reader right into it. Very clever indeed.
As for the rushed thing, that ending did seem a bit too hasty. And I would liked a bit more complexity --- well, no, exploration. There's clearly complexity there to the characters. We just weren't given enough time and space to explore that which seems a bit of a shame. Cos now when I think about it, he was quite shortchanged on that score. It was there, the complexity but subtle enough to be missed or forgotten. Pity.
Well, onwards.
Okay, no. That was WAY too abrupt an ending. I needed one more scene in their real lives with the resolved subtextual secret life simmering between them, an engagement or a dinner or something, a social event. This was an unforgivably terse cut off.
Fascinating shift of style and characterisation, though. He was much deeper and I liked that very much although I notice he had a similar arrogance about women like our first hero, only not as overt.
She annoyed me a couple of times at the start with her giggles. But then it was wonderful how she balanced or tried to balance her real life and this fantasy life. And she was fabulously assertive exactly when I wanted her to be, again slapped him down with gratifying force when I wanted her to. And the emotion between them was quite lovely as too the intellect. Again, not as much as I would have liked but much closer than the previous novella.
The language was so much lusher and the world far more believable in its restraints. Wonderful contrast and evolution. And the steady ramping up of the kink was so clever, especially how Darby had her hero react with vanilla revulsion. Nice reflecting of the average reader, I thought, and then a wonderful easing of the same reader into a little bit of kink. I'm really rather looking forward to where Darby goes.
Mind you, same slight abuse of stock phrases. I was getting very irritated with "pearly fluid" and the always annoying "globes." But oh man, love the use of the 'c' words, especially with how well they were introduced and justified in the first story. Well done, Darby!
Why did he have no first name, though? That made no sense at all and felt a bit sloppy, frankly. Thoughtless, in fact. Tsk.
Now I'm all curious about the next couple. And no doubt at some point, Diana will have to have her own story. Awesomeness. Can't wait.
Wow. That was completely unexpected and very very smart. Fascinating, too. Utterly fascinating. Wonderful journey of a relationship from animosity to truce to friendship to love. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful defiance of all the expectations Darby had set up from the previous novellas. And a great subtle depiction of rape recovery, really quite moving and powerful.
She was exceptional, our heroine, exceptional characterisation and he reacted with the exact degree of aggression I wanted at the exact moment I wanted, and then equally so with his tenderness. Oh that was so well done, so gratifyingly healing.
Pity after all that building up, the sexual consummation wasn't quite as great as the previous stories. Curious dichotomy, that. On one hand, I want building up but too often find that consummation lacking. On the other hand, sometimes I utterly love when there's very little setting up and we go straight into the sex. Can't quite reconcile all aspects of that. Maybe it just has to be done right and of course I have to remind myself that what's right for me as a reader isn't necessarily right for every other reader.
Mind you, yet again the ending was a bit too abrupt but this time at least all the emotion was fully explored. It was just a little too easy, this ending, just like the others.
Awright, last story.
That last story was a supreme disappointment. Admittedly it did have a huge act to follow but still just didn't work for me. I loved that it focused on the maid, was hoping she'd get her own story. And it was pretty awesome how it slotted into the events of the previous novella.
But after the rather awesome beginning, I just couldn't relate to the plot. Maybe because I would never do what she did, maybe because she was so matter-of-fact about it I even felt silly and guilty about my discomfort. Or maybe because the hero was entirely unlikeable and even his big realisation was too convenient. I liked her so much even though she made decisions I never would, and he just didn't seem worthy of her.
It was quite cursorily written, too. Like it was just tossed off, quite similar to the first novella. And here at the close of the book, after the intensity of the middle two novellas, it just wasn't good enough.
Curious that I found every hero dislikeable in at least one way. Actually the most appealing one was in the third but even he had a streak of strangulated morality that I found a bit distasteful. They all rubbed me wrong and made me uneasy at some point or the other. Whereas all the heroines won me over. Curious.
I wonder if these persistent flaws of abrupt endings and distasteful men are things that will be rectified in Darby's next book, whenever that is, or whether they'll become recognisable traits, characteristic of her style. I hope not. I hope she irons them out cos if she fixed those two things and tightened up the language a little --- a lot! --- she'd be a first class big name beloved author. For me.
As it is, she pretty much blows Sharon Page out of the water. And as erotica goes, she is definitely my favourite cos she satisfies both form and content, technical and aesthetic, the reader and writer in me.
Plus bloody awesome cover and lovely matte finish. Avon Red. I'm definitely looking at the other titles in their range.
When I got it from Intrigue Romance, I even delayed the gratification a while, read other crappier stuff so I could fully appreciate the excellence I kinda suspected this would be. Because, aside from the style, the structure of four linked novellas gave me hope and some small confidence that this would be done well and thoroughly intrigued me.
And boy, it did not disappoint.
I made sure to stop after each novella and write down my reactions, just so they wouldn't blur into each other. So here goes. From the Moleskine.
Well.
Just finished the first story in the Sabrina Darby, the story called Against The Wall. Quite remarkably good. Some overuse of cliches and phrases that became shortcut stock phrases but the cleanness and intensity of the prose was quite fabulous. And my rising alarm about the girl's recklessness was properly vindicated with an excellent dose of reality.
Similarly, just as I began to feel slightly discomfited by all the sex without emotion, especially on his part, these lovely little hints started to surface. That was very nicely done. I liked that subtlety. And just when I began to fear about our heroine being a complete milksop who was going to be completely ruined by this unforgivable rake, she slapped him down with truly awesome force.
Mind you, the pace was so fast I did feel a bit rushed. And I would have liked a little more of an intellectual connection between them but that's just me being quibbly.
The kink of our heroine was pretty bloody wonderful, even shocked me a little and then filled me with such delight, that Sabrina Darby was clearly willing to go to these kinky places and was nicely flagging that without plunging the reader right into it. Very clever indeed.
As for the rushed thing, that ending did seem a bit too hasty. And I would liked a bit more complexity --- well, no, exploration. There's clearly complexity there to the characters. We just weren't given enough time and space to explore that which seems a bit of a shame. Cos now when I think about it, he was quite shortchanged on that score. It was there, the complexity but subtle enough to be missed or forgotten. Pity.
Well, onwards.
Okay, no. That was WAY too abrupt an ending. I needed one more scene in their real lives with the resolved subtextual secret life simmering between them, an engagement or a dinner or something, a social event. This was an unforgivably terse cut off.
Fascinating shift of style and characterisation, though. He was much deeper and I liked that very much although I notice he had a similar arrogance about women like our first hero, only not as overt.
She annoyed me a couple of times at the start with her giggles. But then it was wonderful how she balanced or tried to balance her real life and this fantasy life. And she was fabulously assertive exactly when I wanted her to be, again slapped him down with gratifying force when I wanted her to. And the emotion between them was quite lovely as too the intellect. Again, not as much as I would have liked but much closer than the previous novella.
The language was so much lusher and the world far more believable in its restraints. Wonderful contrast and evolution. And the steady ramping up of the kink was so clever, especially how Darby had her hero react with vanilla revulsion. Nice reflecting of the average reader, I thought, and then a wonderful easing of the same reader into a little bit of kink. I'm really rather looking forward to where Darby goes.
Mind you, same slight abuse of stock phrases. I was getting very irritated with "pearly fluid" and the always annoying "globes." But oh man, love the use of the 'c' words, especially with how well they were introduced and justified in the first story. Well done, Darby!
Why did he have no first name, though? That made no sense at all and felt a bit sloppy, frankly. Thoughtless, in fact. Tsk.
Now I'm all curious about the next couple. And no doubt at some point, Diana will have to have her own story. Awesomeness. Can't wait.
Wow. That was completely unexpected and very very smart. Fascinating, too. Utterly fascinating. Wonderful journey of a relationship from animosity to truce to friendship to love. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful defiance of all the expectations Darby had set up from the previous novellas. And a great subtle depiction of rape recovery, really quite moving and powerful.
She was exceptional, our heroine, exceptional characterisation and he reacted with the exact degree of aggression I wanted at the exact moment I wanted, and then equally so with his tenderness. Oh that was so well done, so gratifyingly healing.
Pity after all that building up, the sexual consummation wasn't quite as great as the previous stories. Curious dichotomy, that. On one hand, I want building up but too often find that consummation lacking. On the other hand, sometimes I utterly love when there's very little setting up and we go straight into the sex. Can't quite reconcile all aspects of that. Maybe it just has to be done right and of course I have to remind myself that what's right for me as a reader isn't necessarily right for every other reader.
Mind you, yet again the ending was a bit too abrupt but this time at least all the emotion was fully explored. It was just a little too easy, this ending, just like the others.
Awright, last story.
That last story was a supreme disappointment. Admittedly it did have a huge act to follow but still just didn't work for me. I loved that it focused on the maid, was hoping she'd get her own story. And it was pretty awesome how it slotted into the events of the previous novella.
But after the rather awesome beginning, I just couldn't relate to the plot. Maybe because I would never do what she did, maybe because she was so matter-of-fact about it I even felt silly and guilty about my discomfort. Or maybe because the hero was entirely unlikeable and even his big realisation was too convenient. I liked her so much even though she made decisions I never would, and he just didn't seem worthy of her.
It was quite cursorily written, too. Like it was just tossed off, quite similar to the first novella. And here at the close of the book, after the intensity of the middle two novellas, it just wasn't good enough.
Curious that I found every hero dislikeable in at least one way. Actually the most appealing one was in the third but even he had a streak of strangulated morality that I found a bit distasteful. They all rubbed me wrong and made me uneasy at some point or the other. Whereas all the heroines won me over. Curious.
I wonder if these persistent flaws of abrupt endings and distasteful men are things that will be rectified in Darby's next book, whenever that is, or whether they'll become recognisable traits, characteristic of her style. I hope not. I hope she irons them out cos if she fixed those two things and tightened up the language a little --- a lot! --- she'd be a first class big name beloved author. For me.
As it is, she pretty much blows Sharon Page out of the water. And as erotica goes, she is definitely my favourite cos she satisfies both form and content, technical and aesthetic, the reader and writer in me.
Plus bloody awesome cover and lovely matte finish. Avon Red. I'm definitely looking at the other titles in their range.