Carrie Lomax, $3.99, ISBN 979-8201515812
Historical Romance, 2022
Carrie Lomax’s Annalise is on the raunchy side, by design, because there are lovely romantic moments like this one:
What innocent young woman would want a man she’d first met with his cock spending on another woman’s back? Witnessed him with his cock in not one, but two of her friends’ mouths?
I have to laugh, though, at how that sentence makes it seem like Eryx Wilder has two penises to be able to entertainment two women at the same time.
Yes, his name is Eryx Wilder, because we can’t romance heroes with names that actually make them seem to be from Earth, rather than wherever it is the next Final Fantasy game will be set in.
Our heroine, Annalise Fernsby ends up in Lady Oreste’s genteel house of ill repute while searching for the lady in question to find out why her name is among her late father’s correspondences. Since she has younger sisters to feed and they have no money, Annalise decides to take one for the family and join the trade.
Of course, she doesn’t really have to join the trade since she’s already caught the eye of the perpetually horny and surly business partner of Lady Oreste, so this is another one of those stories where the heroine never has to walk the talk.
Not that this is an issue with me, as I understand that having a heroine that actually sells her body is a huge ick for many readers so the author will be taking a huge risk doing that.
However, I do have a different issue with this story: it’s too talky in a repetitive manner.
Eryx lusts after Annalise, and she he. How? Why? I suppose it’s because he’s hot and has a huge dong while she’s hot and innocent-looking, but how does lust transition to love? I never really see that here, as the author spends a lot of time having these two people lust after one another and indulge in repetitive chatter and push-and-pull antics that just seem to go in circles for too long. In a way, the author focuses more on lust than finer feelings, so the romance never feels deep or substantial.
Another issue is that this is part of a larger series, I suppose, judging from the foreword, even though the cover says this is the first in a series, so I get point of view chapters of various other characters. It seems like the author expects me to already know who these characters are and are already invested in their subplots, but sadly, I have no idea who these people are or care about their story as a result.
Instead, I get frustrated because I can’t help thinking that the author could have used the pages given to these “Who are you?” characters to develop the romance between Annalise and Eryx better.
Also, while I do appreciate the intent, this story is one of those “instant feminist” stories where the female characters are strong and have agency, but in a way that is very 20th and 21st century just shoehorned into the 19th century with just some minor tinkering here and there to accommodate the mentions of ladies and titled gentlemen. As a result, it’s hard to get into this story when the female characters act like present day women wearing gowns of 19th-century England.
Besides, if the story is truly feminist, it clashes badly with the author’s efforts to make sure that the heroine never truly has to sell her body as well as to give the heroine a rather traditional mum and wife role in the happy ending. It’s like the author doesn’t fully want to commit to one direction or the other, and as a result, this story is neither here nor there when it comes to feminism or historical authenticity. As a result, it’s hard to see this story as anything more than just modern-day folks playing make-believe.
On the bright side, the writing is clean, and the main characters don’t annoy me. Sadly, they also don’t seem very interesting, and the story never feels real or believable.
All in all, it’s a pleasant read but it never really takes off from the runway.
