Beatrix Arden, $0.99, ISBN 978-1005657345
Historical Erotica, 2020
Beatrix Arden’s Ravished by His Lordship is quite a meta kind of fun.
Sure, on the surface, this story of Ingrid, a tutor of Lord Byron’s kid playing the nanny to Byron’s Arnold Schwarzenegger is kinda eye-rolling, especially when the author seems to be plying the usual excuses to justify the adultery: his wife doesn’t like kids, is hateful, while our nanny loves kids and all.
Still, the sex scenes are kinda hot in a raw, coarse, and vulgar way, as the author isn’t afraid to let her characters get really down and dirty. Really, these scenes are not tailored for the sensibilities of romance readers; they are for readers of erotica that love dirty talk and people getting off on shagging while being seen by other people and more.
This is a short filthy little thing, so by right, there isn’t much else for me to say aside from it being hot to trot in a quick read-and-dump way. That is enough to make this a nice example of what it is.
Well, that is until I reach the last page. There are hints of things coming to this point early on, when Ingrid was contemplating how she is looking for something more than being the wife of a common bloke. Also, our dear is enjoying way too much the fact that she is in an affair with a married man. Then the last page comes, and I can only chuckle with glee. I was initially expecting the author to bend over backwards to twist Ingrid into a virtuous heroine worthy of the affections of romance readers everywhere, but nah, the author isn’t afraid to celebrate the slags and the hos in all of us.
She isn’t writing for romance readers, this author, and as someone that is always looking for stories that celebrate unrepentant hos that aren’t afraid to do bad, wrong things, I can only say: Ingrid, you go, you fabulous ho, you.
This one is worth a look for the hot, gritty stuff, especially when the author also doesn’t try to pass off Byron as a hero material, but folks expecting romance genre sensibilities should approach with some degree of caution.
