Sani Publishing, $0.99, ISBN 978-1386169420
Historical Romance, 2021
It seems like every review these days needs a PSA, so here’s the one for Beverley Oakley’s Saving Grace: it was previously published by Pan MacMillan Momentum.
This is the first entry in the Fair Cyprians of London series, which revolves around ladies that work in Madame Chambon’s London House of Assignation. The author says in the foreword that these stories were inspired by the interviews of the so-called fallen women in Henry Mayhew’s London’s Underworld.
So, since I’m always game for romantic stories starring harlots and what not, I’m all set and ready to go. Bring on the hos!
To my pleasant delight, Grace is a real ho. Not some damsel that manages to find true love just when she’s about to embark on the beautiful trade, as she’s been around and round and back. In this one, she’s hired to offer a pampered noble lad the best the house can buy—paid by his doting mother, no less—only to realize that he’s someone from a past that she’d like to forget.
Well, it’s a good thing that he’s blind, then!
The best thing about this one is the naughty scenes. While I don’t think of them as steamy as something I would find in, say, works of romantic erotica, there is a scorching hot kind of sensuality here. The sensuality is not from solely the acts performed by Grace and Dave, but rather, the interplay of words that bring to a most evocative kind of vividness when it comes to every touch, every feeling, every emotion. Hot.
Sadly, the rest of the story is on the implausible side. The entire plot is a far-fetched parade of coincidences and contrivances to allow Grace to find closure and regain whatever respectability she may still hold on to after her vocation, all in a short period of time.
Worse, this is another one of those stories that has a nobleman happily marrying a ho without hesitation and facing any repercussions on his social standing following this.
I wish this story had just been focused on the seduction, or if we were to have some happy ending, let him set her up as his mistress or something. This is an unconventional couple, so it just won’t do to force them clumsily into a conventional happily ever after that makes a mockery of the entire premise.
Anyway, I’m very impressed by the phraseology and sensuality of this story—it’s certainly steamier than most “erotic” works I’d recently read and reviewed, that’s for sure. Sadly, I’m not impressed with the rest of the bundle.
