Aphrodisia, $14.00, ISBN 978-0-7582-4131-3
Fantasy Erotica, 2012
This month’s TBR Review Challenge is all about catching up on series that I’ve long neglected. Well, here’s exactly something that fits the bill: the final book in Elizabeth Amber’s double-peen’ed sex mad centaur series The Lords of Satyr. The previous later books in the series never matched the earlier ones in terms of camp, raunchy sex, and outrageous tongue-in-cheek moments, so I wasn’t too enthusiastic about Sevin when it arrived at my doorstep. Eventually it got lost in the TBR pile… until now.
This one is actually a collection of two stories – a longer one, which gives this book its title, about Sevin Satyr, and a shorter, almost epilogue-like story for the remaining unwed Satyr dude Lucien.
Just to let you know in case you are unfamiliar with the series, these centaur heroes are worshippers of Bacchus, the god of wine and lots-of-sex, and while they can pass themselves off as human, once a month, their second, smaller peen pops out underneath their twenty-inch one, and they have to boink all night or die. Yes, die. I’d like to imagine that this is because their genitalia will explode, causing a nuclear fallout that will send Marvin the Martian into an orgasm.
At any rate, we start with Sevin. This one has some heavy references to events that happened in Dane, but let’s face it, nobody cares. We are all here for the sex. Sevin meets again with Alexa Patrizzi, the daughter of the family that the Satyrs detest greatly after that other book. He has always been lusting after her, so now, he insists that she must leave or he will make her, because heaven forbids that his dual penises get stuffed in somewhere his family will never approve. What, expecting our lover boy to control his impulses and go hump a watermelon instead? Are you serious, expecting a romance hero to exercise self control? You must be new to the genre.
Unfortunately, the humans have just become aware of the existence of spooks around them, and what they know of that one night when centaurs must have sex all night makes many of them go either “Yucks! What kind of monsters are these? Let’s protest in front of their disgusting house!” or “I’ve always wanted to have sex with a centaur so I’m going to spend all my time outside the house hoping that I’d get some, hee-hee-hee!” Sevin doesn’t like having sex with humans due to some issues in his past, but he can’t do much as people are blocking the family home.
And then, he and Luc are trapped as the night draws near, and oh no, they need to start ejaculating into another person STAT or die. Oh no, they can’t bugger one another – the rule says that they must only pew-pew inside a woman – the author is very specific about that – because, you know, the ancient Greeks have always been no homo, go hetero. And then, Alexa shows up. This is where things will make or break the book depending on the reader, as Sevin practically coerces Alexa into putting out to both him and Lucien, as well as blackmails Luc into sleeping with Alexa, by refusing to boink and then die if Luc refuses. To be fair, this is a life and death matter, but still, it’s not exactly the most romantic way to start a boinking, isn’t it?
Alas, the sex scene is too mundane to be worth even a second look, and worse, Sevin practically “cajoles” Alexa hard into agreeing to have sex with Luc too once a month for that ejaculate-in-a-woman-OR-DIE thing. The line between boyfriend and pimp can really blur when it comes to him, although “pimp” isn’t an accurate word here, as pimps get paid while Sevin doesn’t. Maybe he just likes seeing his girlfriend having sex with his brother – wait, I did mention that those two are brothers, right? – as I hear some guys really like that kind of thing.
The trouble with Sevin, apart from that whole coercion over seduction thing, is that the author spends way too much time on plot and too little on sex. And what little there is isn’t as hot as the raunchy stuff found in the earlier books in this series. As I’ve said, who reads this series for the plot? As a result, this story has little to offer for something that is marketed as an erotic read.
Next up, Lucien. Luc doesn’t want to be a mercy shag in his brother’s eyes, so he does some woo-woo and ends up becoming a statue in the fae realm. There, Natalia Lattore and her fellow academy girls are part of a system where girls are trained to be baby ovens – really, they get injected with sperm via syringes by the priests – or something. There is a prophecy that a special girl will one day awaken the statue and the two of them will be even more special – or something. Come on, you think I read this book for the plot?
Our heroine and her girlfriends do things like sneaking out to practice by sitting on that erect statue dong and trying to take every inch in, and Natalia presses her hand on the body of the statue while it is her turn. Lo and behold, the statue starts coming to life! Everyone is like, hey, Natty, go sit on that thing some more and wiggle that ass around while they all look closer to see signs of life. And, of course, Luc is like, ooh, my mate, the end.
Despite what I may have led you to believe, this one isn’t very sexy… unless you have a thing for sex with inanimate objects, I guess. I personally find scenes where one partner is literally just lying there silent and unmoving to be of, shall we say, snore inducing. I want the boinky to come with screams and writhes and acrobatic whoopees, please.
In the end, I find Sevin to be a dismaying kind of boring. I get the impression that the author’s heart isn’t in this series anymore, and she is just going through the motions just to wrap things up. So that means skimping on the eroticism, leaving me feeling high and dry. Who would’ve thought centaurs with two pee-pees will be this boring?
