Constance Harman, $2.99, ISBN 978-1370893171
Historical Romance, 2017
Constance Harman’s The King’s Consort is supposed to be a romance that develops over the course of a few years.
Impoverished Cathleen is sent by her father to the Queen Barbara’s court to be trained to be a lady in waiting. She is 12. She meets Prince Roberts, 16, and their romance blossoms over the next few years before they finally reach an age that won’t make people go “Eeeuw!” six years later to consummate their hot desires.
Alas, the Queen, described naturally as a shrill harridan, is against her son hooking up with this wench for anything more than a hump and dump.
Now, this story is set in the country called Wethersfield, but my online search tells me that the only Wethersfield out there is a town in Connecticut. Okay. Another search tells me that there is a Queen Barbara that ruled Poland in the 16th century, but this story never tells me when it is set in and the details are sketchy enough — there is a king, then there is a queen, and look, there’s also a castle. I guess the author is just making up a historical location for this story.
The first problem I have with this story is that the author accelerates the story in a way that makes it impossible for me to care for the story. It’s like reading an instruction manual.
After they rode for about 5 hours, in which Cathleen was in and out of sleep, they finally arrived at the palace. The splendour and size of the place was the first thing that caught her attention, it was simply dazzling. She could hardly believe the gold-leafed ceilings, the ancient artwork, marble, the ornate tapestries. Things she had only heard of and read of in books. It was like a dream! Only it was not, she was right here in this magnificent palace.
She was taken to the training centre for future court workers. First, she was given a bath in water that was as clear and cold as a running stream, then a thorough medical inspection. She was also given some simple clothes and a small cot was assigned to her. Cathleen was to train for several weeks before attending any event at court. They said this was to avoid embarrassing the King and his family, and she would be notified when she was deemed worthy to move from the training centre to the King’s court.
The next few weeks were full of different training and activity. She was woken at dawn, and the mornings were spent in studies. Then she had a half hour free for her lunch, then the afternoon was spent on chores or studying or one unplanned activity or another. Although Cathleen missed her family and friends terribly, being at the court was quite enjoyable, and she picked up on things very quickly, she was really a fast learner.
Wow, that’s what, one month or two months, just flew by in three paragraphs. Where have the time gone?
Suddenly, the romance is on. How? When? It just happens, go with it.
Suddenly, the Queen realizes that her son is drooling over that nobody. How? When? It just happens, just listen as she screams and shrieks like some cartoon harpy.
Suddenly, Cathleen and Roberts are having sex.
Her juices flowed down onto his balls to make a wet slapping sound every time he buried his cock deep. A delicious lick of pleasure hit him every time his sac made contact with her slickened taint. It was all too much to hold out any longer, and that familiar spiral started to move up his shaft. He felt the pulse of his own orgasm and thrust home one more time just as he erupted. He lost count as shot after shot of cum washed against her womb.
The story starts out like some clean romance, only to suddenly throw wet exploding sacs onto my face. Wait, how did the story go from that to a purple kind of explicit body horror?
Then, suddenly, Cathleen is being trained to be a royal entertainer, whose job is to have sex with guests of the king and queen.
She was shown elaborate drawings of a man’s erect cock and taught how to orally service men. She was taught about several sexual positions and how to moan. Throughout the lessons, Cathleen could only imagine doing these things with Prince Roberts. Her mind was still fresh on her first time. But the reality was that she was being groomed to become a Royal prostitute, ready to service Royal guests of the King and Queen. She was told to be very proud that her grace and beauty attracted the Queen by the court nurse. But Cathleen didn’t see what pride there was in being a Royal prostitute. She wondered what Prince Roberts had up his sleeves, he had promised her that their love will win.
What is happening? Has the author been possessed by the spirit of the late Bertrice Small?
Mind you, I’m all for some kinky harem romance, although the transition from clean and innocent to kinky and sticky is quite the whiplash.
However, then the author decides to end the story. Roberts wants to flee the castle with the pregnant Cathleen — of course she is — but then the king does, Roberts becomes the new king, and then he marries Cathleen regardless of what his mother says.
Wait, so I won’t be getting some kinky harem romance? Then why would the author introduce all that training into the story, if she were going to just toss everything away a page later?
What is the point of this story?
Anyway, this one has no coherent plot, with the author making up subplots only to throw them away just like that later, and it doesn’t even know whether it’s going to be a clean romance or a ghastly erotic one.
I hate to say it, but this one feels like it’s been ghostwritten by some cheap third-world freelancer that just slaps whatever stuff they can cut and paste from, and the author never checks to see whether the result is okay. Maybe I’m wrong, and the author really wrote this thing; I’m just saying that this story gives me that appearance of a botched ghostwriting job.
Perhaps I could find some unintentional comedy to enjoy in this train wreck of a story, but sadly, I’m too bewildered by the intention behind the story to do so.
All in all, just terrible. Really terrible.
