Deep Desires Press, $3.99
Contemporary Erotica, 2018
Harry F Rey’s The Line of Succession is about… you know, I’m not sure what it is about, other than buggery. Sure, I mean, the back cover synopsis talks about how Prince James of England, the thirty-year old bachelor, is actually shagging hot guys, especially his bodyguard Andrew, while his twin sister Alexandra is plotting to take over the throne from him. Indeed, there is some flashbacks here about James’s parents and his past school days with Andrew, but I confess I skip all that after my eyes start to glaze over. I assumed, from the cover art, that I will be getting either a bitchy soap opera or over the top comedy, but what I get instead are a few hot scenes crammed among black fonts forming words that I have little interest in reading.
James snorts cocaine up his nose using bank notes that has his grandmother’s image, which is always nice, but I have no idea why I’m supposed to see this irresponsible, whiny dude as the “rightful heir” when Alexandra seems more like a better candidate for being the boss of everyone. I don’t care about the two people who seemed to resemble Prince Charles and his sweetheart (the one that he didn’t marry back in those days, that is). I don’t care about Andrew as well because he is just sort of there, like a walking, talking, anatomically correct body pillow for James and other blokes.
I do enjoy the Prince of Saudi going down totally hard and full-blown medieval on Andrew, though, and that threesome thing isn’t bad either. It’s a shame about the things I have to sift through to get to those moments.
This is the first part of an ongoing series, but honestly, I am not feeling this rush to buy the next entry. The story isn’t interesting enough to grab me – the whole thing feels like a curiously restrained fanfiction of the Royal British family, to be honest – and the sex scenes aren’t numerous or hot enough to get me thinking that I need to read more. Outside of having functional penises and flexibly responsive anuses, the characters here are completely nondescript.
Also, the premise of the story doesn’t exactly jive with the modern day media in the UK. You’d think the progressives ruling the mainstream media and social media would be thrilled that James would be a gay future king of England, instead of going all OMG THE GAY. More likely, they would be urging him to marry a trans POC Muslim to make up for the fatal flaw of being a white male and complete the perfect algorithm that will reverse the Brexit vote, magically instate Jeremy Corbyn as the Prime Minister, bestow universal basic income and lifelong free iPhones on every Labour party supporter in the UK, and make Hillary Clinton the new President of the United States.
At any rate, do let me know if the naughty, super-hung bear of a Saudi prince goes on a naughty rampage in the next story – I may be tempted to pick it up then. For now, I think I’ll just abdicate the series.
