A review by chroniclesofabookreader
Beauty's Kingdom by A.N. Roquelaure
4.0
Another book in the much-loved Sleeping Beauty series is here. It was such a scandalized, different series that I remember all of the talk about how people were afraid that they liked it. It all started with Sleeping Beauty, the same fabled woman, set into a world that was so different than the stories. She is awoken by the Crown Prince and taken back to Bellevalten to become a sex slave. Bellevalten, run by Queen Eleanor, is the highly-talked about town known for their willing pleasure slaves.
We’re now twenty years later, in a time where Beauty has married Prince Laurent, a fellow slave, and they are now retired in their own kingdom. It is when they hear of the Queen’s death along with the request from the Queen to rule Bellavalten that the two of them find what they’ve been missing. Both Beauty and Laurent had been living a normal existence in their retirement, and both, without telling the other, had felt the loss of what the kingdom had once held for them. It is with renewed vigor that they head back to the kingdom to keep it from losing what everyone loves about it.
But with new leaders comes fresh breath, and they design to change the way of the pleasure slaves–they enact that all servitude be voluntary. Along with that came a new, erotic BDSM that really hadn’t been seen in the prior books. It’s more risque, more erotic, and we delve deeper into what BDSM involves. We get spankings, paddling, ponying, etc.. Because of the openness that has been enacted, people from all neighboring realms journey to Bellevalten to experience it.
I enjoyed that this book allowed us many opportunities into a lot of different characters’ heads. We see a well-rounded spectrum of both slaves, masters, Beauty, Laurent, and other Court holders. It’s like seeing your old friends along with meeting a few newbies. Ms. Rice’s writing, as ever, is still masterful and enveloping. It can be a little hard to get back into if you’re not used to it, but once you do it’s easy to follow. This book has a lot of eroticism in it, and anyone who cannot handle that shouldn’t read this book. What this series, and in turn the realm, has is something that is very different that what most books hold. It’s a different kind of romance that borders on the risque quite greatly. But it’s a journey into imagination in its finest, and something that sets the precedent for its genre.
**Received an ARC in exchange for an honest review**
We’re now twenty years later, in a time where Beauty has married Prince Laurent, a fellow slave, and they are now retired in their own kingdom. It is when they hear of the Queen’s death along with the request from the Queen to rule Bellavalten that the two of them find what they’ve been missing. Both Beauty and Laurent had been living a normal existence in their retirement, and both, without telling the other, had felt the loss of what the kingdom had once held for them. It is with renewed vigor that they head back to the kingdom to keep it from losing what everyone loves about it.
But with new leaders comes fresh breath, and they design to change the way of the pleasure slaves–they enact that all servitude be voluntary. Along with that came a new, erotic BDSM that really hadn’t been seen in the prior books. It’s more risque, more erotic, and we delve deeper into what BDSM involves. We get spankings, paddling, ponying, etc.. Because of the openness that has been enacted, people from all neighboring realms journey to Bellevalten to experience it.
I enjoyed that this book allowed us many opportunities into a lot of different characters’ heads. We see a well-rounded spectrum of both slaves, masters, Beauty, Laurent, and other Court holders. It’s like seeing your old friends along with meeting a few newbies. Ms. Rice’s writing, as ever, is still masterful and enveloping. It can be a little hard to get back into if you’re not used to it, but once you do it’s easy to follow. This book has a lot of eroticism in it, and anyone who cannot handle that shouldn’t read this book. What this series, and in turn the realm, has is something that is very different that what most books hold. It’s a different kind of romance that borders on the risque quite greatly. But it’s a journey into imagination in its finest, and something that sets the precedent for its genre.
**Received an ARC in exchange for an honest review**