Book Dragon's Review: Temptation at Twilight: Lords of Pleasure by Jo Carlisle

Paperback: 304 pages
Price: $10.99 paperback / $9.99 Kindle
ISBN: 978-0451234827
Released: November 1, 2011
Publisher: NAL Heat / Trade
Author's Website: http://www.jodavis.net/
Buy it: Amazon


Obtained: Author/Publisher
Genre: Paranormal Erotica
Series: Lords of Pleasure


Book Order:
1. Temptation At Twilight
2. Desire After Dark

A fantasy resort that offers all the pleasures of life-and death...

Vampire brothers Aldric, Soren, and Luc Fontaine own and run La Petite Mort, an adult fantasy resort for the adventurous of heart-and body. Humans, shifters, Fae, and other beings gather to enjoy two weeks of fantasies-come-true at the New Orleans estate. The brothers themselves have experienced everything life, and death, have to offer...except finding their true mates.

Soren makes a bargain with a Voodoo Priestess, binding him to her forever in exchange for the return of the wife he lost a hundred years ago. He is soon convinced that one of the new guests (Book Dragon's note: FILTHY LIES.) is his wife reincarnated, and an intense sexual attraction turns to a true emotional bond...but all could be lost when the Priestess comes to collect.

My Rating: 0.5 Very Disgusted Dragons

My Opinion: Book Dragon would like to know when forced seduction (the polite term for "you're going to have sex whether you really want it or not, so just come along quietly and don't make a fuss or I'll do something to make you enjoy it so you forget all those nasty no-please-no sounds you were making") became acceptable publishable material in erotica.

I would like to make a correction to that back cover blurb. What you read there makes the book sound somewhat interesting, no?  Perhaps a bit intriguing?  What that blurb does not tell you is that Harley was not a "guest" of the resort, she was a kidnapped, raped slave who was sold at auction in a sex/slave club.  Soren, the hero, is ruled by his wang throughout the entirety of the novel.  He makes a deal with the crazy voodoo witch (who, of course, turns out to be something worse later on) and at her urging goes to the club.  Whereupon he notices Harley and purchases her.

Oh, he promptly frees her from her bondage, but it's still creepy, disgusting, and he follows this up by giving her a deal she can't refuse.

Let's start a bit earlier.

The basic premise of this fuckery is that 3 vampire brothers own a sex resort near New Orleans in a sort of alternate future where demons, fae, vampires, werewolves, and witches are now more common than plain, vanilla humans.  Slavery is now considered A-OK by society, and most of humanity is trying to stay out of the cities so they won't end up as a meal or a slave.  A few willingly give themselves over so they don't have to deal with that nasty business of paying their own bills or making their own way in life so they can cater to the whims of the super-rich and powerful, hopefully in the "let's make sexy-sexy timez" vs. the "do all the menial chores around the house until the end of time" way.

This book is about the middle vamp brother, Soren, who lost his human mate to a demon attack a long time ago. The 3 vamps used to be enforcers until Soren went apeshit and destroyed the demons who killed his mate. So now if he or the other 2 ever try to take justice into their own hands, the Council of supernatural bigwigs will kill them all.

Soren keeps trying to find a way to bring back his dead mate.  He goes to this witch in the swamp (side note: everyone he mentioned this idea to is all "DON'T DO IT BRO EPICALLY BAD IDEA" but he charges ahead anyway) and he offers her the seat on the Council she wants along with anything else she desires if only she'll just bring his Helena back.

Meanwhile, in TSTL-ville, our heroine who is obviously destined to be Soren's new mate is driving a beat up truck which breaks down in the swamps outside of the city. Instead of, oh, I don't know, sitting her ass down, locking the car, and waiting for sunrise, she goes traipsing off into the swamp by herself in the middle of the night in search of help. A pair of winged demons find her and put on their rape faces, so she offers them a good time if they only bring her to the city "so she at least has a choice in the matter".

Hel-looooooooooo threesome.

Of course, because she has the magic hoo-ha, the demons really like her--but they don't want to keep her.  Clearly the thing to do is sell her at a sex club. They auction her off. Soren wins. (Side note: Book Dragon is still gagging a little from this scene. Witch jerking off the vamp while he watches the auctioneer "ready" Harley by having kinky, drugged up sex with her on the stage in front of a huge crowd was a bit much for this dragon to handle.) Soren then tears up her slave papers--where she got those is still a bit of a mystery considering how she became one--and he offers her a job as his Chosen (basically someone to have sex with and provide blood whenever the vamp wants it). Except his "offer" is that she has no choice but to come with him and "try it out for a while" to decide if it's for her or not.

So then the story romps through a somewhat ridiculous number and variety of sex scenes where the vamp is slowly turning into a monster due to something the witch is doing to him. He almost kills a male servant while fucking him, almost kills his brothers, etc.  Eventually the witch corners him and finishes off the curse/spell/change/whatever.

He turns epically evil and of course immediately has time to get his freak on with the witch and then with Harley as soon as the witch walks away for a few minutes.  I was really hoping the book was over when the battle with the witch was over, but alas, on page 261 of 292, I knew the wreck hadn't finished grinding to a halt yet.

The thing about this book is that it might have been an interesting story under all of that sex if only the rapey undertones hadn't been there. Soren didn't want to be having sex with the witch, or her boy-toy, or his brother's Chosen. Harley was kidnapped and forced into a sexual situation with the demons. She couldn't say no to being screwed by the auctioneer on the stage, or to Soren when he told her she would be one of his Chosen.  There were a couple of scenes were someone was very clearly saying "NO" and "STOP" and "DON'T" where the instigator kept right on with their smexy business.  Ultimately, the victim may have gotten off and "enjoyed" the experience in the end, but that doesn't make it right.  The graphic descriptions of those issues and the slave/master/BDSM stuff, along with the torture scenes, were more horrifying than titillating.  Even the consensual stuff wasn't thrilling or arousing--it was mostly bland, too short, and/or very odd.

A sample:

The blond demon brought the head to her lips, and she opened like a baby bird. Suckled the spongy head and then swallowed him down, the length and girth every bit as daunting as Val's meat.

(No, not a joke, that's a word for word quote. If you find that sexy, then maybe this book is for you. Hell, Book Dragon finished it, she won't judge you.)

Book Dragon freely admits that she only kept reading because she has a bad case of "book rubbernecking". It's like those people who can't look away from accidents--only with terribad books.

So it looks like forced seduction is the order of the day. Plus there is so much sex that barely any plot shines through.  I know it's supposed to be erotica, but it reads more like the written version of a porno that's trying to have a story (a la Fantasy Quest or whatever the hell it was called with Jenna Jamison -- don't ask how I know about this movie), only with really rapey undertones.  It's got m/f, m/m, m/f/m, BDSM, torture, and rape.  The only reason I finished it was because I couldn't believe half of the fuckwittery I was reading and wanted to see where the trainwreck was going.

I would like those hours of my life back.