Enchanted

by Janine Ashbless, Olivia Knight, Leonie Martell

In "Bear Skin," Hazel is whisked away from her tedious job and humdrum life by the mysterious Arailt to be his lover "for a year and a day, without reason and without question." The only problem is there is more to Arailt than meets the eye. In "The Three Riddles," the elves, they say, know the secrets of events—but the queen has no time for superstitions. Ignoring the warnings, she deserts her childhood love, Sir Thomas, for a darkly charismatic foreign duke. As her kingdom crumbles, she longs for her lost love, but can she risk her country on a whim? In "The People in the Garden," the beguiling Katia seems to be everything the Count and Countess Malinovsky could ever hope for in a maid, and the decadent couple soon embroil the young women in their erotic games. But then strange things begin happening in the grounds of their Gothic manor house. Local people tell of fairies, goblins, and unnameable creatures, and there are stories about a girl—with an uncanny resemblence to Katia—who disappeared almost 100 years before.

Genres: Fantasy, Erotica, Anthologies, Short Stories, Romance

304 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2008

About the author

Janine Ashbless is a British author of erotica and hot romantic adventure. Janine likes best to write paranormal- and dark-fantasy-themed fiction and has a lifelong interest in mythology, folklore and history.

Reviews

[M— · Rating 1 out of 5]

Utterly un-erotic and only dubiously aligned with fairy-tale tropes, this collection is a fail all the way around. How exactly does a writer go about making these topics dull? How exactly do three writers do this?

I am not in a habit of obtaining erotic fiction, but if this is a standard example of the work from Black Lace Publishers, yeeeah, I'll be never spending money there.

Bear Skin by Janine Ashbless
Beauty and the Beast/ Cupid and Psyche mashup. Female character associated with books and bookselling. These were the only positive aspects of the story. Also, strong theme of female submission.

The Three Riddles by Olivia Knight
Original fairy tale featuring politics, political marriage, sex outside of marriage, sex with more than one partner (aka "dating"), jewelry, humbled pride, sexual dominance (both genders), and quests. Oh and elves. All of these were significant plot points.

The People in the Garden by Leonie Martel
No relation at all to any kind of fairy tale. Kind of steampunk; Russian flair. Again with the dominance themes; mild sexual games this time. (That's three for three in this collection, if you're counting.)

[Dane]

I have tried, twice, to finish this book, but I get stuck at the second story. For whatever reason, it cannot draw me in, and so I can't finish it. Shelving this as DNF with no plans to revisit it in the near future. Note that my 2-star review is based solely on the one story I read, and marked down because the rest of the book couldn't keep me.

Including my brief review of the only story in it I finished:

Bear Skin: Overall it was an enjoyable story, but I had a problem with the tasks that Hazel had to perform in order to get to Arailt; it's a personal preference of mine, and it diminished my enjoyment of the story.

[Jenni · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a treat! Full of deliciously dark erotica. Though I didn't much care for the middle story, I greatly enjoyed the first and last.
Warning: Not for vanilla readers! Black Lace is a kink publisher.