Client Privileges

by Maia Strong

Jonas Vaneau's life seems ordinary, with days working at law courts and evenings at home with his cat, plus countless Sabbath dinners with his parents and an endless string of potential brides. Meanwhile, an unusual encounter with seemingly ordinary brothel client Jonas causes Micah Hartshorn considerable consternation. When Jonas inexplicably bursts past his emotional defenses, Micah can't even fall back on his professional skills to help him.

The attraction between Micah and Jonas grows, despite their misgivings. As they grow closer, all personal problems are swept up in political unrest when new laws threaten both men's livelihoods. When even greater troubles send Jonas' world spinning beyond his control, it's up to Micah to save Jonas from the downward spiral if he can.

Genres: M M Romance, Fantasy, Romance, Gay

ebook

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Writing, acting, bellydancing, and teaching people to talk in funny voices. Who knew you could make a living doing stuff like that? I didn't, and in fact I can't. Those are the things I do to feed my soul rather than my stomach.

I've always written, but I never expected to write romance. I have documented evidence of a seafaring play I wrote in the second grade. Something involving a giant duck, if memory serves; I'm too scared to dig it out of the binder and find out for sure. Since that rather inauspicious beginning, I've turned my hand to fantasy, science fiction, action adventure (with dinosaurs, oo!), and now steamy romance--with fantasy in it because that is my first genre love. It's inescapable when the first time you read The Lord of the Rings is in the fourth grade. (I read Asimov's Foundation trilogy the next year, but I didn't really understand it. I have yet to try reading it again lo these many years later.)

Off the page, I work in a number of positions with local theatres, I bellydance, and I train and perform aerial. I enjoy traveling, eating good food, drinking good coffee, and hanging out with my husband and our kitties.

Reviews

[Emerald Jaguar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bottom line up front:
The book started slow, had a very interesting middle, and finished...oddly.

The rest:
Jonas is a stuttering, bumbling law journeyman who is rather firmly under his parent's thumb despite his being thirty-four. He's gay, or mahev as it's called in the story. Being gay seems to have been generally accepted in this world, but a group of university professors- headed by Jonas' father- are trying to get legislation enacted to ban all mahevi from being employed. Considering the number of mahevi in their particular area, that would have enormous economic impact. Not that anyone lobbying for this ban on gayness seemed to particularly care.

Not having a bang buddy to play with, Jonas is stuck with the local whore house. Hookers here are actually in a guild, and are licensed to practice their profession, complete with quarterly health checks. Considering the number of clients they seem to have and the complete lack of anything resembling condoms in the entire story, one would think they'd get checked more than quarterly, but...no. Our intrepid hero is feeling the burning in his loins, but is deathly afraid that his parents will find out that he'd been to the local cathouse. He was more concerned that his parents would find out who he'd been with, but that didn't make much sense. The whore houses employed both male and females, and there was no explicit stigma attached to going to a whore house, so how they would have found out he'd gone to see a male rather than a female was never explained.

Be that as it may, Jonas finally screws up the courage to go inside the whore house after many false starts. He meets Micah, an pretty man with an 8-year-old daughter he's supporting. The two begin an odd relationship, first as clients and later as friends when they find out that a mutual friend is Micah's neighbor. Throughout the story, Jonas struggles with his deepening friendship with the whore, his relationship with his family, and his behind the scenes fight against discrimination.

The world building started out as very clunky and clumsily hammered together in a sloppy collage of Christian and Jewish religions combined with some vaguely Regency clothing and transportation, and a splash of Middle Eastern type foods thrown in for fun. The effect was confusing and dragged the story on at a blindingly slow pace in the beginning.

However, the central theme of discrimination against the mahevi, and the way laws were able to be passed in secret with no public notice whatsoever caught my attention through the middle of the story. The campaigning for each side, with propaganda in the way of broadsheets in the town square, was a provocative look at human prejudices and how they affect all members of society. Even the children got involved here, staging a brilliant protest when one of their favorite teachers was fired for being mahev.

Also captivating was Jonas' relationship with his parents, and how his father's views crippled him. His mother was portrayed as a weak-willed woman who very meekly followed along with whatever her husband decided. Complicating the issues throughout was the presence of psychic ability called cheel, which manifested in many ways such as telepathy, empathy, and being able to obliquely influence people's decisions.

The story ended rather jarringly, with the conflict tied up neatly in a pretty bow in a matter of pages and a HFN hastily slapped on. The effect was one of an author who was sliding a little too close to the deadline, and rather than keep writing, decided to just end the story where they were at and send it off as is. After following Jonas through much mud slinging and anxiety, the reader is left with more of an anti-climax. That's it?

I've not read anything by this author, but found the story to be enjoyable simply for its exploration of prejudice and the angst of telling one's family that they're not quite as the parents would have them be. I would have liked for the background to be more cohesive around those themes, but...c'est a vie.

[Elisa Rolle]

This was a strange book for me to read since it was a discovery after other. When I browsed my reading folder to pick up a book, my eyes caught the name of Maia Strong: it was not a new name for me, I read another book, a fantasy gay romance, and I remembered that I liked it, so I picked that one. Usually before starting I go to the publisher website to read the blurb (not reviews, I don't like to be even unwillingly lead on my judge): the blurb serves me to be mentally ready to the story, it's a contemporary, a paranormal, a fantasy, it's a romance, a thriller, it's angst, light... something like that. The blurb in this case was strange, it seemed an ordinary story about a man from a very religious jewish family who has not the courage to come out to them. Nothing strange or odd there. But then there was a word, brothel... I'm not so skilled in the matter to know if "brothels" are legal or not in every country of the world, I know they aren't in Italy, but I think they are in some northern European country, even if maybe they are not called brothel. So first question on my mind: where the book was set? and in which era? Then there was the issue of the law, a changing in love troubled the main character, a clear reference to homosexuality and prejudice... so again, my question was: I was starting a contemporary romance? or an historical? or something other? Knowing, if if slightly the author, I had an advantage point, I knew it was possible that the book was a fantasy. The cover didn't help, it was "neutral", even if, I don't know, that cover makes me thing to a contemporary romance... it's something in the men, the hair cut, even the physique.

Anyway, long preface to say that Client Privileges is a fantasy romance; more, it's setting in the same universe of The Ballad of Jimothy Redwing, the previous fantasy romance I read by Maia Strong, and one secondary character, that has only a reference cameo here, is a main character in the other story, and an event that happens here is also a main event in there. The time span of the two story is in parallel, so they are both stand alone, but I think that, if your read the previous one, and you liked it, it will be nice for you to read this one, and viceversa.

There are common elements in the two stories, above all the way the author deals with the fantasy setting. It's actually an "ordinary" way, she seems so familiar with her universe that she feels like unnecessary to spend time in details, the city, the environment in which the characters live, is out there, plain and clear, without forced imaginary. It's a point of strength for me, I actually don't like very much fantasy or futuristic novel since usually I'm bothered by all the heavy set around: more the author build a complicated universe, more he needs to explain it to the readers, and more he risks to overdo. Maia Strong built a fantasy universe that is basically a feudalism society, each municipality is ordered by a town council or by guilds; the overall feeling is of something neat and pleasant to live, even with its trouble. There is poverty, there are difference in social status, there is prejudice.

There is also an hanging feeling, it's very hard for me to explain: it's like the setting is "ancient" but the characters are modern. People move in a town where houses, shops, and vehicle are "old", but they behave and think with a "modern" mind. It's not a criticism, I think it's a very difficult balance to maintain, and not an easy task to write a believable story, something I think the author reached. These words, balance, believable, are the essence of the story, this is not a "rollercoast" type of story, but more a pleasant travel in a coach along the country.

http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/82...

[FloJ · Rating 2 out of 5]

This would have been ok if she hadn't felt the need to add the fantasy to it. It didn't achieve anything other than irritate me excessively. So downgraded from a 3 to 2 star rating.

[Nightcolors · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars, rounded up.