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The Rake Series #1
The Rake
Henry Truscott is a dissipated rake even by late-18th-century standards. When his eye catches the beautiful Eloise, he gets more than he anticipated in every way, trading seduction and revenge and using her and her maids in a perverse manner as they are chased across France by revolutionaries.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
4 people are currently reading
16 people want to read
About the author
Aishling Morgan
70 books28 followers"You can have me for as long as your money burns."
This is a quote from notorious nineteenth century courtesan Cora Pearl, or so I am led to believe by the magazine article which inspired the story The Rake, originally published in the early 'nineties. It was one of many, the product of years of reading and writing, purely for private entertainment, but The Rake was expanded to become a novel, and when asked for a pen name I chose Aishling Morgan. More precisely, I had a few minutes to make my choice and quickly came up with something that sounded vaguely Celtic, vaguely romantic and might be male of female. As it turns out, Aishling is very rare indeed as a male name, but then at the time I had no idea that The Rake would be the first of many books, more than thirty in all.
Aishling Morgan is not my only pseudonym by any means, and I've now had over 100 books published, mainly novels, but also short story collections and a little non-fiction. Aishling Morgan is the name I use for my most imaginative work, done for the love of writing and of erotica, which has been my metier since long before I'd considered it as a profession. I've also been involved with the UK fetish scene since the early days, which has provided plenty of background knowledge and inspiration.
The Aishling Morgan books are diverse, with a wide variety of settings and characters, while I aim to provide sufficient plot to make each story worthwhile in its own right. Their erotic content is also highly diverse but tends to focus on power play and exotic sex, sometimes very exotic, and always an integral part of the story.
This is a quote from notorious nineteenth century courtesan Cora Pearl, or so I am led to believe by the magazine article which inspired the story The Rake, originally published in the early 'nineties. It was one of many, the product of years of reading and writing, purely for private entertainment, but The Rake was expanded to become a novel, and when asked for a pen name I chose Aishling Morgan. More precisely, I had a few minutes to make my choice and quickly came up with something that sounded vaguely Celtic, vaguely romantic and might be male of female. As it turns out, Aishling is very rare indeed as a male name, but then at the time I had no idea that The Rake would be the first of many books, more than thirty in all.
Aishling Morgan is not my only pseudonym by any means, and I've now had over 100 books published, mainly novels, but also short story collections and a little non-fiction. Aishling Morgan is the name I use for my most imaginative work, done for the love of writing and of erotica, which has been my metier since long before I'd considered it as a profession. I've also been involved with the UK fetish scene since the early days, which has provided plenty of background knowledge and inspiration.
The Aishling Morgan books are diverse, with a wide variety of settings and characters, while I aim to provide sufficient plot to make each story worthwhile in its own right. Their erotic content is also highly diverse but tends to focus on power play and exotic sex, sometimes very exotic, and always an integral part of the story.
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July 22, 2015
Based on what I could find this is Aishling Morgan's first novel. I made the mistake of reading a novel she wrote years after this one and the writing has improved dramatically since the release of "The Rake". Unfortunately I think this has put me in a bit of a biased perspective for the quality of this novel. I don't think this really competes with her later works.
First off I would like to say I enjoyed the setting. This takes place during revolutionary era France. Aishling uses period slang in parts, but she includes a little glossary in the book so you'll be able to easily figure out what is really meant. This story is centered on a rather uncouth fellow named Henry Truscott whose main passions in life seem to be sex and drinking. However, Henry usually likes to be in control of his situations and this takes a turn out of his control when he meets Eloise. She is from the uppity realm of higher French society, so her sense of entitlement runs in conflict with Henry at times. He doesn't seem to believe people are entitled to the same things she does. "The Rake" takes us through a great journey these two have to embark on when the Revolution starts to get out of control. Henry winds up in a situation where it's in his best interest to escape England for a while and it just so happens Eloise could use some help... whether she wants it or not. Eventually these two find that their lives crossing paths was one of the best things that happened to them. They can fulfill each others needs sexually as well as other things.
Now don't get confused, this book has plenty of erotic scenes in it. One of my personal favorites was the one involving Eloise and a mud pit. Henry's depravity is quite whimsical in the sense that he doesn't seem to "plan" his sexual escapades. Rather he chooses to embark on them in the spur of the moment. There are some corporal punishment scenes in the guise of mostly spanking. There isn't very much bondage and anything related to the human toilet fantasy is actually kept fairly low key, though it is included in parts. There is a decent amount of f/f activity and one of Henry's goals is to be in a situation of m/f/f, where he does succeed in getting this. The majority of the scenes are built around submission, usually in the form of Henry getting what he wants from a willing woman.
For me the first part of the book was kind of hard to get into. It seemed like the whole point of "The Rake" was to get into whatever wanton erotic scene could be thought of without actually crafting a story. Eventually, about half way through, the story takes off a bit more. The characters are developed more fully and the book actually becomes quite adventurous. If Aishling could manage to balance this out a bit more in her writing she would be a tour de force in the genre of erotic writing. She is clearly quite skilled at crafting stories, but I don't think "The Rake" is a culmination of her actual abilities, rather a glimpse at her potential. It is an admirable first effort, but I'm more eager to see what else she has in store for us in the future as her writing prowess begins to develop with experience.
First off I would like to say I enjoyed the setting. This takes place during revolutionary era France. Aishling uses period slang in parts, but she includes a little glossary in the book so you'll be able to easily figure out what is really meant. This story is centered on a rather uncouth fellow named Henry Truscott whose main passions in life seem to be sex and drinking. However, Henry usually likes to be in control of his situations and this takes a turn out of his control when he meets Eloise. She is from the uppity realm of higher French society, so her sense of entitlement runs in conflict with Henry at times. He doesn't seem to believe people are entitled to the same things she does. "The Rake" takes us through a great journey these two have to embark on when the Revolution starts to get out of control. Henry winds up in a situation where it's in his best interest to escape England for a while and it just so happens Eloise could use some help... whether she wants it or not. Eventually these two find that their lives crossing paths was one of the best things that happened to them. They can fulfill each others needs sexually as well as other things.
Now don't get confused, this book has plenty of erotic scenes in it. One of my personal favorites was the one involving Eloise and a mud pit. Henry's depravity is quite whimsical in the sense that he doesn't seem to "plan" his sexual escapades. Rather he chooses to embark on them in the spur of the moment. There are some corporal punishment scenes in the guise of mostly spanking. There isn't very much bondage and anything related to the human toilet fantasy is actually kept fairly low key, though it is included in parts. There is a decent amount of f/f activity and one of Henry's goals is to be in a situation of m/f/f, where he does succeed in getting this. The majority of the scenes are built around submission, usually in the form of Henry getting what he wants from a willing woman.
For me the first part of the book was kind of hard to get into. It seemed like the whole point of "The Rake" was to get into whatever wanton erotic scene could be thought of without actually crafting a story. Eventually, about half way through, the story takes off a bit more. The characters are developed more fully and the book actually becomes quite adventurous. If Aishling could manage to balance this out a bit more in her writing she would be a tour de force in the genre of erotic writing. She is clearly quite skilled at crafting stories, but I don't think "The Rake" is a culmination of her actual abilities, rather a glimpse at her potential. It is an admirable first effort, but I'm more eager to see what else she has in store for us in the future as her writing prowess begins to develop with experience.
Displaying 1 of 1 review