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Book Review of Apprenticed to Pleasure (Pledged to Magic, Bk 1)

Apprenticed to Pleasure (Pledged to Magic, Bk 1)
havan avatar reviewed on + 138 more book reviews


Ander was a pampered musician in Pella's finest brothel. Having grown up there he was free to play his music and only go with men who HE wanted. But that was beginning to be a problem in that a Seraskier, one of the Zamindar's fiercest guards had taken a fancy to him. And just when Sorel and Nicolai, two amazingly attractive young men from out of town had chosen him to "get acquainted" with.

So starts a fantasy adventure unlike anything else I've read. It seems that magic (or the Kei as its termed here) can only be worked only through pleasure or pain. And if the Zamindar has chosen pain, Thane and his student have chosen to explore the power of pleasure, something that Ander is particularly gifted at.

This book is one of the best blends of the erotic with the narrative tale that I've encountered in a long long time. Sure its all about the working of magic but if that requires hot hot sex, well I'm willing to suffer through such things for the sake of a good story. And this IS a good story. Also one of the hottest I've read in a while. The sex scenes are better described than most things I've read and the prose is so skilfully crafted that the reader is drawn into some very vivid scenes... And that's the real magic here.

I'm avidly looking forward to Conjuring the Flesh and Sex Rites parts 2 and 3 of this great swords and sorcery fantasy.

One complaint... The image on the cover of this book suggested to me that it was a stroke fiction work of lesser quality than the story inside turned out to be. I actually bought this book over a decade ago and it's been languishing in my TBR queue. If only I'd known how well written it was it would have been read years ago.