Why did I opt to read a pirate ménage à trois romance? I blame Alexis Hall. His review of Sea of Ruin, which may be found here, is so engagingly hilarious I had to check out the book for myself. That's five hours of my life I'll never get back. Sigh.
As a rule, I am all for the suspension of disbelief in art. I don't need to actually believe in time travel to enjoy Outlander. Our imaginations allow us to explore the unknown and the unlikely and that's a damn good thing.
That said, a book set in the early 1700s in which a smoking hot 21 year old tiny blonde who spends inordinate amounts of time having kinky sex in various cabins on the high seas is the most successful pirate captain floating about the New World turned out to be too much for me. Throw in a gag inducing amount of rape, torture, and extremely florid writing and you have a god awful novel. Which, inexplicably, is a best seller. As my mom says, there's no accounting for taste.
Amazon summarizes this far fetched plot thusly:
Bennett Sharp is on the run.
Wanted for piracy, she fears neither God nor death nor man.
Except Priest Farrell.Passion heats, secrets unravel, and hearts entangle until they break.
I'm betting you can guess how the three collide. Thankfully, one of our three exceptionally good-looking leads--and the one who has the largest dick to ever cross the Atlantic--is never without lube. (I'm curious as to what that substance actually was. Carrageenan? Clove oil? Sadly, this is never specified. But I digress.)
When we meet Bennett, she is on the run from her husband, the sexiest man in Christendom, the inaptly named Priest. Bennett and Priest are estranged because a year into their we-have-sex-all-the-time-even-though-we-are-the-leaders-of--a-large-ship-with-guns marriage, Bennett found a breakup letter to Priest from a mysterious lover and this made her feel very very bad. Priest refused to tell her who penned said missive for reasons (whomever do you think it could be?!?!?) and so she left him.
Priest, of course, finds her. The two board Bennett's ship, Jade, where Bennett promptly imprisons him in her bilge. The two have endless lust filled chats while Bennett tortures him with orange juice (he's allergic), but before they can begin again boning, Bennett's ship is overtaken by a British Navy warship.
To save her crew, Bennett surrenders to said warship's captain, one Ashley Cutler, the second sexiest man sailing the Americas. He, after hanging her over the side of his ship for a day or two, installs her in his cabin and the two... chat. At first. Ashley, of course, must decide what matters to him more. Bennett or his career? Masturbation or anal sex? And, of course, Priest is hot on their beautifully shaped tails. Oh the suspense. #not
Over the book's too many pages, though Bennett does have a great deal of inventive consensual sex, she is also repeatedly violently sexually violated, horrifically tortured, and routinely unable to wash her heavy, golden, waist length tresses. (They are mentioned repeatedly.) Others too are horribly maimed, brutalized, and murdered. If you've ever longed for a book that offers almost unreadable nihilistic brutality punctuated by gleefully inane, physically unlikely sex scenes, Sea of Ruin is for you!*
The book does offer a heartwarming HEA. Bennett, Priest, and Ashley get both an HEA and the joy of torturing--for months!--one of their many enemies. I mean, what is true love without inventive maiming? And, of course, an endless supply of lube.
(The violence in this book is so upsetting that, when I was describing it to my husband, a physician, he asked me to stop. Unless you are able to handle grotesque gore, do not read this book.)
Sensuality: Hot
Publication Date: 04/2020
Recent Comments …
I didn’t realize there was a new book out by this author. I liked Nina Hill and Adult Assembly Required…
Hopefully it will get onto the poll. I’m 100% sure there’s some obvious book that I forgot about.
Yes, sorry, I meant e-books – I don’t read anything else these days. My library is county-wide, too, but I…
You’re welcome. If you want to know more, I can add some information to the spoiler, just let me know.
Thanks for sharing that insight, Caz. I haven’t read *spoiler* but it’s helpful to read your thoughts as I assess…
Is that true for ebooks as well? Because my library (bless it!) is part of a county-wide system for ebooks,…