The Nitty Gritty: When things go bump in the night, who are you going to call? Phaeton Black of Scotland Yard of course! That's if he's not tits deep in a wonton harlot.
Then try him again in a couple of hours...if he's not drunk or high.
Phaeton Black is the Crown's only Special Branch investigator, and the Casanova of the British Empire, and not necessarily in that order. Its his job to hunt down those unique cases dealing with the paranormal set when the Yard is stumped.
While on the case of a London blood sucker he runs into America Jones, the daughter of a British father and Cajun witch mother. Miss Jones is on the trail of the pirates who stripped her father's shipping company of his cargo ships. There first meeting is anything but PG.
On the trail of Jack the Ripper and a new vampire in town Phaeton falls under the spell of the devilishly beautiful Miss Jones. America is more interested in finding her father's ships than she is a bedmate. Till Phaeton introduces her to the Kama Sutra. Then all bets are off as the pair race around England looking for pirates, vampires, and Egyptian death gods, oh my.
Opening Line: "Oh, Please No Madam, he is a beast," The harlot wailed."
The Good: America Jones is at least a character of color. I wished she could have been just a character of color without the British invasion. I am sure there were a plethora of Black and African people in England during the Victorian era. Though it makes sense for her to have a British father to cut through at least that red tape. I do like that Stone didn't just toss away the racism aspect. A lot of authors who have characters of color never address that fact. I don't care who seamless a transition that character has into white America, Britain, ect... there is always that undercurrent of racism. Its a fact of life and its stupid to ignore that. Even in fantasy.
However I wished it could have been further explored. Not as a social exploration of racism in Victorian England; this just isn't the book for that, but just a little more. As tough as America is I expected more of a fight out of her when confronted with racism.
The Bad: Where should I start? Well how about the beginning. There is a school of thought about fiction that you should begin a story with action. No me I have seen authors who start slowly and then smack us with their genies as the story unfolds. Then there are authors who begin in the middle of action, go back and give us background and still have a fanciful tale that will entertain the masses.
Then there is the Seduction of Phaeton Black, which strives to be shocking by starting out with the madame of a reputable whore house trying to convince a girl to take on Phaeton Black. Literally. Some people might find this interesting or even great. Me, I think its a page out of the Miley Cyrus 'build a grown up' play set. I really think Stone is trying a little too hard. Um....yeah, I meant that pun.
When I open up a book that boasts to be a fantasy book I just don't expect to be slapped in the face with a sex scene. Especially one when the girl (even if she is a working girl) has to be pushed into doing the deed.
Second problem. The first meeting between the protagonists is a tad rapey. Remove the tad and you have Black and Joneses first encounter.
I mean all Phaeton had to do was pretend to kiss Miss Jones. We've seen that ploy in plenty of romantic comedies and want to be spy movies with a bumbling lady detective. It works. The audience gets a laugh and the protagonists stay alive.
Instead Phaeton grabs ahold of her, hikes up her skirts and plunges his staff into her honeypot without so much as a 'hey how you doing'. I mean I don't know maybe in this 'Blurred Lines' culture we seem to be living in its ok for the consensual sex thing to be blurry. Mer personally, I would have stabbed him. Repeatedly. Till I got tired.
So after this America manages to knock herself while trying to punch Phaeton for taking advantage of her. Stone sort of knows that that scene was a tad iffy, so she gives us America's fiery side. We cheer, all is right with the world. Well Phaeton takes her home, proceeds to tie her up, for no reason at all. He was in the wrong, not America.
Then he turns around and has the nerve to have sex with America again when she's tied to a chair because he didn't do his best job the first time. I gather the author thought that would make their chance meeting mysterious and heart stopping. I wanted to call the constable myself. I don't find rape, nor forced sex funny at all.
Maybe that is just me.
Problem number 3. Why the hell is this book 34 chapters long? And I saw long because this book dragged out from the word go. It could have been over and done with by chapter 20 to be honest. This book meandered from sex, to fellatio, to the opera, to airships, to vampires, to Jack the Ripper to Anubis with a riding crop banging his wife in a crypt along the Thames, back to pirates.
O_o.....
I've been to tax law seminars that made more sense than this book. I still have no idea what this story is really about. It mashes together two and three plot lines that really should have been stand alone books just for the sake of having an actual plot to fluff up the sex.
Well Ms. Stone, you could have just written an erotic novel and saved us the trouble of believing this was an actual novel. I wouldn't have been mad at you. I promise.
Phaeton Black is a man whose only life's ambition is to drink and whore his way through London. He is a well off man who chooses to live under a brothel. So that the ladies are always close at hand when he needs a good shagging. He had more motivation to have sex with America and the other ladies than he did to do his job. I can see that Ms. Stone went with the James Bond archetype. Well Ms. Stone 007 was as much about the job as he was about looking good while doing it and leaving broken hearts across the globe. Phaeton Black is just a sorry excuse for a Bond want to be.
Thoughts on the Series: My libido wants to keep reading the series for the sex, but my brain can't keep up with the mashed potatoed plot lines and convoluted plot twists. I think my brain is going to win this battle.
No comments:
Post a Comment