WARNING - this is extreme BDSM, the majority of this book is sexual in nature. It is a fantasy fairytale of BDSM dreams. The previous books in this series were often shocking and cruel, this latest book in the series while still cruel and shocking at times also shows more clearly the affection and devotion that I felt was lacking in the previous books. I feel this was the best book in the series. The author's flashbacks also gave more insight.
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I felt this story, much like Prince Lestat, is just a way to catch up with her old characters and prepare us for more books to come. It felt like so much backstory and openings of new storylines but without a storyline itself. I hope the next book, if there is one, will focus on fewer characters and be more in depth. The beginning felt rushed-how Beauty and Laurent come back, the Queen dying, and how quickly the kingdom flourished. However, Anne Rice is descriptive as ever with her discipline of slaves and their adornments. It makes for a more comfortable read knowing that all the slaves are now voluntary- but that felt a bit like Rice was trying to be PC. ( )

If you've enjoyed the other three books in this series, I recommend this one. If you haven't read them, I recommend you start with the first. This one is stronger writing, weaker storytelling, but for the most part just more of the same.

The premise of the series is that it's a fantasy kingdom with slaves kept as sexual playthings - always naked, always ready for sex, often subjected to kinky punishments. The premise of this book is that the new queen decides that instead of taking slaves as tribute they will only take slaves who want to serve. And now they have a bunch of new slaves and a bunch of new kinky punishments.

A few lines of this book also subtly rewrite the premise of the previous books, suggesting that they actually only ever kept slaves who more or less enjoyed it and dismissed the ones who didn't. Although the books were always kind of premised on the idea that the slaves were really kind of into it, with most of the books told from the slaves' perspectives.

I'm curious how much this book is shaped by the author's own discomfort with the fantasy of non-consent.

I'm also curious how Fifty Shades of Grey was skewered for modeling poor consent while books like this and movies like Secretary weren't. This is a better book, Secretary is a better movie, but neither actually models better consent. The difference might be that it's harder to mistake either as a model for real-life consent practices.

I think it's worth critiquing media based on the negative values it could impart, but I also think it's worth drawing a clearer distinction between that critique and saying a fiction is bad just because people in the fiction do bad things. Because I also think we need to get better at allowing ourselves and others to enjoy sexual fantasies as fantasies. ( )

its really slow. i like the premis but still ( )

Anne Rice has written a fourth volume to the Sleeping Beauty Trilogy she wrote in 1983 under the pseudonym A. N. Roquelaure. The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, Beauty's Punishment, and Beauty's Release now have a companion volume called Beauty's Kingdom. The original trilogy was an erotic retelling of the Sleeping Beauty legend in which the prince who awakens Beauty after her 100 years of sleep takes her away from her familial home to live in sexual servitude in his mother's kingdom, a land where the children of the neighboring kingdoms are taken to serve and please the nobles of the court.

It has been thirty years between the publication of the final volume of the trilogy and the release of this fourth installment, but in Beauty's world a little over 20 years have gone by. She and her husband Laurent have retired and passed on their kingdom to their son. The old queen and her son have died while on an ocean voyage, and messengers visit Laurent and Beauty to ask if they would be willing to rule her mysterious land of erotic servitude. They agree to become the rulers of what is to become known as Beauty's Kingdom with the stipulation that from now on all erotic servitude be voluntary and no longer restricted to the nobility.

The book is in eighteen chapters, each told from a different person's perspective. Beauty is the narrator of five chapters, her husband King Laurent of two. Lady Eva, who was in charge in the queen's absence has four chapters. The story progresses slowly and without the brutality of the forced servitude of the original trilogy. Yet Anne Rice shows she still can write convincingly and beautifully on this subject. Some of the fans of the original volumes are disappointed, which can be expected. This is not volume four of the trilogy. It is a look back at the story by a more mature author and brings her readers for a new look at the setting with a different perspective. No longer is Beauty the passive yet erotically aroused submissive. She is now the queen and it is her vision that will bring the kingdom back to life and give it new meaning. Yet she is not a dominatrix like the old queen, and it is this difference that gives this new volume a life of its own. ( )