Weekly Reader: The Protrectress by Ayura Ayira; Erotic Power Play Between Demigoddess and Mortal Is Sultry, Sexy, and Surprisingly Sweet

 

Weekly Reader: The Protrectress by Ayura Ayira; Erotic Power Play Between Demigoddess and Mortal Is Sultry, Sexy, and Surprisingly Sweet

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Erotic Fiction often consists of sexual power play between two or several parties. It often is a one on one battle in which the characters use their most basic weapons of their body and sexuality to score against their rival turned lover. Their attraction towards each other is delayed until the end when the struggle is over and the lovers are separated or move their relationship from the sexual to the emotional.

The Protectress by Ayura Ayira is one such example. It's an erotic novel which is actually a power play between a demigoddess and a mortal man that is sultry and sexy, but ends up being surprisingly sweet.

Tilelli, the Protectress of the Golden Kingdoms, is at war against invading armies that would turn her beloved kingdom into a dystopia. She is a leader and inspiration for her people and is destined to lead them to a new future. If she is removed, all is lost. During a strategic attack when she and her army claim victory only to find themselves retaliated by their cunning enemies, Tilelli is left unguarded and unarmied. Left alone, she is rescued by Bashir, a seemingly loyal stranger. It turns out Bashir is hardly a convenient knight-errant in the right place at the right time. In fact, Bashir is an opportunist who seizes a golden opportunity for himself when he makes the Protectress his prisoner and tries to make her his sex slave.

Tilelli is a woman of great strength and power, one whom Bashir severely underestimates. He is of the limited opinion that being a woman and royalty that she will be easy to break. He clearly does not know her. Bashir may have pined for and grown obsessed with her, but he will have a difficult time getting her to submit. She is clearly the dominant presence in the story despite her captivity. 

Bashir puts Tilelli on edge. He alternates between being charming and being brutal. He has long lusted after Tilelli and until she practically fell into his vicinity. He uses his masculinity to bring her down to his level. But what turns her on is not sexuality, but his humanity.

As expected with erotic fiction, the sex scenes are plentiful and passionate. The characters' sexualities are used as weapons against each other. Each scene is like a small battle or challenge between them where one is a victor only to be the loser next time. It is a passionate dance with no clear winner except each other.

Normally, I am not a fan of erotic fiction where one character kidnaps another and forces them into bondage sexual situation (I mean how consensual can it be if one of the parties is forced into it?) However, in this situation because the two characters are equals in temperament and control one, is not wholly dominating over the other. It's more of a competition between two strong minded individuals trying to bring each other down and then find that they enjoy the conflict and becoming worthy opponents rather than sexually charged enemies on opposite sides.

Surprisingly, this spicy novel has some sweetness when Tilelli and Bashir join forces. Their sexual biplay transmogrifies into a real partnership. They no longer seek to dominate one another. Instead, they bring the best in each other.

The Protectress is a novel that has plenty of heat and spice but just a small amount of sugar to make not only the sex sell but the characters as well.

New Book Alert: Succubus Affair by R.E. Wood; Erotically Charged Supernatural Thriller Brings Mythological Villainess to Modern Day Manhattan

New Book Alert: Succubus Affair by R.E. Wood; Erotically Charged Supernatural Thriller Brings Mythological Villainess to Modern Day Manhattan


By Julie Sara Porter


Bookworm Reviews





Warning: This review will frankly discuss the sexual themes and descriptions in this book of which there are plenty. Reader discretion is advised.

Spoilers: Lilith is an intriguing character in Jewish folklore. A figure from the Apocryphal Bible, she was Adam's first wife and was created from the dust like him. She refused to take a secondary position and she was cast out of the Garden of Eden and Eve grew from Adam's rib to emphasize her subservience.
Lilith's legend has taken on various characteristics depending on who reads her legend and interprets the analytical and allegorical meaning behind her.
Starting in the Medieval Era, she had been seen as a Succubus, a female spirit that visits homes at night to steal the breath from infants and render men impotent and powerless. (Some believe that her mouth explained the origin of nocturnal emissions.) In some literary and legendary accounts, she is seen as an unrepentant demon from the depths of Hell.
In more recent times, she has gained a different outlook. Many feminists see her as a symbol of rebellion against the patriarchy that in her willingness to leave Eden instead of obeying Adam, she was declaring her independence. She is seen as a vibrant sexually charged character who takes control of her life.

R.E. Wood gives us this complex figure in his novel, Succubus Affair. Wood transports the legendary demon to Modern day Manhattan in this erotic sexually charged supernatural thriller which is also a commentary on modern consumerist desire for self-gratification and the sexual and emotional power plays between lovers.


When Lilith enters the novel, she proves to be a seductive force to be reckoned with. She seduces a man at a nightclub and after some mind blowing sex, she drains the life from him turning him from a horny young man in his early twenties to an emaciated old man drained of life. She also literally grows a pair to seduce a gay customer service representative with the same results.

However, Lilith is not just in Manhattan to satisfy her hunger and sexual urges. She has long-term goals to get money and power. She gets both in Norman Gleason, CEO of Gleason Financial Services. She manipulated her way into the job of Norman's personal assistant removing his suspicious former assistant then moves into his house alienating Norman's gorgeous wife, Judith who not surprisingly wants a divorce.
Lilith thinks that she has it made or is going to get it: a billion dollar fortune, a powerful position as assistant and possibly CEO once she receives Norman's finances and seizes control of his company, and enough men in Manhattan to satisfy her hunger. But she is drawn to Bob Martin, a newlywed employee of GFS. He at first resists her and she is incensed and curious about why Bob is so different and why he has such a hold on her.


Succubus Affair is a superior book to Voodoo Warning in every way: superior in suspense and fear, superior in description, and superior in characterization. When the plot of a horror novel involves relationships, the author better make them interesting and Wood does.

The most interesting figure is Lilith herself. She is not identifiable or relateable, but she is mesmerizing. As she draws in her prey, she seems to draw in the Reader so that they are not rooting for her but they are fascinated by what she does and how she operates. She painfully emasculates a potential rapist and completely destroys seven men in a bloody terrifying group orgy. She is like a villainess in a soap opera or a psychological thriller (of course being Lilith, she is the O.G. of female antagonists). She wants and she isn't afraid to take what she wants sometimes in the most destructive, illegal, and painful way imagined.

It makes sense that Lilith comes to the modern 21st century. In a time when consumerism and self-gratification is high, here comes a creature who is the living embodiment of that desire to please ourselves.

It is no coincidence that Lilith ruins romantic and familial ties. When dating can be disposable, people change couples as fast as they change their clothes, and love can sometimes be hard to find and define, of course there would be a creature who survived by severing those ties.

It is also no coincidence that it's a female character doing this. Lilith is not an outsider from another time. She exhibits those patriarchal alpha characteristics of dominant sexuality and instant gratification and turns it around on the male characters in the story.


This leads to an interesting question: how much of Lilith's behavior is mesmerism and do her assailants have any free will or control over their behavior? Many characters that she seduces are the types who are drawn by sex and their own bravado.

When Judith learns the truth that Lilith is a succubus, she points out that Norman is still responsible for leaving her and allowing Lilith to gain access to his accounts and business. Judith continues divorce proceedings and obtaining her assets from her ex-husband and his demonic mistress.

Bob is able to resist Lilith for a long time because he is happily married to his wife, Mags. Even when he succumbs to Lilith, he is torn between being led by his heart for Mags and his dildo for Lilith. That is what fascinates Lilith so much, that he is able to resist her magnetism for so long. His love is a shield from his desires and that makes Lilith so determined to have him and break those desires.

Succubus Affair is a novel that is graphic and erotic in how it reveals the characters’ sexuality but it is intelligent in how it turns that sexuality on the characters’ heads into something seductive, and dangerous. passpassionate, and dangerous. AN