An afternoon’s delight for devotees of the kinky, but others might hope for more to wrap their minds around.
This erotic novel traces a woman’s ascendancy to the leadership of a Balkan country, a feat accomplished and accompanied by frequent sexual escapades.
First-time author Stewart relates the lubricious, sometimes scatological tale of Roxanne, a woman whose father, the deposed king of an Eastern European country, has ended up in England after her mother died in unspecified “upheavals” in their former homeland. Undeterred, Roxanne makes her way back as an adult, gradually gaining power, often by getting it on with various men and women in and out of her office. “I’ve done a lot of strategic fucking to get here,” she says, though it’s not all work and no play; she clearly enjoys sex. As she notes after knocking off the president, who dies of a heart attack in bed with her, “Fucking presidents to death must agree with me.” Highlighted by nonstop sex, her subsequent tenure in the executive suite makes Bill Clinton look like a prude. The author gives graphic, blow-by-blow descriptions that border on the clinical of encounters between men and women, women and women, and wilder X-rated happenings. Indeed, though a novel, this book could serve as a useful primer for budding cunnilinguists and as an addendum to the Kama Sutra. Unfortunately, without much interest beyond the bedroom, the plot is too thin to hold the novel together. Though Stewart occasionally tries to sandwich some political philosophy in between the sex sessions, the thoughts on monarchy and democracy are far from profound and are sometimes incomprehensible. Usually competent, the writing stumbles at times, as when a character is “as proud as punch” to have brought a lover to orgasm. For the most part, characters display few attributes besides lascivious ones, so they tend to come off more as mechanical meat puppets than flesh-and-blood humans. Eventually, after so much sex, the novel’s strong suit—its frank approach to and presentation of sex—turns into a weakness: Reading sex scene after sex scene becomes too routine to draw much excitement.
An afternoon’s delight for devotees of the kinky, but others might hope for more to wrap their minds around.Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2012
ISBN: 978-1477223284
Page Count: 148
Publisher: AuthorHouseUK
Review Posted Online: March 18, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
King goes non-supernatural this time—and the result, despite the usual padding, is a tighter, more effective horror novel. We are once more up in Castle Rock, Maine, ayuh, where the natives are striving to survive some earlier King visitations of the unspeakable. Recent arrival Vic Trenton, who has brought a big ad account with him from New York, is having a hard time hanging onto both the Sharp cereals campaign and his wife Donna, who has just severed an affair with a filthy-poet/furniture-stripper. Meanwhile: Joe Camber, an alcoholic auto mechanic, is angry at wife Charity for wanting to take their son Brett on a visit to her folks (he's afraid Brett will get a taste of sane family life that will show up Joe's madness), but finally—figuring that he'll have a hot time while she's gone—Joe agrees. And all of this sets the scene for some big, extended horror sequences hi Joe's yard. You see, Brett's 200-pound St. Bernard ("Cujo") has chased a rabbit into a big hole also occupied by bats, and a rabid bat bites Cujo's nose. Soon the dog is acting queerly, slavering, and going mad with a headache that warps his thinking about men: Cujo is lost in a mist and can't be found the day Charity and Brett leave. The first to die is Joe's buddy Gary Pervier—who lives just down at the foot of the hill from Camber's yard and crosses Cujo hi his own yard. Later, when Joe finds Gary's body he himself has but two minutes or so to live. And next Donna's car breaks down, so she drives it into Camber's yard with her four-year-old Tad: they're attacked in their car and kept there for three days, even after an investigating cop is killed. Finally, then, there's the dog-versus-woman showdown as savaged Donna, now half-crazed, kills Cujo with a ballbat—but it's too late to save Tad, whose heart gives out. . . . The inevitable film is going to be hard on St. Bernards and may even seriously affect their good-guy image. But, the ASPCA notwithstanding, there's no denying that King's three-day vigil in the carnage has a solid hook that will hold his fans; and his Maine humors do offer witty relief. so once again. . . the moola will flow.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1981
ISBN: 0451161351
Page Count: 324
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1981
This vibrant, thoughtful book from Katz (Over the Moon, 1997) continues her tribute to her adopted daughter, Lena, born in Guatemala. Lena is “seven. I am the color of cinnamon. Mom says she could eat me up”; she learns during a painting lesson that to get the color brown, she will have to “mix red, yellow, black, and white paints.” They go for a walk to observe the many shades of brown: they see Sonia, who is the color of creamy peanut butter; Isabella, who is chocolate brown; Lucy, both peachy and tan; Jo-Jin, the color of honey; Kyle, “like leaves in fall”; Mr. Pellegrino, the color of pizza crust, golden brown. Lena realizes that every shade is beautiful, then mixes her paints accordingly for portraits of her friends—“The colors of us!” Bold illustrations celebrate diversity with a child’s open-hearted sensibility and a mother’s love. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-8050-5864-8
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1999
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