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Dark Prince, Heed Thy Queen

IN THE REALM OF ROLES AND REVERSALS

Thin and unassuming, K.’s latest is a titillating and highly provocative tinderbox, conflating taboo themes of hierarchal...

Awards & Accolades

Our Verdict

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Prolific eroticist K. (Honey B., Sexual Consultant, 2014, etc.) conjures a fictionalized wet dream starring a hypersexualized woman and the domineering hoodlum who sexually enslaves her.

Though the mysterious, unnamed raconteur of this erotica describes herself as an ordinary woman, she’s really an experienced physician who exudes “a sensation of calm, a sense of security.” She’s swept away by a cocksure, bearded, “dense and dreamy” stranger named Nathan, whose livelihood includes larceny and money counterfeiting. K.’s novella, easily read in one heated sitting, glosses over plot in favor of the sexual exploits between the narrator and Nathan as their relationship intensifies to incorporate kink and sadomasochism. Nathan is slowly revealed to be a crestfallen attorney and military serviceman–turned-criminal, but that hardly deters the narrator from pursuing him. Their respective appetites for carnal satisfaction seem infinite; any opportunity for role-playing and sexual adventure is met with agreement, including the addition of Jo, Nathan’s sexy “surrogate,” to their lovemaking. The book consists of short vignettes that ultimately blur into a carnal cacophony of three-ways, safe words, penis rings, and jail bailouts, as the narrator who “wanted a bad boy and got one” swiftly becomes rapt and ultimately enamored by Nathan’s sexual bravado. Readers of graphic erotic fiction will appreciate K.’s smooth delivery of unbridled passion coupled with introspective ponderings in which the veil lifts to reveal her protagonist’s true nature. This aspect elevates the narrative from one-note fantasy to an explicitly personal chronicle complete with a surprise ending. Although the ever reliable narrator spends most of her time being bossed around and used like a Fifty Shades sex toy, the story is very much owned and operated by her. “I didn’t want somebody to love,” she unapologetically confesses. “It was more selfish than that, I wanted somebody to enjoy my body with me.”

Thin and unassuming, K.’s latest is a titillating and highly provocative tinderbox, conflating taboo themes of hierarchal subservience, gender domination, and eroticized objectification.

Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2014

ISBN: 978-1-5002-6171-9

Page Count: 132

Publisher: CreateSpace

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015

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CARRIE

King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...

Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).

All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.

King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."

Pub Date: April 8, 1974

ISBN: 0385086954

Page Count: 216

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.

Pub Date: July 11, 1960

ISBN: 0060935464

Page Count: 323

Publisher: Lippincott

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960

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