Across the Sea
Irene MaillolErotic fantasy romance
Available from Extasy Books
ISBN: 1-55410-043-7
December 2003
| During a raid for slave women, Eidolan and Jugger capture a girl named Elora from a fishing village. She is innocent, unable to read or write, but has a quality that is hard to ignore. She intrigues Eidolan, who is the Captain of the ship. When she was captured, she didn't struggle with the man who captured her; she just calmly accepted her fate and got on with it. Eidolan and Jugger take her, but in the end they decide to save her for the Commander, the man who rules the White City. They are sure that the Commander will be just as intrigued as they are, and that she will adore him as well. When she arrives in the White City, she meets the Commander and instantly falls for him. The Commander loves Eidolan, but finds himself deeply attracted to Elora. The Commander has many loves, and they are not all women. He feels that Elora is not mature enough to love him, so he tries to hold back from her. At the same time, he is deeply depressed and restless, and unsure why he feels that way. Part of the reason for this is that almost everyone around him treats him like a man on a pedestal, and he feels shut out and lonely. He has another love as well, called Ayesha, who was an Amazon princess. She left her tribe for him, and stays with him out of her own free will. After the initial meeting, she finds that she likes Elora too, and they become friends. Elora gets into trouble for keeping a slave from getting killed, and the Commander leaves her alone for days to punish her for her act. She is crushed, and thinks that he no longer loves her. Ayesha sees this, and in order to distract her from her problems decides to take Elora to a waterfall she knows of outside of the city. Despite her good intentions, it turns into a disaster. The Amazon tribe comes upon them, and the Commander tries to save them, but too late. Through a series of mishaps, the Commander gets stabbed. Everyone is beside themselves with grief but Elora. She is strangely quiet, and goes along with the Amazons to their city. The two of the men that were with their party, Eidolan, Jugger, get raped by the Amazons and put in the slave pens to serve them. Elora, Larima, Daria and Rowena are told that they can leave, or stay and be warriors. Elora decides to stay, along with the three other women.
What follows is the story of Elora, a woman with a single-minded purpose, who sees things in black and white, becomes a killing machine, yet still manages to be naive and innocent at the same time. She has an ability to get people to follow her blindly, and fight furiously. In the process, she will end up understanding the Commander better than anyone, because she ends up with the same power and command that he had. Elora starts out coming across as a simple girl, and very naïve. She ends up being a strong leader, with the ability to command unwavering devotion from her followers. This story is told mainly through her eyes, although the author does switch around to all the characters at one time or another. Surprisingly, it didn't get distracting as it normally would, and it allowed me to understand what the others were thinking as compared to Elora. I should mention that there are many other interesting characters in this book as well, to many to mention. When I got this book, I couldn't believe how long it was. After I started reading it, I understood why. There are some many stories going on in this book that it's almost impossible to put it down in a short synopsis. Many of the characters could easily have their own book; they are so rich and varied. There is a lot more that I could have put in as a description of the book, but I feel it would have given the story line away, and finding out what Elora was going to do next was half the pleasure of this book. It is a book that is hard to put down. It is also VERY explicit, and has BDSM, rape scenes, homosexual sex, and everything in between in it, so be prepared. Although it does have a lot of sex, it makes sense in the story, and doesn't detract from it. Over all, it was a wonderful book; some sex scenes just sizzled off the page. I would definitely try this author again, and not even flinch at the book length!
Overall rating:
Reviewer: Julia |
