Reflection's Edge

Book Review: Cruel Enchantment, by Janine Ashbless

Reviewer: Mathilde Madden

Cruel Enchantment, first published in 2000, is a magical collection of erotic fairy tales that proves to be a delight for the senses.

The supernatural has exploded in today’s erotic and romantic literature market. It is impossible to move around a book store without bumping into a new take on this wildly-popular genre hybrid. More traditional vampires and werewolves have even been joined by filthy fairies, incubi, and succubi and every kind of new take on blending the paranormal with the mildly pornographic.

Janine Ashbless’s Cruel Enchantment trod this road way back when paranormal erotic romance was described as “risible,” when Anne Rice’s books were considered to have sewn up the market in vampire erotica, where literary adult retellings of fairy tales were more about hinting at sensuality that telling it straight. But not here. This short story collection practically writhes on the page.

A particular delight is hunky monk Gregory, meeting the stickiest of ends imaginable in the impassioned arms of a succubus. Later in the collection a retelling of the tale of Snow White in “The Fairest of Them All” is a great deal more satisfying and sexy than Neil Gaiman’s more well-known and whiffily misogynistic “Snow, Glass, Apples.”

There are only a couple of stories that feel a little like filler. The longest story in the collection, “Renaissance,” is a sexual-awakening slow-burn and, although an enjoyable, beautiful atmospheric read, it feels as if it builds to a climax that can only disappoint after such a repressed wait.

Sadly, the weaker pieces are more noticeable here than in a collection that had less strong standouts. And strongest is surely “The Dragon’s Bride” - about what really happens to those maidens sacrificed to fire breathing monsters. Quite simply it’s a size-queen’s delight. Although as Sheldi, the heroine of this story points out, she isn’t even a princess.

Firmly in the dark ages, yet ahead of its time, Cruel Enchantment is an erotic classic, and with the recent surge in interest in paranormal erotica this book still shows how it’s done. A must have if you really want to know how to slay a dragon.

To buy a copy of this book, click here.

If you liked this book, check out:

A Kiss of Shadows, by Laurel K Hamilton

Bitten, by Kelley Armstrong

The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter

The Black Swan by Mercedes Lackey

Angela Carter's Book of Faery Tales, by Angela Carter

Dead Witch Walking, by Kim Harrison

Fairyville by Emma Holly

Mathilde Madden is an author of erotic romance. Her latest book, The Silver Collar, is the first of a trilogy.