This review is written with a GPL 3.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot.wordpress.leafmarks.com & Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road Facebook Group by Bookstooge's Exalted Permission. Title: Duainfey Series: Duainfey Author: Sharon Lee & Steve Miller Rating: of 5 Battle Axes Genre: SFF Pages: 496 Format: Kindle Synopsis: Rebecca Beauvelley is a ruined woman.

In a moment of girlish folly, she allowed a high-flying young man to take her up in his phaeton, not realizing that he was drunk. When he dropped the ribbons, she recovered them, but could not avoid disaster. The young man was killed. Rebecca survived, crippled, and with a reputation in tatters.

Against all expectation, her father has found someone who will marry her. Rebecca's life seems set, and she resigned to it. Then, Altimere of the Elder Fey enters her life—and everything changes. My Thoughts: The synopsis is straight from the book page and it describes how this book starts perfectly, hence why I used it. This is a story of good people and bad people, of good fey and bad fey. Rebecca is one of the good people. Her soon to be husband is one of the bad people. Meripen is one of the good fey, caught and tortured by humans with his lover who sacrificed her life so that he could escape. Altimere is one of the bad fey, a high fey who will do whatever he wants to regain his High status. Things start out pretty average with poor crippled girl being swept away by enchanting fey who promises to save her from a horrible future. Problem is, the future with the fey is even worse. And that "even worse" is why I could only give 2 1/2 stars here. I loved the writing, the story, the "overall'ness" of this, but the domination of Rebecca by Altimere was not only magical, it was sexual as well. It was explicit enough that it went beyond the boundary of "part of the story". Also, Altimere uses Rebecca as a sexual lure for other Fey to steal their powers and she is raped, singly and by group and once again it was graphic enough that it turned my stomach. There are other ways to describe what happens without being sexually explicit. I have enjoyed Miller and Lee's Liaden Universe books a lot and so was really looking forward to this. So to have the above dropped on me was unexpected, unwanted and disappointing. There were several times I wasn't sure if I actually wanted to finish the story. Thankfully, it wasn't all rape all the time. It was still a good story. I really enjoyed Meripen's story, a fey ranger. We come across him as he is awoken from healing sleep and slowly learn of his past while he must deal with the present. The present involves Fey and Human working together, something Meripen can't really comprehend due to what happened so many years ago. I will be reading the finale to this duology but it isn't on my "must read" mental list and I won't be moving it up the line to read right away. Overall, my feelings are so mixed between the bad and the good that I'm not even sure of this middle of the road rating. " ( )

One impulsive action left Rebecca Beauvelley ruined and a cripple. Now she has a choice: marry a cruel and abusive man who wants her for her dowry, or follow one of the Fey behind the keleigh and wear jewels... it seemed like a simple choice at the time.

An uneasy book. I had to put it down and read something else before finishing it, but once I'd run out of pages I found myself eager to begin the next installment. Not a book full of humor and lightness, but if you're a fan of perseverance, patience, strong characters and subtlety, and you have a fairly strong stomach, this is a worthwhile, if unsettling, read. ( )

Rape fantasy? Not my thing. ( )

Sharon Lee and Steve Miller's Duainfey is an interesting mixture of erotica and historical fantasy, unexpected from the husband and wife duo known for their sci-fi novels set in the award-winning Liaden Universe. It is indeed their first fantasy novel together with both strengths and weaknesses.

From the beginning, it starts out like any other Jane Austen-inspired novel, with a strong-will, independent young woman, in this case an disabled woman named Rebecca Beauvelley, who isn't afraid to follow her aspirations. For example, given the choices of being a house wife or being a poor, traveling herbalist, Becca chooses her passion of plants over a stable and luxurious life. This, of course, is when the first of many problems begin, as she is forced to pick between marrying a man who looks towards the marriage as a social gain or running off with a stranger, a Fey to be exact, who promises freedom. She, of course, chooses the latter with disheartening results, which is only the beginning of a deluge of problems Becca must face as she enters the land of Fey and the control of her literal master Altimere, who leads her into a life as a sex object to be controlled for his own agenda.

One of the main strengths of the book is that the authors skillfully weave between history and fantasy, creating a fairy tale story, known not for happy endings, but for its unhappy, bloody, highly sex-laden, not-so innocent happenings. Indeed, some sex scenes are highly explicit and not entirely pleasant with so much brute force and even blood. Indeed, the book is a story of contradiction. Genre-wise it is both history and fantasy; theme-wise it invokes the theme of pleasure and pain, arguing that indeed one must come with the other as well as the theme of freedom and imprisonment, which is perhaps on the same coin.

These strengths of theme, however, is marred by the authors' lack of grace. For the most part, the point of view of the narrator is very limited and assumes that we are already knowledgeable of the fantasy world created, leading us to question if there was a book before this. Furthermore, the book splits between two story tracts: one of Becca Beauvelley as mentioned above, and that of Meripen Longeye, a Wood-Wise who is awaken after his lover is raped and poisoned to death. (Again, a sex scene). While Becca's story is the main attraction, Meripen's story seem to be just snippets interrupting the actual story. Of course, this is only book one of a two book story (Longeye to be published in 2009), but the fact that the story does not parallel Becca's story nor intersects it is a highly questionable strategy in story-telling. Readers are left to question: what is the link?

In addition to this, the author's lack of grace is also shown in the numerous sex scenes, which while not used for solely pleasure, are awkwardly written for the most part and censored in flowery. In an effort to sound poetic, for example, "hardness" replaces a body part and "seed" is used to describe the outcome of fornication. Instead of poetry, the scenes are interrupted and feel out of place, hindering the novel itself from becoming a truly unique and successful blend of erotica and literature, or simply sex as a theme, which it is of course.

Given this, the books is nothing truly unique nor anything you need to run out a get. But it does ask some very ponderous questions and indeed in opens up the realm of fantasy as a man's genre and sex as forbidden from any fantasy. It is then good reading for anyone who likes to study the links between sex and literature. However, it is not recommended for the average fantasy reader who grew up on Tolkein and C.S. Lewis, whose works tamed compared to this book involving orgies and rapes. Thus, the book is innovative in idea; it is flawed, however, in execution. ( )

After a devastating war, the Fey erected a magical barrier. Now there are new dwellers--men--in the lands on the other side. Rebecca is an earl's daughter, with a withered arm and a tarnished reputation. Her father arranges a marriage with a man who proves to be cruel. A visiting Fey offers to take her away, and she agrees. But he has plans that have nothing to do with her well-being. There are hidden rivalries among the Fey, and Rebecca is about to play an unwilling part.

Dark and disturbing, but compulsively readable. It ends in the middle of things; the sequel (Longeye) is already written. ( )