If you have just finished Fifty Shades of Grey and are wondering what to read next, or are just looking for your next hot erotica trilogy, all roads lead to The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, a trilogy by the incredible Anne Rice. Originally published under the pen name A.N. Roquelaure, this series has just been released in an all new edition, just in time to satiate eager Fifty Shades fans!
I first discovered this series as a teenager, and have read it dozens of times over the years. No matter how many times I revisit it, I fall in love with Beauty all over again and her epic erotic journey never fails to arouse and inspire me.
The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty opens just like the classic fairy tale. Sleeping Beauty is under a spell, and her prince comes to her rescue, waking her not with a kiss but with ravishment. In this moment, right at the beginning of the first book, we know we are in a whole new world with our heroine. The prince “claims” her completely, and whisks her off into a world of sex slaves, heavy BDSM and spectacular erotic rituals. We as readers are immediately immersed in a fantasy world, where along with Beauty we can be seduced by the extreme pleasures and proclivities of the wicked Prince, the Queen and their imaginary kingdom, where every prince and princess receives rigorous training in sexual submission.
What is so amazing about this series is the complete fantasy of it. Anne Rice understands fantasy and elevates every sensual detail until the reader is transported to another world all together, where anything is possible and we have permission to be turned on by the extremes and intensity.
The world of fantasy is an essential part of the human erotic imagination, and all too often we blur the line between fantasy and desire. When we read vampire novels we allow ourselves to be transported to that fantasy world, without worrying about if we actually want to be the living undead in real life. We must allow ourselves the same freedom with erotic fantasy. The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty allows us to make the leap into the sex-saturated castles and, just like our heroine, we can find ourselves aroused at the cruel prince, the powerful Queen, the indignities of Beauty’s punishment. In this fantasy world that Anne Rice so beautifully weaves for us, our sexuality is free to be aroused and inspired, and in that freedom is an erotic liberation that can change your sex life in a very real way.
Each book in the Sleeping Beauty series by Anne Rice is a new experience, exploring a new terrain of turn-on. In the second book of the series, Beauty’s Punishment we are transported away from the castle down to the village, where all new erotic adventures are possible. Instead of lavish garden parties with naked servants we find Beauty being spanked with a bread board, chained up in the town square for all to see, and violated by rough hands at the tavern.
The third book, Beauty’s Release, has always been my personal favorite. Beauty is swept away by an exotic sultan and we are transported to a world with new flavors of sensual detail and sexual debauchary. In the fragant halls of the sultan’s palace Beauty experiences the final chapter of her sexual training, and we are treated to scenes with golden body paint, harems of exotic beauties and hands down the hottest sex scenes in the trilogy.
Be forewarned: the themes of Dominance and submission, of physical brutality and painful pleasures are way more intense in Sleeping Beauty than Fifty Shades. No detail is spared as every orifice of our princess is used and abused. Household objects take on new meaning as the characters are beaten, penetrated and stimulated with everything from jeweled swords to thorny roses. The sex is heavy, and the BDSM is otherworldly.
What gives us the freedom to enjoy such brutality is the masterful writing of Anne Rice, who so fully transports us into a fantasy world where anything is possible, giving us the temporary freedom to enjoy such a brutal world, and then happily return to our ordinary world of sexuality, inspired and aroused but with a clear sense of coming home to a safer and saner world of sexual ecstasy.
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