Welcome to Whore-A-Ween Haunts 2018, a 3-Day Celebration of Erotic Horror!
Today's FREE Terrorific Treat is Fear, Love and Broken Things
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Enthralled, the opening installment of Bryce Calderwood's Futanari Vampires saga, is the very definition of erotic horror. This is a sexually explicit, blood-soaked, supernaturally charged, plot-driven novel with fully developed characters. It is intense, it is relentless, and it does not only go where few authors fear to tread, but it also does so with macabre abandon.
These are not the sparkly, brooding vampires of paranormal romance. These are violent, bloodthirsty, amoral creatures . . . undead, supernatural monsters with the power to control minds, move at incredible speed, and more. Feeding is just that, a natural act required for survival, but they do tend to play with their food, as Musette and Ashlyn demonstrate in an orgy of blood and violence the likes of which I have never read before, leaving them naked atop a pile of corpses, before burning down a tavern to destroy the evidence.
One thing that surprised me - and delighted me - is the fact that these vampires are beyond traditional notions of good versus evil. Calderwood does away with the clichés of crosses, holy water, and silver-edged weapons, and ignores questions of the soul as being irrelevant. In fact, there is a beautiful scene where Ashlyn seduces an elderly woman inside a church, tenderly yet erotically feeding upon her beneath the waters of the baptismal pool. It stopped me in my reading, forcing me to walk away from the book for a while to appreciate the whole scene. There are more incredible scenes in the book than I can count, but that one haunted me.
There is so much going on here, so many layers to the story, that I find myself continuously getting sidetracked in trying to wrap my head around a review. Yes, this is fetish-fueled erotic horror, but it is also a story with a strange sort of conscience, building on themes of social prejudices and social outcasts. Where many authors would be content to use vampires as a sort of allegory for social prejudice, Calderwood ignores that altogether and focuses on the very real issues of gender and sexuality. In his world, futanari have been made possible through a series of advanced medical and technological treatments, with clinics established to perform the transformations. They are no more accepted than transgender people have been traditionally, with violent, hate-filled protesters gathering anywhere futanari find community and solace.
Where erotica, horror, and social commentary all come together is in the relationship between Musette (whose coven tried to destroy her for tainting the purity of the vampire race with her futanari nature) and Ashlyn (an outcast from her friends and her family due to her futanari obsession). Their relationship blends the idea of the vampire thrall with that of the BDSM submissive; merges lesbian sexuality with futanari gender transformation; and weaves a complicated web of love, lust, fear, and jealousy that threatens to destroy them. Their erotic scenes are intensely detailed, as one would expect of a Bryce Calderwood story, but it is not just about physical sex - there is emotion, psychology, and more to those encounters. Like the scenes of bloody carnage - with which they increasingly overlap as the story continues - their sex is violent, messy, and incredibly hot.
Of course, I have barely scratched the surface of the plot here, but there is an actual story beneath all the visceral details. Her coven wants Musette destroyed, her Master still loves her, and that drives a wedge between Musette and Ashlyn, even as the story races towards a confrontation that explodes across the final chapters. Enthralled is a book that will leave you just that, thoroughly enthralled, hungry for the exciting diversion of One Good Turn, a standalone story that explores the good Dr. Ashima Safar, and ravenous for the continuation of Musette and Ashlyn's story in the upcoming Revenant.
