Two-fer: Isla Munro's At Their Service (with review) and Melody Stone's The English Officer's Wife

Title:  At Their Service
Author:  Isla Munro
Genre - Science Fiction Erotic MMF Menage
Publication Date - 7 March 2014
Length - 92 Pages/26,000 words
Publisher - Etopia Press
Cover Artist - Valerie Tibbs

 

Book Blurb/Synopsis –
 

Can a prince, a maid, and a valet live happily ever after?

 

Forced to be a maid to her family, nursemaid to her birth-mother, and slave to her step-mother, the only high point in Drella’s life is a new job at the palace. She will get to meet the handsome Prince Abran. However, Drella is not expecting to be attracted to both the prince and his valet. The equally handsome Oshan invites Drella to enjoy a night of passion with both men...all three of them together. Can Drella put the messy relationship between her own four parents aside and accept the love offered by a prince and his valet?

 

Prince Abran is heir to the throne of Erotania. He loves his country and he loves his valet, Oshan. But his passionate relationship with the manservant cannot produce his own heir. In a culture where family groups consist of up to four bi-sexual adults and their offspring, it’s not much of a leap to bring a woman into their bed chamber. But what woman will be acceptable to his mother, attracted to both men, and willing to put up with his arrogance?
Oshan loves his master and knows he needs an heir. When Drella starts work in the palace, he can tell that Abran is attracted to the pretty maid. But Drella has her own challenges to face. Can Oshan and the man he loves discover Drella’s demons and help her fight them? And can a prince, a valet, and a maid defy the impossible and find their very own happily ever after?

 

 

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EXCERPT

“Hi, Drella.”
“Hi.” Her voice was a mere whisper, and she looked as if she wanted to be anywhere but speaking to him.
“Hello. I’m Clara.” The human girl shoved her hand toward him. He took it and smiled at her. It still seemed strange to shake hands with someone he had just met. The custom on Threni was to bow to new acquaintances.
“It’s lovely to meet you, Clara. Do you mind if I take Drella outside to speak to her privately? We won’t be long.” He could see Drella out of the corner of his eye shaking her head, a mutinous look on her face.
“Not at all. I would never stop her from talking to such a handsome man.” She fluttered her eyelashes. “And if she says no, please feel free to come and make your offer to me.” Her eyes were bright and sparkled with mischief—she was clearly joking.
“Please, Drella.” He turned his most pleading expression on her, and her mutinous look crumbled.
“OK,” she conceded, and got up, and marched out of the bar. Once outside, he took her gently by the arm and guided her to the quiet alleyway.
“What do you want?” She leaned against the wall and looked over his shoulder.
“I wanted to apologize if the prince or I embarrassed you today. He feels very bad about spying on us.”
“We were in the prince’s shower area. And besides, I spied on you.”
“The prince doesn’t mind that you were watching us. In fact, he’s quite turned on by it.” Oshan brought his hand up to cup her cheek, and she leaned into the caress. He breathed a sigh of relief. He was not being rejected. “He would like you to be involved next time. And so would I.”
“Involved?”
“Yes, Drella. We both want you. We discussed it. Since we got together there has only been the two of us. But we like you and we both want you.”
She was wide-eyed again, which only made her more appealing. Her mouth opened slightly in surprise, and he couldn’t help himself. He leaned forward and ran his tongue along her lower lip. She tentatively touched his tongue with her own and placed her hand at his nape. He captured her lips fully. After a few moments, he drew away and raised an eyebrow at her.
“I’m with Clara,” she said as if it was some kind of explanation.
“It doesn’t have to be tonight.” She nodded in understanding. “What about tomorrow night?”
“I have to go home from work and make dinner, but I could come back to the palace afterward.”
“Dinner? Do you already have children?”
“No. It’s for my parents and siblings.”
“Can they not get their own dinner?”
“It’s a complicated situation.” Her shoulders sagged slightly and some of the glow left her gaze. She looked tired. What exactly was her situation that she had to make her grown-up family dinner?
“Very well. After dinner. Come up to the palace. You can use your pass to get in. If anyone asks, say Prince Abran has asked to see you. No one will ask any questions.”

MY REVIEW: 

 This exceeded my expectations.  Lot’s of SciFi erotica is garbage, and I’ve read it anyway (glutton for punishment).  But this is well written, and grabbed me immediately.  Ms. Munro's world-building is fun, the way she made an earth-like world, but it's different enough to draw you in and sort of want to live there.  Women are less inhibited sexually, yet not so different as to make motivations unrelatable.  I use the word unrelatable a lot, and my spell-checker doesn't like it, but you know what I mean, right?

Anyway, the whole menage scenario is like a fantasy come true.  A member of royalty (super hot) is already in a relationship with his valet (also super hot) but he needs to find a female to carry on the royal bloodline.  It's a culture where bisexuality is common and accepted, so you don't have the typical conflict there, which is refreshing.

My only problems with the story came in the second half.  The first half was damn near perfect, but minor issues cropped up in the second half (word repetition and stuff) that led me to believe it wasn't gone over as many times as the first part of the story.  The inner conflict with Drella at the ball made me roll my eyes in a big way, and the resolution of that conflict seemed a little simplistic and too easy, but the good qualities of the story made up for it.

I would recommend this one.  It's super hot, you get the best of everything, alpha male, beta male, independent woman, menage, conflict, good writing, HEA, fabulous worlds, sweet bestie, and Great Sex.  Thanks, Ms. Munro.

AUTHOR BIO: 

Isla lives in tiny cottage in the wilds of Scotland. She loves history, sci-fi, romance and coffee. She is also passionate about music but has never put enough effort into learning a musical instrument properly.

 

She has always made up stories in her head or imagined the worst case scenarios whenever mildly dramatic events happen. She has always been told she had too vivid an imagination. Since she has discovered novel writing, she has thoroughly enjoyed putting that imagination to the test.

STALKER LINKS:

AMAZON AUTHOR PAGE  |  WEBSITE/BLOG  |  FACEBOOK  |  TWITTER  |  BLOGLOVIN  |  GOODREADS  

 

 

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Title – The English Officer’s Wife
 

Author – Melody Stone
 

Genre – Erotic Romance
 

Publication Date – 15th January
 

Length (Pages/# Words) – 12000 words
 

Publisher – Fever Press
 

Cover Artist – Fever Press

 

 

 

Book Blurb/Synopsis –
The life of an army wife can be lonely with the wives counting down the days until the husband’s return home to their quarters. Annie has always been the perfect English Officer’s Wife, but loneliness and boredom begins to affect her both physically and emotionally. Someone comes into her life for a brief moment and in an unexpected way reignite a passion that surprises and shocks her.

 

Content warning: Contains adults scenes, FF and MF.

Amazon Kindle Link

 

EXCERPT

“I just feel I need something, Rachel. Something away from this life and the army and I don’t know what.” Annie’s voice shook as she sat back down and looked searchingly into Rachel’s eyes.  Rachel, in a rush as always, scooped her nail polish and mobile phone into her leather bag, stood up and kissed her friend on her head.

“Annie, is everything all right with you and Mike?” she asked, clearly concerned.

Annie was aware she had always appeared so happy and settled as an army wife. She had a reputation for being the one wife you could count on for support and guidance and the one who always had a cheery smile and a kind word. She didn’t doubt Rachel could sense that she was not herself but wasn’t sure how she could help.

“I just feel like I’m really being taken for granted, Rache,” Annie said, pulling her long blonde hair back into a scrunchie.  “I don’t know what’s wrong with me... or us. I’m just getting more and more fed up with Mike spending so many hours at the Mess now he’s back on camp. It’s like he feels more comfortable there and not at home.” Annie held back her tears and swallowed as she looked at her reflection in the window. It’s like he’s forgotten the us we used to be and the awful thing is I think I have too, she thought sadly.

AUTHOR BIO: 

Melody Stone was born in London but for most of her life has lived in the Country. A keen horsewoman, she raced thoroughbreds in her twenties, winning her first flat race in public. Melody enjoys writing not only erotic romance stories, but also poetry, blogs and magazine articles.

 

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