Yvonne: A Courtesan's Compulsion

Also by This Author

Also by This Publisher

Reviews

Review by: Carol Powney on Jan. 20, 2013 :
Wow, I loved it, I hated it...I'm all messed up in my head. This is a deviously well thought out plot, well written, and edited. It is also a total mind-fuck, excuse my language but that is the only word that aptly describes what i have just read and the effect it's had on me.
Yvonne, the privileged in wealth and social standing and as so often the case, deprived and needy emotionally, neglected by parents who send her to boarding school and subsequently a paid allowance and apartment in Paris to assuage their responsibilities and your left with a needy young woman. Now a courtesan but never a whore, to the man she is convinced she loves and hopes and believes loves her. Part of her yearns for exclusivity yet accepts he may not be a one woman man and she is a paid consort for whatever he wants of her...within reason. Here lies the crux of one problem.
She takes a journey thinking she follows his instructions, which are ordered to the letter, but the events that occur to her for the slightest breach of these criteria set for her to adhere to and strictly will need an open mind by the reader to say the least. Sadistic punishments for the slightest infringement. She questions her treatment, people she crosses, an old school friend Lysette and lover. Each time she thinks she has found help, adversity follows. Then her training, humiliation, debauchery, debasement in so many ways, not least birch and then the terror of the piercings, at which point i was angry at her manipulation toward sexual slavery and I loved it and hated it...her state of confusion, fear, aloneness tore my compassion and even traumatized me at times that I had to leave the story for a break but couldn't walk away. I had to know what Lindsey Brooks had in store for his character, Yvonne.
I'm still angry at her betrayal by all...it is not a satisfactory place to leave her in my mind and heart. I'm not happy and yes I would and will at some time read it all over again. I admired her journey, her new found courage but ill found trust and future. So why can't I say this is just a story, a fantasy, a character...I don't know, perhaps it is the quality of
the writer that makes me feel for her this way. OK love it and hate it...it's good and I would like to give part of it a crap star rating but see the clever quality so give it it's due - 5 star. Oh and Mr Brooks you really are sadistic at times!
(reviewed long after purchase)