What Rice does in this latest installment of the Sleeping Beauty series is to perfect the world of her erotic imagination. While the first trilogy was an exploration of BDSM practices, in the fourth novel the author has clearly considered the things her critics found off-putting and has drawn a clear boundary against what she finds objectionable in practice. In Beauty and Laurent’s re-built kingdom, all participants are willing, of an age capable of consent, and the hints of degradation and humiliation have been scrubbed.

In this book, Anne Rice has built an erotic domain around freedom, choice, and assent. It is a safe place from which to find one's own sensual path.

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The ending seemed rushed, in fact the whole book did. It could have been split up into another trilogy (like a follow up trilogy to the first) rather than one rather short novel. It was still delightful to be back in Beauty's world, but it felt as if many old and new stories were introduced and left unfinished.

Excellent.

Malo por donde se le ve, y no porque en verdad sea malo, o sea, es malo por la trilogía que le antecede pero no malo en comparación con otros libros basura de erotismo.
Cuando leí el primer libro, quedé impresionado por la crueldad de algunas cosas, cuando leí el segundo de igual forma, quedé aún más sorprendido que el anterior, y con el tercer libro de la saga tuve que dejarlo en un capítulo porque fue demasiado.
Con esa perspectiva de que en cada entrega se pone más intensa me leí este libro, esperando algo peor que lo anterior, sin embargo, la autora milagrosamente llegó a decepcionarme, porque este libro no es más que un capítulo más del anterior libro. O sea, este libro se pudo haber resumido en un capítulo de 20 páginas y haberlo agregado al tercer libro, pero la autora hizo una novela larga y tediosa de leer, y aunque a lo largo del libro no hace más que presentarnos nuevos personajes con la misma premisa que la trilogía anterior sin aportar nada nuevo. Este libro lo recomiendo más a personas que no han leído la trilogía, es una excelente recopilación, muy bien resumida y muy bien escrita, pero para viejos lectores de esta saga no hay nada nuevo que aportar, solo un capítulo más (muy largo) sin mayor relevancia en la historia (exceptuando una o dos escenas como mucho).

While it may be perfectly fine for some readers, this heteronormative erotic story is not the Queer readers cup of tea. Although there are hints of homosexual-normative entanglements that's all it is a mere hint.

This series has been like nothing I have read before. It was eye opening to read about The BDSM community set in a fantasy world.
Very enlightening.

Very different from the original Beauty trilogy. An interesting take on things and a nice closure to the original trilogy. Didn't feel completed though, a lot of strings were left hanging. It almost felt like reading a reality tv show post season interview show. I suspect this was in case Anne Rice wanted to continue this series. All in all, this was much more like her original trilogy writing, same voice which is something that she lost in her vampire series when she quit being an alcoholic and found god.