Many people are familiar with the author Anne Rice even if they don't know it. If you've seen the movie Interview With The Vampire, it was based on her first novel. Chances are, if you are reading the third and final novel in this trilogy, even if it is the only series you have ever read by her, you're pretty familiar with her work now. Dark, twisted, kinky, gothic, edgy - all words I would use to describe her style.

She also writes in a very narrative way, as if you are being told the story personally instead of just reading it. You drink in the atmosphere and are given descriptive details beyond those necessary to really set the mood and the scene. As she is one of my favorite authors, I loved finishing this trilogy and see myself re-reading it in the future.

This is the third and final chapter. Beauty, the captive princess of a faraway kingdom, has been sentenced to be a pleasure slave in the castle of the Queen and her spoiled Prince. After being sent to the village as punishment, she is then captured and caged on a ship. Unaware of where she is going, Beauty is helplessly bound with several other slaves from the village.

Upon arrival, she is greeted by exotic people in a foreign land. The main story is set in what is assumed to be a version of medieval Europe. Beauty finds herself in what I perceive to be the Middle East. She is in the palace of a very rich and powerful Sultan from whom, it turns out, the Queen of her homeland learned everything she knew about pleasure slaves. Beauty experiences many wonders in the palace and finds that the dark-skinned beauties of this land have suffered a horrible fate and been multilated in their servitude.

Eventually our princess is returned home to her own kingdom, freed from servitude and forced to find a husband and continue on with the normal life of royalty. How does she cope? Can she find closure after how much she has experienced, or did her ordeals in the castle, village, and palace change her forever?

As with all of the other stories, this is heavy BDSM content. Adding fantasy and storytelling to the mix, anyone could read this, but those more sensitive to hard BDSM may want to avoid it, as it is very graphic throughout the entire series. It also contains forced homo/bisexuality of the slaves, and in the last portion, portrayals of female genital mutilation, so keep this in mind as a warning about the content.

As with the other two, this is a paperback book that features female nudity on the cover and clearly states it is erotica. A woman painted in Renaissance style is revealing her breasts and covering a portion of her face, as if in shame, but at the same time has a playful look to her. The story is segmented chapter by chapter, like any other novel would be, and the quality of the paper felt nice. Since it is not very discreet, I would suggest putting your own cover over the book if you wish to read this in a public setting to avoid any questioning if that is something about which you are concerned.

Having finished it, I am a huge fan of this trilogy. I feel that the author did a wonderful job at keeping the story moving, and it felt more like a narrative that I was reading than purely erotica. There are many erotic and graphic scenes, but those only enhance the story telling. If you are looking for pure smut, this is probably not for you, since the storyline itself plays a big part in the trilogy. The ending was a bit lackluster and underwhelming, but those are my only complaints. I expected a bit more at the end that just wasn't there. It is my least favorite of the three, but by no means a dull read.