The Lords of Satyr: Nicholas
by Elizabeth Amber

Book Review by Helen E. H. Madden

Nicholas Satyr is the eldest of three brothers who run the Satyr vineyards in Tuscany, 1823. Half human, half satyr, the unmarried brothers are dedicated to their sacred duty of growing grapes and protecting the boundary to the faery kingdom of ElseWorld. Everything is fine until they receive notice that the king of Faery is dying, and that he wants the Lords of Satyr to find and marry his three half-human daughters.

Each daughter is in dire peril, though from what the Satyr brothers don't know. Bound by duty and the need for heirs, the brothers agree to seek out the women and marry them. Nicholas, the eldest, sets out first to find his bride in Rome.

Jane is the daughter of an English lady and is completely unaware of her faery heritage. When Nicholas whisks her away to Tuscany, she finds herself in a frightening dilemma. Jane has certain abilities that allow her to see into the minds of others, whether she wills it or not. Physical contact only makes her abilities stronger, and Jane fears what might happen if Nicholas were to discover what she can do. To complicate matters, she must fulfill her duties as his wife, including his nightly visits to her bed. Those visits are perfunctory at best—Nicholas believes that a wife is only meant for begetting heirs—but they're enough to make Jane long for something more between husband and wife. The question is, can she convince Nicholas of that, and does she dare risk the consequences?

The book opens with a promising start. Elizabeth Amber does a good job of bringing to life turn-of-the-century Italy, both in the hills of Tuscany and in the bustling society scene of Rome. Such details count in a period piece, especially when it comes to depicting Jane's plight. As a young woman of noble birth, her fate is almost entirely in the hands of men, including the drunken mortal whom she believes to be her father and the bold and lusty Nicholas who claims her as his bride. Her struggles to gain control over her fate are the heart of the story. To escape her father, she must marry Nicholas. But marriage to someone she does not love and dares not trust has its own hazards. Meanwhile, Nicholas faces similar problems. Not only is Jane ignorant of her faery heritage, she has no idea of his ancestry either. The lusts of a Satyr are far more than any mortal woman can handle, and Nicholas fears that the half-human Jane will reject him if she finds out what he truly is. For most of the story, the two circle warily around each other, trying to keep their secrets while at the same time attempting to discover what the other is hiding. The stakes jump even higher when Jane insists on being the only woman in Nicholas' life and his bed. She tells him she will perform the duties of both wife and mistress if he will give up all other women. Nicholas agrees, but in return she must perform exactly as his mistresses would. Thus he begins to educate Jane on how to please him best.

What follows are several steamy sexual encounters between Jane and Nicholas that definitely warrant the warning label on the back cover of the book. Of course, the mostly-naked man on the front of the cover is probably more than enough to warrant that warning. Unfortunately, both the cover and the sex inside are only tantalizing teases of what this novel could have been. In the midst of the developing relationship between Jane and Nicholas comes the ambitions of Jane's licentious aunt, the lady Isabella. Isabella, it turns out, is a maenad—a mortal woman who worships the god Bacchus in drunken sexual revelries. She knows far more about the Satyrs than any mortal should and plans to use Jane to overthrow the Satyrs and take their vineyards for her own. Isabella is delightfully evil, a poisonous bitch who will do whatever it takes to get what she wants, but in the end is woefully underused in the story and her motives are never fully explained.

One other plot point is also left dangling. With the death of the king of Faery, prospects of war begin to brew in ElseWorld, but that fact is so rarely mentioned it's easy to forget amidst everything else going on. In fact, we see nothing of ElseWorld at all beyond the gate that lies on Satyr land. Hopefully, that subplot will be more fully developed in future volumes.

In the end, The Lords of Satyr: Nickolas is a steaming hot romance that could benefit from more seriously developed sub-plots. Read it for the sex and the delightful scenery of Italy, enjoy the escapades of Nicholas and Jane, and hope for more in the coming sequels.

Helen E. H. Madden
December 2007

The Lords Of Satyr: Nicholas
(Aphrodisia; August 1, 2007; ISBN-10: 0758220391)
Available at: Amazon.com  / Amazon UK

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© 2007 Helen E. H. Madden. All rights reserved.

About the Reviewer: Who is Helen E. H. Madden? Read her bio on the Erotica Readers & Writers Association website. Visit Helen's website at: www.HelenHMadden.com

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