Aran Ashe’s first series of novels, The Chronicles of Lidir: A Saga of Erotic Domination delineate the kingdom of Lidir, a fantasyland dedicated to bondage, teasing, bodily manipulation and torture. It was published by Nexus, a British imprint of Virgin Books, specialising in sado-masochistic pornography for straight male readers. Hence the gender-ambiguity of Ashe’s pseudonym?
The books are, in order, The Slave of Lidir (1991), The Dungeons of Lidir (1991), The Forest of Bondage (1991) and Pleasure Island (1992).
Then came The Chronicles of Tormunil, beginning with The Handmaidens (1995)and Citadel of Servitude (1997), and continuing with Slave-Mines of Tormunil (2002) and Love-Chattel of Tormunil (2003) a few years later, followed by Leah’s Punishment (2008).
Her concerns, on display here even more obsessively than in "Lidir", include spanking, piercing and erotic lactation.
Further research reveals the interesting fact that Ashe also writes as "Valentina Cilescu." Cilescu, author of the bestselling Mara Vampire series of erotic titles, has a number of other pseudonyms, including Anastasia Dubois, Sophie Danson, Louise Aragon, Sue Lightfoot, Sue Dyson, Aurelia Clifford and Zoë Barnes.
The Mara Vampire series (so far) comprises Kiss of Death (1992), The Phallus of Osiris (1993), Empire of Lust (1994), Masque of Flesh (1995), Vixens of Night (1997) and Lusts of the Forbidden (1999).
Choosing Lovers for Justine (1993) was a slight departure from type for Ashe, concerning the adventures of a young submissive girl in Edwardian England.
It has had - as yet - no successors.
1 comment:
Interesting. You confirm what I had been thinking all along. Analysis of the stories compared with scientific research in this field revealed that Aran Ashe had to be a woman. Her stories have a similar structure as the politically more correct Angelique stories in the sixties. The story lines and types of detals are unmistakable. The big difference is, in my view, that the young women in Aran's stories do not escape being sexually taken by their captors. Angelique, e.g., is taken prisoner, sold at auction as a sex slave, given away as sex toy, etc. but never once has to suffer any sexual assaults even if beautiful, voluptuous and blond in Arabian settings. And in the end is happily reunited with her fiancee, of course. Now, compare this to the adventures of Anya in the first Lidir book. If something sexual is involved, one can always tell whether a story is written by a man or a woman. A woman's fantasy eclipses that of a man in complexity and subtlety, and, as another give-away, does not, to name a thing typically found in stories by males, focus on the size of a man's dick. e.g. in Pleasure Island sizes are not mentioned although penises figure quite prominently in the scenes.
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