What literate lover of the erotic doesn’t lust after Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray? Who doesn’t fantasize all the details Wilde didn’t and couldn’t include? (Certainly not someone who’s taken her pen name from Wilde’s Salomé!) And why not go a step or three further, updating the tale, bringing Dorian into a paranormally-inflected version of our world…
From the graphic opening threesome of S. L. Armstrong and K. Piet’s new erotic romance serial Immortal Symphony (from Storm Moon Press), we’re in a world that kinky, pansexual dreams are made of. Just try to resist the moment the incomparable Dorian tops a woman while moaning over his shoulder for the man behind them to “Fuck us, pet.” I dare you. Dorian is the hedonist supreme, and even in this first installment (“episode”), there is more delicious sex—including lush, spot-on dirty talk from Dorian—than in many a lengthy novel. Plus, there is his unstoppable selfishness and dark past, looming.
Into this world come twin psychic investigators, Gabriel and Michael, bringing complications into the lust-drenched episode. Gabriel, the first man to pique Dorian’s immortal interest in ages, enters the first episode in straight-forward, wish-fulfillment fashion. He has a vulnerable inner monologue that makes me like him from the first. For those with an aversion to a hint of Mary Sue in the air, I say get over it and bask in the adventure; it’s delectably easy to do. I frankly clapped my hands with glee at how quickly Dorian has Gabriel—and everyone else (occasionally with a dose of heroin)—at his mouthwatering mercy.
My disappointments in this first episode are few, and fade quickly. Primarily, the opening paragraphs did not grab me as tightly as I would have liked. The use of “click” as single-word paragraphs to signal when photographs were being taken was too heavy-handed for me. Similarly, the italicization of “he” so readers can distinguish between Dorian and the other male lover from the perspective of the woman in the scene was understandable, yet it called attention to itself, pulling me out of the moment. Once past this, however, and into Armstrong and Piet’s luscious take on Dorian’s inescapably hot, self-indulgent debauchery and troubled mind, I was riding high through the rest of the episode…and prepared to beg for more.
4/5 stars
Immortal Symphony can be purchased by episode (99 cents for the first and the rest priced by length) or by Season Pass, entitling readers to each episode as released and an ebook upon completion ($11.99).
From the graphic opening threesome of S. L. Armstrong and K. Piet’s new erotic romance serial Immortal Symphony (from Storm Moon Press), we’re in a world that kinky, pansexual dreams are made of. Just try to resist the moment the incomparable Dorian tops a woman while moaning over his shoulder for the man behind them to “Fuck us, pet.” I dare you. Dorian is the hedonist supreme, and even in this first installment (“episode”), there is more delicious sex—including lush, spot-on dirty talk from Dorian—than in many a lengthy novel. Plus, there is his unstoppable selfishness and dark past, looming.
Into this world come twin psychic investigators, Gabriel and Michael, bringing complications into the lust-drenched episode. Gabriel, the first man to pique Dorian’s immortal interest in ages, enters the first episode in straight-forward, wish-fulfillment fashion. He has a vulnerable inner monologue that makes me like him from the first. For those with an aversion to a hint of Mary Sue in the air, I say get over it and bask in the adventure; it’s delectably easy to do. I frankly clapped my hands with glee at how quickly Dorian has Gabriel—and everyone else (occasionally with a dose of heroin)—at his mouthwatering mercy.
My disappointments in this first episode are few, and fade quickly. Primarily, the opening paragraphs did not grab me as tightly as I would have liked. The use of “click” as single-word paragraphs to signal when photographs were being taken was too heavy-handed for me. Similarly, the italicization of “he” so readers can distinguish between Dorian and the other male lover from the perspective of the woman in the scene was understandable, yet it called attention to itself, pulling me out of the moment. Once past this, however, and into Armstrong and Piet’s luscious take on Dorian’s inescapably hot, self-indulgent debauchery and troubled mind, I was riding high through the rest of the episode…and prepared to beg for more.
4/5 stars
Immortal Symphony can be purchased by episode (99 cents for the first and the rest priced by length) or by Season Pass, entitling readers to each episode as released and an ebook upon completion ($11.99).
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