The inestimable Ann Somerville, at
Uniquely Pleasurable, has reviewed "Autumn," the first installment in my Chaser series, "Servant of the Seasons." And she liked it!
Among the other lovely things she had to say was this: "Lee Benoit has succeeded not only in creating a wonderfully well-researched ‘man against nature’ story but also in establishing an intriguing world and rounded characters which should carry the reader’s interest easily through the three further planned parts to this series."
Thank you, Ann!!
The rest of the review is
here.
A description and excerpt of "Servant of the Seasons 1: Autumn" is
here. Buy it
here.
And, just because I love you, here's an excerpt that doesn't appear on the publisher's web site:
“I am called Edor.” It was the name I had used since leaving the dome, my professional title. Sometimes I wondered if I even recalled my true name.
“He is Lys. I am Tywyll.”
“We are Novigi.”
“That must be far.” I had never heard of it.
The one called Lys tilted his head. “Not … far. Brother?”
Tywyll nodded. “Distant, perhaps. Not far.”
“You’re brothers?” Poor things, to be whores so young.
“A way of saying, only,” said Tywyll. “Not blood, but still brothers, you see?”
Not really. My life before hadn’t bred close friendships and my life since, well, hadn’t merited them. “Come, you can wash while I fix supper. You’ve had a long walk.”
The two Novigi followed me to the lean-to that held the pump and kitchen. I supposed “kitchen” made the semi-permanent hearth sound rather grand. I stirred up the smoored coals and laid on more fuel; the local peat was free and burned hot, of not brightly or fragrantly. I kept my body and face turned away from where the two not-brothers had stripped to the waist and begun washing in the sun-warmed water from the pump; there was no privacy beyond simple courtesy.
I had rigged a hanging basket fed by a reed pipe connected to the cistern. If I couldn’t have a true bath, I had determined that I would at least have clean rinse-water. I hadn’t shown my guests how to use it, but they seemed to have figured it out, if their little exclamations of surprise were anything to judge by. After a few minutes, the happy sounds changed to hisses and muffled yelps of pain and I forgot their modesty.
“What is it? Is something wrong?”
Lys and Tywyll turned to look at me, their eyes slitted and their shoulders hunched to protect their bodies. They didn’t answer.
“Are you injured? Let me see.” If Varas had done something to them…. I took a step forward and the two closed ranks, Tywyll stepping in front of Lys and putting his hand out to stall my approach. Lys put a quelling hand on Tywyll’s arm and they had a rapid, quietly urgent conversation in a very foreign language. Tywyll drooped in defeat at the end of it and Lys stepped past him to stand before me, a defiant look in his bright eyes.
“These will not heal. There is pain.”
“What won’t…?” I began. Lys’s brown cheeks colored and he looked down his own body. I followed his glance to his nipples and would have continued, dangerously, but for what I saw there. One was brown as a late-summer berry, the other cruelly distended and swollen around a thick metal ring.
“Who did this?”
“No papers,” Lys’s voice was very soft. In a sick flash, I understood. This was the slaver’s mark, now the mark of my ownership.
“It should have healed by now. Varas … bought you” – I felt my gorge rise on the word – “over a month ago. It doesn’t look infected.”
Tywyll turned and revealed a similar injury. “This metal is poison. We are Novigi.”
I had heard of diseases that struck only members of certain races. Perhaps this was some sort of allergy peculiar to Lys and Tywyll’s people. “Then they must come out.”
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