Summer's Hidden Treasure: The Lily Brand by Sandra Schwab

What an amazing thing to read fiction.

To immerse yourself: to love, live, hate, die and to be reborn--depending upon your choice of reading material--a thousand ways in a thousand days. And the variety, the breadth and scope of choice! Incredible. Shall you dance at the edge of a sword today? Or dangle from the end of a rope? Shall you save the heroine, or be the villain? Will you ponder the meaning of life over a cup of tea, or will you voyage to the stars in a bucket of bolts? Will you meet sailors, vampires, talking octopi or the walking dead?

One of the fantastic mysteries of the universe is the diversity in human taste. What makes me this unique bundle of nerve and synapse and bone? The cloth I drape across it? The embarrassment I feel when I say the wrong things? The mental anguish over why I feel this and how come I hurt when that? Maybe. As much those things as others: this is the music that moves me; that is the movie I thought was a waste of my time; this is a book I love.

And so we come to reviews, that bizarre but essential method of communicating the subjective worth of a piece of art across the gulf of human taste. Some of you may have been hanging 'round Littlebird Blue long enough to remember when I reviewed Castle of the Wolf by German author Sandra Schwab. You may not have ever read the actual review. It was not an enthusiastic endorsement. What bothered me so much with this one was that I really enjoyed Sandra's prose. I enjoyed the prose and imagery so much, I read the entire book twice in an effort to understand my dissatisfaction with the work as a whole. [Other people adore this book--again with that fantastic mystery stuff as to why I couldn't.]

Sandra is an excellent writer. I love her sense of detail, her unusual settings, especially her use of dark, broody landscapes with their hint of fey and madness. And Sandra is such a gracious woman, her response to my GMR review was to thank me for reviewing her work "even though you didn't like it much", and she eventually sent me The Lily Brand, inscribed just for me ("Something hot to spice up your summer!" it reads). She laughingly apologized in advance for the name of the wicked, sadistic and murderous villainess, Camille.

The Lily Brand has a small but enthusiastic fan base. And why not? It has some great adventure and detail! In it, our hero the Earl of Ravenhurst has been captured in France, where he has gone to fight Napoleon. But is he left in peace to rot and languish in a French prison? No! He is illicitly purchased by a sadomasochistic wealthy widow, whose prurient pleasures include the torture and sexual debasement of handsome men (and lots of food sex).

But her own stable is already full of studs. This particular English boy-toy is a gift to Camille's step-daughter, Lillian. Camille forces Lillian to mark the man, to burn into his flesh the brand of her namesake, scarring him, body and mind, forever.

Of course Lillian is as much Camille's victim as is our Earl of Ravenhurst. She must flee Camille's sphere of debauchery and decadence if she wants to retain the sanity she has left after being raised by such a creature and in such an environment. She flees to England and to distant relatives, freeing her unwanted, branded sex-slave in the process. She does not expect to meet him in the rarified social circles of London Society. She certainly does not expect him to ever forgive her for what she has done.

See? It sounds kind of exciting, and it is. It's exciting in the ways of the best grand adventures: unapologetic. This book may not be to everyone's taste, but if you like romance novels with edge and grit, try out this particular Hidden Treasure.

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**Special thanks to Susan Helene Gottfried for her dedication and efforts on behalf of writers and readers everywhere.**