Reviewed by Jess
TITLE: The Trial of Three
AUTHOR: Lia Meyers
PUBLISHER: Less Than Three Press
LENGTH: 57 pages
RELEASE DATE: June 19, 2019
BLURB:
The Countess of Starfordia, a depraved succubus, terrorizes the countryside as she drains the vitality from sacrifices with her voracious carnal appetite. When Celandine’s friend-with-benefits is selected as the Countess’s next servant, Celandine volunteers in her place. A priestess-in-training, Celandine loves to submit to the will of her gods… and to play exquisitely painful games of dominance and submission. She’s confident that her faith and her sensual nature will enable her to perform whatever tasks are expected of her.
Taken to an enchanted castle, Celandine meets the Countess’s captured pets: Tikara, a brave knight trapped in a permanent state of desire, and Wraith, a darkly beautiful warlock suffering under a mysterious curse. Even as Celandine challenges herself to endure humiliating torments at the Countess’s hands, she finds unexpected love with her fellow prisoners. Only by working together will Celandine, Tikara, and Wraith be able to break the Countess’s sensual spells.
REVIEW:
I’m sure there’s the ideal reader for this book somewhere, but it isn’t me.
This is a very short erotic fantasy story about Celandine, a powerful, devoted priestess who has stepped in her friend’s place to serve the cruel, sadistic Countess in her demonic sex games. Once at the Countess’ castle, she meets Wraith and Tikara, two of the Countess’ sex slaves who need Celandine’s help to gain their freedom. I was interested in this story because I loved the idea of an erotic poly fantasy story with strong characters, but there just isn’t enough story here to make any of those traits remotely interesting.
First of all, this is erotica, since sex is on nearly every page. But I’m not sure who this book would serve to arouse, since most sex scenes are vague, vanilla, and contain vulgar language and copious use of the word “cunt”—something I normally don’t mind at all, but in this context, feels like a mean slur. I don’t know why Celandine is so cruel to Tikara, since it seems like Tikara just wants someone to be intimate with, and Wraith serves no real purpose other than some weird tentacle-play. Not to mention, the way all of the characters are described make them sound like video game characters, with colored hair and huge breasts.
For a book all about painful BDSM games, this story is so bland when it comes to the erotica. BDSM is a lot more than arbitrary orgasm denial and yanking on someone’s nipples, which seems to comprise many of the erotic scenes, and keeping characters in a state of near-constant arousal is only interesting if you actually do something with it. Instead, we just have three women with no distinct personalities finding ways to touch each other’s clits and orgasm before a boring rinse and repeat. There are no interesting dom/sub mechanics, with each woman filling the role as needed with no regard to plot continuity or characterization, and even the main character, Celandine, seems like an all-powerful sexual stand-in who can get any woman off through submission, domination, magic, or any combination of the three.
This story is short, and it started with a promising character performing a brave act for a friend. But it really dissolved into a mess that never made sense and never kept me interested. There’s nothing titillating or taboo about any of it. Somehow, this short piece of dub-con sex-slave fantasy erotica (with tentacles!) is dull. I didn’t think it possible.
RATING: 
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