A Review of The Succubus’ Caress by Valerie Paradis

Sometime ago I reviewed an author’s work here on the Tale. I didn’t care for the work at the time for various reasons, but it seems that the work was reissued under a different title with absolutely no changes whatsoever from the original work.

(Note: That review was eaten by the server, I’ll repost is again as soon as possible.)

As such, I am simply going to repeat, word for word, the review I gave for the original work.

One of the things that bothers me the most about many stories about Succubi is that they are, in the end, beings of horror and evil wrapped in a sheen of erotic possibilities. The thing about that is, it is a stereotype. It is an ongoing focus of many authors that while they might seem “good” it is only a means to trap their victims and from there, the obvious ending is assured… to my personal regret.

The promise of good erotic heat to a story shouldn’t fall victim to an ending that takes that heat away…

• Title: The Succubus’ Caress
• Author: Valerie Paradis
• Publishing Date: July 2, 2013
• Length: 13 Pages
• ASIN: B00FVYMGW0
• ISBN: 9781301734153
• This work at Amazon.com
• This work at Smashwords.com

The story tells of:

Daniel Bankston is having another normal day is his unfulfilling life when he discovers a mysterious old tome in a strange little second-hand shop. He soon discovers that this book holds more secrets than it originally appears to. When he accidentally summons a beautiful and seductive lover from beyond, his day suddenly becomes much more interesting.

Daniel discovers a store, a book, and through his choices, discovers that Succubi are quite real beings with one thing on their minds… sex and as much of that as they can possibly have from the ones that summon them.

The summoning brings into Daniel’s life a Succubus who tempts and seduces very well, but after the promising beginning, the hope I had for a lovely delicious piece of erotica were taken away by the time the climax came in more ways than one.

A hot succubus who tempts, teases and seduces is nothing if she is stereotypical, and this one is. While the erotica is lovely and hot, the climax of the story was one that was obvious from the first mention of the book Daniel found, the lead up and so on.

We never learn the name of the succubus, instead focussing on her body more than anything else really. She has personality, there is no doubt of that in my mind, but it is overshadowed by the spell Daniel used to summon her and the cost of the summoning.

The story was a tease in more than one way. It teased characters that provided things, teased a main character in learning something about them and teased the succubus of the work in that we learn, really, nothing about her.

I’m not sure that how this story closed was the best way as if left much unanswered and took what was a good sensual story and turned to towards a piece of horror.

A better ending would have been nice for the deliciously hot erotic moments of the story. Ending the story on a down note is not the best way to end such stories. And using a stereotype for a succubus is never a good thing unless that is all that you can see in such characters.. I can see more and can here as well…

Overall, the writing was well done, but there were moments that felt like afterthoughts to pad the story because the erotica alone wasn’t enough on its own.

Two pitchforks out of five.

Not everything I had been hoping for from the beginning and it really wouldn’t have been to much to ask for something light instead of the ending we received I think…

And reissuing this work and no indicating so does not improve it at all.

 

Tera