Reviews of Shadowplay

SHADOWPLAY by Portia Da Costa Black Lace, 1999, Erotica, English Countryside, Present Day, $6.95, 274 pages, ISBN: 0-352-33313-8

Very Highly Recommended

Christabel Sutherland is a voluptuary who cannot control her sexual appetites. Posing as a photographer she lures young, handsome, well-hung men to her studio for “photo sessions.” Caught in the act by Nicholas, her husband, who immediately takes her to Collingwood, an estate deep in the English countryside, Christabel longs for love, the love of the man she married, but there seems a veil she must break through before attaining it. The lush estate offers may comforts and chances for further adventure, but it is her husband that consumes her waking hours. Forced to submit to indignities, she strives to offer Nicholas pleasure but is unable to meet his expectations until she assumes the role of dominatrix that unlocks his heart and answers the questions of her soul.

HOT! HOT! HOT! I defy anyone to read this and sit still. Feeling as if the body is on fire with as many deep needs as Christabel is but one side effect of this searingly, scrumptious novel. Written with depth, attention to characters, and a scintillating plot, SHADOWPLAY evokes images of love play taken to extreme limits, but retains all the erotic pleasure associated with bodily pleasures shared by both sexes. This is not a cozy chair, crackling fire, and cup-of-tea book, this is chilled champagne, hot man, and silk sheets book that leads to growls and howls…pardon me but I think I feel one coming on now!

Reviewed by Kathee S. Card

Review - SHADOWPLAY by Portia Da Costa, published by Black Lace ISBN 0-352-33313-8

'Perfection. A rampant, anonymous penis. A sexual object without a needy personality, a grasping ego, or even a voice. Just a thing, really, but a pretty thing. She could grab it and play with it; or she could reject it and take her own pleasure, enhanced by her deviant dreams.'

Christabel, a bored and beautiful dilettante photographer, indulges prodigious sexual appetites at every opportunity... enticing well-hung young studs to her studio for "photo sessions." Caught in flagrante delicto by Nicholas, her suave and sophisticated husband, she is forced into a country holiday at Collingwood, expecting only boredom and sexual ennui.

Instead, she becomes delightfully entangled in a maze of transgressive eroticism, with subtly changing power and pleasure play, involving the obsessional Daniel and his beautiful sister Gussie... and the enigmatic Jamie, her husband's handsome young male personal assistant. Christabel digs deep into her sexuality and psyche and begins exploring hidden aspects of her true voluptuary nature, as she discovers her deviant and sensual husband's hidden agenda.

Dark liaisons and lots of swelteringly hot sex... m/f, f/f and m/m and just a tad of s/m - one's attention is grabbed from the very first page. Shadowplay is beautifully literate with an engaging story, characters with substance, and evocative love play which is intensely erotic, hedonistic, wickedly sensual... and absolutely delicious!

Review by Hazel Weldon for THE EROTICA READERS ASSOCIATION

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