Syahira's Literary Obsession

In this time where EL James's 50 Shades of Grey kept popping up in any conversation regarding 'conventional' erotica (which apparently set a standard for everyone to disregard an actual storytelling and comprehensible language), The Vampire Queen's Servant is surprisingly enjoyable to read and written by the wildly talented author who managed to blend sexual intensity and characterization in one book without compromising anything. The Vampire Queen's Servant is a paranormal erotica with enough romance element that is curiously more in context of power play and trust within a relationship than other conventional BDSM book. Actually this isn't a BDSM erotica in that spanking and kinky spectrum but it does consist on some issues on dark sexuality that may or may not up to anyone's cup of tea. Even I wasn't but I was curious enough to read it only to find again this is really a well written book on the subject. Lady Elyssa herself is a considered an extinct creature as a vampire royalty and one of the creatures of the night you shouldn't mess with. However, to her surprise, she received an unexpected surprise when her former human servant, a monk named Thomas, gifted her with a human servant or technically a slave to her needs. The problem is, serving a powerful female vampire need a certain level of servitude required and Jacob is not a submissive in any sense. As for Jacob, he was a trained Vampire Hunter who choose to serve Elyssa because even he couldn't escape her intriguing presence. With the help of Thomas, he trained to serve her and seemingly prepared to offer everything for her and this is for a reason. Technically, whole focus of the story was on Jacob trying to gain the trust of Lady Elyssa by becoming her human servant and Elyssa's continual refusal even if she need him. All these time, he had to get used to the ideas of being under Elyssa's dominance, as a queen and also as a master. On the other hand, Elyssa had another motive to reject his offerings, she is dying and by giving him all of her marks, he would die if she dies. So, it is a romance story but with enough twists.The characterizations are as complicated as the dark world this book set itself in. The metaphor of blood and sensuality is more profound in this genre and the significant of Elyssa as a vampire heightened the suspension of belief that synchronized with the BDSM theme. In all her fragility, Elyssa is a powerful and violent creature with more strength and wisdom compared to Jacob as a human. Through her millennial life and the life with her husband Rex, she had suffered abuse, heartache and her soul ripped out and Jacob could see this underneath her stern unforgiving veneer. This give more perspective on how the relationship between the two unconventional creatures could exist.However, one of the thing the writer did right was giving humanity in her characters in her emotionally riveting story. This is quite a feat in the genre but definitely not to be taken lightly. I think the idea of this book is trying not to shock the audience so much but to make the dark sensuality relatable enough while being riddled with obscurity. As a first book, it explores the depth of characterizations more while hinting the inevitable future that these characters will face in the subsequent book. Its quite daunting and unsatisfying for the uninitiated and those seeking a similar 50 Shades treatment but you can't really discount the intriguing storytelling. Not a light hearted book in any way.