Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780425212592
ISBN: 0425212599
Label: Berkley
Manufacturer: Berkley
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: 2006-11-07
Publisher: Berkley
Studio: Berkley

Emma Holly loves to take a walk on the wild side, and here she ventures into a sensuous and dangerous world where a human courtesan becomes the flesh and blood property of a demon prince. Soulmates, lovers-and victims of an unnatural desire that could drive them both insane.

Customer Rating:
Summary: epic romantic adventure
Comment: I admit it--I'm an Emma Holly fangirl. Though in general, I prefer her non-mainstream stories, she's outdone herself here. This is the 3rd story (one was a novella) in this series about the Yama--what the humans in this alternative-Victorian-earth call demons.

Emma Holly's great at breaking rules, and she does so again here--starting a romance with the conception of the protagonists. It works, because that's where the story starts.

Heroine Xishi is conceived in a revenge plot--her mother is half-human, and her father is the emperor who exiled her mother's family for their impure blood.

Hero Corum has a genetic defect, discovered before birth, that will render him incapable of the strict emotional control common--and essential--to the Yama nobility. But his mother had been unable to conceive until now, and she refuses to abort the fetus, reasoning that she'll teach him control.

The two are raised together--both because of Xishi's mother's plot and because being around Xishi seems to be the only thing that calms young Corum. Then the time comes when Xishi is sent away, because she's too much of an influence on the young prince.

Xishi lives in an orphanage until she comes of age. Then, with no other alternatives, she enters training to become a pillow-girl, a courtesan.

Corum, meanwhile, learns control--such control that he's known as the Prince of Ice. Such control, in fact, that he's not at all interested in the young women the matchmakers are eager to pair him with, and his eyes have never turned black in the presence of any of them--this being a sign that the two would be genetically compatible. (It's like soul mates, but not quite, as it's not always a love match, nor is there necessarily only one match per person.)

So his father takes him to a brothel to get him a pillow girl, thinking that this will jump-start his libido. And Corum goes home with Xishi.

There's a wealth of world-building in this story. We learn much more about what makes the Yama tick, the structure of their society, and the political intrigues. The previous stories in this series were written from an outside perspective, but this is from the inside. I enjoy the way this world has been developed, maybe moreso because it's unusual to view the world first from the outside, then the inside.

There's also a wealth of sex and sensuality--a given in an Emma Holly book, but what's also a given is that it will be not only explicit, it'll be well-written and purposeful. There are no wasted scenes here, and nothing that makes me skim.

Best, though, is the story of Xishi and Corum: Corum's struggles with emotion; Xishi's loneliness when she's ostracized at the orphanage; the different paths their lives take them until those paths again intersect; and then the difficulties they go through, including life-and-death danger, to be together in the end. It's an epic romantic adventure.

---

Customer Rating:
Summary: Very hot in the Prince of Ice world...
Comment: This is one of my favorite Holly books, I actually liked it better than the first in the series - Demon's Daughter.

This book is set entirely in the world of the Yama, which feels like ancient China, and it actually has a complex plot that works. Corum and Xishi were childhood friends, but the circumstances of both their births are complicated and have secrets. They are focibly seperated at age 8, and Corum grows up to be the Ice Prince and Xishi becomes Buttercup, a trained but somehow inexperienced courtesan (I know, I know...) However they remeet when Corum buys her and their relationship grows from there. I enjoyed the world and the erotica. An enjoyable romp.

---

Customer Rating:
Summary: Readable but not recommended. I wasn't excited about the plot or characters.
Comment: Nothing surprised or delighted me. This book was easy for me to put down and go do something else. The characters weren't interesting enough.

CAUTION SPOILERS: Story brief: Orphan girl is part human and part yama. She is training to be a courtesan. She is bought by a Prince who is 100% yama. She is his genetic match, they fall in love and they are mates. They have a lot of hot sex. It would have been ok if she was just his courtesan, but they were having sex while he was in heat, which was against the law, somehow. Then they are put in jail for potential mixed race breeding. There is a happy ending after that.

Sexual language: strong. Number of sex scenes: thirteen, some were lengthy. Setting: 1800s The Forbidden City, in an undefined location on earth. Genre: erotic paranormal romance.

To date, I've read the following Emma Holly books.

5 stars. The Countess's Pleasure (in anthology Hot Spell). Copyrt 2005. Review Date 5/11/08.
4 stars. Menage. Copyrt 1998. Review Date 6/23/08.
2 stars. Prince of Ice: A Tale of the Demon World. Copyrt 2006. Review Date 6/23/08.

---

Customer Rating:
Summary: Good idea gone bad.
Comment: When the story was first opening up, I was really looking forward to the plot that Ms. Holly was laying out. It seemed like this was going to be a real romance that I could get into. I figured that she just went a bit overboard with the adjectives while setting up the main conflict of the story. However, it became apparent to me quickly that the story was just one sex scene after another, each trying to be more graphic than the next. I was completely put off by the "alternative lifestyle" content that was included. It must be my mistake, but I thought that I was buying a romance, but ended up with something worthy of Penthouse. The main characters, after being separated since childhood, don't regain their love relationship at all when they meet again. Instead, they jump on each other and hardly disconnect parts for the entire book. I think that my favorite part of this story was very near the end, when there seemed to be honest plot development. Maybe I am in the minority, but I think that instead of being shelved in the romance section of my bookstore, this should have been placed squarely with the sex novels (aka erotica).

---

Customer Rating:
Summary: Sexy, fun, imaginative!
Comment: I enjoyed this novel. It's funky different with a Chinese, regency, futuristic blend that is wholly inviting. Emma has a way with words that is utterly sensual and yet builds the plot. No gratuitous sex here but sex that is intrinsic to the story line and swings the characters around to their final destiny.

---