Beauty's PunishmentAnne Rice (as A.N. Roquelaure)
Plume (1999) [first published in 1984]
Sequel to The Claiming of the Sleeping Beauty. Beauty, infatuated with prince Tristan, rebels to be sent away from the Castle to the Village as punishment. There, she is sold at auction to serve at a tavern where she will be educated in love, cruelty, dominance, submission and tenderness.
This time Beauty is almost a secondary character, as the book focus heavily on prince Tristan. This book I found it more interesting than the previous because of the inner develpment of the main characters, who ask themselves and try to know which is the nature of their submission and why, how and until which point they feel fulfilled when submitting. Secondary characters are fleshed up as well, and the erotic scenes are hotter and more varied. There are some interesting twists in the story, too.
I have found that a trend in this series is objectification. With each book we see that the main characters are treated less and less as human beings, and gradually degraded to lesser states.
