"Emotionally searing, flamingly sensual novellas"

"Entrapped" by Ann Jacobs

Jamil is a Kuwaiti pilot shot down during the Gulf War, whose skills as a geo-petroleum engineer kept him from being released. He's spent the last eleven years slaving in the oil fields of Iraq and suffering the tortures of the damned at the hands of his jailer, Mohammed Dubaq, who enjoys raping, beating and castrating his charges. He has watched his companions die of their wounds, until only one other Kuwaiti prisoner, is left -- along with an American recently transferred there from Baghdad.

Leila is the widowed sister-in-law of Dubaq's wife, and she has every reason to hate Americans and Kuwaitis, whom she regards as enemies of her country. She lost her husband during the was, and was badly burned on her face and body as the result of a bombing during the Gulf War. Once a beauty, she now hides her scars behind her hijab and has given up hope of a husband and children. But her visit to her sister-in-law gives her the idea of using one of the prisoners sexually, in order to feel the touch of a man again and perhaps to have a child.

She comes to Jamil in the night, to take her pleasure with him. At first Jamil is unwilling, though his touch-starved body springs to life under her hands. With Dubaq's permission, she visits him nightly, and a bond springs up between them.

And then the orders come for Dubaq to leave to join another unit, which means the prisoners must be killed. Leila whispers the news to Jamil, who immediately realizes he must find a way to escape. But how can he leave Leila behind.

An elegantly written tale of two enemies who become lovers under the cruelest circumstances, "Entrapped" captures the desperation of these two scarred souls. It celebrates the beauty of love, which even chains and the possibility of death cannot destroy -- and the power of sex to heal the deepest of wounds. This story will arouse you and move you, often at the same moment. Another hot and painful gem by Ann Jacobs.

"Entangled" by Carroll Mavis-Raine

A lonely writer researching terrorism stumbles across a short story by an I.R.A. man imprisoned in Portloaise. Laura impulsively writes to him, and a correspondence begins. Now she is in Dublin, ostensibly to be closer to source material for her book, but really because of him. Her first visit to the jail is terrifying. Declan turns out to be drop-dead gorgeous, and she fears he will be disappointed by her plainness. But Declan is enthralled, and the two manage to sneak a stolen moments of lovemaking beneath a blanket.

But one day Declan shows up at her apartment, on the run after escaping from Portlaoise. At first Laura is simply too happy to have him to think about the consequences -- but when the search dies down, Declan begins to look up old comrades, and Laura finds herself embroiled in a plot to kidnap Prince Harry and exchange his life for the release of I.R.A prisoners.

This is a memorable story, the stark simplicity of its prose perfectly suited to the dark-toned love story. Laura is a heroine driven by desperation to protect the man she loves, even at the risk of her own life, and Declan emerges as a complex man whose natural gentleness has been eroded by years of membership in the I.R.A. and in prison. As a love story it works beautifully.

As an Irish history lesson, it is not entirely accurate. There are plot holes and inaccuracies large enough to drive a lorry-load of SAS men through. (I won't go into detail here; this is not the place for full-bore dissection of the intricacies of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.) Most importantly, I truly doubt someone could get close enough to Prince Harry to snatch him and get out alive with the boy in tow. A determined assassin could probably kill a Royal from a distance, or get close enough to kill one if he's willing to die in the attempt -- but he's unlikely to get out alive, let alone abscond with a Royal child.

Despite those plot flaws, this is a deeply moving novella, and well worth reading for its portrayal of two lovers caught up in a tragic war that shows no signs of ending any time soon. It captures the lamentable cycle of violence and its effect on human beings unable to escape from it, while still remaining its integrity as an erotic romance -- no mean feat, that.

Sensuality Rating: E-rotic; oral sex, anal play; pierced nipples, genitalia.

WARNING: rape of male prisoner who cannot refuse the woman.

Reviewed by Gillian Fitzgerald
Courtesy Sensual Romance Reviews
Posted June 27, 2004

Summary

Entrapped by Ann Jacobs
Sleeping with the enemy...

Horribly burned in an American bombing of Iraq, Leila Qassimi lives behind the veil that hides her scars. She wants revenge and a taste of the pleasure the loss of her beauty and her husband have long denied.

Imprisoned in an Iraqi jail, Jamil al Hassan has been whipped, beaten, and used for eleven years. He'll do anything to escape his sadistic jailer, Leila's brother-by- marriage, Dubaq. Anything.

Entangled by Carroll Mavis-Raine
While doing research for a new novel, American author Laura Winters visits a prison to interview Sean, an IRA prisoner whom she has corresponded with for the past ten months. When she meets him face-to-face, she is stunned by his sexual heat-and by her wanton response to it.

Laura believes that as long as he is locked behind bars, she can use that sexual attraction to write blistering love scenes for her novel. But then comes the day that Sean escapes from prison and arrives on Laura's doorstep.

She soon learns that real life sex is so much steamier than in her books.

Sexual Content: NC-17. Genre: bdsm.