The Fourth Queen by Debbie Taylor

The Fourth Queen

Debbie Taylor

Helen Gloag is captured by pirates, sold as a slave and ends up in the Emperor of Morocco's harem. I was drawn by the unusual storyline and did laugh at the comic descriptions of harem life with its fantastic characters, while blushing at some of the more explicit details of the women's personal lives. This is very much a book of the senses and how much a reader likes to read about the sensual will determine how much they will get from this book.

Extract
He'd gone to the garden on Thursday, of course. He had joked about it, saying what a waste of time it was when she was all he wanted. She'd waited there for him, at the end of the front row in her new green silk, tingling with desire and triumph. The other women had backed away in glum silence as he strode towards her, ignoring Malia's urgent tugging at his sleeve. What a heady moment it was, when he'd pushed through them all to get at her, and had taken her hand and pressed it to his lips, and turned it over - there in front of them all - and had bitten the flesh where her thumb joined her palm. And had laughed when she'd gasped, and licked his forefinger and stroked it along her lower lip, and made her bite it, staring into her eyes as though there was no one else in the world.
Parallels
  • The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant
  • Earthly Joys by Philippa Gregory
Buy this book Borrow this book
Violence
Explicit sexual content