You did it! We figured this one out! It is a truth universally acknowledged (by me for certain) that the Bitchery pretty much knows everything, and really, it's true. Scroll down to see the solution for this HaBO - and many thanks!
This HaBO comes from Ashleigh, who wants to find what she describes as a ” fantasy/adventure/romance:”
I read this (many times!) about twenty years ago. It featured a love triangle between a promising female conjurer, a former gladiator (?) who is her slave, and a sexy vampire.
I have no idea where I picked this book up, but I think it was definitely before I got over my embarrassment of buying romance novels at Barnes and Noble. I do remember that the book was written by two authors, one of them male.
I also don’t remember what the impetus behind the adventure was, but the story is focused on this young poor female in sort of a greco-roman style magical world (togas, sandals, etc). She is not a very strong “conjurer” (that word sticks out a lot for me – it was conjuring, not magic) and sometimes supplements her meals with conjured vegetables to make her feel less hungry.
Somehow she gets paired up with the slave/former gladiator, who is super hot and protective (I think maybe she owns him?) and eventually a knowledgeable vampire who helps support her skillzz (and wants to bone her for most of the book).
They go on this SUPER intense journey through various magical lands — massive armored spiders, man eating plants, crazy forests and deserts, the whole shebang. There is a lot of bathing in tubs and sexual tension, with some animosity/respect between the slave and vampire.
There are no explicit sex scenes, but I do remember her sleeping with the vampire (and maybe the slave too, but separately) and all of them working it out — kind of blew my pre-teen mind.
This book floats into my consciousness often, and unlike more traditional romance novels which I can usually figure out with some heavy googling, this one is just too random for me!
But also, can we get a rewrite of this, but with explicit sex scenes.
I’m pretty sure I read this at one point, too. It kind of sounds like If I Pay Thee Not In Gold by Piers Anthony and Mercedes Lackey, but I’m not sure.
YES!!! Thank you that is exactly the book I was looking for! Wow- and on the first comment- I am impressed 🙂 thank you!!
A bit OT, but how do you submit a HABO?
Wow. That was fast!
@Bev – under Contact there’s a link to content requests.
http://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/contact/requests/
Oh. My. God.
How did I not know this existed? Sorry, today, I’ll see you later.
It gets better. He’s not a vampire, but a male incubus that changes into a female succubus after having (hetero) sex. Sadly, I don’t recall the gladiator being a part of the eventual triad that forms to facilitate this.
Omg, haha, Melissandre I totally forgot about that part. My memory definitely blanked in some areas about the romance too, I guess I just *hoped* she would end up with the gladiator as well! The funny thing is that I must have bought this book at a scholastic book fair or other event at my Quaker elementary/middle school.
Cleo, Thank you.
Not to be a downer, but FYI, Piers Anthony has some…strongly-debated views on sex that shine through in his writing a lot. I have never read this one (and if he wrote it with Lackey, I imagine her writing style might impact/mitigate his), but if you go looking for more Anthony on the strength of this book, you might get an unpleasant surprise.
Lackey actually wrote pretty much the whole book off a premise Anthony devised and then he cleaned up the manuscript afterward. The end result is that there’s very little Anthony skeeviness other than what’s built into the premise. What I’ve seen from both authors suggests that it was not a happy partnership, and I can’t imagine how it could have been given how different their styles and attitudes are.
Holy cow, I got it! I feel like I have this floating around the house somewhere and now I want to reread it. Piers Anthony is level eleven skeezy, but I devoured his stuff in junior high.
I’m another who read a ton of PA books in my youth before consigning him to the thou-shalt-not-touch-with-a-ten-foot-pole pile due to his douchery. Now I’m so conflicted because I want to read this. Maybe I can check the library. That wouldn’t count as much as buying it, right?
Can we get some recommendations for this sort of book WITH more sex scenes? Ahem, for a friend.
You might like Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series. I read the first nine (?) books and loved them. Anita Blake is a professional necromancer and vampire hunter who consults with the police. She gets pulled into a romantic triangle between a very sexy vampire and equally hot werewolf. I loved the series until Hamilton decided to embrace a poly-romance world and Anita Blake began having sex with everything that moved. So disappointing. But the first 9 books in the series are great.