This is a tale of adventure and self-discovery as much as lust. There are relatively few sex scenes. However, they will leave you breathless and aching. They have an emotional complexity that is fairly rare, especially in erotic romance, which I suppose is the appropriate genre. I’ve never encountered a more brutal or more moving BDSM scene in erotic romance than the final session when Sofian begs for Numair’s pardon.
Where to find this book
There is an ancient tale of a powerful woman who demands a tribute of young men to serve her at court and in bed. But that tale has never been told like this.
When Sofian woke up this morning, he was the heir to a land blessed by prosperity and science granted by the Empress. Though he will never please his father, he will rule Mazinara after the old man dies.
Before nightfall, the Empress will claim him as a consort, summoning him to her court beyond the stars where he will live out the remainder of his life surrounded by strange people with stranger customs.
Sofian has one last chance for love with the only other person who can understand him—one of the Empress’s discarded consorts, a man so broken he can’t remember how to feel.
The Memorial Garden is a dark fairy tale of erotica with a compelling bisexual hero. CW for abuse, consensual S&M, and a complicated nonconsensual relationship. (Mild spoilers exist further in this review, so proceed with caution.)
The prose is both beautiful and stark. It starts like a traditional hero’s journey, with a princeling pulled away from safety into the unknown, but Sofian begins his unwilling quest already broken. Unloved, despised, abused, he is almost sleepwalking through his life of promised power and present misery, his only release the catharsis of wild mischief and purchased sex. Plucked from this life on the whims of genetics and an ageless Empress light years away, he is further tempered by relationships made and lost before he is cast up before an inhuman goddess he cannot help but worship, and another broken man the Empress has already used and discarded.
If you are trying to glimpse the soul of this novella, hold the emotion of Leonard Cohen’s “Love is not a victory march / It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah,” then envelope that feeling in flames. There is love here, and there is healing, but it is hard won. Highly recommended.
Content Warnings
BDSM (Impact play), non-consensual sex, drug use, brief mention of suicide.