Attain Beguiled Compiled By Paisley Smith Available In Ebook

enjoyable lesbian romance. Overall I felt it was too rushed and there needed to be more UST and buildup of Belle and Alice's relationship.
The sex is hot, though, and I did enjoy the characters and setting, Did find it a bit odd that the first half of the book is in first person Belle's POV and then Alice's third person POV is suddenly added.
It was a bit jarring, But it's definitely worth a read, sitelinkOriginal review here Original Novella

NOTE: This is the original novella I am reviewing here.
I just found out that Paisley Smith has totally rewritten the story and turned it into apage book.
I'll read that one and review later,

Beguiled is a short novella written in first person, I really like turn of the century novels this one is set during the Civil War, It was a fast, enjoyable read,

I cared about the characters and wanted to know what happened to them, Paisley always puts sexy bits into her writing this one was no different, In all honesty, I kind of skimmed over those parts I'm more of a plot kind of girl.
But it didn't take away from the story here, The story felt reasonably researched and believable,

It seemed like the right length, though I was left wanting to know more about the characters.
This was so sexy!!!!! I had to put it down once or twice to cool off! This might be a.
star read, but it getsfor avoiding a lot of Civil War fiction cliches after making me think it was totally about to succumb to them.


Most importantly, Belle and Alice are a beautiful couple who made my heart ache, Each physical encounter between them upped the ante so much that it hurt to read, and yet I couldn't stop and read the whole thing in two sittings.


My biggest issues came from the telegraphing in the writing style, but either it stopped after the first two chapters, or I got over it because I wanted them to be together so bad.
Either way, I count that a win,.Very well written historical f/f romance, Set towards the end of the Civil War, Belle must do the best she can to ensure that she and her mother have a roof over their heads and food.
When the Yankees come she makes a bargain to house two of their wounded, One man is mortally wounded, the other is not a man but a woman, Belle is fascinated by Alice, At first neither trusts the other but their feelings build, Together they fight off bushwackers and more Yankees who want to destroy Belle's home, A realistic portrayal of a world gone mad where nothing is as it was and chaos reigns, I liked Belle and Alice and liked the love scenes, Beautifully written. Love, love, loved Belle and Alice, I was rooting for their happily ever after from the start, In this historical romance, Alice joins the Union army and is wounded in battle, She's taken to a field hospital located in a Georgia plantation mansion and left there once her fellow soldiers learn her true identity.
Isabelle is the wife of the plantation, with a new husband missing in battle and a brother off to fight with the Confederacy.
Initially leaving Alice to die of her wound, her conscience pushes her to help, especially once she discovers Alice is a woman.
After some time, the two grow closer and a sexual relationship begins, But given everything in their circumstances, a future together seems unrealistic and not even desirable,

This book focuses mostly on the POV of Southern civilians like Isabelle who are forced to survive on their own and who are facing threats from the Union army as it occupies Georgia.
While Alice joins the fight as an abolitionist, the author positions the issue of slavery as more complicated and the treatment of former slaves by the Northerners as harsh.
While some of this is no doubt historically accurate, it still felt like it essentially absolved Southern slaveholders from responsibility and painted a negative portrait of the Union army.
It reminded me a lot of how German civilians hold out their suffering during the last year and aftermath of WWII, trying to draw some kind of moral equivalency.


At the same time, the book veered into erotic romance given the number of sex scenes that toward the end detracted from the story.
I'm not usually a reader who scans the sex scenes, but after a while I felt like I wanted to so I could get to the resolution of the plot.


On balance here, I'm going with aweighing the good historical research and detail in the book against the flaws outlined above.
i was expecting a historical romance, but that was problem on my part, given the length of the book.
there were more sex scenes than anything else and they werent even great,.stars.

I thought this was a really interesting, erotic and enjoyable book,

I read the revised version which is in novel form vs its original format as a short story.
From what I understand, there are several changes so I'll get those out of the way, The story is no longer straight up porn, There are nonsexual scenes between each erotic encounter

where you see Alice and Isabelle growing in affection and respect for each other.
I didn't find the language to be crass, I'm no expert but nothing jumped out at me as not true to the time period, Isabelle now is a raven haired beauty vs blonde and Alice does not have a young, boyish appearance.
The infamous candlestick scene is also not in this version,

We meet Isabelle at the beginning of the story as the owner of a long standing home in Georgia.
Union soldiers have taken over her house and have left, leaving the home in a grisly disarray, In her home, she finds two soldiers that are abandoned who are expected to die from their battle wounds.
Isabelle's husband is off fighting on the Confederate side of the war and has a status of 'Missing', leaving Isabelle to take care of the home, the farm it stands on and now these two soldiers.
One of these soldiers, come to find, is Alice, a woman masquerading as a man, The rest of the story is about Isabelle nurturing Alice to good health and the two falling for each other despite their reservations and preconceived notions.


There are several things the author did well, This is the first Civil War lesfic story I've read and the history and setting was painted in a rich way that also felt historically accurate.
In particular, the story presented a more humanistic side to the civilians in the South who were at the mercy of whoever marched through their town that day.
I didn't feel this was a sympathetic or 'excusing the South' angle, but one that highlighted the chaos that bystanders had to endure.
There is complexity here where the characters alter their polarizing views to shades of gray, It was this element of the story that made it 'interesting',

The sex scenes are very explicit and, for those who complain that too many sex scenes feel monotonous in a story, I'd say this isn't an issue here because all of the sexual encounters are different from one another.
Each scene grows in intimacy as their relationship develops, There are some tantalizing power plays in the beginning scenes that turn more equal and mutual later, Really well done.

Isabelle is a great character, She's a Southern Belle beauty that is internally strong and not afraid to do the hard work, She also has compassion and selfreflection, Alice is a complete butch that's taken for a man on sight so don't let the book cover showing two femmes fool you.
I thought her character was okay but I wasn't really taken with her, Isabelle came across as downhome sophisticated while Alice seemed sort of immature or young to me, As the story went along though, Alice's character matures and became a lot more likable,

About/s of the way through the book turns from erotic romance to adventure/suspense which I actually thought was really well done and I enjoyed quite a bit.


Editing wise, the story seems free from grammatical errors and typos and the structure is good.
I did feel like there were some things that were said more than once here and there and there was a reference to a jump in time that confused me but, overall, well done.


Definitely it's a worthy read and one I recommend,
.