Beauty's Punishment

Beauty has spent her time at the castle in a forbidden infatuation with Prince Tristan, a rebellious slave. For it she is sent away and sold at auction in a village close by.

In the village she is placed with the innkeeper Mistress Lockley and with the brazen Captain of the Guard. Between them they teach her cruelty, submission and tenderness, and each lesson is a different kind of schooling.

Tristan is in the same village, bound to another master. He and Beauty keep being pulled toward one another, though the village has rules of its own and each of them has desires that complicate matters.

Anne Rice wrote this as the second book of her Sleeping Beauty series under the pen name A. N. Roquelaure, and E. P. Dutton brought it out in 1984. The story continues straight from The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, and Beauty's Release follows. It is explicit adult erotica that recasts a fairy tale as a story of power, obedience and longing.

The question the book turns on is how much Beauty and Tristan can endure before they reach each other again.