I had the opportunity to read this story as its first volume was just finished being written over on Royal Road and I have to say I loved it. I'm truly disappointed that it never caught on but happy to say that I'm one of the first to find this hopefully soon to be not so hidden gem. 

here's why you should give it a shot.

The story is set in a fictitious version of a Greco-Roman controlled Egypt in a city called Orchrisus. It follows the life of Quentin an Albino man, moonkissed, they call him that is shunned by society, only being able to find work as the city's executioner in the colosseum. One day he happens to run into Razia a charismatic, Yet troublesome lady, she is working as an escort, to pay the bills, while practising her beliefs, and maybe she can have a little fun while she is at it,

You see Razia believes in Dolas, the Pierced Heart the god/ess of love and pain, art and suffering and wants to become a priestess of his/her church that is why she came to Orchrisus. True believers in Dolas (at least according to the church of the Pierced Heart) believe it's their duty to help alleviate people's suffering and create happiness in the world.

When Razia applied to become a priestess, she was denied because "she was too prideful", in actuality it's because she disagrees with the church doctrine believing that because part of the personification of Dolas is (free) love that a prest/ess duties should also extend to the s*xual needs of their parishioner.

She believes in and practices these beliefs and tries to elevate/rehabilitate a person's state of mind through emotionally/physically connecting to them. She finds out about their troubles in life and helps them work through them emotionally and if it also s*xually helps them that way too. Whether the person is a senator or a disfigured man living in the slums she would do her best to try and let them vent their baggage on her for a while and achieve at least some momentary peace of mind.

This is how she got interested in Quintin; she saw someone she knew needed help, he was suffering, an outcast from the society he lived in, and he became a very lonely depressed individual. She offered him friendship but ended up giving him her Companionship and a community he could call his own.

Rizia introduces Quentin to her friend's group who are also ostracized because of their jobs. He ends up hanging out with, and looking out for them, because of events they end up relying on him for protection. But because he has a ton of money from his job, the money that is paid for "Pimping" actually goes into a security fund and is used to help the girls ie. it's used to help pay off the debt of one of the prostitutes, Samantha, so she won't be sold into slavery.

While All this is happening, there are 3 intriguing subplots happening in the background that take turns injecting some action/drama into the story while the plot progresses for the other two (though there is enough energy even between these bursts to keep you engaged). The plots all come together at the end of vol 1 in a spectacular way.

I personally love this story, it has a lot of great and well-developed characters, and a tightly knit plot all wrapped up in less than 600pages.

I also love how this story shows how s*x work is real work and shows the troubles that people in the industry are exposed to ie. exploitation, assault, forced s*x work, outright s*x trafficking... it's not fully accurate but does a good job showing some of the bad sides.

My favorite example of this in the story:

The three subplots mentioned above are:

Read More

The writing is good and smooth. I just feel like the pacing is too slow and the emphasis on the thugs is too much. It feels like its just a description of a series of events instead of something that's building to a climax. Maybe that's too harsh. I'd read another novel from the author. I just don't think this story is my taste.

Read More