The Price of Pleasure
by Joan Lloyd, Joan Elizabeth Lloyd

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Book Reviews of The Price of Pleasure

Book Review: Sexy, But . . . .
Summary: 3 Stars

One night, coming home from a "date", Erika is involved in a car accident and, as she lies comatose in a New York hospital surrounded by her friends and employees, we learn how she came to be a madam. She was once, in her former life, a wife and mother. Her husband (Rick) was a cookie-cutter investment-type who we know only through Erika's clouded eyes. After Rick runs off to Switzerland with his gold-digging assistant, Sandy, Erika is left with no money, mounting debts, and a teenage daughter who hates her. Rick's coup de grace is focing Erika to choose between having Rick pay for her daughter's education (only in France) or losing all child support if Erika brings Rena back to the States. Erika becomes an escort as a way to make money and finds that she likes the sex and likes the companionship. Eventually, she takes over the whole business from Valerie, who is getting married to a former customer.

While Erika is in a coma, her grown up (and very resentful) daughter, Rena, comes back to New York to find that her mother is a madam. Understandably, she is furious, but in just a few short days (basically, in the time it takes her mother to come out of her coma) she comes around to accepting her mother and her friends. It helps that she has a night of hot steamy sex with Alex, one of Courtsans, Inc.'s hunky male prostitutes.

The problem I had with this book isn't about the sex or about the author's attitude towards sex (which is empowering and progressive), it's simply that these people seem way too normal to be real. There are two married prostitutes in the book (one is Valerie, the former madam of Courtesans, Inc.) whose husbands know about the work and accept it, one woman with a committed relationship (Erika), and one woman who is courting or is being courted by a doctor (who also knows what she does for a living). In the real world, people aren't so accepting of prostitutes. It may be an "ideal" world the author is painting, but it certainly makes the story lack depth. No one sturggles with a conscience. No one passes judgment (which is fine, excpet it's unrealistic). It's just too perky and perfect.

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