A while ago I quoted a startle from a fantasy novel “Firethorn” by Sarah Micklem, and, being only a few pages into the book, I didn’t express a further opinion. Unfortunately, I had to abandon the book in an airport having just finished it, but I loved it so much that as soon as my budget allowed, I got myself a second copy.*
What I didn’t know back when I’d just started reading it, was that the little startle I quoted was not even an appetiser, but rather a pre-feast nibble. There are numerous threats, reminiscences, allusions and narrow escapes, and finally a full-blown scene of a whipping of servants by their master:
He gave us a thrashing, all of us. He laid it on with a girth strap about our shoulders and backs and we stood still for it, one at a time, except for Noggin, who rolled on the floor and whimpered. …
Sir Galan gave me no more licks than anyone else, nor any fewer: exactly fifteen. I was the last to get my share. When he finished he said we should be grateful he didn’t have his strength back, or he’d have peeled the skin from our ribs, which he would do if we ever did such a thing again.
Mmm.
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*I love that book. It’s awesome. It’s the sort of fantasy novel with d/s-ish love story undertones that I wish I could write, but can’t. I want the sequel; now.