Alyx

A beautiful 17 year old Earl is betrayed by his uncle and shipped to the colonies in Jamaica as a slave. His beauty is such that he becomes a stud slave used for breeding more slaves. But 10 years later he is the love interest of his mistress and his master. Both want different sexual favours from him. He gives each what they want. I was touched by the deep love of his master for Simon and how it complicated their lives. Simon is bred in the dark to girl who's similar accent stirs love in him. The unusual story of the different people who love Simon and how it affects his life as a slave. The understanding of his lover and master gives Simon unheard of privileges and many other things...including love and a chance for revenge. The ending let me down on two points. Alyx seemed very unloving to him (after all Simon had done for her) and she was a VERY secondary character if not third rate character in the story. Why was it called Alyx? The second point is that throughout the story we know that revenge upon his uncle would be uppermost for Simon when he returns to England. The story is built on these two points. The ending was very anti-climactic. To me the exciting characters are Simon and his master who loves him more than even the reader can know. There is a very touching moment between Simon and the master. We see that the master is a basically a good man. rape,asphysixiation,whipping...and love

WOW! I never read anything like it! Very unique and different. The book was quite disturbing at times. I felt so sorry for Alyx and Simon for all the pain and suffering they endured, especially Simon. I was crying throughout the book. The love they felt for each other was strong, but it was forbidden. The book was great, I loved it, except I felt like the ending was rushed. The author could of written at least another chapter or two.

FROM BACK COVER: "THEY WERE ENSLAVED IN A PLACE WHERE LUST KNEW NO BOUNDS- AND ONLY LOVE WAS FORBIDDEN..." They were two white slaves thrown together in the darkness of the breeding hut. She, Alyx de Vere, a virginal, sixteen-year-old beauty carried off to nightmare captivity on a Caribbean sugar plantation. He, Simon, (27) handsome, young, once heir to a noble title. He felt no desire for this anonymous woman who was forced upon him. And she knew only fearful hatred for this stranger who was about to violate her youthful innocence. But as night after night of tremulous, fevered mating passed, something forbidden grew between these two desire-damned lovers-a rapturous passion that drove them to dare any peril to free each other from this savage world of bondage and brutal submission. And it was then that Alyx and Simon swore that no power- even death itself- would ever overcome their eternal bond of flaming, all-conquering love... *** This is a very unique book. I doubt I'll ever find another like it. The book centers mostly on Simon and should have been called "Simon" instead. This book follows Simon, and sometimes Alyx's, lives as slaves, both of the physical sense and sexual. It's disturbing at times. It deals with white slavery, repeated forced sex on Simon by his owner, including asphyxiation and being drugged. I don't conside it a romance book, and in fact it just says 'fiction' on the cover. The love between the hero/heroine seems to be lacking to me toward the end of the book, which is a let down. But over all, superb. If only books were written this way today. I almost cried toward the end several times. I found on the internet that the author died July, 2002.

I picked "Alyx" up one day when I was around 14. Twenty years later, I still reread it periodically. It is one of my favorite novels."Alyx" is set in the late 1800's. Simon, the hero of the book, is a young nobleman sold into slavery in the Jamaicas by a jealous uncle. Alyx is a girl similarly put out of the way for an offense to that same uncle. The two are thrown together on an island plantation and assigned the task of creating an heir for the childless slaveholder. Simon and Alyx fulfill that task, but I haven't even begun to tell the story."Alyx" was marketed as a "romance novel". It is so much more than that. Lolah Burford writes beautifully. Her prose is delicate, ironic, startlingly direct yet deliciously subtle. Simon is a fabulous character---strong and brave, yet terrified and conflicted. Burford puts him through hell in this story, and how he comes out of that hell is not always easy to read, but is always fascinating. Relief, when it comes for Simon and Alyx, is well-earned.