"Fresh out of finishing school, the Honourable Amelia Colinbrooke is a proud young lady of nineteen. She is most decidedly not a giddy girl, and neither is her slightly younger cousin Clara. When the two young girls arrive at Hope Hall to stay with their Aunt Alicia and Uncle Alex, Amelia is, therefore, appalled to find herself consigned to the nursery. Here the pretty cousins learn that it has been ordained that they spend the summer, subject to a strict disciplinary regime."

"As Amelia bridles under the rigours of nursery discipline, Lord Alex and Lady Alicia visit the Hatherby Reformatory to augment their staff, and Emma Swift soon finds herself dispatched to the infamous Hope Hall. Like the other maids whose destiny it is to serve the masters of that ancient place, Emma is taught to dance to rhythm of birch and leather, for beaten out on nubile flesh, the tune of birch and leather is the music of Hope Hall"

Honestly, you'd think that Victorian aristocrats were all a bunch of decadent sadists. Yet another novel where in the supposedly relatively enlightened nineteenth century, those of supposedly gentle breeding appear to be above the law, reproach or anything else resembling reality. There's undoubtably a market for this type of material, as it appears to be a wildly popular recurring theme in erotic novels, but I just found this book fairly laughable. The cliches are all in place, the cruel aristocratic couple, the charming cad, the public school educated young man, the sadistic reverend, the utterly cowed servants. Not to mention the ponygirls, races and slavery references. The idea that basically everyone is involved in some vast conspiracy to keep Hope Hall as den of vice and iniquity without any chance of escape for anyone caught up in it's machinations seems to be the overiding thrust of this work. As an escapist fantasy of victorian aristocratic sadism this book may fit your bill, but if you're expecting even slightly realistic you won't find it here.

Reviewed by Brian, Fetishlink Webmaster