As the story begans, Julia is approaching the auction block. Orphaned by her father's death, a daughter of the third house of Trethapians, she has been living alone after the marriage of her sisters until captured to be sold as a slave in the foreign land of Nestodore. In this culture, slaves are categorized by a colored ribbon: black for hard labor, orange for kitchen labor, green for field labor. But Julia wears the red ribbon of the pleasure slave, the division which has the least privacy.

Marcus, who wins her at auction, pays a thousand for her then ignors her. Instead of pleasuring him, she rooms with the house slaves, and wonders why he bothered to purchase her when pays her no attention. Then one day in his library, he has her read for him, sitting at his feet.

She wonders about him but he remains an enigma. Eventually, he locks her in a red shackle, a symbol of her slavery in a land where if she tries to escape, the red shackle is a permanent token to prevent her from escaping. But she is not thinking of freedom. When they are separated, he believes she escaped. When she was returned to him, she has to pay.

Marcus is alternately harsh and tender. But it is less the story of a master and slave than it is the path of two people desperately lonely people finding their way to each other. In fact, you could say that the Scarlet Shackle is a the story of a seduction, though at times it is hard to say who seduces whom. There is a rousing spanking scene, and a little bit of punishment, but it is all quite mild. In my opinion, it is good to see a BDSM story without the vicious anger that so heavily colors this genre. The story is short, more of a short story than a novella but well written. If a criticism must made, the only one is that it could have been longer.

Reviewed by: Maitresse
July 3, 2004