Review: Aeviternus Adventures

Teresa Perin sent me her book for review. I’m not sure whether the title is “The Elements” or “Aeviternus Adventures” since one is on the front cover and the other is on the spine. I first became aware of Teresa through the really cute blog she does about her goats. Having been raised with goats, I’m rather fond of the little monsters, although I also have horror stories about how baad they can be.

I hadn’t read any reviews of her book, so when it arrived I set it on the to-read pile, and it languished there. I’ve been too busy, as you know, to do a proper review for weeks, and also, this is a paper book, and I have been finding it easier to read ebooks on the fly. Last night, I finally got around to the book. It was... not what I had expected.

Look, if you are a grown-up fan of Wonderland, wish you could go through the lookingglass with Alice, or fly off to Oz with Dorothy, and you also want to have your fantasy worlds with lots of sex, then this is the book for you. I once read a fanfic about Dorothy and her travelling companions that this book reminded me a lot of. (No, I will not provide a link.)

Don’t be fooled by the opening, this is not a YA novel, or even New Adult. We leap into bed with the female protagonist and have pro-forma casual sex with the boyfriend who immediately after, still lying in bed, dumps her. Fortunately, Jilly isn’t silly enough to let this get her down for long, and by the time she gets home from college she is so over him.

In chapter two our heroine, accompanied by a dairy goat and a favorite cat, inexplicably falls through the darkness into a place where she can talk to the animals, something that bothers her not at all. Like Alice in Wonderland, she curiously sets out to explore. She journeys through this magic land (which is stuck in feudalism as so many fantasies are), encountering magical beings and having orgies with them. In return for the sex, she is granted powers, which is evidently why she continues to do this even after becoming romantically involved with a human.

The people in the book all want to take care of her, unless they want to enslave her. Those who want to take care of her, no matter their rank or status, bend over backward for this odd, very young woman in their midst. An example is here: “Jillian smiled and suggested, ‘you might want to rethink your policy on banning all magic.’

“The king shook his head in disbelief. ‘I’ll be. Who’d have thought magic could be so powerful and good?’”

At the end of the book, after Jillian has managed to return to Earth, because college is so much more important than her new-found lover and magic, she is called back into the land of Aeviternus. There she has more sex, adventures, finds out that she is the Chosen One, is almost raped to death, but because she is rescued, instead has more sex. Finally, Jillian arrives with her travelling companions to rebuild the Magical Commune, confident that together they can accomplish anything...

Sadly, I didn’t get into this book. It just wasn’t my cup of tea, but for those looking for some titillation and talking animals (did I mention the talking camel?) then this may be right up your alley. Yes, the dialogue is wooden, but that’s not why you would be reading this book, anyway.