Under a Velvet Cloak by Piers Anthony

Rating: 1.0

What it's about:
The eighth book in Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series. It is the year 500 AD. Kerena, a beautiful young girl living near King Arthur's Camelot, is apprenticed to Morely the Seer. Morely teaches her fantastic magic, but when he mysteriously disappears, Kerena finds herself out on the street and must resort to prostitution to survive. Kerena prospers as a skilled courtesan until she is taken into service by Morgan le Fey, the sorceress sister of King Arthur. Kerena's knowledge of magic grows as she is required to carry out nefarious deeds for the evil Lady Fey. One of her missions is to seduce Sir Gawain, Knight of the Round Table, to prevent him from locating the Holy Grail. But Gawain and Kerena fall in love and she conceives his child, a child she discovers is cursed to die an early death. Using her Seer abilities, Kerena tries to locate the fabled Incarnations of Immortality, seeking their aid in removing the taint from her baby. Rebuffed by all seven major Incarnations, Kerena vows revenge. But revenge against such mighty immortals would require an even greater power... -taken from Barnes&Noble.com

My thoughts:
This book is terrible! It's book eight in the Incarnations of Immortality series and hopefully the last. It's definitely the last for me! I loved the first book in the series, On a Pale Horse, but then the books went downhill from there. In Under a Velvet Cloak, the author is entirely too preoccupied with sex. Sure, sex can be good in a story but not when it's in every other paragraph (unless the story is written as erotica of course). It's distracting and detracts from the story line, what little there is of one. And it's not even good sex. It's laughable how corny his descriptions are! And then there is the matter of one of the "good" guys who likes having sex with little boys between the ages of six and eight. How can Piers Anthony write in this character as a hero? He should have been the villain in my opinion. Do yourself a favor and read the first book in the series and stop there.