Fouetté: Ailish Sinclair
I’ve been away for a few weeks and I’m well overdue a review of Foutté, the last book in Ailish Sinclair’s trilogy, A Dancer’s Journey. I’m quite glad to have had a few weeks to digest this one because Foutté is a wild ride.
The first thing to say is that the book is definitely not a stand-alone read. You’ll need to be up to speed on the adventures of our heroine, Amalphia, and the men in her life. Fouetté brings the story of passionate, talented Amalphia to its conclusion. (At least for now: Sinclair has promised that she will be revisiting Amalphia’s growing family soon.) The book ties off a lot of loose ends and we find out what has happened to many of the people who featured in the two previous books.
I mentioned a growing family and children are central to this book. Polyamorous Amalphia is living happily with two men and three children, but more children appear throughout the story. Much of the plot depends on parent-child relationships, both loving and abusive. The story centres around Amalphia’s love life, now rather less chaotic but still enthusiastic. Sexy Aleks is there, occasionally brooding but consistently magnificent. Loveable Will spends much of his time pursuing a successful career in the States but he returns regularly to Amalphia and the children. The three of them enjoy various combinations and permutations with the sex scenes particularly explicit, though never crossing the line into pornography.
It’s impossible to describe the plot, partly because anything I say will contain spoilers, but also because so much happens. There is magic and mayhem, evil plots and cruel revenge, and a lot of love and laughter. Some themes from the other books seemed more obvious to me this time. There’s a lot of attention to houses and homes, verging on property porn. Food features all the time – especially chocolate.
The story is not overly concerned with mundane reality. Frankly, it’s mad. A tiny part of me hated myself for reading it but I could hardly put it down. I galloped through it, loving every moment.
Fouetté is a particularly good example of why star ratings for books are so ridiculous. If, like me, you love this book, it will be an obviously five-star read. If not, then one star will seem generous. Will you love it? I have no idea, but if you enjoyed Tendu, you should definitely give this a go. (If you are not sure if you will enjoy Tendu, you can read my review HERE.)
I found the second book, Cabriole, less fun, but it sets up the situation for Fouetté. Think of the series as a classic three-act ballet. Tendu introduces the characters and has a lot of plot, Cabriole is the second act with lots of dancing and excitement but not a lot moving forward and then Fouetté is the final act where evil is vanquished and good triumphs and everybody gets to do a wonderful ensemble finale.
This reader for one, was happy to join the standing ovation.
Fouetté is available on Kindle at £3.99.