Passion D'Amour [Paperback]

Anne-Marie Villefranche (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1998

Back by popular Demand, here are two complete novels of Paris in the 1920s, when the pleasures of love were an art form.

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf Publishers (September 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786706007
• ISBN-13: 978-0786706006
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.1 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,870,694 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars From the queen of French erotica two marvellous classics, September 27, 2001

By 

Rudolf Spoerer "dowadiddi" (Weston, FL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Passion D'Amour (Paperback)

Anne-Marie Villefranche's books have been published and re-published as stand alone novels, and, most vexingly as mutliple book novels such as this book Passion D'Amour, with, a new title that has a tendency to obscure the original titles. So, if your are like moi, an afficionado of erotica the chances are excellent that you will have multiple copies of this authors' book ..... that may be the bad news, but, the good news is that her books are fabulous enough that you'll always have a copy nearby to read when you want to while away solitary moments.

This book has two full novels....

1) Palisir d'Amour 2) Joi d'Amour

In Plaisir the author takes us on a rollercoaster ride of 10 short stories with different characters, plots and settings. Each story of approximately 20 to 30 pages is so well written and so well developed that the reader does not feel cheated after finishing the story and demnding more. Each story has its own climax (so to say) and the characters are so well developed to make the tale viable.

The author very masterfully is able to tell a story without having to get into lengthly set-up before the story even begins. She does this by very deftly tying all the characters together as the sons, daughters, wives etc of a large well known and libidinous Parisienne family in the 1920's .... absolutely marvellous ....

To give you a flavour of the book, in the first story, Jeanne Takes A Lover' we find the young Christophe Brissard (some think this is the author's family) meeting the very married Jeanne Vernay (another well known Parisienne family) at a family dinner. Jeanne visits Christophe in his bedroom, after everyone went to bed, and our two lovers waste little time in tasting the fruits of the flesh. Jeanne however keeps warning Christophe that during his lovemaking he takes her to heights she has never been before and she is very scared. Their secret encounters continue while Christphe and jeanne slowly teach each other to let loose their inhibitions.

In Joie d'Amour we find a similar number of scrumptios short stories. In 'A Lesson for Bernard' a young Bernard Gaillard meets a married Simone Lebrun at a Brissard family dinner. Since taking a lover is such a very very French thing to do Simone and Bernard eventually find themselves together in bed where
Simone is more intersted in using her hands to make love to Bernard than other parts of her body. Although she gives in to Bernards requirment to complete the sex act, Simone simply explains to him that this does not give her the ultimate
pleasure she yearns for, but, she would just rather play with him using her hands. The young Bernard is so disconcerted he seeks the advice of more learned friends to be able to reconcile Simones wants and wishes to his desire to continue the clandestine affair....

Wonderfull works of erotic literature I recommend any of Veillefranches book highly ....

5.0 out of 5 stars A cut above most erotic fiction, May 7, 2011

By 

Daniel Berger (Atlanta, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Passion D'Amour (Paperback)

Anne Marie Villefranche's erotica is a cut above. Set among the Paris wealthy with whom she lived in the 1920s, she writes about the sex game as they played it, with a certain universality that transcends the place and the era. Not only is she inventive in her situations, she creates real characters. She has the ability to see the world through the eyes of each of her characters. She gets the different reasons a wealthy woman might have an affair - because she's bored, because her husband's lovemaking efforts are perfunctory, because he no longer pays amorous attention to her, because she's angry at him for having an affair of his own, or just because. She understands why a wealthy man might do same - because it's Paris and that's what you do!

She weaves the social cross-currents that affect such considerations into it - how people's own status, and their consideration of that of others, affects the romantic and erotic choices they make. She is delightfully free of postmodern ranting about sexuality, allowing her characters to love where desire and circumstance take them. She does not begrudge her male characters their lusts while celebrating those of women, a common hypocrisy today.

Villefranche's women characters, though, often assert their powers by playing games so subtle their male counterparts can't detect or comprehend them - the man who thinks he is seducing when in fact he is being seduced, or who does not see that he himself is the sex toy, when he thought it was the other way around. She makes men and women equal players, and gets convincingly into the heads of each side.

Her work is mostly short stories, enabling her to create a situation and work characeters through it without belaboring it. Her writing and sensibilities are delicate without being tedious, and humorous without being slapstick. She attains a vivid realism. In one story several brothers all vie to seduce the visiting Italian wife of a cousin - and they all do, without a single one detecting her ulterior motive. This is enjoyable and intelligent fiction about sex.

5.0 out of 5 stars Erotic & entertaining ... even if it's not what it claims to be, December 22, 2010

By 

Erotica Fan "Gaijin returned" (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Passion D'Amour (Paperback)

Was this collection of stories actually written by Anne-Marie Villefranche, or is it the creation of her modern-day granddaughter? I'm not sure, but it probably doesn't matter.

Usually, erotic short stories are dissatisfying because they don't allow for much character development. Not true, however, in this case. Most of these are long enough for the author to weave a fascinating glimpse into the lives of the characters, and most of the stories are very titillating, as well.

Were French women of the early 1900s really so sophisticated and also sufficiently liberated to have (and lustfully enjoy) all of these sexual adventures? In every encounter they climax easily and usually more than once. Not a single one of these leisure-class ladies gives a second thought to engaging in casual adultery, and most don't seem to resent their husband's sexual adventures with other ladies.

The author is not quite as explicit as female authors of today's erotica-for-women or (HEA "romantica"). But the sex scenes are sufficiently explicit to arouse the reader's libido. And that's really the point, isn't it?