Books sometimes find me. I was going to the library to pick up some I had ordered and Raging Clouds by Yudori was sitting off to the side of the entrance. I almost didn’t go that way to the checkout desk (I usually go left, not right) but something made me go right. And there it was. Fat, shiny and new. It was shyly facing away from me. And that’s the last time this book was shy.
Even the librarian when I checked it out wasn’t shy about her opinion. I could tell she was a bit shocked by the content and when she said she thought it was going to be a nice sapphic romance, but it was very different from what she expected, I knew I had to read. I had hemmed and hawed about it when I had seen it on lists, or recommended, but it knew it had to just wait for its moment. And what a moment. I started it just to kill a few minutes before I was heading off to bed and instead almost read the whole thing in one sitting.
While the presentation was tame considering the subject matter, there are several scenes that are realistic (such as full nudity for females, sexual positions, using the chamber pot). It seems like it will be another sapphic romance, but it is something more. It’s probably the farthest you could get while still having a bit of sapphic element. Historical pieces mixed with modern language and themes, this is a read for the more mature reader looking for something both familiar and different. It is cleverly written and illustrated.
The characters are the put-upon wife, the spoiled man-child husband, the tempting servant, the old servant loyal to her mistress, and the sexual slave from far away. It is set during the 16th century, with Dutch merchants and history around them unknown to me. The way they act out; the way they present themselves was fresh. Yet, I know the story of an arranged marriage, the infidelities, the treatment of women. There is language, sexism, intercourse and racism, but honestly it is not done to shock or to be perverted, but to show you these people. See their selfishness, their pride, their greed, their lack of humanity at times.