The Prince of Cups

Title:	The Prince of Cups
Creator:	Gayle F
Date(s):	June 1, 1995
Medium:	print
Fandom:	genre, professional, historical romance
Language:	English
External Links:
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The Price of Cups is a professional, historical romance novel by Gayle F.

The author is a well-known fan writer and artist.

Comments by Slash Fans

1995

A steamy romance from a well known Blake's 7 fan writer set in the political intrigues of historical Italy. Written for those who like a dark, Avonic hero, gypsies, tarot cards, and lots of sex.

A big, fat (471 pp.), juicy historical romance set in fifteenth-century Italy, with quite a lot of very steamy (heterosexual) sex scenes. There's something very familiar about dark, handsome, tormented Antonio di Fabiani-- especially when the heroine first sees him, dressed in black and silver. His resourceful servant Giacomo is played by someone we know, too. These two are the only really obvious B7 avatars-- and they are definitely intentional-- but there are also some other characters who resemble B7 folks at least a little: a wonderful sexy villainess and her creepy henchman, a feisty auburn-haired heroine with psychic powers of a sort, and a handsome young man who appears at first to be a romantic rival of the hero but turns out to be an ally. The action moves right along, with lots of interesting historical detail along the way. I love the scene in which the hero wakes up in bed with Lucrezia Borgia and realizes that he has just done something really, really stupid!

I was flipping through it but saw too many romance cliches. If I see it at the library I'll borrow it, otherwise, I'll reread her B7 stories and wish for more. She wrote as Sylvia Knight.

1996

You asked where [Gayle F] is. Well, she's writing and publishing (professionally) historical romances. She's done two so far, (The Prince of Cups and The Thief's Mistress) and they are both excellent!

If you want to see for yourself how romance has changed, [Gayle F’s] historical romances are an excellent place for K/S fans to start. Her Prince of Cups may be the first romance to contain a gay character who isn’t a villain. Her Robin Hood novel, The Thief’s Mistress, is interesting because I think the male heroes have certain resemblances to characters we know. Robin Hood is a good deal like Kirk, and Guy of Guisbourne reminded me of Mirror Spock in all the grandeur of his pride, alienation and ruthlessness. Read it and see if you agree with me.

I loved [Gayle F's] Prince of Cups. A wonderful tale of 15th century Italy. Much to admire!her beautiful writing and the compelling characters and story, and then also her skill at weaving her story into actual historical events involving real people; although by the end, all the papal politics stuff got old for me, and didn't seem to truly impact on the characters we cared about. The best was that when push comes to shove during a major danger-climax part of the story, he is tied up on the bed and she jumps through the window and rescues him! Romance novels have indeed changed.

But what struck me as I read was how it must have felt like a vacation to write love/sex scenes with a "he" and a "she" (and she writes them gorgeously) after writing K/S. I think we K/S'ers are to be applauded for doing something, mostly quite well, that is really a challenge!writing understandable sex scenes with two of the same gender.

Those who have read Prince of Cups seem to share your opinion. They were disappointed, saying Gayle's slash is much better. I wonder if the publisher insisted that she stick to the romance cliches, or if Gayle just felt that she had to?

I enjoyed [Gayle F's] romance. Prince of Cups. I agree with you that it had too many romance-genre cliches (like the young, innocent heroine), but I very much liked the scene toward the end where the Avon-like hero is tied to a bed and threatened by the knife-wielding Servalan-like villainess.

I enjoyed Prince of Cups very much. It's an excellent historical romance — both accurate and interesting in historical detail (as far as I could tell) and richly sensuous in style. It's not slash, and shouldn't be compared to a slash story, any more than a gorgeous, pedigreed Golden Lab should be entered in a cat show. Gayle didn't write it for the 1,000 or so slash fans, she wrote it for the 100,000 or so historical romance fans, who could afford to pay her for it.

I know Gayle didn't write Prince of Cups for slash fen. But many of those who read the book felt that it wasn't as good a genre romance as it could have been. What bothered people was that her heroine was so clueless. These days, it's not required that the heroine be that inferior to the hero. Gayle's slash makes it clear that she can write romances in which the partners are more equal; many people were hoping that she would. Well, maybe next time...

Comments by Mainstream Fans

1998

In a time when most books seem like a copy of one another, this book stands out as completely different. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the story of Antonio and Veronica. Renaissance Italy is such a fascinating place, and very few writters have tried to write about it. The philosophy, the art, the politics, they are were intertwined and Ms. Feyrer did a wonder job expressing this. Plots, and schemes, love and death, assassinations and greed, religion and politics, they are all there.

My only criticism of this book was the abruptness with which some of the scenes changed. The changes between the chapters was done well, though sometimes took a few paragraphs to see where we were and with whom. It was within the chapters, when going between the various charaters and their thoughts, that I felt adrift sometimes. There was nothing wrong per se, it was sometimes just so abrupt that it took some time to catch back up. Especially in the beginning in the scenes with our hero and heroine, I had a hard time placing their relationship. Otherwise, this was a wonderful story and I HIGHLY reccommend it!

2003

Usually I steer clear of historical romance and romance in general because I hate the flat plotlines and overall silly, almost forced writing. I decided to give this book a shot though because I had just gotten into practicing Tarot, and the title of the book interested me. There is a little bit of tarot mixed up in here, the heroines grandmother practices it, and the Prince of Cups card follows every chapter. So that was kind of neat.

Besides that I enjoyed the writing and the plotline, both were sophisicated enough to hold my attention, there were actually big words in this book, ha ha. And I also liked the fact that a few real-life historical figures showed up in the storyline, for instance the Borgia family (Lucrezia in particular) makes an appearance, as well as Niccolo Machiavelli. This is a quick read, it is fast paced and enjoyable, without being ridiculously goofy.

I really recommend this book for anyone who proclaims to hate this genre!

2013

Prince of cups is a 3.5/5. Antonio is a sex addict who feels a malice after sex. I hated the fact the the cover showed his picture. I prefer a romance novel without a cover of the characters to let the readers imagine their own image of the characters. Meh, I pushed the cover from my mind.

[...]

Lets say I became interested in Italy after this book.

Loved the rough sex scenes, hated the infidelity. meh well I'm glad that one person got what she deserves. Poor Veronica she doesn't deserve such infidelity, she's a pure devout soul. She was a virgin when she first him. ;(

Throughout the novel she became my best friend, after reading about that whore Marian in the thief's mistress, my faith was restored in romance characters. She's a pure virgin generous soul with flaming red hair. I've always had a dislike for blonde females.

I prefer rough, sudden sex as opposed to slow romantic one, But i do prefer the description of the Romantic scenes. I hated the infidelity scenes. Lets say when a guy does it, its less revolting than when a girl does it.

This was Mrs.Yves's first novel. I've read all her novels starting with the latest.

[...]

Mrs, Yves tend to include homosexuality in her novels. As a christian I don't approve, it didn't really bother me, but its why I gave the novel 3.5/5.

I'm torn as to how I feel about it. On the one hand, it is ridiculously well written and all the main characters are sound. On the other, it had some serious problems.

Gayle Feyrer, the real name of writer Yves Fey, writes very, very good stories that are not your typical historical romances. That's why I loved The Thief's Mistress and it's what I liked about this book. Unfortunately, while TTM walked that line between "atypical" and "romance" I feel this book was horribly mis-marketed. Yes, it is has romance. But it's more of an historical fiction and I suspect the problems I had with it would disappear if it had been marketed as a simple Historical instead of a romance novel. Because the genre tropes and formulas of a typical romance aren't just subverted or recreated here, often their missing altogether. So reading it meant it felt something was very much missing.

[...]

I am glad I read it, but would I recommend it? Honestly, probably not. This book suffers because it felt like it should have been longer, at least a hundred pages longer. Or, it should have been about a hundred pages shorter. By the end I was being told so much to wrap up all the dangling plot threads I just wanted it to be over. I spend a huge portion of the novel wondering if this was her first work.

I'm excited to find out Yves Fey has written other things, though. She's incredibly talented.