Patience & Esther An Edwardian Romance by SW Searle

​Ah, our library has gone and done it. They bought pron. Comic book porn. Great and kudos for diversity, but considering how many awesome books they leave by the wayside and how many series they leave unfinished, this is a…questionable choice at best.
Thing is, I like graphic novels, and so I read most of them our library acquires, outside of YA and Manga. I figured this might be corny going by the cover, but I didn’t expect it to be porny too.
Should have done more research, the publisher goes by (kid you not) Smut Peddler.
So this smut is…well, smutty. Which would be fine enough in and of itself, but that’s about all it is. Guess expecting more would be like watching pornos for plots.
Not much of a plot here. Two maids in Edwardian era meet, fall in love and have sex. One is a fat Scot ,the other is a lithe half-Indian, so you got that fish out of water element. And diversity. Plus, there are all the political goings on of the era, women’s rights and all that.
The characters themselves…they have no arc, nothing. There are stretchmarks, heavily featured stretchmarks. Must be one of those fat is beautiful things, but is it really? Especially on a girl of 19?
There’s some very explicit imagery too, sex, all kinds of sex, all sorts of body parts. Quite precisely drawn for a book that often omits things as basic as its main character’s facial features.
Then art in general is pretty basic. Some of the characters, including one of the main ones have all the facial nuances of LEGO people.
But then again, this is smut, so it probably isn’t meant to wow you with its plot or its art. Which is just…ah, whatever.
There are two supplemental stories, one of which sets the protagonists in present day world, which actually tries to say something important about relationships. Almost seems out of place, given the main narrative.
Overall, ok, congrats, library. You’ve tricked me into reading porn. It’s as silly and trite as I imagined it would be. Now, go buy some real books.