The planet of Geratica has at its core a live dominant sex. The world is run by women and men are traditionally subservient. It is a monarchy, and its head of state must always be a queen. A schism at the core means that a parallel world has been created - Geraticai. On Geratica, Queen Alexandra reigns over a prosperous realm, but where discontent is brewing over the issue of 'male rights' in some quarters. Meanwhile on Geraticai, whose inhabitants tend to be more malevolent, Queen Victoria rules as a tyrant to her subjects, many of whom are impoverished. She is struggling to produce an heir, and has hatched a desperate plot to achieve her goal. If successful, this could mean the destruction of Geratica. In the second volume of this chronicle, we see how Queen Victoria launched her scheme, in the Geratican year 5000. Back in the present, Alexandra Radcliffe continues to be suspicious of the mysterious Fiona, stepmother of her boyfriend, Tom Ryder, and discovers a strange object in their hamlet wood which ends up taking her on an unexpected and perilous journey. Then the arrival of a highly unusual being results in a momentous decision having to be made and ultimately sets in motion a chain of events which will cause great social, political and civil unrest in both the worlds of Geratica and Geraticai...
Anne Hampton was born in 1971 and lives in Bristol, England.
She doesn't specifically write for one genre but encompasses politics, spying, action, thriller, murder, mystery, romance, adult, and fantasy themes.
Anne favours strong female lead characters (though she is not a feminist), and approaches adult themes from a sexually dominant woman's perspective"”reversing the traditional male/female roles in the bedroom.
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The Two Worlds of Geratica Volume 2: The Mistress of Geratica by Anne Hampton is a wonderful follow up to the first Volume. There is some overlap between this book and the first as this one starts ten years earlier then Volume 1. It also gets caught up to modern times quickly so this time change isn’t too much of a problem. Once again it is important to remember that Geratica and it's parallel, Geraticai, are similar to Earth but no the same place and the people who live there are not human.
Geratica is facing a time of political and economic turmoil due to the increasing number of “radical” thinkers in the realm. They are also in danger of spies from Geraticai who want to be their own world and not just a parallel of Geratica. As things reach a breaking point The Mistress of Geratica comes forward to aid in setting things right again. Sadly even that doesn't fix things right away.
Linda has a hard time getting bills passed through Parliament and Alexandra’s boyfriend, Tom, is caught in a compromising position. Alexandra finds herself gaining confidence as her own woman and makes some very big decisions for not only herself but for Geratica as a whole. It is questionable though if Geratica can survive the strikes and civil unrest and form a way to keep both the radicals and convinces happy. At the same time, the government in Geraticai keeps changing so fast it is hard to keep track of who is in charge at any given time. Eventually, Geraticai goes to war. To say the least, things are not going good for the two worlds of Geratica.
What I liked best was that in my review of the first book I complained that the second world (Geraticai) didn’t play a big part in the story yet this book fixed that entirely. The two worlds become intertwined in this book in such a way that it is deserving of its title. I almost regret my statement about the first book. What I didn’t like so much was that towards the ending I got very confused about Fiona and Robert. Without giving anything away their relationship with each other and the Mistress was good in concept but did not make sense to me very well as to why things worked out the way they did.
Once again I suggest a mature audience for this book. It is still geared more towards a mostly female audience but some men may find it interesting as well. There was still quite a bit of sexual content and politics so reader beware. This book deserves a rating of 4 out of 4 just like the first one. It could still use to be edited a little bit better but for the most part, I can not complain (and who am I to make a judgment on editing). The balanced time the author spends talking about each world prevents either one from getting too much attention. Overall an excellent book once more.
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