The House of Trysts
GENRE
DRAMA EROTICA COMEDY ROMANCE
Core Theme
FINDING LOVE
TIME PERIOD
Contemporary
COMPARABLE TITLES
FIFTY SHADES OF GREY, NYMPHOMANIAC, A DANGEROUS METHOD
CHARACTER LIST
• LAURA: 30SF, INTELLIGENT, BEAUTIFUL, DETERMINED
• LADY P, 70SF, MADAME OF THE CASA BLANCA BROTHEL, WITTY, WEALTHY AND SELF-ABSORBED, MOTHER FIGURE
• DAVID 30SM, LAURA'S HUSBAND, WORKAHOLIC, MOTIVATED, SELF-INTERESTED
• TONY, 30SM, LOVE INTEREST, BOOKSELLER, INTELLIGENT, KIND, COMPASSIONATE
Logline
Lady Pamela Spencer-Brown leads unsuspecting loveless Laura into the dangerous world of a high class London brothel from which she emerges a new woman
Target Audiences
Age: 18-70
Target Gender: Universal
Setting
Chelsea London and suburbs
Based on a True Story
No
Publishing Details
Status: Yes: self-published
Year Published: 2017
Starting Description
Laura, thirties,an interior designer , whose husband is neglecting her for pornography, bumps into a elderly lady in Chelsea who lures Laura into the high class world of fantasy escorts. Laura is unaware of the old lady's business until she stumbles into Pandora's boudoir, the resident dominatrix.
Ending Description
Having discovered that her husband is visiting Nefertiti,one of Lady Pamela's escorts, regularly, Laura strikes out on her own and forms a relationship with Lady Pamela's bridge partner Tony, a bookshop owner. They foil a police raid on the agency and fall in love.
Group Specific
Information not completed
Hard Copy Available
No
ISBN
Information not completed
Mature Audience Themes
Nudity
Plot - Other Elements
Happy Ending
Plot - Premise
Internal Journey/Rebirth
Main Character Details
Name: Laura Manning.
Age: 38
Gender: Female
Role: Protagonist
Key Traits: Naive, Beautiful, Complex, Insecure
Additional Character Details
Name: Lady Pamela Spencer-Brown
Age: 75
Gender: Female
Role: Mentor
Key Traits: Leader, Manipulative, Secretive, Aggressive, Confident, Criminal, Educated
Additional Character Details
Name: David Manning
Age: 42
Gender: Male
Role: Antagonist
Key Traits: Charming, Confident, Educated, Masculine, Secretive
Additional Character Details
Name: Pandora
Age: 30
Gender: Female
Role: Sidekick
Key Traits: Seductive, Adventurous, Beautiful, Confident, Flexible, Funny, Sexy
Genre
ROMANCE, MATURE AUDIENCE, DRAMA, SUSPENSE
Brief
Laura and David are in a loveless marriage with a daughter away at boarding school. Laura meets a woman who introduces her to men that change her sexual life. Little does she know she is being prostituted out by the same woman whose brothel is serving her husband's desires. In the end she gets divorced and finds a man that makes her happy.
Overall Rating
FAIR
Narrative Elements
Authors Writing Style: GOOD
Characterization: FAIR
Commerciality: FAIR
Franchise Potential: FAIR
Pace: FAIR
Premise: GOOD
Structure: FAIR
Theme: GOOD
Accuracy of Book Profile
The group demographics are primarily single women or fans of romance and erotica. The rest of the information is accurate.
Draw of Story
The story starts up relatively quickly and you can see how the point of conflict Casa Blanca, is going to be the ruin of this marriage. There are a lot of strings let loose early implying that there will be plenty to fill the plot as the story progresses.
Possible Drawbacks
The story is quite long. It has at least four arcs and the back half of the book feels stuffed with unnecessary drama to lengthen the inevitable happy ending for the protagonist.This reader can see the issues with adultery, but there is subtext that seems to discriminate the antagonist David for his proclivity toward Indian or brown women. It is stigmatized unnecessarily solely on the basis that his wife is white.
Use of Special Effects
THE STORY DOES NOT RELY ON SPECIAL EFFECTS
Primary Hook of Story
A couple can't find love in their marriage of eighteen years, so they start looking elsewhere. Little do they know, they're finding passion in the exact same place. The forbidden desire route along with female empowerment and self-satisfaction are the strongest themes to bring viewers in.
Fanbase Potential
The strongest demographics are adult women, likely single, fans of romance/sex/erotica. The British angle will help attract both American and British viewers, and the film would likely have an R rating.In terms of numbers this is a lusty property and will probably not have long term sustained support unless it can be extended into something fifty shades-esque.
Awards Potential
This film's proclivity toward basic smut rules it out of most award consideration. It is not attempting to be high art, it is sensational at its core.
Envisioned Budget
MEDIUM BUDGET
Similar Films/TV Series
FIFTY SHADES OF GREY, NYMPHOMANIAC, A DANGEROUS METHOD
What’s New About the Story
The Mentor-mentee relationship is twisted with the sexual undertones of Casa Blanca and all the women who live there. Outside of that the story feels straightforward in its character interactions and plot. The characters feel very two dimensional at times which saps energy from the highs and lows that they experience. Perhaps trimming the story down and adding a bit more backstory to preface this tale would add more weight to the events.
Lead Characters
the protagonist is made out to be attractive and capable, which she learns to accept and use as a means for her own self satisfaction. She is selfish, but often within reason, and she has a quick and deep relationship to the men that she meets.
Uniqueness of Story
This is an average story. It is full of plenty of lust and exposition, but it does not have enough the bones behind it to make the characters stand alone from the plot. Character backstories are built early, but some more major life events for Laura and David would help readers understand their relationship better in the years leading up to the present.
Possible Formats
Film - Indie, Film - Streaming, Film - Studio, TV Series - Cable, TV Series - Network
Analyst Recommendation
CONSIDER
Justification
I cannot quite recommend this story yet as it does not have a strong drive among its characters. If more emphasis were put into the backstories of Laura, Pandora, Tony and David--it would help build small conflicts that can fill out this long plot. If the story were to be trimmed to say, 250pgs, it would sustain the constant heat and anticipation that the author intended. Using the party as a climax, the story can resolve itself with the divorce and the implied relationship with Tony, as there is not a need to pull 200 extra pages from this romance arc.
Brief
Loveless marriage and husband who watches porn leads wife to seek out love elsewhere. Wife meets a secret brothel owner who becomes her mentor and helps her find passion. Wife is unknowingly pimped out by her mentor. Things explode when wife sees husband at the brothel, but in the end she finds love with a new man.
What We Liked
- The story is pro-sex and pro-feminism and there are many healthy relationships between the women in the story. There are redeeming qualities in the characters despite their obvious flaws, and in the end the protagonist finds love again.
- For film there is a lot of source material to work with. This can be be cut down to three tight acts, each one focusing on the rise and fall of the couple's marriage and the building of new relationships thereafter. Use the daughter angle as much as possible to tug the heartstrings and keep the brothel BDSM tropes as background filler to keep the audience chomping at the bit.
- For TV you can lop the happy ending off and use the framework for one to two seasons. Establish the relationships early and introduce love interests while using the shock and awe of the brothel's BDSM services to keep viewers looking for more. The major conflict can be the police investigation, meanwhile the C plot at the protagonist's job will ground the story in some normalcy while allowing for family drama to seep in through the cracks of this romance-heavy plot.
- Key points: Sex Appeal, Adultery, New Love, Self Acceptance, Avoiding Persecution.
Synopsis
Couple Laura and David of England have a 16 year old daughter and a failing love life. Laura has all the libido, or so it seems, when she finds porn on her husband’s computer. One day at the docks, Laura is getting fabrics for the couple’s shared renovation business, she runs into a woman named Lady P whose leg is hurt when her dog tripped her. Lady P invites Laura to her home, Casa Blanca, a massive Chelsea estate that is home to a secret brothel.
Laura goes home having made a friend, while Lady P sees her as an opportunity to bring in a new type of client looking for blonde british women. David is at a party for a wealthy Indian client when he meets an escort, a tall Indian woman, who is just his type. She gives him a card for a place called Casa Blanca.
The couple start cheating on each other, Laura with a man named James from the US who she met through Lady P and David with the Indian “Nefertiti” under the surname “Mr. Darcy.” Things are going on well until Laura catches James with another woman, and Lady P calls an audible and sets her up with a cute bookseller named Tony. Together they are invited to the upcoming Casa Blanca soiree. Turns out Mr. Darcy is invited as well. At the party, a man named Edward seeks out Laura, who, upon seeing her husband Mr. Darcy arrive, dashes out of the house as quick as can be.
Lady P apologizes profusely at the news, and Laura is comforted by her new man Tony. Meanwhile David keeps seeing Nefertiti. Casa Blanca runs into trouble when Edward, a frequent customer, gets picked up after a mugging and is tied to the Chelsea estate. Police come to investigate and all the girls have to clear out the rooms, as brothels are illegal here.
The group barely get away with it when things explode for Laura and David. They confront each other, though David has no evidence against Laura, and they prepare to divorce. They tell Juliet, who sides with grieving David, who is really grieving that he can no longer see Nefertiti. The brothel closes over fears of a police raid, and Laura goes to live there at Lady P’s request. Laura reaches out to Juliet who decides to come and stay with her for a week.
There is a fire and Tony saves Dandi, Lady P’s dog, and Laura professes her love for Tony and accepts his proposal. They move out and have a child, and in the end Laura is happy.