These are people who seemed like artists. Cerynise is never convincing, perhaps because it never seems to be a priority with her. You don't get to be a great artist by keeping art as one of your little hobbies on the side. Woodiwiss's wordy style is also a real hurdle. She never uses one word if she can use ten.
Entire paragraphs are unnecessary.
We hear about the feelings of unimportant secondary characters that have nothing to do with the plot. Everything is described in minute detail. This might be okay for the sex scenes, but I could really have done without the scene where Cerynise lovingly empties Beau's chamberpot when he's ill. There are some things we really don't need to know. The final insult for me was the end chase scene between Cerynise and the evil nephew, which could have been lifted straight out of the screenplay for Home Alone .