[Bookwoman] Confessions of a Virgin Sacrifice

[Lee Anne Phillips]

Confessions of a Virgin Sacrifice.
By A.M. Ambrose. Cambridge, 
England: Chimera, 2002. £7.99

A.M. Ambrose is a journalist who once lived
in Bangkok and Australia but is now living in
Ohio, which is obviously where she first
encountered the primitive religious cults 
and assorted ignorant savages who have 
central roles in her madcap adventure story. 

Jezebelle and Dizeray, the buxom cousins
who escape from the titular virgin sacrifice
only to be bedeviled by one damned thing 
after another, from Centaurs and Thom's 
Dragon Tigers to blue wolves and midget 
birds, not to mention barbarians named 
Thor and the village elders, who are 
reluctant to relinquish the only virgin 
left to sacrifice in the entire village, 
most candidates having promptly taken 
themselves out of the running as the
time for the fatal volcano ceremony 
approached. 

Oh! And did I forget that there's a 
treasure map? Or maybe it isn't.

This is a droll -- if not camp -- spoof 
of Sixties exploitation stories and films 
like "Golden Temple Amazons" or 
"Gold of the Amazon Women" but
slightly skewed toward a feminist outlook.

The heroes are there, and even the
odd bimbette, but the men tend to 
bluster more than bellow, and "fearless"
is definitely tinged with "foolish."