Dragonard

In 1747, an imprisoned Scottish nobleman, hunky Richard Abdee, is auctioned off as a slave on a British Caribbean colony of St. Joseph's. The island is controlled by debauched French and British sugar plantation owners, who use African slaves to cut their sugarcane, while vile Captain Shanks, the owner of a slave ship, keeps an eye on them. Abdee quickly becomes the love interest of two women - the governor's sexpot daughter, Arabella, and his master's repressed wife, Honore Juno, whom he also fancies. When Abdee is caught in bed with Juno, he's given 100 lashes with the dreaded "dragonard" whip. This sentence is meant to be fatal but Abdee survives with the help of sympathetic brothel owner Naomi. He then joins a slave revolt to try and put an end to the island's era of savage whippings. Shot back to back with its direct sequel, Master of Dragonard Hill (1987), that's based on the second book in the long-running Dragonard series of novels. —dinky-4 of Minneapolis