White - The Great Pursuit

Justin has come and gone, and the Circle hides deep in the desert. Their new mantra of loving the Horde, not fighting it, is proving hard to follow. When our faithful hero, Thomas Hunter is taken captive, one of his fellow cellmates suggests that he try to gain access to the Books of History that Qurong has hidden away. So eventually Thomas becomes a slave to Chelise, princess of the Horde. But Thomas is faced by a delema(bloody spell check), He is falling in love with Chelise. Can Justin really mean for this type of love to exist between Horde and Circle?

Violence
The Circle has a rule of no violence, so this book is toned down a bit. However the Horde comes in raids, and there is a skirmish while Thomas attempts to rescue Chelise where he does use the sword, but tries to heal those he hurts. Chelise is brutalized by the Horde man who claims to love her.


Language
It seemed to me that Ted dropped violence, so to make the books 'adult' he put in other stuff. The other two books contained only one use of 'wench' between them. This book has a whopping 13 uses of wh*ore. 1 use of 'wench. A man on earth says "Son of a..." However, while I am not dismissing this, the words are used by the 'bad guys', so we are meant to see that calling them names is not a good thing.

Sexual Themes
Again, this book ramped up in this area. The other books were clean of suggestivity, and I have collected the inuendo-ish parts here.
Woref goes to talk to Chelise and there is an interlude where his thoughts run along the lines of 'he wouldn't touch her, he wasn't like Qurong in that way'
Thomas thinks he hears a 'hint of seduction' in Chelise's voice (she says she was just testing him)
When Chelise confesses to her maid that she likes Thomas, her maid says that she would be more surprised if Chelise "Required some service from him, as her slave."
Chelise is fascinated by Thomas' hands, and wonders 'how many women those hands had loved' she assumes one, since Thomas has only been married once.
When going to rescue Chelise, Thomas pretends to be Woref's concubine. I think the scene is meant to be funny, I didn't find it so.
When Woref goes to recapture Chelise from the Circle, he is 'overcome by desire' and fantisises about 'tasting her skin'. He later says that he will posess, then ravage her (this could be taken sexually or as abuse.)

Overall, this is not my favorite book. The first two are without a doubt my favorite, but it is the last two books that make me hesitant to recommend these to my friends. This one is rated PG-13 for moderate innuendo and language. It is still a good book, and one must take into consideration that these examples are all the samples from the book, unless I missed one or two. This book explored the theme that the chosen Circle can love the Horde. Good book, but with some pretty major stumbling blocks.