Looking For a Good Book

It amuses me just a little bit that readers still don’t generally like to admit that they read erotica. Romance, sure. And it can have a lot of sex in it, but if you put the word “erotica” on a cover, it’s a book that probably best needs to be in a plain, brown, paper bag.  Thank god for e-readers (the modern equivalent of the paper bag).

This book is, as Rachel Kramer Bussel notes in her introduction, a collection of stories by women, for women, each having strong erotic elements – the eros being the driving force. Well, this reader/reviewer isn’t a woman, but I’ve always said I’ll read anything as long as it’s well written, and most of these stories are very well written.

I haven’t read any of the previous nine books in the series, but Bussel notes that this volume theme other than ‘anything goes.’ I thought it certainly worked and I’m curious how a theme might change some of the quality of what’s included.

Not surprisingly, much of the fiction is about the anticipation and prelude to intimacy. Some of it is captured quite well (as in Garnell Wallace’s “Sunlight and Santino”: “I raised my head and he lowered his, and when our mouths met, our kiss was different. This was the no-turning-back kiss.”). There’s also a fair amount of recognition of the power of sex that a woman has (we’ve seen this ever since Aristophanes’ Lysistrata): “His eyes looked feral and he was sweating and seemed barely in control. For the first time in my life, I had power over a man, and it was the most amazing feeling in the world.”

I was a little surprised that the first story that I truly enjoyed was “The Afterlife with Red and White” by Eirann Shells. I say ‘surprised’ because I’m not into BDSM and this was very much a BDSM story. But it was so very well written that I really liked it.

Perhaps because I do enjoy a good paranormal fiction read, I really liked Katrina Jackson’s “Belly of the Beast.” This was very erotic and I enjoyed the woman’s discovery of a new ecstasy as an undead.

“A Work of Art” by Kit Nowell was great. An art appraiser and an art historian discover the art of each other.

“The Offering” by Jane Colridge was also quite delightful, flipping some general gender roles with the man as the courtesan and the woman the lonely purchaser.

It wasn’t the paranormal aspect that I enjoyed so much in “Hawthorne’s Ghost” by Melanie Anton in which, well, Hawthorne’s ghost has a romantic romp with a tourist at the House of Seven Gables. This was just a great deal of fun. Oh, and it’s not the 60-year-old Hawthorne’s ghost, but the hunky young writer.

I thought that Valerie Alexander did an excellent job of capturing a kink with a modern twist in “The Chameleon.” “Surveillance culture was both the best and the worst thing to ever happen to exhibitionists” her narrator notes then goes on to say, “I liked haunting the Internet like a naked sprite, one with the power to appear with a different head each time.” Exhibitionism and the internet definitely seem to go hand in hand.

I don’t think any of the stories here were ‘bad’ though there were some that definitely did not appeal. I could easily have done without “Salad Dressing” by Sally Bend. Nothing more need be said.

Overall, I thought this was a very good collection of erotic short fiction. Had I not been told that this was by and for women, I probably wouldn’t have noticed – it was just good solid writing with an erotic theme.

This book contains the following:

Looking for a good book? Don’t worry, your e-reader will keep it a secret, but reading Best Women’s Erotica of the Year Volume 10 is worth it.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.

* * * * * *

Best Women’s Erotica of the Year Volume 10

editor: Rachel Kramer Bussel

publisher: Cleis Press

ISBN: 9781627783347

paperback, 232 pages