Tag Archives: erotica

Alyssa reviews Women on the Edge of Space

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Women on the Edge of Space is a chapbook of four sci-fi, erotica short stories. While it is billed as an anthology, it is neither long nor consistent enough for that to be an accurate descriptor. It contains the following four works:

1. “The Many Little Deaths of Cicilia Long” by Shanna Germain
2. “Fair as the Moon, Clear as the Sun” by Laurel Waterford
3. “Adrift” by Kaysee Renee Robichaud
4. “Unfolding Her Wings” by Elizabeth Black

There is a bit of a disconnect in the subject matter. The first short story is what I wanted this collection to be, considering the ambitious presentation of the chapbook: science fiction in essence, with erotic content that is integral to, but not the overall point of, the story. In the latter three short stories, while science fiction is present—the stories are set in the future, in space, and contain multiple instances of zero- or low-gravity sex—sci-fi is largely used as a backdrop for erotic fiction. The fourth story works with this, though, showcasing human normalcy and family amid futuristic technological advances.

All of the relationships portrayed in this collection are woman-on-woman. I was particularly pleased with the fourth story for including committed polyamory, and a pregnant woman in an erotic narrative without fetishization; and with the first story, for the central character’s lesbian relationships taking a back seat to her relationship with the cosmos, i.e. nature, which is presented in an erotic manner. As such, I vastly preferred the first and last stories in this collection. The second story is enjoyable, but the characterization is somewhat unrealistic. The third story is decent, but reads essentially like Star Trek fanfiction. This isn’t essentially a bad thing, but does not lend well to originality.

I would not go out of my way to recommend this collection, but if you’re looking for sci-fi lesbian erotica, it will be worth the three dollar ebook price on Amazon.

Danika reviews Say Please: Lesbian BDSM Erotica edited by Sinclair Sexsmith

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I had high hopes for this collection, and I am very happy to say that it lived up to them! In any anthology, the thing I’m most looking for is consistent quality of writing. Every collection will have some I like more and some I like less, but that should be because of personal taste, not because the writing was sub-par. Say Pleasewas obviously very carefully put together. The stories definitely show a higher standard of writing than I’m used to in erotica collections. They also show a range, from light BDSM to heavier stuff. The relationships are loving and committed, completely fleeting, or in between.

In a conversation on Lambda Literary, Sinclair Sexsmith admits that this collection is labelled “lesbian” BDSM erotica for marketing purposes and that she considers the collection queer, and that she is seeking to broaden the definition of “lesbian” for collections like this. (I can definitely empathize with this–I chafe at calling this a “lesbian book blog” and in name excluding lots of people I want to include, but I can’t find a better word.) There is definitely a lot of gender dynamics at work in Say Please. One of my favorites was “Strong” by Xan West, which features a trans butch dom and a genderqueer sub that switches between playing girl and playing boy in a scene. As Sexsmith mentioned on Autostraddle, this collection is reflective of her taste. There is a lot of strap on use in Say Please: the vast majority of stories use one. There are also a couple “Daddy” stories, as well.

One of notes I kept writing while reviewing this book was “So short!” The majority of the stories show a very small section of time. As much as I was left wanting to see more from some stories, I appreciate it overall, because many erotica stories overreach and end up losing my interest. Luckily, lots of the stories are very succinct in establishing a relationship dynamic and personalities between the people involved. “Going the Distance” by Elaine Miller was another one of my favorites because I immediately enjoyed the playful relationships that so clearly shone through in such a short space.

Probably my favorite story, however, was written by the editor herself (“Not Without Permission”). Again, the small details quickly contextualize this night in the rest of their lives.

I really enjoyed this collection. I ended up reading it almost in one sitting in order to have this review up in time for the blog tour, and I don’t exactly recommend it. My partner said I had a “contact BDSM high… without the contact.” You end up vicariously experiencing all of these scenes. It was a little overwhelming, but definitely not unpleasant.

Check out what other people have said about Say Please on their blog tour! Link are listed below.

April 1      Say Please release party in SF
April 1 Viviane http://www.thesexcarnival.com
April 3 Rachel Kramer Bussel http://lustylady.blogspot.com
April 4 Giselle Renard http://donutsdesires.blogspot.com
April 5 Evoe Throw http://www.wholesexlife.com
April 6 Liz http://AlphaHarlot.com
April 9 Roma Mafia http://www.romamafia.com
April 9 Daniela http://www.thecsph.org
April 10 Official release date! Sinclair http://www.sugarbutch.net
April 11 Dede / deviantdyke http://deviantdyke.blogspot.com/
April 12 Helena Swann http://www.cuntext.com
April 13 Kim Herbel http://www.butchlesque.com
April 13   Say Please release party in NYC
April 14 Lily Lloyd http://theblackleatherbelt.com
April 15 Kelli Dunham http://www.kellidunham.com
April 16 Lyzanne http://sexpositive.tumblr.com/
April 17 Lula Lisbon http://www.lulalisbon.com
April 18 Ali Oh http://www.madeofwords.com
April 19 Jameson http://www.ftmbutchdude.com
April 20 Rhys http://girlfriendjunction.org
April 21 Charlie Ninja http://charlieninja.tumblr.com/
April 22    Say Please release party in Boston
April 22 Meredith Guy http://meridithguy.tumblr.com
April 23 Wendi Kali http://astrangerinthisplace.blogspot.com
April 24 Lolita Wolf http://leatheryenta.com
April 25 Audrey at Babeland http://babeland.com/blog
April 26 Seth B http://smokebellyscorner.wordpress.com
April 27 Danika http://www.lesbrary.com
April 28 DL King http://dlkingerotica.blogspot.com
April 29 Kiki http://kikidelovely.wordpress.com
April 29 Kyle http://www.butchtastic.com

Danika reviews 18th & Castro by Karin Kallmaker

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18th & Castro by Karin Kallmaker is a collection of stories set on Halloween in the Castro. It’s part of the “Bella After Dark” (erotica) collection of Bella Books, which I wasn’t aware of when I picked it up. It’s still not entirely erotica, though. The emphasis is more on the characters and relationships than the sex.

I love that storytelling device of stories weaving together, and this collection does that well.  As the title suggests, almost all of the stories take place in one apartment complex. Characters that are barely mentioned in one story get their own several stories later. Moments witnessed by bystanders get continued somewhere else.

And the stories are interesting! It’s the dynamics that drew me in. Budding relationships, years-long relationships, old and young lovers are all in the mix. Each story has the characters interacting in unique ways, though. They seemed rounded, even if they don’t get a very long story.

There’s also the bonus factor of Halloween, of course! It isn’t overwhelming (there’s only one story with a supernatural element, many characters stay home), but it’s a nice background theme for the season.

I did have a few problems with the stories, though. One is the hint of cissexism (equating lesbianism only and always with vulvas) that crops up more than once. Another was that although the dialogue seemed natural and unique to each character most of the time, the sex talk seemed really awkward to me, and it all seemed awkward in the same way. Almost all of the characters referred to their partner as “baby,” which perhaps is just a personal pet peeve, but still seemed too uniform. The sex talk in general just seemed stilted.

Other than that, though, it was a strong collection, and a good first introduction to Karin Kallmaker.

Laura Mandanas reviews “Gigglepuss” by Giselle Renarde

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I have to say: I was a bit concerned when, four paragraphs in, the main love interest was characterized as a “Japanese anime schoolgirl.” (Like, really people. Can we just stop with the racist Asian exotification and extraordinarily sleazy fetishization of teenage girls? That would be great.) Normally I would have stopped reading there, but with Lesbrary readers in mind, I continued on. Luckily, it wasn’t as bad as I expected; as it turns out, Mitsuki is 20, and Asian “othering” is actually mildly poked fun at in this story. So, yay for that. You’re free to read “Gigglepuss” by Giselle Renarde with a clear conscience.

Unfortunately, not having the above information, I found myself entirely unable to get into it on my first read through. By the time I got to the story’s climax, there just… was none. Stereotyping is super unsexy in my book, and though this one redeemed itself by the end, the initial turnoff was overpowering. Despite this, the engaging and cheerfully explicit writing eventually won me over – it just took some time. I quite enjoyed the story on my second read through a couple weeks later. So take that as you will.

Without giving too much away, “Gigglepuss” is an erotic romance about two queer women in a small town. It is not a love story, and it is not a lengthy dissertation with laboriously developed characters. It is short, sexy, and doesn’t take itself too seriously – which feels appropriate, coming from an author who began writing erotica on a dare.

The main highlight of the story for me was the main character: a sweet-talking lady-killer named Lorna. (Think Shane  from The L Word in print form.) I mean, that, of course, and the sex. Always the sex. Even when the occasionally overenthusiastic descriptions made me giggle.

 “Gigglepuss” is available to download for $1.49 at All Romance.

Anna reviews The Jewel Box by Alcamia Payne

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Clemmie Beaumont is a just-widowed southern belle who prefers the company of women. Pearl, a recently freed slave, is her new maid. She’s described as a sensual, “exotic” creature who has been watching Clemmie from the shadows and jumps on her first opportunity to slide a well-formed and “dextrous” [sic] toe up Clemmie’s skirts. Yes, The Jewel Box, by Alcamia Payne, is that kind of story, in which women meet and then, an hour later, are riding out toe-inspired orgasms in public. Clemmie also has a box of jewelry which could save her plantation from financial ruin if she sold the contents, but she isn’t willing to part with any of those bright baubles–mirroring the fact that she’s not willing to sell herself to a new husband, even though she’s strikingly beautiful and could have her pick of men. Instead, she and Pearl [Spoiler Alert], who by the end of the story (perhaps even the end of their first mutual sexual encounter, it’s not clear) consider themselves married, have concocted a plan to rob other members of Clemmie’s social class at fancy parties.[1]

I am sorry to report that the story (a slim 70 pages) is wildly improbable at best. The historical setting–the waning days of the Civil War–is potentially interesting. Just think, one could explore race, class, post-war economics (beyond the light treatment that drives Clemmie’s dilemma), sexuality and gender roles, and so on. However, the way characters interact, and Clemmie’s opinions, are decidedly modern. Clemmie is known to parade around her plantation in men’s clothing, believes women and men and blacks and whites should be equals, etc., but also seems unwilling to indulge her forbidden desires. She casually accepts the toe-fondling, then initially pleads innocence when Pearl offers her more intimacy. After that initial encounter, the author lets weeks pass during which, it is revealed later, they have circled each other in a dance of increasing sexual fascination. However, that build-up is tossed away in a few lines of dialogue, in favor of an encounter over Clemmie’s jewels that takes up half the story.

The overall concept–a forbidden affair between a privileged white woman and a former slave–could have been handled better in about a hundred different ways, but it was really the writing that disappointed the most. Take, for example, this sentence, which is something that Clemmie thinks idly to herself: “That hard rod beneath a man’s pants doesn’t arouse me in the least, whereas the prospect of that soft triangle of pink flesh concealing the womanly jewel makes me run like a river.” Between the flat characterizations, the strangely fast-then-slow seduction story, the constant comparison of female anatomy to jewels, and choice phrases such as “opulent breasts,” “pendant orbs,” and “formidable clitoris,” this short novella managed to drag on an epically long time.

[1] Which Pearl attends with Clemmie, even though she is a former slave. And dressed, not as a maid, but in Clemmie’s clothes. They have matching diamond nipple piercings. Er, spoiler.

Danika reviews Fireflies by Lacey Reah

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I had all these notes written down about Fireflies and I lost them! Sigh. I’ll just do a short form review, then.

Pros:

  • I adore this cover. This is probably my favourite cover ever. I’m not sure why, but I just think the art is fantastic, and it’s sexual without being creepy. Also, it actually is a scene in the story and ties in the title! Perfect.
  • I was really intrigued by the plot. Well, it’s less about plot and more about character, but Linda trying to figure out who she is and what she is was fascinating, and I kept looking forward to the end to see what the final judgment was.
  • The characters were fairly interesting. Not the most dynamic, but compelling enough for a 95-page novella.
  • It was a new (for me) take on erotica. In fact, I’m not sure how to categorize it. There’s a lot of sex (some straight sex, too, just so you know), but the thread of the story is Linda’s inner turmoil, and it really takes precedence.

Cons:

  • The writing felt clunky.  The sentences were almost all very short and often didn’t flow–enough that it distracted me from the story. There was also some awkward wording, and a few wrong homophones. (Someone talking about a towel around their “waste” was particularly jarring.)
  • I didn’t feel like the ending quite tied things together. The entire time I was reading Fireflies, I thought the ending would decide what I thought about it, because I couldn’t quite figure out how Linda was going to reconcile everything. By the end, I was still puzzled. There didn’t seem to be much resolution.

Guest Lesbrarian: Stefanie Snider

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It’s been ages since I’ve gotten a guest lesbrarian post! Luckily, Stefanie Snider was nice enough to email me and give me permission to post this one! (Originally posted here.)

Lesbian Lust: Erotic Stories

Edited by Sacchi Green
Cleis Press

The stories featured in Sacchi Green’s edited collection of lesbian erotica are intensely sexual. As the name of the volume, Lesbian Lust, implies, each of the stories focus on the deep sensual and sexual desires of the characters featured in them. The narratives are varied in their settings, characterizations, and kinds of sex offered for the reader’s (and their companions’) interest. As Green writes in her introduction to the volume, “Variety is also the spice of lust.”

Many of the stories are not for the faint of heart; there are few typically “vanilla” sex acts and story lines included in Lesbian Lust. This said, the volume presents a wonderfully wide-ranging assortment of active, desiring lesbian subjects who are in charge of their own sexuality, whether they play out their own fantasies or submit at their own will to the desires of their partner(s). The stories are kink-friendly and as one might imagine of a collection written by and for lesbians, sex- and woman-positive. Overall, this was my favorite aspect of the collection of stories. Even if any one story didn’t fall within my own particular set of turn-ons, I appreciated reading the entire group of stories for their collective interest in portraying lesbians in powerful positions, engaging one another in both playful and serious emotional, psychological, and/or physical situations.

Perhaps my favorite story of the collection, “The Office Grind” by R.G. Emanuelle, brings sex to the boardroom as Casey secretly tends to Nina, company Vice President, while Nina participates in a business meeting with her pompous and oblivious male co-workers. The story is simultaneously sexy and funny, and makes the introduction of cunnilingus to the workday seem a brilliant idea to chase away the staid boredom all too typical of a desk job, especially for a female executive who is used to being treated as a second-class citizen both by her boss and her subordinates. “The Office Grind” turns on its head the conventional voyeuristic tale of men getting off on watching lesbians having sex, emphasizing Nina’s business and sexual power in the face of her ignorant co-workers. Using wordplay to drive the story home, “The Office Grind” brings a whole new meaning to the terms “powerpoint” and “working lunch.”

I highly recommend this story, and the Lesbian Lust collection as a whole to the reader looking for multi-layered tales of sex, romance, and power in all sorts of lesbian relationships.

Written by: Stefanie Snider, November 18th 2010

Thanks so much, Stefanie!

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