Dirty, Happy Book Reviews: Anthologies

Variety is the spice of any relationship. It’s a bit too personal to go much into the variety we enjoy as a couple, but I will definitely recommend it for anyone. How do you know you’ll like something until you try it? (Damn open-mindedness is showing again, isn’t it?) But of course, you have to both be secure in your relationship to try anything. You have to be with someone you trust, and trust in an adult way. The best way I heard that kind of trust articulated was in a self-help book by an author I can’t place right this moment, who said (paraphrasing here) you can’t say to your partner “I trust you not to hurt me.” That’s immature and will get you hurt. But if you can say “I trust what you do with me,” then that opens a huge number of doors.

Having have experienced both of these types of loving, I can definitely say the latter is better. I trust my partner, I trust what he does with me, and I trust that if I say I’m uncomfortable that he will stop. Because being together is about growing and changing together. About pushing limits and learning about what you’re comfortable with. That’s one reason I love anthologies. You can explore a whole variety of scenarios and learn your limits, or at least decide on a limit you might like to explore further, in the safety of your own reading area. And it helps give you the vocabulary to have that discussion with your partner.

So I’ve touted this book before, but I just can’t recommend it enough. And I have a feeling it’s one of those books I’ll return to again and again through the years to draw on the decades of experience these authors share about their emotionally and sexually satisfying marriages. Of course, this book is Bedded Bliss: A Couple's Guide to Lust Ever After by Kristina Wright. This is a self-help/erotica and it’s fantastic. The erotica is hot, the advice is solid, and it helps so much in giving a sense of community to those of us who are in happy relationships. Being happily together is something that almost flies under the radar in our society, but just because you’re happy doesn’t mean you can be complacent. You have in continually invest in your relationship to keep reaping the benefits and I love this book and how it discusses, among other things, how to do that. So even if your relationship is fantastic, this book is still worth checking out, even if only so you can read it and smugly smile, saying to yourself, “Yeah, we already do that.”

Dirty, Happy Book Reviews: Two Authors for the Price of Free

Pride and Prejudice: Hidden Lusts - Mitzi Szereto

This one I debated about whether to include as literary or satirical erotica. As it does fall under both. Which isn’t easy to do and why I love it. Mitzi Szereto takes delightful fun in this novel, taking the characters from Pride and Prejudice and “putting the sex back in.” While some argue that this is disrespectful, you still have to appreciate the quality of the work. Szereto emulates Austin to such a degree that even though I’ve read the original several times, I kept going “wow, how did I miss that?” It’s a literary romp with a keen satirical whit and if you love Jane Austen and also love reading erotica, then this is a great mix of the two genres.

While we’re at it, I’ll also recommend The Wilde Passions of Dorian Gray, also by Mitzi Szereto. It’s written in the same literary/satirical voice, and will be much more enjoyable if you’re already familiar with the original Dorian, though it’s still quite a romp if you are not.


Fingersmith - Sarah Waters

I’d be remiss if I left this novel out of the literary erotica discussion. Another fantastic read by a wonderful author. I also loved her novel Tipping the Velvet, though The Night Watch and The Little Stranger were, for me, harder to get into. Neither Fingersmith nor Tipping the Velvet are strictly erotic, but they do possess erotic themes, and that’s good enough for me. :)

In this erotic thriller there’s a scheme, a cross, a double-cross, a triple-cross, mistaken babies, and Victorian smut. What’s not to love? The prose is divine, the story enthralling, the characters Dickensien in their originality and dysfunction. Mrs. Sucksby and her baby farming is an image that will stick with you for a long time. As will many other characters, such as Gentleman, Mr Lilly, Dainty, and settings that act almost as characters themselves, from Mrs Sucksby’s poor London residence to the mad house. This is a powerhouse of a novel, and sheer pleasure to read.

So that takes us through a week in reviews. Let me know what you think and live it up this weekend ;-)

Dirty, Happy Book Reviews: Remittance Girl

One author that continually haunts me after the story has ended is Remittance Girl. I’ve encountered her work several times over the years, and this will be more of an author review than a book review, since I think she is one of those writers who if you spend any time at all around the erotica genre, you will encounter her work.

What’s most mesmerizing about the work of Remittance Girl is the raw emotion in her work. And how she’s not afraid to go to dark, sometimes extremely dark, places to explore. It almost borders on erotic horror sometimes. (I’m thinking especially of the short story called “Nathalie’s Tailor” here.) But when you think about it, it makes sense. What horrors are more frightening than the ones we can face in our own minds?

Looking very forward to her forthcoming short story "Veiled Girl with Lute." I was lucky enough to get to listen to it on podcast (oh my god, did the narrator have the sexiest voice!!). Will be sure to post here when I see "Veiled Girl" has been released.

Dirty, Happy Book Reviews: The Delicious Torment

It’s no secret that I’m a huge Alison Tyler fan. Her style of writing never fails to get me where it counts. (That’d be my brain, but I’ll forgive those who didn’t think of that as the organ of choice.)

I already wrote about Dark Secret Love but haven’t yet discussed The Delicious Torment.

This book is the sequel to Dark Secret Love, picking up where the previous novel ended, delving deeper into the relationship between Sam and Jack. The prose snaps, sharp and vivid. Tyler has a way of drawing the reader into her narrator’s head, so the reader feels what she feels, holds their breath, waits for the smack of the paddle right along with her. And Los Angeles is always right there in the background, curling through the story, watching, waiting.

Needless to say, I love these books, The Delicious Torment and Dark Secret Love. Was super excited to hear the third in the series has a cover. Yey! 

These are books that should definitely make anyone’s erotica canon, as they transcend the realm of romantic fuck stories and offer some true literary quality to the genre. As well as offer guidelines for how some relationships don’t need to be typical, so long as partners are getting their needs fulfilled, whatever those needs are.

Dirty, Happy Book Reviews (and some relationship-y stuff too)

If my toddler walks up to someone, chances are he either has a book or a tractor in his hands. (Or the recycling, but the previous sounds better.) He gets that from me. All the family remembers my childhood as including either farm sets or books. One of the reasons now that my partner and I get along so well is that he likes my livestock and doesn’t give me a hard time about my books. (Granted, he doesn’t know the full extent of my collection either, but either way, I don’t think it’s a deal-breaker.)

Simply put, books make me happy. Reading makes me happy. Reviewing books makes me happy. And when we get to do what makes us happy as individuals, we’re happier as a couple. So this week I’m going to share with you lovely readers the books that make me happy.

A lot of books make me happy. (Feel free to make that as dirty as you want in your head, I don’t mind :) It made the most sense to break this project down by genre, though it will remain in the realm of erotica, since this is (mostly) an erotica blog. This week will begin with literary erotica, and then we’ll see where it goes.

So, (drumroll please……) book of the day is: With My Body by Nikki Gemmell.

(Caution: Spoiler Alert)

The premise of this story is a smothered wife and mum reflects back on a particular summer from her girlhood, where she learned about sex from a somewhat eccentric writer. The affair has continued to haunt her into her marriage and approaching middle age. There was no resolution to the affair and no man has measured up to the memory since.

It got to the point with this book that I couldn’t stop reading. It’s exactly the kind of literary prose that I love, with a great deal of the erotic thrown in. The second person narrative can be distracting at times, but it’s more like listening to how you talk to yourself. The author slips you into the narrator’s skin, and you feel her claustrophobia from her family, her angst-ridden teenage desires, her empowerment by the end.

While beautifully written, this is also a disturbing book, in the way that Lolita is disturbing. Some reviews have criticized this book as exploiting the female character, but I wonder if they would say Anais Nin exploited O as well. The exploitation bothered me less in this book than the miscarriage at the end. Though, I have to admit, that part hit home on a raw, personal level.

But overall, this is a wonderful novel, and a wonderful story of a couple finding one another again. Because sometimes the love of your youth isn’t the person you end up with. And the lesson here is that that is okay too.