Malin James had me from the first line of Skins,
second of the eleven good, gritty, honest, bittersweet and beautifully-written
short stories in Roadhouse Blues:
Cassie was born ten miles from the middle of
nowhere in a town called Styx, if you can fucking believe it…
That line is keynote and key for this
collection. All these stories are set emotionally, if not physically, in the
same small place somewhere deep in the wilderness of the American psyche. Styx
could be practically anywhere, and this, I think, is intentional on the
author’s part. There is a sense of near-mythic wide-openness about the place,
like the west Texas of Larry McMurtry’s The Last Picture Show, or
the windswept plains of the lower Midwest, an arch nonspecificity invoking
universality:
A curtain dropped over her mind as Cassie
walked downstage. She wasn’t in the theater any more. She was in the ugly brown
heart of the dust bowl. She could taste it like a film in her mouth…
We’ve seen these box stores, garages, and
greasy spoons, strip malls, strip clubs, factories, bars, and bedrooms a
hundred times before, wandered through the dusty streets of the same stifling
chicken-fried towns where everybody makes it their business to know yours, yet
are utterly incurious where the secret pain of the heart is concerned. Where
same-sex attraction is still the ultimate scandal, and tenderness more taboo
than rage.
James shows us what’s really going on behind
those closed doors and drawn drapes, inside her character’s heads. She sets her
scenes with a few well-chosen details to conjure atmosphere, but it is the
characters’ emotional landscape that interests her and us, that sense of being
lost in the only place you’ve ever known, of fleeing the past even as you fear
the future, of being trapped in a world where you are free only so long as you
don’t stand out too much…
Leigh imagined her ugly underwear, her ugly comforting
armor, and reminded herself to breathe. Fumbling fingers on blue cotton hearts,
pink Sundays worn on Mondays, lying so still, mismatched days of the week…
Reminiscent of working-class portraitists like
Richard Russo or Stephen King at their keenly-observant best, James’ characters
are refreshingly real, down-to-earth, mostly blue collar, sometimes not quite
as articulate as they’d like to be. The soundtrack of their lives is more often
rockabilly than pure country western, but we recognize a lot of the same
themes; infidelity, loneliness, nostalgia, regret, and desire. So much desire.
An auto mechanic carries on a life-long affair with his boss, who also happens
to be his sister-in-law. His wife’s longing for a baby ultimately leads her to
desperate measures. Later, the new mother contemplates the passions that have
been awakened within her. Another woman sets out to exact revenge on a
faithless lover, only to have the tables turned, when her anger is sublimed
into pure lust. The owner of the local diner comes out of the closet, if only
for one glorious night. The lover of a fallen soldier is consoled by the
soldier’s widow. A waitress's encounter with a creepy late-night patron
triggers memories of being young and crazy-in-love, but also the unhinged abuse
that followed when the thrill was gone. A sad-eyed stripper comforts a dying man who appears like the
ghost of her beloved father. The bartender at the strip club meets the woman
who shares the passions he cannot confess. Life goes on, little changes,
but dreaming makes it bearable.
Wanderlust: A Literary Erotica Anthology
I think it was Ernest Hemingway who said that short
story writers are mostly frustrated poets. I can’t recall if Hemingway meant
this as a good thing or not, but it is certainly easy to see his point after
exploring editor Megan Lewis’ Wanderlust, a collection of thirteen short
stories in which literary erotic prose is often taken to its lyrical limits—and
that definitely is a good thing.
As the title suggests, this collection is centered
around themes of travel, or that restless, deeply human urge to be ever
someplace else, very much akin to the insatiable hunger for sex that drives so
many from moment to moment if not from place to place. These are mostly stories
about brief encounters as in Zac Blue’s The Cruelty of Eden, set in
Paris; T.C. Hill’s melancholy Soft, Rough wherein a lonely house sitter
ponders her past as she entertains her lover; or Alexis Quinton’s Red Earth,
in which a restless woman from Australia’s Gold Coast finds peace of a sort as
a barmaid in an isolated outback settlement. In Terri Pray’s Colors, a
vampiric drifter meets his soulmate in a roadside diner—or is she merely his
latest meal? Arden Ellis’ f/f Nighthawk finds a biker breaking down
along a lonely stretch of the Al-Can highway, picked up by an adventurous
runaway—this acutely-observed story features engaging characterizations and
admirably realistic dialogue. In Jack Swift’s m/m American Leather, a
punk rocker “initiates” one of his groupies in the changing room of a BDSM
leather shop.
Other stories tell of longer-term relationships: in
Arden Ellis’ poignant Scheherazade two women travel to a distant planet
on a journey of a thousand years, periodically coming out of suspended
animation to maintain their ship and keep each other company. In Zac Blue’s haunting,
atmospheric Slipping Through the Splinters a restless visitor from
another world discovers the complications of love in human form. Val
Prozorova’s clever Urgent Train Message: Immediate Delivery is a
heartbreaking and exultant story of forbidden m/m love in late-Victorian
Britain; while in Riever Scott’s deliciously written Tawaif, a British
woman recounts her affair with a young native co-worker in Mumbai, looking back
in regret on how things ended.
The stories coming closest to poetry here are
Parker Marlo’s Zephyr, nothing less than a rondeau in prose recalling a
steamy encounter on a west-bound passenger train, and J.S. Emuakpor’s
ravishingly beautiful Aljanar Ruwa in which the water nymph of the title
is reunited with her lover, the great river god. Emuakpor’s language flows with
the limpid grace of the very waters they describe—it’s simply gorgeous writing,
and not to be missed!
With its superb writing, diverse, fascinating
themes, and consistently scintillating eroticism, Wanderlust is an easy choice for inclusion on this year's Best-Of list.
In Bonds of the Earth
Janine Ashbless pushes all the right buttons in
this exciting follow-up to 2015’s Cover Him With Darkness. I described
that first entry in the series as “an intense, engaging,
grandly imagined, intelligent, entertainingly well-paced and very—very—sexy
story; erotic romance writ large.” I also noted that Cover Him With Darkness “ends with a cliffhanger worthy of Lord of the Rings, and leaves
us breathless for more…” It’s a pleasure, then, to report that
In Bonds of the Earth is everything
fans have been waiting for, taking all the elements that made the first book
memorable, artfully supercharging them in a sweeping, action-packed, powerfully
erotic story that dazzles with its imaginative employment of real-life
settings, elements of ancient lore and legend, and fast-paced contemporary
thrillers.
The story is told in first person from the viewpoint of Milja,
somewhat wiser now after having freed fallen angel Azazel from bondage, she is
doubtful about her lover’s plan to release his “brothers” from their prisons in
order to mount a new assault on the forces of heaven. His search leads them to
the labyrinth of ancient monolithic rock-cut churches of Lalibela in Ethiopia,
where the priests, wielding the rusted relics of saints, guard a secret that
humankind must never know. (No spoilers here, but let’s just say that the
mid-story climax—and Ashbless’ way of relating it—is exciting as hell!)
The romantic leads are realistically imperfect here; Milja is
smart and beautiful, but also still rather naïve, not always wise in the ways
of human—or angelic—behavior, and still vulnerable where the heart—not to
mention her hair-trigger erogenous zones—are concerned. She describes Azazel,
for all his physical allure, as not very bright, a musclebound creature who
lives in the here and now without much thought for consequence or the feelings
of others, least of all Milja’s.
I was—as ever—impressed by Ashbless’ ability to set her tale
within a broad historical and cultural context without resorting to obvious
“data dumps” or dry narrative digressions; the fascinating history of Lalibela
is woven so subtly into the fabric of the story, as to seem perfectly of a
piece with the unfolding adventure. The author’s erudition shines through, illuminating
the story without ever casting shade on the reader. Milja’s informal
conversational style does not clash with her obvious intelligence, but brings
readers comfortably along, never making them feel patronized or inadequate.
This entry in the series closes with a shattering cliffhanger that
will have readers on the edge of their seats, hearts pounding in their throats,
and practically howling in half-fulfilled frustration! I felt afterwards as if
I’d enjoyed an extraordinary meal—or had really great sex—richly fed to be
sure, yet craving still more, able only to dream of “next time.”
[The third book in the series, The Prison of the Angels, is already available: look for a review early next year.]
Witches, Princesses, and Women at Arms
An
absolute delight! The thirteen f/f stories in this treasurable Sacchi
Green-edited anthology are, without exception, nothing short of superb. One is
impressed not only by the consistent high quality of the writing, but dazzled
by the sheer breadth of imagination here on display, and, time and time again, utterly
astonished by the very realistic depths of these engaging fantasy characters.
There’s
more than enough variation in mood and style to avoid the sort of creeping disaffection
one too often experiences with overly ambitious specialty collections. On the
other hand, one detects a strong but sympathetic editorial hand quietly at work
throughout, keeping everything taut and focused. Green has arranged the stories to achieve and maintain maximum interest.
If
this collection can be said to have a unifying theme, it might best be summed
up as “love overcomes all”. Curiosity gets the better of suspicion, understanding
makes the heart grow fonder, the ice-melting fire of lust leads to an endless
springtime of delight, the call of duty ultimately defers to the call of the
blood, happily for now, if not always happily ever after. (I would not
characterize any of these stories as ‘romance’ per se.)
A stunning achievement overall!
Thrones of Desire
This
superb collection makes a near-perfect companion to Witches, Princesses, and Women at Arms. But where that collection maintains a laser-like focus on f/f narratives, the
fourteen stories in Mitzi Szereto’s Thrones of Desire offer readers a
sumptuous pan-sexual fantasy smorgasbord with something to entice all tastes.
There
are so many fine stories here, it’s hard to pick a favorite. The writing is first-rate throughout, and the range of imagination, impressive.
Named and Shamed
Since its initial publication in 2012, Janine Ashbless’ Named and Shamed has attained the status of a modern erotic classic. It is apropos to cite the title for this year's Best-Of list, as the author has recently re-issued the book in a new independent e-book edition. Named and Shamed is a
relentless, orgiastic tour de force, a groaning board of pansexual delight
unencumbered by the sort of repetition or slacking off in intensity that dooms
so many full-length erotic novels. Drawing broad inspiration from Gaelic
folklore and pagan myth, the story begins with the theft of a priceless imaginary
manuscript, the unexpurgated first draft of Christina Rossetti’s The Goblin
Market, obtained through a cynical act of seduction. In order to return the
manuscript without drawing the bloody ire of its owner, Tansy, the reluctant
heroine, must seek out the help of a “thing that looks like a man, but wasn’t,”
one of the shadowy preternatural entities collectively known as Them There. Of
course, the demon’s assistance comes with a sexy price, seemingly pleasant to
pay, before its sinister after-effects become apparent. Tansy becomes
insatiable, and none too picky about her partners along the way to finding an antidote
to her raging nymphomania. Sex of
practically every variety and permutation is described in exuberant detail,
whether with a group of horny auto mechanics in a greasy garage, or with just
about every mythical creature populating the dark corners of the human
imagination—a scene with a randy troll under a bridge is particularly memorable.
Viking Thunder
Emmanuelle de
Maupassant’s Viking Thunder is an exquisite piece of writing by any
standard, imaginative historical fiction at its finest, and one of the sexiest
tales I’ve had the pleasure to read in—ever. Told from the point of view of Elswyth,
a young Anglo-Saxon woman, promptly made a widow when a band of Northmen raid
her village, this is a clash-of-cultures story enlivened by lots of deliciously
lurid action, pillage, fire, and, yes, rape. Elswyth, not ungrateful to be rid
of her feckless husband, quickly catches the eye of the Viking leader, Eirik,
and is befriended by the shield maiden Helka, Eirik’s sister who functions as
interpreter, cultural go-between and a counterbalance of quiet reason to her
brother’s fiercely impulsive nature. Yet, more than mere escapist adventure, Viking
Thunder has its thoughtful moments, too, a bit of comparative theology and
myth, reflection on love, fate and destiny, cheek by jowl with unapologetically
explicit descriptions of sex, heady as the sweetest mead. First in a yet
another series from the remarkably prolific Emmanuelle de Maupassant, I, for
one, can hardly wait for more.
