Secrets Vol 14 by Angela Knight et al

Grade: B-

I don’t quite know how to feel about this anthology. I spent, like, fourteen bucks on it, and I only two good stories out of it, one of which I really, really enjoyed. The other two were okay–wait, let me rephrase that. One was pretty good until the end, then it was turned into a muddled mess. The other was so bad that I could barely finish it. I mean, I actually struggled, even with the skimming. The one I liked the most is the short story by Leigh Wyndfield. I mean, this lady managed to pack mythology, action, suspense, and sizzling sex in the limited space that she had without overwhelming the reader or hampering the story. Angela Knight brought with her the good stuff per usual, a little cheesy but fun, and Alexa Aames had a nice little story going until she attempted to insert plot into it. Yeah, that didn’t work out so well. Jennifer Barlow’s story was just… creepy and not very good. It read like a Beauty and the Beast fanfic and made me feel dirty. I usually like dirty… but not when it makes my skin crawl.


Temptation in Time by Alexa Aames features a modern-day witch named Ariana who had actually escaped from the fourteenth century. She does this by tricking a powerful sorcerer named Marcus de Grey into kissing her and imparting some of his magic to her. Eight years later, Marcus catches up to Ariana with the intention of taking her back to their time to punish her for “stealing” from him. There’s some hot sex, some spanking, some more hot sex, some butt play, and then the author attempts to make it more complex by inserting a “story” into it. It was fine the way it was, a little simplistic perhaps, but what’s wrong with that? I mean, all of a sudden, Ariana is the daughter of a nobleman who wants her to marry some nasty older guy and the King of frickin’ England falls in love with her, so he sends Marcus to fight wars so that Ariana and Marcus can’t be together. It was just so convoluted and ridiculous. It felt like the writer was just trying too hard, especially since “the plot” came out of nowhere. You know what else came out of nowhere? The happy ending. We see Ariana and Marcus at the end of their ropes, faced by the realization that they can never be together and all of a sudden… happy ending. With butt sex. Butt sex solves everything, I guess. Aames should have left it as a simple spanking story. Say that ten times fast.

Night Heat by Leigh Wyndfield is a combination of Pitch Black, Alien 3, and Assault on Precint 13. I loved it. It’s a rollicking–never thought I’d use that word–sci-fi adventure as well as an erotic space romance. Jemma is the prison doctor in a shithole planet where raptors come out at night and eat people. Rip Bowhite is a prisoner leading a revolt ever since the all powerful Council abandoned the planet and its inhabitants, leaving them to fend for themselves against the carnivorous raptors. When a mysterious illness strikes the prisoners, killing them by the truckload, Rip kidnaps Jemma to find a cure for the prisoners. Thrown together to fight against the raptors, prisoners who want to usurp Rip’s position as leader, and time itself, the two of them fall in lust and in love (duh). Goddamn, this was a fun read! Jemma is smart and resourceful, as well as passionate and strong. Rip is noble, idealistic, and protective of the prisoners who depend on him. There’s some bullshit with Jemma keeping a secret from Rip about why Rip is instantly attracted to her, but Wyndfield could have taken it out and the story would have been fine without it. These two would have been attracted to each other, anyway. It was nice this time around to read about the heroine saving the day. She was no Ripley, of course, but she comes pretty damn close.

The third one by Jennifer Barlow was just a big boring ball of creepy. Ailis and the Beast features a virgin-pure Barbie doll “heroine” all wide-eyed and big-boobed, ready to sacrifice herself and her hymen to the creepy Beast for the good of her village. You see, it is the power of the Beast that provides for the village and if the Beast isn’t satisfied… hmm, what does happen when the Beast isn’t satisfied? The story wasn’t clear on that. Supposedly, the Beast would eat the maiden, but would he really? What I did get was a sex scene that almost crosses the line into bestiality… wait a minute, it was bestiality! We’ve got Ailis tied up on a concrete slab and all of a sudden, this manbearpig creature comes out, not looking very sexy and smelling very much like an animal, snorts at her vagina, mounts her, and pops her cherry. That’s so not sexy. And also, that’s kind of gross. There’s some bullshit about the Beast only looking like a beast to Ailis at first because she didn’t know him yet and allowed her fear to take over her body and how the Beast became more beautiful to Ailis as she got to know him, but ::snore:: Boring! I almost preferred Ailis having sex with a manbearpig creature than have some whiny baby putting on a brave face and controlling himself from bursting into tears about his fate. Who cares? Near the end, it almost got interesting when it looked like Barlow wasn’t going to give this turd a happy ending, but… she chickened out and we got a sappy ass epilogue complete with twin baby boys for Ailis as a reward for being brave enough to have sex with an animal for the good of her people. NEXT!

Soul Kisses by Angela Knight doesn’t require you to read the previous book, which was about the heroine’s older sister, but you would probably appreciate this story better if you did. Now this one is pure cheese, but it’s the kind of cheese that I want to spread all over my nachos. Beth Chase, the little sister of Valerie Chase, has been kidnapped AGAIN by an evil vampire because she is Kith. A Kith is a special human that can be transformed into a vampire because they have special psychic powers that will protect them from the mental bombardment during the change. Two vampire cousins–who remind me of the Ambiguously Gay Duo–save Beth from the evil vampire and whisk her to a beautiful mansion. Because Beth has been infected by the vampire virus, however, the vampire cousins Morgan and Garrett must complete Beth’s transformation into vampirism themselves… and have sex with her. I don’t know what having sex has to do with turning someone into a vampire, but who cares! MENAGE A TROIS for everyone! There’s really nothing more to this story other than Beth, Morgan, and Garrett indulging in dirty, dirty sex every two pages, but does that really matter? Beth has no identifiable personality and has two modes: call for help and moan from pleasure. As for Morgan and Garrett, the only way I could tell them apart was that one of them had a girlfriend named Elena who… wait a minute, they both had sex with Elena too! Okay, there’s really no way to tell them apart. To me, they were just walking, talking erections with arms and legs. What saves this story from becoming total drek, however, is Knight’s writing style. It’s like she realizes how cheesy and awful the story is, so she just pushes on the envelope on it until it’s so outrageous that it’s frickin’ awesome. It’s good campy fun! Also, the sex is very hot. I was even thrilled about the cameo appearances of Cade and Valerie and I usually hate cameo appearances! Oh, by the way, I just read Mercenaries by Angela Knight and Garrett echoes something almost verbatim from a character in that book. Man, I hope this doesn’t become a habit for Angela Knight. I would hate it if she started Viswanathing herself.

Anyway, if you must read this anthology, then please read it for the Wyndfield story. It’s very, very good, and quite entertaining (I’d like to read more of this author. Wyndfield, if you’re reading this, will you send me everything you’ve ever written? Thanks!). It was very sci-fi movie-like and since I lurve me some sci-fi films, I was totally okay with that. The Angela Knight one was cheesy good times, but don’t forget to keep your sense of humor with you. The one by Aames was passable–read it for the first sex scene–but you could probably skip the Barlow one. Unless you like to wear burlap bag dresses, flowers in your hair, and worship rocks and shit. ‘Cause I think that story was actually about having sex with nature. Hmm… if I re-read it again with that in mind, I wonder if it would improve the story. Can’t wholeheartedly recommend this book for purchase, but I think it might be worth it to check it out from your local library!

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