Grade: B

I actually finished reading this behemoth months ago, but I put off reviewing it because it’s um… huge. It’s a special 2-in-1 edition, man! And I got it for only 3.99. Thanks, eBay! I don’t really remember what’s in this book, so you’ll have to forgive me if I fudge up one or two details. Like who wrote what. Just kidding. All of them have a pretty distinctly porn-y set up and none of them really stood out to me… except two. And only because they’re horrible. They were so bad that I literally considered drinking bleach afterwards because I didn’t want to live in a world where those two stories existed. And I wanted to get the dirty sock taste in my mouth that I got after reading them. Actually, they’re not that bad. No, I’m kidding. They are that bad. None of the entries in this book are particularly note-worthy–even the Angela Knight one was kind of disappointing–but now that I’m perusing the blurbs of this anthology, I am starting to remember that the two short stories by Jesse Michaels were not that bad. They’re both based in Egypt and are really more Tomb Raider than Indiana Jones, but they are the most readable ones of the bunch. Leigh Wyndfield’s contribution is fucking awesome, as usual, but I’ve come to expect that from her. Oh, and Saskia Walker and Dominique Sinclair should be ashamed of themselves. Seriously.

Masquerade by Jennifer Probst is kind of lame in a mediocre Blaze kind of way. Our heroine Hailey Ashton lives and works in Italy because… oh, who cares. She has a sucker best friend named Michael Rivers who is recently divorced, but is madly in love with Hailey. He’s a nice, sweet guy who’d treat her like a queen if given the opportunity, so naturally Hailey only thinks of him as a friend. Yes, it’s that story. Hailey is also in love with Ciro Demetris, the mysterious CEO of the company for which she works and plans to seduce him during the masquerade ball that he throws annually. I think you know where this is going. There is virtually nothing new in this book and I found myself completely underwhelmed by it. The character of Hailey is a two-dimensional bimbo. We don’t really find out her motivations for wanting to seduce Demetris other than he’s rich–which is just fine by me–but the fool actually thinks she can make him fall in love with her. I couldn’t get into this story because I couldn’t believe that Hailey would actually be stupid enough to believe that a billionaire CEO who could have his pick of supermodels would fall in love with a boring piece of toast like her and that a sweet guy like Michael could totally fall for her. Not that Michael is without his faults. He crosses the line into creepy stalker territory once or twice, so… umm, maybe neither of them is much of a catch, after all. This story is totally meh for me. It’s not horrible, but it’s nothing good.

Ancient Pleasures by Jess Michaels is a lot more interesting. I swear to God, I’ve seen something like it before on Skinnymax, but while it’s not exactly great literature, it’s paced very well and the characters don’t annoy me. I read it as a parody of those Victorian adventurer (think a porny Alan Quatermain) stories, so maybe that’s why I had a blast reading it. Our heroine Isabella Winslow is a widow newly arrived in Cairo to find out what made her adventurer husband go crazy, waste away, and die. Her quest leads her to the tomb of Merystat, the infamous mistress of a pharaoh, who was known for her sexcapades and love for sex toys. Also in the tomb, however, is a brash American tomb raider named Jake Turner (just check out the name; he is that guy) who’s only there for the loot, so naturally, he and Isabella immediately clash. And resolve their differences by having sex every five minutes. You see, the tomb is cursed with the spirit of Merystat, who everyone who steps foot in it is compelled to fuck or get fucked to death. There is even a scene where Isabelle pleasures herself with a mystified stone dildo. I kid you not. Jake is your usual larger-than-life, arrogant, know-it-all American with the rakish grin and Isabelle is your stereotypical prim Victorian lady who has a sexual epiphany under his hands; nonetheless, they are both very likeable. Again, there is nothing new here, but it’s a lot of fun to read because it doesn’t take itself seriously. Jess Michaels definitely had fun writing this one, I think.

Manhunt by Kimberly Dean is not too horrible. It’s basically about a deputy DA named Taryn Swanson who is in love with a narcotics detective named Michael Tucker. The two of them are attracted to each other, engaging in verbal foreplay here and there, and just when they’re about to take the next step, Tucker is arrested and convicted for a murder that he didn’t commit. Tucker, of course, escapes and holds Taryn hostage in her own home. Between some light bondage and a little slap & tickle™, Tucker and Taryn try to find evidence that Tucker didn’t commit the murder. There is genuine chemistry between Tucker and Taryn and even though Tucker is a littler rough around the edges, he is very sexy. This totally reminded me of a well-written Law & Order fan fiction starring Serena Southerlyn (before we found out she was a lesbian… wtf?) because Taryn Swanson has the same ice-princess thing that Serena had and I really liked her as a character. The ending was wrapped up a little too neatly for my taste, with the bad guy ending up to be the same guy who has sexually harassed Serena Taryn in the past. What were the odds, eh?

Wake Me by Angela Knight is kind of interesting. No, not really. It’s about a horny graphics artist named Chloe who mysteriously receives a painting cursed with a knight-cum-sex-slave trapped in it. Our knight Radolf pisses off some witch, so she sticks him in a painting and there he’ll stay until a maiden falls in love with with him and sacrifices herself for him. Meanwhile, he gets to have lots and lots of sex with the various women who receive the painting over the years. Eww. Can mystical creatures get STD? Whatever, Sherrilyn Kenyon does it better in Fantasy Lover. Radolf has three modes: Growl, Brood, and Fuck. I don’t want any of it. Chloe, however, is just annoying in a Susan Mayer way. If you don’t watch Desperate Housewives, then you won’t know what I’m talking about. Hell, I don’t watch DH and I find Susan Mayer annoying. Trust me, Chloe is annoying. Plus I read the words “sweetly astringent pussy” and threw up.

At first I thought Good Girl Gone Bad by Dominique Sinclair was a parody of all those silly chicklit books starring inept, barely out of college twits trying to make it in the publishing world where they meet an older, sophisticated man, and act like fools, with hilarious results. But no. This story is just… ick. The naïve, doe-eyed, almost a virgin heroine is just too stupid to live as well as a manic-depressive wreck and the older man who’s a college professor that she falls in love with is just… creepy. I’m surprised that Reagan was able to live past college without getting distracted in the middle of the street by something shiny and getting squashed like a pancake by a truck. As for Luke, the college professor, he just seemed like the kind of guy who’d bone his grade students by the dozen. Luke is obviously the dominant one in the relationship and Reagan, wide-eyed freak that she is, is perfect for him because she is naturally submissive doesn’t possess a vertebrae. I’ve read hot stories where the guy is the top and the woman is the bottom, but they both understand the rules of the game and are adults about it. The part where he fingerbangs (fingerbang-bang, fingerbang-bang) in a bookstore was just… yuck. And I also found it hard to believe that anyone would find Reagan’s sexual adventures interesting to read. Imagine if Carrie Bradshaw were played by Bambi instead of My Little Pony. And the whole BIG MISUNDERSTANDING thing? Was so stupid and contrived that it actually hurt to read about it. I could see Luke being a more interesting character if his foil were smarter, more sophisticated, and able to challenge him, but… um, that’s not Reagan.

Aphrodite’s Passion by Jess Michaels is… umm… different. Basically, it’s about a guy who is contracted to rescue a widow from an Aphrodite-worshipping cult in Egypt and in the process, gets captured and must serve as a sex slave. Our heroine Selena Kelsey was married to a rather staid man who abused her and received evil step-kids for her trouble. Now that she’s widowed, she just wants to have a little somethin’-somethin’, but her step-kids think she’s a lust-crazed psycho, so they want her to be put away. Gavin Fletcher (a sweetie of a man), our hero, was saved by Selena’s husband during the war and is roped in by the evil step-kids to bring Selena back. The sex is conventional and neither of them have sex with any of the other cult members, which is stupid because the reason that Selena joined them anyway is to experience a sexual revolution of her own. Too bad she’s a coward. While I do appreciate Selena trying to take control of her life and having her own fun, the fact that she practically couldn’t wait for Gavin to save her just ruined it for me. Supposedly she wants to have a sexual revolution, but the second a conventional, “safe” guy comes a-callin’, she throws herself at him. I was more interested in the cult leader who, while cartoony evil, was a lot more colorful and fun to read about than Selena. I think if she had been the heroine instead of Selena and she made Gavin her little sex toy, the story would have been a lot more kickass.

White Heat by Leigh Wyndfield is fucking awesome. Man, I do love this lady’s attention to details. She can weave mythology and world-building into the story without bogging down the plot with info-dump and she writes interesting characters who are intelligent, real, and sympathetic. Our heroine Raine is a former assassin, but she and her group only kill bad guys. She turns down a contract to kill a guy, but the guy turns out to be totally evil, and kills all of her team members. Now Raine is on the run from him and she is currently hiding on an ice planet where she is plotting how to get back at him. Raine has also been by herself for a while, so to pass the time, she is constantly talking to herself. Our hero, Walker, is an escaped convict who was framed for a murder. He trudges through miles and miles of snow and ice and somehow ends up at Raine’s cabin. Raine takes him in, mostly out of sheer loneliness, and takes care of him. The second she touches him, he is yanked back from the brink of death and instantly feels better. What Walker isn’t telling Raine is that she is actually his MATE (eye roll) and that they can heal each other. Anyway, they have lots of hot sex, then he and Raine go out and try to kill the bad guy. Raine is a tough-as-nails, thoroughly independent woman who has never taken shit from anyone and finds it hard to trust anyone. But she is not one of those heroines who’d yell to anyone who’d listen about how independent she is, only to run straight into danger, and have to be rescued by the hero. She can take care of herself and most of the time, she does the rescuing. And I thought it was adorable how she talks to herself. Walker is a gentle, sweet, nice guy who just wants to love Raine, and though he can be a little overbearing with the Mate thing, he’s not a total asshole. In short, Leigh Wyndfield saves this anthology with her awesome story. Again. Give her a hand, people.

This last story by Saskia Walker… I don’t even know what to say about it. Summer Lightning is about two boring British people who have a very boring vacation fling, then they go back to their boring lives, decide they’re in love with each other, and live boringly ever after. Anyway, our heroine Sally is your typical haven’t-had-sex-in-a-century, neurotic heroine who goes away for a vacation to a secluded island so she can sculpt. One day, while walking on the beach, she catches a hot guy masturbating into the ocean, and she gets so turned on that she goes home and sculpts him. At first I thought he was going to be selkie or something, but he’s just some guy who… umm… likes to masturbate in public, I guess. His name is Julian and he… I don’t know, takes samples of the ocean water and studies it. These two are just so very boring together. They have boring conversation and boring sex. Even the part where he practically forces her to give him a blow job on the beach (what’s with this guy?) was just… I don’t know, wrong. Well, that’s something, I suppose. I don’t know, I just didn’t like this story, period. It took too long to get to the point and once it did, it was just anti-climactic and boring.

Anyway, four out of eight ain’t bad, I guess. For 3.99, it’s pretty damn good. It was a good thing that Saskia Walker’s short story was at the end or it would have soured me for the rest of the book. And it’s a big fucking book. Dominique Sinclair’s “contribution” just made me feel dirty and creeped me out, but I was glad I read this behemoth for the Leigh Wyndfield story. Oh, and Jess Michaels has some pretty original ideas and while they didn’t exactly pan out here, she piqued my interest enough so that I went to Venus Press and bought a couple of her ebooks. Angela Knight was just so-so, but her so-so is a million times better than the Saskia Walker or the Dominique Sinclair stories. She is, after all, Angela FUCKING Knight. Anyway, check this out, if only for the Wyndfield story. Ugh, I can’t believe I actually read this gigantic thing. I should receive a prize or something.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 13th, 2006 at 11:56 am and is filed under Books, Grade: B, Romance: Sci-fi/Fan, Romance: Contempo, Romance: Historical, Romance: Anthology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.