[Warning: a tiny rant ahead]

Grade: A-
Here’s an anthology that I enjoyed immensely. Usually I would like one or two stories, then wish I could tear out the rest in a fit of frenzy and set the pages on fire, but this one… well, I just happened to like them all. My favorite story is the one by Kimberly Dean… it’s original, hot as hell, and honestly, I’ve never read of a thermometer being used in that manner. There’s also a very hot scene involving being naked in the snow at three o’clock in the morning. Good stuff. Very inventive. Summer Devon’s contribution to this anthology is also a lot of fun, mostly because it seems very sincere and involves… well, regular people. A waitress and a construction worker, for God’s sake. I really, really liked the characters. My least favorite story in this anthology is Michelle Pillow’s. While it’s still pretty readable and sexy, I didn’t really get a sense of the connection between the two leads like I did with Devon’s and Dean’s stories. Plus there was that seemingly obligatory group sex scene in the end that’s almost a requirement for erotic romances nowadays and it’s really starting to cheese me off. I wish Sister Jane would write a rant about it already!

Fever by Kimberly Dean seemed like the most Blaze-like of all the stories and maybe that’s why I liked it so much (man oh man, I love me some Blaze). It’s a very simple story about a man and a woman who are attracted to each other and the sexual tension threatens to consume them both in a fiery… FEVAH! (when you touch me, fevah all through the night). Delia Jenkins is a shy as a mouse bookkeeper who is deathly intimidated by her boss, Jackson Lloyd. She’s so afraid of him that she constantly worries she’ll mess up her spreadsheets and he’ll fire her (she was unemployed for a few months and hated it). Compounded by stress from work, Delia begins to suffer from flu-like symptoms, but forces herself to keep working anyway. A hot, flirtatious co-worker named Robbie cajoles her into going home for the day, but Delia insists on staying to finish her spreadsheet even though she’s practically delirious with… Fevah! (Delia’s gone, one more round, Delia’s gone). Robbie finally persuades her to go, promising he’ll stop by after work to check in on her, and the two of them bump into Jackson Lloyd, all grunty and growly and threatening to fire people. Robbie quips that he’s taking Delia to bed (for a nooner!) and Delia stammers about her flu-like symptoms, sounding awfully like a filthy, FILTHY liar. Jackson glowers suspiciously at the both of them, but lets them go, and Robbie sticks Delia in a cab after planting a really hot kiss on her, sexily promising again that he’ll stop by after work (that Robbie… what a minx!). Delia goes home, miserably gets more ill, and wakes up to the sexy, masterful ministrations of… Who?!? Dun-dun-dun!

Man, I had a lot of fun with this story. I read it during my history class (yes, I know, Jaimi… my parents didn’t buy me my e-reader for this) and was giggling and squirming in my seat the whole time. I swear to God, the guy who sat next to me thought I was crazy. Anyway, I enjoyed that Dean doesn’t mention who the midnight visitor was and honestly, if you’re a veteran romance reader, don’t you know already? See, I though that too, but even I doubted myself a couple of times. SHE MADE ME DOUBT HOW SMART I WAS, THE BITCH! At first I didn’t think I was going to like this story because Delia seemed like your typical whingey, wide-eyed, doesn’t-know-where-her-clit-is kind of girl, but the lady surprised me by knowing her own body and demanding to be serviced until she was satisfied. She’s still a little bit of a wimp and a wet blanket, but she really didn’t annoy me too much. The Midnight Lover Who Sneaks and Lurves Her Masterfully, on the other hand, was… *fans self* GOD, WHY DOESN’T ANYONE TAKE CARE OF ME LIKE THAT WHEN I’M FLUISH? Oh my god, the sex scenes in this story are very simple man-woman stuff [no group sex, no anal (sort of)], but they threatened to fry the circuits of my e-reader, they were so hot. Good show, Dean! I’m at a point where I usually roll my eyes when I read a sex scene, but this one actually made me go “Oh, Arrow, my Arrow, spear me with your… Arrow!” and cross and uncross my legs a few times in the middle of class, no less! God, I really loved The Midnight Lover Who Sneaks and Lurves Her Masterfully… sniff. I’m getting teary just thinking about him. Oh and that snow scene… fucking brilliant! Hear, hear for more Kimberly Dean, yo! She takes romance novel stock characters, sticks them in an innovative story, and weaves something thoroughly enjoyable. Props! Fuckin’ A, dude!

Perfection by Summer Devon was a super-fun read. It features a hero so irresistible to women that he becomes a fugitive of sorts because they seem to find him wherever he goes. As a result of an experiment gone wrong for Metcher Corporation, Bryan Hartigan (I lurve that last name) has pheromones that would drive any woman nuts and clawing at him to give it, GIVE it them them good, hard, fast… over and over and over. Dr. Nathan, the head mad scientist who messed him up, told him the only way he could get his pheromones to settle down is if he found the Perfect Woman and shagged her silly. That way, their perfections could cancel each other out. Or something. I don’t know. And where else would he find Ms. Perfection but in a beauty pageant? In his quest to find a siliconed, surgically enhanced beauty to relieve him of his hyper-effective pheromones, Bryan ends up in a podunk little town and slinks into a diner where he meets Allie the waitress who, consequently, totally killed her nasal passages that morning when she accidentally sprayed herself in the face with heavy-duty oven cleaner stuff. But Bryan doesn’t know that. What he does know is Allie is very, very attracted to him, but seems to be doing quite well fighting it off. Allie thinks he’s a conceited idiot, convinced of his own hype, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to sit on his face and ride it for hours. What’s important to Bryan, however, is he had finally found a woman who seems to be able to control herself around him and you guys, he totally digs it. HE DIGS IT HARD. The two of them talk together, laugh together, share some spit, and basically have a lot of fun together, though Bryan is convinced that Allie can’t possibly be Ms. Perfection. You’re in a romance novel, dummy! Anyway, as it turns out, Metcher Corporation totally wants Bryan back because of his precious, precious pheromones (they’ve even resorted to stealing his underwear… kinky!) and finds himself on the run again, this time with Allie attached like a crazed koala to his side.

Bryan and Allie are both very likable people that I was able to suspend my disbelief about the magic pheromones and having to find the Perfect Woman to have sex with it and thus kill the pheromones. Bryan is an ordinary dude, a construction worker who stupidly signs up for an experiment even though he doesn’t really read the contract. He’s very down-to-earth and just seems like the average hot guy you’d bump into at your local watering hole, have sex with, and kick out the next day. I liked him! Allie, on the other hand, is a sweet, nice girl who just wants to save enough money so she can stop being a waitress. She doesn’t quite know what she wants, but damn it, she just doesn’t want to be a waitress in a shithole town anymore. For some reason, I pictured Jewel Staite in the role of Allie. There was just something very Kaylee-like about her. I enjoyed that Bryan and Allie managed to sit down talk to each other and totally become BFF before getting down to the business of fizznucking each other’s brains out. They seemed to genuinely like each other as people as well as bed partners. This is what I like about Summer Devon’s work. She takes the time to develop the relationship between the characters, shows us their flaws and why they belong together anyway, before she shoves them in bed together. You could totally believe that at the end of the day, the relationship will work out even when the sex isn’t hot anymore. Good stuff, Summer. Another one out of the ballpark for you! A- because I couldn’t buy that bit about having to fuck Ms. Perfect to settle down a dude’s pheromones.

Taming Him by Michelle Pillow is just aight, but is still very readable. Maggie Stewart is not having a fun life. Her boyfriend has been cheating on her, so she goes on a trip to the Ozarks so she could forget that slimy bastard. Unfortunately, her car breaks down in the middle of nowhere and Maggie finds herself stranded. Luckily, help immediately arrives… not so luckily, help comes in the form of an alien who believes Maggie is his chosen bride and abducts her on a magic spaceship ride. Luckily, dude just happens to be a very hot, very sexy humanoid… not so luckily, he’s a weirdo who wants her to “tame the dragon”. Maggie, who’s been having severely sexual fantasies about the Big Dumb Alien (complete with people watching them do it), just wants to go back to earth to live out the rest of her sucky-ass life, so she lies and tells Vladei the Alien Stud that she’s already married. Apparently, kidnapping a woman who’s already committed is a big NO-NO in their culture and Vladei tells her he has to be punished and begins to avoid her. Maggie misses him almost immediately and starts getting horny even around the other men working in the spaceship. She feels guilty about lying to him, but she really does just want to go home… even though she realizes that life with Vladei would probably be pretty sweet, since he’s willing to give her everything she asks for and his men treat her like a Queen. Will Maggie tell Vladei the truth? Will she and Vladei live happily ever after? Can Maggie manage to… gulp… “tame the dragon”?

What I liked about Maggie is that she’s no dummy. Even though she’s resistant to the idea of being some Big Dumb Alien’s bride, she’s quite practical and immediately realizes which side of the bread is buttered. Vladei, on the other hand, is cutely vulnerable because he just wants to find the right woman to settle down with and experience ONE TRUE LURVE for himself. What I didn’t like so much is that for a short story, these two spend quite a lot of time apart. Pillow should have utilized what little space she had to cultivate the chemistry between Maggie and Vladei and showed us why the two of them should be together, other that some contrived bullshit about the two of them “belonging” together. Have I mentioned to you guys how much I really don’t like the whole “mate” thing? What ever happened to just putting two people together and having them realize they should be together despite the many differences they may have between them? The world-building is so-so and I would have liked to know what the hell is up with aliens being totally cool with inviting a whole goddamn basketball team into the bedroom and having them watch. Seriously, I’m just tired of this group sex thing that seems to permeate almost every single erotic romance I’ve read lately. What’s romantic about pulling a train? When did bukkake get sexy? It’s just old-hat by now. Hey, why don’t we try something different… wacky, even… and just bring two people together in a sticky situation and see what happens if neither of them is a werewolf, a vampire, a two-dicked alien, or a fan of group sex? Anyway, I wish Pillow had further explored the dynamics of Maggie and Vladei’s relationship, so I could see for myself that they belonged together and not just because of a “mate” thing. She’s a good writer, so I was able to read this story without much effort, but I just couldn’t help but wish there was more to Maggie and Vladei than just… sex. B- for this one.

By the way, each and every one of the stories in this anthology has been previously published by Ellora’s Cave all by its lonesome. I’m sorry if this review got a little ranty, but I just miss the days of old where the romance is just between two people (male/male, female/female, male/female). For me, a true romance is about being able to turn your back on the rest of the hot, hot world and say, “Sorry, Justin and Brandon, I’m with Tim now and I can’t fuck either of you because I love him. Stop begging. No seriously, stop begging. It’s just sad now. STOP BEGGING, damn it. Alright, alright. But just this once and you can’t tell anyone about it. No, Brandon, you can’t film it and put it on Youtube!” because you’re in love with ONE person and would be willing to forsake all others for him (no matter how hard Justin and Brandon beg). Speaking of which, there’s this hot guy in my sci-fi class called Robbie… but YOU KNOW WHAT, it doesn’t matter. Group sex is all well and good when you’re just having fun and swallowed a couple of E tabs and listening to crappy Trance music (hell, some of my good friends love group sex, but I love those dirty whores anyway!), but my Catholic upbringing won’t allow me to see it as anything more than… mindless fun. I can’t see how TRUE LURVE can spring from it, but like I’ve discussed with Sister Jane, I’m a romance reader with a lot of baggage. Anyway, I do realize that SEX SELLS, writers, but do we really have to sacrifice the storytelling for it? Most of the time, the group sex seems… out of place. WRITE THE RANT ALREADY, SISTER JANE! Rants aside, folks, this anthology is fucking good, y’all, and I suggest you buy it already. It’s good times and so very, very sexy. Even the one with the group sex.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 24th, 2007 at 10:57 am and is filed under Books, Grade: A, Romance: Anthology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.