Grade: C

This review is dedicated to my buddy Shuzluva with whom I made a deal: I read Roarke’s Prisoner and she’ll continue to patronize my site. Actually, it’s a lot more complicated than that. It also involves a gag ball, some handcuffs, and nipple clamps (it’s a long story), but I’m sure you guys don’t want to hear about that. On the whole, this anthology was a little uneven for me. In fact, if I had to be frank, I had a hard time finishing it. If it weren’t for Angela Knight’s story, this whole anthology would have been a complete waste of paper. And Angela Knight’s contribution is not even that great. I mean, it’s good, but not frickin’ awesome (sorry, Shuz ol’ buddy). Compared to the rest, however, it’s frickin’ brilliant and it’s a little sad ’cause it’s apparent how vastly more talented Angela Knight is than the rest of the fools that contributed to this thing. Susan Paul’s story is not horrible, but it’s not good, either. The one by Bonnie Hamre just completely turned my stomach and totally made me feel dirty. I couldn’t believe that the editor of this anthology had placed that story in the beginning because I truly believe that reading it completely influenced how I felt about this anthology as a whole. By the time I got around to the others, I did not feel like reading at all, but knew that if I put the book down, I may never pick it up again. The last one by Doreen DeSalvo was just… creepy. Even creepier than the Bonnie Hamre one and that one was pretty damned creepy. Also, it made me realize that “sex therapist” is just another euphemism for “male prostitute”.
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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.
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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.
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Grade: B-

First of all, I hunted this anthology down specifically for the MaryJanice Davidson story. I had read Derek’s Bane and kind of enjoyed it even though the heroine was slightly annoying, but I was really more intrigued by Michael, the leader of the pack, and Jeannie, his mate. Aside from the Angela Knight story (and I have come to depend on her to always bring in the goods), Davidson’s contribution is really the only readable one. Heck, not only was it readable, it was spunky and fun, too. Huh. The one by Alice Gaines wasn’t as horrible as getting skinned alive and bathed in lemon juice, but compared to Davidson’s and Knight’s, it was… umm… not good. The one by Sandy Fraser, on the the other hand, was a complete and total waste of time, as well as an insult to anyone with two brain cells to rub together. Not only does it have a premise that an acquisitions editor at Harlequin Blaze would have laughed at, it also features the most annoying heroine in the vein of… what, Meg Ryan? Oddly enough, the front of the book proclaims this collection to be “the best in women’s erotic romance”. Well, if that’s true, Angela Knight and MaryJanice Davidson must be the romance anthology equivalent of D.H. Lawrence, then. Okay, that was a cheap shot. Wait… no, it wasn’t.
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Grade: C+

As soon as I got this book in the mail, I dropped my homework, chores, and everything else for it. That’s how excited I was for it. Imagine my dismay after I read the one by Emma Holly–who thoroughly snagged my fan girl love with Menage–and found that she had submitted a tired-ass story that I have read about a dozen times before in mediocre historical romances. A virgin widow looking to unload her stupid hymen? Come on now! This was the woman who gave me luscious man on man action and now she’s trying to pass off this virgin widow story like it hasn’t been written eight hundred times? I expected more from this bitch, seriously! The wolf story by Lora Leigh, on the other hand, was not only ridiculous, but also painful to read and made me want to stuff page after page of it down the shredder. The only readable one in this anthology is the one by Mel Jean Brook, because it actually told a story and was the only one that didn’t make me feel dirty. The Underworld rip-off by Shiloh Walker wasn’t too horrible, but the heroine was annoying and useless and had me wanting to reach into the book, so I can pimp-slap her. If it weren’t for Brook’s story, this would have been an F book, but even that one left me a little unsatisfied. It made me feel like a teenage boy receiving a handjob from my girlfriend in the front seat of my Camry, about to bust a nut, only to have her dad come out to the porch with a shotgun, looking for her slutty ass. Make of that what you will.
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