Best Women's Erotica - erotic fiction by Cleis Press Inc. - review by LucyLemonade

Best Women's Erotica 09 wasn't as sultry as I desired, but of course personal preferences of erotica must be taken into consideration. I prefer my erotica very descriptive and the language rather flowery, but others may enjoy bluntly graphic text. While I found some stories uninteresting, there was a good amount of variation in the stories compiled by Violet Blue.

The first story chosen to start out this anthology didn't feel like it was placed correctly for me. Fly by Valerie Alexander focused around a childhood story turned erotic including Peter Pan and Tiger Lilly. This story made me put aside the book at first because I was afraid that the following stories would be similar. I have read erotic fairy tales that were very well written, but the story of Peter Pan and Tiger Lilly just did not come across as something that held my interest.

I did however go back to the book, to make myself finish the other stories and give this anthology a proper review. I am glad that I did because Live Bed Show by Elizabeth Coldwell was the next story. This brought my interest back, Elizabeth has a more fluid writing style and the story of a "bed model" in Amsterdam held a sultry tone that kept my interest. Her words easily brought the image of a beautiful woman splayed across a bed in window display for all passing by to view into my thoughts and made me want to finish the tale.

For those into kinky toys, Good Pony by Scarlett French delves into the world of riding crops with a playful tone that is fun to read. For couples with D/s relationships or interests, Lucky by Xan West is a very graphic story that involves different aspects of gender and sexual orientation variation. I found it to be a nice change of pace from a lot of erotic anthologies which tend to stay in the realm of heterosexual or homosexual primary relationships, instead of moving out to different variations and therefore including all types of gender variation and sexual expression.

If you are looking for short stories with a good deal of variation in topics and expression, Best Women's Erotica 09 is a good little book to have hidden underneath the bed. Just make sure to have your favorite toy in reach to get out that sexual tension that builds!