Best Women’s Erotica ’07 includes nineteen naughty shorts from today’s leading luminaries in literary erotica. The table of contents reveals a smorgasbord of contributions from venerated goddesses of erotica such as Alison Tyler, Kayla Kuffs, Rachel Kramer Bussel and Sophie Mouette, amongst many others.

Violet Blue has accomplished a lot with this collection. In her introduction to BWE07 she compares the editing and selection process to curating a gallery exhibition. Considering that some of these stories are works of art, the analogy is perfectly apposite.

The first story I read from this anthology, and one that made me shiver while reading, was Kathleen Bradean’s “Chill.” “Chill”is the story of one woman’s peculiar kink: a variant path to pleasure from the one most of us would take. This tale could have been sinister or eerie in anyone else’s hands, yet Kathleen paints a clever word picture that brings out every erotic element in this frigidly fascinating tale.

There’s also the clever use of dialogue in Kristina Wright’s Call Me. Kristina is a veteran of previous Best Women’s Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, Mammoth Book of Best Erotica etc. In “Call Me”she shows how sexy the simple exchange of words can be when in the hands of an accomplished author.

And, on the subject of accomplished authors and sexy dialogue, Donna George Storey’s “Just Words”continues the theme of eroticism consummated over a long distance. I have to admit a personal admiration for Donna’s style of storytelling. She uses a frank language that is exciting without being vulgar, and her fiction always sizzles with the promise of passion.

Admittedly there were a couple of stories in BWE07 that didn’t work for me, but in every collection there are bound to be degrees that vary through the extremes of the reader’s personal tastes. More often than not, BWE07 hit the mark with erotica that was perfectly presented and deliciously deviant. Even better: Violet Blue has chosen a wide range of voices that personalise the particular eroticism of each story.

From the surly, youthful voice of Jean Casse’s contemporary story “Hands,” where the young heroine works in a piercing salon and hooks up with a couple to indulge a FMF fantasy; to the sophisticated adoration and seduction in the operatic environment of Teresa Noelle Roberts’ “Voice of an Angel:” each story has its own personal voice and its own style of presenting a superlative erotic experience.

Violet Blue has excelled with this collection. With generous lashings of kink and quality, Best Women’s Erotica ’07 will take pride of place on the shelves of any bedside library.

Best Women’s Erotica ’07
(Cleis Press; October 25, 2006; ISBN-10: 1573442585)
Available at: Amazon.com / Amazon UK

© 2007 Ashley Lister. All rights reserved.