Starred review from August 4, 2014
Liebegott guest-edits a superb installment of Taormino's renowened lesbian erotica series. Some tremendous writing is represented here, from Taormino's brilliant foreword to Peggy Munson's exquisite final story, "The Storm Chasers." Liebegott's autobiographical introduction, "Dumpster Diving," is as arousing as any of the fiction, and Tamai Kobayashi's "Different Girls" is an excellent opening to the anthology proper. There are a few missteps, such as Chandra S. Clark's "The Waiting Is the Hardest Part," an uncomfortably nonconsensual revenge fantasy, but they are more than balanced out by the high-quality works. This is a standout anthology that showcases queer female sexuality at its best.
Starred review from July 1, 2014
A domme brings her work home with her, much to her date's delight, in Rachel Kramer Bussel's "Domme's Games," while Tamai Kobayashi's "Different Girls" speaks to the fumbling awkwardness of blossoming young relationships with equal power and arresting language. Though vastly different in content, these stories share the same thread of powerful, vivid attraction between women. There's sweet, pretty love (two women from different lands speak with their bodies instead of words in Shanna Germain's sensuous "Native Tongue"), frantic, desperate sex, as well as everything in between. It comes as no surprise that this bold, unapologetically hot collection is edited by Taormino (Down and Dirty Sex Secrets), a well-known talent among the queer erotica circuit. She has compiled a group of fantastic, fearless writers whose stories depict "the real lesbians I'd been looking for my whole life," as Ali Liebegott declares in her introduction, which is just as stunning as the anthology's contributions. VERDICT This fantastic collection of distinct voices and a beautifully wide array of identities, pairings, and fetishes will appeal to many who find diverse representation in mainstream erotica woefully lacking.
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