The Best Women’s Erotica series has had an overhaul. There’s a new editor – the inimitable Rachel Kramer Bussel, and a slight tweak in the title format, as well as a change of hands for the publisher itself. Best Women’s Erotica of the Year Volume 1 was sent to me for review, and I was eager to see if the changes were noticeable.
Bussel’s been editing for a long time and obviously knows her stuff, so as I expected, the quality of the stories was high. Granted, there were two or three in there that really didn’t do anything for me and I skipped over them altogether, but to me, that’s the nature of anthologies. You’re unlikely to like every author’s writing style or story topic, and it’s a personal thing. But the vast majority of the stories were excellent, and of course, very hot. My particular favourites were Jade A. Waters’ Ophelia the Second, Heidi Champa’s Drawn by Nic and Tabitha Rayne’s Enter Me. Other recognisable names between these pages are Valerie Alexander, Elizabeth Coldwell, Rose P. Lethe, Rose Caraway, Dorothy Freed and Tiffany Reisz.
I did notice a few errors throughout, which I’d not noticed in Cleis Press anthologies before. A good proofread would have fixed them easily, so that was a shame.
Overall, though, this is a good collection, and a great way to dip in and find some erotica authors you enjoy, so you can go out and see what else they’ve written.
Available from:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
All Romance eBooks
The Book Depository
Best Women’s Erotica edited by Violet Blue is one of the best known erotica series out there. Writers clamour to get between the pages of these books, and rightly so. Best Women’s Erotica 2012 is a collection of 18 erotic stories, catering to a variety of different tastes. With stories from big names such as K D Grace, Elizabeth Coldwell, Kay Jaybee, Jacqueline Applebee, Sommer Marsden and Donna George Storey, I was looking forward to a luscious read.