Review
"Best Women's Erotica of the Year, Volume 2 is a collection of erotic short stories by various authors from established to first time authors. The stories are a good mix of genre, writing style and "feel". One thing I notice about the characters and stories is they are empowering. It's a celebration of being a woman and enjoying physical pleasure because it is something that we deserve." -- Warhawke's Vault Book Blog"Imaginative, high-heat, high-quality erotica. Varied stories that span the globe, but all have in common the heated bliss of finding a human connection, mind and body." -- Cleverotic
"Every story in BWE has something unique, some novel detail or backdrop that serves as a doorway into the steamy scene, but some of them are far more elegant in getting to the hotness than others. The collection seems to move from more vanilla, hetero stories with conventional style to the more extreme or experimental stuff, namely rope, CBT, gender melding and D/s power exchange, all thankfully creative and high-octane racy. I liked this progression as a read." -- Betina Cipher"In Janelle Reston's Wordless Surrender (Grade B+), deaf domme Allie has a rapturous experience with her sub, Marbeth. This is in my top five when it comes to stories in the collection; Reston's narrative voice is sharp and piquant and it has an extremely strong sense of character alongside a rapturous sense of love for bondage and dominance that translates well even if you don't kink to it." All About Romance"T.C. Mill's "Phone Call, 3 AM" is incredible. Second person stories can be quite moving in erotica, done night, and Mill hits all the right notes in this eloquent, searing story."At The End of the World" was another great tale - there's certainly a shortage of apocalyptic erotica in the world, and this MMF story of a woman and two men who find each other after a plague is pretty hot.
Jaybee's "Brick Dust" is another great bondage story that is a master class in pacing. Hot, visceral and perfectly crafted to draw out the tension between the two characters." Valerie Alexander
From the Inside Flap
Introduction: Getting Naked
"What do you want from me?" Sarah asks Ollie in the opening line of Corrine A. Silver's beautiful and hot rope bondage story "Her Best." In a way, it's a question that's asked implicitly by all the protagonists in Best Women's Erotica of the Year, Volume 2--when they're not asking themselves what they want, and going after it. That's something that may sound easy--figuring out your desires, and staking a claim to them--but in the real world, it's not always so simple. There are so many ways we women hold ourselves back, allow ourselves to believe that what we might want is "too much," and that by extension, so are we.
But the women you'll meet in these twenty-one stories are curious and tenacious, allowing themselves to wander to distant lands, to explore new types of sex, with new lovers, even when they aren't totally sure where these missions will lead them. They take chances, get vulnerable, risk saying yes when it would be safer to say no, all because they sense that something greater will be in store for them if they dare.
I didn't set a formal theme for this anthology, because I like to give my authors as much leeway as possible to explore whatever corners of their minds their fiction takes them to. I did notice that travel and adventure predominated among the submissions writers sent me this time. You'll find many of those travelers within these pages, whether it's Jocelyn Bringas's heroine in "Taste" going about her daily commute only to be stopped by a particularly irresistible stranger whoshe wants to ignore, but simply can't; Lucie in "Passion in Peru," by Vierra Lai, who breaks off from her friends to let her new man visit a part of her body that's never been traversed before or Valentina in Dorianne's "Like Lights in the Northern Sky," where the aurora borealis illuminates a new relationship path along with the landscape. "At the End of the World," by Winter Blair, finds Jasmine extremely lucky to be alive--and luckier to find two sex-starved male survivors in this post-apocalyptic tale.
For other characters, taking the leap from fantasy to reality is the most powerful trip of all, as happens in Josie Jordan's "The Fight Club," where Suzie gathers the courage to confess her deepest desire, risking rejection but needing to voice it. In "On Some Maps, But Not on Others," by Annabeth Leong, gender is the course this creative body cartographer must explore.
I'm fully aware that no single book of erotic stories can cover the wide range of possibilities women erotica authors can cook up or all the infinite ways women get off--after all, there are countless ways we can connect with another human being. What I can offer you here are twenty-one tales that showcase heroines who are indeed heroic, whether they're in an opera house basement obeying orders from their kinky lover or offering the comfort of their body at the most challenging of moments, as in "Phone Call, Three a.m." by T.C. Mill. They're heroic because they are up for the challenge, even when they may risk getting caught, having their heart broken or being rejected. They're heroic because they allow themselves to grapple with uncertainty, jealousy, fear and nerves as those mix and mingle with their arousal, sometimes so closely it's hard to know where one starts and the other ends. I'd argue that each of these heroines is gutsy in her own way, and maybe, in or out of the bedroom, some of them will inspire you to be gutsy too.
What else is in store for you as you read on? In this book, you'll salivate right alongside Abby over the ultimate juicy girl talk in "Star Bright," by Cela Winter, find out what "Teacher Appreciation" is all about once the students have graduated, according to Stella Watts Kelley, and visit the after-hours life of a startup employee in "Serious Faces," by Ella Dawson. You'll meet a domme who exerts her power over her very willing sub via sign language in "Wordless Surrender," by Janelle Reston. In that story, Allie asks Marbeth, "Are you mine?" It's another question that's a through line of these stories, although whether the lovers in these tales belong to each other in the formal sense gets a different answer depending on who's asking the question. Whether that sense of "belonging" is formalized within BDSM, expressed through tenderness or teasing, or is simply ephemeral, lasting as long as the lovers need and no more, in each of these stories, through exploring what they want out of sex, these women discover what it means to belong--to themselves, to another person (or people), and to their bodies and desires.
There are moments of rip-your-clothes-off passion as well as tenderness and connection, of sex as both a scorching physical encounter and a healing emotional balm, often within the very same story. There's humor (the corny pick-up lines in "Taste" are wonderfully absurd) mixed with heartache, life's highs and lows explored as these women get completely naked, body and soul. I hope you'll share with me your favorite stories--and what you'd like to see in future volumes--at bweoftheyear@gmail.com and visit bweoftheyear.com to find out more about the series and where it's going next.
Rachel Kramer Bussel
Atlantic City, New Jersey
About the Author
Rachel Kramer Bussel (rachelkramerbussel.com) is a writer, editor, event organizer and erotica writing instructor. She's edited over 70 anthologies, including The Big Book of Orgasms, Come Again: Sex Toy Erotica, Dirty Dates, On Fire, Spanked, Please, Sir, Please, Ma'am, and is Best Women's Erotica of the Year series editor. Her nonfiction has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Marie Claire, O, The Oprah Magazine, Elle.com, Salon, Slate, Time.com, The Village Voice and numerous other publications. Follow her @raquelita on Twitter and learn more about her writing workshops and consulting at EroticaWriting101.com.
