St Martin’s Press, $5.99, ISBN 0-312-97174-5
Mixed Genre Erotica, 1999

First off, let me suggest to readers-to-be of this anthology to take things slowly. This book has four stories of drop-dead sexy and oblivious women bungling up their pathetic seduction attempts. Four clueless and frigid women being chased by hunks and playing hard to get may be pushing one’s quota a little, especially if you, like me, can’t take these heroines more than one per sitting. Be prepared to get headaches and nausea if you do attempt to read through all four stories at one go.

Obviously someone has neglected to tell these people in the stories that the most potent sex organ isn’t the hero’s wee-wee, but the brain.

Of all four, Anne Marie Winston’s short story The Maine Attraction is the one with a semblance of readability, but since it’s tucked away to the last seventy or so pages, I don’t really have the mood to enjoy it as much as I would in other circumstances.

Susan Johnson contributed the sole historical story, A Tempting Wager which has four bored and supposedly jaded noblewomen of the world betting their jewelry on who could seduce the suddenly-celibate Simon Mar, Marquis of Narne and Sex Machine Incomparable. Georgie, our heroine, gets the first go, falls in love after seventy or eighty orgasms, and I can’t care less. Halfway through, someone must have told Georgie that heroines must be virtuous because in a blink of an eye the sophisticated society woman has degenerated into a simpering “I haven’t taken a lover since my husband!” boring twit. Of course, playboy and sex maniac Simon finds such inexperience and innocence sexy and a material for love. Call me suspicious, but any man who loves innocence as much as these sort of men do are closet pedophiles, methinks. Worse, as soon as these intrepid orgasmo-heroes exchange love words, the war breaks out and I’m bombarded with Documentary about the War instead of a romantic novella (if the latter is ever one in the first place). Waste of time.

Adrienne Lee’s Winner Take All has our heroine Caroll Sydney discovering she’s dying of leukemia and seducing bad boy male nymphomaniac Mitch Bohannah so that she gets an orgasm before she expires. Mitch, however, has a bet running that he won’t die of testosterone overloading if he doesn’t experience a non-self-induced orgasm in say, two months. Too bad he finds inexperience and innocence more potent than anything he can think of.

Caroll is the usual sexy-but-refuses-to-believe-it ninny. I don’t even want to know about a woman who has to experience a terminal disease before she actually starts looking at men and considering a date. A 25 year old woman! Instead of orgasms, I would prescribe heavy-duty hormone level therapy or a visit to the psychiatrist. Caroll, there’s no shame in being a lesbian, honey – she should consider that alternative instead of making me, the reader, hurt in the head with her stupid playing-hard-to-get antics? Again, waste of time.

In Leandra Logan’s Strangers in the Night, it’s the above twit’s clone, this time in the guise of Andrea Donas, wife to abusive control freak. She meets and shags Jack Taylor, who then saves her from the abusive marriage she is too ninny to get out on her own. I mean, she should have hired a hitman to off that idiot hubby. Jack is a scum, period, whose big secret don’t even earn him an eenie weeny castration from Andrea when she finds out – and to me, his big secret is unforgivable because of his deliberate withholding of information. Gutter spawn and brainless floozie – they deserve each other. Good luck!

The best story is definitely from Anne Marie Winston. The unfortunately predictable librarian – gee, what a surprise – heroine gets stuck in a cabin with a hunk. Hunk sees her for the beauty she is when she can’t, woos her, beds her, she has low self-esteem, he can’t commit… the usual. But these two people talk, which is more than I can say of the other three stories, hence there is a semblance of brainpower behind these two characters. As it is, thanks to the extra effort by the author in padding in some humanity behind the genitalia of the main characters, The Maine Attraction ends up the most sensual and readable – if predictable – read of the four.

One out of four stories that is worth reading. This is the last time I buy a book because of a great washboard on the cover.