Total-e-bound, £1.49, ISBN 978-1-906328-17-7
Contemporary Romance, 2007

I have read enough short stories that are marketed as erotic and too many of them make me yawn or roll up my eyes as I wonder just whose thirteen-year old daughter wrote those stories. I am not expecting much when I begin to read Portia Da Costa’s Object of Desire. I never expected to find myself going “Oh my!” as I tilt my head a little at the monitor to read every word like a starving fellow craving every last bit of a cake.

This is a very simple story of Sylvia Bradford, a woman who has been breathlessly watching her neighbor Dr Nathaniel Gowen, a hot hunk and scholar in one hot package, doing his tai-chi routine in the communal garden every morning and evening. Actually she does more than watch when she’s standing at the window, if you know what I mean. One day, Nate shows up at her door asking to borrow some sugar and you can predict what will happen next, I’m sure.

While that is all there is to the story, I must say the story is hot. Ms Da Costa doesn’t just describe the mechanics of a sex or use out-of-this-world paranormal elements to make her story sexy. The sex scene is earthy and real, with every sensation the heroine is experiencing described to the point that it is as if I am transported into the heroine’s head. Yes, I know, I am making myself come off like some depraved pervert here, but it’s been really fun to read Object of Desire.