Samhain Publishing, $2.50, ISBN 1-59998-586-1
Contemporary Erotica, 2007

One Night on a Balcony begins with heroine Jill Reed getting off on watching her neighbor Cole Adams having sex with some random woman. She can see everything because those two have having a party on Cole’s balcony.

Call me a pervert, but I find that scene pretty hot.

Samantha Lucas has her tongue firmly against her cheek and it shows, which makes Cole’s over-the-top alpha-male-with-an-erection antics more amusing than ridiculous. Even more entertaining is how committed playboy Cole with a tendency to put out “balcony porn”, as Jill puts it, can fall so hard for Jill.

He couldn’t even begin to imagine how good the sex between them would be, especially if tonight was any indication. Jill Reed was a wildfire of passion and desire, waiting to be ignited. He couldn’t figure how or why she had remained single, unless of course it was some form of punishment for him from the gods. To hold out the perfect woman in front of him at a time in his life when he’d finally realized he was too defective to make the real thing work, even if it ever did come along.

Cole believes that he’s not cut out for monogamous relationships after getting burned one time too many. Hey, at least he blames himself instead of hating all women so I give him some slack for being at least somewhat original in his emo blues. Jill plays at being the damaged character herself but like Cole, she doesn’t try too hard or fight too hard.

And really, the love scenes are pretty hot, balcony porn or not.

One Night on a Balcony manages to combine humor, some mild angst, melodramatic emo love, and hot steamy love scenes very nicely indeed. Who knows that balcony porn can be so good?