The Volupta Press, $2.99, ISBN 978-0-473-58389-7
Contemporary Erotica, 2021

Erotica is subjective, and one person’s idea of scorching hotness may be another person’s eye-roll bonanza. I’m saying this because I’m pretty sure there are people out there panting hard after reading something like this:

Sulia’s hands massaged him, until, abruptly, he was no longer just astride her but was in her, his legs curled tightly round hers, his thrusts quickening. His tongue was at her ear and his hands now strongly manipulated her breasts until Sulia felt they were on fire. She was unable to move. With the legs holding her and his body weight too heavy to throw off, Sulia was captive to powerful surges that seemed to go through her head and lasted a long time. The man grunted and lay limply and heavily across her. Finally, he rolled from her and went up on an elbow. He studied her for long moments.

Jesus, the whole thing is over in, what, ten seconds? On one hand, hurrah for realism, I guess. On the other hand, come on, are many people clamoring for realistic sex scenes in works of erotica?

There is hardly any story here, just Sulia shagging away and trying to convince me that her ooh-aah-done bangs and whams are supposed to be earth-shattering in a way that will make Marvin the Martian go delirious with joy.

The main problem of Summer Sutra is the author’s writing. Full on, 100%, staccato active sentences for the entire thing makes this baby resemble an IKEA assembly manual more than anything else. Maybe it’s just me, but when I read naughty scenes, I want to read about the sensations these hot sex machines are feeling, the way they lose themselves into the sensations, the way they vocalize their pleasures, the way their nails rake across the hot guy’s back, the… dang, I really need to read some other sexy story, don’t I? This one is just he does this, she does that, they ooh ahh, and now everyone can roll over and go to sleep.

When the author chooses to delve into Sulia’s background, et cetera, it’s exposition dump time. I have to wonder why I even care about these parts, because the exposition dump feels disconnected from the rest of the story in order to pad things out. Worse, I realize that these scenes are written in the same manner as the supposedly sexy scenes, and I can only wonder whether who yawned more: the author while she wrote this thing, or me while I read this thing.

The title may be Summer Sutra, but sadly, the story behind the cover is more of a snorer snoozer.