Naughty Bits 2: An Anthology of Short Erotic Fiction [Paperback]

This is a real-book publication from the relatively new Spice Briefs line, the Harlequin dip into the online/e-reading erotica pool.

Spice Briefs describes its product as "bold, sexually explicit [work] that pushes the envelope...highly erotic short stories...exploring any and all sexual scenarios, even ones considered `taboo,' and [which] avoid using euphemisms in favor of the frank, graphic language typical of the erotica genre." Sure, I get it: raunchy. Nothing wrong with that. This book basically delivers on its product line descriptive. It's direct, anatomically and activity-specific in vocabulary, sufficiently graphic, and uses all the right dirty words (although I couldn't help notice some classics were surprisingly scant) in most of the right places. And at its core, the Spice Briefs product is a Harlequin, so it essentially is by and for the female reader. While chromosomally challenged in this regard, I did manage to squeeze a modicum of enjoyment from this collection.

"Chance of a Lifetime" (excerpted above in the Amazon.com product page) opens the with a surprisingly tame and sadly stereotypical tale of bored/naughty/prim Rose, his lordship the marquess Christian, a manor in English rain, dusty rooms with lots of books and worn carpets, thick drapes, some spanking, and in the end some really sappy happily ever after.

"The Priestess" is a change of setting, off to ancient Egypt. It's a change of pace, too, with the erotic action of the story finally coming 28 pages into its total of 36. Way too much ambience and attention to weather, clothing, and makeup, and not nearly enough boinky-boinky.

"Taken" gets things mostly back on track, with a tale of professional chef Chloe and her eminently successful three-way hook-up with two achingly gorgeous--and neatly bisexual--male colleagues. The men's sexuality is interesting in that its portrayal is somewhat euphemistic, and the wildest the two of them get is one hot kiss (I have to conclude a full-on three-way with two guys and a girl doesn't fit the product demographic). Chloe is the real beneficiary here, naturally.

"Favor Me" is a tidy little murder whodunit, with our kept-woman heroine Amaris performing a few rather non-standard investigative procedures, all in the name of love, her love of money. She's smart, everyone else isn't, there's a hot bodyguard, she figures out who offed her go-to lingerie designer, and she's still scheming as we close out.

"Medusa's Folly" is the best of the book, a ripping-hot tale of the goddess, and how she meets her match, in more ways than one. It's creative, interesting, wonderfully graphic and thoroughly unabashed, a ripping-hot little story.

The best is followed by the worst. "Primal Instincts" is pretty awful, not in its premise of the search for a magical jungle flower, the most powerful aphrodisiac in the world, but in its ridiculous portrayal of Mayan "warriors" who speak fluent English, in a subterranean cavern, fitted with fur rugs and footed marble tubs, deep in the Central American jungle. Basic facts don't match up, settings are inaccurate, and the characteristics of the wonderfully beautiful, thoughtful, bold, smooth of body, athletic, muscular, warrior-like, gentle yet rough, agreeable yet demanding, long-haired, wondrously endowed behind mrere loincloths--stop me if you've run across this trite stereotype before--were just awful. When the chiseled jungle-cave-warrior-priest-Mayan-stud says to the lovely Olivia, "I want to taste your cream," I groaned out loud, and not from arousal. This story had promise, but it evaporated pretty fast, and stayed dry.

"This Is What I Want" tells the tale of a ribald blogger working as a customer rep for an IT company, who cuts loose amazingly sexily online at home, but has a secret work-crush who can never be approached. You know where it's going, it goes there, and with an indulgent dollop of self-serving melodrama things work out okay. The highlights of this story were the narrator's own little blog posts/stories, which were very nice.

"Improper Pleasure" is another English period piece, with oh so very repressed feelings and overblown drama over class and place and role, right down to E. B. Browning poetry even. Dull and maudlin.

The closer, "Caught in the Act" is another whodunit, again set in an IT business, where our heroine, tough, independent, hard on the outside yet ragingly erotic in her soft, velvety nougat center, helps a private, ahem, dick catch a thieving insider.

While somewhat spicy, these stories don't really go taboo, not even close. The wildest we get is some spanking, two hot guys kissing, and some disappointingly pedestrian handcuff use. "Primal Instincts" flirts with a highly promising absolutely wild and consensual group-sex encounter, but it totally fizzles. Overall, this book's novellas seem to be trying to find the delicate middle ground between truly raunchy adult fiction, where anything goes (and does), and the milder adult fiction, which has the requisite nekkid people performing healthy sexual activities in warm and inviting environments as the mood strikes them, but doesn't get too, you know, out of hand.

Bottom line: this is passable erotic fiction. While a couple of the stories are well-worn (yawn) bodice-rippers set in Victorian Britain, a couple of them start to push the envelope, but don't push that hard. Let's hope that as the Spice Briefs product line matures, the stories will be more creative, deeper, and considerably more in keeping with their own stated intent.

Well, quite frankly this is a book about nothing but getting right down to the dirty deed itself. For that reason I really liked this book. Honestly I find myself dismissing most bodice-rippers because the story-lines and dialog are so meandering & improbable I'm instantly annoyed and find myself paging thru to the "Good parts". So anthologies like this are a very good fit for readers like me.

The Naughty Bits does not disappoint on that score, most of the stories disregard the standard set-up for a story and plants the reader right into the situation - no matter it's probability it doesn't matter when one is only in it for the grinding. The only thing readers like me will consider is the quality of the grinding and erotica, like everything else in life, is subject to personal taste.

Overall, I would like to rate this anthology 3 and 1/2 stars. There were fewer stories than I would have liked to fit my personal tastes. However - the stories I liked, I REALLY Liked! And since I am aware that this is strictly a "to-each-their-own" collection I am not going to single out and pick on/praise any one author. I will only add, that for those of us who are in the mood to put romance aside and get right down to it - well then, there is most definitely something in here for everyone.

This book, for the most part, is an absolute delight. It reminds me of a box of sinful chocolates -- when you open the box, you promise yourself that you're only going to eat one and save the rest for later. But the first chocolate is so good, you eat another, and then another, and before you know it the entire box is gone. That's how it was for me when I sat down with this book of short erotic fiction. When I got home from work, the Amazon box was at my door waiting for me. Well, my husband and I are serious bibliophiles with eclectic tastes ranging from military history to Hawaii field guides to gourmet cooking. Thus, I had no idea what would be in this box.

When I opened the box and found "Naughty Bits," I was intrigued. The first story I turned to was "Medusa's Folly," and as luck would have it this is probably the best story of the group. It has odd main characters: Medusa and a stone gargoyle that comes to life. I thought this was a wonderfully original story and I loved the relationship between these two. Plus, who would ever think of a love story from Medusa's perspective? Nice work there.

I also really enjoyed "The Priestess," set in ancient Egypt, and "Favor Me," a fun & sexy murder mystery. Stories that didn't work quite so well for me included "Chance of a Lifetime," a story about an English peer and a woman who is supposed to be an employee of his. Turns out he is into spanking, which is fine, but the erotic story quickly devolved into a sort of sickly sweet romance, and it was an odd juxtaposition that felt forced. Another tale that was a bit off was "Primal Instincts" which I'm not even sure how to describe. Suffice it to say that loin-cloths and native warriors were involved, but so were marble tubs and oddly kitted-out sex caves. These two tales were kind of like biting into a chocolate and finding one of those too-sweet maple walnut affairs. It's still chocolate, but kind of disappointing and leaves you with a funny aftertaste. Meh.

Erotica is a funny thing, though, in that different kinds of stories will appeal to different kinds of people. "Naughty Bits 2" is a good anthology, a diverse collection where even the stories that didn't quite resonate with me were still enjoyable to read, and before I knew it I had zipped through the entire book. I thought it was a lot of fun, and that in general the actual "naughty bits" were well written. Truly something for everyone here, perfect for a spicy, fun read. Enjoy, but not necessarily in moderation!