Making a Guest-List - #shortstories #LGBTQ #giveaway @JeanRoberta

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Kiwi Passion - #mmromance #writinglgbt #loveislove #giveaway @JayHoganAuthor

By Jay Hogan (Guest Blogger)

I am so delighted to be here today and talk to you a bit about me and the background of my new release, Crossing the Touchline. It can be hard living in a small country on the other side of the world and writing regional mm romance for an audience that largely doesn’t know your country very well. You are kind of cut off from the day to day life of the larger US and UK readership and there is the differing world views and life experiences that make writing mm romance from a distinctly kiwi point of view very different in lots of ways.

In Crossing the Touchline this was even more obvious because of the sport of rugby. Most US readers would have little idea about the sport, whereas most UK, Australian, South African and even Canadian have much more familiarity. So in writing this book, I needed to give enough information to make the story credible, and yet not too much to lose the attention of those unfamiliar with it. A little like a kiwi reading an mm romance about ice-hockey!

Crossing the Touchline is a book that has been in my head for a long time. It was the book I wanted to write first, but I had the feeling that it wasn’t a ‘first book’ kind of story as it is a sub-genre of a sub-genrea sports mm romance within in the genre of mm romance. Not everyone likes sports themes. And so I wrote First Impressions instead, the first of the Auckland Med Stories, and which was released January 2018 through Blackout Books. I was really surprised and delighted by how well that book did, especially as it was my first published work. It is due to be re-released this year through Dreamspinner, for those of you who might have wondered where it disappeared to.

Rugby is my country’s passion. My Dad and my three brothers all played and coached. Before televised games, our family would get up in the wee hours of the morning to listen to the radio playing the game live from England or South Africa. When my dad was coaching rugby and the games had by then moved to television, his whole team slept in our lounge so everyone could get up and watch an overseas test.

So the idea of an out gay All Black is a big thing for NZ, and as the pre-eminent international rugby nation, it will also be a huge thing internationally, regardless of whether any others come out in other teams first. The media response will be massive, and I think that is the most significant reason why it hasn’t yet happened. No one wants to be that guy and deal with all that attention. The All Blacks are ready for it, in fact they are very vocally inclusive and walk the talk. Their management is ready and also vocal about being so, and Rugby NZ is ready, or so they say… but are the fans ready?

I hope you enjoy Crossing the Touchline. Let me know!

In fact, to encourage you to share your thoughts, I’m giving away a $10 bookstore gift certificate to one lucky reader. All you have to do is leave a comment – but be sure to include your email so I can find you if you win!

Blurb

What if you’ve worked your whole life for a dream, to play rugby for the most successful sports team on the planet, the New Zealand All Blacks?

What if that dream is so close you can smell it?

What if you meet someone?

What if you fall in love?

What if your dream will cost the man who’s stolen your heart?

And what if the dream changes?

Reuben Taylor has a choice to make.

Cameron Wano is that choice.

-Part of the Auckland Med. series that includes First Impressions, but can be read as a standalone.

https://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/books/crossing-the-touchline-by-jay-hogan-10402-b

https://www.amazon.com/Crossing-Touchline-Auckland-Med-Hogan-ebook/dp/B07PPC34C5

 

Excerpt

The beach wasn’t too busy for a Sunday. The heavy cloud layer and a cool early-winter breeze had swept families away from the sand and into the shopping malls. I tugged a ball cap onto my head in an attempt to avoid any rugby-fan attention and spied an empty piece of wind-protected real estate under a large pōhutukawa. Setting Cory down on the rug, I placed his toy bag close. He might enjoy the beach, but he hated the sand. Noise and bright lights hit that sensitive spot too. On the plus side, he wouldn’t move from the rug if his life depended on it. No chasing him around.

A soft whine hummed in his throat as he sat stiff and unmoving. My gut tensed reactively, but I began to unpack his bag and did my best to ignore him. It was Cory’s default, I’m-not-really-happy-with-this warning signal, dammit. It would be just my luck for today to be one of the times he spat the dummy.

Keeping a sideways eye on his activity, I fiddled with his snacks while softly picking up the chorus to “Dancing Queen.” It was his alltime favourite song—quirky for a kid who didn’t like noise, I know, but I guess it was the rhythmic beat. All I knew was it worked. He’d even been known to crack a dance to it, though dance was perhaps too strong a word. Move jerkily but enthusiastically was perhaps more accurate. He was never gonna give Usher a run for his money, but I freaking loved watching him in those moments. Craig, however, found the spectacle of his son dancing hugely embarrassing and discouraged it. Eventually Cory learned to keep it just for us.

The whining calmed, and I stole a glance, reassured to find him watching me whilst nodding his head vigorously to the lyrics. I smiledand reached a hand out to stroke his hair, then stretched out on the rug beside him, gazing out to sea, tracing the lilac-and-green hills of Waiheke Island in the distance. And when I saw Cory’s hand reach into his pocket for his truck, I toned my volume down and relaxed. We were golden.

“I wouldn’t give up your day job,” a familiar voice interrupted, and Cam sank cross-legged beside me.

I accepted the coffee he held out and my pulse lifted as our knees and fingers brushed and his eyes grazed my body with appreciation. I reeled in the kiss I instinctively wanted to plant on those damn glossed lips and settled for a smile instead. Gloss?

“Thanks.” I raised my coffee to his.

He gave me a long look that damn near scorched my eyeballs, before tapping our paper cups together. “You’re welcome.”

Under the guise of sipping my coffee, I took a few seconds to drink him in instead and…. Lord help me, he looked good enough to eat. Appetiser, main, dessert, cheese plate, and after-dinner mint all rolled into one—a smorgasbord of sensual flesh, apparently cooked just how I liked. He shouldn’t have looked as sexy as he did, wearing a pair of relaxed, faded Levi’s, black sneakers, a plain baby-blue tee under a loose black jacket and not a scrap of makeup or hair gel.

Huh. That deserved a second look but, nope, no makeup bar the gloss. It was the first time I’d seen his face au naturel. Straight from the shower, hair freshly washed, smelling clean and vaguely apple-like, face scrubbed and shiny, he looked relaxed and casual, and I decided… I liked it. Liked it and wanted to lick every square inch of it, preferably naked. Oh dear God.

I cleared my throat and gave him some room, but not too much. “It was a good idea,” I said thickly. “The beach, I mean. Cory should be good for a half hour or so at least, but no promises.”

Cam shrugged. “No matter. We’ll take what we can get, right?”

I eyed him sideways. “Right. Though I think that was my line last time we talked.”

He held my gaze for a bit before dropping his eyes to the three paper bags he held in his free hand. “Muffin?” He held them out. “Wasn’t sure what you guys liked so I got chocolate chip, berry and white chocolate, and apricot. I’m easy.” He added the last with a wink.

I arched my brows at the double entendre. Evil bastard. And yeah, my crush crushed a little more. He was playing his advantage and clearly amused by it. I wasn’t. My dick had no room to grow and needed a timeout. And he needed to put up or shut up. He couldn’t have it both ways.

“Like hell you are,” I countered. “If you’re easy, I’ll take difficult any day of the week and still come out on top. And you can take that any way you want.” Two could play that game.

His eyes went wide for a second, then he laughed. “A bit presumptuous without knowing the rules, I’d say. You’re telling me you’re a—”

“Nothing,” I interrupted. “I’m telling you nothing. That information is on a need-to-know basis. Friends, remember? Your choice, I recall. And fucking with my head isn’t cool, just so you know.” I winced and glanced to Cory playing with his truck, but he apparently hadn’t caught the swearing.

Focusing back on Cam, I saw he looked somewhat startled. Good. Fuck him. I was sick of feeling half a page behind the damn story all the time. I might be less experienced, but hell if I was going to snivel around anyone, making puppy eyes, and it was about time he knew it. If this was going to be a friendship, it was going to be an equal one. I hadn’t got where I was in rugby by playing soft. I wanted him, but I didn’t need him, and I could match him in a bluff any day of the week. I did it for a fucking living, after all. Make them think you’re running one way and hedge the other—rugby fullback playbook 101.

He stared at me, saying nothing, and I tried to gauge what was going on in his head, but there was a guardedness to his expression I hadn’t seen since the wedding. Then just before the tension tipped over into awkward, he nodded.

“Fair enough. It was my choice. And I apologise.” He held the bag out. “So, name your poison…?”

Huh. I slowly let out the breath I hadn’t realised I was holding as Cam rattled the bags again. “Oh, right. Um, I’ll take chocolate chip, and Cory will have the berry—minus the paper bag,” I cautioned.

Cam cocked his head, and I shrugged.

“It’s a noise thing,” I explained. “Just tear the muffin in half and put it on the rug. He’ll take it from there.”

He did precisely as I’d said, and Cory stared at the torn muffin for a few seconds before reaching for a half.

“Should I introduce myself?” Cam asked.

I shook my head, grateful for him not leaping all over the little guy. “Let me. We’ll give him a minute to get used to you first. He’ll let you know.”

We took a few sips of our coffee while Cory ran his truck up and down the rug until I saw he’d settled.

“Cory.” I waited for a sign my nephew was listening. He rarely made eye contact, so I took what I could get and… there it was: he held his truck in his palm and went still. “This is Cam. He’s my friend. You can say hello.”

His gaze flicked to Cam, then back to his toy. “Hi, Cam.”

“Hello, Cory. Nice to meet you.”

Cory put his truck back on the rug and continued playing. Beside me Cam took a bite of his muffin while I focused on trying to ignore how close we were sitting and the ridiculous furnace of heat radiating off the man’s body. His proximity did all sorts of peculiar things to my stomach, not to mention other geographically related appendages a little farther south.

“You played really well yesterday,” Cam said.

I tried not to stare as he bit off a large chunk of muffin and swallowed it down with a contented sigh. I nibbled at my own, not really hungry. “Um, thanks. But you know—team effort.”

He grinned. “Modesty is admirable as long as you know how good you really are. Mathew says you’re the bomb, and friendship demands honesty and full disclosure. So, try again.”

Heat rose in my cheeks and my gaze slid sideways, only to find Cory focussed on the two of us, his truck forgotten in his lap. Something about Cam had caught his interest. Get in line, kid.

“Really?” I sighed. “We’re gonna do this now?”

Cam raised his brows but said nothing.

“Okay. Well, I played pretty good, then. Satisfied?” I shoved my remaining muffin in my mouth so I couldn’t be asked to add anything, and near choked in the process.

He snorted. “You’re damn cute, you know.”

“Not… cute,” I spat muffin crumbs down my jacket. “Cute will get me fucking crucified on the field, arsehole.”

Cory’s head shot up. Shit. “Sorry, kid, bad word.” I rolled my eyes at Cam. “Your fault.”

His grin grew wider. “Not.” He grabbed the empty bag from my lap, brushing my thigh with his fingers in the process and raising the heat level in my jeans to a tick off incendiary. The blush hit my cheeks before I even had a chance to look away. I sent him a withering glance, but all he did was smirk and head for the recycling bins.

“Pretty damn cute,” he threw over his shoulder.

About the Author

 

Jay Hogan is a New Zealand author writing in m/m romance, romantic suspense and fantasy. She has travelled extensively, living in a number of countries. She’s a cat aficionado especially Maine Coons, and an avid dog lover (but don’t tell the cat). She loves to cook- pretty damn good, loves to sing - pretty damn average, and as for loving full-time writing -absolutely… depending on the word count, the deadline, her characters’ moods, the ambient temperature in the Western Sahara, whether Jupiter is rising, the size of the ozone hole over New Zealand and how much coffee she’s had.

You can find Jay at:

https://www.facebook.com/JayHoganAuthor

https://twitter.com/jayhoganauthor

jayhoganauthor [at] gmail [dot] com

Don't forget to leave a comment and enter my drawing!

Authors and Readers -- help gay men in Chechnya! ( #charity #lgbtq #chechenrainbow )

 

You might not have heard about this. When you do, you’ll likely be as sick and angry as I am.

Apparently, over the last month, authorities in Chechnya have been rounding up gay men (and even those suspected of being gay) and confining them to detention camps. The New York Times reports at least 100 arrests and three deaths.

This sounds like a scene from my dystopian gay romance Quarantine. But that’s supposed to be speculative fiction...

A group of authors is mobilizing to help raise money to help the victims, as well as to expand awareness of this emergency situation. You can find out more here:

https://dalecameronlowry.com/lgbt-chechnya/writers-and-publishers-for-lgbt-chechnya/

Some of us are donating money from our book sales to organizations helping the victims of this purge. Some are offering items for auction. I’m auctioning off two paperback copies of Quarantine. Seems grimly appropriate. The auction will be held between May 5^th and May 12^th. See the link above for details.

If you’re an author, I hope you’ll consider adding your voice and your work to this effort. If you’re a reader, please participate in the auction. We’re expecting some great prizes to come on the block. Of course you can always donate directly to the Russian LGBT Network, the main organization helping to get gay men in Chechnya to safety. For details, see Dale’s blog: https://dalecameronlowry.com/help-save-lives-lgbt-chechens/

Whatever you do, don’t be silent. Don’t let this injustice and inhumanity stand.

Thank you.

When love is forbidden, the whole world's a prison.

Dylan Moor will do anything for freedom. Seven years ago, a gay plague spread to heterosexuals, killing millions and sparking brutal anti-gay riots. The guardians rounded up men who tested positive for the Homogene and imprisoned them in remote quarantine centres like desolate Camp Malheur. Since then, Dylan has hacked the camp's security systems and hoarded spare bits of electronics, seeking some way to escape. He has concluded the human guards are the only weakness in the facility's defences.

Camp guard Rafe Cowell is H-Negative. He figures the lust he feels watching prisoner 3218 masturbate on the surveillance cameras must be due to his loneliness and isolation. When he finally meets the young queer, he discovers that Dylan is brilliant, brave, sexy as hell—and claims to be in love with Rafe. Despite his qualms, Rafe find he can't resist the other man's charm. By the time Dylan asks for his help in escaping, Rafe cares too much for Dylan to refuse.

Dylan's plan goes awry and Rafe comes to his rescue. Soon they're both fugitives, fleeing from militant survivalists, murderous androids, homophobic ideologues and a powerful man who wants Dylan as his sexual toy. Hiding in the plague-ravaged city of Sanfran, Dylan and Rafe learn there's far more that their own safety at stake. Can they help prevent the deaths of millions more people? And can Rafe trust the love of a man who deliberately seduced him in order to escape from quarantine?

Rainbow Awards Honorable Mention – Best science fiction novel – 2012!

The fact was, no one really knew who the Guardians were. At the height of the Plague, thousands had been dying daily. The streets stank from the smoke of burning bodies and torched buildings. Crazed mobs had roamed the cities, looking for the ‘carriers’ they blamed for the death of their loved ones. The fact that gays had been dying twice as fast as straights hadn’t stopped them.

Then the Robbies had marched in, a small army, with Tasers and tear gas. At first, some people had screamed about an alien invasion. Within hours, the messages began coming from ‘the Guardians of American Greatness’, urging people to be calm, promising to contain the scourge of the perverts. Gradually, the chaos had subsided.

Dylan vividly remembered being dragged to the testing centre by a pair of robots. They’d smashed in the door of the Castro District apartment he’d shared with his lover. Miguel’s body had been sprawled on their bed, his coffee-coloured skin riddled with the oozing sores that were the Plague’s mark. Dylan had been crouched on the floor, crying and rocking back and forth, while explosions shook the building and sirens wailed.

He hadn’t put up any fight. What would have been the use? Miguel was dead. The world was in flames. He’d been seventeen.

But he was ready to fight now. He’d do whatever was necessary to get out of this hell. Dylan reached into the basin of the chemical toilet, feeling around the inside rim. The slimy plastoceramic surface made his skin crawl. Ammonia fumes burned his nostrils. He grinned as his fingers found the item he sought. Detaching the object from the hook he’d installed, he brought out an oblong about the size of a cig pack.

He unwrapped the protective plastic and switched on the controller. The organic LCD screen glowed pale blue. He’d lifted it from a discarded microwave oven. His fingers danced over the keyboard, composing his message. The interface was crude but adequate for his needs.

Closing his eyes, he brought up an image of the brawny black guard who was his target. What would work best? He didn’t know much about Rafe—he hadn’t been able to hack the guy’s dossier. He could read boredom and frustration in the man’s strong, regular features. He knew from their first encounter that Rafe had a temper. Yet Dylan also sensed a streak of decency. Most of the human guards at Malheur were supposed to be convicts. Let the dregs take care of the pariahs seemed to be the Guardians’ philosophy. Rafe hadn’t struck him as the criminal type, though, despite his rough looks.

Clearly Rafe was attracted to men, or at least to Dylan. But he probably didn’t consider himself queer. Best not to be too explicit in the message, then. It would be better to allow Rafe to deceive himself about his motives.

Dylan completed his task, scheduled the message, and pressed ‘Send’. If all went well, the invitation would be delivered to Rafe on his private channel tomorrow afternoon. Dylan returned the controller to its hiding place, washed his hands, and returned to his bunk. It was a bit after three a.m. Rafe would be working his shift in the control room.

Dylan pulled down his trousers. His cock was already hard from thinking about Rafe. He stroked its length, lingering at the tip. Time for the night’s show.

A Rose By Any Other Name (#pseudonym #erotica #lesbian @EmilyByrne)

By Emily L. Byrne (Guest Blogger)

When I first began writing erotica, I opted not to use a pseudonym. I was temping at the time, Google didn’t exist and nobody really cared what I did in my off hours (AKA: The Good Old Days, more or less). Periodically, coworkers or acquaintances would find out that I wrote and had published work in various genres and they would occasionally bring it into work to have me sign it. It didn’t happen often, so it stayed flattering and fun, right up until it was very much not the book of mine that I would have suggested to that particular colleague at that particular job.

By then, Google was very definitely a thing, as were workplace computer network filters of various kinds and my temping days were behind me. For about three minutes, I sat there and blinked and wondered what to say next. All I could see was a potential HR moment that would not end well for me. I think this is probably a thing that happens to a lot of erotica writers with day jobs: maybe you're not ready for the PTA or work or the neighbors to know what kind of writing you do. Or maybe you'd just rather pick the right time to share your fabulous erotica-writing self. There's a lot to be said for coming out in your own time in circumstances that you can more or less handle.

As it happened, no unpleasantness ensued with my "No, not that one!" coworker, but I went home later on that week and created Other Me, Emily L. Byrne. Honestly, the situation did me a favor, since Other Me should have been around a long time ago for marketing purposes. Like many writers, I write in multiple genres, including erotica, romance, fantasy, science fiction, horror, literary and nonfiction, even the occasional mystery and what I found was that people who weren’t fans of erotica tended to be wary of buying my other work. And, of course, fans of my erotica read my dark fantasy novel about menopausal werewolves and politely yelled at me for months after it came out because there was no sex in it. So marketing definitely played into my decision as well.

As to why picked the name I did, I’ve always fancied the name ‘Emily,' ‘L’ is for the first letter of my last name and Byrne is an old family name, and voila! Emily L. Byrne was born. I did my due diligence and verified that no other writers of erotica or erotica or erotic romance were using the same name. A new (at least to me) writer did pop up soon thereafter with a similar name and genre, which is something to bear in mind when choosing an Other You. You want a good pseudonym if that's the direction you looking to go, but it's challenging to get that balance between unique, findable and odd. I freely admit to not being keen on the more “obvious” pseudonyms, in part because I wanted something that I could be comfortable talking about in the context of my other work. Emily was someone I could live with, someone I could trot out on a writing panel or at an author reading with an breezy "And if you're interested, I also write hot smutty stories as..." and not feel silly.

The flip side of that is building up an equivalent amount of name recognition. I published everything under my own name for over a decade so getting Emily up and running as a recognizable name in a changing genre was a tad challenging to start with. But I'm optimistic that readers are starting to find "Other Me." And with that, here's an excerpt from my new book, Knife's Edge: Kinky Lesbian Erotica.

Hope you enjoy it!

If you do, and you'd like a free copy of the book, just leave me a comment! I'll randomly draw one winner. Don't forget to include your email address so I can find you if you win!

Except from "Reunion at St. Mary's”

Bridget Marie Riordan O’Halloran was depressed. It wasn’t so much that work was insanely stressful, though that was part of it. Or that Vic and all her friends seemed to have forgotten her birthday, though that didn’t help. It was the clipping from the parish newspaper, sent courtesy of her mother, that put her over the edge. Sister Agnes Mercy Byrnes had been taken up to Heaven, or so it said.

From what Bridget remembered of her, she was more likely to be torturing the Devil below than hovering on a cloud above but where she was didn’t matter so much as the fact that she was gone. It was the passing of an era. Sister Agnes had been the terror, among other things, of Bridget’s high school years. It was hard to forget the hours she spent over the years masturbating over her memories of the spanking the nun had once given her in the principal’s office. Imagining those firm hands on her young flesh gave her a thrill even now. She pictured Sister Agnes going even further and pulling down her white virginal panties and…Vic walked in a moment later to find her with her hand between her legs.

“Hi sweetie. Ooh, that looks like fun. What triggered this?” Vic grabbed the little clipping as Bridget jerked her hand out of her pants. Vic gave her a look of pure disbelief. “You’re jilling off to Sister Agnes’ obituary?”

Bridget turned bright red and tried to come up with a good explanation. Then she gave up and went on the attack instead. “You forgot my birthday! Some girlfriend you are.” She crossed her arms over her chest to hide the nipples poking through her shirt. Sister Agnes’ hands had been pretty amazing in that last fantasy.

“I knew you were going to say that,” Vic grinned triumphantly as she dropped onto the couch. She ran one hand down Bridget’s thigh with a possessive pressure that never failed to make her pay attention. “I’ve got a little surprise for you, babe. Kind of appropriate too, given your new ghoulish hobby. We’re going to your tenth high school reunion. My treat.”

Bridget’s jaw dropped. No way. Sister Julia and Father Williams would run them out of Sacred Heart parish at the head of a torch-wielding mob. Vic just didn’t understand how things worked at parochial school. But before she could say a word, Vic had her in a liplock that soon turned to other things. Once Vic was holding Bridget down and pounding her fist into her wet and desperate pussy, going home for the reunion sounded just fine. Besides, it was two months away; she had plenty of time to change Vic’s mind.

But somehow, they never got around to talking about it. Every time she tried, Vic was too busy or was all over her so she gave up, resigning herself to the trip from hell. It would be even worse if they ended up staying with her parents. She just hoped her mother wouldn’t say the rosary over them when she thought they were sleeping again.

Despite all her worries, she did start to wonder if some of her old friends would be there. Monica came out after graduation. That was inevitable. If James Dean was ever reincarnated as a Catholic high school girl, Monica was it. Then there was Mary Eileen. She’d never forget that one sleepover party where they all decided to practice kissing. From what she could remember, Mary Eileen wanted to practice a few other things too, but they’d all been too scared to try them. As for the rest of the girls who ran around with them, well if Bridget knew her budding Dykes on Bikes chapter, they were it by now.

By the time they got ready to leave town, Bridget was pretty much resigned to the trip. It made it easier that Vic was so very obviously up to something. That was usually a good thing. Bridget even resisted taking a peek in the toy bag when she loaded it in the car. No point in spoiling the surprise, whatever it was. At least they were staying at a hotel and not her parent’s, so no matter what, there was a bright side.

Vic wasn’t letting anything slip, though. She was too tired for sex in the hotel they stopped at halfway there, which was weird, and she wasn’t talking much during the drive, which was weirder. Bridget was getting antsy and it brought out the pushy bottom in her. She wheedled, she whined, she sulked; anything to get Vic to do something with or to her. Anything at all. She squirmed against the fabric of the car seat imagining a few of those things. But for the first time in years, Vic wasn’t going for it. She smiled when Bridget pouted and stonewalled when she whined until her girlfriend thought she’d go nuts before they got there.

About the Author

Emily L. Byrne is a geek who lives in Minneapolis with her wife and the cats that own them. Her stories have appeared in Bossier, Spy Games, Forbidden Fruit, First, Summer Love, Best Lesbian Erotica 20^th Anniversary Edition, The Princess’ Bride, The Nobilis Erotica Podcast and The Mammoth Book of Uniform Erotica. She can be found at http://writeremilylbyrne.blogspot.com/ and @emilylbyrne.

Knife’s Edge: Kinky Lesbian Erotica by Emily L. Byrne is available from Amazon, Smashwords and the Queen of Swords Press website in other formats.

Review Tuesday: White Flames by Cecilia Tan (#erotica #fantasy #lgbtq)

White Flames: Erotic Dreams by Cecilia Tan

Running Press, 2008

ISBN 978-0-78672-080-4

Hallelujah! That was my cry after reading the first two stories in Cecilia Tan's single-author collection WHITE FLAMES. Needless to say, my husband, reading in bed next to me, was a bit startled. When I explained, though, he understood completely.

With review commitments to several venues, regular crits for colleagues, plus a personal predeliction for erotica, I probably read a dozen erotic short stories a month. Most of these stories are adequate: reasonably well-written, moderately engaging, mildly arousing. Rarely do I encounter stories that I consider exceptional, stories that excite me in a literary rather than a physical sense.

What does it take for me to be excited by a story? Each case varies, but I look for an original premise, a unique voice, unconventional characters, and most of all, a treatment of sex more as an emotional or spiritual adventure than as a conjunction of body parts.

I'm delighted to report that, by my definition, many of the tales in Cecilia Tan's collection are exceptional.

Ms. Tan has a reputation for "speculative erotica", erotic fantasy and science fiction. It's easy to be original, one might argue, when one can build one's own worlds and write one's own rules. Yet almost half of the stories in WHITE DREAMS are contemporary erotica, with barely a whiff of fantasy.

Among my favorites is "Just Tell Me the Rules". A woman who is saving her virginity for marriage sends her housemate/fiance off on a business trip, only to have his best friend arrive at her door, a challenge to what she thought she wanted. Another delight is "Always", a down-to-earth tale of a loving threesome that begins with a scene all too familiar from my days in New England:

A raw spring day in Somerville, me in galoshes and a pair of my father's old painting pant with a snow shovel, cursing and trying to life a cinderblock-sized (and -weighted) chunk of wet packed snow off the walkway of our three-decker.

Vivid and concrete one moment, Ms. Tan can wax tender and raunchy the next:

Morgan's hands travel up my thighs like they come out of a dream. It never occurs to me to stop her. Sex with Morgan is as easy and natural as saying yes to a bite of chocolate from the proffered bar of a friend. Before her fingers even reach the elastic edge of my panties I am already shifting my hips, already breathing deeper, already thinking about the way her fingers will touch and tease me, how one slim finger will slide deep into me when I am wet, how good it feels to play with her hair on my belly, how much I want her. With Morgan, I always come.

Then there's "Baseball Fever", Ms. Tan's hilarious and highly explicit fantasy about a Yankee rookie for whom she has the hots: "This guy's got destiny. He fits right in with multi-ethic New York, too - half-black, half-white, cannily polite with the media but cocky as hell when he gets on the field." I'm not much of a sports fan, but when Tan brought Tiger Woods into the final scene of the fantasy, "just to make sure it's not 100% percent heterosexual", I laughed until my stomach hurt.

At first glance, one might dismiss "Halloween" as an instance of the overworked "girl meets dominant man of her dreams in a bar" genre. Tan brings new life to the old scenario, partly due to the kick-ass attitude of the world-weary Goth narrator. "The Hard Sell" is a tale of a modern woman longing to escape from the labels and slogans that society applies to everything and everyone around her - including the man who drives her into a frenzy.

Although WHITE FLAMES includes some excellent realistic pieces, I must admit that myth and magic lie at its heart. The middle hundred pages of the book are devoted to fantasy, starting with a stunningly erotic retelling of "The Little Mermaid" then flowering into more original tales. In "Bodies of Water", a team of archeologists discover an ancient ship on the floor of the Mediterranean. The discovery transforms them, both literally and figuratively. "Dragon's Daughter" is a fascinating tale of a Chinese-American girl who learns that she's an immortal who can travel through time and space to anywhere Chinese culture dominates.

This is the ignominy of the American educational system: that to speak the tongue of my ancestors I had to fight to be enrolled in a special college class and trudge to it every morning at 8:00. I didn't think I knew the words to explain what I was doing there, anyway... I had no words yet for worry or conflict or secret or dream.

Three amazing stories featuring the same characters - Stormclaw and The Lady in Black - conclude this section. Like so many characters in the today's wildly popular "paranormal" genre, Stormclaw and the Lady are "elementals" - creatures of wind and fire and earth. They are not just people with special powers, however. They are truly inhuman, incomprehensible to and uncomprehending of the mortals among whom they move. They are drawn to human passion, yet do not understand it.

These stories are lyrical and intense, strange and haunting.

He flies. He flies over clouds as dark as his hair, his eyes, his mood, as he thinks about her. Stormclaw is the dragon of the wind, coiling his power like a cyclone, soaring over night sky, moving eastward like a front of incipient weather. He sees without eyes, senses without skin, when he is the wind, considers without thought, and loves without a heart.

Stormclaw haunts seedy bars, taunting the men who drink there, trying to remember what it is that he seeks.

Stormclaw feels the first strike of the leather cat-o-nine cross his back like the first bite into a sour summer fruit, a rich and intense pleasure. He draws breath waiting for the next blow to fall, and as he exhales he feels Ravenhair's breath on his shoulder--they are like one animal, tensing and then letting go, and then gathering themselves again. Breathe in, tense for the strike, then let go as the pain rains down around you.

One of the delightful aspects of this collection is its inclusiveness. These stories embrace all orientations, without self-consciousness or politicizing. WHITE FLAMES offers FF, MM, FMF, and FFF tales, not to mention sexually-aware mermaids and robots. In Ms. Tan's worlds, desire is a universal force, not confined to any particular gender or even species.

The book ends with three science fiction tales, of which the best is "The Spark". What if the magical energy that seems to animate the gods and goddesses of rock and roll was a real, measurable force, that could be stoked, and shared -- and lost?

WHITE FLAMES includes a few stories that are hohum, but Ms. Tan hits the target far more often than she falls short. If you enjoy literary erotica that will make you wonder as often as it makes you sweat, I highly recommend this volume.