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HEROTICA 6

Name: HEROTICA 6
Author: Marcy Sheiner
ISBN: 0-940208-25-3

A NEW COLLECTION OF WOMEN'S EROTICA

edited by Marcy Sheiner ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1999

There is basically something here for everyone, though, with one piece (“The Adventure of Marriage”) even offering a paean...

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The sixth anthology of erotic fiction edited by Sheiner continues the recent tradition of writing and evaluating pornography from a female perspective—welcome reading to anyone who finds such an approach interesting or important.

This time out, Sheiner has chosen to concentrate on “partnerships,” and in her introduction she explains that her concern was to provide an answer for the inevitable question: “So how do women keep sex alive in committed relationships?” All of the contributors are women, of course, but since a significant number are also lesbians, bisexuals, and sadomasochists, it should come as no surprise that many of the relationships portrayed herein are unusual. From “Lesbian Bed Death” (a comic medical diagnosis of a sexless gay marriage) to “Three Note Harmony” (ménage à trois with a rock band) to “Simple Gifts” ( a wife buys—and gives—her husband a strap-on dildo for their anniversary), most of the entries are written in a tone lighthearted enough to save them from pomposity. A few others (such as “Mourning the Peasant”) plunge quickly into a deep pool of icy sobriety.

There is basically something here for everyone, though, with one piece (“The Adventure of Marriage”) even offering a paean to (standard) matrimony.

Pub Date: April 1, 1999

ISBN: 0-940208-25-3

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Down There Press

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1999

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
HEROTICA 5
edited by Marcy Sheiner

- BOOK REVIEW
HEROTICA 4
edited by Marcy Sheiner

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MAGIC HOUR

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

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Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.

Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

Pub Date: March 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-345-46752-3

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

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A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.

"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.