Review: Fascinated by Bertrice Small, Susan Johnson, Thea Divine and Robin Schone

Title: Fascinated
Authors: Bertrice Small, Susan Johnson, Thea Devine, Robin Schoen
Genre: erotic romance
Reason for Reading: I wanted uncomplicated porn. This looked like uncomplicated porn, so I went for it.

Overall Grade: C
I like anthologies. They allow me to try new authors, and often I’m intrigued enough to read their full-length works after reading their short stories. I am definitely intrigued enough that I’d probably read three out of these four authors again, if only for the lulz.

The first story, “Claiming Lady Lucinda” by Bertrice Small was… special. See, Lucinda’s been living with her brother, George, for some time, annoying him because she keeps insisting she wants her own house. George isn’t budging on this, because if Lucie had her own house, there’d be OMG scandal. And after Lucinda humiliates three of London’s most eligible bachellors, the men and George decide that something ought to be done. So they have her kidnapped and brought to the Master, who is supposed to teach her the proper way to submit to a man.

This short story is as ridiculous as it sounds, and it’s told in an overblown style that grates on my nerves. Also, Small juxtaposes earthy words like “cock” and “cunt” with phrases found only in romancelandia. (Love lance, anyone?) And the story contains arguably the funniest line I’ve read anywhere: “Wake up, Lucinda. It’s time for your morning spanking!” Also, many readers may be bothered by the casual mention of incest between George and two of Lucinda’s older sisters. I’m not sure what the point of the incest thing was, and it didn’t especially bother me except for the fact that it was one of the first of many WTF moments in the story. I guess we needed to see that despite George being a bishop, he’s also eeeevil. But the incest wasn’t enough to make this a wallbanger for me.

Naturally, everything ends well for Lucinda, and the journey there was full of hot sexx0rz, but this is sooo not a story that should be analyzed with any particular depth. In fact, about the only thing I can say about this is that Bertrice Small should be read for the unintentional hillarity factor alone. Grade for this one: C-.

Susan Johnson’s “Risking It All” was a much better story in terms of its trashiness, and I’m told her historical romances are wonderful. It certainly features a unique setting–Monti Carlo. Felicia Greenwood is in danger of losing her villa to her unscrupulous cousin, so she decides to do what you or I would do and try to gamble the money she needs. In doing so, she attracts the attention of Thomas Suffolk, the Duke of Grafton. He helps her win a fortune, and she repays him in the way you’d expect from this kind of short story–a night of hot, steamy sexx0rz.

I liked these people well enough. They engage in some witty banter, and the conflicts aren’t dragged on for too long. Plus, like I said, the setting is interesting. Unfortunately, I didn’t think this story was nearly as fun as the Small offering. Still, it is better written, so it’s getting a slightly higher grade. C for this one.

Thea Devine’s “The Pleasure Game” is practically irredeemably awful. It features Regina, who is irritated at her father meddling in her life by asking Jeremy, her neighbor and someone she had a crush on since childhood, to intervene and keep her from going after an unsuitable man. And from there Jeremy and Regina spend their time scheming about how to keep the other in their lives. If they’d just talked to each other, they might have come across as more likeable than they did, but alas, they don’t, and so this story goes on for way longer than it should, and all of Regina’s scheming ends up putting her exactly where her father wanted her in the first place.

Ugh. The characters were horrible, the plot excessively contrived, and the end wrapped things up in an annoyingly neat fashion. I didn’t believe the happily ever after for these kids, and if I had to read anything else about Regina’s nipples, which are like crack to poor Jeremy, I was going to shoot someone. D for this one–some of the sex scenes were hot, which makes this not a complete failure.

“A Man and a Woman” by Robin Schone closes the anthology out on a good note. Megan just wants passion, and so she exchanges places with a prostitute in a Cornish inn and knocks on the door of Muhamed’s room. Muhamed is a eunuch, and he wants the chance to please a woman. And that’s pretty much the whole plot right there.

I really liked the dynamics here. While some authors would totally make this all about the sex, each scene had its own emotional resonance and I bought the fact that each of them needed the other. I’ve been told this is pretty much the only type of story Robin Schone writes, but hey, I like it. And I also liked that the hero and heroine were older, at least in theory. In practice, I kept thinking that these people were my parents’ age, and like all children, I’d prefer to ignore the fact that my parents occasionally have sex.

That being said, I thought Schone did the best job at demonstrating the kind of power women have with their sexuality, and I felt empowered while I was reading this story, which is way more than any of the other writers did. I’m not sure the story was quite worthy of an A grade, but it does earn a very respectable B.
Overall, this was a pretty uneven anthology so I’m giving it a C. Read it for the Robin Schone story, but none of the others are really worth it.