“Best Erotic Romance” Erotic Reading Review

“Best Erotic Romance“, an erotic anthology edited by Kristina Wright and published by Cleis Press, is a book of erotic romance stories. This Cleis Press erotic anthology is 216 pages long and includes 17 different erotic stories. The book’s editing is done fantastically, and it has the same formatting as all Cleis Press books. The book does clearly say “Best Erotic Romance” on the cover, so this may not be the best book to read in public unless you can hide the cover.

As you could guess, this book is filled with stories of erotic romance. This means they are sexual, erotica stories that usually include romance in some shape or form. This is the first anthology in this series, and all of the stories (if memory serves me correctly) are between a male and female. Sometimes the couples is brand new to each other, and in others, the couple is a long-term relationship couple who is doing something to spice up their relationship. It all depends on what story it is, but all of the stories do include romance.

I was surprised by this erotic romance erotica. In most erotic romance books, I normally find that some of the stories are purely romance with light on the “erotic”. Kristina Wright did a fantastic job of picking out stories that did both really well. In most of the stories, the romance is mixed in with the erotica, and the man does most of the romancing. He romances her into the bed, and as the sex continues, the sex is very gentle, very romantic, and includes lots of personal compliments as well. I will say that there’s really not much of the woman romancing the man in the stories, but if you’re looking for men romancing the females, there’s quite a bit of that.

I was surprisingly fond of the majority of the book. The mixture of the romance and the eroticism in all of the stories was the absolute perfect mixture, and many times, I couldn’t decide if I wanted to go “awww” over how cute the text was or find the stories extremely hot. It was a fantastic mixture in the stories, and each one of the stories was really, really interesting to read along with wanting to keep me reading to the next word. Most of the stories were extremely predictable (as in, you knew that the sex would follow the wooing period), but it didn’t impact the enjoyment of the story itself, and it actually led you to wonder “how” things were going to go down.

I loved pretty much all of the stories, but I wanted to highlight a couple of my favorites:

In “Blame it on Facebook” by Kate Dominic, the main female character finds herself chatting with an old male friend who she reconnects with on Facebook. When they find they’ll be in the same area, they meet up in person, and they find that the sexual tension that used to exist still exists. Of course, he courts her throughout the night and confesses his love as well, and it’s just a really cute story.

In “Guest Services” by Angela Caperton, a hotel desk employee who is about to get transferred finds herself wondering if her favorite hotel guest will be coming in that night. She’s enjoyed her time at work flirting with him, and as it’s her last day, she wants to get the most enjoyment possible. Of course, this is going to lead to some hot hotel sex as well.

In “Once Upon a Dinner Date” by Saskia Walker, the younger guy in the apartment next door invites the older woman who lives nearby up for dinner. She’s quite straightforward when she talks about exactly what turns her on over dinner, and it leads to the dinner ending much earlier than it was supposed to. This is just a very sexy read that incorporates both food and sex nicely.

This is one of the better erotica books that I’ve read – especially with the erotic romance genre. Normally the erotica is too romantic with not enough erotica, but in this case, the mixture is absolutely perfect, and the romance helps you feel closer to the characters which makes the erotica feel even hotter. Kristina Wright did an absolutely amazing job of choosing stories that really fit the book well. Thanks to Cleis Press for sending out Best Erotic Romance for review.

The Erotic Reading Review is a regular column written by Kayla. This column brings you reviews over erotica, instructional, and other types of sex-related books.