Sunday, January 28, 2018

Review of 'Desire: Sensual Lesbian Erotica' by Emily L. Byrne

Hard to say what’s more fun: discovering a fantastic new (to me) writer, or telling everyone who’ll listen about this fantastic writer they simply must read. Author Emily L. Byrne puts me in this happy conundrum with Desire, her recent collection of eleven finely-wrought f/f erotic romance tales.

Byrne offers readers a dizzying diversity of setting, vibrantly evocative, sharply-focused, and practically always unforgettable. From the tourist-choked thoroughfares of Viva Las Vegas (with its hot-to-trot Elvis drag kings) to the revolutionary Nicaragua of A Night in Estelí, the churches and art galleries of Florence in A Room with a View, and the wintry cityscape of Minneapolis in the hauntingly surreal Cherrybridge and Spoon. Nearly as dazzling and varied as her settings, Byrne seems to traverse disparate genres with the breezy nonchalance of a master, whether it be sci-fi (Diplomacy), sword and sorcery (Heart’s Thief), espionage (The Old Spies Club), realist mainstream (Summer Stock), or contemporary romance with a bit of magic thrown in for good measure (The Goddess Within).

But it’s her characters who truly make these stories stand out, from the lonely police detective in The Further Adventures of Miss Scarlet, to the environmental activist falling madly in love with the female park ranger in the delightful Treehugger; the once-burned (literally) in-love starship commander in Diplomacy, the empathic burglar in Heart’s Thief, the bewildered goddess-for-a day of The Goddess Within, or the young American activist stealing a dangerous moment of passion with an itinerant journalist in A Night in Estelí.


Emily L. Byrne is a fantastic writer—one you simply must read! Desire is enthusiastically recommended.



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