Book Review: Night Terrors by John A. Pitts

'Lo People,

Wanna follow around a lesbian female badass with slightly more social skills than Lisbeth Salander of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo fame? Hey! I know it's a different genre and there is no hacking in this urban fantasy but, wanna read about what Arha/Tenar/Goha from the Earthsea series might have been like if she did without the skirts, spent more time smithing, and scooted around on 100+ horsepower on a regular basis? Gimme. Gimme.

Also are you the kind of reader who places value on the too-often maligned feminine traits of conferring with others, rather than always going it alone, being indirect, or being concerned with childcare? Can we agree to give a shout out to an Omega wolf who has found a place and pack of her own? Does the majority of a First Person POV mixed with occasional third person sections agree with you? Meet Sarah Beauhall. Or meet her again if you've already been reading.


*Spoiler Alert*

Her Tangh-i-ness greatly appreciates pithy plot summaries. However, for those who must have a virgin reading experience, read no further, and eyeball elsewhere.


*Spoiler Alert End*


What kept me going throughout the book was what was going to happen to Katie. Katie already seemed vulnerable and by the time she collapsed into coma and other people started dying because of the magic unleashed tossed Sarah into the spotlight. Sarah's efforts to save her beloved, to Her Tangh-i-ness, mattered more than the array of helper characters who surrounded Sarah. That's not a snipe, that's an observation. For Her Tangh-i-ness to really sink her teeth into a reading experience, she has to care. Her Tangh-i-ness worried that Sarah might lose Katie. She worried that Sarah would start wanting someone else because it was easier to manage than the grief of not being able to make a difference to Katie's condition.

Okay then. This ain't Her Tangh-i-ness's first foray into the middle of a series because she did not happen to read book 1. However, with this book, this reader read feeling kind of clueless because she did not already know who all these other people were or why Her Tang-i-ness should take notice of them. There were some characters who naturally stood out like Jai Li, Bub, Nidhogg, and Qindra. Jimmy, Katie's brother, took a little longer to get close to or figure out but that was because he had been set up as an antagonist. What would have really knocked this adventure out of the park for me was more time spent with Bowler Hat man. Her Tangh-i-ness truly does appreciate a distinctively dressed villain. By the time Sarah dispatches him, Bowler Hat man had shown promise of joining iconic baddies like Freddie Kruger or Pyramidhead and he was related to Jimmy and Katie. Now I'm getting suspicious. That couldn't have been all there was to Sarah encountering this dude.

Note: This copy of Night Terrors was an electronic edition provided by the author. Her Tangh-i-ness usually reviews on a for-the-love basis. No lucre has been involved.

Book Review: I Saw the Naked Gardener by Danika Hartland

'Lo People,

Repeat after me... I Saw the Naked Gardner.

Put a naked person in a sentence and Her Tangh-i-ness will be paying attention. Usually, Her Tangh-i-ness's next question is who has fun with the naked person? In this case, it's a married woman with a gorgeous, fictionalized version of Michaelangelo's statue. Got your plot wheels turning yet?

I also have to comment on the cover. Go take a look. All us Art Students will get an especial chuckle out of it. The cover image is tasteful and subtle compared to the skinfest usually seen on Erotic Romance covers. The cover also reflects what the book actually delivers: a sensuous experience that does not have to delve into four letter words, blow-by-blow depictions of what it takes to give or receive pleasure, or spurting organs or openings. I Saw the Naked Gardener is for Grownups who can use their imaginations to get off and don't require assistance from an author.


*Spoiler Alert*

Her Tangh-i-ness greatly appreciates pithy plot summaries. However, for those who must have a virgin reading experience, read no further, and eyeball elsewhere.


*Spoiler Alert End*


Tamsin thinks she needs to save her friend from the clutches of this new, exclusive club for women. The club caters to married and unmarried women alike. They must be a bunch of perverts, potential blackmailers or general no-goodniks. Right? Someone has to expose them.

Uh-huh. Okay Tamsin. We'll tag after you on your quest to get to the bottom of this. Just do us a favor and don't look at the guy taking a shower outdoors named David. Nope. You didn't see that man did you Tamsin? You didn't look for David after you went ballroom dancing and a roomful of men you didn't really know planted kisses and caressed you in your underthings! Nope. Happened in another story. And no, David didn't stick his finger and his tongue you-know-where. Must have happened to some other heroine.

Please keep in mind that the deal with Tamsin is that she has to learn to find herself before she can find her man. David is just an ally. He's not the goody bag Tamsin receives for undertaking her journey. Or is he? Her Tangh-i-ness believes that only after a thorough read, other readers will be able to tell.

Note: This copy of I Saw the Naked Gardener was a hardcopy edition provided by the author. Her Tangh-i-ness usually reviews on a for-the-love basis. No lucre has been involved.

Book Review: Dirty Words by M. Christian

'Lo People,
Time to give M. Christian some more Hairy Eyeball for his Dirty Words.

Does the idea that there is a hardened penis available to be inserted into a variety of holes give you a reason to pay attention? Her Tangh-i-ness sure likes it when males aren't afraid to kneel, bend over, or stand so that this reader can get primo viewing of the "act." I read Skin Effect and The Bachelor Machine first, but I think that those books were all literary hors d'ouevres before Dirty Words spread its pages and showed off its tight sentences, wet imaginary plunges, and provoked climaxes. And if you like your stories veering towards the dark and twisted, there's more than one nugget of guilty pleasure here. This is an unashamedly M/M Action collection with twinges of loving feelings here and there but Dirty Words ain't real Romantic. Nope. These stories are mostly about scoring.


To make it easy for potential readers of this collection, Her Tangh-i-ness will return to the following rating system.

TAMTT *Take A Minute to Think* This means the sexiness might have to grow on you.

WT *Wet* Self-explanatory. No?

H/OA *Hand/Object Assisted* Requires immediate action after the story climax.

FAPP *Find a Partner Pronto* Try this one at home, Folks.


*Spoiler Alert*

Her Tangh-i-ness greatly appreciates pithy plot summaries. However, for those who must have a virgin reading experience, read no further, and eyeball elsewhere.


*Spoiler Alert End*


DIRTY DEEDS FOR DIRTY BOYS (AND MEN) PATRICK CALIFIA
If you like LGBTQI Erotica, you've read Mister Califa's work. So when he has something to say about what M. Christian does on a page, there are those Readers who will listen a little harder.

INTRODUCTION M. CHRISTIAN
Mind you, this is now Her Tangh-i-ness's third romp with a M. Christian book. I don't know about you but I am in awe of someone who can say the following about the act of writing: Hell, it even kinda follows the Sexual Response Cycle: Excitement (an idea comes to mind), Plateau (putting it together), Orgasm (riding the high), and Resolution (typing "The End"). Excuse me, I have to go and type something to get my own jollies.

SPIKE
H/OA *Hand/Object Assisted* Fiction. Two, identical twin, blond brothers cum to decide one must follow and the other must lead. But not before some mutual oral service and a fistfight. Her Tangh-i-ness keeps one of those studded belts featured in the story so she can vouch for its effectiveness.

HOW COYOTE STOLE THE SUN
WT *Wet* Fiction. A man called Dog meets with a man called Roc. Two naked kids playing outside tell Dog, this habitual thief, of a man with "Stuff" who lives in the areas. Dog decides this "Stuff" is worth the challenge. There follows a titanic suck, a colossal f*ck, succeeded by a theft. Dog learns that all his efforts have been for naught. The two naked kids end up with a new toy.

THE HARLEY
WT *Wet* Fiction. Mammoth and Monster, two bikers, settle on a contest to win the wheels of a deceased rival. The true joy in this story can be found in the precision of the descriptions. He was Pup, and the one thing that was an absolute proven fact about the kid was that he could pull gas out of a bike without a hose. Mammoth makes off with the bike while Monster opts for Mammoth's former bedwarmer.

ECHOES
TAMTT *Take A Minute to Think* Fiction. Care to examine intimacy issues? A murderer cycles through other men hoping to escape the corpse of his lover. He even has sex with a Black guy and freaks out halfway through. For Chev, sex transforms into dread. Guilt seems to drive his need for punishment. Like an addict, Chev keeps seeking intimacy and the horror of it all lies in Chev's being his very own monster.

BLUE BOY
TAMTT *Take A Minute to Think* Fiction. When one needs a liberal helping of homicide, a Reader could turn to this story. Who are these blue people and why is it suddenly the socially acceptable thing to go around murdering them? Prosper and Oleander indulge in the very latest trend: disposable people. But Prosper can't seem to make an end of a Blue called Troy. And when Prosper kills another human, he just ends up another Blue. Wait. Perhaps Prosper had been Blue all along.

MATCHES
WT *Wet* Fiction. This ironic tale suggests that beauty remains the final arbiter even for the dead. Unglamorous R. Ruge has a near death experience and learns that sex is still very much part of the afterlife. He balls the guy of his dreams but gets yanked back into Life. Ever so grateful for the interruption, he dispatches the unwary paramedic. His still dead paramour wings off with the slain paramedic for an eternal ever-after.

CASEY, THE BAT
FAPP *Find a Partner Pronto* Fiction. Can an opposing team dick a star batter good enough the batter blows his game? 'Ballin' comes natural to batters, pitchers, and catchers—doesn't it? Any reader familiar with the inspiration for Casey, the Bat, might have a chuckle at what a word-f*ck M. Christian has given it. Only the locker room knows what really happened.

CHICKENHAWK
TAMTT *Take A Minute to Think* Fiction. What if there was a kid that looked like a kid, talked like a kid, but wasn't a kid? A grown man with the kind of build that makes it easy for child predators to notice him gets into a car with one. Figured out where this is going? Creep bait 1000. Creep zippo. Throw in some arson and identity theft for extra spice.

WHAT AILS YOU
H/OA *Hand/Object Assisted* Fiction. This is one of Her Tangh-i-ness's favorites in this collection. M. Christian seems to have an obsession with players being played stories. Her Tangh-i-ness has an obsession with treating People of Color with respect in literature. The Black man, Leon the Lion, is a righteous pimp. Leon thinks he's teaching a male-hustler-beating trick some Louisiana manners. He never suspects that he's become just what Dr. Darrin ordered for room 414. By story's end, Darrin's the only one making any dollars hand-over-fist.

WET
TAMTT *Take A Minute to Think* Fiction. And now M. Christian tells a story about the cruel things men will do to one another for a semblance of control or for companionship. Take Vampirism and strip away everything but the need to drain. Doud paints with the blood of dead cattle. Jona points his camera at his subjects and f*cks with his bedfellows. Savor the sentence: Sunlight doesn't hurt, crosses don't do anything, stakes will – but then they'll probably kill anything. Think this story will end bloodily? You're right.

PUPPY
FAPP *Find a Partner Pronto* Fiction. Ok. This is one of those works where it's all about the hot sex and and there's no deeper thought to the events of the story than that. Pet play anyone? Frisky blond manipulates the big bear to give him a newspaper-fueled beat-down. What some owners have to put up with just to occupy their animals.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO?
H/OA *Hand/Object Assisted* Fiction. Needlephobes may choose skip this particular kink. Her Tangh-i-ness just grinned and dreamed up an imaginary black and white teleplay of this hardcore deviance. Two aging queens, a paraplegic and an able-bodied person, channel baby brat and bitch goddess. Any Reader wondering if Deep Kink can't have a tender aspect should take note of the final line. "What?" She gave a small laugh. "And give up show business?"

COYOTE & THE LESS THAN PERFECT COUGAR
H/OA *Hand/Object Assisted* Newcomer to Albuquerque, New Mexico, John aims to do business with Wily of the Rafael Dumont La Cruz Rehabilitated Motor Works. Nice try, Dude. Just take the corn-holing, yank your pants up and hope you didn't catch any fleas.

COUNTING
TAMTT *Take A Minute to Think* Fiction. Scrabbling for survival, amongst his fellow Dystopians, the electronics-scavenger narrator sleeps with Tubal who turns out to have been a secret Robin Hood with a murderous twist. How close can one get to a super-predator and stay breathing or unchanged?


Note: This copy of Dirty Words was an electronic edition provided by the author. Her Tangh-i-ness usually reviews on a for-the-love basis. No lucre has been involved.

Book Review: The Bachelor Machine by M. Christian

Her Tangh-i-ness Does read other things besides Erotica. But since we're on the subject—there's always time for more recreational Smut. Creatives are some of the most highly-sexed beings on the planet; I mean near everything they produce is the result of an orgasm of the Creative Mind.

Take this M. Christian guy, for example. Yeah. Yeah. I started with his short story collection Skin Effect. This guy, he just keeps writing more…more...reasons to moisturize the underthings or try and hide the evidence of stimulation upon the erogenous zone of choice. There's lots of male on female action, female on female, a genuinely happy foursome (two males make out with the females and also each other). For pure male on male, do refer to M.Christian's other short story collection, one being, Dirty Words.

However, for the People of Color in the Reading Audience, be aware this collection does contain Triggers. These are Sistah-shaped ones both golden, black, and brown. I hear ya'll saying just what does she mean? Read and find out. Just remember Her Tangh-i-ness saw that the work went there and got to the end of the book. Just saying. By the way, she kept reading other M. Christian works. Consider what the author has to say about himself: "For me, being a pioneer in this area, I feel like I have to create my own respect, in a way. I'm like a missionary – at first no matter what tribe I visit, I get the hairy eyeball." So it's obviously time to start eyeballing this dude until he creams in his pants or something.

To make it easy for potential readers of this collection, Her Tangh-i-ness will return to the following rating system that came in mighty handy when describing M. Christian's Skin Effect and other works.

TAMTT *Take A Minute to Think* This means the sexiness might have to grow on you.

WT *Wet* Self-explanatory. No?

H/OA *Hand/Object Assisted* Requires immediate action after the story climax.

FAPP *Find a Partner Pronto* Try this one at home, Folks.


*Spoiler Alert*

Her Tangh-i-ness greatly appreciates pithy plot summaries. However, for those who must have a virgin reading experience, read no further, and eyeball elsewhere.


*Spoiler Alert End*


STATE

WT *Wet* Fiction. M/F Action. She-Machine meets with man. The idea of exciting the man makes the She-machine cum. And when it's over and done with all the She-machine wants to do is sleep? Ok. Can we point to this story as an example of reverse gender post-coital physiology? Maybe the real reason to read this story can be found in the music of this sentence: "Too quick, maybe, too sudden, probably, but he was hanging way down, his breathing was quick and deep, his legs were columns of meat and tension." What does ya'll think?

HACK WORK

TAMTT *Take A Minute to Think* Fiction. M/F Action. This is the story where Her Tangh-i-ness counted to a thousand before she turned the page to the next story. Yup. This is the one of the Oh-No-He-Didn't-Go-There! stories. As the dear, departed writing instructor, Blake Snyder of Save the Cat fame once told me, Her Tangh-i-ness Ain't in the Target Audience. Those that are—ya'll know who you is when you read it. A female shares her consciousness with her paying fares and finds herself taking a young Black woman for a session with a riding crop.

WINGED MEMORY

TAMTT *Take A Minute to Think* Fiction. M/F Action. Dusk, a desperate young man named without prospects sells off painful sexual memories in order to afford the cyber-whore of his wet dreams. Each time he does this. He keeps losing more and more of his essential self until the only thing left is to turn the tables on the memory merchant to whom he dealt all his unrecoverables.

EULOGY

WT *Wet* Fiction. M/F Action. Jeff and Julie, two survivors of a broken triangle comfort one another rather orally. Find more of those musical sentences here. "Our breaths synchronized, and we steamed together like a pair of heavy engines." This is the second of the mouth-whore stories.

BUTTERFLIE$

H/OA *Hand/Object Assisted* Fiction. M/F Action. Virtual sex for a female character where thee division between self and other and even male and female gets blurred. Can we say—extreme nipple action? The point of this story is to demonstrate the unbelievable roller coaster that only a Total mindf*ck can deliver.

EVERYTHING BUT THE SMELL OF LILIES

TAMTT *Take A Minute to Think* Fiction. M/F Action. This is the second of the Oh-No-He-Didn't-Go-There! stories. The POV flips from third-person into two first-person streams of consciousness: one is the ambulance driver with an unsavory Kink and the other is the biracial (Black & an unnamed race) hooker whose talent lies in appearing to die so her paying johns can get their f*cks on. You guessed it. The ambulance driver decides upon helping himself to a freebie. The upshot is that Jasmine, the hooker, is the only character still breathing by the story's end.

FULLY ACCESSORIZED

H/OA *Hand/Object Assisted* Fiction. F/F Action. Grrrls getting it on. Val and Cox can Do it much better because Val is a sexy cyborg with the serious Enthusiast level of an attachment. And Cox knows her way around clitoral accessories as well. There's a little something for the fisters and the f*ckers out there.

BABY BLUEBELLE

WT *Wet* M/F Action. Gen-Xers in the audience remember Nightrider and the intelligent car KITT? Throw in a car chase and oral sex while driving with a virtual babe and maybe Roger should have tried harder to stay on the right side of the law.

THE NEW MOTOR

TAMTT *Take A Minute to Think* M/F Action. Inspired Engineer meets with Spurned Woman near Lynn, Lynn that city of Sin. Man's love of gadgetry clashes with a scheming mistress. Didn't Spear remember the old saw about female fury?

GUERNICA

FAPP *Find a Partner Pronto* In a Society where Kink is Capital Offense, Kinky men and women gather together to act out their secret, forbidden desires. By the end of their night and the end of their story reveal the very, realest thrills. This story is a political nightmare for open Kinksters.

HEARTBREAKER

H/OA *Hand/Object Assisted* F/F Action. What happens with an opponent who takes the struggle to the bedroom? Read on. Kusa the hardened female cop encounters a red-headed vixen called Nine. They fall into bed, Kusa busts Nine afterwards, but Nine lets the reader in on the mega-doublecross pulled off by the eponymous, gender-switching Heartbreaker

SWITCH

TAMTT *Take A Minute to Think* F/M Action. One could ask the career Submissive what brings her back again and again to the experience of being owned and point to this story as an explanation.

INTERCORE

H/OA *Hand/Object Assisted* M/F Action. Hmmmn. Public acts of indecency need an electronic eye, a digitsl peephole, to zoom in close and closer. This story holds up the assertion that a dildo is a girl's best friend. The best and most quake-tacular cums are the ones she can give herself.

TECHNOPHILE

H/OA *Hand/Object Assisted* Cybernetic cock anyone? M/M Action. Young chicken (jailbait) meets with a doctored rooster. The boy birds connect in the only means left to them when the Long Thrust can't get it up. Another mouth-whore celebratory tale.

SKIN-EFFECT

TAMTT *Take A Minute to Think* Fiction. M/F Action. Pepper the survivor of a "wilding" offers wounded veteran Lionel Guardino a new lease on Life as her jacked-up companion and the shiny, new enforcer of her revenge. Topping from Below.

SIGHT

WT *Wet* Fiction. M/F Action. Aliens, called the Elgin, Cortez, a middle-aged, human artist, and Rosalinda, a young woman combine to complete the artist/aesthete/inspiration circuit.

THE SHOW

WT *Wet* Fiction. M/F Action. Exhibitionists out there ought to know the pinnacle of erotic performance is conducted in the heart of the city that never sleeps. You didn't think they were going to do their porno in Philly didja?

THIN DOG

FAPP *Find a Partner Pronto* Action. Music and sex are always an irresistible combination. But the idea of hearing music along with the sensation of being made love to/loving your favorite rock hero/ine sounds like a recipe for making Woodstock, Lollapalooza, and South by Souwest Music Concert combined sit down.

THE BACHELOR MACHINE

TAMTT *Take A Minute to Think* M/F Action. An abandoned synthetic woman pays for weekly sex sessions with a human male. In her clinging to the sexual exchange as the prelude to emotional and social intercourse, the nameless android proves herself as human as the lovers who rejected get once she was no longer new.

EXCERPT FROM THE NOVEL PAINTED DOLL

TAMTT *Take A Minute to Think* Fiction. M/F Action. As a creative person, and a figure painter, I can appreciate M. Christian's fondness for combining artistic expression and arousal. And why not set this story also in that land of great opposites: public restraint and private passions: Japan. Makes this reader want to run and find a pretty, geisha-boi and have at him.

HOT DEFINITION

WT *Wet* F/F Action. Neko, another biracial: Asian and Black protagonist hopes to escape the sentient electronic Daemon pursuing her and her female lover. Neko makes it to the end of the story, but the Daemon has made off with the one person most precious to her.

NEW BEDFELLOWS: SEX & SCIENCE FICTION

The essays that seem to close out M. Christian collections are worth perusing for fertile, fiction-bent minds. Here is a conversation with the great Cecelia Tan and M. Christian waxing from what's wrong with much of the sex in SF to the future of Erotica. Even one disagrees with the suppositions, the essay makes for stimulating reading.


Note: This copy of The Bachelor Machine was an electronic edition provided by the author. Her Tangh-i-ness usually reviews on a for-the-love basis. No lucre has been involved.