Can’t Get Enough: Erotica for Women

First-time authors and big names mingle in an anthology of erotica that whets the appetite but fails to satisfy. Brown (Best Bondage Erotica 2012) has gathered together 27 stories of varying quality, from Louise Blaydon’s wonderful “The End of Sensible,” a queer coming-out story that’s as tender as it is a turn-on, to Jacqueline Applebee’s tedious “Rocket Fuel,” an attempt at comedy that fails to ignite. Kissa Starling’s “Blue Balls” is supernatural smut with a clever feminist twist, and newcomer Beatrix Ellroy’s “Before They Burn” is darkly sexy, but the usually excellent Rachel Kramer Bussel makes a rare fumble with “Under His Watch.” The anthology is marketed as a grab bag of sexual desires, but dominance and submission are recurring themes with little effort toward originality. The lopsided mix would work better if it were half as long: turns out you can, in fact, have too much of a good thing. (Apr.)