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It's been so long since I've had a nice little binge on erotica or erotic romance, I'd almost forgotten: I love to read sex. Good God! When life gets too busy to simply grab up and gobble up a novel simply to feel the love, you know you've got your priorities totally whacked. Least that's what's happened to me.

So I cracked open our friend Jess Michaels/Jenna Petersen's "Everything Forbidden." (Nov. Avon Red). It's got everything I love in an historical erotic romance: poor virgin heroine who wants to give her sisters Seasons that will help them marry well; a virile, profligate, sexually dynamic marquess next door who's willing to trade paying for those Seasons for unlimited access to said poor virgin heroine's bod and burgeoning sensuality; opportunity for h/hn to get in over their heads emotionally while having very steamy sex.

The book works great, cause Michaels got game with the prose, and turns a nice, sexy phrase and sensual love scene that works for readers who want sexy that pushes the envelope just a tad. The best part is that the sensuality is celebrated by both hero and heroine - but I'll not dish why that's such a cool, sexy part of the story.

Bella Portia Da Costa sent me her recent Oct. Black Lace erotic release, "Hotbed," and, as always, it's a mélange of powerful sexual scenarios and highly charged erotic imagery. The novel, like the majority of her erotica and romantic erotica, teems with outrageous couplings - sexual and relational - that arouse by the very fact that they're so damn, well, beyond: beyond merely titillating, beyond the Average Jo-anne's fantasy, and, in some cases, deliciously beyond the pale.

That's the beauty of Portia Da Costa. She hurls dead sexy scenes and language at the reader which touches on deepest fantasy, but kicks it up so it's even better than what we could come up with on our own. And Da Costa's writing is awe-inspiring - especially when you think that she just hangs out here every day talking about her kitty and stuff. There ain't a writer of erotica or erotic romance who don't owe her props. You may not be ready for t160he intensity of Da Costa's novels - but buck up and give em a try -- yet when you place them up against just about everything else "erotic" being written, you see their superiority, as well as the impact they've had upon the genre/sub-genre.

This talk of erotica is getting me excited -- no pun -- about having a second annual "Hot Topic Week," in which we'll explore erotica, erotic romance, and what it all means (besides the obvious, at least in my relationship).

What do you like about erotica/erotic romance? Have you given it a try and not liked it? Why? Who are your fave authors of the really hot stuff?

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Very cool back-to-back-to-back series coming in late December from Lynsay Sands and Avon! The Argeneau three book series about two vamps and a vampette are being released Jan-March, with No Waiting. We'll have Argeneau series exclusives beginning December at "Romance: B(u)y the Book," plus a GuestBlog with Sands right here at LTR!