Playing With Fire: Taboo Erotica [Paperback]

Alison Tyler (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 7, 2009

Why should you play hard to get when you can play with fire? The forbidden has never been so appealing as it is in Alison Tyler's latest collection. In these incendiary stories that explore the taboo side of erotica, couples go about setting their boundaries aflame. Committed to each other without question, they play out their naughtiest fantasies, pushing the limits of sex, lust, and the imagination as far as they can to please each other. Playing it a bit riskier and playing it a bit more daring will send readers and their partners steaming towards the next step in sexual exploration. Featuring new work from ADR Forte, Jolene Hui, Sommer Marsden, Shanna Germain, and others, Playing With Fire delivers enough heat to inspire readers to burn their own erotic bridges.

Product Details

• Paperback: 230 pages
• Publisher: Cleis Press (April 7, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573443484
• ISBN-13: 978-1573443487
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #418,208 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Flaming, May 2, 2009

By 

Jo "Jo" (Ireland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Playing With Fire: Taboo Erotica (Paperback)

'Playing With Fire' opens with an explosive couple of pieces that prove the book true to its title: hot.

Nicky Magennis' humbling and beautifully poetic flash opening leads into 'Fire Woman' by Sommer Marsden, a story that is sublime in its energy, power and gorgeous dirtiness. It leaves you panting, scorched. To be honest, you could buy the book for these two stories alone. I was wowed before I'd hardly started.

I won't pretend all the stories are to my taste. Some are darker, like 'One Hot Slut' by NT Morley, or 'Burned' by Michael Hemmingson. But that means there is something for everyone, and the premise of the collection is an edgy one.

'Scorched' by Janine Ashbless balances on that edge perfectly, dealing with adultery, threesomes, jealousy. Shanna Germaine's 'White Heat White Light' is another poetic, raw piece, honest and emotional as it is erotic.

These pieces are, in the main, serious fiction. Ones to go back to.

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Scrumptious Literary Goodness, September 9, 2009

By 

E. Hepner "erotica writer" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Playing With Fire: Taboo Erotica (Paperback)

If I was going to entrust anyone in the world to pick out what I read for five years my choice would immediately be Alison Tyler. She's done it yet again. This anthology captures every one of my (good) emotions as well as my senses. Reading it next to my husband while not touching him made it even more delightfully naughty, which I didn't even think possible! Putting it down to do "ahem", "other things" was hard, let alone fighting the urge to start it again the minute I'd finished! On my honeymoon!

Some of my favorites include, but are certainly not limited too: Sommer Marsden's Fire Woman the story of a distracted firefighter who has a hot piece of tail with a revealing, sexy writing fetish. Shanna Germain's White Heat, White Light for it's thought provoking, poetic lines of a intense, emotional scene that will keep me reading it again and again. P.S. Haven's Out of The Frying Pan with a riveting story that kept me in it's clutches until the bitter end when my turned-on melancholy made me lust while exploring my emotions. Micheal Hemmingson's Burned whose post modern twist on being a writer made me laugh and gasp at the same time.

The good thing about this book is you, as a reader, can do no wrong. Every story in this book is beauty, even if it's not your particular flavor of kink. The writing is exceptional. It's all sexy, scintillating, stimulating. Words burning on the page that will be seared into your retinas even when you put the book down. A few days later you'll find yourself picking it up again to re-read, re-ponder, and re-enjoy it's little gems of emotional wisdom. This smut is smoking!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 10 out of 10 hearts!, July 16, 2011

By 

Stephanie (US) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Playing With Fire: Taboo Erotica (Paperback)

Playing With Fire edited by Alison Tyler
Release Date: April 7th, 2009
Publisher: Cleis
Page Count: 162
Source: Naked Reader Book Club, via EdenFantasys, for review

Some Like It Hot

Bestselling erotica editor Alison Tyler pushes the limits of sex, lust, and the imagination to new heights in Playing With Fire, her incendiary new collection of erotic stories. In "Scorched", Janine Ashbless shares a three-way with two hot men and one lucky woman, while Thomas S. Roche's rollicking "Hot off the Press" revels in sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll. In Tyler's own words, "Be it a flick of a BiC or the glowing embers of a bonfire, these stories will stoke anyone's fire."

What Stephanie Thinks: Is it just me, or is it burning in this room? I may be perverse, and I may be rotten, because taboo erotica certainly ignites my fire. You're probably wondering what exactly "taboo" is. It has nothing to do with fire, although the blurb may suggest it to be so. Rather, it's the fantasies we all have, just don't have the balls to admit: adultery, ménage, sex with a stranger, you name it.

I'm assuredly not saying adultery and having sex with a stranger is okay (I'm indifferent to ménage; never tried it, never plan to), but I've got to admit there's a bit of a thrill out of reading about those topics. It's so forbidden, so titillating, so risqué.

When it comes down to erotica involving cheating on a partner, the last thing you'd expect is for it to be arousing. But each and every one of us has had their extramarital fancies. Whether it be having an affair, or hooking up with someone that isn't your other, there's something so sexy about engaging in something so off limits, something so taboo. The majority of the stories in Playing With Fire involve having an affair behind a partner's back, or even more unconventionally, having an affair with the partner involved. This is where the threesomes and ménage come in. The excitement of having an affair isn't about loving someone you're not supposed to; the excitement comes out of knowing you can love someone else without getting caught -- or in the case of some of the stories, getting caught and dealing with the repercussions to follow.

If you are so high in morality, you hate flawed story lines with cheating spouses and naughty ingenues, this book may not be right for you. I'm not saying there's something wrong with you, since everyone is entitled to their own values, but this book isn't just erotica; it's taboo erotica. The stories are edgy and raw, crude without leaving out any of the nit & grit. I was surprised there isn't any harsh BDSM in this anthology, because that's what I thought it would consist of, at first. I'm fine with that though, because I don't enjoy much of the whipping and beating anyway.

Bottom line, I think this is my favorite erotica anthology so far. The stories contain more than just sex. All of the authors capably incorporate romance, intense emotion, and satisfying twists to their plots to ensure each story to be a lip-biting, teeth-clenching romp of a good read. Devour Playing With Fire in the bedroom with a lover for an unexpectedly sensational tingle, or read it alone when you've got the entire night to please yourself. Either way, beware: you just might burst into flames.

Stephanie Loves: "He notices. We've noticed each other all day, with the kind of noticing that happens in the eyes and the mouth and the body. The kind off noticing that is only noticed by the people doing it. Or so we'd like to believe. Now, we drift toward each other around the bonfire, pretending this is not a predestined course. Pretending this orbit does not end in collision." -- from Shanna Germain's "White Heat, White Light". Hot hot hot! All the stories have smoke curling from the pages like that!

Radical Rating: 10 hearts- Extraordinarily amazingly wonderfully fantastically marvelous.