I’ve had this book on my bookshelves for a couple of years now and I’ve finally gotten around to reading it–or some of it. :-) There are four stories in the book, and I’ve read two: “My Champion, My Love” by Alice Gaines and “Kiss or Kill” by Liz Maverick.

My preliminary thoughts are that Kiss or Kill was the better of the two stories. I liked the rawness of the emotions and the futuristic setting.

In My Champion, My Love, I was disappointed by the sex. The premise of the story (a historical tale of a woman who has been committed because of her appetite for sex) was quite interesting, and I thought I would like it a lot more than I actually did. I picked it to read first based purely on the description. I guess this is why reading descriptions is never as good as reading excerpts!

Another comment about the sex in My Champion, My Love–it involved food. As I’ve mentioned in my view of erotic romance, I don’t have a thing for mixing food and sex. When whipped cream in one’s pubic hair becomes sexy to me, I’ll know I’ve finally flipped over the edge of my sanity. :-)

In Kiss or Kill, on the other hand, the sex was raw and passionate, and much more to my liking. This story is about a woman who wants to graduate from a military academy, but first she has to prove she is “hard” enough to make it through. How to do this? Decide if Meat (a man with robotic enhancements) should be reclassified or terminated.

Although I wasn’t fond of Meat’s name at first, I thought the author did a spectacular job of making me care for him. By the end of the story, I couldn’t think of Meat with any other name. He’s who he is and I’m perfectly happy with him as is, name and all. ;-)

More: Secrets from Red Sage at The Erotic Reader site; Secrets, Volume 8 at Amazon.com.