Best Lesbian Erotica of the Year, Volume 4

Sexsmith (editor of the Say Please: Lesbian BDSM Erotica anthology) brings together 20 new and familiar voices in a wide-ranging celebration of Sapphic love and sexuality. Some of these tales are delightfully playful and rooted in reality, as with Avery Cassell’s “Pinked,” which features an elderly lesbian couple, one of whom finds a way to tease and torment her partner via her latest sewing project, and “Good Girls Do” by Marie Carlson, set in the tack room of a stable but featuring a different kind of riding. Others explore racier sexual fantasies, as with the anonymous encounter of “Gina, Across the Tracks” by Fallen Matthews and the steamy vacation sex of “Adventure in Palm Springs” by Dorothy Freed. Sweetly vanilla stories alternate with tales of couples delving into kink, from the relatively mild dom/sub dynamic of Olivia Dromen’s “All Dolled Up” to Xan West’s depictions of more intense sadism and masochism, including knife play and punching, in “Crave.” Though not every tale is as polished as one might expect from previous volumes, there is enough variety and spiciness to please most readers. (Dec.)