Touching Fire: Erotic Writings by Women

by Jan Sturtevant, Louise Thorton

The cloth edition of this provocative celebration of the erotic in women's lives was greeted enthusiastically and sold quickly through two substantial printings. This unique blend of erotic sensibility features such authors as Margar et Atwood, Sharon Olds, Adrienne Rich, Maxine Kumin, and Tess Gallagher.

Genres: Short Stories, Erotica, Fiction, Erotic Romance, Anthologies, Poetry

222 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

Reviews

[T.C. Mill]

This book wasn't uneven so much as it was very, very varied. Some stories left me breathless; for others I was checking how many pages were left.

One thing I loved, though, was the combination of prose and poetry within the same book (plus some pieces that seemed like hybrids between the two). Erotic poetry's a difficult genre to find done well, and this had some good ones.

[HeavyReader]

I didn't like this book nearly as much as I'd hoped to.

I got it from a kind person on BookMooch, so I didn't get to look it over before I asked for it.

There was a lot of poetry in this anthology, and while I appreciate poetry, I don't usually find it hot or long enough to really get sexually excited over. Most of the stories were more romance novel than sex story. However, I did like that at least a few of the stories were about older folks and/or folks with disabilities. It's nice to read sexy stories about people who aren't young, fit, and conventionally beautiful.

I did enjoy the excerpt from The Heart of the Fire (two young women who discover sex together in 16th century Scotland), "The Game of Chess" (marital infidelity), "Careless Love" (an employee of an old folk's home has a sexual romance with one of the residents), and "Elizabeth and William" (lovers from long ago get back together at the end of their lives).

[Pabarrett]

Touching Fire: Erotic Writings by Women by Louise Thornton (1998)