Ooh La La!: Contemporary French Erotica by Women

by Maxim Jakubowski (Editor)

People say the French stay slim thanks to their good wine and regular meals. This might prove to be the case, but the hottest erotica currently being written flows from the sexy pens of French women of letters. On the basis that writers of erotica are often known to find inspiration in their own lives and experiences, one can only draw certain conclusions! Dominique Aury under the penname Pauline Rée wrote The Story of O in 1954 and opened the floodgates for a whole new, sulphurous tradition of female erotica, since appropriated by female writers all over the world, including Anne Rice in the USA writing as A.N. Roquelaure. But the wonderfully perverse imagination of French authors has continued unabated ever since, and the daughters of O are now legions, including leading lights like Catherine Millet, Regine Deforges, Francoise Rey, Vanessa Duries, Florence Dugas, Alina Reyes, and the famous fashion designer Sonia Rykiel, all of whom contributed to this collection. French literary sex is hot, elegant, gently perverse, quietly shocking, and always arousing -- and these twenty-nine stories will leave no reader indifferent.

Genres: Erotica, Fiction, Collections

288 pages, Paperback

First published October 29, 2006

About the author

Maxim Jakubowski is a crime, erotic, and science fiction writer and critic.

Jakubowski was born in England by Russian-British and Polish parents, but raised in France. Jakubowski has also lived in Italy and has travelled extensively. Jakubowski edited the science fiction anthology Twenty Houses of the Zodiac in 1979 for the 37th World Science Fiction Convention (Seacon '79) in Brighton. He also contributed a short story to that anthology. He has now published almost 100 books in a variety of areas.

He has worked in book publishing for many years, which he left to open the Murder One bookshop[1], the UK's first specialist crime and mystery bookstore. He contributes to a variety of newspapers and magazines, and was for eight years the crime columnist for Time Out and, presently, since 2000, the crime reviewer for The Guardian. He is also the literary director of London's Crime Scene Festival and a consultant for the International Mystery Film Festival, Noir in Fest, held annually in Courmayeur, Italy. He is one the leading editors in the crime and mystery and erotica field, in which he has published many major anthologies.

His novels include "It's You That I Want To Kiss", "Because She Thought She Loved Me", "The State Of Montana", "On Tenderness Express", "Kiss me Sadly" and "Confessions of a Romantic Pornographer". His short story collections are "Life in the World of Women", "Fools for Lust" and the collaborative "American Casanova". He is a regular broadcaster on British TV and radio and was recently voted the 4th Sexiest Writer of 2,007 on a poll on the crimespace website.

Reviews

[Praj · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ooh La La! Sauvage et sexy, suscitant à chaque charge érotique anecdotes....Alluring, debonair and erotically charged aptly embellish these stories. Although few of them brim with hard-core kink and misogynistic reflections, yet they tease your feral imagination. Of course the BDSM element does make it even more enjoyable.

[Irus · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ooh La La? more like Sigh Ho Hum. Still there were a couple of tasty tidbits I'd recommend: Deforges' "The Hut in the Jardin Du Luxembourg" was, well, kind of sweet; Malena - with your penchant for bullfighters - i think you'd enjoy Allain's "Bullfighting"; a couple others were interesting like Turconi's "Suite 2502," Beyala's "The Bell,and "Schilling's "The Garage." But overall the anthology did not live up to it's glowing review. Nice cover, though.

[Bruce · Rating 2 out of 5]

This work is a collection of 29 short stories by French female authors. A majority of them seem to be written by misogynists. In most of the stories women are abused and in many of them they die in the end. There are a couple like Suite 2502 by Julie Turconi where the woman has her way with a man and then leaves him. And there is one, Bullfighting by Francoise Allain where the arrogant male gets the comeuppance he justly deserves. It was an interesting read.

[catharine · Rating 3 out of 5]

If it's going to bother you that 1/4 of the stories end with death, don't read this book. If you're looking for straightforward erotica that you can insert yourself into, don't read it either.

If you're looking for the odd, off-beat, kinky stories with S&M this might be up your alley. Heroines are mostly highly motivated, sexually rapacious, and up for a wide wide variety of strange, off-putting, and very hot adventures.

[Jane Caruana]

May be erotica, but not erotic - Robert Heinlein, Janet Evanovich, Laurel K Hamilton & Mary Janice Davidson do a better job of getting me in the mood. Most of the storeys end in death and / or humiliation / degredation, if this is what the French find erotic, thank God I'm not married to one.

[Christy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love french erotica and this one did not let me down. Seems as if it was written very well for both women and men.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

The stories are creative and well written. Unfortuneately few if any were my idea of erotic which is not to say it isn't still yummy to some - just not my personal cup of tea....

[Núria · Rating 2 out of 5]

well... let s say is disturbing