Erotic Revenge
How can you not at least try a collection of short stories that starts out like this?
"A woman goes into a pharmacy to ask the chemist for some cyanide.
The chemist is taken back by her admission. "May I ask Madam, what you intend to do with this cyanide?‟
"I‟m going to kill my husband", she replies.
The chemist takes a step back, on the verge of panic. "Are you insane? he shouts. We‟ll both end up in prison!‟
The woman calmly opens her purse and hands him a photo of her husband and the chemist‟s wife frolicking naked on a bed.
Oh,‟ the chemist says calmly, you didn‟t tell me you had a prescription"
I have previously posted on three works by Mitzi Szereto, Pride and Prejudice-Hidden Lusts, In Sleeping Beauty's Bed: Erotic Fairy Tales and The Collected Short Stories of Mitzi Szerto. I really like her crisp clear writing style and have found her books to be a great escapist reads but not just that. In Sleeping Beauty's Bed: Erotic Fairy Tales helped me understand the hidden meaning behind some familiar stories (plus like all her work it is good, clean fun!) and her Jane Austin book let me see what really went on behind closed doors (and in the barn also?) at Pemberly Place.
Getting Even: Revenge Stories is a collection of eighteen stories (selected and with a very smart and funny introduction by Szereto) by contemporary women writers. Unlike what you will find in a lot of anthologies of short stories all of the writers are well established authors with numerous prior publications to their credit. Szereto also has contributed an excellent story.
All of the stories are told from the point of view of a woman wronged by a man with whom she had an erotically charged relationship. Some of the stories are lyrical laments and some are down right nasty.
There was not a bad story in the collection. I will just post briefly on what was for me the stand out story in the collection "Parvati" by Umi Sinha, set in court of an Indian Prince sometime int the British Raj era.
Not long ago in my post on a short story by Rabindranath Tagore's short story about a 12 year old bride, "The In Between Woman" I wondered if we can allow a kind of ethical relativism to allow us to say "well we do not approve of these marriages but it was accepted in their cultures" and shrug off our feelings of repugnance. These marriages took place when the girl was as young as eight and were normally consummated by age 12 or 13. This was a perfectly normal accepted behavior and in almost all cases the parents of the bride basically sold them. (Just as their mothers and grandmothers have been for eons. )
"Parvati" is a intimate look at the life of one of these brides sold into the home of a Maharajah to be one of his brides. The Maharajah knew that custom did not allow him full marital rights until she had her first period but it was evidently acceptable for him to attempt to stimulate her sexually (using the techniques from the Kama Sutra) prior to then so she would become hopefully an erotically charged wife. The girl's only friend is her pet monkey. The revenge ending is this story is really a great one so I will not tell more of the plot.
More information on this book (it can be bought in Amazon or through Mitizi's web page) can be found on the author's web page.
More information about Mitzi's books can be found on her WEB PAGE. (She also has written several very well regarded novels under the name M. S. Valentine.)
Here is her official biography
Here is her official biography
"MITZI SZERETO is a bestselling author and anthology editor of multi-genre and erotic fiction and non-fiction, blogger for the popular ERRANT RAMBLINGS: MITZI SZERETO'S WEBLOG (http://mitziszereto.com/blog), and the creator/presenter for the internet TV channel MITZI TV (http://mitziszereto.com/tv), which offers a quirky take on London.
Her published titles include PRIDE AND PREJUDICE: HIDDEN LUSTS; RED VELVET AND ABSINTHE: PARANORMAL EROTIC ROMANCE; IN SLEEPING BEAUTY'S BED: EROTIC FAIRY TALES (solo short story collection); THE NEW BLACK LACE BOOK OF WOMEN'S SEXUAL FANTASIES (non-fiction/survey); GETTING EVEN: REVENGE STORIES (crime/multi-genre); DYING FOR IT: TALES OF SEX AND DEATH (erotica/multi-genre); WICKED: SEXY TALES OF LEGENDARY LOVERS (erotica/romance/historical); the EROTIC TRAVEL TALES anthology series (erotica/romance); THE WORLD'S BEST SEX WRITING 2005"…
I will, I hope, be reading and posting on more of Mitzi's work soon.
Mel u
1 comment:
Glad you enjoyed!
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