Alison Tyler

YOWZA! This was a steamy collection! I don't know if any of the short stories in here are "nice" but they're for sure all naughty as hell! There's a wide variety of kinks, sexual orientation, and foreplay. All of them tie into Christmas one way or another and all of them are short and sweet. There are twenty short stories in here and at least one of them is guaranteed to turn you on. From a lesbian couple enjoying a Christmas to themselves after all their bed and breakfast guests cancel, to show more a retelling of A Christmas Carol (spoiler alert - she wants all the bad dirty things the future has to offer), to a wife surprising her husband with lingerie and hidden jingle bells (they're hidden where the sun don't shine), to surprising uses for fruitcake. This collection is wide ranging, filthy, and the perfect thing to stuff your stocking with. show less

This was a terrific book. The author's note at the back of the book speaks of her motivation for writing this story. How she watched the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and saw the women in uniform, women whom she'd never thought about before. Driven to understand their courage, she went on to read books and articles, many written in their own words. They had a profound impact on her life.

"These unique and remarkable women remain a haunting presence in my mind. I wanted to write show more a story that would show not only their valor and sacrifice, but one that would also capture their humor, their vulnerabilities, their passion, and their loves."

I believe that she succeeded far more than she could have imagined. I'm old enough to remember the Vietnam War. I was ten when my dad spent a year there as a combat correspondent for the Armed Forces Vietnam Network (AFVN). He didn't talk much about it, but I remember the few stories he could share. Annie and David's story brought that time into vivid focus.

Annie and David grew up in the same town. David was her brother Turner's best friend, along with their other friend, Hawk. Annie was the typical pesky little sister, tagging along whenever she could. While "the boys" were all family to her, her feelings for David were always a little more. When the war came calling, Hawk was the first to go - and to be sent home with a devastating injury. David is next to go and assigned to a special operations unit. Feeling a need to do her part, Annie joins the Army Nurse Corps as soon as she graduates.

Annie works at an evac hospital in Long Binh, the same base where David is stationed. While he is unhappy that she is in Vietnam, he can't deny that her presence reminds him of happier times. It also emphasizes the horror of his experiences in the field. I ached for David as he tried to separate the two parts of his life, but as the book goes on, you can see the strain he is under.

I loved following Annie as she experienced life as a military nurse. Her caring and compassion for "her boys" leap off the page. We can see her struggles as she patches them up to send them back into danger. She forms friendships with other women, such as Sue Ellen, one of the Red Cross workers. There is girl talk, mutual support when things get tough, and a few fun times squeezed in. Another friend is Jessie, a freelance journalist reporting on the war. She brings a new perspective to Annie, showing her the human side of the war and introducing her to Luong and Tai, two Vietnamese orphans. Jessie also sees something special in Annie, and I loved what she did with that knowledge.

I loved the development of Annie and David's relationship. It begins as friends, familiar faces in an ocean of stress. But Annie never let go of her crush on David, and the more time they spend together, the more her feelings grow. David fights his feelings, refusing to think about the future, fearing he won't have one. But as the months go on, he can no longer deny those emotions. As their love for each other grows, Annie dreams of a special future for them, knowing that their time in Vietnam has had an enormous impact on them. But David wants to forget everything about Vietnam, and Annie fears their love won't survive if he doesn't acknowledge what brought them together.

There is another significant reason that Annie refuses to forget her time in Vietnam. I loved her determination to make this journey and ached for her as David refused to participate. All she could do was hope he could overcome his bitter feelings and come back to her. The ending was a rollercoaster of emotions, surprises, and the prospect of having everything she dreamed of. show less

The first time I ever met a hardcore devotee of BDSM I was 23. It is not like today when people proudly display their Disneyfied version of BDSM with their furlined cuffs and magnetic tongue "piercings" and occasionally read self-help books by real doms to spice things up in the marital bed. Back then, in the late 80's, BDSM was underground and very real and whether practiced at home or in dungeons it was supposed to hurt. Anyway ... the person I met was a friend-of-a-friend who turned out show more to be semi-famous-for-a-minute for writing what was the first mainstream book about BDSM. Her name is Gloria Brame and the book was Different Loving. I have no idea if it is still in print, and I have not seen Gloria since she married her sub and they moved to live in kink heaven is some remote part of Georgia sometime in the later 80's. Though we were never more than acquaintances, I will always remember Gloria for introducing me to true kink through the eyes and words of a Columbia MFA student who had once been married to a dentist and lived on Long Island (which is to say someone I found relatable in a way that the latex dipped women in the downtown clubs where punks and freaks converged were not.) I became fascinated with BDSM, especially full-time power exchange, at that time, and for a bit I immersed myself in that community in a Margaret Mead way. I met some incredible people, a few of whom are still friends, but the idea of your sexuality defining your every waking moment was not appealing to me so I stopped hanging with them. (I will also always remember Gloria for taking me to a party where Allen Ginsburg sat in a corner with a very very very young British boy on a leash and told tawdry stories and railed about the decline of America, but that is not relevant to this review.) The reason I started going down this road was to draw distinctions between real BDSM, and the 50 Shades variety. That is not a slam at 50 Shades, the writing is shit but I thought it was pretty hot, but it has nothing to do with real submission. S&M is supposed to hurt, real masochists need it to hurt. So Dark Secret Love is a real bit of erotica written by a masochist and there is a lot of pain and a lot of degradation. It feels completely authentic to me. I won't say what I found erotic and what I found appalling, nor how much intersection there was in that Venn diagram. Everyone will have different responses to the material, so my reactions are not important. I will say that this book is very well written. Tyler has a unique and compelling voice, and I was rapt even when the things she did were IMO heartbreaking and indicative of the need for serious mental health intervention. And I was not Margaret Mead-ing while reading this, I was not detached. As with my bit of time with Gloria Brame I found Samantha (the main character's name, though this feels very autobiographical) really relatable. If you are interested in erotica that depicts the real life of a submissive and does so with spare and evocative prose, no hearts and flowers, I cannot recommend this enough. show less

Oh, this book. I hate this book so much. I picked it up because I heard Alison Tyler was a much better writer than many mainstream romance and erotica authors, and she is. She is a wonderful, talented writer. Unfortunately, she writes about exactly the same things that I take issue with in all romance and erotica books.

This one began with so much potential. She devoted a fair share of the first act to an unhealthy relationship and how she overcame it to find herself again. Everything seemed show more fresh, original and authentic, until act two.

Cue rich man who slaps her and makes her feel alive like no other. Cue him stalking her before she ever actually talked to him. Cue him having his staff move her car, move her possessions into his home, cue him possessing her by buying her things.

Is this the ultimate fantasy women share? Is this our modern suffrage movement - the freedom from autonomy in relationships? In this age of information, we have ten thousand shitty ebooks that glorify violence against women and the relinquishing of power to abusive men? Well hallelujah, the fucking enlightenment is upon us!

How could women be so culpable in their own subjugation? How is this a fantasy? I have no problem with some handcuffs, or spanking. I even understand that some people do enjoy pain in conjunction with sexual pleasure. But I do not understand people who say they want no control over their body or their life.

Tyler literally describes Jack as treating Samantha as a "pet." She knows not to dare sit next to him, but to fold herself up on the floor as he holds the leash attached to her color. He secretly watches her interact with other men to ensure she doesn't FLIRT, because that would violate her behavior laws (yet later forces her to seduce and kiss a waiter so he can punish her). He follows her on a trip to New York that is supposed to be about HER career. And of course she's glad he did, because she was "lonely" without him.

Does that sound familiar? Like Bella and Edward? Like Ana and Christian? Like Eva and Gideon?

Mostly, I take great issue with the fact that throughout the book, Samantha repeatedly "does not know" why she "needs" to feel pain. Get a therapist. Figure it out. If, at the end of the day, you decide you want to enter in to a relationship where you are expect to enhance the environment around someone else and nothing else, fine. But don't tell me you don't know why. Don't tell me you want this, or you need this. And for fuck's sake, could someone write a book with sex in it that has to do with something other than a rich man possessing a meek woman? show less