Tobsha Learner

Master Lilly is an astrologer who also dabbles in the occult. In London in the 1640s the former is acceptable but the latter is a death warrant as both Royalists and Puritans seek out witchcraft. Lilly is a favoured astrologer whose dealings with prominent people on both sides mean that he has knowledge that could be valuable but also dangerous and Lilly is learning to balance both sides. However when he falls in love with a troubled noblewoman Lilly discovers that the predictions he reads show more in the stars can be more trouble than he wants to know.
It was not until I reached the end of this book and read the author's notes that I realised that William Lilly was actually a real-life character who had a certain degree of fame as an astrologer. So captivating was Learner's prose that I assumed the tale was of a fictional character. Of course the plot and detail are fictional but by marrying the fantastical and bedding it into a well-researched tale of the antecedents of the Civil War Learner has created something special. show less

Very good (like 4.5 stars good). Nature vs. Nurture. Free will vs. genetics. Pure logic vs. the heart wanting what it wants. The story is told in two threads. Julia, our modern day geneticist & Lavinia, her great-great grandmother. The women's lives unfold for us as their marriages unravel & the aftermath of the events follow. I very much enjoyed that both women were scientifically minded & took their work seriously. I felt for Lavinia when she was cut off from hers & was glad Julia still show more had hers when everything else fell apart. Julia's research with the soldiers was a fascinating thread of the story & I still don't know on which side I am of the ethical implications of her undertaking it for the military. I'll be thinking about that for some time. That said, I enjoyed the resolution to it at the end. I did like how the Bakairi tribe & The Tempest were additional threads that tied the two women's stories together across time.

I was very interested in both women but other than them, I only really felt any empathy for Colonel Huntington (though the head shaving of Lavinia & subsequent forced visit to the phrenologist tested that). Julia's husband Klaus was just not sympathetic to me. Every time he showed up after the initial break, he seemed worse. I figured out fairly quickly what Carla's attitude was about & while I was appalled by her brazenness & borderline cruelty, I still wanted to know what made her tick. I was fairly intrigued by Hamish. Gabriel & Aloysius were only nominally interesting but her served their purpose well. I felt the same way about Lady Morgan. Naomi was interesting but not as deeply rendered as the rest.

The only thing a bit off was that the Americans in Julia's thread, don't speak generally as Americans do. Those instances stood out glaringly to me, not the least being that the instances were so frequent. Using "ring" instead of "call", "jumper" instead of "sweater" or "cardigan"; "primary" school teacher instead of "elementary" school teacher; "laying" a table instead of "setting" a table; a waitress in a diner saying saying "one serve of bacon, eggs..." instead of "one order of..."; a born & raised in L.A. soldier saying "get on" instead of "get along"; "night porter" not "security guard". And even with all of those, they were only distractions because it was still a great read. I'd definitely read another by this author. show less

In her second collection of short erotic pieces that span eras—each set in unique, vividly fashioned times and locations—Learner displays her powerful ability to spin stories with strange, somber twists and a highly erotic flair.

This brand of erotica has no boundaries; Learner writes about the bizarre, the taboo, and just the plain WEIRD. But I don't mean that in a bad way at all. Some of the super strange stories are actually quite amusing, and I just love how even though each one is show more only about 30-40 pages, there are actual plots in them. This typically isn't easy to do with the page limitation but Learner builds her worlds and characters expertly.

In terms of style, her grip of the pen is firm; the stories are well-seasoned and each one is so different from the other, that it doesn't at all feel like you're just reading the same account with different scenarios. Every story is individual in its own kind, so you get nine opportunities to delight in these disturbing but carnal stories. Although some of the stories are set in contemporary times, everything Learner writes reads like a folktale. The voice is rather distant, but that makes each tale more clandestine, more mysterious, and more oddly charming.

Tremble covers a vast range of scenarios, whether it be a supernatural object that disrupts the lives of an individual, or a hex that plagues an entire village. In particular, I loved The Root, a darkly comical tale about a root that comes to—ahem—life, and the implications of a cursed bloodline, as well as Virgin, a lust-ridden story about a nun gone bad, and her path to sexually charged redemption. There are allusions to previous stories in succeeding ones, which I loved; it connected the anthology beautifully and the recurring topics brought a smile to my face.

One thing I noticed is that most of the protagonists are middle-aged; no new adult nonsense here. Normally I'd find this strange because it's harder to get excited by the thought of quadragenarians engaging in lustful activity (honestly, that's a visual I don't need sometimes) but the stories overall feel old-fashioned, so I didn't have that much of a problem with it.

Pros: Folktake-like stories // Well-formed plots and characters, so each story is a different experience entirely // Entertaining voice // Gets heavy at times, but overall very readable // Very untraditional form of erotica; you will be squirming in arousal, but you'll feel weird about it because the stories are so bizarre!

Cons: A few duds I found neither erotic nor enjoyable (specifically The Snore and Hair Shirt) // Sometimes gets a bit weird... but I guess that's the magic of this collection

Verdict: Tremble is an eccentric anthology that bends the rules of erotic fiction; as familiar as I am with the genre, I can't say I've read anything like this before. Each story is colorful and elaborate, and overall the collection feels very traditional—very earthy with an outlandish but indulgent sexuality coursing through it. If you're up for a new experience with short erotica, definitely check this one out.

Rating: 7 out of 10 hearts (4 stars): Not perfect, but overall enjoyable.

Source: Complimentary copy provided by publisher, via tour publicist, in exchange for an honest and unbiased review (thank you, Penguin and TLC Book Tours!). show less

A prize from the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program that I was super excited about! I can’t even count the number of boxes Yearn’s synopsis checked off for me: “Atmospheric and Lyrical” erotica “for readers eager to move beyond Fifty Shades of Grey“.

Happily, it more than lives up to this description.

Yearn has also been described as “a thinking woman’s erotica,” something I am extremely fond of given my propensity to overthink my reading material. However, I don’t think show more the logic of all these stories stands up to intense thought–in retrospect, some incidents go naggingly unexplained and unresolved, while others just become ridiculous.

Ink–Somewhat unusually, this short story collection puts one of the longest pieces first. All the same, I devoured it in one sitting. Ink is a fun, well-researched historical fantasy piece, written with a light hand–it is not only lyrical but also reveals a sense of humor through the interjections of a first person narrator who is supposedly an established figure in British literature (perhaps Charles Dickens?). I genuinely enjoyed the twist ending which, among other things, redeemed what at first appeared like very tired exoticism in the origins of D’Arcy’s little magic ritual. Oh, those zany Polynesian natives, amirite?

Flight--Although I don’t contest the description of Learner’s writing as lyrical, I counted four out of nine stories in this collection beginning with “It is a…” or “It was a…”. An extremely minor nitpick, but it came to my attention when both Ink and Flight opened this way. It was not, at least, a dark and stormy night.

All the same, like Ink, Flight opens with a lot of telling rather than showing. While Ink was introducing me to the fascinating world of 19th century men of letters, in this case seeing the actor protagonist’s life story and ambitions being laid out so plainly made him look a bit ridiculous. Perhaps that was the point. I did love the callback to Ink which hints at a Cloud-Atlas style interconnected setup for this volume.

Barrow Boy–This story continues with the collection’s pattern of male POVs (an intriguing choice for “women’s” erotica) and tying in to previous stories (I especially enjoyed this one for further developing a character from Flight). It opens differently though, strong from the start with dialogue and conflict. Metals trader Edward finds himself lying to his aristocratic future in-laws about going to Oxford. On the eve of the 2008 financial crisis, Eddy experiences a crisis of his own, as questions over his identity implode when he encounters an old school love and spends a night on the town with her. Only a few pages in I began reading the words with a Cockney accent. It was splendid.

Fur–Like Ink, this story has a strong fantasy element, although a very haphazardly executed one. It also suffers from its opening. Losing a loved one or family member to mental illness is a buzzkill even the sexist mood would not survive. But May’s affair with the werecat her perhaps-delusional, perhaps-possessed former boyfriend gives to her proves interesting, especially as more is implied about the magic here than stated outright.

Tigger–A older woman finds love with a younger man in Melbourne. I liked seeing a woman who knows what she wants, and though I have some minor nitpicks about the couples' dynamic, the chemistry between the two is palpable and grows to genuine affection, which makes the revelation of the just-askew-of-first-person narrator poignant if not entirely unexpected.

Pussy and Mouse–This tale of a Second Life dominatrix has some excellent moments as it explores the capacity of totally immersion in virtual reality. I almost felt like I was reading science fiction, which says a lot about the technology we currently have and its effect on willing minds. However, as with Tigger, the “twist” was predictable and seemed very reliant on coincidence. Pussy and Mouse also, disappointingly, shares with 50 Shades of Grey a point of criticism: that True Love makes the protagonist give up those wicked BDSM ways (to be fair, those wicked ways were only practiced in an online fantasy life).

Weather–A woman develops an extreme crush on the weatherman. This is a ridiculous premise, of course, but Learner manages to sell it by her extremely lyrical descriptions of said weatherman and his methods of illustrating oncoming rains, winds out of the southwest, etc. Even her descriptions of the actual weather are elementally sexy. Unfortunately, as I mentioned with Fur, losing someone to a mental illness is a major buzzkill, and there is no way our protagonist cannot be assumed to be extremely unbalanced. Sexily unbalanced, though.

Flower–A newly divorced woman conquers her uncertainties about her sexuality with the help of a gay escort and a fascinating sculpture of flower-vaginas. There is an interesting parallel made between female circumcision and vaginoplasty, although it falls somewhat flat to me after reading about the actual debate over cultural imperialism’s role in the battle against FGM. Our wealthy Western protagonist is on much more solid ground managing her own liberation as she comes to terms with the fact that natural labia are unlikely to resemble those of a pornstar.

It’s better than it sounds, honestly. Thinking women’s erotica indeed, with excellent potential to spark conversation among a book club or other literary circle with very particular tastes.

The Alchemy of Coincidence–All the stories in Yearn tie into their predecessor, and this features one of the closet ties–the sculptor of vaginal flowers from Flower is preparing a new art show, and perhaps a magical one at that. Satisfying as magical realism as well as erotica, this piece follows her adventures as she sculpts the face and body of a man glimpsed in a magazine, hoping her image-making will produce a coincidence drawing him to her.

I ending this collection hoping for a unifying “theory of everything,” and perhaps the theory of image-making and binding coincidences is as close as it comes. Between Ink and Alchemy of Coincidence, Yearn begins and ends with magic. As a fantasy fan, I appreciate that. Unfortunately, as a fantasy fan I like my magic to come with rationality and completeness, and this set of “thinking woman’s” sexy stories leaves many lingering questions–most pressingly for me, what happened to Mitch from Fur, and/or the sorcerer now inhabiting his body?

A longer review of this volume, with a few more nitpicks, appears on my author's blog. show less