This was a surprise!

Sometimes cheeky, sometimes filthy, sometimes sweet and sentimental, this collection was light-hearted and readable. This collection features authors from Canada (Turtle Island), Aboriginal Indigenous authors from Australia, Maori authors from New Zealand, Samoa and more.

I really enjoyed that each author had the opportunity to contribute multiple pieces of short fiction -- it felt like I got more of a taste for their writing style than from just one single piece. Some of these pieces had a great sense of humour, some of them were based in lore, some of them were sexy, some of them were intimate, and each were only a page or two in length.

I loved this collection most of all because I was able to find some authors whose writing style I really gravitated towards. I loved Tiffany Midge's poems, Marilyn Dumont's poetry, Gloria Bird, Velvet Black, Joy Harjo, Daniel David Moses... the list goes on.

I loved diving into the stories without knowing anything about them and just reading them as they were on the page. I'd squeal in delight if it turned out to be a queer story and smirk when some young, plucky 20-something year-old man got his just desserts.

This was a super easy collection to read before bed and I'm really happy I found lots of authors to read from. ( )

My three star rating merely reflects my reading experience, not how well this book does what it aims to do – that certainly deserves a five. It's a great mixture of poetry and prose, and my only problem with it is the very personal one that I'd just don't get most modern poetry. So a lot of this left me looking kind of blank at the page; but even there, there were lines that struck me and resonated. And when it came to the prose, there were some wonderful stories: some bittersweet, some sheer joy.

The authors are from North America, the Pacific, Australia and New Zealand. The great majority of the pieces relate to heterosexual relationships, but there are a few lesbian, I think I recall one gay, and a couple about fa'afafine. ( )

One of the sexiest books I've ever read, and seriously well written. It covers every love and desire on the spectrum. ( )