The Blossoms of Summer: A Tale of the Forbidden Flowers

by Cecilia Tan

A bite-sized erotic steampunk adventure from RT Award winner Cecilia Tan.A botanist travels by airship beyond the known lands of Canton in search of breathtaking beauty and finds himself seduced by his exotic discoveries.Botanist Robert Meriweather has been tasked by the Continental Occident Company to travel beyond the known lands of Canton to search for the “forbidden flowers,” specimens of such breathtaking beauty that the mere sight has caused men to forsake their homelands. Robert’s orders are to bring these blossoms back to England, where all of society’s rewards—and his betrothed, Livia—await him. Robert soon finds himself on an unexpectedly erotic adventure, in which he must abandon all his Victorian social moires to succeed in his mission. But he will never abandon Livia and his dream of marrying her as a gentleman of standing.

Told in epistolary style, in The Blossoms of Summer Robert's letters and diary entries reveal just how far a man of science is willing to go to fulfill his mission.

Genres: Romance

58 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 20, 2024

About the author

Susie Bright says, "Cecilia Tan is simply one of the most important writers, editors, and innovators in contemporary American erotic literature." Since the publication of Telepaths Don't Need Safewords in 1992, she has been on the cutting edge of the erotic form, often combining elements of fantasy and science fiction in her work. She is also founder and editor of Circlet Press.

RT Book Reviews awarded her Career Achievement in Erotic Romance in 2015 and her novel Slow Surrender (Hachette/Forever, 2013) won the RT Reviewers Choice Award and the Maggie Award for Excellence from GRW in 2013. She has been publishing Daron's Guitar Chronicles as a web serial since 2009 and her Secrets of a Rock Star series (Taking the Lead, Wild Licks, Hard Rhythm) is published by Hachette/Forever. In 2018 Tor Books will launch her urban fantasy/paranormal series, The Vanished Chronicles. In her other life, Cecilia is also the editor of the Baseball Research Journal and publications director for SABR, the Society for American Baseball Research.

Reviews

[Lynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This brief tale is a steampunk erotic novella, told in epistolary style (as a series of letters and journal entries). Robert Meriweather is a botanist tasked with traveling to Canton to bring back "the forbidden flowers." Tan, as usual, does an excellent job of balancing the erotic with the fantastical, so that Robert's journey, both physical and erotic, changes his understanding of himself, and his social mores and expectations. While this isn't quite as explicit as some of Tan's other works, any time you are dealing with a Victorian gentleman learning that pleasure is heightened when it is shared, it's a good, rollicking time on an airship.

[Polycraftory · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Blossoms of Summer is a fun and surprisingly funny erotica epistolary novella that truly achieved everything it sets out to do!

This novella is set in a steampunk almost-but-not-quite-historical Victorian era and tells the tale of an botanist, Robert, who is setting out via airship to bring back what he thinks are flowers from the Tsang Valley. If he succeeds on his mission, he will have the job and standing to propose marriage to the woman he loves: Livia. Little did he realize these that these "flowers" are actually a set of five women who expect him to keep them satisfied on their long journey to England.

This book surprised me both in it's humor and how much it absolutely nails the tone and cadence of a series of letters written by a Victorian man. Robert approaches his sexual awakening with the rigor and wonder of a man of science. This book is a very effective parody and subversion of the many stories with this sort of set up that objectify and exotify asian women. Robert starts the book with a lot of Victorian English bias and prejudices, but he learns and grows from them and sees the women in his care are whole people who are brilliant, capable, and ambitious.

Though the devotion to the tone and epistolary style means that the spice in this erotica wasn't quite as suited to my taste as I had hoped, I still had an absolute blast reading it and had to stop several times to read some of the funniest lines to my partner. In fact, the humor and absolute commitment to the format has me very excited to read more books by Cecilia Tan.

💜

Review by Meghan @polycraftory on Instagram, Tumblr, and Tiktok, where I do book reviews and crafts with my polycule. If you are curious about my thoughts on more spicy (especially queer) books, you can find me @edgybutfemme on Storygraph.

I was given a copy of this book in order to provide an honest review!

[Lisabet Sarai · Rating 5 out of 5]

When botanist Robert Meriwether is tasked with a perilous air journey to the forbidden inner reaches of China, he expects to return with rare specimens that will make his scientific name and ensure his material fortune. Little does he know that the legendary summer blossoms nurtured by the mountain monks are like nothing he’s studied before. Keeping the “flowers” blooming turns out to require skills he has not previously had to exercise in pursuit if his scholarly career. Fortunately the young naturalist possesses the flexibility, curiosity, resourcefulness and masculine endowment to successfully fulfill his commission.

The Blossoms of Summer is a sly, clever erotic nugget couched in the euphemistic prose of the Victorian period. Narrated in the epistolary style so popular in the nineteenth century, the story unfolds with grace, boldness and not a little humor. Cecilia Tan is one of my favorite authors. This tale showcases her versatility. It is erudite and politically astute, as well as great fun, though it would have had more of an erotic charge if we readers had been there to observe the action, rather than simply reading about it second hand in Robert’s letters.

On the other hand, in that case the story might have felt less authentically Victorian. One can almost imagine this journey to paradise might really have happened – much to the Robert’s delight.

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun read, but didn't scratch the itch I was hoping it would. I loved the concept, but felt it had a few problems. First, the writing style was done as a series of letters, which isn't my favorite conceit to begin with. Second, the POV character's narration style was written as if he was a Victorian gentleman (which he is) which may not scan well for modern audiences. Third, the sex scenes were, to my mind, fairly clinical, and didn't go into much depth about feelings and sensations; it all seemed rather abrupt. I would have liked the author to linger over the sex scenes a bit more, with more in-depth descriptions. It was billed as "An Erotic Adventure" but I felt it didn't fully deliver.
I would also have liked this to be longer; have the main character's triumphant return shown, with the results/consequences, and whether or not he was treated fairly by his employer. I did identify with the main character and wanted to read more about his story, and in that respect Ms. Tan succeeded brilliantly.
All in all, I did enjoy this book. While I found it a bit unsatisfying, it was engaging enough that I'm looking forward to finding and reading more of Ms. Tan's writing work.

[Regina Kammer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delightful! Very enjoyable Steampunk erotica with touch of humor.

Full disclosure: I read the version in the anthology "Hot & Sticky".

[readundancies · Rating 3 out of 5]

I genuinely don’t even know what I just read, and I think I’d like to keep it that way.

[B.J. Sikes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kinda steampunk erotica and a fun twist on colonization told in an epistolary style.