Like That Spark: Erotic Stories of New Relationships

by Cecilia Tan (Editor), Roxanne Rhoads (Contributor), Giselle Renarde (Contributor)

Like That Spark is a collection of short stories that explore the sensuality and eroticism of the moment when two characters finally realize they are meant to be together. These are tales of relationships and the beginnings of romantic and sexual connections. The stories here will challenge you and your notions of what constitutes a relationship in the first place. You will not find the common tame romance tale here. Here erotic connections are represented by the science fiction and fantasy worlds; a realm of infinite possibilities. Nothing is ever as it seems. There are mythical kingdoms, distant planets, futuristic cities, surreal dreamscapes, sultry bedchambers, and even the furthest reaches of space to tempt and entice you.

Genres: Anthologies

101 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 1, 2010

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

[Elisa Rolle]

This anthology is mostly a collection of sci-fic/futuristic story, with some shade of fantasy, especially in the first story. The New Relationships in the title refer to the new “type” of combination you can decline, and it’s not only referred to gay or lesbian story, but more to a future when gender identity will be a real thin definition, since being male or female will be only a characteristic, like being tall or having blue eyes.

Most of the stories have an erotic development, and more or less, lean more on the lesbian gender/genre, actually only the last story by Josephine Myles is a M/M romance story. Due to this, most of the stories focused on the need, almost thirst, of those women to find a gentle love, opposed to what they have always suffered from men. Loving a woman give them the security to find a real soul mate on the other side; plus give them strength, like having the chance to access some primordial and powerful knowledge.

These women are strong willed and independent, and they don’t need a man to feel strong, but they need love, and apparently only another woman is able to give them that. On a strange game of contraposition, the only M/M story is about two men who find pleasure in giving up the power to someone else.

Even if the setting is futuristic/fantasy, it’s not overloaded with details, sometime you realize the story is not contemporary only from little words or details, something that in few brushes give you the perception of future, or something far from today. Mostly the focus is the relationship between the two main characters and as I said, they are erotic stories, so there is also a lot of sex, but in a way, it has always a meaning more them “simply” sex, like through sex they are affirming something, their power and independency.

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