Laid Bare edited by Astrid Ohletz & Jae
This anthology covers a fairly wide range of erotica, including very light BDSM, throuple, masturbation, phone sex, public sex, and more. I really like how we get drastically different stories in one book.
A Heart to Trust by A.L. Brooks
Click on the cover for my review on Goodreads.
Content warning: mention of disowning, manipulation, divorce, inebriation
While I loved Brooks’s previous book, Dare to Love (my review here), I only felt a fraction of that enjoyment for A Heart to Trust. That being said, I did enjoy all the interactions of the main characters with their respective friends but just not with each other.
When C&V Inc acquires Jenny Quinn’s (29, gay) company, her job is in jeopardy. There are three PA openings for four candidates, so she has to prove her worth during the Project Catwalk collaboration with her friend Maxwell and two other PAs from C&V, Olivia Sinclair (lesbian) and Chrissy. Soon, there is evidence of sabotage but no one is sure what is going on. The only sure thing is the growing attraction between Jenny and Olivia, but Olivia is married to motor-racer Broderick Sinclair (31, ace/aro). What Jenny doesn’t know is that it is a fake marriage as Olivia struggles between her own sexual desires and previous arrangements with her close friend Broderick.
Dare to Love by A.L. Brooks
When Carmen accompanies her best friend to Ash’s tattoo studio, she isn’t looking love. She is straight and in a relationship. But when she visits her friends Tamsyn and Maggie, she finds herself reconsidering what relationships mean. After running into Ash at Alma’s during coffee break, the pair strike up a friendship. With painful past experience of falling for a straight woman, Ash is determined not to make the same mistakes again. Besides, what can their friendship possibly turn into?