Neptune and Surf, and Other Stories: Three Explicit Novellas

"Neptune & Surf" is a book that delivers what it promises. Marilyn Jaye Lewis offers three intense and arousing novellas of female erotica. Each tale explores a theme relevant to the time and setting in which it takes place."Neptune & Surf" is a story of prostitution and interracial sex on Coney Island in 1955. This is followed by "The Mercy Cure," the tale of a young lesbian's coming of age in a Catholic orphanage. Finally, there is "Gianni's Girl." When a gangster's girlfriend steals money from the hood, she pays a steep price. Will her gangster boyfriend want her after everyone else takes a turn with her? Lewis blends history with fantasy and real-life events in a way that brings new meaning to female erotica. Her work refreshingly outside of the norm, Lewis is an author you do not want to miss.

Quality erotic literature is rare, and well-done examples even more rare; such an undetaking demands a deft, but sure touch. Neptune and Surf holds three novellas, which nicely complement one another: a set of stories that are literate, with well-drawn characters, imaginative plots, and a marvelous sense of atmosphere; which holds, underlying all like a subterranean lava flow, a theme that is frankly, unashamedly, erotic. Lewis begins our journey with the title story, set in the gritty, ramshackle Coney Island of the 1950s, a squalid, slightly shabby land of dreams that's lost its glitter long ago. It's a neighborhood were the residents scratch out a living as best they can, and two lovers, Nat and Roaslie, become one, for a few brief moments of bliss in this sad world, and are moved by the power of life.The Mercy Cure, takes us into the home of two lesbian ex-nuns, women who have lost their church, but not their belief. Their comfortable relationship is disturbed by the appearance of a former student, one who has kept alive her raging schoolgirl crush on the former Sister Margaret-Phillip - "...a lean and hard looking woman, her black hair cropped short, making her angular features and dark eyes seem that much more severe." The girl drawn into their midst, yearns for a man's touch, even as she's driven to satisfy her obsession with her ex-teacher. She tries to explain her conflict to her lesbian lover: "...to have a guy wanting you that much, to be aiming all his lust right at you, so you can't ignore it anymore, until you're wanting it too". What is revealed is a richly complex relationship of love and hate, punctuated with laughter and tears, a short but telling journey, a fast ride on an emotional rollercoaster.The final story, Gianni's Girl, once again turns out to be a story of faith -- the belief that even in the most forbidding circumstances, one can survive and triumph. Victoria is playing with fire when she gets involed with Paulie, a minor functionary of the mob. It is a world in which women are used, traded and bartered to satisfy male debts of honor. Victoria is forced to perform before these mobsters, made to engage in the most degrading sexual acts, and in the midst of this depravity, she meets Gianni - an unlikely hero, an innocent with boyish charm. Gianni's notions of love are straightforward; a man who knows nothing of sin and guilt. Lewis' work is characterized by hope; sexual instinct fuses with the life force, driving the characters, in an affirmation of life itself. Her message is ultimately positive, speaking to the human spirit...and the human flesh.

I am a novice in reading erotic literature, so I cannot compare this to other erotic works. What I can say is that these novellas are well-crafted with fully realized characters in complex situations. The author shows great insight into a variety of diverse people and treats them with respect. By turns both delicate and brutal, these novellas maintained my level of interest by making me care about the characters. If you, as I did, have doubts about erotic literature because you are concerned with quality, start with Neptune and Surf and you will be very pleasantly surprised.

No matter what I'm looking for in fiction, I always enjoy it more when I care about the characters. Ms. Lewis drops us "behind the scenes" into the thoughts of tangible characters in intriguing interaction. She's also got a knack for the occasional sudden twist into a sexual situation - sometimes disturbing, sometimes gratifying.

My girlfriend got me this. I had no idea what the hell it was, but I was out of regular books, so I read this. I thought it would be all lesbian stuff but it's *really* good and sexy and I've never really read *anything* like this. Totally cool.