People will buy this collection of erotic short stories, because of the author names they are familiar with. Kathy Lette, Maggie Alderson, Fay Weldon and Joanne Harris are all enticing reasons to read this book. We have read their fiction, but what do they have to say when they talk about sex? We read each story in In Bed With waiting for a familiar author name to leap off the page, but names like Tutty Monmouth and Cassius Priory are just monikers to throw the reader off the scent. What we have here is a slippery thing, a book full of women writers exposing themselves in full sexual detail, and yet we glimpse only the silhouette of them. They are never identified by their real names. So when we are treated to a particularly interesting story like ‘Things by Mail’ we cannot really be sure if Dora Berggasse is one of the authors that we have known by another name or just a rose that smells as sweet. Not all of these stories are as original or as sexy as this and it is also true that an author can spare her reputation by hiding some truly ordinary writing behind a pithy nickname. A mixed bag but with all the fun of a lucky-dip.

Krissy Kneen is a writer and events coordinator at Avid Reader Bookshop

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