Forbidden Passions by M.J. Williamz

Book:  Forbidden Passions

Author:  M.J. Williamz

Publisher:  Bold Strokes Books

I met my beloved Kindle DX in October of 2009 - it was love at first sight. Over the next 23 months, she and I built a strong, loving, symbiotic relationship.  I plugged her in on a regular basis to keep her little battery charged, and ensured her belly was always full of high quality and oftentimes-lusty lesbian literature.  In return, she gave me untold hours of amazing, heart-pounding pleasure, companionship, and uncomplicated understanding though the most difficult of times.  I once asked her to marry me, and she simply said, “Turn Wireless On”.  We have been inseparable, as close as twitchy little dyke and majestic e-book can be.   

That is, until I downloaded M.J. Williamz' newest release, ‘Forbidden Passions’.  Almost immediately, my Beloved started blinking unnervingly at me, and then her high contrast e-ink face froze forever into some grotesque rorschachian ambivalence.  It was over, my beautiful Kindle DX burst into a conflagration that would have made Joan of Arc weep in “is she/isn’t she” lesbian envy.  She was gone.  Um, yeah, thanks for that, M. J.

Okay, maybe I’m being a little dramatic, but downloading Forbidden Passions is the last thing Kindle ever did.  At the time, I was simply in shock.  

I mean, I’d read in the Financial Times that M.J. has been working on a super secret formula to quadruple the potency of the classic bodice ripper, with laboratory results guaranteeing exactly 50% of the lesbian population would be brought to their collective knees . . . but I never expected, well, um, [she blushes uncontrollably] scorch marks.

Forbidden Passions tells the story of the socially improper and frenzied antebellum love affair between older businesswoman, Corinne Staples and débutante, Katie Prentiss.  Corinne’s best friend, Della Prentiss lost her husband to yellow fever two years ago, and is still in mourning.  She knows that the plantation finances are off, but doesn’t know why, and asks Corinne, who runs a bookkeeping business in Baton Rouge, to look them over.  Corinne hasn’t seen young Katie in five long years, and is surprised to find the playful young girl has grown into a feisty, beautiful, 19-year-old temptress. 

Unbeknownst to her fragile mother, Katie is a hot-blooded young lesbian that sets her sights on the handsome and engaging Miss Staples.  Corinne dresses in men’s clothes, works in a man’s profession, and has certain, barely accepted ‘proclivities’.  Della knows this, but never considers that anything could happen between her best friend and her daughter.  In fact, Corinne even tries to fight the attraction, but Katie’s twitchy ass and the swell of her young breasts are more than she can deny.  Thus begins a feverish and lusty affair that soon turns into an unspeakable love that is tested time and again by greed, family, friendship, and sickness.

Not to mention enough ‘little deaths’ to send the strongest libido into wind sucking tachycardia.

Forbidden Passions is 192 pages of bodice ripping antebellum erotica not so gently wrapped in the moistest, muskiest pantalets of lesbian horn dog high jinks ever written.  Within the first few pages we’re greeted with fluttering crotches, burning loins, and the swell of young breasts.  But, the erotica connoisseur need not worry, the slow start is intentional, and the pace and heat picks up considerably from there.

She types, with a devious smirk.

While the book is joyfully and unabashedly smut, the love story is well written and the characters are multi-dimensional.  The attraction between Katie and Corinne is immediate, but takes a bit of pushing and pulling and over compensation on both parts to come to fruition.  Things like ‘I like you, but its forbidden, and ‘I want you, but shouldn’t’ morph into ‘I need you inside me’, and ‘I want you, and I’m wearing nothing under my dress’.  So many things could have been tacky and over-the-top, but it’s a bodice ripper and said ripping was done with appropriate antebellum flair and requisite period dirty talk.

Imagine my thrill to learn that ‘twat’ was fashionably in play as lesbian pillow talk in 1860!

As for the major characters, Katie is nineteen, and makes childish assumptions and mistakes, but she is also a headstrong young woman that knows who she is and what she wants.  Corinne is thirty-seven, and lives her life without apology, yet understands that the love of her best friend is the unsteady foundation for the tolerance of her lifestyle.  Della is a lady and a mother, but is unable to recover from the death of the love of her life – it is this mourning that keeps her on the wire between the here and now, and nothing.

Forbidden Passions is the very model of modern major erotica, but hidden within the sweet swells and trembling clefts of that erotica is a beautiful May-September romance between two wonderful and memorable characters.  Della’s consumption, while hinted at early in the story, seemed to advance like Ebola in a warm, moist Petri dish, and I wish we could have seen our lovely heroines deal with that crisis in a bit more detail.  Still, I have to admit that I was really and truly enchanted by this erotic tale, and that has to be a first.

M.J. Williamz has a wide reputation for her short stories, and has now given her fans a sound and playful second novel.  Erotica isn’t for every reader, but if you like a little spice in your story, and you’re not afraid or offended to consider how far two women can go together, then Forbidden Passions is a book you should put on your shopping list. 

Just don’t blame me if your motherboard of choice burns to a crisp, that’s all on M.J.

I’m giving Forbidden Passions a lusty, fist pumping 4.8 out of 6 on the Rainbow Scale, because it was devilishly fun and naughty.