No catches, no fine print just unadulterated book loving, with your favourite books saved to your own digital bookshelf.
New members get entered into our monthly draw to win £100 to spend in your local bookshop Plus lots lots more…
Find out moreIt could be said that we are in a Golden Age for Provocative fiction. With more and more authors releasing books that explore the various realms of sexuality while still offering social commentary and a concentrated examination of human feelings and attitudes throughout. Indulge your secretive sensual side, peek into the lives of others and explore a complex pleasure of human existence. Find out more in our adult fiction category.
Experience the internet's most talked-about book, now a major motion picture, from Anna Todd, the writer Cosmopolitan called “the biggest literary phenomenon of her generation.” There was the time before Tessa met Hardin, and then there’s everything AFTER... Life will never be the same. #Hessa Tessa is a good girl with a sweet, reliable boyfriend back home. She’s got direction, ambition, and a mother who’s intent on keeping her that way. But she’s barely moved into her freshman dorm when she runs into Hardin. With his tousled brown hair, cocky British accent, and tattoos, Hardin is cute and different from what she’s used to. But he’s also rude—to the point of cruelty, even. For all his attitude, Tessa should hate Hardin. And she does—until she finds herself alone with him in his room. Something about his dark mood grabs her, and when they kiss it ignites within her a passion she’s never known before. He'll call her beautiful, then insist he isn’t the one for her and disappear again and again. Despite the reckless way he treats her, Tessa is compelled to dig deeper and find the real Hardin beneath all his lies. He pushes her away again and again, yet every time she pushes back, he only pulls her in deeper. Tessa already has the perfect boyfriend. So why is she trying so hard to overcome her own hurt pride and Hardin's prejudice about nice girls like her? Unless...could this be love?
Until recently, Julia hadn't had sex in three years. But now: a one-night stand is accusing her of breaking his penis; a sexually confident lesbian is making eyes at her over confrontational modern art; and she's wondering whether trimming her pubes makes her a bad feminist. Julia's about to learn that she's been looking for love - and satisfaction - in all the wrong places.... Frank, filthy and very, very funny, In at the Deep End is a brilliant debut from a major new talent. #ImInAtTheDeepEnd
Oh my word! How to describe this wonderfully clever, deeply dark and immensely satisfying read… every now and then a book comes along that surprises you, in the best possible way, and this is one of them. Five people, connected, somehow, with three murders, how on earth does everything link together? The first paragraphs slipped straight from the page and into my consciousness before awareness hit and I sat bolt upright. Will Carver creates an almost conversational tone which sits at odds with the content, creating a greater intimacy with the words and they land with hammer hard precision. The short intense chapters highlight one of the characters at a time, there is no explanation as to who is the focus, none is needed. A slight jolt of awareness as understanding settled after the first few sentences of each chapter kept me on constant alert. I can genuinely say that I had absolutely no idea where this was going, I stayed in each moment, sucked in the words, and feel as the story has tattooed itself on my mind. Good Samaritans is a provocative, heady, unique, challenging read and it is absolutely blimmin wonderful! Do I recommend it? With my heart and soul, yes I most certainly do!
Poetry Inspired By Oliver Fantasy & Friendship is a collection of poems I’m sure a lot of us have felt we could have written at one point in our lives or another. Following the thread of an unrequited or, as it says in the synopsis, “perhaps unrecognised” love. This collection of poems cover meeting, getting to know and desiring a person, her muse, as well as including brief italicised comments about the feelings or events that inspired the poem above. These are written quite poetically themselves. This is an indulgent collection of poetry that explores both friendship and sensual/erotic desires for a person. I think that most people will be able to find something to relate to although there is certainly bravery and honesty here in publishing these poems for all to read. There is a part of me that wonders whether Oliver is a real person and how he feels about these poems and that fact that they have been published. The tone of the collection reminds me of Andrew Lincoln’s character in Love Actually. I think there’s an argument to be had for whether these poems are a romantic gesture or perhaps should remain as private thoughts, and I think it depends on whether these poems are inspired by one person, and what their reaction is. I’m undecided about where I fall on that spectrum of debate, but taking the poetry collection on its own, I admire the vulnerability required to share these private thoughts with us and I like how it creatively explores the themes of unrequited love. This is a poetry collection that is quick and easy to get through to form your own reaction.
Aged 30, Jenny is determined not to be 'left on the shelf'and her best friend Sarah, and even Jenny's mother, are keen to help her find the man of her dreams. Unfortunately, a series of blind dates turn out to have disastrous consequences which are not aided by the antics of Jenny's beloved but needy cat, Bing Clawsby. Jenny's heart is set on her work colleague Zach but will he ever notice her, especially as she becomes embarrassingly self-conscious in his presence? Easy to read, amusing and lighthearted, 'Blind Date' would make a perfect summer holiday read. It is what it is.....and could not be described as a work of great literature......but I loved it! Many of us could imagine ourselves in Jenny's shoes as she attempts to find ways of escaping from cringe-worthy experiences on blind dates, has embarrassing bedroom encounters, discovers the sometimes offensive and inappropriate world of dating apps and suffers teenage angst each time she is anywhere near Zach. This is a fun read, each chapter reminding me of the sort of article a newspaper columnist might write, urging me to discover what might befall Jenny next. I am pleased to report that the ending did not disappoint! Val Rowe, A LoveReading Ambassador
John Cleland's Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure has been described as the first erotic novel in English and is perhaps the greatest example of the genre. From the outset it was mired in disrepute. Cleland penned the novel to liberate himself from debtors' prison, and the book's manifestly lewd content led to its legal suppression within a year of publication. Though versions of the novel, nearly always abridged in some form, continued to find a way into print, the Memoirs remained an underground text until the 1960s. Only as that decade ushered in a culture less socially deferential and more sexually permissive was the moment opportune for the obscenity ban to be successfully challenged. Cleland's novel is a triumph of literary style, resting on his invention of an entirely new, vividly metaphoric, terminology for describing sexual pleasure.
EVERY SHADE OF BLACK is the continuing, heart-stopping love story of Sebastian Black and Suzanne Perry-Jackson, both previously introduced in EVERY SHADE OF BLUE, published in 2016. However, the sequel is a stand-alone read. The erotic tale continues as Sebastian, the beautiful blue-eyed surgeon, falls head over heels in love and lust with Suzanne, the stunning blonde mother of teenage twins who is in the process of getting a divorce. Astonishingly handsome, charming and successful, Sebastian has no trouble in finding dates, but abandoned by a violent father as a child, he is haunted by his past. He has always controlled his emotions, had been too scared to commit, and yet in Suzanne he feels he's discovered the love of his life. But Sebastian believes that before he can truly embrace a future with his soulmate, he needs closure from the brutality that filled his early life. In EVERY SHADE OF BLACK, Sebastian makes the difficult decision to seek out his father which reveals a shocking truth that leads him on a path of self-discovery. Meanwhile, Suzanne has serious complications of her own. Tatiana, her ex-husband's gorgeous young lover seems determined to ruin Suzanne's perfect new life. And Angelo, a psychotic, one-night stand who Suzanne encountered briefly before meeting Sebastian, is out there lurking in the shadows ready to make his move. Set in London, Surrey, Vancouver, the snowy delights of Whistler, British Columbia and Dubai, EVERY SHADE OF BLACK is an explicit love story that will leave the reader breathless.
It's a beautiful day in Manchester and four friends are meeting for a birthday lunch. But then they witness a shocking accident just metres away which acts as a catalyst for each of them. For Laura, it's a wake-up call to heed the ticking of her biological clock. Sensible Jo finds herself throwing caution to the wind in a new relationship. Eve, who has been trying to ignore the worrying lump in her breast, feels helpless and out of control. And happy-go-lucky India is drawn to one of the victims of the accident, causing long-buried secrets to rise to the surface.
A bold, hugely original, multi-genre, cracking read. A private eye in a reimagined New York, where the internet and electronic data is as dead as a dodo, is asked to trace a woman. Within the first few words Maxim Jakubowski thoroughly set the scene, within a short time I felt a part of this world, could stand in the streets and take a gawking look around me. The clipped sentences of the investigator hark back to private eye novels, yet this is no caricature. The characters sing with intensity, sitting on the edge of larger than life, they feel as real as real can be. I smirked, raised my eyebrows, and flinched (oh how I flinched), as we cleaved through dystopian, slipped inside erotica, and smashed into supernatural. Right up my street, I absolutely adored this read. ‘The Louisiana Republic’ is a tale that refuses to be labelled, it is quite simply a raw, provocative, unique experience for lovers of the written word. ~ Liz Robinson
There are success stories - and there are true stories. How would you feel if everything in your life suddenly started to go . . . right? Six months ago, Alex Moore was stuck in a dead-end job, feeling her potential quietly slip away. Then, seemingly overnight, she launched her dream start-up and became one of London's fastest rising tech stars. At thirty-one, her life has just begun. But Alex's transformation isn't easy for those around her. Her friends are struggling to accept her rapid success, her parents worry she's burning out and her fiance is getting cold feet. Then weird things start to happen. Muggings, stalkers - even a wild claim that she murdered a stranger. But when Alex visits the Orkney Islands to recharge, weird turns into WTF. Because there she discovers the world's oldest secret - and it's a secret that Alex's stratospheric rise has royally messed up.
E L James revisits the world of Fifty Shades with a deeper and darker take on the love story that has enthralled millions of readers around the globe. Their scorching, sensual affair ended in heartbreak and recrimination, but Christian Grey cannot get Anastasia Steele out of his mind, or his blood. Determined to win her back, he tries to suppress his darkest desires and his need for complete control, and to love Ana on her own terms. But the horrors of his childhood still haunt him, and Ana's scheming boss, Jack Hyde, clearly wants her for himself. Can Christian's confidant and therapist, Dr. Flynn, help him face down his demons? Or will the possessiveness of Elena, his seducer, and the deranged devotion of Leila, his former submissive, drag Christian down into the past? And if Christian does win Ana back, can a man so dark and damaged ever hope to keep her?
Uprising is a fantasy story that drops you right into the action. I was intrigued at the start of Osei’s quest and was eager to know what happened. There are a number of questions raised in the plot, Osei’s heritage, Kai’s past to name just two, and so I was encouraged to read on and find out more. As more is discovered about Osei and her new Samurai friends, the tension builds towards a dramatic conclusion and a darker web of enemies that will need to be defeated. There are a few clunky areas that could do with some more editing and there are some sections that brought me out of the story slightly. Moments that made me think that’s not something a person would say (or perhaps I’ve just not met the person that would) and maybe there’s an opportunity to rephrase and make some of the narrative sound more natural. Saying that, neither point really stopped me from enjoying the story. In all, I liked Uprising. I found the characterisation good and each character's voice was distinct. I would have liked to learn more about Osei’s past with Ryu earlier on in the book but I think that there is plenty of story to come in future books and lots of time to learn more about this world and the rest of the Samurais' quest. I would recommend this book to fans of fantasy with lots of twists and turns.
.gif)
Literature has addressed sex throughout history. The joys and complexities are shown in 'The Song of Solomon' in the Bible. Byron, Chacer and Donne are famous for their compemplations on sex and desire.
Provocative prose is not simply pornographic, and product created simply to excite and arouse. Provocative prose stands apart as it is able to offer excitement while also deliviering social commentary and an examination of human feelings and behaviour. This genre can help you to think more deeply about sex, desire and how are attitudes to this topic are formed and what impact they have.
One of the most famous literary erotica would be Lady Chatterly's Lover by D.H. Lawrence, which manages to combine titilation and provocation while also offering character development, and an examination of the theme.
While some will still find these books shocking and a step too far. However there are marvelous modern authors such as Henry Miller, Anais Nin, and Annie Rice with her 'Sleeping Beauty' series which was published under the name Anne Roquelaure. With the development and exploration of this genre, there is a wide and varied selection of books for those interested in indulging.