Cleis has never composed a gift guide before, but we love the thought of spreading a little sexy Christmas cheer. We’ve curated gifts from a number of writers, some of our favorite scribes, ones we think are really brilliant. If you’re stilling looking for presents, why not consider stuffing a stocking with one or two of these.
We’ve handpicked twelve gifts for you and there’s not a partridge in sight.
- 1) Rachel Kramer’s ‘Sex and Cupcakes’ (in a pear tree)
A collection of essays from writer Rachel Kramer Bussel, reflecting on her years as a sex columnist and cupcake blogger, detailing her dirty and sweet sides as well as sexual adventures, politics, heartbreak, tattoos and more. Sex and Cupcakes reveals the woman behind the stereotype, one far more complex than Carrie Bradshaw and her Manolos, a woman willing to expose herself, on paper and in the flesh, who takes risks and gets hurt and keeps on searching for love, sex, passion and happiness.
- 2) Alison Tyler’s ‘Alison on the Rocks’
This kinky collection of erotic bar stories is sure to fill your cup—and fulfill your thirst—for BDSM, anal, gangbang, punishment, spanking, and humiliation. The six sultry stories included in this collection are: Last Call, Stirring Up Trouble, Cubed, Bastard, Sitting Pretty, and Prix Fixe. The pieces have appeared in other collections but never all together on one shelf—amidst the tequila and the triple sec.
- 3) ‘Violet blue’s ‘The Smart Girl's Guide to Privacy’
Social media, online dating, photo sharing, mobile everything… It can make your life a dream - or a nightmare. The Smart Girl’s Guide to Privacy is the only guide focused on privacy for women. This book helps you hack your way through the jungle of privacy chaos and fight back against sleazy marketers, unethical megacorporations, scammers, stalkers, hacked apps, and thieves.
- 4) Shanna Germain’s ‘Numenera’
Shanne Germain is editor of Cleis Press’s ‘Kinky as you wanna be’. She leads a double life as an editor for a futuristic RPG…
Numenera is a science fantasy roleplaying game set in the far distant future. Humanity lives amid the remnants of eight great civilizations that have risen and fallen on Earth. Player characters explore this world of mystery and danger to find these leftover artifacts of the past, not to dwell upon the old ways, but to help forge their new destinies, utilizing the so-called “magic” of the past to create a promising future.
- 5) Katie Gilmartin – Fine Prints
Katie Gilmartin is the author of ‘Blackmail, My love’, a smoky murder mystery that follows Josie O’Connor, in search of her missing brother, through the foggy streets of corrupt 1950’s San Francisco. The novel is illuminated by black and white prints created by Katie herself and cut a vivid window into the city’s neo-noir past.
- 6) Alison Tyler’s ‘The Sexy Librarian's Big Book of Erotica’ Audiobook
Imagine a library - a very special one run by a librarian whose only concern is pleasing her patrons. In fact, this librarian will stop at nothing to service her readers. To that end, she has carefully collected a fantastic and fantasy-filled set of stories guaranteed to satisfy literary lusts in The Sexy Librarian's Big Book of Erotica.
- 7) Tristan Taormino's Top Sex Toys
Tristan Taormino is an award-winning author, columnist, editor, and sex educator. She wrote our very own ‘The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Woman’. When she’s not writing, she likes to play (among other thngs). And believe us, she has great taste in toys.
- 8) D L King’s ‘She who must not be obeyed’
Award-winning erotica editor D.L. King's new lesbian anthology showcases dominant femmes and their submissive partners playing out vivid and unforgettable BDSM fantasies and trysts. Each of these stories is as beguiling as it is demanding.
- 9) Saachi Green’s ‘Lipstick on Her Collar and Other Tales of Lesbian Lust’
An anthology like this invites you to a cocktail party of possibilities. You'll mingle with some dykes who are accountants, computer programmers, and scholars, interspersed with the occasional horse-trainer, army sergeant, and drag king. Is there a lover in your life, or is she still a figment of your imagination? You might get a glimpse of her here, among the butch daddies and femme fatales and rogues, because there are representatives of every kind of woman in this book, having every kind of sex you (and twenty-two authors) can imagine. Welcome to the party!
- 10) Mitzi Szereto’s ‘Normal for Norfolk’
Not what you would typically think when someone mentions ’Cleis Press top Xmas presents’, but charming all the same. Thelonious T. Bear, ursine photojournalist, leaves behind the big city life of London to take an assignment in the Norfolk countryside, where he hopes to find the real England. Instead he stumbles upon gastro-pubs, crazed Audi drivers and murder…
- 11) Kristina Wright’s ‘Seduce me Tonight’
Erotic love is the most powerful force in the world. 'Seduce Me Tonight' explores seduction from lust to long term love, from playful and teasing to dark and edgy. A short story collection perfect for anyone seduced by the 'Fifty Shades' trilogy or Sylvia Day's 'Crossfire' series. "Seduce me." A plea? A command? A need for connection that goes beyond the physical? These are stories of seduction. The anticipation, the tease, the buildup … the promise of what comes next…
- 12) Laura Antoniou’s ‘The Marketplace’ series
Laura Antoniou is the author of the well known Marketplace series of erotic novels. The Marketplace series describes "an elite and secretive world organization,dedicated to the auctioning and overseeing of the world's finest lifestyle slaves... a world so vivid in sequel after sequel, it takes on a reality of its own, one that's visually hard to let go of once the reader has put down the book." (Libido Magazine).
