I've stepped outside my comfort zone a few times this month, reading books that don't sit in genres I'm known for reading. However, if I thoroughly enjoyed the alternate black history of 'The Conductors' and preferred the romantic suspense in 'Fatal Code' to its technological thrills, why not dive into some smut for this month's Arizona author?

Officially, of course, this is erotica/fantasy/adventure, but that's only a fancy way to describe smut. We shouldn't fool ourselves on that front, just as we shouldn't fool ourselves in other ways, like assuming that smut is what people write when they can't write. That's unfair and this is a great example of that, because, beyond being smut, it's well-written and not at all what you're conjuring up. For a start, while the pages almost drip with juices simply aching to be put to good use, there's a lot less actual sex here than I was expecting.

I've met Mona Ventress at a couple of events before, but I picked up 'Anointed by Anubis' from her this year at Wild Wild West Steampunk Convention. It's the first in an ambitious series of what must strictly be called novellas, called 'Lover of Mythic Proportions', a delightful play on words, given that the focus is that our heroine, Delilah Hansen, is going to spend that series getting it on with a complete alphabet of gods and other mythological mainstays. No prizes for guessing who's first in line, as it were. 'Buzzed on Bacchus' is next and then it's 'Capturing Centaurs'. I don't know that Zeus will be last in line, but it's a safe bet, given that he got it on with pretty much anyone and anything on the planet, if you read far enough into Greek mythology.

Everything I write here ends up sounding like an intended double entendre and I simply don't have time enough to avoid all of them, so I guess I'll throw caution to the wind and point out that I had a absolute blast (oh dear) with 'Anointed with Anubis', even though men in general are hardly seen positively here at all. In fact, the one with the largest part (see what I mean) doesn't even show up, except in magical flashbacks, because it's Delilah's ex, Jason, who assumed after she confessed certain rougher fantasies to him, that it was his job to effectively rape her without the benefit of a safe word. "The more you cry, the more I'm going to hurt you," does not bode well for a loving relationship and that's why he's an ex.

That's also why Delilah has sworn off men entirely for a few years. After all, as the back cover blurb so memorably has it, "Why even take a risk on someone when vibrators exist?" The catch is that electronic help only goes so far for someone who's actually named her lady parts, not least because they talk to her, almost constantly, about bringing home something less reliant on batteries and more attached to a human being for her to play with. At this point, Delilah is getting pretty close to the point where she can't function as a freelance accountant any more without VJ, her pleading privates, promptly stealing her attention away to satisfy its (her?) own needs.

Fortunately, there's a solution, as she discovers when Hermes, messenger of the gods, appears in her apartment mid-session. He's not there to answer VJ's call, he's there to deliver an invitation and that he just about manages to do so without the early chapters turning into the book's first sack session is a good indicator of what we can expect here and what we can't. Yes, there are sex scenes, albeit fewer in number than we might expect, but there's also a lot of humour, not entirely situational, and an actual honest-to-goodness story. Sure, the premise is pretty straightforward - Hermes's message is to suggest that she "end her self-imposed celibacy by getting it on with the gods". It's right there in the blurb on the back cover, but it's explained in more appropriate detail within the text.

In many ways, this first volume doesn't exist just to knock off the first encounter, though it does that, it serves to introduce the internal logic of the series and set everything in motion. It's an origin story for our lover of mythic proportions, which has more meanings than you initially thought. For a start, it's a reference not only to the legendary appendages of legendary beings but to Delilah herself, who freely admits to not being skinny or beautiful or charming. Hermes begs to disagree, stating that her "body type was considered the archetype of perfection" in his time.

What's more, joining this sex club literally of the gods isn't as simple as just saying yes. Delilah must die and be resurrected before she can take part and, when it comes to the gods, everything is ritual. That's why Anubis is first in line. Wearing the metaphorical hat of Egyptian god of the dead, he can guide her through those rituals with all the required gravitas. Then he can switch hats to a god whose name begins with A and attempt to acquiesce the almost apoplectic VJ, who's been waiting far too long, thank you very much.

I'm not a regular reader of smut, but I've read enough during research into authors who have churned out hundreds of thousands of words of the stuff to know that it gets old very quickly. There are only so many ways to describe how X goes into Y, after all. What matters in erotica isn't that, or isn't only that, to be more accurate, it's building a story in which that happens, cast with characters who we want to be doing that. I thought I might enjoy this book, given its wild premise and what the author told me about it when we chatted in Tucson. However, I didn't think I'd enjoy it as much as I ended up doing.

Sure, it's a hundred and twenty pages or so of panting anticipation, followed by the payoff that you're expecting, but it's a lot more than that too. It's a novella that's funny and evocative and, dare I say it, a little educational. I may not be aching for the sequel as much as VJ, who is clearly struggling in vain to keep her fluids in check, but I'll certainly pick up a copy of 'Buzzed on Bacchus' when I see the author at another event. ~~ Hal C F Astell