Recent Reads | Scared Sexy Short Story Collection
- Lori
- Sep 25
- 6 min read
Yesterday Amazon dropped a new seasonal smutty short story collection on Kindle Unlimited. Subscribers have access to both eBooks and full cast audiobooks for the six stories. Scared Sexy is exactly what I needed to kick off my autumnal reads.
Amazon released a similar collection, Under the Mistletoe, last December for some cozy Christmas smutty reading. Unfortunately, most of the stories in that collection were flops for me.
Scared Sexy is predominantly penned by romance authors I've read and loved before. Naturally, I was very excited to dive right in and review each story.
Warning: These stories contain smut. I'm going to use adult language. I'm going to discuss adult activities that often happen while horizontal on a bed or vertical against a wall. If this is not your jam, I suggest skipping this post.
Hot For Slayer by Ali Hazelwood 5/5 stars
So Ali Hazelwood is going to pen a vampire/vampire slayer romance and serve it to me on a steaming platter right after I publish a post saying she did not deliver a good vampy paranormal romance in Bride? The balls on that woman.
I will read anything Ali Hazelwood writes with zero questions asked at this point. Goddammit, did this story get a 5/5 stars from me? Okay, I hear you Ali… I will go into Mate with higher expectations. Girl, you CAN write a great paranormal romance!
Aethelthryth has been caught in a millennia-long cat and mouse game with vampire slayer Lazlo. Their craftily choreographed dance of death has brought them across the globe and through many significant milestones for humanity. When a modern day tryst of truculence leads to Lazlo suffering a bout of amnesia, our vampy leading lady must put aside their history and lend him aid. Otherwise, the poor guy might blunder into some truly fantastically bad circumstances amidst the mortals.
Ali Hazelwood writes a phenomenal hate to love. You know every damn time that the female lead is just utterly oblivious of the world more than two feet in front of her, but you melt for the angsty burn nonetheless. I know I’m essentially reading the same story time and again with her work, but I AM SO HAPPY TO WHEN IT IS SO WELL DONE ASFDS#%SF!!!! And who else is going to reference The Godfather in a vampiric smutty short story and pull it off? What an icon.
I’m very excited this collection began on such a high point, but I’m cautiously optimistic for the rest of the collection. Under the Mistletoe also opened with a solid Ali Hazelwood story, before the quality quickly plummeted across the collection. Interesting to note, Hazelwood is the only repeat author from the last collection.
Fallen by Christina Lauren 4/5 stars
I read In a Holidaze by Christina Lauren last year, and found it to be a dreadfully exhausting Groundhog Day spinoff with a Christmas twist. I considered DNFing it approximately once every twenty pages. It really was not to my tastes. After that, I had pretty much written off the duo’s works from my future. I was nervous when I saw they had a story in this collection. Thankfully, second chances exist for a reason.
Fallen takes place over the course of one evening. Cat gets drug along to a Halloween party by her drab boyfriend, is abandoned by said boyfriend, sneaks off to an en-suite bathroom, breaks up with nit-wit via text… then has the hottest night of her life. The question is, who–or what– is the creature she slept with?
Okay, I’m a sucker for good banter and an inquisitive lady in the face of a paranormal creature. This story reminded me in some ways of Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor—a favorite from my YA era. This one was another win for me. I will absolutely be giving Christina Lauren another try.
To compare to Amazon’s last attempt at a seasonal collection, I also gave the second story four stars, and then ratings steadily dropped from there.
Spicy Little Curses by J.T. Geissinger - 3/5 stars
This is not only my first time reading Geissinger, but the first I’ve heard of her. Naturally I went into this story with perfectly neutral expectations.
Our heroine is a stubbornly feisty and skeptic reporter sent to New Orleans for a paranormal scoop. She meets Dax, a grumpy tattooist covered in the most unusual ink. The rumors spreading underground whisper Dax was born inked and the tattoos hold unusual power. When a revenant stakes a claim on her life, Petra gets tangled in an ancient family curse and a certain tattooist's brawny arms.
Okay I did really enjoy this one. Geissenger is very good at writing atmosphere. She created a really fun unstoppable-force-meets-immovable-object grumpy/sunshine dynamic. My rating is teetering somewhere just above 3 stars, but I don’t really do decimals in my ratings. The spicy scene was missing just a little bit of razzle-dazzle for my personal tastes, and the cliff-hanger ending was an odd choice for a short story within a collection. I’m curious if this story acts as a prelude to one of her books?
Space Vampire by Ruby Dixon – 4/5 stars
I know, Ice Planet Barbarians is the kind of story you snicker about behind your hand and read in complete secrecy. I know. But listen… They're addictive. I’ve read two installments of the series and I absolutely will read more. I’m fully aware they are just addictive fluff with the same recycled plot line over and over again. I don’t care. Rub Dixon took the time to craft a species of alien that is essentially an oversized rabbit-vibrator and I’m gonna appreciate her craftsmanship every time.
Classic Ruby Dixon, Space Vampire takes place in… well, space. Dana is a human slave in a genetic laboratory. Her whole role on the ship is to be a human pet (think bunny rabbit or puppy) for the lead scientist on board. When the entire team deserts the station to run away from the blood-sucking gladiator clone they built, they leave Dana behind. The duo must face their confinement–and their hunger–to escape and survive before the others return.
EEP! Ruby Dixon’s writing is so addictive. I’m such a sucker for vampires (pun untended), but the only author I’d trust to concoct an alien vampire is this very lady. The spice was perfect and the sci-fi elements were very well done. She sucks you into her worlds with descriptive prose. It’s hard not to visualize the story with stark clarity. I’m really due for another Ice Planet Barbarian…
Beautiful Nightmares by Katee Robert – 3/5 stars
I first read Katee Robert’s prose in the Wicked Villains series and was quite obsessed. I don’t typically binge series, but this one had me ensnared. I believe all of them earned either a 4 or 5 star from me. (The Beast was my favorite by far.) She didn’t necessarily nail plot for me, but the books were meant to be vehicles for smut, so the plot didn’t need to be anything more than convenient fluff to get us to the next sex scene. She excels at writing longer sex scenes that somehow never fizzle out in energy. Unfortunately, this worked against her when I attempted (and ultimately DNF’d) Neon Gods. Beautiful Nightmares really could have gone either way for me.
Gemma is a sleep paralysis demon tasked with feeding on her assigned human’s emotions at night. The only thing Gemma hates more than the act of scaring is the taste of fear on her tongue. Caleb meets his new nightmare one evening and… pitches a tent. Turns out lust is a far more appealing emotion for Gemma to feed on--if only her bureaucratic demon superiors agreed.
Classic Katee Robert, this one is all spice with the thinnest plot to keep it afloat. I’m generally fine with this, but that resolution just did not work for me. I’m also, apparently, not interested in Katee Robert spice if it’s not going to include kink. The more you know.
My Boyfriends Are All Monsters by Kimberly Lemming -3/5 stars
With charming book titles like That Time I Got Drunk and Yeeted a Love Potion at a Werewolf, Kimberly Lemming is certainly on the list of authors I’ve been meaning to check out. I anticipated her work to be cozy fantasy romances with quirky comedic twists.
Lucy Sawyer is fed up with her jerk boyfriend. Jerk boyfriend just left her alone… ON THE SIDE OF A MOUNTAIN! After a perfectly reasonable cry, Lucy sends a wish down a well to be loved and cherished forever. She’s soon swept off her feet to an adorably eerie idyllic town full of gorgeous men who all seem eager to tumble into her bed. When things seem too good to be true, they typically are… right?
I think I could love Lemming in a full length novel. There were things here that appealed to me. It just all came too quickly (pun intended) for me to find the story super compelling. Lucy seemed to have horse blinders on for the entire story, or she was just in complete denial about her surroundings. If I got to experience a little more tension between our kink monster and Lucy leading up to the big spice scene, I think it would have been far more impactful. Instead, it just seemed like it came out of left field. Though this story wasn’t perfect, it gave me enough intrigue to reach for one of Lemming’s full length novels for sure.
And that's a wrap! This collection was a such a fun surprise. Overall, I had a really great time; it was the perfect way to kick off the season.
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