This edition of Maxim Jakubowski’s Best New Erotica series auspiciously appears with a new collection of fiction from forty-eight artisans of the sensual. Selected from stories by more than 4,000 authors of erotica from around the world, these artful excursions into the libido represent the current states of desire in Great Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia, and France. In this third new volume of voluptuary pursuits, tales by popular talents in the arts of titillation like Michel Faber, Michael Crawley, M. Christian, O’Neil De Noux, Alison Tyler, and Cara Bruce stand alongside stories from promising newcomers to the field of erotic fiction. All of them nonetheless share a standard of excellence and elegance that takes their often humorous, sometimes dark, and always original fictions far beyond tired conventions. So it is that John Grant presents “The Adventures of Thomas the Rock Star in the Court of the Queen of Faery,” while Cheyenne Blue depicts the misadventures of a city girl in “Cactus Ass.” Then, too, there’s Dawn O’Hara’s “London Derrière.” Claire Tristram serves up “Tomatoes: A Love Story in Three Parts” while Susannah Indigo offers the combination of “Bacon, Lola and Tomato,” as Mark Ramsden relishes what’s “Truly Scrumptious.”

An anthology of stories