EURO REVIEWS - WOMEN'S FICTION REVIEWS

Pita's characters take us on an all consuming, passionate exploration of love and sexual desire from around the world, utilising cultures and centuries we can only imagine.

Maria Isabel Pita takes us through a collection of 18 erotic stories which capture the enthusiasm and passion of different women throughout the ages, with astounding precision. The author displays an unusual, albeit ingenious, imagination that opens the book with Out of Control, a short story set in futuristic Canada 2015. It's difficult to suggest favourite as I enjoyed them all, however, the stories which stand out the most include my literary trip to 1636 Transylvania, in Song of the Blood, reading of the Secret Societies in Italy, 1500's, through to the year 3000 B.C, Crete in The Double Axe. Oh yes, then another solar system, Star Crossed and then a final pit stop in a parallel universe, Light After Breath. Should you wish to read from the last tale to first you can, as they are standalone stories, and can be read in any order.

What I liked about Guilty Pleasures is that with each tale comes a new premise, amalgamated with historical facts and wonderful, descriptive exposition. Every character is written with a fresh, unique outlook on love and life appropriate to the chosen historical era. This fact alone hooked me from the first sentence, or at least the opening paragraph of each story. Ms Pita varies the pace of her writing, in a well-planned effort to intrigue and arouse the reader. All in all, Maria's ability to mix the erotic pursuits of her characters with entertaining, sometimes shocking twists and turns ensures a believable, dynamic ending to each self-contained story. Out of the whole collection, there was only one story where the denouement wasn't quite as surprising (or perhaps interesting) as the rest, but that's not a problem, just a different style.

It is clear from Maria's writing that she is a talented erotic writer who holds a passionate interest in history and its cultures. Some of her stories are slightly peppered with an S&M flavour, but more often than not, the true sadistic behaviour of her characters are indeed the main source of nourishment and sexual satisfaction. These stories capture a mixture of cruel, sensual overriding power, and exotic scenes; intensifying the creative suspense of an exhilarating read full of all consuming passions not to be missed.

Review by Tracy-Jane

THE ROMANCE STUDIO

Reaching across the continuum of time, space and history, the stories in this collection of “guilty pleasures” will sear into your consciousness and arouse within you an intensity of emotional and physical reactions. The rendering of unusual characters and settings, whether it is the wistful gaze of a slave girl watching a setting sun in ancient Greece as her lover leaves, to the loneliness of a rain swept Dorchester street in early morning, or the ghostly touch of a hologram in a Toronto kitchen in 2015, is wrought so skillfully that you are instantly transported there, tasting and feeling every sensation, from the hardening of a nipple to the cut of a sword.

Maria Isabel Pita is masterful in her art, pulling out a profound collection of intimacies, from love to rape, tenderness to sadistic-masochistic violence, yet all exquisitely reflecting the woman’s need to totally surrender to the forces of love. Each tale from a different culture and time then serves as a different facet to reflect this need to live or die for love.

These stories can be read from cover to cover or dipped into in any order depending on your mood... each story is unique in its orientation and endings are very unexpected. The author’s research and knowledge is highlighted in the fine details and her use of imagery, frequently religious in nature, is very effective, especially in stories such as “The Bride of Christ” where Sister Maria finds herself desiring the brother of a novice. Anyone who relishes literary erotica will thoroughly enjoy this book!

Review by Audrey Lawrence

EROTIC AUTHORS ASSOCIATION – Review by Marilyn Jaye Lewis

Maria Isabel Pita is already one of the brightest stars in the erotic romance genre. If you’re unfamiliar with her work, she specializes in transporting her readers effortlessly between the past and present, while indestructable true love weaves its eternal spell on her characters’ minds and souls.

Guilty Pleasures is a misleading title for her newest book, a collection of erotic romance short stories that transcend time. I’m not sure what a better title would be, but I doubt that any title could prepare you for the ingenious creativity you will discover between these otherwise ordinary covers.

As the back cover copy warns us: “Guilty Pleasures explores the passionate willingness of women throughout the ages to offer themselves up to the forces of love. Historical facts are seamlessly woven into graphic sexual encounters.”  Pita does indeed take us through the ages, from the near-future time of  2015 A.D., back through the 20th century, then the 19th, 18th, 17th, 16th, 15th, 12th centuries, back to 1000 B.C., 3000 B.C., through to another solar system, and on to a parallel universe. What will amaze you, if not even alarm you, is Pita’s eye for detail and her uncanny feel for the everyday lives of her distant characters. When you read her stories of ancient lovers, for example, you will believe that Pita herself has visited those times and is merely recounting to you first-hand what she observed, endured, and felt while she was there.

The storytelling is seamless and flowing. The erotic encounters between her characters are sexually explicit and arousing, sometimes emotionally raw, and often thought-provoking for the reader. With each story I read, I kept thinking, “Oh, this one’s my favorite,” but then another story would unfold and take its place at the top of my list.

In these pages, Pita’s unique imagination is unleashed and she spares no punches. Some of her characters are living in harsh times (even in the future), but love is the ingredient that makes all of living--and, in turn, the loss of love makes dying--worthwhile.

I guarantee that you will marvel at the complexity of the places she takes you to and what her characters learn there. Guilty Pleasures is an absolute must for any fan of literary erotica.

FALLEN ANGEL REVIEWS

Guilty Pleasures is a collection of very diverse short stories by well-known erotica author Maria Isabel Pita. Like the human sexual experience, these stories run the gamut. The relationships range from tender to sadistic. The only common thread is pleasure, however it is derived by the participants.

My favorite of the 18 titles was Relative Relationship in which a couple, truly in love, is plagued with guilt for the secrets each keeps. Another favorite was Light After Breath, where a human woman in another universe discovers her need for more than her human lover supplies after a mysterious being awakens her innermost desires.

Ms. Pita’s writing is lyrical. She skillfully paints a vivid picture of the setting, regardless of the time or place. Each story is thought-provoking and complex. I found myself mulling over each one before moving on to the next. Metaphors and hidden meanings abound, as do varying levels of domination and submission. Ms. Pita eloquently illustrates how sex can be as much psychological as it is physical.

Guilty Pleasures is literary erotica, so don’t expect a quick and light read. This book is more like a five-course dinner than fast food. While fast food often hits the spot, it’s also nice to relax and savor a gourmet meal. I highly recommend indulging yourself in Guilty Pleasures.

Review by Shelley

JUST EROTIC ROMANCE REVIEWS

For an anthology that flows through different historical stories from the future to thousands of years in the past, I found Guilty Pleasures to be the type of lyrical art that elicited a deeply poignant response from me. Ms. Pita has a magical gift for making the written word flow across the page, therein creating a stunningly visual representation of her captivating literature. Although a few of the stories have shockingly violent depictions of erotic behavior, these same stories also bring out a very emotional reaction. I felt disturbed yet also challenged to not experience a visceral response to these scenes.

Guilty Pleasures reads like a dream world, with some abruptly shifting components occurring in the story. It truly feels like a fantasy world, with expressively carnal characters and arousing scenes that left me feeling as if I stepped into someone’s dreams. The expressive style Ms. Pita uses is both thought provoking as well as carnally aggressive. While some of these short stories are not necessarily for the faint of heart, others are beautifully romantic and completely arousing. I am happily surprised by my experience with reading this talented author’s work and am drawn to her exquisitely lyrical prose.

Review by Francesca Hayne

ROMANCE DIVAS

Guilty Pleasures is a collection of eighteen erotic short stories. These stories take you on an erotic journey through time, each one taking you further back in time than the story before it,until there is no time at all. Maria Isabel Pita is an imaginative writer with a skill for writing beautiful prose. She has taken her love for history to create a collection of stories that makes you want to keep reading. Her heroines are strong and the tales told from their point of view pull you in and make you want to know more about their individual stories. The author's attention to detail and historical accuracy makes it easier for the reader to fall into the stories as they read. These stories are sizzling in nature with their sexual content, but it doesn't appear to be sex for sex's sake. The sex becomes an integral part of the story. There were times, such as in the story "Theron and Rhodopis," which was set in 5th Century B.C, Greece, where the relationship begins as purely sexual but ends up in a love match. The stories contain both male/female and female/female interactions. Maria Isabel Pita as an author doesn't hold back, just as she didn't hold back in her non-fiction. She shows it all. Thoughts and actions are put on display, and she uses graphic descriptions that might turn the reader off, but in this work, they fit. Having read her nonfiction biography, I was excited to read this collection of stories. There were few of the stories I didn't enjoy. This collection has something for everyone. We go back to the beginning of the past, and we even venture into outer space. I would highly recommend this collection of short stories. There is nothing guilty about the pleasure received from reading it.

Review by Regina Avalos

CUPID'S LIBRARY REVIEWS

GUILTY PLEASURES is a compilation of 18 short stories that run the gamut of genres, topics, characters and time periods. I could never give a synopsis for this book that would give it the depth and breadth of what is told by Ms. Pita in her short stories. Nevertheless, to give highlights of some of the more memorable stories I will say that in this book you will find yourself reading about a slave sold into a harem and finding love with a fellow slave, a woman and her rock star idol finding each other over time, space, and even death, and in a time unknown, in a parallel universe a human will find love with an entity that is not only alien but nearly untouchable. The variety of stories in this book hint at BSDM, vampirism, homoeroticism, ménage-a-trois (+), and much more within many time periods (past, present, future) and with such diverse characters where none are even remotely similar.

GUILTY PLEASURES is a book wholly unto itself. There is no category I could easily put it into because it has most of everything in it. I read this book from the first page to the last, roughly from the near future (2015) to the distant past and ending in a time unknown… I was increasingly more interested in each and every story. I noticed that Ms. Pita used a lot of religious imagery in her stories and also many of the relationships she depicts had a submissive/dominance quality to them. Her writing is quite complex and she used a lot of metaphors and imagery to set the feel and emotion of her stories. At first, I found myself overwhelmed with her writing but eventually I found her writing easier to understand and more fluid. I am not sure if it was because I became used to her writing style or that her writing became less complex. Nevertheless, as the book progressed, the more pleasurable it became. In every story I found myself enjoying how she provided many twists and turns while weaving historical aspects (true or imagined) into each story giving them more depth and realism. None of her stories were predictable or took the more likely route found in erotic novels. Throughout this book I was never bored, I may have questioned a few things, but overall I was thoroughly impressed with Ms. Pita's level of writing and imagination. This book provides a nice respite from many of the 'cookie cuter' erotic romances out there. Yes, there are tender and sweet moments (e.g. Shiva and Parvati, Theron and Rhodopis), but there are also many moments which were surprising (Covenant Transport) and alarming (Song of the Blood, mostly).

Overall, this is a wonderful compilation of short stories that will take you everywhere and beyond during many significant time periods and leave you impressed and applauding Ms. Pita's literary talents and incredible imagination.

Erotica by Clohi Review

Guilty Pleasures by Maria Isabel Pita is a seductive look at women's sexuality throughout various ages of history. Pita's adventures take you from 5th Century Greece to Florence, Italy in the 1500s to Toronto, Canada in 2015. Guilty Pleasures is a sampling of cultures and sexual love stories that will have you enthralled. Each story is short but filled with heat and passion. Some are explicit, others are more of an implied sexuality. All are erotic. I found myself intrigued by each story Pita told. The stories don't move in chronological order, but jump from time period to time period at will. It's almost like being in your own private time machine. In Thorsday Afternoon, a story taking place in Coral Gables, Florida 2005, a woman is working at home during a lightening storm when a man enters her house and seduces her. Believing the man to be her husband playing out an erotic fantasy, she falls into the game. If the man is her husband, he'll know she is loving it. If it's a stranger, she can tell him anything. When the game is over and her suspicions are confirmed, it's telling that she was as aroused by the thought of the man being a stranger as she was of him being her husband.

Secret Societies takes place in Florence, Italy in the 1500s. This story is dark and probably the most seductive and erotic of all 18 stories. A recently widowed woman is left a letter by her late husband. In his letter, he asks her to fulfill a wish for him. To be used by multiple men, members of a secret society he led. The widow does as he wishes, allowing her body to be used by man after man after man for their sexual desires. She is bound, flogged, made to perform fellatio repeatedly and double penetrated
before being used by the one man she wants most. Her husband's friend and new leader of the secret society. If this story doesn't make you hot and aching, nothing will. I enjoyed Maria Isabel Pita’s style of writing. She is descriptive and makes you believe the tale she is telling. The historical references are built into the stories in a way you feel you are there experiencing them. The women are empowered, no matter the time period, and enjoy themselves as much as their partners.

Guilty Pleasures is perfect for anyone wanting to create a fantasy for themselves and aren't sure how to begin. One thing Pita reminds us in Guilty Pleasures - anything is possible. Just believe. 

FOR WOMEN Magazine

Female desire through the ages is the theme of this intriguing collection of short stories, with settings ranging from Ancient Egypt to future star systems. Love is as important as lust in these tales, and whether it's a widow in Sixteenth century Florence who undergoes a punishing ritual laid out in her husband's will or a harem girl in nineteenth century Zanzibar who discovers the erotic allure of other women, the characters here are well drawn and their adventures intriguing.

DESIRE Magazine

How nice it is to be pleasantly surprised by a book. (Ms. Pita’s) fluent, vivid style lends itself well to a collection of short stories like this one... Though the individual tales are mostly on a fairly similar submissive-girly tip, the huge range of eras and settings – from pre-history to parallel worlds, encompassing sixties swinging London, ancient Egypt, medieval Italy and present-day America – prevent the collection from becoming too samey. Her writing is lush and dreamy rather than fast and filthy, but anyone with a romantic streak will undoubtedly find lots to fuel a fantasy in here.