Product Description

Be warned.If you found Love in Vein too disturbingly dark, too exquisitely explicit, too deliciously erotic in the secrets it revealed -- you're going to adore Love in Vein II.

Poppy Z. Brite has done it again with a provocative new collection even more dangerously seductive, more boldly erotic than her first. It is not for everyone. But it may be what you need.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #118081 in Books
• Published on: 1998-02-01
• Released on: 1997-12-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 544 pages

About the Author
Poppy Z. Brite was born on May 25, 1967, in New Orleans. She has worked as an artist's model, a mouse caretaker, a stripper, and (since 1991) a full-time writer. She has published three Novels, Lost Souls, Drawing Blood, and Exquisite Corpse, and a short story collection,Wormwood. Her work has appeared in numerous markets including Rage, Spin, and The Village Voice. She is the editor of the anthologies Love in Vein Iand II. In 1997, she published the biography Courtney Love: The Real Story. She is currently working on a new novel and readying her second collection of short stories for publication. Poppy Z. Brite lives in New Orleans with her husband Christopher, a chef and food writer.

Customer Reviews

Definitely spine-tingling, not as erotic as expected
Brite has done an excellent job of collecting a number of vampire and vampire-like short stories to keep readers both entertained and thinking. I especially enjoyed the "Sundered Wineskins" story, which made me think about the nature of God and worship. (Plus, that short story tied in with a short story by the same author in the original "Love in Vein" collection -- how clever!) Not all the stories were as enjoyable; "Dusting the Flowers," for example, was a turn-off and made little sense, since we never got to see precisely what motivated the characters. I did expect more sex, but on the other hand, the physical sensuousness, in its broader term, was there in abundance. Overall an enjoyable book.

Twice the fool...
Once a fool, shame on you. Twice a fool, shame on me. Twice Bitten, like the first part of Love in Vein, is a major disappointment with a collection of insipid, uninteresting stories. The stories weren't dark, sensual, erotic, thought-provoking in the slightest -- well, not all of them. There are some good stories here that have the aforementioned ingredients that critics made such a big hype about. The ones I liked were "Dusting the Flowers," by David J. Schow; "Ceilings and Sky," by Lucy Taylor; and "When Memory Falls," by Roberta Lannes. I gave Twice Bitten a try because almost everyone told me that this one's so much better than the first Love in Vein offering. Nope. The subtitle "Tales of Vampiric Erotica" is a complete misnomer. Yes, there are vampires in the stories, but the erotica aspect of this book is debatable. I don't need in-your-face sex scenes to make a story erotic. I like subtle, sensual erotica, or sublime stories with erotic undertones, but said aspects in this story are few and far in between. The only thing I did like about this collection is that the stories are definitely creepy and scary. Other than that, this collection series is completely forgettable.

Eh.
To being with, it's very important that we pay attention to the exact subtitle of this book-this is "vampiric" erotica, not "vampire" erotica. While all of the stories revolve in some way around parasitic characters, only a few of them are the classic warm-thick-blood-sex vampire erotica. Most of the stories are at least creepy, and a few are quite scary.
As wth any collection of short stories, not every story will be to every person's taste, as you can see from the reviews here. In particular, the story "The Dripping of Sundered Wineskins" seems to elicit a love-it-or-hate-it opinion. Personally I loved it. I enjoyed all of the straight vampire tales, especially, of course, Neil Gaiman's excellent opening tale, "Snow, Glass, Apples". Other notable vampire stories were "Ceilings and Sky", Whispers in Walled Tombs", "First Date", and "Bloodlight."
Unfortunately, though, there are several stories I hated, too. "Armies of the Heart" was one, and I really, really hated "When Memory Fails" and "The Fly Room." Eyeball-sucking? Little mouths hanging around where they shouldn't be? Yeuch, no thank you! And "Bela's Plot" I unfortunately just did not understand. Were there actual vampires, or just sadists?
All in all, the book is worth it if you like spooky stories, and many of them are written in a slow-moving and descriptive style that gives them an erotic feel, but if you're looking for Vampire Erotica, you won't find much of it here.