The Enthusiast

I'm absolutely delighted that Lucy Felthouse is stopping by tonight to give her take on the end of Black Lace. An avid reader and reviewer of their material, she was an invaluable asset to the marketing and promotion of the brand. And she is a terrific erotica writer in her own right! Check out the Xcite books website for some of the anthologies her stories are featured in - the latest one is Temptations Vol. 2. (Nice cover! nom!)

So without further ado - take it away, Lucy!

"Black Lace took my hand and led me into the world of erotica. I can’t even remember how I found out about the books, but I seem to remember the first one I read being Wicked Words 10, which I loved. I enjoyed the variety and smuttiness of the stories. From there, I started buying more, both anthologies and novels, but found that I much preferred the anthologies – the novels didn’t have enough sex in them for me! I found myself skipping through lots of text just to get to the dirty bits. However, I had this experience only with early novels and as my tastes and the label matured, I found myself loving the full-length tales just as much as the collections.

As I showed more of an interest in reading erotica – I also started writing it as the result of a dare, and my aim was to be published by Black Lace. My growing interest then stemmed out into my university dissertation, which was about erotic literature. Here I started corresponding with various authors from Black Lace and beyond, and realising just how nice they all were! Far from being stuck up and unwilling to talk, I found erotic writers to be the most friendly, open and helpful people, which helped greatly with my research.

It was around this time that I discovered authors which are to this day, amongst my favourites. Portia Da Costa, Kristina Lloyd, Janine Ashbless, Mathilde Madden and Saskia Walker – please take a bow. More recent discoveries include Deanna Ashford, Nikki Magennis, Charlotte Stein and of course Justine Elyot, you ladies also deserve a round of applause, for you have all achieved something that I cannot. You were published by Black Lace, and for that you should be very proud. It was a label which went through many changes, and had some variance in quality, but the one thing it always was – was a beacon of light for erotica, raising its profile and making people realise it wasn’t something just for dirty perverts, secreted in brown paper bags. It was sexy and fun and something that us ladies could talk about in the pub. It clearly did a good job as we’re still talking about it now.

Black Lace, you may be gone, but you’re certainly not forgotten. You’ve led many writers into the genre, and as a reader, I’m grateful for that. I’m sad that I’ll never have my name in or on one of your covers, but I was inspired enough to begin to write seriously and I hope that one day I’ll be as famous as Portia Da Costa!"