What a shame nobody bothered to respond to this thread. That said, though, the sad fact seems to be that really good "erotic novels" are scarce. I can add a scant handful here and I could hope that others have had better success finding works that fill the bill. Lady Chatterley's Lover - by D. H. Lawrence - an unquestioned classic although perhaps tame by today's standards A Rose in the Banyan Tree - by Richard Hislop - a young English wife stumbles into a Tantric cult in India - this is rather well done A Woman of Bangkok - by Jack Reynolds - a borderline case, don't know that it is really erotic, but a fascinating tale of the downfall of a naive young Englishman at the hands of a Thai professional There are thousands of "erotic novels' badly-written that consist largely of boring repetitions of sexual plumbing and pipefitting, without an adequate foundation of setting, character, circumstance and plot. There are also mainstream novels with a strongly erotic element, as for example John Fowles' The Magus. Of course there's Fifty Shades of Grey but I haven't read it as I understand it's mostly S&M stuff, which has little appeal for me. Can anyone else make some additions and recommendations? This is a longstanding bee in my own bonnet.
One more for the list: Beautiful Losers by Leonard Cohen - Quirky and strange but definitely within the genre.
My books will probably never become classics, but I do try to write erotic fiction with at least some arguable literary merit, and an "adequate foundation of setting, character, circumstance and plot." You can search for them on the Mags Inc. website <www.magsinc.com>, author Dulci Daily, if you're interested.
HD Carlton wrote a series of dark romance books, 'Haunting Adeline' and the rest in the series. However, those books had a lot of non-consensual sex which really didn't do it for me. They explored deeper themes of slavery, which is a contemporary issue worth further discussion. But the dichotomy between one of the main characters combatting sexual slavery while violently and continuously terrorising and forcing a woman to have sex with him was quite disturbing. One book that I did like though was by Steve Nunn called The Habit (A Hedonistic Tale of Debauchery & Consequence). This one is an erotic novel that explores his demise into sexual addiction and the impact this has on his life and relationships. There's plenty of explicit erotica in it, but there's also some deeper explorations of society's approach to sex throughout history and the hypocrisy of those who tend to judge people who pursue multiple and concurrent sexual relationships. I found it to be quite arousing, but also thought-provoking. He has a chapter that really explores tantric massage and sex. It's one of the better erotic novels I've read of late because of the deeper themes it pursues.
