I found them very interesting, it also helped that they cover was dragging me in and made me curious.

While I enjoyed the first story I couldn't finish this and I doubt I'll be ready to any time soon. My grandmother passed away at the end of 2019 and as a Japanese American the atmosphere reminded me of her far too much to be able to fairly review it.

The Way of Heaven by Laury Antoniou:
What It's About: A prince and his female general, who is also his dom, select and train his chosen bride. When the wife, Umiko, is unable to get pregnant, the women go on a quest up the mountain to find the solution.
Pros: No girl on girl hate or competition (in fact Umiko gets along quite well with the general and the general truly helps Umiko, and both mutually share the prince).
Cons: Sex scenes were a bit cringy (this story has the most explicit sex scenes, which surprisingly isn't saying much). The first half and second half of this story felt fairly disconnected.
Finishing Thoughts: Definitely my least favorite of the 3. Wish there had been more paranormal elements, wish there was more distinct historical elements. Overall, when I wasn't cringing at this one, I was just bored with it.
Ratings: 2/5

The Secret of Silk by Midori:
What It's About: A young doctor works in a small village and begins a sexual relationship with one of the residents. Shortly after, she believes she is hallucinating strange shadows, and a shady business man arrives in town with a deal.
Pros: Actually had potential to be decent fact vs myth, modernization vs tradition narrative (Sadly did not live up to it)
Cons: Male lead turns into a tengu every time he climaxes (just why), yet it takes over half the book for the female lead to realize this. The business man was obviously bad from the start, yet the female lead is willing to overlook any red flags because the sex is so mind numbingly good. In fact the "doctor" comes off as rather stupid due to her general lack of awareness, and she could also be rather offensive in her comments about the village.
Finishing Thoughts: Although I was more invested in this one than the previous one, it also meant that its flaws bothered me more, with very little good execution to counterbalance my negative feelings.
Ratings: 2/5

The Bonds of Love by Cecelia Tan:
What It's About: Starting in 1945, a young man has been outcast by his family, leaving him with nothing but a piece of rope. Just as the atomic bomb drops, he is transported to 2047, when a beautiful young princess is about ready to ascend the throne.
Pros: A fiercely independent princess along with a devoted and tender male lead. Best bondage scenes of the whole collection, which actually came off as sensual. Oddly I liked the sex club setting, maybe because of how well it fit into the story and wasn't gaudy. The resolution felt satisfying, both for the individual story and the entire collection.
Cons: Some contrived moments like time travel and everyone being in the exact right club at the exact same time. Minor thing, but some names utilized felt like there was very little thought put into it.
Warning: There is a rape scene in this one.
Finishing Thoughts: My favorite of the three. I think
Rating: 3/5

Entire Collection:
What It's About: Three stories set in Japan, taking place in the past, present, and future.
Pros: All stories are linked by use of the same magical silk, which gave the collection a certain level of cohesion (also makes the title apt).
Cons: Mostly female on male domination, which isn't my personal preference. Also for being a BDSM collection, the sex scenes felt rather tame.
Finishing Thoughts: Hoping it would be a high fantasy collection with smutty scenes, but it's basically a paranormal romance collection, which is a genre I don't read. That being said, it wasn't bad, in fact the last story was rather enjoyable, but this just isn't for me.
Overall Rating: 2/5 stars

I enjoyed most of the stories, a couple were boring to me, but I found the book well worth reading and will search out more like it

Silk Threads contains three erotic BDSM stories set in Japan in the past, the present and the future. And the reason that I decided to read this is simply because it's about Asian women, and I enjoy that representation. So I went into this with no real expectations, because I didn't even read the book description before reading the book.

I have say that it is best to already know of some Japanese terms and perhaps mythology since there is no glossary, and you might have to search up some of the words used to better understand the stories, but it is not a must. I'm sure that you will still be able to understand everything that is going on without any prior knowledge about Japanese culture and words.
It's also nice how all stories incorporates/mentions some of the things that happened in the previous stories, which made the overall book fit together more nicely in my opinion.

My review will be a short description to each of the stories, so that you know a little of what you are going into. I will write my opinion and a rating for each short story.

Overall rating 2 stars, the book wasn't for me, but if you are interested in soft BDSM themes, and female empowerment, then I do think that you would enjoy this book.



The Way of Heaven by Laury Antoniou - 2,5 stars

A female general is the dom to a prince. She chooses his future wife and teaches her how to perfectly dominate and please the prince. The General also helps Umiko(the wife) find and accept her inner power.

I like the writing style, it feels very eloquent, but some places the writing did confuse me a little. I do enjoy the historical aspect, and I'm pleased that there is no love triangle, but mutual love between the main characters.
The sexual content wasn't too explicit, and the BDSM was quiet soft, nothing remarkable about it.

There are also some paranormal themes, which I did not expect, but I didn't mind it either. Since the setting is historical thus I do find it normal for Japanese mythical creatures to also be a part of the story. If I had to place the era the story is set in, I would think that it is the Edo Period, as far as my knowledge goes, samurais where part of that period.

Overall I liked the writing style, but found the story slightly boring.


The Secret of Silk by Midori - 1,5 stars (this review contains spoilers)

A female doctor has a clinic in a small village, and she becomes sexually attracted to one of the villagers. But the villager isn't like any other man.

The first sexual encounter starts of quiet weird, at first it made me unsure if it was consensual or not. Everything escalates really quickly, the first sex scene goes from 0-100, which caught me so of guard. Honestly the writing for that scene was so weird that I couldn't even wrap my head around what was happening.

There is a ton of foreshadowing in this story, in regards to the whole tengu thing.
I also noticed that there's quiet a lot of voyeurism in this story, but it's specifically crows "watching" the main characters having sexual interactions, I found that weird.

Again the sexual content in this story isn't too explicit, but it does get detailed at times, and it is very soft BDSM, a little bondage (tying hands together) and some spanking.

And the guy, kind of turns into a large bird (tengu) when he reaches peak arousal/orgasm, which in my opinion kind of turns it into bestiality... so that is pretty weird..

The male lead kind of gaslights the female lead which, doesn't sit well with me, no matter his reasons for it. It's not really gasligting per se, because the male lead is not doing it out of ill will, but Ami the female lead, starts to think that she is going crazy, hallucinating things, which really scares her, so I didn't like how he was lying, and keeping pretty big, important things from the female lead.

I thought that I was safe and would never have to read a sex scene in the sky ever again after ACOFAS, but sadly The Secret of Silk failed me. My eyes and mind are deeply scarred for life. RIP me.

I found this story too weird and off for me, I was really not a fan. This might be one of the weirdest stories I have ever read in my life, at least that one scene where he shape shifts. If you read this story then you know what I mean.


The Bond of Love by Cecilia Tan - 1 star

The story starts of in Nagasaki in 1945, and the main character Jiro ponders if he should follow his heart, or his families wishes. Jiro finds a cat that time travels him 102 years into the future. Tokyo, year 2047 the soon to be empress, princess Ami visits a hospital where she meets Jiro, whom has been in a coma for a month.

This story is more explicit than the other two, and contains elements of bondage, lots of it actually. The story is actually just about a bondage kink and how two people the feels misunderstood, gets to share their kink with each other, and how similar their life situations are to each other.
The way the bondage scenes are written, feels quite sensual at times, which helps with the overall mood.

There is non-con and intent of rape in this story.

I don't have much to say, other than I found this story too boring, it didn't carry the depth that the other stories did.

To keep my brain from overloading with all the reading that I’ve been doing lately, I generally alternate challenging reads with lighter ones. Since my NetGalley queue and my electronic libraries were heavily skewed toward the more challenging novels, I decided to surf the romance section for something that could decompress my brain over the weekend. I found this little gem buried in the unarchived backlist; I quickly added it to my queue because Laura Antoniou is one of my “must read” authors.

All I was looking for was a bit of inconsequential fluff to detoxify my brain; this book was so much better for me than a romantic comedy with a happily ever after ending. Each of the three novellas was unique in its approach to the integration of Japanese culture with the world of erotica. Each novella excelled at building its own little world - be it hundreds of years into the past or mere decades into the future. However, with a mere sixty pages or so to work with, that world building came at the expense of the erotic tension and experience. I was able to binge read the complete work over a weekend because the erotic elements were so underdone.

One of my wishes for this book was that it had a glossary. I’m unfamiliar with the majority of the Japanese terms and other references as used in the novellas. My puzzling it out from the context detracted from the flow of each novella as much as the elliptical explanations in the texts did. It would have been so much better for me if I could have read a glossary of terms in advance so that I could understand why it was important that a certain statue was a jizo or a certain person was a kitsune.

Overall, I recommend this book to anyone with a strong grasp of Japanese culture and a curiosity (or more) about kink.

I received this book as a digital advance reader copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Three tales in one book. It was just 🆗 read. I was not mesmerized much by the plot but liked the style of writing presented. Only 3.5 🌟

I enjoyed reading this but I wasn't as invested it. I overall liked what I read and enjoyed that each story took place in a different time period. I just wish that there was more of the fantasy element but it's overall an enjoyable read.

This is a trio of related BDSM stories which begins with a female general dominating an emperor, and then taking care of him as only the best domme can: by finding him a woman who can meet all of his needs. It continues exploring the lusts and honor of the tengu that the general fought in defense of her emperor's wife, telling the story of a modern doctor who falls in love with a tengu and becomes entangled in a battle for the soul of a small but crucial village where many people are more than they seem. The final story is that of an unfavored son who finds a kitten and then is transported to 2047, surviving the bombing of Nagasaki because the future emperor's daughter needs his protection against male supremacists as much as she craves release at his skilled hands.

As they are written by three different writers, these stories are unequal. For historical grandeur, the story of the emperor's wife and his general wins, hands down, as well as for portraying positive female relationships when two women love the same man. Truly, I was glad not to see them fighting each other for love of the emperor, but rather working together to protect him and Japan. Though it definitely struck me as odd that the gods of the land weren't going to give the emperor a child until his wife embraced her power and sensuality fully. I rather hope the general was able to find someone to match her at some point. Maybe that tengu boy... There was the implication of sadism and masochism as well as sexual piercings, but mostly what readers get is very light bondage and domination, which is not unsexy, but also not that thrilling.

The second story really feels like it exists to link the first and third stories. It has the strongest supernatural element, with a modern, skeptical doctor being won over by a traditional villager whose lips turn cold and hard during sex, and whose skin looks shaded. There's a whole lot of foreshadowing, that's so blatant it hardly deserves the term. The dude is a tengu. He has crow wings, talons, and head when he's properly aroused. He and his family have a sacred duty to protect the village because it is the source of the special silk traditionally made into a garment to protect the imperial family by their wives (like the robe the first story's wife gives her husband on their wedding night). When the village is threatened by a developer who nearly seduces the doctor away from the tengu, she must choose between the two. In this story we see the repetition of a character called Chiyo with the heavy implication she might be a kitsune, and that one member of the silkworm family grew up to become Mothra. The sex in this one is pretty straightforward, other than the dude turning birdish when aroused, and being aroused by having his hands bound or being struck. It's okay. The doctor kind of feels superfluous to the story though.

The third story opens in 1945 with a rejected son of a samurai family taking a kitten and a skein of rope used for his family's traditional style of martial arts to sit and sulk about an arranged marriage just as one of the atomic bombs goes off. In 2047 we meet the daughter of the emperor, beloved by the people but also despised because she represents the eventual ascension of a female monarch. During a hospital tour she encounters this same man, comatose with his kitten. Upon her arrival he wakes and she is hustled home to be lectured by her father and bodyguard. Her bodyguard is initially set up as a love interest, or at least a sex interest, but when she learns her father's arranged a marriage for her the princess runs away and runs straight to a shibari (erotic ropeplay) club to give it a shot, since she's into bondage porn. The man from 1945 was also led to this club by his kitten, which feels excessively contrived, but anyway he proves to be exceptionally skilled and they are paired up and instantly enraptured with each other. Male supremacy is thwarted and all's well that ends well, thanks to the magic rope which protects the princess from harm, having been woven from the silk of special silkworms from a little village that might seem familiar. This story definitely had the best erotica and earns bonus points for having a cat.

There is definitely an audience for this book, and it seems the sort to be quietly checked out from public libraries along with a heap of other books along the same lines. It may or may not stand out among those other books, depending on the reader's tastes, but it's a quick, fun read.

Duty. Cultural heritage. Family obligations. Posterity.
Where do personal desires fit in among these tightly woven external pressures?
In ancient Japan, Laura Antoniou’s Lady General Hagane Masako in “The Way of Heaven” protects Prince Yoshinake and Princess Umiko as she also defends her unconventional role in the Chrysanthemum Empire against sexist, elitist naysayers and instigators of political unrest. Midori’s “The Secret of Silk” portrays an isolated village in present-day Japan where thoroughly modern city-lover Doctor Ami Sato runs the clinic that serves an aging population of traditionalists. She’s drawn to Kansaburo, a mysterious laborer who’s hiding powerful secrets. Much like the rich cultural history of Japan, “The Bonds of Love” by Cecilia Tan begins in the past, then flashes forward into the future linked upon a continuum of evolving traditions and expectations. In the first half of the 20th century Jiro resents being obligated to consent to an arranged marriage in order to redeem his family’s honor. More than one-hundred years later Princess Ami’s resentment come from similar objections. Fate offers her a chance for freedom to pursue her hidden passions.

Silk Threads offers readers an intricate cultural tapestry of tensions between past and present, personal needs and society’s demands, what is sanctioned, what’s forbidden, and why. All three authors write with lyrical sensibilities that enchant with their sensuous word play. When Princess Ami thinks in page 153: “I had worked myself into imagining that a rope top would be all boss, with harsh words and slaps… I realized this was far better… a man willing to share something special with me…” her sentiment applies to this anthology as an emotionally intimate read that happens to include BDSM elements.

This was a delightful read with three steamy romances set in Japan's Past, Present and Future. I loved the way that Japanese history and culture were woven through each story. The authors all took care to write in such a way that the experiences of each heroine felt real to me. The attention to detail was truly lovely for everything from the food to the streetscapes. While these are clearly erotic stories the plots were not lost in the erotic elements.

'Silk Threads' is exactly what connects these three novellas together, stitching legends of an Asian culture into a chronicle that spans from an ancient past, an alternative present, and a speculative future. The cool thing is that this is drawn from Japanese mythology and we don't get enough of this as it is. The uncool thing is that it falls short of expectation; I expect a good story and a good time, but I end up not really caring about the characters or what sex or romance they are having.

I did push through to see how the plots played out, but a lot of it feels rushed and compressed. One can't help but wonder this could have panned out better with more ruthless editing and time to refine the ideas. One of these three stories did redeem the collection. I don't feel like saying which one. I've not read any of these authors before although they all seem very prolific.

I did like the idea behind how the three stories were linked.

This eARC was courtesy of NetGalley.

Silk Threads is comprised of three novellas that are all connected through the ages. This book is described as a fantasy and a romance, but I would say it's mostly romance with some fantasy.

I found the cultural backdrop and mythology in the book very interesting and enjoyed seeing something new and refreshing (mainly not european mythology). I wish the stories were a little longer just to see more of this folklore.

This book can be described as mostly just romance. My main gripe with it is its poor plot. It seemed the authors just wanted to write really detailed sex scenes, then shoved a brief storyline in there so it wasn't just smut. I wish the plot was more prevalent (where sex scenes weren't the introduction to the story) and it carried into each story better.

3/5