There are 22 different authors featured in Playing With Fire. Playing With Fire was edited together by Alison Tyler and features the following authors: Nikki Magennis, Sommer Marsden, Shanna Germain, Sophia Valenti, P. S. Haven, Jeremy Edwards, Teresa Noelle Roberts, Michael Hemmingson, N. T. Morley, Bella Dean, Kristina Wright, A.D.R Forte, J.D. Waters, Jolene Hui, Andrea Dale, I.K. Velasco, Thomas S Roche, Janine Ashbless, Heidi Champa, Alison Tyler, Christoper Tolian, and M. Murphy.

At the end of the book there are 3 pages dedicated to giving you a paragraph of information on each author, as well as an expanded section on the editor.

Playing with fire is a book of 22 short erotic stories from 22 different authors. Totaling 162 pages, the stories range in length from a few paragraphs to a few pages.

The premise for each story is that of the taboo and all, except the last one, involve fire in some way. While some stories involve fire in its physical form, some take fire to just be intense heat, like that of a heat wave in the country. The very last story of the book is a tale about water, which the editor states is a "cool refreshing finale to a crackling collection."

Instead of multiple stories of say, a man and a woman getting it on at home, maybe foraying into the kitchen, we see tales of a woman who teases a man and gets herself chained to a tree and left there after being used like she wanted, a married man who picks up a woman in a bar and gets dominated and tortured in the back of his car, a couple who stay up late waiting for a thunderstorm to bring cooler temperatures that will allow them to finally be close again and once the rain starts they just can't wait. One story is about a man lighting matches, and the sensual erotic-ness that can come from a simple match lighting.

Some stories are tamer than others, but each story is written very well, focusing more on the experience that the character(s) go through rather than just on the act itself.

The book itself is relatively small, about 8" tall by 5 1/2" wide. As a paperback, it won't hold up to tons and tons of abuse, but with normal use, it will be fine. For outward appearances, it isn't the most discreet for appearances, but the title on the front isn't that large, so if you can cover that with your hand while reading, you can pass it off as just a regular book with a more 'risque' picture on the front.

I really enjoy erotica, but I don't own that many books of it. Given the opportunity to not only expand my collection, but also the types of stories, I couldn't resist.

The types of stories in Playing With Fire aren't normally the ones that I go for when browsing erotica, but I still found most of them hot and exciting in some way. Not all of them were my personal cup of tea, but I did enjoy reading every story in the book. I had my fiance read the book as well and he summed it up pretty well when he said that it seemed like the point of the collection was more about the journey to the climax, rather than the climax itself. Which is something I look for in well written literotica.