This is journalist Nancy Friday's first book, published way back in 1973. Don't let the age of the book put you off, though - this is an amazing work and deserves a place in any racy bookcase.

Utterly groundbreaking at the time, My Secret Garden|My Secret Garden is a collection of women's sexual fantasies as recorded and published (anonymously) in Nancy's book. She's divided the fantasies up into several chapters, which she prefaces with some pseudo-psychological analysis. Ignore what she writes - the really juicy stuff are the sexual fantasies|Sex Fantasies themselves.

They're written by a variety of women, who outline their age, background and other biographical information before going straight into the explosive detail - and these sexual fantasies are explosive.

Back in '73, they caused much controversy, because women were still not seen as 'sexual creatures' and some of the fantasies Friday recorded were outrageous. Because the fantasies were written anonymously, women felt confident enough to write exactly what they desired and as a result, you'll find a whole host of different fantasies encompassing the vanilla to shocking themes of rape and other acts.

The fact that this book is so old actually makes the material inside more shocking - in today's modern 'porn friendly' world, books on fantasy seem to be homogenized and politically correct, steering clear of taboo topics. The stuff Nancy Friday uncovered will knock your socks off.

It's interesting that most of the sexual fantasies involve women loosing control - being raped, or forced or blackmailed into doing sexual things. Friday analyzes this and suggests that 'good' girls still have strong sexual desires, but the only way to fantasize about fulfilling them (while still being a 'good girl') was to fantasize about being 'forced' to submit to these erotic adventures.

That means some of the themes of non-consensual sex will be very disturbing for readers used to more modern (tamer) erotica. Just remember, though, that these are fantasies dreamt up by very willing women.

The fact that the book is made up of other people's fantasies - just normal, everyday women - means that the passages aren't professionally written - but the honest, raw prose and the surprising nature of these fantasies make My Secret Garden all the steamier.