The second volume of the Stacy Collection, detailing the debauched life of Stacy, the oversexed blonde and her equally insatiable best friend, Chloe. All the stories have been previously published in separate volumes and include “Stacy's Gangbang Wedding” (Stacy and Chloe have make-up ahead of Stacy's wedding and celebrate with a room full of men); “Stacy's Sexy Threesome” (a suddenly single Stacy moves in with Chloe and her new husband, Roger and they become a very close threesome); “Stacy's Wet Dream” (Stacy falls in love with her husband's charismatic divorce lawyer, Dominic Burke) and “Stacy's Bimbos In Paradise” (Stacy heads to Australia to get married again. Not to be outdone Chloe is reunited with her lost love Frank and it looks like happy endings all round).

Although still a good, trashy read, this second volume isn’t to the standard of the first. There is still significant decadence and raunch, but the stories slide into more traditional love story territory. Both Stacy and Chloe fall in and out of love, meet new men, get married and divorced all in rapid succession with little character development in between. Stacy suddenly falling in “traditional” love with Dominic, for example is totally out of character and a bit jarring. The stories take giant leaps of years between them so whole stretches of the characters’ lives disappear with unaccounted gaps.

Perhaps the most disappointing aspect is the changed nature of the characters’ between the two volumes. In the first both Stacy and Chloe are sexy, independent women who know exactly what they want are unafraid to go out and grab it and woe betide any man who gets in the way. By the second volume they have devolved into more traditional love heroines who are mainly concerned with finding the “right man” and settling down into traditional roles – a disappointingly conservative and conventional end to the series.

Virginia Wade’s writing is light and breezy, rapidly moving from situation to situation, rarely letting the momentum flag. The sex remains red-hot and despite the conservative ending, the stories remain really fun reads. I hope we haven’t seen the last of Stacy Anderson and her pal Chloe. ( )