Little Women Month: Lusty Little Women by Margaret Pearl

Here’s something you don’t see every day.

Not a sexy version of a more staid novel – that gained popularity just after Linda Bedoll scored a minor hit with ‘Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife.”  This resulted in multiple spicy slices of Pemberley life as well as sexied-up versions of Sense and Sensibility, Wuthering Heights …and Little Women.

The most interesting thing about Lusty Little Women is that its cheerful naughtiness is almost innocent in its single-mindedness.    The girls are all aged up to over eighteen (which reads oddly when scenes such as Amy’s pickled lime humiliation are revisited) and you get the requisite canon couplings, but here we encounter that facet that’s endemic of and unique to Little Women sequels and reimaginings  for the first time -  Marmee cheating on Mr. March, or vice-versa. 

For most authors, doing this tends to be seen as a simple rejection of Louisa May Alcott’s morality.  In this case, sex is a simple lark without moral weight for Marmee, who takes a discreet lunchtime tumble with “Harold” while delivering alms to the poor two chapters into the text.  They’ve been apparently carrying on a discreet affair for years and he adores her, but she also sleeps with Mister Laurence out of gratitude for the gifts he’s given her daughters (!!).   Jo catches Mrs. March with Laurence and there is some concern about her mental scarring, but not enough for Mrs. March to avoid dallying with Laurence on a continued basis.   Also sprinkled into the text is a gradually percolating relationship between Laurie and Jo, who kiss and fondle with the knowledge that Jo does not love him but they still can’t keep from their sexual explorations.   There is a subplot where Meg worries that Jo will go too far with Laurie and have her heart broken while she has a dalliance with Ned that ends in a love triangle when Brooks enters the picture.

Chapters progress on in Alcott’s tone, with sex scenes no spicier than what you’d read in a romance novel suddenly blooming to life like wild patches of daisies.    At least Pearl knows how to write Alcott, and the romantic scenes fit handsomely into the story itself.   But the novel never fully burst to life and instead feels like a published fanfic.     But if you’re curious about the notion of smutty Little Women stories and you want to hold a published  version of them in your hand, this isn’t a bad option.