The setting: Charleston, South Carolina in the 1970's. Warm, humid days, soft firefly lit nights, polite conversation, genteel manners, and wild abandon behind closed doors.
"Trembling" is narrated by John, a graduate student seduced by his aunt Amy and ushered into the hedonistic lifestyle of some of Charleston's more colorful characters until he eventually seduces and partners with her daughter Alicia. That, essentially is the plot, but it's nowhere near the whole story.
It's erudite, funny, talky, sad, very sexy, and steeped in the Old South during the 1970's. Occasionally the narrative slips (what 20 something college student wouldn't recognize the scent of marihuana?) but Colleton is such a wonderful writer that you'll forgive him.
If you're looking for non-stop erotica, this is not the book for you. The scenes don't happen every chapter, but when they do, they're memorable. This is the first book in Colleton's series of novels following the adventures of his colorful cast. Well worth seeking out. ( )

John Colleton, the pseudonym of Robert Walter Marks, wrote about a dozen highly atmospheric novels set mostly in Charleston, South Carolina, where he died in 1993. Perhaps their ethereal tone and laid back love-making are an acquired taste, but they are delightfully redolent of warm lazy days of sexual intrigue. ‘The Trembling of a Leaf’ is one of the sequence of books that is written in the voice of John Dellmore, rather than the alternate narrator, Bill, John being the nephew of this book’s principal character Amy. His erotic dalliances embrace Amy and her lovers, and the novel begins with a highly charged account of his aunt being undressed then whipped by the severe Miss Westcott. This proves to be the start of their liaison, which becomes steadily closer, until it is disturbed by the start of a relationship with Amy’s daughter, Alicia, which becomes a marriage. This novel doesn’t have quite the erotic charge of most of the others I’ve read, but it remains utterly charming, erudite and amusing. ( )