Immersed in Pleasure by Tiffany Reisz

I'm all for erotica and romance. Both are great fun to read, and done well, they might even give you something to think about.

Then there is Immersed in Pleasure, a thin novella by Tiffany Reisz. It isn't really erotica, because despite its scant number of pages, there aren't that many sex scenes in it. Nor is it a romance novel, because there isn't a whole lot of that, either.  I'm really not sure what this is, but the good news is that it is so slim that you can read it in about an hour.

I'll admit straight away that I did not enjoy this book. I thought the premise was silly and the sex scenes unsatisfying, no pun intended.

Derek Prince is a wealthy young executive in New York who happens upon the supposed urban legend Manhattan Mermaids. He immediately is drawn to Xenia, one of the mermaids, who is dripping wet. Again, no pun intended. Or maybe it's supposed to be a metaphor. I'm not sure. Anyway, poor Derek quickly learns that the Mermaids are virgins who cannot lose their virginity and still work as Mermaids. And the Mermaid gig is pretty sweet; the girls live rent free in a swanky apartment, and after each water show performance, they are rubbed down in a sort of hot oil massage. But Derek is nothing if not persistent, and he eventually woos Xenia. Along the way we have a handful of sex scenes that are not as hot as they should have been.

I don't know if it's the silly story - mermaids? Really? - or the lack of hotness, but Immersed in Pleasure really did not appeal to me all that much. If you're going to write erotica, make sure the scenes are steamy. If you're going to write romance, give us some.

Published by Harlequin and available on Amazon.com.

Thanks to NetGalley for the preview.