In Too Deep, by Portia da Costa

TITLE: In Too Deep
AUTHOR: Portia da Costa

COPYRIGHT: 2008
PAGES: 233
PUBLISHER: Black Lace

SETTING: Contemporary US
TYPE: Erotic romance
SERIES: None

Librarian Gwendolyne Price starts finding indecent proposals and sexy stories in her suggestion box. Shocked that they seem to be tailored specifically to her own deepest sexual fantasies, she begins a tantalizing relationship with a man she's never met. Soon enough, erotic letters and toe-curlingly sensual emails don't suffice; she has to meet her mysterious correspondent in the flesh.

On a perfectly normal day at work, librarian Gwen receives a wonderfully smutty letter. Signed "Nemesis", the letter goes into all sorts of naughtiness, and despite herself, Gwen feels flattered and turned on, rather than creeped out and stalked (and it's a testament to da Costa's talent that I was right behind her on that). The letters keep coming, and before she knows it, she's drawn into her anonymous admirer's sexy games.

At the same time, Gwen begins a wild affair with a handsome celebrity professor who's temporarily working at her library. Daniel Brewster is both hot and seemingly shy, and the combination inspires the normally unadventurous Gwen to be atypically forward.

So before long, from a very boring life and being in the middle of a bad divorce, Gwen is involved in two different erotic adventures, and wondering if the sexy professor and her anonymous correspondent might not be one and the same.

I had a bit of a strange experience with this one. It's exactly my sort of book. Gwen is amazing, Daniel is dreamy, and I loved the plot with the letter writer. It's my type of erotic romance, too: pretty vanilla in terms of what actually happens, but steamy in its intensity. While I was reading it, I enjoyed it immensely.

For some reason, however, the story didn't completely engage me, and it took me days and days to read, when I normally would tear through a book like this in one or two sittings. When I put it down, I didn't feel much of a compulsion to pick it up. No idea why... there's nothing wrong with it at all. It might be a case of me not being in the right mood, so I'll have to give it another go at some point. In the meantime...

MY GRADE: A B-.