Did not finish, turgid writing. ( )

What should be forbidden is that books like this get published, but apparently there are enough easily-titillated people with more money than taste to warrant it. This is the second installment in Small's "Pleasures" series (her and her series...yikes). At this point there are two others in print and another to be released next year. I will read none of the others, not even for a laugh.

I'd say I could eat a bowl of Alpha Bits and crap a better novel, but that would be childish. Small, who heretofore has written historical "romance" (history with sex is more like it), has branched out into contemporary erotica. Or so we're told. If you've read any real erotica, you'll recognize this for what it really is--a goofball romance with some "naughty" language, action, and sex toys thrown in. Erotica is the exploration of the human psyche and its relationship with sexual pleasures. It is felt, not dictated. Erotica maintains that feeling throughout. Any relationship between characters is secondary to the feeling. I think it's understood that erotica is not love stories. Erotica doesn't even need to have a plot.

"Forbidden Pleasures" is not erotica. Novelist Emily Shanski is told by her publisher that her next book must be "sexier" if she is to keep her contract. But how can she write sexy (whatever that means) when she herself is a virgin, pure as the driven snow? I suppose imagination and actually talking to other people isn't an option. Emily has to get that cherry popped, and who better to do it than (insert standard adjectives of handsome masculinity here) Michael Devlin, her new editor. And then there's something called the Channel which is like a sexual fantasy holodeck for bored suburban housewives and is provided by the local cable company. Anyway, between the fleshy Michael and the fantasy Justin Malincourt, Emily learns all about sex, sexuality, and how to write a sexier book. ( )