Kirkus Reviews - July 1, 2000
"Hot and wet -- also extremely well crafted."

Book Description
Imagine a hot tub party where a married couple tests the boundaries of fidelity. A model who finds herself unaccountably aroused as she poses for a watercolor artist. A pool of water on a desert road and two lovers who know how to make the most of it. This is Aqua Erotica, a sensuous tasting of desire's liquid, ecstatic other worlds.

Aqua Erotica is a siren's song, a book so unforgettably sexy that you will want to take it with you to the bath, the sauna, the night-lit pool.

What's amazing is that you can.

The first-ever waterproof book for adults. The most seductive collection of original literary erotica ever gathered under one cover.

Aqua Erotica is a book that quite literally goes places you never imagined books could go. Featuring today's boldest erotic voices:

Francesca Lia Block
Poppy Z. Brite
Louise Erdrich
Carol Queen
Marcy Sheiner
Cecilia Tan
Barry Yourgrau
and many others --


From the Publisher
From the editor's introduction: "When I was first asked to do this anthology, it sounded like great fun -- reading erotic stories with a watery element, selecting the best to create a book that you could enjoy in the tub, at the beach -- while immersed in water yourself. And of course, I expected a veritable flood of stories to consider; water was so obviously a natural subject for erotica. Water is inherently sexy: it can be gentle, warm, delicious. I anticipated the incoming stories with nervous excitement. I did receive many wonderful stories -- but their nature surprised me. I had expected the collection to be full of light stories, delightful little erotic tales -- cheerful, like a bubbling spring. There are certainly more than a few of those in this book. Mary Maxwell's "I Want" gives us a pool of water in the desert and two lovers who know how to enjoy it; Diane Kepler's "Hydrodynamica" is a tale of a student who is having a very difficult time studying her fluid dynamics; Kris Hawes gives us a teasing woman and her partner (who must choose between basketball and a steamy shower) in "Velvet Glove," and Thomas Roche's poor artist's model writhes delightfully on her couch in "Watercolor." These stories are rich, heartfelt, often complex, and I'm pleased to be able to share them with you; their playfulness is seductive and sexy. But not all the stories are so light-hearted. There were dark currents in many of the stories I received. Love and lust, certainly -- but also pain and betrayal, deaths by drowning. Some of the stories were so painful that they moved me to tears as I read them. Bill Burkett's "Addiction" tells the story of a man trapped by his own desires, struggling to escape them; "Movements," by Michael Hemmingson, chronicles what may be the end, or new beginning, of a marriage, and the lengths to which a man will go to save it. A few stories pushed even further -- Simon Sheppard's "In Deep" is a story which explores the boundaries of consent, loss of control, and the desire for sexual oblivion; it terrified me even as it fascinated..."

From the Inside Flap
Imagine a hot tub party where a married couple tests the boundaries of fidelity. A model who finds herself unaccountably aroused as she poses for a watercolor artist. A pool of water on a desert road and two lovers who know how to make the most of it. This is Aqua Erotica, a sensuous tasting of desire's liquid, ecstatic other worlds.

Aqua Erotica is a siren's song, a book so unforgettably sexy that you will want to take it with you to the bath, the sauna, the night-lit pool.

What's amazing is that you can.

The first-ever waterproof book for adults. The most seductive collection of original literary erotica ever gathered under one cover.

Aqua Erotica is a book that quite literally goes places you never imagined books could go. Featuring today's boldest erotic voices:

Francesca Lia Block
Poppy Z. Brite
Louise Erdrich
Carol Queen
Marcy Sheiner
Cecilia Tan
Barry Yourgrau
and many others --

FROM OUR EDITORS

Billed as the first-ever waterproof book for adults, Aqua Erotica is a seductive collection of original literary erotica that quite literally goes places you never imagined a book could go! Among the contributors to this splashy exploration of sexual hydrodynamics are notable authors such as Poppy Z. Brite, Louise Erdrich, Cecilia Tan, and Barry Yourgrau.

FROM THE PUBLISHER