PLEASE NOTE: I wrote this reviews just days before hearing about Dawn's death. At the time, I decided to hold the review, out of respect for Dawn. But I had every intention of posting this review at a later date and I felt it was now time to post this review. RIP Dawn. You are missed.

Meg has been declared a witch and banished to the Isle of Mists. Her aunt and uncle take her in and begin to train her to become a priestess. However, in order to become a priestess, she must remain a virgin since that is where the magic comes from.

Late one night looking out to the beach, Meg sees the selkies arrive for a divine evening of orgies under the full moon. One of these selkies, a man so glorious Meg has never seen anyone who compares to him, catches her eye... and her attraction, beckoning her with his selkie magic.

Now she is ruined, unable to complete the ritual to become a priestess, sold into slavery as one of the shamans’ whores. Until Simeon comes to her rescue. He is the prince of the selkies, the Lord of the Deep, and he has chosen Meg as his mate. Can they see past their differences and opposite worlds to find sensual happiness like she has never known?

I have to say I love romance novels that incorporate the legends of the selkies into the adventure. As such, I was quite excited to begin Lord of the Deep, expecting that I would adore the story. The descriptions of Simeon’s kingdom and palaces are beautiful and I was so easily able to envision them in my mind’s eye. Relationships between the characters were brilliantly developed, though I found myself drawn more to the secondary characters than to Simeon and Meg. Vega especially caught my attention and I loved the exploration of his personality. I also loved Gideon, the Lord of the Dark, and found his story to be quite heartbreaking. I would love to see him find the happiness he is so desperately seeking.

While Dawn Thompson’s writing is quite lyrical and her talent is very apparent, the extreme sex scenes overpowered her writing. Yes, I was very well aware of the fact that this was an erotica and would be very hot, but some of the scenes were so far out of my comfort zone I don’t know how I managed to get through them. There were a couple scenes in particular that actually disgusted me and if this were not a book sent to me to review, I would not have read beyond the point of the first one of these scenes. Unfortunately I cannot reveal which particular scenes those were as they give away plot points not revealed until well into the novel.

In my opinion, even knowing the legends of the selkies represent them as extremely sensual creatures, Lord of the Deep would have been better as a regular paranormal romance novel rather than an erotica. That way, Thompson could let her real talent for world building and exquisite narration shine through. As an erotica story, the focus is too much on the sexual relationship, resulting in the fact that the magic of the legends and the beautiful fantasy world cannot be as deeply explored.

While I will most certainly continue to read Dawn Thompson’s paranormal romance novels, I don’t know as I will read any future erotica novels she may write. Because several of the particular scenes in this story had such a strong negative impact on me I’d be hesitant to read future stories of hers in this genre for fear of finding similar scenes.

© Kelley A. Hartsell, February 2008. All rights reserved.