I write hot. Steamy, burn the bed [or insert alternative J] down hot. They’re romances first and foremost though. For me, I really believe the love/sex scenes of a book are crucial to the developing relationship in a romance novel. Yeah, you guessed it. You won’t find any closed doors in my books LOL. It’s during these most intimate moments people are perhaps at their most vulnerable and it provides tremendous opportunity for a writer to further the story and develop the characters. What they say, how they touch, their reactions, how they’re effected…all provide rich insight into the characters, their histories and how they’re changing at that moment. A love/sex scene should be important to the story, perhaps a turning point, but at a minimum divulge something about one or both of the characters either to the reader or to each other. It shouldn’t be included ‘just because’ it’s about time they got down and dirty. No, it has to have a specific purpose. At least in my view. AND it also has to be completely consistent with the characters and who they are. This is kind of a pet peeve of mine as a reader. Whatever the characters…

There’s always a lot of discussion about heroes in romantic and erotic fiction. In many ways, it really is all about him, right? As readers, we need to find him likeable, redeemable (if he’s bad and I usually hope he is) and HOT. At the end of the day, we have to fall a little (or a lot!) in love with him. But what about the heroine? What about her? What kind of heroines do readers relate to because if a reader doesn’t relate to the heroine or her plight, the whole story falls apart. I think about this quite a bit and I spend a lot of time on developing what I call a “character map” for my heroines. I want my readers to really connect with them on some level, but I don’t aim to write perfect characters. That would be boring. I want them to be real and that means having quirks and faults and of course, room to grow. I feel as if the reader needs to get invested in their journey. It’s why I might throw in an embarrassing moment for my heroine, a mistake that you or I could make, a fear we might…