Friday 17 October 2008

Skipping sex


I thought it was about time I commented on some of the books I've been reading and listing on here. (If you haven't noticed, look to the right....)

Last read has been a Stephanie Laurens. This is perhaps the fourth one - I've done Vane, Devil, and Lucifer. This time it was one of the girls as protagonist- Amanda, to be precise. I adore the way the author gets her character psychology so right, the Regency times so precise and love her excellent use of language. But...you can tell there's a but coming, I suspect - I now skip pages describing most of the sex encounters. At first it was Vane and Priscilla and the encounters were well done and in character. (And new, of course. To me, anyway.) Slowly, as I've found and read the other titles, I find the level of sex is increasing until in the last two books I've been tempted to count the pages that detail the encounters - sometimes seven, eight and nine page encounters and more than three, four or five encounters per book - perhaps more. What percentage of the whole book, I wonder? Not that it isn't well done, but...there's only so much lapping, laving and silken skin a person can take before it begins to feel just a tad repetitious. I'd much rather have more story, which the author also writes very well indeed.

Perhaps I've read too many of the series in too short a space of time. Spread out over a few years, would I notice? I don't know.

Does this demand for sex come from the reader, the editor, the publishing houses? and how much is enough? and how much becomes too much?

I'm wondering how far and where this trend will go. If you have a view, let me know! And if Ms Laurens happens, by some strange internet quirk, to see this - don't worry - I'll still be reading your books!

3 comments:

Linda Banche said...

You're not the only one. I,too, prefer lots of story and less sex. At first, I didn't mind, because all that sex was new and unusual, but now I've had enough. I actually prefer sexual tension. I want a long, complex, rip-roaring story full of escalating sexual tension between a hero and heroine I like.

Romantic Inks http://romanticinks.com/
2008/10/16/reader-musings/
(I broke up the link so it would fit on the line) has a recent post on the same subject.

Jen Black said...

I'll check out that link, Linda!

Anonymous said...

well she is a great writer

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