So I was reading the unauthorized biography of Stephenie Meyer, when I found myself almost irritated by the tone the introduction was casting. The underlying subtext was that Stephenie was a complete original to have no explicit content in her books (there is some controversy on whether or not she did have explicit content anyways) and that she had completely stepped outside the norm to write a book without explicit bedroom scenes.
I know that there are so many others out there like me who know that this isn’t the case. Even though demand for clean romance books may not be on the rise, that market is still very much alive and kicking.
The Clean Romance Group I’m a member of on Good Reads? Their list of clean romance novels is over 800 stories strong and they have over 1000 members!
(Check out their list here Clean_Romances)
I’ve read a number of articles about how fed up readers are with all the bedroom scenes. Some think they’re just too overdone and boring and nothing new to read (I wouldn’t know this firsthand as I don’t want to read those types of scenes anyway). Other readers think that too many writers focus on sexual relationships or tension when all they want to read about is the courtship, the love, the wooing of the girl. Still others want to be able to have books in the house that their teenage girls can pick up and read if they want to. Each of these articles are saturated with comments of readers who utterly agree and want their voices heard.
Clean romances can be just as enjoyable (and I think more so) than erotica. I think that a clean romance in essence respects the privacy of the characters, I like these characters so much that I don’t want to know any more about their bedroom lives than I would a friends’.
I am so sick and tired of media, editors, publishers and agents who continually perpetuate that something has to have sex to sell. Yes things that have sex do sell, but if a romance book doesn’t have sex it can still be a best-seller!
One of the most famous books of all time, leaves the bedroom to the imagination – Gone With The Wind. Enough said.
As a writer I continue to hope that there will always be readers who want clean romances, because that is all I’m going to write.
~ Thank you Georgette Heyer and every other author who has given the world romance books that are purely about the romance and the relationship. You write exactly what I want to read.
