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Original poster

'Spicy' romance novels - everyone but me?

147 replies

TaylorsLeftShoe · 08/04/2025 11:05

Shamelessly posting in AIBU for traffic!

This morning on the school run I caught some of the mums talking about 'hockey books', I bumbled in confused because hockey is not an option for our dcs (v early primary) but apparently they were talking about these 'spicy' books they all read.

They hadn't told me as they thought I was too prim (!) but apparently they're all into them, basically it seems like chick lit but with lots of sex and 'spicy' scenes.

Is everyone reading this apart from me?? I'd never even heard of them until today and feel a bit left out.

Never thought I was prim, now wondering if I have been all along 😂

OP posts:
Nc500again · 10/04/2025 10:56

The 50 shades films 😂😂

SlatternIsMyMiddleName · 13/04/2025 18:31

Stelmosfire1 · 09/04/2025 22:06

Yes, I honestly blushed reading it. I did finish it though 😂

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Yep, utter filth. And I didn’t order it and finish it in 2 days based on this thread. Nope. No siree.

steff13 · 13/04/2025 18:43

I read one recently that I really enjoyed called Daydream. It's about kids in college and it has some romantic scenes but not a lot and they're not really overly graphic. The male love interest I just found to be really sweet. It's set here in the US but I'm pretty sure the author is British based on some of the language that she used. So you all might like it.

FleaBeeBob · 13/04/2025 19:24

Horror and thriller for me

Mickeychampionwhatgoodami · 13/04/2025 19:42

What's a hockey book ?

MaryGreenhill · 13/04/2025 19:44

They are boring 🤣

steff13 · 14/04/2025 02:42

Mickeychampionwhatgoodami · 13/04/2025 19:42

What's a hockey book ?

It's a romance where the male love interest is a hockey player. There are also books with football players, rugby players, soccer players, etc.

WaryHiker · 14/04/2025 03:00

I make my living writing sweet rom-coms. It is occasionally frustrating to know I could make double the money overnight by adding a load of spice and advertising the books on TikTok. But I have a particular audience who like what I write, so I stick with that.

I do know plenty of people making a killing writing clean hockey romance if that's what people are looking for.

Thebunny · 20/04/2025 22:33

Are there any good books on a toy-boy theme?

Mickeychampionwhatgoodami · 20/04/2025 22:41

Pinocchio.. sorry couldn't resist 😄

Netgling · 21/04/2025 05:49

Thebunny · 20/04/2025 22:33

Are there any good books on a toy-boy theme?

One of the Black Lace ones - "Like Mother, Like Daughter" - can't remember the author.

SapporoBaby · 21/04/2025 06:41

I ready spicy fantasy mostly… magic and elves and shit like that. They’re easy reading sometimes. Though I usually prefer ‘proper’ fantasy novels I occasionally fall into a spicy one without realising (I buy on kindle)

SapporoBaby · 21/04/2025 06:42

There’s also Manacled which is a remarkably well written spicy Harry Potter fan book. She’s sold thousands of it although it is very very dark I would recommend it!

motheroflittledragon · 21/04/2025 06:49

actually really been reading the bridgerton books and really been enjoying them so much more then the show. not as much spice and there is actual character development and a plot. i never been into those sort of books until i stumbled upon that series as i usually find too much spice just awkward

SwanOfThoseThings · 21/04/2025 06:50

I tend to skim over sex scenes in books I otherwise read closely. Not through prudishness; I simply don't find them interesting. All you need to know for plot purposes is - they had sex - it was great/OK/terrible. Not interested in the detail. If I want to get off on mental sexual imagery, my imagination is in perfect working order - I'd rather have a good, honest wank than mess about with someone else's idea of what is titillating.

Netgling · 21/04/2025 12:57

Netgling · 21/04/2025 05:49

One of the Black Lace ones - "Like Mother, Like Daughter" - can't remember the author.

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Georgina Brown

AliasGrace47 · 02/09/2025 20:54

HobnobsChoice · 08/04/2025 14:16

Same. I've read the word spicy so many times just on this thread. It's sex. We are all adults here and it's not TikTok so you can write the word sex or erotica or whatever. It's always strikes me as bizarrely prudish to call it that rather than say "I'm reading a book where vampires keeps shagging werewolves" or "I'm into those ice hockey books because I really enjoyed the sexy bits"

I don't really read erotica because most of them don't do anything for me and it can literally take one word to put me off. Like others I prefer the "pan away" from the actual sex. Bit like Radclyffe Hall with "that night they were not parted". I don't need the what went where and who did what. Some people do but god don't call it spicy.

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Old thread I know but I'm fed up with the censoring of words people of my generation (Gen Z) are picking up from TikTok and using on other SM. Unalive rather than suicide. Grape rather than rape. Corn rather than porn. Some people on a lesbian forum I'm on even using 'sesbian lex' for lesbian sex bc TikTok was apparently censoring that for a while

It just feels like kowtowing to big companies which want to bowlderise speech and make us shy away from disturbing or simply adult language. I'm suspicious of the agenda China has with TikTok...

I also hate the beastiality obsession these TikTokers often have. Morning Glory Milking Farm. Bull Moon Rising 🤮🤮

Or 'dark romance', ie. Rape & abuse, and if you don't like that, they say you can't criticjse their kink. 😡

Is it brainrot from lockdown? I feel that started a lot of weird stuff on TikTok.

I love BookTok but hate this element.

AliasGrace47 · 02/09/2025 21:01

BelfastBard · 09/04/2025 21:35

I have genuinely never come across a well written sex scene in a book. And I read A LOT. Maybe I’m just not the sort of person who finds erotic fiction actually erotic, but the few I have checked out almost made me laugh out loud at how cringeworthy they were.

I have, plenty of times. But tend to be in literary books, not erotica. Ppl is right, 18th century or 19th century erotica is often shockingly bad too. They just didn't have BookTok to flog it then!

AliasGrace47 · 02/09/2025 21:13

NooNakedJacuzziness · 08/04/2025 13:43

Showing my age here but anyone remember the goldfish scene from Lace? How anyone found that "spicy" is beyond me Grin

Gen Z here who loves Lace but not that scene 🤮

AliasGrace47 · 02/09/2025 21:16

ItGhoul · 08/04/2025 12:43

Not interested in the 'hockey' ones or the billionaires or any of those. But I do enjoy a spicy fantasy novel. Vampires. Fae. Demons. Dragon riders. That kind of thing.

Ideally you want a male lead who is a villain, or at the very least, an antihero.

Lots of these books are really terrible and just absurd with zero plot. But there are plenty which have a good fantasy plot and well-written characters and a ton of shagging with hot, brooding, morally grey and well-endowed men.

50 Shades Of Grey is unbearably shit, though. Terrible writing, tedious unsexy characters and the world's most insipid female lead. Literally one of the worst books I've ever started to read - I didn't bother finishing it.

I have to say that having read threads on Mumsnet where people opine about what is/isn't acceptable in the bedroom, I reckon a lot of Mumsnetters would be clutching their pearls. I often chuckle to myself when people on here claim that it's only men who get off on certain things and it's all down to them watching porn - because these books are always, always written by women and probably 95% of their readers are women too, and they rarely hold back!

I read a lot, everything from classics to contemporary literary fiction to crime to fantasy to non-fiction. I'm more than happy to include smut too!

One can read about things which one doesn't want to do in real life. I bet a lot of women who read Fifty Shades or similar wouldn't want to do BDSM in real life, or not to that extent.

Similarly, I love reading fantasy which features dragon flying, buy if that were an option in real life, I still wouldn't do it, even if it was totally safe 🤣

Notnc · 02/09/2025 23:10

Grew up on the Black Lace ones, still buy if I see them 2nd hand.

Notnc · 02/09/2025 23:11

Hate the alpha male/passive female characters you usually get in these books.

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