It was at the end of October, a few days before Halloween – before the first snow of winter, a snow that would be early, but fleeting, just snowy enough to make trick-or-treating a freezing-cold affair, but not snowy enough to last the night – when I realised that I had no chance of reaching the year’s reading target.
I’d set myself a goal of reading 100 books by the end of the year, but with just two months to go I was only at 31, a number that seemed pitiful by any measure.
It was at that very moment that I began my journey into the smutty romance genre, a journey that would take me from Lucy Score and Liz Tomforde through to Abby Jimenez and Catherine Walsh, Alina Jacobs and Morgan Elizabeth (with breaks to read Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo, Fourth Wing and Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros, and Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris).
I read about feuding mafia families; small-town romances; grumpy men who live in the mountains (they always live in the mountains, those grumpy, bearded men who have never seen the inside of a gym but are pure muscle anyway); sexy, horny ice hockey players (why? I do not know); BDSM; almost-incest (they’re just step siblings so it doesn’t count); and fake dating… and finished, unbelievably, but also inevitably with an incredibly steamy Taylor Swift fan fiction in which each chapter was titled after one of her songs.
(It feels a bit like, in 2023 – and 2024, too, so far, anyway – all roads lead back to Taylor, whether those roads are paved with footballs or with smutty small-town romances.)
I’ve long thought that books, films, music, theatre, musical theatre… (the list goes on) should be reviewed only by their target audiences.
That is to say, the 60-something Bob Dylan fan who’s been working at that once-indie music magazine is not exactly Taylor Swift’s target demographic (not to bring her into it again), much as the highly esteemed literary critic of, say, the Financial Times is not exactly who Lucy Score has in mind when she writes her bestselling books. (When I say “bestselling”, by the way, I mean incredibly, majorly, top-of-her-game style bestselling; the first of her Knockemout series, Things We Never Got Over, has 168,000 ratings on Amazon.)
So, when I read these books, I don’t rate them by the same metric as I would rate, say, Prophet Song or The Color Purple or even Fourth Wing, although I suspect the venn diagram of smut fans and Fourth Wing fans is almost a perfect circle.
I rate them in terms of how much I enjoyed them; how late I stayed up to read them (the record for last year, by the way, is held by Emily Henry’s Happy Place, which kept me up past 3am, something I will never forgive her for); how satisfied I was by the ending and also, erm, the endings throughout, if you get my drift; how quickly I rushed to download the next in the series, or to continue reading through that particular author’s back catalogue.
And listen: smutty romance books are tropey as fuck. There are grumpy mountain men aplenty, 20-something virgins everywhere you look, washboard abs to beat the band, and frustrated men whose jeans are, quite frankly, too tight to accommodate their enormous penises.
There is a beginning: couple meets, they have incredible sexual chemistry, they do the deed, they fall in love (sometimes with both parties being entirely in denial about this simple fact), there is always – always – a reason they cannot be together, and then, miraculously, they manage to figure it all out and be together anyway.
Most of the books I have read have featured heterosexual romance – I did read one male-on-male romance that I liked, but didn’t love (I am here for titillation, after all, otherwise I’d be reading through all of the worthy tomes I have on my bookshelves) – and the vast majority of them have focused on monogamous, pretty vanilla intercourse. We’re not reinventing the sexual wheel here.
Some have featured supernatural powers in fictional realities – J Bree’s Bonds that Tie series springs to mind – and another has featured dragon sex (Fourth Wing, not really a smutty book by definition, but contains just enough smut for it to slide right in there, if you’ll excuse the pun). Lots have featured rekindled love affairs, enemies who become lovers, fake dating scenarios that – surprise, surprise! – turned into (whispers) something more.
I can’t give you a review of each and every one – although if this is something you’d be interested in, let me know, and I can do a monthly digest – but I can pick out a few that have stuck with me, for whatever reason.
If you’re interested in my very rudimentary star ratings (spoiler alert: anything I love gets four stars, because five stars seems ridiculous, who deserves that? Shakespeare?, and then 3 stars is kind of meh, while 2 stars is bad, because I feel too guilty giving any writer 1 star, although I have the ODD 1 star in there for something truly, deeply terrible), you can check out my Goodreads profile here. But otherwise…
Lucy Score’s Knockemout series
I really liked these books, based in a small American town where all of the action happens in the diner and somehow there are dozens of sexy, single, bearded men (some grumpy) just… living their lives, ripe for the taking. If I recall correctly, the smut was pretty good, but it was reading these where I began wondering just what was wrong with me that I can’t orgasm on demand, six times in a row… (“Come for me, baby” is one of my least favourite smutty book catchphrases.)
I also really enjoyed Rock Bottom Girl, by the same Lucy Score, about a woman who ends up back in the town she grew up in, feeling like a total loser, until she meets the school bad boy who’s grown up to be the super hot (bear with me) PE teacher. Just suspend your disbelief, please.
Liz Tomforde’s Windy City series
Okay, now these books were sexy. Here’s where my interest in ice hockey began (and ended, probably) – with this trio of interlinked stories featuring incredibly fit and virile young athletes who are loyal to their women, and each other, and seem to be very good at expressing their feelings, grooming themselves and looking after those women, despite working out and travelling all the time, two of the world’s most exhausting things. I guess none of this has to make sense.
J Bree’s The Bonds that Tie series
So this series will not be for everyone in that it is a kind of smut-fantasy crossover, but if you’re someone who liked Game of Thrones and wished it had more sexy-sex (and less rapey-sex), then this might do it for you. It features gifted people (as in, the ability to beam up and down a la Scottie in Star Trek, or the ability to shoot fire from their hands) and polyamorous relationships and also evil people determined to use people’s gifts for nefarious purposes (but don’t worry, they all have time to have loads of sex anyway).
The Plight Before Christmas by Kate Stewart
Towards the end of December, I found myself diving into a lot of festive smut, which I hadn’t ever really thought of as a genre I’d be interested in, but I do love Christmas so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. This book, about a woman who’s hit rock bottom (trope alert!), stranded (trope!) with her family at Christmas, who discovers that her brother is besties with her ex (trope!) and has invited him along (trope!)… is not exactly a brain-tangler. But it is fun and funny and… kind of sweet? I guess? Ish? I don’t know. Maybe the mince pies had tangled my brain.
Resisting the Grump by Ashley Munoz
So, I’m kind of ashamed of myself for this one because the mountain-dwelling grump is such an overdone trope, and also misleading, because I live in America now and, let me tell you, anyone I’ve met who lives in any way off the beaten track has been a conspiracy theorist with a very un-sexy, rude way of talking and several Trump stickers on his car. Do not be fooled by these books, folks! This is not real life! Anyway, I liked this one because it featured a girl who, in her teenage years, had been, honestly, a psychotic stalker when it came to the guy she fancied, and I think that’s beautiful, and very relatable, actually.
Snowed In by Catherine Walsh
I’ve left the best for last, the only smutty romance I gave 5 stars to! And do you want to know why? Because it was sexy but also hilarious and it was so Irish it actually hurt me to read it. I miss Irish people so much! The mam had a good dishcloth! You just don’t get that in America. Plus, it’s got fake dating AND stranded-together-trying-to-resist-all-that-sexual-attraction going for it, which is a potent and effective combo. Highly recommend.
I would be very appreciative if you could share any and all of your smutty book recommendations with me! I had kind of told myself I’d get back to reading literature in the New Year but… why would I do that when reading smutty romance is so very enjoyable?! Why would anyone?! Madness!
Rosemary, I’m loving this!! I was a voracious reader of Mills & Boon when I was a teenager (we owned a newsagent & every month you just tore the covers off the unsold M&B books to send back to the company so we just just dumped the book which I couldn’t do). Anyway I have been transported back to my teens with your recommendations. I really liked J Bree - didn’t think I like supernatural but it seems I was wrong. My husband is bloody delighted with my new reading material! I moved onto Lucy Score then which I did really like. I’ve stayed up until all hours reading all of these books & my house is a tip as I’m completely addicted to them! My latest author in this genre is Elsie Silver - I loved horse riding when younger also so have a serious soft spot for a cowboy! Her books are based in Canada so it seems I’ve a definite thing for Canadian cowboys. Like Lucy Score she has written a couple of series based around a family of extremely hot, often misunderstood & incredibly well-endowed brothers. Her other series is based around horse racing yards in a small town in Canada featuring a grumpy, muscly, well-endowed mountain living recluse in the last in that series. So I particularly loved your take on those particularly characters!
I'd like a monthly review..I read a lot of smut. My excuse is I read a lot of dull "papers" for my Job.. so smut is downtime.
I'd recommend Susanne Wright Embers series, story line is decent, sex writing is really really good..but it does involve super natural people so it's very far fetch. Ohh and no man in it is poor..or blessed with a small "centerpiece "
I have not read any Alien Smut..my friend swears its unintentionally funny, so may try.