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apocalypsosOne of the genres I have a weakness for is time-travel romances, so when I was at Wegmans the other day and caught a familiar author name out of the corner of my eye in the book aisle, I snapped up the newest entry in one time-travel romance series I quite like. For the most part.
After reading it again, I'm reminded why it bothers me -- no sex.
I'm not saying I desperately need graphic wallbanging porn with rubber toys, costumes and a monkey in my romance novels, but the books in question, while fairly well-written otherwise, don't feature a lick of sex. At least, not that we get to see. I can't recall any of these characters ever having sex before they get married -- and I've read almost every book in the series -- and if they DO have sex we get a fade-to-black.
I would think that it's just a decision of the part of the author -- I don't know, maybe she's religious even if her characters aren't, maybe she's a bit too swamped in the romance part, whatever -- but what it's really starting to do is convince me that she's either convinced she can't write a sex scene or knows she can't. Either way, it irritates me. More than it probably should, really, especially considering how many of these books are modern women who hook up with medieval men who have no problem talking about how they've had plenty of sex with other women previously. At this point I'm just having a really hard time buying that, if not every single couple (I seem to recall one couple did have sex before marriage, but I didn't read that book and I seriously doubt that wasn't another round of fading to black), then the vast majority of the couples are just waiting to put a ring on it.
All of which pisses me off, because other than the sexual politics (or lack thereof), I quite like most of the books. They're just so damn chaste. It makes them feel like beginner-reader's romance novels. "Here, start with this, and we'll work you up bit and bit until we've got you reading hardcore poly erotica with rubber toys and costumes and a monkey."
That said, I can't recall if one of the characters wrote the family's love stories and published them in canon -- I believe they did -- but even so, I feel like it's a minor crime to drop a mention of your main character reading a romance novel once that was the exact plotline of your first book in the series. That's a little too wink-wink-nudge-nudge for a bunch of books with no damn sex onscreen.
After reading it again, I'm reminded why it bothers me -- no sex.
I'm not saying I desperately need graphic wallbanging porn with rubber toys, costumes and a monkey in my romance novels, but the books in question, while fairly well-written otherwise, don't feature a lick of sex. At least, not that we get to see. I can't recall any of these characters ever having sex before they get married -- and I've read almost every book in the series -- and if they DO have sex we get a fade-to-black.
I would think that it's just a decision of the part of the author -- I don't know, maybe she's religious even if her characters aren't, maybe she's a bit too swamped in the romance part, whatever -- but what it's really starting to do is convince me that she's either convinced she can't write a sex scene or knows she can't. Either way, it irritates me. More than it probably should, really, especially considering how many of these books are modern women who hook up with medieval men who have no problem talking about how they've had plenty of sex with other women previously. At this point I'm just having a really hard time buying that, if not every single couple (I seem to recall one couple did have sex before marriage, but I didn't read that book and I seriously doubt that wasn't another round of fading to black), then the vast majority of the couples are just waiting to put a ring on it.
All of which pisses me off, because other than the sexual politics (or lack thereof), I quite like most of the books. They're just so damn chaste. It makes them feel like beginner-reader's romance novels. "Here, start with this, and we'll work you up bit and bit until we've got you reading hardcore poly erotica with rubber toys and costumes and a monkey."
That said, I can't recall if one of the characters wrote the family's love stories and published them in canon -- I believe they did -- but even so, I feel like it's a minor crime to drop a mention of your main character reading a romance novel once that was the exact plotline of your first book in the series. That's a little too wink-wink-nudge-nudge for a bunch of books with no damn sex onscreen.
