Romantica Suspense

So here's my conclusion of what Romantica is:

Romantica is both romantic and sexually explicit. The sexual and emotional aspects of the relationship are integral to the plot and the development of the characters. The sex shown is more intense and hints on the erotic. There is a happy ending (as opposed to erotica or pornography, which do not need an HEA) in which the couple ends up together.

From this week's exercise, I've discovered how difficult it is to define our genre. Sensual, Hot, Romantica are like movie ratings, except not so easy to "see." In a movie, there are things that fit into the given rating.

PG-13 -- adult language
R -- strong adult situations and violence

In romance books, it's not so easy when it comes to levels of "hotness." For me, anyway. Even with my own definition above, I still can't come up with names of authors that I would just put in that category alone. I used Shannon McKenna as an example but you already told me you thought she was HOT but not Romantica Hot. ;-) And if I put in Susan Johnson's older historicals, then Romantica has been around for decades and this new sub-genre is just a fake! ;-) See my dilemma?

How about the Harlequin Blaze lines? Would you consider them as Romantica then? I have read them when they first came out and they were hot reads, some better than others in the graphic sex scenes, but underwhelming in the relationship development (not the authors' fault, since the books are very short).

The best way to sum it all up--Talking About Sex Doesn't 'Splain Anything ;-). Whatever level of sensuousness we, as romance readers, enjoy, it's all in our heads, just like the sexual act. For some, more is better. For others, less is more. And the mysterious temptation of Jed is both, is he not? ;-)

MOOD TODAY:

This weekend, I'll dig up my old brain cells and endeavor to entertain us with the dialectical discussion of Plato's concept of Perfect Lurv vs Albert Camus' Extreme Self Love.

Not.

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