It's getting hot...

The heatwave is back in Europe. In some places, I’m not convinced it ever left. Here in Cornwall, we’re forecast to reach 28°C today, while other parts of Britain are bracing for 32°C and beyond. Meanwhile, octopuses, for the second year running, have decided our normally cool, Cornish waters are the perfect holiday destination. In between mating they’re doing what all holiday makers do, sampling the local delicacies and feasting on lobster, much to the despair of the lobster fishermen, while other fisherfolk are gleefully harvesting the octopus instead. Proof, if ever we needed it, that there’s always a flip side to any situation.

As I've mentioned before, I’m luckier than many. My old granite cottage stays cool downstairs (when it’s not freezing), but a dear friend in France is currently trying to survive temperatures hurtling towards 40°C. So although I might be tempted to dive into a cold bath, I have no excuse but to sit down and work on this week’s newsletter for my lovely Readers’ Club members. (If you aren't a member, you can sign up on the Readers' Club page.

You may be muttering: So what has the weather got to do with books?   So, let me take you to the flip side of my thought process.

🔥 Heat in fiction

Not the heroic firefighter kind — the other sort. The kind that appears in romance writing and has the potential to fry the internet or get a newsletter blocked if handled without care. Euphemisms may be required.

The trouble with “heat” is its intensity. One person’s 'Yuck, too much!' is another person’s 'naughty-but-nice'.

When I wrote The Earl’s Daughter and The 16th Earl’s Only Love, I had decisions to make. There is simply no way to please all readers with one book. Just glance at the one and two‑star reviews of any bestselling author if you doubt me.

So what was I to do about the sex in my books? There, I’ve said it. But I haven’t included it. Not in the 'he did this, she did that, cue heavy breathing' sense of steamy genre romances. It’s well known that such scenes are extremely difficult to write, and I believe many writers struggle because they focus on the mechanics rather than the emotions. For that reason, the first two books in the Aucourte Chronicle contain no bedroom gymnastics, nor gymnastics in any other location. But there is emotion. There is desire, lust, longing, and the pleasure of something held back, the fade to black where the reader knows what is happening and can, if they want, let their imagination loose or smile knowingly to themselves as they leave the character to their most private moment.

🔥 Categorisation: the real heat

This leads neatly to another problem: categorisation. I touched on restrictive genres recently, and the issue hasn’t cooled down.

Authors and publishers must fit books into the closest category in order to attract the right readers. As Amazon and other retailers subdivide genres into increasingly granular niches, the harder it becomes to categorise a book accurately.

What counts as 'hot' or 'steamy'? Is it only steamy if there’s a bedroom scene? What if there is a bedroom scene that doesn’t lead to sex, but does lead to passion restrained? Is that steamy or hot? Probably not for the mythical 'average person' it might be. Except, of course, that person doesn't exist. We are all individuals with our own different tastes.

And now I’m getting hot under the collar just thinking about it, but at least I’ve returned to this week’s theme.

If you have thoughts on heat in fiction, genre labels, or where you think the Aucourte Chronicle sits on the spectrum, I’d love to hear them.