I’ve got a pet peeve.

I love good erotic romance.  Love them.   But it has to be good. Good, for me, means the story has a plot.  The story has likeable characters. The story has a happy ending, or at least the promise of one.

And for crying out loud, 2/3s of the book doesn’t need to revolve around sex.  it doesn’t have to revolve around how much the heroine just can’t take her eyes on his scrumptios butt, or the hero constantly walking around readjusting his penis because just seeing the heroine makes him erupt with passion. 

I’m sorry, but if the hero spends that much time worrying about his hard on then there is a problem with the story.  Either there IS no story~just sex, sex and sex–or the hero’s brain literally is in his pants.

There has to be more than the sex.  I don’t care if a story opens with a love scene and I don’t care if there’s sex every chapter.  Provided there is a story to go along with it.  A workable, likeable story. 

The market is brimming with erotic romance right now and there is some very good stuff out there.  But there’s also a lot of books written…hmmmm… how to say this nicely.  Okay, flat out. It seems like a lot of them were written without the author actually putting much thought into the plot and only thinking that… Hey, now’s a good time to try an erotic romance since they are selling… 

More and more what I’m finding mechanical, sex the plots are recycled without really trying to put a new twist on the same old same old…and worse, many of the books I’ve picked up by authors that are new to me, they seem to be replacing sex for plot.  Sex for love.

Sorry.  There’s got to be all three.  Sex, plot AND love for a good erotic romance.