Chocolate in my Peanut Butter...

Why do I have chocolate in my peanut butter? I’m working on my first historical with Bantam/Dell which isn’t erotic, but which have had sex scenes that I have lovingly created and which do exactly what I wanted them to do. (Yay!) And early readers have said they are very hot (whew), hot enough to please my erotic romance readers but not too far out there to maybe…well, scare a reader not ready to go that far. I’ve realized it’s getting more and more difficult to make the distinction, something we’ve talked about here. Sensual romances are now hotter, and erotic romances may start without a sexual "bang", so defining the two is complicated.

Anyway, while I’m tuning up this WIP, I’m also writing an erotic paranormal. The sex scenes there? Not so good. Originally I decided that I would go all out and write a very sexy book. Perhaps a capture/bondage story—a way to push my boundaries. At the very least, the entire plot would focus on the sexual encounters and how the emotions and pleasure shared redeemed my vampire heroes and teach my virginal heroine a thing or two about life, adventure and happiness.

But it’s just not working that way. My heroine is not about to have sex with two notoriously evil vampires, regardless of whether my plot demands that she do it or not. She’s a strong woman with some dormant magical powers of her own and while she might be ready to start surrendering her heart, she’s not about to let a couple of vampires tie her up and have their way with her.

I know my story will resolve itself, but I wonder, for other authors out there, what do you do with heroes and heroines who want to take their own path in the story? And for readers, have you read books when the sex felt forced or contrived?
In other news, I’m going to be doing a book signing at our local sex trade show, Sexapolooza. This is my first time at an event dedicated to all things sexual, so it’ll be interesting! I’ll let you know all about an innocent’s journey there later on .