It's been a while since I posted here, but I have been reading a lot. I'm still in my "free books from Amazon" phase and have been going through a lot of self published books. Occasionally, there will be books offered that have gone through an established publishing house and will have a print version available, in addition to a Kindle version. Generally, I feel that these books have been through a more stringent editing process than the self published ones. Because of this, I find that they are a bit easier to read, and with less grammatical and punctuation errors. Sometimes not all the errors are caught; I've found that some print books still have mistakes in them.
I've also found it a curious thing to look at the descriptive blurbs/headings/reviews that are provided on Amazon for these books. I usually look at the listings under historical and inspirational romance, but sometimes the offerings are rather bizarre, and I wonder how certain titles get listed in a particular category. For instance, for the past couple of weeks, there has been a "shifter" (werewolf) romance offered under the inspirational category. I can't explain that one, and I haven't read that particular book to discern a possible reason why it ended up in this category. However, I have learned that "inspirational" may incorporate a very broad definition of spirituality that does not necessarily limit itself to Christianity or even of any other religion.
I have also observed that what is perceived to be "clean" and "sweet" romances sometimes ends up in the inspirational section, even if there is no form of spirituality mentioned in the book. However, there also seems to be broad definitions of what "clean" and "sweet" may mean. In some books, it means that there is no mention of sex at all and at the most, only chaste kisses are present. In others, this definition may include some risque behaviour, ranging from naughty talk, all the way to heavy petting, but no actual sexual intercourse. For other books, it may mean that there is sexual intercourse, but it is not graphically described.
I have wondered how authors who write Christian romances tackle the issue of sex, and sometimes, on author's websites, they may blog about their writing processes on how they tackle the subject. I think that some publishing companies may provide guidelines on what is acceptable for them. I recall looking at Harlequin's Love Inspired guidelines for submissions a few years ago, and they set parameters of what they considered appropriate for that line.
Anyways, a couple of weeks ago, I found two free stories in the Kindle store in the historical category. When I read the first one (a prequel to the second story), I admired the hero because he pulled a Joseph; the heroine was tempting him and he took off because he didn't want to cross that line. The hero also prayed, not a lot, but he did about his feelings for the heroine and asked for guidance as to what he should do about them. There was a little bit of risque activity...I think that at one point, they were a little bit too close physically to each other, and once, the hero got caught in his birthday suit because he was trying to bathe. At the end of the story, he makes a heartfelt declaration to his bride about wanting to enter into marriage with her, but also with the Lord as a partner in their relationship. He made this speech while presenting her with an object that represented this union of the three of them. When I considered the theology, I thought that this book could be classified under the edgy Christian romance category.
Then I read the sequel. It was funny. I liked the characters. The author also wove together quite a complicated story that had several threads with the primary one being resolved by the end of the book, and the other to be resolved in a future sequel. It drew me in. But, in the story, the heroine found herself in an impossible situation, and in spite of her faith in God, threw herself at a rake and slept with him. True, she didn't have a lot of descriptive prayers mentioned in the book, and she didn't seem to really turn to Him for help, so maybe her faith was actually borderline nominal, or at best, not very deep. The sex scene was also descriptive. Usually, I skip these parts if I run across them, but because I had actually considered writing a full review for this book, I went back and read it in full. I'm not going to compare it or rank it on a hot/purple prose scale; I'm just mentioning that it's there, for about 2-3 pages.
So I found myself a little shocked when the conclusion of the romance ended with the hero (the rake) giving the heroine that same object that his ancestor had given to his bride, and he also ran through a similar speech about what that object represented. What surprised me was that this is probably the first time that I've read something that seemed to have appropriate Christian theology (albeit at the very end of the book), but with a gratuitous descriptive sex scene stuck in the middle. I don't think that it really needed to be there. What also felt weird about it was that in the aftermath of the physical intimacy, there was not much conflict in the heroine's conscience between herself and God. The book was a typical regency; it was light, funny, rompy, etc.. When the hero and heroine finally got around to discussing the appropriateness of their actions, it got glossed over very quickly; they admitted that what they did was inappropriate for about two sentences, and that was that. There wasn't any confession to make things right between them and the Lord. So, it was sort of weird to think about. The book was not openly a Christian romance, but it seemed to have appropriate theological undertones; however, the descriptive sex scene would likely make it uncomfortable for a certain audience to read.
I've read another free Kindle book in which a vicar's daughter gets into a raging affair with the male protagonist, but when you consider the rest of the book as a whole, being a vicar's daughter was a convenient plot device to present the female protagonist as a principled caring person, but in reality, her religious beliefs really didn't define who she was. However, the novel that I described in the previous paragraph felt different. It felt like it could have been something more. Francine Rivers or Julie Lessman are authors who I think have been able to balance romance and passion effectively, although some might still consider their material a bit racy.
Anyways, I couldn't make up my mind for the past two weeks about whether I would write a complete formal review for those two books, but I wanted to write about what I felt was bizarre about it. Maybe now I can move on and actually write about something with an actual title attached to it.
