Deep Dive into Heat Levels

I recently added a new area to my reviews that if they include romance I define more what that content is and my current system is:

NA:– nothing is really present, it isn’t the focus or a subplot.

Soft: perhaps a closed mouth kiss or two, no detail.

Sweet: Kissing, cuddling, clothes on, mild innuendo.

Suggestive: The flirtation becomes more physical — making out, caresses, breathlessness, mostly clothed but doesn’t take it any further on the page, discussions of sex/sleeping with each other, can have some strong innuendo.

Smokey: Closed Door/Fade to Black: This can float between or slightly above Sweet and Suggestive but we don’t get any details beyond making out.

Swoony: This will have some sex on the page but it is going to be less than a paragraph – not some graphic sex scene. More and more YA seems to be having open door scenes now and sometimes the books are still ones I will recommend but I will definitely mention that they contain this content as always. By ‘low’ spice I mean its not going to be some detailed graphic scene and it will focus more on the emotional impact it has on the characters.

Swoony A – less than a paragraph, euphemistic

Swoony B – less than a page, euphemistic

However I went down a research rabbit hole to work these out and so I thought I’d share a few links and interesting articles I read about this industry gap. Everyone disagrees and one of the things that makes taking book recs so difficult is that what one reader might think is low violence and moderate spice, another might think is high violence and no spice. It all depends on what you read and personally I am fine with all these different categories of heat – only no spice/very very low sexual content nothing graphic. Personally I like books that float around a few kisses and lots of swoon but nothing sexual and most of my recs reflect that!

Anyway to the links!

Rachel Rowland has an interesting article on her website about heat levels (I would say that these are probably the usual levels excepted across most readers and genres) here.

Romance Book Coach offers heat levels based on tv age ratings here. She also adds language and themes that are explored in those relationships.

I started my deep dive from Bookshelf Fantasy’s post here which contains several links to the articles she found.

Michelle over on the Writing Gals made a diagram of content that she considers is still clean and wholesome in romance. This is really interesting because it shows how much before overlaps with the next heat level – if you are reading a Smokey rec of mine (I rarely promote only romance, but fantasy romance, dystopian whatever) if it is a Smokey then it will still contain content from Suggestive just a step up.

Happy Reading! It was fun taking you down this rabbithole of mine with me!

Lottie