Sex in books has become a massive trend these days. Even as a writer who does write spicy scenes, I see the insane push for sex in books. It's as though if the book isn't straight out of Pornhub, nobody is interested.

Anyways, that's not what we're here to talk about. We're here to talk about the spice in my books.

There's a pepper scale for books - to measure just how 'spicy' they are. However, this scale varies from reader to reader, and everyone will describe their scale and tolerance for spice differently - much like with spice in food.

Let's use my romantic fantasy 'vamp wip' novel as the book we're trying to measure and use the two scales below to see how my book stacks up.

SCALE #1 - by @charliesbookrecs on Instagram

According to this scale, my book is 🌶️🌶️🌶️.

I like this scale because it's measuring the prevalence of spicy scenes versus the preeminence of the actual plot. The higher the spice goes in terms of competing with plot, the more peppers.

SCALE #2 - by @weekends.fully.booked on Instagram

According to this scale, my book is 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️.

I like this scale because it's focused only on the type of spice that's happening. Is it just heavy petting, is there climaxing, or are we wading into kinky, murky territory?

Either way, the spice levels in my books will vary. Some books are destined to be very close to erotica, some books are only going to have one spicy scene, some may have none. You never know.

Variety. It's the spice of life.

Next time we chat, we'll talk about kinks and consent in books.

Until next time, bestie!