[...] along. Jessica, over at Racy Romance Reviews, reviewed this and while her review wasn’t necessarily favorable, it was academic (’cause she R 1) and [...]

MoJo: What, you won’t pay that for the Author, Her Scribe, His Editor, and Their Cover?

BWA!

Remember, we’re talking about the DIGITAL book. There is no cover, no typeset, no paper, no size (except the one I adjust my eBookWise to). Just HTML crunched to within an inch of its life.

The Kinsale reissue, in contrast, had such tiny type, and I broke the spine trying to read it.

lots of sex was consistent with lots of development of the main relationship.

Yeppo, that’s key in erotic romance. This clarifies it for me, thanks:

In The Duchess, there are so many couplings among so many different people that they did less to propel characterization forward very far on any of them.

MoJo: What, you won’t pay that for the Author, Her Scribe, His Editor, and Their Cover?

I don’t think so.

My book has 3 romances over 736 pages and I’m selling it in a zip file with 8 different ebook formats for $8.99.

I felt there was a lot of random sex, too, but I blame my love of straight romance for not enjoying it. This is erotica and I felt I needed to try to judge it in those terms.

Meriam,

I love the title, too. Very Peter Greenaway!

RfP,

I don’t have a lot of experience with erotica (1 Lora Leigh, 1 Joey Hill, that’s about it). I have read 3 Spices, all by Megan Hart. Since Hart’s books focus exclusively on two or at most three sex partners, lots of sex was consistent with lots of development of the main relationship. In The Duchess, there are so many couplings among so many different people that they did less to propel characterization forward very far on any of them.

You’re right — Delta was too strong a descriptor for Henry. He is very passive, and not very bright. He’s impotent in life, and he knows it. For most of the book his ambition is for the Duchess to know how he feels about her — not to have her return the feelings. I felt Janssen made very interesting choices here. He’s not generic at all in the sense that this is not a very common male character from what I have read. But he’s also not very interesting or distinctive, and I had a hard time understanding the Duchess’s interest in him. But Janssen was very consistent: Henri did not suddenly shed his docile personality like a cloak and become an alpha.

not being an erotica lover, if I had my druthers, I would cut about 80% of the sex and rewrite this as an erotic romance with a strong focus on Camille and Henri’s relationship.

Perhaps it’s only the way you described it, but the plot sounds reminiscent of a Susan Johnson novel, as does the carefree attitude toward the shagging. So that’s definitely shading how I interpret this review.

I’m not much of an erotica reader either, but I’ve read quite a bit of what I consider erotic romance, some of it emotionally more like ‘traditional’ romance and some emotionally more on the erotica end of the spectrum (i.e. sex=fun, and fewer words given to explicitly expressing love). Have you read any of the erotic romance of 10 years-or-so ago? I’m thinking of the less romanticized, more “let’s get it ON” branch of erotic romance, like the Johnson/Devine/Schone/Small anthologies (Fascinated, etc). I’m wondering whether, having read those, I would read this book as straight erotica as you did, or whether it might fit in with those erotica-tilted authors and novellas.

With apologies to Huxley, he’s maybe a Delta, a very good egg without unrealistic hopes who knows his place.

That’s a bit off-putting, given Deltas were bokanovskified into obedient, khaki-wearing, incurious clones–not quite drones, as I recall, but close. (I just reread the book last year and those descriptions of the muted human spirit horrified me anew.) Is Henri generic, or simply placid or accepting?

Very interesting point. I love the idea of reading about a woman who doesn’t fit the usual mold. Plus, Janssen had me at the title; it’s great and makes me want to buy it, now.