When I started reading romance, I used to be very jarred by the keen senses of smell our heroes and heroines possess. Apparently, every lover has a bouquet, and our h/hs are always — always – connoisseurs. Like a Master of Wine, they can pick out different aromas and notes, hints of this or that. Over time, I have come to bracket my disbelief, understanding the important role of a unique set of smells to the development of the sexual relationship, and indeed to the full sensory experience romance novels provide. I now realize why our h/h absolutely never experience a sinus infection or bad allergies — they would not be able to recognize their lover. (Lusty Reader posted recently about a romance novel perfume stick for sale).
Some smells are overused (sandalwood, I’m smelling at you), and some are just lazy (“man”, “woman”. I’m waiting for the truly liberated romance h/h who thinks, “Hmmm. Smells like person!” Or even more inclusively, “Smells like living organic matter!”).
But here’s where I draw the line: the trend of h/h’s being able to smell psychic states. I don’t care how in love or turned on you are. You can not smell states of mind.
Some examples:* (*as per usual, these comments are not meant to imply anything about how much I enjoyed the books. In fact, I really enjoyed almost every book on this list.)
“He smelled, not altogether unpleasantly, of dried sweat, woodsmoke, horse, and fatigue.”
The Sharing Knife, Volume 1 Beguilement, Lois McMaster Bujod
“She walked toward him, and then he could smell her — smell the quiet intensity that always hung in the air around her.”
Hot Under Pressure, Kathleen O’Reilly
“You smell like … heat, Emma”
A Rake’s Guide to Pleasure, Victoria Dahl
“She smelled earthy, like a late summer rain in the forest. Oh, and she smelled really really pissed.”
Desire Unchained: A Demonica Novel, Larissa Ione
“How sweet her sister smelled, like violets and sunshine and wide-eyed naivete.”
Bound By Your Touch, Meredith Duran
“My God, what has he turned you into? I can smell the lust on you.”
Worth Any Price, Lisa Kleypas
“The air was marbled by smoke, and full of the smells of tension, excitement, and fear.”
Tempting Fortune, Jo Beverly
See how authors generally try to stick the non-smellable item in at the end? As if we won’t notice?
Nice try, but I am on to you.
In fairness, some of these are likely shorthand for a group of smellable things. For example, “lust” might = “sweat + sex secretions + beer + latex.”
And some might be metaphors — “the smell of fear” is certainly used across fiction and is not to be taken literally.
But how does fatigue or anger or naivete smell? At this point we’ve gone beyond a highly developed fifth sense and into a supernatural sixth one (I confess Meljean Brook’s Guardians series throws me for a loop every time “psychic scent” is used — and it’s used often – but I cut them some paranormal slack.)
Before concluding, I have to make note of one author who wins the Rebel Without a Smell award:
In On Wings Rising, Ann Somerville’s hero has this to think about his lover: “The Angel still stank of the metallic odour of blood, but under that, didn’t have any particular smell.”
I am not sure how this one got by the smell police, but for the sake of variety, I am glad it did.
