Do you read Romance? If not, you should try a couple.
When COVID lockdown happened, there were tremendous shifts in the book industry. On the whole there were tremendous spikes in new authors publishing, book sales, and books read. In 2021, the group I work for published double or triple the number of books that they did on their best year prior. It was a prolific time for the literacy industry. One of the things that came out of this, was a huge shift in the social acceptability of open romance reading. Gone are the days of hiding your bodice rippers and not reading in public. Now Smut is a term revered in most book circles. It is glorified, and the judgment in the reading circle has diminished considerably. I really think it has a lot to do with a shift in cover design. Making even your reverse harem demon smut look like a meet-cute Hallmark novel helps. For example…
Speaking of demon smut, I read a great one at the end of 2022.
Most heavy readers hit December and look at their reading goal and are either asking themselves “How did I not read this many books?” or “Why did I raise my reading goal so many times?” An insistent and pointless panic usually sets in and all manner of questionable reading starts. This happens to me EVERY SINGLE YEAR. Consequently, it also happens to my friend Jill. We both hit the panic switch the same day. Through a series of frantic texting we decided to read a ridiculously (read “hilarious”) titled book called “That Time I Got
Enter Cinnamon, a terrified, traumatized, saucy little human. Walking home one night, mildly…ok not mildly, intoxicated, she comes across a man in trouble. In the process of rescuing him, she is shocked to find that he is a demon. In short order he is chasing her through her fields, presumably to rip her throat out. With a hearty smack from a cinnamon tree, she escapes and locks herself in her parent’s house.
She wakes up the next morning and stumbles out of her hangover daze. Who turns up though? Mr. Demon man. With mild persuasion, followed by multiple threats, he convinces her to join him in a quest to kill an evil witch in the cave outside of town. The catch….the evil witch has been masquerading as the town’s Goddess for generations.
What follows is a SPICY adventure filled with sword fights, chaos, plenty of casually exposed skin, and one of the cutest love stories I have ever read. As a matter of fact it was my top book of 2022.
The writing is fast paced, hilarious, and creative. The characters are written like Kimberly Lemming picked up her friends and family by the backs of their collars and plopped them down onto the pages. They are REAL in a way that most writing cannot accomplish. I am about two generations removed from the current slang, so her word choice made me feel about 65 most of the time, but still had me in stitches nonetheless. I enjoyed this book (and the others in the series!) in a way I have not enjoyed a book in a long time. If you are not averse to a small amount of language, and need some *ahem* spice in your literature…this is a must read.
Check Kimberly out here: https://www.kimberlylemming.com/
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