So I've done an occasional feature on here where I pick books that are "gateway" books into a subgenre of erotic romance. (To see the posts, here's the one on BDSM and the one on menage.)
However, I realized that many of you may have never tried an erotic romance at all and could be a bit intimidated to start with something that has a BDSM or menage theme. There is erotic romance out there that is simply a great romantic story with super steamy love scenes--no alternative sexual practices required, lol.
So today I'm picking a few books that I think are good choices if you've never read erotic romance, but want to give it a shot. And if you are a fan of erotic romance and haven't read these, get to it! Great books.
Liberating Lacey by Anne Calhoun
Blurb (from Ellora's Cave website):
Newly divorced Lacey Meyers wasted too many years yawning through sex in the missionary position. Now she’s looking for a hookup with a man who can make her shatter. What she gets is a hot younger cop with handcuffs…and he’s not afraid to use them.
Hunter Anderson knows the score—though classy, successful women like Lacey might play with guys like him, at the end of the evening, they walk. But when one night leads to another and then another, he finds himself getting too attached to a woman he can’t have.
Lacey knows Hunter—gorgeous, hard-edged and eight years younger—won’t want anything permanent. No matter how hot and daring he makes her first public sex, quickie, backseat encounter and secret fantasy role-play, she can’t mistake adventurous sex for emotional involvement.
They both know it’s got to end, and soon, or someone’s going to get hurt. But can either of them go back to life without the other?
(You can also read an excerpt over at the site.)
Riding on Instinct by Jaci Burton
Blurb (from Amazon):
Department of Justice agent Shadoe Grayson is out to prove she's no rookie, and eagerly accepts her first undercover assignment at a strip club in New Orleans. Working with the Wild Riders, a government agency of bad boy bikers, her goal is to expose a corrupt DEA agent. All she has to do is learn to strip like a pro.
Standing in Shadoe's way is arrogant and smokin' hot Spencer King, her new partner and one of the Wild Riders. Spence thinks she looks more like a schoolteacher than a stripper, and doubts her ability to do the job. But when he mockingly challenges Shadoe to strip just for him, he finds out there's more to the surprisingly sexy agent than by-the book rules and Government Issue pantsuits...
Deeper by Megan Hart
Blurb (from Amazon):
Twenty years ago she had her whole life spread out before her. She was Bess Walsh, a fresh-scrubbed, middle-class student ready to conquer the design world. And she was taken. Absolutely and completely.
But not by Andy, her well-groomed, intellectual boyfriend who had hinted more than once about a ring. No. During that hot summer as a waitress and living on the beach, she met Nick, the moody, dark-haired, local bad boy. He was, to put it mildly, not someone she could take home to Daddy.
Instead, Nick became her dirty little secret— a fervent sexual accomplice who knew how to ignite an all-consuming obsession she had no idea she carried deep within her.
Bess had always wondered what happened to Nick after that summer, after their promise to meet again. And now, back at the beach house and taking a break from responsibility, from marriage, from life, she discovers his heartbreaking fate—and why he never came back for her. Suddenly Nick's name is on her lips…his hands on her thighs…dark hair and eyes called back from the swirling gray of purgatory's depths.
Dead, alive, or something in between, they can't stop their hunger.
She wouldn't dare.
Any of you erotic romance readers have other recommendations for someone who may not have read anything erotic before? What was the book that hooked you on erotic romance? And if you've never read any erotic, do any of these blurbs intrigue you?