Natural Sizzle

Over at the The Goddess Blogs yesterday Nicole Jordan had a great post about why people read romance and what they look for in a romance.

I could not have said how I feel about it better than Claudia Dain who said: I read romances because of the sizzle between the hero and heroine, and I don’t mean sexual. I mean pure energy. They have to spark, to twinkle, to ignite something in each other. I want dazzling dialogue and tons of it. I want to be carried along on a tide of uplifting energy, and I want the hero and the heroine to do the heavy lifting through their snappy interaction.

Yes Yes Yes a thousand times Yes!

But I do have one thing to add. I want all that to come completely naturally, no magic, prophetic dreams or divine destiny added. I just want two people that sizzle against the odds without much outside help. I recently read a historical romance that I just really loved so I went to check the author’s back list and read something from a previous series that combined both paranormal and historical. I found it so much less satisfying than the straight historical. As a reader I felt some of that spark and a chunk of the conflict were missing when magic pushed them together and they didn’t do it on their own.

Teresa Medeiros, Madeline Hunter and Julia Quinn are all good at creating that perfect tingling tango between the hero and heroine.

What have you read recently where the H/H just simply sizzle?