When a colleague talked to me recently about the growing popularity of “smutty” romance, I was caught between a gasp and a laugh. Smutty? Is that what people are calling it? Um, OK.

As a lifelong reader of a wide range of book genres, I was somewhat taken aback. I know some of my author friends would definitely bristle at the idea of their hot romance reads being described as smutty, like someone needs to grab a bar of soap and wash the pages down. Mind you, there are others who embrace such terms as a challenge and say, “Yeah? What of it?!”

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And then I gave my colleague’s comment some thought.

A search of the term in connection to books turns up links to a plethora of Reddit threads, TikTok and BookTok stories, mainstream articles and blogs , even recommendations p

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