First of all, every writer needs to understand what makes a love scene compelling. I say all of this not to dis the writer, but to make a couple of points.
And that meant that the ultimate climax of the book-that drive to avenge her-fell flat. The hero might as well have been sleeping with a plastic doll for all the emotion he seemed to feel for her. We needed to feel the connection between those characters, and we didn’t. Of course he is… but it would have been so much more effective for the story if the sex scene hadn’t been a sex scene. And the goal in the story was for the reader to believe that this hero really cared about this woman.īecause the bad guys eventually kill the woman, thus sparking the hero to go off and 'Do His Spy Thing' with even more intensity. And a love interest (or, at least, a sex interest). One of them was a spy thriller-a genre we enjoy. Many years ago, I drove across the country with my husband, and during the trip we listened to several audio books. And in a romance novel, they are even more key, because the love scenes can and should inform the arcs of both the characters and their relationship, letting readers understand more deeply both what is pulling these characters close… and also what is keeping them apart. Emotionally driven love scenes can be a powerful part of any story in any genre.
