Play Book Tag discussion

A Nobleman’s Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel – K J Charles – 3***
This is the second in the Doomsday Books series of Regency romances, but I think it can easily be read as a standalone work. This was quite a fun and steamy romance. The passion between Luke Doomsday and Rufus d’Aumesty, Earl of Oxney, could easily heat the entire drafty manorial compound! Of course, there are several twists and turns in the basic plot to keep one turning pages. But let’s be serious … the best parts are the naughty ones!
LINK to my full review

Something Fabulous was very fun, an odd couple of men on a road trip where many things go wrong but they find love. Some pretty detailed smut, especially since the one fellow is quite unabashed in his enjoyment of sensual pleasures.

Found a Christmas Cowboy-😉😊 on order should have it/him soon

Lori Wilde is always good for a hot and steamy Christmas Cowboy Romance!

What Tessa said!

This wraps up on the 21st December, just to capture a few of those smutty holiday reads. But just as I picked up one to read - a novella - I realized that the mystery I just finished needs to be reported.

Fossil: An African Wildlife Mystery had some fairly mild human smut, it had a couple of setting appropriate euphamisms to enjoy when Jazz and Zach get it on:

Zach’s manly body, ... His back was strong and alive under my palms, his thighs like tree trunks. Wowie zowie! At last he put on a condom and came inside, and then it was a continuous roar of sexual power. I haven’t yet seen

The real smut was the young lion pair:

“So how do you explain these two nomads below us teaming up?” “Simple.” Zach grinned. “Sex.” “In a word. Whenever you see a male and female lion off by themselves, that’s what’s going on.” Zach laughed. “These guys are sleeping together, but I don’t see much action.” “The action lasts about twenty seconds, but they do it hundreds of times over the course of a few days. At first, every five minutes, then it tapers off to once an hour. All we’ve got to do is wait, and we’ll see them go at it.” “Did you say hundreds of times in two days?” Again, that joyous grin. “It takes a lot of sex to get a lioness pregnant. Three thousand times, to be exact.”

But ... that is not all! We have an eyewitness account!

Below us the female lion raised her head. The male didn’t move. She got up and he was instantly on his feet. “This is it!” I told Zach. He raised the binoculars. The lioness waved her tail under the young lion’s nose and trotted away rapidly. The invitation was clear. He hurried after her. She pressed her belly flat to the ground, spreading her rear legs, and whipped her tail, urging him on. He hurriedly straddled her, front legs straight, rear legs crouched, a massive animal. Then he thrust inside her, tenderly, sweetly seizing her neck with his frightening teeth. She rumbled loudly, a harsh, low moan. “What a sound,” breathed Zach. Several thrusts and the male broke into an orgasmic yowl. The female twisted to look him in the face. She snarled and the male jumped off her quickly, with a half-roar that showed his long teeth. Then suddenly the mood changed. She rolled languidly onto her back and gave him a love swat across the face with her big round paw. He flopped onto his side, utterly exhausted. She flopped sideways, too, and lay still, back to back with her consort. They were in the position in which we’d first seen them. The whole event had taken less than a minute.

There you have it. Lion Smut outdid Human Smut.

How do they know he thrust “tenderly “? Was he purring sweet nothings in her ear?

Robin P wrote: "How do they know he thrust “tenderly “? Was he purring sweet nothings in her ear?"

Hah! It wasn't Jazz's first witnessing lion sex though it was Zach's. She's a safari guide. Presumably she had established a rating system.🦁🦁

I managed to read 2 holiday themed smutty novellas last night - though one was a surprise. I did stay up a tad late given the early start on meetings I was having today.

First up is a contemporary one with in-laws widow Bev, a prim, proper widow of 59 and Tom, a 62 year old curmudgeonly antisocial foul-mouthed, heavy drinking smoker, Apples Should Be Red. It's set at Thanksgiving, and Bev & Tom find themselves together for 3 days as unforeseen circumstances have thrown them together to prepare the Thanksgiving feast. After a rough start with the first chapter, it totally charmed me, as Tom sets out to mess up the perfect Bev and she sets up to civilize him. Yes, there is smut - on the living room couch - and a very funny after scene.

This isn't a smutty reference, but I just love this: Bev, who is very unhappy, having had a very bad marriage, is thinking about how she's never seen - she's just a piece of furniture, was that to her deceased husband, like an end table. No one notices end tables. But ... The nineteenth century French coffee table, with inlaid edging, was the focal point of the room. Spotless, dust-free, a conversation piece. Never ignored. A mistress in a bright red sweater and red lipstick.

The other was an historical set at Christmas - The Duke Who Despised Christmas. It's a retelling of course of Beauty & the Beast with a touch of Cinderella. The Duke was horribly burned (but is still magnificently male and handsome) trying unsuccessfully to save his wife and unborn child in a fire. He considers himself a monster and has locked himself away in one of his gloomiest and remotest properties - in Scotland of course. Christmas is approaching and his mother sends to the castle a new housekeeper to clean up the place and bring some Christmas to it as she's intending to visit over the holidays. Joceline, promised an exorbitant salary and bonus if she succeeds in staying and decorating, is determined to stay and succeed as the money is sorely needed to support her widowed mother and multiple siblings and keep them from starving to death. Joceline is also far too young and beautiful to be a housekeeper but she's a very good one and a very strong independent young woman. Can you see the HEA? Of course! These are very likeable characters that are meant for each other and the author keeps the nonsense typically used to keep the couple apart to a minimum thankfully. There's lovely smut. The Duke provided the best euphemism, though I think Tessa found one in a book she read that still wins top prize:

....intense as fireworks unleashed across a dark sky. The pleasure was so exquisite that stars speckled his vision.

Both of these were light fun reads with some great humor. And both are available right now through Kindle Unlimited.

Earls Trip is a Regency where everyone has modern attitudes and language. The heroine is remarkably frank about "anticipating the marriage vows." Smut is about average for this type of book. I have a longer review on the main PBT thread.

Theresa wrote: "The Duke provided the best euphemism, though I think Tessa found one in a book she read that still wins top prize: ..."

You must mean this one:
And perhaps the best (or at least most entertaining) metaphor I’ve ever encountered:
”She rode on a rainbow unicorn over the Milky Way and waved at an astronaut.”

That's the one!

The Geek Who Saved Christmas is one of several by this author with the grumpy/sunshine theme and set at Christmas. Very explicit MM sex. As someone who grew up when being gay was never even mentioned, I have found the details educational,, in the same way I used to read the Dan Savage sex columns- “people do that?” What I really like is the idea of men expressing tenderness and dealing with their feelings in some way other than with silence or aggression. Maybe that’s why FF romance interests me less, it’s normal for women to be considerate and in touch with their feelings.

I am reading a bunch of Christmas romances, novella length, from 2 Kindle anthologies I got for.99 each. Many are interchangeable but I am currently on The Lady's Guide to Mistletoe and Mayhem. It is different because it isn’t Regency or even Victorian, but set in 1904, Edwardian. There are railroads, telegrams, and even some telephones, though not in the wilds of Scotland, where this is set.The heroine is escaping a guardian who is preventing her from running the business she inherited. The hero is a Texas cowboy who suddenly finds out he is heir to a castle. When they meet, both are presenting themselves falsely. Smut factor still unknown but there is chemistry.

Robin P wrote: "The Geek Who Saved Christmas is one of several by this author with the grumpy/sunshine theme and set at Christmas. Very explicit MM sex. As someone who grew up when being gay was ne..."

Interesting analysis, Robin. I think I agree with you - if I read a gay romance it's M/M and I think for the same reason.

Of course I too grew up in the same era - it wasn't until college that my education started. It still was not overt, though one learned how to tell which clubs or bars were for the gay crowd. Lordy, I remember the first time I went out with a group of theater friends from a show I was working on - I had no idea they were all gay! I was distinctly the odd duck at the club they announced we were going to!

I'm currently reading a really charming M/M Christmas romance. I'm really enjoying it and the emotional intimacy in it is lovely.

I just read the best M/M Christmas romance with smut done well without losing the romance - and frankly far better than most hetero romance writers seem to manage to pull off today.

The 12 Kittens of Christmas by Amy Lane has a great cover , lovely characters - some funny ones too - and not just the kittens! Story is good, really centered on the emotional journey of the characters to finding romance and love. Most of the human secondary couples are M/M relationships but a few hetero characters balance it out.

It's set in Sacramento, mostly in a neighborhood I wouldn't mind living in .

I had to throw out my cowboy book. It was just too sappy and ridiculous. I may be able to find something else before the month is out, however I have many other books to finish before years end-we shall see.

Theresa wrote: "I just read the best M/M Christmas romance with smut done well without losing the romance - and frankly far better than most hetero romance writers seem to manage to pull off today.

[book:The 12 ..."

I put that on my Want to Read, sounds adorable!

Robin P wrote: "Theresa wrote: "I just read the best M/M Christmas romance with smut done well without losing the romance - and frankly far better than most hetero romance writers seem to manage to pull off today...."

I sent you a recommendation for it. I think it will delight you. Book has a short story at the end which wasn't so enjoyable and a teaser chapter or 2 from one of her series which I didn't try - I usually don't read teasers. I'm definitely going to see if any more of her books appeal to me at some point.

In the anthologies, I found I really liked author Erica Ridley because she has a lot of humor and some very feisty heroines. At the end of the Kindle book, there was a place to sign up for her newsletter and get a free story, so I did. She has written a LOT of books, mostly short. My library has a few of them, and most are cheap as ebooks. They work well for challenges where I only need 100 pages.

Robin P wrote: "In the anthologies, I found I really liked author Erica Ridley because she has a lot of humor and some very feisty heroines. At the end of the Kindle book, there was a place to sig..."

I've added the first of the 12 Dukes of Christmas to my TBR.

If anyone is fond of Christmas romances that are light, fun and have cute animals in them, especially a kitten, I have a series to recommend.

Kristen McKanagh's series Snowball - first is Snowball's Christmas sets the stage for the series - and I gave it 4 stars when I read it a couple years ago. Now reading the 2nd and it's likely to get 4 stars as well. There are a few - not sure if after the first you need to read them in order.

I'm not sure which thread it was where I mentioned there 2 collections, Twelve Lords for Yuletide and Twelve Lords for Christmas: A Holiday Historical Romance Anthology and I had lost track of which one I had so I bought the other for .99. It looks like there's also newer one, Ten Lords for the Holidays: A Christmas Historical Romance Anthology.

The Christmas Regencies vary a lot in smut. Some have only a few kisses, others detail that is rather clinical. In one second chance romance, the heroine who didn't marry the hero because of misunderstandings, has had multiple lovers over the last 5 years, before their reunion at Christmas, including one lover who taught her about "solitary pleasure", which is described in almost painful detail!

I am closing down the inaugeral Fall Into Smut. No more comments and posts. Thank you to all who joined in and had fun with it.

The idea behind it, triggered by sports possibly being the tag, of all things, ended up giving us some of the most spontaneous and amusing reading of the year. I had a ball!

It will be back next in 2025!

Tessa Bailey does it again! This from It Happened One Summer

"She climaxed. Which was a pitiful word for traveling to a distant plane where fairies danced and gumdrops rained from the sky."

(I think the rainbow unicorns over the Milky Way is still the better metaphor...)

🤣

Jen K wrote: "I'm totally in as well! I will find something. I prefer my sports romances to be about hockey. I'm pretty sure I have a few spicy romances but not sure any with qualify with the covers. I will look!"

I love hockey romances! Sarina Bowen is the best, but if you like gay romance there's also Eden Finley.

Book Concierge wrote: "Tessa Bailey does it again! This from It Happened One Summer

"She climaxed. Which was a pitiful word for traveling to a distant plane where fairies danced and gumdrops rained from ..."

😂🤣

annapi wrote: "Jen K wrote: "I'm totally in as well! I will find something. I prefer my sports romances to be about hockey. I'm pretty sure I have a few spicy romances but not sure any with qualify with the cover..."

Thanks Anna, I will check them out!