Amy Andrews: The Vibrator – does it have a place in category romance?

So, I’m thinking of doing something wild and out there in my next book and I think I need to be talked off the ledge.

I’m thinking of writing a scene where the hero walks in on the heroine whilst she’s….enjoying herself with a little mechanical aid. Then it becomes this whole loaded situation where he just stands and watches her torn between the urge to join in and the illicit thrill of a private show and she knows he’s watching her and she knows he knows she knows. So it becomes sexy and raunchy instead of brief and squalid.

But is that just too, too much? Does that cross a line? I mean, I’m generally known as an author who writes the hotter end of the spectrum and I have in my earlier writing days even written and sold erotica but still – I haven’t gone this far in a category romance before.

Is that too far for category?

Would/should a hero be okay with that? I’ve been weaned on (and loved) romances where it’s only the hero who can ring the heroine’s bell. Where other men pale into insignificance in the face of his mastery of the female body. And, I have to admit, I love that whole only one guy for me thing. But I am rather titillated by the hero being turned on by a woman having a little private time and even more so by the heroine knowing the hero is watching her, knowing the hero is turned on.

Hmm, maybe that says more about my kinks than I’d like….

I’ve written scenes where heroines have threatened to use their vibrator.  Thrown a vibrator’s prowess in the hero’s face. The Devil and the Deep is a good example! I’ve even written a scene where the heroine had bought one and taken it home with the express purpose of putting that twelve inch baby to good use.

I’ve just never followed through. I’ve always chickened out.

So, the question remains - should I or shouldn’t I?

Would that shock you in a category romance? Would it turn you off? Would it be a wallbanger if the heroine is seeking sexual pleasure with something big and hard that is not the hero? Or would it, in this day and age of BDSM and about a hundred other kinks, be pretty damn vanilla? Would it not even raise an eyebrow?

Because, I gotta tell you, inside my head, that scene just won’t let up :-/

Talk me off the ledge people, I beg you….

And for your troubles I will be giving away a signed copy of my #dirtysexypirate aka The Devil and the Deep (complete with vibrator talk) to one lucky person who takes the time to comment!

Amy Andrews is an award-winning author who has written thirty +romances for Harlequin Mills and Boon in both the Medical and RIVA/Presents lines. To date she's sold over a million books and been translated into over a dozen different languages. In 2010 she took out the sexy category in the prestigious Romantic Book of the Year Award affectionately known as the Ruby and this year she is a finalist in three categories of the Australian Romance Reader Awards.

She's recently launched a couple of separate writing ventures with the release of Sister Pact a contemporary women's fiction novel that she co-wrote under her real name Ali with her sister Ros and was published by Harper Collins Australia in May 2012, as well as the very exciting release of her first category romance, Taming the Tycoon, with Entangled Publishing. This was followed by her anthology contribution in Baby, It’s Cold Outside, also by Entangled.

In what she euphemistically likes to call her spare time, Amy works part time as a paediatric intensive care nurse and was on the national executive for Romance Writers Of Australia for six years during which time she organised two national conferences and undertook a two year term as president.  She's been married for twenty-two years and has two teenagers She lives on acreage on the outskirts of Brisbane with a gorgeous mountain view but secretly wishes it was the hillsides of Tuscany.

***Amy's winner is Erin!  Please email totebag@authorsoundrelations.com with your mailing information!***