At a Barnes & Noble in the small California town...
by JULIE ANNE LONG

My sister found a copy of THE PERILS OF PLEASURE on the shelves and brought it over to the bookseller behind the counter.

“This is my sister!” she told him excitedly.

He stared at it a moment. “On the…cover?”

He finally guessed. Somewhat hopefully.

Oh, man. I cracked up. I told her she should have run with it, but since she's known me all her life, I imagine she found it impossible to lie through all the laughing she was doing.

It's not like I don't have my moments of relative sexiness, of course. It's just that none of them occur anywhere near the end of a deadline, which is about where I am now.

Let's talk about sexy for a moment. THE PERILS OF PLEASURE is a big, exciting book for me: the first book in a new series that just feels juicy and rich in possibility for me (read a little more about Pennyroyal Green at my website); my first book for Avon, and my first green book.

I've been humbled and dazzled by the reviews: a Top Pick from RT, a Desert Isle Keeper from AAR--these are terms lovers of romance and romance authors recognize and appreciate, and I'm beyond thrilled that readers are responding enthusiastically to the story so far. And, it's a beautiful cover, isn't it?? It's perhaps my favorite, and most sensual cover, to date.

But thinking of sexiness got me thinking...

What's genuinely sexy to me? What makes me lose myself, invest myself, in a story, and remember it long after I've read that last page?

For me, what makes sex sexy in a book is intimacy and connection. I love actual love stories. This means watching the hero and heroine, regardless of their personal circumstances--aristocrat or working class?--or the circumstances under which they meet--a gallows rescue and a manhunt?--a house party and all its fraught and hilarious undercurrents and warring motivations?--discover each other and experience falling in love in all its glorious, funny, unique, sexy little intricacies: those moments of awkwardness and hilarity; the sparks and breathlessness; the mutual revelation of vulnerabilities.

We always look forward to the grand moments (e.g., that first kiss), but sometimes the homely details of discovery are more profound and therefore excruciatingly sexy--e.g., the hero discovers this astonishing woman has a tiny scar near her chin; it becomes fascinating and precious to him--and that's when he realizes he's a goner.

These are the ingredients of intimacy. They wrap us in the uniqueness of a particular love story and, once we're wrapped, it becomes our story.

Holy cow, for that reason, it's that much more marvelous when our hero and heroine make love--whenever and however often that happens--and when they end up together.

Remember sometime back when poor Jude Law was photographed fully, frontally nude as he changed back into a bathing suit? And it was splashed all over the internet? He probably wouldn't thank me for bringing that up again, but in an essay a writer at Salon.com posited this: the appeal of that photo wasn't about the nudity--it wasn't exactly his most flattering photo--it was about the intimacy of the moment. Our guys might be hotter than pistols and alpha as all get out, but it's the dorky, ordinary little moments that only we get to see that make them ours, make them even hotter, in a way, and make us love them.

Anyhow: when I'm writing, I'm aiming for heat, and I'm aiming for intimacy. I hope you'll find both in THE PERILS OF PLEASURE, and in every other romance I write!