This post may contain affiliate links — meaning we get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through our links, at no cost to you. We carefully curate our affiliate partnerships and only work with companies we like and believe in. Earning commissions like this helps us sustain our blog but the opinions we share are always our own.
by Nicole Danielle
In each of our regular podcast episodes for Romance on the Rocks, we give our books a Spicy Scoville Scale rating. This can help our fellow hopeless romantics and bookish biddies when choosing what romance novels to read. Do you like your books dark & steamy? Or do you prefer something a little more demure & tame with low heat? We’ve got you covered!
Meghan and I took inspiration from the actual Scoville chart to create our Romance on the Rocks version. We originally thought about beginning at green pepper but Meghan felt poblano would be a better starting point. (I still might give out a green pepper score if I feel a book is less than spicy or the reverse of spicy. Just sayin’.) Our scale tops out at Carolina Reaper which seems appropriate for many reasons: 1) it is one of the spiciest peppers in the world, and 2) I live in the Carolinas … so, yeah, there ya go.
So here’s how it goes when we review our books: Level 1 is poblano. A poblano romance novel typically has a soft romance story with chaste kisses and slight stirring of emotions. Moving up the chart, we hit jalapeno. Books that we categorize at this spice level are gettin’ a little more hot and heavy. There may be some heavy petting and some brief, intimate encounters. The text may have some steamy details and descriptions. Habanero, as Meghan says, “you’re really gettin’ in there.”
My personal preference is a habanero because I like my books spicy with good details. I like a little bit more description and sexy, heated encounters. (Meghan likes things left to the imagination while I prefer it all spelled out.) And, as mentioned, Carolina Reaper blows out the top of our chart. “It’ll leave you dead,” as Meg says. A novel at that rating is going to be heavily detailed and extremely graphic in details. It may even fall into the dark romance category but not always.
And it’s not on our official Scoville Scale but my husband, Robert, came up with an accessory to the scale: pepper spray. For our podcast, we love to bust out the pepper spray when a character in a book is being completely inappropriate and/or for situations where there is something triggering like assault.
So far on the podcast, we have had to use the pepper spray but we have yet to hit that Carolina Reaper level but I think it will be fun when we do. Or it will leave us dead. Who can say? Do you have a spiciness level you prefer for your romantic reads? What’s the spiciest book you’ve ever read? Have you read romance literature that is less than spicy? Let us know in the comments below!
