The big question when it comes to romance novels is about love or sex scenes. How far into the book should the first one be? How often should the characters be having sex "onscreen?" How explicit should the sex scenes be?

In my first book, Blindsided, I modified the old maxim regarding saving your work: sex early; sex often. Chelsea and Nate get busy rather quickly and perhaps faster than a lot of people would in real life. But a lot of people DO jump into bed quickly, and this made sense for those characters.

In my new book, the characters are taking things a little bit slower. They have some baggage and jumping right into sex isn't who they are. (If you live for sex scenes, don't worry. There are some smoking flashbacks early on.)

On to frequency. I like to let my characters' sex lives flow from the rest of their interactions. Since romance novels follow the beginning of a relationship, a lot of sex is not out of the question, but it needs to make sense.

In terms of explicitness, I think of my scenes as R+ or maybe X-. They're not the most explicit scenes in the world, but they're certainly not appropriate for children. Some of my word choices vary by character since everyone thinks about sex a little bit differently. I try to make everything make sense for my characters because I hate reading books where this isn't the case. An uptight heroine who can barely stand to look at herself naked is unlikely to think in the same terms as a heroine who is a worldly, hyper-sexual temptress.

What do you think about the love scenes in romance novels?