Erotic Authoress Spotlight . . . Marilyn Lee

Writing for My Readers

Hey romance reading folks,

A dissatisfied reader recently said I write about the same things (BBW women getting the hero) and it was old. Hmmm. When I wrote my first plus-size romance back in 2000, (The Fall of Troy , which is published by Ellora’s Cave), there weren’t many books that featured untraditionally sized heroines. Most romance novel heroines were slim. When I approached my editor about the possibility of writing an erotic romance featuring a BBW, neither of us knew what to expect. However, The Fall of Troy was so well-received, my editor suggested I write another plus-size romance. I declined. Readers started writing and asking for a sequel so I finally relented and wrote Full-Bodied Charmer, which was also well received.

Both books resonated with a portion of the romance reading public who was/is full-figured and wanted to read about heroines with which they could identify. At the time, there weren’t many romances that featured BBW as the object of the heroes’ desire in an erotic setting. Then some of my friends who found love across racial lines complained that interracial romances were difficult to find. So I started writing those. Some of my first I/R books were nonstarters so I had to make the hero and heroine the same race or to downplay the I/R aspect to get them published. I faced even more opposition when I decided to have the secondary characters in my Bloodlust series have a same-sex relationship. I was told to either tone down the scenes drastically or better yet, keep the same-sex love scenes off stage if you will. Then I was told that readers weren’t into books with babies in them anymore so the last book in my Bloodlust series was never written because the heroine was pregnant.

On another note, one of my BBW books (Skin Deep) resonated so much with one author that she decided to plagiarize almost all the love scenes and put them in her book. She got rave reviews for a book that included my love scenes so I guess sometimes writing the same thing can have benefits and pitfalls.

Looking back on the last fifteen or so years, I’ve had to battle uphill to write the books I wanted to write the way I and my readers wanted me to write them.

These days, thankfully, readers can feast on countless romances of all heat levels featuring BBW heroines, multicultural relationships, same-sex ones, and nearly anything else they might like. All these elements are ones I included in my books years earlier after much opposition (often from my editor and publisher).

Thanks to very supportive readers and the new dynamics of writing and publishing, I now get to write what I and my readers want me to write the way we want it written. So do I write the same thing over and over again? I write what my readers want to read. And many of them are women of a certain age and want a break from books where the hero falls for the slim, beautiful, twenty-something heroine. With reader encouragement, I’ve started a new series called Mature Men.

Not all women are slim, beautiful, or twenty-something. But all deserve to be able to lose themselves in a romance that reflects who they are. The men in this series won’t always end up with the typical romance heroine (of course it’s been awhile since I’ve written books about typical romance heroines).

But my heroines and heroes are now getting older (like me and my readers). The first book in the series is called Long, Slow Second Look and features a BBW heroine, who has very average looks. I based Amber’s character on a co-worker, who despite being average looking and plus-size, had most of the men in the office where we worked drooling over her. She had a great personality and self-confidence. Like my former co-worker, Amber never doubts that she has just as much right to be swept off her feet as any other woman.

I’m hoping my readers and others will embrace the series as they’ve done with my other efforts when I battled up hill. So please battle with me again. As always, I love to hear from readers. Please email to let me know what you think and what does and doesn’t work for you.