Clean romance versus inspirational romance

Today’s post is about clean romance – and inspirational or sweet, closed door, no-spice romance. What are the differences and what do I write? 

If you prefer to read the article rather than watch the video, just scroll down to the transcript below.

Hi, I’m historical romance author Jennie Goutet, and today I want to talk about the difference between clean romance and inspirational romance, throw a few other terms out there, and tell you what I write.

Clean romance is—I know a lot of people really dislike the term—but it is an industry term. It’s used by everyone across all the platforms, and people do search for it. It’s the biggest search term for this type of book.

Clean romance encompasses more than just an absence of sex scenes. Generally, you’re guaranteed to have no excessive violence, no swearing, no taking the Lord’s name in vain, and nothing that could be considered morally gray, such as cheating, for instance.

Inspirational romance has a lot of those same elements. The only difference is that there is a guaranteed faith element. The protagonists, heroes, and other characters will pray, talk about their faith, be guided by it, and read the Bible. That is what makes it inspirational romance.

Some of the other terms include sweet romance, which does not necessarily mean there is no on-the-page sex. Generally, it means the story is cozy in tone and low angst. Sometimes it means it’s free from sexual content, but a lot of the time it simply means low angst.

Then there’s closed-door romance. That doesn’t guarantee anything except the fact that nothing is shown on the page. Everything could happen right up until the door is closed—you just don’t see the actual act. It can still include other elements, such as violence or more detailed descriptions of the characters’ time together before the act itself. That’s what closed-door means.

And then there’s no spice. It’s actually a pretty good term. With no-spice books, a young teenager can usually read them without any issues. However, it doesn’t guarantee some of the same things that clean romance guarantees. It doesn’t necessarily mean there won’t be other morally gray elements, including swearing, violence, or similar content.

Before I go on, feel free to say what you have to say in the comments. Where do you agree? Where do you disagree? Go ahead.

As for what I write, I write clean romance. None of my books have any sexual content. There’s kissing, generally mild. Sometimes readers say, “Hey, I wish there was a little bit more.” There is violence, but it’s not violence for no purpose. It’s usually something that happens to advance the plot, and it’s not super angsty. It gets resolved.

I don’t write sweet romance. I don’t write low angst, although some of my books are low angst. For example, A Whimsical Notion doesn’t have a lot of angst in it. So it just depends.

In general, unless I’ve included a trigger warning, none of my books contain content that would prevent a young teen from reading them. I have two books that are a little different. One talks about consummation, even though the characters are a married couple and it doesn’t happen on the page, but I included a trigger warning for younger teens. In another book, the villain is narcissistic, which can be difficult for some readers, so there’s a trigger warning there as well.

It’s kind of timely because ever since I started publishing, I get comments about the fact that there are no faith elements in my books. There’s no prayer, no calling out to God, no Bible reading, and things like that.

I am a Christian, so I understand where the confusion comes from. There are two reasons, personally, that I chose to write clean romance rather than inspirational romance.

One of them is purely a matter of voice. I grew up reading a lot of the classics—British literature, historical works, and translated French, German, and Russian literature. The obvious faith elements we often see today in inspirational romance weren’t necessarily something I encountered while reading those classics. I think there may be an evangelical bias in America today that wasn’t present in those works at the time.

That doesn’t mean nobody had faith, or that what inspirational romance does is somehow impossible. I’m simply saying it wasn’t something that stood out to me in the books I read. When I started writing historical fiction, it felt more natural to write in a style similar to what I had grown up reading.

I think inspirational romance is great. I love to read it, so I have absolutely no problem with it. It’s just not what inspired me as a writer.

Although I grew up with faith and believed in God, in my teens and early twenties faith was not a major part of my life. If I had come across a book where the faith elements were too overt, it probably would have been enough to turn me away because that’s simply not where I was at that point in my life.

However, if I read a book that emphasized noble traits such as forgiveness, mercy, love, hope, nobility, and restraint—qualities that, as a Christian, I believe come from God—that would inspire me to become more like that without pushing me away.

Those are the kinds of books I wanted to write. I wanted to write books where readers encounter qualities that I believe are inspired by God and are encouraged to live more like that. It’s a bit like the Book of Esther. God’s name isn’t mentioned, but you can see His influence everywhere.

If those are the kinds of books you enjoy reading, I hope you’ll read mine—or continue reading mine.

The book I have coming out in less than a month is A Love Once Lost. It’s being published by Haven, which is a clean romance imprint under a publishing house that is generally considered a Christian publisher. This imprint is specifically for authors like me and readers who enjoy this kind of literature.

There is a lot of crossover. People who love inspirational romance and who are Christians can also enjoy clean romance, and vice versa.

With my new book coming out, and because I’m still getting comments asking why nobody is praying or why there isn’t more faith content, I wanted to explain my reasons and simply hope you’ll enjoy it anyway.

And if you want a good deal, pre-order it. It’s 40% off, includes free shipping, and comes with some goodies.

That’s what I wanted to say today. Feel free to subscribe if you’d like to hear more about my books, my writing, and writing in general.

I hope you have a good day.