Slow Burn to Fire Alarm: Where Do YOU Draw the Heat Line?

Every few months, a message lands in my inbox that goes something like this: "Mackenzie, I loved the book, but my mama reads your stuff too, and now Thanksgiving is awkward."

I hear you. I really do. And since the "how hot is too hot" debate is as old as the romance genre itself — seriously, this argument predates the automobile — I figured it was time to put my own cards on the table. Here's my official heat scale, tested against my own books. Grab a fan. You'll need it.

Level One: The Slow Burn

This is the longing stage. The almost-touch. The moment when two people stand a little too close in a kitchen and suddenly neither of them can remember what they came in there for.

Slow burn is the backbone of the genre, and I'll die on this hill: a book that skips it robs you of the payoff. My scenes that live at this level are all about tension — the brush of fingers over a coffee cup, a look held three seconds too long. If done right, a slow burn can make a reader blush without anyone taking a single piece of clothing off.

Level Two: The Simmer

Now we're cooking. The first kiss that isn't a first kiss anymore. The hotel room with one bed because "there was a mix-up at the front desk." (Nobody believes that. Nobody has ever believed that. We keep writing it because it works.)

My Simmer scenes tend to happen in kitchens, cars, and elevators — small spaces where escape is impossible and willpower is a rumor. One scene from Sweet Temptation — the rain-soaked porch, if you know, you know — still gets quoted back to me at signings, and it barely involves anything more than a zipper and a whole lot of breathing.

Level Three: The Full Flame

Door wide open. Lights on. Nobody in this scene is thinking about the mortgage.

Here's where I plant my flag: at this level, the steam only works if the emotion is already there. A scene without feeling is just choreography. My rule as a writer has always been simple — if I don't care about these two people, I'm not writing the scene, no matter how technically impressive it might be. Sensuality without heart is a fireworks show with no one watching.

Level Four: Call the Fire Department

Yes, it exists. Yes, some of my books go there. No, I will not name titles in a family-friendly blog post — my grandmother reads this site, and she's already made her opinions known at two separate holiday dinners.

What I'll say is this: these scenes are the hardest to write well, precisely because the emotional stakes have to be at their absolute peak. When everything is on the table physically, the vulnerability has to match. That's the line I hold as an editor of my own work — not a page count, not a body-part inventory, but does the reader feel what these characters feel?

So Where's MY Line, Exactly?

People ask if I'll ever "tone it down" or "spice it up." Here's the truth: my line isn't about heat. It's about honesty. A scene can be scorching and tender. A scene can be a closed door and still leave you breathless. What I'll never write is intimacy that exists only to shock, or modesty that exists only to sanitize. Every book gets the heat level its love story earns.

Your Turn: Vote in the Comments

Now I want to hear from you. Where's your comfort zone on the scale?

• Team Slow Burn — give me yearning or give me nothing
• Team Simmer — one bed, one night, one big mistake
• Team Full Flame — if the door's closed, I'm closing the book
• Team Fire Department — I brought oven mitts and no shame

Drop your team in the comments, along with the one scene from my backlist that lives rent-free in your head. I'll be reading along — strictly for research purposes, of course.

And to the woman whose mama made Thanksgiving awkward: tell your mama I said hi, and maybe don't leave them stacked on the same nightstand.