Well, this year is off to quite a start, isn't it? Here's what we got up to this month. Our Favorite Reads… Erin's Pick: The Duke Buys a Bride by Sophie Jordan Erin was thrilled to get back to her histrom roots with this one; all around a fun read. Holly's Pick: An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole Even as a reread, this is an exemplary romance with tons to chew on.

Immortal Vikings, Book #1 Heat Factor: Tender moments between explosions Character Chemistry: I’m a strong, independent woman and I shouldn’t like the way you act like a caveman, but I really do Plot: Fighting immortal bad guys on four continents Overall: This book is bonkers and a little self-indulgent, but I was definitely invested in what was happening

My First Smut is a recurring feature where we talk about our formative smut experiences. These short confessionals may include such details as: What book did you read? How old were you? Were there other people involved? What made the experience special? What role does smut play in your life? This week, writing duo Erin Rose both share their early smut experiences…

Heat Factor: I started reading this in my living room, and that was not the right choice. I would consider this *ahem* high heat.  Character Chemistry: They’re best friends with some pining, but if the manga style doesn’t give you chemistry feels normally, I don’t think this one will be different. Plot: High school best friends with an evolving roommate situationship and a pro-sports ending injury between them complicate their lives hugely.

For the next few weeks, I’ll be breaking down common groupings of Romantasy books. I’ve included common elements, tropes, highlights, and recommendations for each one. As hard as I’ve tried, I haven’t read everything (or even all the most popular) books in each grouping, but I have recommended some titles for each and we’ll include links wherever possible for even more options.

Welcome to the first Smut Report book club! We’ve done buddy reads before, of course, but this year we’re going a little more unstructured. Our plan is for each of us to take a turn picking a book to read—any book, for any reason—and our discussion may be based on a specific idea or it may simply be a discussion of what the book is doing on its own merits. 

If you’re a long-time reader and/or podcast listener, you probably know that I’m the crier of the group. Every time we do a buddy read, I tell Erin and Ingrid whether I cried and what brought on the waterworks. In fact, I wrote a piece several years ago about that cathartic moment of crying when I read a romance book…

It's a new year, which means it's time for a new list of TBR Challenge prompts. Many thanks to Super Wendy for continuing to host and giving us a reason to actually read all those books on our TBRs. January’s theme prompt for Super Wendy’s #TBRChallenge 2026 was “Still Here.” Here are the books we chose to tackle our TBRs this month.

We've been doing The Smut Report for 8 (!!!) years now! And the podcast for 2 (!!!!) years! So we're taking a moment to talk about how this journey deep into the world of smut has changed us. Notes Ingrid’s review of The Corsair’s Captive by Ruby Dixon, her very first speculative romance. Erin’s piece about everyone in romance who can’t with love. Holly’s abandoned Duke Project.

For a while now, every time I get on social media to make silly posts about books and promote the blog in my half-hearted way, I fall into a doom spiral and post nothing at all. Who can care about books when the world is on fire? I’m certainly in a reading slump because I’m spending more time than is healthy reading the news.

This may end up being a bad life choice, but Ingrid suggested during a recent podcast recording that offering feedback about our DNFs could be as helpful (?) to readers as our other reviews, so I’m going to try something. Because we don’t need to belabor any points, I’m not going to draw it out for multiple posts. Quick and dirty book summaries with limited commentary will do.

Bottom line: Do you like the bodyguard trope? Erin: Sometimes it really hits the spot. It’s not my first go-to, but I have many times decided to mood read a book specifically because it was a bodyguard book. Holly: I generally do. The only ones I can think of off the top of my head that I didn’t like were gender-swapped bodyguard stories where the lady guard was really bad at her job.

We're starting our 2026 podcast content with a bang…or rather, with some banging. Ingrid embraced her brave side and led us in a conversation about those words we use to describe body parts…and activities. NSFW. Books We Mentioned: Additional Notes: Listeners, we want to know: Is Holly right that “ropes of come” bind protagonists together more than “loads” do? Plus, here's some more wild sex writing and fun euphemisms, courtesy of Reddit.

I couldn’t take the FOMO any more, so after years of hearing Erin talk about how much she loves Rachel Reid’s Heated Rivalry, I finally read it. (Shoutout to my local library, which acquired 39 additional copies of the ebook in December 2025.) I felt kind of icky reading it. Not because the book isn’t well-executed (because it is) or because the characters have a troubling dynamic (because they don’t) or because I found the worldview of the text to be problematic (because I didn’t).

Heat Factor: Variable among the books, but none is especially much Character Chemistry: We’re going for the “Awwww” factor here Plot: MC1 is a bad boyfriend for hire, MC2 gets to *enjoy* the repercussions of that job Overall: First of all, I like to go on an Australian reading vacation, okay? Secondly, we are here for sweetness and fun, and that is…

Over a year ago, I started reading Romantasy in a way that was bordering on worrying for health and productivity reasons, which surprised me. It’s not like we haven’t covered a great deal of fantasy or paranormal romance books–in fact, Ruby Dixon is responsible for some of my earlier stretches in romance book reviewing, and that was well before she was the titan she is today.

In the past we’ve made a cute little list of resolutions that might be like low-hanging bookish fruit for a fun challenge, but…. For the past two years we will admit that we have not done an awesome job of meeting our goals. So, this year, we’re going basic. This year we’re going to try to keep things fun for us AND have a plan.

It’s a new year, which means it’s time to look back on the past year. We were tired and found comfort in books. We were tired and struggled to read books. But no matter what, we reaffirmed how much we love to read and talk about books. So instead of a best-of list, we bring you without further ado: The Sixth Annual Smut Report Superlatives.