What. The. Fuck. Are. You. Doing.

Carina Press (ebook first imprint at Harlequin) has just subbed for a book from the mostly self-pub author K. Webster. Recently, one of Webster's book (The Wild) came into the romance genre Twitter conversation  for "pseudo-incest" between the "heroine" and "hero". The "heroine" is 16 at the start of the romance/fucking and the "hero" is her adoptive father (hence the "pseudo" part of the incest). Don't even get me started on that bullshit "trigger warning" the author put in at the end of the blurb.

I think the talk surrounding this book is what led to Carina Press's freelance editors giving her a contract. So what could the upcoming book be about, you may ask? The Brat and the Bully has a hero who is a coach at a high school waiting breathlessly for one of his athletes to turn 18 so he can fuck her. Again, don't even get me started on that bullshit "trigger warning" at the end of the blurb. Oh and that blurb so happens to NOT be found anywhere on the Harlequin book page.

Look, I am not here to kink-shame. But when do we as a romance community draw the big red line on these "taboo" or "darker romances"? I say we draw the line at the grooming of and sexual abuse of teenage girls. And no, I don't have to prove my "fearlessness" by reading about the abuse of teen girls at the hands of the men who should be protecting them from such abuse. I'm a OIF vet, I have seen some dark shit - I read romance to help balance the memories in my head from that time.

Fuck Carina Press and their incessant need to be "edgy" and get on that hot "dark/taboo" romance train (thanks again 50 Shades!).