So I’ve got this client, right? We’ll call her Stevie. (go figure)

Stevie dropped me a note the other day, asking about romance. Did it have to be erotic?

She’s been trying to write a romance set in the hockey world. As in: the romantic lead is a hockey player. But everything she is finding is erotic. Or if not erotic, more explicit than she’d like.

We were messaging and not e-mailing, which is a shame because I had to give her a truncated answer, never something I like to do. But I told her that yes, there are a ton of options within romance. There’s clean, there’s closed door, there’s explicit, there’s BDSM, there’s m/m, there’s menage… the sky is the limit these days. (Of course, there’s my passion, Rock Fiction, but wrong category. She’s going sports — specifically hockey romance with this one, so why confuse the issues?)

She asked for titles. I can only think of one: Liana Laverenz’s Thin Ice. I have a copy of it around here somewhere that I can give her, because she’s one of those cool people I know in real life. (which might mean she’s not an editing client, per se, but she came to me for help, so we’ll call her a client.)

Anyone got other suggestions? We’re looking for … not explicit. Relatively tame, in terms of heat. I don’t think they have to be totally clean, just … on the tamer side.

And again: hockey romance specifically.

Leave titles in the comments and I’ll have her peruse the list.