sex with the enemy

Nope, doesn't bother me as long as it's before she hooks up with the hero. However, there are many readers and some publishers who are opposed to it, so you should consider your target audience. For example, if you're targeting Harlequin, it's unlikely to fly in any of their lines. Single title? May be just fine.

It doesn't bother me unless I get the impression that the author's giving the heroine unsatisfying sex with the other guy to make the wonderful sex with the hero look even better in comparison. Even worse would be coitus interruptus, as though the author's trying to keep her pure for the hero.

I think it's totally OK. You could add in her feelings while she's with the BF and maybe have her imagining it was the "hero" and such. I think it would make it steamy.

Pffftttt...tell your lovely mam, that yes it is perfectly okay.
Hmm...hand her a few Susan Johnson's books and she may swoon.
If the Hero can do it, why can't the heroine?
I read a historical romance once where the chicky had sex with a guy (she was a virgin at first) just for train fair to get her brother to where she was meeting her future husband. She was a mail order bride. I wish I knew the name of that book. I loved it!

I'm getting increasingly tired of "don't let your characters behave like normal people or it'll turn off readers!" train of thought. so I'm going to rant a little bit....

In one of our books, our hero has a sort-of-relationship with somebody, and our heroine is engaged. They want to have hot hot sex, but she's not going to cheat on her fiance, and he's not going to ask her to. What is he supposed to do? Become a monk? Take a vow of celibacy because the woman he is in lust with doesn't want to cheat on her fiance or leave him for what could amount to a brief fling? And she's supposed to "cut off" the man she shares a bed with because she's attracted to one of his co-workers? It doesn't make any sense!

Fortunately, our editor at Samhain is made of awesome and didn't make us change those elements of our characters.

Dang, I thought this was going to be about the girl sleeping with Dr. Evil, or something. Your story sounds fine.

I want to see the heroine sleep with the truly evil dude at some point... and not know he's the evil dude! (She will, of course, end up sleeping with the hero later, because it's romance and you need HEA.) Even better would be if she *purposely* slept with the evil dude to find out his weakness and ends up defeating him because of that. Though that'd make things messy for the hero so I dunno... but it sounds fun anyway.

Well...........that's how it's like in my story because my MC and the killer with a conscience had a intimate relationship but when they were teenagers. Soooo...a lot of years have passed since then, and they have a child together but he's still the killer who ends up turning soft towards the end of the book. He's not the one my MC falls in love with. They had sex, but now they see each other as nothing. My MC doesn't even see him as the father of her child, just a donor. But all that changes through-out the story, and the reason why my "killer" grows a solid conscience.

He's the enemy, but in a different way.

Sassee said:

I want to see the heroine sleep with the truly evil dude at some point... and not know he's the evil dude! (She will, of course, end up sleeping with the hero later, because it's romance and you need HEA.) Even better would be if she *purposely* slept with the evil dude to find out his weakness and ends up defeating him because of that. Though that'd make things messy for the hero so I dunno... but it sounds fun anyway.

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That's what brings my whole HERO WITH A TWIST topic up! I want to see a book where the woman falls for the killer. I just do. Not a hired gun, or anything like that....a true killer. I'm sick and twisted about romances, sorry!

I don't see the problem unless you give great detail about the "deed" with the loser.

Hi, I'm new. Been lurking for a while. I seem to remember you're writing a chick lit, and in that case I think it's totally fine. But if your mom reads a lot of formula romances, then she probably is used to those, so it may not make much sense to her. I recently read Caprice Crane's Forget about It, which included three different love interests (one being the Bad Boyfriend). It was weird... I can't say it completely worked for me, but it obviously worked for someone, since Crane's published with 5 Spot and has Jenny Bent for an agent!