The scale, explained
Romance spice levels, 1 to 5
Reviewers rate romance on a five point scale and mark it with peppers. We measure the same five rungs in steam, because of the name. Here is what each one actually puts on the page, and how to choose the one you want.
A spice rating answers one question: how much of the sex is written down. It says nothing about quality, and nothing about how romantic a book is. A one pepper novel can be the most charged thing you read all year, and a five pepper one can be dull. The scale is a promise about explicitness, not about feeling.
The other thing worth knowing is that the scale is not standardised. One reviewer’s three is another’s four, which is why so many readers end up guessing. The rungs below are ours, written plainly, and they are the same five settings you would be choosing from if you had a story written here.
Tender
1 of 5 steam, or 1 pepper
Longing, charged closeness, and a door that closes before sex. Everything happens; almost none of it is on the page.
Closed door and sweet romance readers, and most gifts that get opened in front of family.
Suggestive
2 of 5 steam, or 2 peppers
Real heat with the details implied. Hands, mouths and intent are all there, written so you feel it rather than watch it.
Readers who want the tension without the choreography, and anyone unsure where to start.
Open door
3 of 5 steam, or 3 peppers
Sex on the page, warm and unhurried, written plainly rather than clinically. The door stays open and the scene keeps its feelings.
The middle of the romance shelf: most of what BookTok recommends lives here.
Explicit
4 of 5 steam, or 4 peppers
Graphic and direct. Nothing fades out, nothing gets renamed, and the scenes run at full length.
Readers who buy for the spice and go looking for it first.
Filthy
5 of 5 steam, or 5 peppers
As raw as the language gets, with the crude words used on purpose. Still written, still edited, never a wall of shock.
Readers who find most explicit romance a little polite.
Picking yours
Most readers land in the middle, and most people who are unsure are happier one rung gentler than they first guess. The setting is a ceiling rather than a target: a story set to explicit is allowed to write a tender chapter whenever the chapter wants to be tender, and is never allowed to go past the ceiling in the other direction.
Heat is also a separate question from what is allowed to happen at all. Those are picked one by one, and anything you rule out is ruled out at every level, including the top one. A limit is absolute here; it is not a preference the story gets to weigh.
And it can be changed later. If the first chapter lands warmer or cooler than you wanted, move the dial and the next one is written to the new setting.
Set the dial on a story about you.
A short interview, your own heat setting, and chapters written from your details. A person reads every one before it reaches you.