I couldn't figure out what Spice, Mira, HQN or Luna were. The website offers so few of them I couldn't get themes from the descriptions. I assumed Spice might have hints of poly or BDSM or wild partying, only in a suburban-housewives kind of way. (The way some housewives get together for vibrator/sex-toy sales parties instead of Avon/Tupperware sale parties.)
I'm happy to notice an increase in condom use (when I read them as teens, condoms didn't exist; now they're everywhere), and a nice number of sympathetic gay characters in the background, although too many of them are the tragic uncle who was ostracized from the family.
They occasionally have short-term freebies in the other lines, through the main bookstore, but those have DRM and the process for installing it is... ridiculous.
I remember from my teen years, that while Our Heroine was always white, Our Hero was often dark-skinned, although IIRC never African American. But he could be Latino or Arabic; I remember a number of "native guide through the Brazilian jungle" stories, and a couple of "Wealthy sheikh businessman; poor secretary needs money for dying mother & enters agreement for fake marriage" or something like that.
But I've seen less of that recently; maybe they've decided that was too strongly stereotyped. So now there are less interracial couples (not that they ever paid attention to race issues), and a firm entrenchment in the idea that there are two "real" races (white and black) and a bunch of "exotic cultures" that are suitable for romantic hero origins. Sigh.
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I'm happy to notice an increase in condom use (when I read them as teens, condoms didn't exist; now they're everywhere), and a nice number of sympathetic gay characters in the background, although too many of them are the tragic uncle who was ostracized from the family.
They occasionally have short-term freebies in the other lines, through the main bookstore, but those have DRM and the process for installing it is... ridiculous.
I remember from my teen years, that while Our Heroine was always white, Our Hero was often dark-skinned, although IIRC never African American. But he could be Latino or Arabic; I remember a number of "native guide through the Brazilian jungle" stories, and a couple of "Wealthy sheikh businessman; poor secretary needs money for dying mother & enters agreement for fake marriage" or something like that.
But I've seen less of that recently; maybe they've decided that was too strongly stereotyped. So now there are less interracial couples (not that they ever paid attention to race issues), and a firm entrenchment in the idea that there are two "real" races (white and black) and a bunch of "exotic cultures" that are suitable for romantic hero origins. Sigh.