Every review on this shelf carries one number from 0 to 5, and each number is a sentence about what is on the page. 0 is sweet, kisses at most. 1 is kissing on the page, and the door closes on the rest. 2 is sex on the page, briefly, then the scene cuts away.
3 is an open door: the scenes are on the page. 4 is explicit, and every scene moves the plot. 5 is explicit and frequent, with heat making up half the book. A 4 and a 5 can be equally explicit. What changes is the schedule, how often the door opens and whether the story needs it to.
The number rates content. It does not rate quality, and it never will. Heat is only half of what can catch you off guard, so each review also lists content notes in plain words: violence, assault, abuse, whatever the book actually does. Nobody ever returned a ring at my counter for being ugly. They returned the ones that weren't what the tag said. This is the tag.
Heat 4 of 5
Five horror tales with one love story running through all of them, and it costs a piece of the room every time. Heat 4, the notes are real, and Volume One does not give you the ending.
Content notes: suicide on the page, repeatedly: razor, rope, pills, in method and in detail, graphic violence, a shooting, broken bones, and bodies in decomposition, +6 more
Reviews
By Sarah J. Maas
Heat 3 of 5
It is the book the whole shelf is built on, and it is a 3 that reads warmer than it is. It keeps the fairy tale's promise and hands you to book two for the rest.
Content notes: gory battles, torture and mutilation on the page, a house fire that kills a family, +6 more
Heat 0 of 5
A YA book that sells banter and a forbidden prince and delivers both. The heat is a 0 and it says so, and the love story is still in the case when it ends.
Content notes: a father killed by the king, remembered, a kingdom that hunts and kills people without powers, +5 more
Heat 3 of 5
It is a self-published book that earned its way onto every table in the store. Heat 3, the top of the 3, and a love story that will not finish in one volume.
Content notes: graphic violence, war, blood and gore, murder and a decapitation, +6 more
Reviews
By Carissa Broadbent
Heat 3 of 5
It is a tournament book first and a love story second, and it is honest about both. The heat is a 3 that waits a long time to arrive, and the ending is a duet's ending.
Content notes: violence and gore throughout, torture, off the page, +7 more
Heat 3 of 5
It kept its word on the dragons and on the slow burn. The heat is a 3, it arrives late, and the romance is still on layaway when the last page turns.
Content notes: graphic violence and frequent death, cadets included, killing of civilians, children among them, +6 more