One of my favorite reading tools that I’ve discovered over the past few years is Romance IO.

If you don’t like diving into a new book without knowing the spice level (i.e. how much sexual content is in a book), Romance IO is for you!

The best part? It’s free!

All you have to do is open Romance IO on your phone or computer, enter the name of the book you’re looking for and it will give you a spice level between 1 and 5.

Here’s what the spice levels are (which Romance IO has listed as flames)

1 Flame: Glimpses and kisses. Meaningful glances and maybe a kiss, but no sex on or off the page.

2 Flames: Behind closed doors At least one intimate scene occurs, but without the reader’s presence.

3 Flames: Door open At least one intimate scene with the reader present, euphemistic language for act and body parts

4 Flames: Explicit open door At least two intimate scenes, explicit language with a variety of sexual acts

5 Flames: Explicit and abundant Several explicit scenes, a variety of adventurous acts, punctuate the book

Here’s what it looks like on the Romance IO site (and you can click on the question mark after the flame rating if you need a reminder of what the scale looks like!).

Another thing I like about the flame scale on Romance IO is that on the scale you can click to see more books at that flame level, so if you’re only comfortable with 1 flame rated book, you can easily find more (and the same for any other flame rating).

Of course, it’s not a perfect system: not all books are included on Romance IO (although I was happily surprised by how robust the site is!) and they don’t take language into consideration, which is an important factor for some readers.

But Romance IO is definitely a great place to quickly check the spice level of a book while you’re browsing at the library or bookstore or online or you’re ready to open a new book but don’t want to be caught off guard by 150 pages of steamy content!

Have you used Romance IO? I’d love to know what you think!

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