50 Shades of Thornfield?

I was at a friend's house yesterday, with another friend, and I was showing them some of the covers I've bought for my future books. I have several series, and my friend asked which series a particular cover was for, and the other answered for me. She also said it had no sex, and the other friend said, laughing, "Why bother?" In light of the recent news that a UK publisher is adding erotic content to such classics as the works of Jane Austen and the Brontes, the comment gave me pause. How many romance readers these days expect sex in romance novels and balk when it's not there? And how far is this taken when one adds sex to Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice? It's one thing for authors and fans of the novels to create their own works and spin-offs, but quite another to adulterate the original work. I'm not knocking romance novels with adult content, but on the other side, I don't appreciate the attitude that a romance sans sex is somehow lacking. There's room for all kinds of books and I certainly appreciate the readers who've embraced my novels, as well as those authors who craft "clean" and "sweet" romances for when I want to enjoy an "old-fashioned" love story. What do you think? Will you be reading 50 Shades of Thornfield or Passion at Pemberley (I just had to come up with some crazy titles! ;)?

The cover I mention...for Book One in the Rancho Valle series, my new clean contemporary series, coming in 2013.

Cover created by Laura J. Miller of An Author's Art