The Benevolent Dragon Chili Pepper Scale

Meghan Fisher
Oct 27
2 min read

While the taco loving dragons of Dragons Love Tacos may not like spice, but here at Benevolent Dragon Bookshop, we LOVE it. And just like salsa, our 3 chilli pepper rating may be your 5 (or vice versa). To prevent a potentially cringey or upsetting experience all the way around, Tia and I thought it might be important to explain our ratings.

1 Chili Pepper 🌶️

A single chili pepper is very mild spice, we would say that most young adult books would be a 1. There may be some kissing or heavy petting, possibly implied sex but everything is vague and closed door. Think Throne of Glass with Celena and Dorian/ Celena and Chaol

YA novels are likely to be 🌶️

2 Chili Peppers 🌶️🌶️

Two chili peppers may 1-2 open door scenes that are quick and something that most might consider vanilla. No kink and the relationship and encounter is still integral to the plot.

We could consider many romantasy books as 🌶️🌶️

3 Chili Peppers 🌶️🌶️🌶️

3 Chili peppers is starting to heat up. Typically we’d say this is an open door scene with mild to moderate detail. You may find some kink, like dirty talk (hello Kingfisher and Slade Ravinger) or light impact play with some power dynamics.

Examples of 🌶️🌶️🌶️ might include ‘true’ romance where the plot surrounds the relationship, and some of the more mild dark romances like Quicksilver.

4 Chili Peppers 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️

A 4 chili pepper rating is where the smut starts to overpower the plot. There is likely to be heavy kink and it may seem unnecessary (though undeniably fun) to move the plot forward. These books are likely to (or should) have trigger warnings. Think Dance with My Demons

While some romantasy books could certainly qualify as a 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️, many of these will be dark romance