READING GUIDE · CONTENT LEVELS
Book Spice Rating Scale: What 1 to 5 Peppers Mean (7 Scales Compared)
By Romance Book Guide Editorial · Last checked October 2026
On a book spice rating scale, 1 can mean kisses or closed-door sex, 2 can mean off-page or mildly described on-page intimacy, 3 puts intimacy on the page, 4 signals detailed scenes, and 5 signals frequent or central explicit content in the systems below. Check whose scale a rating uses.
Pepper ratings are quick shorthand on BookTok and Bookstagram. Publishers, book boxes, apps and libraries use them too, but they don't all use the same key. We laid seven of those keys side by side. They agree more than you'd guess. But they split right where it matters most if you have a firm line.
Book spice rating scale chart: what each number can mean
These scales overlap most clearly at 3, 4 and 5. They split on 1 and 2. We compared six published systems with levels 1–5; MoodReads also has 0 and 0.5. Use this chart to see the possible meanings when someone hands you a number with no key. It compares these selected sources, not every scale in use.
| Number | What it can mean in these sources | Where the definitions differ | Our content words |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Attraction and longing, maybe a kiss; sometimes sex off the page. | Romance.io's reproduced key, Carmine Pen Press and Penguin Random House explicitly exclude sex. Hachette says nothing explicit. OwlCrate and MoodReads allow closed-door or fade-to-black intimacy. | No explicit sexual scenes on the page; check whether sex happens off the page. |
| 2 | Sex off the page, or mildly described on-page intimacy. | Four of these six put sex off the page. OwlCrate's 2 has love scenes told in soft words. MoodReads' 2 can get briefly descriptive. | Closed door, fade to black or some on-page intimacy, depending on the key. |
| 3 | Sex on the page, from softer words to fuller description. | All six put intimacy on the page. OwlCrate and MoodReads allow fuller description than the gentler wording in the other four. | Some on-page intimacy or open-door. |
| 4 | Detailed or explicit scenes, generally repeated. | Scene-count rules differ. Romance.io's reproduced key and Carmine specify at least two; Penguin Random House says often four or more. | Open-door. |
| 5 | Explicit content that is frequent, central or more adventurous. | The top bands overlap, but don't have identical cutoffs. Carmine Pen Press and OwlCrate say more adventurous content may appear here. | Open-door. |
The six sources: Romance.io via Berlin-Peck Memorial Library (2025), Hachette, Carmine Pen Press, Penguin Random House Backlist Vault (2024 archive), OwlCrate and MoodReads. A seventh, Sugar Shack Books, uses four levels and appears in the next table.
So here's the safest read of a number with no key. In these systems, a 4 or 5 points to detailed sexual content, and a 3 puts intimacy on the page. A 1 or 2 is where you can get surprised, in either direction. If your line sits there, find the words behind the number before you start.
What about 0, or no rating at all? A 0 only means "nothing sexual" when the scale says so. MoodReads uses 0 for books with no romance or sexual content and 0.5 for closed door. Many scales have no 0 at all. A blank or missing rating means no rating is available there. It is not a 0, and it is not a promise of "no spice."
Seven published spice scales, side by side
Every scale below was written by a publisher, a book box, an app or a book database, and each one draws its lines in slightly different places. Read across a row to see one scale. Read down a column to see how much "2" can change from site to site.
| Scale (who made it) | Range and symbol | Level 1 | Level 2 | Level 3 | Level 4 | Level 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Romance.io steam rating (book database, via library reproduction) | 1–5 | Glimpses and kisses; no sex | Behind closed doors | Open door, softer words | Explicit; at least 2 scenes | Explicit and plentiful |
| Hachette Read-Cute Smooch Meter (publisher) | 1–5 smooches | Sparks; maybe a kiss; nothing explicit | Story cuts away before the scene | Open door, gentle wording | Several explicit scenes | Frequent explicit scenes |
| Carmine Pen Press Spice Scale (publisher) | 1–5 | No sex; maybe a kiss | Sex off the page (fade to black) | Open door, mild euphemisms | At least 2 detailed, explicit scenes | Explicit throughout; kink possible |
| Penguin Random House Backlist Vault (publisher; 2024 archive) | 1–5 chilies | No sex on or off the page | One closed-door scene | Often 1–3 scenes, mild wording | Often 4+ explicit scenes | Erotic; sex central to the plot |
| OwlCrate Spice Meter (book box) | 1–5 chilies | Closed door; fade to black | Love scenes in soft words | A few fuller scenes | Longer graphic scenes throughout | Possibly erotic, more adventurous |
| MoodReads (app) | 0–5, plus 0.5 | Kissing; fade to black | Suggestive; briefly descriptive | On-page sex, described | Several detailed scenes | Very frequent and central |
| Sugar Shack Books (Pownal Street Press imprint) | 1–4 maple leaves | Closed door, cozy | Light on-page intimacy | Open door, descriptive | Detailed on-page intimacy | No fifth level |
The Penguin Random House page now returns a missing-page response, so its row links to an archived copy captured September 14, 2024. It describes that published key, not a newly confirmed current policy.
Three things jump out.
- The big split is at the bottom. Romance.io's reproduced key, Carmine Pen Press and Penguin Random House explicitly exclude sex at 1. Hachette says nothing explicit. On OwlCrate's and Sugar Shack's scales, 1 already includes sex behind a closed door.
- Fade to black moves around. OwlCrate and MoodReads put it at 1. Carmine Pen Press and Penguin Random House put it at 2. Romance.io's reproduced key and Hachette use "closed door" at 2 without a separate fade-to-black step.
- Fewer levels squeeze everything together. Sugar Shack's four-leaf scale reaches light on-page intimacy by its second leaf; Hachette and Carmine Pen Press put gently described on-page sex at 3.
What about Romance.io?
Readers on StoryGraph's request board point to Romance.io when looking for a book's heat level. Its five steam levels run from glimpses and kisses, to behind closed doors, to open door, to explicit open door, to explicit and plentiful. We couldn't load Romance.io's own guide when we checked, so the wording above comes from a 2025 list by the Berlin-Peck Memorial Library that credits Romance.io's levels. One quirk to know: that reproduced key has no separate step for fade to black; its off-page category is "behind closed doors."
Can you convert a score from one site to another?
Not exactly, but you can get close by matching words instead of numbers. The definitions don't line up consistently, so adding or subtracting a point won't always work. Some descriptions line up even when their numbers differ. OwlCrate and Sugar Shack put closed-door intimacy at 1; Hachette and Carmine Pen Press put it at 2. MoodReads separates closed door at 0.5 from fade to black at 1. That lets you compare the wording, but it doesn't give you a rule for converting the whole scale.
The quick method: find the scale's key, read the words for that level, and match them to the descriptions in the first chart. If the words say "off the page," keep that description and the source's own score together.
If you know your level now, let your next recommendation start there. The Next Chapter, Romance Book Guide's email letter, sends romance recommendations, new guides and occasional news about books Romance Book Guide publishes, with your tastes in mind. When you sign up, you can tick "Clean / closed-door romance," "High-heat romance," or both. You can unsubscribe any time.
Closed door, fade to black, open door: the words behind the numbers
These labels describe what the book shows you, and they're often more useful than any number. "Closed door" means sex can happen in the story but the scene isn't shown. "Open door" means you're in the room. Everything else falls somewhere between, and each label still leaves a few questions open.
| Words you might see | What it means | Examples from named scales | Still check |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kisses only | Kissing, with no sexual activity. | Carmine Pen Press: 1 | Language, faith content and hard topics. |
| Sweet, clean, wholesome | Broad words for little or no sexual content. Authors use them differently. | No reliable number from these words alone | Whether sex happens off the page; whether "clean" also means no swearing. |
| No sexual scenes on the page | Sex isn't shown. It may still happen off the page or be mentioned. | Carmine Pen Press: 1–2; OwlCrate: 1 | Whether sex happens at all, and how often it's talked about. |
| Closed door | Sex happens or is implied, but isn't described on the page. | Hachette: 2; OwlCrate: 1; MoodReads: 0.5 | Whether there's build-up on the page first. |
| Fade to black | The scene begins on the page, then cuts away before explicit sexual detail. | Carmine Pen Press: 2; OwlCrate and MoodReads: 1 | How much lead-up you'll read. |
| Some on-page intimacy | You read at least part of a sexual scene, often in softer words. | Hachette: 3; OwlCrate: 2–3 | How explicit it gets and how many scenes there are. |
| Open door | Sexual scenes are shown on the page. | Carmine Pen Press: 3–5; Sugar Shack: 3–4 | Wording, number of scenes and any specific content. |
| Steamy, spicy, explicit | Words suggesting heat; "explicit" describes detail more clearly than "steamy" or "spicy." | Check the definition; adjectives alone don't establish a score | How frequent and how central the scenes are. |
Under our editorial standards, we call a book "clean" only when a named source supports no explicit on-page sexual scenes. That's a description, not a judgment. Every level on this chart has readers who love it.
A book can also be full of longing with no sex at all. Strong tension is not the same as explicit content, and a slow burn (a romance where the couple takes a long time to get together) tells you about pacing, not about how much you'll eventually see.
Want actual books with the content description beside each pick? Our guide to clean romance books lists six closed-door and kisses-only reads, each with the author's or publisher's own words.
One big scene or many small ones?
A spice number tries to squeeze two different things into one digit: how explicit the scenes are, and how many there are. One very detailed scene in a long book reads very differently from six short, softer scenes. Scales handle this differently, so it helps to ask both questions.
Say you finish a long fantasy romance with one explicit chapter near the end. One reader calls it a 4 because that chapter is explicit. Another calls it a 2 because it's 500 pages of everything else. They're both describing the same book honestly. They're just measuring different things.
MoodReads publishes one clear rule for this: it looks at the whole book, so one very explicit scene in a long, plot-heavy story still lands in the middle of its scale, at 3. Carmine Pen Press also considers frequency, asking for at least two detailed scenes before a book reaches its level 4.
These made-up examples show how to describe a book without forcing one number to do every job.
| Made-up example | What you can say | What you shouldn't assume |
|---|---|---|
| Lots of attraction and kissing; no sexual activity at all. | Affection and tension; no sex. Fits Carmine Pen Press's 1. | That it's less romantic, or that it's right for a young reader. |
| The couple clearly sleeps together, but the scene is never shown. | Off-page intimacy; closed door. Fits Carmine Pen Press's 2. | That nothing sexual happens in the story. |
| A long novel with one very detailed scene. | High detail, low frequency. MoodReads places this kind of example at 3. | That it's mild because there's only one scene. |
| Several short scenes told in soft, indirect words. | On-page intimacy, more often, less direct. Compare the named scale's detail and frequency rules. | That it outranks the previous example on every scale. |
If one of these matters more to you, say so in your own notes: "one detailed scene" tells the next reader far more than "3 peppers."
What a spice rating can't tell you
A spice rating focuses on sexual content; it isn't a complete content guide. It doesn't reliably answer questions about swearing, faith themes, hard topics or the ending. A "1" can still have strong language or deep grief, and a "5" can be tender and funny. Check each thing you care about on its own.
| Question | What a spice number tells you | Where to look instead |
|---|---|---|
| Sexual detail | This is what spice measures. | The scale's key plus the author's or publisher's words. |
| Language | No reliable answer on its own. | A content note that mentions swearing. Closed door doesn't mean clean language. |
| Faith themes | No reliable answer on its own. | The publisher's description. "Clean" and Christian romance are different things. |
| Hard topics (grief, illness, violence, abuse, dark dynamics) | No reliable answer on its own. | The author's content warnings. "Dark romance" describes themes and tone, not heat. |
| The ending | No reliable answer on its own. | A source that says HEA (happily ever after), HFN (happy for now) or cliffhanger, for this book, not the whole series. |
| Reader age | No reliable answer on its own. | The publisher's age range. A young adult label is about the reader, not the spice. |
Here's how this looks on a real book. A Publishers Weekly feature describes pregnancy loss in Kennedy Ryan's Before I Let Go; its publisher separately explains how the cover copy signals heat. That's two separate notes, a heat note and a hard-topics note, not one number. The heat statement is Author or publisher information; the pregnancy-loss detail is Not verified beyond PW's report.
A high number doesn't mean "no plot," either. Carmine Pen Press puts erotica at level 5 but says a romance can sit at 5 too. And some scales mention darker themes at their top levels: OwlCrate says its hotter books may include darker material, with content warnings. We keep those separate, because a sweet, tender book can be very explicit and a dark book can be closed door.
How to check a book's spice level before you read
Start with the author's own words, then the publisher's, then everyone else. Look for a specific statement about the exact book; vague marketing words still leave gaps. Reader ratings are helpful, but each one reflects one person's tolerance and one person's scale.
Here's the order we use, with the evidence label we'd give each source:
- The author's website, FAQ or content note · Author or publisher information. Look for a specific content note. Example: Mimi Matthews confirms on her release-day post that The Belle of Belgrave Square has no sex on the page.
- The publisher's description · Author or publisher information. Read the adjectives, then look for specifics. "Kisses-only" and "closed door" say more than "sweet" or "steamy." The next section shows real examples.
- A publisher's own spice key or rated list · Author or publisher information when the publisher rates its own book. Hachette's Read-Cute page and the archived Penguin Random House Backlist Vault article both supply keys.
- A crowd rating, like Romance.io's · Reader report. A useful starting point. Remember the reproduced Romance.io key has no separate fade-to-black step.
- User-submitted StoryGraph content warnings · Reader report. Its content-warning pages show Graphic, Moderate and Minor tiers. These add reader-reported information, but don't translate directly into a pepper score. Author-approved warnings are a separate source category.
- Library, blog and book-box lists with peppers · Reader report for the list maker's own assessment; an attributed author or publisher statement keeps that evidence label. Always find which scale the list uses.
- The free sample · Sample checked. Tells you only about the pages you read. Books often heat up later.
- BookTok, Bookstagram, Reddit and Goodreads comments · Reader report. Great for "how did it feel"; check which scale and specific details the reader gives.
A worked example. Your friend texts: "It's a 2, you'll be fine."
- Step 1: Whose scale? If she means Carmine Pen Press's or Penguin Random House's, 2 means sex happens off the page. Only the Penguin Random House key specifies one scene. If she means OwlCrate's, 2 means love scenes on the page in soft words.
- Step 2: Translate. That's anywhere from "off the page" to "gently on the page." Big range.
- Step 3: Find the author's words. If the author says "closed door," keep those words with the source. If the author says nothing, read the sample, check one crowd rating, and treat both as partial.
A sample-only example. Say you've read the first chapter and nothing sexual happens. What you can honestly write: "Sample checked: no sexual scene in chapter one." What you can't write yet: the whole book's level, anything about later chapters, or the ending. Those stay "Not verified."
Once you know your level, put it into your reading brief. It's question 3: "How much intimacy belongs on the page?" The brief records your preferences; it doesn't rate books or generate a personalized list.
Publishers' own words: what they tell you about spice
Publishers describe heat in words as well as numbers. In a 2022 Publishers Weekly feature, editors talked about the heat in their own books. Here's what six of those descriptions tell you, and what each one still leaves unknown. These are examples of the method, not reviews. We haven't read these books.
| Book | What the publisher side said | What this supports | What's still unknown |
|---|---|---|---|
| Authentically, Izzy by Pepper Basham (Thomas Nelson, 2022) | Marketing copy calls it a sweet, kisses-only romance. | Kisses-only. | A named numerical score; other content dimensions. |
| Right Girl, Wrong Side by Ginny Baird (Sourcebooks Casablanca, 2023) | The editor says the choice to fade to black serves the story, which centers on family. | Fade to black. | How much lead-up appears before the cut; a numerical score. |
| The Marriage List by Ella Quinn (Zebra/Kensington, 2022) | The editor says they don't close the bedroom door, and that Quinn's couples usually get together around the halfway point. Kensington calls the series sexy. | Open door. | How many scenes, how explicit, and a numerical score. |
| Never Kiss a Cowgirl by Ali Vali (Bold Strokes Books, 2023) | The publisher's consultant says it has explicit sex scenes, with the number driven by plot and character. | Explicit on-page content. | Exactly how many scenes; a numerical score. |
| Full Exposure by Thien-Kim Lam (Avon, 2023) | The editor discusses body confidence and recommending it to readers seeking high heat. | High-heat marketing. | The exact detail, frequency and numerical level. |
| Before I Let Go by Kennedy Ryan (Forever, 2022) | The editor says cover copy signals heat. | Heat is signaled; no number is given. | The heat level, and the hard-topic details. |
The Marriage List · publisher book page and editions
Never Kiss a Cowgirl · paperback at Bella Books, ISBN 9781636791067
Before I Let Go · publisher trade-paperback page, ISBN 9781538706794
The same editors were honest about how slippery this is. Avon editor Erika Tsang told Publishers Weekly that her "five hot peppers could be somebody's three peppers." That's exactly why the words matter more than the count.
A quick guide to reading the words, based on how these publishers and the seven scales use them:
- "Sweet," "wholesome," "Hallmark-style" → ask whether sex happens at all; "kisses-only" is more specific.
- "Closed door," "fade to black" → off-page sex or a cutaway; check how much lead-up appears.
- "Sensual," "romantic and steamy in places" → ask what is shown; "open door" confirms sexual scenes on the page.
- "Steamy," "hot," "sizzling" → heat is being signaled; "explicit" is clearer about detail, but still doesn't tell you how many scenes.
- "Erotic," "spicy is the point," "unapologetically spicy" → ask about detail, frequency and the role of sex in the story; use a number only with its named scale and supporting evidence.
Use this chart for reviews, lists and book pages
You're welcome to use our charts and the note below for reviews, library lists, book clubs or your own book pages. Keep the source names and the check date with anything you copy, so your readers know which definitions you mean. No email needed.
A spice note you can copy. Fill in only what a source supports. Leave everything else as "Not verified." Match each evidence entry to the claim it supports. Use "Full book read" only when a named contributor actually read the complete book; for "Sample checked," name the pages or chapters inspected.
Book: [title], by [author] ([edition or series book number])
Spice: [source-attributed number, or Not verified] on [name of scale] — "[the scale's words for that level]"
What's shown: [plain description, e.g. "one closed-door scene" or "several explicit scenes"]
Language: [source-supported description / Not verified]
Faith themes: [source-supported description / Not verified]
Hard topics: [short, spoiler-free list / Not verified]
Ending (this book): [HEA / HFN / cliffhanger / unresolved / another ending / Not verified]
Series status: [standalone / series name and book number / complete or ongoing / Not verified]
Evidence: [Author or publisher information / Sample checked / Full book read / Reader report / Not verified] — [named source or contributor], [source link], [claim and scope supported], checked [date]
Additional evidence: [repeat for fields with a different source or scope, or Not verified]
Still unknown: [the question your source doesn't answer]To cite this page:
Romance Book Guide Editorial. "Book Spice Rating Scale: 1–5 Chart, 7 Scales Compared." Sources checked October 23, 2026. https://romancebookguide.com/book-spice-rating-scale/If you're an author: put the heat in words in the last line of your book description and on your website FAQ ("closed door," "two open-door scenes"). If you also use a number, name the scale. Keep it consistent across a series, and say so on the book's page if a later book runs sweeter or hotter.
If you make lists (librarians, bloggers, book-club hosts): say which scale your peppers use, every time. One line at the top of a list ends most of the confusion this page exists to fix.
Pick your next read at your level
Once you know your number, choose the story around it. A setting, a relationship and the kind of ending you want will narrow things faster than a spice score alone.
- Kisses only or closed door, any setting: start with our clean romance books, six closed-door and kisses-only picks sorted by mood.
- Kisses only or closed door, historical: try our clean Regency romance books.
- Historical, any heat: our Regency romance books shelf includes different content levels, with source-supported notes and unverified details kept visible.
- A favorite trope first: our marriage of convenience romance books guide shows the available content information beside each pick.
- Want to borrow, not buy? See our Kindle Unlimited romance books, with dated borrowing checks.
Choose the reading interests you want to share, and The Next Chapter will send romance recommendations, new guides and occasional news about books Romance Book Guide publishes. You can tick clean and closed-door, high-heat, or a little of everything. Unsubscribe any time.
A few more spice questions
What spice level is A Court of Thorns and Roses? On Carmine Pen Press's scale, Sarah J. Maas's A Court of Thorns and Roses is the publisher's own example of a level 3: open door, with milder wording. That's one publisher's call about another publisher's book, so treat it as Reader report. It describes the first book, not the whole series.
Why do readers rate the same book so differently? Three reasons. They're using different scales. They have different comfort levels. And some count how many scenes there are while others count how explicit one scene is. When two ratings disagree, look for the words behind them.
Does Goodreads or StoryGraph show a spice rating? Don't read a book's star rating as its spice level. Goodreads readers discuss heat in book Q&As. StoryGraph's user-submitted content warnings include Graphic, Moderate and Minor tiers, which aren't a pepper score. A March 5, 2024 team reply said a built-in spice rating was planned; we couldn't confirm its current launch status when we checked on October 23, 2026.
How we checked these scales
Romance Book Guide helps you find romance books that feel like your kind of love story — comparing real books by setting, relationship, content level and ending, with the author or publisher information behind every pick, so you can choose your next read with confidence.
Research note. On October 23, 2026, we read the published definitions of seven spice scales: Hachette's Read-Cute Smooch Meter, Carmine Pen Press's Spice Scale, Penguin Random House Backlist Vault's chili scale, OwlCrate's Spice Meter, MoodReads' spice scale, Sugar Shack Books' maple-leaf ratings from Pownal Street Press, and Romance.io's steam rating. Romance.io's own guide wouldn't load for us, so its wording comes from a 2025 list by the Berlin-Peck Memorial Library that credits it. The Penguin Random House comparison uses its June 2024 article as captured in September 2024, because the original page now returns 404. We compared the wording ourselves; the number chart and word comparisons are our editorial reading of those selected definitions, not an official standard, a survey or an exact score converter. Publisher and author content statements are labeled Author or publisher information; Carmine Pen Press's classification of another publisher's book is labeled Reader report. The pregnancy-loss detail is attributed separately to Publishers Weekly's reporting and labeled Not verified beyond that report. No numerical book ratings are inferred from marketing adjectives. We have not read, sampled or rated any of the books named on this page, and the made-up examples are ours. These are selected scales we could trace to a source, not every scale in use. We may use software, including AI tools, to help organize research and drafting; Romance Book Guide remains responsible for what we publish.
Romance Book Guide is operated by Kozi Publishing LLC. See our editorial standards, about us and how we make money. See a changed definition or a mistake? Send us the source.
Sources
Sources checked October 23, 2026. Archived and secondary evidence is identified below; an access attempt is not a fresh verification of an inaccessible page.
- Hachette Book Group, Read-Cute Smooch Meter (page metadata records an October 12, 2026 update).
- Carmine Pen Press, The Spice Scale.
- Penguin Random House Backlist Vault, Romance on the Chili Pepper Scale — archived publisher article (June 6, 2024; snapshot September 14, 2024; original URL returned 404 at audit).
- OwlCrate, Spicy Book Rating Scale: OwlCrate's Spice Meter.
- MoodReads, the moodreads spice scale.
- Pownal Street Press, Sugar Shack Books call for submissions (October 16, 2025; source of the maple-leaf definitions; the submission window has closed).
- Berlin-Peck Memorial Library, 2025 Romance Novels: What's Your Spice Level? (January 23, 2025), reproducing Romance.io's steam levels; Romance.io's own guide.
- Pooja Makhijani for Publishers Weekly, Hot or Not?: Romance Novels 2022–2023 (online November 4, 2022; November 7 print issue).
- StoryGraph, user-submitted content-warning tiers and request board: heat/spice level for romance books (team reply March 5, 2024; current launch status not confirmed).
- Goodreads, a reader Q&A about spice level (evidence of the Q&A feature, not a verified rating for the book discussed).
- Mimi Matthews, The Belle of Belgrave Square release-day FAQ (October 11, 2022; author statement about on-page content).
- Bibliographic records are linked from the six-book table. For the FAQ example, Bloomsbury's first-edition ebook record confirms A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas, first published in 2015 and first in its series.