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TO: PARMLY BILLINGS LIBRARY BOARD FROM: BILL COCHRAN, LIBRARY DIRECTOR DEE ANN REDMAN, SYSTEMS ADMINISTRATOR RE: STATEMENT OF CONCERN ABOUT DANGEROUS GAMES MEETING DATE: SEPTEMBER 10, 2009 Attached is a “Statement of Concern About Library Resources” submitted by Katherine Vallone. STATEMENT REQUEST Ms. Vallone states that she read “one or two chapters” of the book. She says that the book is “over the line from soft porn to hard core.” The action she seeks is that she would like “someone to read part of it and see if you should take off the shelf.” BACKGROUND Dangerous Games is one of a series of novels by author Lora Leigh featuring former Navy SEALS. The Library currently owns eleven titles by this author, all of which are romance novels with fantasy or suspense elements and include strong sexual content. The author’s latest release is currently the 24th best selling title on the Barnes & Noble website, indicating the popularity of this subgenre and the author. Romantic Times, the main romance genre review source, gave this novel a positive 4½ star rating, referring to it as a “scorcher”. Library Journal, in a review of another title, noted of Leigh’s books that they are “firmly in the erotic, rather than the merely supersexy, romance camp” but also noted the large fan base for her books. The 60 reader reviews of Dangerous Games on Amazon.com were mixed. Comments favored the erotic nature of the plot and the characters, while negative reviews dealt with research errors and inconsistencies in the story line. The Library has two copies of this book that were ordered because of a borrower request and were added in April of this year. In four months, those two copies circulated eleven times, indicating a popular interest among borrowers. STAFF RECOMMENDATION The book is currently located in the paperback collection. While recognizing that the sexual content in this work may be distasteful to some readers, staff recommends that both copies of this book be retained in the collection due to sustained borrower interest in both this title and the author’s writings.