Harlequin had also failed to adapt quickly to the signs that readers appreciated novels with more explicit sex scenes, and in 1980 several publishers entered the category romance market to fill that gap. That year Dell launched Candlelight Ecstasy, the first line to waive the requirement that heroines be virginal. By the end of 1983, sales for the Candlelight Ecstasy line totaled $30 million. Silhouette also launched similar lines, Desire and Special Edition, each of which had a 90–100% sellout rate each month. The sudden increase in category romance lines meant an equally sudden increase in demand for writers of the new style of romance novel. By 1984, the market was saturated with category lines and readers had begun to complain of redundancy in plots.Thurston, p. 188. The following year, the "dampening effect of the high level of redundancy associated with series romances was evident in the decreased number of titles being read per month."Thurston, p. 128. Harlequin's return rate, which had been less than 25% in 1978 when it was the primary provider of category romance, swelled to 60%.Thurston, p. 190.
