SALT LAKE CITY - Crack open most romance novels and you'll find sex within the first 100 pages, then something sexual nearly chapter after chapter.

Then there's the Mormon romance novel, where there's no sex at all and the first kiss is likely to come after the wedding engagement.

While that may leave some readers of the genre wanting, the Mormon romance novel caters to a very niche audience - Mormon readers wanting fiction that reflects their faith-based values.

"Sex is not the appeal in our romance novels at all. And I mean at all," said Robby Nichols, vice president of marketing for Covenant Communications, a publisher of LDS books. "Commitment is what's strong in our market. There is no swearing, no graphic anything and we steer as far from innuendo as we can."

Mormon romance novels are increasingly popular in Salt Lake City and across the West as a sub-genre of the traditional romance novel, which brought in $1.5 billion in 2001.

There is no estimate of the amount Mormon romance novels generated last year, but romance novels make up more than half of all paperback fiction sold in the U.S. yearly, according to Romance Writers of America.

"Our inspiration category, or those romances containing spiritual themes, has definitely grown in the last three to five years," said Nicole Kennedy, spokeswoman for Romance Writers of America.

The reasons are varied - a hunger for spirituality in uncertain times, an increase in the quality of books by religious authors and a commercial recognition of their moneymaking value.

Last year, Covenant published 33 fiction books, including 16 Mormon romance tomes.

The genre's success comes alongside a surge in Mormon arts, including an increase in the production of Mormon-themed movies. Seven such films have opened on local screens since 2000, drawing a faithful audience and sometimes a tidy profit.

Anita Stansfield's 1994 novel "First Love and Forever," rejected five times before becoming an overnight success, opened the market for other Mormon romance writers. Stansfield, now working on her 23rd novel, has become the best-selling Mormon romance author. She's sold more than 600,000 books.

"I realized that there was a big hole in the LDS market for women's fiction and I felt like I could do better," Stansfield said. "I couldn't find anything to read that satisfied me."

Her books are built upon traditional romance pillars - a central love story and a happy ending. But the stories typify the lifestyle of Mormon faithful.

Characters read from the Book of Mormon, consult the Spirit, refer to Atonement, all aspects of theology from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The main relationship usually involves a man giving up his scurrilous ways to convert to Mormonism and marry the woman he loves. Or a Mormon couple coming together after death, divorce or estrangement to find love.

The books assume readers know Mormon culture. Characters marry in Mormon Temples, and activities include "family home evening," where families spend quality time together on Monday nights. Characters cling to a chaste, non-lusty lifestyle.

"I have always felt the long detailed sex scenes are an insult to our (women's) intelligence because we all know how it works," Stansfield said. "The women I talked to … they want the romance, but they don't want to read all the pornographic details."

Some say the LDS-book market is creeping toward an even stronger conservatism. The largest LDS bookstore, church-owned Deseret Books, recently refused to carry a book by a well-known Mormon author that violated "their core values."

The book by Richard Paul Evans, "The Last Promise," is about a woman who, caught in an abusive relationship with her husband, turns to another man for emotional support.

Deseret Book says the books it stocks should reflect customers' values.

"Our customers are looking for books that build faith," said Keith Hunter, vice president of marketing and sales for Deseret Book. "They are looking for things that strengthen individuals and families. Things that are a disconnect are things that glorify immorality or that present the consequences of negative choices in a positive way. We sell values-based literature."

In turn, publishers such as Covenant Communications may also be heading toward more strict standards in romance novels.

Several years ago Stansfield wrote about a woman recovering from breast cancer. An important part of the book was the woman's relationship with her husband, which included their relations in the bedroom, Stansfield said.

The novel's bedroom scene dealt sensitively and obscurely with the topic of sex, referring more to the woman's feelings than the couple's activities. And yet Stansfield doesn't believe those scenes would make it through the editing process today.

"I know I couldn't write that now. They have cracked down," she said.

In a book published in 2000, Stansfield was forced to delete the one sentence that described a couple's wedding night. The sentence said merely, "He laughed and kicked the door closed," she said.

That type of cutting has been tough on Stansfield, who considers herself a strongly moral writer. "I have spent my life trying to write books that uphold a standard," she said. "To have that ridiculed or treated as trash has been very difficult for me."

On the Net:

Covenant Communications: http://www.covenant-lds.com/

Mormon church: http://www.lds.org/