Back in 2005, I wrote a post entitled Step-Siblings Falling In Love – Is It Yucky For You? This seems to be one of the most popular pages that random Googlers come across here at KKB.

Basically, I was asking whether or not romance readers were comfortable with plot devices featuring step-siblings who fall in love. Every now and then somebody actually posts a comment on this thread – check out the latest one by a reader called Dezz:

…While I agree with everyone — I find nothing wrong with step-siblings get together, I myself could not see myself with my stepbrother. I have 3, all older than me, and 2 more ex- step brothers, both older than me as well. I can honestly say I view them as my brother’s and the ick factor is quite high when thinking about them as anything else.

However I have (somewhat) of a similar situation. One of my brother’s best friends recently came back after being away for 3 years. He is now 23 while I’m 17 and since we haven’t seen each other in so long feelings have somewhat changed. However, he is like my family. He practically grew up at our house and eventually moved in with us when he was older. Now he lives with my brother and I still see him constantly. He works for my step-father and is eventually buying the company… therefore putting him in my life forever. When I say I’ve known him forever it’s true. I should view him as a brother but I don’t.

A few months after he came back we told each other our feelings. However I’m to young and he doesn’t want to ruin anything. Basically we can never be together because of the family. So in a sense it’s slightly the same. And let me just say, it sucks.

I think her situation is probably different, seeing as it’s her brother’s best friend, rather than a step-sibling, but it did strike me as rather sad. Mind you, she’s only seventeen, so it may just be infatuation on her part.

Dezz’s story was in response to this question that I posed at the time:

…what if the step-brother and step-sister featured in the romance story, were actually brought up together? Does that make for a higher ewww factor, or would it not bother you either way?

Step-siblings who’d grown up together and happened to fall in love wouldn’t bother me too much, my biggest problem would be sexual relationships between blood brothers and sisters.

What say you? Is there a higher ick factor when the two protags are step-siblings who grew up together, or not? Would you be interested in reading such books?