S05.24: Technology in Romance Interstitial
It feels like you can’t turn around these days without stumbling into a story that’s a little unsettling about technology and how we’re all living our lives in this post (sort of) pandemic world. Between Twitter dramz, TikTok explosions and the rise of AI, it’s a lot. So, it’s probably to be expected that we are talking about how technology is impacting romance novels. We’re talking about texting, about FaceTime, about podcasting, and yes…even about robots. If you can use it to fall in love, there’s a romance using it…and we’re recommending a few we really enjoyed.
You can still get tickets to Fated Mates Live! Join us on March 24 in New York City with Tessa Bailey, Andie J. Christopher, Mila Finelli, Adriana Herrera, and Joanna Shupe! Amazing stories will be told, many laughs will be had, terrific books will be on sale, and there will be a bar! Get tickets now!
Our first read along of 2023 (soon! we promise!) is Tracy MacNish’s Stealing Midnight—we’ve heard the calls from our gothic romance readers and we’re delivering with this truly bananas story, in which the hero is dug out of a grave and delivered, barely alive, to the heroine. Get ready. You can find Stealing Midnight (for $1.99!) at Amazon, B&N, Kobo, or Apple Books.
Show Notes
This New York Times article called When the Novel Swiped Right doesn't mention a single romance novel, of course. But don't worry. We've got you. Sarah wrote about tech in romance back in 2019 in the Washington Post.
We are very excited about Ted Lasso season 3, which premiers on March 15, 2023. This is a very nice little teaser is a masterclass in character work, but here’s the trailer.
Also in the New York Times, this creepy article about interviewing the Microsoft Bing AI. Maybe that thing has love on the brain because Microsoft fed the AI a bunch of romance novels at some point. Seems legit. But then this New Yorker article came out and said that ChatGPT is just like a blurry jpeg, so everyone calm down.
Match.com was invented in 1995, but it was the invention of the dating app a decade ago in 2013 that really changed the game. And if you’re famous, you can get on Raya.
Kevin Costner is relevant again! Everyone, time to reread Perfect.
The pager situation was wild, but Sky Pager is a truly great song by A Tribe Called Quest, off of The Low End Theory, one of Jen’s all time favorite albums. Poet Hanif Abdurraqib has written an entire book about A Tribe Called Quest called Go Ahead in the Rain for the fans out there.
Watch this cute video about the guy who built a house for the frog living on his fence. And when it comes to the internet, cats rule and dogs drool.
Books Mentioned This Episode
Sponsors
Jo Brenner, author of You Can Follow Me
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S04.08: Hana Khan Carries On by Uzma Jalaluddin
2021 has been kind of a mess, honestly, and Sarah hasn’t been reading as much as usual, because *waves hands at the world.* But Hana Khan Carries On is a total delight and exactly the book she needed this year, so we’re reading it with you! We’ll talk about romcoms, authorial voice, podcasting heroines, about how much we enjoy heroes who deserve a bit of cold storage, about writing contemporaries that reflect the time we live in, and about first person narration and why it works really well when it works really well.
Also, Sarah tries to get herself invited to hang out with Uzma Jalaluddin and tries to trademark a Ted Lasso reference all in one episode. It’s rough out here. Leave her alone.
Get ready for more trailblazers and our Best of 2021 episode this month! Our next read-alongs will be the Tiffany Reisz Men at Work series, which is three holiday themed category romances. Read one or all of them: Her Halloween Treat, Her Naughty Holiday and One Hot December.
Show Notes
This week’s book is Hana Khan Carries On by Uzma Jalaluddin. Her first novel was Ayesha At Last, which was a Pride & Prejudice retelling. Mindy Kaling is adapting Hana Khan for Amazon.
The Folio Society has a new version of Georgette Heyer’s Venetia. The introduction is by Stephen Fry, who is a real champion of poetry, including a great book about the joys of reading and writing poetry called The Ode Less Travelled.
The dating app invented for Ted Lasso is called Bantr.
If you can’t identify different voices, maybe it’s because we all have podcast voice.
In the ReadsRomance family, we call Toronto Clean Chicago….because well, I think it explains itself.
The Golden Crescent might be an invented neighborhood for this book, but it seems similar to Toronto’s Crescent Town. If you’d like more information about what it means when food or a restaurant is Halal. Perhaps you do not know about biryani, an Indian delicacy, or poutine, a Canadian one.
Jen was right about the meaning of the word pillory.
This book has aspects of the 1998 movie You’ve Got Mail with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, which had a terrible ending.
From what we can tell, the NPR of Canada is CBC radio.
In some recent books, we get an unflinching portrayals of toxic white women on page---characters like Marissa in this book, or Misty in American Dreamer. Adriana Herrera was a guest on last year for an interstitial about the immigrant experience.
Our next read-alongs will be the Tiffany Reisz Men at Work series, which is three books. Read one or read them all: Her Halloween Treat, Her Naughty Holiday, and One Hot December.
