17: Sexclamation Points! - The Player!

Our favorite person, Kate Clayborn, is back with us to wrap up the Game Makers series with THE PLAYER! Join us as Sarah explains all the ways that the damaged hero works for her (Spoiler: It’s Every Single Way), Kate digs deep on Kresley’s liberal use of punctuation, and Jen admits that Sarah was right all along.

Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in your favorite podcasting platform — and while you’re there, please leave us a like or a review. 

We’re getting down to the wire with IAD, but because we’re completists, we’re tackling the Dacians in two weeks with a two-for-one episode featuring both of these Lothaire spinoff stories, Shadow's Claim (featuring demon-sorceress Bettina and Dacian assassin Trehan) & Shadow's Seduction (featuring Caspion the demon and Mirceo the vampire prince)!

The Player by Kresley Cole

Show Notes

• Wecome back, Kate!

• The Grassy Knoll isn't much of a knoll, anymore. But if you're ever in Dallas, check out the Sixth Floor Museum.

• This kind of teabagging does not appear on the Clayborn Scale.

• YA Author Carrie Ryan has smart things to say about first person and scary things to say about zombies.

• Famous for having a big reveal: The Usual Suspects, The Sixth Sense, and The DaVinci Code. Not famous for a big reveal: Meet Joe Black.

• We should have asked Adriana Herrera about Dimitri's trauma.

• Rocky was also a self-made man, and you cannot even convince Jen that the person who invented CrossFit didn't rapturously watch this a million times.

• Dryer's English is a book that all the writing nerds had a pre-order, and he has strong opinions about exclamation points, but absolutley nothing to say about sexclamation points.

• Everyone loves foreshadowing.

• But in romance, no one loves an unreliable narrator.

• Jen recommends the YA novel One of Us is Lying, or you could kick it old-school and watch Roshomon.

• Pre-order Brazen and the Beast! and Love Lettering! And read Jen's interviews with Reese Ryan and Marie Tremayne and Robin Lovett on Kirkus.

• In two weeks, we're back to IAD with the Dacian two-fer: Shadow's Claim & Shadow's Seduction!

12: Do Not Let the Lykae into the Yankee Candle Store: MacRieve

MacRieve is here and so is friend of the pod, Sierra Simone! We’re so excited to talk about The Full Kresley, what makes erotic romance, The Simone Scale™ of taboo romance, why MacRieve is so tough to read, why Sarah thinks it might be Kresley’s best book, and why Chloe is such a badass. There’s a lot of hysterical laughter, and Sarah is preparing for legal action.

MacRieve

MacRieve

MacRieve

Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in your favorite podcasting platform — and while you’re there, please leave us a like or a review. 

In two weeks, we’re starting Kresley’s contemporary series The Game Makers (we’re reading the books in original publication order) with The Professional. Get ready for Wroth Brother fanfic that Kresley herself refers to as “way sexier” then IAD. Get The Professional at Amazon, B&N, Apple Books, Kobo, or from your local Indie.

Show Notes

• The NECRWA conference always sounds so great!

• I don't even know where to start with Andie Christopher and her Chris Evans obssession.

• Avengers Endgame, that ol' chesnut.

• We stan Sierra Simone, and we love The Sierra Simone Scale™. Check out her two latest, Misadventures of a Curvy Girl and A Lesson in Thorns.

• Debbie Macomber is a queen of small town contemporary romance.

• You can't stop me, you can only hope to contain me is a play on a very catchy ESPN phrase from back in the day.

• Adriana Herrera wrote about how to ethically write about sexual trauma for Smart Bitches. She also joined us to talk about Food Romances & her most recent release.

• Adriana Anders' Under Her Skin explores a story of a woman's traumatic past, as does Long Shot by Kennedy Ryan.

• Suzanne from Love In Panels wrote a great explainer about content warnings and why we use them.

• This is a powerful critique of sexual violence in Game of Thrones.

• Just last year, two books about women and anger were published: Rage Becomes Her by Soraya Chemaly and Good and Mad by Rebecca Traister.

• More about emotional dysregulation.

• The Black Lyon by Jude Deveraux is an old school classic.

• Dick flu is definitely some BDE.

• You'd be surprised about how much writer's advice you can find about the evils of the info dump.

• The history of the Wingding.

• There's an entire subreddit dedicated to ranting about Comcast.

• Yankee Candle will eff a werewolf up.

• You can listen to Kresley on the Wicked Wallflowers podcast.

• Snakes on a plane!

• The story of Sir Walter Raleigh throwing down his cape for Queen Elizabeth to walk over is not historically accurate, but it still makes for a great scene in Shakespeare in Love.

• The Fifth Element is a completely rewatchable movie.

• All about the Mothman, who, it bears pointing out, Lothaire says exists.

• Here's the beginning of Sarah's stalking of Sierra after reading (and loving) Priest.

• Next time, we're going off road and have decided we'll be reading the first book in The Game Makers series, The Professional. Here's the reading order for the rest of Fated Mates Season One.

---

Lost Limb Count

Arms and Hands (8)

1. Conrad cuts off his own hand with a rusty axe so he escape the "witched" chains his brothers locked him in. (Dark Needs at Night's Edge)
2. Cadeon has both of his hands burned off in the same scene where he loses an eye. There's description of what Cade's baby fingers look like as they are re-growing. It's...kinda gross. (Dark Desires After Dusk)
3. Sebastian pulverizes most of his right arm during the Hie. He regenerates. (No Rest For the Wicked)
4. Lucia peels all the skin off from her hand in order to free herself from some handcuffs. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
5. In order to retrieve the ring from La Dorada , Lothaire cuts off her finger. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
6. Lanthe and Carrow cut off Fegley's hand so they can use his thumb to unlock their torques. He's later killed. (Demon from the Dark)
7. After receiving Lothaire's heart in a box, Ellie cuts off her middle finger and sends it to him. (Lothaire)
8. Chloe's shoulder is dislocated in the escape from her auction (MacRieve).

Chest and Torso (7)

1. Omort severs Rydstrom's spine and punches through his torso in a fight. Sabine saves him and enlists Hag to help heal him. (Kiss of a Demon King)
2. Lucia's neck is broken. She regenerates. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
3. On Torture Island, Regin,
4. MacRieve,
5. and Brandr are vivisected. It's pretty terrible. (Dreams of a Dark Warrior)
6. Declan's skin is peeled off by the Neoptera as a child. (Dreams of a Dark Warrior)
7. Lothaire rips out his own heart and sends it to Ellie in a box. (Lothaire)

Head, Face, and Eyes (6)

1. Bowen loses an eye and most of his forehead during the Hie. Mariketa has cursed him and he can't heal until he returns to her. (Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night)
2. Cadeon loses an eye and part of his forehead and hair when fighting. It all regenerates. (Dark Desires After Dusk)
3. During a rugby match, Garreth has his teeth knocked out and swallows them. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
4. Lothaire kicks out La Dorada's remaining eye and throws her over a cliff. (Dreams of a Dark Warrior)
5. In the Bloodroot Forest, the tree grows over Lothaire's lips and tongue. (Lothaire)
6. After she gains her immortality, Chloe's hair grows, but she cuts it off every morning. (MacRieve)

Horns (2)

1. Cadeon cuts off his own horns to prove to Holly that he is worthy of being her mate. She tells him to let them grow back (Dark Desires After Dusk)
2. Malkolm is captured by his enemies in Oblivion and taken to the city of Ash. The publicly cut off his horns and then intend to kill him, but Carrow saves him. (Demon from the Dark)

Legs and Feet (3)

1. Lachlain tears off his own leg to reach Emma. He regenerates. (A Hunger Like No Other)
2. Mariketa's skull is fractured and her leg is torn from her body. She heals herself after Bowen lays on the ground. Ivy grows over her and heals her. (Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night)
3. Thronos is chasing Melananthe and loses a foot when a portal closes on it. (Kiss of a Demon King)

Beheading as a Romantic Gesture (4)

1. The first time Garreth spies Lucia, it's when she shoots an arrow and beheads a kobold. He notices that it's "a fantastical shot" and he's super into it. Later, he helps her pick up the head because he's a real gentleman like that. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
2. Later in the book, they are under attack from vampires and Lucia asks him to help. Garreth promises to "give her their throats" and beheads two vampires. But she's upset about it because of a previous bad experience with cannibalism. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
3. Malkolm beheads men that attacked Carrow in Oblvion, and he throws them to prove he's a worthy mate. (Demon from the Dark)
4. Declan fights and beheads several creatures as they escape Torture Island, including squeezing one dude so hard his eyes pop out and then he twists his head off. (Dreams of a Dark Warrior)

Beheading as a Non-Romantic Gesture

1. Ellie cuts off Lothaire's head, leaving a slender 1/8 of an inch left. It was kind of an accident, but he deserved it. (Lothaire)

Maybe?

1. Does Garreth's losing his connection with his mortal soul count? (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
2. When Soroya inhabited Ellie's body, she subjected her to a full Brazilian wax. Ellie doesn't realize it's happened until she takes control of her body again. (Lothaire)