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.
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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)!
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!
2.5: Brother's Best Friend Romances
Next week we’re going to get into Werewolves and Witches with Wicked Deeds on a Winter’s Night, but this week, we’re so excited to talk best friend’s sibling/sibling’s best friend romances with one of our favorite people: Kate Clayborn!
Show Notes
Kate Clayborn writes awesome books, but her romance think pieces at Frolic aren't too be missed.
There's nothing more hilarious than reviving old twitter threads, and in this one Kate and Talia Hibbert talk IAD.
The Game Maker series will get its own episodes, don't worry. Jen was thinking about saving this chastity belt article for then, but really, why wait?
Best of Luck was just named one of Amazon's Best Romance of December, which is as it should be. The second book in the series, Luck of the Draw, was on Sarah's Best of 2018 list for the Washington Post.
Sarah's twitter thread where people described what they'd do if they won a billion dollars is pretty fun to read. But really, there's a reason we all love that daydream.
This month, the Ripped Bodice is spearheading The Great Big Romance Read and maybe you can find a bookstore, library, or blog where you can talk about Pride by Ibi Zoboi.
The American Dream is complicated, college is expensive, and all of it freaks Jen out if she thinks about it too much.
Sarah wrote a YA historical! It's called The Season.
This is a good take on why the best friend's sibling trope is so powerful.
Sinner by Sierra Simone. She talks about her writing here. Jen doesn't really think it counts as blasphemy, but she looked it up just to be sure.
Some more about insprirational romance, and although we didn't mention her name on the podcast, Jen thinks Piper Huguley writes the best inspirational romance out there. She wrote about Piper's book The Mayor's Mission and Sarah's book Day of the Duchess in this piece on miscarriage in romance.
Clean Breaks by Ruby Lang. But when this podcast went live, it was an even better deal to buy all three books in the Practice Perfect series bundled together.
