S02.12: Lord of Scoundrels: Reel or be Reeled
It may be Thanksgiving week in the US, but that didn’t stop us from recording a monster episode about one of our (and all of Romance’s) favorite books of all time! It’s Lord of Scoundrels week! We’re talking gloves and fans and prologues and why Jessica is one of the best heroines of all time! All that, and Sarah is on a rant about Byron…so don’t miss it!
We teamed up with Adriana Herrera and Ali Hazelwood to bring you special editions of five historical romance classics, including Lord of Scoundrels! Contribute to the Kickstarter by June 2, 2026 to get your copy.
Notes
Lord of Scoundrels has its own wikipedia page, which in case you're curious, is kind of unusual.
Just look at this gorgeous Lord of Scoundrels embroidery.
If you haven't listened to our episode on Dreaming of You, what are you waiting for?
Maybe you want to find out what you first ordered in your Amazon account.
Jessica Trent is not a Mary Sue.
Erin from Heaving Bosoms is famous for not liking epilogues, but it's a pretty good reason why. But prologues are fine.
You've been lawyered is from How I Met Your Mother.
Sarah wrote the prologue to a new edition of The Transformation of Philip Jettan.
Love's Sweet Arrow is a romance-only bookstore in the Chicago suburbs. It's awesome.
Gentle Rogue started too late.
More about Russian religous icons, but maybe you want to buy some.
The gloves scene in the Age of Innocence movie. All that repressed longing from Daniel Day Lewis! In the book, it's this chapter where Newland Archer "bent over, unbuttoned her tight brown glove, and kissed her palm as if he had kissed a relic."
If you want to know about demon seals and the Wroth brothers, then listen to season one of Fated Mates.
What does it even mean to dance a waltz in the Continental style? Probably not this Continental-style.
The Beverly Jenkins book where the heroine shoots the hero is Tempest.
Reading the banns and a list of people who were married at Saint George Hanover Square.
You'll be shocked to know that Jen has some theories about internal vs. external conflict.
When they're at the wrestling match, Dain says his friend could have "stayed comfortably at home and pumped his wife."
She Walks in Beauty Like the Night is a glorious poem, but that doesn't make Byron any less of a scumbag. That Ada Lovelace was Byron's daughter is kind of wild, but we're glad she's known for being her own person. Despite Sarah trying to create an authorship question for Byron, that's not really a thing. There's no such person as the Duke of Summerville. Jen just made that up.
If you're interested in The Romantics, you can find Jen's old college syllabus here. Lots of Wordsworth, but no Bryon, which is just fine. But we still love the way Loretta Chase used Don Juan in the text of Lord of Scoundrels.
Friend of the pod Adriana Herrera has been reading Lord of Scoundrels for the first time and her tweets about it are honestly the most amazing thing.
Maybe you want to buy some romancelandia buttons or some of Sarah's t-shirts.
Coming up next on December 11, 2019, Indigo by Beverly Jenkins
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)!
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!