S05.36: The Best Kisses in Romance
We’re talking kissing today! So simple and so powerful, there’s no doubt that that first kiss in romance is always an important one. This episode was inspired by our recent readalong of Her Best Worst Mistake, but we talk about some other great books (most of which we’ve talked about before) with truly excellent kisses. Enjoy…and tell us about your favorite kisses in books, movies, tv shows…wherever you get your superior smooching.
We have a Patreon now, and it comes with an extremely busy and fun Discord community! Join other magnificent firebirds to hang out, talk romance, and be cool together in a private group full of excellent people. Learn more at patreon.com.
Show Notes
Kissing is the best, and we are obsessed with the first kisses from the following movies and TV shows: Maddie and David from Moonlighting, lots of Angel and Buffy kissing, jump in the wayback machine for Sam and Diane from Cheers, and more recently Jim and Pam from The Office.
The first gay kiss on network TV was on LA Law back in 1991.
In the 80s and 90s, we imprinted hard on movies with great kissing scenes: The primordial kiss that was Han Solo and Princess Leia in The Empire Strikes Back, the “No Kissing on the Mouth” from Pretty Woman and Jen forgot to mention another 90s classic, Poetic Justice with Tupac and Janet Jackson. Hello to that last scene from Never Been Kissed with Drew Barrymore. People have made entire YouTube videos of great movie kisses.
Why did people use a metaphor about [“Rounding the bases”][11] to discuss sex back in the day? Who knows!
Most of today's links are YouTube videos, but here are PDFs of the things that are text-based links. [11]: https://www.glamour.com/story/lets-settle-this-baseball-and
Books Mentioned This Episode
Sponsors
Meghan Quinn, author of Royally in Trouble,
available from Amazon, or with a monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.
and
Megan Frampton, author of His Study in Scandal,
available now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo
and your local independent bookseller.
and
Lumi Labs, creators of Microdose Gummies
Visit microdose.com and use the code FATEDMATES
for 30% off and free shipping on your order
S05.22: K.J. Charles: Trailblazer
Today, we’re welcoming KJ Charles to Fated Mates for our next Trailblazer episode! Known for her work helping to bring queer historical romance to the modern genre, KJ joins us to discuss historical romance, how it remains relevant in the modern world, her work centering queer characters and communities in romance, and the start of her romance career as an editor of Mills & Boon medical romances. We also talk about the arc of her career through early small press publishing, indie publishing, and now, as a traditionally published author.
We hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we did, and we are so grateful to KJ Charles for joining us.
Thanks to Kylie Scott, author of End of Story, and Lumi Labs, creators of Microdose Gummies, for sponsoring the episode. Visit microdose.com and use the code FATEDMATES for 30% off and free shipping on your first order.
Show Notes
K.J. Charles is a RITA nominated author of over 25 historical romance novels. You can preorder her upcoming novel, The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen, which will be released on March 7, 2023. KJ worked as an editor at Mills and Boon, and her blog is an excellent source for romance readers and writers.
If you're looking for the "romance with a body count" infographics, click here.
Authors mentioned: Mills & Boon author Alison Roberts, Mills & Boon author Marion Lennox, author Jordan L. Hawk, author Alexis Hall, author Talia Hibbert, author May Peterson, author Jackie Lau, author EE Ottoman, author Penny Aimes, author Kris Ripper, author Jadesola James, author Therese Beharrie, author Jeannie Lin, editor Anne Scott.
Don’t miss our Band Sinister episode from last December.
Books Mentioned This Episode
Sponsors
Kylie Scott, author of End of Story
Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books,
Kobo or at your local indie bookstore
visit Kylie Scott at kyliescott.com
and
Lumi Labs, creators of Microdose Gummies
Visit microdose.com and use the code FATEDMATES
for 30% off and free shipping on your order
KJ Charles 00:00:00 / #:
There's historical romance that just have only the vaguest relationship to the actual history of Britain. There's historical romance that gets really down and dirty, intimate, and where the author has really delved into it. And although I prefer the second kind, but I don't think the first kind should be dismissed, because it is doing something else. I don't think every historical romance needs to go, "But there was only 28 Dukes, and most of them had syphilis and no teeth, and everyone's got lice." I don't want to read books where everyone's got lice. If I want lice, I'll have young children again.
00:00:34 / #:
I would rather read a book where they just sort of throw their hands up and just go, okay, we're Heyer-ing the hell out of this. Because actually, Georgette Heyer, although she did loads of research and everything, when she actually did the bits that are really historically grounded, which is to say An Infamous Army and the other... But they're awful. They're so boring. They're dreadful. Nobody reads them. Nobody wants to read them.
00:00:54 / #:
The sort of glittery, ball-y, wonderful, romance-y ones, we love them. And it is good that people do that. And I think there is space for both. This is actually something I'm struggling with at the moment, because, like a fool, I've been trying to write a duke book. Fundamentally, my problem is, and this really does cut quite deep into the fact that I write historical romance, is that I sort of feel like the entire aristocracy should have been executed.
Sarah MacLean 00:01:22 / #:
That was the voice of KJ Charles, an author who helped establish a place for queer historical romance in the modern genre. Writing, as she describes her work, "Heyer, but gayer." In this trailblazer episode, we talk about KJ's writing, about the way she views the historical romance genre, about building communities of queer people on page, and about her work as a romance editor back in the day for Mills & Boon.
00:01:49 / #:
You are listening to Fated Mates. I'm Sarah MacLean. I read romance novels and I write them.
Jennifer Prokop 00:01:54 / #:
And I'm Jennifer Prokop, a romance reader and editor. Although I might not want to call myself that today because KJ Charles was a real romance editor, and I'm just going to be like, okay, well, I-
Sarah MacLean 00:02:04 / #:
Listen, you just have 19 more years to go.
Jennifer Prokop 00:02:09 / #:
Hire me, Mills & Boon, so I can feel real.
Sarah MacLean 00:02:11 / #:
Oh, my God, imagine. What a good job. What a fun job.
Jennifer Prokop 00:02:16 / #:
Just editing presents all the time.
Sarah MacLean 00:02:18 / #:
The dream.
Jennifer Prokop 00:02:20 / #:
The literal dream. Yes.
Sarah MacLean 00:02:21 / #:
Anyway, but before we get there, we have something else. We have a little housekeeping for everyone. In case you didn't download our quick six-minute episode last week, Fated Mates Live is happening in person in Brooklyn, New York.
Jennifer Prokop 00:02:37 / #:
The best borough of New York City, obviously.
Sarah MacLean 00:02:41 / #:
March 24th at 7:00 PM. We suggest you call up all your romance loving friends and make a weekend of it. The 24th is a Friday. March is a great time to come to New York City because it's maybe a little gray but not super cold, and it'll be very fun. You can go to a museum, you can go to a show, you can come see us. The tickets include a gift certificate to the romance book table sponsored by WORD bookstores in Brooklyn. There will be a bar, there will be lots of other Fated Mates listeners to make friends with. And Jen, and me, and a really delightful spate of special guests, many of whom you all know already.
Jennifer Prokop 00:03:25 / #:
It's been really exciting to see people on Instagram and Twitter talking about getting their friends together and buying tickets, and arranging to come into the city for the weekend.
Sarah MacLean 00:03:35 / #:
Put on a mask, get on an airplane or a train, and come see us. Fatedmates.net/live
Jennifer Prokop 00:03:42 / #:
And now that, that's off the table. Without further ado, here is our conversation with KJ Charles.
Sarah MacLean 00:03:51 / #:
Well, thank you so much for joining us. I'm so excited. I don't think we've ever met.
KJ Charles 00:03:56 / #:
Not in person. I think we've been on panels, but this is a proper face to face, so that's nice.
Sarah MacLean 00:04:02 / #:
It's great. It's nice to meet you. It's nice to see your face.
KJ Charles 00:04:06 / #:
Yes, you too.
Jennifer Prokop 00:04:07 / #:
So everybody, as we've mentioned, I'm really excited about our conversation today because I have also hosted a few panels with KJ, and I love listening to you talk about romance. And I'm really excited because you were also an editor, which is a personal interest to me. Not that it's about me, everybody. So we are really excited to have you today on as a trailblazer. And really, one of our first questions, just because we love hearing about it, is, what was your journey to romance?
KJ Charles 00:04:38 / #:
Well, my mother had a complete set of Georgette Heyer's, which is basically, you know-
Sarah MacLean 00:04:43 / #:
That'll do it.
KJ Charles 00:04:44 / #:
Yeah, I'm an immensely fast reader and a voracious one, and I always have been. One of those kids who just sat in the library all summer, and I read extremely quickly. So I was planning to read all of my parents books. They had to remove all the inappropriate ones from the shelves, kind of thing. And so yes, I'd read through the entirety of Georgette Heyer, and obviously formative. I was thinking about it and, basically, Cotillion and These Old Shades pretty much sum up the two strands of my writing. In Cotillion, you've got Freddy, who is this wonderfully... Yeah, not too bright, wonderful, generous hearts, immensely kind, and also the superpower of really, really good manners to be deployed accurately. And then you've got Avon in These Old Shades, who's basically just a completing amoral son of a so-and-so. So yeah. And those two basically sum up most of my writing. Although, I was also reflecting that Georgette Heyer, or her era, and with the proviso of the kind of person she was and the many prejudices she had. But there's an awful lot of queerness in Georgette Heyer's historical romances.
00:05:56 / #:
In The Reluctant Widow, the actual hero, who isn't the guy who marries the heroine, is very, very heavily queer-coded. In the Corinthian, you've got the heroine who is masquerading as a boy, and the fact that the bad guy effectively hints that he's going to blackmail the hero for having taken off the boy in private, et cetera, et cetera. So there's very strong awareness of non-conventional sexuality. And then The Masquerades is just the most ridiculous cross-dressing, gender-bending. So there's a lot of that in Heyer. So yeah, it's [inaudible 00:06:31 / #], definitely. And then I kind of didn't follow up my intro. I was more of a fantasy reader, to be honest. But when I was, gosh, about 28 or so, I got a job at Mills & Boon. Which to be honest, I took because I was working at an absolute disastrous company for a lunatic, and I needed to get out of there, and Mills & Boon happened to be advertising.
Sarah MacLean 00:06:55 / #:
Take the rope that comes.
KJ Charles 00:06:57 / #:
It was very much take the rope that comes. I wanted a job that would mean not having to go into that snake pit, and they wanted an editor. And I stayed there for years. And everything I learned about editing really came from there.
Sarah MacLean 00:07:11 / #:
When you started at Mills & Boon, aside from Heyer, did you have any frame of reference for what was going on in romance?
KJ Charles 00:07:19 / #:
Not really, no. I hadn't been reading any romance at all. Well, the thing is, because of being an editor, I actually mostly concentrated on reading what I was working on. So when I worked at a travel guide company, I would be reading non-fiction, or fiction, but set in the country for the travel guide I was working on. And then I moved to a house that was doing politics and history, which I read an awful thought of that. So I wasn't actually reading romance at that time. So Mills & Boon came as a complete change of track, but it was just so much more fun. So much more fun.
Sarah MacLean 00:07:58 / #:
What did you begin with at Mills & Boon?
KJ Charles 00:08:00 / #:
They plunge you right into it. Basically, I was on the medical team, the medical romance team.
Sarah MacLean 00:08:06 / #:
And we haven't talked a ton about medical romances on the podcast.
KJ Charles 00:08:10 / #:
Oh see, I love that.
Sarah MacLean 00:08:12 / #:
It's a very English world, the medical romance.
KJ Charles 00:08:15 / #:
A lot of our top authors were Australians.
Jennifer Prokop 00:08:18 / #:
They seem Australian to me more than-
KJ Charles 00:08:19 / #:
Yeah. Well no, it pretty much divided English, Australia. I can't, offhand, think of an American, in fact.
Sarah MacLean 00:08:24 / #:
I did not grow up with medical Romances. And, I mean, I read all of them.
KJ Charles 00:08:29 / #:
They were not the big one, but it was a good team. I like working on it.
Jennifer Prokop 00:08:35 / #:
Listen, Sarah, we grew up with George Clooney on ER though.
Sarah MacLean 00:08:38 / #:
I know.
KJ Charles 00:08:38 / #:
Well, yeah.
Sarah MacLean 00:08:40 / #:
I mean, that's not to say that I don't love a doctor romance, and that's a separate episode.
KJ Charles 00:08:44 / #:
But we had some fabulous... So we had Alison Roberts, who was actually a paramedic, who wrote such exciting story, really exciting. She did one, which is set, there was a big earthquake and then there were full stories set round. It was a wonderful sort of linked series, all starting from the earthquake. Terrific. So good to work on. And she did another trilogy that basically tracked over the progress of one person's pregnancy, for which I had to do the worst Excel spreadsheet in the world. We had to make sure, these three books, every single incident all tracked this one pregnancy. Ah, well, shoot me. But it had Marion Lennox as well, who is a wonderful one. She divided between what we called, we called it tender romance then, which I think is just... What do you call it? harlequin romance?
Jennifer Prokop 00:09:26 / #:
Heartwarming?
KJ Charles 00:09:27 / #:
Yeah, it was just harlequin romance.
Jennifer Prokop 00:09:28 / #:
Just harlequin romance.
KJ Charles 00:09:29 / #:
Yeah. Opposed to harlequin presents. They've probably changed the name about 15 times since then. But Marion Lennox, she was one of my favorite authors to work with. But she wrote the... And this has become kind of quite formative for me because it was a book of hers, I actually looked it up yesterday, it's called Bushfire Bride. And it's one of those, the heroine's got a husband who is in a coma, and has been in a coma for eight years. And there's a sequence where she basically says goodbye to him. And yeah, I'm literally editing this manuscript-
Jennifer Prokop 00:09:58 / #:
I'm crying already.
KJ Charles 00:09:59 / #:
Well, this is back in the day when you edited by hand. You literally had a printout and you made the edits by hand to be input by the copy editor, because that's how old I am.
Sarah MacLean 00:10:09 / #:
Me too.
KJ Charles 00:10:10 / #:
I was literally crying so hard while I was reading this, that the copy editor was like, "You're going to have to redo this page."
Jennifer Prokop 00:10:19 / #:
Your tear stained pages.
KJ Charles 00:10:20 / #:
Literally tear stained. I mean, God, she absolutely [inaudible 00:10:23 / #]. I can't. In fact, I didn't have to look it up too much. I was thinking, what was that book called? And Bushfire Bride came into my head. And that was 20 years ago, easy 20 years ago. Amazing. So yeah, that was it. But it was formative because I delved a lot. We did a lot of books. The turnover there was absolutely crazy. Although I was mainly on medical team, everyone worked across all four. So this historical, harlequin presents, medical, and tender. That's right. So you worked across them and you got given... And if an editor or author got absolutely sick of one another, you might get them switched in.
00:11:06 / #:
Plus, I was very fast. So people tended to give me an extra manuscript when there was a panic on, which there almost always was.
Jennifer Prokop 00:11:12 / #:
Sure.
KJ Charles 00:11:12 / #:
Well, you couldn't have a book come in late, because of the nature of the publishing. And then if everything did fall apart, you had to delve into the slush pile and actually pull out a finished manuscript, and find out a way to make it publishable within the next week.
Sarah MacLean 00:11:26 / #:
Amazing.
KJ Charles 00:11:28 / #:
Well, you learn to edit. I tell you what, you learn to edit like that, it's the most fantastic grounding and structural editing. Because you have to be able to pretty much look at the slush pot manuscript and say, "Okay, it's got totally good bones, the writing's a bit junky, but if the author will agree to basically let me do a really massive edit on it, this will work." Or alternatively, "This isn't working at all, but here is a thing that I can tell the author to do. And if they do it, that will work." But you've got to be able to pretty much x-ray the book, and look at the structure, and identify what will work and what won't.
Sarah MacLean 00:12:02 / #:
Well, especially because in category there's no flab. I mean, you don't have any space to mess up.
Jennifer Prokop 00:12:10 / #:
It's all bones and muscle. Yeah.
KJ Charles 00:12:11 / #:
Yeah. It's really something. There was weeks when I did six manuscripts in a week, kind of thing, which is insane. But like I said, if you were publishing eight presents in a month, you can't publish seven presents. It doesn't work like that.
Sarah MacLean 00:12:27 / #:
Right.
KJ Charles 00:12:28 / #:
You have to deliver eight presents.
Sarah MacLean 00:12:30 / #:
People have signed up for their box. Right.
KJ Charles 00:12:32 / #:
Well, yeah, exactly. It's completely nonnegotiable. So I honestly think I couldn't have had a better training in fiction editorial. Because it was so fast and so relentless, and you had to be really super practical.
Sarah MacLean 00:12:47 / #:
So at what point during that process did you think, "I'm going to start doing this myself?" Is that how it went?
KJ Charles 00:12:57 / #:
So when I was there... Well, see, I didn't really. I've always had it vaguely in mind that it would be nice to write, or indeed to have written a book. When I was there, they very kindly let me go off for four months and work from home in Japan. And this is, as I said, 20 odd years ago. So that was a really pretty advanced thing for them to do. My husband, my then boyfriend, was doing stuff in Japan, and we lived there for four months. So I did use some of my free time to start writing then, but it wasn't a romance. I wrote a fantasy novel, which has never been published, nor should it be. And then I wrote a thriller, which was picked up by Samhian, and sold about 12 copies, properly, deservedly. But it didn't occur to me to write a romance at all. I mean, it just never... Partly, I think, actually trying to write romance while you are working at Mills & Boon might actually be a really, you really bad idea.
00:13:54 / #:
Your head might explode. Yeah, I couldn't recommend that, I don't think. So it was quite a long time, actually, after I had left. And then I got married about a year later. And then about a year after that I had a baby. And I started writing when the baby was quite small, because you're trying to stay sane. It was supposed to be a fantasy novel. But at that point, with all the years I'd worked with Mills & Boon, basically, romance had coded... My neural pathways are like valleys. My neural pathways are carved so deeply into my brain. But it just turned into a romance. And that was The Magpie Lord, which was my first published book, my first romance. And once I just leaned into it, it just felt like the most natural thing in the world to do it. So there we are.
Jennifer Prokop 00:14:51 / #:
It sounds like you mostly edited contemporary romance. So what was the draw for you to historical romance or queer romance? Did one of those come first in your brain in terms of the kind of story you wanted to write?
KJ Charles 00:15:04 / #:
I'm always more interested in historical. The thriller that I wrote was an attempt at contemporary, and I hated everything about it. Because I'd live under a rock, I don't like modern technology, and it dates so badly, so quickly. And mobile phones ruin everything, because you set up this whole drama, and all [inaudible 00:15:26 / #] just phone up and go, "Oh yeah, this is what's going on." And you've ruined everything. And then you've got to find a reason for them not to have a mobile. So yeah, historical, obviously where it's at. And also, I like the differences. I like doing the research, and I like writing about different times and different people in different places. The similarities and differences are just much more interesting to me. So although I didn't read many, I didn't edit, rather, many historicals at Mills & Boon, because we only did four a month, and they had a historicals team. So I had one or two authors. But no, it's always been what I wanted to write. And the other thing is I'm very pulp focused. A lot of what I write is sort of riffing off the pulp of the Victorian, and Edwardian, and sort of 1920s period, because I just really enjoy that. And I enjoy picking that up, and running with this, and messing about with it. And often, queering it, because as anyone who plays with Victorian to 20th century pulp will tell you, it's just absolutely ripe for that. There's a fun, it's fun. Yeah.
Jennifer Prokop 00:16:37 / #:
Gosh, it's so fun. I feel like that's the thing I really love about your books. There was one, and I'm terrible with titles, where he was a taxidermist. Is that right?
KJ Charles 00:16:50 / #:
Yes. An Unseen Attraction.
Jennifer Prokop 00:16:52 / #:
Yes. And I was seriously like, "Why am I really interested in this right now? Why is this such a great time?"
KJ Charles 00:16:58 / #:
I loved doing that though. It wasn't actually what it was meant to be. I pitched the publisher something completely different, but then I couldn't write the thing I pitched to the publisher, it turned out to be a terrible idea. And I can't even remember now why taxidermist struck me as a good idea. It's one of the most fun books I've ever read. I did this deep dive into Victorian taxidermy. I've got the most extraordinary books on my bookshelf. But I had a whole sequence where he actually taxidermy's a canary just because it was so fascinating to me. I was about inches, literally inches, from going and finding someone who would teach me to do it myself.
Sarah MacLean 00:17:33 / #:
Well, that's the best part, that you can convince yourself. I always feel like writing historical also gives you... It's really best for procrastinators, because then we can sort of go off and convince ourselves that learning how to taxiderm is actually work.
KJ Charles 00:17:47 / #:
It's totally what you should be doing.
Jennifer Prokop 00:17:49 / #:
You had to learn to pick a lock to write that book, Sarah.
Sarah MacLean 00:17:51 / #:
I learned to pick a lock to write a lock pick.
KJ Charles 00:17:53 / #:
That's so cool.
Sarah MacLean 00:17:53 / #:
I mean, it did become very useful when I had to open my mother's cheap safe.
KJ Charles 00:17:58 / #:
Okay, that's fantastic.
Sarah MacLean 00:17:59 / #:
And I'd never felt more powerful.
00:18:05 / #:
This week's episode of Fated Mates is sponsored by Kylie Scott, author of End of Story, a new book out this week.
Jennifer Prokop 00:18:12 / #:
We love Kylie Scott here at Fated Mates, and this one sounds like a banger.
Sarah MacLean 00:18:17 / #:
Ugh. She's so great.
Jennifer Prokop 00:18:19 / #:
So here's the story. Susie Bowen inherits a charming fixer up from her aunt. And so she is really excited. She's going to do the whole HGTV scene and revamp the whole thing.
Sarah MacLean 00:18:30 / #:
Perfect.
Jennifer Prokop 00:18:31 / #:
The book starts with a knock on her door. Her contractor has arrived and-
Sarah MacLean 00:18:35 / #:
Is he hot?
Jennifer Prokop 00:18:37 / #:
He's hot. His name's Lars. That's real hot. Unfortunately, Lars is her ex's best friend. And her ex is a real dirt bag. And Lars saw their whole humiliating, public breakup. And Susie just is like, oh God.
Sarah MacLean 00:18:53 / #:
No. What am I going to do?
Jennifer Prokop 00:18:55 / #:
This is awful.
Sarah MacLean 00:18:55 / #:
But she needs a contractor.
Jennifer Prokop 00:18:57 / #:
She does. And Lars is available, thank goodness. So I think she's just going to have to lean into it.
Sarah MacLean 00:19:02 / #:
Even if it's pity contracting.
Jennifer Prokop 00:19:04 / #:
It's fine, whatever. Here's the part that's great. He is tearing down some wall, and they find a divorce certificate hidden in the wall that is dated 10 years in the future and has both of their names.
Sarah MacLean 00:19:19 / #:
What?
Jennifer Prokop 00:19:20 / #:
Right. What's going to happen?
Sarah MacLean 00:19:21 / #:
Wait, why? What?
Jennifer Prokop 00:19:23 / #:
You, and Lars, and Susie are going to have to discover it all together by downloading and reading this book.
Sarah MacLean 00:19:29 / #:
I mean, as though I wasn't going to download and read this book anyway.
Jennifer Prokop 00:19:32 / #:
Of course.
Sarah MacLean 00:19:33 / #:
No matter what it was about. Because Kylie's amazing. But this is such a cool idea. I'm going to read it immediately.
Jennifer Prokop 00:19:39 / #:
Exactly. Have a great time, everybody. You can find End of Story anywhere eBooks are sold, in audio or in print.
Sarah MacLean 00:19:46 / #:
Thanks to Kylie for sponsoring the episode.
00:19:51 / #:
One of the things that Jen and I have been talking about a lot recently, there's a woman who is on TikTok and also Twitter, and her handle is baskinsuns. And she's been talking a lot about how, in her mind, historical is really more like speculative fiction than it is...
Jennifer Prokop 00:20:11 / #:
Historical fiction.
Sarah MacLean 00:20:12 / #:
Historical fiction. Historical romance is more like speculative fiction than historical romance is like historical fiction. And I think this is a really fascinating way of thinking about the genre. And I wonder how that strikes you.
KJ Charles 00:20:25 / #:
I think there's very definitely strands of it. I mean, you've got the Bridgerton, the TV series, for example.
Sarah MacLean 00:20:33 / #:
Right.
KJ Charles 00:20:35 / #:
But I mean, why not? Well, okay, actually, we could debate this one for hours, and people already have. So I'm not going to go into that. But on the face of it, you could look at that and literally just go, okay, this is a fantasy version where a large number of the aristocracy are people with color, and why should you not do that? Why is that not a good thing to do? Then there's historical romance that just does have only the vaguest relationship to the actual history of Britain. And there's historical romance that gets really down and dirty, intimate, and where the author has really delved into it.
00:21:16 / #:
And although I prefer the second kind, but I don't think the first kind should be dismissed, because it is doing something else. But maybe looking at the historical fantasy without magic would almost resolve that argument. If you see what I mean. Because it is trying to do something else. I don't think every historical romance needs to go, "But there was only 28 Dukes, and most of them had syphilis and no teeth, and everyone's got lice." I don't want to read books where everyone's got lice. If I want lice, I'll have young children again.
Jennifer Prokop 00:21:49 / #:
Yeah, I don't want to read any books where there's any lice, actually.
KJ Charles 00:21:52 / #:
Exactly. I would rather read a book where they just sort of throw their hands up and just go, okay, we're Heyer-ing the hell out of this. Because actually, Georgette Heyer, although she did loads of research and everything, when she actually did the bits that are really historically grounded, which is to say An Infamous Army and the other... They're awful. They're so boring. They're dreadful. Nobody reads them. Nobody wants to read them.
Sarah MacLean 00:22:13 / #:
No. It's much more fun to read her making things up.
KJ Charles 00:22:15 / #:
Yeah. Well, the sort of glittery, ball-y, wonderful, romanc-y ones, we love them. And it is good that people do that. I suspect that's kind of what that person might have been getting at, or at least, that's how I feel about it. And I think there is space for both, very definitely. But this is actually something I'm struggling with at the moment, because, like fool, I've been trying to write a duke book. And my problem with the duke book... I mean, fundamentally, my problem is, and this really does cut quite deep into the fact that I write historical romance, is that I sort of feel like the entire aristocracy should have been executed. Usually, I sort of hand wave this one. And then I started writing a duke, and I've got 60,000 words, and I'm just sitting there going, "You haven't got any problems that cannot be solved by your money, which you have."
Sarah MacLean 00:23:11 / #:
Exactly.
KJ Charles 00:23:11 / #:
I hate it.
Sarah MacLean 00:23:12 / #:
Money, power, title. Exactly.
KJ Charles 00:23:14 / #:
Yeah. I mean, seriously, you don't have any problems. So I have not in fact squared that circle yet. And if I've wasted 60,000 words, I'm going to be banging my head against a wall. But currently, I feel like I've wasted 60,000 words, because I cannot, for the life of me...
Sarah MacLean 00:23:29 / #:
It's poor little rich boy, right?
KJ Charles 00:23:31 / #:
It is. And that's not...
Sarah MacLean 00:23:32 / #:
[inaudible 00:23:32 / #].
KJ Charles 00:23:32 / #:
It's something I struggle with. No.
Jennifer Prokop 00:23:35 / #:
And that's not your brand.
Sarah MacLean 00:23:36 / #:
He didn't like his dad, KJ.
KJ Charles 00:23:40 / #:
Yeah. And the things that could be a problem... Oh, anyway, I won't bore you with my struggles, because I'm boring myself with my struggles. But it's a real problem for me.
Sarah MacLean 00:23:48 / #:
It's interesting that you bring this up, because I actually think this is a push-pull that's happening. This did not happen in historical romance 20 years ago. Nobody worried about this.
Jennifer Prokop 00:23:58 / #:
Even 10 years ago.
Sarah MacLean 00:23:59 / #:
Or even 10 years ago. But now, those of us... I mean, I've written a thousand dukes. And you can see it in my writing, that I've gone from poor little rich boy to now it's time to burn down the dukedom entirely. Right? Let's set it on fire.
KJ Charles 00:24:14 / #:
It's really hard not to, isn't it?
Sarah MacLean 00:24:16 / #:
Yeah, I don't do it anymore.
KJ Charles 00:24:18 / #:
Exactly. And because apart from [inaudible 00:24:21 / #], I don't know about you, but how often do you just sit there and think, "So where does this guy's money come from?"
Sarah MacLean 00:24:25 / #:
Oh, well, yeah. And what's interesting is in the eighties or nineties, you could wave it away. He has plantations, but he pays his workers.
KJ Charles 00:24:34 / #:
Or you don't even mention the plantation, he's just rich.
Sarah MacLean 00:24:37 / #:
Right.
KJ Charles 00:24:37 / #:
Okay. It's fine. He's rich, he's got land. We don't talk about the English people working for him, still less, anyone outside... Make it Victorian, and how much of his money is coming from empire, which is say colonialism, say theft.
Sarah MacLean 00:24:51 / #:
Yeah. And there are only so many times that you can sort of accept, well, this one got his title when he was 35 because he did something good.
KJ Charles 00:25:04 / #:
And if they do that, and steal money, where does that come from?
Sarah MacLean 00:25:07 / #:
It's probably in a war. There's a lot. It's hard.
KJ Charles 00:25:11 / #:
There is a lot. Yeah. No, there is a lot.
Sarah MacLean 00:25:14 / #:
Which is why there's something to this. Like you said, historical fantasy, but no magic. Because it does feel like, in a lot of ways, the work that these books are doing, the social work that these books are doing is not about... Obviously, it's very difficult to handle where did the power come from, where did the money come from. But in many cases, in your books especially, the work of your books is very important, currently. For the world that we live in now, for 2023. And I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that, about how you think about the job, the work of the books in a world where, right now, queer people and books about queer people are under attack across the United States and around...
00:26:03 / #:
... and books about queer people are under attack across the United States and around the world. So how do you reconcile the work with the world, I guess, is the question?
KJ Charles 00:26:10 / #:
Oh, Lordy.
Sarah MacLean 00:26:13 / #:
I'm asking for a friend who is me.
KJ Charles 00:26:18 / #:
Do you mean in the sense of the guiding principles, as it were?
Sarah MacLean 00:26:24 / #:
Yeah.
KJ Charles 00:26:24 / #:
I mean I feel like fundamentally the purpose of romance, I mean it's twofold, isn't it? You want to give hope and you want to give connection. So the hope is ... romance gives us a portrayal of a better world where people are loyal and people are loving and someone stands up for you and you've got family. And it's not just hope. It's fulfilled hope because you pick up a book thinking, "I hope this ends well," and it does because it's a romance novel. And then I think you've got connection in the sense of you're writing a book that depicts people connecting in a real way, but also there's a romance community and there's a fact that people see a romance novel with someone who looks like them and behaves like a queer person and black person or whoever on the cover, and that romance novel is being sold and it's on the shelves of the bookshop, that's really, really important. And it's all the more important if they're taking the books out of the schools and the libraries, which I have to say is [inaudible 00:27:34 / #] terrifying. I don't know what your policy on swearing is, but-
Jennifer Prokop 00:27:40 / #:
No, please go for it. We're-
KJ Charles 00:27:43 / #:
I mean when it comes down to it, I want my books to be ones that people ... that they're a place of safety where things work out, even if things don't look like they're going to work out. Which I think is important because there is absolutely a place of very, very low angst romance where everything is totally okay. And I don't write that. I'm really glad it exists because people sometimes need to go there. But I think people also sometimes need to have the drama or the angst or whatever but still with the guarantee of everything being okay. We use fiction to tell ourselves that the world could be a better place fundamentally. That is what fiction is for. It's to try things out and explore them and say, "Look, here's this thing, this is the way the world could be." And I write the books how the world should have been and how I would like it to be.
Sarah MacLean 00:28:47 / #:
I keep thinking about what we were talking about about the Dukes situation and I think part of the reason class is so hard to deal with in romance is we all know that many people have found happiness even in the throes of financial instability like of course, right?
00:29:08 / #:
But at the same time, we all also know that financial instability does make so many problems go away. And I think romance really hasn't quite figured out how to grapple with some of that. I know that's, I'm sorry, I'm bringing that back but I was thinking as you were talking too about how the world should be. And I think so much of what romance is trying to do when it's found family and this is the way the world should be, is we shouldn't have people that are like, "Well, I can't really have the life I want to live right now because I have to work 800 hours a week," or whatever. Or, "I can't have the life I want to live because I live in Florida and these books are being banned and what's that like for my family or my children?" And I think so much of what romance is about is saying we don't have to live like that.
KJ Charles 00:30:01 / #:
Yeah. And I think addressing problems through a fictional lens is a great way of helping people deal with them. I mean I remember one absolutely lovely bit of mail I got that was from a reader who was going through something like quite rubbish, I think it might have even been chemo, but she basically said that ... And this is going to sound, actually, it's going to ring a bell because you all could have done it, but she basically was reading this book of mine where the hero is kidnapped and he's basically trapped in this room and he's just doggedly doing sit-ups with a chain on his leg because he's not going to sit there and do nothing. So he does a thousand sit-ups and she pretty much said, "I was just going through it thinking, well, I'm like Darling, I'm like Will darling doing his sit-ups and if he can do a thousand sit-ups, then I can do this thing kind of thing. And actually that's-
Sarah MacLean 00:30:53 / #:
Nice. It is.
KJ Charles 00:30:56 / #:
So it's not just about romance providing an escape. Well, it does provide an escape. I think we can all use this, we can all think of characters and almost model ourselves.
Sarah MacLean 00:31:06 / #:
Yes.
KJ Charles 00:31:07 / #:
This is why sex positivity is important or depicting sexual relationships at work, I'm not going to necessarily say healthy because another thing romance does which is a big matter of discussion. But you can show people starting from quite an unhealthy place, but you can actually show them starting from an unhealthy place and improving. You can model all sorts of behavior and people can try them out and apply those ideas to their own situation while they're also reading a highly entertaining book that doesn't feel didactic.
Jennifer Prokop 00:31:39 / #:
Well, and I think for me it's always been love is worth it. Even when you've been hurt. We've all been hurt. I know it's very old school, but those old '90s romance heroes who were like, "I've been hurt once, I can never love again," that means something to me because we all have, right? I don't think there's anything more brave than putting your heart on the line again. And I think romance every single time is really saying you might not be called to some big act of bravery in your life, regular people of the world, but you will be called upon to make these small commitments to the people in your lives in my community or the people ... I mean I don't know. I know that's really cheesy maybe, but that really means something to me.
KJ Charles 00:32:25 / #:
But I mean it does. This is the thing. I get quite a few letters and people discover the most ... If they really see themselves in a character, if they see a dyspraxic character and they've not read one before and it means something to them to be seen, or people who read an absolute shedload of queer romance and then they go, "Actually, it turns out I might not be a success after all," which happens. Yeah, it happens. And some people who've never been aware that there was an option discover that. I think that is the power of romance. It's the power of showing how things could be and they work out, they guarantee work out. They don't do the little life on you.
Sarah MacLean 00:33:18 / #:
And I think that, to that point, we've really been very lucky as romance readers and people in the community for the last however long decade because it feels like there was so much less of that representation before. And obviously we've tried really hard for these particular episodes to bring people in who have been working on representation of all forms from the beginnings of the modern genre. But I think about it was so rare to see characters who were anything other than cis white, thin, rich-
Jennifer Prokop 00:34:05 / #:
Rich people.
Sarah MacLean 00:34:05 / #:
... et cetera, before. But now it feels like part of the reason why we asked you to join us is because it does feel like when you came onto the scene there was a shift, not that you brought the shift-
KJ Charles 00:34:21 / #:
No, it's [inaudible 00:34:23 / #] but yeah.
Sarah MacLean 00:34:22 / #:
... but you were a part of something that was happening. It was firing on all cylinders, right?
KJ Charles 00:34:28 / #:
Zeitgeist.
Sarah MacLean 00:34:31 / #:
Yeah. So I wonder if you could talk, was there an awareness of that for you as somebody who had come up through ... I mean one of the most classic romance avenues was the sort of Harlequin Mills & Boon pathway, right? So what you were working on when you were there was almost like the purest of romance.
KJ Charles 00:34:53 / #:
Very much the old school.
Sarah MacLean 00:34:54 / #:
Yeah. So did you have an awareness at the time that you started writing or you started being published that something was shifting?
KJ Charles 00:35:05 / #:
It's actually quite interesting because I sold The Magpie Lord to Samhain.
Sarah MacLean 00:35:10 / #:
And Samhain was doing so much of that too.
KJ Charles 00:35:14 / #:
They were doing a shedload, but even they basically went, "Look, this is Victorian queer fantasy and Victorian queer fantasy romance. And they pretty much said expected to sell 12 copies because it's not even regency. People don't like historical that much. It's got fantasy which can put a bunch of people off. They were doing quite a lot of queer romance, but you were really very much looking at contemporaries mostly with two [inaudible 00:35:42 / #] on the cover kind of thing.
00:35:45 / #:
And I did actually go out looking. The only other one I could find was Widdershins by Jordan L. Hawk who was also 19th century queer so same area, fantasy, and I go, "That's exactly the right ... Well, how dare you say there isn't one of them? Of course there is." There's one of them. Well, that's always the way, isn't it? There can be only one but Jordan's self published, so my expectations were extraordinarily low basically. They didn't expect it to sell a lot, but they still wanted to do it. And although it didn't end well, I really respect what they were doing. And then it did sell well. I mean it sold extremely well.
Sarah MacLean 00:36:29 / #:
Yeah. Do you know why? I mean obviously it's fantastic and that's why, but was there something that happened? Was there somebody who-
KJ Charles 00:36:36 / #:
There was a good reader who I've always ... I don't know if I'm right, but I've always attributed it to this one personal good ... You know how some people, good readers, some of them just seem to have 40 zillion connections? Well, one of them got an ARC and just left this absolutely phenomenal review and then it just went boom.
Sarah MacLean 00:36:54 / #:
Because it also feels like fantasy. You scooped up a world of readers who were not being served by romance at all.
KJ Charles 00:37:03 / #:
Yeah. People love ... I mean, yeah, look at how much historical fantasy and even queer historical fantasy there is now. It's just this wonderful, wonderful cornucopia because I think everyone's always loved this. I don't know why people ... One of the most depressing things for me about working with publishers, and I've really experienced this as an editor, is they just sit there going, "That won't sell. Oh no, that won't sell." "Well, how do you know it won't sell? We haven't published one." Well, somebody else did one and it didn't sell."
Jennifer Prokop 00:37:35 / #:
We've tried nothing, KJ.
KJ Charles 00:37:36 / #:
We've tried nothing and we're out of ideas and it's actually along the lines of I've heard people say variants on, "If it sold, we'd have already published something like it."
Jennifer Prokop 00:37:47 / #:
Sure. Nobody has new ideas.
KJ Charles 00:37:50 / #:
Yeah, no. We'd already know if this kind of thing would sell. There isn't loads of this on the market already, therefore it doesn't sell. And you go, "Well, why don't we start it?" It is genuinely infuriating.
00:38:03 / #:
And then you get through that and then you go through there can be only one phase, which we have lived through in which they will absolutely publish a Black author but one Black author. Or we can have one Indian, or we can have one queer person on our books but, goodness me, not more. Because one is plenty and then, oh my God, if it doesn't sell, [inaudible 00:38:26 / #].
Sarah MacLean 00:38:28 / #:
Beverly Jenkins, Forever.
KJ Charles 00:38:31 / #:
Well, I mean Beverly Jenkins is like this amazing ... I really hope someone's done a PhD because she sold so much. And then you look back and you think, "Why weren't they scooping up other Black historical romance authors when she was selling and selling and selling?" And why wouldn't they be going, "This is a trend, this is a trend that we can cash in on?" And they don't. They highlander it, they say, "There can be only one Beverly Jenkins."
00:39:02 / #:
And then, of course, it tips and then suddenly they go, "Oh my God, gold rush." But then they're scooping up everyone they possibly can because finally they have worked out they can make some money on it. Which obviously, as we know, is a publisher's sole reason for being, and it's maddening to observe. So my experience with especially queer fantasy historical romance was pretty much that all my [inaudible 00:39:32 / #] out there is there's a whole bunch of people writing it and a whole bunch of publishers just going, "No, that's not going to sell. That's not going to sell." Samhein told me it wasn't going to sell even while they published it so it was presumably an act of charity or something. And then, oh my God, now they'll [inaudible 00:39:46 / #] all the manuscripts that I will absolutely bet you people have been sending in for years and years.
Jennifer Prokop 00:39:51 / #:
Sure.
Sarah MacLean 00:39:51 / #:
Right. And what's fascinating about that is Samhain is one of those publishers. So let's talk about that piece of romance history because it was so fleeting, it feels like, and it was so important at the same time because there was this moment, this crest of a moment where eBooks had just hit, people had just started accepting eReaders into their lives. There were so many of these small presses that were taking on authors who larger publishers were saying, "Nobody buys that. There's no market for it." Samhain was one. Elora's Cave was doing it in erotica. There were a number of other queer presses. And I wonder if you could talk a little bit ... We've never had anybody on who published with Samhain, so I wonder if you could talk a little about that world, who it was there, what was going on in the Samhain world and then that didn't last for very long.
KJ Charles 00:40:58 / #:
It didn't last for very long. It was very, very unstable. If you look at it, they've all imploded, haven't they?
Sarah MacLean 00:41:03 / #:
All of them.
KJ Charles 00:41:05 / #:
[inaudible 00:41:06 / #], that's gone.
Sarah MacLean 00:41:06 / #:
Except for Radclyffe's. But it's different because Bold Strokes is like Radclyffe running the show, right?
KJ Charles 00:41:12 / #:
No, well, Bold Strokes, I think there's a couple of ones where it's basically people who publish themselves and possibly their friends and it's very, very specific. But also lesbian romance kind of is differently siloed. But for the sort of more general thing that was going on that I was part of, so you had [inaudible 00:41:33 / #] that was I mean they were doing some really weird things with covers that were very difficult and I think it ended poorly. And then Samhain who they did a lot of exciting stuff and they really put a lot of heart into it ended poorly. And then you've got Dreamspinner who are still going but-
Sarah MacLean 00:41:54 / #:
But don't pay their authors.
KJ Charles 00:41:56 / #:
But don't pay their authors and I have very strong views on that.
Sarah MacLean 00:41:59 / #:
My constant asterisk about Dreamspinner. They don't pay their authors, don't publish with them.
KJ Charles 00:42:04 / #:
But do not publish with them because they still owe large amounts of back royalties they should never have touched. And then you have Riptide who imploded in such a spectacular way that there was a whole page article about it in The Guardian, which is a UK newspaper, about a small American press going under because of the spectacular nature of their inflation.
Sarah MacLean 00:42:23 / #:
Well, it was so horrifying that.
KJ Charles 00:42:26 / #:
Well, it was horrifying and I was one of the people who ... I had a book coming out with them literally at that time and it was one of those ones where it was so close to publishing and I didn't want to publish with them, but it was like a couple of days before and there was an audio book. So I basically wrote to them and said, "I'm very dubious about this." And they literally reversed my rights without asking because I think they were just automatically [inaudible 00:42:51 / #].
Jennifer Prokop 00:42:51 / #:
They were just doing it. Yeah, they were just doing it.
Sarah MacLean 00:42:53 / #:
For everybody listening, we'll put a link in show notes to the Riptide story, but essentially sort of very broad strokes, there were allegations and screenshots of an editor sexually harassing authors.
KJ Charles 00:43:08 / #:
Yeah, and there was a bunch more to it. There was another scandal. Anyway, the whole ... Without delving any further into that because, to be honest-
Jennifer Prokop 00:43:17 / #:
We'll never get back out.
KJ Charles 00:43:17 / #:
No and-
Sarah MacLean 00:43:18 / #:
And it's not what today is about.
KJ Charles 00:43:20 / #:
But pulling my hair out. But that was actually quite a large part of it. It was a very [inaudible 00:43:27 / #] time. There was a great deal of hope and a great deal of people who were in some ways throwing everything at the wall to see what would stick because nobody knew, because nobody had been doing it before.
Sarah MacLean 00:43:38 / #:
Right. It literally hadn't existed.
KJ Charles 00:43:41 / #:
Yeah, suddenly, yeah, queer presses had been these very tiny outfits probably operating out of New York and doing a paperback for like $20 or something because of the cost. And suddenly you can back it out there and get it on ebook. And the numbers were pretty startling because so many people who were around the whole world who had been unable to get these books were able to get these books.
00:44:05 / #:
But of course what happened, and which happened with much of romance, is the realization that you could then self publish on Amazon and get 70% instead of 25%. And people started questioning what a lot of those presses ... [inaudible 00:44:21 / #] and they put an absolutely shocking generic cover on it and didn't give you any editorial support or you get your mates to knock up a cover and put it on Amazon and it wasn't really a debate. So I think that very heavily lies behind why so many of them didn't survive.
Jennifer Prokop 00:44:39 / #:
I just was doing a library thing and I was talking about a lot of people who self-publish will trade services with each other as a way to get books to market. As you said, I have a friend who can do a cover and I can do a copy edit. I mean it feels like people are recreating the work of the publisher in smaller groups in order to put out good products.
KJ Charles 00:45:03 / #:
That does exist. I definitely know of people who do it and there's lots of sort of horse trading with newsletters and mutual supports and so on and so forth, which I think, yeah, can be great. I'm always a bit dubious about putting the words community and authors in the same sentence because like cats in a sack and also ... but there are clearly people who do work together to help one another and recommend and lots of people who will just email me or DM me and sort of say, "Can you help with this? Can you tell me somebody who might ... Who did you use for?" And I think that is important. Well, for any marginalized community, but especially when you're trying to build it.
Sarah MacLean 00:45:53 / #:
This week's episode of Fated Mates is sponsored by Lumi Labs, creators of Microdose Gummies. So you've all heard us talking about microdosing and the concept of microdosing, which is commonly associated with psychedelics, wellness, performance enhancement and creativity. And we've been talking about Microdose Gummies for a while on the podcast and we've talked a lot about how we use them ourselves. Jen uses them for sleep. I have used them in the last few months as sort of a way to just take the edge off and calm down off of a rough time or a stressful time over the holidays. People use them for creative boosts. We've heard about people who listen using them for pain and anxiety. It's a great product that's going to fit into your lifestyle. So I really love ... I was like the whole idea of just chilling out in this really stressful time of year has been one way lately than I have found them helping me.
00:46:55 / #:
So if you search around the internet, have a Google search on microdosing, you'll learn more and you'll learn about all the ways that people are using them out there in the world. Our show today is sponsored by Microdose Gummies, which deliver the perfect entry level doses of THC that help you feel just the right amount of good. And you can find Microdose available nationwide. It'll be shipped directly to your doors at microdose.com. You can use the code Fated Mates for 30% off your first order and free shipping. Thanks as always to Lumi Labs and Microdose for sponsoring the episode. Did you have a community coming up, cats in your sack?
KJ Charles 00:47:39 / #:
I'm not a very good community person. I tend to be fairly ... There's a reason I work on my own in the shade, but I've had-
Sarah MacLean 00:47:49 / #:
Or editors or anybody who you felt was helping you to shape the road?
KJ Charles 00:47:55 / #:
Yeah, no, definitely. I mean resources like I talked a lot with Alexis Hall, obviously, queer romance British. That's been really, really interesting. Jordan Hawk, who I co-wrote a book with and E.E. Ottoman as well. And that's actually been really important I think. Probably I talk to Brits because it is actually a bit separate. Romance is so American dominated that it's actually nice so Talia Hibbert, for example, was great and Alexis and I've also got May Peterson who is an author of mostly trans, also non-binary romance including fantasy romance, but who's also a really good editor and a book doctor and she's like book doctored three books for me and saved them effectively. So having someone like that at your back is absolutely invaluable. Yeah, I think establishing relationships just with people who will actually give your book a read and tell you to calm down and take a deep breath if you're being given hassle is very important to anyone.
Jennifer Prokop 00:49:10 / #:
Do you think the perception of romance has changed over your career? I mean coming up from Mills & Boone to where we are now, how has it changed and do you have a crystal ball like where are we going?
KJ Charles 00:49:25 / #:
It's probably how do people seek romance and all that, it's such a massive genre that it's really hard. I see people say things about romance and I'm thinking but you're looking at Kindle Unlimited that's full of [inaudible 00:49:40 / #] books and toxic, I don't know what my God the hell people are doing in there. And then you're looking at the kind of books which are, lots of the kind of books which are getting on the shelves at the moment, which there's much more diversity and there's a much stronger sense of sex positivity and body positivity and all these great things. And then you've also got this huge strand of there's always a Fifty Shades or a Colleen Hoover, isn't there?
00:50:09 / #:
And how can we say what do people think of romance when you're simultaneously talking about Talia Hibbert and Colleen Hoover and whatever godforsaken thing is at the top of the Kindle Unlimited charts? I have different perceptions of those things.
00:50:27 / #:
That said, so the thing that actually is really striking me at the moment, so you're getting a lot more romance of the kind that I like and read is hitting the bookshelves, Boyfriend Material and Red, White and Blue and [inaudible 00:50:42 / #]. People like Jackie Lau who's set out to write romance with Chinese leads because she couldn't get them published and she just sort of doggedly said, "I'm going to self-publish these because no publisher will take them." And now she's being traditionally published because she just dug in and did it. So you're getting all those on the shelves, and I don't know if it's the same in the US, but I went into the Waterstones, the only big book chain we've got left and there's a table covered in romance novels and the label on it says new adults. It doesn't say romance anywhere. The word romance doesn't come up.
Jennifer Prokop 00:51:17 / #:
No, they don't like that word. No.
KJ Charles 00:51:22 / #:
Yeah, well [inaudible 00:51:24 / #], those are not new adult books. That's complete rubbish. But they don't ... and this is why the cartoon covers bothers me, not because I don't like them excessively but because it seems to me part of the big branding effort to go, "This isn't romance." It looks like chick lit or it looks like lit fic. I mean there's a book that's come out recently whose name I probably shouldn't say but it's okay because I can't remember it, but the blurb is one of those that looks like it belongs on Kindle Unlimited. It's one of those ones of he looks at me with his dark eyes and I see myself falling into the prison of his yada yada yada like black verse. There's black verse-
Sarah MacLean 00:52:00 / #:
And there's no name and it's so frustrating when you're trying-
Jennifer Prokop 00:52:03 / #:
And there's no names, and it's so frustrating when you're trying to get information.
KJ Charles 00:52:06 / #:
There's no names and it's just all this sort of vague, "she is my doom, she is my destiny" et cetera. So, the blurb is all that. But the cover really is this absolutely beautiful thing, where it looks like it belongs on a book about a Hungarian countess in the 1940s whose family is slowly decaying during the war.
Sarah MacLean 00:52:28 / #:
She's trying to keep that castle together. It's hard work.
KJ Charles 00:52:30 / #:
But it's the most lit-bit cover you've ever seen. And the blurb is the most horrible KU thing you've ever seen. And the book, I have no idea what the book is. I completely [inaudible 00:52:41 / #]
Jennifer Prokop 00:52:40 / #:
What is in there?
KJ Charles 00:52:43 / #:
Actually clashing... I don't know.
Jennifer Prokop 00:52:47 / #:
Maybe that's the strategy.
KJ Charles 00:52:49 / #:
Well, if the strategy is to confuse anyone who knows anything about romance, then they have absolutely nailed it.
Sarah MacLean 00:52:56 / #:
I saw a book the other day that is absolutely not romance, just contemporary fiction and it had a very generically vector art cover. And I just thought, this is not a romance-only problem now. This is a publishing problem.
KJ Charles 00:53:11 / #:
It is a massive publishing problem.
Sarah MacLean 00:53:12 / #:
It's just all one big bin to them, I guess. It's a book.
KJ Charles 00:53:16 / #:
The last two romantic comedies I have bought, both of which had cartoon covers or drawn covers-
Sarah MacLean 00:53:22 / #:
Were they funny?
KJ Charles 00:53:23 / #:
Both of which said rom-com on the blurb, neither of them has been romance. And actually, neither of them was a comedy. One of them was all about the heroine was being stalked by her toxic, abusive ex. It's not comedy. Why is that funny?
Sarah MacLean 00:53:36 / #:
No.
KJ Charles 00:53:36 / #:
What's going on here? And there's no romance. The other one, it's a very good book, but it's literally a book about this woman having this really difficult relationship with her family, and her faith, or whatever, and she gets engaged to this other guy. Then at the end, she thinks she might start dating the other guy who's really nice. "I think I might start dating him in a couple of months" is not a happy ending. You can't call that a romantic comedy, but they are.
Sarah MacLean 00:54:02 / #:
Right.
Jennifer Prokop 00:54:03 / #:
Yeah.
KJ Charles 00:54:03 / #:
So, where do I think romance is going? If the publishers are in charge-
Jennifer Prokop 00:54:08 / #:
Down the drain!
Sarah MacLean 00:54:09 / #:
Yeah, exactly.
00:54:11 / #:
Well, I feel that way, right? They're like, "Well, it would be great if this would just go away. Can we just make money off of you without giving you what you want? That's what we would like."
KJ Charles 00:54:21 / #:
Yeah, it is kind of baffling to me because my experience as an editor was very much simply that publishers will do basically anything for money. And I don't understand why it's the asterisk exception romance.
00:54:40 / #:
Especially the Mills have been, they were such a good publisher to work for in a lot of ways and they were completely led into what they were doing. We had an internet forum that where readers were encouraged to come on and talk to editors. We were literally so encouraged at work to sit there and chat with readers on the forums. That was a part of my job. I got paid for that and it's amazing. But they were groundbreaking and things like that.
Sarah MacLean 00:55:06 / #:
Well, it is interesting that you bring that up because it feels like those publishers, again, so you were editing for Mills & Boon in the 90's? No.
KJ Charles 00:55:17 / #:
Yeah, got to have been 20 years ago. Yeah.
Sarah MacLean 00:55:20 / #:
So at that time there were so few places for readers to find authors and publishers. Romance has always felt to me, the community of romance readers is so active and so eager to find each other because, I think, of the perception from the outside world that we're all like 'cat ladies' or sex-crazed. It's one or the other and there's both ends, the "listen, stop judging me". And so the idea being that because the outside world has this really negative perception of us as readers, when we find each other, we are so grateful to find each other. And the interaction, I think, speaking to my friends and colleagues who write, not right outside of romance, their relationship with readers is incredibly different than my relationship with readers. And I think that is something that's very special to romance. And so I'm sort of curious about how that world has shifted in your perception.
00:56:35 / #:
Because I remember before I was writing, Avon was doing similar things. Like there were boards, Tessa Dare and Courtney Milan and others came up through the Avon boards as they were writing Bridgerton fanfic essentially on the Avon boards. And then Avon had a fan-lit contest where Julia Quinn judged the finals.
Jennifer Prokop 00:57:02 / #:
Yeah.
KJ Charles 00:57:02 / #:
I mean that kind of thing was amazing. It was wonderful. I basically, I would be talking to people that I remember giving the call to somebody who was a regular on the Nelson Boone boards. And when we announced, it was wonderful because I got to do it in person, it was one of the best days of my life. I told that in person, she burst into tears. We were at a conference, she burst in into tears and she cried so hard that people were rushing up thinking she'd had news of her family's death.
Jennifer Prokop 00:57:27 / #:
I love it when they cry.
KJ Charles 00:57:30 / #:
Oh, it's great when they cry. Then we announced it on the Harlequin boards and they just exploded, the sheer joy. But it was also, and I had done it because it was a great book and she was a great writer and I loved doing it. But somebody described it as the best piece of PR Nelson Boone ever had. And it was because all of those people literally saw in real time that one of them, it could happen to you.
00:57:52 / #:
Because it did happen to her.
Sarah MacLean 00:57:55 / #:
Exactly.
KJ Charles 00:57:55 / #:
And it was joyous. It was absolutely joyous.
Sarah MacLean 00:57:59 / #:
And now I feel like the readership is binding us in so many different ways there, there's a constant sense of them being able to touch us on Twitter, on Goodreads, in all these different places. And I wonder if that's changed the way you think about writing.
00:58:20 / #:
I often wonder that about myself. Do I write differently because I'm interacting so much with readers? And this is a different question from the one that's going around on Twitter right now, which is, "What the purpose of reviews?" I don't want to talk about that.
KJ Charles 00:58:37 / #:
No, no.
Sarah MacLean 00:58:39 / #:
But I'm, I think a lot do think a lot about readers when I write.
KJ Charles 00:58:43 / #:
Well, you can't not.
Sarah MacLean 00:58:45 / #:
But I think a lot of writers don't at all. Jen and I have talked to however many and there is so many who are like "I don't think about them at all. I write for myself." I want to say for everyone out there, that's not me being, I'm not judging that, that's a way.
KJ Charles 00:58:59 / #:
No, it's an approach.
Sarah MacLean 00:59:02 / #:
Yeah.
KJ Charles 00:59:03 / #:
I totally get it. Because I know people who just, they don't want anything to do with social media, it's a time suck.
Sarah MacLean 00:59:08 / #:
Heads down.
KJ Charles 00:59:09 / #:
And I get people who say I couldn't write, I don't write, I don't write like messy, I don't have, it's one of the reasons I'm so firm on the reviews of readers. I'm not sitting here finding out what Blob 27 wants to say about, I don't care.
Sarah MacLean 00:59:24 / #:
Your mental health. I don't know how people survive that. Yeah.
KJ Charles 00:59:28 / #:
But yeah, no, I have absolutely. It's not a committee. Okay. Yeah. It's a benevolent dictatorship.
Sarah MacLean 00:59:36 / #:
Sometimes not even benevolent.
KJ Charles 00:59:37 / #:
It's [inaudible 00:59:39 / #] dictatorship, let's be real.
00:59:44 / #:
And yet, I have learned so much from readers' comments and really insightful things, which are not for me, but they are things I have seen because they scroll past on my timeline. And when you see someone who is really putting the work in to say, okay, here's this historical romance and this is why this was a misstep and this hit really badly and this hurt really badly. And you think, yeah, that is a misstep and it's potentially a misstep I could very easily have made and I'm really glad I didn't make it and I don't want to make it. And the world is full of missteps I could make. I feel like it's, on the one hand you could paralyze yourself. And on the other hand, I would rather not hurt somebody than hurt them. I don't want to hurt anyone. I don't want to say something stupid and crass if I can avoid it. I can say stupid crass things, but I'd rather not. So I think, I guess it's a fine line, isn't it?
Jennifer Prokop 01:00:43 / #:
I think strictly from a reader point of view, one of the ways I think romance has changed is that I grew up in a time of, I hid my romance novels. I think a lot of us did. Or I didn't have a community of romance readers because I grew up in a time where there was like, how was I going to find those people?
01:01:01 / #:
And so I do think one of the ways that romance has changed is that romance readers are no longer buying into the narrative of "this is something we should be ashamed of". And I often wonder if that doesn't trickle out in ways that say, as you've said, this hurt me and I don't come to romance to be hurt. There is an avenue for that to be heard. Not in a personal way like "this book isn't good", but in a right? And I do think that maybe that's what Sarah's talking about, writ large. You're more in touch with readers in a way. We didn't have that. I mean if you've been around long enough, you knew that this was a secret shame. You sulked down the library aisle or the bookstore aisle and got your books or you've got them sent to your house, there's a reason there's not send the thrillers to your house package.
01:01:57 / #:
Nobody needs that. Right. And I just think a lot about-
KJ Charles 01:01:59 / #:
Like a secret political science book.
Jennifer Prokop 01:02:02 / #:
The reader is more, we're more aware of the reader because readers are more aware of ourselves. I don't know.
Sarah MacLean 01:02:08 / #:
Yeah, I think that's true.
KJ Charles 01:02:10 / #:
But I also think people in general have just developed a much stronger idea that they can talk to creators and be talked back. I mean, you just look at that sort of powerful genre of memes. Where you've got some absolute idiots explaining to the creator of a TV show, what the TV show is about. I, so I think Twitter has almost given people this world idea possibility that you know, you can talk to your favorite author and they might interact with you and you say anything to, and yeah, quite often people are at me and I will reply and then they'll go, "I didn't think you'd reply!" It's like, but you literally talked to me!
Jennifer Prokop 01:02:50 / #:
I'm not rude.
KJ Charles 01:02:51 / #:
I'm British!
Sarah MacLean 01:02:54 / #:
Yeah. I mean one day you might talk to that person and then have a podcast with them. It's crazy.
KJ Charles 01:02:59 / #:
But I mean, this is not a binding guarantee that I will reply if someone at's me on Twitter.
Sarah MacLean 01:03:06 / #:
Oh my God.
KJ Charles 01:03:06 / #:
But I think the possibility of being sucked into the worlds of that is immensely strong. And especially if you don't have a fairly strong sense of self and a fairly, you need a tough hide for that kind of thing. I think if you are the kind of person who's always looking for feedback and who's devastated by a three star review or whatever, my only recommendation will be, stay the hell off social media altogether because it'll kill you. That's unfortunately just the way it is.
Jennifer Prokop 01:03:39 / #:
Are there books of yours that are fan favorites? Are there books that you hear about from your readers more than others?
Sarah MacLean 01:03:47 / #:
I mean, we obviously have our favorites here at Fated Mates, but.
KJ Charles 01:03:51 / #:
Yeah, there are. I mean the Magpie trilogy, which is my first ones, obviously they've been out the longest, but they also seem to have a place in library hearts that nothing will match.
Jennifer Prokop 01:04:03 / #:
It's always those first ones. And you're like, "I've written so many others!"
KJ Charles 01:04:07 / #:
I've got so many. Yeah, I've got more translations in those than anything else, it's now in 8 languages, which is nice. And tattoos, when people get tattoos, it's usually Magpie Lord. Tattoos. The first tattoo was really Terrifying. Yeah, it's amazing. It's just-
Sarah MacLean 01:04:24 / #:
See all the more reason for you to be worried about Twitter because then you're afraid, oh God, I'm going to say something someday.
Jennifer Prokop 01:04:29 / #:
And then these people have tattoos of my books.
Sarah MacLean 01:04:31 / #:
My only tattoo is of a James Joyce quote and he is not alive to really appreciate that about me.
KJ Charles 01:04:37 / #:
Yeah, but you know, he's also not going to get canceled then he'll feel dreadful. You have to strike it out and get canceled up wrong.
Sarah MacLean 01:04:44 / #:
I'd be like, god dammit.
KJ Charles 01:04:45 / #:
No, I think it's incredible. I see that and I still just sit there in white jaw, gob-smacked awe that this thing could possibly be happening.
Sarah MacLean 01:04:54 / #:
Amazing.
KJ Charles 01:04:55 / #:
Someone could react like that. Yeah. I think those are the ones that strike. Although, well, in fairness, there's three books in the tragedy and then there's two books in the extended world. So also I think people have a real opportunity to take a deep dive and roll around in the world, which is nice.
Jennifer Prokop 01:05:13 / #:
So to the same extent or a similar question, but from the other side, is there a book that you've written that you feel is the one, this is the one that 50 years from now, this is the KJ Charles book I wish everyone would read.
Sarah MacLean 01:05:29 / #:
When we talk about you, the way people talk about Georgette Heyer, like "this was the good one"-
KJ Charles 01:05:33 / #:
Oh, gosh, that's such a hard one, isn't it? Most of them have different things that I'm proud of. I mean, look, if you're asking me sort of which book am I proudest of? It's probably book three of my Will Darling series, solely because there was literally no way I was able to write that book because I published book one just at the start of the pandemic. And I had just finished writing book two when I was publishing one because it was it's self-pub and you can do that. And book three, I'm trying to write it in the pandemic, plus it's a book three of the same couple trilogy, and I put all that work in and I couldn't do the plot at all. It was really plotty. And there was another, and they couldn't decide on the, I mean you know what it was like writing in the pandemic - flipping mad.
01:06:20 / #:
But it had a murder mystery. And I wrote to the beginning with the same character. First he was the victim and then he was the murderer, and then he was the key witness and I had to write this over and I forget and I just couldn't write this bloody book.
Sarah MacLean 01:06:35 / #:
Plot is the worst.
KJ Charles 01:06:37 / #:
It took me 10 months. I cannot, I normally write a book in four months. It took me 10 months to write this. I had to stop and write a different book in the middle just to take my mind off things. So the fact that I finished it and the fact that lots of people, some people would, it's been reviewed as "her best book" kind of thing. I think, yeah, I will eternally be proud I did that.
01:06:59 / #:
I'm also actually incredibly proud of the Secret Lives as Country Gentleman, which is one that is coming out in March with Sourcebooks because that-
Sarah MacLean 01:07:08 / #:
It is tremendous. I was very lucky to be able to read it early.
KJ Charles 01:07:14 / #:
Well, I'm proud of it as a book. But I'm also immensely proud because I've published with Samhain and then I had six books with Love Swept, which were only published in E, which is an experience. [inaudible 01:07:31 / #] 2017 I basically switched to self-publishing and decided I didn't want anything to do with publishers ever again as long as I lived. And while, started looking to change that a few years later, so Secret Lives of Country Gentleman is now my first book that is coming out, coming primarily in print, this is obviously coming out in E, but Sourcebooks is print-led. Yeah, it's going to be on bookshelves, it's being promoted, it's had reviews in all the big journals, which is not something you'd get when you are self-published as a rule. And it is actually out there going, look, there is queer historical is on the shelves to buy being promoted by a publisher and being part of a tiny part, but a part of that wave of actually getting some representation out there. So I'm just hugely proud of that.
Sarah MacLean 01:08:23 / #:
Everyone, you can pre-order it now.
01:08:25 / #:
So one last question that we really like, because we feel like the history of romance is so unwritten. And we sort of mentioned this earlier, but when you think about the people that you've worked with that maybe are not, the unsung heroes of romance, are there people you worked with at Mills & Boon or people that you've worked with even as you self-published or at Samhain? We like to put the names in show notes just so that they show up in Google searches. These are people that we can sort of say, "hey, these people were an important part of making romance happen."
KJ Charles 01:09:05 / #:
Oh, it's hard isn't it, to sort of define.
Jennifer Prokop 01:09:10 / #:
It's giving an Oscar speech. Just get in the mood.
KJ Charles 01:09:15 / #:
So some of the authors I would think of, I named some of them before, but the people who have just dug in and written the books about, written the books that publishers weren't taking. So again, Jordan L Hawk and E.E. Ottoman, who were writing Trans Romance, and Jackie Lau and Talia Hibbert, who are writing diverse romance and who have driven through and become really successful.
01:09:46 / #:
And then you've got the authors of Trans Romance who are getting published now because that's happening in Karina. So you've got Penny Aimes and Kris Ripper and May Peterson and who are just leading the charge and pushing forwards. And I want them to explode, not literally I want them.
01:10:06 / #:
And actually also the people, because I mean Mills & Boon for a long time, Harlequin certainly when I came into romance, very white basically. It was pretty much very, very heavily white when I was there as an editor.
01:10:24 / #:
And then you've got people like Therese Beharrie and Jadesola James, Jeannie Lin was with them. People who were actually getting in there and changing things and being very visibly, writing books about, the price is an actual Nigerian prince, not the kind who sends emails, but your actual Nigerian price. And Teresa Harris writes, she's black, South African, and she writes books and yeah, she's also moving to traditional publishing out of category. But all those people, they fought so hard to be seen. And I want them all to be huge successes because they're also all wonderful writers. So that matters.
01:11:05 / #:
And then in terms of editors, the one who actually really leaps to mind, I wish I knew what she was doing now, is Anne Scott who was my editor at Samhain, and I say this because she gave me the single best piece of editorial advice I had ever received in my life. And one which I still think about and still becomes relevant every time I write a book. Cause I keep doing the same thing over and over again. But she basically just highlighted this passage and said, this reads like you are explaining the plot to yourself. And I've never been so seen in my life. Now I can see your face there. Yeah, exactly.
Jennifer Prokop 01:11:41 / #:
Oww.
KJ Charles 01:11:42 / #:
Yeah, but actually-
Jennifer Prokop 01:11:44 / #:
Also, yes, absolutely.
Sarah MacLean 01:11:46 / #:
Yeah. I'm going to write that down. That's a good thing to tell people.
Jennifer Prokop 01:11:49 / #:
Man, that happens in every book.
KJ Charles 01:11:52 / #:
But have an editor who will actually just sit there and say that to you and it as genuinely, every manuscript. And why is this so, period. Yeah. Why is this whole passage so slow and boring? Oh right, I'm doing it again.
Jennifer Prokop 01:12:05 / #:
I'm just recapping for myself because I took a little break.
KJ Charles 01:12:11 / #:
Yeah, exactly. It's shockingly easy to do, but when you get that kind of [inaudible 01:12:16 / #], you will never forget it. And I actually, I did a book called The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal, which is framed as, the hero is a kind of Watson who writes stories about his lover, who he works with and is framed as letter to the editor. And I actually named the editor Henry Scott after Anne Scott because she just deserved to be immortalized.
01:12:37 / #:
But yeah, no, that kind of thing you just can't forget.
Sarah MacLean 01:12:41 / #:
That's a great piece of advice. Great advice.
Jennifer Prokop 01:12:44 / #:
We did a deep dive read along of Band Sinister so hopefully all of our readers have read a KJ Charles book, but if they haven't, I wonder if you could talk a little bit about what makes a KJ Charles book? Because you've written, so you've written all over the place in terms of, there's magic sometimes, there isn't magic, sometimes there's more, sometimes there's more romance, sometimes there's a murder, sometimes there's three books with the same couple. So I wonder, is there something that when you think about yourself and the way you write that you always get from KJ Charles?
KJ Charles 01:13:22 / #:
I have basically two taglines or taglines which have been bestowed on me. And one of them is romance with body counts, which is completely fair. Somebody did an infographic of deaths in my book and it's just horrifying.
Sarah MacLean 01:13:37 / #:
I'm going to find that.
KJ Charles 01:13:38 / #:
[inaudible 01:13:38 / #] and the different animals that people have been killed by and that kind of thing. So yeah, romance with body count, high murder levels, definitely. And the other one is HEA [inaudible 01:13:50 / #].
Jennifer Prokop 01:13:49 / #:
[inaudible 01:13:50 / #]
KJ Charles 01:13:49 / #:
It sums up everything I aspire to.
Jennifer Prokop 01:13:57 / #:
Oh my gosh. Put it on your tombstone.
KJ Charles 01:14:00 / #:
Oh totally.
Sarah MacLean 01:14:01 / #:
Tattoo worthy, I'll say it.
KJ Charles 01:14:02 / #:
Band Sinister is absolutely HEA BGA and the Will Darling Adventures is romance with body counts kind of thing. So those sort of sum up the kind of things I write, albeit over different time periods. But if I had to identify one element that was most present, it is probably the theme of a lonely person finding an alliance, friendships, loyalty, not just from their loved one, but in a larger group.
Jennifer Prokop 01:14:31 / #:
That's the right answer.
KJ Charles 01:14:32 / #:
And I toted it up because when I looked at your thing before, and as far as I can tell out of approximately 27 books, so far, 23 have [inaudible 01:14:45 / #]. So that's quite a lot. But it's so important because you've got, especially I'm A), I'm writing historicals about a time where there was no social safety net whatsoever. And if you didn't have a supportive family or a supportive community, you know, you were in so much trouble. And B), I'm writing about queer people who are, take that what I just said and multiply it by a factor of about 50. And it seems to me that a happy ending very often requires, you know, it takes a village fundamentally. So I seem to have a drive to give people their best friends and the new best friends and their group and the place where they feel at home. And it's not just with one person. Its got to be bigger than that. So I think that would be me.
Jennifer Prokop 01:15:34 / #:
We'll think about how to make that into something catchy like HEA BGA, not sure I'm up to the task, but that then you'd have three romance with a body count, HEA BGA and I'll keep working on it.
KJ Charles 01:15:46 / #:
I actually, one of, I did a series called Society of Gentlemen set in, it's a very realistic type regency world in that it's politics like cats in the sack and people like, being informed on and sent prison for their political views and revolution and so on. And one of the heroes who's a seditionist, and one of the things he repeats throughout the book is, "I don't inform". Its his catchphrase. He does not inform, it doesn't matter what he do to him, he's going to be absolutely loyal to his friends.
Jennifer Prokop 01:16:20 / #:
That's A Seditious Affair, right?
KJ Charles 01:16:22 / #:
That's A Seditious Affair. Yes.
Jennifer Prokop 01:16:23 / #:
That's my favorite of that series.
KJ Charles 01:16:25 / #:
Yeah, I enjoyed writing that so much.
Jennifer Prokop 01:16:27 / #:
Silas and Dominic, and they're perfect in all ways.
KJ Charles 01:16:32 / #:
I really enjoyed writing that one because it's got a lot of the things that I write about a lot, like class difference, which is absolutely huge there and money difference. But also what to do when you've got genuinely opposing points of view. Because I really feel that most of the time a conflict isn't one person who's right and one person who's wrong. There's people who came at it from a completely different point of view and have to reconcile those points of view. And one of them going, I'm sorry, I was totally wrong. It's easier. But it's not how it works. Yeah. So I'm very proud of that one.
Sarah MacLean 01:17:09 / #:
We are pro-conflict here at Fated Mates. So on the record.
01:17:14 / #:
KJ, this was wonderful. Thank you so much.
KJ Charles 01:17:17 / #:
Pleasure. Thank you for asking me.
Jennifer Prokop 01:17:18 / #:
And talking about your life in romance and your thoughts. We, I'm, I love every time you write along a long form piece about what's wrong with writing in romance. Well, and I will say mean, we didn't mention it, but KJ's blog is, if you want to write romance and you are not reading it, you are doing it wrong. And as an editor, if you are an editor and not giving people, I'm often read this, read this because it's so great. I mean that's the thing I feel like your editor's eye, you can see in the things that you write yourself, but also in the way that you talk about books you've read. I just, we're lucky to have you.
KJ Charles 01:18:00 / #:
Well I'm, I've really scratched my itch I missed being an editor. I loved being an editor.
01:18:03 / #:
Well, I really scratched my itch because I miss being an editor. I loved being an editor. And if they would only pay me enough, I would still be an editor. But it's the way I scratch my itch to talk authoritatively about books these days is in large part by blogging. And plus, I also find that if I blog on a subject that I'm sort of noodling about in my own writing, I often find... My granddad used to say it, say, how do I know what I think 'til I hear what I say? And I feel that may be what I'm doing.
Jennifer Prokop 01:18:29 / #:
That's perfect. No, we do that too. I feel like whenever I'm in deep in a book, I'm like, "Jen, can we do an interstitial about this thing that I'm working on?"
KJ Charles 01:18:37 / #:
Yeah, exactly.
Jennifer Prokop 01:18:38 / #:
So that I can read a bunch of books and then noodle it.
KJ Charles 01:18:41 / #:
Yeah. And you talk about it, but you're not talking about yourself. You're just talking about the problem abstractly. And lo and behold, it turns out that, you know?
Jennifer Prokop 01:18:48 / #:
Yeah, right. That's when the solution appears.
KJ Charles 01:18:50 / #:
That's what I think. Thank God, I knew it was something.
Jennifer Prokop 01:18:56 / #:
Well, thank you so much for being with us. What an amazing conversation. And we wish you the best of luck with the Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen, which is, as I said, tremendous.
KJ Charles 01:19:07 / #:
Thank you.
Jennifer Prokop 01:19:08 / #:
And you should all go read it immediately. I had a whole lot of joy reading it. March 7th.
Sarah MacLean 01:19:14 / #:
March 7th. Thanks, KJ.
KJ Charles 01:19:16 / #:
Excellent. Well, thank you very much for having me. That was lovely.
Sarah MacLean 01:19:21 / #:
What a delight.
Jennifer Prokop 01:19:23 / #:
Oh, she's the greatest.
Sarah MacLean 01:19:24 / #:
She's so fun.
Jennifer Prokop 01:19:26 / #:
Yeah, yeah. So during the pandemic, Joanna Shupe has a Facebook group. If you love historical romance, the League of Extraordinary Historical Romance Writers, and readers can be in that space too. And so it's a really fun group. And during the pandemic, I hosted a bunch of Zoom chats. Remember how desperate we were to just talk about things? And KJ was on once and I was like, "Oh, wow, this is great." And so, one of the things, can we talk about her working at Mills and Boon Stories? So awesome.
Sarah MacLean 01:20:04 / #:
I know. And so, one of the things that I just realized before we started recording the intro and the outro for this episode is we didn't say this, but I'm sure most of that Mills and Boone is Harlequin.
Jennifer Prokop 01:20:20 / #:
Right.
Sarah MacLean 01:20:20 / #:
It's just called Mills and Boon in the UK, Australia, Canada. Although I think now in Canada it's Harlequin. I don't know. Don't quote me on that. But Mills and Boon and Harlequin are crossover publishers. So presents that are published by Mills and Boon can be published by Harlequin, et cetera. I wish I'd thought to push her more on talking more about medicals because I would really like to know why medicals aren't an American thing. Don't really sell over here because I love a doctor, as you know.
Jennifer Prokop 01:20:54 / #:
I really honestly do feel like it maybe... I joked about ER, but I do think that maybe it's a different... I think maybe American TV has trained us to expect a different kind of medical thing happening.
Sarah MacLean 01:21:07 / #:
Interesting. See, what I immediately thought of was does this have something to do with insurance?
Jennifer Prokop 01:21:13 / #:
Well, sure. Nothing... Yeah.
Sarah MacLean 01:21:15 / #:
Because medical issues are so much more stressful for Americans than they are for people in all the rest of the world because we have to worry about costs.
Jennifer Prokop 01:21:23 / #:
Yeah, maybe. Maybe.
Sarah MacLean 01:21:25 / #:
But I don't know that. That just went to a bleak place. Anyway, I get universal healthcare, everybody. Vote for politicians who want to give you healthcare.
Jennifer Prokop 01:21:35 / #:
A whole new romance world will open up to us.
Sarah MacLean 01:21:37 / #:
Imagine. Imagine if that happened, if we go universal healthcare and an entire new world of contemporary romance.
Jennifer Prokop 01:21:44 / #:
What a world.
Sarah MacLean 01:21:45 / #:
Listen, that's what they should do. They should put out commercials like that in election season.
Jennifer Prokop 01:21:50 / #:
Yeah. I think the thing that also, when I think of if, look, I love KJ Charles's books. Obviously we've talked about Band Sinister's my favorite, but there are writers who have different strengths. And one of the things about KJ Charles's books is they are impeccably plotted and the pacing is perfect and all of the emotional beats. KJ Charles, as we like to say, really knows the job. And so it was really fascinating to hear her talk about learning the neural pathways literally being retrained, right?
Sarah MacLean 01:22:26 / #:
Yeah. Spending years writing, spending years editing category has to hone that skill better than really anything else, I would think.
Jennifer Prokop 01:22:37 / #:
Absolutely.
Sarah MacLean 01:22:39 / #:
I talked about this when we did the Band Sinister episode, but there's just no, there's nothing extra in those books. Every word is placed intentionally. Every plot point is intentional. I was really fascinated, I was truly incredibly fascinated by her talking about Heyer and how Heyer has really influenced her work. And that, of course, is because when we think about Heyer now, when we look back on it, Heyer's sort of a problematic antecedent, right?
Jennifer Prokop 01:23:10 / #:
Yeah.
Sarah MacLean 01:23:10 / #:
And for all of us, and I think what was really interesting to me when she talks about Heyer is how much she acknowledged queer coding in hair.
Jennifer Prokop 01:23:19 / #:
Yes.
Sarah MacLean 01:23:20 / #:
Which is not a thing I have ever thought about. Obviously when we talk about cross-dressing heroines and a lot of those things that were so essential to romance and continue to be really constant in historicals, it's never really given... I've never thought about them... I've thought about them coming from Heyer, but I've never thought about them coming from Heyer and being possibly intentionally coded in Heyer. And it made me think, gosh, I wish KJ would write the introductions to a bunch of these Heyers. So if you're a publisher out there, now You know who to talk to.
01:24:05 / #:
Planning to republish Heyers.
Jennifer Prokop 01:24:09 / #:
Yeah.
Sarah MacLean 01:24:10 / #:
Hit up KJ to write some of them, the introductions.
Jennifer Prokop 01:24:12 / #:
I think that this is something, and again, we are two straight ladies talking about this, so I don't want to-
Sarah MacLean 01:24:18 / #:
Yeah, of course.
Jennifer Prokop 01:24:19 / #:
-misstep, but I have thought a lot about what she was talking about. These books have existed for a long time, but in small press runs, and with Vincent Avera in specific bookstores, knowing, so how to get those books into your life was charged. And so I think a lot about how angry I am that people are realizing, oh, this is dangerous. And these movements to remove queer coded... Not queer coded books, queer books. Doesn't have to be coded anymore.
Sarah MacLean 01:24:56 / #:
We don't have to queer code anymore, although I think we are going to start seeing it.
Jennifer Prokop 01:25:00 / #:
I just can't get over... I don't know, I'm so upset about us going backwards and I'm so upset about the kids who had to look for queer coding because queerness explicitly didn't exist. And it's just so wrong to be taking that back from young readers, from any readers.
Sarah MacLean 01:25:21 / #:
Absolutely. I want to pause in our KJ discussion to just say to everyone, if you have not listened to our book banning episode, and I know there were lots of reasons why people maybe skipped that episode, but it is so important to hear the voices of those people who are being impacted directly by book banning. And so we have it, we'll put links and show notes to it. It sits now on the main page of fatedmates.net so that everybody can access it, but I encourage you to go listen to that episode so that you can get more informed about what is actually happening in the world right now, in the United States especially.
01:26:05 / #:
I thought that was really interesting. I really thought, I was interested in the way that, in the way she talks about historicals. We talked about this too, that there are two schools of historicals, the historicals that are maybe more historical fantasy without magic, as she said. And then what she writes, which is more historical romance purely. And I think that she threaded a really interesting needle there. And I do think there are really interesting things happening on both sides of that line.
Jennifer Prokop 01:26:42 / #:
Right. And I think I love historical, God, I love historical so much, and I feel like there's such refuge for me, and it sounds like for KJ too, in thinking about who we are now through the lens of who we were then, that's such a powerful way to think about the differences. And also what I really loved is I think one of the things you and I is romance is fun. Romance is fun.
Sarah MacLean 01:27:09 / #:
It should be fun, yeah.
Jennifer Prokop 01:27:11 / #:
It should be fun. And it doesn't always have to be fun. That's not the only mood that romance kind of can be in, but I really loved, because that's one of the things I think about KJ's books, is you are in for a good time reading those books.
Sarah MacLean 01:27:26 / #:
Yeah, they rollick.
Jennifer Prokop 01:27:27 / #:
Yes, exactly. And I think that that's part of the... It's nice to hear a author who is so committed to romance being fun, talk about what that means and what that looks like and how you get there. And then to hear that readers respond to it is so powerful. Right?
Sarah MacLean 01:27:47 / #:
I think she wasn't giving herself enough credit when she talked about how readers interact with her texts because I think reading KJ's remarkable books with her communities of supportive communities of characters, and the way love is just so beautifully represented in all of these books. She just does it so, so well. She's one of the best of us undeniably. And I think for readers, there is such power in that.
01:28:26 / #:
And I imagine back in the day when Samhain was producing some of the only eBooks that you could find that were romance KJ must have been incredibly transformational for a lot of readers.
Jennifer Prokop 01:28:46 / #:
Yeah. I think a lot about it because one of the things I feel is sometimes romance authors develop secondary characters only as bait for later books. And look, God, trust me, I love it. But that is not what KJ Charles is doing. And I think it's really important in terms of from a writing standpoint to really state that. Every single character in her books is there to be themself, not there to just be like, "I'm here to support the other characters," or, " I'm here to be background," or, "I'm here for a future book." And I really think that that's a hallmark of her style to me, is how well-developed it all is. No one's there just for a reason. And I think if you're interested as a writer yourself about how to do good secondary character work, you should be reading KJ Charles.
Sarah MacLean 01:29:53 / #:
Oh, a thousand percent. You should be reading KJ Charles for a lot of reasons. Her incredible plotting.
Jennifer Prokop 01:30:04 / #:
Yes.
Sarah MacLean 01:30:05 / #:
And this sounds like you're explaining the plot to yourself, is like, oh, yes, I felt harmed by that, but the truth is that her plotting is so clean. And I don't know if it happens on the first draft or if it happens later, but the way her plots come together is so tidy. And we talked about this, we're sort of rehashing the deep dive that we did, but hearing her talk about process in that way was really valuable.
01:30:37 / #:
And I think also one of the things that she seemed to be able to do, she seems to have been able to do with her career, is really write all around. You really get the sense from her that as difficult as it has been in terms of it sounds like her publishing journey has been not great all the time, and certainly losing your publisher, your publisher closing, having a terrible relationship with your publishers can really impact what you end up writing. It sounds like for her, it has also been really, it allowed her to really explore.
Jennifer Prokop 01:31:18 / #:
Is this the first predominantly self-published author we've had on?
Sarah MacLean 01:31:22 / #:
Well, we had E.E. on.
Jennifer Prokop 01:31:23 / #:
As a trailblazer? Oh, and E.E. Ottoman. And that's probably not a mistake, right?
Sarah MacLean 01:31:30 / #:
And Radcliffe. If you think about our queer-
Jennifer Prokop 01:31:32 / #:
Oh, yeah. Right.
Sarah MacLean 01:31:33 / #:
-guests. With the exception of Vincent, but that's just because it didn't exist probably when-
Jennifer Prokop 01:31:38 / #:
Sure.
Sarah MacLean 01:31:39 / #:
It definitely did not exist when Vincent was writing.
Jennifer Prokop 01:31:42 / #:
And I think that this is the thing where we haven't really... I think we are agnostic. When we talk about books, we're just like, "This is a good book." We're not really talking about necessarily the pipeline that brought it to your Kindle or to your door. I think that when we think about this time in romance, the ability to self-publish, the gatekeeping that exists that then people can circumvent is going to bring us books like KJ Charles, like E.E. Ottoman, like May Peterson. These are books that... And then because of the success of these authors, then we can see how traditional publishing is like, "Oh, there is a market for this." That whole discussion of the ways publishing is like, "Well, if this sold already, we'd already be selling it."
01:32:32 / #:
And I think that the only, in that way, self-publishing has been such a gift, not just to the romance community, but just to all readers. I can read books now that I didn't know I would love because publishing didn't think I would buy it. And I think that that part, talking about the journey from traditional, a kind of traditional independent publisher Samhain, down to the Riptide dream spinner, this has been a circuitous route. And it's hard to see, I don't know how to say this, the whole story until it's later, but I think that we're going to really look back on self-publishing as it gives and it takes.
Sarah MacLean 01:33:25 / #:
You and I come at romance with a very keen sense of we have to know the past in order to understand what's going on. I don't think everybody comes to romance that way, and I don't think everybody has to. But I think for you and me, there is a very real sense of the history informing the present. Right?
Jennifer Prokop 01:33:44 / #:
Right.
Sarah MacLean 01:33:46 / #:
And I think people like KJ teach us that... I just don't believe that indie publishing would be where it is if not for those small presses at the beginning. And I think that that is because those small presses, they rode that line between traditional publishing and the structure of traditional publishing and the timeline of traditional publishing and where we are now. And so I think that we are very lucky to have had authors like KJ come up through those publishers because I don't think that if we'd sort of immediately gone into what we are, where we are now with a giant pool and everybody just throws their stuff into it, we would have the kind of discoverability that we do.
Jennifer Prokop 01:34:45 / #:
Well, and I think that this is also, I'm thinking a lot about what she was talking about in terms of her readers, the letter she gets from readers, and everyone, you couldn't see her, right? But it was like this is clearly something that moved her deeply. It moved me to hear her talk about it. And I think that this is the part where what has in many seasons of Faded Mates, I hope what people really understand is reading has made me who I am. If you're a reader, the things you read are changing, are making you who you are, realizing who you are at all kinds of levels. And I just found it really beautiful to think that self-publishing, cutting out those gatekeepers has just made room in the world for people who in romance, in the readership in the world, who they are.
01:35:43 / #:
I don't know. I just get on my high horse about romance, how beautiful it is, how much it means to me to know that, I don't know, there's nothing more important about who you are in the world than how you feel about yourself and who you are allowed to love. Right?
Sarah MacLean 01:35:59 / #:
I don't know.
Jennifer Prokop 01:36:01 / #:
Yeah. And I just was very moved by the idea that people who have, we've talked about letters, people, authors get from readers who are like, "I don't like it when you swear." But you know what? Maybe that's worth it. Who cares about those letters in comparison to...
Sarah MacLean 01:36:19 / #:
Yeah. And I do think we are living in a really fascinating age of romance, and you and I talk about all the different ways that that is true, and it's not all good, but the thing that is good is how easy it is to find yourself in the books now.
01:36:43 / #:
I also think we didn't say this with her, and I wish we had, because I do believe that she herself may be responsible for a lot of how historical romance is tackling queerness.
Jennifer Prokop 01:37:00 / #:
Oh, yeah.
Sarah MacLean 01:37:02 / #:
And I mean that as the difference, the sheer difference between even the nineties and early thousands and the way historicals would use queerness as a weapon versus now you do see characters in romance in historical more. You don't see them as protagonists all the time, but you see them as secondary characters more, tertiary characters more. And I think KJ is a big, big reason why, I think so many of us have looked to her books as remarkable texts and also a brilliant model for how to try to do this right.
Jennifer Prokop 01:37:51 / #:
Yeah.
Sarah MacLean 01:37:52 / #:
And I think that's why we wanted her on. Well, we're rethinking the way we think about trailblazers. We want very much to be collected. The theory of this batch of episodes, the series, is that we wanted to make sure we had a lot of these voices. And of course, for us, we want to make sure we get the older voices as quickly as we can for lots of reasons. But that doesn't mean that... But KJ is a perfect example as of somebody who has transformed the genre.
Jennifer Prokop 01:38:29 / #:
Yes, right. As a reader. It's funny because we've been talking, this is not related necessarily to exactly to KJ Charles, but I had this moment this week where I was kind of like, "What is it I value as a romance reader, a longtime romance reader?" We see so many new readers. It's really exciting in so many ways. But I had this moment where I just realized what I really value is people who have a lot of interesting ideas. I just want to read your books if you have interesting ideas. And I joked about the book about the taxidermist, because if you had told me that I would love a book about taxidermy, I don't think I would've believed you. And yet, obviously it's just a set piece in some ways.
01:39:15 / #:
But her interests, I'm kind of glad I brought up to her talking about how interested she became in it. And I think that that's the thing about KJ. When she said, "I have 27 books," or whatever it is, they're not all the same. Not even close, none of them to them. And I think that that's one of the reasons I think of her as one of my favorite authors, is obviously she just does romance so well, but also she is always doing something interesting herself. I can see her challenging herself, and that is challenging and exciting to me.
Sarah MacLean 01:39:49 / #:
And what's fascinating is when she listed the authors who she thought were important for us to name, almost all of those authors also do different things every time.
Jennifer Prokop 01:40:02 / #:
Yes, right.
Sarah MacLean 01:40:03 / #:
Right?
Jennifer Prokop 01:40:04 / #:
Right.
Sarah MacLean 01:40:04 / #:
Alexis Hall has never written the same book twice. So there's a fascinating... She is drawn to other authors who are doing, who exploring.
Jennifer Prokop 01:40:16 / #:
Yeah.
01:40:18 / #:
And that's the thing I feel like when I think about trailblazers, to me, I think when we first started, it was kind of you were the first, obviously these are the people who are the first to do something or riding the wave of being the first to do something. But I also think as our thinking has changed, it's kind of like, who has figured out a way to write 27 books and keep it fresh? Who has figured out the way? And that is valuable to me because I think that's how we talk about, as she said, it's a huge big tent, right? Romance is huge. So who are the people that are out there pushing on the corners? I'm interested in how they just think about their work and what they do.
Sarah MacLean 01:41:04 / #:
All right, well, another trailblazer in the can, as they say. Everyone, this is Faded Mates. Don't forget Faded Mates Live is March 24th in New York City. We would love to see you, bring your friends. Tickets and more information at fadedmates.net/live. Next week, we've got an interstitial for you.
Jennifer Prokop 01:41:28 / #:
Yeah. And I would like to just say quick shout out and thank you to Lumi Labs and Kylie Scott for sponsoring this week's episode.
Sarah MacLean 01:41:37 / #:
We're thrilled to have you all. I'm Sarah MacLean I'm here with my friend Jen Prokop. You can find us every week at fadedmates.net, on Twitter @fadedmates, on Instagram @fadedmatespod. We will see you next week.
S04.35: Butterfly Swords by Jeannie Lin: Some Real Hero Sh*t
This week, we’re talking about one of our favorite historical romances, Jeannie Lin’s Butterfly Swords. This is one we’ve mentioned on previous episodes, and discussed at length during Jeannie’s Trailblazer episode, as it is the first own voices Asian-set historical romance.
Aside from setting the standard for adventure romance, it’s also a near-perfect road trip romance with one of the hottest slow burns you’ll ever read. We talk about all of it, including the absolutely devastating first kiss—one that should go down in romance history. TL;DR: We love this book hard.
Thanks to Charlotte Howard, author of Secret Verses, and Mila Finelli, author of Mafia Mistress, for sponsoring the episode. Stay tuned after the episode to hear the first chapter of Mafia Mistress in audio!
Show Notes
This week, we’re reading the debut novel Butterfly Swords by romance trailblazer Jeannie Lin. This is the first book in her Tang Dynasty series.
It’s not too late to see Sarah with Christina and Lauren in Connecticut on May 18th, 2022, or Jen with Christina, Lauren, and Sonali Dev in Naperville on May 19th, 2022.
We’re looking for an artist to draw us a magnificent firebird. Maybe it’s you?
So, it’s classic Jen to get titles wrong. Farewell, my Concubine is a movie, and the third book in the Tang Dynasty series is called My Fair Concubine. But, that’s not Li Tao’s book, either–it’s The Dragon and the Pearl.
We talked about Road Trip romance back in season 1.
Time for an interlude from The Princess Bride.
Our next read along is The Dragon and the Jewel by Virginia Henley, first published in 1991.
Sponsors
This week’s episode of Fated Mates is sponsored by:
Charlotte Howard, author of Secret Verses, available in Kindle Unlimited .
and
Mila Finelli, author of the Kings of Italy Duet
Read Mafia Mistress in Kindle Unlimited or listen wherever audiobooks are sold
S04.26: Jeannie Lin: Trailblazer
Our Trailblazer episodes continue this week with Jeannie Lin, one of the first authors to write historical romance featuring Asian characters set in Asia. Her debut romance, Butterfly Swords, is set in Tang Dynasty China.
In this episode, we talk about the craft of romance, about preparing for and resisting rejection while finding her own path to publication, about how she honed her storytelling, and about the way cultural archetypes find their way to the page. We also talk about the lightning fast changes in romance over the last twelve years. Thank you to Jeannie Lin for making time for Fated Mates.
This episode is sponsored by The Steam Box (use code FATEDMATES for 10% off) and Chirp Audiobooks.
Next week, we’re talking Sarah’s Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake, which will release March 22 in a new trade paperback format. After that, our next read along is Diana Quincy’s Her Night With the Duke, which was on our Best of 2020 year-end list! Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, or at your local bookstore. You can also get it in audio from our partner, Chirp Books!
Show Notes
This week, we welcome romance author Jeannie Lin, whose newest book in the Lotus Palace Mysteries series, Red Blossom in Snow, comes out next week on March 21, 2022.
Hear us talk about Jeannie Lin's books on our 2020 Best of the Year episode, our Road Trip Interstitial, and our So You Want to Read a Historical episode.
The Tang Dynasty lasted from 618-907, and Empress Wu reigned from 624-705.
RWA's Golden Heart Award was phased out in 2019.
Twitter was launched in 2006 and Goodreads in 2007. Goodreads was acquired by Amazon in 2013. Borders Books closed in 2011.
People mentioned: author Jade Lee, who also writes as Kathy Lyons; author Barbara Ankrum; author Shawntell Madison; author Amanda Berry; author Bria Quinlan; author Eden Bradley of Romance Divas forum; author Kate Pearce; actor Tony Leung; Piatkus editor Anna Boatman; agent Gail Fortune.
Books Mentioned this Episode
Sponsors
This week’s episode of Fated Mates is sponsored by:
The Steam Box, a quarterly subscription book box that includes romance novels,
goodies, and toys to help you embrace your sexuality and promote self-love..
Fated Mates listeners get 10% off with code FATEDMATES.
and
Chirp Audiobooks, amazing limited-time deals on select digital audiobooks
and great everyday pricing on everything else—no subscription needed.
Visit Chirp Books to check out all their audiobook deals.
Jeannie Lin 00:00:00 / #: Romance is probably the fastest to change. It's the most reactive, I think, of all the genres. One, because we write so fast. We as a collective, I myself do not write that fast. But, people will speak negatively about writing to market. But, it's not so cut and dry. It's a conversation. Romance as a genre is more of a conversation because it moves so fast and so fluidly and so many people do it. It's hard to put your finger on it, again, that giant nebulous ball.
Sarah MacLean 00:00:32 / #: That was the voice of Jeannie Lin.
Jennifer Prokop 00:00:35 / #: Welcome to Faded Mates everyone.
Sarah MacLean 00:00:37 / #: I'm Sarah MacLean. I read romance novels and I write them.
Jennifer Prokop 00:00:41 / #: And I'm Jennifer Prokop, a romance reader and editor. Jeannie Lin is an amazing romance author and we were really excited to talk to her as a trailblazer for what we consider... Historical romance often gets really pigeonholed into being 19th century European. And obviously, I don't know when this is airing, we will be talking to some other romance authors who were blazing trails in different ways.
00:01:08 / #: But we were really excited to talk to Jeannie because she opened up the door to historical romance set in Asia, but not during the 19th century. So, her first book, Butterfly Swords, and many of her books were set during Tang Dynasty China, which is around 700, 800 AD. We asked her some questions about why she was interested in that time period. And talk about how once somebody goes down an interesting path, and readers love it, other authors can see a path for themselves. She is really fun, engaging. She has great stories.
Sarah MacLean 00:01:49 / #: Great interview.
Jennifer Prokop 00:01:51 / #: It's a great interview and we think that you are going to really enjoy hearing Jeannie's past romance.
Sarah MacLean 00:01:56 / #: One thing that didn't come up in the conversation, and I want to just say before we start is that, as much as we love Butterfly Swords and have talked about it on multiple interstitials, we put Hidden Moon, the most recent in her Lotus Palace series, on the 2020 Best of the Year list from Faded Mates. So we're renowned, devout-
Jennifer Prokop 00:02:15 / #: Jeannie Lin fans.
Sarah MacLean 00:02:16 / #: ... Jeannie Lin fans here at Faded Mates, and we can't wait for you to spend a little time with her. It was a real delight. Jeannie, welcome. We're so excited to have you.
Jeannie Lin 00:02:29 / #: I'm really excited to be here. I've been listening and so this is a geeky girl fan moment for me.
Jennifer Prokop 00:02:36 / #: Awe.
Sarah MacLean 00:02:37 / #: Well, thank you. It's a geeky girl fan moment for us because I was thinking that, I think the first time we talked about a Jeannie Lin book on Faded Mates was the third or fourth interstitial when we did road trips.
Jennifer Prokop 00:02:50 / #: Road trips, yes.
Jeannie Lin 00:02:52 / #: Oh, wow. Wow. I've never heard one where you mentioned me. So I think that's... That's probably lucky.
Sarah MacLean 00:02:58 / #: Maybe that's best. I feel like I can't listen to podcasts where people talk about my books, so... I never-
Jennifer Prokop 00:03:04 / #: Better to just-
Sarah MacLean 00:03:05 / #: No, we said nice things. But you don't have to-
Jennifer Prokop 00:03:08 / #: Exactly.
Sarah MacLean 00:03:09 / #: We almost exclusively say nice things. We don't recommend books that we don't love.
Jeannie Lin 00:03:14 / #: I actually had a funny moment when a person from my real life, a person for my real life was like, "Oh, do you listen to Faded Mates? Because they mentioned you." And I was like, "I do listen, but not... I never... Was that mentioned?"
Sarah MacLean 00:03:29 / #: Well, now we're really going to mention you because you're joining us as one of our trailblazers for the season, and we are so excited to have you.
Jeannie Lin 00:03:36 / #: Thank you. I'm excited to be here.
Sarah MacLean 00:03:40 / #: One of the reasons that we were really interested in talking to you is because we're always looking for people who are doing things that are new and different. And we've talked to people that have been around in romance for a long time. But in 2010 when you published Butterfly Swords, although there had been a book by Jade Lee that had a Chinese heroine, which was set in Shanghai, but in the 19th century. But we are really interested in talking to you because you are so... I think blew off the doors of historical romance by choosing a different time and place than that regular, what I think a lot of readers have been taught to understand about historical romance, which is, it's white characters, in London, in the 19th century.
Jeannie Lin 00:04:25 / #: People didn't fall in love before 1800. Never.
Sarah MacLean 00:04:29 / #: That's just a little backstory maybe for our audience, but we'd love to hear about your path through romance and in writing those books.
Jeannie Lin 00:04:38 / #: Yeah. And it's really good that you mentioned Jade Lee because I was a fan of that series before I ever thought of ever writing a romance at all. And I actually found Jade Lee because I was on a road trip. And this is paper book. The time of paper books. I was on a road trip and I stopped in some... I visit bookstores when I go on road trips. I stopped in a bookstore and I found her book and I was amazed. I had only read the romances that I had been introduced to by my best friend and her mom. And I was like, "Oh my gosh, there are romances set in China." And most of the books were one Caucasian character and then one Asian character, one Chinese character. And then there was actually one book in the series... Stop Me, I'm going to geek out too much, so I'll-
Sarah MacLean 00:05:31 / #: No. That why you're here.
Jennifer Prokop 00:05:32 / #: One of us.
Jeannie Lin 00:05:35 / #: There's one book in the series where it was Chinese, both characters. So it was a Chinese couple. But, it was set in Shanghai, like you said, and I was just amazed and just... I don't know, thrilled to see something different. But on top of that, I also was a big historical romance reader from the 90s era where, I think there were a lot more settings. It was sort of the, "Exotic," settings-
Sarah MacLean 00:06:06 / #: Yes.
Jeannie Lin 00:06:06 / #: ... were more popular then. So it was the idea of, "Oh, historical romances will whisk you away into a different setting, Vikings and Russia." And I know that those are European settings still. But still a little bit more exotic. And I felt that that's where I kind of got my roots of romance reading is in that era of historical romance. And so I always wanted to be whisked away. I wanted to travel somewhere when I read. And that's when I think, I almost feel like in some ways my romances are a throwback, even though people are saying like, "Oh, it's new." Nothing's new. What's old is new again, kind of thing. But that was where I was coming from, as a fan of the historical romance genre and a fan specifically of Jade Lee. And so at one point, I was teaching high school at the time. And teaching high school is probably one of the most emotionally taxing-
Jennifer Prokop 00:07:10 / #: I teach middle school, so I know what you're talking about.
Jeannie Lin 00:07:12 / #: Yeah. So it's like, you're so committed. Your head is always teaching. You're always with your students even when you're not there, even when you're not grading. And there was one point when I was working the summer to prepare for a whole new program, for at risk. I taught in South Central. So it was high risk and low performing schools, urban. And so, on the second day of school, when starting this program, all of a sudden I broke down afterwards and I cried. I was so tired, I was so done. And I was like, "Oh my gosh, it's day two." Usually I get a couple months in before I cry. And I was like, "I can't do this. This is the beginning of the school year." And my friend was like, "You need to do something for you." I had spent the whole summer teaching and preparing for this small school. And she was like, "You got to do something for you."
00:08:10 / #: And that's when I was like, "Well, I've always wanted to write. I've always wanted to write. And I've always..." You write in your notebook, all throughout my high school years and things like that, I would write little stories that I never intended to show anybody. I showed it to my little sister. And that's about it. And then, so I was like, "Okay, okay, that's the one thing I want to do. Well, I'll try doing that." So I looked for classes on... Because that's me. If you want to learn how to do something, find a class on it. I'm such a student.
Jennifer Prokop 00:08:40 / #: Well, that's the teacher thing.
Jeannie Lin 00:08:41 / #: Yeah, yeah. I laugh, because there was a time when I couldn't, I was very nervous speaking. So I went to the library and looked up like, "How to public speak?" Because that's how I do things. So I looked up how to write romance and there was a UCLA extension class taught by Barbara Ankrum.
Jennifer Prokop 00:09:02 / #: Oh, my gosh. How cool.
Jeannie Lin 00:09:03 / #: And I was like, "Okay, okay, this sounds really great. You can take it at night." So I could take it at night after teaching all day. And then I hadn't read her before. So my sister, who was actually in an MFA program. My sister was much more on the path of becoming a professional writer, a bonafide writer way before me. And then she's like, "Well, read one of her books. See if you trust her. See if you can trust her." And I went to the library. I went to the bookstore. I found a couple Barbara Ankrum books, and I was reading them and I was like, "Oh my gosh."
00:09:36 / #: I was crying. I love the books that make you feel that hitch in your chest and you're like... Rings you out. I read romance to actually cry. So good. And she gave me that feeling, I just, all the tension, the emotional tension was so good. So I was like, "Okay, I think this is who I want to learn from." But I was telling my sister, I was like, "I don't think I will ever write emotional tension this well." Because I know I had done these fun little fantasy writings and that was my thing. I didn't feel like my characters were gripping the way Barbara's characters were gripping. And my sister told me something that still sticks with me. She said, "That's not her first draft." So I was like, "Oh."
Jennifer Prokop 00:10:19 / #: That's such a good piece of advice. Oh my gosh.
Jeannie Lin 00:10:23 / #: Just to give you an idea about how-
Jennifer Prokop 00:10:25 / #: Gosh, that's transformational, that moment.
Jeannie Lin 00:10:27 / #: Further advanced my sister was and how a green writer I was, because I was like, "You write something once for fun and you just leave it. You never come back to it."
Jennifer Prokop 00:10:36 / #: Yeah.
Jeannie Lin 00:10:36 / #: It's in your notebook. And I just thought good writers stumbled upon it or were talented or just, they had something that I didn't. But I was like, "Oh, funny that." And so, I took this class. And again, never intending to ever show this book to anyone. I took the class just for fun. Because I was dying-
Jennifer Prokop 00:10:59 / #: Sure. So stressed out at work.
Jeannie Lin 00:11:02 / #: And as I was taking it... Well, right before I took it, my former brother-in-Law, her then fiance, he was also in an MFA program. And he said, "Let me give you some advice." And again, I'm totally green. He's like, "Think about what you want to write, because you're going to go in there and then the first day they're going to say, what do you want to write? And they're going to go around the room and everyone's going to say what they're working on, and then you're not going to have any idea and you're going to freak out. And that's why I ended up writing about nuns for the last two years." And I was like, "Okay."
Jennifer Prokop 00:11:33 / #: That was the first thing that came to his mind first, nuns.
Jeannie Lin 00:11:36 / #: Nuns. Well, he went to Catholic school, so he's like, "Oh, nuns." And then, so I was like, "Okay, okay." And again, I'm hearing this totally green and I think I'm like, "I'll think of some ideas. I'll think of some ideas." And I go to the class and of course, first day, what are you writing? And I was like, "Oh my God, he was right." And so I was like, "Oh, I have this idea. It's a fantasy romance." Because I'd only written fantasy. And it's Western Romance and Eastern Romance. Kind of an east meets west. These warriors, white warriors go to an Asian, Chinese based land and they meet a princess. They get involved in a war. And I'm talking through all this, and I'm sure everyone in that class was like, "This kid. This is the kitchen sink." Oh and there's sword fights.
00:12:27 / #: So I'm saying this. And they didn't laugh at me. They were very welcoming. And I also said in that same class, "Oh, I just started reading Nora Roberts. She's pretty good." Yeah, so I'm sure at that point the class was like, "This kid." But I stuck with it. And from that class, I met some people who wanted to continue after the class. And so we started meeting with Barbara as a mentorship. It was a guided critique. So she was still a teacher, guided mentor to us for the next year. And that was really what started me on the path-
Sarah MacLean 00:13:06 / #: That's amazing.
Jeannie Lin 00:13:06 / #: ... of wanting to get serious with this.
Jennifer Prokop 00:13:08 / #: How many other... So you were all writing romance at the same time? You were all romance writers?
Jeannie Lin 00:13:14 / #: Yes, yes. So it was specifically a romance class. Because I knew when I said I wanted to write, "I was like, I want to write romance. That's what I read. That's what I love."
Jennifer Prokop 00:13:21 / #: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Jeannie Lin 00:13:23 / #: And so we were all pre-published, I guess, or unpublished and at various levels, me probably being the most green. As in I had just discovered Nora Roberts, even though I had read romance for years. I just-
Sarah MacLean 00:13:36 / #: Sure. Everyone has that author they've just never explored.
Jeannie Lin 00:13:39 / #: My best friend's mom didn't read Nora Roberts. She was Jayne Krentz like Joanna Lindsay, but there was no Nora Roberts. So I go into this room, I'm like, "I've discovered this author."
Jennifer Prokop 00:13:51 / #: Oh my God, that's amazing. I love it.
Sarah MacLean 00:13:53 / #: So I want to talk about this group of people. Did you stick... Did you stay with them for many years or was it just the year?
Jeannie Lin 00:14:03 / #: Just a year. And most of them went to my wedding. We were really close.
Sarah MacLean 00:14:08 / #: Yeah.
Jeannie Lin 00:14:08 / #: But I ended up moving a couple years after that. So before I was published, I moved away. But, and one of them has passed away. We kind of went through life things together and we've drifted apart. I still keep in touch definitely with Barbara, though. I still consider her like... I learned everything I needed to know kind of thing. Well, no. That's not true, because I keep on learning. But she really set me on the path.
Sarah MacLean 00:14:37 / #: So, the reason why I asked about them is because I'm really curious always about the way that we build our communities as writers. And so I'm curious, when you moved, as your career has moved, do you have a new community? Do you feel there are people who helped you along the way in really powerful ways? Aside from Barbara, or in addition to Barbara?
Jeannie Lin 00:15:02 / #: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. The first thing I did when I moved to St. Louis was I found the local romance writing group. And I actually knew some people from online on there already, Celia Carson. Right now, my little circle, it's still the same circle I formed right when I moved. It's Celia, Carson and Chantelle Madison, Amanda Berry, Bria Quinlan. So it's like those people have really... There's some people I interact with more online, but there's that close core group and they just get me through. Sometimes they get me through the day.
Sarah MacLean 00:15:39 / #: Yeah.
Jeannie Lin 00:15:40 / #: Sometimes they get me through the book. Sometimes they get me through the whole year of you have newborn children and you have a book that's due and-
Jennifer Prokop 00:15:54 / #: That's rough.
Sarah MacLean 00:15:54 / #: Right, right.
Jeannie Lin 00:15:54 / #: But yeah. That's really... I don't think I could write alone. I've always been... I need a group of people and we keep each other. Even, we all write different things, but we keep each other going. Sometimes it's at the level of critique, but sometimes it's just at the level of emotional support in the sounding board.
Sarah MacLean 00:16:13 / #: It is such a lonely job for a lot of people. I mean, I know some people like it, just to sit alone in their room. But, so community becomes so vital. So was that first book that you're talking about, the book that you started that ultimately became Butterfly Swords?
Jeannie Lin 00:16:29 / #: Yeah. Well, there's the unpublished prequel of which I've never been able to... One day, I'll get it somewhere and just... But yeah, there was a first book. And then I took a long time, took over I think almost two years to finally finish that first book. And it had all those great things I talked about, the sword fights and the princesses. But then at some point I made a decision. I was like, "Okay, I don't have to make it fantasy. I'll make it China. I'll make it Tang Dynasty China." Which is what I was basing my fantasy world on, and I'll just keep on going from there because Joanna Lindsay would... She always had like, "Oh, there's this imaginary European country."
Sarah MacLean 00:17:10 / #: Sure, why not?
Jeannie Lin 00:17:12 / #: So I was like, "Okay, so these guys come from an imaginary European country that made it to China." And I'm just going to go with it. I had no idea.
Sarah MacLean 00:17:20 / #: Listen, I love that. I love it.
Jeannie Lin 00:17:22 / #: I knew nothing.
Jennifer Prokop 00:17:23 / #: Well, and then-
Sarah MacLean 00:17:24 / #: You did. But you knew so much because you were a romance reader. I think that's the thing, is the conventions are so different for us.
Jeannie Lin 00:17:31 / #: Yeah, I would say the secret to, "Success," the secret to actually getting this to work, was having no clue. And because having no clue, I had no fear.
Sarah MacLean 00:17:42 / #: Yes. Yes.
Jeannie Lin 00:17:43 / #: I just... Let's just do it. Why not?
Sarah MacLean 00:17:46 / #: Yeah.
Jeannie Lin 00:17:47 / #: And then so that first book, yeah, I cobbled it together. But at the end, there was actually a story there. I was amazed. I was like, "Okay, it's not great, but there's a story." I didn't know it wasn't great either, by the way. I didn't know that.
Sarah MacLean 00:17:58 / #: Awe, well.
Jeannie Lin 00:18:03 / #: And by then I had been reading advice from other places. I had finally joined RWA and Jessica Faus said, "You finished your first book, start querying it, and then start your second book. Why are you just waiting?" So I'm like, "Okay." I was querying that first book, and I just started that second book. And so, that second book is what Butterfly Swords was. And it was just being in that group. As soon as we all started our second books, I was amazed because I couldn't tell that my writing had changed that much, but seeing everybody else's writing, I was like, "Oh my gosh." It's all of a sudden from book one, the end, to starting book two, everyone grew so much. I can feel it, I can hear it, I can see it. And I was hoping the same was true of my book because I couldn't see it in me.
Sarah MacLean 00:18:51 / #: That's interesting.
Jeannie Lin 00:18:51 / #: But yeah, Butterfly Swords was always a book two. And I think if you read it, you'll see there's some characters and things in a backstory that was supposed to already be established.
Sarah MacLean 00:19:00 / #: I have a question just about how you decided to write about the Tang Dynasty. Was that just of personal interest to you? Or, so you were happy to be researching? Or... Because it's such a specific... I mean, any number of dynasties you could have chosen during Chinese history?
Jeannie Lin 00:19:17 / #: Well, the Tang Dynasty is one where women... And again, this is relatively speaking. Women had a measure of independence. Women reached high levels of government. There was an empress during a small portion of the Tang. Not an empress, she actually became emperor. She was considered the emperor. Empress Wu. And so, on top of that, just even at the lower levels, women could seek divorce, women could sue for property. There were some basic things there. Overall, women's rights, they were definitely a lower class, but even those little points would give women a little bit more agency. So I was always attracted to that period. If you are a fan of Chinese history, it's one of the periods that's a golden era. So that was another thing that drew me to it. And then, as any historical fan will tell you the clothes were really, really nice.
Jennifer Prokop 00:20:15 / #: That's awesome.
Jeannie Lin 00:20:19 / #: The clothes and the hair and everything were really... The aesthetic, the Tang Dynasty aesthetic is really attractive to. And so all those things. I didn't do a lot of research until I kind of like, "Okay, now I've made a decision. This is not historical, or this is not fantasy romance. This is going to be historical romance." And I started researching a lot, reading everything and joining historical groups and just starting to absorb as much as I could to start to world build.
Sarah MacLean 00:20:53 / #: This episode of Faded Mates is sponsored by the Steam Box. The Steam Box is a romance book subscription service that features books written by authors from marginalized communities and underrepresented groups. Books are paired with items that celebrate self-love and embrace one's individual sexuality.
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Sarah MacLean 00:21:13 / #: Listen, I could get hard behind one of these boxes.
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Jennifer Prokop 00:21:31 / #: Absolutely. This is a really cool company. The founder's name is Melissa Gill, and she donates 5% of each box's profits to an organization in the first year of business. The Steam Box donated to Lilith Fund, Families Belonging Together, the National Network to End Domestic Violence and Trans Women of Color Collective.
Sarah MacLean 00:21:50 / #: So you can know that when you subscribe to Steam Box, you're doing well as well as reading well and maybe feeling well. I was lurking on the Steam Box's Instagram feed this morning and the Winter Box, aside from having a bunch of great books in it, also had a face mask and a candle and soaps and a vibrator in the shape of a rosebud so you could get it done beautifully.
Jennifer Prokop 00:22:14 / #: Amazing. So you should all check out the Steam Box and support this small business. You can find her website @www.steamylit.com.
Sarah MacLean 00:22:24 / #: That's S-T-A-M-Y-L-I-T.com. As always, you can find more information in show notes about the Steam Box, or if you're using a smart podcasting app, you can click the link, right in the app right now, and for Faded Mates listeners only, using the Code Faded Mates will get you 10% off your subscription. Thanks to the Steam box for sponsoring the episode. Were you querying that first book and then the second book became Butterfly Swords? Or, at what point were you aware of, this is happening? We're publishing this beast?
00:23:02 / #: This is happening. We're publishing this beast.
Jeannie Lin 00:23:04 / #: Well, I set a limit. I set a limit. I said, okay... Because also, all these blogs were saying people make the mistake of querying their first book too long or something like that. So my first book, very quickly, I was like, "Okay, 10 rejections, and it's not going." I could feel it. It's not going anywhere. So I just kept on writing.
Sarah MacLean 00:23:26 / #: You know, I love this. This is very me. You hear those stories about like, people query their books for 40 times and then finally get an editor. I'm like, I would just be done. I would be watching TV.
Jeannie Lin 00:23:37 / #: We'll see, but I set a limit. But I set a limit of 100. I said 100 rejections. And-
Sarah MacLean 00:23:43 / #: Oh.
Jeannie Lin 00:23:44 / #: No, that was for Butterfly Swords. For the first book, I was like 10, and I know, I don't need to hang on. But for the second one, I was like, "Okay, 100 rejections." And I think I might've pulled that number, because you can probably already tell, I'm very much like, I need definitive limits. I need numbers, otherwise I will just, I don't know how much is enough. And so I said 100, and I probably pulled it because an author I liked said something like that. And so I was like, okay, 100. And then I finished the book, and this book finished in two months. Unlike... Well, rough draft-
Sarah MacLean 00:24:17 / #: That's amazing. But still-
Jeannie Lin 00:24:18 / #: Let's say rough draft.
Sarah MacLean 00:24:19 / #: It wrote different? Yeah.
Jeannie Lin 00:24:20 / #: Yeah, so like two years versus two months, because I knew the answers to all the questions I had before. And plus, I had learned from Barbara that just right forward, instead of getting in your feelings or getting in your head and worrying. And I was like, "Can I just assume all the perfect edits have been made?" And she's like, "Assume all the perfect edits have been made and just write forward," and I had never done that before. And so I was like, okay. If a teacher tells me something, I'm like, okay, I'm going to try.
Sarah MacLean 00:24:49 / #: I love that.
Jeannie Lin 00:24:50 / #: I'm such a good student.
Sarah MacLean 00:24:54 / #: Yeah.
Jeannie Lin 00:24:54 / #: And so I finished it. It took a lot longer than two months to edit it and everything, but when I was querying it, I gave myself 100 and I would track it. And there was a bunch of us, Bria Quinlan was one of those. We were querying our books at the same time. And you're like, "Oh, I got a rejection today. I got a rejection today, and I got a rejection on my birthday." You kind of get to the point where you like the pain. You're like, it hurts, but I kind of felt left out on days when I didn't get a rejection after a while. I'm like, "No, rejections today?" But you kind of get used to it and you're in that grind. And I was laughing when I said a hundred, I didn't realize how close I would get.
Sarah MacLean 00:25:39 / #: What kind of rejections did they look like? Were they thoughtful or just forms?
Jeannie Lin 00:25:44 / #: Form for the most part.
Jennifer Prokop 00:25:44 / #: Forms, yeah.
Jeannie Lin 00:25:46 / #: A couple of them were requests that said, "I didn't like it as much," and I would tweak it along the way. And I was still trying to learn and trying to find the secret magic sauce to figure it out. And then at one point, I finally, I entered the Golden Heart.
Sarah MacLean 00:26:00 / #: So let's explain what the Golden Heart is.
Jeannie Lin 00:26:02 / #: Oh, yes.
Sarah MacLean 00:26:04 / #: The Golden Heart, no longer exists, but for a long time, RWA, the Romance Writers of America had an unpublished author contest called The Golden Heart. And you would submit a selection, first 50 or first 100 pages, and it was judged by published authors, and the winners of the Golden Heart were hopefully noticed by agents. That was the idea.
Jennifer Prokop 00:26:27 / #: Well, and this was especially important back before people could self-publish on Amazon. So it was really an avenue for, I don't know, that sense of yes, this is someone we... Other romance writers see the potential in these authors.
Sarah MacLean 00:26:44 / #: And now, it was a thing where Joanna Shupe won the Golden Heart, Robin Lovett won the Golden Heart. I mean, there are people who we have talked about on Fated Mates. Jeanie, I didn't know you won the Golden Heart, but-
Jeannie Lin 00:26:58 / #: Yeah. Yeah. So for me, first... It's not the only avenue to publication, but for my book, which was so much of an oddball, people didn't know what to do with it. I entered the Golden Heart. I had been entering a gazillion contests up to then because I wanted feedback. I was kind of a feedback junkie. I need that feedback, otherwise, again, boundaries. I don't know how to look with my own instincts and know what to do. And so I entered the Golden Heart and I finaled in the Golden Heart. And I think that was the start where people started saying, hey, maybe, I'll give it a chance. I started getting requests. More people were taking a look. I definitely noticed there was a line in the sand. As soon as the Golden Heart nominations came out, all of a sudden people started paying attention. It was just this huge boost.
00:27:56 / #: And I think I calculated at some point, but from the Golden Heart nominations to my publication or my first contract, it was a matter of months. So it was that thing of like, you're slogging along for a year, two years, three years. It was three years before... I had started the next book already, The Dragon and the Pearl, and then the Golden Heart nominations came in, and then everyone was requesting, the editors who were judging the Golden Heart were requesting, agents started asking to see things. I got my agent shortly after the Golden Heart nomination, before the Golden Heart ceremony.
00:28:39 / #: And it ended up winning the Golden Heart. I think if it was just nominated, that would've been enough. But it ended up winning. And at that point, the weekend of the win, the weekend of the conference, when the wins were announced that weekend, everybody had rejected me. All the editors, all the houses who had requested were like, "No, just can't." At least they tried. My agent, she told me, she was like, "I'm going to send it to all these houses. I'm going to send it to Avon." Avon says, "They don't even publish what you write because Avon's..." See, I want to say something about this.
00:29:13 / #: Right now with the diversity push, everyone's updated their guidelines. And I say, even if it's lip service, it's important, because before the words said no, Avon was specifically England after a certain period, the Regency period or-
Jennifer Prokop 00:29:34 / #: 19th century.
Jeannie Lin 00:29:34 / #: Yeah, 19th century England or 19th century Europe. I think it was even specifically England for Avon, because everyone wanted Avon. But she was like, "They say they don't want to publish this, but they're going to make an exception someday, and you should be that exception." That was what my agent, Gail Furtune, that was what she was like. She believed it. She believed in me more than I believed in me at that point. But everyone had said no, they just couldn't do it, they couldn't do it.
00:30:03 / #: So I was feeling kind of low, but on the drive, I got out of the airplane and I got a call, and Harlequin was interested. Mills and Boon specifically, Harlequin Mills and Boon was interested. And that's what we went with, because everyone else had said no. I never thought, I just really never thought, and she never thought either, they actually picked it up from the Golden Heart contest. She didn't submit to Harlequin because we didn't think that this was going to fit a category romance at all, length, it was a little long, length or subject matter.
Sarah MacLean 00:30:38 / #: I mean, it is interesting because when you bring up Harlequin. Harlequin, for all that, we talk about the categories being so rigid and having such rigid rules, often it is in the historicals, it's the place where these more unusual or unique historicals have-
Jeannie Lin 00:30:54 / #: And I didn't know that until. I didn't know that until I started working with Mills and Boon. And Harlequin has such a machine that I think they could afford to publish two Regency romances, one Scottish, and one Chinese romance that month, and the cycle of every month. So they actually had the ability to take a risk, and they did. And kind of interesting is I didn't realize that then the editor who did acquire me, I was her first book, so she might've also been young and green and new and... Anna Boatman-
Sarah MacLean 00:31:28 / #: Hungry?
Jeannie Lin 00:31:29 / #: Yeah, hungry. And maybe she also maybe-
Jennifer Prokop 00:31:34 / #: Also didn't know the rules, right?
Jeannie Lin 00:31:36 / #: Maybe it needed a bunch of people who were just like, you know what?
Sarah MacLean 00:31:39 / #: Let's do it.
Jeannie Lin 00:31:40 / #: I don't know any better, let's just go for it.
Sarah MacLean 00:31:42 / #: It's one of the things that we talk about, and we've heard it over and over and over again on Faded Mates, is that there is so much luck in it. It's hard work, and it's having a good book, and it's keeping at it and not giving up, but it's also falling into the lap of the right person, which is tough to wrap your head around, I think, when you have the other stuff.
Jeannie Lin 00:32:12 / #: And like I said, I think Gail being attracted to that book... She was an editor with Berkeley, and she actually loved Chinese history, who knew, kind of thing-
Sarah MacLean 00:32:26 / #: The right person, yeah.
Jeannie Lin 00:32:30 / #: Yeah, it just kind of hit the right people along the way to make. And looking back, you're like, yeah, it could have missed at any point, but it just got lucky and happened to hit the right buttons with the right people.
Sarah MacLean 00:32:44 / #: So is there something about Butterfly Swords, that book that you can pull through all of your... Because now of course, you write beyond romance, you write in other genres. You've been around for a decade, which feels like 50 years in romance. Are you able to pinpoint the thing about a Jeannie Lin book, what is a Jeannie Lin book? What does it bring to the reader?
Jeannie Lin 00:33:14 / #: I'd like to hear from readers about this, but I have a feeling in my head what pulls through and there's.. I'm pausing for a bit because there's sort of this kind of double-edged sword. I think I really get deep into the character's head. I know that's not something readers are like, "I read this book because it's deep in the character's head." That's not why readers read a book. They can feel it and sense it, but that's not what they're saying. So I know that there are trademarks that readers recognize, but for me, I really dig into the why's, probably the same way I dig into my own head, very self-reflective of the characters, why they do things and such. It kind of, I like to think, goes into unexpected ways with the characters. So I think that's one of the things that, the characters will take unexpected twists.
00:34:16 / #: And I think that the reason why I say it's a double-edged sword is I think there are some recognized ways, beloved heroes, my heroes are not the standard hero because I think the standard alpha hero has some cultural issues in Eastern or Chinese romance. And actually, I've read papers about this, where at one point the scholars who are physically leaner, not the big burly bearded characters, they were considered more romantic figures, and it was because of just the physical threat of these big burly characters, invaders, conquerors, things like that. So it was like, oh, these big warriors were kind of identified with the conquering forces, and these scholars were considered the native forces of Han culture.
00:35:09 / #: Okay, so what makes a Jeannie Lin book is probably way more research than ever gets on the page, I guess, for me. For me, a lot of this in-depth research that I try to weave in, but I think what makes a Jeannie Lin book for readers is the settings and then the very kind of slow burn emotional-
Sarah MacLean 00:35:30 / #: Oh, absolutely.
Jeannie Lin 00:35:30 / #: Emotional build up.
Jennifer Prokop 00:35:31 / #: That makes sense.
Sarah MacLean 00:35:33 / #: I think I've said, no one writes kissing like you do-
Jennifer Prokop 00:35:36 / #: Oh, they're so good.
Sarah MacLean 00:35:39 / #: Where you are just really like, it's like, oh, it's so lush, and you just really feel the way that the characters are experiencing this. It's so tactile, but it's so emotional. And so yeah, the idea that we're so deep in their heads, that feels so exactly right to me.
Jeannie Lin 00:35:59 / #: And I mean, my inspiration was epic, Chinese dramas, C-dramas. And if you look, if you've seen Shang-Chi, which is not an... It lends a lot from that.
Sarah MacLean 00:36:11 / #: It's epic.
Jeannie Lin 00:36:11 / #: Shang-Chi, Tony Leung in there, and people talk about his eyes and he just has that look. He is my... I've actually based heroes off of his characters, that look, when you're in a Chinese drama, those extreme closeups and those little nuances and those looks and the slight touches are such a big deal, because in that genre, you can't just outright physical affection and things like that, especially in historical, it's something that there's these boundaries. And that's why I like historical romances, because there's these boundaries. You have to show attraction in interesting ways. Everybody loves the Pride and Prejudice, the hand, right? The when he's-
Sarah MacLean 00:36:56 / #: Oh, yeah, right.
Jeannie Lin 00:36:58 / #: He lets go over a hand and you see the closeup of him, the touch is still there in his fingers, even though her hand is no longer.
Jennifer Prokop 00:37:07 / #: The best.
Jeannie Lin 00:37:09 / #: A lot of that in Chinese drama, and I try to recreate that in my books, and I try to recreate the look, that lush look of Chinese dramas and that sort of emotional tension of like, I want to, but I can't.
Jennifer Prokop 00:37:22 / #: Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah, the eyes. Okay. Can I ask a question, because I'm also a teacher, did writing change your teaching?
Sarah MacLean 00:37:37 / #: That's a good question.
Jeannie Lin 00:37:39 / #: I think it's all one cycle of teaching and learning for me, and that includes in my professional life, regardless of whether I was teaching or whether I was developing program... I seem to, through my life, switch between teaching and then programming and then going back to teaching. And right now, I'm in both. I'm actually teaching computer programming. It's always a cycle of learning and such. And I think that I fell into that with writing too. It's just a constant cycle of learning. And then I present writing craft workshops and such, at the same time I'm taking classes and learning. So I think that's how it fed in is it really, the introspection.
00:38:28 / #: I think as a writer, you become even more introspective and reflective of how your books are coming out, what you're putting into your books. And it is also an act of... I think teaching, teaching is also a very introspective art. And you beat yourself up the same way and you find your ways to lift up in the same way. And so, I specifically started writing because I needed some sort of net, I needed something to save me from myself when I was just getting so absorbed in the teaching that I was hurting myself. And of course, no use to any of my colleagues or my students if I was in that state. So in that way, that's why I wanted to say it was the whole cycle of introspection and everything, I think, that affected the teaching. I don't know if it... And I think in a zen sort of way, that has to affect the way you actually present or the way you actually treat people. And I can't separate it out, but I would say, okay, the short answer is yes.
Jennifer Prokop 00:39:36 / #: I did a lot of research about something called pedagogical content knowledge, which is basically content knowledge is... I mean, everybody knows how to divide, do long division, right? Pedagogy is how you teach it. But what people don't understand about teaching is everything you do becomes filtered through your teaching brain and everything I see all day, I'm like, could I use this in the classroom, could I use this in the classroom? And so when you were talking earlier about everything became about the classroom, it seems that it's so permeable. I don't think people understand that that cycle of teaching and learning that you're describing is so real. Even if it's romance novels, it doesn't matter what you're doing in the classroom, it still becomes a big part of how do I learn, how do I teach?
Jeannie Lin 00:40:23 / #: And I actually feel that the act of teaching basically, after teaching high school, after teaching high school in Watts, I felt like I feared nothing. I felt like if you want to reject me, that's not the worst thing.
Sarah MacLean 00:40:37 / #: I was going to say, an agent-
Jennifer Prokop 00:40:37 / #: I could do anything.
Sarah MacLean 00:40:37 / #: Rejection is nothing.
Jeannie Lin 00:40:37 / #: That's just like-
Sarah MacLean 00:40:42 / #: Facing 25 16 year olds.
Jeannie Lin 00:40:43 / #: Barely a flesh wound. I felt like I had no fear.
Sarah MacLean 00:40:51 / #: This episode of Fated Mates is sponsored by Chirp, the best audio discounts.
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Sarah MacLean 00:42:03 / #: So again, if you're using a smart podcast app, you can click the link right now on your app and that'll take you directly to Chirp.fatedmates.net so you can get started listening. And other than that, you can find this information and information on all of our sponsors in show notes. Thanks to Chirp for sponsoring the show.
00:42:25 / #: I'm really interested in this. When you talk about writing, coming to writing, you talk about it so personally that... I mean, and obviously it's personal for all of us, but in your case, you really were using writing as a safe space. And I think there's something there that you were writing romance for yourself in this safe space, a genre that is coded for joy and happiness and comfort at the end of it. So I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how... So that's the personal piece, but do you ever think about your writing? And maybe not, but do you think about your writing ever in terms of what you're intending to do for the reader? Some of the people we've talked to have said, "Oh, I never think about the reader when I'm writing." What's the relationship with readers in your mind when you're writing?
Jeannie Lin 00:43:16 / #: I definitely think about the reader. It's a conversation, of which I only hear one half of it, but I definitely think. And not any specific readers, of course, but yeah, there is someone I'm talking to. My sister and I discuss writing all the time as well, the ideal reader kind of thing. I am talking to sort of my ideal reader and they talk back and they've shaped me.
Sarah MacLean 00:43:44 / #: And who is that? What does that reader look like?
Jeannie Lin 00:43:47 / #: It's I guess a nebulous concept. And I will say this, I don't do it anymore just because of time and now I have enough reviews that I can't have read every one anymore, but I read every single review or I used to.
Sarah MacLean 00:43:59 / #: That's very brave.
Jeannie Lin 00:44:01 / #: Well, again, like I said, I was teaching chemistry in a low performing district and I was being told to F off by students that I loved. I've been told to off by people that I love today. There's nothing that agent can tell me, there's nothing that reader can tell me that's going to hurt worse.
Jennifer Prokop 00:44:23 / #: Thickest of skins.
Sarah MacLean 00:44:25 / #: Yeah.
Jeannie Lin 00:44:25 / #: Plus a little bit of a stereotype, but I had an Asian tiger mom, so I mean... you can't hurt me.
Jennifer Prokop 00:44:30 / #: You needed to know what everybody was saying, that's fine.
Jeannie Lin 00:44:35 / #: Yeah, you can't touch me. I mean, come on. You just don't like my book.
Sarah MacLean 00:44:41 / #: So did you hear though personally from readers that they were moved by your books? I mean, I assume... Or was it mostly just through the filter of blogs or Goodreads or whatever?
Jeannie Lin 00:44:54 / #: Yes. I hear personally too. I hear personally too, and I really like how some of the reviews in my books are very, very geeky academic, which is what I like. I like that. And so I hear those too. I read it and it becomes all put into this ball of... The ideal reader is this nebulous ball of all of the collections I've put together of what people have said, reacted, my own reactions too. There's the reader, there's the reader half of your brain that read your book and there's the writer half of your brain that wrote your book, and all of that is kind of a nebulous concept. And I can't exactly identify it, but I do kind write something and be like, "Oh, this is pushing the boundaries." My ideal reader has not seen this before or has seen this before, or how this is the next step in where I want to take them and myself and things like that.
Sarah MacLean 00:45:52 / #: I love that-
Jeannie Lin 00:45:52 / #: It is a conversation.
Sarah MacLean 00:45:54 / #: I love that idea. One of the things I like the most when I'm writing is that moment where you think to yourself like, oh, I'm doing something new. This is something that I can feel it stretching-
Jennifer Prokop 00:46:03 / #: ... doing something new. This is something that I can feel it stretching in my brain, and I know readers will also be curious about where I'm going. So it's always nice to hear that other writers are also thinking about it that way. How do you-
Jeannie Lin 00:46:16 / #: And you don't know if we're right. Sometimes you like-
Jennifer Prokop 00:46:18 / #: Fuss with the ideal reader, how do you challenge them.
Jeannie Lin 00:46:24 / #: It keeps you from just talking to yourself and being too self-indulgent, but at the same time, it's a guess because then you'll release the book and then you'll get feedback. You're like, "I was wrong about that one."
Jennifer Prokop 00:46:36 / #: Yeah. That was a misstep.
Jeannie Lin 00:46:39 / #: That didn't work well.
Jennifer Prokop 00:46:41 / #: Yeah. It's so interesting, and I think especially in genre fiction, because the boundaries seem so... I'm really curious about how romance changes over time because, of course, I have my very strong opinions about how things should be right now. And then you go back 10 years or 20 years and think, "Oh no, things are always changing, but we're just where we are now." So is this something where when you look back on, you've talked a little bit about how publishing maybe has at least stated that they're more open to different kinds of stories, but as a romance reader and writer, do you think that romance has changed or can you speculate about where you think we're going?
Jeannie Lin 00:47:25 / #: Oh, romance is probably the fastest to change. It's the most reactive, I think, of all the genres. One, because we write so fast. We as a collective, I myself do not write that fast.
Jennifer Prokop 00:47:37 / #: Same.
Jeannie Lin 00:47:38 / #: We write so fast, so we have the ability. People will speak negatively about writing to market, but it's not so cut and dry. It's a conversation. Like romance as a genre is more of a conversation because it moves so fast and so fluidly and so many people do it's hard to put your finger on it because again, that giant nebulous ball of all the different people who write... There are people who are writing throwbacks when you complain and they're like, "Oh, romance is in the eighties. People don't write like that anymore."
00:48:11 / #: No, there are people still writing that and there are people still reading that. And people still writing it well and reading it well and things like that. But okay, so try to focus myself in, how has it changed? I'm going to try to narrow the conversation. When Butterfly Sword was published, it felt so different to a lot of people and so much so that people who were writing things that were not at all close to Butterfly Sword gravitated toward it because they just said, "This just looks different."
00:48:50 / #: There was a ball of different, all the different books are not alike, but still, there seemed to be this line of like, "Oh, this is what's accepted and your book is different. And so people were like, "Now you've opened the door to different books." I'm like, "How?" It's like this one little small example. There's not this... But it really was othered, I guess, for better or for worse, it was this idea of accepted and othered and I was other.
00:49:20 / #: I think that there are still books that are othered, but I think it's opened so much more, and definitely self-publishing Indie Publishing has a big part to do in that and writing directly to the readers and not going through the filters as much and just the why, opening the fire hose, like, "Oh, you have this fire hose now" before romance was already varied. That's why I always felt, I'm like, "If any place is going to accept me, it's going to be romance."
00:49:47 / #: I always thought that starting in because... And the criticisms about romance being narrow or exclusive, they are not incorrect either. Both things can be true, that romance in 2010, I felt was going to be accepting and inclusive in some ways, and the community was definitely accepting because I felt folded in by the community. And not all authors of color have felt that way, so I don't want to discount their experiences either.
00:50:18 / #: But I felt welcomed in many ways, my book eventually, even though it was like, "Oh, you are our little diversity poster girl." But it was still accepted in some ways, but it was still othered. I think now a lot more variety. Sometimes it's like people say that you wrote the book that you wanted to read kind of thing it's like, "Yeah, but now there are books that I do want to read that people are writing," and so I want to read those, romances with characters of color for sure. Still not a lot, right? The diversity report that the roboticist comes out with shows you at least what's being published traditionally.
Jennifer Prokop 00:51:00 / #: Especially here in his historical.
Jeannie Lin 00:51:02 / #: Yeah, tiny, tiny. But still, when it was one, or two, or three people writing historical churches of color. And now there's 20, that's a huge increase. It's still not a lot, but it's a huge increase. So definitely a lot more variety and I think a lot more discussion. I think there were times before when we'd have a discussion and people would be like, "Oh, you shouldn't criticize," or things like that. You would kind of hear this because it was a fragile space where we were getting criticized by so many other genres.
00:51:35 / #: You're like, "Let's not infight." And now it's like, "Yes, some infighting is actually healthy," the gag rules are off and things like that. Then a lot less limitations. Oh, my gosh, in 2010, people were saying things like... A lot of things, baseball romances wouldn't sell. Not to minimize the fact that characters of color, that's a much different issue. People saying characters of color wouldn't sell than baseball wouldn't sell, but still, there were a lot more limits in those ways too, because shelf space was limited and things like that. But anyways, that's a rambling answer.
Jennifer Prokop 00:52:13 / #: No. I think it's interesting because one of the things I think I've come to believe is that... Okay, I'm going to explain my romance is a volcano metaphor, because I think what it is under the surface, a big actual volcano that looks like Mount St. Helen's or whatever, and then a path opens up, a lava flow, and then everyone's like, "Oh, look, here's the path for us." The people who can blaze those trails, literally, that's why you're here, but it's showing readers and other writers both that there was some kind of way forward.
00:52:53 / #: And yeah, sure, there's still one big mass moving down the mountain that's like Regencies or whatever, but that there's lots... And that readers, I think one of the things I appreciate is I think so many readers are like, "I love this author, and now I will write anything she writes." And so there's a real commitment, I think, in romance readers to our favorite authors too. I don't know.
Sarah MacLean 00:53:17 / #: We've talked about this on the podcast too, but 2010 is a really interesting year for me. Jen and I have spent a lot of time over fate mates talking about, "Oh, where are the marker years for the genre?" And it's all kind of... Who knows? We're basically making it up as we go. But 2010 is really interesting to me because I started writing romance in 2010 too. And I always say in some ways, there was a door slamming shut behind because my first contract didn't have eBooks in it, which feels ancient.
00:53:55 / #: But I think that that time period, I mean, what Butterfly Swords did in 2010 was open a path in the volcano to combine all of our stories in a way that really felt like traditional publishing was massively shifting. It had to be shifting to keep up. 2010 really marks an end in a lot of ways in my mind, to what had been happening in traditional publishing romance before, because it was right as Indie Publishing was starting. We were just on the cusp of what was about to become this massive world, and somehow those of us who were new in 2010 were all feeling that seismic shift and you were doing it in a really important way.
Jeannie Lin 00:54:49 / #: That's actually an excellent point because at that point, e-publishers, plenty of them who have now digital publishers who have now kind of gone by the wayside, but that was also their upswing. My prequel novella, the Taming of Mei Lin, which was attached to Butterfly Swords that came out an ebook. And that was when people were playing with shorter length historical fiction and ebooks. A bunch of readers were like, "I've never read an ebook before. But I want to read your book, how do I get it?" I remember on my blog posting instructions on how do you buy an ebook. How do you read the Taming of Mai Lin, here are your options. I remember doing that. Thank you for that reminder.
Sarah MacLean 00:55:39 / #: Doesn't it make you feel ancient? You're welcome.
Jeannie Lin 00:55:43 / #: Twitter was coming out. At 2010 was when people were just starting to try to figure out Twitter, and there weren't too many entities on there, and it wasn't as cluttered. And I think what happened with Butterfly Swords is because Butterfly Swords was coming out and Twitter was there. It got swept up in a lot of just good reads. Oh my gosh, you're bringing back all these memories. Good Reads came out at that time.
Sarah MacLean 00:56:11 / #: And Goodreads wasn't owned by Amazon. It was just its own little community-
Jeannie Lin 00:56:15 / #: It's like, "Oh, this site of books is starting up. It's called Good Reads." Because I remember at the time, because Butterflies Swords was coming out at that time because people were talking about it, it got swept up into a lot of these early proto algorithm-type things. I got some sort of feature in Good Reads that I didn't even know about, and I know Harlequin didn't buy because no one knew about this stuff right then, right?
Sarah MacLean 00:56:40 / #: No one was paying money to websites for that. Why would you just throw your money away?
Jeannie Lin 00:56:44 / #: And so people were like, "How did you get that in Good Reads?" And I was like, "I don't have the faintest idea."
Sarah MacLean 00:56:51 / #: That was also the age of, there were two romance blogs and that was it. And if you got reviewed by either of them, you could sell books. It just was a totally different world.
Jeannie Lin 00:57:02 / #: A different world, different world, but on the cusp of change, and we could feel it within the year, borders would go away within the next year. Yeah, you're right. If you were publishing at the time, you were standing on the edge of the fault, the
Jennifer Prokop 00:57:21 / #: Precipice, yeah.
Sarah MacLean 00:57:24 / #: And you felt like, "What is happening?" And the people-
Jennifer Prokop 00:57:26 / #: It was a volcano, everybody.
Jeannie Lin 00:57:28 / #: Yeah, volcano. Sorry, volcano.
Sarah MacLean 00:57:30 / #: The people who were publishing before us for many years were like, "What is even happening? This is totally new and I'm not going to survive." And the people who were coming in right after were saying, "Oh, all of that stuff is old news." And it's really, it was a fascinating time. But you're right, you've just named a bunch of things I had forgotten about.
Jennifer Prokop 00:57:52 / #: One of the questions, and you've already mentioned quite a few of this, but one of the questions we also are just really curious about is you've already mentioned some folks, but are there other lesser known people, names people wouldn't know, editors, designers, publishers, other authors that you think have left a mark on the genre that you don't think are celebrated as often?
Jeannie Lin 00:58:19 / #: This is tough because everyone I name is way more well-known than me, I think. The first person who comes to mind is Eden Bradley, I'm sure has a couple of pet names, but Eden Bradley. And she writes Erotic Romance. And she was writing Erotic romance when that was making was coming up. And she also was one of the co-moderators or co-foundational members, not founders of a group called Romance Divas.
Sarah MacLean 00:58:57 / #: Oh, sure.
Jennifer Prokop 00:58:58 / #: See, I don't know this.
Jeannie Lin 00:59:00 / #: And they're still around, but they've gone through ebbs and flows as well. But that's where I found my first online writing community was right when Romance Divas-
Jennifer Prokop 00:59:08 / #: It was a blog, right?
Jeannie Lin 00:59:10 / #: No, it was a forum. It was a forum. They had a blog, but it was a forum where we would go and ask for advice, and there was a lot of ebook, e-publishing at a time when e-publishing was considered the lower tier, everyone's trying to get a publishing a traditional contract. And so they were really there leading through the changes where a lot of discussion was happening.
00:59:34 / #: And so it's a private forum, but you can join. It wasn't so restrictive, but Eden was there, but I think as an author also. For me, she really exemplified someone who was writing her own thing, trying to move with the changes. I actually got my call when I was in Eden's room at RWA when I got the call because she was leading us through a yoga session. But I think she-
Sarah MacLean 01:00:01 / #: We should explain what that means. What does it mean to get the call, Jeannie?
Jeannie Lin 01:00:03 / #: Oh, the call. Okay. So the call is when we had been in discussions and different people were rejecting, but the call is when you finally get the call from an editor or an acquisitions person, I guess, an editor at a publishing house saying, "We would like to publish your book."
01:00:22 / #: So it was the moment. And they called from England. They called from the UK to say that we want to publish Butterfly Swords. And I was waiting. I had a feeling we had already said it's going to happen, but this was when they actually called and said, "Welcome to Harlequin Mills and Boon. And so many things are going to happen today and all this, and you'll get a contract later." But it was when I spoke to, it was Linda, Linda [inaudible 01:00:53 / #] at the time, and just welcoming me to the publishing world. But I was waiting. I was in a room at RWA doing yoga with Eden. And some other people.
Sarah MacLean 01:01:06 / #: Everybody knows where they were. No one ever forgets where they were then when they-
Jeannie Lin 01:01:09 / #: Exactly, exactly. And they marched me downstairs to get my first-time sail ribbon. It was a moment. It was a moment. But that's what I was saying, it was always been about a community for me. And so Eden kind of exemplifies. She was a person who is a fabulous author. I love her books. It's like her books unfold like a dream. Her voice is so amazing.
Jennifer Prokop 01:01:30 / #: Do you have a recommendation for our listeners to start with Eden?
Jeannie Lin 01:01:34 / #: I think it was called The Dark Garden. It was her first book, and when I read it, I was not an erotic romance reader at that time, and I just swept away with it. And I would read... She has one of those voices where I would read the phone book kind of thing if she wrote it. But on top of that, the community building that she does, and then she's just so caring. And then on top of that, so Erotic Romance has gone up and down, so she has weathered a lot of different storms.
01:02:08 / #: All of a sudden with 50 Shades, she kind of shot up again because her book was one of these early books in Erotic Romance, but she just shows me how to handle things with grace. And so she's really been an influence on top of being a fabulous author.
01:02:24 / #: And I remember I was at one of her signings before I was published, and it was a publisher signing, and she was interacting with readers, and she just was recommending other books. She wasn't talking about her books. She was like, "Oh, over there, have you read her books? They're fabulous." And she was just so giving and gracious. And I was like, "I want to be Eden when I grow up."
01:02:48 / #: So I think she's done a lot for other authors and done a lot for Erotic of Romance, done a lot for e-publishing that I think it's just not recognized because it's just naturally kind of... And done a lot for, I think, body positivity, sex positivity. There's a lot, so much in her... Now I feel embarrassed because now Eden's like, "Oh, you never told me these things."
Sarah MacLean 01:03:15 / #: You've done it the best possible way.
Jennifer Prokop 01:03:16 / #: It is the best possible way. I think it is hard. I think we're so used to quietly just knowing the people that influenced us. But I love hearing... When we've asked people this question. It has always been, I think, just so really rewarding to hear about there's so many close ties and so many ways in which we really can admire the authors who have done this work before us.
Sarah MacLean 01:03:41 / #: And one of the things that we keep coming back to this season is that largely, the names of these people are not spoken because we don't get as much public coverage as lots of other genres.
Jeannie Lin 01:03:56 / #: And then along the same lines, I think Kate Pierce has been a similar force for me. And like I said, these authors are way bigger, way more well-known than I am. But more should be said about them.
Sarah MacLean 01:04:12 / #: My question at this point is, let's go back to your books because we've talked so much about Butterfly Sword, but let's talk about the larger Jeannie Lin collection. Can you talk a little bit about the shifts that you made over your career, the choices to move? You really ride the genre lines very fluidly, so can you talk about that a little?
Jeannie Lin 01:04:43 / #: Butterfly Swords, I feel was very tropey. I think that's one of the reasons it was picked up. There was something very familiar about it and different, but the same is what everyone always said was the selling point. But after Butterfly Swords and I started working with Mills and Boone, I think I really leaned into the Chinese culture and history side a lot more.
01:05:05 / #: And so my book started veering, even from the second book that I published, the Dragon and the Pearl, and then the third, my Fair Concubine, they start going into much more of a shift into Chinese cultural romances. And then I think the biggest change was at the time when my editor, I think I've said her name before, Anna Boatman, she was so supportive.
Sarah MacLean 01:05:34 / #: She's my editor at too.
Jeannie Lin 01:05:36 / #: Oh, is she? Awesome. Awesome.
Jennifer Prokop 01:05:40 / #: We'll take this out as whatever. Now we can just say she's the best.
Jeannie Lin 01:05:43 / #: Okay. She taught me how to write in a way. She taught me how to write with an editor. Because we grew up together.
Jennifer Prokop 01:05:53 / #: I don't think I ever realized that you were edited by... Maybe we won't take this out, but I don't think I ever realized that you were edited by England instead of the United States.
Jeannie Lin 01:06:05 / #: It's actually great working with them because their five-page revision letters are so polite.
Jennifer Prokop 01:06:14 / #: Oh, that's funny.
Jeannie Lin 01:06:17 / #: So Anna Boatman, when she also, as your editor moves up... This is one of the things people don't realize, as your editor moves up through the ranks in the publishing house, that could affect you. And so when she moved into single title, she was like, "I know who would write great single title books, Jeanie Linn." And that was offered to me without... We did not submit for that. That was just given to me. It fell in my lap. And so-
Jennifer Prokop 01:06:45 / #: Is that the Gunpowder Chronicles then?
Jeannie Lin 01:06:47 / #: No, this was Lotus Palace series.
Jennifer Prokop 01:06:49 / #: Oh, the Lotus Palace series. Okay.
Jeannie Lin 01:06:51 / #: Yeah. It's like I always had in my mind, "Yes, I would like to write single title," because I was already writing longer length. And that's what I always thought. My agent was like, "I always thought we would be single-title authors. Again, for the listening audience, the category is similar to... Categories, they usually fit certain guidelines. They're usually shorter. They were releasing every month, things like that.
01:07:13 / #: Single-titles stay on the shelf a little longer. They're usually longer in length. And so when that happened, and it was the opportunity to write a deeper story, more in-depth, not that I thought my stories were super shallow or anything, but just to go a little deeper into the things I wanted to do and hit on topics that I hadn't before. In the Lotus Palace series, there's the sex trade, there's gambling, addiction, which is actually something that's prevalent in my family and in Vietnamese culture. And things like that.
01:07:50 / #: And so it gave me an opportunity to play around a little bit more with the single titles. The first big shift I felt was writing the Lotus Palace series. The Gunpowder Chronicles was also at the same time, another shift is someone... Steampunk is one of those things where everyone was hoping it would be big, thought it would be big, the fans really like it. But it's one of those things that I think doesn't work if it's popular. Unfortunately, geek culture likes fringe culture as well. And it is really popular, but not popular-
Jennifer Prokop 01:08:31 / #: They're in the same way.
Jeannie Lin 01:08:32 / #: Yeah, in a mainstream way. But at some point, I really liked the geekiness of steampunk and cosplay. And someone suggested, "Why don't you write steampunk?" And I was like, "No, I don't think that way." But the more I researched it was like, "Hey, it's not that far of a leap." And it kind of plays into the science geekiness, history geekiness that I have. I was like, "Let's do it." And again, I knew no better. I didn't know any better. And so that was at the same time I was...
01:09:02 / #: At the same time I was branching out to The Lotus Palace. I also started branching out into Steampunk Fantasy. And I think each of them, they don't feel too far away from where I started, but they're just different ways to explore aspects of psychology and culture and history in different ways.
Jennifer Prokop 01:09:23 / #: So which of your books do you hear about the most from readers?
Jeannie Lin 01:09:27 / #: I'd probably say... It's a hard call. It's good that it's a hard call, that it's not a definite answer.
Jennifer Prokop 01:09:35 / #: Some people, I mean, this question is really fascinating to me because some people, instantly, there's the book that they hear about.
Jeannie Lin 01:09:43 / #: I think, well, Butterfly Swords still, which is amazing to me. I mean, it's amazing. It's a book that was literally on the shelves for a month in bookstores at a time when eBooks were not huge and things like that. And it's never had a book bub, it's never really had a breakthrough other than it being Butterfly Swords, and people didn't write books like that then. Or no, no, they were. Correction. They were writing books like that. Traditional publishers weren't publishing romances like that then. So Butterfly Swords for sure. But My Fair Concubine, surprisingly, is a sleeper that gets mentioned a lot. When people say the books that they reread, it's My Fair Concubine, and then The Lotus Palace gets mentioned as well. So I would say those three are the ones I hear from readers most often, or I see mentions. Yes, I Google stock myself occasionally. But we all do.
Sarah MacLean 01:10:41 / #: Excited that you have thick skin. You like the war, the battle.
Jeannie Lin 01:10:47 / #: I like the pain. It feels like love to me. Yeah. I always say that. I'm like, Asians don't call it tough love, we just call it love. That's what love is.
Jennifer Prokop 01:11:00 / #: Perfect. Is there a book of yours that you are most proud of or that we sort of frame it as that you hope would outlive you?
Jeannie Lin 01:11:13 / #: At this point I would still have to say Butterfly Swords. And the reason why is this, it's taken a long journey I think for me to kind of come back to the acceptance of Butterfly Swords. A long time. Every time someone said, oh, I'm reading Butterfly Swords, and it was like five years after it was written, it was seven years after it was written, I would cringe. I'm like, oh, it's so bad. Don't start with that one. But I wouldn't say anything. Oh, great, I'm glad, please enjoy.
Sarah MacLean 01:11:45 / #: Please enjoy.
Jeannie Lin 01:11:48 / #: I'll just be over here in the corner.
Jennifer Prokop 01:11:49 / #: Well, and also there's also that feeling of, I've done a lot more than that.
Jeannie Lin 01:11:53 / #: Yes, I'm a better writer now.
Jennifer Prokop 01:11:56 / #: What? Did I peak with number one?
Jeannie Lin 01:11:58 / #: I've learned so much. But I bite my tongue. And I realized readers don't know that. Every book they come to, it's the first. And of course it's 10 years ago, 10 years in historical romance is like-
Jennifer Prokop 01:12:10 / #: A thousand years.
Jeannie Lin 01:12:11 / #: So much changes. So much changes.
01:12:14 / #: Yeah. But still, I've come back to, there's still things that people are finding that they like about it. So that's been reassuring. But also, it was a time... I was in a place then, but Jennifer Lynn Barnes has a talk about writing for your id.
Jennifer Prokop 01:12:32 / #: Great. We talked about it. Sarah loves it.
Sarah MacLean 01:12:34 / #: I love it.
Jeannie Lin 01:12:37 / #: I think it was the most inspirational thing for me to read craft wise and emotional, likewise, because it made me accept, I'm like, there are things that people love and this is why. And the things that I hate about it, I don't really hate. I just feel like I'm better than that now. But I don't have to be. It made me feel okay about the things I loved that I put into the kitchen sink of a romance that I wrote.
Jennifer Prokop 01:13:03 / #: Jen always talks about first books. The reason why first books resonate so well with readers, especially when you're like you are where you grew up reading romance, is you pack them full of all the things, all the buttons that were installed in you.
Jeannie Lin 01:13:21 / #: But I think there's a raw... I haven't reread it in a long time. In fact, this is how crazy I am. There is a word echo on the first page of Butterfly Swords, and I swear for the last 10 years, I'm like, if I ever get that book back, that is the first thing I'm fixing. That's how Psycho I am about that.
Sarah MacLean 01:13:40 / #: Can I tell you something, Jeannie? You could ask them to change it in the ebook right now, and they would.
Jeannie Lin 01:13:48 / #: No, that would open up a can of worms.
Sarah MacLean 01:13:48 / #: Just letting you know.
Jennifer Prokop 01:13:50 / #: Don't read the whole book. Just have to fix that one.
Jeannie Lin 01:13:55 / #: That would open up a whole, oh my gosh. That would just, no, no.
Jennifer Prokop 01:14:00 / #: Take it back.
Jeannie Lin 01:14:01 / #: My first words. My first words, when Butterfly Swords arrived... Here's why I say Butterfly Swords. There's so much emotion, as you can hear, when I'm talking about it now. And I think some of that raw motion is in the pages. And so I would say that's the book, I would say.
Jennifer Prokop 01:14:16 / #: It's your baby. It's your first baby.
Jeannie Lin 01:14:18 / #: And I want people in 20 years to complain about how tropey and stereotypical it is, and how derivative. I want people to say those things because it's a 20-year-old book. Complain about it. See how outdated it is.
Jennifer Prokop 01:14:38 / #: Yes. Right. Well, and we've talked about that sometimes when we go back and read an older historical, I was like, oh, this is where this originated. So if people were saying that about a Butterfly Swords, it would mean that-
Jeannie Lin 01:14:53 / #: But you're a critical reader. People might just pick it up and be like, who is this old, you know, writing these stereotype?
Jennifer Prokop 01:15:00 / #: Listen, if people are still reading your book 20 years after it comes out, that's a win no matter what they're saying. Right?
Jeannie Lin 01:15:07 / #: Yeah. Put me on Blast. And there's nothing I haven't blasted about myself about that book, but the very first time I held that book in my hands, I saw that UPS truck. I was waiting for it. The UPS truck was across the street, and I'm like, it's across the street. And I'm saying this on Twitter, because there was this new thing called Twitter then. Readers and also-
Sarah MacLean 01:15:28 / #: 12 people watching.
Jeannie Lin 01:15:29 / #: Yeah. But my 12 followers were like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, is it the books? Is it the books? And so the books come to the door and I open it up and I pick it up. And my husband can attest to this. The first thing I say is, I have a book. Now I can't fix it anymore because I had it in paper. There was no more, I couldn't fix this. So yeah, I can't open it up and ask Harlequin to fix that because that would ruin me. I'd do nothing else.
Jennifer Prokop 01:15:56 / #: So we've talked about how fast changing romance is, and one of the things that's been really interesting as we've done these interviews, to me, is I find myself more and more grateful for eBooks because your book that was on the shelf for one month is still available to be on all of our shelves, right?
Jeannie Lin 01:16:15 / #: Yes, yes. Love that.
Jennifer Prokop 01:16:17 / #: Yeah, we're lucky.
Jeannie Lin 01:16:18 / #: And I have a couple dusty copies in my basement for my children.
Sarah MacLean 01:16:22 / #: You can put them on eBay maybe if you ever. Jeannie, thank you so much for being with us today. It was amazing to hear your story.
Jennifer Prokop 01:16:33 / #: We love that. A really fabulous conversation. Thank you.
Jeannie Lin 01:16:35 / #: Oh, this is really fun. This is great. Thank you.
Sarah MacLean 01:16:38 / #: Now, while you were talking about Steampunk, I was like, I wonder if Jeannie would come back and do an interstitial on Steampunk with us, because-
Jeannie Lin 01:16:45 / #: I'll put it on the list.
Sarah MacLean 01:16:46 / #: If you're a steampunk reader, Jeannie, and you'd like to join us to talk about that, that would be really fun.
Jeannie Lin 01:16:51 / #: Yeah, anytime.
Sarah MacLean 01:16:54 / #: Jeannie, tell everybody where they can find you.
Jeannie Lin 01:16:57 / #: I'm here and there on Twitter at just Jeannie Lynn, J-E-A-N-N-I-E L-I-N. And then my website is jeannielin.com. Like I said, I'm in and out. I don't have any policy for social media. I kind of just do it as I feel. So you may get me a lot or a little. It's social media.
Jennifer Prokop 01:17:23 / #: That's how it works.
Sarah MacLean 01:17:24 / #: And tell us about what's recent or what's coming.
Jeannie Lin 01:17:31 / #: Oh, well, I am working on a book right now. And like every book, you hope it's going to be than the last one, but it's not. I'm working on the sequel or the next book in The Lotus Palace series right now, and it's the follow-up to the Hidden Moon, which came out last year. I actually started an MFA program. And so I'm working on a historical that's set in Vietnam. And that's a scary one for me just because first of all, whole new historical era and one that's not as well-documented because it's actually ancient. It's AD, 40 AD.
Jennifer Prokop 01:18:09 / #: Oh, wow.
Jeannie Lin 01:18:12 / #: And it's the story of the Chung Sisters who were the revolutionary Sisters of Vietnam who fought for independence against Han China, and they actually won. So they're sort of like the Vietnamese version of William Wallace. They actually won back their independence for a glorious three years. But it was the first time that Vietnam defeated China for independence, and it was two sisters who did it. So those are my two current projects. The sisters one's going to take a while because it's a whole new historical era. And then hopefully the next Lotus Palace book will be finishing up within the year.
Sarah MacLean 01:18:53 / #: But you can catch up with The Lotus Palace series while you're waiting for that, and you can buy those wherever you buy your books. So Jeannie, thank you so much for coming to Fated Mates and-
Jeannie Lin 01:19:06 / #: Thank you so much for having me. This is awesome.
Sarah MacLean 01:19:13 / #: What a cool person. I don't think I've ever met her in real life, and now I just want to be her friend forever.
Jennifer Prokop 01:19:19 / #: Obviously. I would have been really lucky. I have had her on at least one, maybe two panels. In our Zoom world, it's so much easier to just reach out to someone and be like, hey, do you want to do this thing? And yeah, she's great.
Sarah MacLean 01:19:39 / #: I loved a lot about that conversation. One of the things I like the most is how, we don't really talk about this very much, even though it is the origin story for so many writers, is this idea that you come to romance for the joy of it, for yourself, to come to writing it. And when she said she had come up reading her best friend's mom's historicals, it made sense to me. I mean, you can really see the bones of that in her books.
01:20:08 / #: But the real joy of that for me was her saying I was having a rough time and writing romance saved me, saved my sanity in some ways.
Jennifer Prokop 01:20:19 / #: I also thought it was really interesting, I think she's the first person we've talked to so far that has talked about taking a class, that there's-
Sarah MacLean 01:20:30 / #: Learning the craft.
Jennifer Prokop 01:20:31 / #: Right. Learning the craft. And that I think that there's so many different paths to writing romance that we're hearing about, from fan fiction to... And so to have someone say, I kind of went a more traditional route, and that's what worked for me. Because it might inspire people who... I think a lot of people probably recognize themselves in that I like feedback and I like a teacher, and I like this idea of someone else has done it, I don't have to learn it myself. So I was really fascinated to hear just like, yeah, this UCLA extension course.
Sarah MacLean 01:21:07 / #: Amazing. I wish I had had a course like that. I had a very different kind of course that didn't inspire me the way that she did. I really had a false start with one. So that sounds like a good one. I liked when she talked about romance being so fast to change. And when we really dug into the last decade or so of romance, she really had a fascinating perspective that we haven't had before, so far. I mean, we're not done recording trailblazer interviews, but it was really interesting to hear from somebody who has a perspective that's a shorter, a mid-range lens, it feels like, in some ways.
Jennifer Prokop 01:21:54 / #: You and I have talked before about 2010. I don't think I'd put together Jeannie Lynn with 2010. And yet, looking back, I think we are going to keep coming across those years that just seemed to be like 1995, right?
01:22:13 / #: The years where-
Sarah MacLean 01:22:14 / #: Yeah, just transformational years.
Jennifer Prokop 01:22:16 / #: Right. And so I was really fascinated to have somebody remind us of just how big that change was to eBooks, but also that social media, the blogs, the way that all played into it as well, shifting-
Sarah MacLean 01:22:34 / #: Now, it feels like that has all existed for as long as we've all been alive. But those of us who started writing right on that cusp, it is really huge, the amount of change that has happened. And as she was talking, I actually had some other thoughts of people who we need to make sure we put on our trailblazer list because there are just, every time we have one of these conversations, I think, oh, we need to make sure we get that person. So we're going to be doing trailblazers interviews until we're 95, and then someone can come in for us.
Jennifer Prokop 01:23:09 / #: We've recorded it all already though. One of the things that I was thinking about a lot too though is, and you talked about this sort of luck, but how much hard work is involved. I think I would like to say there are very few... Writing seems... To say to yourself, I'm going to go ahead and sign up for 100 rejections.
Sarah MacLean 01:23:35 / #: Unbelievable by way.
Jennifer Prokop 01:23:37 / #: That that's the number I can bear.
Sarah MacLean 01:23:39 / #: Yeah, no, no, I would've tolerated like six and then I'm out.
Jennifer Prokop 01:23:45 / #: And I think that that's part of the thing too, is not just to say... I mean, I want to be really explicit. All writers go through rejections, but I think it's also really clear that she was fighting a real uphill battle. She was bringing something to market that people thought they didn't want, that they explicitly would say, we don't want or we're not going to publish.
01:24:05 / #: And so the way that the kind of the racism embedded into the genre, into publishing itself, works against authors, certainly, but also readers who then, when her book did come to market... To have a category romance have a decade long impact. I want to talk about that because it is-
Sarah MacLean 01:24:31 / #: I hadn't realized, and I said this with her, but I hadn't realized so much about Jeannie's career really did travel a unique path. I mean, she mentioned the category romance being, it shouldn't be, it defies the rules of category, but it defies the rules of American category. And then she was picked up by British category. Her editor is British, not American. I mean, these are the paths that so many of the trailblazers... I mean, we talked to Radcliffe, her episode is out. So many of these trailblazing people tell stories about finding a path through the woods that is uncommon. Which I guess is the point of trailblazing.
Jennifer Prokop 01:25:27 / #: Exactly. I was like, I believe, Sarah-
Sarah MacLean 01:25:28 / #: Wait a second.
Jennifer Prokop 01:25:28 / #: You hit upon our thesis. Look what we've done.
Sarah MacLean 01:25:32 / #: And you know what? That's not to say that there aren't people doing interesting work who are traveling down paths that have been created for them. But I think the thing that is so interesting too, is to hear how all those little things that align bring us the books that we now have.
Jennifer Prokop 01:25:50 / #: Yeah.
Sarah MacLean 01:25:50 / #: And it is 80% hard work and a great book, and 20% just the right person picking it up at the right time.
Jennifer Prokop 01:26:02 / #: And also, it is really interesting. I don't think readers, maybe our listeners, the golden heart in recent years has felt a little bit like a, I don't understand why this thing exists. Every writer could publish themselves. And so to talk and hear a Golden Heart winner talk about the power of that contest, I thought was also really interesting.
Sarah MacLean 01:26:30 / #: I agree. And I think that especially, RWA is so tricky, and we've talked about it before, and I don't want to get too deep in the weeds on RWA because, why? But I think that there was so much discussion when they ended the Golden Heart, because it really did feel like for many of us, the Golden Heart was a support system, a network, and those Golden Heart winners are all a part... One of the things we didn't talk about with Jeannie is, they all had their online private groups and they had their community of finalists who supported each other. I mean, Joanna Chuppe talks so much about the value of those people together and those writers who are all sort of traveling the same path together. And when RWA did away with it, and there was argument that they did away with it because it wasn't making enough money, it was too much work for the people submitting to it because of independent publishing, fewer and fewer people were submitting to it.
01:27:41 / #: And that's all real. But there also is a value to unpublished authors being celebrated for their work. Yesterday I was at a play date with my daughter and I met a mom I had never met before, and we got to talking and she said, "Oh, you're a writer?" And I said, yes. I said, what do you do? She said, "Oh, I'm a stay-at-home mom, but I'm trying to be a writer. I've been writing for". She said she'd been writing the same thing for five years. She's like, "But I try to write every day or every couple of days". And I said, well, then you're a writer.
01:28:19 / #: There is a value to supportive communities around unpublished authors, and there's a value to us naming writing as something valuable, as a valuable product, even if you don't get paid for it.
Jennifer Prokop 01:28:36 / #: I really love that. And that's, as we do these interviews, we're going to come up with more and more of these little pockets of romance history that we'll try to unpack and explain.
Sarah MacLean 01:28:48 / #: Right.
Jennifer Prokop 01:28:48 / #: Well, and the thing that's amazing is the more we do it, the more I realize just how many pockets there are. I mean, we all have our romance reading experience, but it's also finding these other ones.
Sarah MacLean 01:29:00 / #: Yeah. So as you're listening, if there are ever, to that end, if there are ever things that we blow past and we don't talk about that you think are interesting, shoot us a message on Twitter or Instagram or send us an email and let us know and we'll do what we can to explain them. Jen, that was fun.
Jennifer Prokop 01:29:18 / #: I enjoyed that one.
Sarah MacLean 01:29:20 / #: I enjoy all of them now.
Jennifer Prokop 01:29:21 / #: Me too.
Sarah MacLean 01:29:22 / #: It's amazing.
Jennifer Prokop 01:29:22 / #: It's the best. These are the best conversations.
Sarah MacLean 01:29:24 / #: They are.
Jennifer Prokop 01:29:26 / #: Okay.
Sarah MacLean 01:29:27 / #: Thanks everyone for joining us. You can find us at Fated Mates Pod on Instagram, at Fated Mates on Twitter, at fatedmates.net to find all of these and some merch and stickers and information and everything you could possibly need about us, more than you could ever want, probably.
Jennifer Prokop 01:29:50 / #: We're generating a lot of content, that's what Sarah's trying to say. But we really love you all. We hope you are all reading great books this week, and thanks for listening.
S03.16: Best Romance Novels of 2020
The Best Romance Novels of 2020!
It’s the best and worst task of the year for us, because we read so many AMAZING books over the course of the year, and choosing ten and not one hundred is hard for us, ok? But here they are — ten gorgeous books that we adored—books with badass heroines, larger-than-life heroes, brilliant structure, and outstanding writing.
Buy the Fated Mates Best of Book Pack in one fell swoop from our friends at Old Town Books in Alexandria Virginia, and get the seven traditionally published books on the list, a Fated Mates sticker and a candle from the bookstore! Support fabulous authors and a woman-owned independent bookstore all at once!
Thank you, as always, for listening! If you are up for leaving a rating or review for the podcast on your podcasting app, we would be very grateful!
Next week, we get back to doing what we do best: Reading Romance! We’re deep-diving on Sally Thorne’s The Hating Game. Get it at Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Apple or at your local indie via bookshop.org.
The Best Romance Novels of 2020
Fated States
Interested in phone banking or writing postcards to voters in Georgia? Join us for our upcoming Fated States events: phone banking on 12/2/20 and 1/4/2021 and postcards on 12/5/2020.
Show Notes
Consider buying a Fated Mates pack of 7 of our 10 books (it doesn't include the self-published books) from Old Town Books in Alexandria, Virgina. You can also check out our Bookshop link.
Can you believe that RWA debacle was 11 months ago?
So you want to hear us talk about A Heart of Blood and Ashes, Like Lovers Do, Queen Move, or The Devil of Downtown?
Cold War history is fascinating. Not only all the nuclear stuff, but Sarah's story about K Blows Top sounds fascinating.
Some LitFic novels that play around with dual storylines are The French Lieutenant’s Woman, Possession, and the more romance adjacent Secret History of the Pink Carnation.
All about danger banging. And of course there’s a button for that.
Tammany Hall is often used as a historical example of total police corruption.
Up next week, we'll be reading The Hating Game by Sally Thorne.
S02.42: Unusual Historicals: Freewheeling with Joanna Shupe
This week it's one of our very faves, Joanna Shupe is back! Joanna has a new book out June 30th -- The Devil of Downtown -- which is basically perfection, so we're talking about why Gilded Age romance is the best, and why everyone should be reading unusual historicals (historicals set outside the Regency in England). Get ready, your TBR will groan after this one!
Oh, and did you know Sarah also has a book out June 30th? Order Daring & the Duke from Amazon, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Books-a-Million or from your local indie, or order it signed from her local indie, WORD Bookstore, and get a special edition Fated Mates sticker with your purchase!
As summer approaches, if you are up for leaving a rating or review for the podcast on your podcasting app, we would be very grateful!
Oh, and did you know Sarah also has a book out June 30th? Order Daring & the Duke from Amazon, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Books-a-Million or from your local indie, or order it signed from her local indie, WORD Bookstore, and get a special edition Fated Mates sticker with your purchase!
As summer approaches, if you are up for leaving a rating or review for the podcast on your podcasting app, we would be very grateful!
Show Notes
This is Joanna's second time on Fated Mates. The first was to discuss the enemies to lovers trope in Prisoner of My Desire and Kiss of a Demon King.
Speaking of IAD: ever seen the IAD spreadsheet of Wonder, created be Sarah Hawley from the Wicked Wallflowers Podcast? Oh, and if you haven't read it, why not do it this summer? There's a group read going on right now on a subgroup of Sarah's Facebook Book Club!
All about Homage, allusion, and allegory in case it's been a while since you were in an English class.
Modern Library! Where are our romances?
Sarah has a bunch of online events this summer.
Many of the old American historicals support an ahistorical white settler, Manifest Destiny, story of Westward Expansion. Savage Thunder was a particularly problematic one, and Jen only read it for the "sex on a horse" scene. Maybe watch some Deadwood instead?
Which came first? Eurocentrism or the Anglophiles?
Gone With the Wind is just Lost Cause propaganda. Don't at us. Speaking of wars: The Napoleonic Wars took place during the Regency, but no one ever really talks about them in Regency romances.
Romance's Regency blueprint was created by Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer.
Nipple piercing has been around for a long time. Look for it in Joanna's next book.
Joanna's fascination with The Gilded Age started with Edith Wharton. The time period is the setting for the Uptown Girls series, but the Gilded Age also has lots of uncomfortable parallels to today. If you're looking for more information about The Gilded Age, you should know that Jack Mulligan was based on real life mobster Paul Kelly. Joanna also recommends the following books: Low Life, The Gangs of New York, and Incredible New York. If you want to hear Joanna talk about The Gilded Age, join her Facebook Group on July 9th, 2020 for a virtual tour!
If you haven't ever been to Ellis Island, it's excellent. It's a dynamic museum with tons of interesting facts about European immigration to New York. Speaking of history, if you're interested in learning about The Great Migration, the setting of A Champion's Heart, you should read The Warmth of Other Suns.
Food is everyone's love language until the jello molds and casseroles start to arrive.
What do you mean you haven't seen The Hudsucker Proxy?
S02.19: So You Want to Read a Historical
We’re launching a Special Romance Report here at Fated Mates — a series of interstitials introducing readers to the subgenres of Romance (there are seven!) — we’re talking about why they exist, what they’re trying to do, what to expect from them, what might have readers hesitating, and where to start! This week, we’re starting with Sarah’s favorite subgenre — Historicals! We’re talking about why they’re sexy, progressive, feminist, and very not boring.
Don’t miss a single moment of our 2020 episodes — subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform and like/review the podcast if you’re so inclined!
Next week, we’re talking Kristen Callihan’s Managed, which you may recognize as “SCOTTIE,” which is how Jen refers to it because she loves him so much. We think you’ll love it, too, and if you have time, read the next in the series, Fall, which is one of Sarah’s top 10 romances ever. Read Managed at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, or Kobo.
Show Notes
RWA imploded and it's such a long, complicated story, but this article from Vox and this timeline by Claire Ryan are what will catch you up.
Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start: there are seven romance subgenres: historical, contemporary, romantic suspense, paranormal, inspirational, erotic romance, and YA.
When it comes to the grandmother of historicals, don't forget that Jane Austen was writing contemporaries.
Johanna Lindsey died in October, and her family announced it publicly in December. The New York Times obituary was trash, so read the Washington Post or Entertainment Weekly one instead. Check out the Twitter hastag #MyFirstJohanna for people's stories about their first book by Lindsey (including Sarah's), and maybe listen to our episode on Gentle Rogue.
Support Farrah Rochon for an organ in her sister's memory. And come this summer, buy her upcoming book The Boyfriend Project.
In Born a Crime, Trevor Noah wrote about what his mother said about her second husband wanting to put her in a cage: For a long time I wondered why he ever married a woman like my mom in the first place, as she was the opposite of that in every way. If he wanted a woman to bow to him, there were plenty of girls back in Tzaneen being raised solely for that purpose. The way my mother always explained it, the traditional man wants a woman to be subservient, but he never falls in love with subservient women. He’s attracted to independent women. “He’s like an exotic bird collector,” she said. “He only wants a woman who is free because his dream is to put her in a cage.”
Mary Wollstonecraft is all the evidence you need that feminists have been around for a long time.
Jen recommends In the Dream House by Carmen Marie Machado, which is about domestic abuse in a queer relationship. The quote from Jose Estaban Munoz is, "When the historian of queer experience attempts to document a queer past, there is often a gatekeeper representing a straight present."
When talking about The Doctor's Discretion by EE Ottoman, Sarah is very excited about a book called The Butchering Art by medical historian Dr. Lindsey Fitzharris, whose sometimes very gross Instagram is amazing. Doctor James Berry was trans man who lived and worked in London in the mid 1800s.
If you haven't listened to our episode about Beverly Jenkins's Indigo what are you waiting for?
Avon Red was a short-lived series, but then again, so was The Red Shoe Diaries. Sarah recommends On These Silken Sheets by Sabrina Darby from that series.
Whores of Yore is a great blog, and definitely proves Jen's assertion that as soon as someone invented cameras, someone else wanted to get naked in front of it. Dr. Kate Lister, who founded the site, has a book called A Curious History of Sex coming out Feb 2020.
Next time you are in New York, visit The Museum of Sex. Sarah recommends Hallie Rubenhold's The Covent Garden Ladies: Pimp General Jack and the Extraordinary Story of Harris' List (which out of print, but available in audio, and is the book Harlots is based on). Hallie Rubenhold's The Five is not out of print, and also excellent--it is very not a romance, and about the victims of the Ripper killings.
KJ Charles is so ridiculously good. Sarah's favorites are Wanted a Gentleman and Think of England and Jen loves Band Sinister. Nicola Davidson's Surrey Sexual Freedom Society series is fantastic. Alyssa Cole's An Extraordinary Union is amazing. Monica McCarty wrote a historical series that imagines Highlanders as being kind of like Navy SEALs. Sarah talked about one of the books in the series, The Arrow on the Scotland interstitial. Honestly, we talked about so many authors, so just click on any one of the images in the photo gallery below for some of our favorites by those authors.
But stickers and buttons from Kelly, tees and bags from Jordandene, take our reading challenge, and answer our survey.
romances we mentioned
nonfiction we mentioned
S02.15: Romance Recommendations: Stump Jen & Sarah Part 2
It’s the second half of our recommendation podcast! We asked you to ask us for recommendations, and thought it would be fun to recommend on the fly—absolutely no preparation! Instead, we met up at Sarah’s apartment and read your questions sight-unseen (thanks to @bestfriendkelly for collecting them!). What ensued is a killer list of romances that you should all read! And if you missed the first half — head back and listen!
Do not miss the show notes this week, y’all. Really.
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!
Next week, we’re releasing a little stocking stuffer for our Christmas Day episode, but we’re back in business on January 1, with the seasonally appropriate (at least in title) Born in Ice, by none other than the queen herself, Nora Roberts. Read Born in Ice at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo or your local indie.
Question 1: Beth from Milwaukee asked, "I'm going to Iceland in December for my 10th wedding anniversary! I obviously need a book that has snow/cold and using body heat and -ahem- other activities for warmth. Bonus points if a volcano or other geological feature is a part of the story! Sub genre is not important, and yes I'm aware of the Ice Planet Barbarians."
Our recommendations: From the deep recesses of Jen's brain, the only romance she can think of with a volcano, Eden Burning by Elizabeth Lowell. And that's from the 80s, so fair warning that it's likely to have problematic elements. When it comes to snuggly, warm, only one bed romances, you just need to use the internet! But Jen did write a piece about Only One Bed for Kirkus, which you should read. In the meantime, go watch Joe versus the Volcano, and then talking about Hawaii reminded Sarah of some bananas sounding book by Anne Stuart called Tangled Lies. But a few snowy romances: Beary Christmas Baby by Sasha Devlin or How the Dukes Stole Christmas.
Question 2: Emily from Washington D.C. want our opinion aobut "the BEST star crossed lovers trope (it always gets me so good)."
Our Recommendations: The reason Sarah thinks that star-crossed lovers have to end up unhappy is Romeo and Juliet, of course. But Jen thinks you should try Luck of the Draw by Kate Clayborn and Sarah recommends Long Shot by Kennedy Ryan, but comes with a whole suitcase of content warnings for domestic violence. In the interim, Jen read and recommends Forbidden Promises by Synithia Williams, the heroine falls in love with her sister's ex-husband! And of course, coming in the summer of 2020 comes Daring and the Duke by Sarah, which will also work. But you have to wait!
Question 3: Megumi from San Antonio, TX is looking for "a contemporary of someone not Scottish going to Scotland and finding love. (Maybe England but mostly Scotland)"
Our Recommendations: Jen lost her mind and said Unfixable by Tessa Bailey, but Willa is a heroine who goes to Ireland. She thinks it still counts. Sarah recommends a novella by Sophie Jordan called "In a Stranger's Bed" which was a Goldilocks retelling published in the Glamour anthology but which is currently unavailable so come on Sophie, get it together and put your stories up because they are ON FIRE. A few others you can try: A Duke by Default by Alyssa Cole, the Under the Kilt series by Melissa Blue, Getting Hot with the Scot by Melonie Johnson, and Ten Days With the Highlander by Hayson Manning. Also, we didn't know what Adriana Herrera had up her sleeve when we recorded, but Mangos & Misteltoe is ADORABLE, and features to delicious Dominican heroines falling in love on a Scottish Baking Show. It's also a perfect holiday romance!
Question 4: Becca wants "a funny contemporary, a true romcom, minimal trauma."
Our recommendations: Jen thinks it doesn't exist. Sarah recommends going old school to Jennifer Crusie or Susan Elizabeth Phillips. If it helps, you should know that later this season, we'll be talking about Bet Me and Nobody's Baby But Mine. After we recorded, Sarah realized she should have recommended Christina Lauren, who she adores, and who she believes is one of the few authors writing real RomCom. If you haven't read Josh & Hazel's Guide to Not Dating, it's a very funny, very romantic friends-to-lovers romance! "What happened to romantic comedy" is an existential question for our time.
Question 5: Laurel from NC wants a book that "Has marriage of convenience, preferably historical."
Our recommendations: Sarah says Sherry Thomas better than everyone and recommends Ravishing the Heiress. Jen thinks The Duke Buys a Bride by Sophie Jordan might work. Sarah points out that in order to qualify, the marriage has to happen pretty early in the story. The marriage has to be part of the plot the whole time. Once again, there are so many of these we had trouble thinking of them on the spot, but in hindsight, Sarah would like you not to miss Amalie Howard's The Beast of Beswick or Scarlet Peckham's The Duke I Tempted. Bonus story from Jen about a Sherry Thomas YA book about Mulan called The Magnolia Sword.
Question 6: Cara from Finland wants a book that "Has chosen families strongly included in the plot. Extra points if it's enemies-to-lovers with the heroine's family ready to kick the pining-but-unfortunately-dumbass hero's butt."
Our recommendations: Whoa! That's a lot of asks all at once. Just reread IAD, Cara! This is the plot of Sarah's book A Scot in the Dark, so that's a good place to start. Lots of rock star romances have chosen family, try Kristen Callihan's series, and Managed will be a book that blooded Jen later this season. It's not linked via heroines, but Elle Kennedy's Hotter than Ever is bonkers sexy, a MMF menage, and has lots of found Navy SEAL family. In historicals, there are lots of sisterhood/brotherhood books. Try the Wallflowers series by Lisa Kleypas, or Lorraine Heath's Scoundrels of St. James!
Question 7: Krystal from New Jersey is looking for "Childhood friends to lovers - historical! Where the Male is titled and the woman is not!"
Our recommendations: There are so many that will work here. Sarah recommends Tessa Dare's first series, the Wanton Dairymaids (!!!) should work, try Godess of the Hunt. After recording, of course, a bunch of books came to mind! Try Kelly Bowen's You're the Earl That I Want, Vanessa Riley's The Butterfly Bride, and Loretta Chase's Last Night's Scandal.
Question 8: Rosalie from the Chicago suburbs wants books she "can recommend to my 15 year old son. Have thought about Sarina Bowen’s Ivy Years. Although LJ Shen “Sinner of Saints” series is high school, seems too dark/gritty and I think he would not be able to suspend reality for some of the story lines given he is the same age."
Our Recommendations: Sarah thinks the Sarina Bowen series you mentioned should work just fine. Adult romances that are adventure stories might work are the Hidden Legacy series by Ilona Andrews and Polaris Rising by Jessie Mihalik. Some actual YA Romance that Jen likes are The Way You Make me Feel and I Believe in a Thing Called Love, which are both by Maurene Goo. One of Jen's favorite YA books of all time is called The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks. She also recommneds Not if I Save You First by Ally Carter. Some sports romances we recommend are the WAGS series by Naima Simone, especially Scoring Off the Field. Finally, The Deal by Elle Kennedy might be a good choice.
Question 9: Jemma from Texas is looking for "Found family. Also with lots of good food descriptions. Not necessarily a chef romance though (they stress me out because chefs stay up so late at night; ugh, who does that?)"
Our recommendations: This is such a perfect question for Sarah. She recommends the Recipe for Love series by Louisa Edwards. Another series by the same author is called the Rising Star Chefs. The Opposite of You by Rachel Higginson will work. Finally, American Dreamer by Adriana Herrera, and a series by Sabrina Sol. In hindsight, Sarah basically only recommended books with chefs in them. She's sorry. She has a problem.
Question 10: Sara from Albuquerque wants a "Bodyguard trope where the person being guarded does NOT spend the whole book trying to escape the bodyguard because he/she doesn't think there is any danger even though it's incredibly obvious to everyone else. Bonus if the bodyguard character is female."
Our recommendations: Jen recommends Sexy/Dangerous (female bodyguard) by Beverly Jenkins, which is fabulous. Nana Malone has a few, one in her royals seris, and another is Bodyguard to the Billionaire (female bodyguard) -- also, listen to Nana talk about Royal Romance on an interstitial last season!. And! Try HelenKay Dimon's Leave Me Breathless (female bodyguard), Katee Robert's Thalanian Dynasty series (male bodyguard/MMF menage) and Anna Zabo's Reverb (trans male bodyguard).
Question 11: Molly from Washington has an AMA question about how to organize her Kindle books. She is also looking for a book that "Features a Grumpy/terse older brother’s friend (or older brother of friend) with smart mouth heroine, bonus points for SUPER HOT, some sort of road trip, or problem they have to solve much to their reluctance (trapped on a desert island?) basically Bowen and Mari 😂"
Our answer: : Jen wrote a long thread about how she organizes her Kindle, which you should just read on Twitter. But it takes a lot of time, so clear a day to do it! For the grumpy road trip question, Sarah recommends Right by Jana Aston. This is the second book in a series, the first one is called Wrong and you don't have to read them in order. Also, don't miss Tessa Bailey's Staking His Claim or Fix Her Up! Maybe try Mister McHottie by Pippa Grant. And...have you listened to our Road Trip interstitial?
Question 12: Hero from Paris, France (not Texas!) wants to know what trope would be, and then some books that take you on a "yellow brick road of emotions."
Our Recommendations: We ended up talking about the last books that made us cry. The last book Sarah read that made her cry was Sinner by Sierra Simone. For Jen, it was The Bride Test by Helen Hoang. Jen also thinks Sarah's books are pretty emotional, so start off with her first, Nine Rules to Break When Romancing the Rake. Finally, The Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie by Jennifer Ashley or Escorted by Claire Kent. Also, we're going to read Alexis Hall's For Real as a book that blooded Sarah, so stay tuned for that!
Question 13: Chris from Seattle wants to know how we keep track of all these books! Also, a book that "starts with the main character in jail."
Our recommendations: Jen recommends the book Hard Time by Cara McKenna. The entire Devil's Rock series by Sophie Jordan is fantastic, and the first one is actually called All Chained Up, but you're going to want to read them all. Sarah recommends My One and Only Duke by Grace Burrowes, which starts with the hero in Newgate. Another historical with the hero in jail is The Highwayman by Kerrigan Byrne. Hold by Claire Kent starts with both characters on a prison planet, and there is also an entire series of prison planet books by Emmy Chandler.
Question 14: Emily wants to know "How do you find time to read as much as you do? I’m a fast reader but can never seem to carve out enough time to read as much as I want." And also is looking for recommendations for books that are "deeply, utterly romantic and swoony and leaves you with a PROFOUND book hangover. Great, sexy banter is a plus!"
Our recommendations: Jen doesn't watch TV and Sarah starts a book every day. Don't be afraid to DNF! Book wise, Jen knows a book is a real winner if she rereads it, and some of her favorites are Everything I Left Unsaid and The Truth About Him by Molly O'Keefe (famously, this is the only duology/book with a cliffhanger that Jen has ever finished!), Thirsty by Mia Hopkins, Never Sweeter by Charlotte Stein, and she also rereads a lot of Kresley Cole. Sarah recommends Three Little Mistakes by Nikki Sloane.
Question 15: Rosa, Daughter of Mexican immigrants living in Oakland, CA wants to know "Is a historical romance where both main characters are people of color. Does this exist?"
Our recommendations: Some #OwnVoices historical authors you should check out are Beverly Jenkins, Alyssa Cole, Rebel Carter, Vanessa Riley, and Piper Huguley. Lydia San Andres has several historicals with Latinx characters, start with A Summer for Scandal. Also, check out the Decades series, which are African-American historicals that focus on each decade of American history. Each book has a different author, so you can check out lots of new writers. Jeannie Lin writes luscious historicals set in China. Forthcoming in 2020, Diana Quincy is coming out with books that feature Middle Eastern characters.
Question 16: Rachel from Kansas asks for a book that "Features a heroine who had breast cancer. Your podcast has helped me through my recovery."
Our recommendations: Jen recommends Hooked on You by Kate Meader which has a heroine had a double mastectomy. She is in recovery and does have a cancer scare after finding a lump in her armpit, but it is not cancer. Sarah recommends a contemporary by Brenna Aubrey called At Any Moment, and then When the Duke was Wicked, which is a historical by Lorraine Heath which is based on extensive medical research that is accurate to the time period. Although it's not breast cancer, Sarah references a Nikki Sloane book where the hero is recovering from cancer in another question on today's episode, and that one was Three Little Mistakes.
Question 17: Katrin from London would "like a book where the hero has a smaller 🍆 (penis)."
Our recommendation: Jen has one that she could think of, which is A Matter of Disagreement by E.E. Ottoman. But that is a difficult request! We are going to keep thinking about it.
Our last AMA was from Rosa, who also asked about historical romance with people of color, and she wants to know about the process of cover design.
Our answer: Sarah talked about the process and Jen described what she learned in her conversation with Reese Ryan. Sarah talked about how she does give some advice on colors and why the people in the art department needs visual information for making the best cover. For The Day of the Duchess, Sarah sent a photo of Cate Blanchette as guidance. Inspired by this quesiton, Jen did contact Harlequin and is interviewing someone at Harlequin about their cover design process, and that will be published at Kirkus in January 2020.
5.5: Road Trip Romances
We’ve got Doritos, a stack of Cosmo sex quizzes and an epic mixtape ready to go — Sarah and Jen are talking about road trips and the inevitable smooching that comes with them in romance!
Next week, we’re back to the Rage Demonarchy Duology with Kiss of A Demon King — where we get the full wrap up of the plot of the second in the duology, and the wrap up of the plot of Dark Desires After Dusk. We’ve seen Rydstrom total his McLaren and get abducted by Sabine, who is not only Queen of Illusions but also his Fated Mate and he’s not feeling great about this at all (Spoiler: We feel very great about this.) We’ll be joined by the fabulous Jenny Nordbak from The Wicked Wallflowers podcast for part of the conversation, and it will be a longer episode than usual because of that!
Get ready for the KoaDK read along at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books or your local indie. Also, the Audible versions of IAD are on sale right now -- and WORTH EVERY PENNY! Listen on Audio!
Show Notes
Texas is very big, everyone.
Here's some interesting facts about Starbucks.
Jen had no idea how posting horses worked until Elisabeth Lane asked on Twitter. (Sarah knew.)
Looking for books with carriage sex? Twitter has recs for you.
Learn more about the Gilded Age in America.
New York's Grand Central Station is absolutely magical.
Hildene, a museum of Lincoln's family home, has a full-scale reproduction of an amazing private rail car...It's amazing how someone on Twitter will always know the good things.
All about bustles.
Trading Places is a 1983 comedy with Eddie Murphy and Dan Ackroyd, and the blog Obscure Train Movies has an extensive break down of the train scenes from the movie.
The Ani Difranco poem Sarah mentioned is called Self-Evident.
Buy yourself a set of butterfly swords for $500. JK. That's probably a really bad idea.
Here's an overview of the Tang Dynasty, and its capital Chang'an.
If you haven't seen Mad Max Fury Road you should probably drop everything and take care of it.
In case you were wondering what the world looked like in 750, Time Maps has you covered.
Here's a list of rich heroines/poor heroes from goodreads.
A quick summary of Pygmalion, and if you happen to be in New York City, you can go see My Fair Lady at Lincoln Center.
Sarah talks about Tom Hardy a lot on Twitter. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Apparently, it is Low and High Fantasy, and Reddit talked about the differences between them.
There's a Slurpee twitter account, which shouldn't really surprise anyone if you think about it.
