S03.15: Menage Romance with Katee Robert
It’s getting colder out there, so we’re getting hot in here! We’ve got the fabulous Katee Robert with us to talk about ménage romance and why she writes them so well. We get to the bottom of why it always gets shoved into the taboo corner of romance, the fantasy of the trope, and why we like it so very much. Also, we topple the TBR (as usual)!
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!
Slight change of schedule to accommodate a fun thing we’re up to…next week, just in time for your Thanksgiving sloth, we’re announcing our best books of 2020! The following week, we’re reading Sally Thorne’s The Hating Game! Get it at Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Apple or at your local indie via bookshop.org.
Show Notes
Welcome Katee Robert!
You can’t just make wikipedia pages about yourself.
High fantasy has real meaning.
When talking about romance, M and F (and NB for nonbinary) are used to inform readers about the gender identity of the main characters. This is an imperfect shorthand, but at this point in our understanding of sex and gender, it seems like the most respectful way to acknowledge that there is a huge range of sexual identities that exist for people of all genders. For example, if we call a book with two women “a lesbian romance” it might not take into account that one character is bisexual, which adds to bi-erasure. So if a romance is labeled M/F, we know there is a man and a woman in a romantic relationship, but that leaves room for the sexual identity of the characters to be fully explored in the book. In romance with more than two people, the order of the letters matters. A book that is MFM would mean that the two men do not have a sexual relationship with each other, while FMM or MMF means that they do.
There is nothing taboo about polyamory.
Jen liked the progression of menage in Elle Kennedy’s Out of Uniform series. The series starts with a non-swords crossing threesome, Hot and Bothered. The observing one was Heat of the Night (available in the Hot and Heavy anthology), where Ryan watches Annabelle have sex with his roommate. But as the series progresses, there is contact between the SEALs in Feeling Hot and a fully formed menage relationship in Hotter Than Ever.
Ellora’s Cave and Samhain were two of the original (and now shuttered) indie publishers that specialized in erotic romance and/or taboo romance.
That article in Harpers about how men don’t have friends.
The Anita Blake series went through a lot of changes, so just go with Katee’s method and start with #9, Obsidian Butterfly.
Katee will be back to talk about morality chain in 2021.
Next week, we’ll be airing our Best of 2020 episode, and then the first week of December, we’ll be discussing The Hating Game.
S03.05: A Heart of Blood and Ashes by Milla Vane: Because Moon Reasons
This week, we begin the Season 3 read alongs, and we announce the first wave of work of romance we want to honor -- joy. Romance is supposed to be fun, and sometimes, especially now, as 2020 rages around us, it can be difficult to remember that.
So, we begin talking about joy this week with a book that gave us both immense joy, Milla Vane's A Heart of Blood and Ashes. This one is a long one, y'all, so get ready. We're all over the place because we loved it so much, and it's a ride. Eric wants us to tell you that this is going to feel like an old-school IAD episode, so if you haven't read the book, good luck! We love you!
Next week, we’ve got an interstitial for you! And the week after, we’re deep diving on Alisha Rai’s Serving Pleasure, which is a fantastic erotic romance. Find it at Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Apple Books or Bookshop.org.
Also -- Sarah has a contemporary novella out September 15th! Preorder the Naughty Brits anthology, wherever you get your ebooks: Amazon, Nook, Kobo, Apple, or in print at bookshop.org.
Show Notes
Please listen and suscribe to the Black Romance Podcast, a fascinating oral history of Black romance authors. For more recent interviews with authors, check out The Wicked Wallflowers podcast. There are so many amazing romance podcasts for every type of listener.
After her death, readers shared their memories of their first Johanna Lindsey novels using the hashtag #MyFirstJohanna.
Alisha Rai, we demand to know the name of your hairdresser.
California and the entire West Coast and experiencing the worst fire season in 100 years. Climate Change is real.
Sarah asked for maps, and Jen said "reading strategies are for everyone" because they are! While we're at it, making mental movies, models, and visual images of what you read is one of the best reading strategies out there and if you have little kids, teach them to do this and it will help them be better readers their entire life.
This amazing thread by Alexandra Erin is about how sometimes genre is determined by plot and sometimes it's determined by setting.
The audiobook for A Heart of Blood and Ashes is great, but Jen really recommends you slow it down to .9 if you want it at "regular" speaking speed.
Ilona Andrews writes amazing books, and Jen wants you to read the Hidden Legacy series. IN FACT, NEVADA AND ROGAN DO KISS in the first book, but they don't do the business until the second.
If you missed our bodily autonomy episode, we were real mad about ridiculous anti-abortion laws and we talked about how romance taught us about birth control and our bodies.
Some interesting thoughts about poison, and the myth of the woman as poisoner and who is likely to use it. This is realted to the idea that manipulation (or as Maddek might call it, "sly tongue") is often used by the powerless as a way of getting around patriarchal power structures that silence them.
"She rescues him right back" is, of course, a reference to Pretty Woman.
Up next, Serving Pleasure by Alisha Rai.
Buy Fated Mates swag by clicking on the Merch link at the top of this page.
Did someone say map?
Did someone say map?
Lost Limb Count (SO MANY SPOILERS!)
For those listeners who missed Season One of Fated Mates, Kresley Cole really enjoyed removing limbs from her characters (They mostly regenerated). She liked it so much, that we tracked the lost limbs from the books in what is now an epic lost limb counter.
Also, if you missed Season One, it's our pure joy in your earholes. We recommend it.
Legs & Feet
Years earlier, Yvenne attempted to escape with her mother. In retaliation, her father and brother shatter her knee. It never heals properly and she will never run again.
At the end, Yvenne is trapped in her tower, and from that window she shoots her father Zhalen right through his knee and calf with her arrow, shattering his knee as hers had been.
Arms, Hands, and Fingers
Immediately before the book begins, Yvenne used a bow and arrow to kill her brother Lazen. To punish her, her father cut off the first and second fingers of her right hand so she can never draw a bow again.
Head, Face, and Eyes
Yvenne throws a dagger at her brother Bazir’s eye. Although her aim is perfect, the handle hits him in the eye rather than the blade. Later that night, Bazir and his men attack, and Maddek rips out Bazir’s tongue, stabs and kills Bazir with his own poisoned sword.
Torso
When Zhalen realized that Yvenne sent a message to Maddek’s parents, he whipped her back and left numerous scars.
When Maddek kidnaps her from the wedding caravan, Yvenne stabs her brother Cezan in the back with her dagger.
When Zhalen’s men come for her and kill Banek, she rips the arrows from the fallen bodies around her in order to shoot back at her father’s men.
Total Body Destruction
After Yvenne’s brother Aezil poisons Maddek, he is too weak to wield a weapon. He crawls to the edge of the cliff, drops his sword into the drepa (an evil bird dinosaur kind of thing) nest which causes them to attack and kill Aezil while Maddek and his wolf play dead.
Zhalen tricks Yvenne into drinking three doses of half-moon milk. She was not sure she was pregnant, so it forced her to have a heavy period or perhaps an abortion. She is overcome with grief.
After Yvenne shatters Zhalen’s kneecap with her arrow, Maddek rips out his tongue, shreds his cock and balls with his silver claws, and then tears out his heart. He then uses Zhalen’s own axe to cut off his head, which he then presents to Yvenne as a sign of his love and devotion.
S02.36: Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie: I wanna mash their faces together.
It’s a Jen week this week! We’re reading Bet Me this week, the book many people put right on the top of Best Contemporary Romance lists — one of Jen’s favorite books and a book Sarah liked to tell people she loved but has now discovered she’d never actually read. Minerva and Cal are absolutely terrific, as is this book, and we’re having a rollicking conversation about fat rep, about friendships in romance, about food (Sarah’s love language), about shoes, and about why grown people at little league games are a weird thing.
We love having you with us! — subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform and like/review the podcast, please!
In two weeks, it’s erotica week! We’re reading a book that Sarah loves, Nikki Sloane’s Three Little Mistakes, which we’ve talked about before on the podcast, but we want to deep dive on. Get Three Little Mistakes from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, or Kobo … and don’t forget your favorite indie, which is probably shipping books right now and definitely needs your patronage!
Also, if you love the music in this or any of our episodes, check out our Spotify playlist, which includes it all!
Show Notes
We're big fans of Carly Lane-Perry from SyFy Fangirls. We especially like her newsletter, Kissing Books--Jen wrote about grandmothers in romance.
Is it criticism if it's all positive?
Baby Foot is sold out, but there are lots of other terrifying alternatives you can try.
Janet Dailey is famous for plagiarizing Nora Roberts. Before that happened, she wrote the Americana series, with one book set in every state. The one set in Ohio was called The Widow and the Wastrel, and Jen's twitter thread about the book unearthed several early covers for the book.
Sarah asked if Jenny Crusie is from Ohio? She is.
This was Sarah's first time reading Bet Me, just like it was Jen's first time reading Gentle Rogue.
Minerva and Diana probably wish they weren't named after Roman goddesses.
So: you want to be an actuary. You want to learn about chaos theory. You're wondering about the gender essentialsim of a book with a title like Men are from Mars; Women are from Venus. You want to learn more about the band Cake.
Penn and Teller explain the Cup and Ball trick. Oh, and did you hear Sarah mention it's going to appear in Daring and the Duke? Pre-order from WORD in Brooklyn, and you'll recieve a free limited edition yellow Fated Mates sticker.
With these many characters, it might as well be a Robert Atlman movie.
Learn about dyslexia, our understanind of which has dramatically changed over time. Erin McCarthy's Hard and Fast (2009) also has a dyslexic hero.
Another utterly fantastic family dinner gone wrong scene is in Her Naughty Holiday by Tiffany Reisz.
Jeanne Lin knows how to write some really sexy kissing.
The fairy godmother is a hallmark of Cinderella, and Sarah's own magical modiste is Madame Hebert.
There are so many homages to great rom-coms of the 90s. Diana loves the music from Julia Roberts movies. Elvis Costello's She appeared in Notting Hill, the lead up to the big wedding was like Four Weddings and a Funeral, and of course Diana turns into a Runaway Bride. Min's visit to the magical modiste is like one of the greatest makeover sequences in movies, Pretty Woman. The "I love your shoes" was like The American President. All the wolf references, of course reminded us of Moonstruck. Cynthie's sexy clothes at the little league game were reminiscent of this great scene in Bull Durham.
Order buttons from Kelly in Jen's shop, and t-shirts from Jordan Dene.
Next up, we'll be reading Three Little Mistakes from Nikki Sloan.