S03.22: For Real by Alexis Hall: Jen had to Google Some Things
It’s 2021, and we’re back on the reading train with one of Sarah’s favorite erotic romances ever, Alexis Hall’s For Real. We dig into sex on the page, how sex and identity work together to make an erotic romance an erotic romance, power dynamics, and the difference between fear & risk. Enjoy!
You still have time to buy the Fated Mates Best of 2020 Book Pack 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! Order here!
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’re returning to Curvy Girls for an interstitial, and then we’re headed on to Naima Simone’s Blackout Billionaires series! In order, the books are: The Billionaire's Bargain, Black Tie Billionaire, and Blame It on the Billionaire. Find them at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, or Apple Books.
Show Notes
We won Georgia, but then white supremacist terrorists attacked the Capitol. If you want to talk to your kids, here are some suggestions from Facing History and Ourselves, this is a resource for teachers but I think any parent with tweens and teens will find it helpful. If you have little kids, Jen’s friend Elisa is a children’s librarian and recommend the books When a Bully is President and What We Believe: A Black Lives Matter Principles Activity Book.
Answering machines don’t exist anymore. (Well, they probably do, but no one we know uses them.)
For Real won the 2016 RITA for Best Erotic romance, and Alexis Hall wrote a blog entry about it.
Fear vs. Risk, the short version. Or maybe you want to read whole book about fear, called Nerve by Eva Holland. Jen knows Eva from another online space, but they've never met in person.
Bluebeard’s attic had some things Jen had to google.
Eric Selinger is a romance guy, but also a poetry guy at DePaul. Jen took a workshop with Eric a million years ago (before she started doing romance stuff), and the guy who said “poetry is a laboratory for sentences” was poet Baron Wormser, author of the best book Jen’s ever read about teaching and learning poetry, A Surge of Language.
Jen was thinking about what happens when romance authors are forced to read the sex scenes instead of the feelings scenes, like when Stacey Abrams on Stephen Colbert.
Sarah talked about chastity belts at the end, and we here at Fated Mates strongly advise against giving the internet the power over your chastity belts and cock cages. SAFETY FIRST!
Derek Craven Day is coming, do you have you merch ready? T-shirts and buttons and listen to our discussion of Dreaming of You, of course.
S03.19: The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever by Julia Quinn: Because everyone else is doing the Bridgertons
BRIDGERTON is nearly here! Make sure you have batteries in your remote and your Netflix subscription is up to date, because on 12/25, Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton series is coming to your TV courtesy of Shonda Rhimes! We are EXTREMELY EXCITED, and in honor of the series, we’re reading Sarah’s favorite Julia Quinn romance which, *surprise!* isn’t a Bridgerton book!
If you want Bridgerton deep dives, do not miss the series at Learning the Tropes with our amazing friends Erin & Clayton. But we’re reading The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever, and we’ve got a LOT to say!
Content note: This book and episode discusses miscarriage and pregnancy.
You still have time to buy the Fated Mates Best of 2020 Book Pack 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! Order here!
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’ve got an interstitial, and the following week…honestly, who knows? It’s December! It could be ANYTHING!
Show Notes
Can we brag for a minute? Our #FatedStates phone bank appeared in the Washington Post this week! Also, if you're looking for phone banking opportunites, we have one tonight 12/16 at 5 central, and another on 1/4/2021. Join us.
December 25th is going to be a great day. Bridgerton drops on Netflix and Wonder Woman 1984 will be on HBO Max.
If you want a podcast tackling all of the Bridgerton books, check out Learning the Tropes. Sarah was on the episode for Sir Philip with Love, which is her favorite. Jen’s favorite is The Viscount Who Loved Me, and if it’s yours maybe you’d like a “mallet of death” t-shirt from Linda. Her shop is on hiatus right now, but she'll be back in the new year.
Here’s the Ted talk with Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love.
Does Olivia get her own book? Of course she does, it’s called What Happens in London.
Sarah’s favorite Jane Austen is Emma. Jen’s favorite Jane Austen is none of them.
If you want to see some house party games in action, watch Season 4 of the Crown.
Megan Markle recently wrote about her miscarriage in the New York Times. Jen wrote about miscarriage back when she blogged for The Book Queen, and it includes discussion of Sarah’s book, Day of the Duchess.
The book with all the former heroes sharing their childbirth war stories is...well, we don't remember. If you do, please tell us!
S03.17: The Hating Game by Sally Thorne: Lucy! Obviously Danny didn't send the roses!
There aren’t many recent romances you can point to and categorically label as game changers, but Sally Thorne’s The Hating Game definitely fits this bill. We talk about all the ways we love it, about sparkling dialogue and witty writing and what makes a romcom and how this book changed the cover game for a generation of romance. Oh, and yes, we get to the bottom (jk, there is no bottom) of Jen’s issues with first-person present.
You still have time to buy the Fated Mates Best of 2020 Book Pack 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! Order before December 5th for Christmas delivery!
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’ve got an interstitial, and the following week, in advance of the launch of the Bridgerton series on Netflix, we’re reading Sarah’s favorite Julia Quinn novel, The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever. Get it at Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Apple or at your local indie via bookshop.org.
Fated States
Show Notes
Bridget Jones’s Diary came out in 1996 and the movie came out in 2001.
Enemies to Lovers is a completely beloved romance trope. Rivals to lovers lives within the larger trope and is very fun because it is often a perfectly matched pair on an even playing field. Sarah wrote Brazen & the Beast after being inspired by The Hating Game.
Here’s what we mean when we say situational comedy.
Jen hates present tense, but of course everyone should write what’s right for them.
Is it chick lit or is it women’s fiction? Why do these labels even exist? Just go back and read The Girl’s Guide to Hunting and Fishing or Good in Bed by Jennifer Weiner.
We don’t talk about voice that much, but maybe we should.
There was a short lived Harlequin chick lit line called Red Dress Ink in 2001.
Here’s what Jen teaches her kids about characterization.
The Slate article about interiors and a very thorough rebuttal from Felicia Davin.
We talked about another hero who came up through Twilight fanfic.
If you like a scene where one main character tells off the family on behalf of their beloved, you should read Her Naughty Holiday by Tiffany Reisz.
In two weeks, we'll be reading The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever. We are getting ready for Bridgerton and Wonder Woman 1984.
If you're interested in the Fated Mates Best of 2020 book pack and you want it delivered by Christmas, make sure you order it by 12/5.
S03.08: Serving Pleasure by Alisha Rai: He didn't buy curtains, so frankly it's on him.
This week, we’re talking about a book and author who has given both of us a whole lot of joy — Alisha Rai! We’re reading Serving Pleasure, which is the story of the most relatable of heroines and the outrageously hot painter who moves in next door! Voyeurism, sex positivity and family in romance are all on the table here. We love it.
We’re putting read alongs on hold for a bit to spend the next five weeks hanging out with some of our favorite people and talking about books and tropes that give us joy, so we hope you’ll join us and keep a pen handy so you can add to your TBR list as needed!
Also! We had our first Fated States phonebanking session with Indivisible.org on Saturday — it was great and we loved seeing so many of your amazing faces! Please join us, fellow Fated Maters, and special guests for Fated States Phonebanking Part 2 this Saturday, October 3rd at 3pm Eastern to call North Carolina! It’s easy, not scary, and there will be prizes!
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!
Show Notes
It was March of 2015 (a kinder, gentler time) when Jen first Sarah Wendell talking about Alisha Rai on NPR. Later that summer, Sarah put Serving Pleasure in her Washington Post romance column. It was the first self-published book ever reviewed in the Post.
Just this week, Carole Bell wrote about why readers don't pay enough attention to indie and self-published romance for Shondaland.
Pregnant people don't actually get the greatest treatment in the workplace, so thanks Akira.
Is it all that great to be an artist's muse?
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.
S03.03: Fifty Shades of Grey by EL James: Romance Has Gotten Hotter And I Think I Like It
If we’re going to talk about the last 10 years of romance — what we’d call modern romance — it’s basically impossible to do that out in the world without someone who doesn’t know much about the genre asking about EL James’s Fifty Shades of Grey. This week, Fated Mates is talking about Fifty Shades. Or, rather, we’re talking about what we're really talking about when we talk about Fifty Shades of Grey.
At no point in this discussion do we talk about tampons. You’re welcome.
Next week, we’ve got an interstitial for you! And the week after, we’re deep diving on Milla Vane’s A Heart of Blood and Ashes, which is a long fantasy romance. If you are a reader who needs content warnings, you might want to check out reviews on Goodreads.
Find it at Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Apple Books or Bookshop.org.
Show Notes
There are honestly so many articles about Fifty Shades that Jen couldn't possibly even link to them. But the one about the increase in ER visits, necktie sales up 23%, and Jen wrote about the history of romance between Fabio and Fifty Shades.
Drunk Austen went through a rather spectacular break-up last week; we promise never to do this and swear we are full legal partners in our current venture.
Fanfiction brought Christina Lauren, Tara Sue Me, Sally Thorne and so many others to us. And lots of great BDSM was written after Fifty Shades by too many authors to count, but many think of The Original Sinners series by Tiffany Reisz as being truly excellent.
There's a reason why women hate dealing with car salesmen and mechanics. Jen wants you to know that if you're in Chicago and looking for a mechanic, the guys at Ashland Tire and Auto will never treat you like that.
Perhaps you're interested in whether or not Fifty Shades of Grey was copyright infringement?
The 2010 He-cession vs the 2020 she-cession.
Sarah reviewed Grey for the Washington Post, and just a few weeks ago, Midnight Sun (Twilight from Edward's Point of View was released.
Ope. We forgot to talk about Thomas Hardy, so just read this article from The Guardian instead.
Mrs. Robinson refers to a character in the 1967 film The Graduate.
Flat Stanley is a character in a children's book, but here we are talking about the theory that readers insert themselves into a book and become the main character. Many people believed that teenage girls reading Twilight imaged themselves as Bella, for example, but that's deeply rooted in misogny. In Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women, Laura Kinsale suggested that women reading romance imagine themselves as the hero rather than the heroine.
Fifty Shades of Grey sold a lot of fucking copies. A lot. A lot!
Lori Perkins was the editor of Fifty Writers on Fifty Shades of Grey. You can also check out Hard Core Romance: Fifty Shades of Grey, Bestsellers, and Society by Eva Illouz.
Jen refers to Christian as the Marlboro Man, a symbol of a kind of gruff, male, American renegade loner.
BDSM contracts are a thing!
Where does Kink come from? And what Fifty Shades gets right and wrong about kink and BDSM.
In two weeks: A Heart of Blood and Ashes by Milla Vane. Has at The Book Pushers has a reviw with content warnings, so check that if you need to.
Sarah has a contemporary novella in the Naught Brits anthology which comes out September 15, preorder today!
S02.43: Daring & the Duke: It's Grace and Ewan Week!
Sarah has a new book out, so Jen is playing host this week, and Sarah is playing guest, and Jen is really outrageously good at it…move over Terry Gross! Find Daring & the Duke wherever books are sold, including Amazon, Kobo, B&N, Apple Books, Books-a-Million, or at your local indie via Bookshop.org.
Show Notes
You can listen to all of our walk-up music suggestions on the Fated Mates Spotify playlist. But in case you've never seen The Music Man, the song Marian the Librarian is very cute.
Sarah wants to be a guest on Fresh Air. (Jen obviously does, too, but has to actual cause to be interviewed. So #TeamSarah.) Do we know anyone who knows Terry Gross?
If you can't wait, you can listen to us on the Deerfield Public Libary podcast, but we're going to drop it into our own feed later this month. So no worries.
Jen thinks Sarah is in her imperial period--a phrase Jen learned from listening to the Hit Parade podcast.
The past year have had some great books about rage and feminism: The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls, Good and Mad, and Hood Feminism are three we recommend.
We put children in factories all day, so of course kids fought, too. Sarah recommends The Fair Fight, a historical novel, about bareknuckle fighting kids.
Statler & Waldorf are the two old dudes up on the balcony during The Muppet Show.
The Victorian Age wasn't so great for women and other marginalized people.
That Jeffrey Epstein documentary is on Netflix.
Ewan's year-long break was inspired by The Player.
The myth of Apollo and Cyrene, and also a little about neo-classicism. One of our favorite myth retellings of the past few years, is Circe by Madeline Miller. Jessica Avery presented a paper at the Popular Culture Association about mythology in Sarah's books.
The Master's Tools will Never Dismantle the Master's House is the name of the essay by Audre Lorde. You should read it.
S02.40: A Kingdom of Dreams by Judith McNaught: A Romance Reader's Romance
It’s the last read-along of Season Two! We’re reading Judith McNaught’s A Kingdom of Dreams, which is the actual book that blooded Sarah when she was wee. This week we’re talking old-school romance, what McNaught was doing with this book and this hero who is so unlike all the heroes who came before him, and why (book) Jennifer is the perfect namesake for (our) Jennifer.
We might not be doing read alongs until August, but that doesn’t mean your TBR won’t still be groaning under the weight of our recommendations — we’ve got a bunch of rec episodes lined up for summer….oh, and did you know Sarah has a book out in three weeks? Order it 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
Marty McFly, played by Michael J. Fox, was the main character in an excellent 1985 time-traveling movie called Back to the Future.
Sarah's next book, Daring and the Duke, comes out at the end of the month. Preorder from WORD in Brooklyn and you'll recieve a limited edition yellow Fated Mates sticker.
Whitney, My Love is an early McNaught historical romance that the author changed because in the original text, the hero rapes and horsewhips the heroine. The hero of A Kingdom of Dreams, Royce Westmoreland, is one of Clayton's ancestors, but we think he is McNaught correcting the record on the Alpha hero. In the IAD novella episode, we talked about the changes in Whitney, My Love. Whitney also came up in the Alpha episode that started the season, because it's impossible to talk about the primordial alphas without talking about the early Alpha.
More on the four books that comprise the Westmoreland series.
Who do we talk to get A Kingdom of Dreams on audio? Oh, you can email a request to Audible.
Jen learned about 1497 on Wikipedia. As one does.
Margaret Tudor was Henry VII's eldest daughter, married to James IV of Scotland to bring peace to the border. Fun fact, once James IV died (thanks for nothing, Henry VIII, you were the worst), Margaret acted as Regent until James V of Scotland, but when that didn't work out, she married two other dudes and also staged a coup, so we don't really know why we don't all sing her praise always. Yeah, we do. Patriarchy. Anyway. Sarah didn't learn about Margaret Tudor on Wikipedia, but you can.
All about the bliaut. Sarah would like you to know she looked up bliauts on Wikipedia after we recorded and now she's an expert. High-fives to all Wikipedia editors. Nothing without you.
Tinctures, tonics, and teas is Fated Mates shorthand for historicals where medicine women knew various herbal remedies for preventing or ending pregnancy. Or in this case, causing life-long impotence.
We talked a little bit about the freedom of setting a romance in Medieval times on our Scottish Romance episode, so head over and listen to that if you're interested.
Jen's obsessed with the idea of the Vietnam Hero, but doesn't know where to start. Probably with finishing the Ken Burns Vietnam documentary.
What would Jurgen Klopp say?
While we're talking about Judith McNaught and Wikipedia, do not sleep on her page. Divorce celebrations, Coors Brewing Company tie-ins, the invention of the non-clinch romance cover, moving to Dallas after going there on book tour...it has it all.
Support Black Lives Matter and bail funds in your city or state.
Register to vote. Already registered? Double check.
S02.38: Three Little Mistakes by Nikki Sloane: I Think About Kool Aid A Lot
We’re talking about one of the best writers in erotic romance this week—Join us for a deep dive into Nikki Sloane’s Three Little Mistakes, which is one of Sarah’s favorite romances. We’re talking about kink, kink shaming, how to make sex discussions less awkward with new partners and how erotic romance is doing some of the best work in the genre right now…and we’re also going to talk about fruity drinks.
In two weeks, we’re officially OFFICIALLY reading Judith McNaught’s A Kingdom of Dreams! Get ready for Sarah’s favorite historical of all time. It’s HAPPENING. Find A Kingdom of Dreams at 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
Here's Jen Porter on Twitter talking about erotic romance. But just this week, Robin Bradford (winner of the RWA Librarian of the year!) was also talking about why it's a problem that we don't have a clear definition for erotic romance.
Getting RWA to recoginize erotic romance was such a struggle that there was actually a petition! But now we can (hopefully) all move on to bigger and better things with The Vivian.
YA books with queer characters are some of the most challenged books in America.
Sarah also mentioned Sordid, which has non-consensual sex and therefore needs a content warning.
Nikki Sloane used to live in Chicago and now lives in Kentucky. Looks like Jen's friendship plans have just been foiled.
Having sex in a porche sounds excruciating, and so does having sex with a porche (WTF!), but Men's Health Magazine to the rescue with this handy (lol) list of best cars to have sex in.
Maybe when we can go places again, you might want to rent or buy a yurt in Hawaii.
Avoid those sugary drinks for yourself and your kids. If you are in Chicago and looking for a dentist, Jen LOVES her dentist Dr. Deaver and Dr. Casimir at Classic Smiles on South Wabash. And she really buried the lede and forgot to mention that Dr. Deaver is not only an amazing dentist, but he was President Obama's dentist!
Next time: A Kingdom of Dreams.
Preorder Daring and the Duke from WORD in Brooklyn and you'll get a sweet limited edition yellow Fated Mates sticker.
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.
S02.32: Taking the Heat by Victoria Dahl: Perfect Books are Perfect
We’re back to a more recent book that taught Sarah about contemporary romance, Victoria Dahl’s Taking the Heat. Use headphones for this one, because we’re talking about the best BJs in romance, the power of a great sex scene, and how we want you all to be in a sex pantheon. We’re also talking about flawed characters, true cinnamon rolls, and why Victoria Dahl is a fricken great author.
We love having you with us! — subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform and like/review the podcast, please!
In two weeks, we’re reading Sandra Brown! Jen and Sarah will be reading Texas! Chase, but it’s dealers’ choice! Pick your favorite old Sandra Brown or ask us for a rec on Twitter or Instagram! Maybe you want That Rana Look? Or Slow Heat in Heaven? Or French Silk? You can find them wherever books are sold (but the Texas! series isn’t in ebook format yet, sadly) — and don’t forget your favorite indie!
Also, if you love the music in this or any of our episodes, check out our Spotify playlist, which includes it all!
Show Notes
Sure, Sarah's new computer makes her feel like Lightning McQueen, but it's her new version of Scrivener that is the most exciting thing.
Jen isn't the only one who likes Starburst jelly beans.
Sarah has planner envy. We both love Blackwing pencils. If you also love Blackwing pencils, we highly recommend this video by comedian David Rees on Artisinal Pencil Sharpening. There's also a book! We don't quite understand washi tape, but we're happy for those who love it. If you want to talk planners, Nisha Sharma, Kate Clayborn, and Tracey Livesay are your people.
RIP BEA 2020, we look forward to 2021.
Jen is addicted to jigsaw puzzles, just like everyone else in the world.
The city junk problem is actually pretty great.
Victoria Dahl also writes as Victoria Helen Stone. Jen rediscovered contemporary romance with the Tumble Creek series, and also the Fast Track series by Erin McCarthy.
Gabe's job was to introduce eBooks to the library. We've come a long way, baby.
Jackson, Wyoming is the setting of this book, and apparently there's a lot to do there -- like skiing and rock climbing. It's all outdoorsy, so we can't really speak to it.
The big city to small town trope is a cornerstone of romance. It's just not a corner we visit that often.
The advice columnist is experiencing a huge resurgence these days, and in the age of the internet, everyone can give advice.
Some useful resources if someone you know is sharing their thoughts of suicidal ideation.
That Elizabeth Hoyt book with Winter Makepeace is called Thief of Shadows, and it also has a great blow job scene. In case you're into that sort of thing.
Watch the Ending of Crocodile Dundee if you've never had the pleasure.
If you are looking to try a new podcast app, we both love Overcast. Along with being a great listening device, you can use it to find and share any podcast clips online!
Preorder Daring and the Duke! Support your local indie bookstore, Sarah's is WORD in Brooklyn and Jen's is 57th Street Books in Chicago. And everyone's is Love's Sweet Arrow or The Ripped Bodice.
Next time, it's choose your own Sandra Brown adventure. We'll both read Texas! Chase, which believe it or not isn't on Kindle, but it is on audio! We'll also post a thread of some other Sandra Brown favorites. And if straight thriller is your thing, try OutFox, which is the one Sarah's mom enjoyed.
S02.28: “It’s Sinister, right?! - Devil's Bride by Stephanie Laurens
This week we’re reading a favorite of both Sarah & Jen — Stephanie Laurens’s Devil’s Bride! We’re so excited to talk about ridiculous (we mean amazing) nicknames, about 30 page sex scenes, and about how we crushed our SATs thanks to romances like this one! We’re also hoping you are keeping a safe distance from others and washing your hands lots!
We love having you with us! — subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform and like/review the podcast, please!
Next week, we’re reading Susan Elizabeth Phillips’s Nobody’s Baby But Mine, and we cannot WAIT. We know it’s tough to get it in print, but find it in e at your local library or at: Amazon (free in Kindle Unlimited!), Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, or your local indie.
Show Notes
Please stay inside and stay safe if you can, and remember not to believe screenshots from your cousins.
Here are some interesting and well-sourced tweets about coronavirus from a Fos (Friend of Sarah).
Want to know the other books Jen ordered back in 2001? It was Grand Passion by Jane Ann Krennz, Prince of Swords Anne Stuart, and Innocence by Suzanne Forester. She still swears she didn't read any of them.
Captain Jack's Woman was Stephanie Laurens' debut novel, not Devil's Bride. But it's the Bar Cynster that made her such a popular writer.
Sometimes (ok, a lot) Jen shit-posts on twitter about conflict and writing. Sarah can't always have eyes on her, sorry.
Jen thinks it was Amanda Quick that brought back old-fashioned names, but the only truly great Sylvesteris from disco.
"Eyes on stalks" is a real phrase, and so is rapaciously. On the other hand, here's a bunch of sex scene euphamisms.
The Cynsters were at Waterloo, so we're not sure why busting through the hymen is such work for them.
All about the Greek chorus.
Lady Osbaldestone does have her own books, as do Devil and Honoria's kids.
Veronica Mars illustrates the fan service problem.
Jen is obsessed with the idea of "the imperial period" for musicians--and other kids of artists.
Next time, we'll be reading Nobody's Baby But Mine by Susan Elizabeth Phillips.
S02.25: Asking For Trouble: Tessa Bailey is the Queen of Dirty Talk
This week we're mixing it up, talking about an author more than a specific book -- the Queen of Dirty Talk herself, Tessa Bailey. But we're not just talking about the sexybits -- we're also talking about working class heroes, women and worry and how awesome it is to watch authors evolve.
We love having you with us! — subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform and like/review the podcast if you’re so inclined!
In two weeks, we’re reading a book that blooded both Sarah and Jen — and approximately 50% of Romancelandia, we think -- Stephanie Laurens's Devil's Bride, starring Devil Cynster, who also happens to be the only romance hero Sarah's husband can name (yes, even now). Find it at: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, or your local indie.
Show Notes
Sarah was heading to Birmingham for the Southern Voices Book Festival. The last time she was there, it was when she was a kid going to a Science Olympiad competition. Based on the description of that event, Jen suspects that she was outside orienteering. She's going to see Rachel Hawkins and Naima Simone!
Meanwhile, Jen went to see Bug by Tracy Letts at the Steppenwolf Theater, which is known for being the home theater of John Malkovich and also where hope goes to die.
Jen wrote about Johanna Lindsey and her New York Times obituary in a column for Kirkus.
The hero of Protecting What's His is Derek Tyler, which is Jen's second favorite romance Derek. Derek and Ginger also appear in a follow-up novella, Protecting What's Theirs. Derek also appears as a secondary character in the Crossing the Lines series, where he assembles a team of ex-cons and misfits as a special crime fighting team. Ginger's sister gets her own book in Unfixable.
The rise of eBooks made room for indie publishing and small presses like Entangled. Here's the story of how Barabara Freethy took advantage of the Kindle revolution.
Enemies to Lovers is one of the most beloved romance tropes. Jen is going to talk about her whole energy theory in an upcoming Kirkus column.
This is a romance that deals with class in an unusual way--she's the poor little rich girl, while he's working two jobs because of family obligations to his siblings.
Tessa Bailey is the Queen of Dirty Talk. She just is. Jen's favorite is Duke from Worked Up, who is a perfect grunting hero.
Jen noticed that several motifs that appear in Asking for Trouble appear in other books -- for example, there is a trip to Atlantic City in Worked Up, and connecting doors in a hotel room in Driven by Fate.
Sarah identifies "heroine as rock" as part of Tessa Bailey's core story, Jen noticed the pull between familial duty and individual needs. At first Sarah thought Tessa's most recent book, Love Her or Lose Her, doesn't fit into the core story...but after talking it through, she thinks it fits perfectly.
Sarah mentioned the one with a hero who is a recovering alcoholic called Indecent Exposure. Jen also loved it and reviewed it for The Book Queen.
Some advice in case you ever need to stop a wedding.
Buy buttons and stickers from Kelly at Jen's shop and the newly available full line of t-shirts from Jordandene.
Listen to this week's music selections and peruse this episode's transcript.
Next time on Fated Mates, we'll be reading Devil's Bride by Stephanie Laurens.
TRANSCRIPT
Sarah MacLean 0:00
Yeah, I'm big mad. I told Eric we were we were having a late addition to the to the podcast schedule this week.
Jennifer Prokop 0:14
I told Darryl the same thing. I was like, look, so I'm recording tonight and he's like, "only one episode?" I was like, "Yes, it will be roughly 800 hours long."
Sarah MacLean 0:22
I know. You'll never see me again.
Jennifer Prokop 0:24
My fury will not be contained.
Sarah MacLean 0:30
Body autonomy, Jennifer.
Jennifer Prokop 0:33
It's all a girl wants
Sarah MacLean 0:37
I'm just a girl standing in front of the world, asking for you to get your hands out of my uterus.
Jennifer Prokop 0:44
You know, I used to say "my uterus" a lot like people be like, "Why do--" "I'm like my uterus!" And I think back then there are some men in my life who thought it was like charming or funny. I'm like, "Did you think I was kidding? Motherfucker. Get your hands out of my fucking uterus."
Sarah MacLean 1:03
Yeah. Well, Victoria Dahl had this great tweet today about hysteria. And how hysteria is the truth that they always spoke of, but never really wanted to see. And I was like that feels right to me today. So you guys the world is aflame again. It's 2019. So like, again still, I was on the subway today and someone said to me, "I just sometimes wonder like, Am I drinking tea on the Titanic? And is it before or after we hit the iceberg?" Like, this is all fair.
Jennifer Prokop 1:40
Yeah, it's how it feels, right? There's a thing that we talked about at school where it's like, like "the bomb face," right? Something goes so wrong that you just have that thousand-yard stare. And I feel at some point, it's me and every woman I know. And I just want to say I think a lot about the women who live in states where, this, they're on the front lines.
Sarah MacLean 2:07
Yeah. So wait. I think we should, You probably know by now what we're talking about and who we are. If not, this is going to be a crash landing into Fated Mates with Sarah and Jen. I'm Sarah MacLean. I write romance novels. I read romance novels. I like to talk about romance novels.
Jennifer Prokop 2:28
Yeah, and I'm Jennifer Prokop. And I talk about romance on Twitter, and I'm a teacher and I basically believe that nobody's business what's going on in anybody's uterus.
Sarah MacLean 2:42
Yeah, I got it. I agree. Can I just cosign that? And are we done now? Four minutes in? And that's where we stand.
Jennifer Prokop 2:49
here's here's where I think we came up with this idea is what we did was kind of
Sarah MacLean 2:54
it's a what date is it? It's May, it's May something 15?
Jennifer Prokop 2:59
No. 16
Sarah MacLean 3:00
I think 16th but yesterday was May 15, and some real shitty laws were passed in, or a law was was passed in Alabama. Regarding abortion,
Jennifer Prokop 3:12
well, and by the time you hear this, which which should be next Wednesday, the 22nd. It might be that these laws have passed in Missouri and in Michigan. I mean, like these are laws that are like making their way through states.
Sarah MacLean 3:28
Yeah, the Republicans are coming for Roe. And Jen and I are big mad.
Jennifer Prokop 3:36
Yeah, well, and I think the way that we're always both interested in talking about things is like, how does romance-- which is like a genre we both profoundly love-- like help us understand where women are, where women have been, and what our future will be. Kind of in a relationship with our bodies. And I think that, you know, one thing -- We really want to be sensitive for sure. I think there's a lot of like, "if, you know, men could be pregnant, there'd be, you know, like abortion kiosks at every Walgreens" or whatever. And we're not looking to be that has like, I think it that's language is really trans-exclusionary, right. But at the same time, we were really interested in talking about this without talking about gender?
Sarah MacLean 4:34
Yeah. Well, I want to acknowledge the trans men are extra terrified right now and have every right to be. yeah. And I think, you know, I said earlier today to somebody, this is a conversation that needs to be had about every person with a uterus and so I think both of us just want to set that set that out at the start, but this is gonna it's a tough conversation to have without using gendered Yeah. language so forgive us, for..
Jennifer Prokop 5:01
We want to be sensitive to it and we want our listeners to be sensitive to it, too. And so it's a like mea culpa in advance, we're going to try to do our best but we like really welcome feedback, I guess, from for us like, it's important to us to be inclusive, but it's also like a conversation that so tied into the way gender and women's bodies and like actual, like physical parts are seen in the world and perceived in the world that it's hard to imagine that we won't. Like we were just going to do our best, everybody. But we're also, I think it's urgent to talk about it, especially in romance because, as we've talked about many, many weeks, this is the place where, like the interior life of a woman is really like the most fully developed. And for, for I think every woman these concerns about like reproductive organs and how they sometimes feel like they betray us, is one that I think is we're really interested in talking about.
Sarah MacLean 6:12
Yeah, so this episode is going to be different than all of our other episodes, it's still going to have a lot of books in it, where we encourage you to get a pen. Show notes will be extensive, but we're going to talk about bodies and, and the female body, and the parts of it and the things that happen inside us and the reasons why romance has always seemed to be a place where that's a safe conversation and a safe dialogue. For us to have but a big, the big I think reason why we're doing this this week is because yesterday, I asked on Twitter for people to hive mind a list of romances where... in which the heroine has a abortion, has an abortion without shame. And I think we got, what, like 15 books? And I think that is the thing that we should talk about. So we're going to talk about-- so content warning, we're going to obviously talk about abortion. We're going to talk about miscarriage. We're going to talk about stillbirth. We're going to talk about contraception. What else we're going to talk about?
Jennifer Prokop 7:31
My rage.
Sarah MacLean 7:32
A lot of rage, you guys asked for it! See, be careful what you wish for our listeners. Um, so where do you want to begin? You want to begin with [Fanny!] Fanny Hill. "Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure," which is an erotic novel, written in 1748. Don't, don't be expecting this to be like Sierra Simone style.
Jennifer Prokop 8:02
I actually am really curious to read it in the light of that statement, a little levity.
Sarah MacLean 8:08
Wikipedia calls it "an erotic novel." That's what I have opened in front of me, because I wanted all the dates in front of me. It's written by a man named John Cleland. And it was published a serialized, So Jen would have loved it {on brand.} In 1748, I did not know this. So 1748 I'm going to repeat that because, holy crap. I did not know this, but John Cleland wrote it while he was in debtor's prison. And, it is considered I'm now just reading from Wikipedia, but "it is considered the first original English prose pornography and the first pornography to use the forum of the novel." It is one of the most banned books in history but is considered by many, including Maya Rodale, to be a primordial romance novel, to use a Kresley Cole term.
Jennifer Prokop 9:13
I actually love that. I love calling it a primordial romance novel.
Sarah MacLean 9:16
I mean, I and I think it probably is. So Fannie Mae-- Fannie Mae, that's a that is where you get your college loans from, which is a different rage. If any Fannie Mae or Sallie Mae? I don't know. Anyway, doesn't matter. Maybe we'll skip all that.
Jennifer Prokop 9:34
So we're never good with titles! How is that not on brand for us?
Sarah MacLean 9:39
There are there are a lot of editions. If you can find an edition of Fanny HIll with illustrations, they're super graphic. And also you can go on Wikipedia and there are several very graphic illustrations. So you know, enjoy yourselves. Enjoy yourselves. So okay, um, she writes letter there. It's written, it's epistolary, she is telling her own story to, uh, to to the recipient of two letters. And it's basically Fanny's life account, and I'm not going to get too deep into it, but essentially, her parents die, and she goes to London and she gets lured into a brothel. And it's the story of, sort of, her life in the brothel. And the reason why we're bringing up Fannie Mae--Fannie Mae, goddamnit! The reason why we're bringing up Fanny Hill is because, like, ultimately, she gets married to Charles the hero. And so that's why we call it a primordial romance novel. It does end with Fanny in happiness. There's, warning, a whole lot of like, problematic representation or prostitutes in this book, it was written in the 1740s, and it can be, like, very preachy about that. So, obviously, you know, consider the date of publication. Fun fact.
Jennifer Prokop 11:09
I'm gonna retcon this, this that like Sarah from Dreaming of You, that that's what she wrote. Matilda, right? I'm sure that's probably what it is.
Sarah MacLean 11:19
Yeah, yeah. Um, there is a lot of, just to talk about like etymology for a second, there is some discussion that the reason why like, you can call it, like some people call it vagina a Fanny is because of Fanny Hill. Um, so you know, fun facts, just fun little, you know, historical facts. But Fanny, importantly, spends a lot of time in a brothel, working in a brothel, where she loses her virginity. There's a bisexual Madam, I want to say in this book, and you know, there's a lot of sex in all different forms and all different places. And there are a lot of prostitutes who have to terminate pregnancies, and they do it on the page and Fanny sort of articulates how it's done. It's not super graphic if I, you know, if I recall correctly, but it is like abortion is on the page in this book, because of course it is! Contraception is on pages book, because of course it is! And it's 1750, so, let's set aside this idea that any of this is new. Because, as I've said, multiple times ad nauseum over the last few days, like women have been dealing with..
Jennifer Prokop 12:32
Unwanted pregnancies.
Sarah MacLean 12:33
Yeah. Since pregnancy began.
Jennifer Prokop 12:37
Sure. And you know what, it's really interesting because I feel like-- and you and I were chatting about this before we started recording-- that I'm pretty sure like my first introduction to abortion was like women and historical romances. Like somebody knew somebody who knew the right cup full of tea to drink. Yep. Right. And, and even though I can't name specific ones. Like, I just feel like I imprinted on that idea that there was, like there was a woman somewhere in the village who knew how to take care of this business. Yeah. And and that's who you went to see.
Sarah MacLean 13:12
I mean, and she was a midwife, right? Because so one of the things that we talked about all the time, you and I, and I mean, I'm sure we talked about it here, but like, the romance novel, from its very origins, has been a place where, at the beginning, a subset of women, right, like written for women, white women, white cishet women, right? Right, were able to have a dialogue in an enclosed space away from the prying eyes of patriarchy, right. So and we've talked about this over time, as romance has become more inclusive of marginalized people, is has become the literature of happiness and joy, and hope and how Happily ever after. And now in 2019, that's a political act, And it was frankly a political-- It's always been a political act, right, for marginalized people to live happily. Women have been marginalized as a block. ...forever. And so I think what's really interesting here is that when we talk about pregnancy, on the page, and we talk about abortion, on the page, you and I both have the same experience, which is when we were young, and we were reading those historical romances, it was a midwife in the village who was in charge of birthing children and taking care of it, if you didn't want one. And I don't just mean abortion. I mean, like contraception, too. Like it was midwives who had tinctures and tonics and teas. And [Yep] I'm the same way, Jen. Like, I'm pretty sure that I didn't... that my first understanding of abortion came from romance novels, like there was a trick to not getting pregnant.
Jennifer Prokop 15:06
Yeah. And this was something, in pop culture for me, that moment was the movie "Fast Times at Ridgemont High." Now it came out in 1982. And I did not see it, then I would have been too young. But at some point, like later on, right, I mean, I was I was 10 then, right? It's around nine or 10, or whatever. At some point later on, I saw it and there's this like, really matter of fact, like scene where the brother essentially takes, you know, takes this his sister into the clinic and she gets an abortion, and that's that. But I would say, like those to me, but like, really that that didn't even stick out to me the way the romance novel and the sense that like women took care of each other in these moments, was like really powerful for me. Like I often remember it, although you have an example we're going to talk about I
Sarah MacLean 15:57
have a really interesting example. Yeah
Jennifer Prokop 16:00
But for me, it was like women, you know, it's like a woman went to another woman or like whispered among the maids, like somebody knew who this person was. And in that sense, like one of the most powerful like, romances I've read with a miscarriage is called "The Mayor's Mission" by Piper Huguely, where she actually experiences, she has a miscarriage. And Virgil, who's the hero, is kind of like wanting to help Mandy, his wife, and he's like, sort of like, told by, essentially, the the midwife in their village like this is Women's Business. And I think that the reason it stuck out to me is because that very much felt like, I felt that, right? When that midwife says that to Virgil, "this is Women's Business," that even though I feel differently about it today in terms of like how men and reproduction things happen, that ultimately, that was how I imprinted on this idea.
Sarah MacLean 17:03
I mean, I think that it's certainly I feel differently. It's complicated. That should be a show title of this. It's complicated. So I just turned 40. And like, my body's doing all sorts of weird shit. I'm like, I think about all the ways that like, something strange happens, and I think to myself, like, "oh, Is that normal? Like, is that is this just a thing that happens now?" And I don't like say anything to my husband, I call my friends or I asked my sister, or like, I, I sort of reference it in passing to someone who is, you know, has the same parts as me and I say, like, hey, "Has this ever happened to you?" And then suddenly, you have these moments where you're like, "Oh, wait, that has happened to me" and we never... women, I think all the time about Emily Nagoski's "Come As You Are." So, Emily writes, Emily's amazing. Right now, she's sort of everywhere in romance, because she, she wrote these wonderful contemporary romances under the name Emily Foster. The first one is called "How Not to Fall" and the second is called "How Not to Let Go." It's a duology, you have to read both, but they're both published. But she's also a sex educator, and has a PhD in human sexuality. [Oh, wow.] First of all, you want to know who writes a hot hot hot sex scene? Somebody with a PhD in human sexuality like, yeah. Emily's first book, non fiction book, written as Emily Nagoski, is called "Come As You Are," and it's basically like a informational guide to women and sex. And I bought it and it taught me so much about like, what's normal 'cause No one sits women down and says like, no,"here's what sex is like. Here's what's normal. Here's what's not normal. Like, frankly, everything is kind of normal." So and I think and I read this book and it was like, a revelation for me and I was 36 or 37 like, way too, and I've been reading romance novels since I was 11. My God, like, it's something revalatory about, like, lady bits? The fact that I got to it at 36 or 37? I went to Smith, we spent a lot of time talking about lady bits there! So anyway, I think a lot about that and I think a lot about the fact that like, romance has always for me been a place where like women's issues can be discussed without,
Jennifer Prokop 19:41
without fear or shame,
Sarah MacLean 19:42
Without fear, without shame and also with no shrouding, like there's no like, you know, you can go to the woman, the midwife, and she will give you a tincture and it will take care of the business.
Jennifer Prokop 19:55
I also have been reading romance since I was like, you know, a teen, a young teenager. And, but I went to Catholic schools and then I went to a Catholic... I went to Villanov.
Sarah MacLean 20:07
That is the opposite of Smith, I would guess.
Jennifer Prokop 20:10
Yes! In fact, I still have very vivid memories, and I don't remember her name. So you know, I can't name shame, but I remember meeting girls on my floor my freshman year of college, who, like literally didn't really even understand why they got a period,
Sarah MacLean 20:28
Jesus Christ.
Jennifer Prokop 20:29
And I just remember being like, what in fuck are you doing? What are we? And this was, you know, a long time ago, because I'm 45. And I think, I think a lot about like, abstinence only education.. and one of the things I think a lot about is, even though it is not the job of romance to teach sex ed, we are fooling ourselves if we don't understand that many, many readers are are learning about sex. Literally learning.
Sarah MacLean 21:03
Yes.
Jennifer Prokop 21:03
Through this genre.
Sarah MacLean 21:05
Yes.
Jennifer Prokop 21:05
And that is that's a responsibility. I think that we like you can
Sarah MacLean 21:10
Absolutely. You're 100%. Right. And I mean, that's not we didn't have a different, we don't, that's not different between us. I learned about sex from romance novels, without question. And I've told this story before, that I read Beatrice Small's "All the Sweet Tomorrows" when I was 14 and I was like, "Oh shit, I'm gonna get in trouble if my parents see that I'm reading this." You know, I had lactation porn. It was a ride!
Sarah MacLean 21:41
Yeah, you're 100% right. And I do think like, I think romance in those early days didn't shy away from---interestingly, yes, it had purple prose, and yes, there was a lot of euphemism, and what the hell is a throbbing member, and where did what go, and who's what --- But at the same time, you know Jane Feather's "Vixen," which actually was posted 1996, so it's much later than I would have expected. So Jane Feather's "Vixen," this is real old school ones you guys, the hero is just awful. He's awful. It's Guardian / ward. Um, and he's a real, the hero's real bad. But like if you're into like, really rough alphas who are impenetrable and ultimately end up loving their ward. It's you know, solid choice if that's your old school kink. But what's really interesting is so they have sex. He's drunk, he's like real drunk, and he comes home to his manor, and she's there. And he didn't he doesn't know who she is. She's just like, beautiful young woman in his house. And so, and he's super drunk and they have sex. And in the morning after, he's like, "Oh shit, like, what have I done?" And he makes her a tonic and brings it to her and says, and we'll put this image in show notes will put the quote in show notes.
Jennifer Prokop 23:12
It's an amazing thing. Honestly.
Sarah MacLean 23:14
It's astounding because, he basically says to her "Here. Drink this," He is not a good dude. And he's like, "drink this." And she's like, "why?" And he's like, "because it will take care of any unforeseen problems from last night." And she's like, "what problems?" And he's like, "You're an idiot." I think he calls her "a little fool." And he's like, "you could be pregnant." And she's like, "Oh my god, I didn't even think about that." And she takes the drink, and she knocks it back without hesitation, she's like, I don't want to be pregnant. Like, I'm taking this ... I'm taking herbal PlanB, like Jane Feather Regency PlanB. And It's awesome.
Jennifer Prokop 23:19
It's kind of a great scene.
Sarah MacLean 23:30
There are a lot of problems with this book. But right now, today, I read that scene and I sent a screenshot to Jen. And I was like, This is fucking great! And then she says, "Will it work?" And he says, "it'll work." And that's it. And it does work. She doesn't get pregnant. It works.
Jennifer Prokop 24:20
And, like, what I found fascinating about that scene is it does go against type in the sense that he's the one who knows about it, right?
Sarah MacLean 24:28
He's taught, interestingly enough, he is taught how to make this herbal concoction by his first lover.
Jennifer Prokop 24:37
Yeah, well, and what's really interesting, though, is what is though to type is, the sort of virginal young heroine, I mean, who goes to a man's bed for the first time having no fucking idea what's going to happen. And that's another thing I really vividly remember from like early romance, right? Especially historicals: was you know "it's your wedding night" and you know they get some stumbling half assed explanation, if that!, about what's gonna happen.
Sarah MacLean 25:10
you're gonna bleed and then you know Marlo and no good deed goes unpunished with like a gallon of pig's blood because how much show
Jennifer Prokop 25:18
idea no idea and I mean and I think I do remember being really fascinated by like by this, the stories about like, like women are sent like lambs to the slaughter. right? They have no idea what's going to happen and I just I find that fascinating still, right? Like how much I imprinted on this idea that women were there to teach each other because it was a woman-- It was her mother or her sister-- who told her and if she didn't have that, then she had to rely on the goodwill of this lover, her partner.
Sarah MacLean 25:57
I texted with Lisa Kleypas earlier today because I could only think, one of the only romance novels I could think of where where I can name contraception on the page is one of the Hathaway books, Amelia and Cam, at this point, have already been married and Amelia doesn't want to get pregnant. And so she's taking this like herbal tea, which is basically like, what she's drinking every day. Yeah, and it actually doesn't work in the book and she gets pregnant. And interestingly, I I think that's a real thing, too. Look, I mean, like, the actual pill now, with science, doesn't work 100% of the time, so like, these teas definitely didn't work all the time. I texted Lisa and I I sort of said like, "Do you, Am I missing something else? Have you written this and other books?" Because, you know, Lisa's always-- we've talked about this before about Lisa's like talismans--And Lisa is really like fascinated with the history of stuff and she'll get really interested in like the history of like land management and then suddenly that's like a huge piece of a book. So I asked her, and she actually reminded me, and I had forgotten this, that in "Devil in Winter," Evie asks about pregnancy and Sebastian says, "There are all these ways," like he sort of articulates a number of different ways that you can use contraception and he brings up the use of, Hang on-- I'm going to pull up I'm going to pull it up-- He brings up the use of, quote, "little charms," which were Lisa just said to me today, usually gold or silver or sometimes lead, and which yikes. But they were intra cervical, and sometimes even intrauterine devices that
Jennifer Prokop 27:46
like a pre IUD?
Sarah MacLean 27:48
yeah. [Dang] So the idea that these things are on that like Lisa Kleypas setting this on the page, Jane Feather setting this on the page, is a real dialogue in the 90s about how women, how this is women's work. Contraception is women's work! I mean, [yeah], yes, there is no male birth control pill and there's a reason for it. Right like, [sure]. First of all, you know, it unfortunately it is our work to make sure we don't get pregnant. People with uteruses are responsible with make sure it making sure that we don't get pregnant, which is problematic and in an immense way, but reality.
Jennifer Prokop 28:32
Yeah, well and it but it's also because thousands of years of patriarchy has made it so, right? Well, and I would think to like back in old historicals, like about French letters, right? Like I..
Sarah MacLean 28:46
the French letter!
Jennifer Prokop 28:47
How did I I mean, I totally had to like figure that out from context. There was no Wikipedia, there was no Urban Dictionary.
Sarah MacLean 28:54
And they all have like bows on them and like ribbons and you're like, "What the fuck is this?" And then what was amazing is like, I, I can't believe this is the first time we're ever going to talk about "Harlots" on this podcast because I am in love with "Harlots." The show on Hulu, which is set in a bordello in the 1700s. It's like bordello wars, but the set it's in the 1700s. It's amazing. It's super feminist it has a full female writing staff, a full female, female showrunner. Female directors, like the cast is something like 98% women, the speaking cast, like it's very intersectional, they are queer characters, there are characters of color. It's amazing. If you haven't watched "Harlots" you should. But it said a a bordello, and it's the first time I ever saw anybody, any historical anything, show a French letter the way French letters are, which is... hard. They're dried skin, and they have to be soaked in water to use them. I mean, like you guys, show notes are really going to be rich this week because we'll link, Jen and I will work on them together and we'll link to everything. But basically a French letter is it's just, it's like imagine a dried like sausage casing-- that's literally what it is, tied up sheep intestine. It's tied on one end with like, a string as tight as possible. But it can't be tied until it's softened. So you couldn't just grab a condom and go! You had to soak it for, I don't know how long, 45 minutes an hour I don't know. I don't know how long it takes, let's say an hour,
Jennifer Prokop 30:34
2020, 2021, whatever it takes.
Sarah MacLean 30:36
it's like that scene in The Princess Bride when they say, "don't go swimming for at least an hour!" So imagine Carol Kane as your friendly bordello owner but the you know, like, and that shit doesn't work either like tying up a sheep's intestine with a bit of string does not protect you from pregnancy. Which brings us back to you gotta figure out how to manage pregnancy.
Jennifer Prokop 31:06
You and I have been reading long enough that we watched the condom evolution happen in romance.
Sarah MacLean 31:12
So much.
Jennifer Prokop 31:13
You know, it's funny because part of me is like, I don't know, I don't know where I saw it, I don't know if these were conversations I overheard with people, this was pre-social media, But I remember when, like people started sort of saying, like, "you need to have your characters talk about safe sex. This has to be a conversation that happens before they get into bed." And I remember people being like, "oh, but it's gonna ruin the vibe" and yet-- Like, do you remember this? I mean, yeah, this all happened, right? There still people--
Sarah MacLean 31:47
--Not long ago, a pretty big author said, you know, publicly, "Let's just all agree that my characters are all clean and are having safe sex because I don't want to write condoms anymore." Which, look, fine, It's a it's a bit of like a, you know, I don't write contemporaries, but it's a bit of, I imagine, like, "oh, now we have to pause, pause now for a condom break." But like, some people do it really great, first of all. And second of all, it's just good sense, everyone!
Jennifer Prokop 32:17
One of the most interesting conversations I had on Twitter, though, was that gay men now can take PrEP, right, which is essentially instead of using condoms
Sarah MacLean 32:28
Yes, I've seen ads for these on this on TV.
Jennifer Prokop 32:32
One of the things that's like, really interesting is like that can be part of your, like, your Grindr profile or whatever, if you're on PrEP, and in order to keep on it, you have to be tested, I think every, like, every month or whatever, I will get these details right in show notes. And so, you know, one of the things is like in gay romance, that that like sort of conversation might be changing because it's essentially part of the, like part of the scene already. So it's really interesting to me how even the rules for like, like male / female romances might be different from gay romances or lesbian romances in terms of like that safe sex conversation because the way, essentially the ways we can protect ourselves from sexually transmitted diseases and from pregnancy are so different than they were when Jane feather was writing this historical, right, in 1996. [Right.] So and I just think that's really interesting that contraception the sort of putting on a condom is so normalized now I notice it if it's not there.
Sarah MacLean 33:35
In contemporaries, for sure. I mean, like, I've never, I've never written a condom, in a book.
Jennifer Prokop 33:41
No, of course.
Sarah MacLean 33:43
And I partially that's because of, you know, it's because of sheepskin, and soaking, and all that, but I mean, like, Elizabeth Hoyt has written condoms. Lisa uses has used like half a lemon, I want to say, or a brandy soaked sponge, so like there are certainly contraception becomes a part of it and then--
Jennifer Prokop 34:05
Pulling out, I think is one that happens in historicals.
Sarah MacLean 34:05
yeah, I've used pulling out a lot. [sure] and I just you know assume all my heroes are clean.. But the, but again, in contemporaries have to have to clear a different bar I think then historicals do. And that's because of reality, that's because we live in the same world as characters. I think it's really interesting, look we're doing a whole podcast about Kresley Cole, nobody does birth control like Kresley does, where literally Valkyries have to eat, you know demons have a seal, like they're just so there's so many ways that Kresley tackles contraception in like a important way
Jennifer Prokop 34:11
And fertility, right. Yeah, absolutely. Like it's really coded into the world, but in a way that often where women are in charge, versus women being like victimized by it.
Sarah MacLean 34:59
Well, and that's Classic Kresley, right?
Jennifer Prokop 35:02
on brand.
Sarah MacLean 35:03
Where do you want to go from here, Jen?
Jennifer Prokop 35:05
I mean, I want us to talk about miscarriages. And I want us to talk about abortion.
Sarah MacLean 35:09
Well, let's talk about abortion. Because so, I brought up early in the episode, but aside from those early drafts, yeah, you could just you could drink a thing, and it would magically wave away the problem. [Yeah.] We don't have that in contemporaries anymore. I mean, we've never had that in contemporaries. And again, it's because the bar is higher, right. You have to clear a higher bar when it comes to contraception. But we have a couple of problematic things that happen in contemporaries. And we have a couple of, and we have started really see an evolution. I think, like we have seen the normalization of condoms. And I want to say, I want to give a nod to the normalization of Plan B. [Yeah.] Do you want to talk about Plan B?
Jennifer Prokop 35:55
Yeah, I would love to talk about Plan B. So it's really interesting because in that list of 15 books, it wasn't like 15 books where an abortion happened. I think there were like a handful.
Sarah MacLean 36:04
Yeah, five or six.
Jennifer Prokop 36:06
Yeah. And then there was sort of another group where the heroines use Plan B. And one of them I read is by an author named, by an author, Melanie Greene, who I actually know from the Tournament of Books-- Hi, Melanie! And she's written a book called "Roll of a Lifetime." And I read it today. And it's really interesting because the heroine, Rachel, is a single, like a single mother, but they're divorced fathers in the picture, but he's real... he's a real jerk. He doesn't pay his child support on time, he doesn't always, you know, their daughter is two, he doesn't pick her up or drop her off on time, and Rachel is kind of financially stressed, but also, she you know, she's worried enough about him that she doesn't want him having her address, right? So she has like a very guarded relationship with him. And he has this big Greek American family and so there's like a lot of family obligations, and she ends up dating her ex's boss, this guy, Theo is that hero, but they get together and it's kind of like an just like an affair, like very casual and they have sex, like the first time and then a week or two later they're together again, and the condom breaks. And I will tell you, the scene is so matter of fact. And they're just it's just like this interlude they had an hour or two to be together, and he says to her, okay, you go pick up your daughter, Hannah, and you go put her to bed, and I will go to the pharmacy, and I'll pick up the emergency contraception, and then I'll meet you back at your house and you can take it. And it was... and she's like, "Great, sounds like a plan." And I love the detail. Like, you know, sometimes authors just get that one detail right? And here's what it is. He looked it up on his phone before going into the drugstore, because he wanted to know what it looked like.
Sarah MacLean 37:55
You want to get the right thing.
Jennifer Prokop 37:57
Yes!
Sarah MacLean 37:58
That's dreamy.
Jennifer Prokop 37:59
It was! He buys the name brand, and not the generic, because he really wants her to understand that he was taking this seriously. And then when he gets and then this part's actually kind of romantic. I mean, again like,
Sarah MacLean 38:12
Oh god, you're such a romance reader!
Jennifer Prokop 38:14
No wait! Listen to this! Listen to this! He says to her, "I want to stay. I want to stay overnight. I'm worried. I'm, you know, what if? You know it can be painful. You can have cramping, and your daughter's here." And she's like, "Okay, but I called my friend, so I don't want you to stay." And he's like, "okay." But he wanted to and I'm sorry, that's fucking romantic, everybody.
Sarah MacLean 38:38
No, it's perfect. Its nobility, heroic nobility, right? I've said 1000 times, that the hero's, in every romance novel the hero has to be a king. They don't have to be royal. They do have to be a king, and that's heroic nobility. And like, that is a perfect example. That guy's a king of Duane Reed! [yeah] That's a New York drugstore. The king of Walgreens.
Jennifer Prokop 38:59
Of CVS! Right, but here's my point like, yes, it's like a small moment in the book. And then that's it. It's not a big deal. They don't talk about it again
Sarah MacLean 39:06
No! Becasue really, it really shouldn't be. It's a pill that you took after you had sex. It's fine.
Jennifer Prokop 39:12
Yeah, it's fine. And the fact that it is coded as a romantic moment, to me, was really meaningful in this book, because what it's saying is, this is a decision, like we made together, right?
Sarah MacLean 39:26
Its partnership, [Yes.] Look. romance novels are about finding equal partnership, about standing shoulder to shoulder with somebody who you want to spend the rest of your life with, right? Happily ever after in a romance novel involves partnership. And we have seen over the years, a whole lot of books about partnership around pregnancy, partnership around babies-- like the secret baby trope is about noble men who quote, "do the right thing" and marry the girl. Right? And, and are our solid, sound partners in a relationship. And this is also really wonderful partnership. It's, "we're in this together, you are not wholly responsible for not getting pregnant, I'm responsible, too." And like that's real sexy.
Jennifer Prokop 40:24
It was! And you know what? I think it's it, and that's why, I think our conception of that first time you saw a condom-- and it felt fumbling and awkward and weird, right? no, because it's like us saying, it's the couple saying, "our safety is important. Your health and safety is important to me." And this is the same thing, right?
Sarah MacLean 40:46
I would really love, and I'm going to text, I'm going to text, I'm going to tweet at Bowling Green and see if the guy, the people there, know. But I would really love it, if you're a listener, and you can sort of think back to your old school experiences, I'd really love to know who started this condom thing. [Yeah.] Because they were not on the page in those early contemporaries.
Jennifer Prokop 41:10
No, they weren't, never.
Sarah MacLean 41:12
No! Who...
Jennifer Prokop 41:13
When did that happen? Yeah.
Sarah MacLean 41:14
Can somebody find a date? I would guess it has something to do with the AIDS epidemic.
Jennifer Prokop 41:20
Yeah, it must have, right.
Sarah MacLean 41:22
I mean, this is, this is me like super spitballing. But I would be very interested. I'm also going to ask Kelly Faircloth at Jezebel if she's done any research on this, because I feel like somebody out there knows where condoms came from in romance--
Jennifer Prokop 41:37
--when it started. Yeah--
Sarah MacLean 41:38
right? And maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they have been there since beginning. Maybe Mills and Boon has been using them forever.
Jennifer Prokop 41:45
I don't. I felt like there was a sea change, though. And I remember it happening, right? And I remember the conversations where people are like, "No way" and then it just happened. And I feel like this Melanie Greene book to me was the perfect example of how Plan B can be used the same way, right?
Sarah MacLean 42:01
Well, that Ruby Lang book. Yes. Which we recommended it on an on a another podcast here, but recently
Jennifer Prokop 42:10
When we did best friend's sibling, right?
Sarah MacLean 42:11
"Clean Breaks." The Heroine is an OBGYN and she, not only does she counsel a character on the page about abortion, the condom breaks. Ruby reminded us today that a condom breaks in that book. And the-- I'm just getting it, I'm just pulling it up-- and the hero basically says like, "I'll marry you." Everyone is like, "Um, no, thank you, first of all. Second of all, like I'm a professional human being. And also a fucking OB, and we're going to get some emergency contraception and it's going to be fine." Right? And, you know, Ruby's awesome and we love her. We stan her hard here.
Jennifer Prokop 42:58
I think the other side of the contraception question, though, is... because Jenny Holiday's whole "Bridesmaids Behaving Badly" series has women dealing with these issues in one way or another. So one of the friends has really severe endometriosis and her period is a plot point, right? Like and how, like how debilitating her pain is. And I've talked about one of those series, she then does get pregnant and has to like really consider: I never thought I'd be a mother. Is this what I want? But Wendy, who's another friend, takes Plan B. And then Jane, another one of them, is... they're going to be childless by choice. And you can only be childless by choice if you have contraception available to you! And so that is a series that aren't fully, for all of them, like weaves in the decisions that women are making-- about who and what they want their futures to be like. And then what, or not, and there's an-- I really like that there's no judgment or blaming. You know, Jane, not wanting kids is not really a thing that-- you know I'm spacing on her name, the one who was like "I would be I would desperately love kids but I have endometriosis"-- She's not mad that her friend doesn't want them. Right. Like it's just women with different choices and they all support each other. And I think that see that whole series is really committed, like Kresley, I think, to really talking about contraception in a, like, a really comprehensive way for different women at different points in their lives and what they want and different couples.
Sarah MacLean 44:39
Yeah, I mean, I think that there is, I think we-- but Jen, you and I've talked so much about the fact that these body issues, these kind of endometriosis, One of my very favorite romance novels of the last few years, is a really beautiful, erotic, friends to lovers romance called "Unconventional" by Isabel love. The heroine, So it's basically like "friends with benefits," like they know each other, they have mutual friends. They are each-- it's like they're the, they're the Marie and Jess in the "When Harry Met Sally" relationship here, they're like,
Jennifer Prokop 45:19
Oh, got it.
Sarah MacLean 45:19
Okay, um, they're like the Carrie Fisher and Bruno Kirby characters. So, and then they sort of meet through this couple, this middle couple. And they have this like beneficial relationship. She's divorced, because she had to have a hysterectomy when she was very young while she was married to another man. And he left her because he wanted to have children. And so she sort of has this sense of, well, there is no future. There's no long term relationship in my future because I can't have children, and like, that's part of a long term future. She has this relationship with with Charlie--that's the hero's name. And they have this like incredibly sexy relationship that involves exhibitionism and voyeurism. You'll love that part. And there's there are threesomes in it. And like, it's really an incredibly sexy relationship. And he starts to fall for her, and she's so panicked by shame. Like, she has such shame for this reality. I mean, like, this happens to women, and she doesn't, she's, she kind of protects herself and protects herrself from loving him because she's so afraid that he'll reject her. Because, you know, she feels in some way "less than" because she's had something happen to her. And he's ultimately, and he wants kids like he sort of is very open about the fact that he wants kids and she's just like, "I, you know, that's never going to happen, that's not going to happen." And then when it finally sort of, when it's when she reveals It, when she's like, "I love you, but I can't be with you because of this. I would never ask you to give up that dream to be with me." He's like, "I love you. Kids are separate from this. Kids don't-- you I love! kids are an imaginary thing."
Jennifer Prokop 47:16
Right? Right.
Sarah MacLean 47:17
And they have their happily ever after. And it's really beautifully done, because it's very honest. You know, we have all, I mean maybe we have not, I don't want to speak for every woman, but I feel like many, many, many, many women, myself included, have felt over time, sort of shame about things with our bodies that we can't control. [Yeah] and this book does that beautifully. And it feels very authentic and honest, and also super sexy.
Jennifer Prokop 47:50
Again, I used that like phrase earlier that sometimes your body betrays you, one. So I want to return to talking about abortion maybe at the end, because there's one book I think that's really interesting by Melonie Johnson. But I want to talk about miscarriage first because I do feel like, and you have written really one of my-- and I, you know I I'm not here to stan for Sarah MacLean all the time--
Sarah MacLean 48:15
--we don't stan for me that often--
Jennifer Prokop 48:18
But "Day of the Duchess" is probably one of my top three favorite romances ever.
Sarah MacLean 48:25
That's very kind.
Jennifer Prokop 48:27
And I think some, but miscarriage is something that romance does put on page. Abortion is something a little different; Miscarriage, it happens a lot. And I, and I actually wrote a whole piece once about it because I was just really curious...what is it that's happening on the page? And like not every miscarriage is sort of doing the same thing. It's mining different like emotional like depths. So I want you to talk about "Day the Duchess," but we can talk.. and I mentioned the Piper Huguley book,
Sarah MacLean 48:57
I should add, "Day of the Duchess" has stillbirth in it. I mean it's a [yeah], it is it's obviously, it's it's a type of miscarriage, but it's a lot. It's very intense. It does happen, it happens right at the very beginning of the book. I know that it, it has, I want, I just want to very strongly content warn this for anybody who who might have trouble with stillbirth as a plot. I mean, I, that book is very personal for me. I have not had a stillbirth. But I have had pregnancy issues. And I was working through some stuff. I wanted to write a book that was about women and the way that we relate to our bodies as failures. And that's because I was going through some stuff. I have had, I-I've had trouble with pregnancy. I've had I had trouble breastfeeding. I have felt a lot of shame about what my body can and cannot do. And I hate that. So many women, one in four women, one in four pregnancies, end in miscarriage and/or stillbirth. And the reality is that we are trained and conditioned to believe that that is a malfunction of our body. And the reality is, is that when 25% of something-- when 25% of times-- something happens, that's not a malfunction. It's just, it's just a thing that happens. And I hate that women are shamed by that. And I hate that it is so emotional and that it is so personal and that it is so private and that we keep it to ourselves and we struggle with so much anger and frustration. [Yeah], and I, that's all in this book. I mean, that's what this book is and yeah,
Jennifer Prokop 51:06
Well and I think the reader's experience is always really different. And one of the reasons that book moved me, right, is like not just because of the grovelling, but because of her journey and--
Sarah MacLean 51:19
You love a grovel.
Jennifer Prokop 51:20
I do love a grovel, but--
Sarah MacLean 51:21
--it is an epic grovel, I will admit.
Jennifer Prokop 51:23
Yeah, yeah, it is, but there's this part in particular where she's basically, she knows something is wrong. And you use, it's like I've called it a miscarriage, but you're, it's like really a stillbirth right?
Sarah MacLean 51:28
She's...very far along.
Jennifer Prokop 51:39
Yeah, she knows something is wrong. And to me, there's this, like the most chilling kind of scene in this book, and it is probably within the first 20 pages, maybe even earlier. She knocks on the door right there. They're separated. And the you know-- whoever answers the fucking door, the footman or whatever-- and she feels like she has to say that there's something wrong with the baby in order to get in the door. That's what I remember, right? And he's like, "there's someting wrong?" And she's like, "With the heir" essentially. And I remember thinking, not only is it this failure of her body, but it was this devastating moment where she knew that this baby was more important than she was in terms of how she was going to get the help she needed. And in that way, I guess, things have not really changed that significantly. But to me it was this, like, heart rending moment. And romance I know delivers those moments. But one of the things I've said to people about this book is: it's the rare romance that starts with the low moment, and it's the lowest of low moments, and then we have to see them recover. And I think it's brilliant and not just because you're sitting here, but
Sarah MacLean 52:59
Well, you're very kind. I mean, I do want to say one thing about that book because it's a-- you know that I struggled with it. Serafina, who is the main character of that book, she's the heroine of that book, believes she's barren. She's told after she loses the child by the doctor-- or the sort of male doctor who's been brought in as a voice of patriarchy-- that she'll never have children again. And so, and she, she has a very specific condition -- medically her stillbirth, her stillbirth is not coincidental. It's medical. It's a condition that actual real human females have. And she ends up believing that she is barren. And at the end, and I'm going to spoil the ending of this book. They have children. And they have them in the epilogue and they have more than one because my-- I realized that I couldn't write, I wanted to write a birth. I wanted to write a live birth. And I couldn't write the next live birth because it would be full of fear.
Jennifer Prokop 54:09
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Sarah MacLean 54:10
--and terror. So I had to, I had to give them more than one child in that in that epilogue, and I ended up giving them lots of children. But I have received letters-- and I know that there's a lot of discussion in romancelandia about this--the sort of magic child that comes at the end for a barren couple. And I went back and forth. And there are two versions of that epilogue, one where they have children and one where they do not. And we-- my editor and I-- went over it again and again and again. And I actually just pulled the trigger on the epilogue literally the last possible day before it went to print. And I gave them children instead of not giving them children, and I did it for lots of reasons. And I can tell you they were happy either way. And I probably did it for me more than for them. It was this-- "Day the Duchess" is an incredibly personal book for me for many, many reasons. And so for me, it was really important to me that, that experience happened on the page and that they have happily ever after with children. But I want to say that there is there was no reason why they couldn't have happily ever after without children.
Jennifer Prokop 55:34
And it's funny because I know people struggle with that, I don't, I never struggle with it in historicals because I feel like-- some quack told her she couldn't have kids again based on.. what? you know. Yeah. And whereas in a contemporary,I will say the, like, "all of a sudden I just got pregnant because I was with the right man" plot.
Sarah MacLean 55:56
Right. The magic, magic sperm.
Jennifer Prokop 55:57
Yeah, that part -- meh. You can stop that. It's 2019.
Sarah MacLean 56:02
I mean, the baby epilogue is-- it's a lie. It's something that we all sort of need to talk about because it is sort of heteronormative. And there's, you know, there's a lot about it that is, that needs to be unpacked. And I think it's a conversation that it's healthy for us to have as romance, as people who talk about romance. But I also acknowledge that I love a baby in an epilogue, so you know, but I also have a baby and I like baby, so whatever.
Jennifer Prokop 56:30
That's a personal problem.
Sarah MacLean 56:31
If you know-- if your choice is-- it's "your body, your choice", "your marriage, your choice", "your partnership, your choice." And that's all we're just trying to get at.
Jennifer Prokop 56:41
Yeah, there's a lot of books with miscarriages.
Jennifer Prokop 56:44
Yeah, we've talked about that.
Sarah MacLean 56:44
Yeah, I mean, I want to just shout out my favorite Julia Quinn novel, which is "The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever." It may not be Miss Miranda Cheever, but "Secret Diaries of Miranda Cheever" there's a miscarriage in that book that is devastating. I honestly believe that is Julia Quinn's best book, it is emotional and intense. And the miscarriage is so important. But again, it's told through the lens of the heroine's experience. And I know you have thoughts about this.
Sarah MacLean 57:16
Women, if it's happening to your body, it's your experience, you own it.
Jennifer Prokop 57:20
Right? Yeah, I believe that I totally do. And I think it also makes sense to me that romance would like, I don't know, mine miscarriage is a possible topic. Because it is so personal and because so much of romance is about, about hope and about.. and so like exploring the ways in which women experience failure, but then bounce back and figure out who they are after that. I think that for many women-- and I also think you're right, like it's not so--it's very hard to talk about. But then in a book, it gives you a way to like have that experience, right? You're with you're this heroine becomes your friend who is going through this experience. And I think that that is something that, it's a way for us to sort of collectively share our miscarriage stories kind of with each other.
Sarah MacLean 58:16
Sure, you know, loss of a child is normalized in romance, and that's valuable. That's valuable for every woman, every one of that 24% or 25% of women, of pregnancies. What's interesting is that 25% of women before they turned -- before they turn 45, in the United States-- will have an abortion. And we have not normalized abortion.
Jennifer Prokop 58:42
No. No, we sure have not.
Sarah MacLean 58:44
--as a genre.
Jennifer Prokop 58:46
Here's the bad way we've normalized it.
Sarah MacLean 58:49
Uhhh, I hate this way.
Jennifer Prokop 58:50
I do, too. And I'm real fucking over it, which is the hero has been traumatized by bad ex who had an abortion that he didn't want her to have.
Sarah MacLean 59:04
Yeah, she either didn't tell him, and then she told him to stick it to him, Or she didn't tell him she was pregnant and then he found out.
Jennifer Prokop 59:11
Yeah, like, it's real bad.
Sarah MacLean 59:13
Fuck. That. Noise. Burn it with fire.
Jennifer Prokop 59:18
That plot really needs to die. And you know what? Those are plots actually to that have been around a really long time. In one way or another.
Sarah MacLean 59:26
I want to, I'm going to confess something, which is 20 years ago, when those plots were everywhere. I liked that, because I was like, oh-- that again!-- it sort of says, it's code, it's codifying like nobility of the hero, right? Like it's codifying maturity, readiness for commitment, willingness to partner, the ability to be a decent father, and like take responsibility. These are all valuable tools
Jennifer Prokop 59:57
Like some deep well of emotional feeling, too, right?
Sarah MacLean 1:00:00
Sure, sure. It was, it's humanity, It's a hero's humanity coded in there. I get it. It's great shorthand, but at the same time, like it's real problematic shorthand.
Jennifer Prokop 1:00:10
Not right now.
Jennifer Prokop 1:00:12
You know it, for me, it was like pre- and post- Smith College. Pre Smith College there was, "Oh, I love theseevil abortion storylines." And after Smith College, I was like, "No. Absolutely not. Abortion is for everyone."
Jennifer Prokop 1:00:26
And I think it also really, I mean, here's the other thing, though, it doesn't just code something for the hero, it codes something for the heroine, right? Which is that she is committed to mothering and family. It's a very patriarchal way of like making sure we understand that this is "a good one," right? That this heroine is going to be different or better-- and better!-- right, and all those things because she would never do that.
Sarah MacLean 1:00:51
She would never do that to him. That's nonsense. A lot of people have very ordinary abortions, in marriages that are otherwise happy.
Jennifer Prokop 1:01:01
A book I really recommend that it's not a romance, It's called "Scarlet A: The ethics, law, and politics of ordinary abortion." And this woman, I saw her at the Chicago Humanities Festival. And she was this fascinating speaker where she was like, "we have like these sort of like, myths, these sort of abortion stories we tell. And then when we talk to real women who've had abortions, and none of them are true." It It is a great, great book. But I remember we've talked about our love for like kind of category romances in the 80s, and one of a series I really loved was the series by Barbara Boswell where these brothers all married these sisters.
Sarah MacLean 1:01:39
Oh, I love it already.
Jennifer Prokop 1:01:41
I know the Ramseys and the Bradys-- and here's the thing, in one of them, and I really remember this, and in one of them, Erin is the heroine. And she has like kids already, she's-- of course she's still like, she's 24-- and her, you know, she got pregnant right after high school and got married, and now the Dad's out of the picture. And she gets with this new man, and she they're not using birth control because he thinks he's barren because, from his previous marriage, they weren't able to have kids. And of course, now-- all of a sudden-- Erin's pregnant and he says, "You've been cheating on me!" They run into his ex wife at the mall, and the ex wife is like, "I'm just so glad that this happened. You know, it wasn't that I was barren it was that basically like his sperm and my egg like bad body chemistry"-- some 80s bullshit-- but I remember, I vividly remember this plot and and how angry, like rightfully so, Erin was at this ex wife for like, not ever really being honest with the hero right? But it's also super problematic to imagine that somehow she had medical knowledge that he didn't. Right? it's also crazy and it's this right the bad ex, who either withheld Or aborted a child, or whatever is s ... I... it's an automatic like, first of all, I'm not reading your book anymore. And I'm probably not reading you anymore.
Sarah MacLean 1:03:10
Yeah, yeah. I mean, certainly, you know, somebody on Twitter, I sort of ranted a little bit about this on Twitter yesterday, and somebody on Twitter came forward and was like, "In the 90s, I wrote this book." And I was like, "In the 90s, it was a different time!" We all have to have room to grow, right? We have room. We, I talk all the time about the fact that I've been writing for 10 years, what I wrote in 2009 is not representative necessarily, of what I write now in 2019, and like, that's just life. We have to have room to grow.
Jennifer Prokop 1:03:43
Sure. And that's romance. And that romance, right?
Sarah MacLean 1:03:46
We're moving too quickly. we're iterating on society, the whole time. That's fine. What I want is for us to as writers, as responsible citizens of the genre, for us to just try and do better. That's all we can ask for is that everybody try and do better. Can I just have a fun moment? It hasn't been a lot of fun moments, but I want to give a shout out to the only vasectomy I can think of, Jennifer. Which I had not actually thought about until you told that crazy story about the brothers marrying the sisters and the like, how he thought he was barren. And then he thought she was cheating on him. And that he--
Jennifer Prokop 1:04:24
The 80s! They also owned a mall, so it's all bad.
Sarah MacLean 1:04:28
Sure. Of course they did. Yeah.
Jennifer Prokop 1:04:30
The Ramsey Park. Well, the what their last name is Ramsey, the Ramsey Park Mall.
Sarah MacLean 1:04:36
Oh my god. What?
Jennifer Prokop 1:04:37
I actually bought these books on Amazon because I like right. I was like, I gotta have--
Sarah MacLean 1:04:41
Sure. Seminal texts. So... speaking of seminal texts,
Jennifer Prokop 1:04:48
I was like "ha ha." All right, I love you so much right now.
Sarah MacLean 1:04:53
Air high five. So okay, Jude Devereaux, who everyone knows is like my seminal text, "The Black Lyon," at the beginning of my time in romance, Jude Devereaux wrote a family saga, every book, like every book she ever has ever written has been a Montgomery book. And they have this like intense Montgomery, this Montgomery family tree, and the Montgomerys have a lot of twins. A lot. A lot. You're making a funny face.
Jennifer Prokop 1:05:22
Yeah, no, I'm just curious about like, tell me more. Where's this all going?
Sarah MacLean 1:05:25
FYI everybody, Jen and I have a twin interstitial coming. So, I'm not going to give you too much information about the Montgomery twins because I'm sure we'll talk about the full twin experience then, but this is a good one. So at some point, so "Sweet liar" is this contemporary, like wacky kind of time travel-y? ghosty? like St. Valentine's Day Massacre, Chicago period? Like weird... there's a lot packed into this book "Sweet Liar" Hero's name is Michael. I don't remember the heroines name because it doesn't matter. Michael is a twin. And he's like, he has a lot-- There's a lot-- Michael is pretty dreamy and weird and kind of amazing. But there's this legend in the Montgomery family of one of the cousin's got, he's... here... They're so virile, all the men, all the men in the Montgomery family. Virility is also a big piece of romances of a time, right? And they're so virile, and one of the men had a vasectomy, because his wife is like, "I've had too many of your fucking babies. Like, we're not doing this anymore. You're getting a vasectomy." And so he went off and he got a vasectory and he came back and then they had sex, and she got pregnant, and he was convinced she had cheated on him. And she was like, "Fuck you. I'm getting a paternity test for this baby," which she did. And she was like, "see it is your baby, you're just too virile for vasectomy."
Jennifer Prokop 1:06:42
I am dead over here.
Sarah MacLean 1:07:16
If I remember correctly, he buys her like a Porsche and like a 10 carat diamond ring to apologize--
Jennifer Prokop 1:07:24
for basically having super Montgomery sperm--
Sarah MacLean 1:07:26
For basically having crazy Jude Deveraux sperm.
Jennifer Prokop 1:07:31
Oh, guys, that's some good stuff right there, that really is.
Sarah MacLean 1:07:35
You know what, that's the perfect example of like, some crazy shit and romance novel, that definitely coded some real problematic, like virility issues into my life. However, I really love that a vasectory was on the page. And I love that the heroine was like, "fuck you were getting a paternity test." Like, it was great. This isn't actually the heroine of that book, but whatever it's referenced. It's a story that's referenced in there. I like that the vasectory was just codified like, this is a thing that happens even though in this particular case it didn't work because he has super sperm.
Jennifer Prokop 1:08:07
Well, I mean, Hello Sarah.
Sarah MacLean 1:08:09
But obviously, he's a Montgomery, so stay tuned for our twin episode and more Montgomery shenanigans. Um, what else?
Jennifer Prokop 1:08:17
I want to end this episode by talking about this Melonie Johnson book. So I don't know if we're ready for it yet.
Sarah MacLean 1:08:22
Let's do it. Because we're,
Jennifer Prokop 1:08:24
yeah, we're like, we're over an hour, everyone's like, "Oh my god, stop being so angry!" "No, never." Um, here's the thing. One of the things that was really interesting is when you asked on Twitter about abortion books, like there really were a handful, right? So there's a book by Jenny Trout, one of the Tiffany Reisz-- Nora, I guess in one of the Original Sinners books. But I want to talk about this book by Melonie Johnson called "Once upon a Bad Boy," and it doesn't actually come out until June 25, So I don't want to spoil it entirely. But this is one of the few books-- like among a very small list of books-- we could have where like a heroine has an abortion. And, and in this case, it was something that the heroine and hero were like teenage, dating, dated as teenagers. They broke up, it was very sudden. He broke up with her. And then we get, it's 10-11 years later. So now, you know, they're almost 30, and one of the things that's really fascinating about this book, in terms of-- that the exploration of her journey, like the the abortion, is she does not have any regrets at all. About, I mean, she has moments of like, what-if-ism, right? What if, what if I would have made a different choice? She doesn't have any regrets. She doesn't feel any guilt. She doesn't feel like she did anything wrong. But what she has done is kept it a secret for 10 years because women in our society just don't talk about their abortions. And so that the pressure of keeping that all inside is something that has really-- like right, it's it's not the "what she did" that's the problem. It's the pressure to keep it a secret. And this is something that only her grandmother knows. I don't want to spoil the book, or like necessarily talk too much about why it happened. I was, I will be honest, I was really on the fence with it. I'm kind of ready for the heroine who is like, "Fuck yeah, I had abortion" and we just all0. move on. Right. It as matter of fact as taking Plan B but--
Sarah MacLean 1:10:31
--yeah, but is that really authentic?
Jennifer Prokop 1:10:33
Well, I think.. we certainly.. Well, according to "The Scarlet A" book, It is.
Sarah MacLean 1:10:37
No, no, I don't mean that. I mean, I mean, is it authentic for us to just sort of, for many of us to step forward and say--
Jennifer Prokop 1:10:44
Yes, I like Yeah.
Sarah MacLean 1:10:46
"Fuck yeah, I had an abortion." I mean, right. This is the problem, right? Like, we keep, we've spent the entire episode talking about how we keep our bodies secret.
Jennifer Prokop 1:10:57
Yes,
Sarah MacLean 1:10:57
Like we protect, and it's not It's, I mean, in part, its protection, right? Nobody wants--I spent the last two days like, you know, fighting people on the internet. Not everybody has the bandwidth or the desire to do that work. But the truth is, as long as this is, as long as our bodies, as long as the uterus is politicized, speaking up like that is a risk. And it's a risk that we should not expect any woman to have to take like,
Jennifer Prokop 1:11:33
absolutely.
Sarah MacLean 1:11:34
It's a risk that if you are willing to take it-- Jen and I are here for you! like we, I will, I Sarah, will fight you-- will fight for you. I will fight alongside
Jennifer Prokop 1:11:43
But we shouldn't insist that people have to--
Sarah MacLean 1:11:46
Yeah, and I think like there is a certain sense like look, it takes a lot to get past, codified, ingrained shame. And that is not to say that anybody should feel shame about an abortion. And that is to say that like many, many people in society expect you to. And that's, and like the way patriarchy sucks.
Jennifer Prokop 1:12:07
Well, and, you know, a really powerful piece I saw on Jezebel today was sort of like, okay, so for the past two days, everyone, you know, lots of people--women-- are getting out there and sharing their abortion stories, but we're not changing hearts and minds, the people who are closed to this, the people who, you know, think that it's, you know, who are pro-forced birth. Those people don't care about our stories. And I ended up finding, therefore, Sadie is the heroine of this Melanie Johnson book, I therefore-At first I was sort of like, I want you to feel less conflicted. But as the book went on, I ended up really feeling like it was an honest portrayal of, like, sort of--we all have regrets, right. And regret was, you know, it was a man she loved, it was a relationship that ended suddenly, it was, you know, now someone who's back in her life, it's a secret she kept from her best friend. It's, you know, and I, and I really found that journey to her acceptance of-- not the decision she made, she never regrets that decision-- but like the need to hide it. And that felt, I will be honest with you. I have never read anything like it in romance before.
Sarah MacLean 1:13:31
Well, that is a high praise. No matter, no matter what this book is like, that's, I want to read thing-- that we we owe it to women to tell every possible story. We owe it to all people, to all marginalized people to tell every possible story of happiness. And that is, that's our work as writers--as a genre.
Jennifer Prokop 1:13:53
Well, and I think one of the things I kept thinking about, was we talk a lot about representation matters, right? Like it is really vitally important that if you that we're not sort of saying like, okay, I read this romance with a black character, now I've read romance with black characters. No, you haven't! You read one! And part of the problem with there being so few stories in romance where women have abortions is then we hang our entire like hopes, dreams and needs for that book, that story inromance, on this one book.
Sarah MacLean 1:14:29
Right.
Jennifer Prokop 1:14:29
Right. Are these three books? And that is why we need more of them.
Sarah MacLean 1:14:34
We need more. I mean, the fact that.. Jen is right. I mean, I said 15 books the beginning there, there are maybe 15 books on that list. Many of them are Plan B. Some of them have no abortion at all, but have a doctor in them. So if we're talking about fewer fewer than 10, less than 10 books on this list, hive minded from our romance Twitter people, and old school romance, the book club that I host on Facebook-- Which you can join, If you'd like to--
Sarah MacLean 1:15:02
Yeah, we'll put it in show notes. I'm like, "That's an incredible hivemind." And if we can only come up with this number, like there aren't that many more, there really just aren't, I'm sure of it. I mean, every, if again, we go back to one quarter of all American women under the age of 45 have had an abortion. And there are--that is millions of stories!-- and we're not, and what is happening? I mean, it just takes us back to that original question, which is: why in this genre that has made, carved out, such important domestic space-- and I say domestic as, like female centered, like women's centered space; as a genre, as a matter of course, centering the female gaze and female identity and female politics, or women's politics, I should say-- how have we never, how have we not come to a place where there are at least, you know, 250 we can point to?
Jennifer Prokop 1:15:02
we'll put it in show notes.
Jennifer Prokop 1:16:12
Exactly! I mean, and that's the part where when you see how small the sample size is and you know, this Melanie Johnson book-- I'm about where you're going to hear about it next week-- it's going to be available a month later and we will signal boost it, you know, to high heaven once it actually comes out-- because I do think that I found Sadie's journey as like an individual character, and her moments of sadness, and her her sense that she couldn't... I mean, I found it all very moving and I thought, you know what, we deserve to see a woman who was, "Yeah, I kind of have some regrets and sometimes I wish 'What if' and I still know I did the right thing, and it was still my decision to make."
Sarah MacLean 1:16:56
Well, because bodies are nuanced!
Jennifer Prokop 1:16:58
Feelings are complicated!
Sarah MacLean 1:17:00
It is not an easy discussion, which is clear in the in the world. And it's why Jen and I rage so hard when anybody comes at this with a black and white answer. This is a hard conversation to have. And all I think I'm saying is: I stand with women being able to make their own choices about their own bodies. And that's really all.
Jennifer Prokop 1:17:24
That's it. Right? Well, and I think that that's why we don't, we started out talking about trans men and trans women and and sort of bodies and who we are but-- if you believe in bodily autonomy for women, then I think you have to believe in bodily autonomy for everybody. And I think you have to look at people and say, "I want you to be who you are in the world. And I want the world to accept you and that journey for what it is and if romance cannot be there for that in every way, then romance is not doing what it needs to do to support the people who need it the most."
Sarah MacLean 1:18:07
Right? If it's the genre of hope, and happiness, it has to be the genre of hope and happiness for all of us.
Jennifer Prokop 1:18:17
Yeah, no exceptions. No exceptions.
Sarah MacLean 1:18:21
No.
Jennifer Prokop 1:18:22
Except Nazis. Except Nazis.
Jennifer Prokop 1:18:26
But I mean, and that's the part where I find this conversation and these books, you know, and I know we talked about like a probably 50 different books today. And we didn't even talk about all the books that we could have. But I mean, I think we were really interested in exploring what is it that romance is doing really well? Romance is talking about miscarriage. It's talking about grieving and loss. You know, romance is talking about condoms and safe sex. Romance is talking about preventing pregnancy. But it's not really talking at all about abortion. And this is about to be a right that many of us are not going have access to anymore. And that fear is something I would like to see romance normalizing for ourselves as women and for readers. And I get I'm not a writer, right? I don't have to make a living off my book selling and putting my kid through college. You know, I know those risks are out there. But I hope that we all get behind Melonie Johnson's book and prove that there is a market for like nuanced stories about women who make hard decisions for themselves, or easy decisions for themselves, but they make those decisions for themselves.
Sarah MacLean 1:18:35
Except Nazis.
Sarah MacLean 1:18:54
People deserve to have body autonomy. period. Tthat said, what I do want to add is that we are, I think, and this is me sort of looking into my romance crystal ball, I think this week could be, this could have started a sea change among writers thinking about the fact that we don't-- we limit, we create space to talk about bodies, our bodies and how they work. And like you said, we create space to talk about sorrow and shame around the way our bodies work. But we don't we have limit, we have stopped, we've come to a stopping point when we get to this piece of the puzzle. And I think a lot, a lot of romance novelists, I mean, just in the last two days, I've heard from so many writers who acknowledged that they've never tackled it, but they want to. And so I would like to think that a year from now we're going to start seeing in books a little more. I don't think we're ever going to see it every book, like I don't think we're-- and that's not what I'm asking for--But I think we're going to see more and more and more of these stories on the page. And that's all we're asking for. We're just asking for us all to just think a little more carefully about representing that choice that a lot of us have made. And, and I mean a lot! I just, I gave an interview about this today and I just feel like I said at some point, you know, everyone, everyone knows a woman who has who has done this, everyone has interacted with a person who has done this, you may not know, and nobody is asking anyone to risk like I said earlier--
Jennifer Prokop 1:21:28
--if it's not safe for you to share that story, either emotionally or physically or for whatever reason, like I like, no one's gonna push anybody into the limelight. But romance then is a way-- like miscarriage-- where we can share our stories and, there's truth in fiction. I say that to my students all the time.
Sarah MacLean 1:21:49
Romance is a private space. It is private space for people who read romance and it's and it's so far removed from like the prying eyes of the world, the rest of the world. If we can't have this conversation here in our private space, where can we have this conversation safely? And look, the reality is that readers-- there are going to be readers who don't like it. And so it's going to take risk, and it's going to take bravery. And I really am looking forward to the, to the books that come from it.
Jennifer Prokop 1:22:24
Yeah. Well, and you know what? I think your crystal ball is right on because when I think about the books that I talked about tonight, like specifically, right, Jenny Holiday's books, that whole series, the Melanie Green Book, the Melonie Johnson book, these are books that are all 2018 or later.
Sarah MacLean 1:22:41
Yeah, Ruby Lang.
Jennifer Prokop 1:22:42
Right. Ruby Lang. I mean, so we are already we are talking about old books within a lot of the books that we are like talking about right now are RIGHT NOW. So we, these are really the women who are putting these things on the page. They're the forerunners. And if we support these books and buy these books and show that there's a market for these stories, then we work-- we will get more of them. I know that there are books that we missed we tried to cast the widest possible net.
Sarah MacLean 1:23:11
Well, we've only had 48 hours, so we're going to, I'm committed to reading all those books on the list. And so you know, follow me on twitter, follow the Fated Mates Twitter account, and I'll tweet about the ones that are great and hopefully we'll get more. If you have a book, listeners, if you have read a book where there's an abortion on the page, please please rec us you know, good good abortion rep, we want that. Tell us about books that have meant something to you, as representing kind of body autonomy and and the body politic. We're interested in that. Jen and I especially are interested in how, how fertility and contraception and all of that lives on the page. If you can point to an early use of a condom in a contemporary, we want to hear all about it.
Jennifer Prokop 1:24:16
definitely want to hear all about that.
Sarah MacLean 1:24:18
I'm gonna do some research. And you know, again, follow Fated Mates on Twitter, follow me on Twitter, follow us on Instagram, we'll put everything there.
Jennifer Prokop 1:24:24
I mean, I think that's it, we are, it's a call to action, right? Because we know that when you change people's worldview and their empathy and the way they think about the choices we get to make and to have that we change the world. The urgency of this isn't just like, because we want you to have better books to read. It's because when we change the way we think about what our possibilities are, we change our futures.
Sarah MacLean 1:24:53
Well, that's a good place to stop. I think.You're listening to Fated Mates, Everybody. Follow us on Twitter @fatemates follow us on Instagram @fatedmatespod. Go over to our website, fatedmates.net and check out the show notes on your apps or over on fatedmates.net. You can leave comments there. You can talk to us any time. Leave us reviews, all that good stuff. Next week we are back with "Dark skye." Another another broken demon man. He's a demon, right? I mean, a winged demon.
Jennifer Prokop 1:25:35
And I think it's going to be very relevant and interesting conversation. Yeah, to this one that we well. Kresley always is, but I think this book in particular, is really landing at a time where I think it's gonna be really interesting. So, go out and do something you want to do with your body today.
Sarah MacLean 1:25:52
Have a good night.
S02.23: Waking Up with the Duke: Lorraine Heath Breaks A Lot of Romance Rules
This week, it’s one of Sarah’s favorites, and by an author Jen has never read! Lorraine Heath is a master of the historical, and this one is near-perfect. It’s complex and nuanced and it has an infidelity plot and THERE IS SO MUCH ANGST!
We love having you with us! — subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform and like/review the podcast if you’re so inclined!
In two weeks, we’re reading the Queen of Dirty Talk! Sarah and Jen both love Tessa Bailey — so we’ll be talking about our two favorites of her books, Asking for Trouble (Sarah’s) and Protecting What’s His (Jen’s). Find them at: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, or Kobo.
Show Notes
Turns out Sarah and Jen aren't the only people who think these Apple keyboards are trash--after winning a 2020 Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, Taika Waititi had quite a bit to say on the subject.
Tom Beer is one of Jen's editors at Kirkus, and you should follow him on Twitter.
You can read The Smith College Sophian on line, and we'll link to the interview with Sarah onces it goes live.
We have Leslie Knope from Parks & Recreation to thank for the glory that is Galentine's Day. Read Jen's column about some books that celebrate women's friendship.
A few years ago during #RomBkLove, Shantastic/@bardsong wrote a great piece about disability in romance. You can also check out the blog, Sense and Disability by @Callalily.
Kate Reading is an amazing audiobook narrator, she's the one who narrates Lord of Scoundrels.
Fridging is a word from comics that is when women characters are killed to motivate a male character, but can be used to describe any time a less powerful or privileged character is used as a plot device. Flat Stanley is a character in children's books, but flat characters you might remember from English class.
Harry and Meghan are still taking money from the Duchy of Cornwall.
Jen said she was going to go back and read the other books in the trilogy, and they are bundled together on Amazon for $10.
The Bechdel Test is a pretty simple way of judging how inclusive movies are of women characters; it's limited but powerful. Jen wrote about external and internal conflict in romance, but we also talked about it on the Priest episode -- and we are always unpacking the way conflict works in romance.
Dialogue tags get a bad rap, famously Elmore Leonard claimed that writers should only use "said" and "asked." In this part of the discussion, Sarah mentioned her friend Barry Lyga, a YA author.
Jen thinks these three are codependent.
Cheating is the third rail of romance. It is. There are some lists on Goodreads of romances that have cheating, but it's complicated and difficult. One Jen read recently was I Want You Back by Lorelei James, but the cheating happened in the past. If you're interested in reading another book about someone who discovers the other family, Jen recommends Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones.
Next time, we'll be reading Tessa Bailey, The Queen of Dirty Talk. Sarah's choice is Asking for Trouble, and a secondary text is the first one of that same series, Protecting What's His.
Buy stickers and buttons from Kelly and t-shirts from Jordan.
We are experimenting with some voice to text transcripts, so here's the first one for this episode.
S02.20: Managed by Kristen Callihan: Scottie!!!
Scottie!!!!!!! It’s Managed week here at Fated Mates — this is one of Jen’s favorite romances, and we’re talking about it and the next book in Kristen Callihan’s VIP series, Fall. We’re revisiting the rockstar romance and the found family trope, talking about the slow burn, and Jen’s talking about first person present tense narration and not yelling…so it’s a banner episode!
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!
In two weeks, we’re reading one of Sarah’s picks, Lorraine Heath’s Waking Up With the Duke, which was a tough choice because Lorraine is amazing and Sarah wants you to read all of her books. Read Waking Up With the Duke at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, or Kobo.
Show Notes
Jen's disappointed with the iHeartRadio Podscast awards. It's an honor just to be nominated, and that didn't even happen! For your consideration: Best Pop Culture Podcast and Best Fiction Podcast! Come on! Literary Disco wasn't even nominated!
Everyone loved The Pegging episode! Jen found this really interesting article too late for those show notes, but why not drop them here? We don't really think that we jumped the shark. Oh, and any chance to drop the "smashing from the back" rap.
The 20 minutes Eric cut were about RWA. So just read Jen's article for Kirkus instead. Just kidding. We don't really need D & O insurance. Do we? Either way, Eric should stop harshing our dream mellow.
Our Kristen Callihan origin stories: Sarah recommends Evernight in the Darkest London series, but Jen can't help but think of Tony Stark. Jen wrote about Kristen's book The Hook Up in the Who Did it Better in the Library post.
Slumpbusters from this week: The Player and Sweet Ruin for Sarah, and two Sophie Jordan books, While the Duke was Sleeping and The Scandal of it All, for Jen. And the shipbuilder book by Holley Trent is called Lowdown Dirty.
If you're trying to find the sex scenes in books, Jenny Nordbak from the Wicked Wallflowers Podcast has the sure-fire keyword search word: thrust.
The kind of super fancy first class where the seats turn into beds looks pretty great. Recently, we saw this happen in the movie Crazy Rich Asians.
Unbuttoning a glove is a huge romantic moment in Lord of Scoundrels and The Age of Innocence.
In case you have to travel with a rock band on a bus, the internet provides useful tips, of course! Jen loves this famous tour bus scene from the movie Almost Famous. Also, read Daisy Jones and the Six, which uses interview format to tell the story of the rise and fall of a 70s rock band.
Our Rock Star Romance interstitial was our very first interstitial. It's 20 minutes long, and you can listen to it here.
Revision is everything, but it is also very hard.
Interested in more slow burn romances? Goodreads has you covered.
Kerrelyn Sparks is the one who told Sarah romance is like a football game.
If you're worried you have an STI like Chlamydia, please see a doctor. Also, if you have kids, make sure they get the HPV vaccination.
Being a professional friend is a real job.
More about the A in the LGBTQIA+ spectrum.
If you're ever in Chicago, you should go to the dining room of the Chicago Athletic Association, check out the trophies, and play some bocce ball.
Looking to hang out with us in April? We'll be at KissCon and Spring Fling.
Buy buttons and stickers from Kelly and t-shirts from Jordan.
Next up, Waking Up With the Duke by Lorraine Heath, a book that blooded Sarah.
other books we mentioned
S02.18: Born in Ice: The One Where the Hero Smokes
It’s Nora Roberts week at Fated Mates, and we’re reading one of young Jen’s favorite books, Born in Ice, the second in the Born In trilogy, set in Ireland. This week, we’re talking why Nora Roberts is romance royalty, writing writers, the way contemporary romances age, and how weird it is when you read that a hero smokes. Oh, and of course, we’re talking about what the hell is happening in romance right now.
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!
In two weeks, we’ve got another of Jen’s pics, 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
Who knows what the RWA situation is when you read this, but as of this podcast, the absolute best source is Claire Ryan's blog post outlining the timeline of events. There was lots of national news coverage, but the "come on girls" comment was on NPR.
The 2019 RITA ceremony was amazing, and one that celebrated the history of romance. In between when we recorded this episode and when it was released, RWA cancelled the 2020 RITA awards. When Sarah said "it was a check the organization couldn't cash" she's alluding to a less well-known section of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech.
"La Nora" is how many people refer to Nora Roberts. Sarah mentions some of her earliest category romances, including Gabriel's Angel, an early Nora from the Silhouette Intimate Moments line. She's also read Naked In Death (Jen hasn't), but Jen loved The Brides quartet, which was probably the last Nora Roberts series she read.
Sarah said she feels like readers should at least have read ten percent of an author's backlist for full romance competency. Should the "Ten Percent Rule" be a plank of the official Fated Mates Romance Reader platform? Discuss.
When we talk about Nora Roberts, we used a lot of superhero language: her origin story; her vanquishing of a villanous and duplicitous plaigiarist--twice!; owning her own town; her complete dominance of the bestseller lists. None of it is hyperbole. It's possible she actually is a superhero.
Lots of authors made statements about the RWA situaton. Here is Nora's, and then JR Ward's.
Virginity in romance has come a long way. PS. Virginity is a construct.
Somewhere in the 43 minute mark, Jen says "ope," which is the most Midwestern of sayings. If the twitter account Midwest vs. Everybody doesn't make you laugh so hard you wheeze, you're probably part of the everybody.
Jen isn't the only one who thinks smoking is a short cut for villainy. She thinks The X-Files is to blame. Also, PSA: vaping is really bad for you, too.
Birth control in romance has changed so much, listen to our episode on bodily autonomy for more discussion of this topic.
What does it mean to do something in a fugue state?
Sarah's big thread about why authors shouldn't be afraid of the problematic content in their old romances.
If you're interested in a big interesting book about The Troubles, Jen recommends Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe.
What's a moor anyways?
So you wanted to know what it was like to fly the Concorde?
Buying a car? Sounds like that other Grey. Too bad this Gray was a Confederate apologist. Saying the Civil War was about "a way of life" instead of slavery is a classic Lost Cause myth. As Courtney Milan says, the devil doesn't need your advocacy.
Buy buttons and stickers from Kelly, tshirt and swag from Jordan, particpate in a 2020 reading challengewith Jen and Sarah, and fill out this survey for Eric.
In two weeks, we'll be discussed Managed and Fall by Kristen Callihan. If you have to pick one, make it Managed. As of this episode airing, Jen has tweeted just the word Scottie with a swooning gif at least 11 times.
Our listener call in book was Star King by Susan Grant.
S02.14: Indigo: Ride the Beverly Jenkins Train
Get ready for Hester, one of Sarah’s favorite heroines of all time — and Beverly Jenkins’s Indigo, which Jen just read for the first time! We’re talking historical romance, the way romances feel important, sex and intimacy, and all the reasons why everyone should read Beverly Jenkins right now.
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, it’s the second half of our book recommendation, stump Sarah & Jen AMA. The following week we’ll release a tiny 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.
Show Notes
Jen now has critic crushes on Diego Baez and Walton Muyumba. Liz Taylor who is kind of a big deal in the book world wrote an amazing book about Chicago's first Mayor Daley called American Pharaoh.
Thanks to the Lincoln RI public library for being awesome.
There's actually a lot of great resources for how to teach slavery to kids, so do better white teachers.
Here at Fated Mates, we are LaQuette stans. Listen to her talk about discomfort and how important it is in her RITA speech last year.
Colson Whitehead's Underground Railroad is an absolute tour de force. Here is a cool site mapping the world of the novel.
If you don't know about America's history of lynching, you should learn all about Bryan Stevenson, who spearheaded the effort to create a Lynching Museum. The site Without Sanctuary preserves the history of these postcards (Content warning on that site for obvious reasons.)
Gone with the Wind is an example of the pervasive and terrible "happy slave" narrative, which appears over and over again. Know and reject this narrative, not just in adult books, but in those written for kids. And while I'm on the subject, that goes for picture books about monkeys, too.
This amazing One Dot One Person map is a stark look at how the legacy of slavery and segregation still impacts where Americans live today.
So you want to read all the books about the LeVeq clan? Start with Through the Storm. and although Sarah said "kids" she meant that Hester and Galen's descendents are the main characters in the Edge of Midnight series. One of our favorite romance people is When Fumni Met Romance, and you should definitley read her talking about her love for Indigo and Beverly Jenkins.
The internet makes it so much easier to read the stories of enslaved people. Along with the rather amazing (but imperfect) WPA interviews, you can read any number of slave narratives. Remember it was illegal to teach slaves to read, so it's an especailly powerful experience to read slave narratives. If you've never read Frederick Douglass, you should, but Jen also recommends Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs.
If you are looking for more resources to learn about American slavery, the New York times 1619 Project is amazing. If you are a listener, Jen recommends you listen the Yale open course about The Civil War with professor David Blight.
Jen liked an early 80s novel called The Chaneysville Incident, which is about a historian trying to discover the truth about how his family's past intersects with a local legend about the Underground Railroad. Here's a recent interview with author David Bradley when the book was converted to an eBook.
The history of the Underground Railroad is part legend, part myth, and part fact. This site talks specifically about the route people fleeing took north through Michigan on the way to Canada.
Night Song was the first novel by Beverly Jenkins.
All about the Fugitive Slave Act, why it was so terrible, and how we are seeing echoes of it today.
Some interesting sites that talk about indigo cultivation and the role of enslaved people in making the dye. A 2013 book called Red, White, and Black Make Blue discusses the relationship of slavery and indigo production in South Carolina.
A thread from Adriana Herrera about why historical romance must grapple with how problematic white women upheld slavery.
Colorism is an issue that Beverly Jenkins weaves into Indigo.
Looking for more romances with carriage sex? Of course you are.
The Blessings series is a contemporary series by Beverly Jenkins that takes place in the town of Henry Adams, KS.
The Biblical story of Daniel and the Lion's Den is why Galen's nickname is The Black Daniel.
Sex euphamisms, anyone?
Robert E. Lee was pretty terrible.
Jen's favorite novel by Beverly Jenkins is Forbidden, which was recently optioned for TV! Sarah reviewed it for the Washington Post in 2016. Jen has no idea what movie she saw with a character who was passing, but Sarah recommends Nella Larsen's 1929 Passing.
In 2018, they made a movie of Deadly/Sexy. Fun fact, the actor in the movie, Travis Cure, was then the cover model for her next book, Rebel.
The book recommended by Walton Muyumba is called Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments.
Buy Fated Mates buttons from Kelly at the shop on Jen's site, and Sarah's t-shirts and other swag here.
Jan 1, 2020, we'll be discussing Born in Ice by Nora Roberts.
S02.12: Lord of Scoundrels: Reel or be Reeled
It may be Thanksgiving week in the US, but that didn’t stop us from recording a monster episode about one of our (and all of Romance’s) favorite books of all time! It’s Lord of Scoundrels week! We’re talking gloves and fans and prologues and why Jessica is one of the best heroines of all time! All that, and Sarah is on a rant about Byron…so don’t miss it!
Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in your favorite podcasting platform — and while you’re there, please leave us a like or a review!
In two weeks, we’re moving across the pond to Beverly Jenkins’s Indigo, with one of Sarah’s favorite heroines ever—Hester Wyatt, Underground Railroad conductor! Read Indigo at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo or your local indie.
Show Notes
Lord of Scoundrels has its own wikipedia page, which in case you're curious, is kind of unusual.
Just look at this gorgeous Lord of Scoundrels embroidery.
If you haven't listened to our episode on Dreaming of You, what are you waiting for?
Maybe you want to find out what you first ordered in your Amazon account.
Jessica Trent is not a Mary Sue.
Erin from Heaving Bosoms is famous for not liking epilogues, but it's a pretty good reason why. But prologues are fine.
You've been lawyered is from How I Met Your Mother.
Sarah wrote the prologue to a new edition of The Transformation of Philip Jettan.
Love's Sweet Arrow is a romance-only bookstore in the Chicago suburbs. It's awesome.
Gentle Rogue started too late.
More about Russian religous icons, but maybe you want to buy some.
The gloves scene in the Age of Innocence movie. All that repressed longing from Daniel Day Lewis! In the book, it's this chapter where Newland Archer "bent over, unbuttoned her tight brown glove, and kissed her palm as if he had kissed a relic."
If you want to know about demon seals and the Wroth brothers, then listen to season one of Fated Mates.
What does it even mean to dance a waltz in the Continental style? Probably not this Continental-style.
The Beverly Jenkins book where the heroine shoots the hero is Tempest.
Reading the banns and a list of people who were married at Saint George Hanover Square.
You'll be shocked to know that Jen has some theories about internal vs. external conflict.
When they're at the wrestling match, Dain says his friend could have "stayed comfortably at home and pumped his wife."
She Walks in Beauty Like the Night is a glorious poem, but that doesn't make Byron any less of a scumbag. That Ada Lovelace was Byron's daughter is kind of wild, but we're glad she's known for being her own person. Despite Sarah trying to create an authorship question for Byron, that's not really a thing. There's no such person as the Duke of Summerville. Jen just made that up.
If you're interested in The Romantics, you can find Jen's old college syllabus here. Lots of Wordsworth, but no Bryon, which is just fine. But we still love the way Loretta Chase used Don Juan in the text of Lord of Scoundrels.
Friend of the pod Adriana Herrera has been reading Lord of Scoundrels for the first time and her tweets about it are honestly the most amazing thing.
Maybe you want to buy some romancelandia buttons or some of Sarah's t-shirts.
Coming up next on December 11, 2019, Indigo by Beverly Jenkins
S02.09: Sierra Simone's Midwest: Priest
It’s Priest week! Sarah put Sierra Simone’s Priest on her Books that Blooded Her list, and this episode is a ride! Jen’s reading first person narrative, we’re both escaped catholics, Sarah imprinted on The Thornbirds, we’ll get to the bottom of anal sex in church (see what we did there?), and fully disagree about how much guilt is too much guilt for a hero. Plus, you’ll hear us tell you how brilliant we think Sierra is.
Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in your favorite podcasting platform — and while you’re there, please leave us a like or a review!
In two weeks, we’re going to a classic of classics! The read was on both Jen & Sarah’s list—Loretta Chase’s Lord of Scoundrels, which is on the lions’ share of Best Romance Novels Ever lists. We’ll get into why. Read Lord of Scoundrels at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo or your local indie.
Show Notes
We love Sierra Simone! Sarah talked about Sinner on the Best Friend's Sibling episode, and Sierra was a special guest on our MacRieve episode. She'll also be joining us on a very special future interstitial.
Will Kresley drop Munro like Beyonce? One can only hope.
If you want to join Sarah's FB Old School Romance Book Club group, click here and wait for moderator approval. We (try to remember but sometimes have to be reminded to) post a discussion post for each week's episode there.
Have you listened to what we consider to be our sister podcasts: The Wicked Wallflowers, Heaving Bosoms, and Black Chick Lit? We also love Learning the Tropes and RomBkPod. Check them out for all your listening needs.
Facebook is garbage and Zuckerberg is aiming for Bond Villain.
The modern day dirty priest fantasy is Fleabag, the old school one is The Thornbirds.
If you're not following Jen Porter on Twitter, what are you doing with your life?
Sierra's Markham Hall series is an erotic retelling of Jane Eyre.
What does it even mean to be star-crossed?
More about reader response theory.
A defintion of "framing device" and how they work in fiction.
In the Catholic Church, penance is one of seven sacraments.
In case you want to know more about hairshirts as a thing, but please don't wear one.
In the Ice Planet Barbarians series, the khui is a mystical thing on the ice planet. That's really all you need to know.
More about the history of Rhode Island as a haven for escaped Catholics. No not that kind of escaped Catholic.
The 2015 movie Spotlight is about the investigative journalists who broke the story of priest sexual abuse in Boston. In one famous scene, a reporter knock on the door of a retired priest who answers her questions in a shocking way. (All the trigger warnings on that scene, by the way.)
Mark Ruffalo the hulk vs Mark Ruffalo in Spotlight.
Sarah recommends the audio of Priest.
This summer, the Catholic Diocese of Providence released the names of 50 priests who were credibly accused of abuse.
Celibacy is a core tenent of Catholic priesthood, but as less and less men enter the priesthood, that might be changing in some interesting ways. Please note that the Vatican is more likely to lift celibacy requirements before they'd allow the ordination of women.
If this is the defintiion of an inspirational romance, then Priest qualifies.
The Tessa Bailey book with "baby girl" is Fix Her Up. It's hot if you don't mind that sort of thing.
Hot Cop is a book by Sierra Simone and Laurelin Page.
In season 2 of Fleabag, the therapist who asks if she wants to "fuck the priest or fuck God" was played by Fiona Shaw. Kristen Scott Thomas gives a barn burner of a speech after the "people are all we have" moment.
All about Saint Anselm.
In case you don't know, the home at the parish for the priest is called the rectory.
Sarah refers to the book of the Bible as Song of Songs, but it's also called the Song of Solomon.
Jenny Nordbak was a guest host on Heaving Bosoms talking about Priest, and it's a great episode if you just need more. Sierra Simone was also on a delicious episode of Wicked Wallflowers!
The sequel to Priest is called Midnight Mass.
Why is a nun's outfit called a habit?
Erin from Heaving Bosoms famously does not read prologues or epilogues. We love her even though we don't really understand.
Shop for buttons from Best Friend Kelly and t-shirts and totes from Sarah.
Christina called in today to talk about Colleen McCullough's The Thornbirds, and we hope she enjoyed Sarah's shout out to it this week!
Coming up: Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase on Nov 20, 2019; Indigo by Beverly Jenkins on Dec 4, 2019; Born in Ice by Nora Roberts on Dec 18, 2019; and A Kingdom of Dreams by Judith McNaught on Jan 8, 2020.
S02.07: That's Spelled J-E-H-N: Dark Lover
Woof, you guys. Woof. This week we’re talking a whole different kind of Vampires (not a single one chained to a radiator…we love u, Conrad) — with JR Ward’s Dark Lover — the first in the Black Dagger Brotherhood Series! We’re talking a LOT this week about toxic masculinity, about the world post 9/11, about what we expect from heroines, about the entire BDB series, and about what the heck is going on in these books. We also get all the titles wrong, as usual.
Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in your favorite podcasting platform — and while you’re there, please leave us a like or a review!
In two weeks, we’re getting more current! The read is Sarah’s Pick, Sierra Simone’s Priest, which is an erotic romance in first-person hero POV, featuring a priest and an exotic dancer (NB: She is not Catholic). If sex in church is your concern, maybe skip this one, but also know that there’s a lot fo religious allegory in here that is fascinating and brilliant. Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo or your local indie.
Show Notes
JR Ward's first pen name was Jessica Bird.
Despite Jen's joke about Proust, she's never actually read him.
Some of the most famous vampire books in fiction were Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire and Queen of the Damned. And let's not forget Twilight.
In romance, you should check out the Argeneau series by Lynsay Sands, or any number of books by Jeaniene Frost. Nalini Singh's Guild Hunters series has a vampire hunter. Sherrilyn Kenyon also has lots of books in this category. In urban fantasy, of course there was the Sookie Stackhouse series, and it's TV adaptation True Blood.
In fact, the 90s were full of vampires in the movies and on TV: Keanu Reeves in Bram Stoker's Dracula, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and if you've never seen it, the opening scene from Blade that Jen mentioned.
Sarah would like you to consider the fact that very few people know who Mary Shelley is, but Francis Ford Coppola made a blockbuster movie with Bram Stoker's name in the actual title because patriarchy is a helluva drug.
Is it romance or urban fantasy?
The JR Ward interview was in Louisville Magazine.
The Wicked Wallflowers interviewed JR Ward and it's just terrific.
Jen read all the RITAs, and she reviewed Consumed in the romantic suspense category and Dearest Ivie in the paranormal category.
All about sawed-off shotguns.
Sarah said John Michael, but OF COURSE she meant John Matthew. Maybe you should read Lover John Matthew and Xhex.
Mary Bly's article about the Black Dagger Brotherhood appears in New Approaches to Popular Romance Fiction.
The Lessers as Incels.
Caldwell is like the world of Gotham... and why it seems so nihilistic.
Beth and Wrath's story continues in The King, or as we like to call it here at Fated Mates, Lover Wrath and Beth Part 2.
It's Lover Phury and Cormia, and then Lover Rhevenge and Ehlena, and Lover Quinn and Blay.
The Susan Faludi book Sarah mentioned is called The Terror Dream: Myth and Misogyny in an Insecure America.
We don't think Beth is a Mary Sue, and JR Ward doesn't either.
A guide to the waves of feminism.
Wellsie is maybe a stand in for Smith vs. Wellesley.
Jen was reading Native Son in college when her professor told her blindness is always a symbol. Oedipus blinded himself, and oracles are seers are often blind. Daredevil is blind and can still kick your ass. The other most famous Blind King Jen could find is in Assassin's Creed.
Next up is Priest by Sierra Simone.