Horns, Claws, or Wolf Hologram: An AMA with Sarah & Jen
It’s the holidays, and whether you’re the type to hole up on the couch and read, or go for a long walk to escape, we’ve got you covered. Get ready; we’re talking about horns.
Show Notes
- Update: Jen got THREE books for Christmas this year! These two from her brother, and her best friend gives perfect, #onbrand books. Sarah got Thomas Madden's Venice and the Great British Bake Off coloring book. Does that count as a book?
- Sarah loves The Great British Baking Show, so you should watch. Or maybe you would just like to admire silver-fox, Paul Hollywood.
-Here's a 1979 New York Times article about this new craze sweeping the nation: hand-raised pies. Everthing old is new again in Sarah's house!
- Jen no longer has the decorative wooden book item, but she does like to window shop for glass jars full of...things.
- "You can put your weed in there" is an old SNL joke.
- Gatsby's books are a symbol, but maybe more than you wanted to know about how books are put together and how pages are cut.
- Read some more AMAs if you're in the mood, and you know Jen can't wait to read that first one.
- Strawberry Rhubarb pie is Sarah's favorite, and although Jen didn't mention it, a favorite pie she makes every summer is Strawberry Margarita pie.
- Our favorite pie shops in Houston, Northern Michigan, Chicago, and Brooklyn.
- Charlotte Stein and Sophie Jordan are auto-buys, and A Kingdom of Dreams and Dreaming of Youare comfort reads. Sarah's most re-read IAD book is Sweet Ruin, and Jen's is Demon from the Dark.
- Kresley announced in her newsletter a few months ago that the next IAD book is Munro (he's Uilleam's twin brother).
- It's not only romance where we talk about unlikable heroines, but it's also that we only ask women authors if their female characters are likable.
- A quick overview of Gender essentalism.
- A very long twitter thread where all of Romancelandia picked their IAD dream cast.
- Olivia Dade made a list of cinnamon roll heroes.
- The ultimate romance rule is HEA or GTFO (Happily Ever After or Get the Fuck Out). There's also HFN, or Happy For Now. Here's the rest of Jen's Romance Rules.
- More about the the problematic fave
- Your Kink is Not my Kink, a very useful way to be respectful when something just isn't your jam. Also, Sarah would like to remind you that decent people don't yuck other people's yum.
- Jen could write odes to the arms of Linda Hamilton and Angela Basset forever.
- We'll be ringing in 2019 with Neomi and Conrad.
3.5: Holiday Romance
It’s the Holiday Season™️, which means it’s time to talk about Holiday romances! Get ready because there are A WHOLE LOT of books in this show. Also, get ready, because next week, on December 26th, instead of releasing our Dark Needs at Night’s Edge episode, we’re releasing a bonus Ask-us-Anything episode as a special holiday present to you!
Show Notes
Our official IAD reread will resume January 2nd, with Néomi (ghost) & Conrad (vampire) and we have so. many. feelings. SO MANY.
- In case you're curious, here's where Jen learned to properly pronounce Therese Beharrie's name. Therese wrote 2 Christmas books this year: A Wedding One Christmas and Her Festive Flirtation, and Jen liked them both.
- Before Sunrise came out in 1995, a sequel Before Sunset in 2004, and a third Before Midnight in 2013. This New Yorker review is a perfect example of everything Jen hates when people review anything romantic, so hate-read it if you're in the mood.
- Jen completely got the name of that chapter book wrong, it's The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.
- Novellas are really common in romance, maybe more than other genres, and Jen anxioulsy awaits the think-piece explaining why.
- Speaking of novellas: The anthology of Chanukah stories that Sarah mentioned is called Burning Bright; Reindeer Games is an anthology of stories with the snowed-in trope; and in Silver Belles, all the characters are over 40.
- Sarah described the cover of A Holiday of Love as an example of a certain type of old-school book package. But just last year, A Christmas to Remember with Lisa Kleypas, Lorraine Heath, Megan Frampton, and Vivienne Lorret followed the same exact cover protocol.
- Epistolary novels are super fun to read (Jen's favorite is Where'd You Go, Bernadette, Sarah is--unsurprisingly--very pro epistolary romance; her favorite is Kleypas's Love in the Afternoon), but Jen's pretty interested in how they are changing in the age of the internet.
- All three of the books in the Men at Work series by Tiffany Reisz are delightful, but the Thanksgiving one is an absolute classic.
- Last year, Jen ranked Thanksgiving romances for The Book Queen.
- How the Dukes Stole Christmas is pretty great, and here's where Jen talked about Joanna Shupe's novella on twitter.
3: A Great Lay or All the Knowledge in the World: Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night
We’re three books into IAD this week, and it is happening! We're joined by the brilliant Adriana Herrera to talk Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night, starring Bowen (the werewolf trapped in a tunnel of fire) and Mariketa the Awaited (the witch who is going to run him ragged)!
Adriana, Jen & Sarah cover everything from Snow White to trauma survivors, jungle warfare to May-December romances, sexism and Cardi B. And we still find time to fangirl over Kresley's heroines.
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.
Our next read (in two weeks) will be Dark Needs at Night's Edge — complete with a broken hero tied to a bed (vampire, obvi) and a haunting heroine who just wants to be seen (literally). This one makes for a LOT of opinions among IAD fans...you won’t want to miss it.
Get ready for the read along at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books or your local indie. Also, the Audible versions of IAD are on sale right now -- and WORTH EVERY PENNY! Listen on Audio!
Show Notes
Show Notes
- Our special guest this week is romance author Adriana Herrera. American Dreamer, her debut novel with Carina Press, comes out in March of 2019.
-Jen interviewed Adriana about domestic violence in romance for the Smart Bitches.
- Jen and Sarah both loved The Opposite of You, a food truck romance by Rachel Higginson, and Sil at Book Riot made a list of food truck romances.
- Kresley's historical trilogy is called The MacCarrick Brothers, and you can get all 3 bundled together, of course.
- There's nothing more amazing than warring think-pieces. So here's Huffington Post and Slateteaching us about fuckboy, and Jezebel telling us how they're doing it wrong.
- The five witches' castes are warrior, healer, enchantress, conjurer, and sorceress. Jen's going to make a Buzzfeed Quiz that tells you which witch strength you'd have. (This is a lie. Jen does not know how to make Buzzfeed quizzes. But it's a good idea, right?)
-Speaking of vibrators, the best Romancelandia blog is the Bawdy Bookworms, which features review of both books and sex toys!
- Here's a serious video explainer of the Hero's Journey, and also a slightly more silly one.
- This blog is dedicated to looking at feminism and Snow White in American culture.
- Deconstruct Disney for yourself or for your kids.
- There's an IAD wiki, and it's pretty useful for when you're listing Hekate, Haxa, and can't remember the third one is Hela.
- As symbols, apples do a lot of heavy lifting.
- Mirrors and feminism have a long complicted history. And since we're talking action movies, check out this think piece by Carolyn Petit about feminism, movie criticism, and John Wick's house of mirrors. And then I found this article about Sylvia Plath's senior thesis at Smith and it's very far afield from the current topic, but this is a super interesting read.
- There isn't a video for Cardi B's Money yet, but here are the lyrics.
- How young women have internatlized the Girl Power vs. Feminism dichotomy.
- There's a famous image that illustrates the difference between equality and equity. It's most often used in the context of race, but can be used as a way to envision any kind of oppression.
- Romance has been thinking about consent for a long time. Jen wrote a review of a graphic novel for teenagers called What Does Consent Really Mean?
- Our next Dark Needs at Night's Edge is next.
Lost Limb Count
(Leg - 2, Arm - 1, Eye - 1)
Lachlain tears off his own leg to reach Emma. He regenerates. (A Hunger Like No Other)
Sebastian pulverizes most of his right arm during the Hie. He regenerates. (No Rest For the Wicked)
Bowen loses an eye and most of his forehead during the Hie. Mariketa has cursed him and he can't heal until he returns to her. (Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night)
Mariketa's skull is fractured and her leg is torn from her body. She heals herself after Bowen lays on the ground. Ivy grows over her and heals her. (Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night)
2.5: Brother's Best Friend Romances
Next week we’re going to get into Werewolves and Witches with Wicked Deeds on a Winter’s Night, but this week, we’re so excited to talk best friend’s sibling/sibling’s best friend romances with one of our favorite people: Kate Clayborn!
Show Notes
Kate Clayborn writes awesome books, but her romance think pieces at Frolic aren't too be missed.
There's nothing more hilarious than reviving old twitter threads, and in this one Kate and Talia Hibbert talk IAD.
The Game Maker series will get its own episodes, don't worry. Jen was thinking about saving this chastity belt article for then, but really, why wait?
Best of Luck was just named one of Amazon's Best Romance of December, which is as it should be. The second book in the series, Luck of the Draw, was on Sarah's Best of 2018 list for the Washington Post.
Sarah's twitter thread where people described what they'd do if they won a billion dollars is pretty fun to read. But really, there's a reason we all love that daydream.
This month, the Ripped Bodice is spearheading The Great Big Romance Read and maybe you can find a bookstore, library, or blog where you can talk about Pride by Ibi Zoboi.
The American Dream is complicated, college is expensive, and all of it freaks Jen out if she thinks about it too much.
Sarah wrote a YA historical! It's called The Season.
This is a good take on why the best friend's sibling trope is so powerful.
Sinner by Sierra Simone. She talks about her writing here. Jen doesn't really think it counts as blasphemy, but she looked it up just to be sure.
Some more about insprirational romance, and although we didn't mention her name on the podcast, Jen thinks Piper Huguley writes the best inspirational romance out there. She wrote about Piper's book The Mayor's Mission and Sarah's book Day of the Duchess in this piece on miscarriage in romance.
Clean Breaks by Ruby Lang. But when this podcast went live, it was an even better deal to buy all three books in the Practice Perfect series bundled together.
