Jennifer Prokop Jennifer Prokop

13.5: Freewheeling with Sarah and Jen: We’re Big Mad

Y’all asked for more rants, and boy do we have some for you this week! Alabama passed a terrible law, Georgia and Ohio are right there with them, and other states are following suit. Jen and Sarah are talking bodily autonomy — contraception, pregnancy, miscarriage, stillbirth, hysterectomy and abortion and how they exist in romance novels. Get your pens ready — we’ve got a library full of books to talk about.

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We’re taking a break next week (Happy Memorial Day! Eat a cheeseburger for us!)…but will be back to regular IAD programming in two weeks with Dark Skye. Get ready to have your heart ripped out by these childhood lovers turned enemies turned lovers again! Poor Lanthe has been running from her Vrekener, Thronos since Kiss of the Demon King, and finally she gets her story! Read Dark Skye at Amazon, B&N, Apple Books, Kobo, or from your local Indie.

Show Notes

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 (\d{0,2}[:]{0,1}\d{0,2}[:]\d{2}) 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.

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13: Can Eastern Promises Viggo Mortensen Get It? - The Professional (Game Makers)

The Game Makers Series! Kresley’s first foray into contemporary begins with The Professional, which is some kind of book, y’all. Originally released in three parts over six weeks, The Professional stars Natalie, an American Ph.D. who happens to be the long lost daughter of a Russian mobster, and said mobster’s bodyguard, who can’t get enough of watching her in the tub. Or on his cellphone. Or tied up in a sex club. You’ll see!

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 back to IAD, just like the original Kresley fans were! Get ready to have your heart ripped out by these childhood lovers turned enemies turned lovers again! Poor Lanthe has been running from her Vrekener, Thronos since Kiss of the Demon King, and finally she gets her story! Read Dark Skye at Amazon, B&N, Apple Books, Kobo, or from your local Indie.

Show Notes

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12.5: Small Town Romance

Small towns! Jen (Chicago) and Sarah (NYC) do not understand them IRL, but we are talking about them in fiction this week! Listen to us talk about their genesis, what they represent, and why Romancelandia can’t get enough of them. Books by Sierra Simone, Vanessa North & Alisha Rai!

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. Also — if you have a romance loving friend, please let them know that we don’t just talk about vampires & valkyries, and maybe they’d like us, too?

In fact — In two weeks, we’re not talking about vampires at all! (Except we kind of are) The Game Makers series read-along begins with Kresley’s first contemporary, The Professional. Get ready for Wroth Brother fanfic that Kresley herself refers to as “way sexier” then IAD. Get The Professional at Amazon, B&N, Apple Books, Kobo, or from your local Indie.

Show Notes

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12: Do Not Let the Lykae into the Yankee Candle Store: MacRieve

MacRieve is here and so is friend of the pod, Sierra Simone! We’re so excited to talk about The Full Kresley, what makes erotic romance, The Simone Scale™ of taboo romance, why MacRieve is so tough to read, why Sarah thinks it might be Kresley’s best book, and why Chloe is such a badass. There’s a lot of hysterical laughter, and Sarah is preparing for legal action.

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 starting Kresley’s contemporary series The Game Makers (we’re reading the books in original publication order) with The Professional. Get ready for Wroth Brother fanfic that Kresley herself refers to as “way sexier” then IAD. Get The Professional at Amazon, B&N, Apple Books, Kobo, or from your local Indie.

Show Notes

taboo chart.jpg

Lost Limb Count

Arms and Hands (8)

  1. Conrad cuts off his own hand with a rusty axe so he escape the "witched" chains his brothers locked him in. (Dark Needs at Night's Edge)
  2. Cadeon has both of his hands burned off in the same scene where he loses an eye. There's description of what Cade's baby fingers look like as they are re-growing. It's...kinda gross. (Dark Desires After Dusk)
  3. Sebastian pulverizes most of his right arm during the Hie. He regenerates. (No Rest For the Wicked)
  4. Lucia peels all the skin off from her hand in order to free herself from some handcuffs. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
  5. In order to retrieve the ring from La Dorada , Lothaire cuts off her finger. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
  6. Lanthe and Carrow cut off Fegley's hand so they can use his thumb to unlock their torques. He's later killed. (Demon from the Dark)
  7. After receiving Lothaire's heart in a box, Ellie cuts off her middle finger and sends it to him. (Lothaire)
  8. Chloe's shoulder is dislocated in the escape from her auction (MacRieve).

Chest and Torso (7)

  1. Omort severs Rydstrom's spine and punches through his torso in a fight. Sabine saves him and enlists Hag to help heal him. (Kiss of a Demon King)
  2. Lucia's neck is broken. She regenerates. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
  3. On Torture Island, Regin,
  4. MacRieve,
  5. and Brandr are vivisected. It's pretty terrible. (Dreams of a Dark Warrior)
  6. Declan's skin is peeled off by the Neoptera as a child. (Dreams of a Dark Warrior)
  7. Lothaire rips out his own heart and sends it to Ellie in a box. (Lothaire)

Head, Face, and Eyes (6)

  1. 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)
  2. Cadeon loses an eye and part of his forehead and hair when fighting. It all regenerates. (Dark Desires After Dusk)
  3. During a rugby match, Garreth has his teeth knocked out and swallows them. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
  4. Lothaire kicks out La Dorada's remaining eye and throws her over a cliff. (Dreams of a Dark Warrior)
  5. In the Bloodroot Forest, the tree grows over Lothaire's lips and tongue. (Lothaire)
  6. After she gains her immortality, Chloe's hair grows, but she cuts it off every morning. (MacRieve)

Horns (2)

  1. Cadeon cuts off his own horns to prove to Holly that he is worthy of being her mate. She tells him to let them grow back (Dark Desires After Dusk)
  2. Malkolm is captured by his enemies in Oblivion and taken to the city of Ash. The publicly cut off his horns and then intend to kill him, but Carrow saves him. (Demon from the Dark)

Legs and Feet (3)

  1. Lachlain tears off his own leg to reach Emma. He regenerates. (A Hunger Like No Other)
  2. 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)
  3. Thronos is chasing Melananthe and loses a foot when a portal closes on it. (Kiss of a Demon King)

Beheading as a Romantic Gesture (4)

  1. The first time Garreth spies Lucia, it's when she shoots an arrow and beheads a kobold. He notices that it's "a fantastical shot" and he's super into it. Later, he helps her pick up the head because he's a real gentleman like that. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
  2. Later in the book, they are under attack from vampires and Lucia asks him to help. Garreth promises to "give her their throats" and beheads two vampires. But she's upset about it because of a previous bad experience with cannibalism. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
  3. Malkolm beheads men that attacked Carrow in Oblvion, and he throws them to prove he's a worthy mate. (Demon from the Dark)
  4. Declan fights and beheads several creatures as they escape Torture Island, including squeezing one dude so hard his eyes pop out and then he twists his head off. (Dreams of a Dark Warrior)

Beheading as a Non-Romantic Gesture

  1. Ellie cuts off Lothaire's head, leaving a slender 1/8 of an inch left. It was kind of an accident, but he deserved it. (Lothaire)

Maybe?

  1. Does Garreth's losing his connection with his mortal soul count? (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
  2. When Soroya inhabited Ellie's body, she subjected her to a full Brazilian wax. Ellie doesn't realize it's happened until she takes control of her body again. (Lothaire)
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11.5: Sports Romance with Jenny Nordbak

Are you a sports ball fan?! Do we have romances for you! We’ve got the brilliant Jenny Nordbak from The Wicked Wallflowers podcast back for a sports romance interstitial! Listen to us chat about why we love sports books, the alpha, competence porn and books by Kennedy Ryan, Tamsen Parker, and Naima Simone!

Next week, it’s (FOR REAL THIS TIME) MacRieve week with Sierra Simone! We’re so excited, and Sierra is the perfect guest for this sex-driven book! Get MacRieve at Amazon, B&N, Apple Books, Kobo, or from your local Indie.

Show Notes

Welcome back to our guest Jenny Nordbak from the Wicked Wallflowers podcast!

Everyone loves a trip to the hairdresser.

Here's a list of the RITA finalists, and a link to Jen's new twitter account which tracks her reviews of the finalists.

Author Bronwen Fleetwood crunched a bunch of RITA data from the past 20 years, which is how we know there are more winners named Susan (and Elizabeth, Barbara, Karen, Jennifer, Ann, Jill, Linda...) than WoC finalists.

Famously, the Hugo Awards also struggled with recognizing the best books in their field.

Here's what we are talking about when we talk about how PoC are underrepresented in publishing.

Um, actully Sarah, Ulysses is a twitter thread.

This week, Sarah told a pretty solid competence porn story about her neurosurgeon on Twitter.

Kennedy Ryan has been on the Wicked Wallflowers podcast. Twice.

Content warnings for Long Shot.

Adriana Herrera, author and friend of the Pod, recently wrote a very important piece for the Smart Bitches about how to portray sexual assualt in romance.

Why the Ray Rice elevator video is important.

Jen's written about the whiteness of hockey romances for The Book Queen. Don't believe Jen? Back in 2012, commenter #11 left a plea for more hockey romances on this Smart Bitches post. I bet they are happy now.

Susan Elizabeth Phillip's Chicago Stars series is a romance classic.

There's no crying in baseball.

Jen reviewed all of Tamsen Parker's Snow and Ice Games series.

Olympics atheletes are busy, y'all.

6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon was an amusing 90s pop culture game.

Tennyson is a romance heroine and a famous poet.

Listen to Naima's interview on the Wicked Wallflowers.

Fumbled is a new football romance by Alexa Martin, and it deals with CTE.

Get ready for MacRieve.

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Periods, Pizza, and Point of View: Another AMA with Jen & Sarah

Jen and Sarah were together in the same city in the same room and just couldn’t pass up the chance to do a real-deal AMA while looking at each other’s faces! You asked, we answered…but get ready. There are some weird things in here (mainly said by Jen).

Next week, it’s MacRieve week with Sierra Simone! If you think things got weird this week, just you wait! Get MacRieve at Amazon, B&N, Apple Books, Kobo, or from your local Indie.

Show Notes

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11: Woof. Hope Your Headphones Didn't Fall Out! - Lothaire

Lothaire is here! We’re so excited, we don’t know what to do with ourselves, but FYI, this is a longer episode than usual -- so get ready! We're talking morality chain romance, how Lothaire is a pure ass but incredibly funny, and how Ellie is pretty much the only mate he could ever have. Also, we love Nix & Lothaire a lot.

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, one of our favorite people, Sierra Simone, is joining us to talk about The Full Kresley, and MacRieve! It's going to be a great time, we promise. Get MacRieve at Amazon, B&N, Apple Books, Kobo, or from your local Indie.

Show Notes

Learn about tone-policing so you won't make Jen mad.

Maybe we haven't recommended audiobook narrator Robert Petkoff to you enough.

Justine Eyre is the audiobook narrator who was nominated for an Audie for Sarah's book Never Judge a Lady by her Cover.

Love Between the Covers is an amazing documentary about romance, and you might be able to find it on Netflix.

Everyone knows the difference between hardback and paperback books, but learn the difference between mass-market and trade paperbacks.

During the Lothaire bus tour, Kresley wrote her fans this Facebook letter about the experience.

Paul Marron is a very handsome man.

The morality chain trope. 0 Other famous series with villains-turned-heroes include Lisa Kleypas's Wallflowers (Devil in Winter), Elizabeth Hoyt's Maiden Lane (Duke of Sin), and Sarah's Scandal & Scoundrel (Day of the Duchess).

Italy discovers what happens when everyone is raising a mammone.

Lothaire breaks his life up into tasks, sort of like Hugh Grant in About a Boy.

When Robert Downey Jr. starred as Sherlock Holmes, he can forecast the moves his opponents will make in a fight.

On Twitter, Melanie did a very thorough count of all the times Lothaire punched a wall.

Lothaire is very funny. Andie Christopher, friend of the pod, is very pro his cock slapping gnomes joke.

Old Friends is a very sweet song by Simon & Garfunkle, even if you aren't learning to play the ukulele.

Check out the Romance Sparks Joy read-along on Twitter and Facebook. Get M. Malone's Bad Blood for the April 15th Read!

MacRieve will be next, and Sierra Simone will be joining us!

Lost Limb Count

Arms and Hands (7)

  1. Conrad cuts off his own hand with a rusty axe so he escape the "witched" chains his brothers locked him in. (Dark Needs at Night's Edge)
  2. Cadeon has both of his hands burned off in the same scene where he loses an eye. There's description of what Cade's baby fingers look like as they are re-growing. It's...kinda gross. (Dark Desires After Dusk)
  3. Sebastian pulverizes most of his right arm during the Hie. He regenerates. (No Rest For the Wicked)
  4. Lucia peels all the skin off from her hand in order to free herself from some handcuffs. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
  5. In order to retrieve the ring from La Dorada , Lothaire cuts off her finger. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
  6. Lanthe and Carrow cut off Fegley's hand so they can use his thumb to unlock their torques. He's later killed. (Demon from the Dark)
  7. After receiving Lothaire's heart in a box, Ellie cuts off her middle finger and sends it to him. (Lothaire)

Chest and Torso (7)

  1. Omort severs Rydstrom's spine and punches through his torso in a fight. Sabine saves him and enlists Hag to help heal him. (Kiss of a Demon King)
  2. Lucia's neck is broken. She regenerates. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
  3. On Torture Island, Regin,
  4. MacRieve,
  5. and Brandr are vivisected. It's pretty terrible. (Dreams of a Dark Warrior)
  6. Declan's skin is peeled off by the Neoptera as a child. (Dreams of a Dark Warrior)
  7. Lothaire rips out his own heart and sends it to Ellie in a box. (Lothaire)

Head, Face, and Eyes (5)

  1. 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)
  2. Cadeon loses an eye and part of his forehead and hair when fighting. It all regenerates. (Dark Desires After Dusk)
  3. During a rugby match, Garreth has his teeth knocked out and swallows them. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
  4. Lothaire kicks out La Dorada's remaining eye and throws her over a cliff. (Dreams of a Dark Warrior)
  5. In the Bloodroot Forest, the tree grows over Lothaire's lips and tongue. (Lothaire)

Horns (2)

  1. Cadeon cuts off his own horns to prove to Holly that he is worthy of being her mate. She tells him to let them grow back (Dark Desires After Dusk)
  2. Malkolm is captured by his enemies in Oblivion and taken to the city of Ash. The publicly cut off his horns and then intend to kill him, but Carrow saves him. (Demon from the Dark)

Legs and Feet (3)

  1. Lachlain tears off his own leg to reach Emma. He regenerates. (A Hunger Like No Other)
  2. 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)
  3. Thronos is chasing Melananthe and loses a foot when a portal closes on it. (Kiss of a Demon King)

Beheading as a Romantic Gesture (4)

  1. The first time Garreth spies Lucia, it's when she shoots an arrow and beheads a kobold. He notices that it's "a fantastical shot" and he's super into it. Later, he helps her pick up the head because he's a real gentleman like that. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
  2. Later in the book, they are under attack from vampires and Lucia asks him to help. Garreth promises to "give her their throats" and beheads two vampires. But she's upset about it because of a previous bad experience with cannibalism. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
  3. Malkolm beheads men that attacked Carrow in Oblvion, and he throws them to prove he's a worthy mate. (Demon from the Dark)
  4. Declan fights and beheads several creatures as they escape Torture Island, including squeezing one dude so hard his eyes pop out and then he twists his head off. (Dreams of a Dark Warrior)

Beheading as a Non-Romantic Gesture (2)

  1. Ellie cuts off Lothaire's head, leaving a slender 1/8 of an inch left. It was kind of an accident, but he deserved it. (Lothaire)
  2. In the fight with Ruelle, MacRieve and Munro's mother is beheaded by a envenomed vampire boy. Their father then beheads the vampire. Ruelle is also killed. (MacRieve)

Maybe?

  1. Does Garreth's losing his connection with his mortal soul count? (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
  2. When Soroya inhabited Ellie's body, she subjected her to a full Brazilian wax. Ellie doesn't realize it's happened until she takes control of her body again. (Lothaire)
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10.5: Fake Engagement Romance

This one has to be a top-ten universal trope…were talking fake engagements! Listen to us chat about why ladies love a fantasy, the royal wedding, marriages of convenience, and books by Elle Kennedy, Talia Hibbert, Chelsea M. Cameron and Kate Clayborn!

GIRD THY LOINS, LOTHAIRE IS NEXT!

A jumbo episode with this jumbo jerk face dreamboat! Get Lothaire at Amazon, B&N, Apple Books, Kobo, or from your local Indie…and if you’re an audio lover, you are not going to want to miss Robert Petkoff on this one — Jen hearts it baaad.


Show Notes

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10: Declan Chase is Kinda Trying: Dreams of a Dark Warrior

Mr. Vivisection is here, and it’s a whole lot! Regin the Radiant is on Torture Island, and just her luck, the guy running the whole show is a berserker reincarnate who she’s loved in five earlier lifetimes. Declan Chase is a highly controversial Kresley hero, and Dreams of a Dark Warrior is a book Sarah and Jen always skip on the reread…but this week, we’re talking about it and *gasp!* we’re kind of on #TeamDeclan by the end?! UP IS DOWN!

This episode, we’re digging into the way Kresley builds characters and lays the brickwork for the rest of the IAD series. We’re talking about torture, about childhood, about packing for the end of days, and about Lothaire’s Guide to Wooing Women. We’re joined by the wonderful Sarah Hawley, co-host of the Wicked Wallflowers podcast, and Declan-stan.

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, strap in because Lothaire. Is. Here!!! We’re so excited we don’t know what to do with ourselves, but FYI, this is gonna be a double episode for SURE. Gird your loins. Get Lothaire at Amazon, B&N, Apple Books, Kobo, or from your local Indie.

Show Notes

In Salman Rushdie's novel Haroun and the Sea of Stories, juggling is often used as a symbol for storytelling.

There's not much better than a snowed-in romance. Or maybe marriage in trouble is more your speed.

"That just happened" is a quote from a very funny scene of a movie with Alec Baldwin called State and Main.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith and the single sexiest hate fuck ever filmed. /fans self

The heist movie slow walk is iconic.

Villains as heroes: hard to write, delicious to read.

Sarah Silverman interviewed a woman who escaped from the cult of The Westboro Church.

Revenge is a good plot.

Talia Hibbert had to quit this one.

The Lord of the Rings Ring is super fancy. And super creepy.

Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs fame has a TED talk. Of course he does.
Welcome to Sarah Hawley from The Wicked Wallflowers Podcast

Kylo Ren is Han & Leia's jerk son. Presumably he'll get a redemption arc, but the jury is out on whether he deserves it.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is a good book and a great movie. Don't at Sarah (MacLean).

The Morality Chain trope, and some romance examples.

White Satin by Iris Johansen. "I think it's time for beer," is what FDR said after while the country was deep in the Great Depression before he sent word to Congress that he wanted to end Prohibition.

Lothaire is coming, and just clear your whole day for what will likely be a three hour podcast. Also, maybe you want to brush up on The Odyssey (free for Kindle).

A huge shout out to Heather Pagan, who helped us with medieval French and edits the Anglo Norman Dictionary. Here’s the official translation of the Medieval French, along with some fascinating notes on historical swearing, which you all know is our favorite!

Go copulate with a pig - Va foutre un porcel! (literally, go fuck a pig). Unless the joke is that they are being formal (ie. copulate and not fuck) in which case: Va couvrir un porcel!

You defend that rampart female? - Femme / Dame, defendis tu le terrail?

To the death, prick*! - Jusqu'a / A la mort, ribaud! OR Jusqu'a / A la mort, paillard! OR Jusqu'a /A la mort, pautener!

* There are lots of words for penis/prick in Old French, but I don't have any evidence that they were used as insults (and that's a whole 'nother book about when we began to use genitalia as offensive words...) I've chosen to translate it with a bunch of words that mean 'jerk'. The words I used are all ones that end up being borrowed into English (ribald, pailliard, pautener) for someone who is base / rascally / a scoundrel / someone of low status etc.

Thoughts (or why you never ask an academic for a translation...) We actually don't know overly much about medieval swearing. What we know about language use during the period is based on what was written down, and what was written down (gross generalization ahead) tended not to be 1) direct / indirect speech or 2) of a less formal register. Nevertheless, we do have some record of what people said, and in some cases, how they would curse each other. A lot of these curses were be religious in nature - damning them, accusing them of bad faith etc. We have one amazing set of texts, referred to as the Manieres de Language, which were an early type of phrase book for Englishmen wanting to learn French in the late fourteen century. These include my favourite section - insults! So this is mainly what the translation is based on - though insults of the time were a bit different.

Here are some from the phrase book (translated): You're lying, you evil bastard; Go hang yourself, you bastard; Go away you bloody son of a whore; You will pay!; Kiss my ass (I am very pleased that this has been the eternal insult!); Kiss the devil's ass; Go to the devil!

Lost Limb Count

Arms and Hands (6)

  1. Conrad cuts off his own hand with a rusty axe so he escape the "witched" chains his brothers locked him in. (Dark Needs at Night's Edge)
  2. Cadeon has both of his hands burned off in the same scene where he loses an eye. There's description of what Cade's baby fingers look like as they are re-growing. It's...kinda gross. (Dark Desires After Dusk)
  3. Sebastian pulverizes most of his right arm during the Hie. He regenerates. (No Rest For the Wicked)
  4. Lucia peels all the skin off from her hand in order to free herself from some handcuffs. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
  5. In order to retrieve the ring from La Dorada , Lothaire cuts off her finger. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
  6. Lanthe and Carrow cut off Fegley's hand so they can use his thumb to unlock their torques. He's later killed. (Demon from the Dark)

Chest and Torso (5)

  1. Omort severs Rydstrom's spine and punches through his torso in a fight. Sabine saves him and enlists Hag to help heal him. (Kiss of a Demon King)
  2. Lucia's neck is broken. She regenerates. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
  3. On Torture Island, Regin,
  4. MacRieve,
  5. and Brandr are vivisected. It's pretty terrible. (Dreams of a Dark Warrior)
  6. Declan's skin is peeled off by the Neoptera as a child. (Dreams of a Dark Warrior)

Face and Eyes (4)

  1. 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)
  2. Cadeon loses an eye and part of his forehead and hair when fighting. It all regenerates. (Dark Desires After Dusk)
  3. During a rugby match, Garreth has his teeth knocked out and swallows them. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
  4. Lothaire kicks out La Dorada's remaining eye and throws her over a cliff. (Dreams of a Dark Warrior)

Horns (2)

  1. Cadeon cuts off his own horns to prove to Holly that he is worthy of being her mate. She tells him to let them grow back (Dark Desires After Dusk)
  2. Malkolm is captured by his enemies in Oblivion and taken to the city of Ash. The publicly cut off his horns and then intend to kill him, but Carrow saves him. (Demon from the Dark)

Legs and Feet (3)

  1. Lachlain tears off his own leg to reach Emma. He regenerates. (A Hunger Like No Other)
  2. 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)
  3. Thronos is chasing Melananthe and loses a foot when a portal closes on it. (Kiss of a Demon King)

Beheading as a Romantic Gesture (4)

  1. The first time Garreth spies Lucia, it's when she shoots an arrow and beheads a kobold. He notices that it's "a fantastical shot" and he's super into it. Later, he helps her pick up the head because he's a real gentleman like that. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
  2. Later in the book, they are under attack from vampires and Lucia asks him to help. Garreth promises to "give her their throats" and beheads two vampires. But she's upset about it because of a previous bad experience with cannibalism. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
  3. Malkolm beheads men that attacked Carrow in Oblvion, and he throws them to prove he's a worthy mate. (Demon from the Dark)
  4. Declan fights and beheads several creatures as they escape Torture Island, including squeezing one dude so hard his eyes pop out and then he twists his head off. (Dreams of a Dark Warrior)

Maybe?

  1. Does Garreth's losing his connection with his mortal soul count? (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
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9.5: Food Romance

This week, Adriana Herrera joins us again to talk food romances and Sarah is very excited. Adriana’s debut food romance, American Dreamer, is on shelves now. We talk about the book, the pull of the food romance novel, and why nourishment is sexy. Also, Sarah basically name checks her whole favorites shelf.

Next week, it’s full Torture Island with what is probably the most controversial of the IAD books—Dreams of a Dark Warrior. Declan Chase—torturer extraordinaire is our hero, Regin the Radiant is the woman he’s been trying to love for a millennium, and we’re full bananas in the lead up to Lothaire! Get ready! Get DoaDW at Amazon, B&N, Apple Books, Kobo, or from your local Indie. Don’t forget that the Audible versions of IAD are on sale right now -- and WORTH EVERY PENNY! Listen on Audio!

Show Notes

Welcome back Adriana, and if you didn't hear her on our Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night episode, you should check it out.

The concept of love languages comes from 1995 self-help book The Five Love Languages, by Gary Chapman. It's a little soft for us. We prefer this additional list of love languages, from McSweeney's.

Adriana talked about her grandmother bringing a pot of Sancocho from the DR to family in New York, and here's a twitter thread where Adriana makes a pot with a friend.

American Dreamer came out at the beginning of the month, and the sequel American Fairytale comes out in April. Find American Dreamer at Amazon, B&N, Apple Books or Kobo.

The dull thuds you're hearing in this episode are Sarah's phone falling off her desk. She is convinced her phone is defective because it falls off flat surfaces every day. She has fantasies of finding Jony Ive's phone number and texting him lists of everything it falls off every day.

Next time you're in Brooklyn, you should visit the Smorgasburg.

Find a Michelin star restaurant to try if you're so inclined.

Just kidding about the Soylent Green thing. Really.

Jen interviewed Mia Hopkins last year when Thirsty came out.

The song Jude was singing was Latinoamerica by Calle 13. You, too, can find great music on NPR.

A romance has to have an HEA or HFN, but a love story doesn't. Don't at us.

An interesting think piece from The Common Reader about how we view competence in men and women.

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9: Torture Island!!! - Demon from the Dark

Torture Island is here and we could not be more excited! Demon from the Dark is Jen’s favorite book in the series, because she loves poor, broken Malkom, the vemon with a heart of gold, and his fated mate, Carrow, our second witch, whose powers come from other people’s joy.

This episode, we’re digging into the worldbuilding of the second movement of IAD — Torture Island. We’re talking about innocence and how it is a great motivator, what saves a heroine from being unlikeable, why bathing is sexy, and how we really would like it if more men offered up the heads of our enemies as tribute. As always, there’s a lost-limb count and Lothaire-Watch!

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, get ready for the most (we think?) controversial of the IAD books — Dreams of a Dark Warrior, when Declan Chase, unknowing berserker and magister of Torture Island, gets paired with Regin the Radiant. Get DoaDW at Amazon, B&N, Apple Books, Kobo, or from your local Indie.

Show Notes

In the 1976 movie Rocky, one of the things he consumes during training in a glassful of raw eggs.

Jen loves books about nuclear weapons and nuclear disasters, and the mindset of the Order is very much that of mutually assured destruction during the Cold War.

In Buffy, it was called the Initiative. Angel, Riley, and Spike were her boyfriends on the show, but in the comic there are other lovers.

Your brain isn't fully cooked until you're 25!

Duolingo helps you learn languages, but if you're in a hurry just drink down somebody's blood.

Sarah's friend Natalie Parker's book is called Seafire and it has the most gorgeous cover.

Book Riot makes the case for a Romantic Horror subgenre, and Victoria Helen Stone wrote about the relationship between romance and suspense.

Some information from Pew about rural vs urban living in America.

Adventures in Babysitting is an 80s movie all about the horrors of some kids and their babysitter getting into trouble in the big, bad city of Chicago (or, as Jenny Holiday & Jen call it: Dirty Toronto).

You can tell a lot about a culture by its parenting.

Pygmalion and Encino Man.

Some directions for any tailsman-making endeavors.

Lore parenting tips aside, Jen wrote once about how human parents can talk to their kids about sex.

Maybe 28 Days Later isn't the best metaphor for IAD, but it's a scary movie.

Jen loves it when heroes grovel.

A vemon is a vampire/demon hybrid; Venom is a Tom Hardy movie.

If Jen knew photoshop, she'd be putting Malkolm inside a Sweet Valley High circle... Demon Love!

Yao Ming is very tall compared to Kevin Hart, but Jason Momoa and Lisa Bonet are much better fancasting for Malkolm and Carrow.

Friend of the Pod Adriana Herrera was on our sister podcast Wicked Wallflowers last week.

Lost Limb Count

Arms and Hands (6)

  1. Conrad cuts off his own hand with a rusty axe so he escape the "witched" chains his brothers locked him in. (Dark Needs at Night's Edge)
  2. Cadeon has both of his hands burned off in the same scene where he loses an eye. There's description of what Cade's baby fingers look like as they are re-growing. It's...kinda gross. (Dark Desires After Dusk)
  3. Sebastian pulverizes most of his right arm during the Hie. He regenerates. (No Rest For the Wicked)
  4. Lucia peels all the skin off from her hand in order to free herself from some handcuffs. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
  5. In order to retrieve the ring from La Dorada , Lothaire cuts off her finger. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
  6. Lanthe and Carrow cut off Fegley's hand so they can use his thumb to unlock their torques. He's later killed. (Demon from the Dark)

Chest and Torso (2)

  1. Omort severs Rydstrom's spine and punches through his torso in a fight. Sabine saves him and enlists Hag to help heal him. (Kiss of a Demon King)
  2. Lucia's neck is broken. She regenerates. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)

Face and Eyes (3)

  1. 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)
  2. Cadeon loses an eye and part of his forehead and hair when fighting. It all regenerates. (Dark Desires After Dusk)
  3. During a rugby match, Garreth has his teeth knocked out and swallows them. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)

Horns (2)

  1. Cadeon cuts off his own horns to prove to Holly that he is worthy of being her mate. She tells him to let them grow back (Dark Desires After Dusk)

  2. Malkolm is captured by his enemies in Oblivion and taken to the city of Ash. The publicly cut off his horns and then intend to kill him, but Carrow saves him. (Demon from the Dark) ** Legs and Feet (3)**

  3. Lachlain tears off his own leg to reach Emma. He regenerates. (A Hunger Like No Other)

  4. 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)

  5. Thronos is chasing Melananthe and loses a foot when a portal closes on it. (Kiss of a Demon King)

Beheading as a Romantic Gesture (3)

  1. The first time Garreth spies Lucia, it's when she shoots an arrow and beheads a kobold. He notices that it's "a fantastical shot" and he's super into it. Later, he helps her pick up the head because he's a real gentleman like that. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
  2. Later in the book, they are under attack from vampires and Lucia asks him to help. He promises to "give her their throats" and beheads two vampires. But she's upset about it because of a previous bad experience with cannibalism. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ (Pleasure of a Dark Prince).
  3. Malkolm beheads men that attacked Carrow in Oblvion, and he throws them to prove he's a worthy mate. (Demon from the Dark)

Maybe?

  1. Does Garreth's losing his connection with his mortal soul count? (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
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8.5: Gateways to Romance

You’re new to romance, where should you begin?! This week, Jen and Sarah are talking about good gateway romances, and we’ve got four that we think work for readers who’ve never dipped a toe, but are open to things from dukes to magic, the America West to kinky London and everything in between.

Next week, it’s Jen’s favorite IAD book, Demon from the Dark! Malkom Slaine is a demon living alone on another plane…until witch Carrow Graie comes to fetch him. Get DFTD at Amazon, B&N, Apple Books, Kobo, or from your local Indie. Don’t forget that the Audible versions of IAD are on sale right now -- and WORTH EVERY PENNY! Listen on Audio!

Show Notes

Next week, it's Demon from the Dark since we already talked about Pleasure of a Dark Prince!

Derek Craven is our favorite and since it's our podcast, we don't have to listen to anyone talk about St. Vincent.

A librarian who excels at reader's advisory is a wonderful thing to have in your life.

Check out Jen's website for targeted romance recommendations.

John Warner is the biblioracle, and he's an amazing advocate for educators and the teaching of writing. He's also one of the key players in The Morning News Tournament of Books, which is literary blood sport par excellence.

An explainer about American-style universtiy course numbering. Jaime Green is the New York Times romance reviewer and we love her.

One of the most hilarious twitter accounts is all about the smells of romance.

The Georgette Heyer chronotope and its limits explained.

If you are interested in knowing the "beat for beat" way a romance is built, you should check out this book by Gwen Hayes.

The ton, the modiste, and Bond Street.

Everyone loves a read-alike, but the problem is finding them.

The Governess and rake tropes are beloved by romance readers, and Tessa Dare's The Governess Game is an excellent example of the trope in action.

Lol, you can't fool Jen. She is absolutely not googling "sex swing."

Hillary Clinton said some things about romance novels, and Romancelandia wasn't having it.

NPR's Codeswitch wrote about Passing in America.

Sarah isn't the only one who learned about history from romance novels.

Jen described her angst vs. stakes theory in this post.

Alexander Chee is a delight, but Jen hated A Little Life more than any other book she's ever read, so just enjoy this Nicole Cliffe thread where a million people dunk on it.

The Sex House for sale in PA was the best 2019 story. Don't believe us? Read this interview with the realtor.

Epistolary novels are interesting; but Jen, Melinda, and Kat talked in this review about Thrall by Roan Parrish & Avon Gale and whether or not epistolary novels work in the age of the internet. (Edited by Sarah to add: Epistolary novels are the tits and anyone who says otherwise is F- wrong.)

The bass line in question.

Jen and Sarah really hate cliffhangers.

Andrew and Illona Gordon are a husband and wife writing team and Jen would probably read anything they wrote (as long as there were no cliffhangers.)

Tom Hardy as Mad Max and fancast as Derek Craven, Mad Rogan, Rune, etc.

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8: Triggering the Chastity Clause: Pleasure of a Dark Prince

We’re back with the werewolves this week, with one of our very favorite books in the series, Pleasures of a Dark Prince, featuring Garreth MacRieve and Lucia the Huntress, a Valkyrie who is burning it all down.

This episode, we’re discussing the way this book wraps up the first movement of IAD and preps readers for what’s to come (SPOILER: IT’S TORTURE ISLAND), we get into how the books are becoming more political, we update the lost-limb count, begin Lothaire-Watch, and dig into why it’s just plain futile to try to stay away from a werewolf mate on the night of a full moon. More than all that, we’re interviewing moon expert Summer Ash about moon business, and Jen is beyond excited.

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, get ready for vivisection, because it’s happening on Torture Island, and we’re doing a reread of Jen’s favorite book in the series, Demon From The Dark! Malkom Slaine is a demon living alone on another plane…until witch Carrow Graie comes to fetch him. Get DFTD at Amazon, B&N, Apple Books, Kobo, or from your local Indie.

Show Notes

This article explains "the heir and a spare" and also has a lot of Prince Harry. Fine.

It's an astronomy heavy show, so learn all about The Big Bang.

Ah, the double entendre.

All about how goals are scored in rugby.

Turns out there are lots of myths about gods and cannibalism.

Chastity is one of the seven virtues, but the seven deadly sins sound a lot more fun.

Is it really necessary to link to Fifty Shades of Grey?

The "he-cession" recession.

Women and the second shift.

The Cooler stars WILLIAM H. Macy, obviously. Robert H. Macy isn't even a thing.

The Amazon rainforest is truly amazing, but Brazil's new president Jair Bolsonaro is removing legal protections from the rainforest.

A man who tried to contact a legally protected island tribe died in the South Pacific last year.

Indiana Jones and lots and lots of snakes.

Lara Croft Tomb Raider is a 2001 movie with Angelina Jolie, but here's a great explainer to the entire Lara Croft franchise.

El Dorado myths and details.

Jen's idly curious if Charlie/Isabel character is a nod to the Brazilian Travesti culture, but she doesn't know enough about it to be sure.

The Wonder Woman "Godkiller" is a sword, not an arrow.

In two weeks, we'll be discussing Malkom & Carrow in Demon From the Dark.

Welcome Summer Ash! Please check out her blog Startorialist, which brings science and fashion together.

More about moon phases and the baby moon/dying moon way of remembering if the moon is waxing or waning.

The Dreamwakers Program helps classrooms all over the country skype with scientists and STEM people. So cool!

No, you can't blow up the moon.

What If! is a great collection of XKCD columns, including Jen's favorite about whether or not you can swim in a pool with spent nuclear rods.

Jen really loves books about nuclear disasters.

Light pollution is the worst.

Check out the Sky Guide app.

More about Haley's Comet and the Bayeux Tapestry.

Astronomy on Tap is worth checking out.

The moon is amazing. Look up!

Lost Limb Count

Arms and Hands (5)

  1. Conrad cuts off his own hand with a rusty axe so he escape the "witched" chains his brothers locked him in. (Dark Needs at Night's Edge)
  2. Cadeon has both of his hands burned off in the same scene where he loses an eye. There's description of what Cade's baby fingers look like as they are re-growing. It's...kinda gross. (Dark Desires After Dusk)
  3. Sebastian pulverizes most of his right arm during the Hie. He regenerates. (No Rest For the Wicked)
  4. Lucia peels all the skin off from her hand in order to free herself from some handcuffs. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
  5. In order to retrieve the ring from La Dorada , Lothaire cuts off her finger. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)

Chest and Torso (2)

  1. Omort severs Rydstrom's spine and punches through his torso in a fight. Sabine saves him and enlists Hag to help heal him. (Kiss of a Demon King)
  2. Lucia's neck is broken. She regenerates. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)

Face and Eyes (3)

  1. 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)
  2. Cadeon loses an eye and part of his forehead and hair when fighting. It all regenerates. (Dark Desires After Dusk)
  3. During a rugby match, Garreth has his teeth knocked out and swallows them. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)

Legs and Feet (3)

  1. Lachlain tears off his own leg to reach Emma. He regenerates. (A Hunger Like No Other)
  2. 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)
  3. Thronos is chasing Melananthe and loses a foot when a portal closes on it. (Kiss of a Demon King)

These Lingering Questions

  1. Does Garreth's losing his connection with his mortal soul count? (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
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7.5: Scotland Historical Romances

It’s Scotland week, Lads and Lassies! We’re talking about the great green jewel to the north of England, where the ladies are bold and the lairds are brawn, and we're all just wishing we could get wrapped in a plaid and cuddled through a cold Highland night.

Next week, we’re back with the Lykae with Pleasure of a Dark Prince—starring the FULLY DREAMY Garreth MacRieve and Lucia the Huntress, who just might be our favorite heroine yet. We’ll be talking wolf holograms, how Kresley is blowing the doors off the IAD world, and we’ll be starting Lothaire Watch!

Get ready for the PoaDP 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

Here's the twitter thread where Lillie talked about imprinting on Julie Garwood.

The Heaving Bosoms podcast is pretty great, and although this episode about Mastered by Her Mates by Grace Goodwin is not set during Highlander Times, it's profoundly hilarious.

Some brief explainers about why old paperbacks have dyed edges, but according to Sarah's research, the more popular an author, the more likely it was the pages would be dyed.

All about kilts. Also, it's never too late for a calendar of men it kilts.

Dirks and broadswords, oh my!

Goodreads has a few lists of Broken marriage romances, but Jen recommends Cherish Me by Farrah Rochan.

Here's a google folder with screenshots of the entries for cunt, cunny, pussy, quim, shit, and fuck from the Oxford English Dictionary. Jen mentioned a book called Cunt: A Declaration of Independence, but it's kind of Terf-y, so she does not recommend it.

Sarah does talk about the etymology of swear words a lot on Twitter, becuase fuck just isn't a new word. Don't @ us.

If you want to learn more about the etymology of swear words, Melissa Mohr's Holy Shit: A Brief History of Swearing is the book for you.

A thread about vaginas by friend of the pod S.S. Jaxon.

You definitely want to see the flying fuck image and read Jen's column called Who Did it Better on a Horse.

Lyrics to a song from 1657 that uses some very choice dirty words. Maybe you prefer to listen?

The Hangover is a 2009 comedy, so who knows if it's held up over time.

Sarah, Sophie Jordan, and a bunch of other amazing authors will be at Avon's KissCon in early April. Jen will be there as an attendee, and we'll definitely have some sort of Fated Mates meet-up!

Jen said she texted Sophie, but that's not true. She tweeted at her.

Katy Budget Books has a super-amazing romance section and if you want to order signed copies of Sophie Jordan's upcoming book, you should contact them.

Next week, we return to IAD with Garreth and Lucia in Pleasure of a Dark Prince.

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7: Ghost Pepper Town: Warlord Wants Forever & Untouchable

We’re tackling the novellas this week, and finishing up the Wroth Brother Quartet with The Warlord Wants Forever (Nikolai) & Untouchable (Murdoch), as well as their incredible Valkyrie mates.

This episode, we’re talking about Myst’s weird chain, Danii’s loneliness, the responsibility of authors to readers, to themselves, to the text, and to literary history, and the way Untouchable hints at the enormous world that IAD is about to become.

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 back to the Lykae, with one of our favorite books — Pleasures of a Dark Prince, the last book in the first arc of the IAD series (this begins at the same time as A Hunger Like No Other). Garreth MacRieve, prince of the Lykae clan and Lucia the Huntress — the greatest archer of all time.

Show Notes

The Wroth Brothers are dreamy, and here are the books the feature Nikolai, Sebastian, Conrad, and Murdoch.

Take a look at the IAD Ranking Spreasheet of Wonder from the Wicked Wallflowers Podcast.

Sarah refers to our novella episode, but she means the Holiday Romances episode where we had a long discussion of the novellas as a form.

Jen collected some comparison screenshots from the original (A) and revised (B) versions of The Warlord Wants Forever. The two versions of the scene after the chain is broken; The two versions of the first time they have sex; and the two versions of Nix naming herself.

Dubcon romances have main characters who agree to sex play featuring "dubious consent."

A little more about the versions of Whitney, My Love. You can still find original versions on eBay or Amazon, but you'll pay more for them.

Jen mentions Eric Selinger at DePaul. He teaches classes on Romance at DePaul, which is local for her. SADLY, they don't have PhD programs. But you can read more academic romance talk at a blog called Teach Me Tonight.

The Hello Stranger review at Smart Bitches calls out the Orientalism in the novel, and features Lisa Kleypas' response.

The Memory Hole is a reference to 1984 by George Orwell.

A little more about why sheikh and Native American romances are problematic.

A definitive list of the qualities, skills, and powers of vampires in literature and pop culture. At some point, Jen's going to add IAD.

Retcon stands for "retroactive continiuity" and here's a great primer about it from the best dictionary, Merriam-Webster.

In two weeks, we'll be discussing Garreth & Lucia in Pleasure of a Dark Prince.

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6.5: Freewheeling with Joanna Shupe: Enemies to Lovers Romance

This week, we’re having a fun, far-reaching conversation with the wonderful Joanna Shupe—who loves Kiss of a Demon King a whole lot, immediately saw the echoes of one of the most famous old school romances inside it, and came to talk to us about enemies to lovers romances, but ended up telling us all about that time she spent a lot of time researching penetrative sex in carriages. We had a great time, and hope you do, too!

Our next read-along episode will tackle the final two Wroth brothers with the two IAD novellas, The Warlord Wants Forever (Nikolai) & Untouchable (Murdoch), available in the Deep Kiss of Winter anthology! This will be the last time we tackle vampires until Lothaire, so get your fill!

A Note: There are two version of The Warlord Wants Forever — you want the most recent version.

Show Notes

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6: Reclaiming the Unlikeable Heroine: Kiss of a Demon King

One of the best loved books in the IAD universe, this week we’re talking about Kiss of A Demon King, the completion of the Demonarchy Duology, starring Rydstrom, the deposed King of Rothkalina, and his fated mate, Sabine, the Queen of Illusions, which is an incredibly handy power.

We’ve got a fabulous guest host this week, Jenny Nordbak from our sister romance podcast, The Wicked Wallflowers Club. Jenny is ride-or-die for Sabine, and she’s got a fabulous personal story about her relationship with the book that we’re thrilled to share with you.

This episode, we’re talking traumatic pasts, horns (I mean, obviously), villains, the unlikeable heroine (a whole lot), and we’ll come back around to Cade & Holly and tackle the unfinished business from their book!

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.

Novellas are up next! We told you we’d get to the rest of the Wroth Brothers eventually, and eventually is here! Our next read-along episode will tackle both novellas, The Warlord Wants Forever (Nikolai) & Untouchable (Murdoch), available in the Deep Kiss of Winter anthology! This will be the last time we tackle vampires until Lothaire, so get your fill!

A Note: There are two version of The Warlord Wants Forever — you want the most recent version.

Show Notes

Lost Limb Count

Arms and Hands (3)

  1. Conrad cuts off his own hand with a rusty axe so he escape the "witched" chains his brothers locked him in. (Dark Needs at Night's Edge)
  2. Cadeon has both of his hands burned off in the same scene where he loses an eye. There's description of what Cade's baby fingers look like as they are re-growing. It's...kinda gross. (Dark Desires After Dusk)
  3. Sebastian pulverizes most of his right arm during the Hie. He regenerates. (No Rest For the Wicked)

Chest and Torso (1)

  1. Omort severs Rydstrom's spine and punches through his torso in a fight. Sabine saves him and enlists Hag to help heal him. (Kiss of a Demon King)

Face and Eyes (2)

  1. 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)
  2. Cadeon loses an eye and part of his forehead and hair when fighting. It all regenerates. (Dark Desires After Dusk)

Legs and Feet (3)

  1. Lachlain tears off his own leg to reach Emma. He regenerates. (A Hunger Like No Other)
  2. 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)
  3. Thronos is chasing Melananthe and loses a foot when a portal closes on it. (Kiss of a Demon King)
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5.5: Road Trip Romances

We’ve got Doritos, a stack of Cosmo sex quizzes and an epic mixtape ready to go — Sarah and Jen are talking about road trips and the inevitable smooching that comes with them in romance!

Next week, we’re back to the Rage Demonarchy Duology with Kiss of A Demon King — where we get the full wrap up of the plot of the second in the duology, and the wrap up of the plot of Dark Desires After Dusk. We’ve seen Rydstrom total his McLaren and get abducted by Sabine, who is not only Queen of Illusions but also his Fated Mate and he’s not feeling great about this at all (Spoiler: We feel very great about this.) We’ll be joined by the fabulous Jenny Nordbak from The Wicked Wallflowers podcast for part of the conversation, and it will be a longer episode than usual because of that!

Get ready for the KoaDK read along at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books or your local indie. Also, the Audible versions of IAD are on sale right now -- and WORTH EVERY PENNY! Listen on Audio!

Show Notes

Texas is very big, everyone.

Here's some interesting facts about Starbucks.

Jen had no idea how posting horses worked until Elisabeth Lane asked on Twitter. (Sarah knew.)

Looking for books with carriage sex? Twitter has recs for you.

Learn more about the Gilded Age in America.

New York's Grand Central Station is absolutely magical.

Hildene, a museum of Lincoln's family home, has a full-scale reproduction of an amazing private rail car...It's amazing how someone on Twitter will always know the good things.

All about bustles.

Trading Places is a 1983 comedy with Eddie Murphy and Dan Ackroyd, and the blog Obscure Train Movies has an extensive break down of the train scenes from the movie.

The Ani Difranco poem Sarah mentioned is called Self-Evident.

Buy yourself a set of butterfly swords for $500. JK. That's probably a really bad idea.

Here's an overview of the Tang Dynasty, and its capital Chang'an.

If you haven't seen Mad Max Fury Road you should probably drop everything and take care of it.

In case you were wondering what the world looked like in 750, Time Maps has you covered.

Here's a list of rich heroines/poor heroes from goodreads.

A quick summary of Pygmalion, and if you happen to be in New York City, you can go see My Fair Lady at Lincoln Center.

Sarah talks about Tom Hardy a lot on Twitter. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Apparently, it is Low and High Fantasy, and Reddit talked about the differences between them.

There's a Slurpee twitter account, which shouldn't really surprise anyone if you think about it.

Whoops, it's my Mom.

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5: That Vessel Business: Dark Desires After Dusk

DEMONS ARE HERE! We’re talking Dark Desires After Dusk, starring Cadeon Woede (Prince of the Rage Demonarchy) and Holly, his human fated mate (SPOILER SHE ISN’T HUMAN, WHAT!). This one is the first in what we will end up calling the Demonarchy Duology — and we encourage you to read the next book in the series, Kiss of A Demon King as soon as you can after reading Dark Desires. Each book makes the other better. We’ll cover female rage, sex shaming, fast cars, food, feminism and…maybe a pot joke? Also, Sarah waxes on about horns. A lot.

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 Kiss of A Demon King — the second in the duology, and the wrap up of the plot of this book. We’ve seen Rydstrom total his McLaren and get abducted by Sabine, who is not only Queen of Illusions but also his Fated Mate. DOUBLE TROUBLE. Cade and Holly are a HUGE part of our episode on Sabine & Rydstrom’s — because we just can’t talk about one of these books alone.

Get ready for the KoaDK read along at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books or your local indie. Also, the Audible versions of IAD are on sale right now -- and WORTH EVERY PENNY! Listen on Audio!

Show Notes

A quick primer to the verbs deposed, dethroned, defrocked, and usurped.

Groot the Metallurgist is not a cute dancing tree, but rather the half-brother of Omort the Deathless. This Groot has forged a sword that can kill Omort.

Jen went back to Dark Needs at Night's Edge and here is a screenshot of the scene where both Rydstrom and Cadeon choose their kingdom over their fated mates. Nix was not amused.

Romancing the Stone is a rather amazing 80s adventure movie that stars Kathleen Turner as a romance author who travels to Colombia, where she has to trade a treasure map to free her sister. The sequel is The Jewel of the Nile, but it's not as good.

Freya and Woden are two of the three parents to every valkyrie that is created.

Jen says Holly is "some bullshitty one thing away" from being done with her PhD, but the phrase she was looking for was ABD (All But Dissertation).

A MacGuffin is an object that drives the plot.

Serial killers are creepy AF.

Women should not be treated like incubators.

Genetic (or biological) determinism is a problem.

For some reason, even with all the talk of eating and not eating, Jen and Sarah failed to bring up the myth of Persephone. #Fail.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder isn't always portrayed well in the media. UPDATE: One of our listeners wrote this thoughtful thread on Holly's OCD and you should read it.

The phrase "Heavy is the head that wears the crown" is from Shakespeare.

Lobsters are always about love.

Instagram and Twitter horn talk.

One of our listeners painted an amazing portrait of Nix.

Along with that 50% more blood thing, pregnant bodies are kind of amazing.

Jen did some emergency research to find out about the etymology of sword, gladius (this video! lol), scabbard, and vagina.

A Bugatti Veyron is very sexy, very speedy, and very spendy. One of our listeners noticed that there is no mile marker 775 in Mississippi, but there is something special about Mississippi River mile marker 775.

The Stig read Sarah's book on Top Gear!

Groot and Omort are only one letter away, which maybe means nothing; but playing games with words is fun.

The Venn Diagram of what the author means vs. what English teachers think it means.

Jen loves groveling a lot.

420. I mean, that can't be an accident, right? Updated: On Instagram, follower Ellenino22 pointed out that 420 is "the smallest number divisible by 1-7." Whoa.

Literary Disco is a podcast with lots of great games.

Avon's KissCon will be in Chicago the first weekend of April 2019.

Everyone but Sarah should watch these videos of planes landing in high winds.

Kiss of a Demon King is going to be epic, so get ready.

Lost Limb Count

Legs (2)

  1. Lachlain tears off his own leg to reach Emma. He regenerates. (A Hunger Like No Other)

  2. 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) ** Arms (1)**

  3. Sebastian pulverizes most of his right arm during the Hie. He regenerates. (No Rest For the Wicked)

Eyes (2)

  1. 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)

  2. Cadeon loses an eye and part of his forehead and hair when fighting. It all regenerates. (Dark Desires After Dusk) ** Hands (2)**

  3. Conrad cuts off his own hand with a rusty axe so he escape the "witched" chains his brothers locked him in. (Dark Needs at Night's Edge)

  4. Cadeon has both of his hands burned off in the same scene where he loses an eye. There's description of what Cade's baby fingers look like as they are re-growing. It's...kinda gross. (Dark Desires After Dusk)

Horns (1)

  1. Cadeon files off his own horns in an attempt to win back Holly. She tells him to let them grow back. (Dark Desires After Dusk)
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4.5: Curvy Heroines in Romance

Happy New Year, Fated Matesers (This isn’t a great name for us. We need a better name—someone name us)! We’re back, it’s 2019, new year, new us, and we’re starting as we mean to go on with Curvy Heroines, because, in the words of Julie Murphy, Every Body is a Swimsuit Body. Jen and I love a curvy heroine, and the men who love them, and so curvy romances are OUR FAVES.

Next week, we’re getting into Demons! We’ve met Cade, the prince of Rothkalina (the Rage Demonarchy) and his brother Rydstrom, its deposed King, before — they were in the Talisman’s Hie, and in Néomi & Conrad’s book. Next week, we tackle Cade & Holly’s story, Dark Desires After Dusk, with Rydstrom & Sabine’s book Kiss of a Demon King two weeks later. We highly recommend reading these two close together!

UPDATE 1/20/21 - We did it again! Don’t miss a brand new set of recommendations in S03.23 - Curvy Heroines Redux!

Show Notes

- In the summer of 2018, Jen and a bunch of people on Twitter discussed Nine Rules to Break While Romancing a Rake using the hashtag #9RulesRake.

- Sarah also has a curvy heroine romance that is coming in July! Brazen & the Beast has a gorgeous curvy heroine on the cover.

- Just a reminder that Jenny Crusie is completely awesome, and Bet Me is an amazing book.

- Courtney Milan has lots to say about romance. All of her books are amazing, but we talked about The Heiress Effect.

- Never Sweeter by Charlotte Stein was awareded the platinum medal in Jen's "Who Did It Better in the Library" post.

- Romancelandia often recommends books with curvy and fat heroines, and there are quite a few thoughtful pieces about how we think aobut these characters our ourselves.

- Naima Simone writes very excellent books and Jen & Sarah want this one right now.

- Olivia Dade is an advocate for fat women in romance, and Jen and Sarah both loved this thread and want to read books about all these heroines.

- Check out the full transcript for this episode.

TRANSCRIPT

Sarah MacLean 0:00
Okay, okay. Hi. You're listening to Fated Mates. This is Curvy Heroines Week.

Jen Prokop 0:07
I'm Jen Prokop, otherwise known as @JenReadsRomance and my fearless companion...

Sarah MacLean 0:13
Sarah MacLean. I like to write books, and I like to read books about curvy heroines. I like to write books about curvy heroines, too. I'm writing one right now, actually.

Jen Prokop 0:23
You've written many a great book about curvy heroines. And if you haven't read Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake, you can start there.

Sarah MacLean 0:32
That's really nice.

Jen Prokop 0:34
I have, you know, I'll put in the show notes. The picture I gave it to my friend Elizabeth to read and she put it back on my desk at work, with a post-it note on it and it just said, "delicious".

Sarah MacLean 0:46
Oh, that's so, thank you, Elizabeth. That's very kind. But we're not talking about my book this week. That's all. That's the Sarah part of the show.

Jen Prokop 0:55
Yes.

Sarah MacLean 0:56
Jen. Why do we like curvy heroines so much?

Jen Prokop 1:01
Cuz I am a curvy heroine.

Sarah MacLean 1:03
Yeah, me too.

But besides just wanting to see yourself on the page, which is a valid reason.

Jen Prokop 1:09
Okay, so here's what it is for me, it's always back to who deserves and HEA, and I think there are so many ways in which our media celebrates beautiful women. And I like to see that all women are beautiful. All women deserve love. And that's it. I say that to people, I say this to my students all the time. You're going to fall in love one day and the person you fall in love with is going to be beautiful to you. And I think that books with curvy heroines, I don't know they just really hit that mark for me and we talked about your book but the other book that did it first and did it best for me was Bet Me.

Sarah MacLean 1:47
Jenny Crusie.

Jen Prokop 1:49
When I read that book the first time I just thought, I don't know, it just really it felt revelatory, and so talking about books with curvy heroines i think is near and dear to our heart. So you tell me why you think it's important.

Sarah MacLean 2:03
Well, I think you just sort of hit the nail on the head. I actually think that the best thing about curvy heroine romances is that they tend to hold a mirror up to all women and maybe just humans in general, but this sort of sense that even at our most flawed, even when we sort of look at ourselves and say, and see, we see all the parts of us that are wonky, somebody who loves us, just sees the most perfect person and the most beautiful parts of us. And that is a joy to read. And it's a joy to experience in life when you're with your friends or your loved ones. And that's why I love, that's why I love these books, but actually you bring up the Jenny Crusie's Bet Me makes me think like is it possible Bet Me was the first one because prior to Jenny, I mean, in the early days of romance, heroines were perfect. Like really, really perfect. Like every book had a knight hero who could span the heroines waist with his hands,

Jen Prokop 3:05
Right. His manly hand.

Sarah MacLean 3:07
I think I think Jenny might have been the first one. I'm going to do some research and figure that out. And we'll put it in show notes if we find something earlier than that, but could be.

Jen Prokop 3:16
Yeah, and maybe, maybe that's why but I mean, I read that book and remember thinking it changed me like something fundamentally changed in me when I read that.

Sarah MacLean 3:24
Well, do you think it was just that suddenly like romance heroines could be something else, could be more, different, better...

It just opened up a door and I think it opened up a door in my own brain too.

Sure. All right, you start.

Jen Prokop 3:36
okay. I'm going to start actually because I really liked what you said about like a curvy heroine, right, we see her through her own eyes, but also through society's eyes. And a book that I think plays with this brilliantly, is called The Heiress Effect by Courtney Milan. It's a historical, it's part of the Brothers Sinister series. And that's book number two, if you could read it as a stand-alone and I think this book is amazing. I don't know if you've read it, but I loved it.

I think this heroine, her name is Jane, is essentially using the way society views her as a weapon to fool society itself. I don't know that I've ever read anything like it. And so it is profoundly feminist. There's this really amazing scene at the beginning where she describes them trying to, like make her waist many inches smaller than it is by like using corsets. And I like flinched as I read it, but then she actually wears like really outrageous outlandish clothes and she does it, like she realizes they don't think she's beautiful, that they mock her, and that she's going to use that against them to essentially like escape their notice because she has a huge dowry of 100,000 pounds, and she does not want to get married. And so she is playing this game where she's using their perception of them as a way essentially of making herself, like she's it's like at one point the hero realizes she's essentially acting like a butterfly right like she's beautiful and wearing bright colors and it but it's poisonous. And I just think this book, along with having this amazing curvy heroine, one of the smartest heroines, this amazing hero, the cast of characters, the social justice aspect of it. The hero sister. Her name is her name is free. She's like vote fighting for voting rights and the whole book is just from top to bottom, just a real treat. And so the other thing I liked about it is it Jane is clearly a curvy heroine and a Oliver loves her. It's the kind of woman he likes, but it's not the most important thing about who she is. And we and Oliver come and she herself come to see that about her about her.

Sarah MacLean 5:50
Courtney, if you've never read a book by Courtney, this is a really good place to start actually, Courtney does so many things beautifully, but the thing that always comes back to me with Courtney's books. The heroes are always so incredibly Noble.

Jen Prokop 6:04
Oh, yeah.

Sarah MacLean 6:05
They act with such strong conviction. And they know what's right. Capital r. They will do everything to make sure that they behave in that way. But they move the world they moved the needle toward that.

Jen Prokop 6:20
Oh, it's so good. Well, and I'll tell you what the other thing about this is this is a book that we've talked about, like the setup, right? Like so Courtney like sets up this whole thing where essentially the hero is supposed to take her down, and I sort of thought, Oh, hi know where this is going. I did not know where it was going at all. And it was like their struggle to be the best versions of themselves, both for themselves, and for each other. This book is perfect. I loved it.

Sarah MacLean 6:49
You should read a book by Courtney Milan.

Jen Prokop 6:51
Absolutely. What about you, Sarah?

Sarah MacLean 6:54
I'm going to talk about a different kind of hero. A very, very different kind of hero, who is not, does not move toward an nobility instantly. So I want to talk about Charlotte Stein. I want to talk about Charlotte Stein basically every day.

Jen Prokop 7:11
All day.

Sarah MacLean 7:12
All the time. If you've never read a book by Charlotte, you absolutely need to rectify that

Jen Prokop 7:16
and probably clear an entire day of your schedule because once you start you will not be able to stop

Sarah MacLean 7:23
you will just buy every Charlotte sign book one after another, and it will just you'll lose your day to great delicious joy. Because the best way for me to describe how Charlottewrites a book is It's like watching two people fall in love inside a phone booth while you're in it with them.

Jen Prokop 7:42
Oh my god, that's so perfect.

Sarah MacLean 7:44
And you're just like, it's too much. It's too much to watch and I feel weird about watching it but I can't stop like it's just

Jen Prokop 7:53
right.

Sarah MacLean 7:53
You're just in there. And these two deeply imperfect people Charlotte has never written a perfect character. I think in any of her books.

Jen Prokop 8:01
but she might be a perfect writer

Sarah MacLean 8:02
For sure. I think Charlotte is one of the very best writers writing today. She's such a writer's writer. I feel like every writer I speak to acknowledges we all just wish we could write like Charlotte.

Jen Prokop 8:14
It must be intimidating. I've actually I'm like, I just get to read it and be like, this is amazing. I can't even imagine like imposter syndrome must take over all of you when you read her book.

Sarah MacLean 8:23
Anytime I read a book by Charlotte, I end up thinking to myself, like, well, there goes three weeks of me sitting around feeling bad about myself.

Jen Prokop 8:34
But I want it I don't I mean, anyway, so I can't say enough good things, obviously, about Charlotte. But this book is called Never Sweeter. And you guys,

I know I just like fell over. It's so good.

Sarah MacLean 8:46
All right, I'm gonna I'm gonna do the setup. And you're gonna go Oh, Sarah, I don't know. So the premise is, it's setting College and the heroine who is very curvy in high school was relentlessly bullied by a group of boys to the point where she is run off the road and down a pretty dangerous cliff by these boys who are who are torturing her with bullying, and there's no good reason why she's just like all bully, there's no good reason why. And she's run off the road. And that's the beginning of the book. And then immediately we cut to her in college, and she goes into a class and sitting inside in the class is one of her bullies. And he is there to make amends. She's horrified. She's terrified. She's all the emotions that you would be. She wants away from him. She wants out of this, this entire world. But he is there and he's in college with her and he wants to apologize. He wants to make it right. And they fall in love. And it is

Jen Prokop 10:05
it's amazing.

Sarah MacLean 10:06
So incredible, because the whole time in your head you're thinking, no, absolutely not. This is not acceptable. And the whole time. I mean, Charlotte just writes this hero who just is working so hard to rectify the past. And this heroine who just is so strong because she's so able to tell him "no", and she's still able to resist it until she realizes that maybe there is something more than resistance. And I don't know I think I'm doing a bad job describing it but I think it's

Jen Prokop 10:44
No you're not

Sarah MacLean 10:45
so beautiful.

I read a book a day, right? I mean, I've read 10,000 that's not an exaggeration, romance novels in my lifetime. And I think it is rare that you can come across a book where you just you can't see how the writer is going to finish it. The whole time you're doubting that it's even possible to do it to pull it off and then somehow Charlotte just does and it's beautiful. It's one of the most beautiful romances I think ever written.

Jen Prokop 11:16
I think so too and I think that the curvy heroine part I would say, it's really essential to Lenny's character I think because like when they talk right when they become friends first is that he says I didn't want you going through the world thinking that everyone was going to treat you that way. And I think it's like metaphorically it's some level to like how fat people are treated in the world. Right like we're we're sort of like look away and and I think there's something really beautiful about his love for her is so pure and again, it's like that same thing we talked about when you talked about escort books, right? Everyone deserves love, like your physical package should have nothing to do with like whether or not you are deserving of someone loving you profoundly and deeply and I think this book at every single, every single layer does that so well. That's amazing.

Okay, so my final one is way lighter, a jaunt really but we know we have to come right out of the deep well that Never Sweeter will will put you in and all of Charlotte's books really but I love a book like really love in a way like I don't know every single bell rings on my belt. It's called Playing It Cool by Amy Andrews and it's a part of a whole series all the like playing at whatever books are part of a series about Sydney rugby team, which I know nothing about rugby, but I've really liked all these books and the main character is a guy named Dexter and it actually starts off with him. And all of his like sort of buddies on his rugby team are basically like, hey, there's your kind of girl on the sidelines, because she's like a bigger curvier woman and her...her name is Harper and...

Sarah MacLean 12:58
can I just interrupt and say Love that moment in this book we're like you're not because we have talked a lot about curvy heroines who are feel uncomfortable in their skin and you know, God knows that's real but there's something remarkable when in the first moment of the book like a huge an entire rugby team is like that one

Jen Prokop 13:19
that Yeah, like there's your kind of girl and I remember being like but wait like I literally I think I went back and reread it like wait a minute, is that what I think it means that they all know that he he likes curvy women and they see one and they're like, there she is the one for you. I love this book was really great and, and what happens is they end up dating they end up like falling in love but because he is so fixated on rugby, like his sort of like you know, I only have this short I'm a professional athlete and my time on this team is going to be short so I don't really have time for like serious like a serious girlfriend like that's just going to mess me up. They sort of have this like low key like where she starts thinking that he's keeping her under wraps. And she's like, Is it because of the way I look? And he's like, no, it's because I really just wanted to focus on rugby. And you know, there's this amazing scene though, at the end. And I think this is also part of why I love this book. I don't think it's super spoilery where she goes to it, they go to a benefit, and they go separately, and she is dressed in this like knockout dress. And every man in the room can see how beautiful she is. And it is killing Dexter because he knows like, you know, he's like, everyone now sees what I've seen all along. And I just this book, like really worked for me at every level. I think, you know, the camaraderie between Dexter and his team. The affair between the two of them per work is like a muralist and her insistence that she deserves to have someone who loves her. Absolutely, and she doesn't need to be second best to anybody's job. I don't care if it's rugby or not. Basically and she I just love this book. I loved everything about it.

Sarah MacLean 15:03
Yeah, it's a great read.

Jen Prokop 15:05
And it's like, it's like a fun read, right? Like, it's not really serious, you know, but I just think it's like a great fun read with like, here's a curvy heroine who is like, I deserve more. And hero has to be like, Yes, you're right, dear. What do you need for me?

Sarah MacLean 15:17
Also, I think sports heroes in that moment are pretty great. Like the dichotomy between like the super sporty like celebrity hero and the normal girl who you know,

Jen Prokop 15:30
right

Sarah MacLean 15:30
looks like a normal person is really delicious. Always. That's why books like the wall of winning pegan me work so well. You know, because there is that sort of literal body perfection versus just ordinary everyday.

Jen Prokop 15:44
Right. And I one of the things I love is the authors who make space for women to feel the way they feel about their bodies and to know they deserve love and that they're going to get it right that romance is going to deliver that to them. That's really essential and important to me.

Sarah MacLean 16:00
So, my last book is kind of an older title. It is the first Bela Andre book I ever read. It's called take me and fun fact. I loved this book so much that I then went to the RWA national conference. And I like stalked Bella into and forced her to be my friend. And now we are friends. But I love take me so much. This is the same kind of I mean, you you guys are going to get a real sense of the kind of heroine curvy heroine I look for but the heroine of this book has been best friends with one half of a set of like ridiculously attractive twins for her whole life. Since they were four or five years old, and her best friend has always been her best friend and his twin brother has always been sort of aloof and not really present in her life and not really showing much interest in her, and she of course has had like this crazy unrequited crush on him forever. And I love an unrequited love story. I love unrequited love. Yeah, it's good. And so essentially what happens is she suddenly like so he's, you know, a millionaire. This was in the ages of millionaires, you guys, this predates billionaire,

Jen Prokop 17:23
Do better.

Sarah MacLean 17:25
And he's this sort of like Star millionaire, amazing, you know, all around person. And they end up but she's an interior decorator and he's a he's a developer, real estate guy. And he takes her he hires her basically to help decorate a client's house. And it becomes really clear, really quickly. I think early in the book, there's like a drinking mishap and then there's like an almost sex moment and then becomes very clear very quickly that like he's had feelings for her for a long time. And he ends up flying her to Italy to like shop for stuff for...

Jen Prokop 18:11
For his like mansion or whatever.

Sarah MacLean 18:14
Yeah, and so they fly to Tuscany and they have this like incredible weekend Tuscany and she the whole time she's like at some point the other shoe is gonna drop in this like fantasy that I have fallen into with this guy who I've been in love with for my whole life. It's just going to fall apart because he's never dated anybody who isn't like size double zero. And then she sort of sabotages it just by virtue of not believing in herself, and it's so real, like it's so painfully real because he's like, I can't convince you of what I see. And until you're able to see what I see, I don't know how to be with you. I don't know how to make this work and it is real honest. And you know, I think this is the thing that a lot of people do like we naturally as humans sabotage relationships because of lots of reasons and this is it just felt so authentic and I still to this day I love bellus books so much so many of them I love but this one still to me is like the perfect Bella Andre book.

Jen Prokop 19:17
Well and I think that's the other thing that any imperfection that any character has to deal with but especially body image issues really are about self acceptance and I think that's why it's it's not enough for your romantic partner to accept you the good books the best books are then about "I accept myself" and I think that's why they really like hit you right in the heart because all of us are working on ourselves. And and i think that all books have characters working on themselves, but somehow this struggle, really, maybe it just speaks to me personally, but when it's good, it's it's a book I just really love and they stay in rotation. And I've read and read read them and have them in multiple formats. And that's when I know it's like a real keeper for me.

Sarah MacLean 20:07
Yeah. So shout out your favorite curvy heroines. Tell us on twitter hashtag #fatedmatespod. Don't forget that if you'd like us to tackle a trope for you, you should let us know. And we will do with pleasure.

Jen Prokop 20:22
So, if you are enjoying our podcast, we would love for you to subscribe to it. Give us a rating and share it with your friends online on Facebook, on Twitter, in the coffee shop wherever you might be talking about your favorite podcast.

Sarah MacLean 20:38
Okay, everyone, well, that was curvy girls. If you are a writer out there thinking about writing a curvy romance, please do. We need more of them. I saw Naima Simone tweeted about one a couple of days ago and I'm super excited for that one. Naima, write faster.

Next week. We are back to IAD and we are on book number five. And the demons are coming you guys I'm so excited. The first book is Dark Desires After Dusk, which is Cade & Holly's book as you know we've met Cade and rods from his deposed King or dethroned King. I don't know. I don't know what the word is will sort it out before that episode. But we've met him twice. He was part of the Hie with Bowen and Mari, and he is a pretty significant piece of this Neomi and Conrad book, The Neomi and Conrad book, which we did last week. So we've got Cade and Holly up first. It's a road trip romance, and it's one that we have a lot to say about. But here's what I'm going to say because now we've finished recording both Cade and Rydstom's books.

And Jen and I think that you should probably read them both back to back if you can. If you have the time, because Rydstrom and Sabine's book, which is Kiss of a Demon King, and Cade & Holly's book, which is--what did I just say?--Dark Desires After Dusk--work in concert with each other. They're overlapping for quite a bit of time. And I think that once you've read both, both books get better.

So we are back next week with Cade and Holly's book and they still intend to release Rydstrom & Sabine's episode in two weeks after that. So there's plenty of time for your reading in order. Real life real time IAD readers were reading them six or eight months apart, so you'll be fine. We just think that you might like it better if you read them both back to back. And we have a lot to say about both of these books and there's a whole lot of conversation coming about horns and we have a special guest for Sabine and Rydstrom's book who's got a great story, and you're going to love it.

So yay! Thanks for joining us again for Fated Mates. We're super excited to have you always. If you are enjoying the podcast, don't forget to subscribe and like and review and tell your friends. Tell your mom or whoever else you would like to tell about us.

Thanks so much, guys.

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