S02.04: Novellas with Alyssa Cole
This week we’re talking about novellas with one of the best novella writers around—Alyssa Cole. Join us, along with Alyssa’s tree frogs, to talk about why she loves the novella format, the trick to writing a short romance, and her upcoming Audible original!
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.
We’re back in two weeks with Johanna Lindsey’s Gentle Rogue, set on a ship with a heroine-in-pants and a hero who really deserves everything she delivers him. Find it at: Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Apple Books, or at your local Independent Bookstore!
Show Notes
Ultra-marathoners really do suck down energy gel out there! Soylent Green is people, and therefore not someting Ultramarathoners consume during their races.
Sarah uses weird with love. In fact, she crowdsourced a great weird romance list yesterday on Twitter. Head over there to overload your TBR.
Robot girlfriends are a thing, I guess. But even more exciting is that Alyssa's audio for The AI Who Loved Me has some big time narrators!
Keanu Reeves in the Matrix has his own gel problem.
Sarah wrote a novella for a Christmas anthology with Tessa Dare, Sophie Jordan & Joanna Shupe, How the Dukes Stole Christmas, that is newly out in paperback.
Alyssa mentioned a KDrama called Noble, My Love that has 15 minute episodes.
Ladyhawke is an 80s movie that honestly defies description, but lives on in our memories.
S02.03: Lisa Kleypas Does Spectacles Better than F. Scott Fitzgerald: Dreaming of You
We begin the exploration of The Books That Blooded Us with the one that probably least surprised listeners—Lisa Kleypas’s Dreaming of You! We tackle this fabulous, bonkers book (yes, we get to the bottom of the did-he-or-didn’t-he conundrum, and we spend some serious time discussing Joyce). We also talk about how we think Derek Craven changed the romance hero game, what might have been in the water in romance in the early-mid 1990s, and Sarah tells a few stories about her weekend with the queen herself, Lisa Kleypas.
Don’t forget to like & subscribe in your favorite podcasting app so you don’t miss a single second of us in your earholes!
Show NOtes
Anyone know if Warby Parker is looking for a podcast to sponser?
Sarah & Lisa spent time together because they were signing at Nora Roberts's bookstore, Turn the Page, in real-life Boonsboro, MD. Jen had some hard-core FOMO.
February 4th is Derek Craven Day, look at some of our tweets from that day.
A reminder of that 1992 election and what we should have learned from Anita Hill. But Stormy Danielsis more in control of her narrative.
Josh Lyman never calls it a recession, call it a bagel.
We love Steve Ammidown at the BGSU pop culture library.
IRL, Matilda was Pamela. But that ending, classic Lady or the Tiger or The Sopranos.
The second casino is in Devil in Winter, where Ivo Jenner's daughter falls in love with Sebastian, St. Vincent, whom many think is Lisa's best hero. They are wrong.
We're back on Moonstruck with that mother-in-law and "Bring me the big knife!"
More about some of those Jungian archetypes.
Jen meant coitus interruptus in the Urban Dictionary way, not the Merriam-Webster way.
This article seems to think head hopping is more common in roamance, but I don't know if that's true.
Close third person POV or Free Indirect Speech & Jane Austen.
Have you listened to our bodily autonomy episode?
Dangerous Liasons the book has been around for a long time, but Jen is talking about the 1988 movie.
"She leaves the gun on the table" is a reference to a famous writing precept by Chekhov.
Doing spectacles better than F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Gentle Rogue is coming up in two weeks.
Kelly has some Fated Mates swag and Romancelandia buttons for sale.
Fated Mates is produced by Eric Mortensen
S02.02: The Alpha in Romance Novels
As we lead into Season Two, and consider the fact that some of our faves are definitely going to be problematic, we’re talking about the alpha hero this week — we’re also tackling the beta hero and the cinnamon roll, and why these archetypes largely don’t work for us. We’re talking romance heroes who changed the game for us and the genre, about how hard it is to turn the alphahole around, and how satisfying it is to watch it happen. We’re also talking the female gaze (of course) and the patriarchy (like always).
Next week, we’re digging into one of our original alphas, Derek Craven! You can find Lisa Kleypas’s Dreaming of You at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, or at your local indie. It's currently $2.99 in digital everywhere, so snatch it up!
Show Notes
The alpha, the beta, and the cinnamon roll.
You should all follow Cora Harrington (lingerie addict) on twitter. It's all so beautiful.
Jen screams about first person a lot, but MOSTLY about first person present.
It was Demon Rumm by Sandra Brown that was all in the male POV, and this review is so great. Jen's going to follow Alaina, the author, on twitter. UPDATE: The Browne Pop Culture Library was able to find the descriptions of Demon Rumm, and as Jen predicted, they were in the back matter of the previous month's books! Thanks, Steve!
Alec Kinkaid, The Montgomerys, James Mallory, and the Westmoreland heroes.
Did you somehow miss us talking about The Professional?
It the Movie may or may not be your cup of tea, but this discussion of Jane Doe with Victoria Helen Stone has some really interesting points about horror and romance.
Bourne from A Rogue by Any Other Name is "Sarah's worst hero" by which she means it was just reall satisfying to break him.
You have to listen to our antiheroes episode if you want to know what it means to "take the finger."
P in V is great, but 2Ps in V is even better.
Hillary Clinton was wrong about romance novels, and Lisa Kleypas explains why.
Adriana Herrera's American Dreamers series is one of our faves.
What it means to be a Kinsey 2.
Romance for Raices has a few more days. Spend enough money and you can pick an upcoming interstitial topic!
TRANSCRIPT
Sarah MacLean 0:00 / #
Umm.....interstitial 2.1 is that what we call them? I don't understand.
Jennifer Prokop 0:05 / #
We're not doing point anything.
Sarah MacLean 0:08 / #
No, we're not using points anymore. That's what that we promised our producer that we would never label anything point anything. But isn't this like season, it's like 201, I don't know, there's like a TV numbering system. We're not going to use it. But it's season two, interstitial one is what it is. No more point five episodes. You guys are gonna have to pay attention to the titles now. I mean, do as we say not as we do.
Jennifer Prokop 0:38 / #
Obviously, you should just listen to everything and not even worry about it. That would be the ideal thing for all of us.
Jennifer Prokop 0:47 / #
So welcome to Fated Mates everyone. Are we rage interstitialing here Sarah?
Sarah MacLean 0:58 / #
I think we are. I'm pretty rage-y about this, and I want to have a talk.
Jennifer Prokop 1:03 / #
I know. Okay,
Sarah MacLean 1:05 / #
Maybe rage is too strong a word.
Jennifer Prokop 1:08 / #
We're unpacking.
Sarah MacLean 1:13 / #
You guys, here's where I'm at. Yesterday, I was walking in the park in Brooklyn, with my dog and my kid, and I had a thought that I didn't love about romance, and I wanted to unpack it. And so I texted Jen this thought, and she immediately called me. It was a Saturday morning at like, 10:30 / #. And she was like, it's too much to text, but these are my thoughts. And we had a whole conversation about patriarchy versus white supremacy versus anti-semitism in romance, and it was like 10:30 / # in the morning, on a Saturday, in my life, and I realized like, this is all I want out of life. Basically to have a thought about romance novels and then be able to fucking hash it out. Like, can we talk it out? And I said to Jen, we're not going to talk that out today, because we're going to talk that out many times over the next, however many episodes, but I said to Jen, recently, I really want to have a conversation about romance in 2019 and how we talk about the alpha. And like what the fuck that is, and why we are so weird about naming alphas and betas or cinnamon rolls or why we obsess over what the hero is in sort of a single word and also like why we resist so much of that character who, as I like to say, scratches an itch in fiction, but who of course we would never date in real life.
Jennifer Prokop 3:14 / #
And what this is really tied into and you and I talked have talked a lot about this, is the fantasy of romance.
Sarah MacLean 3:21 / #
Which is not just the fantasy of the romance novel, but also sort of packed into that is female fantasy, or women's fantasy or marginalized people's sexual fantasies.
Jennifer Prokop 3:38 / #
An example of this is, my favorite thing and romance. is that the heroine's underwear and bra always match.
Sarah MacLean 3:47 / #
Oh, I know. And they set the hero aflame.
Jennifer Prokop 3:52 / #
Yeah. And you know what, I don't think I actually own any matching bras and underwear.
Sarah MacLean 3:58 / #
I think one more time I wore a matching bra and underwear and Eric was like, whoa, what is this? I know. We hit the lottery today.
Jennifer Prokop 4:17 / #
One of my favorite Twitter feeds is that lingerie addict Twitter feed.
Sarah MacLean 4:20 / #
Oh, I don't know that. I'm going to subscribe to it.
Jennifer Prokop 4:23 / #
I think her name's Cora Harrington. I'm not sure. Anyway, and I'm always, these undergarments are gorgeous. I just want to admire them. And in no way in real life do I actually want to wear them. But I love them.
Sarah MacLean 4:44 / #
But also because you and I are, you know, our girls need a house man. They need to be, you know, engineered into clothing. And that sort of floofy frilly perfect underwear, it is not realistic in any way. But man, I love to read about it. I really do
Jennifer Prokop 5:11 / #
I think there's a lot of ways in which romance, and I think you and I agree on this. It's like real, but it's also fantasy. And the intersection of where those things work for some people and not for others is very fascinating to me. And I'm going to tell you, Sarah, I love an alpha. Whatever it is, we're defining that as...I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it.
Sarah MacLean 5:36 / #
And there are very clear reasons why I love it. I mean, you do. Here's the thing, like we've talked for the last I mean, for however many for 39 episodes we talked about, well, not for half of the episodes for 19 or 20 episodes. We talked about "Mine," right? And frankly when you're reading IAD like everybody's the fucking leader of the pack. Everybody's the best, the strongest, the most powerful, the king, the whatever, the primordial. Unbeatable in every way. And these things have often been marked as alpha traits. And I guess they are.
Sarah MacLean 6:27 / #
But that's not why we love them, I don't think. It's part of it. In the immortal words of Sierra Simone, "Power is sexy. I'm sorry, I don't make the rules." And every romance novel is about power, no matter what it is, no matter what kind of hero you're writing, romance novels are about power because relationships are about power. Everybody's relationship, in real life, any relationship you have with anybody else, is about power and parity. And when you have conflict in a relationship in real life or on the page, it's about power.
Jennifer Prokop 7:11 / #
And I would say that romance then to me really fundamentally, when I read it is about figuring outhow to navigate that, how to win at that.
Sarah MacLean 7:29 / #
That's the whole ball game. The navigation of power toward parity is the whole ball game in romance. And so we've talked a lot about the history of the genre on the podcast and as we move forward in season two, we're going to talk a lot more about the history of the genre, and the books that have established themselves as sort of Cornerstone texts in romance, right? How in many of these books, we're dealing with a hero who is in those early days so impenetrable, that literally his point of view is never on the page. We're going to talk about POV much more next week when we talk about "Dreaming of You." But--I'm not talking about first person versus third person here, which is what Jen likes to yell and scream about-- I'm talking about literally the narrator and the reader don't have access to the hero's thoughts at all in these early books.
Jennifer Prokop 8:41 / #
This is like a bit of an aside, It was the first time, and I think it was "Demon Rumm" by Sandra Brown, I was like trying to figure it out, where it was 'this book is only the hero's point of view.' And I'm kind of how did I hear about this? Because there was no Twitter and there's no social media. And it must have been in the back of the book, like coming next month. But I remember that being something worth, like something worth saying like, "Hey, this is happening and it's different and new."
Sarah MacLean 9:13 / #
Yeah. Interesting. But this is the thing right like when you are looking at a hero and those early books, the early Deverauxs, early Lindseys, early McNaughts, early Garwoods, Bertrice Small, we never ever saw the hero. We never saw inside his head. And so we were really dealing in those early days-- in my mind, like, this is me like I'm putting on my scholar hat, now-- in those early days we were looking at distilled patriarchy. The hero was representative of sort of a world that was not accessible to women, not accessible to the heroine, and not accessible to read the reader. And then the heroine starts to chip away at this rigid, stony character and unlocks Alec Kincaid or any number of the Montgomerys or James Mallory or any number of the Westmoreland heroes. And suddenly we have a ball game because we're able to see that the heroine ultimately lays out the hero. To the point, where in some cases, in a McNaught that we will read this season, the hero is literally dying on a battlefield because of the heroine. Because of a promise he made to her and he will not betray that promise because he loves her. So When we see a hero broken to that extent, and then rebuilt in this image of equality, it's delicious for us as readers who subconsciously are keenly aware of our lack of power in many of these relationships.
Jennifer Prokop 11:20 / #
And I think what's really interesting about that is it was so the way I read, I came into romance as a young reader. And yet now, when I read books that are heroine-only point of view, I have to pace myself with them. I can't do it all the time. I find it too hard to get to know the hero, It feels really like a like a bold choice on the part of the author to do such a thing. Because I'm really used now to having access to all of the characters in a romantic relationship in modern Romance and when people go another way it feels like a choice, and a risky one at that. You know, it's just really hard to sell me on the other character without me being able to see inside their head. Whether that be first person or third person it doesn't matter. I'm used to that being something that I get now in romance. I don't know if you feel the same way.
Sarah MacLean 12:29 / #
Obviously this is why one of my biggest challenges. As much as you're the one who, you know, goes to the mad about first person, the challenge with first person is that sometimes you don't get the important information from the perspective of the person that you need it from. So craft-wise one of the rules that we talk about all the time when you talk about POV and romance, and you talk about writing multiple POVs, is that when you are writing a scene, you should be writing the scene in the point of view of the character who has the most to lose. Interestingly, in these early romances, or in romances where you've got a big, bad impenetrable alpha, the character who has the most to lose in those early scenes, is the heroine because she's navigating this power structure and unable to gain enough footing to get herself into a position of power where he can lose something. However, in books like, well, last year when we talked about "The Professional" part of the challenge with "The Professional" is we never saw-- part of the challenge with all three of those books-- is that we never see the moment when the heroine is leaving from the hero's point of view. We just see him go animal. He goes feral. That first one, Alex, or Alexi, what's his name? I don't even fucking remember anymore. It's like those books are out of my head but in "The Professional," we don't see him go feral. In "The Master" we see Maxim run across the field and take the bullet and he's willing to do anything for her. And so we can sort of perceive his feralness. And I'm using feral in a very specific way here. I'm using it on purpose. That is an intentional use of the word feral. And then in "The Player" we see Dimitri punch the car. He can't control himself. And we talked about it in that episode. That's a problem moment. If that happened in real life, to your friend, you would be like, red flag, get the fuck away from that guy.
Jennifer Prokop 14:55 / #
Yeah. All the flags.
Sarah MacLean 14:57 / #
Holy shit. Call the police. That guy's horrible. But when it's happening on the page in a romance novel it's safer for us to love it. And what does that mean?
Jennifer Prokop 15:09 / #
I sometimes wonder if...you have a heroine-only point of view now, or maybe then, too. Maybe as we read some of these old books we'll dig into that. If you have to make that moment-- for the hero in this case, I feel like this really over time with the alpha hero. It's like, to me it's like very tied into MF romance, where it's like a heroine.-- I wonder if you don't have to make that low moment really over the top, because we have, it's the only way to signal to the reader, just how they really feel. Like you've [the author] cut them off from them [the readers]. And so in order for us to get it, does it have to be bigger, and I don't know the answer to that.
Sarah MacLean 16:00 / #
I think it does. I was looking online and somebody was talking about some book and how the low moment, the sort of dark night of the soul moment, was over-the-top. And we hear that a lot with romance like, oh, it's so over-the-top. I get that as a criticism for my books a lot, the the climactic scene is so over-the-top. And of course it's over the top, you have to break them. They have to be crushed. Look, I love every one of my heroes. Certainly I've written heroes who I've not loved most of the book, but by the time I get to that moment, which is usually, I don't know, 90% of the way through the book, I love those heroes. I really do and I don't want them to be broken, but they have to break. Because we have to see them laid low by the idea that they have lost everything, that they have lost everything of meaning. And the reality is, and you'll never convince me otherwise, that's because all I want is to see the patriarchy destroyed. If there's anything that is is a solid metaphor for patriarchy, it's this story. The fighting for power, the arguments about power, the back and forth about that power and the ultimate dismantling of a system and a man who is representative of that system, so that he can do nothing else but be a person who's looking for equality and a mate.
Jennifer Prokop 17:48 / #
I think a lot about--so what does that really mean in the books where it satisfies?
Sarah MacLean 17:56 / #
At some point I want to talk about the fact that you shouldn't be writing this consciously. That's the problem.
Jennifer Prokop 18:08 / #
Okay, so Darrell is a big horror movie fan. And he went to see "It" this weekend.
Sarah MacLean 18:15 / #
Did he enjoy it? It looks so scary. It looks so scary.
Jennifer Prokop 18:21 / #
He I think has a really high scary threshold, because he's like, it wasn't that scary. But what was really interesting is I was asking him about the ending, because I was like, Is there a way that horror movies always end that leave you-- as the viewer in this case-- right? Like, it's like that, like, what do you need to have a satisfying romance ending I feel like is I'm always interested in these like genre questions. But the thing I think a lot about in romance is that part of the breaking of the hero is that he has to say I love you. It has to be an emotional journey where part of it is this man admitting, "I have feelings."
Sarah MacLean 19:07 / #
Yeah, I'm human.
Jennifer Prokop 19:09 / #
Yes. "I have feelings. I'm human. I have to speak these feelings out loud." It is part of every romance that it's not just enough for a woman or heroine to say I can tell he loves me by the way he acts, part of the breaking of that hero has to be: I have to say it out loud. I have to feel those feelings. And it's different when they're soft cinnamon rolls the entire time.
Sarah MacLean 19:39 / #
Here's where I'm at. And this is going to be a controversial thing. I'm a little afraid to say it but whenever. When we talk about these soft books, and there is a place for them, because like I appreciate that that's part of the fantasy, too. I have so much to say. I have so many thoughts in my head. But here's the thing. When we talk about these soft books and these soft heroes and these cinnamon rolls and how much we love a hero which wants to hold the heroine, and cook for the heroine, and clean for the heroine, and be the heroine's, you know, person. So, okay, personally, this I'm not afraid to say. These books do nothing for me. I can appreciate them on a literary level, on a romance level. I can say that's a finely crafted book, I can say that's a finely written book, this person's a skilled writer, but they do nothing for me in a primal way. And there's a sort of primalness to romance that I will never give up. You will have to pry it from me.
Jennifer Prokop 20:47 / #
I think we are alike in that way.
Sarah MacLean 20:51 / #
Yeah, I mean, we just did a podcast about Kresley Cole, come on. So there is that, but also, from a craft perspective, from an intellectual perspective, if you start the book with two characters who are both fully realized, decent people, who live in the world and are feminist and anti-racist and perfect in every way, they're all dyed in the wool democrats who love each other and can cook perfectly, then where is there to go? I appreciate that as I say those words I can understand intellectually and emotionally that that's a problematic thing. But then I sort of think to myself, and literally I'm speaking my thoughts as they are coming into my head, but like, then I think to myself, but wait a second. Is it that problematic? Because I'm not saying I want to marry Alec Kincaid. I'm not saying I want to marry whatever. I don't know. Who's my worst hero? Borne. Right? But I am saying I want to read Borne breaking. I want to read Devil freezing to death, realizing that he's fucked everything up. Spoiler alert. But my husband is not those things like my husband is a proper cinnamon roll, like, and I love him for it. So why can't I have my cake and eat it too, Jen?
Jennifer Prokop 22:37 / #
I keep coming back to the question about what the fantasy is? The fantasy for you and me is that the patriarchy can be tamed. And that's what we want to read.
Sarah MacLean 22:51 / #
More now than ever before.
Jennifer Prokop 22:54 / #
More now than ever before. Now again, I feel like it's worth us saying that I think both of us are totally aware that taking the patriarchy out of context of capitalism and racism or whatever, that's what we're doing right now. So I think for me, like you, the cinnamon roll fantasy is just not what I personally really need right now. I read about one a year and really enjoy it but I don't want to read them nonstop. And I think part of it is because that fantasy which is the help-meet fantasy, maybe, maybe that's what it is or the we're going to team up together and already be so far advanced. I don't know. Maybe it's just a different fantasy. Maybe we needed someone on who does love those books to tell us what it is that is hitting that primal need in them.
Sarah MacLean 23:59 / #
It's interesting because I had this conversation with a friend not long ago about the fact that post election, all she wants to do is read beta heroes. And also, pause, because I want to say also that I sort of instinctively loathe the, you know, heroes are all either an alpha or a beta or cinammon roll, or whatever. I hate all that discussion. Any decent writer is writing a complex hero who is many things. So, you know, there's that, and I feel I have to have said that over the course of, you know, all those Wroth Brothers. So she was basically saying I just want to read happy, bantery, joyful, fun, soft heroes. And I was like, that's fair. In the wake of the election, all I want to do is read the most bananas stories. I want every author out there taking the finger, as we discussed last season, and I think part of it is because, basically, if your book isn't about dismantling the institutions of power and privilege and hate that we are living with right now, like, why? But this is the thing, I'm also saying I appreciate that that's not fair. Does that makes sense?
Jennifer Prokop 25:37 / #
I think it's something Kelly and I talk about a lot. The work you decide to do in the world--Everybody's work is different. The work of I'm going to tackle this head on by talking about how you break down the most virulent kind of the patriarchy versus other people's work is maybe not taking the finger. Other people's work is just different. And I think that it's okay to to say that. I think what worries me and you is that I don't want to be told that loving the breaking of the alpha makes me a regressive romance reader.
Sarah MacLean 26:26 / #
Yes. Yes.
Jennifer Prokop 26:29 / #
And I feel like that's the narrative, I'm like, Look, I don't understand your work. And you don't understand my work. I don't know. That's the part I think that's hard.
Sarah MacLean 26:42 / #
I think it's a very specific narrative that we're hearing in a very specific place. So I think this is the thing that we hear about a lot on romance Twitter, but interestingly, I run reading book club on Facebook and you don't hear that so much. I think it's a conversation that is happening in very specific circles, and I think it's worthy of happening, I think that often we lose sight of the idea that women's fantasy or the fantasies of people whose gazes are not traditionally presented as fantasy, or who are not often given like a space to fantasize publicly. Policing that fantasy is a terrible, frankly, regressive way of being. My concern is that when we police fantasy, specifically the fantasy of people whose fantasies are never given a place to exist and thrive, which is what romance has always been, it's been a place for sexual fantasy of people who are not given access to sexual fantasy in the world writ large. If you're not cis, het, white, and male--- your sexual fantasies are not on billboards and in movies. But they are in romance novels. And so if we are policing that fantasy, if we're policing the, I don't know, motorcycle club or the BDSM, or the I don't know, the alpha who is broken and then rebuilt, then are we progressing as a genre? Or are we regressing as one? It should be broadening. When I'm in a reading slump, cinnamon rolls are not the answer. But like they might be the answer to someone else and like, go with God.
Jennifer Prokop 29:02 / #
And that's that's exactly I think that's it, I love that we are broadening. I think it's really more expensive as a genre. We always joke with Kate. She's like, "I don't want to read two Ps in V" and I was like, "Yeah, I do!" And I think that part of it is, I feel like there's so many more places that romance is giving us access to so many more fantasies and so many more kinds of fantasies. But my fantasy still that alpha getting broken and crying and being like, I love you. I still want that one, too. I don't want to lose that as we move forward and have so many more fantasies. I still love that old school fantasy. I do. I probably always will. Because I grew up with it. And because of where we are in the world right now.
Sarah MacLean 30:02 / #
Yeah, I mean, and what's really interesting about it is, I don't think anyone would argue that in the early days, the writers I mean, I don't think anyone would argue that most of the writers of the genre are thinking about representing the smashing of the patriarchy in that moment. I don't think. I don't think Judith McNaught was, "All right, I'm gonna write 'Whitney, My Love' and Clayton's gonna be so much of an asshole. That then like when he is broken at the end, everyone will see that it's a metaphor for women's the women's movement." You would knock me directly over if you told me that that was what Judith McNaught was thinking about when she was writing "Whitney, My Love," I think she just opened up ID and poured it onto the page and we got what we got. And so like, I think this whole conversation should be taken in a sense of like, we're doing a lot of thinking about the work of romance in a way that I think does writers a disservice sometimes. And I say this as somebody who like has gotten in her head about, "well, what is the political ramification of this story?" And suddenly you think to yourself, "well now I'm in the weeds like, now I'm frozen, because I'm terrified that I'm going to do this thing wrong. That I'm going to tell the story of smashing of patriarchy wrong or I'm going to tell the story of whatever this political thing that I want to talk and I'm going to do it wrong." Versus like ultimately, writing with conflict and with pacing and with voice and with you know, character that just like is primal. It's fearlessness.
Jennifer Prokop 32:07 / #
I want to be really clear, when we talk about it being wrong, I think the fear is always, always, always, because it's always the charge right? Hillary Clinton talked about a hero to putting a woman over a horse and riding away with her. Here we are as a genre saying like, "no, it's feminist." And yet people outside the genre are looking at it and saying, "no, it's it isn't." And that is always the push pull. I think, a really primal push pull of romances is: Is it feminist? When is it enough? When is it feminist? When is it anti-racist? When is it, when is it progressive versus when is it regressive? And I think that that question is one that maybe we can't tell until 10 or 15 or 20 years later. Who knows, but you can't convince me it's not and yet I have such a hard time explaining to you why it is. And I don't know what to do about that.
Sarah MacLean 33:14 / #
Wait, why romance is feminist?
Jennifer Prokop 33:17 / #
Yeah, I mean, I are like, Why? I mean, I don't know where the line is.
Sarah MacLean 33:25 / #
Here's my thing. For, whatever, 45 years, the genre was accused of being regressive and anti-feminist. The women's movement was moving women forward and romance novels were taking us back. And I have never ascribed to that for all the reasons that you have heard me for many, many hours of expounding on that. Now, I think what we're hearing though, is from inside the house, we're hearing not all these books are feminist and I think that is where things start to get real dicey. Because I have always said that romance is feminist in two different ways: that, On the one hand, it's feminist because there are the texts that are doing something overtly feminist on the page, the breaking down of the alpha hero, the celebration of the cinnamon roll, these kind of moments where we start to see parity as a construct in the novel, like sexual parity or, you know, whatever. Again we're talking about a very specific kind of feminism here. But then on the other hand, you have the books that are written as one-handed reads, for pure pleasure for women, or for people who, again, have never had their pleasure centered by any form of media including pornography. Then you have an entirely different realm of romance that is doing the work of like identifying basic human pleasure beyond cis het white male. And that also has value.
Jennifer Prokop 35:24 / #
Or cis het white female for that matter.
Sarah MacLean 35:27 / #
It's like cis or het or white or Yeah, it's or AND and OR.
Jennifer Prokop 35:42 / #
When we talk about HEA for all, happily everyone after, to use your language. I think the thing that romance novels have taught me foundationally, and you will never convince me that this is an important, is that you deserve ultimate love and acceptance in your relationships with other people, whether they be romantic relationships or not. Whoever that person is on the page, they deserve people in their lives to say I love you the way you are. And that is right, to me is profoundly radical. And as we see more and more romances that are not just about white ladies, and by white ladies, we see a lot of expansion about what that looks like and what that means and I love those fucking books a whole lot.
Sarah MacLean 36:38 / #
Well, it's Adriana Herrera's American Love Story series. You know, it's that sense that she wrote these, that first book "American Dreamer" or like is a male/male romance, but so much of the love on the page is from families.
Jennifer Prokop 36:57 / #
And I think that's the part that I find, as a woman in the world, the ways in which I've tried so hard to fit into boxes and make people happy and take up less space and less room. And in a romance, the people in the romance are allowed to take up however much room they fucking want to. And that's all I want o read. Except for the patriarchy. They're the ones who can't exist the way they come into the storyl
Sarah MacLean 37:33 / #
And if you think about it structurally, if you think about them as a metaphor, if you think about the general arc of the romance novel, from disperate two or three or however many disparate people come together, experience conflict, and end up in happily ever after. If you think about that as a metaphor for like a larger battle in this in society that we are all fighting every day, then, of course at the end like we're Marvel movies, right? At the end, the good guys win, which means the patriarchy doesn't win. What I worry when you start to hear from inside the romance house like well, alphas are the problem. And it's like of course alphas are the problem. That's the point. Alphas are the problem. And then we see them dismantled on the page by the opposite of an alpha, and then restructured as men worthy of love, which, frankly, I mean, if anything is a fantasy.
Jennifer Prokop 38:56 / #
I mean, god, I love my husband, right? But man it's hard sometimes.
Sarah MacLean 39:05 / #
Over the last couple of months I have fired a lot of men in my life. It's misandry hour with Sarah. I have basically like, I have eliminated a lot of men from tangential roles of my life and, and hired instead smart, savvy women. And I said to my husband the other day I was like, I'm just I'm like, slowly, like eliminating men from my life and I was like, you're lucky I'm a Kinsey two, because you'd be out man.
Jennifer Prokop 39:54 / #
I think the thing though that I I really want to talk about is how much I as a reader need conflict. So you talked about a romance now, it's like the relationships puts these people on the page, and it doesn't matter who they are, but what I need is to see that conflict changes people. Conflict changes the way we relate to each other, it changes the way we think about ourselves, and the best romance to me is always going to be rooted in conflict. I think the cinnamon roll books, the reason I don't find them as primal is because the barriers, just the conflict is lower by design, and I get that, I get that how much I value my relationships right now that are sort of lower conflict. That really speaks to me, but in romance, I still really need to see this be The Clash of the Titans.
Sarah MacLean 41:00 / #
Because ultimately, and this is where I'm going to get nerdy about books, but ultimately, isn't the purpose of literature just sort of to mirror our own struggle. I was talking to Sierra Simone about all this not long ago and she said something really, I mean, she Sierra, so of course she said something really smart-- She said something so brilliant to me. And she was basically saying, "when you strip conflict out of a romance novel, what you're basically doing is setting up two people in some sphere of perfect transparent communication and trust from the start." And so as she said to me, and this is direct quote, "it doesn't mirror pain, it doesn't mirror growth, it doesn't mirror joy". I wrote it down because I was like, that's so smart. It's now sticking to my wall. And the reality is, is that , what conflict does is say to a reader, your pain, your growth, your joy is not abnormal. You are okay. This is real, and what you are feeling is real. And look at these two people who are experiencing pain and growth and joy. And frankly, nobody's exploded your boat. So, you know if these two can make it, so can you. And that's powerful.
Jennifer Prokop 42:30 / #
That's all I want.
Sarah MacLean 42:32 / #
Also, there is an argument to be made that like if you have two very, like lovely people on the page together l I don't know. Now I'm sort of thinking like, if you two lovely people on the page together and, are you writing for people who don't have that? Maybe this is...I don't know. Maybe my privilege is showing. I don't know. Maybe my My relationship is, you know, with a person who was kind and decent to me? So why do I want to read about my own life?
Jennifer Prokop 43:07 / #
But that goes back to the idea that different people need different things out of romance and different people need different things out of the media that they consume. When I think about why my husband loves horror so much, I have this theory that it's sort of serving the same function as romance. He's just like, I want to know that people are going to either band together or escape evil.
Sarah MacLean 43:31 / #
It's like mystery novels. A mystery novel where the mystery isn't solved is not a very good mystery novel.
Jennifer Prokop 43:38 / #
I love that there's all different kinds of relationships on page. I love it. I love it even though I still want to read about conflict because you know what, even though I we joke that I like to fight, that's something I really had to learn. It's something that still scares me. And so when I see people in a romance that are in high conflict, it's like, you can do this too. It speaks to me because of who I am. 20 year old Jen did not like to fight. 20 year old Jen was afraid of fighting.
Sarah MacLean 44:15 / #
Yeah. Yeah. And I think romance novels continually model that communication. That conversation that has to happen between two people who love each other, or who are working toward loving each other. Love is messy. Relationships are messy. I mean, I've spent a lot of years in therapy, man.
Jennifer Prokop 44:45 / #
I think that's part of the reason why one of the my favorite romances now is marriage in trouble.
Sarah MacLean 44:52 / #
Isn't that funny how that works. As you age and you age into marriage, you're like marriage in trouble is so much more interesting to me now than it was. When I was 20 I cared not a bit about marriage in trouble.
Jennifer Prokop 45:05 / #
No. And that's because of who we are right now. So when we talk about what's primal or foundational, it's always going to be the intersection of who we are as people and readers, where we are in our lives now, but also what we came up through in terms of our romance history. There's always going to be things that ring that bell because it's like Julie Garland's "The Bride" for me. Always.
Sarah MacLean 45:34 / #
And that's the thing. That takes us back to that sort of alpha question, which is, so now you all know how I feel about the alpha like what I feel that alpha is actually doing. But like, that's intellectual Sarah, like that's Sarah's brain saying the alpha represents patriarchy. If I were teaching and I do teach this class, when I talk about like, who is Christian Grey? Why does he scratch the itch? Because God knows Christian Grey scratched the itch for a hundred million readers. Okay? So I don't want to talk about the quality of the writing. I don't want to talk about the story. I want to talk about any of that. All I want to talk about is why Christian Grey worked. Because he did work and he launched 1000 million billionaires.
Sarah MacLean 46:34 / #
So Christian Grey, I can intellectually tell you why Christian Grey works. He is strong. He has immense power. He's incredibly wealthy. He takes care of her. He makes sure she has food in her fridge, that her car works, that she has money in her bank account. He literally buys the business she works for to fire her boss. She can have a happy job life. And then on top of all that, he manages her orgasms to perfection. All these things cognitively work on a specific level, but so to 1000 other billionaires and so do all the Dukes, so do all the vampires. We've seen a billion rich, powerful, great in the sack kind of heroes. But what is it about that that scratches the itch? I don't know. It's just there. It's built in. But I hate saying that.
Jennifer Prokop 47:52 / #
I mean, we grew up in this society. I feel like in a society where women's financial security is always so precarious, it makes sense that he's a billionaire, but it's not that she's gonna quit working.
Sarah MacLean 48:14 / #
Oh, and he's always around. He's never at work.
Jennifer Prokop 48:18 / #
Men don't have to work in romance. Only women do.
Sarah MacLean 48:22 / #
That's a different kind of interstitial. But truthfully, there's that too. It's the fantasy of he's a billionaire and we have all this, we have immense security, but he always there emotionally for me.
Jennifer Prokop 48:37 / #
And that what he wants is for her to be self actualized.
Sarah MacLean 48:43 / #
It's just id man.
Jennifer Prokop 48:46 / #
Of course it is.
Sarah MacLean 48:48 / #
And I think that's the problem. Look, I'm talking about Christian Gray as a sort of a placeholder for 1000 other heroes. I think 50 Shades worked for very specific reasons during the actual moment in history when 50 Shades was written, but it's so primitive that sort of idea that...it feels like it goes back to like days of hunters and gatherers. There's that sort of primitive itch scratch and I don't understand. I want to be evolved but I'm not there. I love "mine." I love that moment where Alec Kincaid says, what when the question is asked what what do we call her and he says "you call her mine."
Jennifer Prokop 49:47 / #
Here's the thing I think about in terms of 50 Shades and a lot of like the old alphas. You don't really see it as much anymore, but it was certainly part of IAD and it was like part of Twilight, I would say too, is that this extraordinary person would look and instantly recognize that this was the person for them. And there's something really appealing about being seen in a crowd by someone that you think is extraordinary. Christian Grey or Edward Cullen or whoever, and that they're going to pick you out. And I don't really read in the way that I'm like, I'm the heroine. But that idea of being seen immediately as you are extraordinary too, that there is
Sarah MacLean 50:44 / #
Fated Mates.
Jennifer Prokop 50:45 / #
Of course it is. There's a reason that we read IAD together.
Sarah MacLean 50:50 / #
But I've said 1000 times I actually don't really like Fated Mates. But even the opposite of Fated Mates feels like in some ways it's enemies lovers. But even in that moment, it's the being seen moment. Enemies to lovers only works if when the first moment that they interact, it just is explosive.
Jennifer Prokop 51:16 / #
And here's my other thing and I think this is similar for us. Enemies t0 lovers, I'm going to take a 999 times over friends to lovers because it's also really high heat. You can't have enemies to lovers at a low simmer. It is always explosive. And that's it. I love conflict. I want the gas turned up under that pot. Immediately. And that's the thing, all of those books really always come with, Come with the heat. They're comin in hot, and I that's what I want.
Sarah MacLean 52:00 / #
I also think that part of the challenge here, I said this earlier, when I said you know, I hate that we distill everything down to well, is it alpha? Is it beta? What is it? Because I do think I often struggle with the perception of the alpha as being incels. As being I hate women. I'm powerfulful. Women are weak. That's, that's not a good alpha. That's not a good alpha from the start and that alpha, the I hate women, women are weak, women exists for my pleasure, women exist for me to own, like, who's ever written that romance hero?
Jennifer Prokop 52:48 / #
No, I don't like that one.
Sarah MacLean 52:50 / #
But I don't think I've ever even read a book with a hero like that.
Jennifer Prokop 52:54 / #
I think it's a I think it's a misreading. Often those original 80s heroes, and we're going to read some of these, are I was a man who was profoundly hurt and it turned me into a misogynist, because I was so hurt by a woman. And I do not want to be hurt again. I fear being hurt again. That seems different to me.
Sarah MacLean 53:20 / #
Yeah, there's that classic trope in historicals where the hero the hero has had a string of mistresses or a string of relationships that mean nothing. And invariably, like that can be perceived as that can be read as he just he's a misogynist. He doesn't care about women and he doesn't care about women's bodies or women's feelings or anything. Then he meets the one. Yeah, and she's not like other girls. In my mind, I can totally see why that's a misread, meaning why people would read that as that's alpha and I hate it. You know, it's interesting because a lot of people have been talking about Whit, the hero of "Brazen and the Beast" as being an alpha and I'm like, wait, what? Because it feels like he's really not any of the things that people missread alphas as, but he's
Jennifer Prokop 54:21 / #
He's taciturn!
Sarah MacLean 54:22 / #
He's super big. And he doesn't really talk. And yeah, when he throws a punch, it lands hard. But he also lives in aapartment filled with pillows and books by women.
Jennifer Prokop 54:35 / #
He carries candy in his pockets! Look, you're not an alpha if you have candy in your pockets all the time! My God!
Sarah MacLean 54:45 / #
He's definitely submissive in the bedroom. And so I don't even know. I just feel like, be more discerning when you're using those words.
Jennifer Prokop 54:58 / #
Let's define the Alpha then like, let's have that be the thing we end this episode with, like, what does it mean when we talk about the alpha?
Jennifer Prokop 55:09 / #
Define it. So for me, like one hallmark of it is emotionally, not like--- they're going to start the book out of touch with their feelings and afraid of their feelings.
Sarah MacLean 55:22 / #
Yeah. I mean, if we have to define it, like I think that when we define it, like when we define it from IAD perspective, or from like, we're about to read "Dreaming of You," like from Derek Craven's perspective or from any of my hero'd perspectives? Yeah, they're like, emotional,
Jennifer Prokop 55:41 / #
toddlers.
Sarah MacLean 55:41 / #
I mean, yeah, they're like I was, yeah, they're like seedlings. and they just can't, they just have no frame of reference for like, the scope of humanity that they are about to experience and when they actually experience that humanity and that emotion They're fucking done for . And uniformly my heroes are done for.
Jennifer Prokop 56:09 / #
That's all I want, Sarah.
Sarah MacLean 56:14 / #
And I don't think that I mean, like, that's not me. That's all these women who I've read my whole life,
Jennifer Prokop 56:20 / #
I've been because, I've been thinking a lot about it right, I think another thing I often associate the alpha is that they are, and you say this all the time, that they are a King. In whatever it is that they have chosen to do, they are the best at what they do. But that they are always taking care of the people under them. At least like at least in a like a financial or security way, but not in an emotional way.
Sarah MacLean 56:51 / #
But what am i catnip scenes and any romance novel is the scene where the hero is like
Sarah MacLean 56:57 / #
befuddled By his feelings. It's like he just can't. He's like I think I'm having. It's like... Things are weird. Like my tummy is weird, and My head feels weird and she said a thing and it made me feel a thing and I don't, I can't identify any of the words, I have no words for any of it. And like a his servant, or his brother, or his Mom is like, What the fuck is wrong with you-- like you're having feelings?
Jennifer Prokop 57:28 / #
Yeah, hello, this is my favorite thing. My absolute all time favorite thing, Is the person who's like, welcome to the world of feelings.
Sarah MacLean 57:38 / #
What's wrong with you?
Jennifer Prokop 57:40 / #
Worthy! I just want to talk about Derek Craven. We're gonna do it next week.
Sarah MacLean 57:45 / #
But it's the best scene in a romance novel when everybody's like, Yeah, Hi. Welcome. And it's because, it just shows what emotional toddlers they are. And there is a joy to that, there's an immense fantasy like, it is an immense fantasy for so many people, including myself, to be able to say like, I'm whatever. Like, I love my husband a whole lot, but we have these moments. Sometimes I have a moment where I'm like, "I'm sad. And I don't know why." And he's like, "I don't, what does that even mean?" And I'm like, "I just, I'm just like, I need to cry. I need to have a cry." And he's like, "what is happening right now?" And I'm like, "I just help." He just can't like patriarchy is a hell of a drug and it has ruined them too.
Sarah MacLean 58:38 / #
and like the idea that you might have a hero who ultimately discovers that those feelings and is able to interact with them is really cool. And as I say that, I think like Well, that's what a cinnamon roll does from the start. But Then what else is happening? Are they on the run? Is there a murderer?
Jennifer Prokop 59:07 / #
Of course not they're cinnamon rolls.
Sarah MacLean 59:09 / #
Oh my god. I mean, what we really should do an interstitial about cinnamon roll heroes that we love because I do have some that I really love
Jennifer Prokop 59:18 / #
I mean, I feel like there's this joke I used to make, I don't really make it anymore because I think it's probably insensitive, I used to joke like, I need a wife. I need someone who's gonna take care of me. That is a very deep rooted fantasy that I think when I read a really perfect cinamon roll book, that's how I feel. o have someone who's going to take care of me, as opposed to like me taking care of them.
Sarah MacLean 59:43 / #
It's interesting because I do think this sort of brings up and we're obviously going over because we...welcome to Fated Mates everyone. But one of the things that I think is really interesting, I have this long conversation and she's going to come back on the pod this this season. Adrianna Herrera and I were talking about trauma and romance novels as you as you guys know who were listening last year. Adriana is a trauma specialist and she came she gave us a lot of really interesting insight about MacRieve. And she was a a guest on the Bowen episode. And one of the things that we were talking about in in terms of trauma we were talking about the end of "American Love Story," and I'm not going to spoil it but there the epilogue of "American Love Story" is like this really interesting. Or one of the final scenes of "American Love Story" is what is really interesting moment of marital of like, like marital idol like relationship idol, between the two heroes, where they are both doing serious emotional work, side by side as partners. And we were talking just about how There is room for the book that is telling this modern iteration of the romance, where it's a really authentic representation of the life, the struggles that we had in life, The heroes of this particular book are an activist and the lawyer. And so, they're just, they're never, it feels like these two people just have completely different worldviews. And so, that kind of relationship-- again, though, I've always said this in the hands of a tremendous author works really well--Also, so much conflict, so much emotional internal conflict in that story, because, ultimately, at their core, they have completely different views of like how life should be and, what their purpose is. Which is cool. So actually, forget everything. I Well, first of all, don't forget everything I just said because that's, that's it's a great book and it's a great read because you have these moments of this moment of, there is so much emotional conflict to unpack there. Unlike relationships where just two people who really super like each other, and which is like fanfic and that's a whole nother story but, we should have somebody on we should see if Cat Sebastian will come on, or somebody will come on who like, is really a fanfic lover. To talk to us about the way fanfic has an informed Modern Romance.
Jennifer Prokop 1:02:33 / #
I mean, I think that's it, like we're just trying to unpack all these different things. But for both of us, this question of the alpha and what it's doing and what it's done through time and why it's still it's always going to scratch that itch for us. Like, I don't, I don't want to lose that. There's something, those stories still really speak to me.
Sarah MacLean 1:02:54 / #
I mean, to be fair, Jen, I don't think you're gonna lose that. Those stories readers, I mean, a massive swath of romance readers, love that as a story. You know, I know that because I have a career. I want Sierra to come back on and I want us to talk about fearless romances this season because I think people I think a lot of writers are real afraid to write directly into ID. And I get that. Yeah, that's a scary, that's a scary thing to do. I have been there.
Sarah MacLean 1:03:39 / #
I'm there currently, you know, with the book that I'm writing. And I think, you know, harnessing, finding fearlessness is really difficult as a writer, especially in 2019, because you don't want to do it wrong. You don't want to harm anybody. But I think there are ways for us to tell the stories that have the Sort of high conflict explosive relationships that in a way that doesn't harm but actually you know, entertains and ultimately, pleasures, readers.
Jennifer Prokop 1:04:14 / #
That's all I want Sarah.
Sarah MacLean 1:04:16 / #
I know Same, same. Well, let's leave it there for today.
Sarah MacLean 1:04:21 / #
It was last ragey I think then it could have been I think we were really put together.
Jennifer Prokop 1:04:28 / #
I agree. I mean, I'm not I'm not mad at anybody. I want everyone to get what they want and what they need out of romance. That's all.
Sarah MacLean 1:04:36 / #
I just don't want anybody to feel like they're wrong for wanting what they want. you can't be both progressive and like an alpha. That's nonsense. Go read your books. That's fine. Like, yeah, you know, and so I think I think that's where I'm at. Like, let's not let-- women's bodies are getting enough policing these days, like let's not police their minds too.
Sarah MacLean 1:05:07 / #
This is Fated Mates everybody. It's the beginning of our new season next week we have our first book, "Dreaming of you" with our favorite, with Jen and mine..?
Jennifer Prokop 1:05:25 / #
With our
Sarah MacLean 1:05:26 / #
Our. I don't know. I don't know you guys I have a copy editor for that stuff
Jennifer Prokop 1:05:30 / #
This is the very reason why possessive pronouns were created.
Sarah MacLean 1:05:33 / #
Exactly why. With our one of our very, very favorite heroes. Top Five for me for sure. Definitely top two! It's Rune and Derek Craven. Anyway, so we will be back next week with a deep dive on that. you will no doubt have a lot of questions and a lot of concerns. If you've never read this book before.
Sarah MacLean 1:05:58 / #
Fine. Jen and I have a list. We're going to talk about it all. Don't worry, you'll be fine.
Jennifer Prokop 1:06:04 / #
We're gonna take care of you.
Sarah MacLean 1:06:05 / #
Yeah. Don't forget to like and subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform. You know, tell your friends about us and find us on Twitter at @FatedMates or on Instagram at @FatedMatesPod. What else? What else you want to say? We are both there's a romance for Raises fundraiser online. I think this is probably the last week of that. So you can head over to the link. We'll put it in show notes. I've got a manuscript critique up for auction. And Jen has a couple of really fun things including a Fated Mates book pack, which is great. So head over and bid on that. All the funds go directly to organizations working on the border. And we are really, really thrilled to be a part of that. Anyway, we love you guys, thank you so much for listening. Go read a book!
Jennifer Prokop 1:07:05 / #
See you next week with Derek Craven
S02.01 Welcome to Season Two
We're Back!
We promised you we'd be back with Season Two in September, and here we are in September, back with Season Two!
We've said farewell to Season One, but we'll never fully be able to quit IAD, so Season Two will be The Books That Blooded Us -- that is, the books that made us the romance readers we are...books that taught us what the genre could be, books that scratched our itch, books that made us lifelong romance readers, books that set us on the path directly to your earholes!
Over the season, we'll tackle 10 (or so) books that blooded each of us -- we'll deep dive, discuss, and delight in each other's picks -- and we've got some fun ideas for how you all can share the books that blooded you!
So...where do we begin? We begin in two weeks with the primordial text for both of us...the one...the only...Dreaming of You. We'll talk Derek Craven's cockney accent, Sara Fielding's legendary novel, Lisa Kleypas's immense skill with talismans, and we'll get to the very bottom of some of the most controversial bits of this glorious book that the two of us love a whole lot.
Get reading, y'all, we've got a lot to say. You can find Dreaming of You at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, or at your local indie. It's currently $2.99 in digital everywhere, so snatch it up!
We'll be announcing the schedule for the first few reads later this week -- so you'll have time to read ahead, but in the meantime, sit back, relax, and let us give you a preview of what's to come!
Don't forget to like and subscribe in your favorite podcasting platform!
Show Notes
Jen tweeted about Altogether by Brill Harper and then all of Romancedlandia read it. It's deliciously filthy.
Read Sarah's drunk texts to Jen and Kate on the Vika group chat. Take a look at these covers for Rebecca Zanetti's Deadly Silence.
Sarah was on Wicked and the Wallflowers podcast to talk about Brazen and the Beast.
You had no idea flag design was so fascinating.
Looking back at twitter, it might have been a shared love of Derek Craven that made Sarah and Jen friends. We can't wait to discuss Dreaming of You in two weeks.
Fated Wallflowers/Wicked Mates Crossover Episode!
In July, at the Romance Writers of America annual conference, we had the extraordinarily good luck to record a crossover episode with Jenny Nordbak & Sarah Hawley of The Wicked Wallflowers podcast! We talked about our favorite books with a roomful of librarians & bloggers, and we had the best time. Now, you can, too!
Be sure to subscribe to the podcast in your favorite podcasting app so you know the moment we return!
Subscribe to these other amazing romance podcasts, too!
The Wicked Wallflowers (with Jenny & Sarah)
Heaving Bosoms (with Melody & Erin)
Learning the Tropes (with Erin & Clayton)
The Big Gay Fiction Podcast (with Jeff & Will)
Listen to the longer version of the conversation with Sarah (MacLean) that Jenny (Nordbak) talks about in her discussion of Brazen & the Beast.
Sarah's hometown library (complete with dark corridors for romance novels) is the Lincoln Public Library in Lincoln, Rhode Island.
Nine Minutes with Jen
Yes, yes, we're on hiatus. But we can't stop, won't stop!
In this mini episode, Jen talks to her friend Elizabeth about what we can do when someone judges our romance reading.
Be sure to subscribe to the podcast in your favorite podcasting app so you know the moment we return!
Six Minutes with Sarah
We're on hiatus until September, when we'll start Season 2, but here is a quick hi from Sarah, with a story from her trip to the UK that only Fated Mates listeners will appreciate.
Be sure to subscribe to the podcast in your favorite podcasting app so you know the moment we return!
Show Notes
George & Dragon Inn, Clifton, Penrith, UK
Hugh Lowther, proper reprobate and 5th Earl of Lonsdale
19: I don’t know; she’s a witch: Wicked Abyss
The final book of IAD (so far) is here! We’re talking Sian, Lila, why horns are the BEST, and why the king of hell is the very best hell-monarch…except for his queen. Also, we talk Disney properties, complicated thoughts on how it is possible that Kresley is still getting better with each book, and the fact that we’re probably going to start a new IAD reread right away because obviously we are.
Fated Mates returns with Season Two in September — don’t forget to like & subscribe in your favorite podcasting app so you don’t miss a single second of us in your earholes!
And more than all this — thank you for listening to us talk at you about vampires, valkyries, wolf holograms, horns & Rune for 39 weeks — there honestly aren’t words for how much we love you for listening!
Team Vertas 4eva! — xoxo Sarah & Jen
Show Notes
This is The End is by The Doors, and Closing Time is by Semisonic.
The RITAs were amazing, and one of the best things about it was this romance trailblazers video.
Lila is a face character at Disney.
Inside the Mouse is a book you should read, or just this New York Times article where John Jerimiah Sullivan (omg. his essays are so good! Read Pulphead!) trying to figure out the best place to smoke weed there. That Banksey video.
Because Disney is too expensive, #TeamReadsRomance suggests Cedar Point if you like roller coasters.
Hela's crown in Thor Ragnarok is PRETTY GREAT.
It's interesting to think about a framing device and what it does for a story.
Sarah's WaPo piece about the Alpha Feminist.
All about archetypes and the princess trope.
The Room of Requirement is part of Hogwards.
When we talked about time, Sarah recommended Kylie Scott's Repeat.
Tim Curry as The Darkness in Legend or The Devil in Fantasia.
We talked about curvy heroines way back at the beginning of this podcast.
Everything Sian owns is in a box to the left.
We're all on Munro Watch.
Thanks to everyone for listening to season one of Fated Mates!
18.5 : Antiheroes in Romance
It seems only right that our final Season One interstitial be about antiheroes because we’ve pretty much been a fancast for antiheroes since the start of this podcast! Let us talk to your earholes about wicked heroes and why we love them!
Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in your favorite podcasting platform so that you know the moment we start Season Two (in early September)!
Next week, it’s the end! WHAT HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?! We’re talking Sian (HORNS HORNS HORNS HORNS HORNS HORNS HORNS) & Lila with Wicked Abyss, featuring the literal King of Hell, and the Queen who takes fully no shit from him. Get Wicked Abyss at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, or at your local indie!
Show Notes
What is the appeal of the antihero?
Fangirl Jeanne wrote a really interesting thread about why she ships villains and what it means to believe in an HEA for everyone.
The Sierra Simone Scale seems relevant here.
We here at Fated Mates love a grovel.
Morality Chain is a very specific trope.
Jen's goodreads search for books with criminal heroes versus criminal heroines.
Take a minute to donate to RAICES because we do have concentration camps on our border, and it's so hard to know what to do about it.
Jen and Sarah talked about female antiheroes in pop culture: Catherine Zeta Jones in Traffic and Mary Louise Parker in Weeds.
Jen's Rita thread about how white guys get to be anitheores.
Movie time references: Sarah is Italian, so since there are no Italian mafia guys anymore, watching The Godfather is the only choice. The "one armed man" reference is to The Fugitive.
What are we talking about when we talk about billionaire money.
Molly Fader, Molly O'Keefe, and M. O'Keefe are three pen names for one author who really knows her branding. #Blessed
Wicked Abyss in next and then...we're done with season one. Commence mourning.
18: We Got to the Bag of Severed Heads! Shadow's Claim and Shadow's Seduction
We’re taking a turn into the world of the Dacians, and Jen and Sarah are having STRIFE because, as usual, Jen is wrong. We’re combining Shadow’s Claim and Shadow’s Seduction — talking about what it means to be a Kresley heroine, why writers tackle spin off series, the challenges of straight writers writing queer stories, and why we would appreciate receiving the heads of our enemies as tributes.
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.
We’re getting down to the wire with Season One of Fated Mates — in two weeks, join us for Wicked Abyss, featuring the literal King of Hell, and the Queen who takes fully no shit from him. Get Wicked Abyss at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, or at your local indie!
Show Notes
You know Kresley is self-publishing when you see it's Valkerie Press.
In IAD, a sorceri queen has the most power in that area.
- Eloisa James' first novel was Potent Pleasures, the the line Sarah quoted is: "Charlotte was one week short of 17 when her life was changed, falling into two halves like a shiny child's ball: before and after."
Uh. While researching for this podcast, Jen realized that Deadmou5 is real.
Sarah's hero/heroine/heroine's best friend on the line book is A Rogue By Any Other Name, which you can get in ebook for $1.99 right now!
There apparently was a crossover between IAD and Gena Showalter's Lords of the Underworld series. Tell us what you know.
Gay romance author and all around good guy Nathan Burgoine explains why "Gay for You" is a problem.
No one like a milksop.
All about the Kinsey Scale, and Jen thinks of this very funny tweet from her friend Zach every time she hears the phrase "Kinsey scale."
Happy Days didn't spin off from something, it was the spinner. Frasier was a Cheers spin-off. The Dacians is not an IAD spin-off. It is IAD. This is canon now.
The Arcana Chronicles is Kresley's YA series.
Jen recommends The Animators by Kayla Rae Whitaker if you're interested in a novel about women artists at work.
In two weeks, we're finishing Season One (sniff!) with Wicked Abyss!
Lost Limb Count
Arms and Hands (8)
- 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)
- 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)
- Sebastian pulverizes most of his right arm during the Hie. He regenerates. (No Rest For the Wicked)
- Lucia peels all the skin off from her hand in order to free herself from some handcuffs. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
- In order to retrieve the ring from La Dorada , Lothaire cuts off her finger. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
- 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)
- After receiving Lothaire's heart in a box, Ellie cuts off her middle finger and sends it to him. (Lothaire)
- Chloe's shoulder is dislocated in the escape from her auction (MacRieve).
Chest and Torso (7)
- 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)
- Lucia's neck is broken. She regenerates. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
- On Torture Island, Regin,
- MacRieve,
- and Brandr are vivisected. It's pretty terrible. (Dreams of a Dark Warrior)
- Declan's skin is peeled off by the Neoptera as a child. (Dreams of a Dark Warrior)
- Lothaire rips out his own heart and sends it to Ellie in a box. (Lothaire)
Head, Face, and Eyes (6)
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)
Cadeon loses an eye and part of his forehead and hair when fighting. It all regenerates. (Dark Desires After Dusk)
During a rugby match, Garreth has his teeth knocked out and swallows them. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
Lothaire kicks out La Dorada's remaining eye and throws her over a cliff. (Dreams of a Dark Warrior)
In the Bloodroot Forest, the tree grows over Lothaire's lips and tongue. (Lothaire)
After she gains her immortality, Chloe's hair grows, but she cuts it off every morning. (MacRieve)
Lanthe agrees to have her tongue cut out to save herself and Thronos, knowing she can still use the power of persuasion telepathically. (Dark Skye) ** Horns (2)**
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)
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)
- Lachlain tears off his own leg to reach Emma. He regenerates. (A Hunger Like No Other)
- 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)
- Thronos is chasing Melananthe and loses a foot when a portal closes on it. (Kiss of a Demon King)
- While in Pandamonia, Thronos is trapped in a Groundhog Day like trap, doomed to repeat his worst nightmare over and over again. When he believes that Lanthe is about to die, he repeatedly tears of his legs in order to reach her. He never actually loses a limb, but he was willing, so we're counting it. (Dark Skye)
Beheading as a Romantic Gesture (4)
- 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)
- 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)
- Malkolm beheads men that attacked Carrow in Oblvion, and he throws them to prove he's a worthy mate. (Demon from the Dark)
- 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)
- Thronos beheads several foes during fights, which impresses Lanthe; but he also beheads Felix, a sorcerer who once tricked Lanthe and stole her sorcery. (Dark Skye)
- The bag of heads, yo. This is the pinnicle of this category, obviously. (Shadow's Claim)
** Beheading as a Non-Romantic Gesture**
- 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?
- Does Garreth's losing his connection with his mortal soul count? (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
- 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)
17.5: This isn't a podcast; this is a Brazen and the Beast hype video
Sarah has a new book coming next week! Listen to Jen ask her all kinds of questions that she can’t answer…and also talk about why silent, grunting heroes are the best kinds. Preorder now, and get Brazen the second it is released into the world on Tuesday, July 30th!
Next week, we’re tackling the Dacians in two weeks with a two-for-one episode featuring both of these Lothaire spinoff stories, Shadow's Claim (featuring demon-sorceress Bettina and Dacian assassin Trehan) & Shadow's Seduction (featuring Caspion the demon and Mirceo the vampire prince)!
Show Notes
Jen loves hype video, and there are some for the USWNT are amazing.
All about advanced reading copies (ARCs) and what it looks like when you get typeset pages.
Jen has a new title at Kirkus: romance correspondent. She's been interviewing a lot of authors.
Kate Clayborn perfectly described why we love a grunting hero.
Only 33 Fortune 500 CEOs are women, which is nonsense.
Listen to our Curvy Heroines interstitial.
Covent Garden and the rookeries.
What's a life peerage?
What it means to be "on the shelf."
Audiobook narrator Justine Eyre is the narrator for Sarah's books. Can you even imagine what would happen if she and Petkoff ever got together and narrated a romance?
Preorder Brazen & the Beast at Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Apple, or Indiebound -- or from Sarah's local indie, WORD, and get it signed and with fun goodies!
17: Sexclamation Points! - The Player!
Our favorite person, Kate Clayborn, is back with us to wrap up the Game Makers series with THE PLAYER! Join us as Sarah explains all the ways that the damaged hero works for her (Spoiler: It’s Every Single Way), Kate digs deep on Kresley’s liberal use of punctuation, and Jen admits that Sarah was right all along.
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.
We’re getting down to the wire with IAD, but because we’re completists, we’re tackling the Dacians in two weeks with a two-for-one episode featuring both of these Lothaire spinoff stories, Shadow's Claim (featuring demon-sorceress Bettina and Dacian assassin Trehan) & Shadow's Seduction (featuring Caspion the demon and Mirceo the vampire prince)!
Show Notes
Wecome back, Kate!
The Grassy Knoll isn't much of a knoll, anymore. But if you're ever in Dallas, check out the Sixth Floor Museum.
This kind of teabagging does not appear on the Clayborn Scale.
YA Author Carrie Ryan has smart things to say about first person and scary things to say about zombies.
Famous for having a big reveal: The Usual Suspects, The Sixth Sense, and The DaVinci Code. Not famous for a big reveal: Meet Joe Black.
We should have asked Adriana Herrera about Dimitri's trauma.
Rocky was also a self-made man, and you cannot even convince Jen that the person who invented CrossFit didn't rapturously watch this a million times.
Dryer's English is a book that all the writing nerds had a pre-order, and he has strong opinions about exclamation points, but absolutley nothing to say about sexclamation points.
Everyone loves foreshadowing.
But in romance, no one loves an unreliable narrator.
Jen recommends the YA novel One of Us is Lying, or you could kick it old-school and watch Roshomon.
Pre-order Brazen and the Beast! and Love Lettering! And read Jen's interviews with Reese Ryan and Marie Tremayne and Robin Lovett on Kirkus.
In two weeks, we're back to IAD with the Dacian two-fer: Shadow's Claim & Shadow's Seduction!
16.5 : Royals Romance with Nana Malone
This week we’re talking all things royal! Join us with the fabulously fun Nana Malone to talk about kings, queens, princes and princesses, royal weddings, royal gossip, why Nick Jonas married SO FAR ABOVE HIMSELF, and how we wish poor Kate Middleton could just have a cheeseburger with her friends.
Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in your favorite podcasting platform — and while you’re there, please leave us a like or a review.
Next week, we’re finishing up the Game Makers series with arguably Kresley’s most damaged hero, Dmitri Sevastyan! Basically, July is “Sarah’s favorite books” month, so settle in for that…we’ll be joined by one of our favorites, Kate Clayborn, who will reveal the name of our group text thread! Read The Player at Amazon, B&N, Apple Books, Kobo, or from your local Indie.
Show Notes
Welcome, Nana Malone!
We were all about talking about songs and music videos today: Royals by Lorde, S&M by Rhianna, and Senorita by Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello. Bonus hilarious conversation between Jen and her son about that last one.
All about boy bands, why girls love them, the powerhouse that is BTS, and the many hairstyles of Justin Beiber.
Nick Jonas married up... Chasing that happiness, I guess. Priyanka Chopra is unbelievably gorgeous. We stan.
Meghan and Harry's wedding was our favorite movie of 2018, but Charles and Diana's makes us sad. Jen's favorite moment is the singing of Stand by Me, but Sarah's daughter likes this yellow lady.
Kate Middleton has a new fashion plan.
This list on Goodreads has FOUR HUNDRED AND FOUR romances where the hero is a duke.
Prince Albert of Monaco married Grace Kelly and her wedding dress is still gorgeous sixty years later.
All about the Romanceclass authors and their books.
Jen loves John Wick. But then again, who doesn't?
That Sex in the City episode with the "bum licker," as Nana said.
Sarah wants 16th century Assassin's Creed, so this series by Robin LeFevers about a bunch of teenage assassin nuns is the obvious answer.
We can't keep track of what we're reading, when. Next week, The Player! In three weeks, back to IAD with the Dacian two-fer: Shadow's Claim & Shadow's Seduction!
16: Was It as Good For You as it Was For Me? Sweet Ruin
IT’S HAPPENNNINNNGGGGG! Sweet Ruin, Sarah’s favorite book in the IAD series, is finally here and she is BEYOND EXCITED to talk about her favorite Kresley hero and the magnificent, perfect heroine who refuses to back down from their fated matehood. Listen as Jen and Sarah discuss Nix as Warrior Queen, make important demands of fan fiction writers in the IAD universe, and generally discuss why this book is one of the best of the series, without question. Block off some time and be sure to use the bathroom before you start, because this one clocks in at two hours (and we’ve already realized we forgot to talk about a few things — so prepare for updates in future episodes!)
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 finishing up the Game Makers series with arguably Kresley’s most broken hero (don’t worry, we’ll get to the bottom of this ranking on the episode), Dmitri Sevastyan! Basically, July is “Sarah’s favorite books” month, so settle in for that…we’ll be joined by one of our favorites, Kate Clayborn, who will reveal the name of our group text thread! Read The Player at Amazon, B&N, Apple Books, Kobo, or from your local Indie.
Show Notes
Short chapters make for quick pacing.
The Morior are like the Super Friends...but evil.
All about The Starship Enterprise.
More about a witch's familiar.
Runes are actually from Norse Mythology. You'd think Rune would use the internet to learn more about them.
Rune is poison to everyone but her. Jen's never read The Poisoner's Handbook, but everyone says it's amazing.
Thinking about theme as a literary device isn't just for English class.
Our twitter friend Aunt Angelique has changed her username, so follow her for interesting tidbits like this.
All about edging.
The Mariana Trench is real deep, y'all, but we've still discovered plastic there.
Uluru is a sacred place for Aborigines, and Australia reverted to officially using this name in 2002.
Jen loves that scene where Captain America beats the shit out of everyone in the elevator.
In case you need help finding Shipper Names.
The What Would Allixta Do Button.
The story of Supergirl.
Speaking of our Heaving Bosoms friends, It wasn't Melody, it was Erin who said she doesn't read epilogues!
Speed is a romance. Don't at Jen or Bandherbooks.
The Player is coming up after our next interstitial!
Pre-order Brazen and the Beast, and if you say "Fated Mates" in the notes, Sarah will include a Fated Mates sticker!
TRANSCRIPT
Sarah MacLean 0:04 / #
It's RUNE WEEK and I'm so excited!
Jennifer Prokop 0:14 / #
Welcome to Fated Mates, everybody. For all of you who still claim to be confused about which one is Sarah, and which one is me, Jen. All you need to do is listen to this week's and really get to know intimately the sound of Sarah's voice, because I was like, I'm not really sure what my job is this week.
Sarah MacLean 0:33 / #
Okay, so wait, but literally this is the entire reason why we have this podcast, because I was like can we do a podcast about Sweet Ruin?
Jennifer Prokop 0:43 / #
And I was like -- let's, yes, but with a lot of other things, too.
Sarah MacLean 0:47 / #
Yes. And
Jennifer Prokop 0:49 / #
and let's do it. 30 episodes in.
Sarah MacLean 0:54 / #
You guys Sweet Ruin is, in my top five romance novels of all time. In my top-- one romance novel of all time.
Jennifer Prokop 1:04 / #
I know! I was like, top five? Sweet Ruin, part one. Sweet Ruin, the epilogue. Swee Ruin, the reread. Sweet Ruin, that chapter.
Sarah MacLean 1:19 / #
Yeah well, we're...Sweet Ruin, all the other times we see Rune in the whole series. Like just like for the 40 sentences.
Jennifer Prokop 1:31 / #
Sweet Ruin the Robert Petkoff edition.
Sarah MacLean 1:38 / #
Yeah, you guys, I love this book a whole frickin lot. A whole, whole lot.
Jennifer Prokop 1:47 / #
I love it but I feel like I'm tempering my love because I don't want to... I just feel like it's not my place.
Sarah MacLean 1:55 / #
I get it, I get it, it's too much.
Jennifer Prokop 1:56 / #
Yeah, I'm just gonna play the straight man this week. I'm going to play one who is asks questions.
Sarah MacLean 2:01 / #
I feel like I need to say, this is Episode One of 74 because there are 73 chapters of this book and an epilogue.
Jennifer Prokop 2:12 / #
There are a lot of chapters in this book.
Sarah MacLean 2:16 / #
So Kresley writes a short chapter and always has. But I feel like she really like crosses over into this like...
Jennifer Prokop 2:25 / #
It's staccato almost, right?
Sarah MacLean 2:26 / #
Yeah. Like it's so quick and I think that's part of why I love it so much because short chapters make the pacing so fast.
Jennifer Prokop 2:34 / #
Oh, absolutely.
Sarah MacLean 2:35 / #
You can tear through this book. And part of the reason why you tear through it is because, or rather, part of the reason why the pacing has to be so on point in this book is because there's so much happening in it.
Jennifer Prokop 2:49 / #
The "short chapters make for fast pacing" rule, I think is true everywhere. Did you read "All the Light We Cannot See?"
Sarah MacLean 2:57 / #
Yes, of course. Sure.
Jennifer Prokop 2:58 / #
Same thing, I think it's like a rule, I don't know made that rule but it's a rule.
Sarah MacLean 3:04 / #
It's actually rule that I've never really been very good at following, but in the last two books, the Bare Knuckle Bastards series of mine-- Wicked and the Wallflower and Brazen and the Beast--, I've been much more conscious of ending a scene where the scene needs to end, and then just-- new chapter. I used to write a scene and then do a decorative thing on the page, and then a new scene but in the same chapter, and I actually don't see why that's valuable. I think what's really interesting here and with a lot of the books that have short chapters, is it also moves the POV back and forth really fast. So you'll be in a scene with Rune and then instantly switch to Josie and you get the exact same scene really quick from the opposite point of view. And you just feel like you're really in it with both, and you feel deeply connected to both of these characters. So, this is the beginning of the Morior arc, right? The movement, the Morior movement,
Jennifer Prokop 4:13 / #
We don't know if the Morior movement continues or goes on hiatus with Munro because that book's not out yet. And I think that's a really big question for both of us, because Wicked Abyss is certainly part of the Morior movement, although we're going to pause and go to the Shadows books next time, right, we still are going to wait. And I think that's a really interesting question, just because I don't know. It's hard to believe the Morior movement is only two books-- that cannot be, right?
Sarah MacLean 4:48 / #
No, it surely isn't. Especially because she's laying the groundwork for a lot of other characters. But you never know because she also could be getting tired and she's doesn't want to do this anymore. Like that's real. But I don't like that. So let's just pretend that's not the answer.
Jennifer Prokop 5:07 / #
How did you speak that into the world? But OK.
Sarah MacLean 5:09 / #
OK, so our characters are Josephine Doe. Josie, young Josie, who is another one of our characters-- so everybody laughs at me when I say this, but I actually think Sweet Ruin is also a possible entry point into the series. And I know that sounds crazy, but we've talked before about how every time we have a mortal heroine, or heroine who is young, and did not grow up in the Lore. She has to learn everything and so as she's learning it, we're learning alongside with her. And it's a really smart-- I don't know if Kresley does it on purpose, although I think Kresley does everything on purpose, but it's a really smart conceit to leave, they're basically entrances to the highway, to the IAD highway.
Jennifer Prokop 6:05 / #
The other thing that I think about a lot and I think this is something that she has in common with Lila, is that they're both...
Sarah MacLean 6:13 / #
...who is the the heroine of Wicked Abyss.
Jennifer Prokop 6:14 / #
Yeah, is that they're both... the Valkyries have their coven. The Witches have their house-- But these heroines are both alone. And I think that that means there's also a sense that we can enter into their stories because we don't need all that other backstory about who they are and who they belong to. So I also think that Wicked Abyss could be an entry point, which I think is pretty interesting.
Sarah MacLean 6:42 / #
Yeah, I agree. And we'll talk about this when we do Wicked Abyss. But Lila, too, is very Earthbound. Even though she's a fairy. Or she's fey, she lives in the mortal world. She passes as a human. And so Josie, So Josie passes as a human, but she doesn't think she's a human. She knows--
Jennifer Prokop 7:13 / #
She's a freak.
Sarah MacLean 7:14 / #
She knows part of what she is. So the book begins and we are-- Josie is young. It is 14 years earlier. And she has, she is homeless. She has an infant brother, who came with her to...
Jennifer Prokop 7:35 / #
They're in Houston.
Sarah MacLean 7:36 / #
They're in Houston. And she like bums around the library. And the librarian has sort of taken her under her wing and gets her food and takes care of her. But she's homeless and she's running with her little brother. She doesn't want to get caught because she's afraid that if she gets caught they'll be separated, who knows what. So she falls in with a terrible crowd and ends up getting shot. And dying. Like, she sees herself come out of her body. She dies. And then she returns as a ghost. Well, she doesn't know what she is.
Jennifer Prokop 8:15 / #
She's a freak, that's is what she calls herself.
Sarah MacLean 8:21 / #
Her brother has now been adopted by the librarian. She goes back to that home. And the librarian sees her and is terrified-- rightly so because this child is dead-- and that is that. She sees that she's causing more trouble than
Jennifer Prokop 8:42 / #
Yeah, I think she sees that Thad doesn't quite remember her, and that Thad is really happy and-- I think he calls the librarian Mama. And and Josie had been his mother even though she was just really little and so I think what happens is she realizes, "I can't take care of him. I don't even know how to take care of myself." It's a painful, really painful moment.
Sarah MacLean 9:08 / #
Because she's dead, so she's obviously feeling alone. She's always been alone, she's always been taking care of both of them. And the only purpose she has is she realizes she has to let it go. So she lets Thad go, her baby brother, who is a toddler at this point. And then we flash forward to present day. And we discovered that Josie has been following Thad. Obviously, she's been keeping keeping up with Thad.
Jennifer Prokop 9:43 / #
I mean, it's been her life's work. I feel like I've said before, like, "oh my god, this heroine made me so sad" but like Josie made me so sad because not only is she completely alone, but she knows that she is different than other people, she knows that there's something out there that she cannot figure out herself. It's heartbreaking. The feelings I have for her so poignant and I think it's just the starting place for her-- like this love she has for Rune, all she wants is to find someone she can belong with. And he has belonged with the whole world, the whole worlds. And and He's so-- he's just so cold. It's a really interesting pairing.
Sarah MacLean 10:44 / #
Yeah. So Rune. So Josie is young, she's possibly our youngest heroine, I think. She might be-- Holly might be right around her same age.
Jennifer Prokop 10:57 / #
And Mariketa, maybe.
Sarah MacLean 10:59 / #
Yeah, but Mariketa has to be set aside as a young heroine because she's so badass, so powerful.
Sarah MacLean 11:11 / #
So anyway, Josie is our youngest heroine, our youngest sort of like human-esque heroine. Oh, and it's important to know Josie discovered she's vampire. She was young, so when she when she realizes that she is dead, she also realizes--oh, I could be hungry. And then she feeds. We know she's a vampire. She knows she's a vampire but never really gives language to it. And she can do this thing called ghosting, which we'll get to. So we have our youngest heroine ever in the universe, and Rune Darklight...
Jennifer Prokop 11:54 / #
Let's pause for giggling.
Sarah MacLean 12:04 / #
Rune is one of the Morior, or the Bringers of Doom. And we've been hearing about them for a few books.
Jennifer Prokop 12:12 / #
One of my favorite parts this book is when Josie at some point imagines them as being like the Superfriends, but evil. And I honestly kind of love it. it was a great.
Sarah MacLean 12:26 / #
They're like Bizarro Avengers. Right? We meet Rune in what I envisioned to be sort of a the Star Trek, you know, what's that ship called? The intrepid? No, that's not right. That's a big ship.
Jennifer Prokop 12:46 / #
The Enterprise?
Sarah MacLean 12:47 / #
The Star Trek Enterprise! So they're in a realm called Tenebrous. It's hurtling through space-time -existence. And we meet in like wandering around the empty halls of this what is not stop thinking about as like a spaceship style like, thing?
Jennifer Prokop 13:09 / #
Yeah, me too. It's like basically he's on the nightwatch but when you're immortal or like a god or whatever the nightwatch is like, hundreds of years. Everyone else is napping.
Sarah MacLean 13:21 / #
That's what it says like it's basically like everyone else is asleep. And poor Rune is like, bumming around for 500 years. Waiting for them to get close to Earth, because the head of the Morior, a man named Orion, who is we still don't know. And we'll get to Orion has amassed this-- it's basicallyArthurian legend--Like the Knights of the Round Table. There are 12 seats at this table, and each seat is reserved for a primordial of a species-- of an immortal species. The primordial is the first of its kind, important to know we already have a primordial Valkyrie on the page. Nix presumably has a seat at this table. And he is come for Nix, Orion is coming for Nix, who we know from the last book is working on being a goddess.
Jennifer Prokop 14:17 / #
I hope he is "coming" for Nix at some point and I am not the only one who thinks that.
Sarah MacLean 14:24 / #
My whole theory is that the only, well our whole theory.
Jennifer Prokop 14:29 / #
Everyone's theory.
Sarah MacLean 14:30 / #
Nix and Orion at the end right? In the last book. So Orion has amassed, has like put together this table full of people, who are: Rune, the primordial dark fay, we'll get to it. Alixta, Who's the primordial witch who I love so much she's such a bitch. I love her.
Jennifer Prokop 14:50 / #
She has a cat, she has a familiar--Curses.
Sarah MacLean 14:52 / #
She does. she fucking pissed at Earth's witches because they don't pay taxes. The witches all pay taxes, and they haven't paid their taxes. It's kind of awesome.
Jennifer Prokop 15:02 / #
Yeah, it is kind of awesome.
Sarah MacLean 15:04 / #
There's Blace. Blace-- is that how to pronounce it? The primordial vampire. And then there's some other creatures who I really love. There's like a dragon.
Jennifer Prokop 15:14 / #
Uthyr. He's permanently in his dragon stage.
Sarah MacLean 15:20 / #
He'll be magnificent in Wicked Abyss, so stay tuned for dragon excitement. And then there is the primordial wolf who is like one rage away from
Jennifer Prokop 15:34 / #
Permanently wolfing out. What's his name again? Something I can't remember. D maybe.
Sarah MacLean 15:40 / #
Oh yeah, Darach.
Jennifer Prokop 15:41 / #
There you go.
Sarah MacLean 15:43 / #
And that's where I think Monroe comes in. I think there's going to be a Darach. Because you know, in MacRieve, they said there were the primordial-- or not, they weren't called the primordial, the Originals or, I forget what they're called, but the reverse of a Lykae, the ones who live as wolves, and sometimes are men; versus the ones who live as men and sometimes are Lykae. So I think like, that's coming back around somewhere with this primordial wolf. So they all sit at this table. There's some empty seats at this table and Rune has been there for. I mean, he's been alive for 10,000 years. He's the oldest character we've met. Right? Because he's older than Lothaire. And Lothaire and Nix are...
Jennifer Prokop 16:34 / #
are like 3000 years old.
Sarah MacLean 16:36 / #
Yeah, yeah. So he's been around for 10,000 years. He's also the hunter of the Morior. He's the archer so he has incredible skill, all the skill that Lucia had as an archer, like, but with 10,000 years of experience. And Rune-- he specializes in runes, obviously-- and he has all these arrows that do cool stuff and Orion sends him to fetch, no, to kill, well Orion says go get Nix and there's a question as to whether or not Orion is saying like go kill Nix or what. We never spent much time with Orion we don't know his end game you get the very real sense that he is just as brilliant as Nix and has a like big plan in place.
Jennifer Prokop 17:27 / #
One of the things I caught on this reread was that he is a shapeshifter, where he can shape shift into human form. In beginning when they kind of all wake up, this time he looks like Thor, but last time he looked like dark haired or...
Sarah MacLean 17:50 / #
Typically he masks his eye color. Because at one point way late in the game, Rune sees his eye color and basically thinks to himself, oh, holy shit, I know what he is.
Sarah MacLean 18:06 / #
But we don't.
Sarah MacLean 18:07 / #
He doesn't tell us. Yeah, that's Kresley being a jerk.
Jennifer Prokop 18:14 / #
We love you Kresley, in case you're listening. And I think the thing that I found interesting about the Morior or I'm just gonna say this before we like move on to talk about, like what you love about like this romance. We've talked to extensively about like leveling up. And we have seen in the last couple books the introduction of other realms. Now we get that these primordials are, regardless of realm or worlds, I mean, so it's just like making the whole set. The whole stage just got so much bigger, and it also sets up an opposition force to Nix that actually feels threatening. So for 16, or however many books, she just kicks everybody's ass. And now we get the sense at least that these folks could be like a real threat to her. And that is interesting to me.
Sarah MacLean 19:16 / #
It has to be the setup for the end of the series. I'm sorry, everyone, but like, there's no way Kresly's writing these books forever. And this has to be the setup for the end of the series because of that. Nix just can't end up with Thad. Well, that's nonsense talk on the part of my friend Jen.
Jennifer Prokop 19:40 / #
I wanted to be clear I wanted Fury to...
Sarah MacLean 19:44 / #
Okay, well, Fury can't either but that's it. No, absolutely cannot
Jennifer Prokop 19:50 / #
Of course not.
Sarah MacLean 19:50 / #
For Nix to have a satisfying love story for any of us. She has to be. I mean, like she has to be matched in absolute parity. It has to be cat vs cat.
Jennifer Prokop 20:02 / #
Oh sure. And you know one of the things I thought a lot about is like we have speculated that it would be very hard to write Nix as a heroine because of what we know about how her brain works. And then if you pair her with a God who understands everything she understands. Her thought processes will be clear to him, and therefore, clear to us. So there's a lot of ways in which that seems so inevitable...
Sarah MacLean 20:27 / #
Well and it's already set up that she can't see him. He is the only thing she cannot-- she is ever knowing, but she is not all knowing-- and one of her blank spots is Orion. We don't have that kind of information about Orion though. We don't have really any information about a Orion which I think is actually just really smart. A smart move on Kresley's part, at the same time. So like, you know,you put Thrane's Key on the table. You can't give the readers too much about Orion because he's too powerful. You're going to need him to do all sorts of things and you can't limit him. So that's the Morior. We love them. But also what's really interesting, what I like the most about the use of the Morior is they're setup for multiple books as the Bringers of Doom--which Yeah, not a great name-- It doesn't doesn't know strike, strike, you know, it doesn't it doesn't lead to a whole lot of confidence on the partof ID readers right? But in they come, and the theory is like, and they're coming for Nix. That's the whole plot of this book is That-- we will remember from the Lotharie arc of the series-- that Thad is under the protection of the Valkyries at Val Hall. And so and he is there Josie knows he's there but doesn't know anything else. Does she know he's there?
Jennifer Prokop 21:50 / #
She comes to know he's there and that's why she essentially agrees to work with Rune because they now have the common foe even though they have different reasons for wanting to get her.
Sarah MacLean 22:02 / #
It's a really it's a very clean conflict. Josie wants Thad; Ruin wants Nix. Josie is too clever to reveal that she doesn't know things. She's very proud. Like she's written she's a great character. She's written a super proud, like, unwilling to bend. Her whole her whole mantra is like squeeze it till it breaks. And so like she's unwilling to bend but she so she's unwilling to sort of admit that she doesn't understand this world and she doesn't know where Thad is. And she doesn't know how this is all working. And that's but she sees that Rune is her entrance into this, and so they make a partnership, but they would have made a partnership anyway. Because Rune is dark fey and this is where it starts to get amazing.
Sarah MacLean 22:57 / #
Jen, tell everybody what a dark fey is.
Jennifer Prokop 23:00 / #
So, we've met one before if you'll remember Natalia right, who was like locked up in torture Island. But we didn't really know anything about her. But Rune's... Every secretion from his body is poisonous to everything and everyone.
Sarah MacLean 23:18 / #
except one thing.
Jennifer Prokop 23:23 / #
Not to Josie, right.
Jennifer Prokop 23:28 / #
Sarah, you're so thrilled about this. I don't even want-- like. It's like you tell them and I'm like, "No, you tell them!"
Sarah MacLean 23:35 / #
It's so good. You guys he's so poisonous. Okay, so here's the thing.He has a monster cock. It apparently does like, well,
Jennifer Prokop 23:43 / #
he's like seven feet tall or whatever.
Sarah MacLean 23:46 / #
He's the tallest of all of all... well, He's primordial right? So of course.
Jennifer Prokop 23:50 / #
I mean, I guess
Sarah MacLean 23:51 / #
He's the most wonderful. He's Rune!
Jennifer Prokop 23:54 / #
And therefore his dick is the biggest. Fine.
Sarah MacLean 23:57 / #
He has a monster cock. And he needs this monster cock because he Literally he cannot kiss anyone. He cannot perform cunnilingus on anyone.
Jennifer Prokop 24:06 / #
You love that I first time for everything.
Sarah MacLean 24:11 / #
It's amazing, right? So we can't do any of these things. And he's half--so a dark fey is half-fey, half demon. Right so he has a demon seal. So he can come, but he can't ejaculate. But he never comes. But he is so good at sex...he's so good at sex you guys that the nymphs, he's a celebrity in the covey.
Sarah MacLean 24:39 / #
it's one point in this book, he walks into a covey and there is a standing ovation for Rune and his no cunnilingus monster cock.
Jennifer Prokop 24:51 / #
I know what that's an amazing thing.
Sarah MacLean 24:53 / #
He's so good. The nymphs give him a standing ovation.
Jennifer Prokop 24:56 / #
Oh, you guys are so many things that are like fascinating about Up to like, I feel like, now let's just stop and talk about this forever. But here's the couple things... one of the things I find really interesting about it is that... his emotional, he's so emotionally detached. Sex to him is all about power. It's just a weapon...
Sarah MacLean 25:22 / #
it's work, right? Because remember, we've met the nymphs before, and everyone goes to the covyes, the cocyes are like bordellos. So the nymphs hear everything, they get all, they're a great network of information. And that's going to be important. Like we talked early in this podcast about how we didn't love the way Kresley setup nymphs in 2004. By 2017, Kresley has figured out nymphs. They have power, They have their network of information of informants, They have information, They have important tools. They are essential to now the arc of the series. And in this particular case, Rune is so good-- he has learned to be excellent at sex so that he can service nymphs and be paid, basically get information from them.
Jennifer Prokop 26:20 / #
Right, right. Yeah. Now the part that's also really interesting about this though is this is another Kresley hero who has, who was literally sold into sexual slavery. Right? And so, and I promise we'll get back to talking about Josie because she's so fascinating.
Sarah MacLean 26:40 / #
Well, this is only we're only what like an hour into this.
Jennifer Prokop 26:44 / #
We're only on chapter seven of seventy.
Jennifer Prokop 26:49 / #
I literally was like, "Darrell, I'm gonna need you to bring dinner home because I'm recording with Sarah at, starting at four. And I have to leave at eight to pick up our child so I'm not going to be able to do Anything else for those four hours? And he just sent me a text that was like, "Okay."
Jennifer Prokop 27:08 / #
No. So here's the thing, like we've talked about. And I think what's interesting is that, I think his emotional scars from from being sold into slavery, essentially, because he did it to save his mother, he was sort of promised that by doing this, he could save his mother. And we all end, you know, we all know that's not going to work out. And so the fact that he then essentially turns it on its head, like I was forced to do this, literally every night, he had to please everyone. And if he didn't, they would, you know, threatened to kill him, is to then take those skills that he learned, essentially and say, Now I'm going to use them against the world to get what I want. It's very tied up in his psyche in a way that it's really tangled and really? Yeah, I just I found myself thinking about it a lot. It's really, it's really meaty, right. And I feel like there's just so much there...
Sarah MacLean 28:12 / #
And there really is. Because also he believes this is his whole purpose. Right? And there comes a point way later in the book, which we'll get to like we're gonna have to talk about the dark moment in this book and like how it all plays out right? Where he is basically like my only job, The only reason why Orion saved me from that horrible life, right? Yeah, from which I would have happily died to get out of it. The only reason why Orion did that is so that I could then fuck all these nymphs for him and then be the information Bringer. And Orion puts, like stops that, Finally 10,000 years later, Orion is like
Jennifer Prokop 29:04 / #
no you dumb ass I just thought you'd be good at getting information from people.
Sarah MacLean 29:07 / #
It's really magnificent because again that could be a moment where, in the hands of a lesser author I say all the time, somebody could have, a reader would read that and say, well this is dumb why didn't Orion say this 6000 years ago, but it makes perfect sense because Orion is so, he's operating on this like, universal plane, right? This is all just he does, This all this all feels very like messy and mortal for him.
Jennifer Prokop 29:41 / #
I mean, the thing that I think fascinating always about this is like these are immortals, but the ways in which they are human, like these are immortals, and recently I read a couple books where I just feel like like things happen, right? Like just a bunch of fucking things happen fine. But I feel like if you are not walking away from a book thinking about what it means to be human, or what it means to be part of the world, or be, right to like use that English teacher word, theme, right? And I feel like the ways in which Rune cannot escape his own interiority. That's what's going on here. I mean, it's literally when you're like, I think we've all had that moment where we're chugging along, doing shit the way we think it's supposed to be done, and someone's like, "why are you doing it that way?" And you're like, "wait, what do you mean?" I think that that there's something very real to me about that that he couldn't let go of thinking, "this is what I'm good at. So I'm gonna have to do it this way." Even though that was never ever said. Right. And and that I found to every time I read this, and every time I think about it, that self destructive element in him. That is all of us.
Sarah MacLean 31:00 / #
Yeah, so Rune also on top of all of this right on top of Orion and his time as a child being sexually abused, sexually assaulted, a slave, right as a sex slave like there's he has always been poison, right?
Jennifer Prokop 31:21 / #
Yeah. And not in that good Boys II Men way. Oh no, "That girl is poison."
Bell Biv Davoe 31:27 / #
Bell Biv Davoe. Now you know.
Jennifer Prokop 31:37 / #
It is sorry, it's fine, it's partly Boys II Men.
Sarah MacLean 31:46 / #
Don't at us.
Jennifer Prokop 31:47 / #
I know, I was like I know
Sarah MacLean 31:49 / #
So okay, so he he has bane blood, right? His blood is black, it is pure poison, like one drop of it will kill you. So kissing will kill you, one of our very favorite Twitter people, Aunt Angelique, who is a nurse, pointed out that this is worse than most of the sexually transmitted diseases that then all the transmitted diseases that we know about as humans, because usually saliva is so distilled, that is not distilled, It's so diluted, that you can't get a disease from saliva. You can die from Rune's saliva, right? So you just can't like he is pure poison. He doesn't get a mate. That's insane. He's a poison. If he broke his mate seal., his demon seal, and came inside someone. He would have immediately found his mate and then also killed them. Right? So this is all like he just and he's not, he's fucking all these nymphs, but it's not attempting, it's never described as attempting.
Sarah MacLean 32:56 / #
In the way that it is for all the other demons. For Rune It's a job he's never end he's in such control like he, he just he never even feels the urge to come, he doesn't come. so here
Jennifer Prokop 33:11 / #
He can experience pleasure, but there's no ejaculation, right?
Sarah MacLean 33:14 / #
exactly, but I get the sense from him that like he's been doing this for so fucking long like nothing surprises him and he's just not that into it right?
Jennifer Prokop 33:22 / #
Oh yeah well and in fact this is breaking one of the cardinal laws of romance which is the first time our heroine sees the hero. He is fucking someone else. And she is like,
Sarah MacLean 33:34 / #
Hey,he is a nice ass. So yeah, Josie is knocking around New Orleans, right? Yeah, like wondering about her brother. And she hears a nymph just losing her mind.
Sarah MacLean 33:47 / #
Screaming Rune the way I scream Rune, you guys.
Jennifer Prokop 33:54 / #
She's curious
Sarah MacLean 33:55 / #
You know, she's curious. She follows the the noise she gets to him like, you know, banging like multiple, multiple nymphs against a wall. And she smells. And she's like, Oh, he's not wearing Axe body spray. He smells delicious. And then, you know push comes to shove, and they end up meeting and Josie can't resist. She bites him to drink him. And he's like, you just signed your death warrant. That's exactly what he says. He's like, you die now.
Jennifer Prokop 34:32 / #
Well, he chases her down. She sort of goes, he follows here, there's a back and forththing. He knew she was a voyeur right? But yeah, I mean when he she just ...you fucking smell amazing. I am going to bite you and like the... It's hot. Right?
Sarah MacLean 34:48 / #
So I just got a puppy. And I so and Khalo, Our puppy, is learning not to bite, right? But he's a puppy. And so he, you can see on the His little face, he's like, I don't want to, I'm not supposed to bite that thing. I know I'm not supposed to, I'm not supposed to. And then he's like uh, I can't. It's too hard. And then he just like, this is Josie in that moment with Rune. Like, she just is like, I can't, I can't, I'm biting him. And so she has
Jennifer Prokop 35:16 / #
She has literally climbed him like a tree.
Sarah MacLean 35:19 / #
Well who Wouldn't? Oh, and then she bites him and he's like, you're gonna die. Except she doesn't. She's like, holy shit! This is amazing. And he's like, your body is a Wonderland.I mean, instantly. Instantly, he's like, what the fuck?
Jennifer Prokop 35:40 / #
And he like grabs her ass, and he unzipped his pants, and puts his cock in her underwear, like, he sneaks it up in there, and they, rub up against each other.
Sarah MacLean 35:48 / #
They dry hump on the wall. It's not dry.
Jennifer Prokop 35:53 / #
Well, not dry for her; dry for him.
Sarah MacLean 35:58 / #
So there's this whole, and then there's moment where he's like, holy shit. I've not poisoned her, which means I can lay her out on a bed and "torture"-- I'm using air quotes-- into giving me all the information that I need because this is how he gets information from an nymphs. He sexually tortures them, and edges them, until they can't bear it anymore. And then they tell him the secrets and then he lets them come. Right. So he's like, I can torture her and I can torture her for real. Now.
Jennifer Prokop 36:30 / #
but I would like to say before he has that moment of logic. He does come like a fucking fire hose. Oh, and he doesn't actually come, but except not, but he is so excited and he cannot believe he's coming and he's super into it. So I would like to say his first response is not logical--I can use this against her. His first response really is like, something miraculous has happened.
Sarah MacLean 36:58 / #
His first response is I'm Not his, his 130th response is not I can use this against her. Intellectually, it's like I can use this against her but, emotionally and physically and frankly, they're fucking fated mates if he would notice! like if he would pay attention! Like everything else in the whole world, like the universe is basically telling him like, this is yours, you belong to each other! Mine, mine mine mine. Except he doesn't say it. She says it. Mine, mine, mine.
Jennifer Prokop 37:30 / #
I mean, that's the thing, 10,000 years of training -- the universe has trained him to believe that he's poison, that he does not deserve a mate, that all these reasons emotionally that he could never have that. It's like he can't even see literally what's right in front of him. And we have talked about this, like the fact that she recognizes that he must be her mate. That she's the one who has that instinct in that calling. It really means something I think to have a heroine experience that and have to decide what to do with it, as opposed to a.... it's a different experience.
Sarah MacLean 38:11 / #
And you know what I love? It's such a it's actually really interesting. So this is the book that came after The Master. And there are a lot of echoes of The Master in this book in the sense that like, Josie doesn't take no, Josie is like you're my mate. I'm your mate. Like we figured it out. Yeah. And she says what real early and he's like no,
Jennifer Prokop 38:36 / #
but there are limits to it. Like I if we do this you have to be committed to me only it's got to mean something.
Sarah MacLean 38:42 / #
Right. And I take any of his shit like zero of his shit. And frankly, like, this is a guy who with a single arrow can can decimate the bones of everybody in hearing distance. No, everybody takes his shit because there's no option. But there's so many like little moments while I was doing the reread, because I don't think I've ever read The Master and then Sweet Ruin one right after another. And while I was doing the reread I was like, Oh my god, like so much with the birth control thing that happens. The you know, the the fact that Josie is basically like she is a lot like, um, what's her name? What's her name?
Sarah MacLean 39:27 / #
In that she just won't, She doesn't care about his power. She's basically, She's like, I know how this is going to go and it's gonna break my way. Not your way. Yeah. And then the fact that they both are like cunnilingus virgins, but like, really excellent at itimmediately. Tremendously excellent at it. Which, you know, fine.
Jennifer Prokop 39:54 / #
It's fine for him and I'm excited for her. But I keep thinking the other way. Like, I was like, she's afraid to have sex with this thing but she's like...she took like a little Advil before to loosen up that jaw. I like....TMJ I don't even know.
Sarah MacLean 40:16 / #
Well, there's a there's this great tweet that we will put into the Twitter feed and also link to in show notes where someone was like, I'm gonna need an over under on the size of a rooster. It's like Foghorn Leghorn. it's me
Jennifer Prokop 40:42 / #
like oh my god. My brother like like my brother follows me on Twitter, everybody my other brother listens. I don't care.
Sarah MacLean 40:51 / #
It's this is it's one of those moments when people are like I read romance for the fantasy of it. Yes, in this particular case, this is pure fantasy. Nobody wants to face this down in real life, but there, there it is. Anyway, so this is happening right so there's torture and I want to talk about that torture scene. I mean torture again, I use air quotes. It's all edging right? brings so except it's not edging to begin with because he gets her back to his apartment or wherever the hell they are. I can't even remember. See, I don't even care. I've read this book 5000 times I have no idea where they are in this moment. Are they in the way they're in Tenebrous? Or in the apartment above the sex club?
Jennifer Prokop 41:35 / #
Are those the same thing?
Sarah MacLean 41:37 / #
Oh, wait, that's not the same. That's the same thing. I thought he kept an apartment above the sex club. With the glass bottom floor.
Jennifer Prokop 41:44 / #
Yeah, but I thought okay, same thing in my brain. That's like his apartment and tenebrous is the sex club. I don't know that. Now that I'm saying that. That seems clearly ridiculous.
Sarah MacLean 41:53 / #
Like Orion would not allowed a sex club to just hurtle through space and time with them. But maybe I mean, I don't know.
Jennifer Prokop 41:59 / #
Why not. Jesus, what else are you going to do out there and space,
Sarah MacLean 42:02 / #
somebody is going to comment and yell at us. And that's just fine. So whatever. Are they in that sex club apartment?
Jennifer Prokop 42:09 / #
They are in the sex club apartment for sure I don't, I have my book in front of me. And I'm now about to refer to it,
Sarah MacLean 42:15 / #
it doesn't matter. So they get back to his bed. And then she's, like, laid out on it. And he's like, I'm gonna edge you, I'm gonna torture you. And then he's like, but maybe I'll just let you come a few times first, because I love this. Like, he's in a candy store. Like, he's like, I've never been able to touch that or kiss that or do that or you know be with a person this way. And so like, I want to try all of this shit, which is amazing, because it's almost like Rune is the virgin?
Jennifer Prokop 42:43 / #
Yes. Well, yeah,
Sarah MacLean 42:45 / #
he kind of is
Sarah MacLean 42:46 / #
They kind of... he's never been able to do any of this stuff. And when he's done the like, normal stuff, which he's not allowed to do with Josie because she's made a sex deal -- and I love a sex deal. As we know..
Jennifer Prokop 42:55 / #
God, I know
Sarah MacLean 42:55 / #
Sarah loves a sex deal. Like she's basically said, we can't have sex. Until he realized that we're mates and so they can't do that part. So he is like he is a virgin and he's like, fumbling -- not fumbling--but he's like a 16 year old who's like I can't I gotta we gotta
Sarah MacLean 43:16 / #
Mind blowing MacRieve brain, right? Static brain.
Jennifer Prokop 43:24 / #
MacRieve brain.
Sarah MacLean 43:26 / #
So then he edges her a bunch and she's like, I don't fucking know anything about Nix. And he's like I can't break her. Except it's the truth
Jennifer Prokop 43:33 / #
I know. All right, it's Tortuta.A pleasure den.
Sarah MacLean 43:39 / #
Sure. Okay. So then cut to Josie basically being like, I don't know anything about Nix and it being true, but him believing that she's lying. And they like she's too good. I can't break her.
Jennifer Prokop 43:56 / #
It tells us something about his success at His job, this is the way I always get the information I need. But also his I think it's foreshadowing that this is also like his limit, right? Like, we're going to see that he he doesn't have any backup plans besides fucking. Which I mean, what a gentleman. But also--
Sarah MacLean 44:23 / #
in another way, that is another way is like my dog like... one move, which is just bite it.
Sarah MacLean 44:38 / #
So okay, but then there's this beautiful moment. Which is Josie saying, basically he realizes her restraints. She's pulling against the restraints there she's bleeding. That was never the intent. He releases her because he doesn't want to hurt her. And she's like, she like kisses him all over his face. And she's like, are you and he's like, Are you thanking me? And she's like, Yeah, I like you so much. You made me, you made me feel alive. And, and it's so magnificent because like this lonely baby. Who has just spent the last like 15 years knocking around New Orleans like, you know, imagining what it is to have a person care about her and this like lonely old man. Who spent the last 10,000 years knocking around the world like just wondering what it's like to have somebody care about him, and they finally are together. And it's so good, you guy. It's the best of the books you are all wrong if you think otherwise it's so good. It's so well done.
Jennifer Prokop 45:53 / #
Well, I think part of the reason I think that's true is In earlier books, it's like you're fated mate is wrong, right? Like you have to figure out how to work through this thing. And here we can see that they are absolutely fucking right for each other, but he can't see. He just can't see past like how entrenched he is, right? I mean, he's so fucking entrenched. He's down in like the Mariana Trench, right? And there's a part where he's basically like, she's going to be the one to have to change. Yeah, oh, completely.
Sarah MacLean 46:32 / #
Oh, we're gonna have to deal with me being me. I'm 10,000 years old I can't change. You're gonna have to change.
Jennifer Prokop 46:39 / #
And I kept thinking, this motherfucker is like toxic masculinity personified. And he's not even human.
Sarah MacLean 46:45 / #
Well, he's such a fucking asshole, too.
Jennifer Prokop 46:47 / #
Right. Oh, God. Oh, yeah.
Sarah MacLean 46:49 / #
There's all this piece and then he's like, I'm gonna find Nix, and she's like, I'm going to come with you. I want to be with you. I want to find my brother. And that's when it starts to get interesting.
Jennifer Prokop 46:57 / #
Yeah, because I want to talk about the vows to the Lore.
Sarah MacLean 47:00 / #
I know. Me too. You go.
Jennifer Prokop 47:03 / #
I think one of the things that's really interesting is vows to Lore remember-- we're on the whole "vows to the Lore" watch, right? And like when when does it really get codified into place and then it happens and we kind of get it like put on pause for a while occasionally people vow to the Lore, is this the book where or was it the last one-- Oh, where? What's his What's his face?-- Thronos says something really interesting about like a vow to the Lore was one one only a few could break. So we get this weird---
Sarah MacLean 47:35 / #
somebody said that, yeah.
Jennifer Prokop 47:36 / #
I think it's Thornos, says.... but it's the first time we've seen that anyone could break it. So it was all of a sudden interesting to me again. And then in this one, we get someone who doesn't know how really powerful those vows are making them willy nilly and freaking Rune out right? He's like, what the fuck? Yeah,
Sarah MacLean 48:02 / #
Because she doesn't get it and she won't tell him that she doesn't understand. Like her whole thing is I don't understand any of this, but I can't tell you and this is Josie's pride and I think Josie's pride is very important here, right? Because like, the whole dark moment of the book when we get to it, it's going to be the sort of clash between Josie's pride and Rune's self. He can't get past himself and she's just like, Fuck this. I'm not doing this work for you. So I really honor Josie as a character. Now I think more than ever, because like, Fuck this. I don't want to have to do your work for you. Like Get your shit together.
Jennifer Prokop 48:50 / #
Yes. Like, oh my god, I know
Sarah MacLean 48:52 / #
This is not women's jobs. Like your job is to manage your problems, in our relationship. Then like, we can sort of figure it out together, but like, I'm not in charge of you.
Jennifer Prokop 49:04 / #
Yeah, I'm in charge of Thad. I mean, and I would like to say that to like her whole thing all along is like, I'm into you. I think you're the man for me. I think you're my fated mate. But I've you, I've gotta go take care of my fucking brother. You I gotta get this shit figured out.
Sarah MacLean 49:21 / #
Like you clearly going through a thing. Yeah. And like, that's fine. But like, I don't have time for your business. And I love that. I love that. And I mean, like, I just want to be Josie when I grew up anyway. Josie, basically, like so. In part because of all that pride. She refuses to acknowledge what she doesn't know. Yeah. And then, because of that, she's like, well, I've vowed to the Lore we'll eat ice cream for dinner forever. And he's Like you are a complete mess. Like you are gonna ruin everything. You're gonna kill yourself and Probably other people, right? Like, he starts to behave and here's the thing, she kind of deserves it because he's like, Don't fuck with this, like, don't know this.
Sarah MacLean 50:09 / #
Ah, we haven't talked about the fact that she's illiterate because he hands her the book of the Lore. And he's like, read this shit. And like, collect yourself, child.
Sarah MacLean 50:20 / #
I mean like cuz he is a little bit like, you're 25 years old. I'm 10,000 years old. There is literally nothing you can teach me like I know everything. You know nothing, including anything about the lore.
Jennifer Prokop 50:34 / #
Yeah, right. So read this book.
Sarah MacLean 50:36 / #
And I'll be back in like two hours. She basically like creates, to continue this puppy analogy, He's like, stay in this apartment above a sex club. Right? Maybe that's the one in London. I don't know. He has a lot of apartments and he's like, Stay in this apartment, read this book. I'll be back. And she's like, Go fuck yourself. Because first of all, she's upset because she can't read And it's literally the only thing she really ever wanted to be able to do.
Jennifer Prokop 51:05 / #
I know
Sarah MacLean 51:07 / #
But she can't tell him that because she's ashamed of it. And then, and then she's like, you know what? I'm sitting in this fucking apartment. It's filled with priceless artifacts. Fuck this guy. Squeeze it till it breaks, right? the whole apartment. She's like flipping Greek statues and like smashing Ming vases and she's like, Fuck this. The only thing she doesn't touches is like Gutenberg Bible, like his Shakespeare folios like, all anything that is in printed word is safe from her. but she's just breaking all his shit because she's like, Don't leave me alone. Yeah, and he comes back and he's like,You're like a feral animal.
Sarah MacLean 51:46 / #
And she was like, Fuck you.
Sarah MacLean 51:49 / #
Let me break more stuff.
Jennifer Prokop 51:51 / #
She doesn't know how to read in English, but she very quickly starts memorizing the runes that He is drawing on himself for on right like, I just think it's like a really clever conceit. Right? Like, okay, I don't know how to read or write because I didn't go to school. But look at how fast I'm learning to read this other thing. And I think the other thing that's interesting is a lot of the runes are lost to Rune, right? His mother, she only taught him some, he didn't know all of them. He knows that there should be many more out there that he doesn't know
Sarah MacLean 52:28 / #
he has the talisman.
Jennifer Prokop 52:29 / #
And I think it's really interesting then that in some ways, they're both missing something by not knowing their whole, like written history, I guess I'd say.
Sarah MacLean 52:40 / #
Yeah. So she's then when she finds out that he's gone to find Nix. And her brother, which he doesn't he doesn't know Thad is her brother. She hasn't told him that either. Right. So right like, what do you into this guy? Like, what's your deal? Right? He's a preteen. What is your fucking deal? She finds out that he's gone and she's pissed. And so she vows to the Lore that if he does one thing to get to Nix without her, she will never drink again. Never drink blood again. And he's like, what the fuck lady? And it's kind of amazing cuz he's, I mean, as a reader, on the one hand, you're like this asshole. He treats her like garbage. He's treating her like a child. And then she does that and you're like,
Sarah MacLean 53:31 / #
this guy is one hundred percent Right, like, what the fuck, Josie. Haven't you read all these other books?
Sarah MacLean 53:40 / #
Don't you, know, about vows to the Lore?
Jennifer Prokop 53:43 / #
Yeah, well, vows, man, it turns out they're real serious.
Jennifer Prokop 53:48 / #
So and so he explains to her he's like now I have to take you with me like now I have everything I do. You have and and she's kind of like, that kind of worked for me then. So I don't know why you're pissed.
Sarah MacLean 54:01 / #
Because she doesn't 100% believe, like, I don't think Josie ever honestly gets to a point where she's like, Oh, I get it now,
Jennifer Prokop 54:10 / #
No. Well, why would she? Yeah,
Sarah MacLean 54:12 / #
Because it works out for her. So he has to take her all around the world. And Deshazior returns my favorite. Nix is like, fucking Nix, right? Like, Nix is amazing in this book, because she's like, follow me around the fucking world then.
Jennifer Prokop 54:30 / #
Like, she's giving them little clues,
Sarah MacLean 54:32 / #
it's a little scavenger hunt. She's like, Won't this be delightful?
Jennifer Prokop 54:38 / #
Rune's like, I'm gonna fucking kill her.
Jennifer Prokop 54:40 / #
So, she's like, I'm gonna go to the top of this mountain in China, right? And rune is like, well, I've never been Earth-- Gaia. He calls it Gaia-- Gaia is useless to me. Like I don't really hang out here ever. So I've never been to the top of this fucking mountain in China. And so That means I have to get us there but you're a vampire. And so I cannot, we cannot, fly like it is it needs to be at night and Josie is like okay. so they go to this place, they go to a barn in the Quarter and Deshazior is there, who we'll remember from earlier books. He's so great. my favorite of the demon
Sarah MacLean 55:24 / #
who talks like a pirate if you listen to the to the audio. Petkoff does him as a pirate. and there's actually an audio, that one of the recordings, one of the phone messages is Deshazior.
Robert Petkoff 55:38 / #
Ah, Lass. This is Deshazior. Answer the coal. Maybe I'll let you Touch me horns.
Sarah MacLean 55:46 / #
And he's delightful, and he's like, well, I'll take you wherever you wanna go to Josie and Rune is like I'm gonna kill this fucking guy, too. I'm gonna kill all these guys. But they make a deal and Deshazior brings them to the to this like shaded area at the base of a mountain, of the mountain in China where they're supposed to find Nix. That's when the vows of the Lore become clear. Because, like, so basically, Josie then traces. She traces into sunlight. And suddenly everybody realizes what she is. Which is, first of all, she's a day walking vampire. Yes, doesn't exist, like,
Jennifer Prokop 56:34 / #
and remember that female Vampires don't even really exist, right? So there's all these ways in which it's mind blowing to everybody, right?
Sarah MacLean 56:42 / #
And Deshazior is then like, holy shit, she's a daywalker. And then he's like, I won't tell anybody like that she exists and Rune-- And she says, we'll just do it. And Rune's like, No, you have to die. You have this information. It's gonna Kill her, you have to die. And he is like no I'll vow to the Lore. He makes this vow and Rune is like, you and I both know that's not enough of a vow. like there are others ways, like if a vampire, a cossas drinks you, they'll know. There all these ways that it could happen. It's not enough. And so they start to fight. Josie then goes fucking invisible, jumps inside of Rune's body, and punches him in the face with his hand.
Sarah MacLean 57:34 / #
never, in my lifetime wanted a book to be a movie so badly because all I want is that image. as Tom Hardy as a seven foot tall Rune punching himself in the face.
Jennifer Prokop 57:53 / #
Fine. It Sounds nice to me too. Actually. I deserve nice things.
Sarah MacLean 57:58 / #
and then she does she start to drag into the earth?
Sarah MacLean 58:02 / #
She ghosts him, too. So then she starts to make him invisible and he's like, What? What is happening? And then he's like, holy shit. You're not a vampire. You're a hybrid. You're half vampire. And half fucking Phantom. Which back in dark Conrad tied to a radiator. Naomi becomes a phantom. Like, by chance, and somebody like it takes thousands of years for a ghost to become a phantom. So suddenly, it's like, holy shit. What the fuck is Roseis. Is Josie? Who is Rosie? What the fuck is Josie?
Jennifer Prokop 58:52 / #
I told you Sarah was really excited everybody
Sarah MacLean 58:54 / #
you guys I'm so excited. I love this book so much. So then like they're like holy shit. Then she basically turns to Deshazior and she's like, uh, you're never going to talk about me. and then she turns around and she's like, and you're not going to kill him or I'm going to ghost you into the fucking ground and leave you there.
Jennifer Prokop 59:14 / #
yeah, it's amazing.
Sarah MacLean 59:16 / #
Oh my god and suddenly like this 25 year old nothing,
Jennifer Prokop 59:21 / #
gets the jump on both of them, right,
Sarah MacLean 59:23 / #
like, the queen of the book, of the series, right? Until we meet Lila.
Sarah MacLean 59:30 / #
And then you guys, here's the hard truth. Rune is my favorite hero. But Josie is my second favorite heroine.
Sarah MacLean 59:39 / #
Um, so then we so then and then it's just like fine Nix, it's like for next, right so we find we discover that Rune is afraid of heights. In order for me to properly be believed that this is my favorite book and I'm not like, you know, a shill for Kresley. I tell you the one thing that I have a problem with In this book
Jennifer Prokop 1:00:01 / #
okay, well then I'll tell you mine. okay I would like to know.
Sarah MacLean 1:00:04 / #
I bet mine is better. So they're climbing this mountain and China and they're like inching their way around like the narrow little wooden, Rune is afraid of heights he's basically like don't don't go anywhere near anything. you know that scene in Pretty Woman, where Vivian is sitting up on the balcony? she's up and she's like look no hands and he's like fucking stop! Richard Gere is like, stop! right now! and come back down--It's like that. And I had this moment and at one point she goes into him and then like, ghosts him and walks them out, like off the ledge into thin air. And he's like, stop it. Pretty fucking mean, but he deserves it.
Jennifer Prokop 1:00:51 / #
Wait, I was like, is that the part you don't like? because I liked that part. in that moment.
Sarah MacLean 1:00:54 / #
I was like, if this bitch doesn't ghost into this guy's body and like force him to give himself, like to actually masturbate himself. That is a missed opportunity Kresley Cole. And it doesn't happen.
Jennifer Prokop 1:01:08 / #
True, but it should.
Sarah MacLean 1:01:10 / #
Fanfic writers. You have your charge.
Jennifer Prokop 1:01:15 / #
Oh God, mine's gonna seem so much more churlish. But I, So I actually will tell you I I didn't love that they go to China and they go to Ayers Rock because of my whole like, all the immortals are white
Sarah MacLean 1:01:30 / #
Yeah, that too. And they call it Ayers rock...
Jennifer Prokop 1:01:33 / #
instead of Uluru.
Sarah MacLean 1:01:35 / #
I'm not I don't know how to pronounce it.
Jennifer Prokop 1:01:37 / #
Yeah. And I just was kind of like, you know, just you need to stop using it like places in the world for backdrops if you're not gonna include people from those placees.
Sarah MacLean 1:01:48 / #
Yes.I agree with that. I had I had a similar problem. I had a big problem with Ayers Rock.
Jennifer Prokop 1:01:57 / #
Yeah, Yeah, me too. Me too. Yeah. Like we're just gonna go there and fuck.
Sarah MacLean 1:02:01 / #
I know and we've said it 1000 times like I know, rep in this series is not great. Except for Loa, who is back in this book.
Jennifer Prokop 1:02:10 / #
Yes. Well and I think my thing too is like it had actually you know, when they were out going to other realms then it could be like just another thing. But now that they're back on Gaia, and they're just like popping for, backdrop I was like...ew. I didn't ike it. You know, take her to the top of Mount Rushmore. Fuck on George Washington's head, fine. How about the Grand Canyon? Like why do you need to go to Australia? Right. Like, that's the part that felt like, you know, Colonizer. She's a colonizer.
Sarah MacLean 1:02:43 / #
So there's that. So I'm glad we did that. I feel like mine was, you know, a little bit silly. I actually do have another, I have a plot thing to that I always question. So anyway, so they turn around, they go round and round and round and Nix sends them on a merry, merry Chase, and there's a part of me that's like is Nix doing all this because she wants Josie to be happy? and like she knows they're sort of falling for each other? and they are falling for each other. And he's like helping her understand her powers in different ways. Oh, and at one point Josie and Nix get into it, like they fight and they firght for real.
Jennifer Prokop 1:03:21 / #
and Nix kicks her ass
Sarah MacLean 1:03:23 / #
Yeah, like unabashedly and basically says, and what Nix does is she uses her Valkyrie lightning to create like a Thunderdome around them. And Rune is on top of a house trying to defeat them. And so he strings up his most powerful arrows and the lightning keeps, he can't penetrate the lightning.
Jennifer Prokop 1:03:44 / #
And it's a fascinating moment because we it's when we really see that Nix is more than just a crazy person who can like-- her power. It's really the first time we see her power, as opposed to her knowledge.
Sarah MacLean 1:03:58 / #
But like Nobody wants to meet Nix in a dark alley. And so she says to Josie at the end-- Josie has got like three broken ribs, and a broken leg, and it's the first time and Rune takes her back to his apartment and covers her and healing runes. Because he's so terrified. He goes to Loa to find a healing spell. But Nix says to her, you are the most powerful fighter, but you're not using your powers right. Because Rosie's-- Why do I keep calling her Rosie?-- Josie basically is just, I'm gonna hit it until it breaks right? I'm gonna squeeze it till it breaks. And Nix is like you are doing everything wrong. Because she is when she is ghosted when she's invisible. She's undefeatable.
Jennifer Prokop 1:04:48 / #
Yeah, and that's the thing. It's like you're using your power when you shouldn't.
Sarah MacLean 1:04:51 / #
And she has telekinesis! She can move things with her mind.
Jennifer Prokop 1:04:55 / #
And basically, this whole fight is Nix's way of showing her: You're, you know, it's like Float like a butterfly sting like a bee right? And you're not floating when you should be floating. You're always trying to sting. Yeah, right. And I think that it's just this like object lesson for her.
Sarah MacLean 1:05:12 / #
She doesn't learn it from Nix.
Jennifer Prokop 1:05:13 / #
She has to learn by brute force. That's there's this other thing. Right? It's like really fascinating.
Sarah MacLean 1:05:19 / #
So they get invited to at the end--
Jennifer Prokop 1:05:21 / #
We have to talk about the ball, right?
Sarah MacLean 1:05:23 / #
Yeah, so at the end, they at the end of this like wild goose chase, Nix sends a gondola down the Venetian canal. The Grand Canal in Venice, and on it is an invitation to a fairy ball. Now, the fairy half of Rune is royalty, of course, fairy royalty. Right. He is one of the surviving members of the royal fairy family and the person who currently--this is important for the next book, too-- the person who currently holds the power in This royal family is a horrible monster person.
Sarah MacLean 1:06:04 / #
Saetthan. Is that his name?
Sarah MacLean 1:06:06 / #
Yeah, maybe? I can't remember. But he's terrible. And he's Rune's half brother or cousin. It doesn't matter.
Jennifer Prokop 1:06:14 / #
It's his Brother. It's his half- brother.
Sarah MacLean 1:06:15 / #
Yeah. Same father. No, same.
Jennifer Prokop 1:06:19 / #
Same mother,
Sarah MacLean 1:06:19 / #
Same mother. So he's Rune's half brother. And he holds he like has this magical scepter like they're all these sort of magical fey things that will come into play in the next book, we'll worry about them then. But basically Rune has vowed on top of to serve Orion and Find Nix. He's also vowed to kill every member, every surviving member of this family over the last 10,000 years like this is the way that he has come to, he is bent on revenge for his mother's death. And like who wouldn't be?
Jennifer Prokop 1:06:51 / #
I did think there was like an interesting like meta commentary about like, like generational guilt, like Saetthan and of course, it I guess it's different when they're immortals, and they've been around forever and Saetthan really is terrible, but when he's like I'm killing every single last one of those motherfuckers, some of whom had nothing to do with it. It just goes to show you how his revenge is so, like, it's
Sarah MacLean 1:07:16 / #
stupid.
Jennifer Prokop 1:07:17 / #
Yeah. It is.
Sarah MacLean 1:07:20 / #
it's stupid. Revenge always is, that's why it's such a good plot. It's such a dumb plot. It's it because you never revenge is never what you really need.
Jennifer Prokop 1:07:33 / #
because you can't.
Sarah MacLean 1:07:34 / #
It's not going to solve the problem. It's not gonna bring mom back. Or like, it can't kill Magh again.
Jennifer Prokop 1:07:41 / #
Exactly. It's always going to be doomed to be disappointing.
Sarah MacLean 1:07:45 / #
They get invited to this ball. And Rune knows, he knows he's gonna get jumped. He knows it's a trap for him. So he's like, but fine, because I'm Rune Darklight. And I'm the greatest Archer who's ever been arched, And we're gonna go. And he's like and fuck, I have to take her with me because we made this stupid, she made that dumb vow to the Lore. So he's like, all right, listen, fairies are a thing. There's a scene. They were a lot of pastels. Everybody's gonna be in gauze. Josie is like, take me
Jennifer Prokop 1:08:24 / #
Take me shopping
Sarah MacLean 1:08:25 / #
Take me to the French Quarter to the second hand shops. Yeah, Rune is like, say what now? Rune is the embodiment of that gif of like the white guy shaking his head, confused.
Jennifer Prokop 1:08:43 / #
But I do love at that moment that he is worried she'll be embarrassed. Right? I love that He's a little like, oh boy. Right but I also want to point out I think he thinks he she will embarrass him.
Sarah MacLean 1:08:58 / #
Oh, of course he does. He's like, this is my chance to go back and show all of my horrible family that I'm going to crush them with my skills as Archer. I've been waiting 10,000 years for this moment. And now this what is she going to turn up in? Like she can she be trusted? She just she she ghosted into my body and made me punch myself in the face. Like who knows what's gonna
Jennifer Prokop 1:09:25 / #
happen, right? You know what though? You guys she comes out--
Sarah MacLean 1:09:28 / #
it's magnificent.
Jennifer Prokop 1:09:29 / #
And he
Sarah MacLean 1:09:30 / #
well first she asks him for blood.
Jennifer Prokop 1:09:32 / #
Yes, right give me a bottle of your blood and he doesn't know why. And when she comes out he I can't remember exact language but he basically staggers. Yeah, he almost falls over he is so blown away by how amazing she looks.
Sarah MacLean 1:09:45 / #
well what's funny is that she's in, my favorite part is she's in the dressing room, and this is another like kind of echo of Cat and in The Master, where she's like, are you ready? Cuz I look bananas good.
Jennifer Prokop 1:09:56 / #
Yeah, I look wicked hot.
Sarah MacLean 1:09:58 / #
He's like, I think I'll be fine.
Jennifer Prokop 1:10:01 / #
And then he's like, Oh shit, I was not fine. Yeah, it's amazing and I loved her confidence.
Sarah MacLean 1:10:06 / #
but she also inked her neck. she's cut a stencil and created a blood choker of the runes for like victory and something else. And he is
Jennifer Prokop 1:10:19 / #
good luck. I think victory and good luck.
Sarah MacLean 1:10:21 / #
And I mean, he just can't deal with it. It's the first time he's noticed that she like knows the runes enough to do it. It's, I mean, like, he sees his mark, it's his mark on her. Right,
Jennifer Prokop 1:10:37 / #
in his blood that no one else, that is poison to Everybody else.
Sarah MacLean 1:10:40 / #
you know, we said, we've asked people before, like, what's the hottest thing? Is it blooding? Is it? Is it the wolf bite, what is the thing that is the hottest? And this is all those things. It is both blood and demon seal, and he sees her and he's like mine. mine, mine, mine, mine, mine.
Jennifer Prokop 1:11:00 / #
Well and remember at this point they have not slept together. They fooled around a ton.
Sarah MacLean 1:11:04 / #
No. And he's like tonight Tonight it's on.
Jennifer Prokop 1:11:09 / #
And the part about, the reason I think, well and I would say from this point on this Kresley Cole has put her fucking foot on the gas and if it was like the Fast and the Furious like press like the the nos, and it's just like go. It's like a rocket. There is no, there's no stopping, and it is amazing.
Sarah MacLean 1:11:31 / #
The pacing is perfection at this point
Jennifer Prokop 1:11:35 / #
Because they walk into this ball knowing that they're going to get attacked. But they still dance and have this amazing time and everybody else is in these like frothy, frilly dresses and she is like wearing this black satin gown with this blood choker. And he is like this, he it's this amazing moment, and then what happens--
Jennifer Prokop 1:11:56 / #
and I remember when I first listened to this, I first read this book probably around a year ago last spring. And I was reading and listening because I literally couldn't stand to not be doing both right, because I, it was like one night, I was reading and I realized the next day that I was gonna have to drive and go up to Evanston. And I was like, I have to download the audio book I have, I can't not read for a day. And I was driving up to Evanston. And I literally stopped in my car, and had like, some time before I had to go into class and was just like, I'm just going to listen to the scene where these 50 swordsmen come out. What's amazing about it is she's like, Oh, my God, and he's like, this is insulting. There's only 50 of them. They're not even like trained killers. Like he's like so insulted that anybody would think that this would bring him down and she's terrified. And it is a really amazing moment. And it's one of the few moments I've ever liked in a book where the heroine gets sidelined. Right? She's like, I'm gonna fight too. And he's like, Look, let me show you what I can do.
Sarah MacLean 1:13:15 / #
Yeah, he's bragging.
Jennifer Prokop 1:13:17 / #
Yeah, at one point he's like, you know, nocking arrows and shooting them and he turns and winks at her. And she is so turned on by the whole thing and this and and it's really interesting because he has it firmly in hand he's got to kick everybody's ass when his evil stepbrother or half brother appears Saetthan, and he essentially gets Josie into a chokehold. And, or one of his assassins does, and he's up there and like, you know, they're doing that bad guy thing where they like, talk to each other and tell each other all their plans. But um, you know, it's like this amazing moment because Rune at that point, knows that she can handle her yourself. And that's why I didn't mind her being sidelined.
Sarah MacLean 1:14:02 / #
Well, because he says, release her. He says to the guy he's like, release her, or die a nightmare death. And everybody at that moment readers too. I remember that first. The first time you read it, you're like, oh, he's gonna kill him. And then you realize he doesn't mean him.
Jennifer Prokop 1:14:20 / #
He means Josie.
Sarah MacLean 1:14:21 / #
He means Josie is gonna kill him. And she slowly... and she does it so dramatically. She goes, half ghosts him so that everybody can see him flickering the like, bad guy. And then she sinks into the floor, like super slow and Rune is watching it like, oh my god. And she does it with such theatrical flair. And he's like, I am wild about this fucking woman. And she leaves and then she comes back up alone. Like she ghosts this guy into like the Earth. And then she goes, look anybody else?
Jennifer Prokop 1:15:01 / #
It's like when Captain America beats the shit out of everybody in the elevator. Like, Who's next? Yeah,
Sarah MacLean 1:15:06 / #
right.
Jennifer Prokop 1:15:07 / #
And I love that she that--what I loved about that scene is that she knows that she can do it and that he knows that she can do it. There is never a moment where he's like, Oh no, she's in danger. He's basically like, Oh, this poor motherfucker. She is about to kill him. And it's gonna be amazing.
Sarah MacLean 1:15:28 / #
I know. It's they are so perfectly matched. perfectly matched.
Sarah MacLean 1:15:34 / #
So um, one thing I want to just flag for the next read is that at the end of this scene Rune let's a one and done go, misses his brother, but hits the sword that is like the marker of, it's made with. It's not titanium, but something and some. What is it? What's that Captain America shield?
Jennifer Prokop 1:15:57 / #
Vibranium?
Sarah MacLean 1:15:58 / #
Vibranium right.
Jennifer Prokop 1:15:59 / #
Special IAD something something steel or whatever.
Sarah MacLean 1:16:04 / #
It's a special kind of steel. And basically the person who owns this thing, Who is a fey, is the king or queen of the fey. This is going to become important in the next book.
Jennifer Prokop 1:16:16 / #
Yeah, so absolutely.
Sarah MacLean 1:16:17 / #
That's like the fact that that has just been destroyed.
Jennifer Prokop 1:16:20 / #
Right? So,
Sarah MacLean 1:16:23 / #
So then she's like, this was fucking awesome. And he's like, Well, great. I'm glad you enjoyed it because now this whole place is going to be exploded. So we have to go like now. And so they run. And he takes them to
Jennifer Prokop 1:16:36 / #
Australia,
Sarah MacLean 1:16:36 / #
Australia, at where they bone on Ayers Rock. Yeah. And it's like his he loses his demon seal.
Jennifer Prokop 1:16:44 / #
The lead up to this moment is really fascinating because he's like, Look, I'm fine. We're finally gonna have sex. I want to have sex with her. And she--and he says that I want to have sex. And she is like, Well, I have been very clear with him about what exactly that's going to mean. So he is really ready to commit. And earlier in the night, instead of calling me dove, he called me love. And so it must be real. And he knows that if we do this, it really means that we are committed. So we can see all of the emotions and then he even gets like cold feet and she's kind of like, talks him back into doing it.
Sarah MacLean 1:17:17 / #
Oh, yeah, because he does, like suddenly he's, it's like, he's a virgin. He's like, I can't.
Jennifer Prokop 1:17:22 / #
it's great. She's like, oh, are we role playing and you're being Josie? I'll be Rune. Well, honey, you know. And then, of course, you know, it's like this epic sex but the, like, the emotional.... And it's all told in her point of view at that moment, like her.
Sarah MacLean 1:17:40 / #
She's so happy. It's happening. She's gonna be mated. She's gonna be able to have a family. Like she has said from the beginning. Like, we're gonna be partners. We're gonna have a family. Thad is going to be in our lives. He's basically said, like, I'm going to help you. We're going to get Thad back like everything. Everything is coming up roses for for Josie. Everything's coming up Joses. like
Jennifer Prokop 1:18:07 / #
I will say that getting her name wrong several times is taking our inability to get titles right to a whole new level and just want you to know, I appreciate it. I do. But I think that that's why this moment is so important. Yes, it's the sex, but it's her conviction that this means he finally realizes we're mated. Right?
Sarah MacLean 1:18:30 / #
But he does this thing that I don't love, the feeling, I don't love how it feels, and I don't think Rosie---Jesus Christ. Why do I keep saying it?
Jennifer Prokop 1:18:42 / #
I don't know.
Sarah MacLean 1:18:43 / #
Because it's basically it's their name. It's like
Jennifer Prokop 1:18:46 / #
Rune You're shipping them!
Sarah MacLean 1:18:48 / #
It's their ship name.
Sarah MacLean 1:18:51 / #
I don't think Josie likes it either. Truthfully, No, she doesn't that he inks himself with a contraception spell So that He won't come, right? And there is this sense that like, he's sort of like fucks around with her by saying like, well, we don't know -- my seed like, it's been so long and like, maybe the like train, like the bullet train of my semen will be too concentrated for you and you'll die.
Jennifer Prokop 1:19:19 / #
You'll shoot up into space.
Sarah MacLean 1:19:21 / #
Let's be fucking honest. It's because he still is afraid that she is his mate. Right?
Jennifer Prokop 1:19:26 / #
Absolutely.
Sarah MacLean 1:19:28 / #
So they're doing it on this rock and she like scratches him. And like, the contraceptions spell is wrecked and then his demon seal it breaks and he comes all over inside her and she did not die. And she's like, haha, I told you.
Jennifer Prokop 1:19:46 / #
It's also to me like the counter-argument to when Holly was sort of like it wouldn't have mattered how many contraceptions you use, you're definitely getting knocked up because you the vessel, right? I feel like I never really loved that moment. And so this moment where he essentially tries something similar and it doesn't work, but it's on him? It felt a little like as a reader, like, Okay, I'm getting the other side of that scene. And I did-- I was I was happy for Josie-- I really was!-- that his sort of attempt to like, keep her from knowing that... Because she needed, she, It's really important I think for her that he finally says: yes, you're my mate.
Sarah MacLean 1:20:31 / #
Yeah, of course it is. I mean, And who can blame her? So because that's the final? That's the final like nail in the coffin--it's a terrible metaphor. Yeah, like that's the final moment right? After That?Happily ever after.
Sarah MacLean 1:20:49 / #
it never, it doesn't get worse than this. Like it doesn't get better than this. literally, this is the moment this is moment where the book ends.
Jennifer Prokop 1:20:55 / #
Yeah, except Rune is a stupid motherfucker.
Sarah MacLean 1:20:58 / #
To the unassuming reader, this is the moment where the book ends. And this goes immediately to-- they've already been invited to Val Hall to meet with Nix and Thad. They go immediately to Nix and Thad, they fight together. They bone a little bit. And that's that. Scene.
Sarah MacLean 1:21:13 / #
Come meet us next week with Wicked Abyss. Except
Jennifer Prokop 1:21:20 / #
Except
Sarah MacLean 1:21:21 / #
Val Hall is protected by the wraiths. Right? Who now, and this is so smart, Kressley just, I mean, it all just like knits itself together perfectly right?
Jennifer Prokop 1:21:32 / #
Oh, god, it's amazing. It honestly is breathtaking. It is a
Sarah MacLean 1:21:36 / #
you. I say this all the time. People don't want to do the whole IAD series. They feel like it's too much. Sweet Ruin is a master class in plotting-- like, from the start to the finish every thing that happens on the page, and there is a lot of plot in this book. It leads toward this sort of masterful moment at the end. So we get to Val Hall and Rune has a plan. He has something in his back pocket which is there's a nymph who he's never slept with who swears she has something that will get them into Val Hall. So he's like well, all right. Worst case scenario, I have to go do my fucking job, and fuck this nymph, and then get whatever it is that she has, right? Obviously this is a terrible idea. The other option -- but he's like, I got all my arrows! I can do this, we can do this, between Josie being able to do telekinesis, me with all my arrows, we can get into Val Hall, no problem. So they start and it doesn't work. Josie's doing everything-- she throwing, she's doing her very best, the wraiths won't break. She can't trace in, she can't ghost in, there's nothing. can't do it. he's using his strongest arrows. The Wraith ring is like tilting, but not breaking. And so finally He's like, why? There's no choice?
Jennifer Prokop 1:23:07 / #
Yeah, I gotta go fuck this other lady.
Sarah MacLean 1:23:09 / #
She has a phoenix feather. and a phoenix feather will get me and I can make an arrow with it that will break the ring. So Josie is like you can, like you can't go sleep with this girl.
Jennifer Prokop 1:23:23 / #
Now I want to say there. This is the other way that the Vow of the Lore part pays off. Yeah, because he's like, well, you have to come with me. Listen, listen, you gotta come with me.
Sarah MacLean 1:23:33 / #
It's heartbreaking.
Jennifer Prokop 1:23:34 / #
And it harkens back to that opening scene where she did see him. Because you know that he's basically like, what we've been here before! No big deal, but you gotta come with me.
Sarah MacLean 1:23:44 / #
He's like, he says to her, you can ghost into me so you can feel what I'm feeling and you'll know I don't care.
Jennifer Prokop 1:23:50 / #
which is nothing.
Sarah MacLean 1:23:51 / #
And she's like, that sounds terrible. All of this is terrible.
Jennifer Prokop 1:23:57 / #
Yeah. And he says, I'll be thinking about You the whole time.
Sarah MacLean 1:24:01 / #
Whatever it's not a thing! It's my job. And then he does like the worst bit, which is like: I told you. I told you I wasn't going to change. You just want to reach through the page into his.. and just strangle him.
Jennifer Prokop 1:24:15 / #
I definitely put him in cold storage. I was so mad.
Sarah MacLean 1:24:23 / #
so they go into the covey and Dalli is there, Rune's friend Dalli, who runs the cove. This is where you know, I told you I wanted my Christmas novella with Deshazer and Dalli? this is it. Dalli runs the covey, Rune comes in, he gets a standing ovation. Josie is like fuck this nonsense. He's basically like, you can't go far, you have to stay here because I don't know how far your vow-- like we can't risk it.
Jennifer Prokop 1:24:50 / #
Right well and and Dalli's like. What in the fuck is wrong with you, bro.
Sarah MacLean 1:24:57 / #
She's like this is not good. This is not not working. So he's like, no, it's fine. It's fine. It'll be fine. And so he goes,
Jennifer Prokop 1:25:06 / #
it's so bad
Sarah MacLean 1:25:07 / #
and this woman is like, you better make it good for me-- it has to be long, it has to be good because you know, this is it. I'm giving you this Phoenix feather. and Josie starts to cry. And she cries black tears. She walks out and Deshazior is coming in, and he's like, Nix told me
Jennifer Prokop 1:25:29 / #
yes
Sarah MacLean 1:25:30 / #
three books ago, right that I would see-- She said, when you see the girl with the black tears tell her to surrender. And so he's looking at her and he's like, You're the girl with the black tears. Surrender. And Josie is like, fuck you, never. she gets her second wind and she goes back to Val Hall and starts throwing Lamborghinis
Jennifer Prokop 1:25:56 / #
like everything
Sarah MacLean 1:25:57 / #
she uproots fucking trees, she uproots A tree that has nymphs all in it and they all fall out. she's like, throwing shit at Val Hall and basically is like I will tear this house, I will break this house to the ground. So cut to inside were Lothaire is like, Jesus fucking Christ. Like, what is happening in here?
Jennifer Prokop 1:26:22 / #
Right right. What kind of fucking team Vertas thing Have you got going on here? Who is this bitch? Right? It's amazing.
Sarah MacLean 1:26:31 / #
And then you go back to Rune and Rune has decided: I can't do this.
Sarah MacLean 1:26:37 / #
He's found his, I mean, he's not able to do it. So he's like, I gotta quit my job. Anyway, Rune leaves, so he steals the Phoenix feather.
Jennifer Prokop 1:26:48 / #
But wait, I would like to say he has a conversation with Dalli first, right? Yeah. And this is important to me as a person who like loves graveling-- I really need to see the moment where you have been destroyed. And he looks like, this motherfucker stumbles out of this nymph's bed naked and is like trying to throw his clothes on, and Dalli is like, Oh my god, practically with-- like, I can't even describe how she must be looking at him right now. And he's like, Where is she? And she's like, gone, motherfucker. She is gone. And he is like, how? And she's like, well, she's with another man. And he freaks out and she's like, you don't get to do that.
Sarah MacLean 1:27:32 / #
Oh, because she said-- Oh Josie made another vow to the lore. Josie says I vowed of the Lord that for every time you fuck another woman. Yeah, I will fuck another man. And he's like, what? have you Done again?
Jennifer Prokop 1:27:49 / #
And it's like this really interesting way in which he like, like, that's not important to me. But it's important to her.
Sarah MacLean 1:27:55 / #
That's when he realizes Yeah,
Jennifer Prokop 1:27:57 / #
and then what he also realizes is She's.... because he's like I'm doing it for Thad, right? He's got this fucked up thing in his head. And what he realized is Is she still love Thad, but she loves me more. And she would never asked me to do this for him. And why am I asking and it's it really honestly now again I am not gonna lie to you I read this book and I was like, You need to be in cold storage overnight.
Sarah MacLean 1:28:25 / #
Oh, I mean right for another 10,000 years. See you in 10,000 years.
Jennifer Prokop 1:28:31 / #
I was still so pissed right there was not enough groveling for me in this book. Because even though, and and I will say he then goes to Val Hall, he figures out that that's where she,
Sarah MacLean 1:28:41 / #
But wait, can we talk about the fact that when he gets to Val Hall, all the Morior are there, like, okay, I want you to imagine this everybody, I'm going to paint you a picture. Okay? Your entire personal life is falling apart, like fucking falling apart because of you, asshole. Yes turn up to like, woo back your lady love. And everyone you work with
Jennifer Prokop 1:28:41 / #
is like, where have you been? And they all have telepathy so they all know what you did. They're like, are you a fucking dumbass?
Sarah MacLean 1:29:17 / #
talking in your head? Like, what the fuck have you done? And one of them is like, I'm pretty sure this is your mate. She's a total Kook
Jennifer Prokop 1:29:29 / #
maniac!
Sarah MacLean 1:29:33 / #
she's just destroying millions of dollars worth of cars.
Jennifer Prokop 1:29:38 / #
Yes.She's gonna be like literally like folding Louisiana in on itself in order to get rid of this house and get her brother back.
Sarah MacLean 1:29:44 / #
Somebody is like, she's magnificent. And he's like, no, don't even. Sian, who is the most Who is the most beautiful human, the most beautiful creature ever to walk the earth is like she's brilliant.
Jennifer Prokop 1:30:02 / #
So and and here's the part that I love then, like basically Thad is on the other side of this he doesn't know that it's Josie right? He, so they're having this moment and he finally realizes like Oh shit, this is my long lost sister who I thought was dead and he like picks her up and he's like cradling her in his arms and, okay, there's the whole flashback where we realize she's basically Supergirl. Then, which I like I was like, that's the other part I didn't love I just remembered. Anyway, she... and Rune, essentially is like, Give her to me. Give her to me.
Sarah MacLean 1:30:38 / #
Yeah, he's like, I love her. She's my mate. I give her to me.
Jennifer Prokop 1:30:41 / #
And That's like, Nah,
Sarah MacLean 1:30:43 / #
I don't think so. Bro.
Jennifer Prokop 1:30:44 / #
Yeah, yeah. Who the fuck are you? And Thad said since she was using her powers against you. You are not... you might feel that way about her, but she does not feel that way about you. And I really did love Thad in that moment.
Sarah MacLean 1:30:56 / #
Yeah, well, Thad's great.
Jennifer Prokop 1:30:58 / #
I haven't seen her in forever, but clearly You do not deserve... I'm not handing her over to you.
Sarah MacLean 1:31:03 / #
It's magnificent. So Thad takes Josie home to mom and grandma. and then suddenly this book gets real fucking weird but I love it like I love it.
Jennifer Prokop 1:31:16 / #
Well it's like chapter 71. We've been on a journey.
Sarah MacLean 1:31:21 / #
what's funny is Eric is gonna be like, this is where the book gets weird? They go home to the place where their mother and grandmother live
Jennifer Prokop 1:31:37 / #
and they like hang out for a week.
Sarah MacLean 1:31:39 / #
Yeah. Oh, so I mean, we don't have to we're not going to get into like how Kresley neatly like Sews up the wraiths versus the Valkyries, versus everything. But basically, at the end of this Nix is like, all right, you're on our team. Right? And the Morior are like, I guess this is over then. Oh, cuz Nix basically said to Rune, you can't kill me anymore because if you the second you kill me, she dies like she can't, she can't eat or whatever, because she's not with you anymore. Right? So So and then she makes Rune vow that none of the other Morior will kill her either right? he won't come from her and none of his brethrn will.
Jennifer Prokop 1:32:22 / #
Yeah, it's like it's a trap. And I think the other part that I I actually also want to say is you know, 800 books ago The setup is that the wraiths are going to protect the Val Hall, but that once the braid that the wraiths are collecting the locks of hair from is long enough, they'll be able to control every Valkyrie in the world for a certain amount of time. And then because things go sideways if this fight, she's like, You fucked up and now our contract is void and they were literally one lock of hair away. And again, And like you like you're like-- perfect it's perfect! because the whole time you've been like-- well shit what's going to happen when these wraiths and then you're like oh..
Sarah MacLean 1:33:10 / #
nothing. nothing's gonna happen with the wratihs.
Jennifer Prokop 1:33:13 / #
nothing's gonna happen. Nix is gonna fire those motherfuckers! you didn't do your job
Sarah MacLean 1:33:18 / #
exactly
Jennifer Prokop 1:33:18 / #
Look who got through. it's amazing.
Sarah MacLean 1:33:21 / #
it's perfect
Sarah MacLean 1:33:22 / #
it is perfect and this is also the scene where Allixta is like these bitches haven't paid their taxes and they threatened me. I love it. i love it. I have a pin you guys that Jen had best friend Kelly make for me that says what would Alixta do? Cuz I just I love her, I love her so much. Like I made a list of my favorite IAD characters it would go Loa, Alixta, Deshazior.
Jennifer Prokop 1:34:01 / #
Amazing,
Sarah MacLean 1:34:04 / #
So that's that. So then they go home, they go home to this house, where two old ladies like to take care of Thad. Just like everyone likes to care for Thad, like literally every person in the world including Jen and me. Careful want to care for Thad. Yeah. Um, and so they go home to this house. We're like people make fried chicken despite the fact that vampires only eat, drink blood and joy and basically like, they're like the librarian who adopted Thad a thousand years ago, says you can stay with us, your family, you stay with us. And she's like, Oh my god I have family. She's like, but I, but I loved that guy. ---Who was an asshole. So fuck him. Yes, I'll get over it. And she's like, I'll stay for a week. Yeah,
Jennifer Prokop 1:34:53 / #
I'll stay for a week and meanwhile Rune figures out where she is and just like, fucking eavesdropps, and watches From like the pool house. I was like, this would only be acceptable to me if he was like, had to lay on a bed of nails while he did, Or perhaps if like he constantly was slamming his fingers in the door or something like that I wanted him to be more tortured.
Sarah MacLean 1:35:16 / #
I know. And part of the challenge here is that we don't see his torture on the page. We don't. It goes back to that moment with MacRieve where like, you know, whatever. They're like, well, we could, you know, we have an incubi here who's happy to, you know, give her her sex medicine and he's like--- we're not in his head. We can't see it. And here we see Rune work quickly to protect and then we see but what we do see is Rune leaves to meet Orion to say I quit. Yeah, I'm not gonna be your you're like fucking informant. And Orion's like, Yeah, but you're my Archer.
Jennifer Prokop 1:35:59 / #
Wait, what are you talking about and what have you been up to?
Sarah MacLean 1:36:02 / #
And this is where I'm going to kick it to Rune-- Jen. Because I have a thing that I think you should talk about, which is dreams come into play in this book.
Jennifer Prokop 1:36:15 / #
Yeah,
Sarah MacLean 1:36:16 / #
Josie. How do we feel about Josie dreaming Rune's memories? Is it still achieved?
Jennifer Prokop 1:36:24 / #
You know, I was thinking about this today because we have talked about this so much. So basically what happens is she's been dreaming his memories of the beginning and then she accidentally gives it away when-- she said this before they have sex, right?-- When she says Good Warring. And he's like, how long have you known? And what do you know? And what was really interesting about this moment to me is in some of the previous books, I thought a lot about this and how I wanted to say it. I'm not sure I'm going to do it justice. In previous books, when the men like understand what has happened to their heroines? It's because we don't want the heroines to have to say it on page, we don't want to have to like essentially like traumatize them again. And so I ended up kind of coming around to liking it, although I did feel like it was a cheat, like with Lothaire, like whatever. But in this case, I ended up thinking that it was like we needed to see it on the other foot. And for him, he needed to see that she was not going to pity him. Right. And I think that that's like, again, it's just, what is the emotional response you want when you when you can hear someone's stories? and he just never wanted her to pity him and the fact that she doesn't, and that she knows what happened to him, And he very quickly understands that it means that he can still trust her, I guess. I do think it was really really important that that happened before they have sex. And not after. Hmm. Because they have to go into that sort of clean, so I think the timing of that reveal did happen at the right time. I think it didn't have the same weight it did, Because I think she already is so in tune to his emotions that nothing about it really shocked her. Whereas when male characters do it it's like a shortcut to understanding things that happened to women that they never really think about. Exactly.
Sarah MacLean 1:38:29 / #
I think that's accurate. I really like it. I also think that it's another look look Kresley writes, very difficult childhoods for so many of her heroes. This is another way of doing it. So that it doesn't feel so painful. to the reader.
Jennifer Prokop 1:38:47 / #
And I think after MacRieve, like okay, we've talked about leveling up-- you can't level up after MacRieve.
Sarah MacLean 1:38:53 / #
No, it's so awful. Well, MacRieve is so painful, too, the first like 60 or 70 pages or a lot Yes to
Jennifer Prokop 1:39:01 / #
And so we get the sense instead that he has like dealt with this, or is dealing this his own way and we're just where he is right now. Yeah. So I, I do think in that sense she's like I can just show this to Josie but I don't need to show it to you,
Sarah MacLean 1:39:18 / #
right. So I also want to talk about Josie beginnings, just briefly. So basically Josie is Superman.
Jennifer Prokop 1:39:28 / #
Supergirl.
Sarah MacLean 1:39:28 / #
Supergirl. Right.
Jennifer Prokop 1:39:30 / #
Have you watched Supergirl? The TV show with your daughter? Maybe she's too little.
Jennifer Prokop 1:39:34 / #
Well, it's essentially like the same in Supergirl, the TV show, which is the one I know, the one that's on right now. She essentially it's like is put in an escape pod at the same time that like Superman is and it's her cousin and she's supposed to like Watch out for him as a baby. Okay.
Sarah MacLean 1:39:52 / #
She's older than Superman.
Jennifer Prokop 1:39:54 / #
I think so. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Little Yes.
Sarah MacLean 1:39:57 / #
So anyway, there's an end of a world They go into stasis, Thad and and Josie go into stasis. And so it turns out Josie is like the primordial Phantom-vampire, right? Right. So here we are like our 24 year old heroine is actually like
Jennifer Prokop 1:40:20 / #
thousands of years old. Yeah.
Sarah MacLean 1:40:21 / #
Which is why Thad is so fucking powerful. And frankly why Josie is-- she hasn't reached the pinnacle of her power, but she will. So Rune overhears this, and it's like, Oh, that makes sense. It's a little bit of like a it's a work around, it is the single misstep in this book I think like the the kind of like suddenly he kind of gets where, he instantly understands everything that's happened but like, and we've never seen anything like this before. Like we've never seen. This is a brand new thing that's happening in IAD.
Jennifer Prokop 1:40:58 / #
My assumption was It's well established in this book that the Morior can read each other's minds. And so at this point in time, I just assumed it was almost like a new highway got was laid, down to her brain for the new telekinetic highway was basically just built.
Sarah MacLean 1:41:21 / #
Right.
Jennifer Prokop 1:41:21 / #
But yeah, I mean, I think
Sarah MacLean 1:41:23 / #
it's fine. It's fine. It's just not like I don't actually really care at all about it. I think that the challenge is, and it's partially because it has not-- I read spy novels-- It's partially because it has absolutely nothing to the romance, right. So like, you're sort of like, I don't care. I don't really care about this. So which is part of the challenge with that whole ending is he's watching from outside and there is a moment might one of my favorite moments in the whole book is when Rune finally reveals Himself, and she's like, you've been here for a week and I missed you. Where were you? And he's like, I was here. I was watching. And she's like why? You waited a week, Why didn't you come and talk to me? and he was like, because I wanted to put your needs before mine, which was the first, it's the first time Rune has ever ever done that, put anyone's needs before his own, with the exception of Orion, who he feels deeply indebted to because Orion saved him. It may not be enough of a grovel. And it's certainly not like an emotional grovel in the way that like, your favorite books of your favorite grovels are-- grovels that are deeply emotional. Yeah, Rune's gravel is very intellectual.
Jennifer Prokop 1:42:43 / #
I mean, the, again those classic Kresley: the grovel for her is action. so when she has her night drift, where she ghosts and drifts away
Sarah MacLean 1:42:53 / #
into the stars, which is her biggest fear.
Jennifer Prokop 1:42:56 / #
And his biggest fear is heights-- and he grabs onto her. And they are in lower Earth orbit.
Sarah MacLean 1:43:03 / #
Yeah, they're in the stratosphere, right.
Jennifer Prokop 1:43:05 / #
And there's point where she's like, oh, far we, and it's this amazing moment where he just shakes his head at her. She like, Oh, it's not good then. And she, essentially they plummet. It's like a freefall until she can materialize again. And then he traces them back to somewhere safe. And I did find myself thinking that in that way, it didn't surprise me.The grovel for him his action, which is I saw that you were drifting away. I knew that was your greatest fear. It's now hooking into my greatest fear. And I'm going to grab you anyway. Yep, wherever you're going, I'm gonna be with you.
Sarah MacLean 1:43:48 / #
I love it so much. and the he makes this magic room door in their house and Tortuga or wherever the hell they are. And if they open the door, they're like in the kitchen with it with her Mom,and it's just it's so sweet and perfect. And I love it. And I want them to have lots of babies.
Jennifer Prokop 1:44:07 / #
Hi, never that's not anything I ever want, but okay.
Sarah MacLean 1:44:11 / #
I want it at one point. He's like you could eat and we could, you know, try it.
Jennifer Prokop 1:44:15 / #
Yeah.
Sarah MacLean 1:44:17 / #
And she's like, I would have your babies and I'm like, I want you to have your babies.
Jennifer Prokop 1:44:23 / #
I don't want anyone to have babies. But I appreciate that I'm not-- like you know,
Sarah MacLean 1:44:28 / #
how do we go about the epilogue? You guys we are. It's two hours. It was a two hour episode.
Sarah MacLean 1:44:35 / #
We told them, we warned everyone. How do we feel with the epilogue? him teaching her how to read?. Oh, you're a teacher? Is that your jam?
Jennifer Prokop 1:44:47 / #
It is my jam
Sarah MacLean 1:44:48 / #
when he writes mine across her chest?
Jennifer Prokop 1:44:51 / #
Yes, please. Yeah, it's pretty sexy. Yeah, I think it's also here's the other thing. I would say. about him teaching her how to read... is. It's, it's You're so vulnerable when you have to put yourself in the position of learning, and it's also to be a teacher, you have to be so patient. And this is like a moment, I think. Yeah, so yeah, of course it totally worked for me.
Sarah MacLean 1:45:22 / #
Well, I also want to call it the fact that Kresley doesn't usually write an epilogue. Yeah, I know, right? There's this epilogue here. And part of what I love about it. Is that so the epilogue in a romance novel is it doesn't.... it does work. Like I yeah, a lot of people-- I'm gonna I'm gonna call out our Heaving Bosoms sisters. Because one of them I can't remember which one. I think it might be Melody doesn't read prologues or epilogues.
Jennifer Prokop 1:45:51 / #
Yeah, I know.
Sarah MacLean 1:45:53 / #
Right. It's like one I'm always like, that's not a thing. Like there. Those are words that we wrote for a reason. Yeah, so I know that. That's not actually uncommon A lot of people don't read epilogues Yeah, the epilogue does the work. Here's what the epilogue is doing for a True Romance reader. It gives you proof that happily ever after happened. And so this is why like I I know like you don't want anybody you don't wish babies on anyone and I don't either your body your choice ladies....but....but I love a baby in an epilogue because it sort of like flags that we're in the future, this couple will have a legacy, they'll have a legacy-- in 1000 years there will be more Josie and Runes right running around. But so that said, that's a weird and I get it I get the problematic nature of that. We can talk about that in another episode. But in this particular case, what Kresley is giving us is a glimpse of happily ever after these two, this is like four pages of pure domestic idle. Like, they're in this house, reading books. smooching, joking, getting a little frisky. And it's lovely. Even though outside the door. Something is brewing.
Jennifer Prokop 1:47:18 / #
And I think you know, what it reminds me of is, um, you know, the movie Speed which @bandherbooks swears is a romance and I'm kind of with her there-- there's a whole ongoing thing where he's always like, you know, relationships that start in intense circumstances never work out. And this is like this epilogue is like a little promise to us as a reader that even though so many intense things happen to these characters, and I would argue here this epilogue is like all of them. Right? That it's, it's it's like, okay, yes, but they still have these, These moments of domesticity where we see them together, doing things together, and so in that way it's unlike other epilogues, which are like wrapping up an entire book or series or looking to the future. This is just like a little outtake of their relationship. And yet, because we only saw them in action, we needed to see this too.
Sarah MacLean 1:48:21 / #
I agree.
Sarah MacLean 1:48:22 / #
I mean, like, there's no moment we I mean, it's pacing, right? there's just no time. None the whole book like the pacing is so fast. And like there's no time to see them quietly loving each other.
Jennifer Prokop 1:48:34 / #
And we need that!
Sarah MacLean 1:48:35 / #
We see them quietly loving each other in the epilogue, and it's beautiful. And I love it and I wish Kresley would write epilogues for all the characters.
Jennifer Prokop 1:48:44 / #
Yeah, yeah. So did you get it all out, Sarah?
Sarah MacLean 1:48:51 / #
Was it as good for you as it was for me.
Jennifer Prokop 1:48:54 / #
I want to tell you-- it was because I was really afraid that I would just be ...not have anything to offer but I do feel like I offered things for you.
Sarah MacLean 1:49:03 / #
You are Magnificent, magnificent I never worried about that at all.
Sarah MacLean 1:49:08 / #
I have some I have some outstanding questions like at one point Nix says to Rune Don't you want to know what the Runes on your mother's talisman mean? and she never gives them
Jennifer Prokop 1:49:20 / #
we don't know. Yeah.
Sarah MacLean 1:49:23 / #
I really really want Blace... I'm on record for wanting Blace and Fury to be a match. I know that Kresley has said Kristoff and Fury but who remembers who Kristoff is?
Jennifer Prokop 1:49:35 / #
Yeah, Kristoff is off. I don't think anybody cares about him anymore.
Sarah MacLean 1:49:39 / #
And then, Allixta, I want everybody to pay their taxes to Allixta.
Jennifer Prokop 1:49:44 / #
Yeah, I mean, a lot of things being set up here.
Sarah MacLean 1:49:49 / #
And I want that dragon to be a hero.
Jennifer Prokop 1:49:53 / #
Yeah, I think there was, god, there's something else for me and I just lost it. But I remember thinking.... Oh, There is one line when they're like kind of fighting and Team Vertas, including Lothaire was up on the porch or whatever, where there's this line about like how her carefully constructed Alliance already had cracks in it.
Sarah MacLean 1:50:15 / #
Whose? Nix's?
Jennifer Prokop 1:50:16 / #
Nix's, right. So there's a sentence that's like her carefully constructed Alliance was already showing cracks. And I'm so I'm really curious about that because of course at this point I'm so convinced that Nix anything we see is what she wants us to see.
Sarah MacLean 1:50:35 / #
Well, what's really interesting is we're about to move into Wicked Abyss, and there's virtually no Lore. It's so self contained. But it's really I mean, like I think Monro being next is a really fascinating choice because
Jennifer Prokop 1:50:50 / #
oh god me, too
Sarah MacLean 1:50:51 / #
I can't You know, I've said this from the start that like at the beginning of every Kressley book, I think to myself, like all right, what are the threads? How is it going to work itself out and I'm always wrong. I can not see any reason why Munro would be next. But it is yeah. And Kresley for sure has a reason. So
Jennifer Prokop 1:51:08 / #
yeah. Okay, so, Sarah Yes. Next time, we're going to The Player. Yay.
Sarah MacLean 1:51:19 / #
Also, we didn't really talk a lot about Rune as a broken hero but like we are going to do some real work on broken heroes with The Player.
Jennifer Prokop 1:51:27 / #
And then we're going to do Shadow's Claim and Shadow's Seduction together. And then we'll go to Wicked Abyss. And I you know what, don't ask us what season two fated mates is because yeah,
Sarah MacLean 1:51:40 / #
we have a season two plan but we're not ready to reveal it. But there I mean, that's kind of it right? Like there is a season two. Yeah, there is a season two. It's coming. either end of August, beginning of September. I don't know what the dates are. But we'll start there. You're not taking a break. We're going to leave we're going to jump right into it. It'll be fated mates. You know, Ruby Dixon?
Jennifer Prokop 1:51:48 / #
Yes. Fine. Hey, you know what
Sarah MacLean 1:52:07 / #
fated mates blue aliens. Yeah.
Jennifer Prokop 1:52:12 / #
So can I say something exciting that's happening in my life? Everybody? Yay. Yes. I think I'm kind of ready to announce it. So I'm in just a couple of days from when this comes out on July 6, Kirkus will be putting I've been asked to interview a bunch of authors and the first author interview goes up on July 6, it's going to be Reese Ryan. And this is like the kickoff of what looks like a kind of full time gig for me at Kirkus as their correspondent
Sarah MacLean 1:52:43 / #
Yay, romance correspondent. But she's not leaving the podcast, I would only allow her to takethis job if She's promised she's not leaving the podcast.
Jennifer Prokop 1:52:54 / #
I'm a little nervous because there's like a new editor in chief so who knows maybe he'll be like, man, she's terrible. But as of Right
Sarah MacLean 1:53:00 / #
now I'll be like, Wow, she's amazing. She should have my job.
Jennifer Prokop 1:53:03 / #
obviously.
Jennifer Prokop 1:53:05 / #
I already have like a bunch of jobs. This is the job.
Sarah MacLean 1:53:08 / #
I don't think you want to be editor in chief of Kirkus. Oh, yay, July is gonna be super exciting. I have a thing happening in July to
Jennifer Prokop 1:53:15 / #
you do have a thing happening in July. Tell us about it.
Sarah MacLean 1:53:18 / #
You guys have a book out. I've been talking to you about it a lot. I know. It's called Brazen and the Beast. It's out July 30. If you preorder from my local bookstore, which is Word in Brooklyn, we'll put the link in show notes and you say Fated Mates, you can get stickers, you can also get these amazing mirrors. Either preorder will be fine. And it will come with a mirror that says the year of you which will make sense when you read about Hattie. Fun fact for fated mates listeners. There are at least three points in this book, where my editor, circled a line and said this feels intense and it's basically because it was like a Kresley Cole line, like he would bring her the heads of her enemies.
Sarah MacLean 1:54:06 / #
So, I feel like anybody who loves IAD if they're willing to try a historical this might be a book that you would like it's gonna be a book that you like, trust me. It's amazing, but it's coming out July 30. And that's exciting. Jen and I are also doing a live episode of faded mates with the wicked wallflowers crew, Jenny and Sarah, we'll be doing that at RWA, which is the third week of July. I'm also hosting the RITAs, we'll put links to that that so you can watch online. The RITAs are a whole lot this year. Jen's been reading all the books will will connect to her thread also. And is that two hours it's a lot. This is fated mates everyone. We Love you. Thanks for staying with us for two hours. Thanks for letting me like screaming your earholes about Rune Darklight for two hours. I gotta say like, I feel like I have to like give a speech or something related to this episode, but like I've been waiting for this episode forever. I'm really excited that all of you are still with us. We started this for fun and like this is awesome. I'm super excited.
Jennifer Prokop 1:55:21 / #
Me too
Sarah MacLean 1:55:22 / #
subscribe if you haven't already. Although if you are listening to us what's wrong with you subscribe on your local podcast app.
Sarah MacLean 1:55:29 / #
We are free. If you haven't and you feel so inclined, please give us a review like us. And you can always look at show notes which are amazing. Jen puts them together and does so much work every week. And you can What else? What else can they do? They can comment on the website at fatedmates dot net, Instagram or Twitter, Twitter fatedmates, Instagram fatedmates pod.
Sarah MacLean 1:55:54 / #
We love you. We do love you. Bye guys. Bye, everybody.
15.5: Epistolary Romances
Love letters are the best because they’re personal and honest and raw and beautiful, and this week—by request—we’re talking about all the different ways romance tells epistolary love stories! Leave us your own version of a love note in comments!
Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in your favorite podcasting platform — and while you’re there, please leave us a like or a review.
Next week, IT IS HAPPENNNINNNGGGGG! We’ll be talking about Sweet Ruin, Sarah’s favorite book in the IAD series, and she is BEYOND EXCITED to talk about her favorite Kresley hero and the magnificent, perfect heroine who refuses to back down from their fated matehood. Block off some time, as we can’t guarantee this will be anything near a normal length episode! Read Sweet Ruin at Amazon, B&N, Apple Books, Kobo, or from your local Indie. Also, we promise you won’t be disappointed by the audio of this one!
Show Notes
It was @jenalice1 who requested an epistolary interstitial.
"That INXS song" that played in the universe when Sarah met her husband was Never Tear Us Apart.
Sarah didn't like the movie Mystery Men. (Jen did.)
Text messaging has come a long way since ICQ, but it looks like there are ICQ nostalgia apps in case you miss it.
We muddled through our Kristen Callihan favorites for a while: The one where they fuck in the library, the one with the virgin NFL player with the piercing, and the one with Scottie.
When Sarah said "Mr and Mrs Smith but make it gay," Jen was thinking of The Spies Who Loved Her series by Katrina Jackson but couldn't remember them.
Salt with Angelina Jolie.
Archie was a non-cool name that is experiencing a resurgence.
when Jen said Not if I Save You First was "An RWA book," she meant it was a RITA finalist.
Atonement, fuck that book.
The Crimea? The Napoleonic Wars.
A still funny New Yorker cartoon about Power Point.
The Vixen and the Vet (not that kind of Vet) has extensive heroine-groveling.
The problem of how we should archive our personal electronic communication is soemthing people think about.
Multimedia apps for The Waste Land and Ulysses.
The Cyrano story is well-entrenched that it has become a trope.
A perfect tweet from Kate Clayborn.
Pre-order Brazen and the Beast from Word in Brooklyn, mention Fated Mates at checkout, and you'll get a bunch of cool swag.
Kelly's business is Resistance Buttons, so check that out.
Buy fun stamps, including these that Jen pre-ordered.
Write some postcards to voters.
Sweet Ruin is coming.
15: How Is She Even Able To Walk? - The Master
We’re back with The Game Makers Series this week — talking with the wonderful Sophie Jordan about her favorite book in the series, The Master! Starring Maxim Sevastyan and the first-time escort who lays him flat (in all ways), This one has all the insane sex stuff of the last Game Makers book, now with birth control insanity, and a sweet nod to holiday traditions…and a trip into the Internet to look at chastity belts.
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, IT IS HAPPENNNINNNGGGGG! We have reached Sweet Ruin, Sarah’s favorite book in the IAD series, and she is BEYOND EXCITED to talk about her favorite Kresley hero and the magnificent, perfect heroine who refuses to back down from their fated matehood. Block off some time, as we can’t guarantee this will be anything near a normal length episode! Read Sweet Ruin at Amazon, B&N, Apple Books, Kobo, or from your local Indie. Also, we promise you won’t be disappointed by the audio of this one!
Show Notes
Welcome Sophie Jordan!
You should listen to the Wicked Wallflowers podcast where Sophie talks about her Game Makers Series theory.
The politics of lane-sharing at the pool are more complicated then you'd think!
In case you don't know what pendejo means.
ICYMI: one of our first interstitials was about the escort trope.
I guess we did learn more about what Christian was thinking when she fell over the threshold in that 50 shades sequel, Grey.
Is there really a morning after shot?
The Smart Bitches gave The Master a D! /clutches pearls
If you haven't read Lord of Scoundrels, you should.
I decide who is a Pretty Woman quote. Of course.
The Robin Hood Men in Tights chastity belt, or iron underwear as it's more commonly known.
Sophie's upcoming book is The Duke's Stolen Bride.
You can preorder signed copies of Brazen and the Beast from Word in Brooklyn. You can download Wicked and the Wallflower for $2 all of June.
"That great Kerrigan Byrne Newgate one" is called The Highwayman.
Bitch Planet is an amazing comic.
Sweet Ruin is coming!
14.5: Space Romance - There Are No Wallflowers in Space!
Well, it was destined to happen sometime—we’re taking the show intergalactic! This week we’re talking about space romance and why it’s totally. fricken. bananas. Discover the series that brought Jen and Sarah together, hear us talk about prison planets, sex planets, the Muppet Show and more. Series by Grace Goodwin, Emmy Chandler, Robin Lovett & Jessie Mihalik.
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?
We’re back to the Game Makers in two weeks with Jen’s favorite of the three books, The Master, and one of our favorites, Sophie Jordan! Get ready for chastity belts and string bikinis! Read The Master at Amazon, B&N, Apple Books, Kobo, or from your local Indie.
Show Notes
Who knew there was so much to say about The Muppets? We both loved Pigs in Space, and Sarah mentioned that General Hospital-style skit. The Muppet Show is streaming on YouTube. And they're still making new ones!
How many dudes were in Dead Poet's Society? Well, there was Robert Sean Leonard. Ethan Hawke. And Josh Fucking Charles, of course. And then these other guys.
Josh Charles and his amazing man hands on The Good Wife, kissing Alica in an elevator.
Oh, and Sarah also likes Sports Night even though Aaron Sorkin is definitely a problem.
Muppets from Space. Omg.
A few early space romances were Sweet Starfire and Warrior's Woman.
Formative 80's space and sci-fi movies: Conan the Barbarian. Back to the Future. Star Wars.
We deserved more than one kiss and real snotty offspring.
"Make is So," says Jean-Luc Picard.
Australia was the original prison island.
You should read The Most Dangerous Game. It's an amazing story.
Robin Lovett is reading Dark Skye.
Aurora Blazing doesn't come out until October, but you can read the first chapter here.
Jen recommends The Chernobyl miniseries and the podcast. Sarah thought she was joking when she said I should go to twitter and ask for nuclear romances, like I hadn't thought of that already.
Sarah recommends Booksmart.
The Master is next, and we'll be joined by Sophie Jordan.
The Moon is not a fucking part of Mars. My God.
Transcript
Movie Dialogue 0:00 / #
And now another controvertable episode of
Jennifer Prokop 0:03 / #
Fated Mates. Welcome everybody. We're going to be talking about space romances. I'm Jen Reads Romance.
Sarah MacLean 0:13 / #
I'm Sarah MacLean. I write romance novels and I read romance novels. And all I want is for a pig's in space-style intro to this, where it's like, "Romance in Space!"
Jennifer Prokop 0:29 / #
Oh God, me too Miss Piggy was formative.
Sarah MacLean 0:34 / #
Man. "Pigs in Space" was the best. Also the -- I forget what it was called, but the General Hospital-style soap opera on the Muppet Show? We're super dating ourselves. Now. I'd like everyone to appreciate.
Jennifer Prokop 0:49 / #
I don't even care because it's amazing. She just, everything was so sparkly and silvery when she was in space. I loved it.
Sarah MacLean 0:58 / #
I know. I know. And it's making me want, I wonder if The Muppet Show's on Netflix? "The Muppet Show should be on something I would love to show my daughter The Muppet Show.
Jennifer Prokop 1:10 / #
Yeah, I'm, I'm pretty sure it's somewhere that's I remember going through that when our son was younger, and really being like, "We got to watch the Muppet Show, man." It's good times.
Sarah MacLean 1:19 / #
Well cause also, as a grown up, you come to Sesame Street with your kids. And then you realize all the good muppets are not on Sesame Street. The good smartass muppets, Miss Piggy, uh Gonzo, Fozzie Bear. None of them are on Sesame Street.
Jennifer Prokop 1:41 / #
One of my favorite Muppet movies is the one with Gonzo being from space. God, what was that one? Hold on. I gotta. I don't. Muppet Movie.
Sarah MacLean 1:54 / #
I don't know. But I do feel like this is giving Eric some meat food.
Yeah, there was a there was a movie that was all about Gonzo and you know who else had had? Okay? The guy from The Good Wife and Dead Poets Society that oh makes me bite my fist because he's still fucking handsome.
Are you talking about Robert Sean Leonard?
Jennifer Prokop 2:16 / #
No I'm not. I'm not about fuck that guy. I'm talking about the other guy. You know the one who was on the Good Wife?
Sarah MacLean 2:21 / #
Ethan Hawke.
Jennifer Prokop 2:22 / #
No. I'm talking about that the other guy. God.
Sarah MacLean 2:25 / #
How many other guys are there in Dead Poets Society?
Shut up. The best guy. The one...
Which one?
Jennifer Prokop 2:32 / #
The one who makes out in on The Good Wife, the one who makes out with her in the elevator?
Sarah MacLean 2:37 / #
You keep saying The Good Wife. It's not gonna make me have seen it.
Jennifer Prokop 2:40 / #
Ah, hold on. I'm like, "Google's my friend."
Sarah MacLean 2:46 / #
You guys, welcome to my life.
Jennifer Prokop 2:48 / #
No, stop it. I'm an amazing person. Just because I can't remember people's names.
Sarah MacLean 2:53 / #
Dead Poets Society is a seminal text for me. It's so. I'm confused by which guy, which boy you're talking about.
Okay, wait, I'm trying to find out. So Alicia, the one with Will Gardner. Okay, so Will Gardener is the name of the guy in The Good Wife. And ahhh I'm, you know.
Will Gardener is the guy.
Jennifer Prokop 3:16 / #
Max Overstreet! He's the guy plays Max Overstreet!
Sarah MacLean 3:19 / #
Wait a second. He's not good. He's a bad guy on ah, in a lot of things.
Jennifer Prokop 3:25 / #
Okay, but in this Muppet Movie with Gonzo he also is fine. I'm just telling you.
Sarah MacLean 3:29 / #
Well, he's fine everywhere.
Yeah, well, God, yes. Oh my God. There's a scene with him kissing Alicia Florrick in the fucking elevator.
Oh. Max Overstreet. You're right. And then.
Jennifer Prokop 3:39 / #
Max Overstreet!
Sarah MacLean 3:41 / #
He's the one that goes on the date and Dead Poets Society. And then what does he do? He brings, it's Josh Charles. Josh Charles night. It's from Sports Night.
Jennifer Prokop 3:51 / #
You know, I'm starting to realize that you and I not remembering names and titles is way deeper. There's a lot of layers to it.
Sarah MacLean 3:59 / #
I know. You guys so I know my faves are problematic but I have an obsession with Aaron Sorkin and the things that he writes and Sports Night is magnificent. And you have to appreciate that me saying that Sports Night is magnificent is it must be super magnificent because I know nothing about any thing involving balls. I mean blow up balls. Although. Wait. I mean, throw ball, kick ball.
Jennifer Prokop 4:04 / #
Sportsballs, Sarah.
Sarah MacLean 4:11 / #
Sportsballs. Although I will say that I was at a signing not long ago and a woman came up to me, a reader came up to me, and if you listen reader, please tell us who you are. Please say hi on Twitter or Facebook or somewhere. Um, she came up to me and she said, "Do you know the difference between you and Tessa Dare?" And I was like, "Well, I mean, we're not the same person. So I know a lot of things that are different about me and Tessa Dare." And she said, Tessa Dare writes about balls and you don't.
And I was like, "Oh," and I realized I really don't. I generally don't involve myself with testicles. Apparently Tessa does everyone. So you know if you've never read Tessa Dare and you're into balls she's for you.
Talk about a close fuckin read. I mean damn girl.
But I did come home and I put balls into that book. Cause I was like, "Well, I refuse to be bested."
Well, Sarah, I'll just circle back around to I'm real embarrassed to tell you the name of this fucking movie that you should watch with your daughter is called Muppets from Space. I's not even complicated. How the fuck could I not think of that? Muppets from Space. Jesus Christ.
Amazing. And is it Pigs in Space, but like a whole movie?
It's like a whole movie, Miss Piggy's for sure in it.
It's like the Wayne's World of the Muppet universe?
Jennifer Prokop 6:00 / #
They're trying to figure out where Gonzo's from, if I remember correctly, but it's really fucking cute. It's one of my favorites. It's really, really cute. So I would recommend it. I feel now, it almost feels dirty to somehow segue to romance from there, but you know, whatever.
Sarah MacLean 6:18 / #
Whatever. Romance and space and here's the interesting thing. It's real dirty in space. I feel romance off planet. It's like suddenly everybody's allowed to write whatever the hell they want.
Jennifer Prokop 6:33 / #
We've talked about this with, with paranormal, right, when you remove people from human society on Earth, you get to break a bunch of different rules. That totally makes sense to me.
Sarah MacLean 6:45 / #
Yeah, it, it actually really does. It's a interesting, because so I when we talked about doing this episode, my instant thought was like, 'Oh, well, we're gonna have to we have to talk about those early ones.' But I don't think there were that many super early romances, but they, there was a Jane Ann Krentz called "Sweet Starfire". The cover's pretty great. The heroine has the most perfect, they're basically just metallic boobs underneath there. They're weaponry.
They're they're very. It's not even perky. It's -- they defy gravity.
There very firm. They are incredibly firm breasts. Um. It's basic...so okay, so the heroine has telepathy, she's telepathic and um she is, well or no, I'm sorry she's not telepathic but she's from this world of people who are telepathic and she doesn't have it. There's some reason why she doesn't have it. And she has to figure it out, and then the hero is basically Han Solo. He's a delivery man in space.
Jennifer Prokop 8:08 / #
My theory, and I will get to this later in the show, is that every good character I love in a space romance is basically Han Solo.
Sarah MacLean 8:17 / #
I mean, it makes sense though, right? Especially, because so I don't know what date. I don't know what date this is, but it had to have been early days. Um, and well, I do know what date the other one is, the other one was written in the, so the other one that sort of is instantly imprinted on my mind is Johanna Lindsay's "Warriors Woman", which is in the Ly-san-ter series, which is spelled Ly dash san dash ter because I don't know dash.
That's how you show that you're an alien culture by having some real weird spelling. Gotta use a bunch of punctuation.
Add in punctuation to make it seem real to me, but I am gonna I know last episode I was like, "We're not gonna read the back cover copy" because it sucks but here's the thing: back cover copy has changed a lot over the years because if I had back cover copy like this, I would make everyone read it all the time. So, here it is. In the year 2139 fearless Tedra De Arr sets out to rescue her beleaguered planet, Kystran from the savage rule of the evil Crad Ce Moerr. Experienced in combat but not in love, the beautiful, untouched Amazon flies with Martha, her wise-cracking, free-thinking computer, to a world where warriors reign supreme--and into the arms of the one man she can never hope to vanquish: the bronzed barbarian Challen Ly-San-Ter. A magnificent creature of raw yet, disciplined desires, the muscle-bound primitive succeeds where no puny Kystran male had before--igniting a raging fire within Tedra that must be extinguished before she can even think of saving her enslaved world.
Jennifer Prokop 10:30 / #
That's a whole lot.
Sarah MacLean 10:31 / #
We're gonna read it y'all.
Jennifer Prokop 10:34 / #
I'm kind of ready to read it right now.
Sarah MacLean 10:36 / #
So it's like this is Conan the Barbarian fanfic. And then there's the you know, and it makes sense. Where Johanna Lindsay was an earthy, you know, Schwarzeneggery kinda lady. Jayne Ann Krentz is more of an intellectual. Uh. You know.
Jennifer Prokop 10:58 / #
Han Solo type of snark guy. We should I swear to God, I always say this but now it's summer so maybe I'm, I'm constantly like, "we should be making BuzzFeed quizzes that go along with this." Like, "Which 70s or 80s space hero Do you imprint on?"
Sarah MacLean 11:20 / #
So anyway, that is where so when I say there were space romance is not new. There were definitely I mean these are huge writers. These are the big names of the 80s writing these space romances 80s and 90s. And so certainly there was there, they appeared here and there, but there are more of them now. And there are more that are sort of well-known and respected and, um, real fucking entertaining, frankly.
Oh, God. Yeah. Well, that's, I think that's, I think what it is too. So here's a little secret about me as a reader, which is. Oh, are you okay?
I was just gonna say um, "Warrior's Woman" is was published in 1990.
Jennifer Prokop 12:11 / #
I am a more of a sci-fi person than a fantasy person. Just in general, right? When I move Back to the Future and movies I loved about space travel and aliens and Star Wars, Star Trek, all of that is way more my jam. And so one of the things about space romances is I um, I feel like there's there's world building but it's less maybe? You know, fantasy. I am not a good enough reader. I'm gonna own that. I'm just like, "Oh shit, who is this guy again?" You know what I mean? I feel somehow fantasy, it requires more of me as a reader in a way that I'm like, "Uhh I'm not good at this." So I do think it's that imprinting thing. When I think about Star Wars, Back to the Future, Star Trek, that whole decade where I was growing up and just I couldn't get enough of it. So part of me is like, "Of course I love these space romances. They're amazing." If Han, I mean all we ever get from Han Solo and Princess Leia is that one fucking kiss or whatever, right? We deserve more. We deserve better. We deserve space threesomes.
Sarah MacLean 13:27 / #
Yeah. laughing We deserve sex planets, so let's just make it so.
Movie Dialogue 13:34 / #
"Make it so. Sir? Do it."
Sarah MacLean 13:40 / #
Um, okay, so we're in. We're in a golden age. I would say.
Jennifer Prokop 13:45 / #
Yes. I love it.
Sarah MacLean 13:46 / #
Of space romance. Well, wait, where should we start? Should we just, should should we start with this series that...
Jennifer Prokop 13:53 / #
Brought us together!
Sarah MacLean 13:55 / #
Oh, well, we should start...laugh everyone thinks that it was IAD but it wasn't I mean Jen and I knew each other through the IAD you know universe,
Jennifer Prokop 14:05 / #
But our real bonding happened...
Sarah MacLean 14:07 / #
Yeah, but our real bonding came over Grace Goodwin
"The Interstellar Bride" series.
I'm so embarrassed by this whole episode.
Jennifer Prokop 14:18 / #
No. I'm not. They're fucking awesome.
Sarah MacLean 14:20 / #
They are.
Jennifer Prokop 14:20 / #
But you know what? I was. I was on a family vacation where there were more people than seats in cars. And so somehow I kept always getting left behind, which I swear didn't mean to happen, but it was get the kids and the grandparents there. And I was like, "Whatever you're going to a kid's movie, it's fine." And I read a ton of these fucking books you guys one after the other. I literally could not get enough of them.
Sarah MacLean 14:44 / #
What's the series name?
"The Interstellar Bride" series.
Yeah. Oh my God. So you guys. Okay, so Jen. Picture this. Let me paint you a picture. So Jen and I are not friends yet. I mean, we're friendly. We like each other on Twitter. We're follow, we follow each other on Twitter. But um, I don't know how it fucking happened. I think it probably happened because "Ice Planet Barbarians". So Sophie Jordan, who is joining us next week for "The Master", is a dear friend of mine and she loves a bananas book just more than anybody in the whole world. And she started reading those "Ice Planet Barbarians" books by Ruby Dixon. And we found ourselves down the rabbit hole, the two of us, and it was you know, we I looked up a week later and I've read like 17 of those blue alien books. It's, the whole week is a blur. And, um, and I would recommend the first, you know, however many you want to read until you're ready, you know, at some point, you'll just overdose on them and then you'll just be like, "Okay, I'm done with these blue alien books."
It's like when you're at a bar and you're drinking. It's the first real night nice of summer and you're drinking maybe some kind of frozen cocktail. They're going down real easy. And then all of a sudden you're like, "Whoa, I just did. Wait, I just overdid it."
Exactly. I imagine it's what, I've never done cocaine, but I imagine it's like coke. You're like, "This is great!" And then you're like, "Whoa, I need a nap."
Yeah, that was it. So we had to shift from that to another similar series, right?
Then we started, so then it was just one of those things where, anytime anybody asked, "What's the craziest thing you've read recently?" We'd be like, "Well, have you read Ice Planet Barbarians?" Because it's weird. I mean, a spaceship crashes. A woman out in this ice planet. She comes she stumbles upon a giant blue alien and he immediately goes down on her. And it's crazy. So whatever. Periodically the "Ice Planet Barbarians" comes up online, and like we talk about how crazy it is. Then Jen, DMs me, I think, "Have you read these Grace Goodwin books?" And I was like, "Well no, but obviously I'm in the mood for another drug." So the structure of these books are, first of all, these are not in KU. "Ice Planet Barbarians" are in KU so you sort of feel like it's free. Grace Goodwin has put her books not. You are paying $3.99 for each one of these books. And I mean, I'm not gonna lie. I gave that money to her for a long time. These are probably not in your library either, you guys. So the first chapter you're like, "Hello. Here's the heroine having sex with two men, or whatever it is."
Jennifer Prokop 17:48 / #
But they're aliens, right?
Sarah MacLean 17:50 / #
There's 4000 books in this series. And the first one, all you know is that she's having sex. She's in the middle of sex with this person and you're like, "This feels like a very jarring entry into a book. But okay, Jen recommended it." So. And then she wakes up and you realize that she has been in a machine. In a sort of, uh,
Jennifer Prokop 17:50 / #
An MRI sex machine.
Sarah MacLean 18:14 / #
An MRI sex machine.
Jennifer Prokop 18:18 / #
Sarah, that's what it is. Hello. Instead of it being a big doughnut, it's like a big vagina.
Sarah MacLean 18:28 / #
And then she wakes up and there's a doctor and the doctor's like, "Oh, hey, you've been matched" to an interstellar, a male of a species on another planet and you are a human. You're basically a fertile human, female, and you're basically going to be shipped off to this dude, wherever you are.
Well, and it's always this alien.
With sex compatibility.
Yeah, and the deal is that at least for the ones I've read, this interstellar bride program right, the other the alien planet, they have pairs of alien men essentially agreed to mate this woman or that's how it works on their planet because it's so dangerous that that way if one of them dies, the other one will be able to you know,
Protect her.
Jennifer Prokop 19:29 / #
Protect her and still be there for her. Now none of them ever die. So it's just these, polyamorous, super sexy threesomes.
Sarah MacLean 19:37 / #
But I will say, male female male.
Jennifer Prokop 19:40 / #
Oh always.
Sarah MacLean 19:40 / #
There's no crossing of the swords. Which is a big bummer for me.
Yeah, I think that's why you and I both are like, "Meh." Here's my other thing, is the the woman on earth who's part of the intake process. Her name is Warden A Gara. And as time went on, in these books, it became clear that she had some sort of backstory herself. And I was like, "It's like a year later, has she ever gotten her own book?" And I do not think so. But I bet we cannot be the only people who are like, "Warden A Gara, where is your book?"
Why doesn't she get herself in the machine?
Jennifer Prokop 20:16 / #
Well, I think she had a mate and something went wrong. And so now she's back in the pool and you know, not ready.
Sarah MacLean 20:23 / #
Sure, sure. So, take your time A Gara. Um, but here's what's really interesting because this is it. These really echo. So I'm really fascinated by the space books because I think they're doing some sort of interesting work, as part of the genre. I mean, this is welcome to Fated Mates everyone. We're gonna talk about, we're gonna try and figure out, why these
Jennifer Prokop 20:49 / #
What it's doing, right?
Sarah MacLean 20:50 / #
What, at first glance, feel like real one-handed reads, if you know what I mean, but I think doing some interesting work and what these books are doing is very similar to what medievals were doing in that they're telling a story about each one of these meetings in these Grace Goodwin books is intergalactic because intermarriage between the two cultures solidifies the relationship between the two planets. It's like your Norman female is sold to a Saxon warrior. Or vice vice versa. I don't remember my history. So I think whatever goes. So that's interesting, there's something going on there. But also then there's this very real sense of woman alone, in a world in a threatening world.
Jennifer Prokop 21:44 / #
Yeah, sure.
Sarah MacLean 21:45 / #
And there's something really compelling about that. In 2019 for me, I've been talking a lot about, you and I haven't talked in a ton about how it feels like now, in 2019, you have to options and romance you have the super soft, really gentle calm love story. Or you have like, space prison planet book. And we're gonna get to. The two. I feel like they're scratching the same itch, socially. Because I'm right now not really that interested in a soft book because I want to see threat. I want to see anger. I want to see women and people in marginalized communities triumphing over, you know, the worst. But I think a lot of people are like, "The world is horrible. And I just want to escape into my like, soft cinnamon roll of a book."
And I think that they're two sides of the same coin, which is how when, we think about like, "What does romance?" How does romance approach the patriarchy?" And I think one of the things we've talked a lot about is, we're excited about the way that it you know, I was reading really interesting thread this morning that was when we talk about romance being by women for women, that it that's that used to be true, but now it's also really trying, I think, at least the books I'm interested in trying to be a place for anyone who's on the downside of the gender spectrum, right? Anyone who's not a cis het male. And so therefore, opening up for non binary for queer people, right? And so I think that these books are really pushing against sometimes too gender dynamics, because one of the big differences I think of in these books is that women aren't always just receptacles or receivers. Sometimes they're fighting back. Sometimes they're the heroine. Sometimes they're saving their mate. Sometimes. I feel like there's a lot of ways in which it's, you put, you put people in space and then sometimes their roles. Whether they be gender roles or work related roles or marriage roles. Kind of, "get a chance to change because now you're in a different society." So I do think that that's, that's what it is too. So it's exploring like, "Who are we in relationship to this institution?" Maybe? Whether it be the prison planet, the meeting, the inter bride program, whatever.
Yeah, I agree. I think there's something really interesting to be said for, for just how these books are. It's weird because almost all of them sort of really solidify in some ways underscore that kind of physical difference between the sort of women as the weaker sex
Hmm, yeah right? Well, cause the aliens are always seven feet tall. It's like a monster dash, right?
Even in, so let's talk about let's talk about Emmy Chandler next. So, if you follow me on Twitter you know that I, about three weeks ago went through this massive Emmy Chandler phase. I was on retreat with a bunch of other authors, somebody recommended, we were talking about, I was with Sophie Jordan, Sophie loves a prison book, we're talking about these prison planet books. And now I can't remember the name of that series either. Anyway, and I had never read them. So I picked up the first of the Emmy Chandler prison planet books. The first one is called Guardian. Oh, it's just called Prison Planet, the series. And so the concept is people get shipped off from planet from, again, it's kind of a star trekky kind of futuristic society where there are many different planet many different planetary planets that are in part of some sort of planetary consortium. And if you commit a crime, you are sent to this prison planet where
Jennifer Prokop 26:22 / #
It's Australia.
Sarah MacLean 26:24 / #
Yeah, where there are sectors and each sector has a different kind of criminal in it. And women and men are sent to all the sectors and it's a very intense. Content warning on this. There's a lot of threat of sexual violence in this book. Because obviously, when you are in a position where women and men are imprisoned in a enclosed space, no matter how big the enclosed space like that sexual dynamic is that that dynamic of sex is going to be there between them. And it's overarching. There is a constant threat of sexual violence in these books. But what Emmy Chandler is doing here in that...so the first one is called Guardian and basically a woman is sent to this to this prison planet and then she discovers, she gets to choose her mate, like meat, she gets to choose the man who she is with for 30 days. And then his job is to protect and feed and clothe her and her job is, you know, to pleasure him and he of course, is very noble and heroic. And it all works out sort of fine at the end, although I want to talk about what fine means in the context of some of these books. The second one Hunter is my favorite of them.
Me too. And it's the most dangerous game basically, right?
Yeah. Yeah. So very rich people get to pay money to come down onto the prison planet and hunt killers basically in an enclosed space. So it's like Hunger Games, there's an enclosed space with lots of cameras and things that are monitoring you. In that one, the heroine gets herself put into this enclosed space too. So the hero and heroine are both being hunted by the same man. And the heroine is a technological genius. He is just physical, pure brute physical strength. She is mental. She's just a genius. And so to get so she saves the day in that book with her intellect,
Jennifer Prokop 28:50 / #
Right, and he keeps them safe when they're out in the woods essentially, right? I mean, so it's together they're this unbeatable team. Even against all of the ways in which they're ... the other hunter has weapons has technology as cameras can find them. There's these really terrifying metal dogs that essentially are just if they run into you, they're just gonna rip you to shreds. I mean, it's a classic, like "The Most Dangerous Game" is a classic, short story about a general who essentially creates his own island, right? And he's gonna hunt, the people who get shipwrecked on the island, and he sets up essentially a trap to shipwreck them. And have you read this?
Sarah MacLean 29:38 / #
No. But I mean I know the premise.
Jennifer Prokop 29:40 / #
You know, the trope, right? And it has to be an island the same way this has to be a prison planet, right? You have to be isolated. And even if you can defeat the hunter, how are you going to escape is always the meta question that's kinda underneath, right? There's no real escape from any of it even if you can beat this one, this one guy.
Sarah MacLean 30:04 / #
No. And so the third one, "Champion," is lady gladiator. She gets to choose her, she's sentenced to death, and she gets to choose the way she dies and she chooses fighting as a gladiator on the prison planet for TV. And the only woman who's ever done it. That's real Hunger Games-y. She gets a makeover and she has sponsors. If you loved the Hunger Games, and you wish there had been sex in it, and you are not scared and you are not triggered by sexual violence in any way. Nobody in these books actually, gets raped. But it's ... It's a threat constantly.
Jennifer Prokop 30:51 / #
Or it's happened in the past, right? I mean, in the second one, she's essentially been or no is it?
Sarah MacLean 30:57 / #
I think she kills him before. I mean, you should not, if that is triggering for you at all, you should not read these books. But that third one, "Champion," and you can read these standalone. You do not need to read them in order. But "Champion" is, if somebody said to me like, "I want Hunger Games, but a romance." It's "Champion." Um, anyway, and then they go on from there. But there's something really interesting about these books, especially now in that happily ever after in these books, can't really be happy.
Jennifer Prokop 31:35 / #
Cause the world is not righted.
Sarah MacLean 31:37 / #
They're still on a prison planet. Right? So it's a really odd. There's something very satisfying. They were incredibly satisfying for me as I was reading them. But I really I keep going back to why is because we talk all the time -- one of the big questions that -- I'm sorry, I know I'm talking a lot...One of the big questions we have a lot is it In historical, specifically, is, "Why don't people write poor characters in historical romances?" I mean, in contemporary is too. And the answer has always been well, because it's not, if you're poor, is it happily ever after? If you're more literally worried about where your next meal is coming from. Is it happily ever after? And these people are alone on a prison planet.
Here's what I think it's really about. I think this is the work right? We talk a lot about partnership, right? That's what a romance sort of delivers at the end is, these two individuals have become like a team, right? And now they're going to face whatever struggles to happen together. And I think that's why it ultimately works because even though they're still danger in their future, and we know that. We also know that they have come through something where we trust that whatever their future, right, whatever this future conflict is going to be for them, that they are going to tackle it together. And there's something really appealing about that. Right? And I don't necessarily, by the way, think that that's just a romance thing. I think that's a friendship thing. I think a lot of these books have, build communities of people together, right? I think going back to Ice Planet Barbarians, they all start to work together. And it's literally watching a new society form. Only it's one often where gender differences are irrelevant, or there's more equality. You know, people are essentially literally making a new world for themselves. So I think that's why that's really appealing.
Mm hmm. I agree. And it feels like if they could triumph over these really dark moments. If you can be a lady gladiator and survive, then what can't you do?
Jennifer Prokop 34:12 / #
You got this right? Well, and often I will also point out that almost always those external conflicts are human in nature. Right? So it's you got kidnapped and sent to the ice planet barbarians. These men who set up the the gladiator dome and you're in it or whatever. So they're beating humanity, and then forming something new on this new planet. I mean, I think really profoundly. It's this idea that we're starting over. We're going to do this better. We're not going to end up in 2019. We started there, but we don't have to end up there.
Sarah MacLean 34:53 / #
Yeah, well, what's interesting is that they're not all this kind of gendered? Funkiness and, and that's where I want to go next because I want to go to Robin Lovett's books. Um, Robin Lovett is writing a series called Planet of Desire. The first one is called "Toxic Desire." Fun fact. Johanna Lindsey. No, Johanna Lindsey, wrong. Fun fact, Sophie Jordan and Joanna Shupe both texted me about "Toxic Desire" within 18 hours of each other. I don't think you all have heard Joanna talk about bananas books. You will hear Sophie next week to talk about "The Master." But when they both recommend a book, I know it's gonna be special. So Planet of Desire is Robin Lovett series, where, again, it's futuristic, there's kind of an intergalactic Space Consortium, there's a big bad planet or bad guys.
Jennifer Prokop 36:05 / #
It's the 10 planets Consortium, I think or something right?
Sarah MacLean 36:09 / #
Yeah. Yeah, it's like the EU of space.
Jennifer Prokop 36:11 / #
And the thing that's really interesting, before you launch into this is, all of the, if you're working on one of the 10 planets ships, they demand that you be essentially gender neutral, but what that really means is that you are essentially disguising yourself if you're a woman to present more as a man. And so what happens is they land on this, this sex planet, and the reason it's a sex planet is because there's something literally in the atmosphere, the Desedre or whatever, I don't how to say it.
Sarah MacLean 36:43 / #
Aphrodisiac. The atmosphere itself is an aphrodisiac.
Jennifer Prokop 36:47 / #
And you can't get away from it right?
Sarah MacLean 36:50 / #
You're gonna die. If you don't have sex, you will die.
Jennifer Prokop 36:53 / #
Yeah, masturbating is not enough. It has to be a mutual thing, right?
Sarah MacLean 36:57 / #
Well, masturbating will help for a little bit. Yeah ultimately, you gotta have sex. And it doesn't matter it's can be there it can be. It can be any form of sex with, it's polyamory, queer, queer sex, whatever kind of sex you want.
Jennifer Prokop 37:15 / #
It does not have to be P in V.
Sarah MacLean 37:17 / #
It's about the emotional connection between the two, three, four, however many people.
Then what happens is, people there are as I mean, in the first one, there's an enemy. So the the alien kind of male of the species who's there hates the 10 planets people.
Enemies to lovers. Yeah. Cuz he was on. He was a prisoner on the ship or something? Anyway, he has gold skin. And, and when they when he when anybody has sex with this, this type of creature I mean, not creature but this type of being in the world. Yeah, they then turn gold.
Jennifer Prokop 38:06 / #
I know, it's amazing!
Sarah MacLean 38:06 / #
It's so crazy.
That sex is gonna make you golden.
But that's a really good one because he was this is again, it's a classic old school romance trope. "I was imprisoned by your people. I hate you by virtue of you being those people."
Jennifer Prokop 38:24 / #
And yet here we are together.
Sarah MacLean 38:26 / #
Here we are. We're forced. We are forced together and it's on. It's not only forced proximity, it's for sexual proximity, because if we don't do it, we're gonna die.
Jennifer Prokop 38:37 / #
And this is a whole series then plays around with a bunch of other things. And the second one, there's essentially a sex Olympics, of course.
Sarah MacLean 38:44 / #
Yeah. Well, that also again, we're back to if you like the Hunger Games. Hunger Games read alikes, with Jen and Sarah! Hey scholastic!
Jennifer Prokop 38:59 / #
We're like defiling your intellectual property.
Sarah MacLean 39:03 / #
Um, cuz that second one is sex in an arena. Not gladiators. Fucking.
It's performative. It's in public. It's a voyeuristic. I mean, because then there's...
I really like the whole community though.
Well, the, essentially the people, that alien race that lives on this planet then has developed a certain kind of culture based around this.
The need.
Jennifer Prokop 39:38 / #
I will say this, if you liked the idea of Feveris in Dark Skye. This is this is the series for you. This is your next book after that.
Sarah MacLean 39:50 / #
But I really love it because it's so sex positive. All the people are, "I don't understand. Why are you being so weird about sex?"
Jennifer Prokop 40:00 / #
You know, when we as people on earth travel, I think, at least I would hope most of us have this basic understanding that it's not our place to put our cultural mores on to that new place we're visiting, but to experience, what's going on here? To eat the food of the place, you're going. To try and speak the language, right? We understand that is sort of our responsibility when we choose to travel. But what if when we travel some other world, it really is fundamentally seems wrong with what you've either learned about who you are as a person or your culture. And it's kind of rules and morality. And then it really becomes, again, that conflict level really ramps up because now it's person versus society. And you're like, "Hey, this isn't how I'm supposed to act, but I have to do it in order to survive here." And those kinds of really strong internal conflicts are which are pressure from an external conflict -- that's always a real interesting. I like that. It's real meaty.
Sarah MacLean 41:10 / #
I agree. I mean and I think that's done very well in third book in this series which is just now out is it just out?
Or it, we both just got it from NetGalley let me look.
In the third book in the series, the hero is a person from the homeworld. This is his world. Yes. And because of by virtue of the sex requirement, all the time sex to stay alive on this planet, right? The the characters the people who live on this planet, they don't really believe in love. They don't believe in monogamy. I'm sorry, not love. They don't believe in monogamy. And so the concept of monogamy is incredibly foreign to them, and problematic for them because they're like, "Well, wait a second. Because what if something happens?" Right? Like what if?
You know, your mate has to leave you for a week. You're gonna die. It's just, it's impossible. It's impossible to be monogamous and live on this planet. Right?
Well, and this dude has a special gift.
He's a shaman or something.
Jennifer Prokop 42:20 / #
He's a sex god. He has to share it with the people.
Sarah MacLean 42:24 / #
So yeah. So basically his whole thing is, if you're sick on this planet, he has special energy that he can infuse in you but he has to do it via sex. It's all real bananas. Robin. I mean, what is happening in your head? PS: I love you, Robin. I met you a BA and you're amazing.
Jennifer Prokop 42:46 / #
No, but you know, this is one though, where instead of her just acclimating to his rules. She has. She he acclimates to sort of her culture, right? And she has this real concern about, "It's complicated," of course. But every single one of the conflicts that happens is really about again, "Who am I? Who do I want to be? Should having a sexual relationship with someone make it so that they're my mate for life?" I mean, essentially, it's her drama because of her. You know, she is not even entirely human. She's some other thing too.
Sarah MacLean 43:23 / #
But I think for him, his conflict is really interesting too, because if you're born into a destiny, do you have no other choice? His whole conflict is society versus self. In a very concrete way. "If I take if I do the thing that I want to do for myself, I have to turn my back on this responsibility that I have towards my society." I mean, it's very it is actually very Dark Skye, this kind of in you know if...
Well, Robin is reading Dark Skye right now.
But if Thronos didn't have such a stick up his ass about everything it would be very Dark Skye. So yeah I mean so I've really liked this. I like it for another reason to that I just want to shout out and this is not to say look, most people in romance, are not public about their entire persona. I use a pseudonym. I am Sarah in real life but you know names are all changed and it's funky but a lot of these sex planet books or space books are written under very private pseudonyms. I'm sure partially because they're there is something kind of salacious and scandalous about them at first glance. Robin is very public, she's a public figure. She uses her actual photo and I'm not dissing anybody who doesn't do that, but I just want to give an extra shout out to her for being brave.
She's great. And I think that's what it is, too. I think, fundamentally, you know, I think, sometimes erotic romance gets this really hard rap. "Meh. It's it's just porn." Obviously, no one listening to us thinks that. We don't think that. But I do think books that really examine our sense of self in conjunction with our sexuality and what that means when they aren't necessarily in alignment the way we want them to. That's, that's worth us digging into as a genre. And I think that when you a lot of the books that we've talked about so far already are really doing that and a variety of really interesting ways. And so, yeah, they deserve some credit for pushing against a, I don't know, a boundary that I think a lot of people don't really, it's harder to explore.
Yeah, I really want us to have, as a genre, I want romance, and I think this is something that places like RWA really need to sort, RWA has a lot to sort out, but someday when we get down the list from the really critical things that impact people's actual real lives in the world, I want us to have a real conversation about erotic romance. And, what it means. Why it's valuable. What the difference is between a sexy book and an erotic book. Why we need those books. Why we need to honor those books as as themselves. And I think a lot of these books are doing that work.
Jennifer Prokop 46:27 / #
Yeah, I think so. True. So I want to talk though, because sci fi / space romances aren't always just sex planet books. That's all true and interesting. But there are a couple other ones that I thought that we could talk about. Because I like science fiction so much, maybe I've read more of them. And there's a couple that have come out, in the past year, that I think are worth just mentioning. And then I want to talk about a couple that I just read that I really liked. So I want to talk about "Polaris Rising" by Jessie, is it, Mihalik? I'm not sure how I'm saying her last name correctly.
Sarah MacLean 47:12 / #
That's how I would say it but we apologize.
Jennifer Prokop 47:14 / #
This is a, now I'm gonna be really honest with you, I think this is the kind of romance light. There is a romantic arc. But I think the big arc is for our heroine, Ada von Hasenberg. And she is essentially and this is my catnip, right? So she is the princess essentially in the in the universe. There's three really powerful houses and house von Hasenberg is one of them. And she's the fifth of six children. And she has all these skills but her real job is going to be to marry somebody for her house. So this is the all the aristocracy stuff, but put in space. And a couple of years earlier she got told she was gonna have to marry somebody. And she was all like, "Fuck all y'all," and she takes off. And so she's on this space adventure and she, at the beginning of the book, has been caught kind of accidentally. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and someone picked her up who didn't really even know what they had and all of a sudden figures it out. And she gets put in a cell with a guy named Marcus Lock who is essentially the most wanted criminal in the galaxy.
Sarah MacLean 48:27 / #
And hey, Marcus. I wanna say this. He's known as the Devil of Fornax Zero. Which I mean everyone knows if they're called the devil then you definitely are gonna bone 'em. I mean, that's just gonna happen happen right?
And they pretty quickly figure out that they can use each other to essentially escape the ship and she promises like, "Look, I'll pay you a ton of money. If you get me out of here. If you help me get out of here," because she's crazy rich from this crazy rich family and they go on this massive space adventure. And the reason I say it's romance light is, there's a clear romantic arc but I don't think it's the A plot, right? It's like Princess Leia if she didn't have to be fucking dead weighted with Luke and everybody else, right? She is just on her own adventure and it's fucking great. And I loved it because I love, you know she's got blasters, and implants, and she has to go do all this crazy...
The cover. I know that we always joke about covers not being important and whatever read the book, but this covers badass.
And I'm going to tell you I also just read it does not come out till October 1 so maybe this is bad form, but I just read the sequel which is about Ada's sister Bianca. She has been previously married. She went through the house marriage thing. And part of the reason Ada was so sure she didn't want to do it, she saw what happened to her older sister's. Now Bianca's husband is dead. She's back in the house. And there's a big romance between her and the head of house security.
A bodyguard romance!
Jennifer Prokop 50:16 / #
Hello, exactly. And again, I feel like if you go into these books, thinking there's gonna be a romance but it's going to be kind of secondary to this Space Princess plot. Then you like me will be very happy. And I love them cuz they're about competent women.
Sarah MacLean 50:36 / #
I love it. So over the so just to confirm the series is how many books?
Jennifer Prokop 50:42 / #
It's going to be three. The first one is "Polaris Rising." It's out now. And "Aurora Blazing" comes up second.
Sarah MacLean 50:48 / #
And this plot. The meat of the plot is over three by books. It's like Game of Thrones in space.
Jennifer Prokop 50:58 / #
Yep. It sure is. House politics, right? So their house wants something from them. There's all this intrigue between them and the other houses. There's always competition, essentially.
Sarah MacLean 51:12 / #
And each of the books is a standalone romance. It's just the overarching series is the plot.
You know what, I think that people will like that. Because also I do feel like it's more common in science fiction to have the same characters over books, but I like that instead it's like the house. House Van Hasenberg.
Well it flips the script and it makes them more, it actually does make them more romancey. Because, yeah, a romance reader. Well, I mean, Jen, please, if you're recommending these, they have to be complete romances at the end. You're not gonna recommend them if at the end, you're like, "Well, are these two ending up together?"
Jennifer Prokop 51:49 / #
You're gonna get that HEA but what I really liked about it is, I think number two worked for me because they work together more. In "Polaris Rising," there's actually quite a few scenes where they split up and we follow Ada who does her own shit. Saves him a bunch of times. That worked for me too. But, I think if you need them to be on page together all the time, it's not quite the same. But I really like them a lot.
Sarah MacLean 52:20 / #
It sounds like Romancelandia really loves this book. It's on my desk because it's one of my next reads. I mean, it's on my desk with eight other books, but, and I got a puppy this week. I don't know what I'm doing.
Jennifer Prokop 52:30 / #
You're not reading space romances.
Sarah MacLean 52:31 / #
I'm also reading this book. I'm reading this puppy training book that's written by monks. I don't even know who I am.
That's real awkward. Sarah. Real awkward. Are we done?
I think so. No wait. You had a queer space romance.
Jennifer Prokop 52:48 / #
Oh, I do have one I want to shout out it's called "Treason of Truths" by Ada Harper. And it is essentially also a bodyguard romance except, so the queen or the empress, her name Sabine, so of course I was already really into liking her. And then her lover although it's real complicated at the beginning. You can't quite figure it out. Her name is Lyre. L Y R E, is that how you say it? And her job essentially is, she's the spymaster for the empress. But the book opens with her doing some negotiating and you definitely at first like, "Wait is this unrequited love?" Lyre's just super into Sabine but then they get back together and you could tell everybody thinks they're already lovers. It's kind of hidden but there's this great line at the beginning and I was all in where Sabine says something to someone in Lyre thinks, "When she says, 'Thank you,' she can make it sound like, 'Fuck you.'" And I was like, that's my kind of character right there. So that one is one that I I actually have not finished yet. But I've started once I knew we were doing this and I've been really enjoying it but I will admit I'm not there yet. I'm not done yet.
Sarah MacLean 54:08 / #
Oh great. Well I'm glad that we shouted it out. Tell us your favorite space romance because we want to read more of them. I downloaded "Warrior's Woman" like a lunatic earlier so I'm ready. I mean who am I kidding? I'm not reading this monk book. But we are very excited. I'm always jazzed when we can talk about a sub genre of romance that is feels new. Feels fresh. There are just there are only so many wallflower rakes that you know, I mean, I love a wallflower rake. God knows. But
There are no wallflowers in space, Sarah none. And maybe that's why I like it.
I don't think no. This is really fun. It's summer. It's time for space romances. If there were ever a time for space romance. It's summer.
Now, before we go, you wanted to try something new at the end of every episode.
Oh my gosh, I wasn't ready to do it today. But
Do you want me to start?
You start. Yeah. And I've got a thing that I'm yeah, I've got a thing to talk about.
So it's just sharing something fun that we had happened to us or that we did. Is that what it is?
I don't know. No, I'm thinking that it should be a like, "Is there a book that you just recently read that you think is great?" Okay, the recc. Either a book or a movie or show or thing?
Jennifer Prokop 55:38 / #
Oh, okay. So I have been watching Chernobyl on HBO to no one's surprise because everyone knows I know love a nuclear story. But you know, it's been really cool. I know.
Sarah MacLean 55:49 / #
That's so obscure and weird. Oh my god. Have you read Alyssa Cole's mixed signals?
Yeah, but wait, you didn't know that about me. You didn't know
I knew that you, vaguely but I didn't know that it was, you know, a thing you put in your bio. Send me your nuclear romances.
Okay. Actually, there are a few nuclear romances and I have not read them.
Well, that Mixed Signals one, isn't it?
All right. That's Listen, I read nonfiction nuclear books. I've read many, many books about Chernobyl. I know that's real fucking crazy, but I love it. Yeah, so I've read Actually, I'll take a picture. I put it on Twitter. You just don't follow me closely. Enough. I have a whole nuclear shelf anyway,
I have puppy now. I can't I just I can't. I can't Twitter.
Okay, here's what's really cool about if you've watched the show. They also have a podcast that goes along with it. And what's really cool about the podcast is, it's the guy from Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, which I was on one than once. I was on that once and won. But
You were on what?
Jennifer Prokop 56:55 / #
Wait, I'll tell you that in a minute. Wait, and he's interviewing the writer. And what they do is they kind of go through the episode and talk about what parts are true and where they came from and which parts he essentially wrote in. So it's a really cool way of experiencing the show. Kind of like, if you ever have that question when, you're watching something that's based on real events, you're like, "Which parts real which parts aren't?" The podcast is so fun to listen to, as you watch because that, or after you watch, because then you're like, "Oh, that's a composite character. Oh, that dialogue actually came straight from voices from Chernobyl," so I really recommend the podcast in the show.
You can recommend puppy books, I guess.
Nope. No, I you guys, I so I really love the movies, but I don't go to them enough. And that is the thing that is real. But I went to see Book Smart.
Jennifer Prokop 58:00 / #
Oh, I want to see that!
Sarah MacLean 58:02 / #
My lovely friend Megan Frampton, and Megan and I live five or six blocks from each other and in between our houses - this is what's so great about living in a city - is a movie theater. So we met in the middle and we went to see Book Smart, which is, I said to my husband, "It is the greatest last night of high school movie I've ever seen." Basically if you loved all those high school coming of age movies, this movie is about the very last night of high school. Tomorrow morning is graduation. And the heroine is the valedictorian and her best friend, who is the salutatorian - is that how you say that? Salutatorian. And they are adorable workaholic. Well, the valedictorian is an adorable workaholic nerd. And the salutatorian is mega feminist nerd. And they've done nothing but be each other's friends and study to get into the best possible colleges and to do their amazing things after after high school. And then on the last day of school, she discovers that all the kids who she thinks like, "Well, they've just slacked off and not done anything. And they're all going to, you know, nowhere colleges and she's gonna end up being their boss," turns out, they're all going to Yale and Princeton, Stanford and big colleges, and she realizes in the very beginning of this movie, she's basically missed out on high school because she was so panicked for the rest of her life. So she had that one night to rectify it. It's like a buddy movie. And it has all the beats. There's a little there's a little bit of a romance in it. It has all the beats that you love in these movies. If you love these movies, which I do, and I just highly, highly recommend it. It's written by a woman. Produced, it's got a giant female, lots and lots of women working on it. The crew, and it's written by Olivia Wilde who's, you know, awesome talented. Jason Sudeikis, is in it.
Jennifer Prokop 1:00:30 / #
Hmm, that sounds so good.
Sarah MacLean 1:00:31 / #
So is Lisa Kudrow.
Well, it's summertime it's time for me to get my movie on so I'm here for it.
If you like a high school movie. But you teach high school you well you teach junior high.
I don't. I teach middle school but you know, my son is in high school and I am always telling him, "Just enjoy high school. Stop fucking falling for this crazy idea that your life will only matters."
I want you to watch it with him and then tell me what he thinks.
Jennifer Prokop 1:00:58 / #
I will report back to you.
Sarah MacLean 1:00:59 / #
Yeah, I want to know what real kids - kids on the street - feel. But I really loved it.
Kids on the street are still in bed at 11:30 / # in the morning, fine.
That's a great life.
Jennifer Prokop 1:01:10 / #
It seriously is.
Sarah MacLean 1:01:11 / #
It really is. I would be in bed if I didn't have you know, kids and a dog. And a husband.
Jennifer Prokop 1:01:18 / #
Self-inflicted!
Sarah MacLean 1:01:22 / #
All right, my love's. This was Fated Mates. Don't forget to subscribe, like and subscribe in your favorite podcasting app. Find us on Twitter at Fated Mates. Find us on Instagram at Fated Mates pod. Check out the show notes because Jen is amazing and does beautiful show notes. There will be cover images this year.
Jennifer Prokop 1:01:42 / #
Yeah. Oh yeah. Just a quick reminder everybody that the Moon and Mars are two different places. Have fun in space.
Sarah MacLean 1:02:31 / #
Well masturbating will help for a little bit, but ultimately, you gotta have sex.
Jennifer Prokop 1:02:37 / #
It does not have to be P in V.
Movie Dialogue 1:03:29 / #
Waiter all have with she's having only less pepper
14: Thronos Should Get the Hell Over Himself: Dark Skye
We are back from vacation and Torture Island is back — surprising no one more than us! It’s Dark Skye week, Lanthe & Thronos are doing some weird stuff with holey-sheets, y’all. We talk about religion and romance, the work this book does in the larger series, and—as always—patriarchy. Friend of the pod, SS Jaxon joins us, too!
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.
We’ve got an interstitial lined up for next week, then we’re back to the Game Makers in two weeks with Jen’s favorite of the three books, The Master, and one of our favorites, Sophie Jordan! Get ready for chastity belts and string bikinis! Read The Master at Amazon, B&N, Apple Books, Kobo, or from your local Indie.
Show Notes
Thronos, not Thanos.
Childhood best friends to lovers to enemies to lovers is one of Sarah's favorite tropes. She wrote one once, and it's only $1.99 in Kindle!
We mention a lot of adventure movies in this episode, including Groundhog Day, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Time Bandits, Labrynth, and The Matrix.
We also mention some of classic literature that we think Kresley might be alluding to in Dark Skye, including: Paradise Lost, The Inferno, The Odyssey, Alice in Wonderland, and many Bibilical stories including Jonah and the Whale.
At one point Jen calls it "classic sci-fi" when she really meant to say fantasy. Ooops!
In case you're planning to read Ulysses, make sure you have a copy of Ulysses Annotated. But I guess now there's an app for that.
All about hairshirts. Ouch.
If you want more about what it would be like on Feverus, maybe check out Robin Lovett's sexplanetseries.
Welcome S.S. Jaxon! Here's her vagina thread and her one about the IAD cult.
Are there any people having sex with a sheet with a hole in it?
The tale of Icarus. If you haven't read it yet, Daedalus makes an appearance in the novel Circe by Madeline Miller, which Jen highly recommends.
More about Bandherbooks love for fainting couches and the space chaise.
Munro is in the wind. Someone write us some fanfic.
Our next episode will be The Master, the second book in The Game Maker series.
Keanu Reeves is very swoonworthy. Have you seen Always Be My Maybe yet? We have very different opinions about it, but agree that Keanu is the best.
Lost Limb Count
Arms and Hands (8)
- 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)
- 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)
- Sebastian pulverizes most of his right arm during the Hie. He regenerates. (No Rest For the Wicked)
- Lucia peels all the skin off from her hand in order to free herself from some handcuffs. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
- In order to retrieve the ring from La Dorada , Lothaire cuts off her finger. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
- 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)
- After receiving Lothaire's heart in a box, Ellie cuts off her middle finger and sends it to him. (Lothaire)
- Chloe's shoulder is dislocated in the escape from her auction (MacRieve).
Chest and Torso (7)
- 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)
- Lucia's neck is broken. She regenerates. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
- On Torture Island, Regin,
- MacRieve,
- and Brandr are vivisected. It's pretty terrible. (Dreams of a Dark Warrior)
- Declan's skin is peeled off by the Neoptera as a child. (Dreams of a Dark Warrior)
- Lothaire rips out his own heart and sends it to Ellie in a box. (Lothaire)
Head, Face, and Eyes (6)
- 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)
- Cadeon loses an eye and part of his forehead and hair when fighting. It all regenerates. (Dark Desires After Dusk)
- During a rugby match, Garreth has his teeth knocked out and swallows them. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
- Lothaire kicks out La Dorada's remaining eye and throws her over a cliff. (Dreams of a Dark Warrior)
- In the Bloodroot Forest, the tree grows over Lothaire's lips and tongue. (Lothaire)
- After she gains her immortality, Chloe's hair grows, but she cuts it off every morning. (MacRieve)
- Lanthe agrees to have her tongue cut out to save herself and Thronos, knowing she can still use the power of persuasion telepathically. (Dark Skye)
Horns (2)
- 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)
- 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)
- Lachlain tears off his own leg to reach Emma. He regenerates. (A Hunger Like No Other)
- 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)
- Thronos is chasing Melananthe and loses a foot when a portal closes on it. (Kiss of a Demon King)
- While in Pandamonia, Thronos is trapped in a Groundhog Day like trap, doomed to repeat his worst nightmare over and over again. When he believes that Lanthe is about to die, he repeatedly tears of his legs in order to reach her. He never actually loses a limb, but he was willing, so we're counting it. (Dark Skye)
Beheading as a Romantic Gesture (4)
- 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)
- 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)
- Malkolm beheads men that attacked Carrow in Oblvion, and he throws them to prove he's a worthy mate. (Demon from the Dark)
- 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)
- Thronos beheads several foes during fights, which impresses Lanthe; but he also beheads Felix, a sorcerer who once tricked Lanthe and stole her sorcery. (Dark Skye)
Beheading as a Non-Romantic Gesture
- 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?
- Does Garreth's losing his connection with his mortal soul count? (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
- 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)
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.
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.
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
That Victoria Dahl tweet about hysteria.
More about the forced birth laws sweeping through several states, and where you can donate your money if you're so inclined.
How transgender and gender nonconforming people might be especially endangered from this recent spate of laws.
Sarah's twitter thread asking about romances with abortion.
Fanny Hill and some of the illustrations.
The portrayal of abortion in Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
Romance is a powerful tool for sex-education, but not all authors view it as a responsibility.
Romance euphamisms FTW.
Screenshots from the scene Sarah referenced in Jane Feather's Vixen.
All about the efficacy of birth control.
French Letters had to soak for two hours (at least)...oh! And we forgot the best (ACTUAL WORST) part: They were reusable. --scream emoji--
Sarah says we should all watch the TV show Harlots, and not just because it shows French letters.
"220/221 whatever it takes," is a quote from Mr. Mom. Actually, we talked about a lot of 80s movies on today's episode, including The Princess Bride and When Harry Met Sally. But we didn't mention Dirty Dancing which has a botched back alley abortion. We meant to...but this is what happens when you don't take good notes before you rant.
This 2011 paper about condoms and birth control in romance is VERY INTERESTING.
A link to the Twitter conversation about PrEP.
Pulling out is weirdly more effective than you'd think for preventing pregnancy, but not at all effective for preventing STIs.
All about Plan B.
The Pop Culture Library at Bowling Green University is a place both Jen and Sarah would like to visit. Librarian Steve Ammidown is the 2019 RWA Librarian of the Year.
Kelly Faircloth writes great articles about romance for Jezebel.
Endometriosis deserves more attention than it gets.
What it means to be "childless by choice."
Jen's post about miscarriage in romance, and some statistics about how often miscarriages happen.
25% of American women have had an abortion.
Sweet Liar is the only romance that Sarah can think of that references a vasectomy--please tell us if you've got other examples?
The Jezebel article wondering how many more abortion stories we have to share.
If you're on FB, check out Sarah's OSRBC (Old School Romance Book club).
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.
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
When we asked about the serialization of The Professional, listener Sarah Asnaashari came to the rescue!
Serialization of novels used to be very common, and although we've all heard the myth that Dickens was paid by the word, in fact he was paid by the installment.
Roxie Rivera is the author of the Her Russian Protector series, relevant to everyone's interests, she also wrote a "prison planet romance" series under the name Lolita Lopez.
Eastern Promises is a great movie.
Scroll down this list for the description of Edward's creepiness in Twilight.
Sookie Stackhouse is a telepath in the books and TV show. This is an interesting essay on why Hollywood should stop talking about telepathy as a disability.
Jen will never get tired of the greatest real estate listing ever.
Real hurricanes form over the Atlantic very similarly to the way Jen describes a hurricane of an alphahole forming.
We want characters to have agency.
The story of Anastasia Romanov is pretty amazing. Jen recommends this YA book called The Family Romanov for both adults and middle school readers.
George Michael's Listen Without Prejudice is an awesome album, and Jen still thinks Freedom is one the greatest music videos of all time. Sarah's theme song is Too Funky.
Jen recommends (in that "this book is terrifying way") The Man without a Face: the Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin. But if you just want the quick and dirty version, read this story about how Putin stole a superbowl ring from Robert Kraft.
Romance author Jayne Ann Krentz often talks about how author's have a "core story."
Dark Skye is our next IAD book.