Here is a text transcript of DBSA 81. An Interview with Kati D from DearAuthor. You can listen to the mp3 here, or you can read on!
This podcast transcript was digitally sourced and crafted by hand by Garlic Knitter. Many thanks.
Here are the books we discuss:
[music]
Sarah Wendell: Hello, and welcome to another DBSA podcast! I’m Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and with me is Jane Litte from Dear Author and also Kati B. from Dear Author. Today we sit down with Kati B. to talk about what she loves, what books she’s really looking forward to, what series went off the rails for her, and what some of her absolute favorite books that are coming out in the next month or two might be. She also has a lot of recommendations, so this might be a bit of an expensive podcast, and I’m sorry about that, except not really, ‘cause it’s just as expensive for me.
Our music is provided by Sassy Outwater, who is a most excellent person. I will have information at the end of the podcast as to who this is.
And this podcast is brought to you by Before You Break by Christina Lee. This is a beautiful and emotional New Adult romance about a bad boy on the edge and the girl who is about to fall hard. And this book is available wherever eBooks are sold from InterMix.
And now, on with the podcast!
[music]
Sarah: So please introduce yourself and tell us how long you’ve been reviewing for Dear Author and what your favorite types of books to read are.
Kati: Oh, okay.
Sarah: You have two minutes. I’m kidding.
Kati: My name is Kati Brown, and I’ve been reading romance since I was 12. I’m 43, so, you know, a good long time, and I guess I started reviewing for Dear Author, I, I think about two years ago, a year and a half ago. I read my very first Kristen Ashley book and sent Jane a long, ranty email about it, and she said, “You should blog.” And I did! [Laughs] And then, next thing you know, I was, I was a member of the team, so it was exciting.
Sarah: Yeah, it’s, it’s alarming how easy that is. The longer you rant, the more we’re like, oh, oh, yes, come over here!
Jane: No, see, I’ve been reading Kati. Kati blogged by herself for a long time, and I had been following her, and I, I, you know, get recommendations from her, and she mentioned she was getting tired of blogging by herself – which is a really onerous task; I don’t know how anyone does it – and so, you know, when I approached her, I kind of thought she’d be like, nah, I’m not interested, and when she said she was, I almost peed my pants in joy. And so I feel like I got a real steal in Kati, and I’m desperate to hang on to her. My biggest fear is that someday she’s going to be like, I’m just going to go off on my own again, and I’ll be very, very sad.
Sarah: Oh, no.
Kati: [Laughs] I don’t want to. Half the time, I, I mean, what, I write, what, four, maybe four or five if I’m really feeling frisky, reviews for Dear Author, and half the time I’m like, oh, God, I need to write a review. Ohhh. So even generating, now, four pieces of content for Dear Author a month is, like, overwhelming to me, so… [Laughs]
Sarah: Yes, but doing four, four pieces of content on the receiving end is like the greatest goddamn thing ever, so, so it’s awesome.
[Laughter]
Kati: So I mostly, these days, read contemporary romance. I read erotic romance and a little bit of erotica, and lately I’ve been reading a ton of New Adult, but kind of by accident, because I can’t tell from the cover that it’s a New Adult book until I get in, and the heroine starts acting like a brat, and then I’m like, okay, she’s, like, 22. I get it now. So a lot of New Adult by, kind of, mistake, but I, I keep reading once I’ve started. It’s pretty rare for me to DNF a book, so…
Sarah: Why is that? How is it hard for you to DNF a book?
Kati: Well, it’s not that it’s hard; it’s that it’s rare. I, I mean a book really has to – I almost always think that it’s not them; it’s me. I have that complex, you know, where I’m like, particularly if it’s a book that everybody else is just squeeing about, and I’m like, okay, I’m reading this, and I don’t get what the big deal is. I tend to think, oh, it’s not, it’s not the book; it’s me. I’m not in the right mindset or whatever, so I’ll table it and try to re-read it, but it’s pretty rare – I’ve, I actually just went back through everything, ‘cause I thought you guys were going to ask me about what I’ve been reading and all that, so – and I DNFed one book in the last four months. Most everything that I start, I read.
Sarah: Wow!
Kati: Yeah.
Sarah: I’ve been trying to convince myself to keep going with a book because it would be my third DNF in a row. I’m having a bit of a problem. [Laughs] So –
Jane: I’ve been reading the same historical for a month and a half now.
Sarah: Dear God!
Jane: I know. I’ve, I’m going to finish it any day now.
[Laughter]
Jane: What I tell myself, like, every week. I’m going to finish this book. Tonight.
Sarah: We’re going to sit down and do a podcast in, like, April, and I’ll be like, what are you reading? I finally finished that book! [Laughs]
Jane: Well, I did this pledge. I was going to read and review one historical book a month. So I, I did my January book actually very late December, and then I started this historical right afterwards. So now I’m on my, I guess, 49th day of reading it.
Sarah: [Snorts] Like a running tally. Day 49.
Kati: [Laughs] Day 49, chapter 23.
Sarah: The light is getting dark. I’ve run out of snacks.
Kati: I still don’t give a crap about the heroine.
Sarah: Someone has a pelisse, and I just don’t give a shit.
[Laughter]
Sarah: Oh, look, she’s in the rain. Eh, fuck her.
[Laughter]
Jane: It’s like you guys have read this book!
[Laughter]
Sarah: Yes! Oh, historicals! [Laughs] So what was your rant about Kristen Ashley?
Kati: It was kind of unfortunate for me, and I will say this, I have a very love/hate relationship with Kristen Ashley. I have about four or five of her books that I adore, and I re-read them routinely. Routinely, like every fourth book I open, I’m like, I’m just going to re-read this part of this book or whatever.
Sarah: And then, like, three hours later, you’ve read the whole thing.
Kati: Correct. But the first book that I read was Knight by her, which is the one where the hero’s a pimp, and, and the heroine calls him Daddy, and he likes it, and it was just so upsetting to me, the whole thing, and I, you know, I, I read it, I can’t remember, I think it might have been Carly Phillips on Twitter who said to me, have you read Knight? And I read it, and I mean, within a day I was just all over Twitter bitching up a storm about it, and then Jane said to me, you should review this for Dear Author. And so I did, and it was, you know, it was a good conversation, ‘cause, because of the hero’s choice to, to be a pimp and not really feel bad about it. I mean, his little stable of women, I guess he was good to. I mean, they kind of glossed over the whole purveyor of flesh thing –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Kati: -but, you know, for me it was just really upsetting, and I, I couldn’t believe that in the end she was like, and rainbows and unicorns and yay! And I – yeah. So, and yet, somehow, I think about a month later, Jane and I were talking on the phone, and Jane, Jane was like, I’ve gone down the rabbit hole with this woman. I, you know, I read this book, and then this book, and the next thing you know, I started in, and I’m not kidding you, I probably lost six weeks. I read, one weekend I read five Kristen Ashley books. Five! If my husband had been burning alive in front of me, I’d have been like, let me just finish this chapter.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Kati: I’ll come put you out; you’ll be fine.
Sarah: [Laughs] So which are the ones that you re-read constantly?
Kati: Well, Motorcycle Man. I’m well known as, as, that’s my favorite by her. And I also like a few of her Colorado Dream Series, which is – I like Sweet Dreams, and I like Lady Luck, and I like Breathe. The one that she’s about to publish in, what is it, April, Jane? Is it coming out in April?
Jane: April, yeah.
Kati: Yeah, that one I can promise you I’m going to re-read about six times before it comes out in April. It, like, is just one of those, it hit on everything that I like, and – which is good, because the last three or four that I’ve read, I’ve just really had quite a strong reaction to, and I, I don’t think I’m on her Christmas list anymore.
Jane: Well, I have to give, I have to give Kristen Ashley credit, because we have been some vocal critics of hers, and she never stops sending us ARCs, no matter – [Laughs] – It was funny, ‘cause Kati’s like, I’m sure we’re not going to ever get another book from her, and then, lo and behold, I get – it’s, like, the next day, she sends me The Will, which is this book coming out in April, and I loved it. I, I said on Twitter, and I had a smile on my face throughout the entire book. And so I was really appreciative that she didn’t give up on us, ‘cause she totally could have! [Laughs] I mean, there’s no, there’s no obligation for her to keep sending us advanced copies of her book.
Kati: Yeah.
Sarah: So what did you guys like about The Well? Who would you recommend it for?
Jane: It’s The Will.
Sarah: Sorry! The Will.
Jane: It’s like last will and testament.
Sarah: Sorry, The Will. No wells.
Jane: Which is kind of, it’s ironic, too, because even though the, Knight, I think, was my first Kristen Ashley, too. I can sense this is just going to be a podcast about Kristen Ashley, ‘cause Kati and I have read so many of her books. Even though Knight himself was kind of a repellant character, it was really, I couldn’t stop reading it. And Kati, it’s the same for you, you couldn’t stop reading that book!
Kati: Could not stop. Appalled, like, making the icky face for the last third of it, like really and truly, if someone had come up to me that had been like, what are you doing right now? ‘Cause I was making the, like, ewww face, it, yeah, just, kept, kept going. She really is book crack. I mean really.
Jane: So then I read Golden Barbarian.
Kati: No, Golden Dynasty.
Jane: Oh, Golden Dynasty. [Laughs] But it’s about a barbarian.
Kati: It totally is!
Jane: And – I mean, that’s just, like, the most fantasy fantasy of all kinds of wallpapery fantasies. [Laughs] I mean, there’s actually, like, zero worldbuilding, and literally, the heroine poops out flowers. I mean, like, her power is literally pooping out flowers.
Kati: It really is.
Sarah: Craps flowers?
Kati: She poops flowers.
Sarah: Wow!
Jane: And yet! I could not stop reading her, like. Like Kati, I was like, after I was done with one of her 140,000 word tomes, I’d pick up another one, and another one, and it was, like, you, you have to, like, read your way out of the abyss.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Kati: You really do, and, and the funny thing is is that I really have gotten with her, right, so prior to reading The Will, I had four straight misses from her. Four straight, two of which I reviewed, and the other two I made Jane review because I was like, she’s going to hate me, so – and I really, I kept being like, this is it. I’m breaking up with her. We’re breaking up. I can’t, I can’t continue this, and then she’s, but she’s like J. R. Ward, right? I mean, I, I’ve broken up with the Black Dagger Brotherhood probably 15 times, and every time one of those books comes out, I end up being like, maybe I’ll just read it and see, and I always end up being very ranty about it, but Kristen Ashley, I open her books because I always have the hope that I’ll feel like I felt when I read one of her books that I really loved.
Jane: And that’s how you felt about The Will.
Kati: I did. I mean, The Will definitely has some, some tics that if you, if you’re not a Kristen Ashley fan are going to aggravate you, but I really, I loved – the story was very sweet.
Jane: Yes!
Kati: And I appreciated the sweetness of it, because she doesn’t do sweet very often. You know, it, it felt fresh from her just because her heroes tend to be, like, you know, chest beaters, so…
Jane: That’s exactly how I felt about it, Kati, that it did feel like a totally different Kristen Ashley story, yet still very Kristen Ashley-esque.
Kati: Exactly. Exactly.
Jane: [Laughs] This is a whole different language, Sarah, isn’t it?
Sarah: Like, what, what does that mean, if something is Kristen Ashley-esque, but not really?
Jane: It has the flavor of a Kristen Ashley, but the dish is new. [Laughs]
Sarah: Okay!
Jane: I don’t know how to describe it!
Kati: It, that’s exactly right. It’s, you know, she has certain things that either are going to work for you as a reader or not, right. Like, if she’s self publishing, and I find that it’s less so with her Grand Central books, but if she’s self publishing a book, when the heroine walks out of the house, you know literally down to her panties what she’s wearing.
Sarah: Oh, lord, yes.
Kati: Like, she is, she is meticulous about – and, and how she describes it, to the point where you’re like, oh, okay, we got it. I got it. You know? But she also writes these heroes that, like I said, usually their kind of chest pounders, and they’re, you know, like, you know –
Jane: Like, their favorite word is “babe.” Like, you –
Sarah: Babe.
Jane: – like, the heroine will say something challenging him, and he’ll be like, “Babe.”
Kati: Right.
Jane: And then that’s it.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Kati: Like, they, they tend to speak, like, if you played a drinking game with Kristen Ashley heroes, you would be shitfaced if you drank every time the guy said, “Babe, got shit to do.” Like, seriously, they say it at least 10 times during every novel. “Babe, got shit to do.” And that’s shorthand for, “I’m done with this conversation.” [Laughs]
Sarah: I remember I told, I told Jane this in a recent podcast. I read Sweet Dreams over a holiday weekend because it was really easy to just sort of dip in and dip out of –
Kati: Mm-hmm.
Sarah: – because all of the description is done for me.
Kati: Right.
Sarah: Like, my imagination could take a solid nap, because I was going to know every single element, and I was thinking, if I took a drink every time she brushed and flossed her teeth and put on moisturizing lotion, I would have cirrhosis!
Kati: Correct.
Sarah: Like, I would need a liver transplant by Monday.
Kati: Correct.
Sarah: And yet, it’s really easy to be lulled into the world and just, and have this story unfold for you.
Kati: Well, and the, the thing that astounds me about her is I finish a book, and I, I think, okay, I’m, I’m done reading Kristen Ashley for a while, and then I, I really cast around for something that makes me feel like I felt when I was reading a Kristen Ashley book. You know what I mean? Like, it’s really, I have a hard time, like Jane said, kind of climbing out of the abyss –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Kati: – once I go in, and I really, I read her, I mean, she is a total comfort read for me now, her books that I love. I, I read them routinely.
Sarah: What else do you think is in the, is in the crack? The Kristen Ashley crack. What do you think it is that makes her books unique and crack-tastic for you?
Kati: Okay, so for me, when her books work for me, I am a total sucker for the caregiving alpha, right. Any alpha male that is busy, busy taking care of his woman, I love. And I, I do not mind them being, you know, overbearing and bossy. I, I’m willing to excuse a lot of behavior if I feel like the hero is really determined to take care of and love this woman, and she does that very well, very well. Not necessarily in a way that I would want to be loved by a real human person, but on paper it totally works for me.
Sarah: [Laughs] No actual humans, dude, no way!
Kati: Correct. Correct. If my husband tried it, I’d be like, no, thank you. I’m good. But –
Jane: Yeah, like, what would you say – [laughs] – Can you imagine Scott saying to you, “Babe, got shit to do.” [Laughs more.]
Kati: Yeah, that would, I would get, I’d be like, no, now I have more things to say. Like, I’m contrarian enough that, yeah, it wouldn’t go well for him, but yeah. But on paper, it totally works for me. It’s very difficult for me to put my finger on exactly why it is, but she, she, when she is working for me, she works utterly, to the point where I can barely do anything else but read.
Sarah: See, the crack, it’s, it’s, with, with Kristen Ashley, I can see the crack. It is not fully effective on me, and I could put it down if I had to. I don’t feel the need to read one after another, but I can see the crack there, and I can see it working on other people. It’s very strange; I feel very isolated. Is there another author or style that you have identified that’s similar, or is she still a really unique flavor for you as a reader?
Kati: I think that she has a very particular voice. Do I think, I, I mean, are there other authors who I read the same way? The only other author that I read the same way, there are two. If I pick up one of Nora Roberts’, say Chesapeake Bay saga books, I’m reading –
Sarah: I love those so much. [Laughs]
Kati: Yeah. I, if I pick up one, I’m reading all four, and the same is true with Lisa Kleypas and her Travis Family series. I, I read Smooth Talking Stranger; Jack Travis is my favorite hero of all time, and I re-read that book at least once a year, easily. So…
Sarah: That, that book is so powerful. Smooth Talking Stranger is so emotionally powerful, and it’s not just the relationship between the hero and, and the heroine, it’s also the, the baby and her mom –
Someone: Baby.
Sarah: – and, like, all of these other relationships layered together. That book is just so powerful.
Kati: Yeah, I’m very, very excited for Brown-Eyed Girl, which comes out in September. I’m, I’m, I’m desperate for her to get back to that, because I really – her Sunday Harbor, Friday Harbor, whatever that series is, it did-, it just didn’t do a whole lot for me, so I’m, I’m really hoping that, that Joe Travis’s book kind of knocks it out of the park.
Sarah: It would be nice to go back to that whole family, wouldn’t it? You could do –
Kati: Yeah.
Sarah: – like, a whole series of, like, five or six.
Kati: That’d be great.
[Laughter]
Sarah: Anything else on your wish list?
Kati: Uh, no, not, I mean, not really. Those are, but those are my two authors who I would equate to, to Kristen Ashley, in that once I kind of go down, I’m, I’m down for a good long time, and, and Nora Roberts has probably three or four series that I feel that way about. I like her – Anything set in Ireland, I love automatically.
Sarah: I have a serious love for, oddly, the second book of the Born In trilogy, Born in Ice. I could watch that heroine make beds for hours.
Kati: Now, see, I feel that way about Born in Shame. I love me some Murphy Muldoon.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Kati: So I, I – but that se-, that’s one of the series that I love as well. That, that trilogy is another of my absolute favorites.
Sarah: One of the things I find fascinating about Nora Roberts is how increasingly she writes competence porn, which is sort of the character has a high level of, of education and experience in a particular field, and that field is part of the story, so there’s the home restoration one and the graphic novel one and the hotel restoration one and the glass blowing one and the inn keeping one, and there’s a whole bunch of different ones where there’s a profession that’s as much a character as the, as the people in the book. The more she does the, the contemporaries with this high level of competence, the more I like them. I’m so not a Nora Roberts suspense fan, so those are the ones that I gravitate towards to.
Kati: I absolutely love and will immediately be appropriating the term “competence porn.”
Sarah: Oh, I didn’t make that up! [Laughs]
Kati: Oh, my God! Because –
Sarah: But you know what I mean, right?
Kati: I, I totally do. It’s, it’s so funny because her last few stand-alones, all of the ones about home renovation, like, my idea of hell will be I’m in Home Depot, and there’s no one in an orange overall thing to help me –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Kati: – so that is like, reading those books for me was, like, awful. It was awful. I read – I’m, I’m completely incompetent when it comes to home repair. I have no motivation to do it, so reading those books, I was like, okay, this is – No. But the dog trainer one, I loved that book. I thought it was brilliant, you know. I – But I love that term, competence porn, that’s –
Jane: What about the wedding one? [Laughs] The wedding quad.
Sarah: With the, with the one heroine who is so incredibly fierce she scared the shit out of me?
Jane: Oh. [Laughs]
Sarah: Like, every morning, she did four miles on the elliptical!
Jane: There was the one character that spent her entire, all the entire books, the whole four books, on the treadmill.
Sarah: Yes, that’s her! She was on the elliptical all the time.
Kati: But not just, not just on her elliptical but on her elliptical and on her Blackberry, all at the same time, right?
Sarah: Not falling over.
Kati: Making phone calls and the whole thing. Yeah. I, now, the funny thing is, the wedding tril-, or whatever, saga, works for me because I am an event planner, right, so I love all the event planning detail sort of things, but I really only liked the one of the heroines, and that was the florist. She was my favorite, and I, I actually liked that romance quite a bit, but the other three I could have, I can’t really tell you anything about them except one was a photographer, one was a baker, and one was incredibly fierce.
Sarah: I remember the hero of the first one because I loved Carter. I loved his lack of confidence in himself and him, his relationship with his friend who was giving him all that bad relationship advice, that was some of my favorite parts of the book, but the heroine I don’t remember nearly as much.
Kati: Right, yeah.
Sarah: And I remember fierce woman in her sl-, always her hair was in a sleek tail or a sleek ponytail – you could get cirrhosis from hammering on that phrase, too – and she was on the elliptical all the time on her Blackberry –
Kati: Right.
Sarah: – and she could handle any awkward situation.
Kati: I mean, that is a skill to admire.
Sarah: Yeah, no lie.
[Laughter]
Sarah: Do you still do events planning?
Kati: I, I don’t right now, because, just because the area that I live in, there’s not a, a lot of events planning opportunities, but we’re, actually, just about, we just found out we’re relocating to, back to D.C., so hopefully, I’m getting back in the biz, which is real –
Sarah: They have some events there –
Kati: Oh, yeah, no –
Sarah: – hourly. [Laughs]
Kati: Yeah, routinely, yeah. So hopefully, I can get back into the, back into the industry, ‘cause I really like it. I’m, I’m super detail oriented, so… And I like being bossy, so both things just speak to event planning.
Sarah: Are there event planning romances that you’ve really enjoyed, aside from the ferocious wedding woman on the elliptical?
Kati: No. Because, like Jane, it’s, it is – I find it irritating because event planning is one of those things that everybody thinks they can do, and really they can’t, and I find that most authors don’t really spend a lot of time actually researching the business. They just think, oh, well, I’ve thrown a dinner party, so I know how, I know what a, what, what planning a, an event for 800 people would be like, and it’s –
Sarah: No.
Kati: It’s not, and if you’d talked to a professional just for 20 minutes, they could help you take care of it and, and get the details right, but it, it’s very rare that I read one where I think, yep, that was right. The only one that I can really think of that got it right was Jaci Burton’s first Play-by-Play novel. He was a football player, and she –
Sarah: Hot guy on the cover, Jane.
Jane: What?
Sarah: Playing to Win?
Kati: Playing to Win, yes.
Sarah: Was that it? Hot du-, hot cover dude.
Jane: That was, like, one of the best naked mantitty covers I have ever seen.
Kati: Right? I, I say that to her routinely. I’m like, I think that Jaci Burton sacrifices chickens and dances ‘round a tree every time she gets a cover.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Kati: I think that’s the only way it works out, because whatever she’s paying to the Berkley people, it’s not enough. Or whatever, you know, I mean, my God. Those covers, every single one of them, I’m like, wow. That’s – Look how sweaty he is.
Sarah: [Laughs] Yes! They’re all sweaty and dirty. It’s the hottest thing ever.
Kati: Yeah, I always say –
Jane: See, this, the follow-up cover is never – ‘cause they felt duplicative, like the, the first one, when I saw it, I remember literally gasping out loud.
[Laughter]
Kati: Right.
Jane: But now it’s just become so commonplace, ‘cause everybody’s copying it.
Kati: Right.
Sarah: God, people are copying it. I think someone used the exact the same pose on the opposite wall.
Jane: Yeah, it, it was Toni Aleo’s books that have, like, the same title except just like one, like the preposition is different.
[Laughter]
Jane: And, but it has the same covers. I – it’s true!
Sarah: Same background, same pose.
Jane: But let’s face it, Loveswept is the worst copiers. I mean, they copied the Julie James cover; they copied – I think they’re just looking at whatever’s successful over at Penguin, and then they replicate it.
Kati: Right.
Sarah: [Laughs] But you felt, Kati, that the event planner in the first Jaci Burton, Playing to Win, got it pretty right.
Kati: Correct. So much so that I actually emailed Jaci Burton to say thank you.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Kati: I mean, really and truly, I, I really was like, thank you. Finally, someone who both got football right and got event planning right, and that’s so rare, you know, a combination that someone actually really understands the sport and depicts it well and then also understands the profession and depicts it well, you know.
Sarah: It’s true. I used to do event planning for a political organization, and it wasn’t just the arranging of schedules and try to coordinate, like, 50 busy people, but just dealing with security and, and trying to get people to, you know, bring in food when you can’t go in the room because there’s a security dog doing a sweep in there right now. Like, all that kind of crap, she totally gets that kind of thing right.
Kati: Yeah. I, I mean, I, I’ll tell you, I used to work for NASA, and I did events around the space shuttle launches. I did, I worked in the office of education –
Sarah: Oh, no big deal.
Kati: – right. And, and we did, we did, one of the launches, we did with the, the First Lady’s office.
Sarah: Oh, lord.
Kati: And holy mother. And then, right after that, the, my boss at the time says, I think I’d like Beyoncé to come to the launch, and I was like, no.
Sarah: No!
[Laughter]
Kati: I said, do you think the First Lady’s got demands?
[Laughter]
Sarah: Oh, my God.
Kati: And then, two weeks later, he was like, what’s going on with Beyoncé? And I said to him, I told you no.
Sarah: I remember, I remember I once did an event with a prime minister of a foreign country, and I swear to God, we had five and a half days of security, and the last three days they were there 12 hours at a time, going over, like, the, the fabric in the carpet. Like, they went over that with a little toothpick and needles. He was actually with us for 26 whole minutes.
Kati: Wow.
Sarah: And we had, like, five straight days of non-stop security. It was bananas.
Kati: It’s unbelievable.
Sarah: I don’t miss that.
Kati: No.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Kati: Yeah, but I think Jaci Burton got it right, but then I’m also a professed, I’m a big fan of Jaci’s work. I, I’m, her work really works for me. I’m, I enjoy it very much.
Sarah: What are some of your favorite Jaci Burton titles?
Kati: I think her Play-by-Play series, generally speaking, is the best sports-themed romance series out there. I really do. I, I think she takes the time to research it. I like, her heroines tend to be, you know, smart, not shrinking violets, career oriented. I, I really like her, that series, and then I also really liked her first in the Hope series, Hope Flames. I really liked that book as well. The hero was a cop, and the heroine was a vet, a vet, and she had for-real issues. It was kind of fake issues, and I just, I really liked it quite a bit.
Sarah: That was the one that just came out, Hope Flames, right?
Kati: Yeah, it came out in January, and then the next one comes out March or April, I think, Hope Ignites, and I, I, I enjoyed Hope Ignites, but not like I did Hope Flames.
Sarah: So, what were the things about Hope Flames that you thought were better?
Kati: The first time that he asks her out, it’s a pity ask, and she knows it, and she calls him on it. She’s like –
Sarah: Oooh.
Kati: – yeah. Don’t do me any favors, okay?
Sarah: Piss off.
Kati: – you know, and I, I so appreciated that the, that she – and he, like, she does the whole inner, male inner monologue really well, because he’s backpedaling – if she’d asked him if he, she looked fat in her vet coat, he couldn’t have been backpedaling any harder. He was just like, oh, uh, eh, ono.
Sarah: Uhbuhbuhbuh iduhdudhbuhbuh. [Laughs]
Kati: And I loved that. That scene really made an impression on me because, I think, so often heroes kind of get away with being a dick to the heroine, and, and she really just called him on it and was like, no, I’m good. And they really worked to develop a friendship before they just jumped in the sack, which, which I liked. I mean, they both, they knew they were attracted to each other, but they, they really spent some time before they just jumped in the sack.
Sarah: What other books are coming out soon that you think are worth recommending to folks? No pressure, ‘cause the minute I ask that question or the minute someone asks me that question, my mind’s like, um.
Kati: I will say this: I beta read for Julie James, and her next book is easily my favorite that she’s ever written, It Happened One Wedding.
Sarah: It Happened One Wedding – I actually just got the paper ARC of that today!
Kati: It is a ton of fun. It really is a ton of fun, because the opening scene, the hero tries to pick up the heroine, and she calls him on every single moment of BS that he passes off to her, and it’s –
Sarah: Whoa!
Kati: – it’s perfection.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Kati: When it ended, and I was like, oh, my God, that, I felt like I needed just to light a cigarette. I was like, that was good for me. It was really good. And, and she just, you know, I think, I think her writing is really evolving so well, you know, and, and I love her, her heroines. She’s one of the few authors I read strictly for the heroines. You know, they’re so smart.
Sarah: I love that about her books. And I love that when she has a conflict, it’s real, and it’s, and it’s simple, but it’s not easy to resolve. Like, the last one, part of the major conflict was that those two human beings were really, really busy.
Kati: Right.
Sarah: And, and that, and I interviewed her at Barnes & Noble when she did her book tour in, in New York, and I said, you made a whole book out of work-life balance, and it wasn’t boring, and it wasn’t preachy! How’d you do that? Like, that’s really hard! Bloggers can’t even talk about that for 400 words without offending half the internet!
Kati: Right.
Sarah: And she managed to make the whole story so much about how these people are really busy, and it’s really difficult to choose to rearrange your schedule when you’re already so frickin’ busy.
Kati: Right.
Sarah: Oh, I loved that. So now I’m really excited to read about It Happened One Wedding.
Kati: Yeah. It’s just a really, it’s a, it’s a tremendously fun book. It is one of those books that at the end you, like, give that like, ahhh! You know, I loved that. Julie James is, is an absolute sure thing for me. She, she’s never written a book that I haven’t liked, so…
Sarah: She is tremendously talented.
Kati: She really is. She –
Sarah: And her, her ability with screenplays shows in her ability to write dialogue.
Kati: Right.
Sarah: That’s always the thing that yanks me out first, when people start talking like they’re not real humans. When they start saying things that don’t, that normal people don’t say. I, I’m out. And she always makes, makes it seem like those are real people, and they are, and these are things that real people say, always.
Kati: I really appreciate that her heroines are smart and successful, and they, you know, they have friends, and they have, they have what I think are normal issues, you know, not –
Sarah: Yes.
Kati: They’re not, kind of, it’s not my daddy abused me and my, you know, I like to get spanked. They’re, you know, they’re sexually confident, smart women who I like. I always end up thinking, I would have a glass of wine with her.
Sarah: Totally!
Kati: You know, I, and I appreciate that about her. The other book that, it, it actually just came out recently, that I really loved is Deeper by Robin York, and it’s a New Adult book, and Robin York is Ruthie Knox, right, same, same author.
Sarah: Oh, I didn’t know that!
Kati: Yeah, and it’s a, it’s a –
Sarah: Welcome to under my rock.
[Laughter]
Kati: It’s a New Adult book, and the catch is that, the, the kind of hook to the story is in the very first chapter, the heroine finds out that her boyfriend has posted explicit pictures of her on the Internet, and it, it ruins her life. Ruins it. And it is about her kind of coming back from the absolute, you know, horror that he, he wrought. And it’s just, you know, I’ve always liked Ruthie Knox. I think, I think she writes very smart romance. Deeper is, is just a really – I read it and really enjoyed it, and, and have recommended it routinely since. And then most everything else that I’ve been reading lately, in fact, I posted on Twitter today, I just have been such a rut reading-wise, I feel, I feel like everything that I’m reading right now feels very similar or very derivative of something that I’ve read before, so…
Sarah: Isn’t it weird when you read a couple books in a row, seemingly at random, and they all have something sim-, very, very similar to them?
Kati: It is, and, and, you know, I mean, I am someone who ri-, I rode the billionaire trope like a pony, I mean, I –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Kati: I rode that trope, like, the more ingénue-y the ingénue, and the more billionaire-y the billionaire is, I’m like, I’m in!
Sarah: [Laughs more]
Kati: Right, and I think I rode it to death, like book after book after book after book. And then finally one day I was like, my God, these are awful. They’re, like, exactly the same. Every heroine named Ava or Anna. It was unbelievable. And I, you know, I finally gave that up, and I started in on this kind of New Adult-ish kick, but my problem is that I can’t, it’s very difficult to discern from Amazon what’s a good book and what’s not a good book, and if you look at –
Sarah: You don’t say. [Laughs]
Kati: Right, and if you look at a not-good book, it recommends 15 more not-good books to you, so, it’s just, it’s very frustrating for me, because I feel like I buy a ton of books, and half of them I read about two chapters, and I think, wow, this book is awful, or just like this book that did it better, or whatever, so… It’s definitely an issue for me.
Sarah: I do actually have a question from Elyse, ‘cause I tweeted earlier that I was going to be interviewing you and asked if anyone had any questions, and Elyse wants to know: best billionaire ever?
Kati: Best billionaire ever. Wow, that’s a really good question.
Sarah: Hard one, right?
Kati: Yeah!
Sarah: This could be, like, a whole, like series, now. Best billionaire ever 1, best billionaire ever 2.
Jane: It’s particularly hard because Jack Travis is only probably a millionaire.
Sarah: Yeah, he’s probably not a billionaire in today’s economy.
Jane: I mean, I think his brother Gage is the billionaire.
Kati: Right. I, I do like Gage as well, that’s, that’s a fair point, but –
Jane: Hardy’s on his way, but I think Gage is the richest one of all of them.
Kati: Well, I will, I will qualify this by saying early Roarke. I really loved Roarke the first, probably, six or seven In Death books by J. D. Robb. You know, the, the truth is that I prefer it when Eve and Roarke fight, so –
Sarah: Oh, totally, me too, and you’re not alone in that.
Kati: She, lately, she, they’re just all, you know, very schmoopy, and I, and, yeah, I’m not really down with that. I, I like it best – My, my favorite In Death book is Divided in Death, and they fight the entire time.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Kati: The entire book is about them fighting, and that’s my one that it ended, and I was like, yep, that was awesome! [Laughs] So… Yeah, I mean, and I guess that’s probably a pat answer, but Roarke is probably my favorite billionaire, if, if we’re talking about the first five or six In Death books.
Sarah: Any other billionaires that you’ve really, really enjoyed?
Kati: It’s kind of sad that not a single one is jumping out at me.
Sarah: There’s no jumping billionaires?
Kati: No.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Kati: No, like I said, I rode that trope like a pony, so –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Kati: – at this point, they all – You know, ‘cause they do, they all have names like Gage and Thorn and –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Kati: Hunter and – You know, I mean, they really –
Sarah: They do! [Laughs]
Kati: They all run together after a while. No, I’ve read, I’ve read more bad billionaires than I have good billionaires.
Sarah: Any billionaires we should avoid?
Kati: Oh, my God, most of them.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Kati: I, I really – There were two that I really didn’t like. One was a book called All She Wants by – God, who was it, what was her name, Jane; I know you read it. C. C. Gibbs? Is that –
Jane: Oh, yeah. Oh! You know, that’s Susan Johnson.
Kati: Well, I didn’t know that. I mean, I read this book. I did not – talk about a book you DNFed – I was like, not just this hero’s an asshole; this hero is a motherfucker. Like, I really was like, oh! I felt like he humiliated the heroine over and over and over again. And I also thought she was a moron, you know, because at some point you have to say, no, thank you. But, oh, my God, that book was probably one of the more appalling of the, of the billionaire romances that I’ve read. Enough, like I said, that I DNFed it.
Sarah: Is this the one where he makes her, like, go out in the yard on a leash and pee on the bushes, and –
Jane: No, no, no!
[Laughter]
Jane: That is Tex by Dahlia West. It’s a, I wouldn’t even say it’s a motorcycle club book, because it’s not, because they, I mean, I think he does have a motorcycle, but it’s – yeah, no. [Laughs] I will say this: I don’t think Susan Johnson would ever have her hero do that to the heroine.
Sarah: Oh, that’s good.
Jane: The funny thing is, is Susan Johnson, back in the day, was one of the more progressive authors in, in terms of eroticism in her books, and her heroines have always been sexually progressive, and, and the heroes were never like, oh, you’re a whore or anything like that. She’s not progressed in terms of what’s acceptable now, and so, like, as I was reading, I, I did read the entire trilogy, and I think that they almost always have sex in the missionary position, except for once. It’s very vanilla, which, you know, 10 years ago, she was a groundbreaker. Well, maybe not 10 years ago, but, you know.
Kati: Right.
Jane: In the late ‘90s. It’s all blending together.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Kati: Right. Yeah, you know, the other billionaire that I, I did really like and, and, is Gideon Cross from Bared to You. Now, that was –
Jane: Probably because he was based off of Roarke. [Laughs] That’s why you liked him.
Kati: Right, I mean, the, the, you know, I have feelings about that series, but the Bared to You, when I read it – particularly because I read it right on the heels of 50 Shades, and I, I read the entire 50 Shades trilogy – I really felt like that was how I wished that E. L. James had written Christian Gray. You know, I, I thought that Gideon was a much more nuanced character at the time. I mean, I want to be done with the series, but I know I’ll finish the stupid thing, but I, I don’t love the series any more, but I, I really enjoyed Bared to You, and I, I really, I pimped it very, very hard when it came out.
Sarah: What, what did you not like about it now?
Kati: I find myself extremely irked that she went from it being a trilogy to a whatever it is, five-book series. I felt particularly like the last book, which was called Entwined with You, I think it was called? I, it, it literally felt like she lifted a section from a bigger book and published it. It, it was – It felt unfinished, it felt, it felt like you came in mid scene and you left mid scene, and it, it felt very clearly to me like a money grab. You know, I’m going to extend this series out to five books because it’s been extremely successful, and, and I think that readers will be happy to pay 50 dollars for the complete series as opposed to 30 dollars for the complete series, and that – You know, it pissed me off, frankly.
Sarah: And that the, and you felt like the story didn’t need to be that long.
Kati: Correct. I, I mean, I, I have no idea where this story is going, but I felt like three books was more than enough to, to completely finish that love story.
Sarah: All those issues.
Kati: Yes. I mean, I think that by, by extending it to five, she was able to draw out issues much further, and, I mean, they’re both incredibly damaged people, but it’s become almost preposterous as opposed to kind of interestingly weird to me.
Sarah: I knew, I knew initially that that wouldn’t be, that that series wouldn’t be for me, so I’m fascinated by people who loved it who don’t, don’t love it as much anymore.
Kati: Right.
Sarah: The way in which, even just looking at it objectively, I have a hard time understanding how you, how you architecturally, for lack of a better word, take a story that was initially conceived as three and turn it into five or six. Like, what, do you just, like, you know, chop off some arms?
Kati: Apparently, you just lift a big section and extend it out and publish it as a book.
Sarah: Oh!
Kati: That’s, I mean, that – I really and truly –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Kati: That, that third book was, it, it literally felt like she lifted a gr-, something out, a section out of a greater manuscript and published it.
Jane: But if that were true – [laughs] – book four would be out by now.
Kati: That’s so true. Or even just have a publishing date, right? I mean –
Jane: Right. [Laughs]
Kati: It’s disappointing to me, because I, I had such high hopes for it, and, and like I said, I really, really pimped it endlessly.
Sarah: It sucks to be disappointed in a book that you, or a series that you had been enjoying.
Kati: Oh, yeah.
Sarah: That is just such a big, fat disappointment.
Kati: I think that one of the great things about the romance community, right, is the, if you, if you’re on the, in the social networking kind of system, if you’re on Twitter or –
Sarah: Right.
Kati: – you cruise a lot of blogs, people get very, very excited about a book that they read that they love, and they evangelize for it, you know. I mean, I am incredibly guilty of that. I, if I read a book that I love, I will pimp it six ways to Sunday.
Sarah: Oh, yes! I, I call it setting the squee cannon to stun.
Kati: Right, exactly! And –
Sarah: Everybody duck! [Laughs]
Kati: Yeah! And it just is always, it’s always disappointing when you get that excited about a series and then it fails to deliver.
Sarah: So before we go, are there any books that you really, really, really want to read and haven’t read yet? What are you most anticipating right now?
Kati: So, anything by Nalini Singh I really love and I’m always excited to read. I love both the Psy-Changeling series and the Guild Hunter series, so I’m looking forward to her next, I think she’s working on, I mean, I think the Psy-Changeling is the next book to come out, and she’s writing a Guild Hunter book now, so I’m excited about those.
Sarah: Yeah, she just signed off of Twitter and said, I have to go write! And I was like, and so many Nalini fans just went “Woohoo!”
Kati: Yeah. And Lauren Dane has got two series coming out that I’m really excited about. She kind of set the stage in her last erotic romance series, which was called Delicious, for these brothers named the Hurleys who are rock stars, and, and that series comes out this year, and then I just found out that she’s writing a biker series, but it won’t be out until 2015, so I’m very excited about that series as well. Lauren Dane is, like, my absolute sure thing. I, I, there’s very little that she writes that doesn’t work for me. And then Lisa Kleypas, the, the Brown-Eyed Girl are probably the books I’m most looking forward to.
Sarah: Isn’t it, isn’t it so nice when you have an author where you’re like, this is never going to let me down, this is going to be awesome?
[music]
Sarah: And that’s it for this week’s podcast. I hope you enjoyed our interview and our discussion. Like I said, we mentioned a lot of books, and if you are looking to find out more about one of them, you can take a look at either Smart Bitches or Dear Author. We each have an entry for each episode, and in that entry we list all of the books that we talk about so you can find out more about them and potentially buy them all, which is what I do, so you should totally join me in that exercise, right? Of course!
The music you’re listening to is provided by Sassy Outwater. You can find her on Twitter @SassyOutwater. This is Three Mile Stone, and this song is called, “Snug in the Blanket,” which is mostly because it’s flipping freezing where I am, and I am totally snug in a blanket right now. You can find out more about Three Mile Stone at their website, and we have links to iTunes and their album as well.
And this podcast is brought to you by InterMix! They would like you to know about Before You Break by Christina Lee. This is a beautiful, emotional New Adult romance about a college basketball star with some skeletons in his closet and a young woman suffering enough heartache and guilt to fill one of her own psychology textbooks. Before You Break is on sale now wherever eBooks are sold from InterMix and Penguin.
Did you like this interview? Do you have any suggestions of who we should talk to next? Any questions you’d like us to ask? You can email us at sbjpodcast@gmail.com, or you can leave a message on our Google voice number, which is 1-201-371-DBSA. Don’t forget to give us a name and where you’re calling from so we can include your message in an upcoming podcast. And I promise it’s really fun! You just talk and talk and talk, and then we edit out all the ums and uhs, and then we include you in the podcast, and it’s like you’re there. And heck, if you think we should interview you, email us and tell us why! If you’ve got Skype, we’ve got nosy questions!
Future podcasts will feature additional interviews, including an interview with Tracey Garvis Graves and other authors that we’re scheduling currently. Again, if you have suggestions, please email us! We’re very open.
I appreciate how many of you have contacted us to let us know how much you’re enjoying the podcast, and I’m very, very glad that you’re listening, and as a little extra present, after the music in this podcast there’s a small outtake of Jane and I discussing our various microphone problems that’s just a little bit inappropriate.
Wherever you are, Kati, Jane, and I all wish you the very best of reading. Thank you for listening.
[dancing music]
Sarah: I ask you questions; Jane, hopefully, will be there and asking you questions as well.
Jane: I’m here!
Sarah: Oh, there you are! Hello! I couldn’t hear you before.
Jane: I have Yeti problems.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Jane: I told you this.
Sarah: Yes, I knew, but I didn’t realize that they were continuing.
Jane: I have to unplug it and re-plug it back in.
Sarah: That’s annoying.
Jane: I know. It really is annoying.
Sarah: Kati, we have these enormously phallic microphones; they’re like giant silver dongs.
Kati: Oh, nice!
Sarah: Called a Yeti, yes.
Jane: But I have to tell you, I have a different one at work, and I like it a lot better. It’s –
Sarah: What do you have at work?
Jane: It’s called the TableMike.
Sarah: Ooh! Is it little?
Jane: It’s thin and long.
[Laughter]
Jane: Everybody has their own preference.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Jane: And after the fat, wide one –
Sarah: [Laughs more]
Jane: – I’m liking the thing, long, flexible one.
Sarah: It’s like a refreshing change, right?
Jane: It is.
[Laughter]
Sarah: I’m crying.
Kati: Oh, God.
Sarah: Wow, we went off the rails, and we haven’t even been on for, like, two whole minutes. This is fabulous!