Smart Podcast, Trashy Books, May 27, 2016

 

[music]

Sarah Wendell:  Hello, and welcome to episode number 196 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books.  I’m Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books.  With me today is Sarah Morgan.  I have to apologize upfront to garlicknitter:  there’s a whole lot of Sarahs in this podcast.  [gk:  The more the merrier!]  Sarah, me, chats with Sarah Morgan about American weather, the Berlin Love Letter Convention, and the importance and delight of meeting romance readers, which – spoiler alert! – is the best thing ever.  We also discuss finding community in small towns and in big cities, and we explore Sarah Morgan’s new series, From Manhattan with Love.

This podcast is brought to you by Loveswept, publisher of Sugar Daddy by bestselling author Sawyer Bennett.  Vengeance is sweet, but seduction is to die for.  Sela Halstead lost her innocence in a way that no 16-year-old should ever have to experience, and she spent years trying to get forget that night, even though she wonders about the identities of the monsters who hurt her.  Then a telltale tattoo flashes across her TV screen, and she identifies the ink as belonging to Jonathon Townsend, the millionaire founder of the Sugar Bowl, a website that matches rich older men with impressionable young women.  Obsessed with revenge, Sela infiltrates Townsend’s world, only to come face to face with a tantalizing complication:  Beckett North, his charismatic business partner.  As the tech mastermind behind the Sugar Bowl, Beck always gets what he wants in business and in bed, but there’s something about the naïve Sela that sparks his hottest fantasies, because with her it’s not about just sex.  He opens up to her in ways he never has with anyone else.  So why does he get the feeling that she’s hiding something?  You can find Sugar Daddy by Sawyer Bennett wherever eBooks are sold.

And I am currently back to recording the podcast with cats.  I have two cats; we adopted two cats about two months ago.  They’re as – their names are Orville and Wilbur, and they’re orange tabbies, both of them, and they live under the Futon of Concealment, which is in my office, so that when they’re under the futon, no one knows they’re there, and they can’t be seen.  Except that Orville has decided that while I record, it’s the perfect time to go exploring, and of course Zeb, the smaller of my two dogs, is desperate to play with Orville; he thinks this is a great game.  So of course I’m trying to record and grab the dog at the same time, so I apologize, but I figured you might like to hear this exciting entertainment that’s going on underneath my desk.  Would you guys chill?  Okay.  Back – I’m going to hold your collar – back to the podcast.  All right.  This incredibly professional introduction is brought to you by my cat Orville and my dog Zeb.  Wilbur, the other cat, has the sense to remain under the Futon of Concealment, ‘cause he understands the importance of podcasts.  Anyway, back to the intro, where I’m going to be all professional now:

This podcast transcript this month is sponsored by Everything Under the Heavens, book one of Silk and Song by Dana Stabenow.  Johanna flees her homicidal stepmother in Khanbaliq, the storied city of Kublai Khan, and sets out on the Silk Road with her companions Jaufre and Shasha in search of her fabled grandfather Marco Polo.  You can find Everything Under the Heavens for free on Amazon, Kobo, and iTunes, and 99 cents on Barnes and Noble.

Now, if you’re a regular listener or a regular reader of the transcripts, you might have heard recently that I have set up a Patreon campaign at Patreon.com/SmartBitches, and I’ve started doing the end-of-episode compliments to folks who have pledged their monthly support.  If you’re not sure what that is, I will tell you right now!  If you wish to contribute, you can make a monthly pledge starting at $1 a month to help me reach goals like commissioning transcripts for the episodes that don’t have them.  You can see the rewards and the options at Patreon.com/SmartBitches, and to everyone who has already backed the show, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, you are all made of awesome.

The music, as always, is provided by Sassy Outwater.  I will have information at the end of the podcast as to who this is, but as usual, you can also find Sassy Outwater @SassyOutwater on Twitter.  And if you tweet at her and say, hi, that you enjoy the music, I know it totally makes her day.

As always, the books and television shows, places, and, in this particular episode, conferences that we talk about will all be listed in the show notes at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast, so if you’re walking the dog or working out or lifting weights or cooking or cleaning or doing something and you’re like, I want, I want to buy that book!  Fear not, you can check the show notes on the episode and buy all of the things that you would like.  And if you buy through the site and we get a commission, thank you very, very much for doing that!

And now, on with the podcast!

[music]

Sarah Morgan:  Do you remember the storm when we were in Atlanta at the signing?  That was the worst thunderstorm I’ve ever – do you remember that?

Ms. Wendell:  Yes!

Ms. Morgan:  They had these huge glass windows –

Ms. Wendell:  Yep.

Ms. Morgan:  – and the whole sky was like, [exploding noise]!  Do you remember that?

Ms. Wendell:  Yes, and it turned, the sky turns, like, like, dark green-brown.

Ms. Morgan:  It was amazing!  Yes, yes!

Ms. Wendell:  Yeah.

Ms. Morgan:  I’ve never seen a storm like it.

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, we –

Ms. Morgan:  It was amazing!

Ms. Wendell:  – we, this is America!  We do things big here!  [Laughs]

Ms. Morgan:  I know.  You do!  Well, I asked somebody last weekend if they knew what a cloudburst was, and they said, oh, yes, we know what they – [laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, yeah.

Ms. Morgan:  I thought, you do have some serious weather, don’t you?

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, yeah, our weather does not mess around.  How was the signing in Maryland?  Did it go well?

Ms. Morgan:  Oh, it was great!  Yeah, it was fine, but I was at the, the Washington Romance Writers invited me to their retreat –

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, nice.

Ms. Morgan:  – so – I know, it was lovely!  So I did a –

Ms. Wendell:  It’s like a big pajama party for authors, isn’t it?

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah, exactly, and I did a keynote and a couple of workshops, and Sarah MacLean was there, and yeah, we had a, it was really nice.

Ms. Wendell:  And you didn’t get snowed in this time!

Ms. Morgan:  No, though, honestly, it’s ever so embarrassing, the weekend before that I was in Berlin for the Love Letter Convention, which –

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, I want to hear about it!

Ms. Morgan:  It’s lovely!  It’s a lovely thing.  Anyway, before I turn up it’s 80 degrees, everyone’s in T-shirts, the sun’s shining.

Ms. Wendell:  Yeah.

Ms. Morgan:  I turn up, and it’s snowing, and I’m not exaggerating.  I wish I was exaggerating.

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs]

Ms. Morgan:  It was awful.  The first night, I wore – and I didn’t really go dressed for that, because the weather’s all over the place, so I had to wear everything I owned, literally everything under everything.

[Laughter]

Ms. Morgan:  Seriously!  Seriously.  And everybody was saying, what have you done to the weather?  ‘Cause it was summer.  And then I come back, and I only had a two-day turn around, and then I’m off to Washington, and I’m not kidding, it was, again, it went from being spring.  Well, I’ve got video of the rain, and, and actually, an author who lives in Washington who knew I was there at the time tweeted me and said, is this you?  Did, did you bring this?  I said, yes!  I’m so sorry!

Ms. Wendell:  It’s all you fault!

Ms. Morgan:  I said, I can’t remember what it’s like to be warm!  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  It’s all your fault!  It’s all you!

Ms. Morgan:  I know!  It is me!  I took it wherever I went!  Sorry!

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, man.

Ms. Morgan:  But it was fun.

Ms. Wendell:  So, so tell me about the Love Letter Convention.  What’s it like?  Is that a reader convention –

Ms. Morgan:  Yes!

Ms. Wendell:  – for, for romance fans in, in Berlin?

Ms.  Morgan:  It is.  This, it is, and this is their fifth year.  This is the first time I’ve ever been.  HarperCollins Germany took me, because I sell a lot of books in Germany, and I’m about to have a book out in Germany, so they took me.  But it was really great!  So it’s about 800; I mean it’s nothing like RT.

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, of course.

Ms. Morgan:  But still quite big!  I mean, it was 800 readers.

Ms. Wendell:  Wow!

Ms. Morgan:  I know!  And it’s really great, because it’s, they, they have it on, in the German language school –

Ms. Wendell:  Right.

Ms. Morgan:  – and so everybody’s mingling together the whole time.

Ms. Wendell:  Nice!

Ms. Morgan:  So the authors are all there, so you’re not, like, you don’t go back to your room and hide, because the readers have paid to see you, you know –

Ms. Wendell:  Of course.

Ms. Morgan:  – to meet you, so you’re there the whole time.  Oh, oh, yeah.  Of course, they thought it was going to be lovely and sunny, so the first thing was a meet and greet in the garden.

Ms. Wendell:  Of course.

Ms. Morgan:  Yes, and it’s freezing, and I’m standing there in my light summer jacket, and fortunately, Flo, you know, my Flo –

Ms. Wendell:  Yes.

Ms. Morgan:  – my editor Flo, fortunately, Flo was there, and she was saying, oh, I brought fingerless gloves!  I thought, really, who carries fingerless gloves in their bag?

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs] Flo.

Ms. Morgan:  How much do I love her?  If I didn’t already love her, she’s officially – [laughs] – the best.  Yeah, so it was –

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, yes.

Ms. Morgan:  – it was great.  But, no, it was great, and so we, they did a mixture of meet and greet and signings, and I did about three workshops, but for readers, you know, with people like Michelle Willingham.  You know Michelle Willingham?

Ms. Wendell:  Yes, I do!

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah?  She was there –

Ms. Wendell:  Yep!

Ms. Morgan:  – and Terri Brisbin.  I know Michelle, actually, but I didn’t know Terri.  And Ann, Annie West, who’s a Presents author from Australia.

Ms. Wendell:  Mm-hmm.

Ms. Morgan:  So we had a really nice bunch, and yeah, it was great –

Ms. Wendell:  That’s cool!

Ms. Morgan:  – and they were really friendly.  The readers were really great.

Ms. Wendell:  Was, what were your, what were your panels on?  What did, what kind of workshops did you do?

Ms. Morgan:  So we did one, Flo, Annie, and I did one on the alpha hero, but obviously for readers –

Ms. Wendell:  Of course.

Ms. Morgan:  – not for, not for writers, so we –

Ms. Wendell:  Not how to write them but how –

Ms. Morgan:  No, exactly, and it was mu-, it was fun doing it that way.  We’d never done it that way, so we all talked about a book with an alpha hero that we love.  Not our, well, not just our own, but other people’s books.  We all picked one, and then the audience picked their favorites, and that was quite interesting, ‘cause of course, you know, which books travel and which books have some people never heard of?

Ms. Wendell:  Right.

Ms. Morgan:  One thing that I did find interesting was that, obviously lots of the German readers read in English, because they’re often bilingual –

Ms. Wendell:  Right.

Ms. Morgan:  – and they often don’t like the German translations, because the translations are so poor, and that was quite interesting.

Ms. Wendell:  So they read in English.

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah, they do.  Not mine.  I think I must have a very good translator, I think I’m lucky, but a lot of the time they say –

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, that’s interesting!

Ms. Morgan:  – translations are poor, so they read in English.  Yeah, it was, it was very interesting, actually.  But it was great!  They were really enthusiastic.  I, I signed 300 books on the last book signing, and they queued in that freezing weather!  I couldn’t believe they had to queue, you know, for hours and hours, and oh, I thought they’d all have frostbite.  They were so enthusiastic!  So sweet!

Ms. Wendell:  Does it ever get old to have a line of people who are standing there ready to, to, to meet you?  Does it ever get old to have a line?

Ms. Morgan:  Oh, well, I think they were mostly there to meet Nalini.  She was there too; Nalini was there.

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs]

Ms. Morgan:  I think they were mostly there to meet Nalini.  I, I’ve decided my role in life is to mop up readers who were queuing for other authors.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  That’s a perfectly adequate thing.

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah!

Ms. Wendell:  I mean, I’ve met a lot of readers ‘cause I was seated next to somebody who was awesomely cool.

Ms. Morgan:  Exactly!  Exactly!  That’s my role in life!  But, no, of course, it’s always fantastic.  I mean, the readers are the best part, aren’t they really?  I think they are.

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, always.

Ms. Morgan:  When you’re chatting on Facebook or whatever, it’s, it’s the readers that are the fun.  It must be the same for you with the blog when readers are interacting with you.  That’s the fun bit, isn’t it?

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, that’s definitely the fun, the fun part, especially because, you know, romance readers take so much crap from people, and there’s so much sort of casual shame and, oh, those, they’re all the same, and they’re so dumb, and why do you read that?  And oh, I would never read a book like that, so when you have someone who already speaks that language, who’s genuinely, like, I’m super nosy, ‘cause I totally want to know what you’re reading!  I’m completely nosy, and I’m going to be all up in your business, so when you have a reader who wants to talk to you and you can just be like, what are you reading?  All of a sudden you’ve got, like, five hours of conversation, and it’s really, really fun.  It’s also really fun to meet people –

Ms. Morgan:  ‘Cause they like being able to tell you.

Ms. Wendell:  Yes!  Absolutely!  And, you know, to have someone take you seriously about what you’re reading is nice, and it works both ways.  Yay!  The other thing that’s nice is the number of people who will come up to me and say, oh, my gosh, your, your website gave me the best book to read.  I found the best book, and that’s just the –

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  – best feeling!

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah, it is.

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, my gosh!  Good recommendation feeling is the best.

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  So –

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah, but, you, do you, you must find that quite a lot with your community, that, that you’ve got people who share similar tastes, or are you, do you find that they’re really diverse and that you have an enormous group who you sort of can’t please ‘cause they all like different things?

Ms. Wendell:  No.  The, the good thing is, because I have my tastes, there are people who know what I like, and it’s either my taste lines up with yours or it’s either – and I still get email that says this exactly – I love everything you hate.  Keep up the good work!

Ms. Morgan:  Right, yeah.  So that in itself is a recommendation, because they know –

Ms. Wendell:  Yes.  Like, oh, Sarah liked it, I’m not going to like that, but I also have, you know, Elyse likes romantic suspense, which I don’t like, and, you know, Carrie reads a lot of science fiction and fantasy, which I don’t have as much familiarity with, so the more writers I have doing different things, the better it is for people to find things they want to read.  So it’s fun!  But, yes, readers, always the best part.

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah. 

Ms. Wendell:  Romance readers are the best people.

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah.  And they were great, the German romance readers, great.  So welcoming, such fun, so it was great.  Yeah, I, I hope we do it again!

Ms. Wendell:  That sounds like a really, really fun conference.

Ms. Morgan:  It was!  And it was only, you know, it’s only an hour and a half away for me, so it’s, it’s not sort of halfway ‘round the world, not completely exhausting, but it –

Ms. Wendell:  Yeah.

Ms. Morgan:  – it was quite fun, yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  And it’s, what, like, a one-hour time difference, so you’re not going to get home –

Ms. Morgan:  Yes!

Ms. Wendell:  – and be like, oh, my gosh, I’m exhausted!

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah.  I mean, it would be nice to do it when it’s not feeling like the North Pole, but – [laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  Well, you know, that means, it just means you have to go back!

Ms. Morgan:  Next time I’ll know:  pack thermals!

Ms. Wendell:  Yes!  Always have long underwear just stashed in the corner.

So let’s start talking about your new book!

Ms. Morgan:  Yes!  New series!

Ms. Wendell:  New series!  You’re leaving small towns and going to the big city!

Ms. Morgan:  I am!  Well, I’m turning it on its head.  I decided, yes, these three girls – ‘cause, ‘cause I’ve written six single titles that were in small towns –

Ms. Wendell:  Right.

Ms. Morgan:  – and I love that!  I mean, I did a lot of that with my medical romance as well.  It was pretty much the same, you know –

Ms. Wendell:  Right.

Ms. Morgan:  – as small town contemporary, and it’s fun, and it gives you the chance to explore lots of, you know, themes that are connected with returning home –

Ms. Wendell:  Right.

Ms. Morgan:  – but I quite wanted to flip that, really, so this time I’ve done three girls from a small town who actually don’t want to live in the small town, so they’re in the big city.  Yeah, and it’s fun.  So they are actually from – ‘cause my Puffin Island series is just finished –

Ms. Wendell:  Right.

Ms. Morgan:  – and these three girls are actually from Puffin Island, ‘cause I wanted that loose link, but instead of being the three girls who have stayed there, ‘cause they want the small island, they’ve left, and they’ve gone to New York, so I like that!  Yeah.  So it’s –

Ms. Wendell:  That’s very cool.

Ms. Morgan:  – flipping it on the head, and it, we’ve got a bit of urban, really.  It’s time for city for me, and I’m really enjoying it.

Ms. Wendell:  So I know you’ve written a lot of Harlequin Presents that are set in London.

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah, yeah.  I’ve –

Ms. Wendell:  And –

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah, my, I’m, ‘cause my Red, Red Hot Reads, they were set in London as well.  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  So it’s not like you haven’t written in big cities before, but this is the first you’ve written in New York, right?

Ms. Morgan:  It is, and do you know, I haven’t done that many in cities, ‘cause a lot of my Presents were, you know, sort of Italy and Sicily and Greece and, you know, we like a bit of ocean and Mediterranean blue sky and – but I have, you’re right, I have done a few in London, but this is the first one I’ve done in New York, yeah.  And the thing about New York as well is it’s a, it’s a global aspirational destination, I think, and my books do, you know, I was in the Love Letter Convention in Berlin because my books sell really well in Germany and France and Italy, and New York is somewhere everybody loves and wants to go.  You know, it’s on everybody’s wish list, really.  So it’s the perfect place to –

Ms. Wendell:  I’m always sort of amazed by that.  Like, I can’t wait to go to New York!  And, you know, I used to work there, and I used to –

Ms. Morgan:  I know you did!  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  – live, live nearby, and I would go all the time, and I’d kind of be like, why?  Okay.

Ms. Morgan:  It’s different when you live there.  It’s different.

Ms. Wendell:  It’s very different.  It’s very, very different.

Ms. Morgan:  And you’re not doing the tourist things and the enjoyable things that you – you’re slogging in with the traffic and the people, aren’t you?

Ms. Wendell:  Yes, yes.

Ms. Morgan:  And that’s diff- –

Ms. Wendell:  Commuting is never as much fun as vacation, ever.

Ms. Morgan:  It truly isn’t.  It truly isn’t, and do you know, that was the funny thing.  Before Flo and I came back from the Love Letter Convention in Berlin, HarperCollins said to us, we feel so guilty!  We’ve worked you so hard, and you haven’t even seen Berlin, so on your way to the airport, we’re going to get the car to pick you up an hour early, and you are going to do a whistle-top store of Berlin, a whistle – [laughs] – trying saying that!  Whistle-stop –

Ms. Wendell:  Yes.

Ms. Morgan:  – tour of Berlin, so they picked up early and we went all ‘round Berlin, and it was amazing, and I said to Flo, it’s Monday morning; it’s 10 o’clock.  Can you imagine doing this in London?  You would get in a car, and I’m not kidding, you would go half an inch, if you’re lucky, in an hour.  You certainly wouldn’t be able to drive ‘round all the tourist spots in an hour.  You’d just be stuck in a traffic jam for the entire time!  London’s a nightmare!  But Berlin, we were driving round and round everywhere.  We, we literally did go everywhere in the hour –

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs]

Ms. Morgan:  – but Flo and I were just trying to imagine – and the same in New York!  You wouldn’t be able to drive ‘round all the sights in an hour –

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, no, you don’t drive, not at 10.

Ms. Morgan:  – on a Monday morning.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  You take the subway, yeah, or you get on one of the tourists’ bus, but you expect that you’re going to be chilling down streets very slowly.

Ms. Morgan:  You’d be stuck in traffic, wouldn’t you, the whole time?  So it’s amazing, but yeah.  So this, you know, it’s different when you’re a tourist, isn’t it?

Ms. Wendell:  It’s very different.  So tell me about your books.  What’s the first one?  It’s, ‘cause it’s already out in the UK –

Ms. Morgan:  It is, yeah –

Ms. Wendell:  – and it’s coming out end of May in the U.S.

Ms. Morgan:  That’s right, it is out in the UK.  It came out in March, and the novella is out.  I, I wrote a short novella, which was great fun.  I loved, I loved that book.  Very fairy tale, short novella.  So those three girls basically work for an events company, and they lose their jobs very early in the series.  That’s not a spoiler, because –

Ms. Wendell:  Right.

Ms. Morgan:  – that’s what it’s about.  That’s, you know, they set up their own business.  But this, the novella is just before they lose their jobs, so you do very briefly get a glimpse of them in the job that they’re in –

Ms. Wendell:  Right.

Ms. Morgan:  – before they lose it.  And I was thinking the other night, you know, what, what are these, what are these books about, really, because they’re not, I’m not very good at knowing what my book’s about ‘til I’ve written it at the end, and then I realize what it’s about.  And I thought, you know, is it about people moving from small town, and I thought, no, actually, it’s about risk.  It’s about taking risk, and I think these days there’s no such thing as a safe job, and it must be the same for you in the States.  You know, the day when you can go into a job at twenty-one and you think you’ve got a job for life are so long gone.  Aren’t they?

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, yeah.

Ms. Morgan:  Absolutely.  That just doesn’t exist, I don’t think, in any profession now.

Ms. Wendell:  It’s, I think it’s very rare, or you find people who have been in the same profession but have made a move to a different thing, so, like, if you were in a trade, like you were an electrician or you were a plumber, you make a move, and now you work for the state inspection bureau, or you are a home inspector.  You move into different things as business dries up, and if you’re in –

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  – like, a, like, a professional job within a corporation, it’s always move up, move left, move right.

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  There’s always this sort of push to, to do something else, or –

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  – things change, and you lose your job altogether with no warning.

Ms. Morgan:  Well, exactly, and that’s what happens to my heroines, and I think that, that does happen to people –

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, a lot.

Ms. Morgan:  – all too frequently, sadly, and I think it’s very scary, and, and what they do is that – and I think the mess-, the message, if there’s a message, is about taking risk, and it’s different in all the books.  So the first one, it is about setting up your own business, that sort of risk, and the second one is Frankie, her risk is slightly different, and the third one, the risk, it’s actually the hero who’s taking the risk.  But I think that’s what it’s about.  It’s about going, you know, go for it; don’t hold yourself back.  But yeah, they were great fun.  They were great fun to write, all three of them, and all three quite different.  And in fact, in the second book, she does go back to her small town roots for a short visit, which she doesn’t want to do.  [Laughs] So she goes back to Puffin Island for the first time.

Ms. Wendell:  There are a lot – I think it’s, it’s, I think there’re a lot of people who are like, I really don’t want to go back to my small town –

Ms. Morgan:  Mm-hmm!

Ms. Wendell:  – ‘cause there’s nothing for me there.

Ms. Morgan:  Absolutely, or there, or, or there are things there that you absolutely don’t want to ever confront again.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  Or deal with ever.

Ms. Morgan:  Yes!  Yeah.  [Laughs] Where your worst embarrassment took place, or – [laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  So it’s painful.  So tell me –

Ms. Morgan:  It is.

Ms. Wendell:  – about the first book.

Ms. Morgan:  So the first book is out with you at the end of May, and it’s Paige’s story.  She’s really the business brain, so she’s the one that sets up the business.  She had a congenital heart problem when she was little, so she’s been really overprotected, so it’s about kind of throwing off people’s urge to protect her all the time, and that includes the hero.

Ms. Wendell:  Is there always a medical element in your books?

Ms. Morgan:  Well, sometimes –

Ms. Wendell:  It’s like –

Ms. Morgan:  – ‘cause I like that!  I can’t help it; it’s the nurse in me!  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  I know!  You’re a former nurse, and you wrote a lot of Harlequin Medical –

Ms. Morgan:  I did.

Ms. Wendell:  – so there’s always a little medical thing.

Ms. Morgan:  Oh, and I miss them!  There is sometimes, there are no doctors – are there any doctors? – no, there are no doctors in this series.  No, I just have to –

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs] Wait, wait, do I have doctors?  I forgot.

Ms. Morgan:  – just have to double – I know.  I just have to double-check that.

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, crap, there is one!  No.

[Laughter]

Ms. Morgan:  Just had to double-check:  there are no doctors in this series, but yeah, she did have a heart condition.  I know, because I’m fascinated by, by medical things, so I slide them in, and they make interesting conflict, you know.

Ms. Wendell:  ‘Cause you were, you were an emergency nurse?

Ms. Morgan:  I was, yeah.  I was; I worked in the ER, which means I’m really good with blood and broken bones and exceptionally good with very drunk people.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  Really!

Ms. Morgan:  Yes!

Ms. Wendell:  It is just a good thing that you’re a romance writer.

Ms. Morgan:  It is.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  And you go to a lot of conferences.

Ms. Morgan:  I know, because I’m always there.  I am the person you want – [laughs] – when you’ve had one too many margaritas.

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs]

Ms. Morgan:  As long as I’m not the one that’s had one too many margaritas.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  So you were an ER nurse, you’re good with puke, you’re good with blood, you’re good with nastiness –

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  – and there’s always a little medical element in your book.

Ms. Morgan:  Not always, but often it creeps, it creeps in.  See, I didn’t even think of that until you mentioned that.  I just wrote the story, but you’re right.

Ms. Wendell:  Right.

Ms. Morgan:  It did creep in.

Ms. Wendell:  Do you still write medicals for Harlequin?  Do they still publish them?

Ms. Morgan:  They do still publish them!  I don’t write them.  I’m often tempted to sneak in a bit of medical here and there into my single titles, which I’ve obviously managed in this one.  No, to be fair, it’s not very much.  It’s backstory, really, just about her being overprotected, really.

Ms. Wendell:  ‘Cause I do, I have to say, I really do like your medicals.

Ms. Morgan:  Oh, well, thank you!  And I loved writing them, you know, I did.  I loved writing them.

Ms. Wendell:  I like the – ‘cause you were writing small town medicals with –

Ms. Morgan:  Yes.

Ms. Wendell:  – doctors and obstetricians in Cornwall and –

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  – doctors who were on ski slopes and –

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  – yeah.  So there were, like, adventure doctors.

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah.  They were adventurous doc-, yeah, I wrote one on Everest.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  Yep.  As you do.

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah, as you do.  No, I do, I do, I did love the, writing them.  Yeah.  I might write more medical, but probably not in that format.

Ms. Wendell:  So, novel one, Paige has a heart condition.  She’s –

Ms. Morgan:  She had one.  She’s better now.  I mean, she’s, she’s doing okay, yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  Right.  And –

Ms. Morgan:  So it’s shaking off that people’s tendency to overprotect her, and then she wants to take this massive risk and set up on her own because she thinks she doesn’t let anybody else have control over her.  You know, ‘cause when you don’t see something like that coming, when, when you lose your job and you really do not see it coming, and when you are actually doing a very good job, and she knows she’s the one that’s brought in all the business, you know, she realizes that actually, they’re the ones with the talent, so why not do it themselves?

Ms. Wendell:  Yeah.

Ms. Morgan:  But that is a scary thing to do.  Taking that leap –

Ms. Wendell:  Very scary!

Ms. Morgan:  – is a really scary thing to do, because then you are the one that’s responsible, aren’t you?  I mean, you know, we have this, we work for ourselves.

Ms. Wendell:  Yep.

Ms. Morgan:  If we screw it up, we’ve screwed it up!  We can’t blame anyone else!  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  Nope, it’s all you.

Ms. Morgan:  It’s all us.

Ms. Wendell:  And, and then, you know, and, and in our respective industries, we have to be aware of how things are changing and what trends are coming and what readers are looking for and what, you know, the, the way in which people interact online changes, you know, hourly, every twenty minutes maybe?  So –

Ms. Morgan:  Finding your readers is, is, it changes, yeah, it does.

Ms. Wendell:  Always.  So, yeah, it is very risky and scary to set up your own business, but you’re also taking a risk that you can be your own boss, which has its own good parts and, and difficult parts.

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah, it does.  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  My problem that I have found is that because I love what I do and I love my job so much, I just sort of sit down and, you know, pick up my phone, and all of a sudden I’m talking on email, and I’m looking at comments, and I’m like, okay, you’re not supposed to be working.  I mean –

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  – I love what I do, so I just work, like, whenever I’m –

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  – whenever I don’t catch myself, but I have to be good about giving my brain time away so that it can sort of, you know, re-process and re-energize and think about other things for a while.

Ms. Morgan:  Mm.  Yeah, it leaches into everything, doesn’t it?

Ms. Wendell:  Yep!  And sometimes –

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  – it’s a good thing, but sometimes it’s like, no, you’re tired.  You need to stop.

Ms. Morgan:  Mm-hmm.  No, I’m exactly the same.  Exactly the same.  Particularly when you’re trying to write the book as well, and if you have books out – for example, tomorrow I’ve got a book out in Germany that’s different to the book that’s coming out in the States in three weeks, and it’s different from the one that will be coming out in the UK in, in eight weeks, so I’m working on different promotions, and proofing a book that will be coming out, you know, after that at the same time as writing a book that’s completely different, and then that’s without the social media –

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs]

Ms. Morgan:  – so there are days when, well –

Ms. Wendell:  Like, what book is it that I’m talking – I would have to give myself, like, a cheat sheet –

Ms. Morgan:  Yes!

Ms. Wendell:  – like, what book am I talking about?  Okay, it’s this hero and this one – oh, okay, okay, that book –

Ms. Morgan:  I know!

Ms. Wendell:  – is the one I’m talking about today, and then tomorrow we’re going to be doing this other book!

Ms. Morgan:  I know.  I did once write a blog on entirely the wrong book.

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs]

Ms. Morgan:  Because I was two years behi-, they, they were two years behind, you know –

Ms. Wendell:  Of course.

Ms. Morgan:  I was writing the summer book.  They were – I was writing the summer book.  They were asking me to blog on the summer book.  I was really busy.  I blogged on the book that I was writing now, not the book from two years ago.  [Laughs] But I did realize; it just meant I had to write it again.

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, no.

Ms. Morgan:  Yes.  Sometimes one’s head does spin.

Ms. Wendell:  Just a little.  So, with the new series, all of them are in New York.

Ms. Morgan:  They’re all in New York, yes.

Ms. Wendell:  And they all live in the same apartment –

Ms. Morgan:  They all live in a lovely brownstone in Brooklyn owned by the heroine, the first heroine’s brother.  Now here’s an interesting thing:  I was determined to have quite a lot of green in the book, and now obviously there are loads of parks, but you know, you can’t live your life in Central Park, ‘cause they have to get on with their jobs, and I was researching, and I didn’t realize until I did the research for this book how many roof gardens there are in New York, and it’s like a whole world upon the rooves, and then I spent hours and hours looking at all these garden designers who do nothing but roof terraces.  It was fascinating, and there were some stunning roof terraces, and which plants you can’t have, because obviously when you get a bad storm they’re stripped of leaves, and things like weight.  You know, they have to think about which pots they can use, because you can’t be lugging great pots, and you have to water them, and yeah, it’s, it’s fascinating.  So it was a whole new – I mean, obviously I knew there were roof gardens, but I didn’t really realize what an enormous part of New York life they are –

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, yeah.

Ms. Morgan:  – so, and, and a really good friend of mine who was living in Brooklyn had exactly this lifestyle that I’ve written about in that on a summer’s evening they used to go up to their roof terr- – it probably wasn’t as beautiful as the one that I’ve designed in my book, but they had a roof, and they used to go up there, hang a sheet, and watch movies on the roof.

Ms. Wendell:  Yep.

Ms. Morgan:  And that’s exactly the kind of thing that, you know, my heroines and my heroes are doing, and, and it’s, yeah, it’s, it’s really fun, but it was very interesting part of the research.  I spent hours and hours looking at beautiful roof terraces, and obviously wanting to move to New York and have a lovely roof terrace.  Which –

[Laughter]

Ms. Wendell:  I remember looking at one, at one – I don’t even remember where I saw it.  I must have been doing a deep dive of many hours on Pinterest, but someone did a roof garden, because the access is usually through the stairwell, and then –

Ms. Morgan:  Yes.

Ms. Wendell:  – the stairwell sort of pops up into a little, like –

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  – like, little cube on the roof, and then that’s your door access.  They took that little cube access and built a, a fake porch around it.

Ms. Morgan:  Nice.

Ms. Wendell:  So you would exit, and you would be on a porch with an awning, and then out the front was the garden, so if you didn’t look behind you at the metal door, you were, you were sitting on a porch –

Ms. Morgan:  You wouldn’t know, yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  – and you’ve built this quiet little porch with a tiny little garden –

Ms. Morgan:  Amazing.

Ms. Wendell:  – and little fence, and it’s, it’s like the, a secret world, the higher you go.

Ms. Morgan:  Yes.  Yeah.  Amazing. 

Ms. Wendell:  It’s really beautiful.

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah.  So that, I mean, that’s, and that’s what my second hero – so the first book is, is older brother’s best friend – ooh, I love that, the older brother’s best friend.  Anyway, older brother is a garden designer, particularly rooftops, so that’s one of the things he does, so he did his own, and that, they share his brownstone.

Ms. Wendell:  Right.

Ms. Morgan:  So they all have an apartment, different, well, two of them share one apartment, and then –

Ms. Wendell:  The others have another.

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah.  Yeah, the other one has – she’s more of an introvert, my second heroine –

Ms. Wendell:  I can relate.

Ms. Morgan:  – in book two.  Yeah, so she, she has her own apartment.  Yeah.  So it’s fun.  It’s really fun.  I’m really excited about it.

Ms. Wendell:  So what are some of the differences that you’ve noticed between writing in a small town and writing in a city?  Because you mentioned, when we were talking about this, the, the idea of community and how community can mean very similar things and very different things when you’re in a very small community versus in a very large city.

Ms. Morgan:  But you do still have community, don’t you?  It’s just a different –

Ms. Wendell:  Absolutely.

Ms. Morgan:  – it’s different.  You set it around you, like with, you know, we’re really friendly with our neighbors here, you know, so we have our own little community –

Ms. Wendell:  Mm-hmm.

Ms. Morgan:  – even though we’re in a, in a big place.  We still have our own small community, and I think that’s what happens in all cities.  Well, you hope it does.  If you’re very lucky, you end up with your own small community, don’t you, in your own small space.

Ms. Wendell:  Yep.

Ms. Morgan:  So New York may be an enormous place, but the bit that you’re in feels small, and, and that’s what I’ve tried to do with these stories so that they’re not so dissimilar to what I always write in that it’s about friendship and obviously romance and community, but the community is more set in the local area rather than a whole island –

Ms. Wendell:  Right, right, right.

Ms. Morgan:  – or, you know, the ski resort that I had, for example, with Snow Crystal.  But I do think when you’re writing, the setting does become another character.

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, yes.

Ms. Morgan:  I mean, I think it does definitely, and I think –

Ms. Wendell:  ‘Cause it’s worldbuilding.

Ms. Morgan:  It is worldbuilding, exactly, and I think some people think that for contemporary that that isn’t the case, that if you’re not writing about, you know, dragons or wizards or whatever, you’re not building a world, but of course you are!  And I get letters about, you know, where, where is Snow Crystal?  Can I go and stay in it?

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs]

Ms. Morgan:  And, and, and the same with Puffin Island.  Where exactly is it?  Can we go and see and puffins?  And if you’ve done a good job, that’s what you should be getting, ‘cause people should like it so much that they, you know, they want to go there, and obviously with New York, for the first time, I’m dealing with a real place –

Ms. Wendell:  Mm-hmm.

Ms. Morgan:  – so lots of what’s in it is real –

Ms. Wendell:  Mm-hmm.

Ms. Morgan:  – but the actual community that I’ve created is, of course, fictitious, which –

Ms. Wendell:  Right.

Ms. Morgan:  – which helps, because you don’t want people to – you’re bound to get somebody very familiar.  It’s like when I used to write medicals, I would never set it in a real hospital, because somebody will say to you, ooh, you’ve put x-ray to the left of radiology and – or whatever, you know.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  And you can’t do that!

Ms. Morgan:  No, you can’t.  You can’t.

Ms. Wendell:  Because it’s bad for this reason.

Ms. Morgan:  It’s much better to, to make it up, so although obviously New York is, is there, their actual community, obviously, is, is fictitious, so I’ve left it very, you know, broad about exactly where in Brooklyn they are.  And that –

Ms. Wendell:  Well, the other thing about small communities in the city is that, if you move and you move, like, two blocks away, that’s going to be a whole new dry cleaner –

Ms. Morgan:  Mm-hmm.

Ms. Wendell:  – and a whole new –

Ms. Morgan:  Absolutely.

Ms. Wendell:  – takeout place.  Like, when we, we moved four hours from where we used to live, and I actually had a list of all of the restaurants that we used to like doing takeout from in Montclair so that I could find similar places here, because you just want to recreate all the things that you liked –

Ms. Morgan:  Right, yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  – but you need to recreate that community around you.

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  And once you figure out where those places are, you, then you start to become a regular.

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  So the places where you shop and the places where you eat and the people you see every day become your community by proximity.

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah.  Yeah.  And the place, I mean, the places that they love, you know, they have places that they love to visit, for example, the High Line – which, by the way, you were the one that introduced me to the High Line.  Do you remember the, my very first trip to New York five or six years ago when we met, you said to me, the place you need to go is the High Line.

Ms. Wendell:  Yes, I do!

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah, and –

Ms. Wendell:  It’s wonderful!

Ms. Morgan:  It is, it’s beautiful, and obviously, that’s somewhere that my hero, my gardening hero and my gardening heroine love.

Ms. Wendell:  Yeah, you don’t say.

Ms. Morgan:  So, I mean, it’s so beautiful, isn’t it?  So, you know, they, they have their favorite places in New York, but obviously they’ve got their local, their local places as well.  But setting, for me, can often be, if a setting is good, it’s often almost the reason to read the book, isn’t it?

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, absolutely!  And then that’s the reason why readers like series and readers like trilogies, because we want to go visit that world.  We want to go revisit those people and that, and the – [laughs] – I always joke that Julia Quinn’s London is, like, the safest London ever, because it’s so populated with previous characters, and nothing’s going to happen to them?

Ms. Morgan:  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  Like, they can’t die, nothing’s going to go wrong, so if you are feeling stressed, just go into that world, because it’s, even, even with the, you know, book number 22, book number 23 –

Ms. Morgan:  They’re going to be fine!

Ms. Wendell:  It doesn’t matter!  If all of the previous characters are around you, you are all good.  It’s very safe.  You can go visit and know everyone’s fine.  No one, no one has any problems.  No one’s going to die; no one’s going to get sick.  But even, even with contemporary worlds, there are contemporary worlds that I love to revisit.  There are, I, I happen to love traveling to other cities by reading books set in those places?

Ms. Morgan:  Hmm!

Ms. Wendell:  Like, I love Laura Florand’s series set in Paris –

Ms. Morgan:  Yes.

Ms. Wendell:  – especially, I think it’s The Chocolate –

Ms. Morgan:  The Chocolate Kiss?  Is it The Chocolate Kiss?

Ms. Wendell:  Yes, the second one, because the, it takes place on a, on a very small island community in the Seine.  In the, in, in the middle of Paris on this tiny little island in the river, there’s a, you know, there’s a chocolate shop, and then someone sets up a chocolate shop across the street, and it is on, because that is not okay!  But the, the, the, the ability to travel to other places when you read a book is the, is – ‘cause I really like to travel, and it’s expensive –

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  – it’s the best thing.

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah, exactly!

Ms. Wendell:  I think that’s also one of the reasons why Presents is so popular –

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  – because you’re going to go all over the world –

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah, you are.

Ms. Wendell:  – in this tiny little book.

Ms. Morgan:  You’ve got this tiny bit of glamour, haven’t you?  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, always.  Always –

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah, no, I’m exactly the same.  I travel, I mean, I like – you, didn’t you go to college down South?

Ms. Wendell:  I did.

Ms. Morgan:  Now I’ve never been to Savannah and Charleston, but I’ve always, it’s absolutely on my list, and I love reading people like Sarah Addison Allen that, you know, getting that Southern, Southern feel, and Mary Alice Monroe with beaches, and I really, I really enjoy it for the same – do I mean Mary Alice Monroe?  Do I mean her?  Yeah, probably.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  There’s a book you should read that I really love that is very Southern.  It’s called Charms for the Easy Life –

Ms. Morgan:  Ooh!

Ms. Wendell:  – and it’s by Kaye Gibbons.  I ended up picking it up at my, at my college library.  I went to a very, very small women’s college, and we had one shelf of fiction right when you walked in.  It was like four shelves of paperbacks; that’s all there was.  But they, Kaye Gibbons, Charms for the Easy Life is about three generations of women in the South, and you might like it ‘cause they’re healers –

Ms. Morgan:  I love it.

Ms. Wendell:  – like, mid-, like, they’re –

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  – sort of, it’s a little bit of magical realism, but it’s really, really beautiful.  You would like it, especially if –

Ms. Morgan:  I would like it.

Ms. Wendell:  – it’s Southern, Southern stuff.

Ms. Morgan:  I do!

Ms. Wendell:  I know lots of Southern stuff.  I didn’t know that.  I’m going to have to hook you up.

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah, no, I do, I really do!  That’s like my holiday when it’s raining in the UK?  I –

Ms. Wendell:  You go, you go to the South?

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah, I do!  I go to the South, and I have, yeah, iced tea.

[Laughter]

Ms. Wendell:  It’s sweet tea.

Ms. Morgan:  Sweet tea.

Ms. Wendell:  Sweet tea is important.

Ms. Morgan:  Sweet tea.

Ms. Wendell:  What’s the other one?  There’s another one that I –

Ms. Morgan:  Sweet tea and sweet grass.

Ms. Wendell:  Yes.  I didn’t know you like Southern, Southern lit.

Ms. Morgan:  Oh, yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, ho!  I’m, I – the good thing about going to a Southern women’s college is that, you know, we didn’t study a whole lot of dead guys?  We so-, we studied a lot of dead ladies?  So I had whole courses about, you know, English literature, and all we did was read Flannery O’Connor and Eudora Welty and all of these Southern women writers because, well, no one was going to say no, ‘cause we could do what we wanted.  So I have all these great books from my English classes, but I’m like, well, I never read any of the dead white guys.  I read these other people.

Ms. Morgan:  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  Oops!  Flannery O’Connor’ll blow your mind, too.  She’s –

Ms. Morgan:  Great.

Ms. Wendell:  – she’s much older in terms of what she wrote about, but she has these incredibly vivid, fantastical elements, and she is unafraid to write about seriously internally ugly people.

Ms. Morgan:  Hmm.

Ms. Wendell:  Yes, ‘cause you can’t write about the South without dealing with, you know, racism.  What’s the next book in the series that you’re writ-, that you’re working on?  Are you working on book three?  Or is it, book three done?

Ms. Morgan:  I just turned in book three, but, and I’m doing proofs on it, so that, that’s, that’s the third one, so that’s his risk, really, rather than hers.

Ms. Wendell:  Right.

Ms. Morgan:  Since it’s about this theme of risk.  Yeah, and he’s a – I love this – he’s a horror writer –

Ms. Wendell:  Uh-huh?

Ms. Morgan:  – and his life’s very dark, and the heroine that’s with him is probably my sweetest.  She would not, she’s, she’s got elements of me in it, in that you wouldn’t put me in front of a horror movie.  You just wouldn’t, and in fact, my boys, when, when they say, oh, you’re going to love this series, Mum, apart from there’s a bit in episode two you’re going to hate, and there’s a bit in episode four you’re going to hate, but we’re going to, we’re going to screen that out for you.  So, so I watch these things with these boys who quite happily watch all of Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead, and they –

Ms. Wendell:  No, no, no –

Ms. Morgan:  – they don’t care, you know, how bloody it is, they’re quite happy, but they have, they are very well trained in what I will hate, but they say –

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs]

Ms. Morgan:  – we think you’ll love this series.  We think you’ll love the writing, but you won’t like the bad bits, so they cut it out.  And my heroine’s exactly like that, so she finds herself with this horror writer.  Anyway, he’s writing his book, and she starts to rewrite bits of it, ‘cause she’s really horrified that it’s so dark, and she decides he should really have some happy bits in it.  [Laughs] I had a lot of fun with that story.

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, gosh.

Ms. Morgan:  So that’s what I’ve been writing, yeah.  That’s Christmas.  That’s Miracle on 5th Avenue.

Ms. Wendell:  That’s Miracle on 5th Avenue.

Ms. Morgan:  That will be December for you.  October for us.

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, so they’re not that far apart this time.

Ms. Morgan:  No, they’re not.  They’re not, actually.  No, they’re about six weeks – this one was further.  The first one was further.  The second one comes out in the UK mid-July, and you get it at the end of August.  It’s only six weeks apart.

Ms. Wendell:  Not that bad.

Ms. Morgan:  No, and the second one actually is about the same.  I think we, it’s out end of October with us and end of November with you.

Ms. Wendell:  Do readers get upset about that?  Do you hear from readers, like, why can’t I get this yet?

Ms. Morgan:  A little bit when there’s been a big delay.  They tend to be perfectly okay with six weeks.  What really floors readers and what‘s difficult for all of us is a change of title.

Ms. Wendell:  Uh-huh.

Ms. Morgan:  And, you know, and obviously they can’t have the same covers, ‘cause different covers work in different markets –

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, yes.

Ms. Morgan:  – and that’s, that’s true of, you know, all of them, Italy, Germany, all of them.  And –

Ms. Wendell:  ‘Cause we’ve talked about that.  Your, your –

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  – your English covers in the UK are illustraten.

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah, they are.

Ms. Wendell:  Illustrative.

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah, they are.

Ms. Wendell:  They’re, they’re not cartoons, but they’re drawings.

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah, they are, exactly, illustrative, yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  And here in the U.S. you get photographs.

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah, that’s right.  And also, in the UK, the fiction all tends to be heroine-led, so that if you look at any, if you’re looking at Sophie Kinsella –

Ms. Wendell:  Mm-hmm.

Ms. Morgan:  – any of the big names in the UK, you’ll see that there’s a heroine on the cover.  It doesn’t tend to be a couple, whereas the U.S., it tends to be –

Ms. Wendell:  It’s a couple.  Oh, that’s interesting!  You’re totally right, and I’d never noticed it.

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah.  It’s very heroine-centric.

Ms. Wendell:  Even in the –

Ms. Morgan:  Very heroine-centric.

Ms. Wendell:  Yeah!  You’re, now all this – oh, my goodness, my, my brain just like, oh, that’s true!  Like –

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah, no, it is true, yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  The Sophie Kinsella books, your books –

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  – even Jill Mansell’s books.

Ms. Morgan:  Oh, yeah, yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  The heroine –

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah –

Ms. Wendell:  – the heroine is the center.

Ms. Morgan:  Always a – you won’t see a hero usually on the cover.  Always heroine-centric.  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  So that’s, and that’s part of why in, in –

Ms. Morgan:  Well –

Ms. Wendell:  – in the UK market you use the term chick-lit, whereas nobody uses that here, or if they, when they do, it’s a nostalgia thing.

Ms. Morgan:  Well, no, and to be honest, they don’t, I don’t think Jill Mansell would consider herself to be chick-lit, so I –

Ms. Wendell:  No, no, she’s not.

Ms. Morgan:  – it’s, it’s a pretty, it, it’s a pretty derogatory term, I think, wherever you use it.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  It totally is.

Ms. Morgan:  They all are, whether it’s romance or general fiction, you know, with women’s fiction, it’s always a heroine on the cover, but interestingly enough, Harlequin, for my U.S. books this time, have gone illustrative, and the covers are really gorgeous.  It’s obviously an experiment, but it is, they’ve gone illustrative, and they’re really lovely.

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, nice!

Ms. Morgan:  And we’ve got all four covers.

Ms. Wendell:  Yes, I’ve seen the first two.  I hadn’t seen the other two; they’re lovely!

Ms. Morgan:  They’re very pretty, aren’t they?

Ms. Wendell:  They’re very pretty!

Ms. Morgan:  And they’ve all, they’re all using this heart motif, so in the first one it’s stars, and in the second one it’s birds, ‘cause it’s the park, and then the third one, it’s snowflakes.

Ms. Wendell:  Lovely!

Ms. Morgan:  So, yeah, no, they are very pretty.  Yeah.  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  Nice!

Ms. Morgan:  So it’s just its title that people struggle with, and that is confusing, because then they’ll write – and in fact, it confuses both ways, so I’ll have people saying, oh, but, but we haven’t got the third book here, and I’ll say, yes, you have, but it’s called this, and then I’ll have UK people saying, oh, but we haven’t read that book, and I’ll say, yes, you have, but it was called this.  So title, title is the real confusion.

Ms. Wendell:  I can barely keep straight the titles of books that I’ve actually read.  If I had to keep track of most of – [laughs] – if I had to keep track of one book with multiple different titles, I would lose my mind.  I don’t know how you do it.  I would –

Ms. Morgan:  Well, it’s, it doesn’t have to –

Ms. Wendell:  – I would be terrible at it!

Ms. Morgan:  In fairness, Harlequin are really good about recognizing that that is a seriously big deal to change a title, so they only do it if they absolutely think it won’t work, but really, obviously, ideally, one hopes that we all come up with that right at the beginning, and we find a title that does work.

Ms. Wendell:  Right, that, and you, and you pick a, or at least a theme that makes sense.

Ms. Morgan:  Exactly.  And this, I mean, for the whole New York series it’s worked fine.  It’s, it’s great.  Yeah, so.

Ms. Wendell:  That’s lovely!

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah!  So it’s very exciting.  I’m really loving it.  I am loving setting books there, because there is such scope, you know, to do, I mean, there’s some set in Central Park.  There’s, it’s very green, there’s a lot of, you know, you don’t have to be very city, but at the same time, you have that extra scope to have a bit of edge.  It gets a bit more edgy, I think, when it’s city?  It’s fun.

Ms. Wendell:  Yes.  And there’s a lot more happening around you.

Ms. Morgan:  Yes!

Ms. Wendell:  Things are going to change rapidly.

Ms. Morgan:  Yes!  And if you’re going to be in, trapped in a lift in a tall building, that is less likely to happen in a very small town on a very small island.

Ms. Wendell:  No, there might not even be a lift.

Ms. Morgan:  Exactly!  Sorry, elevator.  We’re doing that again.

Ms. Wendell:  It’s all right, I know, I –

Ms. Morgan:  Do you remember?

Ms. Wendell:  Ah, yes.

Ms. Morgan:  My dad?  What do you do?  And I said, Dad, I take, make them take the stairs.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  Although I know, I think enough Americans are watching British, British import television –

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  – that we’ve sort of getting, getting, gotten used to it.  I still don’t understand why Harry Potter was changed from Philosopher’s Stone to Sorcerer’s Stone.  It’s not like it’s that big of a change.  I never got that one.

Ms. Morgan:  No.  I, I, I’ve no idea either.  I think sometimes they underestimate the readership as well, maybe.  I don’t know.  Who knows, maybe they did market research, but –

Ms. Wendell:  So when you hear from your readers, are there books that they email you about the most?  Are there books that you still get the most mail about?

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah, do you know, I do still get a lot of mail.  I love that, I love that.  Well, they all want to move to Snow Crystal.  Yeah, they all want to go and stay in Vermont.  I get mailed loads of puffin stuff, and it’s brilliant.  Somebody mailed me the other day with a lovely, lovely video of baby puffins, ‘cause do you know what a baby puffin is called?  It’s a puffling.

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs] I did not know that!

Ms. Morgan:  I mean, does that, does that word not just make your week better?  Puffling.

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, puffling.  That’s adorable!

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah, and that’s, it is adorable, and they’re always so fluffy and lovely, and this reader had sent me, you know, a, a clip of the puffling in the nest, and I get loads of puffin stuff, and it’s brilliant!  It’s lovely!

Ms. Wendell:  Aww!

Ms. Morgan:  So, yeah, they email me all the time, and obviously the New York stuff is new, but I’m getting a lot of stuff from the UK, so I hope that it goes down well in the U.S. as well.  Yeah, is there one book?  No, I don’t think so.  It’s pretty even, really.

Ms. Wendell:  Yeah?  Mostly people want to, want to go to Snow Crystal in Vermont?

Ms. Morgan:  Yes.  Yeah, and, and where is it?  And do I have an address?  And I say, if I did, I’d be there myself.

Ms. Wendell:  There are a couple resorts like that.  It just depends.  Like, for example, the place where we go in Vermont is very much a family resort, so there’s not a lot of evening activity.  There’re certainly not horse-drawn snow carriages or anything like that, but there’s a lot of ski instruction and snowboard instruction and cross-country skiing and snowshoeing, that kind of thing, but a, a resort that has everything that you imagined, I have not found that place either.  I would like to go as well.

Ms. Morgan:  Exactly!  I mean, I, what I’ve done is it’s a composite of lots of different –

Ms. Wendell:  Yes.

Ms. Morgan:  – different places.

Ms. Wendell:  Yes.

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah, I mean, I think it would be pretty busy and booked out if it existed.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  Well –

Ms. Morgan:  We should set that up!  Hey!  That’s our nest, next risk.

Ms. Wendell:  Yes!

Ms. Morgan:  When we get fed up with our day jobs, we’ll set up – [laughs] –

Ms. Wendell:  But see –

Ms. Morgan:  We’ll find a patch of land in Vermont, and we’ll build Snow Crystal.

Ms. Wendell:  But I, but I’ve worked in hospitality, and it’s very difficult, and I can’t say that I wish to do it again.  [Laughs]

Ms. Morgan:  No.  Me too.  I know.  I actually did that as well.  I did events and PR, so, I mean –

Ms. Wendell:  Yeah, ooh.

Ms. Morgan:  – these, these girls –

Ms. Wendell:  It’s, it’s –

Ms. Morgan:  – I did the job that they end up being fired from, and frankly, I would have opened champagne at times – [laughs] – for it to all be over!

[Laughter]

Ms. Wendell:  I’ve done, I’ve worked at the front desk of a hotel, and I’ve done events planning, and yes, that is entirely true.

Ms. Morgan:  It is, isn’t it?  It’s really hard work.

Ms. Wendell:  Any, any job, I think, where you’re facing the public is a really challenging job.

Ms. Morgan:  Well, I’ve organized, and organizing events, it’s just, yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  And organizing people, oh, my God.

Ms. Morgan:  Yes, it is.  It is.

Ms. Wendell:  Most people barely organize, you know, can barely manage to organize their families, ‘cause their families are everywhere.

[Laughter]

Ms. Wendell:  So I have one last question for you.

Ms. Morgan:  Go.

Ms. Wendell:  What are you reading, or what books have you read, that you’ve really enjoyed and want to tell people about?

Ms. Morgan:  Lately.  Well, you know, I’m really late to this, I’m embarrassed to say, but I’ve just started listening to audiobooks, and I –

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, no, you’re not late!  You’re right on time!

Ms. Morgan:  Oh, am I?  I’ve never really done it before, and then I had some stuff come in January where it made it easier for me to listen, so I started, and I discovered, for a start, there’re two things:  when you, normally when you choose a book, you’re really just thinking about the author, but when you choose an audiobook, you then have to think about the narrator, don’t you?

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, yes.

Ms. Morgan:  You have to listen to the sample, because if you can’t stand the person’s voice, then you cannot listen to twelve and a half hours of this person narrating.

Ms. Wendell:  Nope.  No.

Ms. Morgan:  No, absolutely.  So I’ve just, I’ve started –

Ms. Wendell:  It means you have to think about whether or not you can listen to them read you a sex scene.

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  I’ve had that problem where I had – the narrator was fine, and then we got to the sex scene, and I was like, no, no, no!  No, I cannot listen, forward, forward, forward.  Okay, back to the plot.  Like, I just couldn’t handle that voice reading me the sexy bits.

Ms. Morgan:  [Laughs] No.

Ms. Wendell:  It just did not work!

Ms. Morgan:  No.

[Laughter]

Ms. Wendell:  So you have to listen to the sample, I completely agree.

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah, you do, you do.  So the first one I got was a Jayne Ann Krentz, Secret Sisters.

Ms. Wendell:  Ooh!

Ms. Morgan:  And I enjoyed that!  I really enjoyed it.  Do you know, that was something else we were talk- – I, I was talking last weekend when I was at the Washington Romance Writers about the difference between UK and U.S., and covers were obviously one of the things we talked about, but I also said, we don’t really have romantic suspense in the way that you have romantic suspense, and I was –

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, we’re killing people all over the place!

Ms. Morgan:  I know!  Well, we kill people, but we don’t have that – [laughs] – we, we don’t have the romance in it.  We just get straight down to the killing.

Ms. Wendell:  Yes.

Ms. Morgan:  We don’t bother cheering it up with a bit of romance.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  You don’t bother with it.  It’s all about that stiff upper lip.  You have a really sharp knife, boom, job is done, let’s go home for tea.

Ms. Morgan:  We have plenty of, of the romantic suspense thing – well, we have plenty of, no, not romantic bit; we have plenty of suspense.  We have what we call grip-lit.  Do you call it, you know, gripping literature –

Ms. Wendell:  Grip-lit.

Ms. Morgan:  – grip-lit, yeah.  We have The Girl on the Train and all that sort of thing –

Ms. Wendell:  Right.

Ms. Morgan:  – but that’s not, that’s not the same thing.

Ms. Wendell:  No, it’s not.

Ms. Morgan:  And romantic suspense, as a genre, doesn’t really exist here.  Well, I can’t think of anybody – well, we certainly don’t call it that, anyway.

Ms. Wendell:  Right.

Ms. Morgan:  But anyway, I enjoyed the Jayne Ann Krentz, and then I downloaded, completely different, I, I downloaded Wild –

Ms. Wendell:  Ooh.

Ms. Morgan:  – because I wanted to listen to, I wanted to hear more about the Pacific Crest Trail, actually.

Ms. Wendell:  Ah!

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah, and that was quite an interesting one.  I didn’t see the movie.  Did you watch the movie?

Ms. Wendell:  No, I have not.

Ms. Morgan:  No.  No, well, I, I like, I quite enjoy those outdoor things.  I like reading, you know, books about mountaineering and Everest, and I just thought, I am never going to hike the PCT, and therefore I would like to hike it vicariously, and so I will listen to Wild, which I did.

Ms. Wendell:  My sister-in-law hiked the Appalachian Trail, the whole thing, from Georgia to Maine, a couple years ago, and just hearing about that experience, it must be amazing, but there’s no way I would want to do it.  It’s just not a thing that I want to –

Ms. Morgan:  Did she do it in one go with a bunch of people or on her own?

Ms. Wendell:  On her own, but she, she met in with different groups, and then she had mail stops planned with her mom so that my mother-in-law would, like, post her different packages and supplies and stuff.  But yeah, she hiked the whole thing from March until, I think, late September, she was done.  It was a lot of walking.

Ms. Morgan:  Wow.  That is a lot of walking.  Yeah, see, I’m not going to do that, but I’m going to read about someone else doing it.  I’m quite happy –

Ms. Wendell:  Do you read, do you read Bill Bryson?

Ms. Morgan:  Yes!  I love him.  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  I love his writing.

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah, because he wrote A Walk in the Woods, yeah.  Yeah.  I loved his Notes from a Big Country.

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs] I loved his book At Home, where, he lives in this old house in, somewhere in England and wrote about the different rooms of his house and how they came to be, because you know, way, way, way back in history, you really could only heat, like, one room, so everyone lived in one room, and then you had two –

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  – and then you had three, and then you had an upstairs, which was just a huge development!  I love his writing.

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah, I do too, I absolutely do.

Ms. Wendell:  So what else have you read?

Ms. Morgan:  Well, I’ll tell you what I’m going to download next, ‘cause somebody told me last weekend that Richard Armit-, ‘cause we were talking again about the importance of the narrator, and somebody told me that Richard Armitage –

Ms. Wendell:  YES!

Ms. Morgan:  – has recorded Georgette Heyer.

Ms. Wendell:  Yes!  I have all of them; they are amazing!

Ms. Morgan:  Do you?  Oh, really!  And, okay, what I have –

Ms. Wendell:  They’re abridged, and it doesn’t matter.  They’re that good.

Ms. Morgan:  Oh.  I can’t wait.  I know.  I can’t wait.  So, yes.  Richard – so, Tom Hiddleston hasn’t done any, has he?

Ms. Wendell:  Not to my knowledge.

Ms. Morgan:  Because I heard him listening to Shakespeare’s, reading Shakespeare’s sonnets the other day, and he was amazing.

Ms. Wendell:  Oh –

Ms. Morgan:  And so I thought, oh, he must do an audiobook; he’s got to do an audiobook.  And I’m sure you could survive listening to him reading a sex scene.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, just for a few years, yes.  Also, you know what else is remarkably good?  Rosamund Pike narrated for Audible Pride and Prejudice.

Ms. Morgan:  Oh, okay, I like her, yes.

Ms. Wendell:  And she, it’s, you know, I’ve read Pride and Prejudice a bunch of times, and I’ve, I’ve listened to it.  It was one of the first eBooks that I read, way, way back in, like, gosh, 2000?  Maybe, maybe 1999, 2000.  I remember being at a summer camp, and I had an old, like, one of the little Palm Pilots, and I was reading free open-source books on it.  I read Pride and Prejudice and Sense, Sense and Sensibility that way, but she has the, this very, very – I don’t even know how to describe it.  It’s like if you listen to the sample, whoosh!  You’re there.  Her voice is just the right level of melodic with enough of the little dark irony in it, and she, oh, she’s lovely good at it.

Ms. Morgan:  She’s, she has a lovely voice.  She was a Bond girl, wasn’t she?

Ms. Wendell:  I think she was?

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah.  She was.

Ms. Wendell:  But she was also, she was Jane in the Keira Knightley Pride and Prejudice.

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  So she’s already pretty familiar with the material.

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah.  Oh, well, that’s great!  I’ve got that.  That’s good.

Ms. Wendell:  Her reading of it is gorgeous.  I also listened – [laughs] – we, I drove the kids up to visit their friends during their spring break, because the spring break between our old school system and the new one didn’t line up, so we went up to Jersey while they were still in school, and they had lunch with their friends, and on the way up and on the way back, it was only a three-and-a-half, four-hour drive, they were playing video games and listening to things in the back seat, so I had my GPS, and then I had one headphone plugged in, and I was listening to Dragon Bound by Thea Harrison, which is –

Ms. Morgan:  Oh, yes.

Ms. Wendell:  – great on –

Ms. Morgan:  Right, right.

Ms. Wendell:  – audio, but I had that wonderful experience of the GPS interrupting at the perfect moment?  He turned to her and said, move to the right lane to get off in one mile.

Ms. Morgan:  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  Like, this happened, like, five or six times, and every time, I was entirely delighted.  I was so happy that it – every time.  And then she said, you need to merge to the right.  Oh!  Okay!  It was so much fun!  [Laughs] But Dragon Bound is wonderful on audio –

Ms. Morgan:  Oh, okay!  That’s a good tip.

Ms. Wendell:  – and Nalini’s books are good in audio too.

Ms. Morgan:  That’s a good tip.  I saw Nalini in Germany, so that’s great, yeah.  Okay, I shall look at that.  Yes, I’m new to this, as I say, but it’s very exciting.  I’m loving it.

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, it’s fun!  It’s very fun.

Ms. Morgan:  Love it.

Ms. Wendell:  I also find that nonfiction is really, really interesting –

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  – in, in audio, because I can, you know, wash the dishes or cook something or, or, you know, work on stitching –

Ms. Morgan:  Definitely.

Ms. Wendell:  – while listening to a book.

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah, I’ve been doing that, putting it on in the kitchen when I’m fiddling around.

Ms. Wendell:  Yep.

Ms. Morgan:  Yeah.  But, no, I love it; it’s really good.

Ms. Wendell:  It’s weird how it occupies this one area of your brain, right?  Like, there’s one part of your –

Ms. Morgan:  And you can still do the cooking.

Ms. Wendell:  Right!  And then your brain is like, ooh, a book!  I’m very happy!  And also cooking but listening; this is good.  It, it’s like a very, very mellow state.

Ms. Morgan:  It is, it’s lovely.  And you listen to it while you’re driving as well.  I haven’t done any long journeys recently, apart from flying.  I didn’t really – do you listen to audiobooks while you’re flying?  I didn’t really.

Ms. Wendell:  I don’t.  I’m usually reading and listening to classical music, and I have non-, noise-canceling headphones.  I usually listen to music because I want to block out as much of what’s going on around me as possible.  But I could listen to audiobooks in the, on an airplane.  That would be good.  I have a lot of flying coming up.

Ms. Morgan:  You do, from the sounds of it!

Ms. Wendell:  I have a lot of flying next month.  Whole lot of it.

Ms. Morgan:  You do!  So what are you doing at the RNA?  What are you doing at – you’re presenting “Keeping Reviews in Your Back Mirror.”

Ms. Wendell:  Yes, I am presenting, and I’m hoping that Sharon Kendrick will do a podcast interview with me.

Ms. Morgan:  Is she going?

Ms. Wendell:  Yes, I believe so.  I know she’s going to be at RWA, so if I don’t see her there, I’ll see her in California.

Ms. Morgan:  Yes, ‘cause we’re flying back together.  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  I bumped into her twice in the elevator, in, in, in, at RT.  I felt really bad, like, oh, you’re here again!  We should just ride the elevator for ten minutes and catch up.

Ms. Morgan:  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  She’s lovely.  Every time I do that presentation –

Ms. Morgan:  She is lovely.

Ms. Wendell:  – I sell, like, five copies of The Playboy Sheik’s Virgin Stable-Girl.  I love that book.  I love it so much.

Ms. Morgan:  [Laughs] She’s, she is lovely.  But you know, we nearly got, I nearly got thrown off British Airways because of Sharon.  The first time, when we flew out, when we flew out to L.A. together we went out together, and we sit down on the plane, and she said, right.  She opened her laptop.  She said, I’m going to read you my opening line, and this was a Presents.

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, God.

Ms. Morgan:  I know.  So she doesn’t lower her voice –

Ms. Wendell:  Of course.

Ms. Morgan:  – and she reads me the opening line of her Presents, which was – and now, of course, I can’t remember what it was, but everybody on the plane – [laughs] – turned around.  Yeah, we’re not doing that again.

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, my gosh.

Ms. Morgan:  So we haven’t sat together going out since, ‘cause I’m always afraid that they will bring me back, but I need to get there.

[Laughter]

Ms. Wendell:  That’s funny.

Ms. Morgan:  No, she’s great fun.  She’s great fun.  Very talented.

[music]

Ms. Wendell:  And that is all for this episode.  I want to thank Sarah Morgan for joining me on Skype to talk.  Every now and again, if I’ve had to do something in the evening U.S. time, Sarah Morgan will stay awake by sitting on a hairbrush, as she says, to talk to readers in the U.S., so to be able to coordinate at a time when we’re both awake at a proper hour is lovely, and I hope you enjoyed the episode.

As I said in the intro – and this, of course, would be the outro, no matter how much my husband doesn’t think that’s a word – all of the books that we mentioned, along with links to the different conferences, are going to be in the podcast episode, and if you’re curious, yes, that is the sound of Zeb, who really, really wants to be Orville’s best friend, and Orville is really not here for that.  At some point I’m going to have a professional podcast with no pet sounds, but I really think the pets would object to that.  So, hey, I’m sure my dogs are just as involved in my life as your pets are in yours.

This podcast is sponsored by Loveswept, publishers of Sugar Daddy by bestselling author Sawyer Bennett.  Vengeance is sweet, but seduction is to die for.  As the tech mastermind behind the Sugar Bowl, Beckett North always gets what he wants in business and in bed, and yet for a man who’s done every dirty thing imaginable, there’s something about the naïve, fresh-faced Sela who now works in the company that sparks his hottest fantasies, because with her it’s not just about sex.  He opens up to her in a way that he never has with other girls, but he’s got a feeling she is hiding something.  The shocking truth could turn them against each other or bind them forever.  You can find Sugar Daddy by Sawyer Bennett wherever eBooks are sold.

The podcast transcript this month is sponsored by Everything Under the Heavens, book one of Silk and Song by Dana Stabenow.  Johanna flees her homicidal stepmother in Khanbaliq, the storied city of Kublai Khan, and sets out on the Silk Road with companions Jaufre and Shasha in search of her fabled grandfather Marco Polo.  You can find Everything Under the Heavens on Amazon, Kobo, and iTunes for free and for 99 cents on Barnes and Noble.

The music you’re listening to is provided by Sassy Outwater.  You can say hey to her at Twitter @SassyOutwater.  This is the Peatbog Faeries.  This is their newest album, Blackhouse.  This track is called “Spiders.”  Now, I know a lot of people have epic spider phobia, and I actually kind of like spiders because they eat the bugs that bite me and give me hives, so, you know, high five to all the spiders.  Or eight high fives per spider.  I’ll be very busy.  If you like this particular kind of spider, and I totally do, you can find this album and this track at Amazon or iTunes or wherever you buy your fine music.

If you’re a regular listener or you read the transcripts, you’ve probably heard me mention our Patreon, and I will remind you again:  we have a Patreon campaign at Patreon.com/SmartBitches!  You can make a monthly pledge, starting with $1 a month, and you will be helping me immensely by giving me a little bit of extra push towards commissioning transcripts for the 70 or so episodes that don’t have one.  You can see all the rewards and the options and our goals at Patreon.com/SmartBitches, and I want to thank everyone who has backed the show already.  You are marvelous human beings.  And as part of the rewards, I have some compliments to give out this episode, so are you ready?  Here we go:

Jezz, you have many undiscovered superpowers, and you should probably keep some of them cloaked for the time being.  The world can’t handle that much awesome.

Leigh, your friends think that you’re the most loyal and the most fun, and they all told me that.

Heather, you make everyone around you have a good day, and you always have a good hair day, and I’m very baffled how you do that.

Rebecca, I’m sure you know that your reading tastes are unparalleled, and you make everyone around you feel a little bit happier.

Leslie, you are the personification of grace and hilarity, and you have excellent taste in shoes.

And Holly, you can make anyone and everyone laugh with delight.  Keep doing that!

And if you’re wondering what is going on and why is this happening, if you have a look at Patreon.com/SmartBitches, you will figure out all the answers.

If you would like to email me or you have ideas or you have a suggestion or you have feedback, you can email me at [email protected] or at [email protected], totally your choice, whichever one you remember.  I love hearing from you guys, and I was also alerted – this is so cool – to a new review on iTunes, and I did not realize this – you’d think I would know because I review things – that much like Amazon, on iTunes the number of reviews that you have for a podcast makes that podcast more popular within the internal algorithm, so when I happened to be checking the feed to make sure it was working, ‘cause sometimes RSS and I don’t get along, I realized we had a bunch more reviews.  Thank you so much!  If you have taken the time to review the podcast at iTunes or anywhere else, you’re so awesome!  Thank you for that.  And more than anything, thank you so much for tuning in and hanging out with me.  I love doing the show, and I love hearing from listeners who want to tell me how much fun it is to listen.  I just love doing this so much, so thank you for tuning in, and I’ll be back next week with more discussion about romance, ‘cause that’s how we do things here.

In the meantime, on behalf of Sarah Morgan, everyone here, Orville and Wilbur and Zeb, who are now currently staring at each other under the Futon of Concealment, we wish you the very best of reading.  Have a great weekend.

[groovy music]