Nineteen years ago, on 31 January 2005, Smart Bitches began. The site launched with a review for Angel-Seeker by Sharon Shinn and for The Unsung Hero by Suzanne Brockmann. We’ve had cover snark and cover awe, helping of bitches out, and, as a neat coincidence, Smart Podcast Trashy Books will publish its 600th episode on Friday 2 February 2024.
Celebrations everywhere!!
Thank you. The site wouldn’t still be here without you. Our community is welcoming new readers, helping people find the books they want to read, and thriving as a warm and wonderful collection of humans from all over the globe.
It’s a very hard time in the online media world, especially in the independent media world like we are, and the offline media world, for so many people. And because we are still talking to one another is an accomplishment and one that I don’t take for granted.
Thank you for hanging out with us, for telling us about all the books you’ve read and liked, and about the books you’ve read and didn’t like. Thank you for supporting our work and telling us jokes, for emailing us exquisite cover art, and for being part of our community.
As I always do, I took a look at the traditional and modern anniversary gifts for the 19th year, and this year, both modern and traditional gifts are bronze.
Well, that’s a challenge. But I am ready for it!
We’re giving away bronze bookmarks to celebrate our anniversary!
I have two of this one:
Each one reads “May we all live happily ever after – SBTB.”
That’s my wish for everyone, that we all live happily ever after, inside and outside of our books. (Inside of a book, it’s too dark to read, lolol.)
And, while we’re at it, let’s raise a toast!
I’m also giving away a Reading Glass, aka a stemless wine glass dipped in bronze (isn’t that pretty?) to accompany your next reading session.
So, want to win a prize?
Just comment below and share one of your favorite Smart Bitches memories.
A book or author you discovered here that you adore?
A cover snark that you re-read and then snort-laugh?
A conversation or review you still think about?
A HaBO you solved or a HaBO you sought?
What post or moment do you think of when you think of Smart Bitches? Tell us one of your favorite Smart Bitches memories and you’re entered to win.
Standard disclaimers apply: We are not being compensated for this giveaway. Void where prohibited. Open to international residents where permitted by applicable law. Must be over 18 and ready to read, and possibly sip fine beverages, with panache and style and some bronze accents. Comments will close at noon ET on Sunday 4 February 2024 and winners will be announced shortly afterward.
Thank you for being part of Smart Bitches, and thank you for celebrating with us. Happy Anniversary!!
Winner update: Congratulations to Libby, Hope-and-Memory, and Katie! Please check your inboxes and spam folders.
Happy anniversary! I’ve been a daily reader for 8-9 years(?), and it was a revelation to discover that my lifelong private secret-shame comfort reading was something I could -maybe- feel ok about celebrating?! (High fives to any other early ‘80s preteens for whom the scholastic book orders represented a gateway drug! lol) Anyway, my overly intellectual education made me think I should be embarrassed about it all, so my years since discovering this community have been validating and filled with great appreciation. As someone who struggled with imposter syndrome, undiagnosed ADHD, and extended single hood in my 20s and 30s, romance books became my refuge. The community here has helped me understand the role that HEA books play in helping me deal with the world, and has helped me realize that I don’t need to feel ashamed of my reading choices. (I was amused to discover a few years ago that my English professor sister-in-law had Sarah as a “guest lecturer” for her genre fiction class, and we discussed the genius of Courtney Milan.)
So thank you to Sarah, Amanda, Elyse, Carrie, and all the current and past reviewers. You really make a difference! I echo so many of the sentiments shared in the comments- without this community I may never have found Courtney Milan, Martha Wells (Murderbot!!!), Rachel Reid, Jasmine Guillory, Kari Lynn Dell, Adriana Herrera, Roni Loren, Sarina Bowen, Talia Hibbert, and so many more. Thank you for nurturing this community that promotes and advocates for thoughtful representation of all kinds of diversity, and includes an appreciation for snarky humor. (Oh yeah, and CATS…praise, scratches, and appropriate adoration for ALL the resident and guest cats!)
Happy Anniversary!
I found you through recommendations from a couple different authors’ websites. I stayed with you since. I have found too many authors to name.
I love the bachelor reviews(though I refuse to watch- Elyse, I don’t know how you do it) and cover snark. I share those with my best friend who loves the laughs too. She doesn’t read romance but has liked the Gothic and romance adjacent titles I’ve recommended to her from here.
Thank you! To many more years!
I’m more of a podcast girl. I recall recommending Patricia Briggs Mercedes’ Thompson on the site and Sarah taking the time to personally respond
Congrats on 19, that’s legal drinking age in all of Canada
Thank you, Sarah. For all the hard work you and your team have done over the years. Since I first found SBTB many years ago, I’ve seen a lot of sites come and go. You’ve been here through all the ups and downs and ins and outs of blogging, publishing and reading. You and the site have changed and grown and are now greater than the sum of your parts. Wishing you at least another 19 years.
I was lucky enough to attend one of your podcasts live (Reno? New Orleans? I can’t remember). CONGRATS on 19 years! Make a toast to 19 more!
Happy Birthday! I wish I could remember how I found out about SBTB, but it was years ago. I was a big romance reader in high school and college, 70’s and early 80’s. For some reason it kind of fell by the wayside, I still read a lot, but not much romance. Lots of historical fiction, maybe a light romance plot in the book. SBTB got me into contemporary romance for sure, and sports romances which I had never been interested in before. Never thought I would be such a fan of hockey romance!
I love and value this community that is so accepting of everyone. Thank you SBTB for providing this place for book lovers to gather.
I discovered Courtney Milan here (my credit card doesn’t even whimper any more).
Happy birthday! I’ve discovered so many great books and authors through SBTB— Courtney Milan, Colleen Cowley’s Clandestine Magic series, Lucy Parker, Laura Kinsale, Loretta Chase, Emily Foster, Cat Sebastian, and so many more. Thank you for all you do!
Happy 19th! For me, it’s always the camaraderie in the comments—there’s always a great recommendation, kind word, or other way to let me know I’m not alone!
Thank you for so many wonderful years! I have found so many books and authors through both the official posts of SBTB as well as the commentators – all have guided my development as a discerning reader and person.
Although my favorite wins are Celia Lake, Katee Roberts, and Murderbot (oh, how I resisted Murderbot until I fell before the love). I find new books and authors to love here weekly.
I found this site through a Google search in a reading slump when I was nursing my daughter (who’s 12 now), and I can’t tell you how glad I am to have found you, and the literally hundreds of recommendations I’ve followed up on here in the ensuing years. So many awesome posts and recommendations (and comments) to choose from but I am probably most thankful to you for introducing me to Sunshine many years ago, and to myself for finally following up on all the Ilona Andrews love right around the start of the pandemic, for which I am eternally grateful ❤️
Happy Birthday SBTB!!!
Best wishes to the blog that got me into Romance AND podcasts! Sometimes I randomly remember Jayne imitating a racist alien lizard matriarch struggling to think of a way to compliment the human heroine.
Also, my brain will still sometimes pull out the pet-name “my little lizard” from the ol’ memory bank, turn it over a few times, and put it back in. I forgot the name of book reviewed, but I think it was a greatest hits-type post. It was linked in a LiveJournal book community I was in and I’ve been here ever since.
Thanks always for your commitment to spreading the love of reading and Romance, for having a laugh at this genre’s sillinesses and always defending it. I trust you all’s opinion because I trust your dedication to being smart, inclusive, and fun!
Love you ALL!
Happy anniversary! I found this site during my senior year of college, probably spring ’08. In the years since then, I’ve discovered sooo many favorite authors – Cat Sebastian, Courtney Milan, T. Kingfisher, to name a few. The WAYR posts are the source of so many recommendations and my Kindle and I thank you for it.
Here’s to many more years!
@CK, I’m fairly y certain I found out about this site from an LJ community too!
Aaaah, Little lizard. That would be The Playboy Sheikh’s Virgin Stable Girl. One of my favorite reading memories. Kaliq was a highly sexed man.
Happy anniversary! I have no memory of how I first came across the site, but it is definitely a happy corner of the internet for me. My favorite SBTB related memory was a glorious snark-filled (guest?) Review of a Harlequin novel called Pregnesia in the form of a list…and the author stopping by with a wonderfully fun and gracious response.
you all have made me go look up the Pregnisa post now!!
also, yes to STBT being the only site I check everyday/on a regular basis.
And to STBT educating me about things it would never even have crossed my mind I should be educated about.
May this corner continue to thrive and grow and evolve with heart at its center!
I stumbled on the site by accident, but have been a devoted reader ever since. I love historicals, but being a librarian I realize I can’t just buy my favorites (though wouldn’t that be lovely!). So I come here for recommendations for myself and my patrons. Your insight into romance and your devotion to equality and acceptance has really broadened my reading and helped me find titles of all kinds of representation for my patrons. Thank you so much and Happy Birthday!
Nineteen years! Hard to believe. That is astounding longevity in blog years. Amazing work, ladies.
Maybe my favorite memory is yesterday. I took a deep dive into the past to try & track down a particular post and the meanderings summoned up a bunch of greatest hits–mine & others.
I actually won one of these giveaways many moons ago. I remembered winning vividly, but the year? No clue. That’s what happens when you’re someone who never won anything in your life (except that one time at the Wildcat Marching Band basket raffle). Memory is selective, but nostalgia is weird. Traditional and modern gifts associated with the 6th anniversary (Found it! 2011) are iron, candy, and wood (hur). Now, 13 years later, the iron is no longer hot or fevered enough to press even unstriped pants, the wood chips are reduced to ash, the chocolate covered cherries are long since nommed, but the 4 inch, AAA battery-operated Hello Kitty ™ vibrator is cozily nestled in the depths of my memory drawer and just seeing that sucker STILL gives me joy. (Take that, Marie!)
In the meantime, my search for that original post took me down some strange byways including a flutter of mullets & man titty presented to Candy on the occasion of her 30th birthday. I knew y’all had had an obsession with that particular coiffure, but I think I missed that post. Can’t unsee it now though, and it’s still funny even with the broken links. I ended up pining for the unapologetic raunch of yesteryear, but one thing I found consistent from early times to present day was the willingness of the Bitchery to take a principled stand, to inform readers on book adjacent controversy, to foster lively discussion, and to reach out to those who need support with unstinting generosity. Above all else, this is the essence of the Bitchery.
@DiscoDollyDeb:
If you discovered A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs, that was probably(?) my recommendation, unless some other awesome person thought to mention it.
I think I discovered the site in 2014, most likely when doing a google search for something. My favorites so far are the whatcha reading and rec league posts, even though I am not great at getting around to reading the books I have bought or otherwise downloaded. In this same vain, I loved the movie matinee posts even though I never remembered to watch the selection for that week.
@Stefanie Magura: thank you so much for the recommendation of “A History of Rock and Roll in 500 Songs—I’m thoroughly enjoying the podcast, especially Andrew Hickey’s deep dives into why a particular song ended up sounding a particular way. I also appreciate Hickey’s sensitivity toward subject matter that might be upsetting and like that he always issues a content warning before any potentially triggering material. Plus, I’m an old lady and most of the music he covers was released in my lifetime—so I’m enjoying the trip down memory lane. Thank you again for the rec.
Congratulations SBTB! I’m so grateful you are here and for the community you’ve created. The People Magazine article was my introduction, so I’m an old timer. I so enjoyed your book, and then became an avid daily follower. Much of my fictional life is owed to you. I wish you all the BEST.
Happy 19th! You’re an adult, but not completely finished developing your prefontal lobe. 🙂
For me, I forever credit this place with pointing me to MurderBot, Lucy Parker and a stack of books from the Nora Roberts inn….
Murderbot Diaries…
I was originally ‘oh, ho-hum’ then read the review of All Systems Red.
And very quickly – a good thing my library has both physical AND ebook copies of the series – it only took me about 15 minutes to get Artificial Condition and on the waiting list for Rogue Protocol and Exit Strategy (at around 2 am). I’ve read the entire series about once a month since then… and more as Network Effect and System Collapse weree released.
Then on to Becky Chambers and Olivia Dade. I mostly recently checked out Fourth Wing…
I love the reviews and the HABOs and have added so many more books to my TBR mountains. And plan to continue for another 19 years with y’all.
Wow, happy anni, SB!! I can’t remember when I discovered this site but it was sometime after I had my son in 2009 and was craving fun reading. I was so impressed by the smart takes of Sarah and Candy, and over the years I’ve been impressed by the reviewers, community members and writers who have pushed the boundaries of romance to interrogate racism, sexism, mental health challenges and more. I can’t count how many great reads I’ve discovered here!!
Happy anniversary! I’ve been reading since at least 2008, so 16 years.
I’ve discovered many great books and authors – Sharon Shinn and Loretta Chase were two of my first SBTB discoveries.
Carry S’ reviews of SFR and steampunk from Carina Press inspired me to buy some of my first ebooks, before I even took the plunge to by an ereader.
And it was in the comment section here (and at Dear Author, The Toast and Autostraddle) that I first wrote the words “as a bi woman” and bravely practiced being more actively, visibly queer in the world.
I did submit an HaBo (in 2012) that was never solved – https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/2012/01/habo-thon-a-memorable-book-for-many-reasons/
I’m an SBTB newbie (2 or 3 years since I discovered this site?), and relatively new to romance as a preferred genre for my leisure reading (5-6 years?)– but I’m now a daily visitor and appreciator of this erudite, entertaining, provocative (in the best sense) resource/community.
I think it was a passing reference in the New York Times that sent me in search of SBTB; I’m so glad to be here for the recommendations (and soooooo many books bought), the snark, the comments, and all the rest. Happy Anniversary, and may there be many more!
@DiscoDollyDeb: I couldn’t agree with you more about this podcast. I definitely wanted to pay this forward in a sense because I also discovered one of my favorite music podcasts, hit parade, on SBSarah’s recommendation here as well. Are you a member of the Patreon so you can get the bonus episodes?
Reading this site has connected me with so many great authors and books. I’ve become much more discerning in my romance reading, and much more proud to own my reading choices. One of my favorite memories might be from 2009, when I used the site to write a paper for an Advanced Composition class about romance novels. The paper also required me to interview an “informed informant” on the subject, so I interviewed a local romance author: Carla Cassidy. This led to another great memory when Cassidy’s novel, Pregnesia, became something of a hit on the site.
Lurking for the past few years! I joined as a historical romance reader with a dash of fae/vampires and got into every other genre from the recommendations here. I greatly enjoy the reviews, snarky comments and drama-free vibe! Happy birthday and thank you!!
Happy birthday, SBTB!! I first ran across the site about 10 years ago, and it’s been so great for my romance reading experience. Smart Bitches introduced me to Nalini Singh, Ilona Andrews, and Christina Lauren (among many other wonderful authors), and their books are ones I return to over and over for comfort reading or to help get me out of a reading slump. I continue to love the website and the podcast (congrats on 600 episodes!! The podcast was literally the first podcast I ever listened to, so thanks for being my gateway drug there ). Thanks for creating a great community, and here’s to many more years!
When I started reading romance, I lived on this site looking for reviews and recommendations while I figured out what books really worked for me. And I still live on this site…