134. M/M Romance and Recommendations: An Interview with Joyfully Jay

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Sarah Wendell:  Hello, and welcome to episode number 134 of the DBSA podcast.  I’m Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and with me today are Jane Litte from Dear Author and Jay from Joyfully Jay.  Today we are talking to Jay all about male/male romance, the books and authors that she loves, authors that she recommends, what is gaynesia – this is totally a thing; I can’t contain my excitement to share this with you – and also what books she’s really looking forward to.  We also talk a little bit about reviewing and interacting with authors and the closeness of the male/male romance community.

This podcast is brought to you by InterMix, publisher of Trust the Focus, the first in a new romance series featuring two friends, Justin and Landry, on a post-college summer road trip.  Jay mentions this book during the course of the podcast as a book that she really, really liked.

This week’s podcast transcript is brought to you by Forever, publisher of Once and Always, the sweet and sexy new novel by Elizabeth Hoyt, writing as a Julia Harper.  Each podcast transcript will go up within a few days of the podcast posting, if not on the same day, and our podcast transcripts are handcrafted by garlicknitter.

The music you are listening to was provided by Sassy Outwater, and I will have information at the end of the podcast as to who this is and where you can buy it, should you wish to do so, ‘cause it’s pretty mellow and awesome, right?  I think so.  Each week we have music that Sassy has produced or is in some way composing or did on the fly in a recording studio for us, which is always impressive.  I hope you enjoy the different samplings of music we offer each week.  I certainly do.

And now, on with the podcast!

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Sarah:  So if you would please introduce yourself and tell the lovely people who are listening who you are.

Jay:  Okay, great.

Sarah:  And what you do.

Jay:  Sure!  My name is Jay, and I have a primarily male/male romance review blog called Joyfully Jay.  We do probably about ninety-five percent male/male romance, although we also do some other GBLT romance reviews and sometimes sort of male/male romantic fiction or sort of related, related types of books.

Sarah:  So how long have you been blogging?

Jay:  About three and a half years, which, frighteningly, makes me one of the older blogs in the male/male romance genre, one of the older ones, one of the bigger ones, but it’s been about three and a half years.

Sarah:  That’s awesome!

Jay:  Thank you!

Sarah:  I actually had a, a really cool compliment paid to me once that I didn’t think about at the time until much, much later.  This guy was talking about what I do, and this guy was like, you created a blog that people read.

Jay:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Do you know how rare that is?  And I was like, oh, okay.  And then later I was thinking about it, and I was like, yeah!  That is kind of rare!  So, dude, well done!

Jay:  Oh, well, thank you!  Yes, I definitely had the feeling, sort of like those first three months, that I was talking to myself –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Jay:  – you know, and in fact, I talked to Mandi, who runs Smexy Books, who I know that you know, and she told me that she had the exact same experience, that for a while she wondered, you know, was she putting stuff out there?  Was anybody reading it?  So –

Sarah:  Hello –

Jay:  – yeah, it’s really exciting and rewarding when you realize that somebody’s actually reading the stuff that you put out and, you know, not only reading it, but seeking it out and, you know, interested in what you have to say.  So it is exciting to see the blog doing so well.

Sarah:  So what do you like about male/male?  What was, what was it, what was it about that genre that made you want to start a blog?  Because, you know, blogs don’t take up very much time or anything like that –

Jay:  [Laughs] Not at all!

Sarah:  – it’s really, it, you know, it’s a really easy enterprise to get one going.

Jay:  Right, right.

Sarah:  Super simple – just ask Jane!

Jay:  Yes, sure, sure, yes, in all your free time, you know, the ten minutes you have at the end of the day.  Well, it’s sort of a, I guess it’s two, almost two different questions, because I started this sort of progression from male/female romance to male/male romance about a year or so before I actually started the blog, so what made me start the blog was mostly that I have an opinion about everything and felt like I needed to share it with everybody, and for a long time I was reading and commenting on other blogs and sort of just sort of generally out there in the romance community, but I decided that I really wanted to start my own blog so that I could talk more about all the exciting things I thought about everything.  And I didn’t actually intend it to be solely a review blog when I started it, which is why I named it sort of generically after myself rather than naming it something that made it sound like books, so I had this idea that it was going to be sort of my chatting about TV and other random things that came into my head, but it very quickly, like within two weeks, turned into exclusively a review blog just because that sort of took over, and it took off so quickly that that ended up being my sole focus.  But mostly it was, like I said, the desire to be able to talk about more things, to share my opinion, to interact with other people in a way that was harder when I was commenting on other people’s blogs all the time, and also the male/male romance community is surprisingly small, even given the growing size of the genre, and very close-knit.  People tend to know each other, know the authors.  We tend to often know each other in person and meet each other, so I really liked being part of that romance community, and I still continue to like that, so that was another reason I really like the blog.  It helps me to meet people, to interact with people, to get to know authors, you know, more closely, and readers, than I would be able to on my own.

Sarah:  So you have a lot to say, and so blogging was pretty much meant for you.

Jay:  [Laughs] Yes, you could ask my husband.  I have an opinion on everything and tell him it would be a better world if everyone just did everything that I said.

Sarah:  [Laughs] That’s one of my favorite games, right after Where’s My Venture Capitalist?  When I’m Queen.

Jay:  Right, exactly.

Sarah:  When I’m Queen, here’s how things will be done.

Jay:  Right.

Sarah:  So, when people ask you about the male/male genre, what authors or books do you recommend for someone who’s never read a book in that – and you know what, I have to back up because it’s not a genre, and it’s, it’s sad, because I just made that point on the last podcast that male/male romance and, and gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender is not a genre, but it’s a very specific kind of romance.

Jay:  Sure.

Sarah:  There, I think that there are things that you get out of specifically male/male romances that you may not find in other romances.

Jay:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  Do you know what those things are?

Jay:  Well, I mean, it’s probably different for everybody, and I think that for me, I started off reading, like I said, pretty much exclusively male/female romance.  I mean, I started the way a lot of people start:  pick up one book; before you know it you’re, like, at the library hoarding every paperback that you can get, so that was really my first exposure.  I honestly had no idea that male/male romance or GBLT romance even existed.  It’s not something that would have ever, that ever really crossed my path until I started reading reviews, and even then, I wasn’t so sure, because I kind of had this feeling like, this book sounds really good, but am I allowed to read this?  Is this for me?  You know, I’m not a man, I’m not gay – is this appropriate?

Sarah:  You’re not a man, and you’re not gay.

Jay:  Yes, and –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Jay:  – you know, I’m a straight woman, and I did not realize until I started really reading male/male romance and GBLT romance that a very large percentage of the readers and authors are women, and often straight women, so I am not-

Jane:  Jay, I have to ask you a question.

Jay:  Mm-hmm?

Jane:  Do, do you feel like – it seems to me, and I don’t read m/m romance, but it seems to me that there are more male authors now than there were when the genre was just kind of taking off.

Jay:  Mm-hmm.

Jane:  Or do you feel like the authors are just more open about – the, the, the thing, the thing I’ve always found really odd about m/m romance is that there are a lot of pseudonyms used by authors –

Jay:  Mm-hmm.

Jane:  – kind of gender neutral.  Almost as if they’re –

Jay:  Yes.

Jane:  – they’re not trying to make readers think that they’re male, but being neu-, neutral about it, and now it seems like there are more male authors, and it does seem like the m/m genre is targeted towards women, straight women, so I’m curious about just kind of that dynamic there.

Jay:  Sure, sure.  I haven’t seen what you’re saying, that you think that there are more male authors.  I actually think that more authors who are women, who identify as women, are being more open about it, and I think that you are right.  There, for a very long time, there were a, sort of a lot of, there were a lot of sort of pseudonyms.  There were a lot of very gender-neutral or nonspecific, and people really didn’t want to self-identify as male or female as authors, and I think early in the genre that was much more of a difference, or much more of an issue, especially because there wasn’t that opportunity to necessarily meet people face to face.  I think that now there are a lot more authors and readers who are going to conferences.  We have a very large, the Gay Rom Lit Conference, which is a huge, you know, 400, 500 person conference that people get together in person, so there, the idea that people won’t actually know who you are just based on your pen name, most people, many people know each other in person or live, so I think that that’s changed a lot, and I think that part of it is that I think that some people just weren’t comfortable self-identifying publicly.  I think that’s the case with a lot of authors.  I think a lot of authors weren’t sure how they would be accepted in the genre if people knew that they were women, if people knew that they were men, so a lot of people just sort of kept that very vague, but I’m seeing less of that, and I think people are just becoming more comfortable.  The community is becoming more, people are, know each other more, so I don’t see it quite as much, but actually I, I almost see the reverse of what you said, is that there are lots of male authors, but I’m seeing more authors who are being more sort of open that they are actually women.

Jane:  Do you gravitate toward, like, a – ‘cause I don’t read very many male authors.  When I read romance, I like to read it from the woman’s perspective?  Do you look for m/m books written by a specific gender, or does that not matter?

Jay:  Yeah, that actually really doesn’t, and as you’re asking me, I’m trying to think if I notice an appreciable difference, and, and I don’t think so.  I think that, you know, if you pick up a book, for the most part, you would have trouble knowing whether or not it was a male or female author.  Now I won’t say that that’s exclusive, but I think that in general, you know, anybody can, who can write romance can write romance that’s GBLT and can write romance that’s male/female.  You know, it’s really understand-, making an effort to understand your characters and understand the genre and to write realistically, and I think that we have lots of women in the genre who do that fabulously, so I don’t really notice a big difference, and I don’t find myself gravitating one way or the other.  Certainly, the large majority of authors in the genre are women.  I mean, you can just go to any of our conferences and you can see that the vast majority of authors and readers are women, but we definitely do have a large, you know, contingent of male authors, and now readers as well.

Jane:  That’s interesting about m/m books is that it’s largely digital.  Do you buy many paper books?  Do you know of many people that buy paper books, and, and as more mainstream publishers like Berkley or –

Jay:  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Jane:  – Avon or Grand Central start publishing those in print, is that something that you think you’ll start buying?

Jay:  I tend to read, even before I started the blog, almost exclusively on my eReader, so I, once I moved to male/male where it was very hard at the time to get paperbacks of anything, I read almost exclusively on my eReader, and for me, I probably don’t see that changing.  Most of the, as you mentioned, most of the publishers of GBLT romance tend to be digital first, so almost everything comes out in digital, if not exclusively, at least far ahead of the paperback.  Samhain, I know, does print theirs, but it tends to be a long lag between the time that the paper copy is available.  I know Riptide does, Dreamspinner; a lot of them now do offer paperbacks.  From, I tend to see most people who buy the paperback when they know that they want, you know, they like to have that tangible book in their hand, especially if they’re going to meet the author.  They want a, they want it autographed, but for me, I tend to still be mostly a digital reader, although I do see, I mean, I have friends who have piles and piles of paperbacks because they love to have that actual book where they can hold it and flip the pages in their hands.

Sarah:  I would love to have recommendations from you for someone who’s never read anything in the male/male romance world or authors that you think are particularly awesome.  I mean, every now and again I, I, I have a feeling that a lot of romance readers online are pretty much familiar with all of the different types and flavors of romance, because Jane and I were talking about last week, the genre changes more and more quickly –

Jay:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – because we’re all online and we’re all talking to each other, and the speed to market has increased, and I think Jane called it the burnout of –

Jay:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – the burnout of certain subgenres happens faster.

Jay:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  But I haven’t met any romance readers who are like, male/male, what are you talking about?  I do know readers who aren’t sure where to start, so –

Jay:  Sure.

Sarah:  – please hold forth with all of your wisdom.

Jay:  Ha, all of my wisdom.

Sarah:  Bring it on.

Jay:  I think the first thing to think about is how ready to the deep end are you to jump in?  For me, my first male/male romance book was pretty much at, you know, all out there.  Sex and explicit and jumping right in.  Some people are comfortable with that; some people aren’t.  Some people might need a little bit more of a sort of tamer start into the genre, but, so I think that’s probably one thing to think about.  Something that, for me, I recommend a lot for first-time readers are books that have what we sort of call the out for you theme, which basically tends to be – this is very popular in male/male romance and I don’t think actually quite that popular in real life but tends to be a very popular theme or trope in male/male romance, which is sort of the self-identifying straight man who falls in love with a gay man and ends up sort of having a relationship, even though prior to that relationship never identified as gay or bisexual.

Sarah:  Is that the, is that the, the gay for you trope?

Jay:  Yes.  Although –

Sarah:  Or is that a variation of that?

Jay:  It’s the same thing, although I tend to call it out for you.  A lot of people call it that because I think gay for you gives the implication that you can just turn gay if you fall in love with the right person, which I don’t think is realistic or does a service to the community to suggest that all it takes is falling in love with the right man and you’re gay, because then why couldn’t a gay man fall in love with the right woman and be straight –

Sarah:  Out for you is a great way.

Jay:  – which obviously doesn’t happen.  So, yes, terminology, but I’m talking about the same thing that you’re thinking about.

Sarah:  Out for you is a, is a much better terminology, and I’d never heard that before, so whoever came up with that, brilliant.

Jay:  Yeah, that was actually Marie Sexton.  She sort of coined that in reference to the book that I was going to recommend, which is the first book in her Coda series called Promises, and the reason that I think this kind of book is a good starter is because a lot of times, this theme, you get one character who’s sort of learning about the relationship and the sex and the being gay and identifying as gay sort of at the same time that the reader is getting that sort of initial exposure, so I find that those stories sometimes can, like, lead the reader along in a way that helps when you’re trying to get your bearings about what this means and, you know, what you’re reading about and what the genre is like, so that’s one that I always recommend.  First of all, I happen to love it, but it’s also a good example of this sort of trope, which I think is a nice entrée for people?

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Jay:  I also think that thinking about what sort of tropes or subgenres you like in male/female romance and then finding that sort of corresponding male/male romance story is also helpful, because I think that there is a humongous range of, you know, stories.  You know, there’s historical and futuristic and, you know, shifter stories and law enforcement, sort of legal investigative thriller kind of things.  Pretty much anything that you can find in the broader world of romance, you can find in the sort of more niche world of male/male romance, so –

Sarah:  Ohhh, are you trying to tell me that being gay is more than just one thing?

Jay:  Yes, believe it or not!  [Laughs]

Sarah:  What is this silliness you are talking about?  I’m just – yeah, okay, I’m sorry, go on.  [Laughs]

Jay:  Right.  So I think that if you are somebody, like, for example, who is really into sort of like the law enforcement, investigative, you know, mystery kind of thing, you know, I always recommend and absolutely adore Jordan Castillo Price’s PsyCop series.  Fabulous mystery, fabulous paranormal, fabulous characters, and so, you know, I always think that’s a great entrée if that’s sort of your genre.  The Cut & Run series, people love that, and again, that is a sort of – by Abigail Roux – an investigative, sort of law enforcement thriller that combines these two male partners.  That, also, I also think something like that where you have a series where people start off and they carry throughout the series also can be a good entrée because those tend to sort of start slow in the relationship and build over the course of the series –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Jay:  – so it’s maybe another good way to step into the genre and sort of get your feet wet before you’re sort of into full-blown, you know, hot and dirty.

Sarah:  Do you have to start with book one in the PsyCop series and the Cut & Run series?

Jay:  Yeah, you’re going to have to start with them both, because they are both single pairings that carry through the entire series, and especially the PsyCop series has an overarching sort of plot arc in addition to the individual books having a, you know, having sort of a mystery storyline, there is an overarching storyline that carries through, so for that especially –

Sarah:  Oh, so both of those series follow the same two protagonists –

Jay:  Exactly.

Sarah:  – sort of like the In Death series.

Jay:  Exactly, exactly.

Sarah:  So what if you’re not into suspense.  What if you like contemporary or comedy or historical?

Jay:  I would say you can never go wrong with Amy Lane.  She is one of the biggest and most prolific in the genre and writes fabulous, fabulous books.  She tends to run the spectrum from, like, angsty emotional to make you cry in a puddle with 8,000 tissues, so you have to sort of be ready for something intense, and she is fabulous.  I happen to love her book; Clear Water is one of my favorites, but I’ve read most of her book, and is awesome, so if you’re looking for sort of contemporary with some angst and intensity, she is great.  If you like, you know, sort of, like, the shifter genre, Mary Calmes has some great shifters.  I happen to love J. L. Langley’s shifters, although that series is supposed to be continuing, but it’s been a while since a new one has come out.  I –

Sarah:  Heh-heh, no pun intended.

Jay:  – I would – yes [laughs] – I would read anything, pretty much, that Heidi Cullinan ever writes.  If you like historicals, K. J. Charles is amazing.  I just started reading some stuff by Jordan Hawk which I’m embarrassed to say that I waited this long, because she writes fabulous historicals.  If, if you’re comfortable with sort of the down and dirty, K. A. Mitchell is one of my all-time favorites; I read anything that she writes.  And all of these are sort of genres outside of the, you know, suspense/action kind of thing.

Sarah:  In the, in the world of all of the books that you love, some people, I think, tend to look at the covers in particular and think, oh, okay, these are all erotic.

Jay:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  All male/male romance is erotic romance.  Do you think that’s true?

Jay:  No, not at all.  I think that there’s a wide range.  You can find anything from, you know, sort of absolutely no on-page sex or, you know, sort of the fade-to-black kind of thing, all the way up through, you know, they’re doing it like bunnies straight through from page one.  So, yeah, I think –

Sarah:  [Laughs] I’m sorry.

Jay:  Yeah, yeah!  There’s a lot of that.  I mean, pretty much whatever level of heat you like, you can find.  Again, I would say that it’s probably very comparable to romance as a whole in terms of being able to find everything from no heat to explicit heat.  I think there’s definitely a large section that’s sort of, I would, would fall into the erotica genre or at least sort of skirt those lines –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Jay:  – but as a whole, I would not say that male/male romance is anymore sort of explicit or erotic than romance in general, especially depending on what sort of sub-, subgenre you’re, you’re looking at, but yeah.

Sarah:  What are –

Jane:  So I don’t read a lot of m/m, but the one, the one that I did most recently was Sarina Bowen’s The Understatement of the Year?

Jay:  Mm-hmm.

Jane:  They don’t actually even kiss until, like, fifty percent of the book, and there’s so much tension between the two, it felt hotter than it really was, I think?

Jay:  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Jane:  I’ve heard to-, today, Megan Erickson’s Trust the Focus comes out, and I’ve heard so many good things about that book.  Have you read that already?

Jay:  Oh, it was fabulous.  It was fabulous.  I actually just read it, and I have, I have her on the blog today and the review running today as well.  I thought it was fabulous.  I didn’t have any idea what to expect from her, ‘cause I had never read anything by her, and I thought it was amazing.  I completely loved it.

Sarah:  What did you like about it?

Jay:  I mean, just to quickly recap, it’s basically the story of a, a young man who’s just graduated from college, and he is going on this sort of summer journey to visit places that his father, who’s recently died, photographed, and so he’s sort of having this cathartic journey where he is traveling around and visiting these spots and distributing the ashes, and he’s going with his best friend, Landry, who he is in love with.  Landry is out and gay, and he is not and sort of in the closet and expected in the fall to work on his mother’s political campaign, and so he has sort of, it is, combines sort of this friends-to-lovers theme, which I really like, as they get together and move from a best friend relationship to a romantic relationship.  I happen to love, like, the road trip theme, and it includes that as well, because they’re traveling together for three months in this Winnebago, so I think road trip themes are perfect for romance stories because you get that inherent conflict of two people who are trapped in this tiny space together and the relationship development that can happen when you’re together twenty-four hours a day, but it also has a really great finding yourself theme, because in addition to the conflict of Justin being in love with Landry and not telling him, which gets resolved partway through the book, you then have the larger conflict of him sort of coming to acceptance of himself and being able to stand up to his mother and recognizing, you know, what he wants out of life and sort of claiming it, so it has a lot of themes that I really love, plus it’s funny.  Landry and Justin have great banter, great interaction.  It’s sexy; they’re sweet.  I love that they feel like they’re twenty-two, but they’re not so annoying that you want to shake them because they’re constantly doing stupid things, so –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Jay:  – and there’s some balance, which I think can be really hard when you’re dealing with younger, younger characters, either making them so sophisticated and mature that you can’t believe that they just came out of college or so immature that they drive you crazy because they’re so annoying, so it’s a really good balance of that.

Jane:  I also think it’s interesting that we’re seeing – and I like this – where you have, like – and this was the case with Sarina Bowen, and I think it’s the case with Megan Erickson, too, is you don’t have, like, an isolated m/m series, but you have gay or lesbian or trans romances within the world that the authors are creating, which I think more accurately reflects everyone’s world.

Jay:  Yes, absolutely, and that, I think, is probably the biggest trend that I’m seeing is sort of like series that have mixed elements or authors that formerly were only writing one, only writing male/male or only writing male/female who are now crossing over, either in individual books or individual series, and I really, I completely agree with you.  I really like it.  I think it’s more realistic, I think it gets more crossover readers, I think it gets rid of this idea that you either read one or the other but that you can’t read both, and I know tons of people who read both male/female and male/male romance, and so the idea that they have to be kept, like, with this big wall in between them, I think, is becoming sort of outdated, and I’m seeing more of what you’re talking about, more series where, you know, maybe there would be two books that are male/female and then a male/male book, and then a male/female book, or vice versa.  So I don’t know, at this point, how much crossover is happening, if it’s a traditionally male/female author, if we’re getting tons of male/male readers gravitating or, you know, the other direction if it’s a mostly male/male series and there’s a male/female book, whether they’re getting crossover from people who read predominantly male/female, but I do think that in general, those lines are becoming less defined, which I think can only be a good thing.

Sarah:  I know of an author, and I’m, oh, gosh, I am blanking on the name.  It’s going to make me bonkers that I cannot think of this person, but she was telling me, it was a self-published author who writes contemporary romance, and she’s starting a sort of a, a hybrid series where it’s a small town by the, by the seaside, but it’s also younger protagonists, so she’s calling it small town New Adult, I think?

Jay:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  But some of the characters are hetero, there’s a gay couple, there’s a lesbian couple, and they’re all going to be part of this entire series where –

Jay:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – having characters who are questioning their sexuality is an integral part of the, of the series as a whole, and I was like, wow.

Jay:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  Well, that’s, that’s cool.  I feel like in the world of self publishing, it’s a lot easier for an author to say, all right, that’s what I’m doing.

Jay:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  Especially the male/male audience is very, very receptive to independent and self-published books.

Jay:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  Is, do you think that’s also the case?

Jay:  Oh, definitely.  I think that that is even growing, the number of sort of self-published books.  I’m seeing a ton of that.  I do agree with you.  I think that people are very open to that.  I think it comes mostly from dealing with mostly smaller publishers, at least compared to sort of the, you know, big New York publishing houses, because for a long time they really weren’t publishing anything GBLT.  That’s changing, so I think that it is, even many of our publishing houses are still teeny-tiny.  You know, self pub is really a major part of the genre, and we get tons of books that are, you know, that are available that way.

I’m actually seeing, like, for example, Amy Jo Cousins, her Bend or Break series, that’s published by Samhain, which is, you know, has a, both a male/female side and also male/male publishing sort of all under one house.  Her first two books in that series that are already out, Off Campus and Nothing Like Paris, both are male/male, and then the next book in that series that’s coming up, The Girl Next Door, features a straight man and a bisexual woman who were side characters in the first book, and then the fourth book will be back to male/male again, so, you know, that’s an example of a publisher that publishes both and that is including, you know, a series that, you know, goes back and forth.  I know that Amy Lane has a series that she published a long time ago that’s being re-released now by Dreamspinner, which is pretty much exclusively a male/male, GBLT publisher, and the first book is primarily a, male/female main characters, but there are some sort of side characters, so it sounds sort of like a similar world to what you’re talking about, where over the course of the series there are different characters and pairings of sort of all varieties, so, you know, and then again, Dreamspinner is almost exclusively male/male and is publishing a book that’s male/female as part of this series.  So I’m definitely seeing those lines sort of getting blurry and not quite as clear cut anymore.

Sarah:  Yay!

Jay:  Yes, it’s very exciting.  I really think that it’s a great –

Jane:  One thing I’ve noticed about m, m/m readers is that they don’t mind paying higher prices.  I mean, some of those books from, like, Blind Eye Books or Riptide, they’re very expensive, more than I would pay for a mainstream book.

Jay:  Mm-hmm.

Jane:  So is it because you don’t have as much choice, and do you think self publishing is going to change your buying habits, or do you not even think those prices are high?

Jay:  No, I think that, I think that they’re high.  I mean, if I was having to buy everything I read, I would not nearly be able to read the volume that I currently read.  So I think that prices are always an issue for readers.  I think part of the thing with male/male romance or GBLT romance is that if you want the book, you pretty much have to buy it.  There is not a large-scale library system like there is with male/female.  You know, when I started reading romance, I could just pick, check out fifty books from my library and bring them home, and that, when I started reading male/male, you have no choice but to buy everything, so I think that readers sort of have gotten accustomed to the fact that to be reading a lot in the genre unfortunately requires a lot of spending, because there just isn’t an easy way to get most of these books.  Even now with paperbacks, you still don’t see anything close to the volume of what’s available in a library, if the library even carries gay romance.  So I think that it’s just one of those things that’s been, always been a hurdle and that people don’t have as, nearly as much choice.  Certainly trying to get free books to borrow is incredibly difficult in most parts of the country, so I think that that’s probably why people sort of come into the genre knowing it’s going to be, there’s an expense built into it, but again, I think that you’re right.  I think that a lot of the self publishing books are coming in cheaper.  I think that more and more libraries are starting to carry books so that you can check things out as opposed to having to buy everything that you want, so I’m hoping that that, that that trend does change, because I know that for a lot of my readers, you know, they just have these giant, you know, sort of TBR piles, things that they want, but, you know, you have to sort of space out your reading because you can’t afford to buy every single book you want to read.

Sarah:  What are some books that you’ve read that you, you can’t stop talking about?  And if you want to, you can also answer the question if there’s any books that you really, that made you angry or that really just did not work for you.

Jay:  I tend to just sort of skew on the positive side?  I, I, it takes a lot to make me really hate a book or hate a movie, so, you know, my range tends to be from sort of liked to loved versus hated to loved?

I would say, things I can’t stop talking about:  I mentioned Heidi Cullinan.  I’d read anything that she writes.  Absolutely adore her.  I, in the past year, have recently gotten into Renae Kaye, who I love.  She really started writing mostly in two, in 2014, and I read The Blinding Light and completely fell in love with it and then have read everything that she wrote this past year, and I think she’s fabulous.  K. A. Mitchell, I would read anything that she writes.  She wrote my, one of my all-time favorites, Collision Course, which I re-read probably every six months because I totally adore her and adore that book.

I’ve been reading a lot more sort of historical, historical plus I would say.  You know, sort of historical with other elements in it?  K. J. Charles, The Magpie Lord [A Charm of Magpies series], I absolutely loved, and that combines both paranormal and historical, which I really like.  Jordan Hawk, herWiddershins [Whyborne & Griffin series], which I just started, has the same thing; it sort of has a paranormal and a historical bent, which I think is a really fun combination.

I’m reading a lot by Keira Andrews.  I love her Amish trilogy.  Leta Blake.  In fact, I started reading the two of them when they had an old series from Ellora’s Cave, which is now getting, they’re getting the rights back to and just re-released the first one, and then over the past couple years, they have been writing separately, and both are fabulous, so I’ve done a lot, I’ve been really loving their stuff lately.

And I find, I guess, the more I read, the more I’m looking for things that are a little different, and maybe that’s why I’m really liking this sort of historical paranormal combination, or Charlie Cochet has her Thirds series, which is sort of paranormal suspense combination, because after reading hundreds of books a year for years on end, I’m always looking for something that’s a little different than sort of the traditional contemporary, you know, two men meet, one of them, you know, wants to sleep around and can’t be held down, and eventually the love of the other man makes them want to have a relationship and have babies and live happily ever after, and that could describe a lot of the genre, so I find that I’m looking for things that have heroes that are a little different or genre twists that are a little different or sort of plot arcs that are a little bit different, just because otherwise you start to feel like you’re reading the same story over and over again, which again probably, you know, is across the romance world, that same idea, so I’ve been sort of looking for new and interesting things that are just a little bit different or take a little bit of a different twist.

Sarah:  Here’s a, this is a hard question.

Jay:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  Or it could be a hard question.  Maybe it’s not a hard question.  You’ve mentioned that you go to conferences that are just for GLBT –

Jay:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – writers and fans –

Jay:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – and you know all of the bloggers and you know many of the authors.  Is it hard sometimes to have a personal relationship with authors whose books you enjoy?

Jay:  [Laughs] Yeah, and I think this is probably true for, for most bloggers.  I mean, obviously not –

Sarah:  Yes, I think you’re right.

Jay:  Right.  I mean, not everybody is lucky enough to have an opportunity to go to RT or to go to a conference where they can meet people in real life, but certainly the, you know, sort of male/male community, like I said, because we’re so much smaller than the romance community at large, tends to, people tend to know each other, even if it’s only online, in ways that are probably sort of more close connections than in general you get in the larger romance world, so

I think, for me, there are certain people, authors, who I can have a friendship with and I can separate that completely from my reviewing, and I review them comfortably, and I have other authors who, for whatever reason, I don’t feel like I can separate that, and I don’t review them.  So, if I take on a book, I take it on for review with the idea that I have to be prepared that I might hate it and that I need to be able to tell everybody that.  And if I don’t feel like I could do that for whatever reason, whether it’s an author I know closely or not, I won’t review it.  I have other reviewers, and if, you know, I don’t read it, somebody else might, and maybe we just won’t review it at all, but I try to be very clear for myself and for my reviewers that if you don’t feel like you could give this a lower score, then don’t even pick it up, because you have to be able to make that separation between knowing people.

And I think that, I think that in general, authors know that.  I mean, we all know the authors behaving badly.  I mean, everybody has seen that out there, so I’m not going to suggest that that’s not the case, but I think that for most authors who are, you know, sort of aware and mature and understand how things work, they accept the fact that somebody’s going to like their book and somebody’s not, and that’s fine.  And I have been shockingly lucky that we really haven’t had major backlash on my blog about a review from an author, despite the fact that we have given many not-positive reviews, but I know that that’s not the case for everybody, and I think that it’s just a matter of being honest.  I really consider my reader as the target audience for my blog, and they’re the ones we’re writing for, and I, you know, I tell my reviewers this all the time, but, you know, it’s really easy to think about, you know, the author, and is the author going to be upset and disappointed or whatever at this review?  And I say, you know, we really need to think about the reader, the reader who has money to buy one book this month or five books this month and who wants an honest opinion so that they can help make a decision about what they’re going to spend their hard-earned money on, and if we are sort of sugar-coating or not running the review because it’s not good or whatever, we’re not doing a service to our readers who trust us to be honest and who come to us for information about books so that they can make the best decision about what they want to do with their money, and these are the people that we have to write for.  And so when I get into that situation, I just remind myself that, you know, they’re the ones who are my audience, and they’re the ones who are putting their trust in me, and they’re the ones I have to write for.

Sarah:  Especially since, as you said, you know, the books that you are enjoying so much are often more expensive –

Jay:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – don’t get discounted as often –

Jay:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – and it can be a real financial puzzle to put together your budget and get all the books that you want.

Jay:  Absolutely.  Absolutely.  So, you know –

Sarah:  So that honesty is very important.

Jay:  Yeah, and I talk to readers all the time, like, you know, who have a very limited budget about what they can buy, and I feel like, not that I feel like anyone should read my one review and make a decision about whether they want to buy a book.  I don’t want to have that kind of power over anybody, positive or negative.  But I do think that people come.  I mean, that’s how I used to make my decisions.  I would go to a bunch of blogs, I would go onto Goodreads, I would read reviews, and sort of by culling all that together with, you know, reviewers that I trusted, I made decisions about what to buy, and I know that people do the same thing with our blog, so I just try to think about they are the ones that we’re writing for, to help give them an idea of what the book is about and what we liked and didn’t like so they can decide if this is a book they want to read or a book that they want to spend their money on, and so that, you know, we try to make that be our focus.

Sarah:  So your enthusiasm and your honesty are for, for readers.

Jay:  That’s what I think, absolutely.  I mean, they’re my audience.  I have, you know, I have authors who read the blog, and certainly it’s always nice to be able to give a book a good review.  You know, I never want a book to be bad.  I go into every book hoping and thinking it’s going to be awesome, because why would you do it if you thought it was going to be terrible?

Sarah:  Oh, hate reading is totally a thing.  I do it.  I, I confess.

Jay:  Do you?  [Laughs] To prove to yourself how bad the book is?

Sarah:  Like, oh, wow, pained, Pounded by the Gay Color Changing Dress.

Jay:  Yes!

Sarah:  I have no expectation that that’s going to be awesome.

Jay:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  But that’s a totally different thing.  That is a completely different thing.

Jay:  Yes, yes, yes.  Yeah, so I think that, you know, in general, we’re writing for, we’re writing for the readers, and they’re, they’re my audience.  You know, whether you’re a reader-reader or whether you’re and author-reader, because obviously, the genre has both, I still think that they are the ones who the review is written for, and I have no problem if authors read my reviews, if they comment on my reviews, and that’s not a problem for me –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Jay:  – but they’re not my target audience.

Sarah:  You mentioned right now you’re looking for things that are different.  What is on your TBR right now?

Jay:  Well, I’m really, I’m looking forward to the last book in Keira Andrews’, her Amish series; that’s coming out soon, so I’m really, I’m really excited about that.

Sarah:  That, the first one was a, A Forbidden Rumspringa, right?

Jay:  A Forbidden Rumspringa, yes, and then the second book, A Clean Break, was out couple of months ago, and then the newest one, A Way Home, I want to say A-, April?  I’m looking real quick at my calendar to see if I see it on there.  Yes, April.

Sarah:  You have a calendar of books you’re going to read?

Jay:  Oh, do I have a calendar, Sarah!

Sarah:  Please share this; I am so fascinated.

Jay:  A giant, massive, color-coded calendar of awesomeness.

Sarah:  [Laughs] What is on this awesome calendar?

Jay:  …OCD person that you will meet, and I probably drive my reviewers crazy, honestly.  I have a big calendar, and it’s color coded with my reviews; each of my reviewers and what they’re reading, they all have different colors; all of my guest posters, and they have a different color; and so, yeah, I can look at real quick and I can see what I have scheduled.  You know, a lot of times I either hear about the book in advance from the author or I have an advance copy, so I know something is coming out, so I have things on my calendar often in advance of actually, actually reading it, so, yeah, I do, I’m a big geek, I have a giant calendar.

Sarah:  I think that’s fabulous, and I’m a little jealous.

Jay:  A little jealous?

Sarah:  Yeah.

Jay:  Yeah, I, you know, I am not a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of girl.  Like I said, anybody who knows me at all knows – my reviewers, if they listen to this will, like, fall over laughing because I’m, you know, I schedule every review the day the book, we have the book in hand.  I can tell you things we’re going to be reviewing six weeks in advance, so I’m just very type A, but –

Sarah:  So you review books when they’re available for sale.

Jay:  Yes, yes.

Sarah:  You don’t review them in advance.

Jay:  Right.  We do not.  I know some blogs do it that way.  I think that people like to, in general, be able to buy the book when it comes available, and not all publishers have stuff available for pre-sale, and I think that in general, people just like to be able to read a review and be like, I love that book; I want to buy it right now and not have to wait for it, so that was just a choice we made.  We do a lot of release day reviews, but in general, I do not review in advance of a book coming out, even if I have a review copy in advance.

Sarah:  I always figure that part of my job is to enable everyone’s poor impulse control –

Jay:  Absolutely!

Sarah:  – because I myself have –

Jay:  Absolutely.

Sarah:  – no impulse control whatsoever, so I know everyone who is like me, if I say oh, my gosh, this is amazing and you can’t buy it yet, people get really bummed, because I certainly would not remember.

Jay:  Absolutely.  Absolutely!  It’s disappointing when you get, sort of get excited about a book, and you can’t have it in hand, so, yeah, we do not review, we don’t review in advance for that reason.  In fact, I had this happen – it just made, made me think of it because Heidi Cullinan just re-, re-releasedNowhere Ranch under a self publish, but it was originally released a few years ago through Lucid, and I had read, like, an intro chapter, and it was, like, the hottest, most intense, crazy thing, and I was like, get my hands on this book, and then she said, oh, that was just a chapter that was released, and it’s not coming out for three months, and just the waiting, knowing that it was out there, made me nuts, so –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Jay:  – I think – I’m not a patient person.  The OCD combined with the lack of patience is not a good combination.  Yeah, I’m not a patient person, so I know, for me, when I read about a book, I want to be able to buy it.

Sarah:  Of course.  I think the more people are online, the more they can identify their own catnip, so if someone has sent up a flare about your catnip, you want to have it right now!

Jay:  Absolutely.  Absolutely!  I totally have catnip book.  I will read almost anything that has a sort of, like, beta, non-traditional hero.  The, like, the geeky hero.  Virgin heroes, oh, my God, virgin heroes I will read all day long.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Jay:  Give me a hero who’s, like, scarred or disfigured or who has any sort of, like, physical, mental, emotional issues; I’m, like, all over that stuff, so.  I love that kind of, like, Beauty and the Beast trope.  You know, the guy who, you know, doesn’t think he can be loved and who has been sort of rejected that then finds that person that brings it out of them and finds the love and happiness, so anything like that is like catnip to me.  I will read it without a, without a second thought.

Sarah:  That’s awesome.  What other pieces of catnip do you know of that you’ve identified?

Jay:  Enemies to lovers stories?  That’s a big one for me.  I love that idea that, like, the two people not just have to make that transition from being friends to something romantic, but they don’t even like each other, and then they have, like, sort of that double hurdle that they have to first tolerate each other before they can even love each other, plus then you often get a lot of that, like, good hate sex, anger-fueled, crazy, which is sort of fun.  I’ve been reading a lot of master-slave stuff lately, which I never used to read, which I’m sort of finding I’m into lately.  I loved, like, the Free Men series by Kate Aaron.  I read them all last fall.  The Ganymede series by Darrah Glass I’ve been really into, so for some reason I’ve been reading a lot of that.  I love amnesia stories.  This is, again, like, only in romance could you actually have, like, a whole host of stories about people with amnesia.

Sarah:  Amnesia is totally a thing!  No question.

Jay:  I know, it is.  And like, again, it’s, like, a complete romance world thing.  Like, how many people get amnesia in real life, compared to in the romance world?  But I kind of love that too.  Again, it’d be probably similar reasons that the enemies to lovers.  It’s like there’s that additional hurdle of bringing somebody to sort of even the point where they know or tolerate the other person before you can get to the romance, so.  Like, I loved, The River Leith by Leta Blake.  I just re-read that, which was a fabulous amnesia story, so I’ve been sort of reading all over, but those are my, those are sort of my favorite – virgin heroes, even when I was reading male/female, I mean, where then finding a male virgin hero in a male/female story is, like, next to impossible, virgins have been my thing.  I don’t know; I guess I like the big deflowering.

[Laughter]

Sarah:  What was the book you just mentioned?  The River Leith?

Jay:  Yes, it’s L-E-I-T-H.  The main character’s name is Leith, and I think that it’s an allusion to something Greek that I am not knowledgeable enough to be able to tell you, but yeah, that’s a great amnesia story about two guys who, you know, were in a relationship prior to one of them having a head injury, and then he forgets about, you know, who his boyfriend even is, doesn’t know him at all, and then has sudden, sort of gets that growing awareness of the, of their relationship and sort of tried to figure out how to come back from that, so that was fabulous.  Absolutely loved it.

Sarah:  Oh, my gosh, it’s gaynesia.

Jay:  It’s gaynesia!  It’s not as good as pregnesia, but it’s gaynesia.

Sarah:  No, forget pregnesia, we need gaynesia.

Jay:  [Laughs] Yes.  Yes, we need –

Sarah:  I forgot that I was gay!

Jay:  Yes.

Sarah:  Shit!

Jay:  Oh, yes, and you know what, I’ve read those as well.

Sarah:  [Laughs] I was kidding!

Jay:  No,  I have read those.  But yes, that is not – that’s a little bit more unusual.  This is a, you know, general, you know, sort of amnesia story, but yes.  [Phone rings] Yes, oh, sorry.

Sarah:  You need to answer that?  You can take a minute.

Jay:  I don’t need to answer it, but hold on.  [Thump] Okay.  Just hung up on them.  Okay, I’m here.

Sarah:  Okay, cool.  Before we go, hang on while I pull up my list of questions.  I think I’ve gone over all of the questions that I, that I sent you.  Did I miss anything that you wanted to talk about?

Jay:  Mmm, I don’t think so.  I’m just looking to see; I was jotting things down that I wanted to remember about books I liked and things like that, so I’m just looking to see if there’s anything.  You know, though, the other thing I was going to say is that I’ve also really gotten into lately audiobooks –

Sarah:  Oh!

Jay:  – and I don’t know if that has been broader across romance in general, but that’s another sort of area that I’ve been having a lot of fun with.

Sarah:  Are the books that you love and the authors that you love, are they available in audio?

Jay:  Some publishers release tons of audio.  Dreamspinner, for example, has tons of audio.  A lot of authors who self publish also are releasing in audio.  I know, like, that Heidi Cullinan’s Love Lessons and Fever Pitch she just released – although that was Samhain – in audio, so I’m seeing more and more of that, and definitely more male/male romance in, is coming out in audio.  I know that the PsyCop series is in audio.  I find, first off, I love to have, like, a book on in the car or when I’m at the grocery store, so I’m having a lot of fun listening to audio because it lets me sort of multitask and get in an extra book.  I can’t read two books at once, but I find that I can read one book and listen to another book and have that, like, stay separate in my brain.  But I also think audio is kind of fun because it can give you sort of that read on a character that maybe, or an interpretation on a character that might be different than you get when you’re sort of making the voices and the inflections and all of that in your head?

Sarah:  Yes.  I know that Angie James has read and listened to the Nalini Singh Psy-Changeling series and says that when she listens to them, she notices different things about the story and different things about the character.  I, when I am reading versus listening to a book, I think it activates a slightly different part of my imagination, because the voices –

Jay:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – are filled in, and I’m such a voice-centered person already, I –

Jay:  Right.

Sarah:  – I, when I am reading, I am hearing a voice in my head reading to me, which sounds really weird, but that’s just how my brain is.

Jay:  Right, right.

Sarah:  So when I listen to an audiobook, that job is already done.  It almost, it almost engages a different part of my imagination entirely.

Jay:  Yes, absolutely.  And it can also give you, you know, the, the way that the narrator sort of reads a line, you know, you can make, it’s just sort of, like, you know, when you’re texting somebody and you don’t have any sense of sort of what the connotation of what they said to you is –

Sarah:  Yes.

Jay:  – you know, when you’re reading, there’s a whole range of interpretation from, you know, sort of bland to snarky that something could be, and when you hear somebody read it a certain way, that interpretation is supplied.

Sarah:  Yep.

Jay:  You know, I just listened to a book that I had read not that long ago, Control, which is by Cardeno C. and Mary Calmes, and I had read it recently enough that it was sort of still fresh in my brain when I listened to the audio, and the way the narrator, who is Greg Tremblay, who is fabulous, read the book, it gave one of the characters a much more sort of vulnerable side than I had felt reading it.  He came across much more sort of brash and confident, and this sort of interpretation made him much more vulnerable, and it was a really interesting, you know, way to think of the character and really gave me a completely different perspective than I had had on him from reading the book, so I’m finding that fun.

I listened to Shattered Glass by Dani Alexander, which blew me away completely and I know has a huge number of fans, and then I have friends who read the book and listened to it and said that the character was, really came across very different in the audiobook than they sort of imagined him in the, when reading, so I think it’s an interesting way to sort of get another perspective on things and also to give you something to do with your hands when you are, or, you know, to do while you’re, you know, knitting or driving or grocery shopping or whatever, which I always like.

Sarah:  [Laughs] Well, I mean, I know most audiobook narrators that are very skilled and very popular, they are performers.  They are actors.

Jay:  Right.

Sarah:  I mean, I, I’ve done couple interviews with Renee Raudman, and she talks about the different voices that she used and the different ways as, the different ways that she talks for a character, that Curran has a different voice from Kate Daniels in the Ilona Andrews series –

Jay:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – and there’s a slightly different way of speaking, even though it’s all her voice, so she performs the characters.  Having that done is going to change the way you see a book –

Jay:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – because obviously you’re not the one supplying that.  I have to think, though, that if I listen to an audiobook in the grocery store, I would either zone out in the middle of the aisle for about forty-five minutes, or I would walk straight into a display.

Jay:  Straight into something?

Sarah:  I would knock down a big pile of cereal.  Like, I would, I don’t know if I could walk and listen to an audiobook.

Jay:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  I can certainly drive and stitch, and I will, I listen to audiobooks and podcasts while I walk my dogs?

Jay:  Yeah.

Sarah:  That’s about the level of, of, of multitasking that I can handle.  I think if I actually had to grocery shop – [laughs]

Jay:  Had to grocery shop?

Sarah:  – I think you could video that for entertainment purposes.

Jay:  As you crash into things?  Well, yeah, driving and listening, especially if you’re listening to something that’s good and dirty – I was driving, listening to –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Jay:  – a Damon Suede, which is, you know, fairly explicit, and Charlie David, who narrates it, does an amazing job, and, you know, I’m listening to this sort of hot and dirty scene, and I’m like, maybe I need to pull over!  Maybe I shouldn’t be driving while I’m listening to this.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Jay:  So, yes, definitely, there are hazards.  Be careful.  Don’t drive and listen to sex at the same time.  That’s our PSA for the day.

Sarah:  Well, thank you so much for doing this.  This is, this is really awesome.  I’m really glad that (a) we connected, and (b) that you had so much to say, ‘cause this is a really excellent set of recommendations.  Thank you very much!

Jay:  No problem!  Thank you guys for having me.  It was great to talk to you.

Sarah:  Oh, it was lovely.  We will see you in May!

Jay:  Yes, I know!  I’m really excited.  I can’t wait!

Sarah:  ‘Cause you are going to be speaking at the Book Blogger Conference.

Jay:  Yes!  I’m really excited about that.  I think it’s going to be fun.  Hopefully I won’t be too ranty.  [Laughs]  Yeah, no, I’m really excited.  I’m excited for RT.  I, you know, it’ll be a little bit smaller than last year, so I’m really looking forward to that.

Sarah:  And you’re going to be talking about blog tours and running a blog.

Jay:  Yes.  Right, right.  Working with blo-, working with authors and blog tour operators and hosting people on your blog and sort of how you can make the most of that experience.

Sarah:  I assume there’s a calendar involved.

Jay:  Calendar involved, yes.  Oh, God, I wish I could show you guys my calendar.  It’s so beautiful.  It, like, soothes my soul when I see all the pretty colors.

Sarah:  Oh, no, organization makes me feel very happy.  I understand exactly how you feel.

Jay:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  I organized one shelf in my cabinet in my kitchen, and now I just open it and look at it and go – [gasp] – so nice!

Jay:  It’s beautiful, right.  And, like, it stays like that for 30 seconds, but it’s something so satisfying, yes.

[music]

Sarah:  And that is all for this week’s podcast.  I want to thank Jay for hanging out with us and talking about books.

I know that this is a very long list of books and authors and that you’re probably thinking, what was the one that I, she talked about with the road trip and the guy and the other gaynesia?  Gaynesia is now my new favorite word, by the way.  All of the books that we talk about are listed in the podcast entry, better known as the show notes, so if there’s a book that you were looking for that was mentioned, there’ll be a link to most of the books with author and title, but if you can’t find it, absolutely feel free to email me or Jay.

You can find Jay at Joyfully Jay, that’s joyfullyjay.com.  She is also on Twitter frequently, about as much as I am, which is pretty awesome, and her Twitter handle is @jayhjay432.  That’s jayhjay432.

You can find me on Twitter @SmartBitches, you can find Jane on Twitter @dearauthor, and most of us are there most of the time, so if you ever need a book recommendation, that’s a good place to start.

The music that you’re listening to was provided by Sassy Outwater.  This is The Shadow Orchestra, and this tune is called “Sweet as a Nut.”  You can find out more about them at their website or their MySpace page.  Their music is also available on iTunes or Amazon or wherever you buy your funky music.

Now, before I forget, during the course of the podcast, I was talking about a series that I couldn’t remember the name of, which is really, really embarrassing, because I should be able to remember names.  Like, I can tell you what the covers look like, but that does you no good on a podcast, right?  So my apologies to the author for not remembering correctly.  Once, of course, we were done recording, I remembered exactly who it was.  The series that I’m talking about is called Harborside Nights; it’s by an author named Melissa Foster.  The first book in the series is called Catching Cassidy, and it will be among the books listed in the show notes, and again, I apologize for my faulty memory and not being able to remember the proper name of the series, aside from the description.

If you have questions or suggestions or ideas or feedback, or you just want to tell us about a book that made you really happy or that made you really mad, we would love to hear about it!  You can email us at [email protected].  We welcome all of your fine, fine email, because you are really smart and have interesting things to say, and we love to hear from you.  And if you have reviewed the podcast after listening to it, thank you very much for that.  That is really awesome of you, and I very much appreciate it, and so does Jane.

So on behalf of Jane and Jay and myself, we wish you the very best of reading.  Have a great weekend.

[mellow and awesome music]