Smart Podcast, Trashy Books, November 4, 2016

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Sarah Wendell:  Hello, and welcome to episode number 219 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books.  I’m Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and my guest this week is you!  All of you!  So much of you!  I have email and letters and voicemail from all of you, because you are hilarious.  I have an update as to what exactly the hero in Defy Not the Heart learned from a prostitute all those purple leggings ago.  I try not to crack up at your email messages, and I fail.  I also try to describe a really convoluted Sandra Brown plot.  I fail at that too.  Amanda joins me for a very short conversation about pets and cats and what she’s reading, and of course my dog Zeb has a lot to say in the background, because he only likes to bark at random leaves when I’m recording, because that’s how he is.

I do want to issue a mild trigger warning starting at about minute 38:29 to about 39:00.  Amanda is talking about a book that features murder and crime and violence against women, so if that kind of thing really makes you upset, you might just want to hit the skip forward button ‘til about 39:15.  You should be good.

Before we get started, though, I do have two things to say.  Well, actually, more than two, but I’ll start with the most important two.  First, I have been asked by a couple of people how they should find and access podcasts, so I thought since you are a podcast listener and you know all the things, you could tell me:  how do you listen?  Which apps do you use?  What do you recommend?  If you could email me at [email protected], I’m going to put together an entry about this, but I would really welcome your input and suggestions, ‘cause y’all know all the things.

I also have some compliments, and this is super fun.

For Alexandra Z:  The limbs of your family tree, when viewed at the correct angle, say Absolute Legend, and all the leaves point at you.

And to Leigh K:  You are the human personification of excellent chocolate, perfectly baked cookies, superb wine, and absolutely no hangover.

And if you are wondering what is going on, please have a look at Patreon.com/SmartBitches.  By listener request, I set up a Patreon campaign for the podcast.  For as little as one dollar a month, you can help support the show and help me commission transcripts, upgrade equipment, make the podcast much more gooder, and all of your support is much appreciated.

Our music is provided by Sassy Outwater, and you’ll have all of the information as to who this is at the end of the show.

And we also have an iTunes page that I would like to tell you about!  iTunes.com/DBSA – which if you’re a long-time listener you know is the old name of the podcast – that page has recent episodes and links to the books that we discuss in the iBooks store, so if you are an iBooks customer, this is exactly your jam, I should think.  You can see that at iTunes.com/DBSA.

I will also have links to all of the books that we discuss, plus this episode comes with some visual accessories:  I have some pictures and a video that we mention during this episode.  That will also be at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast in the most recent entry for episode number 219.  There is epic cuteness, and you definitely do not want to miss this.

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Sarah:  So, shall we get started with reading and listening to all of y’all, because y’all are the best?  Let’s do this!

Kendal:  Hi, Sarah.  This is Kendal, and I’m calling to congratulate you on your two hundredth episode, even though it was about fifteen episodes ago.  I also was calling to leave a message about the book or books that turned me into a romance reader.  So, there’re actually two, and the first one, I think it’s the first romance than I can remember reading, and I was about sixteen.  Have no idea how I found it, but my friend read it too, and we’d talk about it endlessly in ceramics class, but it was called The Ro- – no, what was it? – The – now I’m getting all of Virginia Henley.  Is The Falcon and the Flower?  Nope, it wasn’t that one.  It was one of Virginia Henley’s books.  Probably The Raven and the Rose.  And I don’t remember much about it other than that there was, like, a crazy lovechild and rape and historical detail, and I some, for some reason really enjoyed it.  But then, those were the only romance novels that I read for a while, and then I stopped.  And then again, about five years later, I came across Nora Roberts, and I read Key of Light, and then that was history.  So those are the books that turned me into a romance reader.  Thanks!

Sarah:  Oh, my gosh, Virginia Henley.  Okay, (a) I think it’s hilarious that so many of her titles were The Predatory Bird plus The Piece of Foliage?  So you have The Raven and the Rose and The Falcon and the Flower, and there’s also my personal favorite, The Pirate and the Pagan, The Hawk and the Dove, The Dragon and the Jewel – I mean, there were a whole bunch of predatory birds and pieces of garden running around together being rapetastic with fuchsia covers.  I have that same sort of, oh, I totally liked that, and I look back at myself and think, why did I like that?  I mean, I can think about it intellectually, but I also know that if I read it now I would be so deeply horrified – [laughs] – which is really a very strange form of affectionate nostalgia.

I also love that so many readers have taken the turn from, I read this book, and it was really fuchsia and kind of rape-y, and then I found Nora Roberts, and all was well.  Like, that’s, I think, one amazing legacy for one writer to, to leave?  My younger son is currently really into the first Harry Potter books, ‘cause he’s just about at the age where he can really appreciate book one and book two and some of book three.  It, I think book four will scare the shit out of him.  But it’s fascinating to listen to him talk to my husband, who read all of the books, and think this entire world came out of one person’s imagination and that there are people of multiple generations all over the earth who know who Harry Potter is.  And in romance, there are so many readers who have encountered or been introduced to romance or found what they loved in romance through Nora Roberts.  It’s really cool!

Thank you so much for calling, and thank you for sharing that, because now I want to go read the, The Dragon and the Jewel and The Raven and the Rose and start thinking of my own titles, like The Somewhat Intimidating Woodpecker and the Ficus.

And now I have an email from Khushali, and I hope that I am saying your name correctly, and if I’m not, I apologize.

Khushali’s email:  Dear Sarah,

Ok, so I’m probably from the younger side to get into romance novels, and like I’ve always been a big reader, would rather read books than do schoolwork or even sleep in some cases (I’m one of those that once I start a book I have to finish it unless it’s like epically bad which I’ll finish but there’s no rush, the only exception being 50 shades; I couldn’t even get past the first chapter I was rolling my eyes so hard).

Anyway I’ve been reading romance type stories ever since I can remember starting from those cutesy teen love stories to reading my first Harlequin book when I was like 12, I think my cousin introduced me to them when I had just like outgrown all the good things to read at the library, and being 8 years older I’m not sure why she thought it would be a great idea to give a 12 year old a Mills and Boon book to read, because let me tell you for a long time I had a skewed view of romance and love and was all like I need a man to sweep me off my feet and magically fall in lust then love with me and I am definitely not like that; however, I still do enjoy reading these books from time to time.

Harlequin has a special place in my heart; however, the one book and author that resonated most with me was Judith McNaught and Paradise – [SW:  I have to pause because I love that book.  Ah!  Okay.  [Deep breath] Happy sigh.] – was the first book I read of hers at 13, and oh my god, I fell in love instantly with the story and the characters and the writing, and while I clearly didn’t understand the relationship problems to the full extent, I appreciated a lot more now that I’m 25.  I think I pretty much loved most of her books except Whitney, My Love; still couldn’t get past that one scene in the book and even at that age I knew that wasn’t right, and then when I got older and read it again and it confirmed it to me that yep still not a fan of this book, or this type of “romance” when the guy is an epic dick; even in stories now that immediately turns me off.

That being said I have one friend who loves books as much as I do and also reads romances whereas when you mention it to other people, friends and family alike, there’s a lot of judgment like, “oh you read romance,” like why is that a bad thing and shameful, like romance books aren’t seen as real books which is bullshit, and this isn’t something you get from mainly guys but also other girls, and I just find it incredibly strange.  [SW:  You are not the only one.  Anyway.]

Ok, now I need to say that I read a lot of books, a variety of genres, yet I still prefer romance books or books that have some sort of romance and relationship aspect.  Like this one book series by Casey Hill which is a mystery/suspense series about a forensic investigator (would highly recommend the first book Taboo) and initially I was in it for the plot and the interesting story of the first book, but not going to lie, I stayed around to read the rest of the series to find out about the incredibly slow burn romance between two characters and like hoping something would happen.  Does anyone do this?  Stay around for something in a series and not necessarily because you’re excited for the actual story as a whole but because you want some sort of conclusion and closure of one tiny aspect of the series?

Thanks for reading my kinda long ramble

Khushali

Sarah:  Okay, yes, yes, yes, and yes.  I have stuck through many series where I could not have cared any less about the, the mystery or whatever it was they were dealing with or the Big Bad or whatever giant evil was going to come and take their powers away or whatever.  I did not care about that.  I did not care about that at all, but the slow burn?  I am here for all the slow burn, and I love how I can often find it in a mystery series, even when I don’t care about the mystery.  For example, the new Sherry Thomas series where Sherlock is a woman, I have gone on and on and on about this book, so I will not subject you to all the things I like about it, but the tiny, tiny glimpses of what’s going to be a pretty powerful, I think, emotional resolution?  Oh, that is so my catnip.  I love a very good slow burn.  What I especially love, and I suspect that you’re like this too, I like when the slow burn is revealed in tiny moments that aren’t meaningful until you realize what’s happening, and then you go back to read them over again, and all of a sudden they have, like, ten times the emotional impact, because now you get it.  Like, those were moments where he was totally into her, or she was trying to communicate something.  Oh!  Goodness!  I love that.  I even went and looked up a couple of lists of slow-burn romances that other readers have generated, and the funny thing is, I look at some of them and I’m like, well, it’s only one book.  That’s not really what I would consider a slow burn.  Like, even though I don’t really like following a series because I don’t always trust that people have an end in mind, I especially like slow burn over multiple books, because then I know it’s really, really slow.  

But I can say if you’re looking for more slow burn, The Hating Game by Sally Thorne is very slow burn and also enemies to lovers.  A lot of readers have also recommended The Wall of Winnipeg and Me by Mariana Zapata, which is (a) a very long book and (b) a whole mix of tropes like professional sports, personal assistant, enemies to lovers or friends to lovers.  I know that I’m not going to be the audience for that book because I have, to be completely frank, too many deeply, deeply negative feelings about all of football to suspend all of those feelings long enough to enjoy the book.  I would love to, but I know it’s not going to be my thing because my deep and complicated loathing of all things football is much too much to get over.  Also slow burn:  Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie has a very good slow burn.  It’s only one book, and now I’m, now I’m going to chase my own tail and question:  can you have a slow burn in only one book, or is a really good slow burn over multiple books?  Huh.  Now I’m going to have to think about that.  So if, if you happen to see me walking around with my dogs and I have this really puzzled look on my face?  That’s probably what I’m pondering.

But either way, thank you very much for emailing me and for sharing the book that made you a true romance fan.  I hope you’re reading something absolutely excellent right now.

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Ready for more email?  Okay, here we go:

Christine’s email:  Hi Sarah,

I know it’s going to take me weeks to share my story because I’ll get interrupted or distracted fifty times, so I’m emailing instead of leaving a voice mail…

Anyway, it starts with my grandma, who was a romance writer and a writing teacher.  More a teacher than a writer, really, but she did publish some medical romances in the sixties.  So I knew about romance books from an early age, but I also sensed that what grandma wrote was Not Appropriate and that being a romance writer was not, like, a lucrative or upwardly-mobile career.

Grandma had A LOT of story ideas that stayed in the filing cabinet.

Nevertheless, apparently a number of her students got published, which I discovered to my horror as a preteen when I plucked one off the shelf at grandma’s house.  I noted, first, that it was dedicated to my grandma, which was awesome.  Then I read the first few pages and… well, it was very upsetting.  Not only because there was hard-core sex on page one, but also because it painted such a depressing picture of adult relationships.  See, this woman is fantasizing about having illicit public sex at a racetrack with a stranger while she’s actually having boring sex with her boyfriend.  She makes the mistake of telling her boyfriend what she was imagining and he shames her and leaves.

In retrospect, this book may not have actually been a romance…  Who knows?  I’ve never seen it again.

The way the whole grandma + romance novel stigma + graphic and depressing book thing came together put me off romances for A LONG time.  Or so I thought.  But looking back, I have the neighbor’s older teenage son to thank for setting me back on the romance-reading track, because while I was babysitting the younger kids one summer, he gave me some Piers Anthony fantasies (I’m sure his intentions were pure and not inappropriate at all!), which led to Mercedes Lackey, which led to Tamora Pierce…  Eventually, when I got out of grad school and got back to reading for pleasure, I easily segued into romantic fantasy because I was primed to look for romantic relationships in my reading.  I’ve come full-circle to now enjoying contemporary romance (just about any subgenre of romance, actually), but I am still touchy about reading sex scenes—once burned, twice shy and all that.  They can just go so, so wrong.

Thanks so much for the podcast—it’s really a highlight of my week.  And congratulations on 200+ episodes!

Take care,

Christine

Sarah:  Thank you, Christine!  I’m really excited that I have two hundred plus episodes, because every time I type the episode number I’m like, whoa, seriously?  That’s so cool!  When I hit three hundred I’m going to be, like, completely overwhelmed.

I actually know exactly how you feel about sex scenes.  One thing I struggle with as a reader is that if I get the sense that the, the sex scene sort of pauses the momentum of the book or is becoming very clinical or, you know, insert tab A into slot B or whatever, I will start skimming them.  What I love is when there is dialogue in a sex scene.  If there’s talking or communicating or changing of, of circumstance along with intimacy, I am entirely there for that.  And there are a few romance authors who I read knowing that when I read their books, okay, this is going to have an awesome sex scene.  Like, Lisa Kleypas writes great sex.  Julie Anne Long writes great sex.  The books that I’ve loved where there’s intimacy and dialogue are my favorites, and I can understand being turned off by graphic, depressing, alienating, harmful behavior.  That makes sense!  I would kind of like to know, though, what the names of the books your grandma wrote were, because that’s so cool!  I’m actually plotting an upcoming episode with the adult children of a very prominent romance author to talk about their, their job upholding their mom’s legacy, and I’m really looking forward to it, so if you want to tell me what your grandma’s books were, that would be pretty awesome!  Thank you so much for emailing.

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Okay, I have tried to record this email four separate times, and hopefully this will be the one where I get through it without laughing, but I’ll do my best.  Maybe I won’t make it through, and you’ll just get to hear me laughing and being annoyed at myself.  Either way, here we go:

Nina B’s email:  I really enjoyed the podcast on the books that made people romance readers and ended up adding several titles to my neverending TBR list.  I found Linda’s story heart-breaking and inspiring in equal measure.  Kudos to her for being willing to share it.

I became a romance reader at the tender age of 9.  My older sister, who was a teenager at the time, had been raiding my mother’s extensive collection of historical romances and reading them aloud to me.  [SW:  [Laughs] Ahem.]  When she got to the naughty bits, she would cover her mouth – [SW:  [More laughing] Okay] – with her hand and mumble the words.  “And then he…. mumble mumble mumble….and she felt herself opening like a blossom and his….mumble mumble… entered her…mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble…quivering with delight.” etc.

Sarah:  [Still laughing] Okay.  I would have been so confused, and my nine-year-old, who would totally not be interested in romances, would have been yelling at me if I tried that.  Anyway.  Okay, pull myself together here.

Nina’s email:  The one that piqued my interest the most was Laurie McBain’s Moonstruck Madness, in which our intrepid heroine has been masquerading as a Scottish highwayman, robbing wealthy noblemen to support herself, her two siblings, and her crazy old auntie (and giving some of the surplus to the poor, as one does).  She (of course) ends up robbing the wrong man, a handsome duke (of course) who doesn’t believe in ever giving up what is his, which eventually (of course) includes our intrepid heroine.  Anyway, I had to read it for myself (not just for the naughty bits) even though it was above my grade level and somewhat lengthy.  I was quite proud of myself when I finished it and read my way through as much of Mom’s collection as I could.

Anyway, keep up the good work!

Nina B.

Sarah:  Okay, that, seriously, that, I think that was take five or six that I could not get through this email.  [Laughs again] The idea of mumbling the sex scenes!  I am so glad you emailed me.  That was awesome!  I love a good highwayman, and I love a good heroine disguising herself to commit a life of crime stories, so, yeah, I think I’m going to have to read that one, ‘cause I don’t think I have.  Thank you so much for emailing me!

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Ready for another email?  Okay, here we go:

Elle’s email:  Hello Sarah!

First of all, thanks to you and everyone else who runs and contributes to SBTB for all your hard work and fantastic content.  [SW:  Well, you are very welcome!  Thank you!]

I found Smart Bitches Trashy books about a year ago after moving from an incredibly small Southern town to a major US city.  The adjustment period was not a gentle one and so, of course, I turned to the internet to find community rather than talking to people in real life.  What am I, an animal?  (side note: Why can’t small towns be like the ones in romance novels?  Where are all the hulking single military men with abs of steel?  If my hometown were novelized there would just be a lot of meth camper explosions or sitting around at the Hardees parking lot.)  Anyway, stumbling upon your group of sassy, snarky, and funny romance readers and it made this big new city feel a little less lonely.  Thank you for that 🙂 [SW:  You are very welcome.]

Even more recently, I found the podcast and listen to it constantly.  I’m always volunteering to re-shelve books or run errands on campus (I’m an academic librarian) because it means that, for a little while at least, I’m getting paid to listen to you and your guests talk about ALL THE ROMANCE!

And now I finally arrive at the point of this long-winded e-mail which is to tell you a funny story regarding your podcast and how you inadvertently HaBOed me.  HaBOed is a verb, right?  Well, it is now.  [SW:  Dude, HaBOed is totally a verb; no worries.]

For years I’ve been trying to remember the name of a book I read when I was younger.  It wasn’t my first romance novel by any means (three cheers for Granny’s brown paper bags of Harlequins) but it was The One that made me tilt my head and say, “Well, hello there.”

I must have been 12 or 13 and I remember running across the parking lot from Wednesday church service over to the public library so I could read the book before they closed.  There was no way I was actually going to check it out.  God could totally see across that parking lot.

I’d thought about the book on and off over the years, but all I could remember were vague details about a plane crash and a new face and the heroine getting spectacular mustache burn.  [SW laughs.]  My curiosity reached a fever pitch a few weeks ago when I listened to the 200th episode about the novels that made us romance readers.

So, this afternoon I’ve been cleaning my house while listening to an old podcast, Episode 80 where you talk with Elyse about romantic suspense.  And, lo and behold, you totally named the book!  Mirror Image by Sandra Brown.  After I stopped dancing, I immediately ordered a copy from Amazon and hopped over to your website to say thank you for reuniting me with my long lost book.

All the best and keep up the good work,

Elle

Sarah:  Okay, that book is really high-grade crazysauce.  I freaking love that book, and I don’t even like romantic suspense all that much, so if you’re not familiar with Mirror Image, here is the complete bonkers-ness of it:  Okay, so this woman gets on a plane, and there’s some woman who looks a little bit like her, only is a lot more famous, in her seat, and she doesn’t press it.  She just takes that other person’s seat, and somehow in the course of events the woman who stole her seat ends up holding her necklace, or it fell off, or she yanked it off her neck – I don’t quite remember those details, but she ends up holding the necklace, and then the plane crashes, and they find the woman’s body holding the necklace and assume that it’s the girl who got on and – I have completely screwed this up, haven’t I?  Okay.  Basically, the plane crashes, and because they’ve switched seats, the identification is done incorrectly, because this world has no dental records or verifying things like that.  So the woman gets the other woman’s face – [laughs] because that’s a thing – so the woman gets the, they look enough alike, the woman gets the other woman’s face, and she wakes up with this person’s face, and there’s all kinds of weird shit going on, and someone’s trying to kill her, or she’s been trying to kill someone else and her accomplice is talking to her in the hospital.  So then she meets her husband who isn’t her husband, and they’re totally into each other, and he thinks it’s, it’s his wife who wasn’t that into him and suddenly is and is interesting, and seriously, this book is so amazing!  And I’ve done a completely terrible job of describing it.

Zeb:  Woof, woof!  Woof!

Sarah:  Look, even, even Zeb disagrees with my description of this book.  So, yes, I am really glad that you found it, and I hope that you will let us know what you think of it after re-reading it, because that is some really high-grade, high-grade romantic suspense banana-crackers, as RedHeadedGirl would say.  Thank you so much for emailing me!

[music]

Okay, so this is part one of a voicemail that I’ve already aired, and the part two after part one got cut off:

Katie:  Hi, Sarah.  This is Katie from New Jersey.  Thank you so much for the blog and the podcast.  Thank you for taking reading seriously and pleasure seriously and reading pleasure seriously.  The book that made me a romance reader was Johanna Lindsey’s Defy Not the Heart.  It would have been either the very late ’80, like, ’89 or ’90, maybe, and I was probably a romance reader already, because I was really curious about romance novels, and I really wanted to read one, but I was, like, a, you know, I was, like, thirteen, fourteen, and, I mean, my parents wouldn’t even buy me Sweet Valley High books when I was younger than that, so it was a little bit difficult to get ahold of one.  It’s not like I had, you know, one of those mythical moms or aunts or grandmothers who, you know, had an incredible library of romance novels that I could pilfer from.  Like, they were not available.  But somehow, you know, I had some cash on hand and we were going on vacation, and so, you know, there’s this concept of, like, things that are acceptable to read at the beach versus things that aren’t, you know.  You could read at the beach what you wouldn’t read in real life, and we were going to North Carolina to the beach, so I decided that I was going to buy a romance novel.  So I bought Defy Not the Heart with the Fabio cover, and I remember, I remember reading it on the beach and it being very windy.  I remember that it was medieval, a medieval setting, and that at some point the hero – this is after they’ve had sex for the first time, but the hero goes to a prostitute to learn –

Sarah:  To learn what?!  What could he learn?  Lucky for us, we have the answer:

Katie:  Hi, Sarah!  It’s Katie again!  So sorry that I had to yet again get cut off, but I am, I’m back.  So, Ranulf goes to the prostitute to learn about how to pleasure a woman; i.e., how to oral sex.  There’s probably some cuteness in his discussion with the prostitute, though, where he’s like, what?  They like that?  Or something like that.  So then he proceeds to perform oral sex on Reina, who’s the heroine, and of course, you know, she’s blown away by it.  Has, you know, has probably three hundred orgasms, but before that, when he prepares to start and is kissing his way down her body?  She’s getting all freaked out and, and, and nervous.  She doesn’t know what he’s doing, and, and finally she cries out, nay, Ranulf!  Nay! as he’s, you know, beginning his performance, and he, you know, eventually calms her down, but for some reason that particular line has always stayed with me, the, nay, Ranulf!  Anyways, thank you so much for your description of the cover and back copy of Defy Not the Heart, because it makes me remember why I must have picked it and bought it as the, you know, most out there – [laughs] – sort of tawdriest-looking, you know, historical romance then on the market.  And thanks for your thoughts about reading on the beach.  There was definitely judgment in my household about, you know, garbage books and, and what sort of reading was appropriate, and it, and it didn’t just have to do with, you know, sexual content.  It also had to do with intellectual content, so, you know, my mother also thought that science fiction was garbage, and a lot of mysteries were garbage.  Anyway.  Thank you again so much for your podcast, and have a good day.  Bye-bye, Sarah.

Sarah:  I think that a ringtone of Nay, Ranulf, Nay! would be a lot of fun.  Thank you very much for calling back and letting me know specifically what he went to the prostitute for.  Many people emailed and said, he went to learn how to give oral sex!  Which I suppose is a thing that you could do.  The more I think about it, the more I question, but okay.  I will go with it because the thing with Johanna Lindsey is, you just kind of have to go with it.  Nay, Ranulf, nay.  Yeah.  Maybe I’ll just change the name of the whole podcast.  Welcome to ray, ray, Ray, Nanulf, Ray.  That’s even better!  Welcome to Nay, Ranulf, Nay.  Your host, Ranulf and Reina.  But thank you very, very much for calling back.  I really appreciate it, and thank you so much for the compliments.  I appreciate that even more.

[music]

Ready for one more email?  I am, so let’s do this thing!  This is a slightly older one, but I love it because it comes with a picture, which I will put in the podcast entry at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast.

Abbey J’s email:  Hi Sarah!

I love the site and the podcast.  I just finished listening to the interview with Mel Jolly about your RWA panels.  You talked about how you love the Pilot FriXion erasable pens.  I do too!  I use them to color code my paper calendar, and they truly are erasable.  This is amazing to me since I grew up in the era where an “erasable” pen erased by putting a hole in your paper.  I wanted to give you a heads up that I have read on multiple blogs (the planner/planning community online is a crazy-fun rabbit hole to fall down) that due to the nature of the ink, it will disappear in extreme heat.  So don’t leave anything important in a hot car this summer!  🙂

Also, I have to share a quick story.  I listen to the podcast through the Stitcher app on my phone, which links to my car Bluetooth.  As a result, some information about the podcast appears on the little entertainment screen in my car, and apparently, will stay there the next time the car is turned on.  I learned this when my husband drove my car a few days ago, and came home asking me about the Smart Bitches podcast about “Virtual Ass?”  Apparently, “Newsletters, Virtual Ass” is what showed up when he turned my car on!  I have attached a photo for your viewing pleasure.  [SW laughs.]

Having heard my many stories about the Bitches and the podcast (because I talk about you all as though we are close friends), he just thought “Huh, virtual ass.  I will have to ask about that one.”  It was rather hilarious and I had to share.  [SW:  [Laughs] Virtual ass.  None of our asses are virtual, I’m sorry to say.]

Finally, you recently asked listeners to let you know how they started reading romance.  I grew up a voracious reader.  One day, my mom started telling me about all the history in a book she was reading.  She decided I was old enough to read it.  I think I was 12.  It was Danielle Steel’s Zoya, one of her sweeping family saga books.  I was hooked.  I read every Steel my mom had, then moved on to her Jackie Collins and Judith Krantz.  Then I realized there was a whole SECTION for romance at the library.  Woodiwiss and others followed.  I didn’t have much time to read for pleasure in college, but one summer I stumbled upon Welcome to Temptation at Target.  I binged on every Crusie they had that week.  The love affair was rekindled, and is still going strong.

Thank you for helping all of us romance readers find our tribe, and so much more.  I love you all!

Abbey J

Sarah:  Okay, virtual ass!  Okay, that’s hilarious!  I, you guys have to see this picture; it does in fact say Newsletters and Virtual Ass, which makes the podcast episode sound much more salacious than it actually was.

And I totally read Zoya.  I wonder, actually, if Danielle Steel’s publisher is eventually going to run out of colors for the cover, because they’re this sort of, sort of ‘70s pastel collection of colors – if you see them all on the shelf, you’ll know what I mean – and I’m, and I’m kind of wondering if they’re going to run out colors at some point.  As for Zoya, I remember that book, I remember so much of the history of that book?  I remember the names of all of the Czar of Russia’s children because of the way that they signed their letters as OTMA?  Oh, my gosh, what – I don’t remember where my keys are, I don’t remember what day it is, I don’t remember what year it is, but I remember random pieces of historical nonsense from books that I read many, many, many years ago.  That’s so silly.

I am glad that you found Welcome to Temptation and Jennifer Crusie, though.  Those are some books that stand up so well.  And thank you so much for emailing me!

[music]

Sarah:  Hello.

Amanda:  Hello!

Sarah:  How are you?

Amanda:  I’m watching this guy, this hipster chef, ruin a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Sarah:  That’s terrible.

Amanda:  He’s, like, making it stupidly fancy, and –

Sarah:  That’s terrible!  Don’t do that!  It’s just peanut butter and jelly!  Why would you fuck that up?

Amanda:  Someone retweeted it, and they said, I watched this whole video with so much hatred in my heart.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Amanda:  Like, yeah, I get it.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  So tell me what are you reading right now that you want to recommend?

Amanda:  So there’re, one that I’m currently reading and two books that I’m very excited about.  So the first one, I’ve probably talked about it on Twitter; I’ve mentioned it on the site.  It’s Royally Screwed by Emma Chase?

Sarah:  Yes?

Amanda:  It’s just charming and fun, and it’s one of those books where you’re just grinning so hard.  It’s the first book in her new series.  [Weird background noise] What the hell is going – ooh, someone’s getting towed!

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Amanda:  Sorry!

Sarah:  Someone’s getting towed away!  Ha-ha!

Amanda:  So –

Sarah:  Neighbor vengeance –

Amanda:  Yeah, yeah.

Sarah:  – is the best vengeance.

Amanda:  The hero is the, this prince of a fictional modern country in Europe, and he’s a jackass and – like most princes in romance are – and he’s kind of full of himself, and the heroine is kind of a down-on-her-luck coffee shop owner.  The, it was her late mother’s, so she’s running this family coffee shop.  Her specialty is making bomb-ass pies, so lots of good pie descriptions, but this premise is, is that the prince, his younger brother is kind of wayward, and he parties too much, and he’s making really bad publicity for the family, and the grandmother, the queen, who is a badass, is like, listen, you need to go grab your brother from partying in the States, you need to come back, and you need to get married so we can have some good publicity for a change.  And he’s like –

Sarah:  Doesn’t it suck when you, like, you lose all of your fun because you need to get married?

Amanda:  He’s like, I don’t want to do any of that.  But he has to as, like, the heir to, you know, whatever, and – so he goes to New York, and that’s where he meets the heroine.  He’s drunk off of his ass and can’t help himself and makes some really horrible comments to the heroine.  Pretty much is like, I’ll give you, you know, twenty thousand dollars if you have sex with me, and she’s like, mm, not going to do that.  And then he’s just like, well, I’ll give you five thousand dollars if you kiss me, and she’s like, you know what?  Fine, I’ll do that.  So she goes, he closes his eyes, she goes to –

Zeb:  Woof, woof!  Woof!

Amanda:  Ooh, dogs!

Zeb:  Woof!

Sarah:  Zeb does not approve of this plotline.  Or, or, or there is a horrible, horrible, man-eating UPS Truck of Doom outside.

Amanda:  [Laughs] But –

Sarah:  Anyway.

Amanda:  – she goes to kiss him, and his eyes are closed, and instead just shoves a pie right in his face.

Sarah:  [Laughs] Nice!

Amanda:  And she’s like, your bill’s on the table.  You know.  I’ll, I’m locking up; I don’t want to see you here again.  So that’s, like, their first meeting, and she doesn’t recognize him for who he is, but he later comes back and apologizes, which is nice.  So that’s what I’m reading, and I’m really enjoying it, but the two books that I’m excited about that I’ve, I’ve requested at my library, one is Written in Red, which we mentioned, we talked about earlier.  I featured it on sale, I’ve seen it all over the site –

Sarah:  The cover is so good, too.

Amanda:  I love, like, all the, it’s like painted covers, they’re all beautiful.

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Amanda:  So I thought, you know, why don’t I read this?  So I picked that up today, and I’m very excited.  And then I just heard about this book, and trigger warning for any listeners, but it’s called The Female of the Species by Mindy McGinnis.  It’s a very dark, mature YA.  Once again I’m reiterating, trigger warning.  But this young woman’s sister was murdered, and the killer kind of goes free, so the, the heroine, Alex, is like, fuck that!  And she winds up killing her sister’s killer, and she gets away with it, but because she gets away with this revenge killing, she kind of wonders, like, well, if I’m going to get away with it, it, like, she wonders if she can do it again.  So, and there’re two other characters.  There’s a, a boy who’s into Alex, but she’s very standoffish and mysterious, and he wants to know what her deal is, and then there’s a, another girl named Peekay who is a preacher’s daughter who works with Alex at the local animal shelter, so they kind of get all wrapped up together, but mainly it’s, you know, Alex kind of losing her shit and kind of going a little crazy, but a lot of people say that it’s, has dark humor.  It’s got a great take on, like, the long-lasting effects of sexual assault and, like, a good discussion on rape culture, and it seems like dark and badass and very interesting, so I’m looking forward to, to getting it when it comes in at the library.

Sarah:  But this isn’t a romance.

Amanda:  No!  Oh –

Sarah:  I was going to say.  Because I, I’m actually trying to put together a podcast with Elyse, because we’ve been having a conversation about rage, and female rage specifically, because –

Amanda:  I’m writing about that for Book Riot, actually.

Sarah:  Really!

Amanda:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  That, that women in romance don’t get a lot of room to be really fucking angry, and yet you have these books that people are just completely going absolutely bananas over that are basically women getting away with some really dastardly shit out of rage and vengeance and catharsis, and so she and I are wondering, is there going to be more female rage in romance, ‘cause I can only count a few that I can think of where the heroine is the one with anger and, and rage and completely justified fury.

Amanda:  Well, the reason why I started working on this post for Book Riot is because of A Promise of Fire, because the heroine is so flawed and so angry, and she’s not afraid, in terms of a character, of being, like, I’m pissed off!  And making really poor or bad decisions because she lets her anger get to her.  But I, we’ve also talked about how both progressive romance can be and kind of how very conventional and regressive romance can be.

Sarah:  At the same time.  Like, it can be doing both at the same time, and that can be really frustrating to (a) –

Amanda:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – negotiate and (b) try to explain.  Like, yes, on one hand you have stories that are reinforcing and upholding some very specific cultural elements that are clearly patriarchal and suppressive.  At the same time, there are ways in which that same story is undermining them, and it’s really hard to explain both.

Amanda:  I’m hoping we’ll get there, because in the last couple years we’ve seen these sort of, like, darker romances where a heroine is tapping into her, like, darker sexual needs?

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Amanda:  Which adds into, like, the progressive, like, sexual liberation of a, of a heroine, so I, maybe we’ll, we’ll get there eventually, but it is frustrating to see, like, like, a woman embracing herself, but she’s not embracing, like, the, like, “ugly” parts of herself, like the parts that she’s not supposed to show as, like, a demure gentlewoman.  Even the –

Sarah:  And that she’s not supposed to have those parts at all.

Amanda:  Yeah.

Sarah:  One of the reasons that I love Shelly Laurenston and G. A. Aiken is that her women have out and out rage, and it’s entirely justified, and they’re not letting go of it, and they do some ugly, awful shit, but whereas many characters in romance do things like that, more often than not in all of the collective books that I’ve read, it’s way more the area of the hero than the heroine to do ugly awful shit.

Amanda:  Yeah, ‘cause the hero’s usually, like, the tortured one or the broken one, and the heroine is the, the healing force in the, the hero’s life, and it’s, it’s hard to find a reversal of that.

Sarah:  Yes.

Amanda:  Yeah.

Sarah:  So I want, I want more exploration of rage in romance, and I think that if paranormal is experiencing a resurgence of popularity, it’s going to be heroine-focused, and it’s going to be emotion-focused, not ‘cause – I mean, I, you, your cake is your cake, and it’s totally cool.

Amanda:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  I don’t need to explore people’s dark sexuality with them.  That is not my thing.  But if you want to explore, like, catharsis and vengeance and rage, absolutely.  I’m, I am here for that part.

Amanda:  I’m wondering if this YA might have, like, a, a romantic subplot because of the, the guy who’s interested in Alex, but a lot of the, like, shelves it winds up on, it’s like mystery, thriller, so if there is any romance, it doesn’t seem to be mentioned a lot.  I’m trying, also trying not to read a lot of, like, go in-depth with the reviews, ‘cause I want to be surprised.

Sarah:  Right.  There’re some books where you want to walk in with no preconceived understanding of what’s happening.  Like, not at all.

Amanda:  Yeah, but if any-, if anyone’s interested, a lot of the reviews mean, or talk about sexual assault and rape, and I think there might even be animal cruelty in the book, so –

Sarah:  Oh!  Good gracious.

Amanda:  – warning to anyone interested:  if you are sensitive about those subjects, probably skip this one.

Sarah:  Yeah, it’s not going to make you happy.

Amanda:  Yeah.  But I, I was surprised ‘cause the, the cover is, like, bright yellow with these, like, illustrations of animals.  Like, I wasn’t expecting –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Amanda:  – like, the cover to, like, it doesn’t match the, the jacket copy, but –

Sarah:  That’s a little odd.

Amanda:  Yeah.

Sarah:  Cool.

Amanda:  So that’s, those are my three.

Zeb:  Bark!

Sarah:  Zeb thinks you have more.  He disagrees.

Amanda:  Sorry, Zeb.

Sarah:  Yeah, he’s, he’s – I made the mistake of putting a chair near the front window so he can see all the things that happen out front, but when anything is outside of the realm of the acceptable, I hear about it.  There’s a, there’s a squirrel!  It’s on our lawn!  Grrr!

Amanda:  I took my, or actually Eric took my AC unit out of my window.  I didn’t take it out.  But now that there’s another free window to sit in, the housecat needs it open and for her viewing pleasure in case she –

Sarah:  Of course!

Amanda:  – wants to look at the driveway for –

Sarah:  That’s kitty television!  It’s a new station; it’s like she got a cable package upgrade.

Amanda:  Yeah.  So I’m, when I’m the only one home, I have to go around and open all the windows in the house –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Amanda:  – in the morning.

Sarah:  Or the cat’ll be like, what is this crap?

Amanda:  Yeah.  She’ll go around meowing.  Like, all right, Bird, I will open the windows.  We are a slave to this housecat.

Sarah:  Yeah.  I, I will get yelled at very soon.  You notice that there’s a sweatshirt on the Futon of Concealment.  That’s because I took it off, and then I went to put it back on, and it was no longer mine.

Amanda:  No.

Sarah:  No, it’s their sweatshirt now.

Amanda:  You have to wait until he’s ready to let you have it again.

Sarah:  Yes, and it’s been two days.

Amanda:  [Laughs] Oh, my God.

Sarah:  So it’s no longer my sweatshirt.  It is probably their sweatshirt almost entirely.

[music]

Sarah:  And that is all for this week’s random miscellaneous fun episode.  I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did.  I want to thank Amanda and Kendal, Khushali, Christine, Nina, Elle, and Abbey and everyone who has emailed or called or left a voicemail.  I really love hearing how much you enjoy the podcast, and I’ve noticed that there are more reviews of the show.  That’s so great!  Thank you very much for reviewing the show and letting other people know how much you enjoy it.

I would also like to invite you to take a look at the podcast Patreon at Patreon.com/SmartBitches because if you become a supporter of the show at any level, a dollar a month, three dollars, five, whatever, I leave messages for podcast patrons about upcoming interviews and inviting them to ask questions and give me comments to pass along.  Like, for example, I have an upcoming recording with Loretta Chase, so podcast patrons get to find out early what interviews are coming and give me questions they are dying to ask.  So if you had a look at the podcast Patreon page, thank you very much, and if you are a supporter, please, please share your questions and ideas with me, because that’s awesome!

And even if you’re not and you have ideas or questions or you want to tell me about the book that made you a romance reader, you can email the show at [email protected], or you can call and leave a voicemail at 1-201-371-3272.

I do have a question for you to consider.  Are you ready?  Are you listening?  Okay.  How do you listen to the podcast?  Do you listen on your phone?  Do you listen on an iDevice?  Do you have an app that you really dig?  Do you use Pocket Casts or Stitcher or podburner?  Like, what is your favorite way to listen to podcasts?  How do you listen to the show?  I would like to know, ‘cause I am putting together an entry to share how to access podcasts with people who have emailed me and said, I don’t know how to do this!  This sounds really cool.  What do I do?  If you would like to tell me how you listen to the show, that would be most excellent.  You can email me at [email protected].  You can email me at [email protected] if that’s easier to remember.  It all ends up in the same place.  I’ve got, like, nine email addresses.  I would love to know how you listen to the show, and if you do listen – and obviously you do because you’re hearing my voice right now – thank you!  You are awesome!

And speaking of awesome, did you know we have an iBooks page?  It’s really cool.  iBooks.com/DBSA.  You will find most recent episodes, along with links to the books we’ve discussed, in the iBooks store if that is where you like to shop.  It’s pretty rad, so please do have a look.

The music you are listening to is provided by Sassy Outwater.  You can find her on Twitter @SassyOutwater.  This is Caravan Palace.  This track is called “Cotton Heads,” and it’s from their album Panic, which you can find at Amazon or iTunes or wherever you buy your music.

I have links to the music and to all the books that we discuss, plus some of the pictures and videos we mentioned at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast.  If you make purchases through the site, you are contributing to the upkeep and maintenance of the site through the affiliate linking, which is so very much appreciated!  And if you’d like more options to support the podcast, have a look at Patreon.com/SmartBitches.

In the meantime, on behalf of everyone here, including Zeb, we wish you the very best of reading.  Have a great weekend.

[cool music]