232. The First Year of The Ripped Bodice – An Interview with Bea and Leah Koch

[music]

Sarah Wendell:  Hello, and welcome to episode number 232 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books.  I’m Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books.  With me today are Bea and Leah Koch from The Ripped Bodice.  We are talking about their first year as an exclusively romance bookstore; the things that they’ve learned and enjoyed about, you know, basically running a really freaking cool bookstore; and what they have planned for next year.  We also talk about dogs, because they have among the cutest store dogs ever, so we talk about dogs and their dog’s responsibilities in the store and how he has affected their general work flow.  We also talk about upcoming events, including a really cool exhibition that’s coming up, and we talk about a crapload of books because that’s kind of what happens.

This is also a nice long episode.  It’s over an hour at the moment, and if I yammer a lot in the outro, it might be, you know, even longer than that, although I try not to yammer in the outro.  Also, Yammer in the Outro sounds like a really good name for a band.

Anyway, I know how much many of you have appreciated the podcast lately and that you’ve been using them as a place for an hour or so of quiet, fun, safe, peaceful enjoyment, and a lot of you have emailed me about that, and I want to say thank you.  That means a lot to me.  I am very honored that this show is something that you use as solace and self care, and I’m really very touched, so thank you for letting me know that.

This podcast is brought to you by Kensington.  Kensington would like you to know about Into the Firestorm by Kat Martin.  Don’t miss the pulse-pounding third installment in the New York Times bestselling series BOSS, Inc., by acclaimed author Kat Martin, Into the Firestorm.  Follow bounty hunger Emma Cassidy as she prepares to get revenge on one of Seattle’s most powerful underground gangsters – but Rudy Vance is proving tricky to nail down, so Emma enlists the help of Luke Brodie, a fellow bounty hunter, who is as legendary for his skills in a fight as he is in the bedroom.  Together, they generate so much heat Rudy Vance and his gang don’t stand a chance.  Kat Martin’s signature spine-tingling suspense, unforgettable action, and scorching passion that made her a household name are on full display in Into the Firestorm, on sale now wherever books are sold and on kensingtonbooks.com.

I also want to thank Orville for being on the desk as my official sound engineer and moving my keyboard around while I’m trying to record.  That’s an enormous help; thank you very much.

Now, I also have some compliments to give out in this episode, and this is absolutely one of my favorite things to do.  So I have two special, incredibly heartfelt, genuine, hand-crafted, artisan compliments.

To Michelle H.:  The map of every footstep you’ve taken in your life spells out all the words that describe you, including “awesomesauce,” “legendary,” and “wonderful.”

And to Selby M.:  The people in your life value you deeply for your charm and your ability to make people laugh, especially when they need it most.  Your friends are so lucky to have you.

And I also want to say hi to Nisha, who’s probably cleaning her house.  If it’s Nye-sha or Nih-sha I’ve said your name wrong, I’m sorry, but cleaning is awesome, so keep going!

And if you are wondering what is going on, have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches.  For as little as a dollar a month you can support the show, help me commission transcripts and upgrade equipment, but more importantly, there are different reward levels, and I had a lot of fun designing the different reward levels, one of them being heartfelt, genuine, handcrafted compliments, so patreon.com/SmartBitches.

The music you’re listening to is provided by Sassy Outwater.  I will have information at the end of the podcast, who this is and where you can find it, although I bet you know, ‘cause we have some favorites, and favorites are good!

And as always, all of the books and links and things that we mention in this episode will be at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast and iTunes.com/DBSA.

And now, without any further delays, on with the podcast!

[music]

Sarah:  Hey, guys, how you doing?

Ms. Koch:  Great!  How are you?

Sarah:  We are awesome, thank you.  Me and all of my cats; I have both cats standing by because I understand you have questions for the cats.

Leah Koch:  Hi, cats!

Bea Koch:  Hi, cats.  Well –

Leah:  Hi, do, do you want to come here and –

Bea:  Our tiny prince is with us.

Leah:  Would you like to come say hello?

Bea:  Meow!

[Laughter]

Sarah:  Does he have a, a specific voice?  Does Fitzwilliam Waffles have a –

Bea:  Yeah, it’s kind of like a Marcel the Shell.

Sarah:  It happens, yeah.

[Laughter]

Leah:  He will at some point during this start – we call him pig dog because he, like, pig snorts?

Bea:  Yeah.

Sarah:  Oh, yeah, one of my dogs does that.

Leah:  Yeah, so he’ll start going like [snorts].

Sarah:  Awesome!  Well, I mean, it’s, it’s really not a good episode of my podcast if the pets don’t interrupt in some way on one side of the recording –

Bea:  Yeah, yeah, that, that’s, like, a standard Smart Bitches podcasting.

Sarah:  Oh, yeah, I mean, I was in the middle of having a great discussion about diversity with Alisha Rai, and my cat’s at the top of the stairs, like, singing.

[Laughter]

Sarah:  Like, pissed off about inclusivity in romance, just howling about it.

Leah:  Alisha is my favorite because we, like, use the same dating apps, and she makes me feel not so bad about myself.

Bea:  Yeah!

Sarah:  But it’s almost like with dating, having too much choice is, makes it even more difficult.

Leah:  Oh, yeah.  I have ridiculous rules that if I met you in real life, it would be very different.

Bea:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Right?  You, you have to, because there’s so little concrete information to go by.

Leah:  Right, and you have to make base, you have to make judgments based on pictures, and pict-, it’s not always judgments based on how they look, it’s like –

Bea:  No!

Leah:  – what else is in the picture?

Bea:  What else is in the picture?!

Sarah:  Right?  Like, okay, I see that you have no shirt on, but it also looks like you haven’t washed your clothes in a year.

[Laughter]

Sarah:  That’s gross.

Leah:  That is gross.

Sarah:  So, here is what I want to do:  I want to ask you all kinds of nosy questions, because I’m so excited that it’s almost your one-year anniversary!

Leah:  Yaaaay!

Bea:  We can’t believe it.  It’s so crazy to think that.

Sarah:  It’s March, right?  March 4th?

Leah:  Yeah.  March 4th, 2017!

Bea:  March 4th!

Sarah:  Yayyyy!  You’ve made it a whole year kicking ass and taking names!

Leah:  Well, not yet.  Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Bea:  [Laughs] We have almost made it a year.

Leah:  We could, like, the place could burn down next week.

Sarah:  Oh, God forbid!

Bea:  Oh, my gosh, knock on wood, woman!

Leah:  [Laughs] I mean, not that it will, but –

Bea:  There could be –

Sarah:  That’s why you have the dog.  He’s going to keep an eye –

Leah:  The giant earthquake could come.

Bea:  The dog has been, in my personal opinion –

Leah:  [Laughs]

Bea:  – this is Bea – the single best thing we’ve done since opening this bookstore.

[Laughter]

Sarah:  Now, do you guys live together as well as run the store together?

Leah:  Yep.

Bea:  We do indeed.

Sarah:  So, the dog is a joint decision.

Bea:  The story of the dog is –

Leah:  The story of the dog lasts seven days.  [Laughs]

Bea:  Yeah.  So Leah has a cat, and the cat lives with us, and we love –

Sarah:  Right.

Bea:  – Clementine.  She, we love her very much; she’s our princess.  And so I had been talking about getting a dog for a little while, but Leah was saying that she wasn’t sure that Clementine would like a dog, and we were kind of waiting to see if I would move in with my boyfriend, but we’ve pushed that back a little bit.

Leah:  Also, there’s a very real problem that I don’t like walking?

Bea:  Yeah.  She didn’t want to walk or take care of a dog.

Leah:  I don’t want to take care of a dog!  So I was like, you can get the dog when you move in with your boyfriend, and it, he can come to the store, and that, that’ll be great, but I don’t want to live with the dog.

Bea:  Right.  So then we were dog sitting for a friend, and the dog was here for ten minutes –

Leah:  [Laughs]

Bea:  – and Leah texted me and was like, let’s get a dog.

[Laughter]

Bea:  And then –

Leah:  It just, it was just so nice to have this little dog, like, sitting on the couch, and all the customers were so excited, and I was like –

Bea:  Yeah.

Leah:  – we should just get a dog.  [Laughs]

Bea:  So two hours later, I –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Bea:  – was looking at pictures, which, Leah was like, we can get a dog, but it’s almost the holidays, and we’re traveling, so –

Leah:  Right, this was, like, December, the first week of December.  I was like, we already have plane tickets; we’re leaving for ten days.  Like, DO NOT GO ON THE ADOPTION WEBSITE until January.  And then five minutes later she starts texting me pictures of dogs.

Bea:  I started texting her all these pictures.  We were both like, oh, this one’s cute, this one’s cute!  And then I just sent her a picture of Fitz and said, this is our dog.

Leah:  They had drawn a little halo –

Bea:  A halo!

Leah:  – over his head.

Sarah:  Oh, no.

Leah:  And he, and he only has one eye!

Bea:  He only has one eye.  I texted –

Sarah:  Do you know why he only has one eye?

Leah:  It’s, it’s very, no, and we wish we did, because –

Bea:  Unclear.  I know.

Leah:  – people want to know, and we’re like, I don’t know!

Bea:  He was in a shelter before the rescue, the wonderful rescue we worked with called A Purposeful Rescue found him, and the shelter took out his eye, and the only thing they said was trauma on the medical form, so that’s the only info we have.

Leah:  Yeah.  I mean, we’re kind of assuming that some other kind of animal took a swipe at him, but – it’s a very unsatisfying answer for people.

Bea:  It’s especially unsatisfying for kids who love him and freak out and want to, they, they want to know!  They’re very curious.

Leah:  Yeah, but every answer you could give a child is sad, ‘cause I’ve, like –

Bea:  Yeah.

Leah:  – tried a lot of different thing?  I was like, oh, he, it was hurt.  You know, he was sick, it was hurting him, so the doctor took it out, or one time I said he was in a car accident, and that was a bad idea.

Sarah:  Oh, gosh!  Yeah, that would be bad.

Leah:  Yeah.  No.  So, we had a customer who’s a child psychologist, and she told us to tell kids that he was born that way.

Bea:  Yeah!

Sarah:  That works!

Leah:  Yeah.  So that’s what we’re doing now.

Bea:  Right.

Leah:  It’s not true, but that’s what we’re doing now.

Sarah:  Well, I mean, you could also make up a very romance hero backstory?

Leah:  Yeah, well, I was saying –

Bea:  [Laughs] Leah was joking and saying he got in a fight with a shark and lost?

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Leah:  But, like, people think it’s real!

Bea:  People were so confused.  They were like, how?

Sarah:  [Laughs] What, what –

Bea:  How did that happen?

Sarah:  How did he just get his eye, considering that he fits in your hand?

Bea:  Right.

Leah:  Okay, so Bea sent us the picture, Bea sent me the picture –

Bea:  Yeah.

Leah:  – and I was like, well, that’s the cutest dog ever in the land.  Like, I was like, all right, where is, where is he right now?  And they’re, he, she was like, he’s with a foster, and we can meet him on Saturday.

Sarah:  Uh-oh.

Leah:  So we go into the adoption event –

Bea:  We showed up at –

Sarah:  Is this also the story of how the bookstore came to be?

Leah:  Bea’s, I mean, more or less.

[Laughter]

Leah:  We don’t –

Bea:  We’re somewhat –

Leah:  No!  I feel like, ‘cause we thought, we thought about the general idea of getting a dog forever, and then once we found the right dog it was like, you!

Bea:  That’s so true.

Leah:  Go.

Bea:  I fully believe in fate now, because all of the little things –

Sarah:  Oh, yeah.

Leah:  Because –

Bea:  – worked out.

Leah:  – we were going to get a big dog.

Bea:  Oh, yeah, we talked about, like, a, a big pit bull or a lab or, like –

Leah:  Bea wanted, like, a Golden Retriever or a lab.

Bea:  Yeah.

Leah:  And then we ended up with this tiny thing!

Bea:  Yeah.  He’s more like –

Leah:  Because –

Bea:  – squirrel than dog.  [Laughs]

Leah:  Yeah, and everyone’s like, oh, you just have to wait for the right dog to present itself.  I’m like, what, it’s just, you know, that’s not real.  No, it –

Sarah:  That sounds like bad dating advice.

Bea:  Yeah.

Leah:  So we go to the adoption event, we show up a half hour early.

Bea:  We’re such nerds.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Leah:  We were, like, waiting.  And then Fitz comes trotting up with his really nice foster mom.

Bea:  Oh, she was the sweetest.

Leah:  And, you know, we played with him for a little while, and I was – [laughs] – I was like, okay.  Do you want him?  She’s like, obviously, yes.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Leah:  So we headed to work, we emailed the, we emailed the adoption people.  We were like, we’ll take, we’ll take him!  Obviously, we want him, and we’ll just figure, you, we’ll just – Bea was then on the phone with the airline, seeing if we could bring him with us to visit our family –

Bea:  Yeah, add him to our flight.

Leah:  – in Utah, and he was home on Tuesday –

Sarah:  Aww!

Leah:  – exactly seven days after we had decided to get a dog.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Well, you know, that’s how it happens!

Bea:  It is!

Leah:  And then he was home, and he, then he flew to Utah with us, and he does not like the snow.

Bea:  No, we discovered that.  Nope.

Sarah:  [Laughs] He’s a California dog?

Bea:  Yes.

Leah:  He was very unhappy.

Bea:  He was, he was like, I’m pretty sure that the rescue made you sign a contract stating that I would be raised in southern California –

[Laughter]

Bea:  – and you are in violation of the contract, and I’m going to speak to someone.

Leah:  He was, he was so funny.  He, he’s, just with the one eye, he’s so expressive?

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Leah:  And he would, I put this video of – it snowed like crazy while we were there, and, and one morning I came down to take him for a walk, and I opened the door, and I walked out, and he was just standing in the doorway looking at me like, Hell.  No.  Lady.

Sarah:  [Laughs] I saw that video!  He was like wha- –

Leah:  What.  Yeah, he’s like –

Sarah:  That’s not happening.

Leah:  – problem?

Bea:  It’s cute.

Leah:  Bea is also, Bea writes Fitz – ‘cause Fitz has his own Instagram –

Bea:  Yeah!

Sarah:  I, I, I am aware.

Bea:  [Laughs]

Leah:  – and Bea writes his captions, like, in his own voice?  So he’s like, he’s very wry.  And he’s very, he’s very much the, like, put-upon child –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Leah:  – of the parents who embarrass him?

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Bea:  Yeah.

Leah:  He’s always like, mom, why are you doing this to me?  But he’s just, and everybody, he’s also responsible for a ten percent increase in our business.  [Laughs]

Bea:  Oh, my gosh, it’s insane!

Leah:  Everybody –

Sarah:  Oh, my gosh.

Bea:  He’s so popular, and, like, people, you know, people, dog people start following him, and then they find the store.  It’s, it’s just a lot of fun.

Leah:  Yeah, he’s –

Bea:  He’s been a really great addition.

Sarah:  So –

Leah:  He’s pretty much –

Sarah:  – what is, what are his dog responsibilities?

Bea or Leah:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  What are his responsibilities in the store?  I am sure that, you know, as a new member of the, of the, of the team he has a very specific set of requirements.

Bea and Leah:  Yeah.

Bea:  He definitely does.  So he wears the costumes and –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Bea:  – and his seasonal decorations that we can force upon him –

Leah:  Right.

Sarah:  Of course.

Bea:  – for whatever –

Leah:  Right, he has to be dressed up for the season.

Bea:  We don’t make him dress up every day.  Just, like, once or twice –

Leah:  No, just sometimes.

Bea:  – a holiday.  Like, we just got him a Valentine’s Day outfit.

Leah:  Yeah.

Bea:  Also, to, yesterday or the day before was apparently National Dress Up Your Dog Day, which –

Sarah:  Oh, no!

Leah:  Bea was very distraught that she wasn’t prepared for.

Bea:  Yeah!

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Bea:  I love it!

Leah:  So then she was online shopping for various humiliating outfits – [laughs]

Bea:  Oh, I’ve ordered him so many things.  So if you’ve seen pictures of the store, we have the main desk where people check out –

Sarah:  Right.

Bea:  – and it’s white, and so he has a little pink pad, and he sits on top, on the desk –

Sarah:  Right.

Bea:  – and, for most of the day, and when you come to check out, he presents his stomach to you –

Leah and Sarah:  Right.

Bea:  – and you rub it while you check out, and if you don’t, then he yells at you.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Bea:  And if you start and then stop because, say, you need to sign a receipt or hand over your credit card, that’s not okay.

Leah:  No!

Sarah:  No, no, once you begin with the belly rubbing, the belly rubbing must continue.

Leah:  Yeah.

Bea:  You are contractually obligated to continue.

Leah:  I would say he receives at least ten hours of belly rubs a day.

[Laughter]

Leah:  He is just all, he lies on his back always in the ho-, and he sleeps with his little leg raised in the off chance that if I wake up in the middle of the night and start giving him belly rubs, I have easy access.

Sarah:  Oh, right –

Bea:  Yep.

Sarah:  – you, my, my dog sleeps like that.  It’s usually the back leg, right?

Bea:  – so funny!

Sarah:  Right?  That way, the, the dog leg is up, and that way –

Bea:  Straight up in the air.

Sarah:  – you, you’re not going to miss the opportunity.

Bea:  No.

Leah:  No, he is also obviously the protector and guard dog of the store, and standing at approximately eight inches tall –

Bea:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Of course.

Leah:  – he’s very, you know –

Bea:  Very fierce!

Leah:  – fierce, so if somebody unsavory comes to the door, he will bark at them, such as the mailman.

Bea:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Oh, you can’t let the mailman just think he owns the place!  That’s unacceptable!

Leah:  No-

Bea:  Also, it’s so sad, ‘cause the mailman loves him.  His name is Jerry, and –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Bea:  – best mailman in the world, and both our mailman and our FedEx man love the dog.  [Laughs]

Leah:  And the dog just –

Bea:  The dog always barks at them.

Sarah:  What are you doing?  What are you doing?  Why are you here?

Bea:  Yeah, ‘cause they’re bringing, they’re bringing foreign objects into the store.  It’s usually, like, big boxes and stuff.

Leah:  Yeah.

Sarah:  Yeah, of course.

Leah:  And he does not – so he sits up on the desk, but then if we go to help a customer, he doesn’t like to be left there, so he comes to recommend books with us –

Bea:  Yeah.

Leah:  – and he, he likes, customers frequently ask to hold him, and they’ll just carry him around while they shop.

Sarah:  Of course.

Leah:  So, no, he’s, he’s really an all-around champion store dog.

Bea:  He is.

Sarah:  He, he must, he must really enjoy his, his responsibilities, though.  I mean, it, it, it must not be too difficult for him to endure –

Bea:  No, I think –

Sarah:  – his increased workload every day.

Bea:  Yes, I think he is embracing his new life.

Sarah:  Right, of course.

Bea:  He’s, like, tucked up in my lap.  Leah was just like, where is he?

Leah:  I was like, where did he go?

Bea:  He’s embracing his new life with the, with an eye on us to make sure that we’re, you know –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Bea:  – doing exactly what he would like and following instructions.  He’s our new little taskmaster.

Leah:  He is, though, like, everybody says, he is the most easygoing dog.

Bea:  Yeah.

Leah:  He’s so calm all the time.  He loves everybody.  We cannot have gotten a better shop dog –

Bea:  No.

Leah:  – specifically, because –

Sarah:  Aww!

Leah:  – he’s just, he’s just made to be a shop dog!

Bea:  He is.  Well, and, and we actually knew that ahead of time.  His foster mom was already bringing him to work with her, and she works at a little boutique in Silver Lake, so he had a little shop dog experience?

Leah:  Yes.

Sarah:  Right, he just needed to transition into books.

Bea:  Exactly.

Leah:  Right, he’d had an internship –

Sarah:  Right.

Bea:  Yeah!

Leah:  – to test out the waters.

Bea:  Yeah.

Sarah:  So, who chose Fitzwilliam Waffles as his name?

Bea:  It was kind of an, a joint effort.

Leah:  Yeah.  Well, we had, we had a whole list, and, like – [laughs] – and we were trying to hold off until we, you know, knew what he looked like, and we wanted something romance-related.  The, like, the most popular suggestion was Darcy –

Sarah:  Right.

Leah:  – and we’re like, that’s too, it’s too obvious.

Bea:  Also, it’s a hilari-, Fitz, he is not a Fitzwilliam Darcy even at all.

[Laughter]

Bea:  He is much more of a Bingley, if we’re being completely –

Leah:  That was another option.

Sarah:  He thinks your country manners are charming?

Bea:  Yes, he –

Sarah:  Okay.

Bea:  –  he’s not very standoffish at all.

Leah:  No, yes, he’s much more loving than –

Bea:  And then we asked for suggestions online, and we, Leah had texted me, like, even before we had picked Fitzwilliam.  It was like, wouldn’t it be funny if we named our dog Waffles?

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Bea:  And someone else on Twitter suggested Waffles!

Leah:  I just thought Waffles was really funny for several reasons.  It’s just a funny word.

Bea:  Yes.

Leah:  [Laughs] It just, like, sounds funny.  And –

Bea:  But I liked Waffles because –

Leah:  Yeah.

Bea:  – I had wanted, like, a femini-, like, I was thinking, like, Steinem.

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Bea:  – or, like, like, an ol-, or, like, Friedan.  Like, an old-school feminist name –

Leah:  Yeah, we wanted to give him a feminist name.

Bea:  – and then I was thinking, like, Knope for Leslie Knope, but Waffles is really our homage to Leslie Knope.

Leah:  Right.

Sarah:  This makes sense!

Bea:  Yes.

Leah:  And on his Instagram bio it says “friends/waffles/work or waffles/friends/work.”

Bea:  “waffles/friends/work”!

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Leah:  Which is the Leslie Knope quote about how waffles and friends are the two most important things in life, followed by work, and it doesn’t matter which order friends and waffles are in, as long as work is last.

Bea:  Yeah.

Sarah:  And so he now has you guys as friends, his name is Waffles, and he has a new job.

Bea and Leah:  Yeah.

Leah:  So it’s all those things.

Sarah:  So he’s all, he’s all set!

Bea:  I think that in terms of the crazy emotional place a lot of us were in after November –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm?

Bea:  – getting a dog has been, been the single biggest self-care thing I have done.

Leah:  He is a therapy dog for the world.

Bea:  For the world.  For everyone who comes into our bookstore, he just makes you feel a little better.

Sarah:  That’s so lovely.

Bea:  He’s the best.

Leah:  We’re, we’re a bit obsessed.  [Laughs]

Bea:  Yeah, we’re, like, pretty obsessed with him.

Leah:  But we haven’t…that long –

Bea:  No!

Leah:  – so – [laughs]

Bea:  Like a new baby!

Leah:  Yeah.

Sarah:  I – let’s see, we adopted our two dogs when my younger son was two, and now he’s nine, and we adopted two orange cats last year, also in March, and I, my Instagram feed is pretty much embroidery and cats.

Leah:  [Laughs] Yes, we know.

Bea:  It’s the best Instagram feed!

Sarah:  Oh, well, thank you!

Bea:  That’s, like, that’s all anyone wants to look at is pictures of cats –

Sarah:  Embroidery, food, and cats, right?  That’s what I got going on here.

Leah:  And another big part of Fitz’s job and the reason that it’s so much better that we ended up with a small dog is he’s, like, the same size as a stack of books –

Bea:  Yeah.

Leah:  – so he, we just pose him next to books.

Bea:  He’s a pretty good –

Sarah:  You need to start hiring him out to publishers.

Leah:  [Laughs]

Bea:  Yesss!  Oh, my gosh, we should do that.

Sarah:   I mean –

Bea:  Well, we, we are in the works – I, I guess we can reveal –

Leah:  What?

Bea:  – his future product line?

Leah:  Oh, yeah!

Bea:  Yeah.  So we’ve asked one of our very favorite card designers to design a Fitzwilliam Waffles card.

Sarah:  Oh, my gosh!  That’s amazing!

Leah:  We’re going to have greeting cards –

Bea:  We’re going to have greeting cards.

Leah:  – with Fitz on them!

Bea:  And we’re going to do- –

Leah:  And probably eventually other things.

Bea:  Yeah, definitely.  But we’re going to donate some amount of the proceeds to the rescue that helped us find him, because they do such good work here, so –

Sarah:  Which, which rescue was it?

Bea:  A Purposeful Rescue.  Follow them on Instagram at your own peril.

Leah:  Yeah.  But also don’t, ‘cause you’ll want every dog.

Bea:  [Laughs] You’ll want every single dog!  At least once a day, Leah and I turn to each other and are like, ah, can we get – so, and they name all their dogs, they all have amazing names, and they call their dogs magical unicorns.

Sarah:  Aww!

Leah:  Yeah.

Bea:  So it’s like Princess Leia, the magical unicorn.

Leah:  Yeah, Bea really wants to adopt this new dog called –

Bea:  Oh –

Bea and Leah:  – Princess Leia!

Sarah:  [Laughs] You know what you should also do is have Fitzwilliam blub different books.

[Laughter]

Leah:  That’s a good idea!

Bea:  Oh, my gosh!

Leah:  Fitzwilliam should, he should do, he should be, like, the Staff Recommends; it’s just the dog!

Sarah:  Yes!  Fitzwilliam Waffles Recommends!

Leah:  [Laughs]

Bea:  He, he just looked up at –

Sarah:  This is what people were reading while they were petting me in the store, so therefore, judging by the quality of the belly rub, I can tell you that this is a good book.

Leah:  Oh, my God, it should be one out of five belly rubs!

Bea:  One out of five belly rubs!

Sarah:  Yes!  You should totally do this!

Leah:  That’s a great idea!  [Laughs]

Bea:  That is a –

Leah:  We’re going to totally steal that!

Sarah:  Dude!  Tot-, it’s not even stealing!  It is a gift!  [Laughs]

Bea:  We had talked about adding shelf talkers, like, in our, you know, what should we do next year? fun things.  We, we saw, like, people posting funny shelf talkers, and I’ve been saving all the funniest ones –

Sarah:  Uh-huh.

Bea:  – so, there you go.  It’s happening.  Fitzwilliam Recommends.

Leah:  Yeah, and it could be like, we’ll have, like, a little, like, a little picture of him with, like, the little speech bubble.

Sarah:  Yep.

Bea:  And, like, little paw prints.  Like, one out of five?

Sarah:  Yep.

Leah:  [Laughs]

Bea:  Two out of five?  Three out of five?  ACK!

Leah:  Well, he’s only going to recommend things that he likes, so –

Bea:  Yeah –

Sarah:  Right, but then you could have, have the shelf talkers be him complaining.  Like, my dinner was due at six o’clock, and I didn’t get fed till seven-damn-thirty because my mom was reading this book and would not put it the hell down.  Five Angry Paws.

Leah:  Can you, can you please come write them for us?

Bea:  [Laughs] Ohhh, we’re going to have to farm it out to you!

Sarah:  Oh, sure, I’d be happy to!  [Laughs]  I mean, come on, I, I, I have a really good time coming up with random, heartfelt compliments for podcast patrons, so I would be more than help-y, happy to help write Fitzwilliam’s shelf-talking angry paws.

Bea:  That would be – angry paws!  [Laughs]

Sarah:  It was raining, and this person was reading, and I didn’t get a walk, and it was raining, so, four paws.  Stop it.

[Laughter]

Leah:  That’s like WeRate- – Bea’s favorite Instagram is WeRateDogs.

Bea:  Oh, my gosh.

Sarah:  Oh, my gosh, I love that Instagram.

Bea:  I love nothing more than the phrase, “they’re good dogs Brent.”

[Laughter]

Bea:  I think it is the funniest exchange I’ve ever seen.

Leah:  Do you want to explain it for people who don’t know what the hell you’re talking about?

Bea:  Oh, sure!  WeRateDogs says things like, fluffy as fuck, 12/10 stars –

Sarah:  Would, would pet.

Bea:  – pet, yeah.

Sarah:  Yes.

Bea:  Would pet.  And someone –

Sarah:  Who is this?  Is this Bea or Leah?

Bea:  This is Bea.

Sarah:  I thought so!

Leah:  Leah doesn’t swear on podcasts!

Bea:  No, yeah, Leah doesn’t swear.  Bea’s got quite the potty mouth.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  So if, if someone’s cursing –

Bea:  It’s Bea.

Leah:  It’s Bea.

Sarah:  Good, okay.

Bea:  So someone posted, someone tweeted @WeRateDogs, you, you give all the dogs high ratings!  Like, this isn’t a good rating system!

[Laughter]

Sarah:  What, what, what –

Bea:  And they responded, “they’re good dogs Brent.”

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Bea:  And then Brent came back.  He was like, you know what?  You’re right: they are good dogs.

Sarah:  Aw, Brent!  Brent!

Leah:  So now you can buy, like, T-shirts and stuff.  [Laughs]

Bea:  So now you can buy T-shirts that say THEY’RE GOOD DOGS, BRENT.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Bea:  This really tickles my humor funny bone for reasons passing understanding.

Leah:  Yeah.

[Laughter]

Leah:  It kind of just applies in so many situations.

Bea:  Oh, my gosh, I say it all the time.

Leah:  It’s just so very –

Bea:  Whenever my boyfriend is annoying me, I just text him, they’re good dogs, Brent!

[Laughter]

Sarah:  It’s, it’s a more gentle, you are ridiculous.

Bea:  Yes, exactly!  Like, whatever you’re talking about is silly.  They’re good dogs, Brent!

[Laughter]

Bea:  It’s a catch-all phrase.

Sarah:  So, I want to ask, though, how has your past year been?

Leah:  Great!

Bea:  Yeah!  I mean, it’s been a rollercoaster, and –

Sarah:  It’s been, it’s gone by very quickly!

Leah:  Yeah.

Bea:  It went by so fast, I can’t even believe it.

Leah:  It, it’s unbelievable.  The passage of time is a very odd concept.

Bea:  [Laughs] We were debating this last night.

Leah:  Like, I –

Bea:  Have you seen Arrival, the movie?

Sarah:  I have not.  But I know all about it.

Leah:  Okay.  It’s good and weird.

Bea:  It’s good and weird, and it has this whole thing about time, and I think after it, we all went, like, quiet for a little bit?  Just, like –

Leah:  Yeah, that, that was so, it’s so crazy.

Bea:  – thinking about this specific story and also, like, our lives this past year, just so much has changed –

Sarah:  Right.

Bea:  – like, in, in the world?  And then –

Sarah:  Ohhh, just a little.

Bea:  Right.  And then–

Leah:  Yeah, and it’s –

Bea:  – in our little world –

Leah:  Right, it’s so weird to compare, like, your life to the world and, like, the way that a day passes to the way that a month passes.

Bea:  Well, I was thinking specifically of the fact that we ope-, in the year of 2016 we opened a sex-positive, proudly feminist bookstore, and then we got Donald Trump as our president.  It’s just wildly bizarre.  [Laughs]

Leah:  Yeah, yeah, and it’s like, like, everybody was universally agreeing – not universally, but a lot of people were agreeing that 2016 was like a dumpster fire of a year, and I was like, yes, that’s so true, but also, we also did this.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Oh, no, I’m in the same position!  2016, I mean, we moved in January of 2016, or excuse me, December of 2015.  January 2016, my husband started a new job.  We love our new home, we love where we live, his job is awesome; I mean, we had a really nice year in terms of our family and personally speaking.  It’s just everything around us sort of –

Bea or Leah:  Right.

Sarah:  – became a massive –

Leah:  And it’s hard –

Sarah:  – dumpster garbage tire fire.

Leah:  – it’s hard sometimes to reconcile those, and you want to be happy about one thing –

Sarah:  Right!

Leah:  – but you…yeah, so.

Bea:  It’s been a bit of a mixed bag.

Leah:  Yes, but aside from the greater world, which we can return to in a moment –

Sarah:  The greater dumpster tire garbage fire?

[Laughter]

Bea and Leah:  Yes.

Leah:  Aside from that, I mean, it’s been – I can’t believe how long it’s been.  You know, now, at the beginning, I think for the first two months or so, we kept feeling like, oh, we’ve been open for ages.

Sarah:  Yep.

Bea:  Yeah.

Leah:  We kept saying that.

Bea:  Yeah.

Leah:  But now that we’re, like, almost at a year –

Sarah:  Yep.

Leah:  – and I, and we’re still, you know, we’re still, you know, putting new systems in place, and every time I, like, think of a better way to do something, I’m like, well, why wasn’t I doing it like this before?

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Leah:  But we’ve only been, we haven’t even been open a year.  You know, we still have so much time to grow.  I don’t, we, you know, it depends on the second of the day.

Bea:  It tot-, yeah, it totally depends.  And also it depends on how many projects we’re knee-deep in at the moment.

Sarah:  Right.

Leah:  That’s true.  But it’s been, it’s been really amazing so far.

Bea:  It has been.

Leah:  And I think, hopefully – [laughs] – it will only get better.

Bea:  Yeah!

Leah:  Hopefully it will go uphill instead of downhill as, you know, at this point, the commu-, our community is still growing, you know, that in-person community is still growing, and we still have so many things we want to do?

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Leah:  So, you know, talk to us in, like, four years, but –

Bea:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Right.

Leah:  Right now, you know, things are still very, it still feels, you know, like we have lots of places to go.

Sarah:  And you sound really happy, like what you’ve been doing has made you incredibly joyous.

Bea:  Yes.  I mean, it is incredible to come to a place every day, where, I mean, just to, like, go back to the world, but we feel safe here.

Sarah:  Yeah!

Bea:  And we, and we feel like other people feel safe here, which is really wonderful, but it’s also, it’s a happy space.  It’s, it’s a place of love and –

Leah:  Mm-hmm.

Bea:  – and positivity –

Sarah:  Yep, yep.

Bea:  – and we really try and focus on that as much as possible, and so do our customers, which is so lovely when people come in and say, oh, I just wanted some time for myself to do what I love, and I, I love that.

Leah:  Yeah.

Sarah:  And I’ve noticed on your Instagram for the store, there’re a lot of authors who hang out and write in the store frequently.

Bea:  That is honestly the, the thing we least expected and most love.

Leah:  Yeah.

Bea:  Our local girl gang of writers who come and hang out here and have just been, become friends and supporters and that community, it’s really, really helped us in a lot of ways.  They’re, they’re just so generous with their support and, and their opinions, and we, they’re like our sounding board on things.

Leah:  And it’s, yeah, and it’s fun to, you know, see books come to life.

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Leah:  And –

Bea:  And people love, I mean, when Sarah Kuhn comes and people buy Heroine Complex, and they get, get it signed right then, it’s, it’s very fun.  It’s a very –

Sarah:  That’s awesome!

Leah:  Yeah, it also happens, like –

Bea:  It’s almost –

Leah:  – more than you think, and they, and I, like, look over at Sarah, and I’m like, do you want me to embarrass you or not?

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Leah:  Sometimes, sometimes she’s like, no, don’t, some, and she’ll, like, nod or, like, shake her head.  She’s like, yeah, it’s fine, and then I’m like, go get your book signed!  And then –

Bea:  Yeah, or, like, we Twitter mess-, direct message them, like, do you want me to out you?

[Laughter]

Leah:  And it’s great to have another, you know, set of opinions as well.

Bea:  Yeah.

Leah:  You know, it – [laughs] – shopping here is such a communal experience in that other customers chime in on your purchases –

Sarah:  Yes.

Leah:  – so if, you know, if we’re having an extended conversation with somebody about recommendations, like, if there’s somebody else in the store, generally they will join in the conversation?

Bea:  Yeah.

Sarah:  So basically –

Leah:  So –

Sarah:  – your books-, your bookstore is kind of like a blog.

Bea and Leah:  Yeah!  [Laughter]

Sarah:  There’s a comment thread at all times.

Leah:  And so it’s great to have other knowledgeable people.  You know, there’s only, there’re only so many books one person can read in their lifetime.

Sarah:  Tell me all about this, yes.

Leah:  So it’s great to have, you know, more people who can suggest things and offer opinions.  The people who come and write form their own community, and we sort of eavesdrop on their conversations about cover design and their plans for their next book, and Rebekah Weatherspoon has been letting me name all the characters in her current book.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Leah:  Which, I now have, like, a note on my phone of all the names I want her to use, so she’ll text me and be like, okay, I need main, heroine’s therapist, and this is a little bit about her.  What should her name be?  And then I get to name them.

Sarah:  And they can’t be Waffles.

Leah:  It can’t be Waffles.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Leah:  Apparently, and the heroine’s name starts with a C, and apparently every name I suggest starts with a C.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  That’s very funny!

Leah:  Yeah.  But, but I also, like, it’s like a, she’s doing a small, it’s a small town series, and I’m, like, determined, and she agrees, it’s, like, the most diverse small town in the universe.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Leah:  But we intend to eventually have a shelf –

Bea:  Yes.

Leah:  – books written at The Ripped Bodice.

Sarah:  I was, that is actually my next question:  how many book that you know have been written or edited or worked on in your store at this point.  Do you have a –

Leah:  Yeah, we have –

Sarah:  Are you keeping a list?

Leah:  Yes.

Sarah:  That’s so cool!

Leah:  Published, I think it’s only, like, two.

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Leah:  ‘Cause when we opened, Sarah Kuhn, who wrote Heroine Complex, finished her next book, which isn’t out yet, wrote, like, the second half of Heroine Worship at the store, and that comes out in July, and then Rebekah Weatherspoon finished the last So Sweet book at the store, and she’s got a whole new series that she’s working on, so, like, in the next year I think it’ll be a lot, and Jenn LeBlanc has a whole new series she’s been working on.

Bea:  Oh!  Emily Foster/Nagoski –

Leah:  Oh, yeah!

Bea:  – when she came for her event, decided that she wanted to set a scene here, and so –

Leah:  ‘Cause her next book takes place in LA.

Bea:   Her next book takes place in LA.  So she was running around trying to figure out where her character’s going to have sex!

Sarah:  In the store?

Leah:  Yes!

Bea:  The answer is upstairs in the used book room.

Leah:  Yeah, and she was like, is that okay?  We’re like, YES!

[Laughter]

Leah:  Please!

Bea:  We would never interrupt.

Leah:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Oh, my God.  At, some, some day there’s going to be, like, a tour of LA, and they’re going to, and this is The Ripped Bodice where ninety-five books have been set and nineteen sex scenes have happened in various locations.

Bea and Leah:  [Cheers]

Leah:  Oh, actually, also, we didn’t even know about this!  Jennifer Probst sent us a hard copy of her most recent novella, which unfortunately didn’t come out in print ‘cause it was a novella, and it, like, had a bookmarked page, and I was like, what is, I just got a package, and I was like, what is this?  And I opened to the page, and the characters are discussing, they need to put, it’s like a magical book that they need to put somewhere for safekeeping?

Sarah:  Oh, no.

Leah:  And, and the one character is like, we should send it to The Ripped Bodice!  They’ll take care of it for us!

Sarah:  No!  You’re in a book?

Leah:  Yes!

Bea:  It was –

Sarah:  That’s amazing!

Bea:  – one of the coolest things to happen.

Leah:  And I, our dad is incredibly unfazed by anything?

Bea:  Yeah.

Leah:  We’re like, we’re on Oprah!  And he’s like, that nice.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Leah:  And we told him that we were in a published book, and he thought that was really cool.

Bea:  Yeah.

Sarah:  Okay, that’s amazing.

Leah:  Yes.  Crap, I can’t remember the name off the top of my head.  It’s her most recent novella.

Bea:  Searching for Disaster.

Bea:  Searching for Disaster?

Bea:  I think.

Leah:  Yes.  Go get it.

Sarah:  No worries.  I will, I, I have to Google all the titles when I do the show notes, and I will write things like, last book has X in title, and then I go hunt it down, so don’t worry, I’ll find it.

Bea:  Yes, that’s the Smart Bitches specialty!  I send, so many people come in here and are like –

Leah:  Help a Bitch Out!

Sarah:  What?!

Leah:  You’re our best resource!  [Laughs]

Bea:  Yes.  They’re like –

Sarah:  Seriously?

Bea:  I read a purple book.

[Laughter]

Bea:  It was purple.  Tell me more about this purple book.  They’re like, oh, there was a horse in it.

Leah:  It had a duke.

Bea:  And I’m like, well –

Sarah:  Oh, God.

Bea:  – Smart Bitches, Trashy Books.

Leah:  Go email them!  They’ll help you!  [Laughs]

Bea:  They’ll take care of you.

Sarah:  [Laughs] I need to get a special email address so when your customers email me it gets flagged.

Leah:  Yeah –

Bea:  Great!

Leah:  – it’s like a Ripped Bodice request.

Sarah:  Yes, I have a Ripped Bodice referral for a HaBO.  Everybody please stand by.

Leah:  Yes, ‘cause there’s, and –

Bea:  There’re a lot of them!

Leah:  There’re a lot of them, and they –

Sarah:  Oh, there really are a lot of them.

Bea:  – maddeningly general.

Sarah:  Oh.

Leah:  Yeah, and it’s always, they’re like, I remember what color it was!  We’re like, well –

Bea:  That’s not super helpful, especially ‘cause it’s probably been rereleased six times since then.

Leah:  Yeah, that’s the real issue.

Sarah:  Yeah, it may have been purple, but then it had castle, and then it had a flower, and then it had, like, a –

Bea:  Yeah!  [Laughs]

Sarah:  – like, a piece of jewelry, and now it’s back to a different dress that’s not purple, so –

Leah:  Yep.

Sarah:  – we’re shit out of luck here.  So what are your favorite things, outside of books, to stock?  What things do you really enjoy putting in the store in addition to all of the books?

Leah:  Ooh, it’s a great question.  Candles.  [Laughs]

Bea:  We love candles.

Leah:  Candles are, it’s like one of those things that, you know, you can only, you can only afford to buy so many candles for your own home?

Sarah:  Uh-huh, and then, and, and then, and then you move, and you open a box, and you’re like, what the hell disaster was I preparing for where I’ve got sixty-five candles?  Like, what is this?

Leah:  Yeah.  So it’s really fun, ‘cause we can, you know, get to smell all the candles.

Sarah:  Right, yeah, totally!

Leah:  And they’re one of our most popular, popular products.

Sarah:  Well, it’s, it’s a good gift to pair with a book.

Leah:  Yes!

Bea:  Very good.  I think we mostly like finding any bookish – like, people who are doing really creative bookish gifts and accessories.

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Leah:  Fitz, stop chewing your foot!

Bea:  Fitz is chewing on his feet.

Leah:  Sorry.

Sarah:  Oh, that, my dogs do that.

Leah:  Yeah, they’re itchy.  So we always get excited when we find something new.  There’re just so many great things!  Like, enamel pins and book lockets and notebooks that look like the, Harry Potter’s textbooks and candles that are books-y and anything books-y!  And –

Bea:  Yep.

Leah:  – we are likely to sell.  What else?

Bea:  I am working on our very first shoppable exhibition?

Sarah:  Oooohhh.

Leah:  This was one of our original ideas.

Bea:  It’s something I’ve always wanted to do.  I have a graduate degree in costume history just sitting there, waiting to be used, and a wealth –

Sarah:  You don’t say.

Bea:  Yeah!  [Laughs] A wealth of knowledge about all kinds of different textile designers, so our first shoppable exhibition is about Tam-, if featuring Tammis Keefe, who was a textile designer in the ‘50s, and her designs are so whimsical and modern and adorable, and the hand-, she, they were always on handkerchiefs, because in the ‘50s you always had to have a handkerchief –

Sarah:  Oh, of course!

Bea:  – and she did them for all different, like, really specific places; like, the Ford Museum had her do this whole line for them.  She did them for all different kinds of events, like when the queen had a birthday, she did a special one.  So I have been sourcing those, and it will be, there will be information around, and then it’s like a little museum exhibition, except you can actually buy everything in it.

Sarah:  That’s seriously cool!

Bea:  I am so excited.

Leah:  Yeah, it was one of the things that Bea was really excited about and we, we had, had originally talked about, and it was one of the things that kind of got pushed to the side while we sort of our got our sea legs?

Sarah:  Right.

Leah:  And now, now we can actually do it.

Bea:  Yeah!

Sarah:  That is seriously so cool.

Bea:  Thank you!  So that, Tammis is a pretty easy starting point, ‘cause it’s handkerchiefs, they’re small, the price point is relatively affordable for just about everyone.

Sarah:  Right.

Bea:  My ideal, of course, is expanding into Regency, Victorian, act-, very much older textiles and little good.

Sarah:  Hats, shoes, yeah.

Bea:  Hats, shoes, cosmetics.  All, all the kind of old ephemera, like, there’s, there’s just so much stuff on Etsy that is waiting for someone to write its story.

Sarah:  Oh –

Bea:  And, and once you…story, it’s so much easier to be sold.

Sarah:  Oh, it’s totally true!  One year for one of the Smart Bitches anniversaries, I think it was the tenth, the traditional gift was linen and cotton, or maybe it was linen and lace, and I was like, what the hell?  And I was like fichus!  We’re going to get them bitches fichus!  And I gave away, like, five.

Bea:  That is amaze-, yeah!  That –

Sarah:  Bitches love fichus!

Bea:  Of course they do!

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Bea:  And something like that is historical but can be repurposed in a modern woman’s life, and –

Sarah:  Oh, totally!

Bea:  – there’s just, there’s a lot of stuff hanging around which I think romance readers would like to learn a little bit more about, why it was produced or how it was produced, and then act-, actually be able to purchase the item.

Sarah:  Oh, totally!  [Laughs]

Bea:  That’s what we’re, that’s what we’re expanding into!  Yeah.

Sarah:  Awesome!  So do you have books that you absolutely cannot keep on the shelves?

Bea and Leah:  Yes.

Sarah:  And do you notice any changing trends in, in romance?  Because I’ve, (a) I imagine you get this question all the time, ‘cause I get this question all the time, and I have guesses as to what is going to happen in the coming year, but I’m curious to know what yours are.

Bea:  Ooh!  Okay.

Leah:  Yeah.  We, we do have guesses.

Bea:  Yeah, the number one guess is bye, bye, billionaires!

Sarah:  You don’t say.  Dude –

Leah:  That’s not sexy anymore!

Sarah:  Dude.  So, yes, I am with you:  bye, bye, billionaires.

Bea:  Okay, so bye, bye, billionaires.

Leah:  Yeah.

Bea:  What else do you think?

Sarah:  I’m fine with a nice thousand-aire?

[Laughter]

Bea:  Exactly.

Sarah:  Like, you know who’s really hot?  You know who’s really fricking hot?  The guy who’s like, oh, you, you, you don’t have heat?  It’s six o’clock on a Friday?  No worries, I can be there in twenty minutes.  That guy’s hot.

Bea or Leah:  That guy –

Sarah:  Also, you know who else is hot?  My husband, who goes, listen, I just unloaded the dishwater.  Oh, my God!  Whoo!

[Laughter]

Bea or Leah:  Very sexy.

Bea:  I like the ever-classic –

Sarah:  I want that guy who unloads the dishwasher.

Bea:  – my boyfriend, I just ordered dinner.

Sarah:  Ohhh!

Bea:  Bless you.

Sarah:  Seriously, I’m, I’m, like, boneless in my chair right now.

Leah:  [Laughs] It’s, it’s his go-to move.

Sarah:  So no more billionaires; I am with you.

Bea:  No more billionaires.  I think we, so one of our most popular subgenres, which is a subgenre that I’ve always loved, but I didn’t even really know it was its own separate – so, historical fantasy.

Sarah:  Oh, my God, yes!

Bea:  And I think we’re seeing people do such creative, wonderful worldbuilding in there?  Like, what comes to mind to me is Deanna Raybourn.

Leah:  Yeah, the Veronica Speedwell series.

Bea:  The Veronica Speedwell series, which –

Sarah:  Oh, yeah.

Bea:  – is just freaking adorable!

Sarah:  Have you read –

Leah:  And the new, the new Sherry Thomas has been crazy popular, the –

Bea:  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.  Can’t keep it on our shelves.

Leah:  – Lady Sherlock?

Sarah:  I love that book.  So.  Much.

Bea:  I loved it!  Thank you!  I loved it!

Leah:  What’s the first one called?

Sarah:  A Study in Scarlet Women.

Bea:  – yes.  I lo-, I’m a Sherlock lunatic, and I particularly enjoy people who take the spirit of Sherlock and then do something different with it.

Sarah:  I love how many pieces of meaning are in the title alone.

Bea:  Yeah!  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!

Sarah:  That there’s this incredible limitation on women once they stray just outside that very narrow –

Bea:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – boundary of acceptability, and then how many women figure out a way to thrive there?  And what they have to do and put up with, and then, like, the very subtle signals that they give to each other that I am not of your status, and talking to me is dangerous to you?  Like, oh, my God!

Bea:  Yeah.  It, it’s – gosh.

Sarah:  And that there’re signals only the women recognize?

Bea:  Yeah!  I know!  It’s so good!  She’s such a good writer!

Leah:  Yeah, that, when the second one comes out, people are going to be very pleased.  [Laughs]

Bea:  Oh, yes.  Everyone –

Sarah:  Oh, my gosh.

Bea:  – is like, I can’t believe you sold me and got me obsessed with a series that we have to wait a year for.  Like, I’m mad at you; people are mad at us.

[Laughter]

Bea:  So, Sherry, write faster, please.

Sarah:  Yeah!

Leah:  That includes steampunk as well.

Bea:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  Oh, yeah.

Leah:  Gail Carriger has continued to be super popular, the Soulless series, and then when people are done with that, they go to Custard Protocol or the Finishing School.  Yeah, so, I, I think –

Bea:  Or Mary Robinette Kowal.

Leah:  Oh, yeah, she’s great.

Bea:  [Shades of] Milk and Honey, that, that series is really popular.  And I actually just, I just read – which I didn’t love in the beginning and then really got into, and now I can’t stop talking about – My Lady Jane?

Sarah:  Oh!

Bea:  Which is a YA historical paranormal.  Now, I thought it was straight YA historical.  The paranormal part really surprised me, and then I was, like, completely obsessed with, with the idea, like, the way that they did it.  It’s also, it’s about Lady Jane Grey, who is one of my favorite – I, I have my undergraduate degree in Tudor history – she’s –

Leah:  Explain who that is.

Bea:  Jane Grey is the tragic queen who ruled for nine days in between Edward and Mary.  It’s, it’s complicated –

Leah:  As, of course, everyone knows.

Bea:  It’s, it’s a thing if you’re a Tudor-obsessed person like I am.  That Lady Jane Grey has never really gotten her due by historians, by anyone.  She was a brilliant woman, she spoke many languages, she was a mathematician, she was a philosopher.  She was in contact with, like, all the thinkers of the day, who, everyone agreed that this woman was a brilliant, brilliant young woman, and she just totally got shafted by history.  And beheaded by her cousin.

Leah:  And then she got her head cut off.

Bea:  Cut, head cut off by Mary.  So, to see her get a happy ending was just such lovely wish fulfillment, I was just gleeful.

Sarah:  Isn’t that the best?

Bea:  Yeah!  It was amazing!  And someone commented on it and described, like, I, I wanted to read this, but I don’t think it’s historically accurate.  And I was like, well, that’s kind of the point.  [Laughs]

Leah:  No, she doesn’t get her head cut off in the end.

Bea:  It’s, like, not supposed to be historically accurate, but!  If you’re looking for historic-, historical accuracy I would go the other way.

Sarah:  Well, it’s, it’s interesting because if you add paranormal, then theoretically everything is accurate.

Bea:  Right!  Exactly!

Leah:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Right?  Like –

Bea:  We’re just in an alternate world.

Sarah:  Like, I will give some of the, some of the paranormal romances like the older P. C. Cast novels, there was a whole thing about how, like, most majy, most major rock stars and country western stars were all somehow immortal or vampires?

Bea:  Yeeess!  That –

Leah:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Like, Faith Hill?  Come on.  Of course she is.

Leah:  That’s awesome!

Bea:  That, okay, I just read a Molly Harper where Dick Cheney is a background character.  He’s a vampire.

Leah:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Noooo!

Bea:  And I was peeing my pants every time she mentioned that Dick Cheney is a vampire, and he’s in this small town.

Sarah:  Right?

Bea:  Like, you’re a fracking genius.  This is hilarious.

Leah:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Have you guys read The Dark Days Club by Alison Goodman?

Bea and Leah:  No?!

Sarah:  Okay, forgive me for not knowing this immediately.  Bea, it’s you who’s into historical –

Bea:  Yep, yep.

Sarah:  – costumes.  Okay.  I don’t know how to effectively convey to you how much of this is your catnip.  Okay.  So –

Bea:  I’m writing it on my list right now!

Sarah:  Okay, so The Dark Days Club is, it’s light on the romance.  It is, it is allegedly grade eight and up, but I think that’s a little bit –

Fitz:  Oink, oink.

Bea:  Oh, oh!  We’re pig-snorting!

Leah:  Pig snorts, here we come!  Is it like, kind of like Tamora Pierce?

Fitz:  Oink, oink, oink, oink.

Bea:  Can you hear him?

Sarah:  Yeah, he’s coughing!

Leah:  He does this all the time, this little, like, weird thing.

Sarah:  So anyway –

Bea:  Sorry.  We’ve wandered off the topic, like –

Sarah:  That’s, that’s – it’s normal.  That’s why I have a podcast.  It’s not like I’m running out of room.

Bea:  – as we are wont to do.

Sarah:  So The Dark Days Club is eight, grade eight and up, but I think it’s, I was perfectly fine with it; I didn’t think it was dumbed down at all.  But there’re three things that you’re going to love:  it’s a Regency romance supernatural mashup with a lady heroine?

Bea:  Oh, my God.

Sarah:  She is about to be presented for her audience with the queen in 1812.

Bea:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  There’re constant references to society.  She’s being raised by her aunt and her uncle because her parents are, died, and her mother has a very bad reputation, and so she has to be perfect to avoid being stained with, you know, blood will tell, and she’s just like her mother, but it turns out that the queen knows the truth about her mother and that what she, this, what this girl is, is she’s inherited the ability to see demons, and –

Bea:  Oh, cool!

Sarah:  – demons are at loose in society.  But because she’s going through her, her, basically her come-out, her presentation to the queen and then being part of society, she has to do that balance of, I’m going to go to places where I really shouldn’t go with my lady maid in the evening and then, you know, go to a ball later.

Bea or Leah:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  So you learn things like, what’s the thing called that ladies would pee in when they were wearing a big-ass dress?

Bea:  Uh-huh.

Sarah:  Yeah, so there’s an incredible amount of detail, and I’m like, that cannot be real, so of course I go on eBay, and they’re all over eBay!  You can buy one of these things.

Bea or Leah:  Ah, that’s so funny!

Leah or Bea:  Oh, my gosh –

Sarah:  It’s a, it’s a, it’s like, it’s like a slipper, it’s like a combination of a slipper and a gravy boat with a handle, and the –

[Laughter]

Sarah:  – and, and the lady’s maid would hand it to you, and you would put it under your skirts to relieve yourself, and then you hand it back to the maid, because that’s her job, and you could just go back to the party.

Bea:  Oh, my gosh.

Sarah:  It’s incredible.  So there’s all of this historical detail, plus a lot of society detail where you contrast high society and lower classes and under classes, plus mystery and deceivers and there’re different kinds of demons  –

Bea:  This is all of my crack.

Sarah:  This is, this is so your catnip I, like, I feel bad that you don’t already know about it.

Bea:  Oh, my gosh, I –

Leah:  You should watch Crazyhead –

Bea:  Crazyhead, yes!

Leah:  – on Netflix.

Sarah:  Crazyhead?

Leah:  Yes.

Bea:  It is, well, you, it’s modern Buffy.

Leah:  It’s a, a British show about two girls who can see demons and go and beat up demons.

Sarah:  Crazyhead?

Leah:  Yes.

Bea:  It is wildly entertaining.

Leah:  It’s, you’d really like it; it’s really good.  [Laughs]  There’s, there’s one six-episode first season.

Bea:  It just came out.

Leah:  There’s not that much to watch, but –

Sarah:  Fabulous!

Leah:  It is tremendously entertaining.

Sarah:  Oh, I love this!  All right, so let me ask you, then, about selling digital books, which is not a thing that you can do.

Bea and Leah:  Yeah.  [Laughter]

Bea:  It’s not a thing that we can do in a way that makes it worth it to us.

Leah:  And makes it worth it to our customers.

Bea:  Yeah.  It, it’s something that we, we’d like to offer, and it’s, it’s complicated to the point where consumers probably don’t care about why it’s complicated?

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Bea:  They, they just want the book in the easiest way that they can get it –

Leah:  Mm-hmm.

Bea:  – and obviously, you know, there are so many great people who say, you know, I would rather, you know, support you guys, which is wonderful, and we love that, but unfortunately the way that royalties and cost breakdown work, there’s isn’t, no one has divined the perfect system, and –

Leah:  Yeah.

Bea:  – if we get bored of running this bookstore, maybe we’ll go do it ourselves, but as of now, we, we don’t have a digital, a digital platform.  There –

Sarah:  And there hasn’t, there hasn’t been a, a solution that works for you in terms of ease of use for customers, ease of use for you, percentages, and –

Bea:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – availability.

Bea:  There are independent bookstores who do, so you can purchase your eBooks through, if you go to IndieBound, which is, like, the sort of catch-all place for independent bookstores online, you can purchase your, your eBooks through independent bookstores, but, you now, then it, it runs into problems about, you know, if you read on an iPad or you read on a Kindle or you read on a, what, the Nook thing, you know, if you, like, got it –

Sarah:  [Laughs] Nook thing.  It becomes a, it becomes a problem to actually move the book around.

Bea:  Yes, exactly.  So it’s something that we keep our eye on when people are adding new products and new, new ways to do it, and we, we hope to add in the future.  Somebody asked on Twitter the other day, and you know, it’s, it’s wonderful that people are keeping mindful of where their money is going and –

Sarah:  Yeah!

Bea:  – we deeply appreciate that, so we will keep you posted.

Sarah:  Please do!  So what other trends and, and things do you think are happening in the coming year?

Bea:  Let’s see, what do you think?

Leah:  [Deep breath] Hmm.  Can I tell you what trend I would like to see?  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Here’s the, here’s the thing that I’ve learned, okay?  If someone asks you about trends and you just start talking about what you want, it could be a trend.

Bea or Leah:  Then it will happen?

Sarah:  That’s fine!

Leah:  Okay, I’m going to put my wish list out into the universe.

Bea:  Go for it.

Sarah:  I do this; this is why I have a website.  [Laughs] This is like, it is my whole joyful, joyful task.  What is it that I want to read?  I’m going to ask for it publicly!  So, yes, feel free!

Leah:  I would like to see light and joyful erotica.

Sarah:  Ooohhh!

Leah:  So.  Much –

Sarah:  Erotica that’s not angsty.

Leah:  It, it can be angsty, but so much erotica is so dark –

Sarah:  Yep.

Leah:  – and especially BDSM erotica, which I read a lot of.  You know, the, the people in it are very tortured, and, you know, I’m –

Sarah:  This is Leah, right?

Leah:  This is Leah.

Sarah:  Yes!  I win!  [Me too!  – gk] Okay, go ahead!

Bea:  [Laughs] You’re getting so good at it!

Leah:  Yes!  I would like to see – you know, I think in contemporary there’s a lot of just more joyful sex.  You know, people who, who aren’t as tortured about – and frequently in erotica, you know, they’re exploring the darker edges of desire, so I totally get that –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Leah:  – but at some point you have to move beyond the, what I like is weird, and I would like to see, like, more acceptance of, you know, I like this kind of weird, kinky sex, and I’m going to go out and get it, and it’s going to be great!  Yeah.

Sarah:  I support that plan.  I would love that.

Bea:  Yeah.  This is Bea.  I mean, I, I love anything historical.

Leah:  Really?  We had no idea!

Bea:  [Laughs] Yeah, has no one gotten that memo yet?  And the thing that I would most like to see is historicals not set in Regency England.

Leah:  Yep.

Sarah:  I have a whole tag on the site:  Regency Not In A Ballroom?

Bea and Leah:  Yep.

Sarah:  I would be fine with Regency Not In The – or Historical Not In A Ballroom –

Bea or Leah:  Yep.

Sarah:  – Historical Not In The Regency.

Bea:  It’s just one of those things, I, I mean, people do it, you know, the person I most frequently rec is Beverly Jenkins for American Historicals.

Sarah:  Oh, yes.

Bea:  Who –

Sarah:  And she’s signing at your store soon, isn’t she?

Leah:  February 4th!  It’s so soon!

Bea:  Beverly Jenkins Day, I will keep it together, I swear!  Except not at all.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Bea:  So, I love reccing Beverly Jenkins ‘cause it’s not Regency, and it’s not the ballroom, and it’s not dukes.  Now –

Leah:  Jeannie Lin is another –

Bea:  Who we love.

Leah:  – fascinating, ancient China.

Bea:  Yeah, Tang Dynasty.  Those are beautiful historicals!  And I just wonder why there isn’t more expansion into all of the weird historical moments that could have so much romance in them.

Leah:  Especially oth-, we get a lot of requests for specific countries?

Bea:  Yeah.

Leah:  Like –

Bea:  Yeah.

Leah:  – there’s, every country should have a, have a historical set there, or a contemporary!  You know, there, there should be, I don’t know, I would like to see, hmm, what country?  I don’t know, how about, like –

Bea:  This is kind of weird, given the political climate, but we get a lot of requests for –

Bea and Leah:  – Russia.

Bea:  – Russian historicals.

Leah:  I happen to love Lisa Kleypas’s Russian romances.  I know no one agrees with me, but – [laughs]

Bea:  Yes, she is the only person in the world.

Leah:  I think they’re delightful and weird.

Bea:  People outside of Regency England have different issues, different stories, all that stuff, but a lot of places have similar, like, social strictures and setups that, that people could play with, I think?  So, yeah, expand beyond England, even though I adore England, and please write more Regencies, but also expand beyond.

Leah:  Yeah, and I think, this is good!  We have trend for erotica, one for historical.  Paranormal, I think, what we were talking about before with historical fantasy, but expanding that into, I kind of divide paranormal into creature-based paranormal and –

Bea:  Mm-hmm.

Leah:  – world-based paranormal?

Bea:  Mm-hmm.

Leah:  So it’s like, our world that just happens to have werewolves and vampires in it, or it’s like a totally different universe, and I’d like more of the latter.

Bea:  Uh-huh.

Sarah:  So, like, fantasy worlds that are very close to our world.

Leah:  Yeah!  Or very different, but it’s just a whole, it’s a complete, it’s a complete world.

Sarah:  Yes.

Leah:  Instead of, like, everything is normal, except there’re vampires.

Bea:  I loved the Amanda Bouchet book that came out –

Sarah:  Oh, A Promise of Fire?

Bea:  A Promise of Fire.  I thought –

Sarah:  ‘Cause that was full high fantasy.

Bea:  Full high fantasy in a romance package!  I just thought, what a great story!  I just loved it.

Sarah:  Remember when there were lots of those?  Or just more?

Bea:  I know!  Let’s get more!  Let’s bring it back!

Leah:  It’s a trend!

Bea:  It’s a trend!  It’s a real thing!  We started it.

Leah:  It’s a trend!  It’s happening!

Bea:  I mean, we obviously didn’t, but – I also just like mythology-based romance is something that I’ve always loved.  I loved those really, really smutty The Mists of Avalon books?

Sarah:  [Laughs] You are not the only person for whom that was a gateway.

Bea:  Yep, yep.  They, I actually remember being in Barnes and Noble in that section and a Barnes and Noble employee pointing me in the direction of what must have been something a little more romance-y ‘cause I loved those so much.

Sarah:  Yep.

Bea:  I, I, and I loved how female-centric they were.  They’re, yeah.  More Greek and mythology-based romance.

Leah:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  There’s a series that – oh, hang on, I have it in my notebook.  One of the things that the other Bitches and I, especially Elyse and Carrie, really, really, really like is what we’re calling Ass-Kicking Heroines Not Sorry Not Sorry?

Bea and Leah:  Yes!

Sarah:  So the idea that women are powerful and can be violent and don’t suffer incredible amounts of remorse for it?

Bea or Leah:  Uh-huh, uh-huh?

Sarah:  I am so here for that.  So there’s a series that, the first one came out last year, it’s called The Immortals, Olympus Bound, and it’s about Artemis.

Bea and/or Leah:  [Gasp!]

Sarah:  All of the gods are real, and they’re all on Earth.

Leah:  She’s, Bea loves Artemis!

Bea:  She’s my favorite!  I have –

Sarah:  I am just here to hook you up with your catnip!  That’s, like, my job today!  Awesome!

Bea:  It’s The Immortals?

Sarah:  The Immortals, Olympus Bound, is the first one, and the second one is Winter of the Gods, which continues the story.  So Olympus and all of – excuse me, Olympus – Artemis and all the other gods are on Earth, and they are much less powerful, because people don’t worship them anymore.

Bea:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  And she is immortal, and she has been a cop, and now she’s a private eye, and she lives very much in isolation –

Leah:  That sounds so good!

Bea:  Oh, my God, this sounds like my exact catnip.

Sarah:  And so it’s, I think when it was originally published it was sort of marketed as Rick Riordan, only for adults, but I didn’t think that was so much the case, because the romance is very understated, the, the god parts are incredibly fascinated.  There is some violence against women in it, because sacrifices in that, in Greek times, the ancient Greek and Roman sacrifices were usually women and usually virgins and usually pretty, so –

Bea:  Virgins are better, of course!

Sarah:  Of cour-, well, they’re more powerful that way or something.  I don’t know.

Bea:  Yeah.

Sarah:  But anyway –

Bea:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – the, there is some violence against women in the story because they’re trying to find out who killed a young woman, but the problem is that the death has made her more powerful, because someone has followed extremely precise ancient rites to imbue power to certain gods, and she’s one of them, and so she’s like, I really shouldn’t be enjoying this, but this doesn’t entirely suck.

Bea:  Oh, wow.

Sarah:  It’s, so there’s, like, all of this morality in it, but the fact that she and all the other gods just sort of hang out on Earth and are part of modern society in very hidden ways is delicious!  It’s so interesting.

Bea:  That sounds so good.  Could you –

Sarah:  Have I completely fucked up your TBR?

Bea:  Oh, no.

Sarah:  Except yes.  [Laughs]

Bea:  Could you please pass along to Elyse – I really hope it’s Elyse – my deep appreciation of her crazypants shifter, reviews of shifter books?  Elyse does those –

Sarah:  Oh, that’s Elyse.

Bea:  Okay, good.

Sarah:  That’s Elyse, oh, yeah.  I will –

Bea:  Because –

Sarah:  – I will let her know.

Bea:  – they’re just my favorite!

Sarah:  [Laughs] She’s got –

Bea:  Oh, my God, her The Bachelor recaps are so good!

Sarah:  Aren’t they hilarious?

Leah:  Okay, so, can we now transition to talking about The Bachelor?

Bea:  Of course.

Sarah:  Yes, of course!

Leah:  Because it’s Monday –

Sarah:  It is Monday.

Leah:  – when we’re, when we’re recording this.

Sarah:  It is!

Leah:  Monday is Bachelor day; it’s the best day of the week.

Sarah:  And this was something that was going to, that was part of your original Kickstarter proposal, I remember.  Like, we’re going to have Bachelor night!  And I remember writing back to you and being like, why?  Because I did not know anything.  That’s why.

Leah:  So, yes, it was originally part of our plan, but now we’re closed on Mondays.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Leah:  It doesn’t really work.  We may, we may have a party for the, for the finale.

Sarah:  Tell me all the things about The Bachelor.

Leah:  Here’s a thing about The Bachelor:

Sarah:  Yes.

Leah:  When you try to explain its appeal to men –

Sarah:  [Laughs] It’s like trying to explain why there’re so many dukes in the Regency.

Bea:  Exactly!

Leah:  It’s like trying to explain why, I don’t know –

Bea:  How vaginas work!

Leah:  – yes!  Why, like, why we like anything!  It’s like –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Leah:  But it’s so – and, and, it’s so entertaining, and they don’t accept that as an answer.  I’m like –

Bea:  Yeah.

Leah:  – it’s, it’s funny!  I’m like, it’s fun and it’s funny.

Bea:  I’m not –

Leah:  And they’re like, but why do you watch it?  ‘Cause it’s fun!

Bea:  I always say, do you like sports?  And they say, yes, and I say, and you enjoy watching sports?  And they say, yeah, and I say, well, I don’t understand that, so this is my thing.

[Laughter]

Bea:  Like, I, you know, people enjoy all different kinds of things.  The, the way women are forced to account for their enjoyment is so frustrating to me!  [Laughs] I’m sure it is to you as well.

Sarah:  Oh, very much, yes, all the ways.

Bea:  Yeah, so, we love The Bachelor.  Mostly, I think, we watch with a group of friends –

Leah:  Yeah!

Bea:  – and we all cook together.

Leah:  It’s totally like a female bonding ritual.

Bea:  And it –

Sarah:  Like a coven.

Bea and Leah:  Yeah, it is!

Bea:  And once a week we all get together, and it’s, it’s really nice to have that once a week, like, everyone’s there, everyone’s hanging out, and we get updates on our own personal lives!  We update on what’s happening with The Bachelor.  I’m, I am in contact with many friends from high school, college, and graduate school about The Bachelor.

[Laughter]

Leah:  It’s like, it’s like a shared experience.

Bea:  Yeah.

Leah:  And it’s hella funny!

Bea:  It’s so funny!

Leah:  Like, I kind of think it’s similar to the, you know, I, Sarah, frequently steal from your book when people ask the stupid unrealistic expectations question about romance novels?

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Leah:  And you have that great line about video games?

Sarah:  Uh-huh.

Leah:  Like, why do we think that people can’t distinguish when they’re driving a Mario Kart car and when they’re driving a real car?  Like, come on now.  I think it’s kind of like, we know it’s a reality show.  Like, it’s not real!

Bea:  Yeah.  We, we don’t watch, we are not believers in the, The Bachelor story.  I, I have to admit, we watch with a good dose of –

Leah:  Yeah.  We’re, yeah, we’re not –

Bea:  We don’t buy into it.

Leah:  That, but that’s not to say that everyone in our watching party doesn’t.

Bea:  Yeah, that’s true.

Leah:  Because there are some people who are like, oh, they’re in love!

Bea:  Yeah.

Sarah:  No, no, they’re not!

Leah:  We’re like, uhhhh!

Bea:  We’re like, they’re, they’re not.

Leah:  I don’t think they are!

Bea:  They want that Instagram money.  We need to sell the gummy bears that –

Leah:   Yeah, the hair gummy –

Bea:  – they make your hair grow.

Sarah:  And you need to stay on the show long enough, as Elyse put it, to get at least a good six or seven destinations out of ABC.

Bea and Leah:  Right!

Leah:  You’re getting a vacation; you’re making friends.

Bea:  Okay, so Elyse’s recaps I’m loving –

Leah:  Oh, my God!  [Laughs]

Bea:  – because she, I read a lot of recaps, and she is focusing on something that I don’t think other people are, which is, like, the whole group of women and that they’re just, like, there to make friends and go on vacation, which I think is –

Sarah:  Yes!

Leah:  No one wants to win, and especially not if it’s Nick Viall as the bachelor.  We’re like –

Bea:  No!

Leah:  – he is no –

Sarah:  Wait, hold up, his name isn’t actually pronounced VILE?

Leah:  [Laughs]

Bea:  No, I’ve been pronouncing it Vee-all-ay.  I have no idea if that’s right.

Leah:  I think it is VILE, because didn’t that one chick whose last name was –

Bea:  Yeah, she had, yeah.

Leah:  – like –

Bea:  Hussey.  There was a girl whose last name was Hussey, and she was like, we both have really bad last names, and then I think he got rid of her.

Leah:  Yeah.  I –

Sarah:  Is that the one he had sex with in a previous, like, encounter?

Leah:  Okay, so I actually –

Sarah:  ‘Cause I only know from, from editing Elyse’s recaps.

Leah:  Right.

Sarah:  Because I, I have absolutely no judgment for anyone who enjoys reality television, but I personally don’t like watching people misbehave on purpose.  It’s –

Bea:  Oh, yeah.

Sarah:  – too much cringe for me, so I can’t watch anything.  It’s like, I watch cooking shows and shit sit in, set in the ‘20s and old Mad About You reruns.  Like, that’s what I watch on television.  I am a very bad TV watcher.

Bea:   Watching The Bachelor is intense.

Sarah:  Yeah, I can’t handle that much cringe.  I am, I am cringe weak.

Bea:  Yeah.

Sarah:  It, it is a weakness.  [Laughs]

Bea:  And they’re all forced to participate, so you, you can’t get out of it.  If you’re on The Bachelor, they’re going to make you say something stupid.  And to me, the most interesting thing is to see the obviously smart women try and get around it.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Bea:  And they’re like, well, we went on a date, you know, ‘cause they make them go on dates where they, like, bungee jump off buildings and then say things like, it’s just like a relationship.  I had to grab his hand and jump off into the unknown.

Sarah:  Uhhhh, no?

Bea:  And then you see these girls being like, I don’t want to say this, but they’re making me, so they, like, figure out a way to say it in a funny way, or they, like, wink at, you know.  Anyway, so –

Sarah:  I have been handed terrible dialogue, and you’re in on it with me.

Bea:  Exactly.  The producer role in The Bachelor is very important at our – we talk about it a lot at our viewing party, and, like, the manipulation and, you know, who’s doing what for what reason.  There, there’s a, a phrase everyone says on The Bachelor:  Here for the right reasons.  [Laughs] Which is, like, a, a running gag now, ‘cause they’re not there for the right reasons!  They’re there to get Instagram famous, which is hilarious.

Sarah:  And a, you know what, a perfectly acceptable goal if you’re looking for diversifying your revenue streams?  This is a perfectly acceptable goal.

Bea:  Exactly!  Exactly.  You know –

Sarah:  Yes, but here for the right reasons on The Bachelor means I’m, I’m virginal and, and, and purely invested in this guy romantically.

Leah:  Yes.

Bea:  Of course.

Sarah:  I have no, I have no, I have no concerns of a financial nature, none whatsoever, no, not me.

Bea:  No, I just am here to fall in love!

Leah:  Yes, I’m –

Sarah:  That’s why I wore a shark suit.

[Laughter]

Bea:  I love that girl!

Leah:  That was hilarious.

Bea:  She, she was utterly convinced it was a dolphin.  I don’t know if you read this part of the recap.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Yes, I did!  I, I edit them.  I think I’m going to have to get you guys and Elyse on a podcast together to talk about The Bachelor finale.  Would you be up for that?

Bea:  YESSS!

Leah:  AHHHH!

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Bea:  Shut up!  That is –

Leah:  Yes, please!

Bea:  – our ultimate – like, if we’re talking about wish fulfillment –

Leah:  Oh, my God, yes!

Bea:  – and putting things into the, you know –

Leah:  We’re putting it out in the universe!

Bea:  We’re putting it out – always wanted to have a Bachelor date filmed at the store.

Leah:  If that happens we can close.

Bea:  Yeah.  Like, we’re –

Sarah:  So you want a Bachelor date filmed at The Ripped Bodice.

Bea and Leah:  Yes.

Bea:  Because it is –

Sarah:  I think that’s an entirely acceptable goal.  I mean, that, that, fits perfectly!

Bea:  And we’ve had other reality stuff.  We’ve had other filming.  Like, right now, we’re actually, people are filming outside, and we’re closed, and they’re using our space, which is why we’re upstairs.

Leah:  Hello, Bachelor producers!

Bea:  Please film at our store.

Leah:  Please come have a date at our store!

Bea:  Thank you.  [Laughs]

Leah:  Thank you very much.  Sincerely, Leah and Bea.  [Laughs]

Bea:  And Fitz.

Leah:  And Fitzwilliam Waffles.

Bea:  And Fitzwilliam Waffles?

Fitz:  Bark-bark!  Bark!

Bea:  Hey, baby.

Leah:  Ooh!

Sarah:  Speaking of Fitz, you wanted to ask about how to make your cat and dog be friends.

Bea:  Ohhh.

Leah:  Okay, so here’s the thing – [laughs] – like, our, obviously our fantasy is that they, like, curl up on the bed on top of each other and are, like, BFFs, and so we’ve introduced them, and the dog could not care less about the cat.

Sarah:  Right, yeah.  One of my dogs is like, whatever.

Bea:  Yeah.

Leah:  He completely ignores her.

Bea:  Like, walks right by her.

Leah:  And doesn’t even look at her.  And the cat is tracking the dog’s every movement.

Bea:  Yeah.

Leah:  Like, she just stares at, laser focus, stares at him.

Sarah:  Why are you here.

Bea:  She’s stalking around the house.  [Laughs]

Leah:  And she’s not, like, she doesn’t display any mean or aggressive tendencies; she just stares at him.

Bea:  Yeah.

Sarah:  Yep.

Leah:  And it hasn’t been that long, so obviously we have to give them some time to get to know each other.

Sarah:  Yep!

Leah:  But I would like them to be best friends, and I’m concerned that that’s not going to happen.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  They might not be best friends, but the fact that they’re not fighting is, is, is really, really good?

Bea and Leah:  Yeah.

Sarah:  I mean, if, if Fitz isn’t chasing the cat, because, I mean, my – I have two cats and two dogs, and Wilbur is the more adventurous of the dogs, and Zeb is the dog who is more interested in the cats.  Buzz, who’s afraid of everything, could give zero, negative shits about the cats, but if there’s another dog other than his brother, then he’s going to lose his frigging mind.

Leah:  Ohhh.

Sarah:  So the cats are, like, no big deal for him.  Oh, yeah, Buzz has so much anxiety, he’s on the Prozac dose for, like, a two-hundred-pound man.

[Laughter]

Sarah:  He’s, and it’s funny ‘cause it’s made me so much more generous towards my own anxiety?  Like, I don’t think his anxiety has to make sense.  It just is, and I have lots of different ways to help him and lots of different treatments, and he has a pheromone collar and a Thunder Shirt that sort of wraps him up and, like, it’s like a, it’s Velcro around his belly and over his shoulders so he feels more secure, and I’m like, you know, I’m way nicer to the dog about his anxiety than I am to myself about my anxiety?  I should probably fix that.

Bea:  That’s so interesting that you say that, though, because, like, I, I also – this is Bea – I struggle with anxiety –

Sarah:  Yep.

Bea:  – and you, you know –

Sarah:  Being a business owner with anxiety is super fun, isn’t it?

Bea:  It’s very difficult!

Sarah:  It’s super great!  [Laughs]

Bea:  And I do not give it, I, I am not nice to myself about my anxiety.

Sarah:  Nope!  Me neither.

Bea:  And now that I have the dog, I find myself just more aware of how to take care, ‘cause I’m taking care of him, so I’m like –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Bea:  – well, if I’m taking care of him, I should also take care of myself.

Sarah:  Yep!

Bea:  It’s been a, it’s been a great thing.

Sarah:  And it also helps that the dog automatically thinks that you are awesome the exact way that you are right now.

Bea:  Oh!  It’s incredible!

Sarah:  And it’s like, oh, okay.  Then maybe I should learn from that.

Bea:  Yeah.  And Fitz is very, he bonded very quickly to me.

Sarah:  Yep.

Bea:  He definitely knows I’m his person.

Sarah:  Yes, you’re The Lady, capital T, capital L.  Yep.

Bea:  Yeah.  And he –

Leah:  It’s amazing.

Bea:  – he comes to me, and he wants to be near me, and, like, when we had an event the other night, I, I don’t love a lot of people around, which is not great for being a bookstore owner, but I’m working on it!

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Bea:  And he just sat with me the whole time and was my little buddy, and everyone would come up and talk to Fitz, and it was like this amazing, I didn’t have to talk about myself anymore?  I was just talking about Fitz.

Sarah:  Yep.

Bea:  And it was great!

Sarah:  Yep!  It’s so easy to be mean to yourself, and then you get a dog and you’re like, oh, but what if I wasn’t?

Bea:  And I think it’s just, you know, I – I think it’s a, a maternal instinct to take care of everyone around you, and now –

Sarah:  Women are definitely trained that that’s their responsibility.

Bea:  We are trained to do all this emotional label, labor for other people –

Sarah:  Yes.

Bea:  – to take care of them and to, to do all this stuff.

Sarah:  That’s, like, my watchword for this whole year.  Like, how I spend my emotional labor.

Leah:  Yes, like, I heard the episode with Alisha, but that’s what they were talking about.

Bea:  I have become obsessed with the idea.  I, I can’t stop thinking about it.  I talk about it all the time.  My boyfriend’s like, enough about emotional labor, but, but it’s so important!

Sarah:  And it’s everywhere, and once you know it has a name, it’s like, oh, my God, I know what to call this feeling.

Bea:  Exactly.  This feeling that I – like, like today, love my boyfriend, it’s his mother’s birthday.  I sent the flowers, I called, you know, I did all that stuff.  I’m happy to do it, I love her, she’s, she is a wonderful woman, but it’s his mother.  Maybe he should send the flowers.

Sarah:  Oh –

Leah:  I’ll tell him to listen to this podcast.

Bea:  Yeah!  [Laughs]

Leah:  Then he’ll –

Sarah:  Yep.

Leah:  – he’ll learn.

Bea:  And he, he just doesn’t think about it, ‘cause he’s not trained to, so I’m training him.

Sarah:  What do you recommend for readers right now?  Are you, are you reading anything that you want to make sure anyone knows about?  Everyone knows about?

Leah:  Okay, I actually pulled up my list, so –

Sarah:  Oh, it’s, good, good plan.

Leah:  – so I wouldn’t forget.  Okay, let’s see, what did I read in the last few weeks of the year?  Oh, yes.  I do have a suggestion.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Please make that suggestion, because gosh, people who spend their entire time recommending to romance, recommending romance novels to people, I mean, come on.

Bea:  [Laughs]

Leah:  They, they need more to read.  So, if you are a fan of Justin Trudeau –

Bea:  Which we are.

Leah:  – the Prime Minister of Canada –

Sarah:  Oh, no.

Leah:  – pretend that he does not have a lovely wife and family and that he’s into kinky sex!

Sarah:  Oh, my God.  Is this Prime Minister?

Leah:  Yep.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Leah:  Two women wrote a book about that, and it’s called Prime Minister, and it’s awesome.

Sarah:  Oh, my goodness, I just cleared a comment from the spam filter about this exact book, like, earlier today.

Bea:  [Laughs]

Leah:  It is bomb!

Sarah:  It is, it is that good.

Leah:  It’s by Ainsley Booth and Sadie Haller, and I found it tremendously entertaining.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Bea or Leah:  Oh, great.

Sarah:  So how much, how much BDSM is there?  Is there a lot of super-kinky stuff?

Leah:  Oh –

Sarah:  I mean, is it, like, gross – I don’t want to say gross.

Leah:  No.

Sarah:  I can’t cast judgments on other people’s sexuality.

Leah:  Sure.

Bea:  No.

Sarah:  Does it get into things that need to be cleaned up with bleach?

Leah:  No.

Bea:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Okay.

Leah:  [Laughs] No, not at all.

Sarah:  Okay.

Leah:  No, the, no, not really, and it’s actually, it’s, like, much more of the D/s part of BDS-, like, he’s more into, like, domination, like, not as much, like, whips and chains and stuff?

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Leah:  And, so it’s much more like sort of power exchange, role-playing kind of stuff.

Sarah:  Oooh!

Leah:  But it’s pretty, it’s pretty tame.  And it, it is, like, sort of what I was talking about earlier.  Like, he is very – she’s new to it, but he’s very, like, aware of his own preferences, and he’s still, like, a nice person.  He’s not, like, dark and tortured about it.  It’s really funny, and if you just, like, picture Justin Trudeau the whole time, it’s pretty entertaining.

Sarah:  [Laughs] Oh, my God!

Leah:  Also, I have a non-romance recommendation.  On vacation I read one non-romance book, which was Emma Donoghue, who wrote The Room, her new book is called The Wonder?

Sarah:  Oooh!

Leah:  And it was, it’s really good.  It’s really, it’s about, it takes place in Ireland in the, I think it’s late ‘50s – maybe that’s too late.  I’m not sure exactly when.  It is about a young Irish girl who claims to stop eating and living on the will of God, and the main character is a nur-, is a nurse trained by Florence Nightingale who they hire to, like, confirm whether this is true or not.  It’s really good.

Bea:  I just read –

Leah:  Bea’s turn.  That was all Leah.

Bea:  That was all Leah.

Leah:  Bea’s turn.

Bea:  I just read and adored, speaking of non-Regency-set historicals, I started the astronaut series that’s been making –

Leah:  Oh, yeah.

Sarah:  Oooh!

Leah:  Stardust.

Bea:  Stardust.  It’s by Emma Barry and Genevieve Turner, I believe her name is, and I loved it!  I, I, we have seen Hidden Figures.  I loved Hidden Figures.  I want to learn everything about the space race.  I want to learn everything about all the people working at NASA; it’s just so fascinating.  And I just really, really, really, really liked it.  It was so cute!

Leah:  Yeah.  Oh, also, if you’re not reading Sarina Bowen’s current hockey series, Brooklyn Bruisers, the, I, the new one that came out on January 3rd, I love, love, loved it.  What was it.  Hard, is it Hard Hitter?

Bea:  Yeah.

Leah:  I think that was, that one.  Yeah, it’s really good.

Sarah:  Both Elyse and I want to say Amanda raved about that book.  Just, just really loved it.

Leah:  I, just, Sarina’s done such a good job, ‘cause she had this college hockey series?

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Leah:  And so much sports stuff these days is a New Adult, and then she transitioned it to an adult series.  It’s a fictional professional hockey team – I love that it’s in Brooklyn – called the Brooklyn Bruisers, and she’s just done such a great job transitioning that, and now it’s, like, a little bit more adult.  And I love, the concept of the most recent one is, it’s the team’s massage therapist –

Sarah:  Yes.

Leah:  – and yoga instructor?  And the guy doesn’t like to be touched –

Sarah:  Which –

Leah:  – and he has this –

Sarah:  – which is hard to get over.

Leah:  Yeah.  And he has an, he has an injury that it’s, like, her job to help with?  And I thought it was great.  I loved it.  But then again, I love everything that Sarina Bowen writes.  [Laughs]

Bea:  Yeah, Sarina Bowen –

Leah:  I really want a, them to make hockey jerseys for this fictional team that I can purchase.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Bea:  I think they did!

Leah:  Putting that out into the universe.

Bea:  I think it’s a giveaway that they’re running on Berkley.

Leah:  What?!

Sarah:  Yeah, I, I definitely saw some Brooklyn Bruisers jerseys on Instagram.

Bea:  Right?

Leah:  I want one!  Can I have one please?

Bea:  [Laughs] We can speak to someone about that.

Leah:  I’m just, I’m just putting everything out to the universe.  Okay, are you familiar with The Secret?

Sarah:  Yes, of course!

Leah:  Okay.  I haven’t read it, and I don’t really know the specifics of it, but I’m convinced that I can do it.

Sarah:  Well, you know, you never know.  If you, if – I genuinely believe, outside of The Secret, I genuinely believe that saying things out loud has an enormous amount of power, because you’re, (a) you’re hearing yourself say it, but you’re also increasing the likelihood that someone else will hear you say it.

Bea:  Yeah.

Leah:  My main evidence for this is that –

Bea:  Yeah.

Leah:  – I, there’s a poke place in Santa Monica, which is –

Sarah:  [Gasps]

Leah:  – not close to the store that I was like, we, I like to go to, and I was like, wouldn’t it be great if there was a poke place in Culver City?  And then the next day this, this empty storefront across the street put up a sign.

Sarah:  My God!  You have poke across the street?

Leah:  It’s not open yet.

Sarah:  [Gasps]

Bea:  I don’t…accurate description of how much you wanted a poke place and how much you talked about it.  It was like a very, you were, like, poke, poke, poke, and it happened.  And then –

Sarah:  Is poke the new cupcakes?

Bea and Leah:  Yes.

Sarah:  Okay.  I’m okay with that, because we have a, we make it at home.  It’s delicious.

Bea:  Yeah.  Ohhh, yeah.

Leah:  Yes.  There is a place opening across the street.  They’re, it’s, they’re renovating right now.  We’re, like, desperate for them to open; I don’t know when they’re opening.

Bea:  There was another something I should –

Sarah:  Maybe what you should do is have people pay you to say things out loud.

Bea:  Yeah!

Leah:  [Laughs]

Bea:  And it’s happened a couple of times.  Like –

Leah:  I can’t remember what the other one was.

Bea:  – things that she’s constantly talking about happen.

Leah:  Oh, oh!  It was Bruno Mars music.  [Laughs] I don’t even like Bruno Mars, but I was like –

Bea:  Yeah!  [Laughs]

Leah:  – we were listening to him on the radio, and I was –

Bea:  I love Bruno Mars.

Leah:  Yeah, Bea really likes him, and I was like, when is Bruno Mars coming out with new music?  And then the next day, he came out with new music!

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Bea:  It also happened with Ed Sheeran!

Leah:  Oh, well, that one, yeah, ‘cause I am obsessed with Ed Sheeran.

Sarah:  That would be a good get for the store.

Bea:  Oh, my God.

Leah:  Ed Sheeran?  Yeah!

Bea:  How do we make that happen?  Oh, no!

Leah:  Like, yes, please.  I, I deeply love him.  He’s so cute and nerdy.  [Laughs]

Bea:  Very nerdy.

Sarah:  You know what?  That would be like the kind of thing, like one of those special offers for credit card holders?  Like, an intimate concert with Ed Sheeran inside The Ripped Bodice bookstore, the most romantic –

Bea:  Oh, my God.

Sarah:  – date ever.

Bea:  Who do we talk to about that?

Leah:  Universe!  Universe, did you hear that?

Bea:  That sounds –

Leah:  Okay, so can we just, like, tally up the things we’ve put out into the universe in the course of the last hour?

Sarah:  You know, I was listening to this wonderful podcast that you guys would really, really like?  It’s called Friendshipping?  Seriously, you guys would love it.  It is from two people who actually work for Cards Against Humanity in Chicago.

Bea or Leah:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  One of them is the events planner, and the other, I think, is a community manager, so it’s Jenn and Trin.  They are best friends, and they have a whole podcast where they answer questions about how to manage friendship, and it’s, it’s like – I, I’m not exaggerating – it’s like if Leslie and um, um, um –

Bea:  Ann Perkins?

Leah:  Ann?

Sarah:  Her best friend.

Bea:  Ann Perkins.

Sarah:  Yes.  I wanted to say Rashida, but that’s not, that’s the actress’s name.  [Laughs]

Leah:  Actress’s name.

Sarah:  You know, it’s the same person, right?  They’re the same.  It’s like if, if they had a podcast where they talked about friendship, it would be this show.  It is so wonderful.  Like, it is, it is making me so happy to listen, and each episode is, like, twenty-five minutes?  But they’re –

Leah:  That sounds so good!

Sarah:  Oh, my God, you are going to mainline this fucker, it’s just so wonderful.  I listen to it constantly.  But one of their recent episodes talked about two introverts hosting events, and I was like, okay, here for this!  I have a pen; I’m going to write down everything you say.  So, they talk –

Leah:  Oh, my God!  What, yes!  I need that!

Sarah:  Yeah, ditto!  So – [laughs] – actually, you know what?  I need to do, I need to come to California and host a Bitches event in your store.  That’s what I need to do.

Bea:  Yes!

Leah:  Yes, please!

Sarah:  Get off my butt.  So anyway.  So, the whole episode was about, it started from a person who was saying, I have, I’m a musician.  I have concerts and I put out a newsletter, and my friends are all subscribed but they never open it, and then when they say they’re coming to an event, they don’t actually show?  So I think they’re coming to my concert and they’re not, and how do I talk to them about this?  And so the first part is about talking to your friends about your expectations, but then it also, it, they said, they segue into how to run a really good event and get people to come?  And –

Fitz:  Woof!  Woof!

Sarah:  Yes, I know, Fitz, right?  Seriously.

Bea:  Fitz is in, not into that idea, apparently, but I am!  Keep going!

Sarah:  [Laughs] How could people not want to come to my moth-, my mother’s store?  They’re, that’s just terrible!  How dare you suggest such a thing?  So one of the things they talked about is putting on, like, one big show, like, if you do a lot of concerts, you can’t expect your friends to, to come to every single one, but if you want to focus on one, make your concerts a thing that they can bring people to.  Like, your concerts are the best place to bring, like, a Tinder date or a Grindr date or, like, a Match.com date because, you know, you like cool music, and you’re connected to this cool music community, and there’re other people for you to talk to, and you don’t have to talk the whole time ‘cause it’s a concert!  And I’m like, you know what?  That would totally work for your store.  Like, make, your events are great places to bring a date.

Bea:  Oh, yes.

Leah:  Our romantic comedy show –

Bea:  Yes.

Leah:  – every month, I think, is the site of many –

Bea:  First dates.

Leah:  – first or second date.

Sarah:  So I think what you need to do is reach out to some of these, like, date sites and make sure that they know about your events?  They could cross promote you.

Bea:  That’s a great idea!  We should have, like, Match.com mixers or whatever.

Leah:  Yeah!

Sarah:  Totally!

Leah:  Yeah.  [Laughs]

Bea:  You can, you can attend!  I’ll run it!

Leah:  Great.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Bea:  She’s so enthusiastic about finding love.

Leah:  I’m very, I’m very enthusiastic.

Sarah:  You could actually do a whole advice night.  Like, dating advice, bring your date and listen to horrible dating stories?  Your date will not be as bad as these.

Bea:  My favorite podcast with two best friends is My Favorite Murder.

Leah:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  I am, I, I wish that I could listen to that show.  I, I cannot believe that it’s a year old?  I am just so in awe of how awesome it is.  I can’t listen to details about murder.  I will never sleep again.  I can’t even read Wikipedia about unsolved crimes from 1902.

Leah:  My God, I love it!

Bea:  Oh, Wikipedia.  My Wikipedia search is terrifying.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Bea:  If anyone ever finds my computer, they’re going to think I’m a serial killer.

Sarah:  Yep!

Bea:  I, I lover murder, and I’ve always loved murder.  I’ve always particularly loved serial killers.  [Laughs] And –

Sarah:  You and Elyse need to talk, because that is exactly how she is.

Bea:  Yeah.  I just, it’s, I love when I meet other romance people because it’s like, it’s like two sides of the same coin in our mind, I think?  Like, it, it’s the opposite of romance?

Leah:  [Laughs]

Bea:  It’s, it’s like the worst-case scenario, and, and I’ve always been really obsessed with historical murders, obviously, given my, my bent, and have always wanted to write a series about a serial killer heroine.  But I don’t think it’s very heroic to serial-kill people!  [Laughs] So I haven’t, but please, someone, write about serial killers falling in love with each other!

Sarah:  Wasn’t there one where the heroine, where the heroine, it was like sort of a, sort of a romance but really creepy, she was a serial killer?  Was it Chelsea Cain’s series?

Bea:  Oh, my God, I’ll have to go look it up.  I don’t know.  That sounds like – I, yeah, I just have always been fascinated by murder.  [Laughs] And –

Sarah:  Yes, the, the, the series is Archie Sheridan & Gretchen Lowell.  Gretchen is a serial killer.

Bea:  Yes, I’m going to go read that immediately!

Sarah:  I’m here for you!

Bea:  But I love that there’s, like, this whole podcast, and I just love, like, everyone is sharing in this thing where we’ve all discovered that ev-, that there are other people obsessed with murder?  And it’s like, and, and – the, the funny thing is they, like, actually talk about specific murders and, like, people come on and share their stories of their favorite murder?  [Laughs] Which is so creepy to say, but I have so many favorite murders.

Leah:  What would you say is your favorite murder?  [Laughs]

Bea:  I don’t know.  I mean, I don’t, I’ve, I’ve always been a Jack the Ripper fangirl.  Like, obviously he, that’s a horrible story, but it’s just fascinating in the time period and, like, who he targeted, and also maybe it was a woman.  I have a lot of opinions about Jack the Ripper!

Leah:  You’re a nutter.

Bea:  I am.  I –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Bea:  – potentially need to seek help about my obsession with murder.

Sarah:  I cannot even read the Wikipedia pages about unsolved crimes from, like, the turn of the –

Bea:  But those are the best Wikipedia pages!

Sarah:  No, I can’t, I get, I can’t even sit in my office at, like, ten in the morning with all the lights on if I do that.

Bea:  [Laughs]

Leah:  Okay, so, like, normally she is crazy about this stuff – this is Leah – but every once in a while she, we both love to read longform articles, and she’ll, like, make me read a really good one, and there actually is, this – no one gets murdered – there is an amazing one from a couple months ago about this PTA mom –

Bea:  Oh, my God, this was the best thing I read!

Leah:  What site was it on?

Bea:  It was on LA Times.

Leah:  Yeah, ‘cause it was, and it was about this PTA mom who gets, like – I don’t even know how to describe it without, like, giving everything away – caught up in a drug dealing scandal that maybe she didn’t actually have anything to do with?  It’s really a good read.

Bea:  Oh, it’s –

Leah:  They’re making it into a movie with Julia Roberts.

Bea:  Yeah.

Sarah:  Of course they are!

Bea:  It’s a story tailor-made for that.

Leah:  Just Google, like, LA Times PTA drug mom and you’ll find it.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Oh, my gosh, that’s crazy!

Leah:  Yeah.  It’s very entertaining, and nobody dies, so it’s good.

Bea:  Yeah.  Looking for longform journalism about crime?  Come to me!

Leah:  Yes.

[Laughter]

Leah:  She’s got it covered.

Bea:  I have a lot of it.

Leah:  Bea has got you covered.

Sarah:  That’s awesome.  Are there any other books that you want to make sure you mention?  ‘Cause I feel bad that I’ve taken up so much of your day, and I hope you’re not like, oh, my God, we have to get off the phone.

Bea:  No, we’re –

Leah:  It’s really fine.  Like, so –

Bea:  We’re filming.

Leah:  Yeah, this crew rented out our store, but we can’t, like, leave them here alone, so –

Sarah:  Of course.

Leah:  – we’re just, like, sitting here.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Okay, good.

Bea:  This is the best!  

Leah:  Yeah, no, this is great!

Sarah:  What are they filming?

Leah:  It’s this CBS show called Life in Pieces.

Sarah:  Oooh!

Leah:  It’s like a sit-com.

Bea:  Oh, can I, can I make a plug for the book I am most excited for?

Sarah:  No, we don’t want to talk about books.  Why would we do that?

Leah:  Yeah, that’s probably fine.

Bea:  I haven’t read it yet, but I know it’s going to be amazing.  Alyssa Cole’s upcoming historical spy novel.

Sarah:  An Extraordinary Union?

Bea:  Yes.

Leah:  Extraordinary –

Sarah:  Oh.  My God.  I am so excited about this book.

Bea:  I can’t even begin to just – every time I see someone post a picture of an ARC I have, like, a visceral anger that they’re reading it before I am?

[Laughter]

Bea:  I’m like, I will cut a bitch for that book.  I am so excited for it.  I just think it’s going to be amazing!  I, I love Alyssa’s writing.  She is an amazing writer, and then she just – God, that story is so good.

Leah:  Oh, well, if we’re talking books that we’re excited about, I have, that’s a different list.  Hold on.

Bea:  [Laughs]

Leah:  That’s my upcoming list.  Let’s see.  Okay.  Exploited by A. Meredith Walters.  It comes out, it doesn’t come till June.  Is it about a hacker who, unbeknownst to either of them, falls for the agent who is supposed to be hunting her down.

Sarah:  Ohhh, boy.

Leah:  Yeah.  It sounds so good.  [Laughs]

Bea:  The little dog is making snuffling noises.  He would like to be included in the conversation.

Leah:  Cool.

Sarah:  Okay, Fitz, what do you have to say?  ‘Cause Orville, Orville is out and about my, wandering –

Bea:  Fitz would like to say thank you very much to the Smart Bitches for –

Bea:  Yes.

Bea:  – the very nice mail he receives.

Sarah:  Oh, we’re so happy.

Bea:  And he would also like to say thank you to the whole romance community for just being so welcoming to him –

Sarah:  Ohhh!

Bea:  – and he feels very loved.

Leah:  Yeah.

Bea:  And –

Sarah:  Aw!  That’s how the romance community should be!

Bea and Leah:  Yeah.

Sarah:  We welcome dogs and boys.

[Laughter]

Bea:  And boy dogs.

Leah:  And boy dogs.

Sarah:  That’s right!

Leah:  Our little romance hero.

Bea:  Yes, and everybody should come to The Ripped Bodice so they can meet him in person!  I mean, he’s amazing in pictures, but in person he’s just like a little tiny pig fox.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  So it’s like, so it’s like the Instagram times a thousand.

Bea and Leah:  Yes.

Bea:  Yes.  He’s ridiculous.

Leah:  And you don’t, and people, like, don’t believe that he’ll, like, let anyone hold him –

Bea:  Oh, yeah.

Leah:  – and like, so they’ll, like, pick him up, and then he, like, sits for about ten seconds, and then he just, like, his whole body just sort of, like, collapses into you?

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Leah:  And the moment it happens, and everyone is like, oh, my God, like –

Sarah:  Aww!

Leah:  – this dog is just now, like, plastered to my body.

Bea:  Oh, and there he goes, snorting away.  And he’s just so fluffy and loving, and we’re so obsessed with him!

Sarah:  I’m, I’m so happy that you have such an awesome dog and that the store is doing so well!

Bea:  Thanks, Sarah!

Sarah:  Like, I mean, I was super excited when you opened, and I was super excited to support the Kickstarter, and I was super excited to see all these pictures, and it just makes me so happy that you are out there kicking ass.

Bea:  We love to hear that.

Leah:  Thank you so much.

Bea:  Yeah.  We hope everyone out, outside of LA knows how much we appreciate their support.  It’s –

Leah:  Yeah.  That’s very true.

[music]

Sarah:  And that is all for this week’s episode.  I want to thank Bea and Leah for being so kind as to hang out on the phone with me, and I also want to thank Fitzwilliam Waffles for being part of the podcast, because more pets is always more gooder.

I will have links to all of the books and different links that we discussed in the episode at the podcast entry at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast, and you can also find us on iTunes at iTunes.com/DBSA.

This episode is brought to you by Kensington Publishing.  Don’t miss Into the Firestorm, the pulse-pounding third installment in the New York Times bestselling series BOSS, Inc., by acclaimed author Kat Martin.  Follow bounty hunter Emma Cassidy as she prepares to get revenge on one of Seattle’s most powerful underground gangsters, but Rudy Vance is proving tricky to nail down, so Emma enlists the help of Luke Brodie, a fellow bounty hunter who is as legendary for his skills in a fight as he is in the bedroom.  Together they generate so much heat, Rudy Vance and his gang don’t stand a chance.  Kat Martin’s signature spine-tingling suspense, unforgettable action, and scorching passion that made her a household name are on full display in Into the Firestorm, on sale now wherever books are sold and on kensingtonbooks.com.

I also want to let you know that we have a podcast Patreon, patreon.com/SmartBitches.  For as little as one dollar a month, you can help support the show and keep it excellently growing as it is – thank you – and you can also help me upgrade equipment and commission transcripts for the episodes that don’t have them yet.  If you’ve had a look and if you’ve become a patron, thank you so much for your support.

The music that you’re listening to is provided by Sassy Outwater.  You can find her on Twitter @SassyOutwater.  This is “Abhainn A’Nathair” and it is by the Peatbog Faeries from their CD Dust.  Now, I had to look up Scotch Gaelic pronunciation, which was different from the Irish pronunciation of those words, so if I said that wrong and it was supposed to be the Irish one, I apologize, but I think I guessed the right one.  But if I didn’t, I did my best.  You can find this album, this song, and all of Peatbog Faeries music at their website, at Amazon, and at iTunes.

Thank you again for listening, for leaving reviews, and for spreading the word about the podcast, and most of all for contacting me to let me know how much it means to you.

On behalf of Bea and Leah and Fitzwilliam Waffles, Orville, Wilbur, Zeb, Buzz, and everyone here, we wish you the very best of reading.  Have a fantastic weekend.

[happy music]