331. The Bitches Recap 2018 – Reading and Otherwise

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Sarah Wendell: Hi, there! Happy New Year, Happy Holidays, and welcome to episode number 331 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and today it is time for our recap of 2018. Amanda, Elyse, Redheadedgirl, and I are getting together to talk about reading and other things of 2018. Which books rocked our brains in the past year? Well, we cover a lot of books. I definitely did; I brought a list. We also talk a little bit about how we read. Some of us read and listened to a lot of books this year, and some of us moved away from digital to print reading. We talk about books that have stuck with us, novels and authors we were delighted to discover this year, and romances that we are still recommending – try to stop us; you can’t! Then we talk about how our reading tastes may have changed in the past twelve months. Did current events and political climate influence what romances we do or do not want to read? Have our tolerances for or against tropes and characters shifted? Spoiler alert: they really, really have.

Now, I have some content warnings and trigger warnings. So at around thirty-five minutes, twenty-four seconds [35:24], so roughly thirty-five and a half minutes into the episode, Redheadedgirl talks about Kavanaugh, the hearings, and about consent and assault. Then at around thirty-nine minutes [39:00] I talk about anti-Semitism, racism, the Tree of Life shootings in Pittsburgh, and about white supremacy.

I also want to note that I recorded this episode before I read the most recent Romance Writers Report, which is a publication of the Romance Writers of America. In this month’s issue, the December issue, is an article by Elizabeth Kingston titled “Reclaiming Historical Romance.” It is about the white supremacist version of history contained in historical romance, and it makes many of the points that I attempt to make much clearer. If you have the opportunity to read this article, please do; it is exceptional.

Now, what about you? What books rocked your brain this year? We want to know, because you know we want you to tell us, right? I mean, don’t be silly. You can email us at [email protected]. You can leave a message at 1-201-371-3272. Tell us what you’re reading; tell us what books you loved this year; tell me a bad joke, because that makes me really happy. Either way, I really like hearing from you!

One more thing: grab a small party hat. The very first episode of this podcast, way back in its original iteration was posted on December 30th, 2008, which means that as of December 30th, this podcast is ten. Years. Old. Ten! How is that even possible? We did take a break between 2009 and 2011, which is when I learned to do all of the production on my own, so it’s not exactly ten consecutive years, but wow. Ten years. That is amazing. And don’t worry, I’m going to celebrate again in August of 2021, because why not? [Laughs] But either way, thank you for being part of the podcast and hanging out with me for such a long time!

The podcast this week is brought to you by The Duke’s Suspicion by Susanna Craig. Set during the turn of the 19th century, Susanna Craig once again combines her signature blend of adventure and intrigue in her second Rogues & Rebels novel. Named for the heather in her native Ireland, botanist Erica Burke dreams of travel – somewhere she won’t be scorned for her scientific interests. Instead, a storm strands her with cool and commanding Major Tristan Laurens, the Duke of Raynham. English war hero and intelligence officer Tristan is being stalked by a spy who is after the military secrets he carries. Trapped by a dangerous storm with a daring and intelligent Irish beauty, Tristan begins to suspect that there may be more to Erica Burke than meets the eye. The close quarters give him a chance to investigate her coded journal, but he doesn’t count on her charms enticing him as well. The Duke’s Suspicion by Susanna Craig is on sale now wherever books are sold and at kensingtonbooks.com.

The transcript for this episode will be handcrafted by garlicknitter. Thank you, garlicknitter! [My pleasure! – gk] And the transcript is being brought to you by me, basically. I want to tell you about the new options we have for sponsoring this here podcast in 2019. For 2019, you can sponsor an episode or a month of episodes, or you can book an intro only or outro only spot. We have more options, lots of price ranges, because I like the options to be accessible to everyone. If you are interested, please email me at [email protected]. Your support keeps the site going and keeps the show going, and I am deeply grateful that we are still hanging out talking about romances every day.

At the end of this episode I will have information about the music you’re hearing and the links that we have, plus a preview of what’s coming up and a terrible joke, but for now, it is time to get started. Let’s look back at 2018. On with the podcast.

[music]

Sarah: So are you guys ready to recap reading for 2018?

Elyse: Sure!

Amanda: Yes.

Redheadedgirl: I’m going to do my best! [Laughs]

Sarah: Well, I mean, when we did this one last year, there was a lot of oh my God, this year is over fucking finally! I don’t have as much of that feeling this year?

Elyse: It feels like it’s been –

Redheadedgirl: No.

Elyse: – a really long year, though. Like –

Redheadedgirl: It was a really –

Sarah: It – yeah.

Redheadedgirl: Black Panther was this year.

Elyse: The Olympics happened this year.

Redheadedgirl: Yeah!

Sarah: Wait, seriously?

Redheadedgirl: Yeah, there were Olympics!

Sarah: Oh my God! Oh my –

Redheadedgirl: There were Olympics, and Black Panther happened.

Elyse: Yeah. It’s been a year.

Sarah: Has social media just completely destroyed my ability to tell how long something has been? Like, that happened on Twitter this morning is like saying, well, that was last year.

Elyse: Well, I think we just had a lot of crazy shit happen this year. Like, the amount of crazy shit that’s happened in the past two years is disproportionately high.

Redheadedgirl: It’s true.

Sarah: Yeah, I agree. So my first question for you guys is, which books rocked your brains in the past year? Who wants to go first?

Amanda: I can go.

Sarah: You memorized them?

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: Coated them with peanut butter?

Amanda: Yes.

Sarah: Okay, go for it.

Amanda: [Laughs] Sticking to the roof of my mouth.

Sarah: Excellent!

Amanda: So I have two, and the first one is obviously The Kiss Quotient, a surprise to no one. I can’t believe this book only came out this year, because I have read it three times.

Sarah: Three?!

Amanda: Yes, I have read it three times this year, which is perfectly –

Sarah: Wow.

Amanda: – unheard of for me, and –

Sarah: That is a rare thing.

Amanda: I know! And I wouldn’t, I was thinking about this earlier, and I believe I gave it an A, but I want to state that it’s not a perfect book, but it just gave me a perfect reading experience, if that makes any sense. There was –

Sarah: That makes total sense!

Amanda: I was completely absorbed, it gave me the happy sighs, and it gave me Good Book Noise. It’s pretty much the exact reading experience that I want as a romance reader. So that’s undoubtedly my favorite book that I have read this year, and I am so looking forward to the next book in the series, The Bride Test, which as of – what is today’s date? – December 5th, it will be out in May, I think, and I think it was originally slated for, like, two months previously, so the, the goalposts keep getting moved, and I’m very upset about it.

Sarah: Yeah, having to wait is a pain.

Amanda: I know! It sucks! And then the second and final book that I will mention – as someone who’s not a historical romance reader –

Redheadedgirl: God damn it –

Amanda: – I was completely –

Redheadedgirl: – you took one of mine.

Amanda: Oh, well, you know what? You should have gone first! But you didn’t.

Sarah: [Laughs] There’s nothing saying you both can’t squee about the same book.

[Laughter]

Amanda: A Notorious Vow was so good, and –

Sarah: You’re not a historical reader, so the fact that this made –

Amanda: Not anymore.

Sarah: – like, your best of the read, the best of the year is really cool.

Amanda: But it is so good, and this the first book I’ve ever read by Joanna Shupe, and because of that book, I went out – this is the third and final book in the Four Hundred series, I believe, and I went out and bought the previous two from my local bookstore after I finished that one. And it was just, it gave me all of the feels; it was beautiful. Yeah, I really loved it, and I’m excited that the next book, which is the beginning of another trilogy, I don’t remember the name of it, but it features, like, this kind of charming, man-about-town lawyer that we get introduced to in A Notorious Vow, so I’m so excited to have him be the hero of the next book. So that’s it!

Elyse: And the cover for that book is beautiful.

Amanda: I love the covers of her latest books. I think they’ve been doing a really good job with them.

Redheadedgirl: They really have.

Amanda: But those are my two.

Sarah: I feel terrible; I have, like, six?

[Laughter]

Sarah: Like, I was, like, I was trying to, like, winnow it down? [Laughs]

Elyse: I mean, it –

Sarah: I was like, oh, six is fine!

Elyse: No, that’s good!

Amanda: If you would rather have a list –

Elyse: That means you –

Amanda: – of the shit that I’ve read this year, that would be a longer list.

Redheadedgirl: [Laughs]

Sarah: I mean, if you want to, I guess, but that would be a very different podcast.

Redheadedgirl: I can go next, and – so these have to be books that were published in 2018?

Sarah: I think it’s fine if you read them in 2018?

Redheadedgirl: Okay, good! Good. [Laughs]

Sarah: I mean, ‘cause my, my position has always been, if you haven’t read it, it’s a new book.

Redheadedgirl: Right. All right, so the first one I’m going to talk about is Sherwood, which is a, a retelling of Robin Hood, only Robin of Locksley dies in the Crusades, so it’s Marian who becomes Robin Hood.

Sarah: Excellent premise. I support this idea.

Redheadedgirl: Yeah.

Sarah: I’d watch that TV show.

Redheadedgirl: Oh yeah, definitely. And it’s really well done in pulling a bunch of the threads from the various legends and weaving them together into a coherent story that has a satisfyingly, an emotionally satisfying end that does not involve, oops, he’s actually alive! Whoops!

Sarah: Surprise! A man is here to save you.

Redheadedgirl: Surprise! Nope, he is dead. He is dead. The real dead. So I really enjoyed that, and I’m also – and that’s, that isn’t out until March of 2019.

Sarah: So that’s actually a future book.

Redheadedgirl: That is a future book.

Sarah: Oooh.

Redheadedgirl: The other one is probably a future book too; I’m just checking real quick.

Sarah: We can save it for the section where we talk about what we’re looking forward to.

Redheadedgirl: Okay. Yeah, it’s not out until January. But at least it’s January!

Sarah: Yeah, that’s not bad.

Redheadedgirl and Sarah: Yeah.

Redheadedgirl: But it’s in the Dear Lady Truelove series by Laura Lee Guhrke, called Governess Gone Rogue, and it involves a woman who needs a job as a tutor, but she can’t get one as a woman, so she dresses up as a dude.

Sarah: As you do.

Redheadedgirl: As you do. And the, the inevitable reveal is hilariously done, and well done. But she is employed by an earl who has two incredibly troublemaking twin sons who, like, all of London knows that, that these two monsters are absolute destructo-machines, and they have managed to shed themselves of multiple nannies and three tutors before the heroine comes along and takes them in hand, and it’s awesome.

Sarah: Nice! Well, I have, I have some stuff from Carrie, who couldn’t join us at this point. So she wanted to make sure that we mentioned A Duke by Default by Alyssa Cole. She says that that book has sunk in and remained memorable a year after she read it, and it has stuck with her more than any other book she’s read. In other fiction, she really liked We Sold Our Souls by Grady Hendrix and also Horrorstör, which apparently she reads every time she goes to IKEA. [Laughs] Okay. There’s The Questionable Behavior of – I’m going to be able to say this – The Questionable Behavior of Dahlia Moss by Max Wirestone, which she read back in January and still makes her laugh, and that was a pretty popular review, too. And she also wanted to make sure that I mentioned that she got addicted to two television shows: Killing Eve and The Good Place.

Elyse: Killing Eve is so good. It’s so good. I’m going to make the –

Amanda: And The Good Place is also so good.

Elyse: Oh my.

Redheadedgirl: The Good Place is amazing.

Elyse: So –

Sarah: And it got renewed, too! That’s good news.

Redheadedgirl: It got renewed, which means that there will be a Stuff You Should Be Watching about it.

Sarah: Yay!

Elyse: Yeah, Killing Eve –

Redheadedgirl: ‘Cause you should be watching it.

Elyse: Killing Eve is about Sandra Oh, who works for British intelligence chasing a female assassin, and they kind of have this cat-and-mouse relationship. The assassin becomes really obsessed with Sandra Oh, and it’s just, it’s twisty and subversive –

Redheadedgirl: I mean, who wouldn’t?

Elyse: – and feminist. It’s really amazing.

Sarah: I don’t think it’s for me, but I’m glad that it exists?

Elyse: It’s definitely not for you. There’s a –

Sarah: Yeah. That’s the kind of show where it’s like, oh, I wish my brain could handle that, but it cannot.

Elyse: So the –

Amanda: Have you tried The Good Place, Sarah?

Sarah: I have not watched it yet. I am saving it for a long-ass plane ride, which I have very soon.

Amanda: I’m excited to know what you think.

[Laughter]

Elyse: There is a scene in Killing Eve where, so the, the character Sandra Oh plays is kind of like notoriously frumpy and just always running late for everything and doesn’t have very good fashion sense, and the female assassin breaks into her house, and so they’re having this just incredibly intense encounter, and she thinks she’s going to be killed. And the assassin looks at her, and she’s like, what is, what is that shirt? And it’s one of those sweaters that has, like, the collar sewn into it so it looks like you have another shirt on under it but you don’t? And so they stop –

Sarah: Yeah.

Elyse: – this, like, terrifying encounter, and the assassin’s like, so is that, like, is that two shirts, or is that just, is that one shirt? Like, no, it’s, it’s just the one shirt.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Elyse: So it’s, it’s, that’s sewn in there. That’s, like, one shirt that you’re wearing. I mean, it’s just, like, super bizarre and funny and wonderful.

Redheadedgirl: I saw somebody describe Killing Eve as using clothes the way Hannibal used food.

Elyse: Yes.

Sarah: Ohhh –

Elyse: Yes.

Sarah: – that’s cool!

Elyse: Yes, and there’s, like, a really, one of the earlier episodes, it’s really creepy because when Sandra Oh’s character come home from an assignment they were on looking for this woman, she thinks that she got the wrong suitcase because she opens it up and there’s all this really beautiful clothing in there, and she finds a note from the assassin that she bought her clothes because she likes Sandra Oh and is intrigued that she’s chasing her, and so she got a hold of her suitcase somehow, filled it full of really expensive stuff, and Sandra Oh never knew.

Sarah: Okay, that’s both really seductive and really creepy.

Elyse: Yes, and that’s like the line, it, it, it dances on that line really, really well, where it’s –

Sarah: Whoa.

Elyse: And, and there is kind of like a, a sexual tension going on between them, which I think is really intriguing too.

Sarah: This is the kind of show that I am going to watch entirely –

Elyse: On Tumblr?

Sarah: – in GIF sets.

Redheadedgirl: [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah, I’m going to watch it in GIF sets, and I’m going to be like, this is a great romance, like that show with the guy from Pride and Prejudice and Colin Edge-, no, is it Colin Egerton? Colin Firth and Taron Egerton. He wears track suits, and they kill lots of people, but really it’s a bromance?

Elyse: Oh, yeah, yeah.

Redheadedgirl: Oh, Kingsman.

Sarah: Yeah! Kingsman is totally a romance, as far as I’ve seen. There’s lots of longing, lots of gazing. I know he apparently kills a whole bunch of people, but those aren’t the GIFs that I watched. [Laughs] Okay. Elyse, you want to go?

Elyse: Yeah!

Sarah: I want to know what you liked this year, ‘cause I bet that we have overlap, ‘cause I, I was working on my list, and I was like, I know Elyse is going to want to mention this one, and I know Elyse is going to mention that one.

Elyse: So I found a couple authors this year that I really like, which is exciting, ‘cause then you have backlist? I actually read it in –

Sarah: Isn’t that the best?

Elyse: I actually read it in 2017 after we recorded our last podcast, so I’m counting it for this year. You convinced me to read Act Like It by Lucy Parker, and now I need all of the other books in this series right now. Oh my, I probably read that book three times now –

Sarah: So, so good!

Elyse: – and it, it’s just, it’s so good. That whole series is so good! And she wrote, like, she writes, like, little stories about them on her website, her characters?

Sarah: I know!

Elyse: It’s fake dating, which is trope-y, and I love it, and it’s got a grumpy hero who may or may not look exactly like Richard Armitage – I think that’s kind of up for debate –

Sarah: Right.

Elyse: – and it’s hilarious and sweet and just, oh my God, her writing is so good. It’s so good! So good. So I found her.

Sarah: It’s so good.

Elyse: I found Talia Hibbert, who is amazing. First of all, that, that woman churns out books like nobody’s business. Like, holy crap.

Sarah: And she is so fluent in tropes!

Elyse: And her books are trope-y and they’re funny, but she has these really sexy heroes who straddle the line of being kind of dominant, but at the same time really respectful and understand consent and boundaries, and they’re not douche-y at all? And her heroines are just absolutely, they’re fierce, and they’re unapologetic, and they’re curvy, and they have stretch marks, and I just, I love it! I absolutely love her books; they’re so good.

Sarah: Yeah.

Elyse: And then I found an author called Sarah Maine who writes Gothic mysteries, and I read her book Women of the Dunes, which is about a skeleton that is found on an estate. They’re excavating kind of this beach area, looking for historical artifacts, and they find a more recent skeleton. And so she’s got a backlist of Gothic mysteries that I’m very excited about too.

Sarah: Ooh! So this is, the, the thriller end of your reading spectrum.

Elyse: Her books, they, they’re on the thriller end, but they’re not gory, they’re not scary? So it’s kind of like a, she, she does definitely a Gothic vibe, but there’s not a lot of violence, and there’s a jump between present day and past day too, so I think A Woman in the Dunes or Women of the Dunes takes place in the modern era, kind of the late Victorian period, and then we go all the way back to kind of when the Vikings were raiding the shores of Great Britain, so it’s got a, a historical element to it too that’s really enjoyable.

Sarah: Oh, this is the one that’s sort of like a little bit of –

Elyse: Yes.

Sarah: – kind of time-slippy? Yeah, that’s right.

Elyse: I think if you like Susanna Kearsley, you’ll really like Sarah Maine.

Sarah: Yeah. There’s definitely room for more of the Kearsley style, where it’s sort of atmospheric and, and there’s a mythology or a, or a paranormal element, and there’s, there’s parallel timelines or characters moving through time. There’s a lot – I’m, I’m here for that.

Elyse: And there’s a, there’s a romance element to her books too, and it’s kind of got the Gothic hero where we never get his point of view, we only get the heroine’s, and he’s a little bit dark and mysterious and, you know.

Sarah: In Women of the Dunes?

Elyse: Right, yeah, and kind of –

Sarah: Yeah.

Elyse: – you know, tromps around broodingly.

Sarah: Aw. Well, I, I know that’s your catnip.

Elyse: Oh, totally.

Sarah: [Laughs] Okay, so I have a list in three parts. I’m sorry. The first thing that I did this year was I read so many romantic mysteries, because there are so many good ones. Like, I feel like I found this genre at the exact right time? So there’s the Jennifer Ashley Kat Holloway series, which started in December with Death Below Stairs and then Scandal Above Stairs, and then there’s also a short story, “A Soupçon of Poison.” Then there’s Sherry Thomas’s Charlotte Holmes series, which the newest one just came out a month or two ago, and then there’s Darcy Wilde’s Rosalind Thorne series, which starts with A Useless – a useless, no – A Useful, A Useful Woman. I loved this book, and I love the interview I did with the author, because she has done a lot of research about the presence of marginalized people and people of color in the Regency, and they’re all in her book, and it was fascinating to listen to her explain so much of the history that she built. So when you have marginalized people and you have women working above or below stairs, or you have people who are, like Charlotte, who are just on the edge of society, all of these series, I realized as I was writing this down, have in common the idea that the heroine is doing as much as possible to manage and own her own life as possible, often in a very constrained circumstance, and I love that theme. I love it so much, and I love the idea that there’s a mystery and a puzzle, and she’s going to figure it out? I didn’t realize this was a weakness of mine, but apparently I really enjoy it, ‘cause I read a lot of it. When I went back over my stats for the past year, I read a lot of historical mysteries looking for the ones that I like that had women in positions of increasing agency.

Elyse: Have you read the Molly Murphy series by Rhys Bowen?

Sarah: No; I am currently reading the Evan, Constable Evans series by Rhys Bowen, and I have read the Royal Spyness books, one and two I think I’ve read from her, but I have not read the Molly series.

Elyse: The Molly series is so good, and it’s about a woman who comes over from Ireland. Her English landowner – they’re, like, tenant farmers – his adult son tries to rape her, and in the struggle she kills him, and she knows that, okay, this is not going to end well for me because I’m a poor Irish person, he’s English aristocracy, so she assumes a fake name, basically, and comes to the US through Ellis Island, and on the, the voyage over, someone is killed, and she gets involved in solving the mystery when they get to New York, but her books on Audible, the narrator is so, so good. I, it’s, it’s, like, hard to describe how immersive they get just because of this narrator’s voice and all of the, the way she distinguishes between the different characters, and it’s just, it’s really wonderful. And then there’s this portion of it too where she’s coming over as an immigrant and, you know, trying to establish herself, to find work, to find community connections, because she really was on the run. She didn’t come over here with, you know, anyone.

Sarah: Family or anyone.

Elyse: Right, right. She’s on, really on her own. So those, I think you’d really like that series.

Sarah: The narrator for that is Nicola Barber, and I’ve listened to other things that she’s narrated. It’s funny you should mention the audiobooks, because I have been slowly working through Rhys Bowen’s Constable Evans series, and I’m, there are some elements – I have a review going up later this month – there are some elements that I’m finding extremely frustrating. Like, this guy is an idiot with women, and the relationships with women don’t progress in a way that makes any sense, and it’s very frustrating. But the narrator, it’s set in rural Wales; there’s Welsh dialect in the story; there’s different accents that, you know, depict who’s talking; and the narrator does such a good job. I enjoy listening to them so much, even though the characterization sometimes drives me nuts. I love the, the narrator. It’s really amazing how a good narrator can keep you going through a book that otherwise you would have been like, yeah, I’m going to move on now.

Elyse: I have issues sometimes with narrators when they’re really, really good, that I can’t listen to the audiobook in the car because I get too involved in what I’m listening to and I’m not paying good enough attention to my surroundings if I’m driving.

Sarah: And surprise! You’re in Canada.

Elyse: Right.

Redheadedgirl: Or you’re dead.

Sarah: Or you’re dead. I did that. I remember listening to Mary, Queen of Scots driving between Pittsburgh and Columbia, South Carolina, and there’s a shortcut to avoid going through a large part of West Virginia, and I completely missed the shortcut and stayed on the highway and added an extra hour to my trip. Didn’t care; it was great. There was a good Waffle House on that trip, too.

Elyse: So, sorry, I interrupted you.

Sarah: No, I, I took notes, because the way in which I keep my hands busy not working is by cross stitching. I realized this year that if I keep my hands busy doing something that isn’t typing or writing, it forces me to turn my brain off, ‘cause I really like writing, and I really like using the computer, but if I don’t take a break from it, my brain gets very tired, and I really do much better when I am listening to something that I’m enjoying and, while I’m cross stitching, but I can’t, I can’t do well with romance audiobooks because (a) I’m listening to them on a speaker, and when they get to a sex scene I start, like, hitting the speaker really fast if everyone’s home, but I don’t like being read a sex scene. I don’t, having them, I don’t like having them read aloud to me. Do you guys ever have that problem, or is this just me?

Amanda: It’s an adjustment period for me, when I started reading, listening to audio.

Redheadedgirl: I don’t really do audiobooks?

Sarah: Mm.

Redheadedgirl: Partially because I, I don’t, I don’t need that in my ears.

Elyse: I have an issue with male narrators of audiobooks, because I’m at the point now where I’m so fucking done with men telling me things that even if they’re reading a book written by a woman –

[Laughter]

Elyse: – even if they’re reading a book written by a woman, like, I just have this visceral reaction. I’ve been listening to Alexandra Ivy’s mystery series, and there was, like, a line and the male narrator’s like, he was the kind of man that turned heads or whatever, and I’m like, how the fuck would you know? You don’t fucking know what I want! You don’t get to tell me about the female gaze! And I’m like, oh, wait, Alexandra Ivy wrote that. You can chill, Elyse. My automatic reaction is just like, shut the fuck up! Nobody cares what you think!

Sarah: [Laughs] Well, speaking of books that I both read and listened to, I read Jane Doe by Victoria Helen Stone in one day, and then I read it again, and then I listened to it, and I love this book so much I’m afraid to read it again, because I’m afraid that the joy of vicariously watching this character burn down terrible men is going to start to wear off and be less effective, and I need the potency to remain. I love this story so much.

Elyse: It is so –

Sarah: I had no idea, I had no idea how much I would enjoy being in the head of a sociopath, but she’s getting revenge on a, on someone who abused a friend of hers, and it’s so enjoyable!

Elyse: It, it was the book that encapsulated, I think, a lot of female anger in 2018.

Sarah: Yeah. It was a narrative. It was like, are you mad? You’re going to – here, let me prescribe this. I’ll see you in a week. And the audiobook is so good, so good, ‘cause that narrator has this sort of hardness to her voice, and so you get the, you get the impression, you get, you get the understanding that when she’s narrating the story versus when she’s acting to the characters who are, who are part of her revenge plot, you can hear the difference. It’s so, so well done.

The other one that I have I think that we will have in common – there’s two, actually that I think we’ll have in common, Elyse – is Mating the Huntress by Talia Hibbert, which reminded me how much fun paranormal romances can be?

Elyse: Yes, that was such a good one.

Sarah: Wasn’t it fun?

Elyse: It was, it was really, really fun, yeah! And it was, like, kind of vicious, but in a very cathartic way.

Sarah: Yeah! Yeah, and it reminded me how much fun it is to read a heroine who is unabashedly bloodthirsty and a hero who’s like, yeah, okay, that’s fine.

Elyse: Right, I’ll hold, I’ll hold your purse for you.

Sarah: Yeah, is there anything stained? I can put it in to soak. [Laughs]

Elyse: Right.

Sarah: And then the third one was The Phantom Tree by Nicola Cornick. I was so absorbed in this book, and I still think about those characters like they’re still walking around in my brain, which is a rare thing; usually I forget pretty quickly. Has that book stuck with you too, Elyse?

Elyse: I don’t think it stuck with me as much as it stuck with you, but I think I read more historical fiction than you do.

Sarah: Yes, that’s probably true. I loved that book. And then the last one I really enjoyed was Hot and Badgered by Shelly Laurenston, which was the first of the Honey Badger series? I admit, when I got an email from the publicity department at Kensington like, yeah, her next one is going to be honey badger shifters, and I was like –

Redheadedgirl: [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah. That was, that’s pretty much it. Like, wait, wait, for real? Like, honey badgers? And in, in anyone else’s hands I would have thought, okay, this is going to be gimmicky, and it’s, you know, going to be very – it’s going to have the depth of the YouTube video about how the honey badger doesn’t give a shit? No, I should have, I should have had more faith, because the, the book, the books that she writes about circles of women always end up with a question for the reader, at least they do for me as the reader. So when I read the Call of Crows series, I had to ask myself, okay, who are my sister Crows? Who are the women who I depend on, who will always have my back, even with somebody, you know, somebody needs to die? Okay, fine, I understand; let’s go kill him.

Elyse: We’ll get a tarp and some lye.

Sarah: With the Hot and Badgered – right, yeah! We, everyone knows, everyone knows who their Crows are, and if you don’t have them then you want to figure out who they are. With the honey badgers, the question I ended up with was, what am I giving a shit about that I really don’t need to give a shit about? Because I think one of the thing that, one of the things that happens, I think, when you have a lot of anger that you’re trying to manage is that, you know, women are not allowed to express their anger publicly, ‘cause we’re hysterical or it’s inappropriate or we’re crazy or we’re, you know, having that special time or whatever. We’re not allowed to express our anger, but when you see anger portrayed, especially on the part of the heroines, and – [laughs] – Amanda and I recorded a reader and listener response podcast, and somebody totally asked me, how is that you can read all these Laurenston books and they’re so violent, but you can’t read anything else that’s violent? And I couldn’t figure it out. I think it’s because it’s the heroines who create the violence, and they have really good reasons? And it’s so campy I know it’s fantasy; it’s not viscerally real for me. It’s, it’s like a humorous fantasy level? But I love asking myself, okay, so what are you giving a shit about that you don’t need to give a shit about?

Which brings me to my short list of nonfiction that I read this year that I loved, which includes We’re Going to Need More Wine by Gabrielle Union – that book was an amazing memoir – So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo, and then the other one was The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck by Sarah Knight. Those are the nonfiction titles that I really enjoyed this year, and I’m extremely grateful to my library for having all of them digitally so that I could read and then renew when I wanted to read them again.

So this leads me to my next question, and I know this is true, I know this is true for you, Redheadedgirl.

Redheadedgirl: Yeah.

Sarah: How have your reading tastes shifted in the past year, if they have? And I know yours have, so I wanted to ask you specifically about this, about this topic.

Redheadedgirl: There is a line, and that line was at some point in October. And that line is the Kavanaugh hearings.

Sarah: It’s the Kavanaugh line?

[Laughter]

Sarah: Yeah, the Kavanaugh line.

Redheadedgirl: It’s the Kavanaugh line, and there was something that I reviewed that I was like, I read this post Kavanaugh, and I think I would have a very different reaction if I’d read it pre Kavanaugh, but I didn’t, so fuck everything.

Sarah: Yep.

Redheadedgirl: And there was another book that I read it pre Kavanaugh and reviewed it post Kavanaugh? And I was like, if I had been reading this post Kavanaugh, I think there would be holes in my wall, and my Kindle would be dead. So my tolerance for heroes that are violent asshole men who don’t understand consent and don’t care is gone. It was not that high to begin with pre Kavanaugh –

Sarah: Right.

Redheadedgirl: – but now it’s just like, no, I’m not, I’m not here for it; I don’t want it; everybody can go fuck themselves. The wine is taking hold, and I haven’t had dinner yet.

[Laughter]

Sarah: So the idea that a, that, that there is any question of not understanding consent or consent being a gray area, you have exactly zero tolerance now –

Redheadedgirl: Yep.

Sarah: – for any questionable consent.

Redheadedgirl: Yep.

Sarah: What forms does that take in, in, in some books that you’ve encountered?

Redheadedgirl: Well, like, Lily and the Major, which, I mean, it’s, it’s Old School. That’s, that’s what it, that’s what it was. There was a lot of, the heroine was like, I don’t want this, and he would go, oh yes, you do. You’re all wet for me, I can tell.

Sarah: Ooh, gross!

Redheadedgirl: Yes.

Sarah: Yeah, I’m – no.

Redheadedgirl: And, and she would go, well, okay. I guess the truth is, I don’t want to want this. But I do.

Sarah: Still not okay!

Redheadedgirl: Still not okay! Like, none, none of that book was okay. None of it.

Sarah: And that’s an older one, isn’t it?

Redheadedgirl: Yeah, it was 1990-ish.

Sarah: It’s a long time ago.

Redheadedgirl: Yeah. I mean, like, like I said in the review, things have changed in what we expect from, from stories and what we will put up with in our heroes. Like, publishing has changed; the genre has changed. The reader who used to be thirteen when she read that book the first time has changed a lot!

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elyse: I noticed, you know, even starting in the beginning of this year, that I’m struggling a lot more with historical romance, because –

Sarah: Oh my gosh, that was my answer too! Why are you struggling?

Elyse: The power, I, I can’t accept the power dynamic being different between the hero and the heroine anymore, and –

Sarah: Oh!

Elyse: – too, and I think so many books the, the heroine is not on even footing with the hero because of, you know, you know, who she is, whether – she’s a woman, right? And an unmarried woman, and so any kind of element of manipulation or dishonesty or anything like that in the plot really, really upsets me, and I’m just over heroes who have to be, heroes who have to be educated by the heroine. It’s her job to teach him how to be a better person, and I’m just, I’m sick of it. You know, I read a Lorraine Heath book in the very beginning of the year that I think in the past I would have been accepting of the fact that the hero is deceiving the heroine. He has reasons why he’s doing that. I think his reasons, people, I can see why people would say, okay, maybe it’s justified, but I was just like, nope. It’s not okay. Lying to women is not okay. You know, you’re potentially going to ruin her reputation: fuck you, dude.

Sarah: And the, the stakes are higher for her than they are for him.

Elyse: Right, because I think, you know, in a contemporary romance where you have some element of deception, it’s still not great, but it’s not going to potentially ruin your entire life.

Sarah: Yeah. It’s much more precarious setting. I always struggled with deception plots because there’s a point at which, there’s a point at which the deception continues long enough that you’re, you’re just prolonging it for no good reason, and you need to ‘fess up, and it’s just going to make such a mess that there’s not enough room to clean it up.

Elyse: Right.

Sarah: You’re not going to trust that person the longer they keep the secret. When the power dynamic –

Redheadedgirl: Right.

Sarah: – is that, is that offset, yeah, that’s really hard.

Redheadedgirl: Yeah, and if the deception is not revealed before they have sex the first time?

Elyse: Yes.

Sarah: Oh yeah, that’s a big one.

Redheadedgirl: That’s a huge one.

Elyse: Yes.

Sarah: Yeah.

Elyse: And even – I read a Maya Rodale, I think it was Duchess by Design, and I really liked the book, but so much of the heroine’s responsibility was teaching the hero about his privilege that I’m just kind of exhausted by women having to teach men about privilege.

Sarah: Yeah, when it’s her job to level him up, that’s exhausting.

Elyse: And then, I mean, the other thing with historical – it’s a problem across all romance, but I’m noticing it more and more with the historicals I read – is just the whitewashing of history.

Sarah: That’s my problem.

Elyse: Yeah.

Sarah: That’s my problem. And you know how, you know, everyone has a line where they’re like, okay! My opinion is completely changed on this, on this one. For me, it was the Tree of Life shooting in Pittsburgh. That was Adam’s family’s synagogue in Pittsburgh. I was in weddings there. My sisters-in-law had their bat mitzvot there. That was their synagogue, and I am extremely, now, more than I was before, intolerant of the racist, white supremacist version of history that is propagated in historical romance, and I, and I struggle with it when a book is all white, because as a – I sent a book to a friend of mine in South Carolina that was set in a small town in South Carolina, and she’s like, you know, I’m really enjoying this, but everyone in this book is white, and if there’s a small town in the South that’s all white, there’s a reason for that, and that reason isn’t good.

Redheadedgirl: Hmm.

Sarah: And, and then in the next book there was one Black person, and she, and you know, she was reading the second one. She’s like, it, this isn’t helping. This is really not good at all. I’m worried about that person now. And with an all-white, so in an all-white historical, particularly in London, I look at the racist version of history that is being published and re-published, and I just, I can’t tolerate it anymore. And for example, given how much Georgette Heyer influenced the Regency genre, the, the genre of Regency romance, so much of it was influenced by her writing, and she was hella anti-Semitic and racist. The, the way in which the erasure of marginalized people and the publication of white supremacy continues unquestioned, I, I can’t participate anymore. I think it’s like a wealth, white, white supremacist wealth fantasy with pretty dresses, and I, I can’t read it anymore without being really angry and uncomfortable and, like, almost sick to my stomach. I have read historicals that are set in those time periods in places like London or in other parts of England or in other parts of the world, and they had people of color and people who thrived, and I just, I cannot accept the idea that the history was all white, because that’s threatening to me and to people I love, and I’m not okay with it anymore.

I also would like more emotionally fluent heroes? It’s not even just consent. I want, I want people who, in romances, who are comfortable having feelings! And that having a feeling isn’t like the worst thing that’s ever happened to them. The books I enjoyed the most this year were books where people had a lot of shit going on in their lives and – in any time period – and had to make room for something else, like an, a person that they liked or a, or a thing that they needed to do, and it’s not the most dramatic or glamorous setup and, like, nobody died and there weren’t entrails, but that was very comforting for me because it was normal people experiencing normal stuff, and I’m really not interested in reading about the emotionally constipated anymore.

Elyse: Yeah.

Sarah: Like, that was never my thing, but now it’s really not my thing. Amanda, have your tastes changed at all?

Amanda: I wouldn’t say my tastes have changed necessarily, but my bar to where I, like, nope out of something has significantly lowered. I have no problem putting a book down anymore. Like, you know, there are some readers who will push through and hate read, or you know, they just have to finish the book, whereas I have no problem setting a book aside or taking it back to the library or just, like, knocking it off my TBR pile in general. If I hear something and I know it’s not going to work for me or, like, I’m not into it in the first fifty to seventy-five pages, or if something questionable happens that I’m not cool with, so I’ve noticed that I quit books a lot more frequently if I am not getting any sort of like reading fulfillment out of it?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: But this also goes back to the several podcast episodes we’ve done on why I kept reading that, like, horrible space misogyny series –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: – and I’m still going through with it! So –

Sarah: Space misogyny!

[Laughter]

Amanda: So clearly I’m getting something out of it, but I have, like, stopped reading or quit books a lot more frequently lately, I’ve noticed.

Sarah: And also, there’s just, there’s just so many books to choose from! Like, you can deep dive into any subgenre at this point. There is so much, which is both wonderful and also overwhelming, but it means that I’m like, yeah, this isn’t working for me; moving on! I’ve got a lot of books and not a lot of time. [Laughs] That’s a lot of books!

I do have some from Carrie, information from Carrie. She wrote that this year she was looking for empowerment, diversity, and hope and gravitated towards things with either a lot of humor or a lot of violence or both. She was less interested in a specific genre and more interested in getting some or all of those ingredients and wanted a happy or hopeful ending, regardless of genre. And she also says that she’s much more demanding. She used to finish every book, and now she’ll toss it aside if it doesn’t grab her within the first chapter or two. She wants all genres and subgenres to, in, in those genres, to find stories about diverse characters that are cathartic and give her hope, and she doesn’t have any patience for anything bland.

Yeah, I can see that. I used to think that having all of these ebooks would be, like, the greatest thing ever. It’s actually harder sometimes for me to find a book that I want to stick with, because there are so many books to choose from.

Amanda: I’ve noticed that my digital reading has significantly gone down?

Sarah: Really!

Amanda: Yeah! And I think it’s because there’s just so much on my Kindle or on my iPad that having to go through it and pick something seems like such a chore.

Sarah: Wow! So just looking –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – at the, the library is overwhelming!

Amanda: Yeah, and I’m like, ugh, I don’t want to, I was like, I don’t remember when I bought this one; I can’t remember what this one’s about; when did I pick this one up?

Sarah: Yep.

Amanda: And then I’m just like, pass. I’m just shutting this off and finding something that’s on my nightstand.

Elyse: I get that. And I buy books based on cover, or remember books based on covers, so when they change the cover to, what is this? That’s very upsetting!

Sarah: [Laughs] The cover has changed! I do not recognize this. It’s like when they cast a new actor in a show, and they’re like, yeah, that’s Dave. No it’s not!

[music]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this episode, but this is part one of a two-parter. So this week we looked back at 2018; next week we will look ahead to what’s coming out in 2019, and Carrie will join us. She couldn’t make it for the first part of the recording, but she joins in at exactly the right time as we start looking ahead to 2019. You will find that episode next week. I hope that you will watch for it, ‘cause it’s really fun to do these!

Now, if you would like to tell us what books rocked your world this year, you know that we want you to tell us, right? I mean, that’s silly; of course we do! Email us at [email protected] or leave a message at 1-201-371-3272. We love hearing from you, and I would love to know what books really made you happy this year, and I hope you will take a moment to tell us!

This week’s podcast is brought to you by The Duke’s Suspicion by Susanna Craig. Set during the turn of the 19th century, Susanna Craig once again combines her signature blend of adventure and intrigue in her second Rogues & Rebels novel. Named for the heather in her native Ireland, botanist Erica Burke dreams of travel – somewhere she won’t be scorned for her scientific interests. Instead, a storm strands her with cool and commanding Major Tristan Laurens, the new Duke of Raynham. English war hero and intelligence officer Tristan is being stalked by a spy who is after the military secrets he carries. Trapped by a dangerous storm with a daring and intelligent Irish beauty, Tristan begins to suspect there may be more to Erica Burke than meets the eye. The close quarters give him a chance to investigate her coded journal, but he doesn’t count on her charms enticing him as well. The Duke’s Suspicion by Susanna Craig is on sale now wherever books are sold and at kensingtonbooks.com.

The transcript for this episode is brought to you by all of the new options we have for supporting this here podcast. You can sponsor an episode, a month of episodes, or you can book the intro or outro only to talk about a book or option or sale or service or your new business, whatever; we can figure it out. If you are interested in learning more, please email me at [email protected].

And if you have supported the show with a monthly pledge of any amount at our Patreon, thank you very, very much. You are helping me ensure that every episode has a transcript, and you keep the show going each week. Thank you for that. If you would like to join the Patreon community, you can absolutely do that! Monthly pledges start at one dollar a month, and you will be part of the group who helps me develop questions for upcoming interviews and suggests guests for upcoming shows as well. Have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches.

The music you are listening to is provided by Sassy Outwater. This is Deviations Project, and this is, of course, Adeste Fiddles. This is “Here We Come a Wassailing.” Wa-sail-ing. Woss-uh-ling. It’s Woss-uh-ling, right? Yeah. Either way, you can find this album at Amazon, and you can find Deviations Projects at their website, deviationsproject.com.

Coming up this week on Smart Bitches, we have reviews of romances, reviews of movies, and a review of an audiobook series that I have attempted to review. It is tricky when I really like the narration, but the story itself has issues. I wonder if you’ve ever had that problem. You ever had that problem? I find it happens a lot with a series. We also have Lightning Reviews, Cover Snark, and hot diggety, it is the first of the month, so of course we have Hide Your Wallet. Hide Your Wallet is almost as dangerous as Whatcha Reading, because we talk about all the books we’re anticipating this month, and then we learn about more books that we want to read, and no one has any impulse control at all. Nope. Not a bit. Plus Help a Bitch Out and Books on Sale, so as always, I hope you will stop by and hang out with us.

And now it is time for a terrible joke, because we should always end the year with terrible jokes and start the year with more terrible jokes, because seriously, this makes me so happy! Okay. Are you ready? Are you sure? This one’s really bad! Okay.

Did you hear about the mom whose daughter was playing with a computer, broke off the R button, and ate it? It’s true! She did! Broke off the R button and ate it.

Why?

She craves anarchy.

An R key! [Laughs] She craves an R key. Anarchy! It’s so stupid! [Laughs more] That was from coot32 on Reddit and – [still laughing] – ‘cause she craves anarchy! She craves an R key! You know the person who thought that joke up just, like, had this look of wonder on their face at what they’d just done. [More laughing] R key. All right. [Clears throat] I’m going to pull myself together.

I will have links to many of the things we talked about and, of course, all of the books and things that we mention in this episode, and I hope you will join us next week for our look ahead at 2019!

But until then, on behalf of everyone here, have a wonderful holiday. Happy New Year. We will see you back here next week.

[joyful music]