332. The Bitches Look Ahead to 2019

[music]

Sarah Wendell: Hello, Happy New Year, and welcome to episode number 332 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and with me today are Amanda, Elyse, Redheadedgirl, and Carrie! We are gathering for the second part of our end-of-year episode. We’re going to look ahead to 2019. We talk about what we want to see more of in our reading and what we’re looking forward to most, including books, comics, TV shows, and more. Among the things we mention in our wish list: catharsis, humor, hopefulness, smuggling, glorious sci-fi romance, alpha heroines, and warriors. And then we talk about what books we are most excited about in 2019. Prepare for a lot of book mentions and the possibility of more titles being added to your TBR. Don’t worry; we will put all of the books in the show notes, and we’re sorry – sort of – in advance.

But what about you? What books are you looking forward to most? What is on your wish list this year? We want to know! You should totally tell us.  You can email us [email protected], or you can leave a message at 1-201-371-3272. Tell us what you’re looking forward to, what book you’re anticipating most, or just tell me a terrible joke; you know how much I love those. Either way, we love hearing from you.

This podcast episode is brought to you by everyone who has supported the podcast Patreon. If you have supported the show with a monthly pledge of any amount, thank you very, very much. You are helping me make sure that the show continues, you are helping me transcribe every episode, and you’re making every episode accessible to everyone, which is very important to me and the many readers and listeners who enjoy the podcast, so thank you!

If you would like to join the Patreon community, have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches; that’s patreon.com/SmartBitches. Monthly pledges start at one dollar per month, and you will be part of the group who not only keeps the show going but also helps me develop questions and suggests guests for new episodes as well. You can have a peek again at patreon.com/SmartBitches.

And are there other ways to support the podcasts that you love? Absolutely! Leave a review wherever you listen, especially if you listen on Apple Podcasts or Google Play, Stitcher, Pocket Casts – there’s another one I’m thinking of that is a podcatcher that is popular. Google Podcasts? I think Podbean went out of business. There used to be one called Podcast Pickle? Either way, however you listen, if you leave a review, that helps other people find the show. Thank you very, very much for listening. I’m honored to be in the new year with you!

The transcript for this episode will be hand compiled and personally crafted by garlicknitter. Thank you, garlicknitter! Happy New Year! [You’re welcome, and Happy New Year to you and all the podcast transcript fans! – gk]

If you would like to find out about sponsoring an episode or a transcript you can email me at [email protected]. For 2019, not only can you sponsor an episode or a month of episodes of the show, but you can book an intro only or outro only mention. We have a lot of options, a lot of price ranges, and just like the advertising at Smart Bitches, I want the options to be accessible to everyone, so if you’re curious, if you have a book coming out this year, if you have a sale to promote, you want to tell the entire internet about the things you love, please let me know! Sarah, S-A-R-A-H, at smartbitchestrashybooks.com.

I have a compliment. This makes my year so much better!

To Jennie C.: Whenever a baker develops a new pastry design or technique, you are part of the inspiration for it every time, especially the ones that end up going viral online.

If you would like a compliment, they are one of the reward tiers at Patreon: patreon.com/SmartBitches. Have a peek; take a look. I love doing compliments, so, you know, don’t be shy!

After the show, I will have information about the music you are listening to, and I will have a preview of what is coming up on Smart Bitches, and I will, of course, end with a truly terrible joke. This one was listener-submitted, because you are all the greatest. I will also have links in the show notes about all of the things that we talk about and, of course, all of the books that we mention in this episode. I will warn you, there are a lot. It’s, it’s quite a list. I’m, I’m, added a lot of things to my TBR after we recorded this episode. Every one of us is a dangerous person to know, I swear.

But let’s not delay any further. It’s a new year – let us start talking about all the things that we are looking forward to. On with the podcast.

[music]

Sarah: All right, are you ready to talk about 2019?

Carrie: Hi, guys!

Sarah: All right.

Everybody: Hi, Carrie!

Sarah: Hi, Carrie! How ya doing?

Carrie: Hi! I just got on!

Redheadedgirl: Your timing is impeccable!

Sarah: Yeah, we’re just about to start talking about our 2019 things we’re looking forward to.

Carrie: Awesome!

Sarah: And what we want more of.

Carrie: Cool!

Sarah: So do you want to go first and talk about what, what you want in 2019 and what you are looking forward to? Are there any specific books that you, like, have on your list?

Carrie: Let’s see. I cannot think if I – in, in, like, two minutes I can tell you what books I have on my list, ‘cause I’ll look at my calendar and see what’s coming up. But I do know that in general, I would like more diversity in general, and specifically, I would like to see, across genre, more characters with disability. I feel like we are making some strides in terms of LGBTQIA representation, and I feel like we’re making some strides in terms of race and ethnicity, but I still don’t see very many disabled characters. And I also, in historicals, would like to see more class diversity. I, I, I don’t need more dukes. I’ve read about a lot of dukes. I think we could branch out. And I’d like to see –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Carrie: Yes, there’s other people! And I also would love to see more historicals that take advantage of different historical periods than the Regency and Victorian England, even though I love those. I will never stop reading my English Regencies and my English Victorians, but you know, there is more than one country, and even more than two, ‘cause if they’re not in England, they’re in America. And there’s also more than two time periods in history, and I think that we could, you know, explore those and tell some new stories.

Sarah: What?!

Carrie: I know! It’s crazy, right?!

Sarah: That’s just astonishing.

Carrie: So that is, I would say that’s my big wish list. And then I’m looking for the same things, really, in 2019 that I looked for in 2018, which is a lot of humor; a lot of catharsis, like emotional catharsis; and some sort of hopeful quality. It doesn’t have to have – well, if it’s romance it has to have a happy ending; if it’s a different genre, ‘cause you guys know I read, like, every possible genre I can find, it doesn’t always have to have a happy ending if that’s not appropriate for the genre and the story, but I want it to have some sort of hopeful quality, not just, and then everybody died!

Sarah: Yeah.

Carrie: – depressing, you know. Give me something.

Sarah: Yeah.

Carrie: Yeah.

Sarah: I did notice this year that you were really exploring more inspirational romances and romances that are published by houses that specialize in both contemporary Christian and inspirational historicals, which I found really interesting, but I also understand why, because there’s women doing neat stuff in a lot of those books.

Carrie: Yeah, it’s, it’s, I’m an atheist, and actually, technically I’m a, an Atheopagan, but that’s, like, hard to explain. It basically means I’m a very hippy atheist.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Carrie: Right? You can pry my crystals out of my skeptical hands, ‘cause they’re pretty! Okay? They’re pretty!

Sarah: I understand. And you know what’s nice? Quartz always stays cool, so if it’s hot and you wear quartz, it’s cool.

Carrie: I know, right? So yeah. So, so I never set out to read inspirational, and, but my library happens to have a lot of them, and I kept picking them up without realizing they were inspirationals, because they would have some story that didn’t involve a duke, and they would have some story that didn’t involve the exact same plot I had picked up fourteen other times, so it’s –

Sarah: Yeah.

Carrie: – not really so much that I’m super into inspirationals per se as that I will read anything as long as it gives me some kind of new plots and characters and stories. And the ones that I’ve been reading are very, very minimal on the inspirational side of things, and they don’t have any overt discrimination or evangelicizing quality? So I do feel –

Sarah: Proselytizing?

Carrie: Thank you! Thank you!

Sarah: There you go, no problem.

Carrie: What are words? So I do feel fairly comfortable –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Carrie: – reading them, but yeah, it is, it is funny. I never would have Googled inspirational romances. I just kept picking up these books and then, like, halfway through I’d look at the back and I’d go, oh! Huh!

Sarah: Yeah?

Carrie: It’s inspirational!

Sarah: I was saying earlier that this year I have spent a lot of time reading historical mysteries that feature women, and I realized that a number of them were set in time periods that I don’t read a lot about. The Rhys Bowen Lady Spyness series is set in, is it the teens or the ‘20s, I think? There’s another series that I started called the Kate Shackleton series, which is about a woman who was widowed in World War I and worked as a nurse in the Voluntary Aid Detachment and is now back in her small town, you know, solving crime, because that’s what happens in a mystery series, but the idea that she is independent is an issue for her family. Like, they want her to move home because she’s a widow, and they want her to get married again, and she’s like, actually, no, this is pretty great? I like this? And she drives her own car, which is, like, completely scandalous? I love these ideas! I love the idea of reading about women in historical periods that I’m not used to reading, seeing how they struggled against the same things that, that we deal with, you know what I mean?

Carrie: Yeah, yeah.

Sarah: Yep. So what are you looking forward to in 2019 that you really enjoyed this year? I know you mentioned that you really like some of the books that were set in the ‘60s.

Carrie: Oh yeah! So I don’t know if any are, are coming up in the future, but the Fly Me to the Moon series has a whole series about the space race in the early ‘60s, and again, I was drawn to that because, well, nerds. I mean, if, if nerds –

Sarah: Right.

Carrie: – are in it, I’m going to read it, we’re all clear on that, but also, the, the difference of historical period.

Sarah: Yeah.

Carrie: A lot of the new releases coming out – I’m looking through my calendar to see, like, what I’ve highlighted. Ooh! There’s so – so there’s some really good comics stuff coming out, like Paper Girls Volume 5 is coming out in, on December 11th, if anyone still wants to get me anything for Christmas, and –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Carrie: – Sleepless Volume 2. Sleepless is a really, really awesome comic that – and the, the sec-, it’s supposed to be a two-volume set, and then they’re going to wrap up the story in Volume 2, and Volume 2 comes out March 19th, so of course I’m mad to read it. And I was going to review Volume 1, and then I was like, oh, I’m just going to wait for Volume 2, so you can expect, like, this, I’m sure that, unless something goes com-, completely bizarre in Volume 2, you’ll get, like, this incredibly squeeing review where I go on and on. Those, those are, like, kind of some big, a lot of comics stuff coming up that I’m excited about.

Sarah: It has been a very good time for comics, hasn’t it?

Carrie: It really has, yeah! And –

Sarah: You’re very lucky!

Carrie: – the, the smaller – so the big houses, I feel like Marvel and DC kind of go one step forward, two steps back, but the smaller houses, Boom! and IDW and Image and, you know, those, those, those, the smaller publishing houses have been taking a lot of chances and just really producing some really cool, diverse stuff, and some of it’s funny, and some of it’s horror, and some of it’s romance, and some of it’s, like, oh, super not, but it’s all, like, there’s just, like, a lot of inventive things happening that make me super happy.

Sarah: Yeah. One of my discoveries this year was web comics that I have started following and backing Patreons. I cannot get enough of Lore Olympus on Webtoons. We get updates on Sundays? I get really excited, and I’m like, no one talk to me; this is my minute. Like, I love discovering all of these remixes of mythology and recasting of mythology? It’s terrific, isn’t it?

Carrie: Yeah!

Sarah: Digging it.

Carrie: I, I haven’t read that one. I do kind of steer away from web comics because I’m sort of obsessive, so once I find a web comic, if it has any back issues, I have to read all of them right that minute, and in the past that has had some negative consequences.

Sarah: Mmm.

Carrie: Like, you know, I’ll come out, like, I’ll surface three days later, and it’s like, look at your life; look at your choices. And –

[Laughter]

Carrie: – and I’m like, I regret nothing! But there’s, like, no food in the house and – [laughs]

Sarah: Yeah, they’re easy to get obsessive about.

Carrie: Yeah. But what I hear – I know my husband follows a bunch of them, and there’s just some really cool stuff going on.

Sarah: I read one this year called, I think it’s Outside the Circle or Beyond the Circle, and it was – I, I want to make sure I got this right – and it was a web comic about two gay men in really, really rural Finland. Excuse me: Life Outside the Circle by H-P Lehkonen, Lehkonen – I could be saying that wrong. But it was a, it was a gay romance about these two men in very, very, very rural Finland, about how outside of the circle around Helsinki there’s not a lot of people living there, and the prejudice that they deal with, and the art is adorable, and I just had, like you, I was like, okay, well, that was two hours. What, what happened today? I missed a lot of things! They’re really easy to deep-dive into.

Carrie: And I don’t know if we’re covering, like, TV at all, but apparently I am, and I, I can’t wait for a new season of Killing Eve. I don’t know when we’re going to get it, so I can’t tell you, but I breathlessly await it, and I also like, new Good Place is always good to have, and I’m super excited about that, and I think some time in 2019 we’re going to get more of The Expanse, and I’m very, very obsessed with The Expanse. I think my obsession with The Expanse is maybe getting a little creepy, actually. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah.

Carrie: I’m, like, way obsessed with it, so I’m, I’m definitely looking forward to that.

Elyse: The Expanse is worth watching just for Chrisjen’s outfits.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Elyse: I mean, seriously –

Carrie: Oh my God, yes.

Elyse: – it’s on, the, the costume department, like, they are just having fun. Her clothing is so amazing.

Sarah: I am so excited for the return of Brooklyn Nine-Nine?

Redheadedgirl: Yes.

Sarah: Not only because it’s wonderful, because it was, but it’s, it’s one of the best television romances that I have watched in a really, really long time, and there’s a couple of them, but I’m so excited for that show to come back. Like, I, I rewatched the whole thing earlier this year, and it was incredibly enjoyable. It was like rereading a favorite book. I am so excited that it’s coming back. Which is weird, ‘cause I usually don’t get that into TV. Elyse, what are you looking forward to in 2019, and what do you want more of?

Elyse: So I want more, like, bubbly, happy, trope-y romantic comedies. I want friends-to-lovers, enemies-to-lovers, fake dating, fake marriage, like, give me all of the tropes. All of the tropes in one book, that’s what I want. So I want to be happy and no, no angst. This year my reading really, really shifted away from historicals into contemporary romance, and I’m, I think, looking for a little more escapism there.

And I read a book recently – I think I reviewed it for the site – by Lindsey Kelk called One in a Million where it’s, kind of straddles this line between chick lit and romance, and I really, really enjoyed it, and I’d like to see, I think, a little bit more of that, where there was a really great romance arc, and I loved the main characters, but it was also really focused on kind of a young woman developing her career and, you know, her relationships with her friends. It was very, very immersive, and I enjoyed it a lot. So I’m looking forward to that.

Specifically, I cannot wait for the next two books in Lucy Parker’s Act Like It series? Or, sorry, London Celebrities.

Sarah: [Gasps]

Elyse: So –

Sarah: Yes, I know! The next heroine, I’m so excited!

Elyse: So the next one is The Austen Playbook, that comes out in April, and then there’s the unnamed book that she wrote specifically for me, because she climbed into my brain and found all of the things that I want. And it’s about –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Elyse: – it’s about two actors who play, like, a crime-solving duo on TV, and they have a lot of chemistry, and so the public and tabloids are always speculating like, are they, aren’t they? And they really, really play that up for publicity, and then they take it too far and get married. And that is, that’s so much Elyse catnip right there.

Sarah: Yeah, that is a lot of your catnip, isn’t it?

Elyse: I want that book right now. Like, there’s no title, there’s no publication date, I stalk her on Twitter because I’m hoping they’re like, oh, we switched this around and it’s coming out in February. I’m so excited for that book. I need to know when it’s coming out so I can plan a sick day.

Sarah: You saw the preview of those two characters in the, in the last book, right?

Elyse: I haven’t read the last book yet. I’m pacing myself.

Sarah: Oh, there’s a little, there’s a little sneak peek –

Elyse: Oh –

Sarah: – of those two, and it’s so good.

Elyse: So I’m looking forward to that, and then there’s a couple books coming out early 2019 that I’m excited for. One is called the, The Au Pair? That’s a psychological thriller. It’s about a woman who, her mother committed suicide the day she and her brother were born, and as –

Sarah: Ah!

Elyse: – after their father passes, she is cleaning out his house and finds all these photographs of an au pair and another child that looks like maybe they had a sibling she didn’t know about? And raises all kinds of questions.

And then I am also really looking forward to Kate Quinn’s The Huntress, which is coming out in January.

Sarah: So you want bubbly, trope-y comedy and books that are going to –

Elyse: Super fucked-up historicals –

Sarah: – and books that are going to scare the hell out of you.

Elyse: and scary stuff, yeah.

Sarah: Okay, yeah, sure, that makes sense!

Elyse: But The Huntress sounds really good too, because that is, it’s historical fiction about a former Soviet bomber pilot, she was one of the, they called them the Night Witches?

Sarah: Yeah.

Elyse: Who teams up with an English journalist to find a Nazi, someone who committed Nazi war crimes who’s now living in America under an assumed name.

Sarah: Oh my!

Elyse: It sounds intense, but I’m, I think it, it could be really, really good.

Sarah: Redheadedgirl, I know you mentioned two books that are coming out in 2019. Is there anything else –

Redheadedgirl: Yes.

Sarah: – that you want to mention that you want or you’re looking forward to or you would like to, you know, to, to place into the universe and make demands at this time?

Redheadedgirl: Yeah. So Julie Anne Long is going back to writing historicals –

Sarah: I saw this!

Redheadedgirl: – and Lady Derring Takes a Lover is delightful, and I can’t wait to talk to everybody about it? Because it starts off with the heroine having, like, literally just been widowed, like, yesterday, and her husband left her with literally nothing but a building on the waterfront, and her husband’s mistress is like, what do you mean he left me with nothing? And they team up. And it’s awesome. [Laughs]

Sarah: Oh my.

Redheadedgirl: And the hero is in the Navy. He started off as, as a cabin boy and worked his way up, so he is not gentry in any way, shape, or form –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Redheadedgirl: – and he’s also one of the dudes who is supposed to stop smugglers, and we’ve had a lot of books where the smugglers are the hero – or the heroine; that happens too.

Sarah: Yeah.

Redheadedgirl: So flipping it and having the guy trying to stop the smugglers as the hero is also kind of fun. But really, it’s, it is just so well done, and the hero, I imagine him as Tom Hardy, and it made my brains happy.

Sarah: [Laughs] Well, I mean, why wouldn’t it?

Redheadedgirl: Yeah. So it was really, really good, and I can’t wait to tell everybody about it.

Also coming in March of 2019 is Captain Marvel.

Sarah: I have heard that this is a thing that is going to happen.

Redheadedgirl: Yes.

Sarah: The, the trailer has been played repeatedly in my house.

Redheadedgirl: Yes, yes.

Sarah: That should be making you very happy.

Redheadedgirl: I am not going to lie: the first time I saw the trailer on a movie screen –

Sarah: Yeah?

Redheadedgirl: – I cried.

Sarah: Aw!

Redheadedgirl: And I was there to see Venom of all th- – like, I’m here to see Venom, and I’m crying now. This is embarrassing.

Sarah: [Laughs] How, how did you like Venom?

Redheadedgirl: I liked Venom a lot. It’s, I mean, Michelle Williams and her horrible wig, you can take or leave, but the rom-com between Venom and Eddie is very funny.

Sarah: I love that for the DVD release, the trailer was re-cut so it looks like it’s a rom-com. Like, they’re –

Redheadedgirl: Yeah.

Sarah: – deliberately engaging with that. I’m like, oh, that was really smart!

Redheadedgirl: Yeah. It’s like, it’s a –

Sarah: Go for it!

Redheadedgirl: – it’s either a rom-com or literally the worst roommate ever.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Redheadedgirl: Or both!

[Laughter]

Redheadedgirl: So as a comic book movie, eh!

Sarah: Eh.

Redheadedgirl: As a rom-com, adorable!

Sarah: Yeah, I think I might need to have that, I, I might need to see that when it comes to my television set.

Redheadedgirl: Yeah.

Sarah: That sounds fun.

Redheadedgirl: Yeah. Also, everybody go see The Favourite. It’s the best movie I saw of 2018.

Sarah: Whoa, really!

Redheadedgirl: Really.

Sarah: Oh, brilliant! That good, huh?

Redheadedgirl: That good. There are men it, I guess. They don’t matter.

Sarah: [Laughs] They’re there. Like, they’re what they’re –

Redheadedgirl: They’re there.

Sarah: – they’re like wallpaper?

Redheadedgirl: They don’t, they don’t really matter.

Sarah: Eh.

Redheadedgirl: They don’t really matter, but, like, it’s so pretty, and it’s so stylized, and it’s so unapologetically, you cannot deny that these women were fucking! You cannot deny it! There’s no pretense of, well, maybe we’ll fade to black and you can use your imagina- – no. They fucking.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Redheadedgirl: They fucking. At one point the line “I like how her tongue goes into my cunt” is untered, is uttered.

Sarah: Well, there’s, that’s really not very ambiguous at all.

Redheadedgirl: No! No, it’s not.

Sarah: No, not ambiguous.

Redheadedgirl: It’s great! It’s so pretty!

Sarah: Yep. I, I shared an email with you earlier today from a, a reader who was like, it’s so angry and fierce and queer! I love it! I’m like, okay!

Redheadedgirl: Yeah!

Sarah: Yes, excellent!

Redheadedgirl: Yeah.

Elyse: I can tell you that I’m not looking forward to Aquaman, now that I know about Jason Momoa ripping pages out of Amber Heard’s book.

Sarah: Poor Amber Heard. Girl needs to get, like, a year on an island with no men.

Elyse: Right? And he tore the last ten pages out. Like, that’s the meanest thing I can think of. So I was going to see that movie, and I’m not now. I’m angry on behalf of her book.

Sarah: Okay. Fair enough. [Laughs] Amanda, what would you like to talk about for 2019?

Amanda: [Laughs] We can start with the, the books I’m looking forward to. There, there are six, and this is only January to May. So January –

Sarah: I only have January to April, and I, and I have a similar number, so I am, I am here for your list. Bring it!

Amanda: Okay! So it’ll come as a surprise to no one, the first two books, January, January 1st, Nightchaser by Amanda Bouchet. I think I’ve talked about it on the podcast we recorded Monday and several ones before that. It’s sci-fi romance, and then continuing with sci-fi romance, Polaris Rising, which is in February. Very excited about that. In general, I just want more sci-fi romance in my life, and I’m happy to start the year off with two of them.

And then – what, Sarah?

Sarah: This is going to be a real palate cleanser from space misogyny.

Elyse: Right, I was just going to say.

Amanda: Here’s hoping. Fingers crossed!

Sarah: Let’s scrub your whole brain cells out and be like, whoa! What was this glorious thing that I have introduced to my eyeballs?

Amanda: And then March – I have a feeling this is on Sarah’s list as well – it’s Burnout. It’s nonfiction about, like, women and stress, and I’m so looking forward to it. I believe Sarah just got a copy in the mail, and I, for a brief second, thought about murdering her and taking that.

[Laughter]

Amanda: And I also want to mention that anytime Sarah sends something in the mail, she always includes candy, and it’s great.

Sarah: Yes.

[Laughter]

Sarah: ‘Cause I got a lot of candy at my house!

Amanda: I love it!

Sarah: Always candy, although the last one I sent you stroopwafels.

Amanda: Well, I ate it, but it was like, it was very cold, so they were pretty much frozen solid –

Sarah: Yep.

Amanda: – but I still, like, immediately opened them and was, like, gnawing at them, trying to chip them off – [laughs] – ‘cause I just, I’m on, like, a low-carb diet, and I will take whatever I can get, especially if it’s, like, squirreled through the mail.

Sarah: Yeah. It’s, it, if you eat it on the porch it doesn’t count, right?

Amanda: [Laughs] I’m technically not in the house.

Sarah: Yeah, exactly!

[Laughter]

Amanda: April has two releases. One is Wicked Saints by Emily Duncan, which is, like, a Gothic horror, YA novel that I’m so excited for. And then I also have this one pre-ordered, which is Storm of Locusts by Rebecca Roanhorse. I reviewed this one for the site; it was amazing! It’s urban fantasy with Native American mythology. The heroine is such a badass, and I’m so excited to see what happens next in the second book.

And then May, we’ve already talked about this, but The Bride Test comes out, and I want to say The Bride Test is the one I’m looking forward to the most out of these six, and I have to wait until May. [Sighs]

Sarah: That is hard. I’m sorry.

Amanda: It’s fine.

Redheadedgirl: [Laughs]

Amanda: It’s fine.

Redheadedgirl: It’s its own –

Sarah: Fine! [Huffs] No, well –

Amanda: Yeah, I’ll manage.

Sarah: – it has to be. I mean, you might get it early! Benefits!

Amanda: Fingers crossed.

Sarah: Fingers crossed. So I, I, I do have a list. On my list is Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, and this is by Emily Nagoski, who has been a podcast guest and also wrote Come as You Are, which is all about female orgasm. But she wrote this book with her sister Amelia. I believe they are identical twins, and they write about how women experience burnout, stress, and how to break the cycle of stress so that you don’t burn yourself out, and it talks about body image and biological stress, and there’s one section of the cover copy that talks about the monitor of your brain that regulates the emotion of frustration, and I’m ready to, like, deep-dive in that chapter. Like, I can just skip right to that one. That sounds amazing. That is coming out in March, and I’m extremely excited to read that, because Come as You Are was – I mean, Amanda, you read that too – it was a really good book.

Amanda: And it was also, like, a book that, if I’m struggling on, like, what to give my friends for, like, their birthdays or Christmas, like, I have gifted this book to so many people.

Sarah: It’s a great gift book to, for women friends too.

Amanda: Yep.

Sarah: So on my list, in terms of release date, in early February, The Matchmaker’s List by Sonya Lalli is coming out? This is about a woman in a very tight-knit Indian family, and her grandmother is playing matchmaker, and she has to balance family and pressure and her grandmother and the matchmaker and all of these dudes who keep showing up, and I’m so curious about this book, because I’ve heard from folks who’ve worked on it that it is super charming, and I do like charming.

And I’m really looking forward to The Right Swipe by Alisha Rai? That comes out in July, so that’s a long wait, but we did the cover reveal, and I’m never really like, oh, yes, the cover makes me want to read it! I’m also never like, the cover, well, I’m never reading that book with that cover, but the cover made me super curious about it? I’m really, really looking forward to that one, and I get to hear a little bit about the behind-the-scenes of the writing of the book, so I am very spoiled. This is something of like a, a personal recommendation too.

There is a book coming out in January by Jordanna Max Brodsky. She wrote the Immortals series where there were Greek gods who were still alive, but they were much weaker because no one worshipped them? Her new book is called The Wolf in the Whale, and it is set in 1000 AD, and there’s an Inuit shaman and a Viking warrior who have to become allies because there is a war between their people, plus gods get involved, and it’s very messy, and I am super into this idea. I think this sounds amazing. And I’ve, I’ve, I’ve read a lot of, like, oh, this is really good; oh, this is amazing; you should read this. I’m very curious about this one. Also, there’s not a lot of arctic fantasy. There’s not a lot of that.

So do you, do you guys remember the Sorcerer to the Crown –

Elyse: Yes.

Sarah: – by Zen Cho? Do you remember seeing that book?

Amanda: Yes. Red cover with a dragon.

Sarah: Yes, the, the, the sequel is coming out, and it’s called The True Queen, and that is coming out in March. I am –

Amanda: Doesn’t the cover, like, isn’t it like, markedly different than –

Elyse: Yeah.

Sarah: It’s very different.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: So the Sorcerer to the Crown had that sort of – it is cat running time, excuse me. I don’t know if you can hear this, but there’s thundering cats – so the Sorcerer to the Crown had this sort of red dragon in the background, and then the text was yellow? The True Queen looks like a fairytale. It almost looks like a chalkboard drawing of, like, light blue and teal and pink on a blue background. It looks very different from the previous book, but I still really want to read it. Looks amazing.

A Dangerous Collaboration by Deanna Raybourn comes out in March; that’s in the Veronica Speedwell series. Historical mysteries, women kicking ass, general awesomeness: I like that one.

When We Left Cuba by Chanel Cleeton – the first book I really liked, but the, this is the book about the sister, who I thought was the most interesting character, so I’m very curious to read about Beatriz and When We Left Cuba.

And then on a super personal, a super personal note that I’m looking forward to, Getting Hot with the Scot by Melonie Johnson is coming out in April, and way, way, way back in 2014, I was a guest at the Chicago North Spring Fling conference, and she met me for breakfast, and she knew nothing about RWA and she wasn’t involved at all, but she kind of thought she wanted to be a romance writer, and she wasn’t really sure, and I was like, well, you should look at this chapter, ‘cause they just threw a pretty great conference and they seem to know what the hell they’re doing, and since then she has planned the conference, run the chapter, and is now releasing three books back to back, and I’m just like, I’m so excited! Like, it’s so cool to see somebody be like, yes, I’m doing this, and then they do it? It’s the best.

As far as what I want: I want more romantic mysteries, and I want more ferocious women who don’t give a fuck, and I want alpha women. That’s what I would like, please. Why not, right?

Elyse: Yeah.

Amanda: Let’s do it.

Sarah: Yeah! Alpha women: I’m here for it.

Redheadedgirl: Yeah.

Sarah: Yeah!

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: I’m going to make this my ringtone.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Everyone saying yeah. [Laughs]

Carrie: Yeah.

Sarah: Anyone else have anything –

Carrie: Yeah!

Sarah: – they want to add for 2019? General wishes for the universe?

Elyse: There’s two true crime books coming out that – so I just said, like, oh, I want happy, bubbly shit, but now I’m looking at my –

Sarah: Yeah.

Elyse: – now I’m looking at my Goodreads Want to Read, and it’s just despair.

Amanda: Make up your damn mind, Elyse!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Elyse: No, I’m, I’m really interested in them because they re-examine two famous historical crimes. One is The Five, and it’s actually about the lives of Jack the Ripper’s victims. So instead of looking at kind of him as the main character of that story, they’re really doing a deep dive into his victimology, which I think is really interesting, and they talk about how assumptions and social prejudice really influenced that case.

And then there’s another book that is called The Trial of Lizzie Borden, which, again, is an examination of what really happened there and how her trial became a media circus and she became this kind of cult historical figure, but it talks a lot more about what, what may have actually happened.

Sarah: Oh wow.

Elyse: So I’m looking forward to those.

Sarah: Yeah! That sounds like your catnip.

Elyse: Totally my catnip!

Amanda: I have something coming up in 2019. Well, two things that are very related. I will be running a read-along book club on the Smart Bitches Goodreads starting in 2019. We have, like, the poll up now, and as of right now there’s one ahead by three votes. It’s been literally tied for about four days, and now one has pulled ahead by three; I’m not going to divulge which one.

And then I will also be starting a romance book club at my local book store, Porter Square Books –

Elyse and Sarah: Yay!

Amanda: – in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and I am so excited. It looks like the first book is going to be, I think it’s Never Seduce a Scoundrel by Sabrina Jeffries? So that’ll be interesting. I’m very excited to start that, and I’m so happy that, like, I’ve been around to see the evolution of Porter Square Books carrying romance, so I’m so happy to be doing this.

Sarah: That’s amazing. You’re going to be so good at that, too, Amanda. Tell me again the name of the bookstore and where it is?

Amanda: So the bookstore is Porter Square Books, and it’s in Cambridge –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: – so it’s a little outside of Boston.

Sarah: And you’re going to put this on the website, right?

Amanda: Yes!

Sarah: We’re going to, like, hose it down.

Amanda: [Laughs] Get it real wet!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Elyse: I –

Amanda: Isn’t that what you meant by hose it down?

Elyse: Yes.

Sarah: No.

[Laughter]

Elyse: I –

Sarah: Servers don’t like that.

Elyse: I am not looking forward to The Bachelor starting in January –

Amanda: Oh no! [Laughs]

Elyse: – full disclosure. So this season, the guy’s a virgin? And I don’t think –

Redheadedgirl: Oh no. Oh, that’s right!

Elyse: Yeah. I don’t think The Bachelor’s really doing any work on examining our heteronormative concepts of virginity, so I just assume what they mean is he has not put his penis in a vagina, right? But we’re going to have to talk about that every five fucking minutes, and the Paradise fires tried to burn down the Bachelor mansion. They failed.

Redheadedgirl: Damn it!

Elyse: So it’s still – [laughs] – it’s still standing.

Carrie: My God. Paradise fires, you had one job.

Elyse: Your one fucking job.

Carrie: Like, nothing is left! How could it do that? Nothing else is left.

Redheadedgirl: One job, and it couldn’t have been that hard! That house is soaked in booze!

Carrie: Wow.

Redheadedgirl: Soaked!

Elyse: Right.

Sarah: And throw pillows.

Elyse: Right, so yeah.

Redheadedgirl: [Laughs]

Sarah: Oh dear.

Elyse: It’s the power of the Rose God, dark and terrible.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Elyse: And –

Redheadedgirl: Fuck him.

Sarah: What is the Rose God going to do with a virgin?

Elyse: I, I’m sure, like, somehow this is a, a more delicious sacrifice. And the previews for this legitimately show him at one point freaking out and jumping a fence to run away, but in the most, like, Bachelor moment ever, the fence he jumps, the gate opens from the inside, so he could have just, like, opened and walked through like a normal fucking human being. It’s just –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Elyse: – it’s going to be real bad. It’s going to be real bad.

Sarah: Oh my. Yeah. Do you have, you have enough Kraken, right?

Elyse: Well, I’m going to have to go get some. I mean, I don’t have enough to last me the whole season. And I’m officially at, like –

Sarah: Right.

Elyse: – officially at, like, one-mixed-drink-fucks-me-up years old, so it’s, it’s going to, it’s going to be some pretty brutal Tuesdays is what I’m saying.

Sarah: Yeah. Is it, is it wrong that I’m kind of looking forward to the recaps?

Elyse: No! I mean –

Sarah: ‘Cause that’s going to be delightful.

Elyse: – I mean, I’m, I’m doing this, this is like my, my servant’s heart. I’m reaching out to the romance community; I am taking this bullet for you guys.

Sarah: [Laughs] It’s cathartic, too.

Elyse: But it’s going to be real bad.

Amanda: And I swear to God, Elyse, you are not allowed to go on vacation while this is running.

[Laughter]

Elyse: You didn’t –

Amanda: I need a solemn promise right now.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Elyse: You guys only had to do, like, one episode. I’ve done, what, like, this’ll be my fourth season, I think.

Amanda: Yeah. I am not, I am not built for this!

Sarah: [Laughs] It was just too much, huh?

Amanda: Yeah. You should’ve heard when Sarah and I both realized that, wait a minute –

Amanda and Sarah: – it’s two hours!

[Laughter]

Sarah: I’m too old to stay up that late!

Amanda: It was awful!

Sarah: Yeah, it was, it was a service that you performed that we appreciate after having tried to do it and not doing so well. And I think I, we had a shared Google document, and I think I typed, what is happening? like, seventy times.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Like, I am not the audience for The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, and I fully know that. I know this is not my thing, but I really didn’t understand what the hell is going on.

Elyse: It’s almost more fun to, if you watch it, you have to have Twitter up and be following that hashtag, because there are people who just hate-watch it, and all they do is post GIFs. Right, like, there’s no actual commentary; it’s just as things are happening, GIFs are showing up. And it’s, it’s pretty amazing.

Sarah: [Laughs] Well, Happy New Year, you guys, and thank you for another wonderful year.

Everybody: Happy New Year!

[music]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of the first episode of 2019. Thank you so much to Elyse, Amanda, Redheadedgirl, and Carrie for hanging out and talking about books. We would very much like to know, what books are you looking forward to in 2019? What’s on your wish list? What is on your shopping cart, or in your shopping cart? Is it, it’s online, but in your shopping cart. Either way, wherever you have your list of books that you want, would you tell us what’s on it? ‘Cause we’d love to know. You can email me at [email protected], or you can leave a voicemail at 1-201-371-3272. You can ask questions, you can tell us what is on your year-long TBR, you can make requests for recommendations, or you can tell me a terrible joke – you do know how much I love those. Either way, please do get in touch, because we love to hear from you.

This podcast episode is brought to you by everyone who has supported our Patreon. Thank you to every one of you. If you have supported the show with a monthly pledge of any amount, you are helping me ensure that every episode is transcribed, and you keep the show going each week. You’re making every episode accessible as well, so thank you on behalf of all of the people who read and listen to the podcast. If you would like to join the Patreon community, it would be most excellent if you did. Have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches. Monthly pledges begin at one whole dollar per month, and you will be supporting this show, and you’ll be part of the group who helps me develop questions and suggest guests and sometimes gets really goofy outtakes, like when all of the animals make noise at once? Have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches, and I hope you will join us.

The transcript of this episode is brought to you by the new sponsorship options for this podcast. For 2019, you can sponsor an episode, a month of episodes, the intro only, or the outro only, so if you have a book coming out, keep us in mind! If you’d like more information you can email me at Sarah, S-A-R-A-H, at smartbitchestrashybooks.com [[email protected]].

The music you are listening to is provided by Sassy Outwater. Thank you, Sassy! This is Adeste Fiddles from Deviations Project. This is “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” and you can find this album at Amazon, and you can find Deviations Project at deviationsproject.com.

Coming up this week on Smart Bitches, we have Outlander recaps continuing with GIFs, analysis, and a lot of tricorn hats – lots of hats. Plus, we have a post on how to organize your own book retreat weekend with your friends. Amanda has done this for two years now, and she is sharing how she and her friends pull it off every year. We also have a new edition of Cover Awe, and on Tuesday, a massive, epic, holy-crow, incredible giveaway for an ARC that you are really going to want to see. Seriously, this is a very big giveaway; please come by and have a peek. And of course we will have reviews, Books on Sale, and Help a Bitch Out, so thank you in advance for coming to hang out with us!

This week’s terrible joke is from Colleen. Before I get to the joke I want to remind you, all of the books that we talked about will be in the show notes, along with the links that we mentioned, but I know you’re really here for this terrible joke, and this is really terrible! Really, I love it. This is from Colleen, who wrote a seasonal bad joke for Sarah. Warms my terrible heart.

How does Good King Wenceslaus like his pizza?

Give up? How does Good King Wenceslaus like his pizza?

Deep and crisp and even.

[Laughs] I told that, I told that to my family, and my husband was, like, really mad that he didn’t guess the punch line? I also have a recipe for deep-dish pizza in a cast iron skillet, and I think I might have to change the recipe title to Wenceslaus pizza, ‘cause it is deep and crisp and even; it’s a really good recipe. [Laughs more] Thank you, Colleen!

On behalf of Amanda, Elyse, Redheadedgirl, Carrie, all of my pets, all of their pets, and myself, we wish you a very happy new year! Have a wonderful week with the very best of reading, and we’ll see you here next week!

[merry restful music for gentle people of any or no particular gender]