350. Rose Does the Research: History and Professional Wrestling With Rose Lerner

[music]

Sarah Wendell: Hey there! It’s a very momentous occasion: this is episode number 350 – yay! – of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell. With me today is Rose Lerner. What do Gothics and professional wrestling have in common? Well, if you’re listening to Rose Lerner talk about it, they have a lot in common. Even if you’re not into professional wrestling, I think you’ll really enjoy listening to her, how she explains storytelling through the lens of professional wrestling. I had so much fun with this interview. Among the things we talk about:

• Was Aaron Burr a troll, and can you fact-check Hamilton shit-posts on Tumblr?
• Is it time for a lesbian, Jewish, Regency, Gothic retelling of Jane Eyre?
• Is there a lot to learn about storytelling in the inner world of professional wrestling?

The answer to all of these questions, by the way, is yes, especially the second one. We also talk about Rose’s Patreon, and I have to say, as a member of said Patreon, it is a freaking joy. Every Wednesday there is a newsletter with deep nerdy dives into specific parts of history, like what kind of play tea sets did young girls have during the Regency, and what did they look like? If that sounds like something that you might be interested, I have links in the show notes, of course.

You can find the show notes at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast, and you can get in touch with me at the same place, or you can email me: [email protected], or you can call and leave a message at 1-201-371-3272.

This week’s episode is being brought to you by Darkness Returns by Alexandra Ivy. After a brief hiatus, everyone’s favorite vampire clan is back. War is once again upon the Guardians of Eternity, and the fate of the world rests in the hands of one rebellious vampire with a chip on his shoulder. The darkness is growing. Soon it will devour everything in its path. To fight back against the forces of the night, he must choose between loyalty to his kind and the mortal woman he loves. Darkness Returns by Alexandra Ivy is on sale now wherever books are sold and at kensingtonbooks.com.

Every episode receives a transcript, and as always, this episode’s transcript will be handcrafted by garlicknitter – or by the time you listen to this it will have been handcrafted by garlicknitter. Thank you, garlicknitter. This week’s transcript is brought to you by Radish. Discover a world where storytelling is reimagined with Radish, an app with thousands of romance stories from bestselling authors like Lisa Renee Jones, Kelley Armstrong, Julie Kenner, and Sylvia Day, in bite-size chapters, perfect to read on your morning commute, your lunch break, or before bed. You can enjoy epic romances full of everything from billionaire bosses and tattooed bad boys to sexy vampires and paranormal shifters. You can join live chat rooms and interact with authors and fellow readers who love the same stories that you do. And you can explore a fresh collection of original stories written by some of daytime TV’s top Emmy-winning writers, bingeable and fast-paced stories that you won’t find anywhere else. Among the stories you can explore, you can read about Gita’s outrageous dating life as she joins a shifter-only dating app. Her super-sexy date Reece Darby turns out to be a human, and their crazy sexual chemistry makes it hard to believe he’s not into shifters. Radish has it all. Download the app in the Google Play Store or the Apple Store for free today and begin your adventures on Radish.

We have a podcast Patreon. I’m mentioning a lot of Patreons in this episode, but that’s okay ‘cause they’re both excellent. If you have supported the show with a monthly pledge of any amount, thank you so much for being part of our Patreon community. Patrons help make sure every episode is transcribed, and they help keep the show going each week. The show is accessible; the show is available! This is all good. If you would like to join the Patreon community, it would be most excellent if you did. You can have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches. Monthly pledges start at one dollar a month, and if the work that we do to bring you a podcast each week is meaningful to you, a one-dollar pledge would mean a lot. Your support for the show is so very appreciated; thank you so much for that. You can have a look at all of the reward levels at patreon.com/SmartBitches.

And – drum roll, please – [drum roll on desk] – if you are going to Book Lovers Con next week, Thursday, May 16, 3:30 p.m. local time at the Hyatt Regency in Imperial 5C, Elyse, Amanda, and I are recording a live show, and we hope that you will join us. We’re going to be playing Cards Against Romance Tropes; there might be trivia; we’re definitely going to be silly; I’m definitely going to get some wine. It is free for attendees of Book Lovers Con, but we do ask that you register, just so we know how many people to expect and how many chairs to provide. The links to register at, are in the show notes, or you can go to – nah, you know what? I’m not going to read this URL. Reading URLs is annoying, especially if people do, like, H-T-T-P? [Laughs] That just is my favorite, when people do that on the radio. You can find all of the links to sign up in the show notes at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast, and yes, there’s an http in the front of that too. [Laughs] Wait, the only thing better than the H-T-T-P is people on the radio going W-W-W, like, very carefully. All right, I’m going to stop now.

I will have information at the end of the podcast as to who you are listening to and what music this is. I will have a preview of what is coming up on Smart Bitches, and I will have a terrible joke, because Kit is keeping me in terrible jokes, and I love it!

But in the meantime, it’s time to talk professional wrestling, ‘cause I know that you are wondering, what does professional wrestling have to do with romance? In the hands of Rose Lerner, you’re going to learn a lot. I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I did. On with the podcast.

[music]

Rose Lerner: My name is Rose Lerner. I write historical romance, mostly Regency, but I, I have written a, also an American Revolution story. I also have a freelance editing and research assistance business at rosedoestheresearch.com, where, you know, I can read your manuscript. If you’re stuck on something, like, you can call me and we can kind of talk it through over the phone. I can also do, like, if you’re just starting on research, I can help you find resources. If you want fact-checking on a manuscript, obviously my specialty is, like, Regency and 18th century, but I’m game for anything. Yeah, and I also actually just started a Patreon, but I’ll, I’ll talk more about that later.

Sarah: I love the name of your book doctoring/researching business!

Rose: Isn’t that cute? I actually started that as a, it was a tag on my Tumblr when I would, like, see a Tumblr post and be like, this sounds fake, and I would, like, look it up, and I started tagging them rose does the research and I really liked it, and so I’m using it now.

[Laughter]

Sarah: And, I mean, even before they got rid of the porn, even before they got rid of all the porn, there was a lot on Tumblr that was Not True.

Rose: Yeah, and a lot of, like, Photoshopped things or, like, yeah.

Sarah: So what are some of –

Rose: Mislabeled art, that kind of thing.

Sarah: Oh yeah. What are some of the things that you have researched?

Rose: Gosh, it was so long ago that I was on Tumblr! But I, you know, I used to do, like, I followed a lot of Hamilton stuff for a while, and there’s a lot of Hamilton stories that go around that are not necessarily made up by people on Tumblr but that were maybe made up by people at the time? Like –

[Laughter]

Rose: – some of them are even in the musical. Like, there’s a line where Burr says, “Martha Washington named her feral tomcat after him,” and then Hamilton pops up and he’s like, “That’s true!” And it’s actually, I think, in the Chernow biography, but it is not true. The source for that is a pamphlet, an anti-Revolutionary pamphlet that came out during the Revolution with a bunch of sort of like, you know, mean things about key revolutionary figures, but they were not in-, even intended at the time to be taken seriously. Like, one of them was that George Washington had thirteen toes, one for each of the colonies?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Rose: So there’s, like, no pretence of, like, truth, but then somehow these things get, like, repeated, you know, so –

Sarah: Oh my God. So basically –

Rose: [Laughs]

Sarah: So basically, you were working with the contemporary version of shit-posting.

Rose: Yeah, yeah.

Sarah: That’s amazing! [Laughs]

Rose: Well, and Aaron Burr outlived almost everyone else, like, from the Revolutionary War, and so he would just make stuff up, like, and really petty stuff. Like, one time he was out with someone and they saw a portrait of George Washington, and the guy that he was with was like, man, George Washington had great legs, huh? And Aaron Burr was like, oh, like, he paid the hottest captain in the army to pose for that painting for him, and –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Rose: – there’s, like, actually, like, quite a bit of documentation of the creative process of this particular painting. It was by, like, one of the big-deal guy – Joseph something, I think? – and there’s, like, you know, extant, like, accounts from him of the painting, and he had to borrow this thing because George Washington, like, only brought it with him to the first set-, you know, sitting. Like, there’s definitely the, like, he sat for the painting, but it’s like, who was going to contradict Aaron Burr? George Washington was dead, so.

Sarah: I am dying over here. Oh my –

[Laughter]

Sarah: So basically, everyone’s dead; no one can contradict me; I’m just going to make up all kinds of shit.

Rose: Aaron Burr was a troll. He actually, like, he, when he, when he was plotting his treason – so nobody knows exactly what his plan was. He may not have had a set plan, because he was definitely someone that kind of liked to improvise in the moment, but he told people, he told some people, oh we’re just settling, you know, this land and we’re going to farm it. Then he told some people, we’re going to incite a revolution in Mexico, and we’re going to, like, lead them to independence, and I’m going to be King of Mexico. He told some people, we’re going to do that, and we’re going to split off the western states and get them to secede from the union. He told people that he was going to stage a coup in Washington. He told other people that he was going to stage a coup in Washington and assassinate Thomas Jefferson. Like, and I’m sure that he was never planning to assassinate Thomas Jefferson, because, like, that would just be too difficult, but I bet he had a really good time telling somebody that, you know? Like – [laughs]

Sarah: So you know how people update Shakespeare, and they’ll take a play and they’ll set it in, you know, the ‘60s –

Rose: Yes.

Sarah: – or they’ll choose one of the older plays and they’ll set it in, you know, Roman times. Like, they’ll just take the story and put it somewhere else. So you, it sounds like you could rewrite all of this with Instagram and people posing as other people –

Rose: [Laughs]

Sarah: – on 4chan and Reddit. Like, Aaron Burr is like walking 4chan.

Rose: Yes, yes.

Sarah: That’s amazing! So how much fun do you have chasing down historical rumors? Like, is this the most fun?

Rose: It’s honestly my favorite thing. I mean, and I, it doesn’t have to be –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Rose: Sometimes it’s not even that juicy. Like, the other week, like, this was such a, like, I mean, I don’t want to even say waste, because I really had a good time, but it’s like I had so many things on my to-do list and I was writing, and I happened to need to look up, like, pictures of embroidered garters as, like, a reference image thing, and I ended up looking at these two garters, and they both had, like, they were clearly not, like, a matched set, they weren’t created by the same person, but they both had the same kind of bird and tree on them, and I was like, what is the significance of this bird and tree? And then, like, five hours later it was like, parrots were once a symbol of the Virgin Mary because of this anecdote about Julius Caesar, and then – and it’s just like, it got way out of hand, but now I know all about the history of how parrots and cherries symbolize virginity and why. [Laughs]

Sarah: [Gasps] Oh wow. That’s a lot.

Rose: Yeah. Yeah. If you want to read the full manifesto, I did write it all up on my Patreon for patrons, but yeah, it, it’s a, it’s a saga, and it, it’s, it’s really interesting because I think we understand how our meme culture works –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Rose: – but looking at how, like, historical meme culture works is very confusing because information is passed in a different way, and so it can be really difficult to kind of understand, like, okay, all of these paintings are using this to symbolize this thing, but, like, how did people know that that’s what it meant and how to interpret it when, like, you know, they didn’t have the internet, and they didn’t have necessarily magazines, and they didn’t have – like, you know, how were they conveying to everyone all the way across Europe that, like, if you see a parrot in a painting, like, it represents XYZ? Like –

Sarah: Whoa!

Rose: – I can’t even imagine, but somehow they all knew.

Sarah: That’s incredible!

Rose: Yeah.

Sarah: And the subtle sort of incorporation of symbolism is like another form of shit-posting.

Rose: Mm-hmm, yeah.

Sarah: That’s incredible. So how do you incorporate this deep dive into nerd culture historically? How do you incorporate that into your own writing? I mean, how many, how many historical romances have you written now? Are you, like, up to – ? You have a lot of books.

Rose: You know, I really – [laughs] – I, I think it’s a lot of, but then when I look at, look what other people have written in the same amount of time and I’m like, ooh. But, so I have –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Rose: – I have five full-length and three novellas out now.

Sarah: That’s a lot, yo.

Rose: Yeah. [Laughs] Thank you!

Sarah: That is quite a lot. Do you have a favorite of what you’ve written?

Rose: I, well, oh, I – this is, like, my least favorite, ‘cause I always, like, of anything. I can never pick a favorite because, it’s like when you’re, like, little children and you don’t want to have a favorite toy because the other toys will be jealous? It’s like, I, like, still do that as an adult. But, like, True Pretenses is my favorite thing that I’ve written. It’s the second book in my Lively St. Lemeston series, but it, it really, it’s loosely connected, so you can definitely read it first if you want to. It’s a Jewish con artist from the London slums, and he has, he has this plan that he’s going to marry his brother off to a rich lady who needs her dowry really fast for various family reasons, and, but then unfortunately he falls in love with her himself, and it’s like a marriage of convenience/con artist/small-town-politics story, and I really love it.

Sarah: It’s so interesting to hear people talk with such affection about their books, ‘cause sometimes you’ll talk, I’ll talk to a writer and they’ll be like, I can’t pick one, or the fa-, my favorite is the one that’s cock-, you know, currently sitting in the front of my brain, but you have so much affection for True Pretenses!

Rose: I do. I, I love them all. I have to be honest: like, I am definitely someone that rereads my own work and that – I mean, I actually –

Sarah: Does it work on you when you reread it?

Rose: – things that – yeah. And I, I actually think that, that part of that is that I write slowly, and you know, I, I, I wish that I could write faster, but when I do I kind of burn out. Like, when I, the, the only book that I have really written on like a tight deadline is Listen to the Moon, which is the, the one that comes right after True Pretenses, and it’s a butler and a maid, and they – it’s also a marriage of convenience story, ‘cause that’s, like, my favorite trope – but they have to marry to get this job that’s like, the, the guy wants, like, a respectable married couple to be, like, his butler and, like, first housemaid or whatever, and you know, it’s been a long time. I had a chance to re-release it and fix some things that I wasn’t as happy with, and I’ve come around on it, but that was the only one that I wrote on a tight deadline, and I, it, I burned out! You know, like, I –

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Rose: – I finished it, and I wrote it, and I published it, and I, I’m proud of it, but I, I didn’t feel good about it at the end, and I think it was because I made myself rush, and that’s just not – you know, I’ve come around to understand that I just, I really love what I do, and I, I want to keep feeling that way, and so instead of trying to make myself write faster, I’m trying to have more sources of income so that I can give myself that time and also be freelancing or having that monthly income Patreon or whatever it is in the meantime.

Sarah: I understand! I understand. What, what do you think is the key to being able to reread your own work and have it still work on you? Because I am, I am like you: I will reread things that I’ve written, and I don’t think it’s because I’m a, a slow writer – I’m actually pretty quick – but I have the world’s worst memory, and I’ll be like –

Rose: Uh-huh?

Sarah: – I wrote that? Oh wow!

Rose: [Laughs]

Sarah: Okay, I, I wrote this? Wow! It totally works on me! One, I write my own catnip, and two, I write what I like best, but three, I forget it as soon as it’s out of my brain, so it’s always like a new discovery. Like, ooh, wow! Past Sarah, well done! What do you think is, it is about your writing that works on you? Are you also writing your favorite things?

Rose: Yeah, that is, it’s like when – you know, and I, I read, I love many peop-, you know, like, I read a – well, I don’t read as much as I used to, ‘cause I don’t have the time, and I wish that – and the attention span – and I, I, but, you know, I, but it, when I read it, it’s exactly what I want, ‘cause I wrote it, and it’s exact-, I wrote it exactly how I wanted it to be, and so there’s something very comforting about, you know, every single thing is – and, and I, I don’t, I can’t say what the key is, because there’s a lot of things in my life that I’m not that way about, you know, like, I, I hate looking at pictures of myself, you know, but, but writing is one of the few places in my life where I do feel confident, and it, it took me a long time to get there and to kind of, like, let go of that inhibition and that self-, that self-censorship and that –

Sarah: Mm-hmm?

Rose: – self-consciousness that I feel, you know, like, and, and I’m, like even, like in social interactions, like, if I have a conversation with someone that I don’t maybe know that well, like, I’ll play it back in my head, and I’ll, like, you know, armchair quarterback myself of like, I should have said this and I should have said that, and I could – but with my writing I have come to a place where I don’t do that, and I – you know what, I don’t know how I did it, and it’s kind of magic, and I kind of just don’t want to, like –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Rose: – let’s not look at it –

Sarah: Let’s not look too closely.

Rose: – or touch it –

Sarah: Yeah.

Rose: – you know what I mean?

Sarah: Is it hard for you to turn off your self-editing while you’re writing?

Rose: No. I do, I have to admit that I do self-edit when I read back what I wrote, but it’s not, it’s just like, oh, I wish I had worded that slightly differently. Like, I do –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Rose: – I do do that, but no, it really, like, I remember – and I, I think I probably tell this story a lot, so I apology if anyone’s heard it before, but there was a particular, I remember once I was writing a piece for a fan community that I was in that was about writing sex scenes –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Rose: – and I did a poll, actually, an anonymous poll where people told me, like, which of my sex scenes they liked the most and what they liked in it, in them as part of my prep for this, this piece that I was doing, and I remember there was a particular story that I had written, and there was a moment in it where the characters were, like, about to have sex, and like, one of them, like, was, like, worried about, like, a piece of their, they were going to mess up something that they were wearing or something, and I remember when I was writing the scene, you know, because this was like a long, this was a long time ago, and so sex scenes were really different in –

Sarah: Mm-hmm, they were.

Rose: – historical romance. You know, they were very, like, soft-focus. Everyone was always, like, swept away on a tide of passion –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Rose: – like, lost to the world, you know, like –

Sarah: Lots of waves, lots of cresting. Yeah.

Rose: Yeah, lots of dances as old as time, but, like –

Sarah: Yep.

Rose: – and so I remember pa-, like, and, and you know, there was this debate about whether if you talked about a condom in a sex scene, would it kill the mood? And I feel like we’ve kind of moved past that as a community, but, like, I remember I was writing this scene, and I was like, is this, you know, should he be more caught up in the moment? Is it, like, okay that he’s like, you know, is, is this, like, not sexy that he’s, like, worried about this article of clothing, like, even in, like, the heat of the moment, right, and that was, like, the moment that, like, again and again and again and again, like, readers singled out as, like, their favorite moment, and I think that was like a real, like, light bulb for me of, like, you know, don’t worry about if it’s weird. Don’t worry about if it’s not sexy. Like, don’t worry about, you know, if it’s not likeable, if it’s – like, readers want that emotional naturalism, I think, and, you know, not always and not in every situation and in different levels. Like not, you know, I don’t want to read, be reading Dostoevsky when I’m reading a romance; I want to be reading –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Rose: – Dostoevsky when I’m reading Dostoevsky, but at the same time, like, the way that I write is I do kind of get in character, and I kind of experience the scene, like, along with my character and just kind of record, like, what it – you know, and, and sometimes I’m surprised by the character’s emotional reaction. There’s a moment in True Pretenses where, like, they have sex and then Ash gets, like, really sad –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Rose: – and I, like, didn’t plan that? It just happened while I was writing, but it, it made, when I, like, it made sense when I thought about it, and I worked it in, and I – so I, I, I really do just kind of follow along instinctually, like, my own emotional experience, and I have to trust that, and so that, to me, is like the opposite of self-editing, and so I don’t self-edit when I write; I edit when I edit.

Sarah: That makes sense!

Rose: And I kind of have to do it that way for myself and my process.

Sarah: That makes sense. What are you working on right now? I, I saw on your Patreon that you are working on a lesbian, Jewish, Regency Gothic.

Rose: Oh yeah! I am indeed!

Sarah: Now, I, I have not seen those four words together before. Now that I have seen them in that order, I am very curious. Would you just start on the first page and just read now? Like, just go ahead, read the whole thing. Tell me all about it.

Rose: [Laughs] Well, I actually, when I hit fifty patrons I’m going to post chapter one, and I’m only, like, four patrons away, so anybody listening. But –

Sarah: I will link to the Patreon, folks.

Rose: Thank you!

Sarah: Never fear!

Rose: But so I was reading, Jane Eyre is one of my favorite books ever, and I, you know, it’s a problematic fave, but I love it, and I was reading, I was writing All or Nothing, which is about a Jewish gaming den hostess who this shy architect, like, wins her in a game of chance, and then he’s, she’s like, aw yeah, let’s get it on! And he’s like, actually, I’m going to a house party this week and I don’t want my ex-boyfriend to hit on me while we’re there, so, like, can you just come and, like, pretend to be my girlfriend, and then I can actually, like, work while I’m there? And she’s like, this is not what I thought this was going to be, but okay, and then –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Rose: – they – yeah, obviously, fake dating inevitably leads to real dating, as we all know – but there’s this scene at the house party where he’s working and she’s hanging out while he’s working and reading, and so I was looking for a book for her to be reading, and I remembered my mom had this book, and I, I really wish that I had kept it. It wasn’t very useful, but I was fond of it. It was this, like, very old, like, ’60s book, and it was called, like, Jews in the Literature of England, or something like that, and it had a quote from this Maria Edgeworth novel –

Sarah: Oh, I had to read her in grad school.

Rose: Did you read Castle Rackrent?

Sarah: Yeah! I don’t remember the whole lot of it, but I remember, I definitely remember reading it and writing a paper on it. What was the quote?

Rose: So do you remember, there’s a story about this, his name is Sir Kit, and he had a Jewish wife, and he wanted her to give him, like, this diamond cross – so there’s already a lot of weird stuff, right, because it’s told, like, comically from the point of view of a servant who, like, is like, you know, biased and doesn’t have all the information and whatever, but so what we know from him is that this woman was Jewish, but she also had a diamond cross, which implies that perhaps she had converted, but so the, Sir Kit wants the diamond cross, and she won’t give it to him, and so he starts, like, making her, he starts, like, making her eat sausage, which obviously isn’t kosher.

Sarah: Obviously is not kosher.

Rose: And then he locks her in her room, and she’s, like, locked in her room for, like, years? And then, luck-, and it was, it’s, like, really stressful to read, you know, and it’s only, like, a few pages.

Sarah: Yeah.

Rose: Like, the whole thing is just a few pages, and it works out for her in the book. The other ladies in the, in the town, I think, start, like, vying over who’s going to be his second wife, which really is believable, which is the sad thing, but, like – he, anyway, he dies in a duel with, like, some lady in the neighborhood’s brother that he’s been, like, you know, whatever, and she is freed from her imprisonment and takes her money and goes back to England and lives happily ever after. But there’s this line where he tells the servant that when he was courting her he used to call her “my pretty Jessica,” which is a reference to Merchant of Venice, in which there’s an interfaith marriage, but that really, like, stuck with me as like a chilling – right, like you, the guy’s nice, and then he’s not nice –

Sarah: Yeah.

Rose: – and he, the thing that he thought was cute is now the thing that he’s angry about, and it’s like you can’t ever see it coming. It could just happen at any moment. Anyway, so I was reading this, and there’s, there’s a footnote about a real case that she based it on in the book, and – anyway, so I was reading this, and I was like, what if there was a governess?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Rose: So the book is kind of a Jane Eyre retelling, except instead of ending up with Mr. Rochester, she falls in love with the wife in the attic.

Sarah: Oh my! This sounds cool!

Rose: I’m really excited about it.

Sarah: So are you going to write chapters, post them to your Patreon, and then release it as a standalone novel?

Rose: No, I’m just, I just, I’m just going to post the first chapter to my Patreon.

Sarah: Ah.

Rose: I’m hoping to be – I mean, I don’t, I, I try not to do deadlines, but I have a goal to be done – I’m not going to even say what the goal is, but I, I have a goal –

Sarah: Right.

Rose: – on when I want to be done with the first draft, so I’m, I’m hoping the book will come out either late this summer or this fall? I’m working on it. I, I think, you know, a lot of stuff happened in my life in the middle of writing it, and so I’m definitely behind where I was hoping to be, but –

Sarah: Right.

Rose: – I think I’m in the home stretch with the draft, first draft, so.

Sarah: Oh, that’s very cool. It, when you write, is your process familiar? Like, you get to a point and you’re like, oh yeah, this part, where I hate everything and think this is a terrible idea.

Rose: [Laughs]

Sarah: Oh yeah, this part, where it’s like my brain’s on fire! Do you go through similar statuses of, of the, of the process of writing something, or is it different every time?

Rose: You know, it, it really kind of is different every time?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Rose: Unfortunately. You know, I –

Sarah: Why unfortunately?

Rose: Yeah. I’ve been really trying with this one. I’ve been, Courtney Milan turned me on – she turned a lot of people on, I think – that, to mini habits, which is where, like, instead of trying to write, you know, like a thousand words a day or whatever, you just set a goal to write, you know, like, ten words a day, and the idea is that –

Sarah: Yeah.

Rose: – you always feel like you’re making progress, no matter what, and –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Rose: – once you actually, like, you don’t have that resistance in your brain of, like, I don’t have time to write a thousand words, because you always have time to write ten –

Sarah: To write ten words, yeah.

Rose: – right, and once you actually sit down and start, you’re much more likely to keep going as well.

Sarah: Yeah.

Rose: And you know, I, I definitely, I, there have been points where I was a lot better about following through with it, but I wa-, it is something that I’ve kind of been trying more, and I’ve never been a write-every-single-day person, but I have been trying that a little bit more, and when I write in big chunks, I write more at a time.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Rose: When I write smaller, I do kind of stay a little more in – it takes me less time to get back into it when I start again –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Rose: – and so –

Sarah: Yeah.

Rose: – I wish that I was more analytical about this stuff, I really do.

Sarah: I can understand the feeling of not wanting to look too closely at the process in, in the fear that analyzing it too much makes it stop working. I’ve, I’ve heard the mini habits concept explained so many different ways, one being to motivate yourself to go for a run: all you have to do is put your shoes on and go out the door. Like, you don’t have to go for a run –

Rose: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – but always put your shoes on, go to the door, because once you put your shoes and go to the door, you’re might as, you might as well be like, well, okay, might as well go, might as well go do that thing I planned to do. It’s also, I think, really hard once you’ve begun to think of your writing as a, as not only a, an, a part of your creative brain, but also a, a business, the actual writing part, it can be really easy to put that last, I have found.

Rose: Yeah, it’s so true.

Sarah: Like, I have to do this thing for promotion and marketing and this thing for, you know, business stuff, and I have to do this banking thing, and the actual creative part of the business, often it’s way too easy to put that last on your list of things to do, so saying, all right, I can do ten. Ten words? No problem.

Rose: Yeah!

Sarah: Once you start with ten, it’s easy to like, oh, whoa, hello, two hundred. That’s more than ten. Nice job!

Rose: I’ve read, have you read Alyssa Cole’s Duke by Default? So there’s, she talks about the, there’s a, the ADD YouTube channel in it?

Sarah: Yes.

Rose: And she linked, so I emailed her and I was like, what’s the real channel, and she linked me to How to ADHD, and I was –

Sarah: Yes.

Rose: – reading something on there, and there was this concept that was like, it’s important, but it’s not urgent?

Sarah: Yes!

Rose: And it’s so hard to do the things –

Sarah: Oh.

Rose: – that are important, but they’re not urgent. ‘Cause if it’s urgent, I can do it.

Sarah: Right!

Rose: I always do things that are urgent, but if it’s important but not urgent, it’s like, well, I can do it tomorrow.

Sarah: Yeah. But then not having it done, for me, it almost sets off like an irritation in my brain?

Rose: Yeah.

Sarah: You didn’t do the thing, you didn’t do the thing, you didn’t – like, oh my gosh, it’s, I’m not on fire! It’s – nope, you didn’t do the thing.

Rose: Yep. [Laughs]

Sarah: That, that, important but not urgent is, is, can be very hard to categorize. I, I have tried a number of different strategies, and they all work at different times to deal with those tasks.

Rose: Yep.

Sarah: So I have been informed that you are deeply, deeply passionate about professional wrestling.

Rose: Very true.

Sarah: Okay, I did not know this. I would really like to know about this. How long have you been following pro wrestling, and how does it overlap with writing romance?

Rose: Okay, so I actually have not been a fan for very long. I, I mean, I guess now it’s a few years, but I would say I got into it in, like – oh my gosh, what is time even?

[Laughter]

Sarah: I don’t know!

Rose: 2015 or 2016? My ex-wife watched it when she was a kid?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Rose: And she had also, like, you know, just wasn’t paying attention to it for a really long time, but then we were actually really into Arrow for like a couple years there, and the ma-, the star of Arrow had, like, a storyline at Summer Slam, and so she was, like, watching, like, his stuff, and then she was like, oh, like, this is really cool! And she got really into it again, and then it took her about a year to, like, get me to be willing to – ‘cause, you know, she was watching it at home a lot, and I would see it, and the thing about professional wrestling is that it’s really, like, it’s a lot like, like commedia dell’arte or like kabuki; like, it’s very stylized, and it doesn’t really make any attempt to look real. I mean, there are things that people work on, right, like people work very hard at looking like they’re really in pain or, like, really – right, like, there are things that people work on, like artistry to make it more convincing, but in reality, I mean, if you watch people wrestle, like, it’s not like a movie where they make it look like it’s real through stunts? It’s like they –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Rose: – there’s, like, stylized. Like, there’s a way that you punch in wrestling, and there’s, like, a way – and so it kind of takes time to get used to the sort of tropes and the literary conventions, and, like, once you have kind of absorbed them and you, like, your brain just accepts, like, that’s a punch –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Rose: – in this context, then you can kind of connect with it emotionally, but it’s, like, hard to do when you’re just looking at it without context for the first time? You’re just like, what is this?

Sarah: I used to live with a, a roommate. Before my husband and I were married we had a roommate, and our roommate was super into wrestling, and I did not get it until I understood it as a combination of a story and choreography. It’s not fake, it’s choreographed, and there’s a difference.

Rose: Well, it’s actually not choreographed either. It’s, like, a lot of it is improvised, but it is –

Sarah: Right.

Rose: – yeah, it’s planned, yes.

Sarah: Yeah, there’s a plan, there’s a structure, and I –

Rose: Yes.

Sarah: – and I understand how that could relate to romance.

Rose: It’s, I think I’ve, I mean, I’ve learned a lot about storytelling from it, because, well, I mean, there’s a couple of different ways that it relates to romance. I mean, first of all, the only way to make wrestling interesting is if there’s a stor-, the characters that are fighting have a relationship of some kind. I mean, that’s not true; there’s, like, championship-style matches. Right, there’s, like, a lot of things, but almost all of the really, like, big – there’s a lot of wrestling terminology, so I’m going to try to explain as much as possible, but if I miss something, just stop me and be like, what is that?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Rose: But so, to start off with, there’s heels are bad, wrestling bad guys, and faces, which originally started out as babyfaces, are good guys, and then a feud is, like, when two people, like, have a, like, kind of an ongoing rivalry in a series of matches. And so almost all of the really famous feuds that people get really, really invested in are when there’s some kind of long, ongoing relationship, and it can be an ongoing negative relationship where the people have just hated each other for a really long time, and some of those are amazing, but a lot of them are people that used to be really, really close. The stories follow the structure of a romance novel, and the great thing about wrestling is that because it goes on for so long, like, there’s no closed canon in wrestling. Like, the pe-, the, it’s like people will be best friends, and they’ll be closer than brothers for like two years, and, like, every time they come out and people will be like, hug, hug, hug! And, like, cheer when they hug each other and all this, and then one of them turns on the other one, and now they’re enemies! And they, they’ve –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Rose: – never hated anyone like they hate each other, and usually one of them is, like, brokenhearted and trying to get the other one back first for a while, and then he’s like, stands up, he or she, like, stands up for themselves, and they’re like, fine, I guess if you don’t want to be friends then I’m going to beat you, and, like, then, you know, and they have this series of, like, very emotionally intense matches, and then a lot of times, like, a little bit later, like, they’ll get back together! And they’ll be best friends again! You know, and so you get to see that, like, fight it, the fight –

Sarah: The beats of the bromance.

Rose: Yeah.

Sarah: So there’s very specific storytelling beats in the sequence of these feuds.

Rose: Yeah. And when they’re done well, I mean, it is, like, gripping. I remember there was one – but the other thing, but before I get sidetracked into just talking about wrestling storylines that I love –

Sarah: Of course.

Rose: – the other thing is that wrestling is a very, like, elemental – like, it’s, it’s really stripped down to its essence, as far as storytelling, because you have to be able to tell the story through two guys or two women – or a man and a woman, but that’s less common – fighting each other.

Sarah: Right.

Rose: And so, and, and it really is like, the payoff with the wrestling story is that fight and that – because it’s like – [sighs] – you’re, like, you, the, the adrenaline and the sort of like, like, the combination of, like, competitive sports and, like, emotion is like, I mean, I can’t explain the high that you can get –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Rose: – from, like, watching like a really tightly plotted, beautifully choreographed, like, deeply, like, well acted, like, wrestling match? I mean, it is, like, unbelievable. Like, because, and it’s all about getting the crowd to really want one of them to win.

Sarah: Mm-hmm?

Rose: Right? And so I feel like I’ve learned a lot, and that can shift through a match, too, of like, oh, I go in and I really love the, the villain, and I, you know, I, he’s been a jerk, but I, he’s my fave, and I want him to win, and then he can do something so nasty that in the middle of the match, like, I will flip and be like, no! Like, screw you! That was unacceptable, and you need to pay for your crime!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Rose: And so – and it’s all about, like, the, the strategies that people use to get the, the crowd really, really, like – the word they use is hot – like, really, really hot are very sophisticated, but also, like, very broad usually, and so I think it really, like, translates well to genre fiction, and it’s taught me a lot about, like, that, for example I think, I, I see advice sometimes, and I’ve probably given this advice too of, like, oh, like, your villain is, like, stealing the scenes, like, tone him down, right? And I think what I’ve learned from wrestling is like, you don’t need to tone down the villain. You need to either tone up the hero or the heroine –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Rose: – if the, if the audience isn’t rooting for them enough, or you need to just, you can have a villain that’s as fabulous and amazing as you want if they are mean enough to the main character. There is no villain in wrestling – and I love villains! Some of the villains are my absolute faves, but in a fight, if they have been nasty enough, like, I will still root against them, and that’s something that –

Sarah: Wow.

Rose: – has really, I think, taught me a lot about storytelling.

Sarah: It’s not just engaging with the hero or the protagonists or the heroines; you have to also be emotionally engaged with the villain.

Rose: I do, certainly.

Sarah: I, I definitely do.

Rose: I find it very boring, and it’s like, when I think about, like, the MCU, for example, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, like, the movies that I love are the ones where there’s an interesting villain, and the ones where there’s just, like, some guys with, like, weird makeup, I’m not interested.

Sarah: I also love a villain who has motivations that I understand. Like, this is not the choice that I would make –

Rose: Yeah!

Sarah: – but I see how you got there!

Rose: Yeah.

Sarah: I understand how you got there, and yeah, that’s hard. You made different choices than I would, but I, I understand. I don’t empathize, but I understand.

Rose: Yeah, and I really do think it’s about the story there. ‘Cause, like, for example, one of my very favorite – I’m going to pick this one ‘cause it’s really easy to explain – so one of my really favorite –

Sarah: I was going to ask you –

Rose: – wrestling storylines –

Sarah: – I was going to ask you what your favorite one was. I need to know what your favorite wrestling story is. Please tell me.

Rose: This is, honestly, probably my third-favorite, but it’s the easiest to explain.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Rose: Because less – I mean, not that there aren’t great performances, but I feel like the, my other two favorites, Bayley and Sasha and Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn, like, really rely on, like, the details of the performances, and it’s, like, hard to explain.

But the Shield, so the Shield came in as these, like, there are these three guys, and they came in as sort of these, like, like, unknown, like, you know, angry young men. They, they sort of had this, like, SWAT team vibe almost. Like, they wore, like, vests with a lot of pockets and stuff, but they, they would come in, and I, I think they started out as sort of like mercenaries, like they worked for somebody and they were, like, protecting him from some other guy, and I don’t know. But, like, and they were, they were, they started out as heels, and they would come in, and they were, because there were three of them, they could team up and defeat, like, almost – and they worked together really well. That was the other thing: it wasn’t just that they were, there were three of them, but they were really, really tightly li-, like, they could work together really well. Like, they would come in and they would surround the ring, and they would do these, like, incredible team moves that, like, required a lot of, like, trust and, like, coordination, and, like, you really bought – and, and then they celebrated. That’s the other thing is, like, the fight is so good, and then the celebration afterwards is so sweet, and, like, people will hug, and they’ll jump into each others’ arms, and they’ll, like –

Sarah: Aw!

Rose: And these guys would, like, like, they would ruffle each others’ hair; they would, like, kiss each other on the forehead. Like, like, it was like they loved each other. They were like a puppy pile. They were like an evil puppy pile, and –

Sarah: Hmm.

Rose: – like, you just, and, and they were, they were villains, but they got – and this is another wrestling term: when, when someone is over, it means that the crowd really is behind them, and so, and, and some of it, people can get over, and there are some people that just have it, where, like, they can get you to, like, they can walk into a room and you root for them, and it’s like this sort of weird It factor, and I, I don’t know what it is, but it’s amazing. But so anyway, they got really, really over, and so then when, when a villain gets really over, a lot of times they turn them into a face, because it’s hard to book – unless they’re really, really good and you have really over faces as well, it can be hard to book matches, because in theory you want the crowd to root for the good guy, structurally, and so if the villain is too popular it becomes difficult to do, although really good heels can do it. It’s all about, like, even if the heel comes in and everyone cheers, if he can, he can still get the crowd behind the face if he knows what he’s doing, but some guys either –

Sarah: Mm-hmm?

Rose: – are not that good or are too, don’t have enough, like, or don’t share enough, you know, artistically to – so anyway. But so they got really over, and they became, no, I wouldn’t even say good guys, but they, they won a lot of matches, and then they were up against sort of like the big evil faction that was sort of like the corporate overlords or whatever, and they were, like, almost dead, like, every week. You know, it’s like, there was this match, and, like, they, they ripped, they ripped Roman’s vest off and they were, like, beating him with a kendo stick and, like, it was like, you know, it got really brutal – attractively brutal – [laughs]. And that’s the other thing is that wrestling is, like, very inherently kinky, because it’s basically people role-playing hurting each other?

Sarah: Oh my God!

Rose: And it can, who, who secretly love each other and are a team, right? But the –

Sarah: Oh my God!

Rose: – tend to be – yeah.

Sarah: Oh my God, I never saw it that way, but you’re totally right!

Rose: Yeah, and it can get, it can go from just sort of like role-playing to, like, really, like, you know, people, like, like, there, like, the WWE doesn’t get that brutal, but there are some pretty – it’s called a death match when they do, like, you know, like, barbed wire or, like, light tubes or what- – there’s, like, more extreme stuff that is out there. I’m kind of squeamish and I get worried about people, so I tend to sort of, I’m like, ehhh. If I know it’s like thumbtacks, okay, but, like, that’s kind of, you know – [laughs].

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Rose: But – anyway, so they, they were, like, getting beat up, like, every week, it was like, and then Seth – oh, baby Seth – Seth was, like, the, the acknowledged leader of the Shield. He was like –

Sarah: Right.

Rose: And he, they, they, the, the guys, the bad guys come out, and the Shield are in the ring, like, facing them as a team, and the bad guy says, like – and, and Seth goes and he gets a chair, and a chair, there’s, like, certain weapons in wrestling, it’s like tropes, right? There are, like, certain weapons that are common in wrestling, and one of them is a folding chair: one, because when you’re in a wrestling arena there are always folding chairs around. I assume that’s how it started, that it was like, they would grab a folding chair that someone was sitting on from the audience, and they just had a bunch of extras, but they also, you know, they’re, they’re, they look brutal, but they are flat; they distribute the force evenly; they, they bend easily; like, they’re not – you know, so they don’t really hurt people usually, but they look nasty and they make a good noise. So –

Sarah: No, they make a very loud noise.

Rose: Yeah. So, and actually, the weird thing is that a lot of the noise in wrestling, if you watch on TV, it’s not as loud, because they, they mic, you know, they mic in certain ways, but if you’re –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Rose: – in the room, the sound when someone’s back hits the mat is this, like, incredible, like –

Sarah: BOOM!

Rose: – smack, like, that –

Sarah: Yeah.

Rose: – it really startled me the first time I went to a live show. But so they, they get, he, he gets a chair, and it’s like, oh, he’s going to defend them with this chair, right?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Rose: And then he hits Roman in the back with the – and the other, the villain says, like, you always got to have a plan B. And then Seth hits Roman in the back with the chair.

Sarah: Oh shoot!

Rose: And Roman goes down, and then you see the look on Dean’s face, like, the total stunned disbelief on Dean’s face, and then Seth hits him with the chair, and then, and it’s like, it’s heartbreaking. Like it is Heart. Breaking. And Seth, like, Seth went from being beloved by everyone to, like, ten-minute chants of You Sold Out every time he walked in the room.

Sarah: Wow.

Rose: It was –

Sarah: It was all because of the choice that he made to put himself above whatever –

Rose: Yes.

Sarah: – the group, the, the group was doing.

Rose: Yeah, and he, he would do these promos of, like, I didn’t sell out; I bought in, and like –

Sarah: Oh God.

Rose: – when I said, believe in the Shield, I was really saying, believe in Seth Rollins, and, like, oh, he was such a jerk! And the thing is, like, people – and he was a really great villain. Like, he was, he twirled his mustache; he had depth; he was, like, vulnerable; he really just wanted his evil parents to love him. You know, like, he was, like, clearly, like, losing it. He was, like, in, like, he would go into fugue states. Like, it was, like, really great performance, but because you really loved the other guys, you know, you always rooted for them. Like, Dean would come out, and he would be, like, heartbroken. They had match, they had this match where Dean said, like, I love you, like, right before he, like, hit him. It was, like, so good. Like, but they did this thing that I will never forget where he, he came out with, like, one of his evil henchmen, and he, like, put Dean’s head on this, like, thing of cinderblocks?

Sarah: Ugh!

Rose: And he stomped Dean’s head through it?

Sarah: Oh, good God!

Rose: And Dean is one of those guys, like, Dean’s thing is that he always gets back up, right, like, no matter what you throw at him, like, he’ll stumble to his feet and he’ll pull it out. You know, like, that, he’s kind of a guy – there are certain guys that get beat up a lot, and that’s kind of their thing? And, like, he’s one of those guys, and, like, he always gets back up! And he, like, went down, and he didn’t get back up, and it was like, oh my – and, like, even Seth looked shocked! Seth was like, what the hell did I just do? Like, I thought –

Sarah: Ohhh.

Rose: – he was going to get back up. And he’s just standing there, and, like, everyone is just like, my heart, my heart has been ripped out of my chest! What is happening? But it’s like, so no matter how great Seth and how much you love him, you don’t want him to win. And I think –

Sarah: Right.

Rose: – that is the key.

Sarah: I want to see you fight, but I do not want to see you win.

Rose: Yeah.

Sarah: Because the, the battle is more interesting when you’re there, but we don’t want you to be the victor, ‘cause you terrible.

Rose: Yes.

Sarah: So how do you translate that into writing romance? What are the things that you have taken from these, these particular, this particular format of storytelling?

Rose: The book that I’m writing now, the villain, the villain is actually, like, not based in terms of his, like, you know, actions at all – [laughs] –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Rose: – but, like, he looks like Daniel Bryan, who’s, like, one of those guys I was talking about where he comes out and he just has that It factor, where you like, you’re just like, ohhh! Like, I don’t even, like, he has a reality, he’s on a reality show with his, like, it’s his wife’s reality show, but he’s on it? And he, he’s got that thing where it’s like, he’ll do something that really pisses me off, and then, like –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Rose: – the next time I see him it’s like he walks in, and I’m like – [gasps] – It’s Daniel Bryan! And I, like, forget the – you know, and it’s like I have to, like, struggle to, like, remember, and I think, I think I just think more as I write about, like, who the reader is going to root for. Like, and I like a sympathetic villain, but it’s like –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Rose: – I would get feedback of, like, oh, I want a book for the villain! And I’m like, but he did these terrible things, like – and I think it’s helped me, like, let go of, like, it’s like the person is going to, people are going to love this villain, and I –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Rose: – just have to let that go, because the, like, it’s not about him being repulsive in everything that he does; it’s about, like, his actions and, like –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Rose: – the consequences for those?

Sarah: Right. And to a certain extent, it also sounds like when you watch wrestling and when you look at the storytelling within wrestling feuds, you’re also considering the – I don’t want to say manipulation – the active engagement with the audience. Because you know how the audience is going to react, you’re going to play that moment for the maximum impact, because you, ‘cause, you know, the structure is in, is, is already in place when this begins. The reaction and the engagement of the audience is always something that’s considered during the process of developing a match; the same is also true when you’re trying to write romance: you want to emotionally engage your audience, your, your reader so that they will experience the emotions that you’re trying to communicate.

Rose: Yes.

Sarah: But you can’t put in the big sound effects of a wrestling match in a book.

Rose: And – no, you can’t. But the, the other thing I think, the book that I’m working on now is a Gothic, and it’s a first-person, one point of view, like, old-school Gothic in that way, instead of the trad-, the dual POV that we’ve gotten used to in romance.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Rose: Something that I’ve been really enjoying is that, in my other books I really want the people to have a healthy relationship?

Sarah: Right.

Rose: And something that I’ve really remembered with watching wrestling is that, even though I believe in working for healthy relationships and I want that for my characters in my romances, I also, like, deeply – like, I love to get in unhealthy, toxic relationships and roll around in them, and it is in many ways, like, the thing that most emotionally engages me is, like, deep, inextricable, ambivalent, all-consuming relationships where it’s like, they love each other, but they hate each other, but they – and it’s been so long, and they can’t separate, but they want to separate, but they don’t want to separate, but they chase each other, but they push – you know, like, I just, I love that, like, the Blair and Serena and the Loki and Thor –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Rose: – and the, you know, the Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn, like, those are, like, often, like, my faves, and so something that I’ve really been enjoying in this Gothic, digging into, because with a Gothic it’s like, there’s going to be a happy ending. Like, don’t even worry, there’s going to be a happy ending, but it doesn’t have to be the same, for me, it doesn’t have to be the same kind of happy ending, because part of the joy of a Gothic is that, like, something is wrong in this house, right, and, and the thing that’s wrong in the house, like, often symbolizes something that is wrong in the world or, like, in society, and so everything doesn’t necessarily have to be fixed at the end? I’ve been really enjoying being able to write characters and relationships that are, like, a little more messed up, not worry as much about, like, are they going to resolve this? Are they going to figure this out? Are they going to, like, deal with this, like, relationship issue? So it’s helped me go a little darker and, like, enjoy that instead of worrying about, like, oh, but in ten years are they going to be, like, fighting with each other? You know, it’s like, whatever! It’s a Gothic!

Sarah: Yeah, it’s okay!

Rose: Yeah.

Sarah: I always ask this question: what books are you reading that you want to recommend to people?

Rose: Well, Spinning Silver just got nominated for a Hugo, and I’m about to reread it. I have read it already, but – I read it when it came out – but it’s –

Sarah: It’s beautiful!

Rose: Oh my God, I love it so much. I love it so much. There’s, it’s a YA, it’s like a, it’s fantasy. It’s set in a world that’s, like, sort of Eastern-European-ish –

Sarah: Yeah.

Rose: – and it’s about, it’s sort of a Rumpelstiltskin retelling. There’s, like, a lot of fairy tales that are kind of like drawn on, but it’s like three women: one of them is, like, a Jewish moneylender’s daughter –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Rose: – who, obviously rhetorically, makes this brag that she can turn silver into gold, and then this, like, mystical being who, like, loves gold, like, pops up and is like, I have a job for you, and she’s like, uh, what? Uh –

[Laughter]

Rose: And then there’s, like, a girl who’s being forced to marry the tsar, and then there’s, like, a peasant girl who, like, has, like, an abusive family situation, and they all kind of get drawn together in this, like, epic – but it’s like, it’s so good, and I, like, did not know, like, how much I needed, like, that kind of like Jewish fantasy romance until I was reading it, and I just love it so much.

Sarah: My favorite part of that book is how very carefully the heroine builds her ability to utterly take control of all of the people who have made such a mess of her life.

Rose: Mm-hmm!

Sarah: Like, she is not there to necessarily burn it all down, but she, she’s not putting up with anyone’s shit anymore, and her fearlessness and her, her utter spine are so inspiring.

Rose: I just, I, I mean, I just, I just love her so much! I just really, I love –

Sarah: Delicious, right?

Rose: – I don’t even have words. The, my only thing with that book is that I wanted her and Wanda to end up together, like, so badly.

Sarah: Oh my gosh!

Rose: So badly!

Sarah: It’s the best chemistry! What is that about?

Rose: I’m, like, so sad that it didn’t happen. That was honestly my thing with the previous book too, Uprooted, which I really enjoyed as well, but I was just like, but Kasia! Why isn’t she with Kasia?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Rose: And I, I did like, like, I, I know some people didn’t like the central romance, and I, I enjoyed it, but, like, I just, yeah, so.

And then I, I haven’t, I, I read an earlier draft and I haven’t read it since it came out, but I know that it’s going to be even better now, but Alyssa Cole’s Can’t Escape Love, which is a novella in her Reluctant Royals series. So you read, you said you read A Duke by Default? Okay, so Portia’s twin sister Reggie, who has the, the site the Girls with Glasses, like, geek fan site forum thing? So she now has insomnia, and the only thing that’s helping, helping her to sleep were these, like, old video, she used to follow this, like, puzzle guy on, like, a livestream?

Sarah: Mm-hmm?

Rose: And he would, like, solve puzzles and talk, and, like, his voice, like, really helped her sleep, and then he, like, took his account down, and so she’s like, but I still need to sleep, so she’s trying to, like, track him down to get him to, like, record stuff for her to use to, like, sleep, and then it turns out that he is now making the escape room for an anime convention that’s, like, a tie-in with her, like, very, very favorite show, but he’s, like, not a fan of the show, and she’s like, this will not stand! So, like, then they have to make this deal like she’s going to help him with his escape room, and he’s going to help her not have insomnia anymore, but then they fall in love, and it’s like –

Sarah: Of course they do.

Rose: – so, but it’s, like, so good. Like, I can’t even, like – Gus is, like, such a sweetheart, and he makes delicious salad dressing. There’s a part, speaking of things where it’s like don’t worry if it’s sexy ‘cause it’s amazing? There’s this part where they’re, like, having dinner together, and he’s, like, made his, like, signature salad dressing, and she’s, like, really, really enjoying it, right, and he’s like, all like, the sounds she’s making as she eats this are, like, really sexy, and then he, like, imagines her in a bathtub of salad dressing? Which, like, sounds gross, but it’s, like, so charming in the moment. Like, I was so about it.

[Laughter]

Sarah: And if you try to explain that to someone else they’d be like, what?

Rose: [Laughs] And, like, I just, I love Reggie so much, because she’s, like, totally like a, like, I have to hang on to everything with this, like, white-knuckle grip or it’s all going to spin out of control, which is, like, absolutely like me, one hundred percent?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Rose: And I just, like, it was just, like, the fan-ish romance that I didn’t know I needed, and I just, I love it so much.

I just started, I’m not very far in, but I just started, oh my gosh, what, which one is it? It’s a Cat Sebastian, and it’s the one with Robin and Alistair, and I want to say it’s Unmasking the Marquess? [Unmasked by the Marquess]

Sarah: Yes.

Rose: The non-binary character, and they’re, like –

Sarah: Yes.

Rose: – dressing as their –

Sarah: Yes.

Rose: – front – yes. And I’m really enjoying it so far, but I’m, like, two chapters in.

And then I just, I just read Lydia San Andres’s, oh my gosh, I think it’s called A Summer for Scandal? It’s the first one in a series, I’m pretty sure, and it’s set in a, like, it’s like an early-20th-century, like, Caribbean island, and it’s like this girl, she has a job as a typist, but secretly she’s writing, like, erotic romance? Like, serialized –

Sarah: Yep.

Rose: – erotic romance.

Sarah: Yep, that’s A Summer for Scandal.

Rose: Yeah. And then the, the hero is, like, in town for the summer, and he, like, has this, he’s trying to build up his literary magazine, and because her books are so popular he’s been kind of piggybacking on her success by writing, like, nasty reviews of her books, and it’s like – but she doesn’t know it’s him, and he doesn’t know it’s her, and, like, then there’s, like, a charity bazaar for, like, women’s suffrage and, like, all this stuff. It’s like, it’s just so delightful and, like, so vivid, and, like, the characters, like, there’s just like a real – like, I never know how to explain this. It’s like, if, ‘cause it’s, there are mean people, and there’s, like, but there’s just, like, a, like a warmth and like a kindness, like, in the writing that is, like, so –

Sarah: Well, they’re constantly feeding each other.

Rose: That too! [Laughs]

Sarah: They are constantly –

Rose: The descriptions of food are, like, offsides.

Sarah: [Laughs] Offsides!

Rose: My, speaking of which, I just read, reread Courtney Mi-, ‘cause I also, I, I got to read an early draft of that, ‘cause I’m very, very, very lucky, but I just reread Courtney Milan’s Mrs. Martin’s Incomparable Adventure, which is her new f/f novella. Victorian old ladies take, like, brutal revenge on, like, some mean dude, yes, and they burn it all down, but there’s, like, a lot of cheese toast in the book, and, like –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Rose: – I definitely had to make myself cheese toast multiple times while I was reading it. [Laughs]

Sarah: There are just some foods that just com-, instantly communicate comfort, and that is, that is definitely one of them. Yeah.

Rose: I still feel like I don’t a hundred percent understand, like, how Victorian grilled cheese works? There’s like a –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Rose: They had these, like, little machines –

Sarah: Right.

Rose: – that they used, but I, like, I need to find, like, I bet there’s somebody has, like, a YouTube video that will explain it to me.

Sarah: I am sure that it is on YouTube, and if not, it will be shortly.

Rose: [Laughs]

Sarah: Is there anything else you want to add or make sure you mention?

Rose: Oh, I guess I also, I do workshops. If anybody’s, like, library wants, like, a historical research workshop, I’m giving – oh, and I’m also scheduled to give my Women in Regency Politics workshop online at, I think it’s For the Heart Romance Writers? It’s FTHRW, anyway [From the Heart Romance Writers], and that’s going to be online in December? And I do, like, an overview of the Regency political system, and then I do like a deep-dive into, like, the different ways that women participated as, like, vote holders, as patronesses, as –

Sarah: Right.

Rose: – hostesses, et cetera, et cetera. Yes! They’re operating within the existing power structure, but for example, because votes were, there were property qualifications for votes, which obviously is terrible, but if women had property that qualified, they had a vote.

Sarah: Mm-hmm?

Rose: And so then they, they, they usually needed a representative to cast the vote? If they were married, it was typically understood to be their husband, but if they were separated, like he no longer, like if they were still married but they were separated, like, he no longer had the right to cast that vote. It went back – and if they were not married, they could choose their own representative. There are a lot of ways that women did sort of more directly participate in that kind of, you know, what we would now consider, probably, undemocratic, but, like, that sort of direct electioneering.

[music]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you to Rose Lerner for this interview. I had such a good time, and I hope you enjoyed it as well. If you would like to find out more, you can learn more about all of the things. Rose Lerner’s website is roselerner.com, and you can also go to her research site, rosedoestheresearch.com. Her Twitter is @RoseLerner, and her Patreon is patreon.com/roselerner. Pretty easy to remember, right? I cannot recommend her Patreon newsletter more highly. I, I love it, and I’m so excited to read it every time it shows up in my inbox. It is a treat, so if you’re at all curious, definitely have a look.

This week’s episode is sponsored by Darkness Returns by Alexandra Ivy. After a brief hiatus, everyone’s favorite vampire clan is back. War is once again upon the Guardians of Eternity, and the fate of the world rests in the hands of one rebellious vampire with a chip on his shoulder. The darkness is growing. Soon it will devour everything in its path. To fight back against the forces of the night, he must choose between loyalty to his kind and the mortal woman he loves. Darkness Returns by Alexandra Ivy is on sale now wherever books are sold and at kensingtonbooks.com.

This week’s transcript is, as always, handcrafted by garlicknitter and brought to you by Radish. You can discover a world where storytelling is reimagined with Radish, an app with thousands of romance stories from bestselling authors like Lisa Renee Jones and Kelley Armstrong and Sylvia Day and Julie Kenner, all in bite-size chapters, perfect to read on your morning commute or on your lunch break or before bed. You can enjoy epic romances full of everything, everything you like, including billionaire bosses, tattooed bad boys, sexy vampires, and paranormal shifters. You can join live chat rooms and interact with authors and readers who love the same stories you do. There is a fresh collection of original stories written by some of daytime TV’s top Emmy-winning writers, bingeable, fast-paced stories that you won’t find anywhere else. Maybe you’re interested in romantic fantasies like Heart of Dragons, where a woman is ripped away from her dashing fiancé to be sacrificed to the dragons that live beneath the earth, only to find herself falling in love with a powerful dragon prince. Radish has it all. Download the app in the Google Play Store or the Apple Store for free today and begin your adventure on Radish.

We also have a Patreon. Patreon is really a tremendous opportunity for people who make stuff. If you have supported the show with a monthly pledge, thank you very, very much. You are helping me make sure that every episode is transcribed and that the show keeps going each week. If you would like to join: patreon.com/SmartBitches. Monthly pledges start at one dollar, and each and every pledge means that you appreciate the work we do and that you want the show to keep going. Your support is so appreciated. You can find out more at patreon.com/SmartBitches.

And, yes, live show. Thursday, March – no, not March, May – did you also know that it’s 2019? I have to remind myself that regularly. Anyway, May, May 16, not March 16, May – May 16, 3:30 p.m., Imperial 5C, me, Amanda, Elyse, live show at Book Lovers Con. If you’re going to be at Book Lovers Con, I hope you will come and hang out with us, ‘cause live shows are so much fun. You can find out more in the show notes, and you can sign up to attend. It’s free; we just need chairs, we need to know how many chairs for the people like you who’ll be there at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast.

The music you are listening to is provided by Sassy Outwater. You can find out more about this in the show notes, again at http:// – I’m kidding, I’m totally kidding. [Laughs] This is Caravan Palace. This track is called “Suzy,” and you can find out more about them at caravanpalace – actually, that would be http:// – [laughs]. Actually, no! It’s HTTPS now! Https for special! You can find Caravan Palace on their website, on Facebook, and on iTunes and Amazon. I will have links to all of those things.

I’m amusing myself so much; I think it’s the cold medicine. [Laughs]

Coming up on Smart Bitches this week, we have so many reviews of new books. There are so many new books coming out this month that people are excited about. Holy smokies! We also have a new edition of Cover Snark because we like to make you laugh, and we have a discussion question, ‘cause I’m super nosy. Plus, next week is Book Lovers Con, and Amanda, Elyse, and I will be there. We’re doing the live show – don’t forget about that – and we’ll also be posting as usual Books on Sale and Help a Bitch Out. You are most emphatically invited to come hang out with us at smartbitches.com.

Now, Kit is keeping me in terrible joke, and I love this terrible joke. I love all of the jokes that Kit has sent. This is just completely making my day. You ready? This is really terrible; I love it.

Did you hear what happens, what happened – did you hear what happened when the husband sued his wife over her dreadful coffee?

Yeah, true story. Husband sued his wife over her dreadful coffee, and the lawsuit was dismissed for insufficient grounds.

[Laughs] That’s such a grodie joke! Insufficient grounds. Thank you, Kit!

I have links to everything we talked about and all of the books that Rose mentioned, as well as television shows and movies, but as always, on behalf of everyone here, including my dog, we wish you the very best of reading. I am super excited about the cold medicine that I’ve taken today to make this outro really goofy! Thank you for listening. We will see you back here next week.

[swinging music]