352. Live From BookLovers Con: Cards Against Romance Tropes, and Other Appropriate Topics

[music]

Sarah Wendell: Hello there, and welcome to episode number 352 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell, and today we are live – well, sort of live – from Book Lovers Con. We recorded this episode on May 16th, 2019, and it is our live show from Book Lovers Con. It’s fast, it’s funny, and it’s very silly.

I have to start with some thank-yous: thank you to Amanda and Elyse for doing the live show with me. Thank you to Eva Moore and Beth P who brought bottles of wine to share, because they are most lovely. Thank you to Tere and Jo Carol at Book Lovers Con for giving us a space with a sound system to record in, and thank you as always to Melonie Johnson and the organizing committee of the 2014 Chicago North Spring Fling who gave me Cards Against Romance Tropes, which I have flown around the earth so that I can play it with other people.

Now, I also have some apologies. I am expressing all of my feelings in this intro. There is some uneven audio in this production, and I’m not sure if it was my fault, but I’m going to take all the blame. I did my best to fix it. It is a little uneven. Sometimes the mics picked up my voice in two places and I couldn’t separate it. There’s sometimes a little bit of an echo or a, or a buzz. This is a bit off for usual audio standards, and I apologize in advance. If you enjoy it, thank you so much. I apologize for the oddness of the audio.

Now, in between rounds of Cards Against Humanity, we talk about a bunch of different things. We have some big news from us and from me! We have an update on The Bachelorette recaps. We have a discussion of chafing solutions and the benefits of Stitch Fix. Now, I have no affiliations with Stitch Fix; I’m just really nosy about people’s clothing when they make terrific outfit choices because I don’t really know how to dress myself very well. We also talk about ER nurses having to pull things out of people’s backsides, because that’s how our conversations go. And at the end, we make book recommendations, because that’s also how our conversations tend to go.

If you would like to email me, or if you would like to see a live show and you want to know when the next time I’m doing one is, I can tell you they’re longer than this episode. During the part where I’m handing out cards or talking to people, we have a lot of conversations and laughter and silliness in the room that doesn’t translate to the recording, so if you want to see a live show, email me! [email protected], and tell me where I should go next for a live show. You can also leave me a message at 201-371-3272. You can leave a message; you can tell me where to go – like, you can literally tell me where to go – or – [laughs] – you can leave a message with a question or a suggestion or tell me a bad joke. You know I love those too!

This episode is brought to you by Never Kiss a Notorious Marquess by Renee Ann Miller. Renee Ann Miller’s USA Today bestselling series of steamy Victorian-set romances about infamous lords whose scandalous ways keep tongues wagging, but whose wicked reputations are fueled by dark gossip and dangerous hearsay, is back. When darker whispers swirl that a certain marquess may have murdered his wife, a spirited suffragette and aspiring journalist decides to use a chance encounter with the dangerously desirable nobleman to uncover the true story. Never Kiss a Notorious Marquess by Renee Ann Miller is on sale now wherever books are sold and at kensingtonbooks.com.

Today’s podcast transcript is brought to you by End Transmission, the final book in Robin Bachar’s Galactic Cold War series, where Firefly meets James Bond in this action-adventure romance trilogy. When a surprise attack separates Chief Engineer Maria Watson from her ship, she finds herself stranded in hostile space with a stolen Soviet weapon and the ship’s salty, sexy doctor, Tomas Nyota. Trapped together in a stolen ship and running from both the Alliance and the Soviets, they must work together to survive. But when the weapon’s horrific purpose is uncovered, their quest becomes a race against time. They must expose the truth and destroy the weapon before it’s too late. Don’t miss the rest of the trilogy: Relaunch Mission, which was listed as one of Book Riot’s 25 Best Space Opera Books, and Contingency Plan. The final book in the trilogy, End Transmission, releases May 20 from Carina Press and is available everywhere books are sold.

We have a podcast Patreon. I invite you to check it out: patreon.com/SmartBitches. The Patreon helps make live shows like this possible and keeps the show going every week and, most of all, ensures that every episode receives a transcript so that each episode is accessible to everyone. If what we do gives you a small amount of pleasure and you would like to throw one dollar a month towards us to keep going, that would be most appreciated. Demonstrating that what we do has value means a lot, and to everyone who is part of our Patreon community, thank you so much for your support. You can have a look at all of the tiers at patreon.com/SmartBitches.

I will have music at the end of the episode, and I will have information about the music at the end of the episode, and there’s also music right now; I just haven’t added it in yet. And I’ll tell you who this is and where you can buy it, and I will have a preview of what’s coming up on Smart Bitches this week, along with a terrible joke – I actually have two terrible jokes this week, because I couldn’t decide – and, of course, links to everything that we talk about, the books we mention, and the different games we talk about, and all of the things we talk about when we talk about chafing; that will be in the podcast show notes as well at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast.

But for now, let’s do this podcast thing. Again, I apologize for some of the unevenness of the audio, but I hope you enjoy our live show from Book Lovers Con 2019.

[music]

Sarah: Okay, I am required by the laws in the state that I live to tell you I’m now recording everything that you say. I’m not going to do anything with it except show the whole internet.

[Laughter]

Sarah: ‘Kay? All right, so welcome to our live show! Thank you so much for coming!

[Cheers and applause]

Sarah: This is so great! I’m Sarah; I run Smart Bitches. I have a shirt that says Smart Bitch. Are you guys having a good conference so far? Things are good? All right, so I need to start by thanking Eva and Beth, who brought wine. Yay!

[More cheers and applause]

Sarah: And would you introduce yourselves, please?

Amanda: Hi, I’m Amanda!

Elyse: And I’m Elyse!

Sarah: Okay, that was our show, guys. Thanks very much for coming.

Amanda: Yeah. Good-bye!

[Laughter]

Sarah: How many of you in the room are, are, this is your first book conference, Book Lovers Con, Book Lovers – ? So, like, more than, about half! My favorite, there’s two things that I love about conferences that are all women. One is that sometimes a hotel will close the men’s room, and then they’ll try to artfully hide the urinals with tablecloths and flowers and, like – right? It’s the best when they stick a plant in the urinal and there’s like a big – like, oh, I didn’t know that men peed there. No, I just thought it was a, like a terrarium.

And the other thing is it is the best time to go to the gym if you are so inclined, ‘cause it is all women, and all the men are in there like, what the hell?

[Laughter]

Sarah: Like, there’s just chicks. The gym when it’s all women and the bathroom when it’s all women is bad, but the gym when it’s all – [indistinct].

We’re going to play a game with y’all, and we hope you volunteer. Melonie Johnson is here. She is the one who invented this game, so in 2010? 2014? So I have no concept of time. I don’t know what year or day it is ever. I went to Chicago North, and then as a speaker, this was my gift: a personally created Cards Against Romance Tropes. I think there’s only ten of these?

Melonie Johnson: Yeah, I can’t, can’t remember if we made eight – somewhere between eight and a dozen exist in the world, and you got two of them. [Laughs]

Sarah: And I gave one away on the site, so I only have one, and I guard it. When we moved it was among the very important stuff like the safe, our documents, and then the game.

Melonie: I don’t even have a copy. [Laughs]

Sarah: You have all the source files, though! You could make one.

Melonie: But I do, and someone was just – I get emails all the time about the game, so we do, we do hope – it was so, for, I was one of the coordinators for Spring Fling that year, and if anyone here has ever coordinated a conference, bless you. It’s extremely stressful, so the way that one of the other coordinators and I kind of handled our stress was to start coming up with this game, this Cards Against Humanity version for romance novels, and we would just throw our ideas into this, you know, file, and –

Sarah:  And it was born.

Melonie: – it just came together.

[Laughter]

Melonie: And it’s very tongue in cheek; it’s very snarky. It’s an affectionate look at a lot of the silliness and things that we love and hate about romance novels, sometimes in the way it can be mocked, so when you play this game, you play it with a big grain of salt, and it’s meant to, to – like, like Cards Against Humanity – and so we, we have talked about possibly updating the game to –

Amanda: Kickstart it.

Melonie: Well, yeah, we’ve thought about that too, but we want to be very careful of, like, what the boundaries are with it being based off of Cards Against Humanity.

Sarah: I’ve seen so many versions?

Melonie: I know. I, a lot of people have, I, like, I have, I have Bards Against Profanity, which is a Shakespeare version of the game? Which is awesome.

Sarah: Someone bit their thumb at you?

Melonie: Yes. But I bite my thumb at you, sir.

Sarah: Right.

Melonie: Yes, yeah. So no, that, so it’s a, it’s a great game, and I’m so excited that Sarah is still playing it five years later. [Laughs]

Sarah: I adore this. Okay. So Amanda and Elyse are going to be our team captains, and each of you are going to volunteer to come up. There is a pink card. The pink card is the phrase the captain will read and you have to complete. So in this example: The biggest difference between YA romance and adult romance is _blank_. And each contestant will get to choose three of the white cards, and they have to pick which one of their white cards best completes that. So I’m going to pick a card at random and pretend this is mine. The biggest difference between YA romance and adult romance is _blue eyeshadow_.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Story checks out, right? Okay, so we have Team Amanda and Team Elyse.

Amanda: I, I just want to say that we played Romance Feud, and I see some of my former team members in the audience here. I lost last year, and I’m kind of hoping to keep that same energy!

[Laughter]

Sarah: So Team Amanda and Team Elyse will each have two contestants with them.

Amanda: Wait, can you just, like, guide us through the first round?

Sarah: Oh, I will guide you through many rounds. I haven’t had that much wine. All right, who would like to be on a team? So each team that wins, even if you don’t submit the winning attempt, your, if your team wins, then you get to come up and you get to take a prize. All right, Amanda and Elyse, I’m going to pick the first pink card, and I’m going to hand it to Amanda. You guys are trying to complete this phrase with your teams:

Amanda: They lived next door to each other their entire lives, but she never thought about him that way until he came home looking like _blank_.

Sarah: Okay. Elyse, do you want to complete the sentence?

Elyse: They lived next door to each other their entire lives, but she never thought about him that way until he came home looking like –

Sarah: You need to pick one of those two.

Elyse: – _a tattoo with a story_.

Audience: [Laughs, applauds] Oooh!

Amanda: Until he came home looking like _a two-for-one sale_.

[Screaming laughter, applause]

Guest: I’m guessing that was –

Other guest: Yeah.

[Laughter]

Sarah: All right! All right, Team Amanda members, please come back here and pick a prize. I need two more volunteers. All right, here we go.

All right, so I’ve got a question: I want to ask Amanda and Elyse about their clothes? So, and I’m going to do that in a minute. They both got their stuff from Stitch Fix. Have you guys ever used Stitch Fix? Yeah, is it, is it good? Yes and no.

Amanda: It works best when you have something, like a, like, I asked, I was like, I’m going to a wedding in Austin in March. What have you got? So it works when you give them a lot of direction.

Elyse: When I got a box where, like, everything worked except one piece, I just emailed them and I’m like, this person is the person who’s going to send me my clothes. Like, I don’t want anyone else, just this person, and then it, since then, like, she or he has been on it. So, ‘cause I hate to shop; I hate it.

Sarah: I mean, my, my threshold for clothing is, does it itch, and do my boobs fit in it? And is it – I do not believe in Dry Clean Only any longer. Like, I have two classes of clothing: someone in my house is sticky, or I am at a conference, and those are two very separate groups?

Elyse: They have an app, though. If you go on it, it will show you different items of clothing, and you can thumbs-up or thumbs-down, and if you –

Amanda: It’s like a little game! It’s like Tinder for clothes!

Elyse: Right, but if you –

[Laughter]

Elyse: But if you do that, like, their, the items you get are definitely more in line with what you’re looking, ‘cause it builds some kind of algorithm in there.

Sarah: Okay, so. Here’s the deal: I read the sentence; you have to pick the phrase on the card in your hand that you think best completes it and hand it to your team captain. He whisks her away to his secret _blank_.

Audience: Ooh!

Sarah: All right, Elyse.

Elyse: He whisks her away to his secret _flirty step-siblings_.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Oh! That’s like a gross reverse harem.

[More laughter]

Amanda: He whisks her away – [laughs] – to his secret _anal virgin_.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Okay. So by show of rowdy behavior – you, some of you are sympathy blushing for Amanda!

[Laughter]

Sarah: This is amazing. All right, so he whisks her away to his flirty step-siblings? Or he whisks her –

Amanda: You say it.

Sarah: – or he whisks her away to his anal virgin.

Guest: Yes!

[Applause]

Sarah: All right, anal virgins! All right!

Elyse: Amanda’s getting revenge this year.

Amanda: I’m working hard, but my Spanx are working harder today.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Okay. Here we go, pink card. The hymen is located in front of _blank_.

Amanda: Oh boy.

Sarah: Aren’t you sorry you used anal virgin?

[Laughter]

Guest: Man!

Sarah: Elyse?

Elyse: All right. The hymen is located in front of _tasteful cleavage_.

Sarah: Really? I didn’t read that book.

Amanda: This was not planned. The hymen is located in front of _the Spanx_.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Ouch! Yeah, you put those on way wrong! So are we –

Amanda: No, it’s like, they’re, like, crotchless underwear! I mean –

Guest: Like a stretchy thong.

Sarah: Can I give you a recommendation of other than Spanx? Jockey makes these things called Skimmies.

Amanda: I love ‘em. I’ve got –

Sarah: Yes!

Amanda: Yeah, they’re great.

Guest: I’m wearing them today!

Sarah: They’re fabulous, right? And they have, like, a thicker weight, and then they have a thinner weight, and they have three inseam lengths? Like, if you want to go, like, full on I’m-biking-forever, they come down to your knees.

Amanda: Yeah. So my, my chubby-thighed ladies, I tried the Bandelettes? I don’t like them. I was going on a date with my boyfriend. We were in the north end of Boston, which is all, like, cobblestone, and I remembered just, like, one kept rolling down my leg, and I had to, like, sneak –

Sarah: Me too.

Amanda: – into an alley in this, like, old Italian, like, Little Italy, and I’m, like, crying, trying to adjust my Bandelette in the north end of Boston, and my boyfriend’s like, what’s wrong? And I’m like –

Sarah: Nothing! Get out of the alley!

Amanda: I was like, can you walk slower?! I don’t like them. But the Jockeys work well. Monistat also makes an anti-chafing gel.

Guest: I looked for it!

Amanda: It’s so good! I had to order mine on –

Guest: The Monistat?

Amanda: Yeah, I had to order mine on Amazon.

Guest: – love it.

Sarah: So, is the hymen located in front of tasteful cleavage? Or Spanx?

[Applause]

Audience: Spanx!

Sarah: Amanda’s team is taking exactly zero prisoners here. It’s really impressive. All right, so, collecting cards, collecting cards. All right, two more fortunate souls, come on down! Thank you for volunteering! Here we go. Ready? The secret to the shirt-undone-but-still-tucked-in look is –

Elyse: We’re ready.

Sarah: Are you ready?

Elyse: The secret to the shirt-undone-but-still-tucked-in look is _a riding crop_.

Sarah and audience: Oooh!

Guest: Compelling.

[Laughter]

Guest: I’m here for it!

Amanda: We’re just going to go full weird with this one. The secret to the shirt-undone-but-still-tucked-in look is _chicken marsala_.

[Laughter]

Sarah: All right, so the secret to the shirt-undone-but-still-tucked-in look is _a riding crop_.

[Loud cheers and clapping]

Sarah: And chicken marsala.

[One person clapping, laughter]

Amanda: [Laughs] Thank you!

Sarah: All right, Team Elyse! [Cheers] Well played, well played!

Elyse: Thank you, ma’am. All right, two more!

Sarah: Thank you.

Guest: Thank you.

Sarah: You’re welcome –

Guest: That’s my card.

Sarah: While I get your cards, I told some of y’all this when you were here early, but I am starting a Smart Bitches Podcast Network, ‘cause I want more podcasts that are dope, and I want to make ‘em, so! Amanda and Elyse came to me with this really cool idea for a podcast, which are in production now, and I’m asking them to tell you about it!

Audience: Ooh! [Cheers, applause]

Elyse: So Amanda came to me; it came up because we talk all the time about how we need to live closer because we both really love creepy shit and no one else will watch it with us.

Amanda: Yeah, our partners don’t do creepy shit.

Elyse: No. So we are doing a podcast called Creep Squad that is all about the horror/thriller genre through an intersectional feminist lens.

Guest: I need this!

Audience: Ahh! [Clapping]

Guest: It’s so exciting!

Amanda: So the first season will be six episodes. We recorded the first episode –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: – which is, like, orientation.

Elyse: We talk about, like, how everyone gets finger blasted in Stephen King books.

Amanda: We talk about jizz rain.

Elyse: Yep. So the first book we’re doing is The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling, which is a sci-fi/horror book that’s set underground in a cave system.

Sarah: She’s finished it, and Amanda has not, and, like –

Elyse: Yes.

Sarah: – Elyse is levitating –

Elyse: I want to talk about it so bad!

Amanda: She’s listened to it, and I’m going to be reading it.

Elyse: Yeah.

Sarah: Right. The other thing that’s cool about it is that they’re going to each read or watch this thing and then talk about it, but the best part is that their respective partners and spouses cannot handle any of this?

Elyse: No. Like, they try real hard. You can tell that there’s a pride thing happening, and sometimes, like, my husband’ll be, like, frantically playing something on the iPad while we’re watching something. Like, baby, do you want to, like, do you want to just watch something else? He’s like – [sadly] – no, I’m fine. It’s really okay.

[Laughter]

Amanda: We saw It in theaters, my boyfriend and I, and the second trailer just dropped, and he’s like, I have to wait and watch it with you, ‘cause I cannot watch it by myself. Aww! He’s so sweet, and then he’s like, can we just watch it in the daytime? Why do we have to watch it now at ten o’clock? I was like, we’re watching it now, or I’m going to watch it without you. He’s like, fine!

Guest: Is it scarier or not than The Bachelor?

Elyse: The Ba– –

Sarah: Ooh, tough question!

Elyse: Okay, so –

Sarah: Scarier than The Bachelor or not?

Elyse: So I was not going to review The Bachelorette this season. I was going to take a personal break. Then –

Sarah: And I got email about it: where are the recaps?

Elyse: But then –

Amanda: We, we’ve had several comments on the site about it.

Sarah: Yeah.

Elyse: – they changed, they changed the format of the show so that two of her girlfriends sit in, like, a van, like surveillance van?

Audience: Ooh! [Clapping] That’s nice!

Elyse: The have access to watching what the guys are doing twenty-four/seven, and they can call her at any time, like, so this dumb motherfucker – right?

[Laughter, clapping]

Elyse: So –

Guest: This is amazing!

Elyse: So the first episode, I caught part of it. They found out through social media that he, one of the guys still had a girlfriend, and she marches into the room where all the dudebros are drinking, and – I don’t know what his name is, so I just go with Chad – and she’s like, Chad, we need to talk. And she hauls him out there, and she’s like, so you have a girlfriend. He’s like, I don’t have a girlfriend. She’s like, you were dating her on Monday. He’s like, well, we’re not really dating. She’s like, that’s a shitty thing to do, and you’re leaving. And he’s like, I’m, I’m what now? And she’s, like, literally marching him to the door, snapping her fingers. She’s like, come on, I said you were leaving, and all of the other guys, like, you can see their testicles start to shrivel up.

[Laughter]

Elyse: We’re going to recap it, yeah.

Sarah: Because the, the joy must be shared! [Laughs]

All right, you ready for the next round?

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: Here we go. During the first sex scene, the hero was really thinking about _blank_.

Amanda: Ooh.

[Silence]

Elyse: Everyone’s really, like, reluctant to hand over their cards.

Sarah: Yeah, this game just got leveled up; I can feel the tension.

[Laughter]

Elyse: Okay. During the first sex scene, the hero was really thinking about _marking her with his scent_.

[Laughter]

Elyse: That’s a shifter romance.

Sarah: Yep. It’s like when your cat wakes up by, like, rubbing his face on you.

Elyse: Yep. Butt –

Sarah: Or his ass.

Elyse: – butt in the face.

Sarah: Just, do all of your cats just present their butts to you –

Elyse: Yes.

Sarah: – like, have you seen it?

Elyse: Yes.

Amanda: I, I wish I loved anything more than, like, the way Linus loves putting his asshole on things. I wish I had that amount of joy in my life.

[Laughter]

Guest: [Indistinct]

[More laughter]

Amanda: No. My boyfriend won’t let me near his butthole. And I have asked.

Guest: [Indistinct]

Amanda: No.

Sarah: Someone’s an anal virgin.

[Laughter]

Guest: That might be the name of the episode!

Sarah: Someone’s an Anal Virgin? People are going to read the show notes and be like, what is happening?

Amanda: And it’s funny because he always bugs me. It’s like, when am I going to be on the podcast?

[Laughter]

Sarah: Talking about your butt!

Amanda: During the first sex scene, the hero was really thinking about _a trip to Paris_.

Sarah: Oooh! All right. Marking her with his scent?

[Cheers, applause]

Sarah: Trip to Paris!

[Silence]

Amanda: Wow!

Sarah: I saw that coming. All right, Elyse!

Amanda: Really turned on me!

Elyse: Oh, we’re so sorry, garlicknitter! We appreciate everything you do!

Sarah: Oh yeah. Garlicknitter loves the live shows, but I get a lot of flags.

[Laughter]

[I do love the live shows, and I appreciate everything y’all do too! – gk]

Sarah: Book title, fill in the blank: The Millionaire Sheikh’s Secret _Blank_.

Elyse: The Millionaire Sheikh’s Secret _Awkwardly Timed Condom_.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Oh. My God.

Elyse: But, like, what would make it awkward?

Amanda: What, what is an awkwardly timed condom?

Sarah: Oh, I know the answer, I know the answer!

Amanda: After, after you’re done? And you’re like, let me just put –

[Laughter]

Elyse: Or, like, right before. Like, right, like, before kissing has started. Just like –

Amanda: Or he’s, he’s had it on all day.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Close! Very close.

Amanda: He’s ready.

Sarah: Okay, so one of my least – yes, one of my least-favorite books, I think it’s Kill and Tell, there’s a lot of insta-love, there’s ruminating on the hero’s, hair-, hairy toes, and he’s – so it’s set in New Orleans, so, you know, this guy is all kinds of smooth, and he’s having the heroine over for dinner in his extremely, gloriously nice balcony or whatever, and she, he goes inside and he puts on music and puts on music, and he comes out and they have dinner, and they have dessert, and then they start kissing, and then she takes his pants off and he’s had a condom on the whole time.

Elyse: How?!

Guest: How? How?

Sarah: And she’s like, how, when did you put that on? He goes, when I went in to put on the music.

Elyse: So he, was he –

Amanda: How presumptuous!

Elyse: But, like, was he, how does that work? ‘Cause, like –

Sarah: I don’t know!

Elyse: You’d have to maintain your erection the entire time!

Amanda: Maybe he’s just a shower, not a grower.

Elyse: That’s just, that’s a bad plan!

Amanda: It’s like those wacky waving inflatable dudes with two hands.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Like, outside a car dealership?

[More laughter]

Sarah: Oh my God! Now I want condoms that look like that thing! I believe that’s called priapism, and it’s an emergency!

Elyse: It’s a medical emergency!

Sarah: Yeah, it’s bad. So yeah, it was on for, like, over an hour and then a meal and then a dessert and the dancing, and he just had that on the whole – wouldn’t that get kind of sweaty? Like –

Guest: I’m not trusting that that has zero holes in it.

Elyse: No, that’s –

Sarah: Right?

Elyse: – that’s very unsafe.

Sarah: Yeah, so that’s, that’s the, that’s the probably the origin of the awkwardly timed condom. I mean there are other awkwardly timed condoms, but that’s the most awkward incident.

Elyse: What about, what if you did, like, close magic and just, like, made one appear, like, in the bed?

[Laughter]

Sarah: Imagine if that was your superpower!

Elyse: Like, pulled it out from behind her ear.

Amanda: Oh, what’s this?!

Sarah: Imagine, like, you get into Hogwarts, and that’s your superpower. I make condoms appear. Awkwardly.

Amanda: Wizards don’t have superpowers, you nerd! It’s magic!

Sarah: My magic skill is awkward condoms. Shut up; don’t shame me. All right.

Amanda: Book title: The Millionaire Sheikh’s Secret _Inner Goddess_!

Sarah: Oooh! All right, we going for Awkwardly Timed Condom?

[Cheers, applause]

Sarah: Yes! All right! So you guys both get to come and take a prize – oh, excuse me.

Amanda: No, no, she already knew that I lost.

[Laughter]

Sarah: That was a pretty raucous yell.

Amanda: She didn’t want me to live through my shame.

Sarah: All right. Goddess?

Elyse: It’s like your, your Green Goddess experience here.

Amanda: Oh my God, that was great.

Elyse: You need to – yeah, sure.

Amanda: Oh, so I, Jane and I went out to a restaurant, and I ordered a salad, and the waitress was so nice, and she’s like, it comes with Green Goddess dressing, which is, like, a sour cream and herb, but lately it’s just been, like, mayonnaise. And so we’re like, what?! Yeah, she’s like, so just get the balsamic vinaigrette, and I was like, okay, I will! Thank you! I’d never had, like, a waitress tell me not to get –

Elyse: [Laughs]

Amanda: We’re tied now!

Sarah: I know, it’s close!

Amanda: Keeping this losing energy.

Sarah: Okay, you guys ready?

Amanda and Elyse: Yes.

Sarah: All right, let’s pick a card. Oh, here we go, here’s a two-part one. The first time she lays eyes on his _blank_ she can’t help but think of _blank_.

[Indistinct chatter]

Sarah: This is what I’m talking about, right here.

Guest: I know, that’s a great one.

Sarah: So you each need, you can work together and pick two cards that you want to submit to your able captains.

Guest: Can you repeat them?

Sarah: Okay, to repeat: The first time she lays eyes on his _blank_ she can’t help but think of _blank_.

Elyse: The first time she lays eyes on his _flowing red hair_ she can’t help but think of _delayed douche syndrome_.

[Laughter]

Sarah: What is delayed douche syndrome?

Amanda: It’s when someone seems, like, nice, right?

Sarah: They’re a nice guy?

Amanda: And then you find out they’re, like, a fucking douche.

Guest: Yeah, and then they’re like terrible.

[Laughter]

Guest: Sweet little ginger! He’s an asshole.

[More laughter]

Sarah: Yeah, pretty much. Gotcha.

Amanda: I think Elyse won this one. So the first time she lays eyes on – I’m going to change the, the words –

Sarah: That’s fine.

Amanda: – _the one that got away_, she can’t help but think _they’re frenemies_.

Sarah: Ooh, that’s an actual whole, like, that’s an actual whole thought!

Elyse: That’s a book I’d read!

Amanda: That’s a real thing!

Sarah: I would, I would read that. Would anyone else read that? Yeah, I would read that.

Elyse: Yeah.

Sarah: I would read the hell out of that. That sounds pretty dope. Okay. So, Elyse: first time she lays eyes on his flowing red hair, she thinks of delayed douche syndrome?

[Applause]

Sarah: Right? And Team Amanda, the first time she lays on –

Amanda: – on the one that got away –

Sarah: – the one that got away –

Amanda: – she can’t, can’t help but think they’re frenemies.

[Cheers, applause]

Elyse: I think it’s a tie.

Sarah: Ohhh! That sounds like a win!

Elyse: Good job!

Sarah: Nice score!

Amanda: Whoo!

Elyse: No.

Sarah: Team Amanda –

[Laughter]

Guest: Busting!

Rebekah: – caveat that we can all be curious about whether or not we should use the word douche.

Guest (Melonie?): Okay, again, you know, with grain of salt, yeah.

Rebekah: Yeah. Just, just putting it out there. If this is going to be a live podcast, I want things to, like, have the mention about using douche in a negative context when it only refers to a, the cleaning of a female body part.

Melonie?: Right.

Sarah: Oh, see, I, I always had a different interpretation; that’s so interesting! I always thought that you could attribute douche negatively because actually douching is not necessary, ‘cause the vagina is a self-cleaning organism, but the whole idea that it needs to smell like a summer’s –

Elyse: Eve.

Sarah: – Summer’s Eve?

Guest: Right.

Sarah: Is inherently negative.

Guest: It’s like this useless thing.

Sarah: Ohhh.

Elyse: Right.

Sarah: That’s, you’re right! It really is a, there’s a variable there!

Rebekah: I like to use, like, body neutral, like asshole!

[Laughter]

Sarah: We all have one.

Rebekah: Exactly.

Amanda: This is true!

Rebekah: For the most part!

Sarah: All right, this is our last round. That was really hard. All right, come on down! Last round, last round!

[Cheers, applause]

Amanda: One more! One, anyone!

Sarah: And then after we’re done and we tally and we, and we applaud the winner, I’m going to, we’re going to take questions from you guys, so if you have questions want to ask any of us, we welcome all of your questions.

Amanda: And I’ve already talked about my boyfriend’s butthole, so nothing is off limits.

Elyse: Right, AMA!

Sarah: Here we go.

Elyse: Hoo.

Sarah: _Blank_ is never a good idea.

Audience: Ooh!

Sarah: Anal virgins, bad idea.

Elyse: All right.

Sarah: All right.

Guest: Actually, that’s actually pretty funny, but, you know –

Other guest: It depends.

Elyse: Oh no, that’s a good one.

[Laughter]

Elyse: Yep.

Sarah: We’re now make-, we’ve, we’ve now moved on to the collaborative team decision in this game. All right.

Elyse: _Whipped cream_ is never a good idea.

Sarah: Says who?

Elyse: I think the context is sexually.

Sarah: True.

Guest: I think, I think it needs the emphasis on _whipped cream_? Is never a good idea.

Elyse: Right.

Amanda: _Lack of lube_ is never a good idea.

Elyse: Ooh.

Sarah: Ohhh!

[Clapping]

Sarah: Anal virgins! So, that’s Team Amanda? Yep, all right. Well done!

Guest: Unless the whipped cream is the lube!

Elyse: Still bad idea.

Amanda: Definitely not, no.

Guest: That’s not a good idea!

[Laughter]

Other guest: No, keep, keep the whipped cream outta there –

Sarah: No, here’s my question – this is so true of so many romance conferences. How many people in this room are nurses or former nurses or worked in medical – yeah. There’s always a couple of nurses who are like, I can save you.

[Laughter]

Sarah: One year at RWA, a woman with, there was a, it was at the hotel in Dallas, if you guys remember the Dallas, whatever the heck it was. The bar had multiple levels and this woman was going up the steps, and she fell, and she fell really hard, and it was like seven nurses flew out of the ether and were like, do not move! You will lie there! You will get – and it was like, whoa! Tri-, R, RWA ER was, like, live in the lobby!

Guest: It was RT ’15.

Elyse: So –

Sarah: Was it ’15?

Guest: RT ’15.

Sarah: Well, like, nurses everywhere!

Elyse: My sister is an ER/Urgent Care nurse, and I have learned that apparently, like once a shift, you’re going to pull something out of a butthole, right. Extremely common. Not, like, I didn’t think it would be, but, like –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Elyse: – all the time.

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Elyse: All the time.

[Indistinct comment]

Elyse: Right. So –

[Laughter]

Sarah: What was the worst thing you’ve ever had to deal with?

Guest: I think that you, this is, needs, has to be the title of this episode.

Other guest: [Indistinct]

[Laughter, exclamations]

Guest: Wait, wait, wait, wait!

Other guests: What?!

Guest: One more time!

Other guest: Say it again?

Nurse guest: We had a patient who, you know, had surgery because he had something removed from his anus surgically, and we kept asking the doctor what it was, and he said it was an apple, so a lot of us thought we’d, you know, ask him and say, what kind of an apple was it? And he wouldn’t tell us. So the doctor walked away and finally came back and said, if you must know what kind of apple it was, it was a McIntosh.

[Laughter]

Sarah: So, wait, like, you just pull it out, or like, what is this? Is the sticker still on it? I want the sticker!

Guest: I hope it was the fruit and not the computer!

Amanda: [Laughs]

Elyse: So –

Sarah: Oh my God.

Elyse: So when Grey – I think it was Grey – came out, I read it, and there was the figging scene, and I had never heard of figging before, and that is when you peel fresh ginger and insert it into someone’s rectum, because I guess it, the idea is that it burns? But it would be very slippery, right, and so I called my sister, and I’m like, I need to ask you if this is a thing. She’s like, how popular is this book? I’m like, it’s, it’s going to be real popular. She’s like, fuck! I’m going to be pulling ginger out of assholes all month! Like –

[Laughter]

Guest: We see the correlation of book releases and –

[Indistinct chatter]

Sarah: Flare at the bottom.

Guest: Apparently we need public service announcements for parents to teach kids –

Elyse: Like, don’t –

Amanda: Unless there’s a flared base!

Elyse: Unless – you need a flared base, yes. Very important.

Amanda: And what, like, there’s like, once it gets, gets past the second sphincter, you’re done.

Elyse: My sister told me you have two sphincters, and she’s like, if it gets past number two, she’s like, we’re talking surgery. It’s just not, it’s not coming back out on its own.

Sarah: And then sometimes it’s like something glass, like a light bulb?

Guest: No!

Elyse: [Whimpers]

Sarah: Oh yeah. Yeah.

Elyse: Yeah, light bulbs are apparently popular.

Guest: Yeah.

Sarah: All right, so can I please have a round of applause for Team Elyse and Team Amanda?

[Enthusiastic round of applause]

Sarah: All of y’all may come up and get a prize. And thank you to Melonie for creating and giving me a set of this game. It will never die, ‘cause I love it so much.

All right, so we have a little bit more time.

[Indistinct question]

Sarah: Oh yeah, I have designed shirts, like, all over the place. I got –

Amanda: I’ve got mugs and shirts and all sorts of things!

Sarah: I will, I will –

Guest: – didn’t know this!

Sarah: I will, like, I will call you at home and tell you about it.

[Laughter]

Sarah: No, I designed a whole new line that says, “Disrupt the patriarchy. Read romance.” And I was like, well, that’s not profane. Some are like, “Fuck the patriarchy. Read romance.” Then I made some with fuck, but with a little heart for the U instead of fuck, and it’s like, water bottles and stickers and, yeah, I’ll, I’ll make sure to be like, here’s my swag! Yeah, it’s fun; I have lots of fun with graphic design.

So do you guys have any questions for us? Is there anything you’d like to know? Yes? Howdy!

Guest: Hi. I’m looking for recommendations –

Sarah: I’m sorry, we don’t do that here.

[Laughter]

Amanda: Get out!

Guest: – for recent reads. It doesn’t have to be a new release, really. Something you’ve read that you can’t stop thinking about.

Sarah: She’s asked a dangerous question. All right, so –

[Indistinct comment]

Sarah: Oh yeah. All right, and I’m, I would, I welcome recommendations of recent reads that you guys like as well. Group recommendation fiesta. Amanda, you want to go?

Amanda: The Bride Test was so good. I mentioned this in my review, but I don’t often read the author’s note, because I’m lazy and once I’m done with a book, like, I don’t want to have to read anything extra. But the author talked about how she kept fighting with Westernizing her heroine, and the heroine is an immigrant from Vietnam, and she mentioned that her mother is an immigrant and how writing this heroine and talking to her mom about her experience brought their relationship closer together, and when she started writing, the heroine Esme was, like, the third part of a love triangle, but she kept, like, stealing the scenes. She’s like, why do I have to make, like, a modern American woman for my heroine? Why can’t she be, like, an immigrant coming to the US, like, trying to make her life better? It was so sweet and lovely, and I was worried because I loved The Kiss Quotient. It was my favorite book of last year, so I was just worried that, like, this wasn’t going to capture me as much, and it’s really good, and I really recommend it. You don’t have to read The Kiss Quotient to read this one. The hero is also on the autism spectrum. Get it; it’s really good! It’s really good!

Elyse: I just read The Stillwater Girls. It is, so if you are a person who wants to read a psychological thriller but you don’t want to be freaked out, there’s no on-screen violence in the book, and it actually comes to a happy resolution at the end. Like, everything is tied up, and everyone is okay, which is spoiler-y, but how you get there is still really compelling. And it is a book about, it opens up with two girls who live in a cabin in the woods with their mom, and they live like Little House on the Prairie style, like no electricity, and mom keeps telling them that all these bad things exist in the outside world, so we don’t go there. We stay here, and we, we take care of ourselves. But then one of the sisters gets sick, and mom has to take her into town, and she doesn’t come back. And then not far from where they live, there’s another woman who suspects her husband has been up to something, like maybe cheating, she doesn’t know, and their plot –

Amanda: Like, murder!

Elyse: Right. Their plotlines intersect in a really, really interesting way, but it’s not going to, like, give you bad dreams, and every-, everyone’s okay in the end. And it’s free on Kindle Unlimited.

Sarah: Ooh! So I read a book that is nonfiction. It is ninety-one pages, I borrowed it from my library, and I returned it as soon as I was done, even though I, like, I highlighted probably three-quarters of it, because the hold line was so long, and I wanted the next person to have it as soon as possible. It’s called Wolfpack by Abby Wambach. She’s the former captain of the US soccer team –

Guest: – saw her!

Other guest: Oh yeah!

Sarah: – and it was, it, she had a commencement speech, I want to say at Barnard, that went viral, and so she expanded her commencement speech into this book. The basic premise is that, to all of the women who are reading her book – and she talks about gender identity, and she’s like, I’m using the term woman, but that is a very large and inclusive term – you have never been Red Riding Hood; you were always the wolf. And it talks about owning your pack, and the other thing I love was the idea that when someone scores, when someone has a victory, you either rush or you point. So if you’re the one who scores the goal, you turn around and you point at every player who made it possible: the defender who defended you, the person who passed you the ball, the coach who made the call, the people on the bunch; you point to everybody. And if someone else celebrates, you rush them to celebrate with them. And it’s all about how women forming a pack lift each other up, and it was so good. And it was really quick, but each chapter I was like, oh!

I’m having a really good year of reading nonfiction that reframes the way I look at the world, but I also recognize that that work of reframing is really hard, and this was one of the books where I read it and I was like, oh, this changes the way I look at so many things! It was so lifting, and I felt, like, replete when I finished and said, this is great, and I loved it! And I was like, I could read this again, but I’d much rather give it to the next person in the hold line, ‘cause it was so good.

Guest: Can you list a few other of those reframing books?

Sarah: Okay, reframing books.

Elyse: Burnout?

Sarah: Burnout by Emily and Amelia Nagoski, The Secret – yes. That really reframes a lot. That’s a good one.

Elyse: Yes.

Amanda: Good and Mad? Would you recommend that one? I’m trying to think of what nonfiction you read recently.

Sarah: I read Good and Mad at the same time that I read Burnout, and they go really well together, because Good and Mad is Rebecca Traister writing about all of the things that suck, and Burnout gives you the understanding of a scientific process to handle how reading Good and Mad makes you feel.

Another book that I really enjoyed is called White Fragility, which is, okay, here’s how you stop seeing things through a very specific rac-, racial, patriarchal, capitalist, kyriarchal lens. Kyriarchy is this awesome word that means all of the things that oppress us in different ways, all stacked up in one word. So some of us are oppressed culturally, and some of us are oppressed religiously, and some of us are oppressed racially, and some of us are oppressed by our immigration status. Kyriarchy encompasses all of that, but White Fragility is, wow, that’s a book.

Uh, what’s that one? [Memory-inducing thumping]

Amanda: Thick? No.

Sarah: Yes!

Amanda: Thick.

Guest: Ohhh!

Sarah: Oh my gosh. I interviewed her for my podcast. My inner thirteen-year-old lost her shit.

Guest: I mean, she’s –

Sarah: She’s amazing.

Guest: She’s incredible.

Sarah: Right? Like, I listened to her, and I had a complete, like, molecular stillness. Yeah, Thick is a series of essays by, by a sociologist named Tressie McMillan, McMillan Cottom. It’s wonderful, because she’s really good at doing that thing where you look at something really specific, and then you zoom way out and you’re like, whoa, here’s the whole construct of that thing, and then you zoom back in? It’s super great.

Elyse: I am not finished with the book yet, so caveat for that. I’m reading The Five, which is also a nonfiction book, and it is about, it is a deep dive into the actual lives of the five women who were killed by Jack the Ripper, and the book is not about him. It’s about who these women actually were, and none of them were prostitutes. Right, they just got labeled that way. They were actually all women who had some kind of economic displacement, and when they were killed, more than likely they were sleeping outdoors because they were homeless. So it kind of takes this idea of, like, this, you know, super-spooky, mystical killer that’s very sexualized, and it’s actually like, this was probably a tiny, miserable, little gremlin man who had to sneak up on sleeping women to kill them. And these are their real lives and the real things they went through and their families, and it, it – but the interesting thing is, this author has been getting a ton of shit on social media from dudes who call themselves, like, Ripperologists?

[Outraged noises]

Elyse: Because, because when you take out the fact that these women were not sex workers, all of a sudden he’s just a shitbag, right?

Sarah: Some rando serial killing –

Elyse: And so all of these, yeah, all of these serial killer fanboy dudes are like, well, we’ve been studying this for years, and she’s like, well, I took away the common element, so everything you based all of your theories on is false now. You’re going to have to start from scratch.

Sarah: Questions or comments or suggestions or recommendations? Beth? Beth, Bringer of Wine.

Beth: So, my recommendation is Writing Her In by Holley Trent.

Guest: I was going to say that!

[Laughter]

Beth: Yes! Sorry that I stole it from you.

Guest: No, that’s fine!

Beth: The reason I’m recommending it is it’s f/f/m, and it does center the women. The dude is kind of extraneous?

Sarah: Oh, interesting!

Beth: So it’s very nice, and then on top of it, there’s really an exploration, exploration of sexuality versus romantic, so there are characters who are biromantic but not bisexual?

Sarah: Oh!

Beth: It’s Writing Her In by Holley Trent.

Guest: Yes!

Beth: And so your female characters, there’s a bisexual, biromantic writer, author, and there is a, the male character is her cover model for her book series.

Sarah: Ohhh, that’s cool!

Beth: And then his wife, it turns out, she kind of thinks she’s asexual, but it turns out that she’s actually interested in women, but she’s biromantic.

Sarah: Oh, that’s really interesting!

Beth: So it’s a really great set of dynamics, very well done.

Sarah: Thank you! Oh, that’s good.

Guest: I second all of that.

Sarah: Yeah? Oh, there’s another book I could recommend called Play It Again? I reviewed it. It is a male/male romance between a YouTuber who is blind, and he and his sister live together, and their, their whole career is their YouTube channel, and they basically explore his life as a blind person. Part is doing restaurant reviews where they review the food and the accessibility of it? And so they discover a Let’s Play YouTuber, which is someone who plays a game and narrates what they’re doing through the progress, and they discover his, this little, shy guy who’s, you know, in Ireland, and he’s got, like, you know, fifty followers and he’s super, super charming, and they both love it. So he, the, the lead character, he mentions this channel to his YouTube subscribers, and this poor Irish guy wakes up and he’s like, whoa! Whoa! Whoa, what happened?

[Laughter]

Sarah: And then they start this sort of chat relationship over, so they start by chatting over direct message, and then they progress to texting, and then they progress to Skyping, and they have this digital, long-distance romance that’s very, very sweet. The thing I liked about it is that the other hero realizes that he is asexual, and he didn’t know there was a word for that, and the hero, the other hero’s sister is asexual, and they, they have this really common, chill, upfront discussion of variations in sexuality, and the one kid was like, wait, that’s a thing? That’s a, there’s a word? That, wait, that’s a thing? Like, there’s something, not something wrong with me? The other thing I liked about it is if you’re in the mood for a story that’s very contemporary and very set in reality, but it doesn’t have a lot of angst and conflict? The biggest conflict is that they have a long-distance relationship and things are complicated and they’re humans. And sometimes I don’t want a lot of angst. Sometime I just want to, you know, read people getting together, and that was exactly what I wanted at the time that I read it. I just really liked it.

Yes? I asked the librarians these questions, ‘cause we’re bad.

[Laughter]

Guest: She has her phone out.

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Rebekah: I have notes. [Laughs] So in the vein of nonfiction that changes your mindset, there’s a book called Pleasure Activism –

Sarah: Oh?

Rebekah: – The Politics of Feeling Good by –

Sarah: Here for it!

Rebekah: – I’m going to try this – Adrienne Maree Brown, and it’s really about how, like, social justice can feel good for folks, ‘cause a lot of it’s really focused on negativity versus celebrating and being positive about what we’re doing, even when it’s hard.

[Laughter]

Rebekah: But it’s all, like, how do you find healing and happiness and feeling it in your body?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Rebekah: ‘Cause a lot of, like, things are focused, like talk therapy is very mentally focused?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Rebekah: And it doesn’t go deep into the physical health. Yeah. And it’s not, like, I guess it’s about orgasms, but it’s not all, it’s not just orgasms.

Sarah: That’s just part of it.

Rebekah: Yeah. Like –

Sarah: Oh cool!

Rebekah: – and not about orgasms for everyone! Like –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Rebekah: – kind of like, say, what we were just talking about.

Sarah: Right, of course!

Rebekah: – necessarily.

Sarah: Thank you! You got one?

[Cross talk]

Guest: One more librarian. This one?

Another guest: Yeah.

Guest: This one came out last October. It’s called Feminasty: The Complicated Woman’s Guide to Surviving the Patriarchy Without Drinking Herself to Death –

[Laughter]

Guest: – by Erin Gibson, and it is a series of essays. She’s a humorist, and she’s worked in media in Los Angeles and Hollywood, and so one chapter’s about Hollywood, one chapter’s about being a woman in a nonsexual doctor relationship because they don’t believe you because they don’t think your health really matters. Some of the chapters will make you cry, some will make you so POed, and some of them, and all through it, she will make you laugh.

Sarah: Wow!

Guest: I do promise that.

Sarah: So this turned into a nonfiction podcast. I might have to start one of those too!

[Laughter]

Sarah: Anyone else got recommendations that they want to recommend?

Guest: So I, this was a serious read, but it really opened my eyes to the opioid crisis: Dopesick?

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Guest: I can’t remember the author, but I think it, it touched on how it came about, which also, I think, kind of intersects with where things have come politically?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Guest: And just making me more aware and open and compassionate.

Sarah: Yeah.

Guest: So that was a really, really good read.

Sarah: Thank you! Do you guys want a bit of a woo-woo recommendation?

Audience: [Encouraging noises]

Sarah: All right, so this is –

Guest: Bring it on.

Sarah: – this is – yeah. Well, this is like a nonfiction woo-woo. So I’ve been listening to a book called The Empath’s Survival Guide? So if you’re the type of person who picks up other people’s energy, or being around a negative person just makes your skin crawl, or –

Guest: Chi suckers.

Sarah: Yeah. Emotional vampires.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: If peo-, if you pick up people’s emotions or you pick up the mood of a room really quickly and you’re like, oh my God, this sucks, the whole book is about helping you identify exactly what kind of empath you are. Are you a food empath? Do you treat yourself with food? Is food a way you, you feed that empty feeling? Which I totally am, by the way. Are you a, an empath that needs to isolate? Do you need complete aloneness, even with the other people that you’re closest to? And I’m not all the way through, so there’s lots of different types, but there’s all these self-assessments, and I was listening to it while I was cooking, and my younger son came in and he goes, what are you listening to? I’m all those things!

Guest: Oh!

Amanda: Aw!

Sarah: And I was like, I know, sweetie, I know.

[Laughter]

Sarah: So The Empath’s Survival Guide is really good if you want to learn how to sort of create a barrier to taking on everyone else’s feelings, which can be really draining, especially if you’re at a conference with like seven hundred readers.

[Laughter]

All right, I think that is our time. Thank you guys so much!

Elyse: Thank you.

[Cheers, applause]

[music]

Sarah: That concludes our live show from Book Lovers Con and this episode! I want to thank Amanda and Elyse, Eva, Beth, Tere, Jo Carol, Melonie, and everyone who came to the live show. I hope you had a good time, and I want to thank you for listening. It’s wonderful when you join us virtually or in reality.

If you would like to offer your opinion, you have suggestions, you want to tell me about a book, you know about a location I should travel to to do a live show, email me: [email protected].

This week’s podcast episode was brought to you by Never Kiss a Notorious Marquess by Renee Ann Miller. Renee Ann Miller’s USA Today bestselling series of steamy Victorian-set romances about infamous lords whose scandalous ways keep tongues wagging, but whose wicked reputations are fueled by dark gossip and dangerous hearsay, is back. When darker whispers swirl that a certain marquess may have murdered his wife, a spirited suffragette and aspiring journalist decides to use a chance encounter with the dangerously desirable nobleman to uncover the true story. Never Kiss a Notorious Marquess by Renee Ann Miller is on sale now wherever books are sold and at kensingtonbooks.com.

This week’s podcast transcript was sponsored by End Transmission, the final book in Robin Bachar’s Galactic Cold War series, where Firefly meets James Bond in this action-adventure romance trilogy. When a surprise attack separates Chief Engineer Maria Watson from her ship, she finds herself stranded in hostile space with a stolen Soviet weapon and the ship’s salty, sexy doctor, Tomas Nyota. Trapped together in a stolen ship and running from both the Alliance and the Soviets, they must work together to survive. But when the weapon’s horrific purpose is uncovered, their quest becomes a race against time. They must expose the truth and destroy the weapon before it’s too late. Don’t miss the rest of the trilogy: Relaunch Mission, which was listed as one of Book Riot’s 25 Best Space Opera Books, and Contingency Plan. The final book in the trilogy, End Transmission, releases May 20th from Carina Press and is available everywhere ebooks are sold.

We have a podcast Patreon. I would be deeply honored if you took a look and see if you want to support the podcast with a monthly pledge beginning at one dollar a month. Every pledge keeps the show going, helps us commission transcripts, and the address is patreon.com/SmartBitches. And a very, very special thank-you to our Patreon community. You guys are most excellent! Thank you so much.

The music you are listening to is provided by Sassy Outwater. You can find her on Twitter @SassyOutwater. This artist is named Duncan Chisholm. This album is Affric, and this track is called “Running the Cross.” If you would like to find out more, I’ve got links in the show notes. You can find his music on Amazon or iTunes or wherever you buy your funky tunes.

Coming up on Smart Bitches, we have so many things. I almost wrote them all out, and that would be too much, so I’m going to sum up. It is time for Whatcha Reading? It is our most popular post, so popular we now do it twice a month. We tell you what we’re reading, you tell us what you’re reading, and then we all buy more books! It’ll be great!

Sunday we are announcing our second-quarter book club pick. The Patreon community makes suggestions, we pick a book, we all read it, and then we record a podcast episode to talk about it. There are so many ways you can participate too. You can phone in with your comments and leave a message about what you thought, you can email us at [email protected] and tell us what you thought, or you can leave a comment on the podcast entry and share us, share with us your reaction. Sunday you will find out what our second-quarter book pick is, and I will give you a small spoiler: I have already started it, and I really, really like it.

Then this coming week we have more stuff. We have a really thoughtful and touching essay from author Jackie Lau about writing biracial characters and being biracial. We have reviews of new books that you are definitely going to want to read – the reviews and the books – and yes, you heard in the episode, you probably saw one yesterday if you were on the site: Elyse’s Bachelorette recaps are back. Thursdays you can read, holler, and laugh yourself silly with the rest of us. And all of that, plus Cover Snark, Books on Sale, and Help a Bitch Out. I hope you will stop by and hang out with us.

And now I have a terrible joke. I have two terrible jokes! The first is from Kit, who is just coming through with terrible jokes. I love it.

Why should you always hold the door open for clowns?

Why should you always hold the door open for clowns?

It’s a nice jester.

[Laughs] Jester!

And then I picked a, I picked a special bonus joke because I couldn’t choose and I like this one too? This one I have read like five times, and every time I read it I laugh, so if I can get through this. [Clears throat]

Why should you never tell a werewolf that they’re a werewolf?

Give up? Why should you never tell a werewolf that they’re a werewolf?

They’re aware.

[Laughs] They’re a were!

Okay, so – [laughs] – my desk is next to the stand where the cat food is, and Oliver – Oliver, Oliver has been dead for many years – Orville, who is also an orange cat and currently alive, Orville was having a snack and was so offended by that joke that he just jumped off and walked out the room. Like, nope! I’m not here for that. [Laughs again] They’re aware. He’s aware that’s a bad joke, and I love it! Thank you to riceeater15 on Reddit for that delightful joke.

I will have links to every book we mentioned and some of the games and things that we talked about in this episode. Again, I hope you enjoyed our live show, and if you have an idea of where I should do one, please email me and let me know. I love doing live shows. They are so much fun, mostly because you’re there!

On behalf of Orville and Wilbur, who has just jumped up on my desk, we wish you – and get down! God, pick a, pick a place, dudes! I’m recording. On behalf of all the animals jumping up and down in my office, we wish you the very best of reading.

And a special, personal note, if you will indulge me: this weekend, my youngest sister-in-law Jessica is getting married, and we are all in or around the wedding and also at this point probably really enjoying things, so to Jessica and Hugh, we wish you many, many Happily Ever Afters. Congratulations.

I hope wherever you are, you are having a wonderful weekend. We will see you back here next week.

[running music]