On Friday, July 26, at RWA Nationals in New York, Aarya, Amanda and I sat down to talk about the conference thus far. This was my 11th RWA, and Amanda and Aarya’s first, so I was very curious about their impressions. We talk about meeting online friends, the fangirl moments we experience during the conference, and how much we hate those elevators.
We’ve got ghost stories, toilet stories, and key questions. Such as, “What’s on a romance reader’s bucket list? What is it with cats and the corners of laptops? And what were Amanda and I reading at RWA, and on the train home?”
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Here are the books we discuss in this podcast:
You can find both Amanda and Aarya at Smart Bitches. Amanda is on Twitter @_ImAnAdult and Aarya is @Aarya_Marsden.
We also mentioned:
- Sherry Thomas’ workshop on pacing. She provided a link to the handout (docx format) for us to share with her permission. Thank you, Sherry!
- The SNL Westminster Daddy Show (YouTube)
- The Inn Boonsboro in Boonsboro, MD
- And Linus’ attack on Dukes on the SmartBitches Instagram.
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Thanks for listening!
This Episode's Music
Our music is provided each week by Sassy Outwater, whom you can find on Twitter @SassyOutwater.
This is from Caravan Palace, and the track is called “La Caravane.”
You can find their two album set with Caravan Palace and Panic on Amazon and iTunes. And you can learn more about Caravan Palace on Facebook, and on their website.
Podcast Sponsor
Today’s podcast is sponsored by THE MUFFIA, the first book in THE MUFFIA series by Ann Royal Nicholas. If you liked Sex & The City and The Jane Austen Book Club, or if you’re a member of a book club yourself, you’ll love this contemporary women’s fiction series set in Los Angeles.
Madelyn Scott-Crane is a 42-year-old mediator and single mom who’s having the best sex of her life inspired by the women of her book club, THE MUFFIA, and their latest racy read. But on their second date, as Maddie and her mysterious Israeli heartthrob, Udi, come together in orgasmic splendor, he collapses on top of her. Dead.
Or is he? The Muffs set out to find the truth, damn the consequences. International intrigue combines with friendship, literary pursuits, some vibrator shopping and lots of home cooking, all wrapped up in one smart, sexy novel that’s just this side of scandalous.
THE MUFFIA and all the books in THE MUFFIA series are available now. Find out more at www.AnnRoyalNicholas.com
Transcript
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[music]
Sarah Wendell: Hey there! How ya doing? Welcome to episode number 363 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and with me today are Aarya and Amanda, also of Smart Bitches! On Friday, July 26th, at RWA, we recorded an episode. This was my eleventh RWA, and it was Amanda and Aarya’s first, so we talk about meeting online friends, the fangirl moments we all experience, including me, and how much we hated the elevators at the Marriott in Times Square. We also have ghost stories, toilet stories, and some key questions. I am really excited about this episode. I love episodes where we all hang out, so I hope you enjoy it too!
Today’s podcast is sponsored by The Muffia, the first book in the Muffia series by Ann Royal Nicholas. If you liked Sex and the City and The Jane Austen Book Club or if you’re a member of a book club yourself, you’ll love this contemporary women’s fiction series set in Los Angeles. Madelyn Scott-Crane is a forty-two-year-old mediator and single mom who’s having the best sex of her life, inspired by the women of her book club, the Muffia, and their latest racy read. But on their second date, as Maddie and her mysterious Israeli heartthrob Udi come together in orgasmic splendor, he collapses on top of her. Dead. Or is he? The Muffs set out to find the truth; damn the consequences. International intrigue combines with friendship, literary pursuits, some vibrator shopping, and lots of home cooking, all wrapped up in one smart, sexy novel that is just this side of scandalous. The Muffia and all the books in the Muffia series are available now. Find out more at annroyalnicholas.com.
Our episodes each and every week receive a transcript from garlicknitter – thank you, garlicknitter! – and this week’s transcript is brought to you by The Highland Duke by Amy Jarecki, on sale for a limited time for only 99 cents, so head to your bookstore! When Akira Ayres finds a brawny Scot with a musket ball in his thigh, the healer has no qualms about doing whatever it takes to save his life, even if it means fleeing across the Highlands to tend his wounds while English redcoats are closing in. Though Akira is fierce and brave as any of her clansmen, she’s intimidated by the fearsome, brutally handsome Highlander who refuses to reveal his full name. Geordie knows if Akira ever discovers he’s the Duke of Gordon, both her life and his will be forfeit in a heartbeat. The only way to keep the lass safe with his enemies on the hunt is to ensure she’s by his side day and night. But the longer he’s with her, the harder it becomes to think of letting her go. Despite their differences in class, despite the danger, he will face death itself to make her his. This historical romance won an RT Reviewers Choice award, and James Patterson recommended it on Twitter by asking, “Looking for a romance with the same intensity as a thriller?” The Highland Duke by Amy Jarecki is only 99 cents for a few more days, and the rest of the series is on sale too, so add a stack of Highlanders to your TBR, starting with The Highland Duke, on sale now at 99 cents wherever e-books are sold.
This podcast, like many excellent podcasts you might enjoy, has a Patreon, and you can take a look at it at patreon.com/SmartBitches. Each and every pledge helps me keep the show going and helps me make sure that every episode has a transcript, including those deep in the dark archives, going back, can you believe nine years? Nine years. It’s a lot of years. If you are a member of the Patreon community, thank you so much for your support, and if you would like to join, monthly pledges start at one dollar a month, and every pledge is deeply appreciated. Have a look at the tiers and rewards at patreon.com/SmartBitches.
I will have information at the end of the show about the music, about what’s coming up on Smart Bitches, and of course I will have an absolutely terrible joke, because I specialize in those.
But for now, let’s start our conversation with Amanda and Aarya and me at RWA, where we’re going to be seeing people in front of our eyeballs.
[music]
Amanda: I, I woke up maybe like forty minutes ago. [Laughs]
Sarah: Nice! You look amazingly refreshed for being made up.
Amanda: It’s the makeup! That’s what it is!
Sarah: Makeup is amazing, isn’t it? So, hello, Aarya!
Aarya: Hi.
Sarah: So how has your first RWA been?
Aarya: I am so exhausted but really, really happy at the same time.
Sarah: [Laughs] That is, actually could be the conference slogan.
Aarya: You know, it’s –
Sarah: RWA: I’m happy and exhausted.
Aarya: – it’s a really strange experience when you’ve experienced a community only online.
Sarah: Yes.
Aarya: And I don’t ever want to say that online is somehow less than in-person, because I don’t think it is. I think it’s maybe actually the opposite, but it is different when you actually see people and you feel validated that you’re not the only one out there who feels a certain way about a genre of books and all the people around you don’t feel about that same genre of books. It just feels validating that –
Sarah: Yes.
Aarya: – the thing you love is worthy of being loved.
Sarah: And the thing that you love is worthy of traveling and staying in a hotel –
Aarya: Yes!
Sarah: – and taking time out of your life to focus solely on that thing. And it’s a weird position for us, I think, because we’re writers about romance? We’re not actually romance writers?
Amanda: Well –
Sarah: You are.
Amanda: – present company excluded.
Sarah: Me? I’m not currently writing a romance. I wrote one –
Amanda: Yeah, but you’re –
Sarah: – but I don’t see myself as actively writing.
Amanda: But you’re still an author.
Sarah: That’s true.
Amanda: You could go to, like, PAN stuff if you wanted.
Sarah: I could. I am actually a PAN member; it says so on my badge –
Amanda: Yeah!
Sarah: – but I never go because I think of that as an author space, and I don’t want to enter it.
Amanda: That’s fair!
Sarah: Like, I can see the PAN loops, and I can read them. I never post, because I feel like that’s an author space, and I respect spaces that aren’t for reviewers. Like, that’s fine.
Aarya: And you feel like you’ve entrenched yourself too much in the reviewer role, right, kind of?
Sarah: Well –
Aarya: I don’t know.
Sarah: More like, I’m aware that that is how I am seen. Like, I see myself more as a reviewer and a writer about romance, although I am also an author and I do need to be reminded, thank you.
Amanda: You’re welcome!
Sarah: But I respect spaces where people talk to each other about things that they need to speak to each other about in a, in a space that is just for them, and I don’t necessarily want to intrude on that space. I also think that there’s some really incredible learning opportunities for authors talking to other authors that can only happen when it’s only authors in the room, especially if, especially for the people at RWA who are beginners talking to people who have a lot of experience. But the fact that everyone travels from so far to hang out in a hotel for a bunch of days and learn about romance writing and learn about romance as a career, and then also celebrate the books that are coming out? It is really a nice community feeling, isn’t it?
So are you going to the Kensington signing?
Aarya: I am going to the Kensington signing.
Sarah: That’s at eleven, right?
Aarya: Yes.
Sarah: Cool, no problem!
Aarya: I’m going to all the signings, and I – did you see my tweet about this, maybe? So I came to RWA with the goal of not bringing back a single book.
Amanda: Good luck with that!
Sarah: That, and how, how far off that goal are you today?
Amanda: I did, I did the same thing.
Aarya: I have a picture, and it’s, like, stacks.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Aarya: And it’s like, I feel, I will donate them and, and I’ll make sure that they find a good home once I read them once, ‘cause I don’t –
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Aarya: – keep physical books that often?
Sarah: Do you reread books?
Aarya: Yes, but not physical books.
Sarah: Right, that makes sense.
Aarya: If I love it that much, I will get it in e form.
Sarah: That makes sense!
Aarya: Because I just know, well, that book is going to not be good one day. Why am I just reading it over and over again?
Sarah: Right, right. So you’re going to the signing, and you’ve been to other signings. Who have you been really excited to meet?
Aarya: Okay, Sherry Thomas. [Laughs]
Sarah: Understandable.
Aarya: So I went to her panel on pacing yesterday, and I don’t know how people choose. I – this is awkward, right? Like, so much of the panels are focused on writing and writing tips and marketing?
Sarah: Crafting.
Aarya: Yeah, and, like, so, like, my first panel I went to a, like a worldbuilding panel with Kelley Armstrong, and that seemed, like, interesting as a reader –
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Aarya: – and then I went to one with Adriana Herrera about intimate partner violence, and that also seemed interesting because, like, we talk so much about abusive relationships in romance, but then a lot of other stuff is just, like, marketing and how do you promote your books to reviewers? And I’m like, I don’t want to go to a panel about that.
Sarah: Yeah.
Aarya: But then this pacing one, it’s so writer-centric, but then I read the blurb about it, and then I was like, well, I don’t know anything about pacing, and I complain about it so much. When –
[Laughter]
Sarah: Yes. Me too.
Aarya: I felt like, I feel like a hypocrite almost. It’s like, if I describe a book and it’s, like, boring, I’ll say, you know, it has slow pacing –
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Aarya: – and I know intuitively that it has slow pacing; I know I’m right about it, because people agree with me; but if you ask me why it has slow pacing, I wouldn’t be able to justify the answer.
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Aarya: So I went to the panel in the hopes that I could understand, like, why that would happen.
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Aarya: And I think I got an answer out of it, so that was a really – so, like, hopefully that’s, like, even though I know it was meant to be helping writers improve their pacing –
Sarah: Yes.
Aarya: – I think that it was a good panel for me to understand when I’m reading a book, why is this boring me right now?
Sarah: Right. So what were some of the things that you learned about pacing?
Aarya: So Sherry Thomas framed it as a discussion of, like, a disruption of a norm. So, like, the book –
Sarah: Oh, that’s interesting!
Aarya: Yeah, so she’s always like, you always start off a book as a norm, right? So, like, in Harry Potter, the norm is that his life with the Dur-, his life with the Dursleys is really crappy, and you see that for a couple chapters. And the first disruption is maybe, like, the snake, and, like, the really big one is Hagrid and the letters, but you always want to establish that, and the problem is, like, if you don’t disrupt it at the right time and you just go on and on and on, it, like, you know it’s slow. Like, she was saying, there’s two things wrong with pacing: it’s either you’re too slow to start –
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Aarya: – or it’s confusing; it’s incomprehensible.
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Aarya: And I think many people, like, they, they feel it when they read a book; they don’t know quite why.
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Aarya: They’re like, why am I reading this book? Nothing is happening.
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Aarya: And that’s, well, the norm is not being disrupted.
Sarah: I did all of the narration for the first paid, page reads for agents and for editors, so I was reading first paid submiss-, first page submissions from different writers out loud, and then agents would have a copy to read, but that would be the first time they were seeing it and listening to it, and then they would give comments on that first page. Which I’ve done as a writer at a conference I was at years ago, and it was terrifying to hear your own words come back at you? Like, it’s really weird.
Aarya: Is it anonymous?
Sarah: Yes.
Aarya: Okay, that’s –
Sarah: It is completely anonymous.
Aarya: That’s good!
Sarah: But it’s, it’s great, because you get very direct, real-live feedback, like, this is what I think right now. And one of the things that they consistently mention – like, this is just a first page! This is, what, four paragraphs at the most? But either not enough is happening to make me want to turn the page, or so much is happening that I don’t know where I am. So it’s either too much or not enough, which is exactly what Sherry said. That’s so interesting!
Aarya: And her philosophy was that you really have to nail the beginning, because if you don’t they’re just going to stop reading. So, like, her –
Sarah: That’s true!
Aarya: – like, the majority of her presentation was, like, get that intro right.
Sarah: Mm-hmm. That makes sense. So what else have you been to? How was the keynote this morning?
Aarya: It was interesting. I like free food in general, so the breakfast was, was a big hit for me, but –
Sarah: There is nothing wrong with free food. It ought to, it’s like –
Aarya: Whenever –
Sarah: – when you see a movie in a recliner, it automatically elevates it by at least ten percent! [Laughs]
Aarya: Like, it was just, like, it was, like, good food, right, but the fact that it was free just made it taste so much better. I don’t want to talk too much about the keynote because it was very personal. She talked about her depression –
Sarah: Yeah.
Aarya: – and her difficulties with writing and – it was very, it was very moving, and I thought it was a great speech. It was by Jennifer L. Armentrout, if I –
Sarah: Yes.
Aarya: – if I’m pronouncing that correctly.
Sarah: Yes. I’m, I believe it’s part of the conference recordings, but I can’t be sure.
Aarya: I think it is.
Sarah: I love the part where writers are more and more –
Aarya: Open.
Sarah: Yes, but not just open about mental illness, but confident and comfortable saying to the community, this is real, and this is a problem, and this is what we need to do.
Aarya: And her thesis was, well, she talked about her own struggles, but her thesis was that your books save lives; you have to remember that. Like, when you, even though you, like, you may not get that feedback from a reader, if someone is reading your book, like, it’s really helping people.
Sarah: Yeah. And you never know where your words are going to go or how –
Aarya: Yeah.
Sarah: – they’re going to reach somebody. I met someone yesterday who told me that their book club read Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors, and that the whole book club made Amanda’s drink cocktail recipe for the book club meeting, and I was like, I never would have known that! That is so great!
Aarya: A lot of people do, like, food-themed stuff for book launches –
Sarah: For book clubs and launches, yeah.
Aarya: – and I’m really impressed by that. [Laughs]
Sarah: It’s cool, right? Who doesn’t like eating?
Aarya: Well, yeah, I like free food, and I like eating. Eating is just good!
Sarah: Eating’s always good! So has there been something that’s happened at RWA that you’ve been like, this was amazing; I’m so excited I did this?
Aarya: I liked the Strand event last night. Though I will say, I walked all the way down there?
Sarah: Oh dude, that’s a big walk.
Amanda: I don’t know why you did that. [Laughs]
Aarya: No, I hate myself. So I interned in New York a couple years ago, so I was like, I want to revisit the city by walking through it –
Sarah: Oh, no.
Aarya: – and then I regretted the decision five blocks in.
Sarah: ‘Cause you were walking through Times Square –
Aarya: Yeah.
Sarah: – through Herald Square, at rush hour. Ohhh, yikes.
Aarya: And I was – and at that point, I was too lazy to go buy a subway card –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Aarya: – so I kept walking.
Sarah: I, I feel everything you’re saying.
Aarya: It wasn’t even that – like, the subway still would have been faster at that point. I was just like, I don’t want to go buy and use a credit card machine, so I kept – I did take the subway back.
Sarah: Yeah. I understand that, and I, I’m like, there, there’s a minute where you’re like, I’ve already invested in walking. I’m already invested in this decision –
Aarya: So the, so the –
Sarah: – so I’m going to keep going.
Aarya: So the Strand event was, it had five authors –
Sarah: Yes!
Aarya: – who I cannot name. Alisha Rai, Sonali Dev, Melonie Johnson, Lauren Layne, Helena Hunting. I can name them!
Sarah: Nice job!
Aarya: And Sarah was hosting, and –
Sarah: I was.
Aarya: – I was so tired from the walk that I gave up on the Bingo half way –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Aarya: – ‘cause I was like, oh, okay, so there’s a Bingo card of words like Scot, like rom-com, HEA, like romance words, basically –
Sarah: Yeah.
Aarya: – and she was asking, like, Never Have I Ever questions?
Sarah: Mm-hmm. Yeah, there was Never Have I Ever and Would You Rather?
Aarya: Yeah, and the questions, wasn’t one of them like, how I almost deleted a manuscript?
Sarah: Yes, Never Have I Ever almost lost or deleted a manuscript.
Aarya: Alisha Rai, Rai’s story was very funny. [Laughs]
Sarah: She and Sonali could be a panel by themselves every day.
Aarya: They’re very funny.
Sarah: They are hysterical, and Melonie Johnson is a theater person, so she’s extremely funny, and then Lauren Layne and Helena were just great at playing off of each other, and –
Aarya: Like, what are they saying? Oh my gosh!
Sarah: Like, what? No! Uh-uh! And we have all agreed that Chris Hemsworth goes with Helena. She, that’s – we had to, we had to rank the Chrises as the final question; it was very challenging.
Aarya: I question anyone’s judgment who doesn’t put Evans first, so I was side- –
Amanda: [Unapologetically] I’m sorry!
Aarya: I was side-eyeing that panel hard!
Amanda: I, I, I am a Pine nut.
Aarya: I am, he’s –
Sarah: I’m sorry –
Aarya: Wait is that the name that they’re called? Pine nut?
Sarah: [Laughs]
Aarya: What the – ?
Amanda: Chris Pine!
Sarah: Pine nut?
Amanda: Yeah.
Sarah: Is this like the American Idol fan club name?
Amanda: I think so. I’m a Pine nut!
Sarah: Pine nuts! [Laughs]
Amanda: He is a beautiful, sensitive man.
Aarya: I feel like Evans fans needs to have a name now. This is unfair.
Amanda: I think Evans is overrated, and you can quote me on that.
Aarya: You know, it’s not, it’s not just about the attractiveness; it’s about how he conducts himself online.
Sarah: Oh yes.
Aarya: I’m appreciative of his, of his social awareness. Pine is second for me.
Amanda: I feel like Pine does have social awareness, but –
Aarya: He doesn’t talk about it!
Sarah: No.
Amanda: Yeah, which is why I like it.
Sarah: I think –
Amanda: It feels less performative to me.
Sarah: I think that you could have an incredible five-and-a-half-hour conversation with Chris Pine and never be bored. He just seems like he has so much going on.
Amanda: And he –
Aarya: His eyes are so blue that you would drown in them.
Amanda: – he took a writing class –
Sarah: Right? You’d just be like, hi, Chris Pine; how are you? [Laughs]
Amanda: Apparently he wrote really good erotica while in college. He took a writing course, and one of his teachers was like, yeah, he writes really good stuff.
Aarya: See, this is information I didn’t have before.
Sarah: Somewhere, somewhere on AO3 is Chris Pine’s writing.
Amanda: Oh God, I hope so.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Amanda: Someone find it, please.
Sarah: Please, for the love of God, someone find this! Please, please, please! Oh my gosh.
Aarya: But the panel was, like, totally skewed towards Pine, and a lot of people were like, I don’t get Hemsworth, which –
Sarah: Yep.
Amanda: He’s, I feel like he’s a sex puppy!
Sarah: He’s, I think he’s entirely –
Aarya: We had the –
Sarah: Somebody said he was a sex puppy.
Aarya: Yeah.
Sarah: Well, when we were writing about sex puppies, you pointed out that the Australian men that you’ve met –
Amanda: Yes!
Sarah: – have been very sex puppy. They’re very –
Amanda: They’re very eager to please; they’re very sweet and very nice and very funny.
Sarah: Yep.
Amanda: Yeah, I had a nice little fling with an Australian doctor who was in Boston doing, like, a residency.
Sarah: Nice.
Amanda: It was very nice. Post sex – his name, his name is Jack –
Sarah: Jack in Australia? We’re talking about you.
Amanda: – and he was talking about how much he loves his grandma, and he was like, like, we were just, like, talking back and forth, and he was like, here’s a picture of, like, my nan when, like, I took her to the beach, and I was like, you sweet man! [Laughs] He loves his grandmother so much. I think we’re still Facebook friends, but his Facebook photo is, like, of him and his grandma at, like, his graduation from, like, college or something.
Sarah: Aw!
Amanda: I was like, you sweet –
Sarah: He’s so sweet! Is he back in Australia?
Amanda: Yes, he is.
Sarah: I, what if you visit?
Amanda: I don’t know.
Sarah: Why not?
Aarya: People in the comments were like, in the, in the, in the Rec League were like, well, what kind of puppy? Like, a lab? They were talking about, like, the breeds of dogs, and now I’m –
Sarah: [Laughs] I was not expecting that –
Aarya: – and now I’m, like, obsessed with the idea that there might be different kinds of sex puppies, and that’s too much to think about.
Sarah: Ohhh –
Amanda: Sex puppies are the new Hogwarts houses. They have to be sorted.
Aarya: You have, like, a –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Aarya: You have, like, a husky; you have a German Shepherd –
Amanda: We have, like, hunting dogs, service dogs. Like, think of –
Sarah: Sporting dogs –
Amanda: Yeah.
Sarah: – toy dogs.
Amanda: Yeah!
Sarah: [Laughs] Toys! Okay, we might, we might need to explore this and develop our different houses of sex puppies!
Amanda: Yeah! Think of, like, a, like the categories of a dog show!
Sarah: Westminster is going to have a whole new meaning for me when it’s on TV this year.
Amanda: There is an amazing –
Sarah: AKC is –
Amanda: – S, SNL sketch where, instead of a dog show, they rank daddies? [Laughs]
Sarah: Is this, is this like – ?
Amanda: That’s the one with Matt Damon. Yes!
Sarah: Is this like Dream Daddy, only a dog show?
Amanda: And so you have, like, the, the business daddy, who’s, like, a finance guy, and then – but they, like, lead them around, like, a stage like an actual dog show? And there’s, like, one and they’re, like, trying to get his attention, and she’s like, shaking a protein shake in front of his face?
Sarah: [Laughs] Okay.
Amanda: I will link it in the comments. It’s great.
Sarah: That’s hilarious.
Amanda: I think Matt Damon was the host.
Sarah: That makes sense. He would be a very good sex puppy.
Amanda: He was, he was Broadcast Daddy. He was like a –
Sarah: He would be a very good sex puppy character too, I think. That’s very funny.
Amanda: It was hilarious.
Sarah: [Laughs] So what else do you have planned for – ‘cause I know you’ve got a schedule for your RWA. What else do you have planned? I am watching the clock so you can go down to Kensington.
Aarya: Oh, it lasts till twelve.
Sarah: Okay.
Aarya: So I don’t, I think I can go a little late; it’s not a big deal.
Sarah: Okay. All right. Got to respect the schedule, though! I know you –
Aarya: I know.
Sarah: – I know you have lined up your schedule –
Aarya: I actually haven’t. So the app is actually quite useful.
Sarah: The app is great!
Aarya: I love it.
Amanda: An app that works?
Amanda and Sarah: What?!
Aarya: I know.
Sarah: It’s, it’s quite a miracle.
Aarya: Yeah. I’m just – today’s actually like, there isn’t actually a panel that I want to go to –
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Aarya: — so I might just wander around.
Sarah: That’s honestly the best way to fall into some wonderful conversations.
Aarya: And you told me to, like, go to the bar, but the problem is, I don’t drink alcohol, so I feel –
Amanda: You don’t have to drink alcohol!
Aarya: – weird drink, just, like, going to the bar.
Amanda: I mean, I was, I was double-fisting white wine and a coffee at the same time –
Sarah: Right.
Amanda: – ‘cause I was cold, but, like, I’ve been to events – I think, like, I was chatting with Darynda Jones’s sister Annette. She was just drinking a Pepsi!
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Amanda: In a glass.
Sarah: And if you don’t want to, like, spend any money, you can just get a glass of water at the bar, and that’s fine, or ginger ale with a cherry, or, you know, sparkling water.
Amanda: Yeah, just because you’re at a bar doesn’t mean you have to buy –
Sarah: You don’t have to drink.
Amanda: Yeah.
Sarah: And it’s, my problem with the bar after a while is that it is so loud. It is like a wall of noise –
Aarya: Mmm.
Sarah: – and that really depletes my, my mental battery very quickly? But the nice thing about this hotel which we found yesterday is around the side of the Broadway bar, behind the bar? Like, behind the bar itself in the very back, there’s sliding glass doors that lead out to a very small terrace that overlooks Times Square, and so there’s lights and couches, and it’s quieter?
Amanda: But there is a drink, you have to order a drink –
Sarah: You have to have a –
Amanda: – not alcoholic, just a drink.
Sarah: No, it can be a Pepsi or whatever, but you have to drink, order something; you can’t just hang out there? But it is so nice and comfortable, and it’s such a nice place to hang out, and I don’t, I didn’t see very many people from the conference there, which was surprising. You don’t have to drink, and it can get a lot if it’s noisy, but if you spend the day wandering around into different places, you’re going to run into people you know, and then you’ll fall into different groups, and it’s just the nicest thing to be, like you said, surrounded by the people you talk to all day, but in person. It’s the nicest feeling.
So have you met, like, almost all of your internet connections here?
Aarya: I’ve met a bunch. In terms of authors, I had a ton of fun at the Avon signing. I just, I think I just like a lot of authors in Avon?
Sarah: Mm-hmm?
Aarya: So the, that was – oh! So this is, like, a fangirl moment: so Meg –
Sarah: I love those.
Aarya: – so Meg Cabot was at the Avon signing, right?
Sarah: Yes.
Aarya: And I know that she wasn’t here signing the Princess Diary books and whatnot –
Sarah: Mm-hmm?
Aarya: – but she was writing those books when I was, like – so I’m, like, the target audience for those books.
Sarah: Yeah.
Aarya: I was at the right age for Avalon High and The Princess Diaries, and I was like, Meg Cabot, you are a real person. I can see you with my eyeballs. Like –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Aarya: – that was, I was like, you’re just not like, what? That’s not, that’s not a thing!
Sarah: This is a thing that’s happening in front of me right now.
Aarya: And then I got a picture of her, and my smile is, like, very wide, and –
Sarah: Aw!
Aarya: – I’m just very – I think, I don’t know, like, have you had a fangirl moment? ‘Cause I –
Sarah: Amanda, did you see my fangirl moment yesterday?
Amanda: Yeah! Sarah, Sar- –
Aarya: With whom?
Amanda: Sarah still has them. It happens.
Sarah: Oh, oh yeah, my inner thirteen-year-old is very happy to lose her cool.
Aarya: But with whom?
Sarah: A Regency author named Joan Wolf, who wrote –
Aarya: Oh?
Sarah: – Signet Regencies and, I don’t remember who else published them, but she wrote some wonderful, wonderful Regency historicals that are just classic and elegant?
Amanda: I think she mentioned like, what, she’s working on a fiftieth book –
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Amanda: – or something like that when we were talking to her?
Sarah: And I was talking to Susie Felber, who is Edith Layton’s daughter, who also wrote Regencies and historicals. I think she died, was it, has it been five years she said, or ten?
Amanda: I think, yeah, I think so.
Sarah: It’s been five or –
Amanda: It’s been a, it’s been a minute.
Sarah: – it was, it’s been a, it’s been a number of years since Edith Layton passed away, but Susie, her daughter, manages her estate and has been publishing some of her older books in digital, which they hadn’t been published before, and she was meeting with Joan Wolf, who was a friend of her mother’s, and so I run into, Susie walks by, and I’m like, oh my gosh! I get to meet you in person! I’ve never met you in person! And she’s like, may I introduce Joan Wolf? And I – was not cool.
Aarya: [Laughs]
Sarah: Like, I climbed up on my knees on the back of the chair over this half-wall at the bar, and it was like, I am so honored to meet you! Oh my gosh!
Amanda: And Joan –
Sarah: And you were not expecting me to lose my shit.
Amanda: Well –
Sarah: Joan Wolf was like, who is this person climbing a wall?
Amanda: Well, like, there, there were, like, photos being taken, and Joan Wolf, she’s a woman of a certain age, and she said this phrase that I was like, yeah, that fits. She’s like, oh, we have to take a photo? She’s like, I don’t have any lipstick on.
Aarya: [Laughs]
Amanda: She was like –
Sarah: Yes. She was like, this is not happening, ‘cause I do not have lipstick on, and I was like, you don’t need lipstick! You’re Joan Wolf! [Squee!] Oh my God! So yeah, Amanda watched my inner thirteen-year-old just erupt out of my body, because I am so amazed when I get to meet a writer who’s been writing for so long, who wrote books where I was just like, before I knew any authors I would, I would read her books, and then there was that moment afterward where you’re just like, wow! Oh wow, that was, that was really good. Like, she’s –
Aarya: So I feel like everyone’s in that category for me in a way –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Aarya: – because I don’t know any authors! This is the first time I’m meeting anyone –
Sarah: Right.
Aarya: – so it’s like everyone is someone I’ve been reading for, like, at least five, six years. And I was a teen five or six years ago –
Sarah: Yep.
Aarya: – so it feels like, it’s a weird experience. I got to hug Alyssa Cole. I got to take a selfie with Al-, with Alisha Rai, and I was just like, what am I doing right now? [Laughs]
Sarah: Yep. How is this happening? Oh my gosh! Yeah, my, my inner thirteen-year-old is a few decades in the past, like, my actual thirteen-year-old self, but she is very much in there, and she will erupt when, when I get to meet somebody who I just, I did, never expected to meet and I’m so excited.
Aarya: Oh, I went down to the front after Sherry Thomas’s panel, and I, I legit started stammering for two seconds. I, oh I, hi, Sherry – like, like that.
Sarah: Ba ip uh uh oh.
Aarya: [Laughs]
Sarah: Oh my God!
Aarya: Just thank you!
Sarah: I did that when I turned around at a party once – I think it was, gosh, this was a bunch of years ago, so it would have been RWA here in New York, probably four or eight years ago. I was telling Amanda, this is my eleventh RWA, and the only reason I know that is because my first RWA I gave birth six weeks later? I, it was, like, the last week I was allowed to travel by air. I was a small planet orbiting the lobby, and my younger son is now eleven –
Aarya: [Laughs]
Sarah: – so I know this is my eleventh RWA. I turned around at a party in New York, so it was either four or eight years ago, and I was staring at Margaret Atwood?
Aarya: Oh wow!
Sarah: And there were no, I didn’t, I didn’t even reach the verb. It was like seven nouns in a row, like, ha, I, oh, ee, you, you, I, what? Like, I couldn’t, it was that, that same feeling as that I’m seeing you with my eyeballs right now, holy shit. Yeah, I was not cool.
Aarya: Like, you know the person is real, but you don’t –
Sarah: Yeah!
Aarya: – but you don’t, you just don’t expect to see them then.
Sarah: You just don’t expect to see them with your whole eyeballs. Like, they’re not supposed to exist in this space right here in – [laughs]
Aarya: I felt that way, so I felt that way when Courtney Milan was accepting her service award this morning at –
Sarah: Yeah.
Aarya: – the breakfast, and before Jennifer Armentrout’s speech, there were three service awards –
Sarah: Mm-hmm?
Aarya: – and they all talked – some subtly, some not, like Courtney – they were talking about, you know, the, how messed up the process is right now, and –
Sarah: Inclusivity –
Aarya: – how it’s important for change –
Sarah: – and, yeah, and how –
Aarya: – and some were more vague, and some, like Courtney, were – so Courtney said something like, look at the tables around you, and that’s how many Black women should have won the Ritas, like four or five tables by now. And then look even like more, like more tables around you. That’s how many should have been nominated.
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Aarya: And she was very, very direct about it, and –
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Aarya: – well, she’s right! [Laughs]
Sarah: Yeah, she’s not wrong! I am really excited to-, today, just because I don’t have anything that I’m doing. I did something yesterday, did something the day before; today, like you, I can sort of drift around and talk to people? That’s my favorite thing. Just, just like, I get to see you in person! You’re in front of my eyeballs! [Laughs] I think that might be the title of the episode: You Are in Front of My Eyeballs.
Aarya: It’s strange; you look exactly like your photo in the – yes.
Sarah: Me?
Aarya: Yes. You look exactly like the photo in the Smart Bitches About page, but it’s still weird seeing you.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Aarya: Like, that’s, it’s not an insult. It’s just –
Sarah: No, it’s not at all an insult!
Aarya: It’s just, oh, you’re a person too!
Sarah: I am a human being. Yep. Complete with, you know, fuckups and a desire for yoga pants.
Aarya: But the voice is still recognizable, which is the odd thing.
Sarah: Yes.
Amanda: Sarah gets stopped by her voice all the time.
Aarya: The voice!
Sarah: I do. I do; it’s really weird. I’ll start talking, and they’re like, I know your voice, I know your voice. I’m like, hi, sorry. I know that’s weird. [Laughs] Yeah, I, I have had people say it’s really weird to see the voice come out of a person. Especially if they’ve never seen my picture, because then they have this idea of what I look like, and that’s usually not right, ‘cause I never get that right. So hi, I’m in front of your eyeballs. But I also get excited because when I get to be, like, with people who I talk to every day it’s really fun, and it’s a different dynamic.
Amanda?
Amanda: Yes.
Sarah: How have you liked RWA so far? It’s your first RWA too!
Amanda: It is mine, but, you know, I’m a jaded old crone, and –
Sarah: Fuck, what does that make me?
Amanda: A super old cr-, a mega, megacrone.
Sarah: Megacrone sounds like the best kind of Transformer, and now I am one.
Amanda: [Laughs] That’s what I was, like – crones! Assemble! And you just –
Sarah: [Roars] Get off my lawn and fuck off! [Laughs]
Amanda: I mean, I mean, it’s fine! I realize I’m not, like, the target audience for this kind of conference.
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Aarya: It’s very writer-focused.
Amanda: Yes.
Sarah: That makes sense; it is a writer’s organization.
Aarya: Yeah.
Amanda: I do not like New York.
Sarah: But New York likes you.
Amanda: Sorry, New Yorkers.
Sarah: New Yorker, New Yorks like, likes you!
Amanda: [Sighs]
Sarah: The elevators really like you very much.
Aarya: Oh my God!
Sarah: [Laughs]
Amanda: The elevators are, like, trying to keep me trapped in New York.
Sarah: Oh yeah. Yeah, once you get into an elevator –
Amanda: They’re like, you are never going to leave.
Sarah: So the way the elevators work at the Marriott is that you have to enter your floor into a keypad, and then it assigns you an elevator bank from this little circle.
Amanda: But you can’t get to all floors –
Sarah: Yeah, half of them –
Amanda: – from all elevators.
Sarah: Yeah, half of ‘em go to one set of floors, half of ‘em go to the other set of floors, and if it’s a busy time it’ll be like, elevator G, and then you’ll stand there for fifteen, twenty minutes, and then you do it again, and it’s like, now take elevator I. Like, well, why didn’t you tell me?
Amanda: Well, I was on twenty-eight and Sarah’s on twenty-four. I’m like, all right, I’ll just go –
Sarah: Nope.
Amanda: No. You have to go down to eight, the lobby –
Sarah: And switch over.
Amanda: – and switch over to another bank of elevators, and it’s annoying.
Sarah: And you’re on the elevators for, like, ever.
Amanda: But yeah, RWA is fine. I’m not really the target audience. The place isn’t my favorite. I do – Sarah and I have talked about this before, where I just like talking to book people. I love – romance publicists are some of my favorite fucking people on the planet. As someone who used to be a publicist –
Sarah: Which is, by the way, a hard fucking job.
Amanda: – be, working in publicity is a thankless job, I’ll tell you that –
Sarah: Oh yeah!
Amanda: – and you get a lot of paper cuts –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Amanda: – and you send a lot of emails.
Sarah: Get a lot of paper cuts!
Aarya: Put out a lot of fires, I imagine.
Amanda: Yes! So I just love meeting with them. I, I see them at, like, BEA and, and stuff like that, and Erin Galloway, who works at Berkley, I remember she helped me with my graduate school studies!
Sarah: Aw!
Amanda: Sarah put me in contact with her, ‘cause I, a lot of my graduate school, like, papers and my directed study, they were all, like, romance-focused –
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Amanda: – and, like, Erin was a point of contact for, like, answering questions –
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Amanda: – and, you know, doing that, so –
Sarah: She is such a, she is so good at mentoring people, too.
Amanda: She’s so wonderful.
Sarah: I have watched her mentor so many other publicists. ‘Cause she used to be at Dorchester; that’s where she started –
Amanda: Oh my goodness.
Sarah: – before Dorchester sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Like, I imagine, ‘cause they used to publish so much fantasy, I just sort of imagine this kraken just coming to get Dorchester –
Amanda: [Laughs] Like, reclaiming it.
Sarah: Yes, reclaiming it for the sea! Yeah, she – I’ve told you this, that she was the first publicist to reach out to me as a blogger? And she was –
Amanda: Yeah, you tried to give her galleys back.
Sarah: Yeah! I’m like, she’s like, do you want to be on our list? And I’m like, list of what? She’s like, list to receive books! And I’m like, I get mine from the library. What do you mean? She’s like, I will send you books! And I’m like, wait, seriously? Then she sends me galleys, and this was, you know, thirteen, fourteen years ago. The galleys are massive, like, trade-shaped; they’re regular, like, twenty-pound paper; and they’re wrapped in a single-color cover with just, like, a border and the author and the title, so it’s clearly not a finished book; and I was like, oh my God, this is book isn’t really real yet! Oh my God! And I was, like, floored that this was a thing that happened, so then I emailed her, and I’m like, so do you want these back? She was like, God, no! What do I do with them?
Aarya: [Laughs]
Sarah: And I’m like, what do I do? She’s like, put them in the recycling! I was horrified. Like, no! You don’t recycle books! Are you kidding? And when we moved four years ago, I found a box of ARCs that I was too chicken to recycle, because I was like, that’s horrible. I can’t do that to a book that is a book that got sent to me, so yeah, I kept ARCs for a couple of years.
But she was the first publicist, and one of the first I worked with, who was like, blogging is going to be important; we need to cultivate a relationship. It’s like cultivating a relationship with bookstagrammers now. She was one of the first to be like, no, blogging and reviewing online and reviewers, reviews from readers in different sources on the internet are going to be important to us. We need to, we need to get in contact and cultivate those. She’s so smart and forward-thinking, and a great mentor too.
Amanda: I just like, shout out to all my favorite publicists. I feel like an Oscars speech. We got Kristen, thanks to Erin, and thanks to Jess and Jodie and Estelle! I don’t know, I just wish –
Sarah: And Steph! Yeah.
Amanda: I just – yeah! Steph, definitely Steph! I just wish they would get more recognition for all the hard fucking work they do. Publicists never sleep ever.
Sarah: They have box cutters, Sharpies, and paper cuts.
Amanda: They’re always on their email.
Sarah: Yep. That was why I started the event by thanking all the publicists who put it together, because they, there’s always a publicist with a box cutter working until one in the morning before a book event, always.
Amanda: But that’s also, like, my favorite part of BEA. It’s not necessarily the books or the authors. Like, I just like talking to, to book people –
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Amanda: – and I’ve, like, fostered this great relationship with all of them, and I don’t come to New York very often –
Sarah: Yep.
Amanda: – so it’s just, like, nice to see them and be around them, and they’ve got, like, such great energy, and so, I mean, that’s really the only thing that I, I wouldn’t say, like, I’ve enjoyed! I haven’t hated RWA –
Sarah: But that’s the highlight for you.
Amanda: That is my highlight!
Aarya: So what’s, like, your favorite con to attend as a reader then? Or whatever?
Amanda: None.
Aarya: Okay. [Laughs]
Amanda: None of them.
Sarah: It’s funny, there are more cons now. There’s –
Aarya: Well, okay, you know KissCon?
Sarah: Yeah!
Aarya: Like, the Chicago one next year just looks really fun, because it’s so reader-focused.
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Aarya: All the panels from this year were, like, none of them were author-focused, so as a reader –
Sarah: They’re all games and interactive focus.
Aarya: Yeah, so, like, to me, that, as a reader, seems to be the most fun to attend.
Sarah: Absolutely, no question.
Amanda: I, I miss RT. I feel like if I had to pick, out of all the things that I’ve been to, I really liked the balance RT struck between the different tracks, like craft and reader and, you know, librarians.
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Amanda: Like, they had all these different tracks, but they also did, like, fun stuff –
Sarah: Bingo!
Amanda: – and, like –
Sarah: Gosh, I’ve called Bingo, I’ve been part of Win, Lose, or Draw –
Amanda: The, the Wheel of Romance –
Sarah: – Wheel of Romance. There was the one – okay, this is, this is an old show, like – oh God, I –
Amanda: Let’s Make a Deal.
Sarah: No. Maybe –
Amanda: The Price Is Right.
Sarah: – maybe it was –
Amanda: Password.
Sarah: – it’s like I, I need you to bring me a piece of blue gum.
Amanda: That’s Let’s Make a Deal!
Sarah: That’s Let’s Make a Deal. So they did, Damon Suede and some authors did that a couple of years ago, but it was your swag. So you brought all the swag that you had collected, postcards and bookmarks, and you had a little area on your table, and they had a list of things: I need a shirtless man with wings, and the first one to figure it out, where it was on their swag, came up and got a prize, and this was brilliant, because it was fun, but it made you look at the swag that you had and take another look at the paper that you were collecting – ‘cause there’s a lot of paper – and it was so fun, and those were never long enough. We used to do the Reader Rec Party?
Amanda: Oh –
Sarah: That was, okay, that was so much fun.
Amanda: RIP, Reader Rec Party.
Sarah: I miss it, I miss it so much. I would ha-, we would get prizes, we’d bring in prizes –
Amanda: And books!
Sarah: – and books, and I would be running around the room like Phil Donahue, so each of the writers for the staff, for the site, the staff writers, would tell the room, here’s a book I loved; here’s a recommendation. We always had a couple copies of it, and, and the, the swag that I gave out was a notebook. It was Smart Bitches Recommends, so you could write things down, and I’m like, all right, who has a book that they want to tell the room about? The only rule is, please don’t make it your own, but if, you know, if you bribe the person next to you to talk about your book, I don’t know anything about it. So tell me about a book you want to tell everyone about. And I would just run around the room, and people would talk about books they liked, and we would start –
Amanda: And people would have their phones out –
Sarah: Yes! It was so fun!
Amanda: – buying the books –
Sarah: Oh yeah.
Amanda: – or putting them on hold at the library as people were talking about it.
Sarah: Yeah. Do you remember the year – I can see this woman, and I can’t remember her name. She was like, so it’s Harry Potter with sex magic?
Amanda: It’s the Cecilia Tan –
Sarah: Cecilia Tan series.
Amanda: Yes.
Sarah: She said Harry Potter with sex magic, and there was this noise that went through the room, and I can’t really describe it, but it was the sound of book people going – [gasp] – I want to read that right now! Like –
Aarya: I want to read it right now.
Sarah: What is the first one? I can see the cover –
Amanda: I don’t fucking remember!
Sarah: – it’s a guy flinging cards at you.
Amanda: Yes! I don’t remember!
Sarah: It’s Cecilia Tan. It is, it is set in an alternate reality –
Amanda: It’s very heavy on the sexual content.
Sarah: Yes, because it’s a secret society –
Aarya: Mm.
Sarah: – school that exists inside Yale or something like Yale, so you think you’re in Yale, but if you’re part of that school you see buildings that no one else can see, and there’s different kinds of sex magic, and you study different kinds of sexual magic. And it’s really interesting, because it talks about sex as intimacy and as power and as the, you know, sort of the creative energy of it, and it’s re-, there’s a lot of sex, but it’s really interesting. And I remember that noise.
Amanda: Yeah!
Sarah: It’s Harry Potter with sex magic, and it’s like the whole room went – [gasp] – oh my gosh!
Amanda: But, like, as, as for cons –
Sarah: KissCon looks fun.
Amanda: – I don’t go – I wouldn’t say don’t go, but, like, I don’t like crowds, for one, and so after these sorts of things it’s like I have to –
Sarah: Isolate?
Amanda: – hibernate –
Sarah: Yeah.
Amanda: – for a good two to three days. Like, close the curtains –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Amanda: – no sunlight, no human contact.
Sarah: You want to be where the people aren’t.
Amanda: But some of the, the cons that are around, like KissCon and ApollyCon, they do have a big focus on, like, signings –
Sarah: Yeah.
Amanda: – and that’s never been, like, a draw for me is, like, getting –
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Amanda: – getting stuff signed. I, there are very few authors where I would love a signed book, but, you know, I just don’t have, like, that attachment to, like –
Sarah: To the physical artifact?
Amanda: Yeah! To, like, getting things signed, so, like, that never appeals to me, and I don’t want to drag my books to places. Like, I am lazy as fuck.
Aarya: But that’s why I made a photo book for this RWA.
Sarah: Oh, that’s lovely! So you’re having people sign your photo book.
Aarya: Yeah, it’s –
Amanda: I think I had people sign my Kindle case at one point.
Sarah: Whoa, that book is not screwing around! Wow!
Aarya: So, for example –
Sarah: [Gasps] Look at this!
Aarya: I’m al- –
Sarah: Wait, I want to get a picture of this.
Aarya: Oh.
Amanda: So I will, I will describe it as well. The pages have book covers, and they’re all kind of, like, auth- –
Aarya: There’s too many pages for you to take pictures of.
Amanda: – author-focused.
Sarah: I know.
Aarya: It’s just, like, I’m trying to get people –
Amanda: Are these printed on or, like, stickers?
Aarya: No, it’s Shutterfly.
Amanda: Ohhh! Well, what are you going to do with the blank pages?
Aarya: I don’t know. I just, it’ll, if I go to a future con, people can sign it.
Amanda: Okay.
Aarya: I’m not going to print another one.
Sarah: [Whispers] Wow.
Aarya: But to me, this is like, you know, this is like a yearbook almost for me? And –
Sarah: Oh my gosh, you’re so right! It is like a yearbook!
Aarya: And it’s just, so I, I like signed copies too, and I haven’t – I’m, I obviously got a lot of books this RWA, and they’re, they’re signed, and they’re, and they’re nice, but I’ll probably read them once, and then I’ll regift it to another romance reader –
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Aarya: – so they can enjoy it.
Sarah: Sure, sure!
Aarya: And then I’ll buy the e if I really love it.
Sarah: Or if you want, we do periodic giveaways of books that we have.
Aarya: Oh yeah, then I’ll just give away through that.
Sarah: You can send a box of signed books to someone.
Amanda: We, we’re going to do one in August, so.
Aarya: Yeah.
Sarah: I should send you a picture of my garage where I keep the books. It’s kind of scary.
Aarya: Yeah.
Amanda: Also, I’m looking at Brenda Jackson’s signature. Brenda Jackson was awarded –
Sarah: [Gasps] Her signature is gorgeous.
Amanda: – last night at the Harlequin party. I think she has a hundred and, a hundred books or a hundred and twenty-five books published with Harlequin –
Sarah: Yep.
Amanda: – and the only other person who, like, beat her was Carla Cassidy with a hundred and fifty books.
Sarah: Yep.
Amanda: But yeah, Brenda Jackson. I was there with –
Sarah: She’s a powerhouse.
Amanda: – with Steve from, like, the Browne Pop Culture, and we were, like, trying to guess, like, who was going to be in each category. They’re like, Brenda Jackson’s got to be up there.
Sarah: Oh yeah.
Amanda: Heather Graham’s got to, got to be in there somewhere. Like, we were trying to figure out who was going to get called.
Sarah: And the thing that’s amazing about Brenda Jackson is that for years, she had a full-time job at Allstate. She worked in insurance, and she wrote on the side, and she has published a hundred and fifty books.
Amanda: God bless her.
Sarah: So you have this gorgeous yearbook, and that’s for all of the things you’re going to.
Aarya: And that’s because I like the autographed books that I’m getting, but I know I’m not going to keep them for the rest of my life.
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Aarya: And so this is a way to remember. It’s –
Sarah: Oh yeah! That is your –
Aarya: Yeah.
Sarah: – your artifact of this experience. I think that’s so cool. Not everyone in that book is here! Are you going to take it to other places?
Aarya: Yeah, so, okay, so when I was making this book, I was like, if I make this book and I don’t include Nalini Singh in it –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Aarya: – that’s like saying, well, I’m never going to meet Nalini Singh, and I do think I will meet her.
Amanda: It’s like a vision board.
Aarya: I, it is. So, like, Nora Roberts is in there, right? And the reason she’s in there is I really want to go to her inn for a signing.
Sarah: Oh.
Aarya: And I feel like that’s a doable thing.
Sarah: Totally doable thing.
Amanda: Sarah’s BFFs with Nora.
Sarah: I am not BFFs with Nora.
Amanda: Which is BF – they –
Sarah: I am not!
Aarya: [Laughs]
Amanda: They text and talk all the time; I see it.
Sarah: Okay, I do not text with Nora Roberts. I can text her publicist, but that is as far as I go. Sorry.
Amanda: They send letters to each other, and –
Sarah: Oh, what are you doing?
Amanda: [Laughs] They’ve got friendship bracelets.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Aarya: Okay, I believed you at first, and now I don’t!
Sarah: First of all, first of all –
[Laughter]
Sarah: – Nora Roberts friendship bracelets are like five-carat diamonds, and I do not have that kind of bracelet walking around in my life. Oh my gosh, no. You should definitely go to the Inn; you should definitely go to a signing. How are you with ghosts?
Amanda: Ooh, I love ‘em!
Aarya: Is that the hotel that has the ghost in it?
Sarah: Yes! I’ve met her, the ghost, yes.
Aarya: Are you serious?
Sarah: Yeah, absolutely I’m, I’m totally serious.
Aarya: I, I, I don’t know the story.
Sarah: Oh, I will tell you the story.
Aarya: Okay. [Laughs]
Sarah: So if you are invited to sign, they get you a reservation at the Inn. I will also tell you the most romantic husband story that I’ve ever met was at the Inn. So the Inn is in the books, but, and it, and it is exactly as it is in the books; it’s gorgeous.
Aarya: I’ve read the books, yeah.
Sarah: It’s really beautifully done. Nora can be an interior decorator anytime. She interior decorates her books –
Aarya: Which room did you stay in?
Sarah: The first two times I was in Elizabeth and Darcy, and then for my eleventh anniversary my mother-in-law took the kids and we were like, what do we do, what do we do, whatdowedowhatdowedo, we don’t know what to do, our children are –
Amanda: Call up Nora, ‘cause we’re great friends!
Aarya: [Laughs]
Sarah: No, that’s not what happened. I, okay –
Aarya: Get a free room!
Sarah: – not, has not happened. The, so every room at the Inn has the Neorest Toto super toilet from Japan, and it is the most exquisite toilet you will ever use in your life, and I was like, you know what? Adam, we’re going to go to the Inn in Boonsboro. We’re going to drive from Jersey down to Maryland –
Amanda: ‘Cause I, for the anniversary, I want to use that fancy toilet!
Sarah: The eleventh anniversary is the fancy toilet anniversary. If I text my husband and ask him, what’s the eleventh anniversary? he’ll be like, fancy toilet.
Aarya: [Laughs]
Sarah: I took him to the Inn, and the only one that was available was the Titania and Oberon bridal suite, and I was like, fuck it, it’s our anniversary, so we went to the Inn, we, we used the magical toilet –
Amanda: Did the toilet have a flower crown!
Sarah: No, it should have though. But, like, you walk in, and the toilet seat goes up, like, hi! How are you? The seat is heated. There’s, like, multiple things that will wash every part of your body. It’s really incredible. There’s an air dryer. It’s really incredible, so just for the toilets. So I stayed in the Elizabeth and Darcy room for a signing, and the morning of the, of the signing, I had set my phone alarm, and I was dead asleep, and all of a sudden my phone starts going off, but it’s the doo-doo-doo, the number you have reached is no longer in service. My phone had dialed something, and I was like, well, that’s weird! And I looked, and I was like, okay. So I went back to sleep, and a few minutes later, doo-doo-doo, the number you have reached is no longer in service. I’m like, why is my phone making phone calls and on speaker? And I’m like, this is weird. But by that time I was awake, so I got up, showered, went downstairs. I met these two women who were there for the signing. It was a mom and her daughter, adult daughter, and the mom was undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatment, and she was in her robe, and they were like, oh, we’re in our bathrobes and you’re dressed! I’m like, I have to look professional; if I could be in my bathrobe right now I totally would. If you’d like, I will go back to my room and get in my bathrobe.
Amanda: [Laughs]
Sarah: And they’re like, no, no, it’s fine. So I had breakfast with these wonderful women, went to the signing, and then at the end of the signing one of the women came and said, we’re going to dinner at a restaurant in West Virginia – which is like twenty minutes away from the Inn – and we, we’d like you to join us. Will you join us for dinner?
Aarya: Aw!
Sarah: So I had the most wonderful dinner, and I was telling them, you know, it was really weird; my phone woke me up. I was like, I wonder if my phone was waking me up so I could meet you. And I was like, that would be a great reason for my phone to be weird – and I remember looking, and there were no outgoing calls in my call log either – so I mentioned it to the innkeeper, like, my phone was really weird, and she’s like, you’re in Elizabeth and Darcy, aren’t you? And I was like –
Aarya: [Laughs]
Sarah: – yeah? And she’s like, that’s Elizabeth. That’s the ghost. She will, she plays with technology.
Aarya: Now, is it Elizabeth Bennett?
Sarah: No, it is a woman in the Inn –
Aarya: Okay, okay. That makes sense.
Sarah: – ‘cause the Inn is a very old building, but they named her Elizabeth.
Aarya: Okay.
Sarah: She’s not, like, trying to hurt you, but she likes –
Aarya: A friendly ghost!
Sarah: – she likes to manage your, she likes to manage the relationships in the room, and I really believe, I utterly believe that the reason my phone woke me up was so that I could meet these two women and have this wonderful experience of spending the day with them and going to dinner with them and meeting them, and I still keep in contact with the daughter. I still email her.
Aarya: Oh wow!
Amanda: I wonder how she would interact with, like, other pieces of technology.
Sarah: I don’t –
Amanda: Like, what, what would she do if you left a Nintendo Switch out?
Sarah: She would be like, Stardew Valley.
Amanda: [Laughs]
Sarah: Yours, where’s my Switch? I’m sorry, Elizabeth has it, and she is a Year Two farmer now, and she has ten hearts with everyone.
Amanda: She’s har-, she’s harvesting those dang blueberries!
Sarah: That’s right! [Bubbling noise] So yeah, that was, that’s the ghost, and she likes to manage and make relationships for the other guests, but her center where she most often appears is in Elizabeth and Darcy, and the fact the innkeeper was like, yeah, that’s, that’s – that was like, whoa!
So the amazing husband story? Another time I was there for a signing – I think this was my second book – there was this couple, and, like, this guy was probably six feet tall and four feet wide. He was extremely New Yorker, and I could, like, almost tell he was, like, uncomfortable in the chair, ‘cause it was, like, small and dainty, and his wife was – this was the morning of the signing – she was levitating with excitement because she was going to meet Nora Roberts, and she kept saying to him, oh my gosh, honey, thank you so much, thank you so much, thank you so much! And that’s kind of normal. It’s like a present, and the husbands come and gift their wife a night at the Inn –
Aarya: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sarah: – and a trip to the signing, and you line up at the crack of dawn to get in line for the signing. Like, the people line up early to get in that first group, because the first group is the one that’s allowed to bring in books from outside, and after that it’s just what you buy in the store. And she’s like, thank you, thank you, thank you, and she’s like, everyone, I have to tell you about my husband and what he did, and he’s like, oh God, and puts his hand over his face.
Amanda: [Laughs]
Aarya: Aw!
Sarah: He’s like, can I finish my coffee and go upstairs? And she’s like, no, you have to hear this story too. He’s like, I know the story!
[Laughter]
Sarah: I did the thing! And he’s like, you know what, I’m going to tell the story. And I was like, well, at this point I am no longer eating, and I am listening to this incredible guy. He’s like, I’m a fishmonger, my whole family owns a fish shop, and we’re Italian, and in, in Italian culture on Christmas Eve you eat a buttload of fishes. Seven kinds of fish?
Amanda: The Feast of the Seven Fishes.
Sarah: So on Christmas Eve it is tradition to eat seven kinds of fish if you’re Italian, and he’s a fishmonger in an Italian community on Long Island, so of course he’s like, Christmas is, like, insane. From December 1st onward we’re taking reservations, we’re getting stock. I have never been awake all the way through Christmas. My wife goes out of her way to make this wonderful Christmas Day meal, and we are all exhausted, me, my brothers, my cousins, my father, my uncle. We just fall asleep at, like, eleven o’clock. We barely make it through church, and then we sleep. And so every year for Christmas, my wife makes this big effort, and I sleep through most of it. And so this is her Christmas present, because I am never awake, and I’m exhausted to enjoy Christmas. This is our Christmas weekend, and I brought her here to the hotel to go to the signing, and at this point, I’m like – [tearily] – you’re the greatest husband I’ve ever met –
Aarya: Aww!
Sarah: – second to my own! And that’s the kind of, like, romantic thing you’ll see. [Whispers] It’s so lovely! [Squees] So lovely! And a ghost. If you want a ghost.
Aarya: That’s definitely on the bucket list, go to the Inn.
Sarah: Oh, totally.
Aarya: Is there, like, a, there must be that there’s, like, a romance bucket list, I think. Go to the Inn.
Sarah: Oh gosh, yeah!
Aarya: I guess, I, I guess going to RWA is one of them. I’m trying to think what else.
Sarah: Go to RWA, go to the Inn. Like, what else would be on the romance reader bucket list?
Amanda: I mean, visiting The Ripped Bodice might be on that list.
Aarya: Oh yes!
Sarah: Visiting The Ripped Bodice and Love’s Sweet Arrow. Going to, like, the Highlands; going to the settings of your favorite books. Going, like, being in Manhattan, being in London. There should be, like, a Harlequin Presents sub bucket list. Like, all the stuff that goes, ‘cause, you know, Presents are so over-the-top and very, like, they’re very sudsy books. I love them for that.
Amanda: You know, have the tycoon’s baby bucket list. [Laughs]
Sarah: Okay, having been through that experience – the baby part, not the tycoon part – I can’t recommend it. It can be difficult and a little painful. [Laughs]
Aarya: You know how there are, like, these big Disney cruises?
Sarah: Yes!
Aarya: I have often thought, it’d so much fun if someone organized a romance cruise –
Sarah: There have been some!
Aarya: Oh really!
Sarah: There have been some; there’ve been a couple. Some chapters will do their chapter conference on a cruise. I did one of those; it’s like a weekend. Like, the Florida chapters will do a long weekend cruise to, like, Nassau, and the cruise line island in the back.
Amanda: Typical Florida.
Sarah: Pfft! Shut up, Floridian!
Amanda: Typical!
Sarah: But you do the writers conference, and then they do the signing on that main walkway down the middle of the cruise line, so, like, the cruise passengers buy books. That’s pretty cool. There is a romance fan cruise I think being planned for a year or two from now? Some conferences will do a whole weekend cruise, or a week even. Oh, and another historical romance –
Amanda: The historical retreat?
Sarah: – romance retreat is another conference that’s –
Amanda: What is it, like, Pacific Northwest or something like?
Sarah: Yeah, or on the West Coast; they have one too –
Amanda: Yeah.
Sarah: – but a romance cruise could be amazing. I know there’s a fan-, sci-fi/fantasy cruise that runs every year.
Amanda: [Whispers] I fucking hate cruises!
Sarah: Why?
Amanda: Well, the kind of cruise –
Sarah: Is this a Florida thing?
Amanda: It’s a, like, I don’t like being on a cruise ship thing –
Sarah: Okay.
Amanda: – enforced activity –
Aarya: I, I mean, the rooms are not ideal; I’ll admit that.
Sarah: They’re good for reading if you’ve got an interior state room. You can’t hear anything. It’s like you’re in a little den.
Amanda: I would, like, I want to go on an Alaskan cruise, not a Caribbean cruise.
Sarah: ‘Kay.
Amanda: That’s my speed.
Aarya: It could be Alaskan. I might have posted an Alaskan cruise.
Amanda: Good.
Aarya: I was thinking Mediterranean with all the Harlequin Presents, but –
Sarah: [Gasps]
Amanda: I, so I would also do that.
Sarah: You, you have good ideas! Somebody just needs to give Aarya a big pot of money, and she’ll make things happen.
Aarya: Let’s just all go to Italy and go on a cruise. Let’s just everyone do it!
Sarah: I have no problem with all those words in a row.
All right, it is twenty-five past eleven. Do you want to –
Aarya: Okay, I do have to go.
Sarah: – over to Kensington?
Amanda: Yeah.
Sarah: So just put your microphone down; it’s cool.
Aarya: Okay, bye, everyone.
Sarah: Thank you!
Aarya: Like I’m talking to a bunch of people.
Amanda: [Laughs]
Sarah: So are there signings or anything else you want to attend while you’re here, or are you just sort of like, eh? When are, when are you, when are you going home? Tomorrow?
Amanda: Tomorrow morning! Getting on the Amtrak.
Sarah: So what are you reading on the train home?
Amanda: Okay, so what I’m reading, or what I plan to read on the train is a library hold that I picked up before I came here. It’s called Alpha Wolf Need Not Apply.
Sarah: Intriguing.
Amanda: And the hero is a wolf shifter and park ranger, and it takes place in the San Isabel National Forest, and the heroine is a forester, and she’s, like, the alpha of her pack, which I don’t see very often. So we’ve got two wolves. The heroine is the alpha of hers, and she’s, like, constantly having to, like, fend off her, like, alpha status from dudes. [Exasperated sigh] But I have that for the train, and I’m excited about it. And then I have, like, you know, you always have to bring two or three backups in case something happens.
Sarah: Oh, obviously, no question.
Amanda: So, and I’ve got How to Love a Duke in Ten Days by Kerrigan Byrne? That’s not out yet. I’ve heard good things, so I have that.
Sarah: She writes fun historicals.
Amanda: I’ve never read anything by her. This might be, like, the first book in a, in a new series? But that’s the book on, I posted on the Instagram, that I left to go take a shower for like fifteen fucking minutes, and I come back, and Linus has used the corners as a chew toy. I’m like, okay, thanks –
Sarah: Mmm, nummy.
Amanda: – you jerk.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Amanda: So –
Sarah: Look, he’s the alpha. He is constantly asserting his dominance!
Amanda: [Sighs] I guess. It helps that he’s so cute.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Amanda: But I just –
Sarah: Does he like being petted?
Amanda: It depends. He can be, like, super needy. He does this thing where, if you pet the top of his head he lifts his face up, and he wants you to rub his nose?
Sarah: Uh-huh.
Amanda: And he makes this, like – [guttural purring] –
Sarah: Yeah.
Amanda: – noise.
Sarah: Yeah.
Amanda: I’m like, you little weirdo. And he loves butt scratches, like, right –
Sarah: Oh, at the base of the tail?
Amanda: – right, yes.
Sarah: We call that elevator butt, ‘cause the butt just goes rrrRRR!
Amanda: Yep. And he just always has to put his butthole, like, right on you.
Sarah: Oh yeah.
Amanda: Like, he’ll back up into it.
Sarah: Oh – [laughs].
Amanda: I –
Sarah: Wilbur constantly shows everyone his butthole, but most especially Zeb, who is at the exact right height.
Amanda: [Laughs]
Sarah: Zeb’s like, I’ve seen this! I live with you! I am aware of this butthole!
Amanda: I always, like –
Sarah: I know I’m a dog, but come on!
Amanda: I always joke around that, like, his butthole, like, suctions to it. Like, like –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Amanda: – I make this noise that drives Eric crazy. I make the [slurps] noise.
[Laughter]
Amanda: He’s like, that’s the butthole suction noise! He’s like, stop it! But yes, he does like pets, and sometimes he gets very needy in the mornings –
Sarah: Aw!
Amanda: – where it’s just like, please touch every part of my face!
Sarah: Yep.
Amanda: Yeah.
Sarah: [Purrs]
Amanda: But –
Sarah: And does he rub his cheeks on you?
Amanda: On everything. The worst is –
Sarah: That, you know that’s marking. He has a scent gland in the corner of his mouth.
Amanda: Yep. Well, like, I’ll have my laptop on my, on my lap –
Sarah: Hence the name.
Amanda: Yes – and he’ll rub his cheeks on the corner.
Sarah: Oh, cats and the corner of laptops: what is with that?
Amanda: And it’ll push the screen –
Sarah: Yep. [Purrs]
Amanda: – and then pinch my skin –
Sarah: Yep!
Amanda: – in between the hinges. [Laughs]
Sarah: Yep! Yep! Yep.
Amanda: And then I’m just like, ow, ow!
Sarah: [Meows, laughs] Yeah.
Amanda: And then you move the screen up, and then he does it again, and –
Sarah: I want this here. I’m scratch my face! [Laughs]
Amanda: Yeah.
Sarah: I finished Lady Helena Investigates, which was this book on sale.
Amanda: Yes.
Sarah: It was very hard to put down, but I can also see what issues I had with it. I honestly don’t know how I would grade it, because on one hand, I stayed up way too late reading it because I needed to know what happens, and the, the chapters are written so that something happens at the end and you want to go, okay, well now I’ve got to find out what happens next!
Amanda: Good idea!
Sarah: But, but the sequence of the story is, I think, out of order, because there’s a mystery of her – so Lady Helena is a widow, and the book opens at her husband’s funeral, and her whole family’s there, and she’s the youngest of a whole bunch of children in one family. Their mother has advanced dementia and lives with the, her, her brother, who’s the next oldest after, I think, five or six girls. There’s a lot of family in this book – and into the point where I was confused as to which family was which – and they’re all, for the most part, different ones of them are terrible in different ways, and they all call her Baby because she’s the youngest, and she’s a grown woman.
Amanda: I don’t like that.
Sarah: Well, she doesn’t like it either.
Amanda: [Laughs]
Sarah: The book opens when her husband has been buried and the whole family’s around, and they’re, and, and some of them are, like, openly resentful that they have to go into mourning and have to wear mourning clothes, and they don’t like it, and she’s like, you’re – she keeps, she holds her tongue; she doesn’t tell anybody off.
Amanda: Be like, fucking suck it up!
Sarah: Yeah, like, sorry! Part of the book is her learning to find her voice and stand up for herself, but also examining who she is and her position? I don’t remember the sequence of time, but one of the villagers in the village that is next to her estate is a French doctor who was there at the coroner’s inquest and is very suspicious about her husband’s death, and nobody believed him at the inquest, and of course she wasn’t allowed to attend or know anything about it because she’s a woman, and so he comes to her and he asks to speak with her privately, which is super inappropriate, and he says, I just, I think there’s something very suspicious about your husband’s death, and I needed to tell you. I argued for a further investigation, and everyone agreed that it was an accident, and the farmer who fished him out of the creek was telling truth, and he says, I don’t agree, and she’s like, the hell is wrong with you? Go away. Like, she cannot handle it. And so part of the story is her recovering from immediate grief and moving into less grief and moving through, like, six months of, of mourning. Part of it is her coming to terms with her position in her family and also coming to terms with the fact she’s now a very wealthy widow, and she has independence and money and power, and then there’s the fact that this French guy, they’re very attracted to each other, but they have a great deal of social distance between them. He’s French; he’s just left France after the Revolution, and he calls her on the status that she has as the lady land owner who has tenant farmers, and she’s like, well, of course I’m going to take care of these people. They’re my people; they’re on my land. It’s, of course I’m going to take care of this person who needs help; of course I’m going to do this. He’s like, you will do it; that’s great, but the system that allows people to have the responsibility and not do it is the problem, and you need to be aware of the fact that there is real resentment against your having this power just ‘cause you were born. And she gets really upset at being called on her status as local nobility.
The problem I had with the book was that the mystery gets resolved, and then there’s another, like, quarter of the book to go, because there’s another mystery that gets introduced!
Amanda: I mean, the title was called, like, Lady Helena Investigates.
Sarah: I don’t think she does a whole lot of investigating –
Amanda: Yeah, and –
Sarah: – until the last quarter of the book. The she’s investigating. She’s reading things, but it’s like –
Amanda: Well then, if that’s the case, I investigate all the time!
Sarah: Yeah! I am constantly investigating.
Amanda: [Laughs]
Sarah: I love some of the things that the book was doing. I didn’t love how the story was structured because I was like, wait, the mystery’s over! The book’s going to end soon! No! Another quarter of the book to go! There’s like a whole extra quarter of a book tacked to the end.
So I don’t know what I’m reading on the way home. I have the first Kate Shugak novel, because –
Amanda: Oh yes! Yes, yes, yyyes!
Sarah: What is it, A Cold Day for Murder or –
Amanda: Yes, I think that’s what it is.
Sarah: – murder on a cold day, something –
Amanda: A Cold Day for Murder.
Sarah: Yeah. I remembered a title: I get a point. That looks really, really good, and I think it’ll be, like, just the right kind of reading for a train, because trains are awesome. I love taking the train to New York.
Amanda: I’m bummed because on the way here I got the Quiet Car, and I stand by my decisions to always get the Quiet Car –
Sarah: Always go for the Quiet Car.
Amanda: – but – and this is a testament to how much I love my brother – he is thirteen hours ahead, and we’ve been playing phone tag –
Sarah: Mmm.
Amanda: – since I’ve been in New York.
Sarah: Hmm.
Amanda: And he’s like, well, I’ll just call you tomorrow, and I was like, well, what time? ‘Cause I’m going to be in a Quiet Car, and I’m not going to be That Person.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Amanda: I was like, if you’re going to call me during the morning – my morning, your night – tell me in advance –
Sarah: So I can leave the Quiet Car.
Amanda: Or I will sit in a different car –
Sarah: Right.
Amanda: – so I have plenty of time to talk to you. So.
Sarah: Wow. You’re –
Amanda: The things I do.
Sarah: You’re going to give up Quiet Car for your brother.
Amanda: For my stupid brother! [Sighs]
Sarah: Any last, any last thoughts about RWA or conferences or – ?
Amanda: Nothing else! I am very tired.
Sarah: Oh yeah.
Amanda: It is exhausting just, like –
Sarah: It’s a very exhausting conference. It is a lot. It is a lot a lot.
Amanda: And I’ve had a lot of conferences back to back to back in the last couple months. This is technically the end to my, my con season, and I am looking forward to it –
Sarah: Yeah.
Amanda: – ‘cause I am very tired. I’m very tired!
Sarah: Yeah.
Amanda: This is, like, three to four months of, like, extroverting, and the introvert in me is just hanging on by a thread!
Sarah: Ohhh! Yeah, I know. It is a lot.
Amanda: I’m like one step away from falling asleep on my feet like a horse.
Sarah: Yeah.
Amanda: Yeah.
Sarah: Oh yeah.
Amanda: Just like –
Sarah: Last night, I, I don’t remember what I was saying to people last night, and I was talking to Alexis Daria, and I really felt like I, I’m going to tip forward, just fall asleep on my face right now.
Amanda: [Laughs] Sarah’s like, I just want french fries for dinner, please.
Sarah: That’s all I want. I wanted some fricking french fries; it’s all I wanted, and –
Amanda: Well, you got ‘em!
Sarah: – I got french fries and a glass of champagne. Life was good. Just like my BFF Nora: fries and champagne.
Amanda: See? Confirmed!
Sarah: [Whispers] We’re nothing!
Amanda: Everyone, spread that rumor around. Just kidding: do not do that.
Sarah: [Laughs]
[music]
Sarah: And that brings us to the end of our episode. Thank you to Aarya and Amanda for taking time out of their day at RWA to hang out and talk about RWA. If you would like to find them, they are both reviewing at Smart Bitches! You can find Amanda on Twitter @_ImAnAdult, and Aarya is @Aarya_Marsden.
Today’s podcast is sponsored by The Muffia, the first book in the Muffia series by Ann Royal Nicholas. If you liked Sex and the City and The Jane Austen Book Club or if you’re a member of a book club yourself, you’ll love this contemporary women’s fiction series set in Los Angeles. Madelyn Scott-Crane is a forty-two-year-old mediator and single mom who’s having the best sex of her life, inspired by the women of her book club, the Muffia, and their latest racy read. But on their second date, as Maddie and her mysterious Israeli heartthrob Udi come together in orgasmic splendor, he collapses on top of her. Dead. Or is he? The Muffs set out to find the truth and damn the consequences. International intrigue combines with friendship, literary pursuits, some vibrator shopping, and lots of home cooking, all wrapped up in one smart, sexy novel that’s just this side of scandalous. The Muffia and all the books in the Muffia series are available now. Find out more at annroyalnicholas.com.
Our transcript this week is being brought to you by The Highland Duke by Amy Jarecki, on sale now for a limited time only at 99 cents. When Akira Ayres finds a brawny Scot with a musket ball in his thigh, the healer has no qualms about doing whatever it takes to save his life, even if it means fleeing across the Highlands to tend his wounds while English redcoats are closing in. Though Akira is as fierce and brave as any of her clansmen, she’s intimidated by the fearsome, brutally handsome Highlander who refuses to reveal his full name. Geordie knows if Akira ever discovers he’s the Duke of Gordon, both her life and his will be forfeit in a heartbeat. The only way to keep the lass safe with his enemies on the hunt is to ensure she’s by his side day and night. But the longer he’s with her, the harder it becomes to think of letting her go. Despite their differences in class, despite the danger, he will face death itself to make her his. This historical romance won an RT Reviewers Choice award, and James Patterson recommended it on Twitter by asking, “Looking for a romance with the same intensity as a thriller?” The Highland Duke by Amy Jarecki is only 99 cents for a few more days, and the rest of the series is on sale too, so add a stack of Highlanders to your TBR, starting with The Highland Duke, available now wherever e-books are sold.
Thank you very much to our Patreon community, because each and every podcast Patreon member who makes a pledge is helping keep the show going, and I cannot express how much I appreciate your support. If you would like to join: patreon.com/SmartBitches.
The music that you are listening to right now is Caravan Palace. Provided by Sassy Outwater, this track is called “La caravane,” and you can find it on their double album, Caravan Palace and Panic, all of which is fantastic music to work or clean to, I can tell you.
Coming up on Smart Bitches this week, we have so many great things. First, tomorrow, Saturday, August 10, we have the first of two Whatcha Reading? posts, and basically, we want to know what you’re reading, because then we’ll tell you what we’re reading, and then we all buy more books because we have no impulse control, and that’s why we hang out together. Plus, we’re going to have reviews – really good reviews, too – Cover Snark, Help a Bitch Out, and Books on Sale, so I hope that you will come over and hang out with us.
In the show notes for this episode – smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast – I will have links to some pictures of Aarya’s yearbook, the – [laughs] – Instagram of Linus chewing on dukes, and I have a link to the Sherry Thomas workshop that Aarya mentioned as well. And of course we’ll have links to all of the books we talked about.
And now we end with a bad joke. Are you ready? I really like this one.
What do you call dumb jokes at the beach?
Heads up, graphic designers: what do you call dumb jokes at the beach?
Comic sands.
[Laughs] I have, have several friends who are graphic designers, and they are very impressed with how bad that joke is. That is from, I believe, /ayezayuh at Reddit. Thank you!
On behalf of myself, Aarya, and Amanda, we wish you the very best of reading. Have a fantastic weekend, and we will see you back here next week.
[fine funky music]
This podcast transcript was handcrafted with meticulous skill by Garlic Knitter. Many thanks.
Transcript Sponsor
Our sponsor this week is The Highland Duke by Amy Jarecki – on sale for a limited time only for .99!
When Akira Ayres finds a brawny Scot with a musket ball in his thigh, the healer has no qualms about doing whatever it takes to save his life. Even if it means fleeing across the Highlands to tend his wounds while English redcoats are closing in. Though Akira is as fierce and brave as any of her clansmen, she’s intimidated by the fearsome, brutally handsome Highlander who refuses to reveal his full name.
Geordie knows if Akira ever discovers he’s the Duke of Gordon, both her life and his will be forfeit in a heartbeat. The only way to keep the lass safe with his enemies on the hunt is to ensure she’s by his side day and night. But the longer he’s with her, the harder it becomes to think of letting her go. Despite their differences in class, despite the danger, he will face death itself to make her his.
This historical romance won an RT Reviewers’ Choice Award – and James Patterson recommended it on Twitter by asking, “Looking for a romance with the same intensity as a thriller?”
The Highland Duke by Amy Jarecki is only .99 for a few more days – and the rest of the series is on sale, too. So add a stack of Highlanders to your TBR, starting with The Highland Duke, available wherever ebooks are sold.
RWA sounds like exhausting fun; thanks for sharing.
I haven’t listened to the whole thing yet, but just wanted to say that the sound is excellent.
I also fangirled seeing Meg Cabot. I met her in 2011 too and fangirled then! Some authors just seem larger than life. I still think about when my younger cousin was obsessed with The Princess Diaries and whispered, when she thought no one was listening, “What if I’m a princess too?” 😀
There was a series or book discussed that was described as being like Hogwarts houses with sex magic. What is the book/series?
@Dana: the first book is The Siren and the Sword by Cecilia Tan in the Magic University series.
Thanks!