378. Owning Your Anger and Being Yourself: Live from East City Books with Andie J. Christopher

[music]

Sarah Wendell: Hello there, and welcome to episode number 378 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. Today’s episode was recorded live on the 13th of November, 2019, from East City Books. This is my conversation with Andie J. Christopher, all about Not the Girl You Marry. We are going to talk about the book, obviously, but no spoilers, and we talk about gender updates of familiar stories and tropes. We talk about exactly what should happen to the term “unlikeable heroine,” and what stories we really want to read. Now, you can try to guess how many times we mention Chris Evans, and if you’re interested, you can take a drink every time we do, because that’s a fun game to play along at home.

This podcast episode is brought to you by Anyone But a Duke by Betina Krahn. Sexy and fun, the third Sin & Sensibility novel sends the youngest sister from a prominent Nevada mining family off to navigate London society in hopes of snagging a duke at a time when New Money was closed out of America’s East Coast society. New York Times bestselling author Betina Krahn delivers an irresistible romance shimmering with lighthearted wit, thrilling twists, and – get your bingo cards ready – a case of mistaken identity, a country estate in need of some TLC, and some precocious puppies. Anyone But a Duke by Betina Krahn is on sale now wherever books are sold. For more information, visit betinakrahn.com.

Today’s podcast and the transcript are brought to you by In the Unlikely Event by L. J. Shen. If you like Penny Reid, Vi Keeland, and Sophie Kinsella, you’ll love this contemporary comedy set in rural Ireland. Malachy Doherty and Aurora Jenkins fell in love when they were eighteen, but then she moved to America for college and never expected to see him again. The problem is Aurora promised Mal she would marry him if they ever met again. They even signed a contract on a napkin. How is she supposed to know they’d actually meet? New York Times bestselling author Helena Hunting says this book is the perfect blend of soul-crushing angst, laugh-out-loud wit, and heart-melting romance, and New York Times bestselling author Kylie Scott called it a romance masterpiece. In the Unlikely Event by L. J. Shen is on sale now on Amazon and free with Kindle Unlimited. Find out more at authorljshen.com.

If you are doing some cooking this week, well, me too. And if you are thinking that this is a good time to listen to audiobooks, you’re totally right, ‘cause that’s exactly what I do. Audible has the world’s largest selection of audiobooks and audio entertainment, including Audible Originals. You can start listening with a thirty-day Audible trial: choose one audiobook and two Audible Originals absolutely free. Visit audible.com/trashybooks, or text TRASHYBOOKS to 500-500. Now, I’m cooking a lot, and I have been listening to The Story of Human Language, an eighteen-hour course – yes, eighteen hours – on the history of language, taught by Dr. John McWhorter, and it is really good! You can get a thirty-day Audible trial with one audiobook and two Audible Originals for free! Visit audible.com/trashybooks or – this is so cool – text TRASHYBOOKS to 500-500. That’s A-U-D-I-B-L-E dot com slash trashybooks or text TRASHYBOOKS to 500-500.

If you have supported the podcast Patreon, thank you so very, very much. You are helping me make sure every episode is accessible, and you keep the show going each week.

I want to extend a special welcome to some new members of our Patreon community: to YM, Franziska, Karen, Roxanne, and Taryn, thank you so much for joining the Patreon community! It is lovely to have you.

And if you would like to join, have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches. Monthly pledges start at one dollar a month, and by making a pledge you’re telling me that what we do here has value to you, so thank you so much for considering, and welcome to our newest members of the Patreon community. You are all fabulous!

I will have information at the end of the episode as to what is coming up on Smart Bitches; I will have an absolutely dreadful joke, because that’s how I do things; and I will have links to everything that we talk about in this episode in the show notes at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast.

But for now, it’s time to get started with our live show from East City Books: my conversation with Andie J. Christopher.

[music]

Destinee: My name is Destinee. I am an – I say “an” because we have many people here who wear many hats, but I’m an event coordinator here, and it is my pleasure to welcome you. Is there anyone who’s here for the very, very first time? Welcome! Welcome! Thank you so much for being here! I hope it won’t be your last time.

Just a few logistical things: I had a, one person asked about the restrooms. They’re upstairs and past the registers, and of course we have tons of books here for sale by our author –

Sarah: Books?

Destinee: I know!

Sarah: For sale?

Destinee: Who would have thought it?

Sarah: I’m amazed.

Destinee: We –

Sarah: Incredible.

Destinee: We try to go above and beyond here at the bookstore. [Laughs]

It is, as I said, my pleasure to welcome you. I also want to highlight that if you’re here for a romance event you probably would be interested in our romance book club? We meet every third Friday of the month, so we are meeting this Friday. If you have already read the book we’d like to have you; even if you haven’t, we’d still like to have you. And yeah! It would just be great to see you again.

I’m going to go ahead and introduce our lovely author and moderator or conversationalist – this evening – and we will go ahead and get started!

Sarah Wendell is the cofounder and current mastermind of smartbitchestrashybooks.com, one of the most popular and longest-running blogs examining romance fiction. She spends her days reviewing romance and celebrating the genre with the people who read and write it. Sarah is also the host of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books, now in its tenth year –

Sarah: Right now –

Destinee: – shout out! – right now on the air. She’s also the author of Everything I Know About Love I Learned from Romance Novels and Lighting the Flames, a contemporary Hanukkah romance novella. She is the coauthor of the book Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart – bosoms, heh – The Smart Bitches’ Guide to Romance Novels.

She will be in conversation today with our author for the evening –

[Writing implements tapping]

Destinee: – drum roll, please! – USA Today bestselling author Andie J. Christopher. She’s a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and Stanford Law School. She lives in the DC area with way too many books. Her past titles have included Not That Kind of Guy, One Night in South Beach and standalone. She will be speaking today about her new book Not the Girl You Marry, which is a heartfelt and steamy tale of Hannah Mayfield and Jack Nolan, who each decide to pursue a fake relationship, each for their own individual gain. Of course, nothing that starts simple stays simple, and the two find themselves to be in way deeper than they thought they would. I found myself completely wrapped up in this delightful story, and it’s also our December romance book club pick.

[Cheers]

Destinee: Yay! And I am so excited to hear her talk about it today, so please join me in welcoming Andie and Sarah! Yay!

Sarah: All right! Thank you!

Andie J. Christopher: Thank you, yeah.

Sarah: All right. So can I have a small round of applause for Destinee, please! Yay!

[Applause]

Sarah: Every bookstore is run by people with Sharpies and box cutters, and it’s important to say thank you to the people who have the Sharpies and the box cutters, ‘cause, well, if you didn’t have Sharpies and the box cutters we wouldn’t have the books, right? It is very true!

Andie!

Andie: Hi!

Sarah: Congratulations!

Andie: Thank you.

Sarah: Welcome!

Andie: Thank –

Sarah: Yay!

Andie: Thank you all for coming, even though it’s really cold for DC.

Sarah: Yeah, I am totally wearing ski base layers? ‘Cause it’s cold. So the fact that you came out in the cold; put on, like, real shoes; I’m presuming some bras? That’s really, that’s really, that’s a big deal.

Andie: I’m wearing pants under a dress ‘cause –

Sarah: ‘Cause it’s cold!

Andie: Yeah, and I’m from Minnesota, so I know cold.

Sarah: Yeah. What are you supposed to do when it’s this cold? Stay inside?

Andie: Stay inside.

Sarah: Drink and read.

Andie: Yeah.

Sarah: Yeah.

Andie: Basically. That’s, that’s it.

Sarah: Okay. So we just need, we have the books –

Andie: Yeah!

Sarah: – we’re inside. We just need to order in some drinks.

Andie: Right!

Sarah: Sounds good. I like this plan.

Andie: Right.

Together: Yeah.

Sarah: Okay! So congratulations –

Andie: Thank you.

Sarah: – on the release of your book yesterday! Yay!

Andie: I know! So wild.

Sarah: How has release been week, release week been so far?

Andie: So far it’s like, okay, so Hannah Mayfield, the main character, she is a, an event planner, and so she gets to control everything the day of. When you are an author –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Andie: – you control nothing.

Sarah: Nooo!

Andie: Which I, as an attorney by day, find very stressful.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Andie: So, so yesterday I spent the day, like, in my pajamas, binging Jack Ryan, discovering new thirsts, eating French toast –

Sarah: Sounds like a –

Andie: – then exercising; it was terrible.

Sarah: Sounds like a decent day, though.

Andie: It was, it was a pretty good day, and then when my mom was like, so how are book sales going? I was like, I don’t know! Can we talk about something else? [Laughs]

Sarah: Gosh! I mean, I know it’s, it’s already temptation to look at your sales ranking in different retailers and, like, look to see where you are on this seller or this, this site or that bookstore. Can you imagine if you had, like, live stock data, like stock market data for your books? Like, how bad would that be? It would be so bad!

Andie: For podcast listeners, my eyes are very wide right now with fear.

Sarah: [Laughs] That was quite a look of horror.

Andie: I, I, like, it’s better if I don’t look. I have a couple trusted friends who will look for me, and if I need them to tell, just, like, pull the good reviews and send those to me, or, like, tell me if it’s, you know –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Andie: – doing well.

Sarah: That’s really good advice, though.

Andie: It is, yeah.

Sarah: I used to, I used to give a workshop about social media for authors, and I always advised people to have a designated review person. So don’t ever have a Google Alert for your own name. This is a terrible advice to ever, don’t do it. Don’t – Bad Idea Jeans! And having that person send you only the good stuff, that’s a good kind of filtering friend!

Andie: I have like ten.

Sarah: Nice!

Andie: Very high maintenance! [Laughs]

Sarah: That’s very cool. [Laughs] So do you have a quick pitch for this book? Or how many do you have, and what are they?

Andie: I mean, I have multiple pitches for this book. So I always say, you know, it’s sort of a, it’s, it’s the trope from How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days, except updated for this decade, with a biracial heroine and a hero who is going to remind you of Chris Evans.

Sarah: That sounds, sounds logical.

Andie: That’s my elevator pitch for the book, and if it, if I don’t sell them there I can, I can go on.

Sarah: Updated, gender-swapper, how, How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days –

Andie: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – Chris Evans.

Andie: Right.

Sarah: If you’re drinking along, that’s two mentions of Chris Evans –

Andie: [Laughs]

Sarah: – so you’ll need to drink twice.

Audience member: Okay.

Sarah: So what do you think are the essentials for a really good gender swap? Because there’s a lot of gender-swapping going on, and there’s a lot of really old, sort of decrepit tropes that we could be updating by introducing different, different gender into them? What do you think are the elements of a really good – I don’t want to say gender swap, ‘cause that implies there’s two –

Andie: Two genders.

Sarah: – a gender update –

Andie: Update.

Sarah: – of a good trope.

Andie: So I think wherever you can find, like, an old story that has old, outdated gender roles, which basically are all of the stories, all of – especially all of the romances – and wherever you can suss out the Patriarchy and then figure out how to subvert it, I think that makes for a successful gender swap. So, like, if you – or gender updating.

Sarah: Yeah.

Andie: I think for me personally, when I was, like, watching How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days, like, this was, you know, shortly before I decided to, to write this book, I was like, you know what, none of the, none of my friends are really trying to be the cool girl so that a guy will like them? They’re mostly trying to be, trying to be themselves more and then finding someone who matches them? And, like, most of the people who I know who are trying really hard and failing to find, like, a productive relationship are actually men, because they’re so, like, cishet straight men are so silly! Like, they’re, like, they’re very misguided in what, like – they’re, you know, they’re sending dick pics; they’re saying weird stuff on Tinder and Hinge; and, like, they’re j-, and you can, and I want to, like, applaud them and, you know, and be happy that they’re, like, trying to form connections, but, like, they’re really bad at it. And so what I wanted to do was write a, a guy who was, like, really good at, at his heart, and he’s actually pretty good at dating, like, in the initial stages –

Sarah: He’s really good at dating!

Andie: He’s very good at dating.

Sarah: Oh, he, he has charm for, for, for days.

Andie: I, I mean, I really like him. Like –

[Laughter]

Sarah: I love that, I love that part of the prologue where you were like, I’m still looking for this guy, but I totally wrote him for everybody. [Laughs]

Andie: Okay. Yeah, no, he, like, I’m still dating him in my head. Anyway – [laughs]

Sarah: Not a bad plan!

Andie: Yeah, I mean –

Sarah: He’s a dreamboat.

Andie: He is a dreamboat! And I just, like, I wanted to, like, do an up-, like, sort of update it with those, those bad things that guys do right now on dating apps and in bars and in the wild.

Sarah: On the dating apps in the bars.

Andie: On the dating apps in the bars, yes.

[Laughter]

Sarah: While on dates.

Andie: While on dates!

Sarah: Yeah.

Andie: There was a story a couple years ago about a guy who had set up multi- – in DC!

[Indistinct response from audience]

Andie: Yeah. Yeah! Multiple dates in one night! And they all met and became friends. They formed a coven, and I, and I can’t help but respect it.

Sarah: I think the answer to pretty much any situation is form a coven.

Andie: Right.

Sarah: Got a problem? Form a coven. Men suck? Form a coven.

Andie: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: Why, do you have a theory as to why cisgendered straight men make these dumbass mistakes? Is it because they expect women to just contort themselves for them and that they don’t have to do any changing, so they’re just going to be exactly what they think they’re, or they’re told they should be?

Andie: Here’s the thing: I don’t think they’re used to having to do anything but, like, stand there and show their plumage/money/ – 

Sarah: Yeah.

Andie: – whatever? And so I don’t think they, a lot of them, know what it, what it means to, like, really, like, I’m trying to genuinely form a connection with you?

Sarah: Right.

Andie: I think a lot of, I don’t know, a lot of my guy friends are just, they’re very silly. They just, they expect, like, as soon as they’re ready for their, like, real adult life to start, they’re prepared for the, the girl to show up and, and do all the work.

Sarah: Pew!

Andie: Like, appear out of nothing!

Sarah: This is, this is why you form a coven.

Andie: [Laughs] Right?

Sarah: Pew! [Laughs]

Andie: They can appear in the right place at the right time! Poof! And he’s like –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Andie: – in front of the right guy! And it’s just, you know, I mean, I think, I think it’s, I think – the Patriarchy is always my answer. I think, you know –

Sarah: Oh yes.

Andie: – women have been in, sort of burdened or entrusted with, like, the task of forming human connection.

Sarah: Yep. I also think that it’s one of the things that the Patriarchy protects: the idea that guys don’t really have to do anything. They don’t have to get inconvenienced –

Andie: Right.

Sarah: – nothing’s going to get in their way.

Andie: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: The higher you up, the higher you are up on the Patriarchy staircase, the fewer obstacles are going to be in your way, and the more time you get to spend only doing one thing. Like, when’s the last time you did just one – like, right? Like, I don’t ever do just one thing. I’m doing at least five things simultaneously.

Andie: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: Right? Exactly. Like, I know exactly what my son’s having for dinner right now. I’m not there, but I know, because I’m, I’m on that, you know? Like, like, I, these are part of, these are my jobs! I like my jobs –

Andie: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – but for men, I think a lot of the time, especially men who are protected by cisgendered straight status and often wealth and whiteness, they really only have to do one thing at a time. Maybe sometimes zero things at a time, which is, like, mindblowing, right?

Andie: Like, to not do anything? I mean, I, I can’t even –

Sarah: Right, like, how do you do that?

Andie: – I can’t even imagine.

Sarah: It’s hard to do nothing!

Andie: It, I mean, it’s, I can’t do it. I, I can’t.

Sarah: I cannot.

Andie: My brain can’t do that. I don’t know; like, I think, you know, the Patriarchy is, like, yeah, men just have to do one thing. They either, you know, and for a long time it was like, either be pretty or be rich, and those are two –

Sarah: And if you’ve got both then you don’t have to –

Andie: Right.

Sarah: – do anything.

Andie: Exactly. You don’t have to have any emotional intelligence; you don’t have to, like, listen to people; you don’t have to be a kind person. And women, like, you, you have to, you have to be the smartest, but not show that you’re the smartest.

Sarah: Right.

Andie: You have to be the prettiest but not know you’re the prettiest.

Sarah: Right, but you have to weaponize your prettiness –

Andie: Yeah.

Sarah: – without showing that you know that you’re pretty.

Andie: Exactly. And everyone has to like you.

Sarah: Right. Because that’s realistic.

Andie: Right.

Sarah: Right. One of the things you mentioned was about, was being, being yourself, that you and, and the women you know are more interested in being themselves and learning who they are and owning themselves, which I think is a process that gets easier as you age. I think as you, I, I think that as you, as you achieve a new birthday, your, your give a ____ card is renewed at an exponentially lower rate? Like, I turned forty-four; I have like two for the whole year, and I’ve already used one, so I have one left. I just don’t give a crap, and the older I get, the less craps I give. It’s very liberating.

Andie: I, I think I, I live at a very low F level.

Sarah: You live at a low F level? That’s a good thing!

Andie: Yeah!

Sarah: I carried around a lot of Fs I didn’t need to be carrying. [Laughs]

Andie: I mean, I, I, I turn thirty-eight later this month, and I, I think I’m out for the year?

Sarah: Nice! Good plan.

Andie: I’m pretty sure?

Sarah: You’ve got to spend those early –

Andie: I might be –

Sarah: – ‘cause then you spend the rest of the year, like, not giving any craps!

Andie: Which means I think I’m out for the decade, which is kind of crazy? So –

Sarah: Wow. Yeah!

Andie: – I’m out!

Sarah: Nice!

Andie: I’m just done!

Sarah: Well played.

Andie: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: So one of the themes of the book is figuring out how to own yourself and how to –

Andie: Yeah.

Sarah: – be yourself, and not molding yourself to fit what someone else wants, which is what one character does, and not letting someone else’s narrative about you decide who you are, which both characters have to deal with that.

Andie: Yes.

Sarah: That’s really hard wiring to undo. It is really hard to do that. What are some of the things that they do to undo those limitations?

Andie: So I think, like, the conceit of the story is the Jack, he’s, he has always been the perfect boyfriend who gets dumped, and then she meets the guy she’s supposed to spend the rest of her life with, so he’s, he’s a unicorn or a narwhal or something like that. He’s really great.

Sarah: He’s a test drive.

Andie: [Laughs] He’s a test drive!

Sarah: He’s the test – he’s a very, very good test drive, but he’s a test drive.

Andie: Which I can imagine happening in real life, ‘cause I think if you date a Jack Nolan in real life you would be like, this guy is not real. He is secretly a monster, and I am going to figure out how and why he is a monster, and then I’m going to, like – and then I’m going to have to dump him, so I might as well dump him now, before he turns –

Sarah: Yeah, sure, absolutely.

Andie: – into the monster in my head. And then Hannah, her whole journey with herself, like, really sort of mirrors my own. Mine took decades of therapy, but hers takes some, she’s, but she’s much cooler and tougher and smarter than I am, and hers took, you know, good girlfriends, knowing herself, and really saying, you know what? I’m not going to, I’m not going to do this anymore. She just kind of hit her limit with guys telling her who she should be based on, you know, what she looked like and where she came from and who her parents were, and she really just decided to be herself, and she – and at the beginning of the story she’s decided, being myself is going to disqualify me from being in romantic relationships ever, ever again, so I’m just going to say no to that, and then the journey of the story is her being able to see herself through someone else’s eyes and, you know, make that determination within herself that, you know what, I do, I am worthy of love and belonging, and I’m going to go after the love and belonging that I want.

Sarah: It’s a, it’s a tough balance too –

Andie: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – because on one hand, she has a lot of reason to not trust men to be terrible.

Andie: Right! I mean –

Sarah: She has a lot of reason to expect terribleness, but she also has to guard herself against the terribleness while also infusing in herself the belief that she’s worth of being in a relationship that treats her with value, as opposed to all the people who have treated her as if she doesn’t have value.

Andie: Right, and I mean that, I mean, I think that’s like the sort of, the crux of the journey for anyone. And I keep saying journey like I’m on The Bachelorette, and I really, I, I –

[Laughter]

Andie: Like, I don’t watch that show? Like, it really makes me nervous. It gives me a stomachache.

Sarah: I can’t. I can’t watch it either. I can’t even edit the recaps someone else writes. [Laughs] I have to be like, oh, this really happened! Oh, secondhand embarrassment cringe.

Andie: It makes me very nauseous to watch it, ‘cause I hate, like, one of the things I talk about in the book is that I hate that, like, I think dating apps make people treat other people like they’re commodities? Like –

Sarah: Yes.

Andie: – I don’t want to date like I’m shopping at Bloomingdale’s? Like, I want to shop at Bloomingdale’s like I’m shopping at Bloomingdale’s.

Sarah: I like these shoes; I like this guy – no.

Andie: Right, no. I, like, I, like, I nev-, I’m not a good judge of, like, if, if I were to like a guy in person based on whether I like what he has to say and what his picture looks like on a, on an app, so I, I don’t app date anymore. But, like, I think shows like The Bachelor and The Bachelorette tend to treat people like commodities, because, you know, they are commodities to a certain extent: they’re on television; they’re, you know, selling a product.

Sarah: Half of them are there to become product salespeople.

Andie: Exactly! They’re there to become influencers, which, you know, I respect the hustle; I really do.

Sarah: Yeah?

Andie: But yeah. I mean, it’s, that’s the, that, I mean, the thing is –

Sarah: Yeah.

Andie: – like, accepting yourself is not, it’s not an easy task; it’s not something you can do in, like, three hundred pages; but I think, you know, Hannah’s on her way there. Once we meet her in the book, I think she, she owns who she is in a lot of ways?

Sarah: Yes. Yes.

Andie: She owns that she’s really good at her job; she owns that she’s, like, smart and has her, has her ish together?

Sarah: Yes.

Andie: But she just has this, like, one area where she’s just not, it’s not working for her.

Sarah: One thing I loved about her as a character is that because she’s an event planner – and by the way, I won’t spoil anything; if you haven’t read the book yet, I promise no spoilers – I love that she’s an event planner? She takes care of everyone else’s mess so that no one sees any problems. She makes the way smooth for everyone else around her, and these, and I’ve been an event planner; that, that is hard work. And she can manage so much. She has such skill at managing all of these difficult personalities.

Andie: Yeah, and I mean, I, like, I don’t know, it was, my knowledge of event planning is limited to sort of like what people in my family have done at, as event planners, and so one of the inspirations for Hannah’s, like, philosophy is, like, she’s, she’s like my, you know, my good regard is, is pretty easy to keep, and my, like, bad opinion is very difficult to honor, and I – that’s not a direct quote, but that’s kind of like her thing. Like, she’s like, people need to do their jobs. And she’s very unforgiving about people not doing their jobs, which I think makes it harder for her to date, ‘cause it’s like, no one knows what the job is when they’re interviewing to be your boyfriend, a.k.a. going on a first date.

Sarah: So true!

Andie: But yeah. I mean, I think she’s, she’s a tough customer, and she really just, she, she does clean up everybody else’s messes, and you can tell it from, like, her relationship with her best friend. She’s like, I know what this mess is, I’m going to fix it for you, and we’re not going to let it affect anything else.

Sarah: Yeah.

Andie: But part of that is her way of, like, pushing emotions away –

Sarah: Right.

Andie: – not feeling –

Sarah: I can handle them.

Andie: Yeah.

Sarah: They’re problems: I can solve them.

Andie: Exactly.

Sarah: I have a clipboard.

Andie: It’s hard to be vulnerable with a clipboard!

Sarah: Yeah, you cannot. It’s a weapon and a shield at the same time. [Laughs]

One of the things that Hannah describes herself – early chapter, no spoilers, I promise – she, she describes herself as not entirely domesticated, which I loved so much. What does that mean for her?

Andie: She has a hard time not, she has a hard time being, not telling the truth or doing, like, the – she just has a hard time just, you know, papering over things. Like –

Sarah: She’s not going to smooth the way with falsehood –

Andie: Yeah.

Sarah: – she’s going to smooth the way by fixing the problem –

Andie: Yeah!

Sarah: – and the problem might be telling you what your problem is.

Andie: Exactly, which not everyone wants in their friend? And that’s a quality I share, so, like, people who are my friends just know that, like, don’t ask me your opinion if you didn’t really want it.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Yeah, I’ve had to ask my, my friends and, and members of my family, do you want me to be honest here, or do you want me to just listen? ‘Cause I have many opinions, but you might not want to hear them.

Andie: Yeah, I mean, I have told people, like, I don’t think you want me to, to opine on this.

[Laughter]

Andie: ‘Cause, like, I can’t –

Sarah: Just, I will listen, but you do not want me to speak. It would be better –

Andie: Right. Like, I mean, I have a, I had a, a relative who had a legal problem, and I said, your legal problem’s not a legal problem; it, the problem is with who you’re dating.

Sarah: That’s the start of another book, I think.

Andie: [Laughs] Probably.

Sarah: Probably? Yeah, I think so!

[Laughter]

Andie: Yeah.

Sarah: Ouch!

Andie: Yeah.

Sarah: And yet, with, with Hannah, she’s going to fix your problem. She’s not going to pretend like everything’s okay, and therefore –

Andie: Right.

Sarah: – she’s not going to put up with any person, especially somebody who’s a prospective date, treating her as a commodity, and especially as a, as a disposable commodity, that her, that, that she doesn’t matter, and that her emotions don’t matter.

Andie: Yeah! I, I think that’s right. I think she’s, she’s a, she’s a grownup, and she likes herself to know that she is not a problem.

Sarah: No.

Andie: And she’s not going to pretend that she’s a problem for someone else to solve.

Sarah: Okay. Now, I know you have things to say about this question. We, we, we went over the question.

Andie: All right, so.

Sarah: It’s no spoilers. Another thing that I really like about Hannah, if you haven’t read this book, and that a lot of readers have also mentioned, is that it is an asset to her and to her character that she’s unapologetically angry. She’s pissed about a whole lot of things. She owns her anger. She sort of walks around with, like, a low-grade rage. You need a kind of a semi-big handbag to carry that rage, probably a crossbody. Anyway. She has rage all the time, and she’s earned it, and she knows it intimately, and I remember researching my first book, which came out in 2009, so I was doing this research over ten years ago, talking with authors about how when they wrote heroines at that time – so this would have been 2005, 2006; romance was a slightly different landscape then? – your heroines had to be like Goldilocks: not too hot, not too cold, not too much, not too little, not too mean. They had to be perfectly nice and kind of boring, and there was this very, very specific just-right narrow definition for heroine. And then you started to see people start talking about unlikeable heroine and which heroine is a bitch, which is a word I like a lot, and we have her-, now we have Hannah, who is just owning how fed up she is and is so over this bullshit. [Whispers] I loved it; it was delicious. [Normal voice] Were you worried at all about how she might be received?

Andie: I think we need to take the term “unlikeable heroine” and wrap it in something very flammable and throw it in a fire, along with, like, most of the Patriarchy. I think –

Sarah: Okay, sounds great! Let’s do it!

Andie: Yeah.

Sarah: This is why we have a coven.

Andie: This is why we have a coven. I am so sick of that term “unlikeable heroine.” It just means your heroine’s like a real person.

Sarah: With flaws.

Andie: With flaws.

Sarah: Yeah.

Andie: With flaws, who is not nice all the time, and I think the idea that, that a heroine has to be not too much or not too little to be likeable is ludicrous. I want to read a person that I can imagine being friends with, and I don’t think any of my friends are always nice people; otherwise, they wouldn’t be my friends.

[Laughter]

Andie: Even though some of them are sitting here and, like, you know you’re not always nice people. You’re –

Audience member: – I’m your friend, and I’m nodding my head at that.

[Laughter]

Andie: Right! I just, like, I want – and I also want to read heroines that are too little, that are afraid! Like, I, like – I mean, if you, if you can’t make a reader feel something about your main female character without people reacting badly then it’s not a you problem; it’s a, it’s a Patriarchy problem; and if you can’t make your character like a full person with flaws and have anyone, like, react to her, then I mean, that’s, that’s a writing problem. So it’s, I, I love it, kind of subversively, when I see someone say that Hannah’s a bitch, and I’m like, yeah, she’s a bitch, and also she deserves to be loved by a good person. ‘Cause she’s a good person; she’s loyal to her friends. I’m going to get choked up ‘cause I love her so much and I’ve had two glasses of wine.

[Laughter]

Andie: But, like –

Sarah: But isn’t it interesting that we had all of these milk, milky, milquetoast I think is the word I’m looking for?

Audience member: Milquetoast.

Sarah: Milquetoast heroines for years who were not too abrasive and not too difficult, and they were always perfect, but they didn’t know how pretty they were –

Andie: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – and then the evolution of that, the way you get ‘em away from that is to say, oh, they’re unlikeable. Unlikeable by who? Because I often really like them! [Laughs]

Andie: Yeah. If someone says a, a heroine is unlikeable, I ultimately want to, I ultimately want to pick that book up next. Like –

Sarah: It’s like, this book has too much sex in it. I’m sorry, what, what was the name of that book?

[Laughter]

Sarah: Oh, what did you call that book?

Andie: ISBN number, please?

Sarah: Yes! I, spell that for me. Right?

Andie: Yeah. I mean, I, like, I, I think sort of my inspirations in romance, Lauren Dane and Molly O’Keefe, among many, many others really write those kind of heroines, and so I think when I was thinking about writing a rom-com I always wanted to write, like, a rom-com with the kind of heroine that, like, Molly O’Keefe would write.

Sarah: And she writes some heroines with some serious issues.

Andie: Right, like, no –

Sarah: They got, they got flaws.

Andie: [Laughs] Yeah, like, she’s not, Hannah’s not kidnapping anyone, but-

Sarah: No. No, and she’s not forcing her kid to pl-, spend time with an abusive grandparent or anything like that.

Andie and Sarah: No, no, no.

Sarah: There are a lot of times with reading Molly O’Keefe books where I’m hooked, I’m in, I’m going for it, I’m reading, I am not putting this book down, but there’s a part of me going, oh, honey, no, no, no, no, no! Oh, you did! Shit, now I’ve got to turn the page.

[Laughter]

Andie: Yeah.

Sarah: Yeah.

Andie: Yeah. I mean, I, I, I –

Sarah: And that’s a real person! Real people –

Andie: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – do stuff like that.

Andie: Yeah!

Sarah: Real, not unlikeable people.

Andie: Real people that I’m friends with; that I’m related to; that, you know, I am sometimes.

Sarah: Yep.

Andie: You know? I think as long as you’re, as long as my characters have, like, a core of, like, certain qualities –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Andie: – that I – like loyalty, kindness – I, I’d really, I like writing a smart heroine. Just, that’s, you know, that’s my thing, and you know, maybe she thinks she’s smarter than everyone, but that’s also my thing, right.

Sarah: She’s not wrong!

Andie: [Laughs] Also, she’s not wrong!

Sarah: She’s not wrong! She owns her anger, she’s entirely justified, she’s extremely smart, and she’s not here for your crap!

Andie: Exactly!

Sarah: If you didn’t bring your A game, she has no time.

Andie: Right. And I mean, also, like, I think – you know, no spoilers – like, I don’t think she holds unnecessary grudges. Like, I think, you know –

Sarah: No. She’s not unreasonable!

Andie: No!

Sarah: That’s the thing: her anger and her, and her frustration and her prickliness is not unreasonable! It’s totally understandable!

Andie: Right, and I mean, also, since so much of that comes from me and, and the time during which I was – I was writing it in early 2017, when I was just real angry at everything and, like, I could only expend so much of that anger at the gym?

Sarah: Everyone has repetitive stress injuries!

[Laughter]

Andie: Right, right. I was like, I can only spend an hour at the gym. I need to, like, write a woman who wants to burn the world down.

Sarah: Good plan.

Andie: For the right reasons.

Sarah: Very therapeutic.

Andie: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: Yeah. So with Jack, he is skating on a very smooth path of a lot of hallmarks of goodness. He is a Good Guy, in the good sense of that. Like, not like, oh, he’s a Good Guy, where you, like, kind of curl your lip and you don’t actually mean it, ‘cause you can’t really actually say what you think about him? No, he’s actually a Good, he’s a good dude! He has a lot of charm, and he knows that he’s good-looking, and he knows that he’s really good at being a boyfriend, and yet he has to level up. He has to grow up a little bit, which is a, is a tricky balancing act, ‘cause you have him starting at, like, a Chris Evans level – that would be three mentions; my fault.

Andie: [Laughs]

Sarah: You have him starting at a pretty high level already, and then you level him up. What was, how did you, how did you approach that?

Andie: I mean, I, I like, I, I knew I had Hannah on my hands, who starts out as, like, she’s going to, like, she’s going to be like the element, you know, when you’re composing a painting or you’re composing something, you think, like, she’s going to, like, sort of scream at people, and so you need something to balance that out.

Sarah: Yeah.

Andie: And so I knew that I couldn’t write – and also, Hannah wouldn’t have responded to, like, the McConaughey archetype. She wouldn’t have. Like, I mean, nothing wrong with that archetype, if that’s your thing – not here to yuck anyone’s yum – but –

Sarah: That’s not her thing.

Andie: It’s not her thing. She, like, she wouldn’t have even, like, you know, talked to him at the bar in the first scene. She would have been like, listen, no, no. You, you’ve got to go away. Like, you’re creepy; I don’t like it.

Sarah: He falls backwards into a pool, Matthew McConaughey.

Andie: Yeah!

Sarah: You know these weird car commercials?

Andie: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: And he acts like that makes sense.

Andie: Yeah.

Sarah: That’s why I can’t get on board. Like –

Andie: Like, with his watch on. [Laughs]

Sarah: Right? Like, what is happening?! Why does falling backwards into a pool feel like driving a car? I mean, and he’s like, this makes total sense! I’m like, no!

Andie: I mean, I –

Sarah: You don’t have that much charm! [Laughs]

Andie: I do like his voice, but, like, I, I –

Sarah: Well, I mean, yeah.

Andie: Yeah.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Only if he can stay out of the pool and talk to you.

Andie: Yeah. Like, those Italian wool pants would be, like, a bitch to get clean. I’m just saying.

Sarah: And you know there’s chlorine in there.

Andie: Right!

Sarah: I don’t get it.

Andie: They’re ruined. Anyway.

Sarah: I really don’t get it.

Andie: So I thought I’d start with, like, a Chris Evans archetype for – he –

Sarah: Cheers, everybody.

[Laughter]

Andie: He’s like, you know, your average sort of like white, woke white boy who, like, knows he’s good-looking but, like, really, he really tries –

Sarah: Yes!

Andie: – and that’s what I think is so charming about him, is he –

Sarah: [Whispers] Yes!

Andie: – really, really tries to be a good person, and that’s, like, I think what you need at base, and I don’t, like – and I think sometimes because he is, like, the internet’s boyfriend, people expect him to be perfect?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Andie: And he’s not perfect, and I think that’s kind of like, that’s kind of like, like Hannah, I like a little, you know, like a fixer-upper; just, like, a little. Like, I like a little project –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Andie: – to, to, to look at. So, like, you could see, like, Jack saying, I want to get both sides of every story, and Hannah being like, you don’t need both sides of every story. Like, the one side is right; the other side is wrong. [Laughs] And the one side is right; the other side is evil; and just, like –

Sarah: Yeah.

Andie: – ‘cause her, like, moral compass points in one direction, and I think because he is, you know, relatively privileged, white dude, good-looking, has never really deeply struggled for anything in his life? I think that’s ultimately going to, like, require someone to level up at some point if they want to be with someone like Hannah.

Sarah: Mm-hmm. Definitely. And you’ve inverted another pair of gender, gender stereotypes there –

Andie: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – because so often in romance ten, fifteen years ago, it was the, the prickly, angry, resentful, grumpy man who needed to be soothed and tamed and, and, and shaped gently by the heroine, and here you have this really charming, gentle guy who’s like, wow, you’re prickly and really, wow, really prickly, but I’m still fascinated! Whoa, ouch, that hurt! Oh, you, still fascinated by you! He is trying to basically just slightly smooth her, her spines, just, just very slightly, so – [laughs] – that they don’t get him in the jugular.

Andie: Right! Like, he just, he’s like, I, I like being around this, like, very dangerous thing –

Sarah: Yeah.

Andie: – that could hurt me? And I just need to figure out how to be around it without it –

Sarah: Hurting me.

Andie: – turning on me.

Sarah: Right.

Andie: Yeah.

Sarah: And also, knowing that if he can get closer to her, that there is someone there he really wants to –

Andie: True.

Sarah: – be with beneath all of the, the prickle.

Andie: Yeah. And I mean, that’s, that’s where his charm comes in.

Sarah: Yeah.

Andie: Like, he has to, you know, he has to marshal all of his charm, even as he’s trying to be less charming.

Sarah: Yeah.

Andie: Which –

Sarah: He’s not very good at not being charming. [Laughs] He’s really not skilled at, at being terrible. Which is a good skill to have, to, to not be terrible.

Andie: Right.

Sarah: It’s a win. [Laughs]

Andie: I mean, and I just, I just – like, I wish he was right here. I just love him so much. Like, he’s, like, you know, I feel like everybody deserves a Jack Nolan.

Sarah: You must have had such a nice time disappearing into this book while you were writing it. Like, I get to hang out with these people some more.

Andie: Right! I love, I mean, I love, I love the family in the book, because the father is, like, a dead ringer for my grandfather? Like, all of his, like, -isms, like the things he said, like, you know, are things my grandfather would have said, like the sex talk he gives the boys and, like, I excerpted, it’s a flashback and, like, I’m like, yeah! That’s, that’s definitely how, like, a, a gruff dude raising two teenage boys –

Sarah: By himself.

Andie: – by himself would have –

Sarah: That’s how it works.

Andie: – done that.

Sarah: Yep.

Andie: So that was fun, and I mean, the friendship between Hannah and Sasha, who are best friends, I just, like, I loved experiencing that, ‘cause a lot of my best friends live, from college, live far away, so, and they know me so well, and so disappearing into, like, two people who, like, know each other so well that they, all they have to do is, like, make eye contact in order to communicate? That was lovely.

Sarah: Yeah. And they have so many languages! Like, they have –

Andie: [Laughs] They do!

Sarah: – signals; they have looks; they have words; they have code.

Andie: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: I love a book with multiple ways that people communicate; it makes the story so much richer, because people don’t just communicate through dialogue.

Andie: Right!

Sarah: It, there’s a lot of other subtext that goes on.

Andie: Right, and they, you know, they communicate through history, unlike – I love, one of my favorite scenes to write that made me cry, like, when I wrote it and when I edited it was, like, during the  – no spoilers – when the main character’s talking to her best friend and kind of has her own reckoning with herself that, like – it’s that honesty –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Andie: – it’s earned over time, so.

Sarah: Mm-hmm. It’s a privilege to be vulnerable to someone.

Andie: Yeah.

Sarah: And it’s a vulner-, it’s a privilege to have someone be vulnerable to you.

Andie: Right.

Sarah: Absolutely. So you recently were set up on Twitter by Nicole Cliffe, and I have a, I have a question from one of the Smart Bitches readers: how did Nicole Cliffe’s Twitter setup go, and did you end up going out with anyone because of that?

Andie: So I didn’t end up going on any dates, and I have a story about that. Like, so, I got a couple of weird messages. I did –

Sarah: No!

Andie: Yeah.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Shocking!

Andie: I mean, I actually have earned a couple of permanent reply guys, which is, you know –

Sarah: Okay.

Andie: – lovely. Anyway. So I got a couple of weird messages. I did, I set up one date, and I decided not to go ‘cause he sent me, like, reading material ahead of time, and I was like, I’m not going to go on this date with you.

Sarah: I’m sorry, he sent you homework?

Andie: Yeah! He was like, we were going to, we were going to go have margaritas –

Sarah: [Laughs] That’s so DC!

Audience: [Indistinct]

Andie: No, it wasn’t any house bills. I, I would have rather, like –

Audience member: It just feels DC.

Audience member: It feels DC.

Audience member: No – [indistinct]

Andie: He, he, like, sent me reading material about tequila, that we were going to, like, go drink sipping tequila, and I was like, I don’t need to read about tequila to enjoy it! [Laughs] Yes.

[Laughter]

Andie: And then there was one guy I spent some time, like, chatting back and forth with-

Sarah: I can’t close my mouth!

[Laughter]

Sarah: Just, like – what the hell?! [Laughs]

Andie: Yeah!

Sarah: So, okay, you didn’t –

Andie: So.

Sarah: – go on a date with tequila guy –

Andie: I didn’t.

Sarah: – ‘cause he gave you homework.

Andie: [Laughs] And most guys are like, well, I’m not anything like what you’re looking for, but you should still go out with me, and I’m like, but you’re not anything like what I’m looking for, and I was very –

Sarah: Why should I settle?

Andie: Right!

Sarah: Okay.

Andie: I’m like, my life is good. I don’t really need to, like, go on dates that I don’t think are going to go anywhere anyway –

Sarah: Right?

Andie: – so. There was one guy who, some friends were like, ooh, ooh, this guy, and they basically, like, bullied him into messaging me?

Sarah: Ooh!

Andie: But it was, I mean, he was like, well, I live in Vegas, and I’m not going to – well, if he hears this, whatever – [laughs] – so, and he lived far away, and he, he, you know, he had potential, and we, you know, were texting almost every day, and it was going great, and then I went to RWA and I was out of touch – in New York – and I was out of touch for a few days, and he sent me a couple of text messages after I got back that were, like, disrespectful about romance? Which is –

Sarah: Ohhh! Ouch?

Andie: Yeah! So I peaced out, and I actually, like, I, I got confirmation that it was a good decision after my dog passed away and he didn’t, and, you know, we had talked a lot about my dog, and he did not message me to say, to send his condolences, and I was like, good riddance. So –

Sarah: Oh no!

Andie: Yeah.

Sarah: Dude.

Andie: Right!

Sarah: Oh. So Twitter setup, not so great.

Andie: I mean, I think, like, I think it could work great. It just didn’t in my case, and I –

Sarah: Hmm.

Andie: – and I am a prickly heroine, like Hannah, so I, I, I –

Sarah: I do like prickly heroine. That’s a good term.

Andie: Yeah, it’s better than unlikeable.

[Cross talk]

Sarah: Screw unlikeable.

Andie: Yeah. Burn it in a fire.

Sarah: Prickly. I like that.

Any other dating stories you want to share?

Andie: Oh gosh. I mean, I was – so after the last event that I did here with Jasmine Guillory, we went out to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants in DC; they, and they have this open-face sandwich that has, like, it’s not ethical to eat, but foie gras in it, and it’s the most delicious thing I’ve ever put in my mouth. And I was on a date once, and we ordered one of these sandwiches, and it was so good, and it’s very tiny, and I said, should we get another one, ‘cause it’s tiny? And he was like, he looked at me, and he was like, better not.

Sarah: [Gasps] All right. I know that guy. I was in a pre-childbirth class with that guy and his wife!

Andie: No!

Sarah: Well, I’m in the, I’m in the, it’s, everyone’s having first babies, so everyone’s nervous, and we’re all listening to this nurse like it is the gospel, because she knows exactly how long labor is going to last (no one knows how long).

[Laughter]

Sarah: It’s a variable; it’s a very big variable. There is this woman who is so anxious, and I had a lot of empathy for her, but her husband kept saying, well, you know, she jogs like five miles every day. She’s nine months pregnant. She and I at that time could take a dinner plate and just rest it on our bellies; like, it was full-size dinner plate time. And she’s like, yes, I, I run every day, and she didn’t look happy about it, and then the nurse starts talking about how in the mediate, you know, before you go into labor, you often have a lot of water gain, and that could be dangerous. You need to pay attention, especially if your feet start to swell up, and her husband says to the whole room, oh, she won’t gain any more weight. [Gasps] And there was a guy next to him who just went – [long indrawn breath] – eyes wide, down at the table, don’t look at anybody, and I could see under the table his wife was gripping his knee, like trying to prevent herself from launching at this man? So I’ve met him. And she won’t gain any more weight. She’s gestating an entire other human! She gets doughnuts, y’all! [Laughs]

Audience: Yeah!

Andie: Yeah! She gets to eat whatever she wants.

Sarah: Oh yeah, I’ve met that guy.

Andie: Yeah.

Sarah: He’s horrible. Get away from him.

Andie: Right.

Sarah: Order another sandwich.

Andie: I was like, I, I wish I would have said, as Hannah would have said, you can leave now; I’m going to get another sandwich.

Sarah: [Laughs] I like that!

Andie: [Laughs] Like –

Sarah: So aside from ordering another sandwich, which you should do, ‘cause deliciousness should be enjoyed, what do you do to take care of your creative self?

Andie: So, like I mentioned before, I have, I have become, like, a religious exerciser, except I don’t like leaving my house exercise, so I do, like, free online workouts with PopSugar, and I have, like, weights and stuff in my house. And there’s another, there’s another online trainer, and she’s actually my, my new favorite. Her name is Heather Roberts, and, and she’s this nice, blonde, Canadian lady who never yells at you?

Sarah: [Gasps] I love that!

Andie: Yeah. I mean, never yells at you. She, like, you know, is gently encouraging at the beginning and gives you, like, a, a high, basically a high five when you’re done, and her workouts are free, and they’re really, really hard, but they, you know, they keep me sane and focused, and I’m also at the age where if I don’t exercise almost every day, like, everything hurts? So I do that.

I meditate. I hang out with my friends; I go to brunch. My friend Katy is here.

Sarah: Yeah.

Andie: She’s my brunch buddy.

Sarah: Brunch is, is a coven. With eggs.

Andie: It is a coven!

Sarah: With eggs.

Audience member: We have a coven.

Sarah: Coven with eggs.

Andie: We do, we do! A coven with eggs.

Sarah: Coven with eggs and mimosas, yeah.

Andie: Mm-hmm. And, you know, DC has a lively bottomless mimosa culture. [Laughs]

Sarah: Cheers to that.

Andie: But yeah! I, I mean, I also try to get enough sleep. Like, I, like, I’m not one of those people –

Sarah: Oh yes.

Andie: – who’s, like, like – I, I admire J. R. Ward, I love her books, but I, her whole fuck self-care thing, I’m like, I’ve got to sleep, yo! Like, I’ve got to sleep –

Sarah: Oh no. Sleep is the most important thing for me. I’m the bedtime commander; everyone in my house is going to bed. My kids won’t tell people their bedtimes, ‘cause they’re too embarrassed. But they’re human, and they function, and they’re like, yeah, I had a really good night’s sleep and I feel good, and I’m like, you can say you’re welcome!

Andie: Yes!

Sarah: To me! To me. They’re like, no. Sleep is really important!

Andie: Sleep is really important. And even when I’m in deadline I shower every day and, like, you know, put on real clothes, ‘cause I feel like that makes me feel more human. I’m lucky enough to be able to put a lot of words on the page, you know, for a first draft pretty quickly –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Andie: – especially if I get up first thing in the morning and do it before, like, I go into the office or do anything else. So I mean – I also say no a lot.

Sarah: That’s very important.

Andie: Yeah. Like, people ask me to do stuff, and I’m like, I, I, I really try to take a second to think about, like, whether or not I have the capacity to do it, and if it’s –

Sarah: Yeah.

Andie: – going to interfere with my, my creative work.

Sarah: Yeah! That’s, and it’s hard to defend that time.

Andie: Really hard, ‘cause I feel bad when I have to, when I feel like I need to say no. But I –

Sarah: Yeah.

Andie: – but I do say no.

Sarah: That’s good, though!

Andie: But if I say yes, that means, like, I really want to be there and it’s important to me.

Sarah: Yeah. I, I don’t remember exactly where I heard this first, but there’s, there, if it’s, if it’s not Hell Yes, then it’s no.

Andie: Yeah.

Sarah: If you are not a hundred percent enthusiastic on-board for whatever is happening, then it’s a no!

Andie: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: Nope. Sorry. Can’t!

All right. I always ask what you’re reading, so I want to hear about books, and then I’m going to open it to the floor and ask all of you to submit questions. I accept math; trigonometry is fine.

Andie: For you!

[Laughter]

Sarah: Not for me.

Andie: Okay, so –

Sarah: Whatcha reading? Tell me all about it.

Andie: One of the good things about being in Romancelandia and having friends in Romancelandia is they will send you your, their books early, so one of the books I’m really excited about is Love Lettering by Kate Clayborn? Comes out at the end of December, and it is so fun and so sexy and so – it’s, like, quirky without being manny, manic pixie dream girl? Like, I just love the heroine so much, and it’s, it’s all first person from the heroine’s perspective, which I can’t do, and I just admire how she does it so well. So that’s, like, one of my faves that’s coming up.

One of my other very good friends, Adriana Anders, has a romantic suspense coming up. It’s –

Sarah: Oh, the one in Antarctica?

Andie: Yeah.

Sarah: Is it good?

Andie: It’s insane.

Sarah: How gory is it?

Andie: It’s, it wasn’t too gory for me, and I don’t read super-gory things?

Sarah: Okay.

Andie: It’s –

Sarah: I need to know how much entrails are in my books. It’s an imp- – 

Audience member: [Indistinct]

Andie: It’s called Whiteout?

Sarah: Whiteout.

Andie: It is insanely sexy. It’s, like, two, like, as insanely sexy as you can imagine two people, like, in full snow gear being?

[Laughter]

Andie: Just multiply that by ten. It’s, it’s mostly about the survival. That is the, that is the crux of the book, so, like, en-, entrails, I mean, there’s, there’s some death, but –

Sarah: Eh. It’s suspense; there’s going to be something.

Andie: Yeah. I mean, it’s just like, it’s so gripping. It was one of those that I actually did lose sleep over. There’s very few authors that I lose sleep over. Adriana’s one of them.

Another one that I read recently was The Kingmaker by Kennedy Ryan.

Sarah: She’s my podcast guest this week. She is very funny.

Andie: She is –

Sarah: You’d like this episode.

Andie: – so funny. She’s –

Sarah: She’s hysterical.

Andie: – a delight. Her books are not light, but she is –

Sarah: No.

Andie: – one of the lightest people I’ve ever met. And so this book – and the next book, The Rebel King comes out I think on this Sunday.

Sarah: Yeah.

Andie: So after we record this. It is, like, The Kingmaker is un-fricking-believable. It, it was another one that kept me up really late.

Other than that, I’ve been reading, been reading a lot of historicals. I am a perpetual fan of Joanna Shupe. I recently discovered my love for Kerrigan Byrne, like The Highwayman? It is –

[Laughter]

Audience member: – The Hunter.

Andie: The Hunter is so good! They’re bananas!

Sarah: Oh, they’re absolutely crazysauce!

Audience member: They’re out there! I love ‘em.

Sarah: Yep.

Andie: I love it. I’m, I’m going to meet her next year, I think, at ApollyCon, and she’s one of those people who I’m, like, I’m going to legit –

Sarah: Your inner thirteen-year-old’s going to lose her cool?

Andie: My inner thirteen-year-old’s going to lose her cool.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Andie: And then I’m reading right now is a, is a, an ARC of My Fake Rake by Eva Leigh, and it is –

Audience member: Oooh!

Andie: – it’s a, like, it is like an ‘80s teen movie, except in the Regency.

Sarah: Yeah, it’s The Breakfast Club, right?

Andie: Yeah! Yeah, that’s the, that’s the sort of conceit for the whole series, and this one I think is sort of loosely based on Weird Science, but it just, it feels ‘80s teen movie, but in the Regency, and the hero is, like, a tall, blond Viking who doesn’t know, like – speaking of subverting the Patriarchy, he, like, doesn’t know that he’s, like, sex on legs, and it’s just, it’s so charming.

Sarah: [Laughs] Awesome!

All right, who has questions? I would like questions! Yes, ma’am!

So do you get to be involved in the, in the cover design process, especially with the new –

Andie: Yeah.

Sarah: – trend towards illustrated covers?

Audience member: I love this cover.

Andie: Oh, thank you! I –

Sarah: It is very cute!

Andie: So when I sent – my, so my editor said, oh, so what are your ideas about the cover, and I, so I was, I minored in Art History in undergrad, and so, like, I sort of had a language for, like, composition in a way, which I think helped, but I said, okay, so I want it to kind of mirror or mimic the movie poster for How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days, ‘cause I wanted to signal that trope in a way?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Andie: And then, like, I wanted to show, I wanted the cover to show it’s in Chicago. Like, I love, like, a graphic sort of mid-century font, and then, you know, they, they sent that, but I mean, in terms of, like, I think when we were talking about, like, what the books would really look like, ‘cause it, it was a proposal, we were definitely thinking illustrated cover and trade just because that’s –

Sarah: Where the rom-coms are going.

Andie: – where the rom-coms are going, and so we wanted to signal that it is, that it is a rom-com.

Audience member: Is this a series?

Andie: Yes.

Audience member: Good.

Andie: Yeah. And with the second, with the book, the cover of the second book, Not That Kind of Guy, which is out in April, it was – yeah. So I, and I also, like, I sent pictures of who I thought they looked like, and they, like, somehow made Matt, who’s on the, the, the hero of the second book, they somehow made him, like, so sexy as an illustration I can’t even?

Sarah: It’s like – [laughs] – it’s two colors, and yet it really works!

Andie: I was like, oh wow! Like –

[Laughter]

Andie: – I’m here for it! Okay! And that one, you know, we, like, I, we didn’t, like, look at options, we just looked at that one, and so Colleen Reinhart in the Berkley art department, and she also designs Helen Hoang’s covers, she’s just, she’s amazing. And, like, they, they, what, they even took time to, like, I was like, oh, I think her dress should have colors in it, and they found a dress, like, my editor found a dress online and was like, can we make that happen? On the cover, like, actually, Gus was a total surprise. I didn’t dictate that, and he just showed up, so I love it.

Sarah: Aw!

Andie: Yeah!

Sarah: Other questions? Yes? This question was about portrayals of faith in Andie’s books.

Andie: That’s a really good question.

[Laughter]

Andie: I think most of my books have, like, featured an element of Catholicism, whether I was, like, sort of writing Latinx characters, and so I’m part Latinx and, like, my friends who are Cuban-American, like, their faith is sort of, it’s, it’s all around, and I think growing up sort of in an Irish-American family – my mom’s Irish-American – that, it was just always around. And so, like, even if – I think there are things, like, you know, there’s, there are cultural Catholics, just the way that there are cultural Jews? Like, there are people who are, you know, non-practicing Catholics who still just like, it’s a culture. I think it’s a sub-culture, and I think it’s been a theme in my writing, ‘cause I think if you look at, you know, most of my titles, there’s, there’s one character that’s Catholic, and it, you know, shifts the narrative. But this, I just was like, well, they’re, they live in the south side of Chicago; they’re Irish Catholic. They’re, it’s just going to be a part of it, and then –

Sarah: And he relies on it, too.

Andie: He does.

Sarah: He relies on his choirboy reputation, good looks, yeah.

Andie: Yeah! I mean, he, he, he does. I mean, I think, I think one of the real-life people he was modeled on kind of had that going on, and so that was in my head, and also I liked the idea of making – and this is not a spoiler – one of his best friends is a priest that he grew up with, and I think that was an interesting friend relationship that I wanted to explore.

Sarah: Any other questions?

Audience member: What do you do –

Sarah: This person asked about being a writer and what you do when you’re stuck?

Andie: Sometimes I write something really shitty. Sorry; I’m swearing.

Sarah: It’s fine!

Andie: Okay. It’s a pod- – but, you know.

Sarah: I have no FCC oversight; I can say whatever I want.

Andie: Oh good, good.

Sarah: Go ahead, bring it! I have, I have a permanent explicit rating on my show. I just –

Andie: Okay.

Sarah: – I just rated the whole show explicit. I just figured, what the fuck, right?

Andie: We’re like, why was –

Sarah: Just, like, give it up!

Andie: – why was I not dropping F-bombs all this time anyway? [Laughs] So –

Sarah: Well, I didn’t want to drop them because, you know, where’s the kid section? Isn’t it, like, right there?

Andie: True, it’s right over there.

[Laughter]

Sarah: I was trying, trying to be aware of, you know, maybe some children shopping.

Audience member: Don’t worry about it.

Sarah: Yeah, it’s true. They’ll, they’ll figure it out.

Andie: Yeah, sometimes I write something really shitty and just –

Sarah: Just take the pressure off?

Andie: – decide to fix it in post, and then, as a placeholder, or sometimes I just say, well, TK, and then move on. But most of the time if I’ve, if I’ve done, like, the groundwork and the leg work, if I have, like, a solid synopsis when I start, I can say, well, I’m just going to write the next scene in the synopsis, and if it doesn’t work, then I’ll fix it. But usually, like, I, I don’t get super stuck most of the time, and most of the time I give myself enough time to write, and especially, you know, with these books, since they’re longer and they’re coming out, like, less frequently than the category-length romances I was doing, I think they, I have enough time to, to think about it. And I’m not one of those, like, you-have-to-write-every-day-or-you’re-not-a-writer people. I just, I don’t subscribe to that ‘cause that’s not realistic for most people with jobs and kids and any, anything else going on in their lives. And sometimes I binge right at the end, but most of the time, if I’m, like, really in the story I can, I can get there. Yeah.

Sarah: You had one; you had a question.

Audience member: – ask what the restaurant was with the sandwich.

Andie: Oh, which sandwich?

Sarah: The, the one –

[Laughter]

Andie: Oh, the –

Audience member: [Indistinct]

Andie: – the sandwich? Oh, it’s Estadio; it’s the Spanish tapas restaurant on Fourteenth. It’s really yummy.

Sarah: That, that’s a good question. These are important things to know.

[Laughter]

Andie: Yeah.

Sarah: I –

Audience member: – follow up.

Sarah: I dropped the ball and didn’t ask! Thank you for following up!

Andie: Yeah, and then my other favorite restaurant in DC – not that you asked – is, Chez Billy in Georgetown is my – like, the duck confit is just quality. Just don’t bring a bad date there.

Sarah: Yeah. You don’t want to ruin it.

Andie: Right, no.

Sarah: No. All right. Well, thank you, Andie! Yay!

Andie: Thank you!

[music]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. I want to thank Destinee at East City Books and Andie J. Christopher for making a really fun, very cold evening even better.

You can find Andie J. Christopher on her website, andiejchristopher.com, and she’s on Instagram and Twitter @authorandiej.

You can find us at smartbitchestrashybooks.com. I am on Twitter @SmartBitches, and you can get in touch with us, if you would like, at [email protected].

This podcast was brought to you by Anyone But a Duke by Betina Krahn. Sexy and fun, the third Sin & Sensibility novel sends the youngest sister from a prominent Nevada mining family off to navigate London society in hopes of snagging a duke at a time when New Money was closed out of America’s East Coast society. New York Times bestselling author Betina Krahn delivers an irresistible romance shimmering with lighthearted wit, thrilling twists, and a case of mistaken identity, a country estate in need of some TLC, and some precocious puppies. Anyone But a Duke by Betina Krahn is on sale now wherever books are sold. For more information, visit betinakrahn.com.

Today’s podcast and the transcript are brought to you by In the Unlikely Event by L. J. Shen. If you like Penny Reid, Vi Keeland, and Sophie Kinsella, you will love this contemporary comedy set in rural Ireland. Malachy Doherty and Aurora Jenkins fell in love when they were eighteen, but then she moved to America for college and never expected to see him again. The problem is Aurora promised Mal she would marry him if they ever met again. They even signed a contract on a napkin. How is she supposed to know they’d actually meet? New York Times bestselling author Helena Hunting says this book is the perfect blend of soul-crushing angst, laugh-out-loud wit, and heart-melting romance, and New York Times bestselling author Kylie Scott called it a romance masterpiece. In the Unlikely Event by L. J. Shen is on sale now on Amazon and free with Kindle Unlimited. Find out more at authorljshen.com.

If you have supported the show with a monthly pledge, thank you so much for being part of our Patreon community, and if you would like to join you can have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches. It would be so wonderful to welcome you into our Patreon community. Monthly pledges start at one dollar a month, and every pledge makes a deeply appreciated difference.

So what’s coming up on Smart Bitches this week? I’m so glad that I asked that question, actually. It is time for Whatcha Reading, Part 2! We’re going to talk about all the books we’re reading, you’re going to tell us what you’re reading, and we’re going to all buy more books. I mean, that’s what happens to me; I presume that’s also what happens to you. We are also going to have some reviews for brand-new books you are going to love, plus we have a new Cover Snark, Help a Bitch Out, a new Holiday Gift Guide, and a Rec League you are not going to want to miss. Plus we have Books on Sale every day, so I hope you will come by smartbitchestrashybooks.com and hang out with us!

I will have links to all the books we talked about and some of the things we mentioned in the episode, and again, thank you to East City Books for hosting us that evening, and thank you to everyone who came out to make this a fun event.

As always, I end with a really bad joke, and this is really, really bad. I like this one a lot.

What do you call a girl who smells like cantaloupe?

Give up? What do you call a girl who smells like cantaloupe?

Melon-y.

[Laughs] That is so bad! That’s from Blitzkrieger23, and it makes me so stupidly happy!

On behalf of everyone here, including my dog, who would really like to leave my office, except I shut the door for better sound, we wish you the very best of reading. Have a wonderful weekend, and we’ll see you back here next week!

Smart Podcast, Trashy Books is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. You can find more outstanding podcasts to subscribe to at frolic.media/podcasts.

[light music]