380. Tropes and Good Books are Eternal: A Snortlaugh with Angela James

[music]

Sarah Wendell: Hello there, and welcome to episode number 380 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and today my guest is editor and digital grand master Angela James. Angie and I have known each other for a long honking time: I think over fourteen years. So in between snort-laughing and talking about friendship we talk about her new editorial adventure and business following the elimination of her position at Carina Press over the summer. If you’re curious about editing and how that process works, get ready to learn all of the things.

Today’s podcast is sponsored by Unravel You by Diana A. Hicks. If you like steamy contemporaries with a touch of suspense, you will love this billionaire romance. College graduate Valentina never expected to fall for the hot as hell and intimidating Derek Cole when she accepted his offer to rent his property. From cottage to mansion, Valentina is certain she doesn’t deserve the fairytale that’s unfolding. But just when Derek and Valentina think they have a handle on their happily ever after, their past and their future collide. A Book Lovers Emporium Book Blog called it a fantastic ride, and I Love Books Blog loved every minute of it. Unravel You by Diana A. Hicks is available now on Amazon and free with a Kindle Unlimited subscription. Find out more at dianahicksbooks.com.

Today’s podcast and the transcript are brought to you by The Modern Breakup by Daniel Chidiac. Part confessional diary, part tell-all from multiple points of view, The Modern Breakup has become a social media sensation that is intensely relatable for anyone who navigates the dating world and still isn’t sure what to make of it. So many women are connecting with The Modern Breakup, finding questions they’ve asked about their relationships inside Amelia’s perspective as well, helping them feel less alone. Reviewers on Amazon call it a must-read, saying, “It’s like this book is reading my mind.” You can find The Modern Breakup by Daniel Chidiac everywhere books are sold, and stayed tuned at the end of the podcast for a sample of the book read by me, yours truly.

It is still holiday travel season, isn’t it? And if you are looking at more travel time or just longer commutes ‘cause the trains are crowded, or you just don’t want to interact with people, I have a word for you, and that word is audiobooks. Audible has the world’s largest selection of audiobooks and audio entertainment, include Audible Originals. You can start listening today 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. I will never stop thinking that’s so cool! If you sign up, you can get the latest Audible Original from Alyssa Cole, which you learned about in last week’s episode. The A.I. Who Loved Me is available now, performed by Regina Hall and Mindy Kaling, among many others, and it’s part of an Audible subscription. So you can get a thirty-day Audible trial with one audiobook and two Audible Originals for free! Visit audible.com/trashybooks or text TRASHYBOOKS to 500-500. That’s A-U-D-I-B-L-E dot com slash trashybooks, or text TRASHYBOOKS to 500-500.

I have a compliment in this week’s episode! I love this.

To Ginny B.: If your personality were a pie recipe, it would be a perfect mix of every season and every fruit and would make everyone at the table so very happy and would come with an absolutely foolproof, never-fail pie crust recipe, because you’re that fabulous!

If you would like a compliment of your very own or you’d like more information on how to join our Patreon community, have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches. And as always, hello and thank you to our Patreon supporters.

At the end of the episode, I have a terrible joke, I have a sample of an audiobook, but right now I have an interview with Angela James. Let’s do this thing. On with the podcast.

[music]

Angela James: I’m Angela James. Who am I? Well, we’ve come up with a couple of different names for me. I’m the Grand Master –

Sarah: I love this so much!

Angela: [Laughs] Just Grand Master. We’re not going to put any qualifications around that, like –

Sarah: Yeah!

Angela: – Grand Master of what? I, it could be anything.

Sarah: Doesn’t matter!

Angela: The other day Viv Arend called me a digital rebel? So I thought digital rebel works, but really who I am is I’m an, an editor. I edit fiction, romance, women’s fiction, mystery. I am a consultant. Somebody called me the alternative to your agent when you don’t have an agent and you need publishing advice, and because I have a background in therapy it means I’m really good at listening, and I also do publishing strategy, which looks like consulting with companies on digital publishing as well as other things within the digital industry. So I’m, I’m, I do a little bit of everything these days, although I think my, my career has always been that.

Sarah: I think Grand Master kind of sums it up, too.

Angela: [Laughs] Grand Master. Grand Master is very tongue in cheek, but it, it does make me laugh.

Sarah: I don’t know; it, it, it is encompassing, but also vague, so there’s lots that fit in there! Grand Master of All the Things.

Angela: All the Things.

Sarah: Which things? Up to you to decide.

Angela: [Laughs] All the Things, and it couldn’t – I mean, Grand Master, for me, Grand Master always makes me think of barbecue, so I always get really hungry. Sorry if it makes anybody hungry.

Sarah: [Laughs] I always think of very, very vintage hip-hop with, like, Grandmaster Flash.

Angela: Oh yeah!

Sarah: Like –

Angela: That’s a good one!

Sarah: – inst-, instead of tape, instead of turn tables you have, like, laptops and tablets and a bunch of editing pens.

Angela: Yeah, which is great, because I actually have no rhythm, so –

[Laughter]

Angela: – I can –

Sarah: Perfect.

Angela: – I’m, I’m good at, I’m good at story beats, but not so much when it comes to the dancing or the, the music, so good.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Angela: The other kind of Grand Master.

Sarah: Okay, great. So, ‘sup wit you new business, yo? What – I know you have just launched a website, ‘cause I have seen it, and what services are you offering?

Angela: That’s very nice of, of you to ask, especially since you’ve seen it more than a few times!

Sarah: It’s true!

[Laughter]

Angela: So I should probably say my website is angelajames.co, not, not the dot com, and this really smart person actually suggested that I buy angelajames.co since dot com wasn’t available, and –

Sarah: Oh, really? What a smart person!

Angela: I know, amazingly smart. So smart!

Sarah: Can you tell me more about that person?

[Laughter]

Angela: In case anybody hasn’t guessed, it was Sarah!

Sarah: Yeah, it was totally me.

[Laughter]

Sarah: But isn’t angelajames.com, like, a long-distance runner?

Angela: Yeah, she’s owned that website, that dot com forever. I mean, as long as I have been on the internet, which is well over fifteen years, she has owned –

Sarah: Yeah.

Angela: – that dot com. And so occasionally I’ll mistype and send people to her website, which I’m sure is very confusing.

Sarah: You could, like, spin on that; be like, go the distance with the other Angela James!

Angela: [Laughs] Yes!

Sarah: Go the distance-

Angela: She’s, I’m –

Sarah: – with the other Angela James!

Angela: – I’m really impressed. I mean, anybody who’s ever seen me knows I’m not a long-distance runner because I’m short and curvy, so I’m, I’m definitely not a long-distance runner, and I’m full of admiration for her, as well as the more famous Angela James who is a hockey player. But yes, it’s angelajames.co –

Sarah: Cool.

Angela: – and I’m offering freelance editing, developmental and line editing services, some critique and consultation services, and just basically book services, a lot of book services because books are what I love.

Sarah: So I know this is a question you get a lot, but can you explain very quickly the difference between a line edit and other kinds of editing? ‘Cause there’s multiple types of editing that you offer, and not, I don’t think, not everyone, I don’t think everyone really knows what the differences are. Can you give, like, a quick summary of the differences?

Angela: I can, because I have done this before. [Laughs]

Sarah: I thought you might have! Maybe on a panel! Thirty-five times in your life.

Angela: A panel, webinars; I’ve, I’ve done it a number of times. I only offer two basic types of editing myself: I offer content or developmental editing – it’s called the same thing – and line editing? I do not offer copyediting or proofreading, even though I started in the industry as a copyeditor. My talent lies in developmental and line editing, and since I firmly believe that authors should hire editors who specialize, I don’t specialize in copyediting and proofreading; I specialize in content and line editing.

So content is the big picture, overall editing that’s done on a book. It would be story, character development, plot, conflict, the climax; all of those things, the elements that go into putting the story together? That’s the content developmental editing. The line editing is more of the – as it sounds – line-by-line editing, but looking at the craft: how you’re putting sentences together, word usage, repetition, voice, characterization of the voice, and all of those things that, that, that go to putting together the, the lines. Copyediting and proofreading are the more granular edits, and, and I don’t do those because, while I can, again, I’m not, I don’t specialize in them, and they take a, a more detail-oriented overview.

Sarah: So if someone is hiring a line editor, they’re going to get feedback from someone who’s going to point out, for example, their verbal tics that they, frequent words or, or phrases that they use in their writing, or make sure that characters sound consistent line by line in the manuscript, whereas the content is the full story, the sort of thirty-four-thousand-foot view of how it works as a cohesive whole. Do I have that about right?

Angela: Yeah, that’s, that’s actually very good! That’s correct. Mo-, it’s hard to, I would say it’s hard to separate developmental and line edits at a certain stage. They, they tend to go hand in hand, again because of development of, of author voice and character voice? But they are two separate things.

Sarah: Mm-hmm. And voice important, right? Like, maintaining the author’s voice and what or who the writing sounds like is part of developing a writer. Do I have that right too?

Angela: Talking about author voice is one of the things that, that I talk about a lot when I talk about the editor/author relationship and when you’re hiring an editor, and, and I have talked about this long before I was an editor for hire myself, where I think that preserving author voice is the sign of a, of a great editor. I have seen a lot of samples I have – because I have mentored and managed so many freelance editors myself throughout my career at the two presses that I ran, I have seen a lot of aspiring editors who want to test into the position, and one of the things, the most common things that you see in editors who aren’t sure of what they’re doing is a real interference in an author’s voice and a character’s voice, and so when somebody, when an author is looking for an editor to work with, it’s important to find somebody who, one, is very passionate about your voice and loves your voice and, two, isn’t going to try and rewrite your voice in order to meet some sort of fictional idea of what grammar should look like, what the right grammar is, or writing rules. Adherence to writing rules can be a real voice killer. So voice is actually very important in, in the editing process.

Sarah: That’s really interesting, ‘cause it’s, it, it’s one of the things that I as a reader notice: how quickly I am drawn into a book rests a lot on the unique voice of the narrator, or if it’s first person, the character who’s telling me the story? All too often, sometimes, I will find books that sound so flat and –

Angela: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – neutral almost, as if they are trying to please everyone, and so they are, they are completely indistinguishable. Like, almost like an A.I. wrote it.

Angela: [Laughs] That’s, I, I, I think that’s the sign of somebody who really wants to tell a story but hasn’t gotten comfortable with the idea that it’s okay to sink into their own unique voice –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Angela: – and as they’re trying to tell the story, as they’re trying to edit it to get it ready for the public or to get it ready for an editor or an agent, develop this editing checklist, which I think editing checklists are great, obviously, because I run a self-editing workshop, but I always tell people, don’t, don’t try and adopt everything. Don’t, don’t try and edit everything out. Don’t try and get rid of all the adverbs or all of the passive voice or all of the adjectives, because what you’re doing is you’re actually editing out your voice, because all of those elements go together to, to how you tell a story, so when something feels flat or lifeless it’s because they haven’t allowed their character and their own voice to, to take the story away a little bit.

Sarah: Yeah, almost as if there’s a – adhering to that checklist creates a very stiff formality to the writing.

Angela: It –

Sarah: Then the checklist supersedes the voice.

Angela: That’s, that’s exactly right. It’s also why I think that sometimes when you see copyeditors, or even people who are line editing, and I talk about interfering with voice, I’m talking about something as simple as changing how they are conjugating the verb or changing which, which word they use, which can feel like very simple things, but in fact, just how you put the sentence together and your rhythm, that’s your voice, and if somebody comes in and really heavily, really is really heavily editing that and saying, this, this is actually correct; this is, this is proper English? Well, first of all, you’re taking out the, the author’s voice, and, and second, you’re adhering to, quite frankly, a really white – [laughs] – form of proper English and not accounting –

Sarah: The devil you say!

Angela: – oh yeah – and not accounting for the nuances of language and, and culture and ethnicities, and so that, there’s a real danger in getting too wrapped up –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Angela: – in, in proper grammar.

Sarah: Yes. I’m actually listening to a – here, here’s my nerdy deep dive of the month: I’m listening to an eighteen-hour course on the history of language, because it’s really fascinating to me how language changes, and one of the things that the professor talks about is how different we are when we’re talking. If you write down exactly what someone says in a literal transcript when they’re in a conversation, no one is grammatically correct, and certainly no one –

Angela: Right.

Sarah: – speaks consistently in complete sentences. Like, that’s not a thing that humans do easily –

Angela: [Laughs]

Sarah: – or normally, and bridging that into writing when you do kind of expect a complete sentence can be a challenge, but when it’s all been stripped of the nuance of humanity, it sounds or reads very strange. And the thing I love about romance especially is the amount of humanity and empathy that’s in the text, and that comes from sounding like real, imperfect people.

Angela: Yes, and one of the things that you said is, when we speak, we, if you wrote down the transcript it’s going to be all broken, and, and you’ll notice that on the transcript of this podcast. Sarah and I are, like, starts and stutters, especially me, and, and you’re going to hear a lot of, of broken sentences. So in editing, one of the, one of the things that people kind of adopted was this idea that it was okay to have improper grammar – and I’m going to use air quotes when I talk about im-, “improper grammar,” because I don’t, I don’t think that we should subscribe to that now – but the idea was that it was okay to do it in dialogue, but then when you had the narrative, the, the text part that wasn’t in quotation marks or that wasn’t people speaking, then that part had to be, has to be, you know, grammatically correct or follow certain rules, and, and I, I don’t agree with that, because I think all of that is, is character voice, especially if – people want to talk about deep point of view – if you’re editing out somebody’s voice in, in narrative, then you’re actually editing out that deep point of view, and you’re moving further away to a shallow point of view, moving to what you said, Sarah, where it sounds like you’re reading an, an artificial intelligence or a robot, something really flat. So –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Angela: – as we edit, we have to be careful not to, to, to separate out dialogue and narrative and think that they’re two separate entities, that one has to, has to follow certain rules and the other one gets a pass, because that’s now how voice works.

Sarah: No, definitely not. So people who’ve worked with you before, because you’ve been editing for a long-ass time –

Angela: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – hiring you independently, outside of a larger company, what would be different about that editorial experience for someone thinking of, of hiring you, and what would, what would be the same? Is there more that you can do operating independently? Or is the experience and the skill set pretty consistent?

Angela: I think in some ways the experience is probably most different for me versus somebody who’s, who’s going to be hiring me. Now, obviously –

Sarah: [Laughs] Got a lot less meetings!

Angela: I do have a lot less meetings!

Sarah: Way fewer meetings! There are no committees; we’ve got zero task forces now.

[Laughter]

Angela: I, maybe I should form a task force, just so I don’t start to miss them suddenly! [Laughs]

Sarah: No. Just, just don’t; trust me. [Laughs]

Angela: I would say that for people who have worked with me before, the thing that, that’s going to be different for them is I won’t have to say no as often, whether it’s saying no to working with something, because I could only work within, I, I could only work on projects that, obviously, the imprint was willing to take on, so now marketing isn’t here to tell me I can’t acquire a book and edit it, so that’s really different. So I can edit the things that I want to edit, so in that regard, the authors that I’ve worked with, if they have a project that they would want to work on, then I, then I can just say, yes, absolutely; I’m going to work on this project.

Other than that, my process is still the same; I’m still editing the same. I would say it’s different, that I have, I have more time to dedicate to edits now, because, like you said, there’s no meetings, there’s no task forces. The only business I’m running is my own. I am not answerable to anybody except for my husband, my daughter, two cats, and two dogs. [Laughs]

Sarah: I was going to say, don’t forget the cats, ‘cause you know they have opinions.

Angela: Well, I have office cat, Max is my office cat, and he stays in the office with me all day, so he definitely has opinions.

Sarah: Oh yeah. Wilbur is looking at me like, why is there this tub where I am supposed to sit?

Angela: [Laughs]

Sarah: This is not okay.

Angela: Yep. If, it’s, I have more time for edits, which means I can actually put even more focus on them, not that I wasn’t focusing on edits before, ‘cause that was serious to me, but I have more time to think about edits.

The other thing that’s going to look different for the authors that I’ve worked with is that I don’t have as much control over the end product. The author has control over the final end product, because they’re publishing it themselves? It’s not going –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Angela: – through a publisher, so I’m not controlling a style guide. The author controls the style guide. The author controls what happens after we’re done. Are there copyedits? Are there proofreads? Those, I don’t have control over those things, so that, that will be a different, that will look different for, for authors as well.

Sarah: And you’re not acquiring for publishing; you’re acquiring for a step of publication, and you offer consulting services to help people navigate all those other steps, but you’re doing a much smaller piece and, like you said, are not in charge of the end result, nor are you publishing anything.

Angela: That’s right! And that can be nerve-racking as well. It’s both –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Angela: – it’s both freeing and nerve-racking, because when you’re, when you’re editing something for publication in a publishing company, you know what the end product is going to look like. You get comfortable saying, okay, this is on me, but when you’re freelance editing something and the book goes out without you having seen it a final time, you don’t know what’s going in there – [laughs] – and that’s, that, that, you know, like, I don’t know. Some-, something could be added after I’ve seen it, and that is a little nerve-racking.

Sarah: Do you think there are any parts of that process that you’ll miss? Like, will you miss developing cover art or doing some of the after-editing parts of the process?

Angela: [Laughs] Cover art was such a pain point.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Oh, come on! There’s so many great stock images, except there are not.

Angela: Yeaahh. I, I, I have to say, I think the, I want to say the cover art team that I worked with was incredibly talented, the, the art team at Harlequin.

Sarah: Oh, great covers! Really great covers for some of the Carina books.

Angela: Really great covers, but as, as Carina got more and more invested in publishing inclusively and in very diverse characters – and when I talk about diversity I don’t just mean people of color, but I mean all different types of diversity – it, cover art was really a challenge, because the stock photo is just not available, and especially if you’re talking about romance stock, you have to find two people that you can maybe Photoshop together in a realistic way.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Angela: Yeah, cover art is a real pain point. As much as I’m proud of all those covers at Carina, I, I’m not going to miss that process.

[Laughter]

Sarah: So you and I have known each other for a very, very long time –

Angela: Yes.

Sarah: – which is, like, I was counting and I was like, damn, I have run out of fingers! Holy shit! And you’ve been in this industry for a long-ass time.

Angela: Yes, almost, almost two decades. Yep.

Sarah: Now, we met in 2007, right? Was it twenty-seven, 2007? I think that was my first RWA. Was that your second?

Angela: No, is that right? Is that right? Because my daughter was born in 2004, and –

Sarah: Right, and I was pregnant with my –

Angela: With, with your –

Sarah: – younger son –

Angela: Yeah. So we met in person, but –

Sarah: – who was born 20- –

Angela: – we knew each other online –

Sarah: Yeah.

Angela: – before that.

Sarah: Yes, before that, but we met in person at RWA. So that was over ten years ago, so we’ve known each other for at least fourteen years.

Angela: Yes. Is it, is it –

Sarah: Which is staggering.

Angela: – it’s, that’s like both a long time and really not that long, all at the same time. [Laughs]

Sarah: It really is, ‘cause it doesn’t seem that long.

Angela: Yeah.

Sarah: If you could go back and talk to yourself, ten, fifteen years ago –

Angela: [Laughs] Yeah.

Sarah: – 2009 or thereabouts, what would you tell yourself?

Angela: So –

Sarah: Holy shit, strap in, get ready?

Angela: So –

Sarah: Shit’s about to get wild like nine times. [Laughs]

Angela: 2009 was the year that I left Samhain and when to work for Harlequin, and Sarah, as you probably well remember, in that time I had actually, actually quit my job at Samhain as executive editor there to go work for a new startup company called Quartet Press? And I was very heavily courted by the venture capitalist who was investing in Quartet Press, and I finally agreed to leave Samhain and help them start this company, and then a month after I left I got fired by email attachment – [laughs] – because –

Sarah: Yeah. That, that, that was a thing that happened.

Angela: That was a thing, and because the venture capitalist had, had changed his mind, and so – and not even, like, I didn’t even get a phone call, and it wasn’t even an email. It was an email attachment, which, that’s, that’s very 2009. [Laughs]

Sarah: That is very 2009.

Angela: So, I was really at a career crossroads during that time, and I actually, I actually had seriously considered going back to occupational therapy. I have a, a friend who, who runs a, a service here on the eastern shore of Maryland for teenagers in the justice system, and I had the potential to go back and, and work with him doing that, and maybe, maybe if I could talk to my 2009 self I would tell myself to go do that.

[Laughter]

Angela: [Laughs] I, you know, I joke about that, and, and I don’t know! Maybe, maybe I, I would have told myself that, but I’m, I’m pretty sure that my 2009 self would not have listened, because when Harlequin called and offered me first a consulting position and then a job, it was, you know, people talk about dream jobs: that was my dream job! Working for Harlequin?

Sarah: Oh, I remember!

Angela: Yeah, I, I mean, everybody –

Sarah: Yeah.

Angela: – not everybody, but a lot of people who are in romance have stories about Harlequin growing up, and Mom and grandmas and aunts and, and uncles and dads, some of them –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Angela: – reading Harlequin? And, and I had one of those stories, and my mom passed away when I was seventeen, so for me there is a real nostalgia attached to Harlequin, and so I don’t, I don’t think I would have done anything different. But I, I think, I think if I would have given myself more practical advice like, spend more time on yourself, I, I think, I think I would have, would have told myself, spend more time on yourself.

Sarah: How much does editing and occupational therapy as a skill set pair? How much does that overlap?

Angela: It, in some ways, obviously, not at all, but there are some things that I learned through my career in occupational therapy. And to be clear, I worked in mental health as an occupational therapist for seven years, so I was working first in home health and group homes with adults with mental illness and addiction, and then as the end of my career as an occupational therapist, I actually worked in a state hospital, the psychiatric wards.

And I loved that job, and, and I took a lot of skills away from that job. One of them was just patience? Like, I have endless amounts of patience, which I, I never knew that about myself, but I do. And the other is the ability to create goals and strategy? I’m super great at making goals and strategy – not just making those goals, but executing them. I think a lot of people can write goals, but learning how to execute goals is a, is a talent that I have. I can execute on goals and strategy, and, and so when you’re helping an author put together a career path as an editor and planning out what’s going to happen, I can help figure out how to execute that. And then the ability to give feedback and criticism? I, I did that every day as an occupational therapist, and do it in a way that makes sense to people, and, and they find digestible? So I mean, there are, there’s probably more skills – oh, the other one that I got, which I love to speak? I love, I love teaching workshops and teaching people, and that’s definitely a leftover from my occupational therapy days of running groups.

Sarah: Oh, for sure. And also, taking an individual, whether they are working through an internal problem or working through an, a, a manuscript, is being able to see where it is that they’re going –

Angela: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – and then giving them the information that they need and the steps to get from point A to point B to point C to the final destination that you both have in mind.

Angela: Yeah! That, I mean, that’s a really great way of putting it, and now, in my, my new business, my consultation services, people, people want to just do an hour and talk to somebody, have somebody talk them through, you know, where they’re at, where they’re going.

Sarah: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Angela: I did a call with somebody last week who was really feeling insecure about her career and her next steps, and we were able to talk that out, and I could pinpoint where her pain points were –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Angela: – and also I could hear what her, her goals were, and I was able to, to voice those back to her, and we came up with a, a plan, and not a whole plan, but just some easily executable steps where she can start, because she was very overwhelmed –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Angela: – and didn’t, you know, didn’t know how to, she was just kind of spinning her wheels, and I was able to say, let’s do these small steps, and that’s going to get you going towards where you want to go. And that’s all, that’s all part of occupational therapy, man. [Laughs] Helping –

Sarah: Oh!

Angela: – get somebody to the, to the end result.

Sarah: And getting them unstuck.

Angela: Getting them unstuck, yep.

Sarah: That’s, that’s definitely, definitely a skill service. And it also comes with the listening part, because you have to hear not only what someone is saying but what they’re not saying and how they’re saying all of those things?

Angela: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: Like, being able to identify a pain point that hasn’t been verbalized is, is, that’s some next-level listening skill.

Angela: Well, you and I always joke about this, but I have what you have referred to as bartender pheromone, and you –

Sarah: Oh yeah, the two of us together is not good.

Angela: – and you do too, but you’ve, you’ve seen mine in action, and, and maybe some listening to this podcast has seen mine in action, and it doesn’t take anything. All I have to do is be standing next to somebody, and they will just tell me incredibly personal details, and I’m talking about complete strangers.

Sarah: Yep.

Angela: Incredibly personal details, and I always, I always wondered why this was, and somebody said to me once, it’s ‘cause I smile too much – [laughs] – which I think is probably part of –

Sarah: Ah!

Angela: – of, you know, working as an occupational therapist, but the other thing is, it’s because I, I’m a good listener. Like, I –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Angela: – I will listen, and I will listen for fifteen minutes and, and not try and interrupt, and so –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Angela: – I think people somehow sense that bartender pheromone, that I will listen. With no judgment, actually.

Sarah: Oh yeah. So you helped build Samhain and then Carina, and you started working with some authors at the very start of their careers.

Angela: Yes.

Sarah: Can you talk about some of the books that you’ve edited and some of the acquisitions that you made where, like, you got this manuscript and were like, oh, oh yes. Oh yes, all of these? Do, yes, come, come work over here; this will be great.

Angela: [Laughs] It, you know, when I was putting together my website, one of the things on the website is the portfolio page –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Angela: – and I started putting books on the portfolio page that I have edited over the course of my almost two decades, and I was blown away by how many reader favorites that I have edited are now, when I ask for recommendations on Twitter or Facebook, how many of the books that I’ve edited or the authors I’ve edited get recommended to me.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Angela: Which is, is delightful, and I, I said this to somebody else: at a certain point in publishing, you as the editor often get removed from the book, so even if you were –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Angela: – acknowledged in it at the beginning or your name appeared in it at the beginning, at a certain point in the publishing process you get removed from that. For instance, when Samhain closed and people took back all of their rights and were republishing, all of the acknowledgements got taken out, and the credits, so those books are out there without any association with me, so it’s, it’s weird to, to realize that I, I did that and many people aren’t ever going to know.

I think at the beginning of my career, the best example is Shelly Laurenston?

Sarah: Oh, for sure.

Angela: [Laughs] She is so popular with readers, and at Samhain we published I think three of her Magnus Pack books. Here Kitty, Kitty was one of them. We published those before they were, before they were at Kensington, and actually, some of those were published at Triskelion Publishing, if anybody remembers.

Sarah: Whoa, there’s a throwback!

Angela: [Laughs] I, yeah. I, some of them were published there before they came to us. So then, at that time, Shelly wanted to write dragon romance, fantasy dragon romance.

Sarah: As you do.

Angela: As you do, and so Dragon Actually was the first book, and I edited that, and the second book in that series as well.

Sarah: Speaking of, of voice and not editing it out, she has a very specific and distinctive voice. I find that when I recommend her books I have to say, okay, it’s kind of like cilantro: some people absolutely adore it, and some people think it tastes like soap, and it might not be for you, and that’s okay. It’s a very specific style.

Angela: One of the things that I have always loved about Shelly’s voice is she has an unapologetically strong heroine voice. She is not, her characters are not apologizing for who they are –

Sarah: Yes.

Angela: – and that was actually, when you consider that Shelly started her publishing career really two decades ago during, during a time when romance was even more hero-centric –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Angela: – she was a pioneer of that, that heroine, everybody wants to talk about the kickass strong heroine, Shelly was a pioneer –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Angela: – of, of that character archetype.

Sarah: And the, the plot involving both of them or sometimes just her, and the hero is often in a supporting role –

Angela: That’s right.

Sarah: – in a lot of scenes.

Angela: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: Yeah, absolutely. Which is what I like about them, and the emphasis on females working together, that all the heroines form packs or clans or groups, that the heroine bonds were as important.

Angela: Yes! Yes. I, she just, her worldbuilding is amazing. Her –

Sarah: Oh, it so is!

Angela: – her, her, her storytelling, and yeah, when you talk about voice, Shelly, Shelly has a recognizable voice and a way of telling a story, and I’m so glad that readers have embraced that. And unsurprisingly to you, Sarah, the, the editor who brought her into traditional New York publishing was Kate Duffy, and –

Sarah: Not surprised!

Angela: The Kate, the late Kate Duffy; the late, great Kate Duffy. She was a real, she was a real straight talker, which is why she would appreciated, she appreciated Shelly’s work and –

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Angela: – and recognized Shelly’s talent and, and brought her into the New York scene and into Kensington, where she has found a, I hope, a supportive home. They, they seem to be very supportive of her career.

I have to think what else that I – you know, one of the fan favorites that’s still discussed is Butterfly Tattoo by Deidre Knight?

Sarah: Oh gosh, I remember that book so well.

Angela: And I didn’t realize it at the time, because I was a lot less educated and unaware, but it deals with the issues of bisexuality. Obviously, I realized that the hero is bisexual, but I didn’t, I didn’t understand that that’s, that’s what the book was about, in, in terms of, of putting a name to it. The –

Sarah: And all of the nuance that comes with it.

Angela: All the nuance that comes with it, yes. And the hero talking about how it’s the person he falls in love with, not the, not the container?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Angela: It’s just a, it’s, it was a, another book that was a little bit ahead of its time, and, but it’s just really a beautiful love story. It deals with issues of grief and falling in love again and, and who you love. So a book that I’ve, I’m, I’m still proud to have been associated with.

Sarah: I remember when that was acquired, and I remember you talking about digital publishing was a place where that book almost had to be, because it didn’t fit anywhere else at that time. It didn’t fit in what was coming out of traditional publishing at that point.

Angela: Yes! I mean, well, if anybody’s familiar with Deidre, Deidre is also a literary agent, and, and she had tried to shop that book to the New York publishers, and they weren’t ready for it when it published; I guess that’s like twelve years ago maybe now? They, they weren’t ready for it. I think that New York publishing would be ready for that book now.

Sarah: Oh, absolutely!

Angela: I think it, it would do very well now, but it’s, it’s still, it’s such a great read.

Let’s see: one of my favorite novellas that I’ve – not a, maybe not even a novella; it might count as a short story – that I edited was Silent Blade by Ilona Andrews, which I’m just always tickled about, because I’m such a fan of Ilona Andrews’ books –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Angela: – and so to have, to got, to have gotten to work on that book, I was really tickled with that.

My first, my first New York Times bestseller was, I think, Shannon Stacey? Yours –

Sarah: Yeah, I think it was.

Angela: – Yours to Keep?

Sarah: Yep.

Angela: I think that was the, my first New York Times bestseller. Oh, Fair Game by Josh Lanyon: that was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award, so – I mean that, you know, like, there’s certain milestones in my career that I remember. I have edited, I, I don’t know how many it is now. Over five hundred, I think, books? It’s, it’s a lot, but I’m –

[Laughter]

Sarah: Yeah. Yeah, it is. [Laughs]

Angela: There’s, there’s, you know, I, I will be honest: there’s ones that stand out more than others. I’m –

Sarah: That seems normal after five hundred books!

Angela: Yeah, I think so. I, I’m really proud of my portfolio, you know, and, and recently, some of the books that I wasn’t, like, when I, when I left Carina in July, there were still books to come out, like Dine with Me by Layla Reyne and Awaken the Dragon by A. C. Arthur is still to release, and, and those are things that I get to celebrate kind of after the fact, that will still become part of my portfolio and, and something to be proud of.

Sarah: What are some of the things that you have noticed changing in the books as you edit them over the years? We talked about the arrival and the advent of the heroine-

Angela: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: -focused story, the stronger heroine; the plot that focuses on her, not him; that she’s not in a role to be rescued or damsel-ed or in other way, in, in some other way protected; that she’s, like, the plot is her. What are some other things that you’ve noticed changing over the years?

Angela: I would say the, the hero has also changed. When we’re talking about, if we’re going to talk about a heterosexual romance, if we’re going to talk about heroes and heroines, that has, the hero has changed. There’s less expectations of this alpha hero.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Angela: There’s still a huge audience for that. There’s, you know, Facebook groups dedicated to that, but I, I think that the hero qualities have changed. I would also say who we see as protagonists in the books has changed. It used to be that I didn’t, didn’t see as many nonbinary characters, for instance. We’re seeing how we define protagonists change. Also I would say what consent looks like has really changed a lot over the years, and we’re seeing authors be more conscientious of consent, more conscientious of safe sex practices, and, you know, the, the conversation about the use of birth control has been going for as long as I’ve been editing, but I feel like readers have started to just accept now that we’re going to talk about, we’re going to talk about safe sex; we’re going to talk about birth control; we’re going to talk about abortion and the morning after pill; like, those things are going to show up in your romances. So definitely more social awareness? I’m trying to think if there’s anything else. Like, those seem to be the big ones to me.

Sarah: Yeah. And, and you know, and aside from which genre, which genres, or which subgenres are more popular versus not as popular, and which ones are coming back into popularity, that, that, that does seem to shift on a fairly consistent basis, though it shifts faster and faster now.

Angela: Right, it shifts really, it shifts really quickly. I was, I was looking at something that was a paranormal romance that I had edited like seventeen years ago, thinking, wow, this was before paranormal romance was ever in New York publishing, and –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Angela: – it was the only place you could get, you could get paranormal romance. And I think digital, that’s still true of a lot of stories in digital publishing. We’re still waiting for New York publishing to catch up with inclusion, and not just characters of color, but same-sex characters, nonbinary characters, disabled characters, characters from different religions, religious backgrounds. New York is very focused on one aspect of diversity, so as we see the, the story change there, digital publishing is really what’s allowing space for all people to publish.

Sarah: I know that – through my own experience, I know that finding and, and maintaining friendships that you make and create inside a business, inside an industry, it can be really tricky. It can be really rewarding, because you speak a similar language, and when the industry is also producing a genre that you love, it’s a much larger language and a much larger realm of common topics. What do you value about the connections that, that you’ve made, and what do you do when you want to keep your professional and personal friendships happy and healthy?

Angela: [Laughs]

Sarah: This is not a request for compliments, by the way.

Angela: Well –

Sarah: I have, I have hit my quota. I’m good.

Angela: I, I have a funny story that I, that I was going to text you about this weekend, and then I thought, no, no, no, I’ll just, I’ll just save it to share. It, It is actually really rewarding to find, to find friendships within the industry. For me, I don’t live in New York, so it’s, I’m apart from the industry in, in some ways; I’m a-, I’m apart from the, where a lot of editors and agents and different people in the industry live, so all of my, my friendships within publishing have had to be developed long-distance, which I think is actually a very common experience for, for authors and, and bloggers as well.

Sarah: Mm-hmm, definitely.

Angela: And so the things that I have really come to treasure in, in the friendships that I’ve developed like yours is, one, the ability to, to tell you something and know that it’s not going to be shared with the rest of the, the internet? Like, you have a sense of confidentiality, and that is really important in this industry, because we all love gossip. I mean, listen, we all love good publishing gossip.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Angela: We all love it. But you want to be able to tell somebody something. Like, you know, like, maybe I want to complain about my, my ex-employer, or maybe I want to complain about an author or another blogger, and I want to be able to say something that’s not, like, necessarily the nicest thing ever, and you have to be able to have a person that you can do that with so you can just get it out of your system and move on, but also know that they’re not going to share it with everybody, and that, that’s really valuable.

Sarah: It really is. It’s almost the opposite of the, “oh, honey, no, no, no” friend.

Angela: That’s right!

Sarah: Like, “okay, put the Twitter down and step away from the computer” is, is the same, you want that to, to have that, that same level of trust with the person you’re like, I have got to tell you something that is making me insane right now!

Angela: [Laughs] Yes.

Sarah: And know that either way, both, both of the directions of those, those conversations are, in themselves, like, in a vault.

Angela: Yes, exactly, and, and, when you develop a friendship with somebody, that person kind of becomes the keeper of your history. So, like, you are the keeper of my history in some ways, because you’ve been with me in several job changes, and I’ve –

Sarah: You’re super fucked, by the way, ‘cause I don’t know what year it is, so –

Angela: [Laughs]

Sarah: – if you need me to actually date this history? We’re screwed, but okay. [Laughs]

Angela: But, like, you know, like, you know my stories, and I know your stories –

Sarah: Yep!

Angela: – so it’s nice and, to have that person who believes that you can do something, even when you don’t believe you can do it? Or to tell you that, that you shouldn’t be listening to all those other voices, or to tell you that you are worth more than what you think. Like, those, those are valuable things that you need in a publishing friend, because publishing – for everybody, not just authors – publishing, for editors and cover artists and copyeditors, it is a creative process for us, and as creators –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Angela: – like, we get, we get kind of, like, insecure and, and, so you need somebody who’s going to, who’s going to build you up.

Okay, so I have to tell you my story, ‘cause you asked, you said, so, how do you, how do you keep those friendships, and one of, we talk about love languages. There’s that book The Five Love Languages or whatever, and one of my love languages is, is gifts. Like, I like to, like to do nice things for people. So you, Sarah, helped me a lot with my website and gave me feedback and advice, and so I sent you a really nice bottle of wine last week. But I apparently sent it to my house, not yours.

Sarah: [Laughs heartily]

Angela: So I have a really nice bottle of wine. [Laughs]

Sarah: [Still laughing] That is so funny!

Angela: It showed up, you know, the FedEx guy came to my door, and I was like, who’s, why do I have to sign for this, and he’s like, are you sure all you want is one bottle, and I actually said, I don’t even want this one bottle!

Sarah: [Laughs more]

Angela: He was very shocked. He, he didn’t understand.

Sarah: That’s, that is hilarious. Oh my God. [Laughs]

Angela: So –

Sarah: Well, thank you in advance! [Laughs]

Angela: You’re welcome. So I think when you find your publishing friends, you figure out what your love language is and their love language is, and you, and you do things to nurture the friendship. You find the people that are important to you, and you work through those?

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Angela: Because, again, it’s hard to find people with all of the qualities that, that make a good publishing friend!

Sarah: It’s true. And it, it, it helps, I think, to accept that the people that you’re in relationships of any kind? The people are going to change and evolve, and the, and the narrative of the friendship is going to change and evolve, and a lot of things can come in to interfere with those friendships. Like, you see it with –

Angela: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – people who start out together, and then one becomes much more prominent than the other in, in –

Angela: Yes.

Sarah: – authorial career, or, you know, one person gets their, their dream job, and the other person does not. Like, that, those are really hard stresses to, to navigate, and when you’re inside an industry, that stuff’s going to happen, like, all the time! Like, it’s constant!

Angela: Yeah.

Sarah: It is a, a form of courtship, I think? That friendship is an evolving courtship, but it’s lovely, especially when I get wine. That is definitely one of my languages. I’m a fan of wine, so thank you.

[Laughter]

Angela: Well, you’re welcome. I, you know, the other thing I was thinking about is, for you and I, for instance, we’re in different roles in publishing. So we can be in awe of the other’s career and, or a milestone in the other’s career, but I don’t, there’s not really professional jealousy that happens there.

Sarah: Mm-mm.

Angela: The other, the other thing is, there’s not an imbalance between us. There’s not a power imbalance, so we’re, we’re not, it goes back to one author gets a lot bigger than the other author, or an author forming a friendship with a reader who’s in awe of them? That, that power imbalance can be a detriment to a friendship, as you said, and is something that you have to work out together.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Angela: And if the other person enjoys the power imbalance, then, then you’re not actually having a true friendship. And you and I have never had to struggle with that.

Sarah: So you’ve had a, a, a somewhat mild amount of stress in the last, you know, few months since July, thereabouts. What do you do to take care of yourself?

Angela: I, I tell you, my biggest thing is I don’t, I turn off all of my social media notifications. Social, social media is a huge source of stress, I think, for a lot of us? So no notifications allowed on any of my devices.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Angela: I only, I only see social media when I want to see it, and so –

Sarah: I said – [still laughing] – I, I said to my phone this morning, I was on the treadmill, and something had achieved the power of notification that should, that should not have had that power –

Angela: [Laughs]

Sarah: – and I said out loud to the, my phone, oh, I do not think so! Like, you do not get to talk to me.

Angela: Yes.

Sarah: This is my –

Angela: You shall not pass! [Laughs]

Sarah: Yes! Oh, I am all kinds of Gandalf with my, with my notifications. Absolutely no notifications.

Angela: Yeah, I, I did a, I did, like, a Twitter, I don’t want to say hiatus. Well, I did a Twitter hiatus over the summer for three weeks, and that was, that was a huge deal. But about two years ago, right after the presidential election, I unfollowed everybody from Twitter. I did not follow a single person on Twitter, and so I was only consuming Twitter through my no-, through my mentions and then kind of going into different lists and looking at things. And it was during that time that I realized how much social media was affecting my, my mental health.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Angela: So I do, I don’t do Twitter, I don’t do social media notifications; I, I limit how I consume my social media as well; and, and those are two really big things for self-care.

The other thing is, I limit my work hours? It’s real easy, always, when you work from home to just sit down at your desk and stay forever, so I limit my work hours to the business day, usually eight to – it’s probably nine to six, ‘cause I like to start a little later in the morning – and I, I try not to work on weekends, and in fact, I try not to answer emails on the weekends either. To just give my, my brain a break.

And then as far as other ways that I’m, I take care of myself, I, when I’m super stressed I, I don’t watch a lot of TV? So I only watch TV with my daughter. We’re watching The Haunting of Hill House and –

Sarah: Well, that’ll get you some endorphin dumps. Damn!

Angela: [Laughs] Yes! And when I need a mental break now, I’ve started turning on an episode of Schitt’s Creek, so I’m, I’m, like, slowly watching that; I just finished season one.

And then read! I read; I reread; I reread a lot. When my brain is especially stressed, I turn to, to things I’ve read before. So, like, for instance, I just went through a reread of a couple of Johanna Lindsey historicals? Like, the old Malory books? And –

Sarah: Oooh!

Angela: Yes! And Kristen Ashley. So I’ve reread, I reread things that are, like, like, really help me escape.

Sarah: Oh yeah. And Johanna Lindsey is a fascinating example for me. Like, there are some books of hers that I almost read with a dual awareness. On one hand –

Angela: Yeah.

Sarah: – I am fully aware that whatever is in this, words, in the words in that, in the words in those orders, all of the letters assembled in that particular arrangement is extremely addictive, and my brain is like, yes! More of this; this is great; let’s do it! And then there’s another part of my brain that’s like, what are you reading? What, what –

Angela: [Laughs]

Sarah: Why? What? Di-it-up-what-why? What, what is happening? How is this, what, how, how? Why? Like, there’s –

[Laughter]

Sarah: And yet, it still works on me! It is a strange thing!

Angela: Yeah. I – so I can’t, I cannot reread her Vikings books, because those are just, like, an absolute no-go for me? Like, no. I, I can’t. But I did, like I said, I reread the Mal-, I reread, I think, four of the Malory books. And then I still reread Warrior’s Woman, which we all know is incredibly problematic – if, if you’ve read it, you know it’s incredibly problematic – in the ways in which the, the hero treats the heroine, but I, I can’t, I can’t quit it, because there’s something addictive about – there’s just something that compels my brain to think about this other world and the, the, there’s an artificial intelligence, and the heroine – it just all works together in my brain.

Sarah: Oh, it, it’s, it works for a reason. [Laughs] They’re, and they’re still in print for a reason, you know?

Angela: Yeah. I just, I feel like I should apologize to somebody for reading it, but at the same time, you know, all your faves are problematic, and – [sighs] – some things, you know, you do just kind of, you just like, they just stick with you! They’re formative; maybe it was formative.

Sarah: Oh, it’s definitely nostalgia for me. It’s definitely a, a, a sort of a time travel in my own brain of, that was what was available; that was all there was?

Angela: [Laughs] Uh-huh.

Sarah: So that was all I read! But at the same time, I love looking at what doesn’t work anymore and thinking, okay, but this trope is still hooking me; this conflict is still hooking me. Where else can I find this in a book that was written, you know, within the last year or two, because the tropes are eternal.

Angela: I was going to say that exact wording, the tropes are eternal. I think there’s some tropes that are falling out of favor, one would hope, but most tropes are very eternal, and when, when you’re talking about, you know, like, this is, this is almost like, Warrior’s Woman is almost like a forced, forced confinement. The –

Sarah: Forced proximity?

Angela: Yes, forced proximity, because she’s, she’s stranded on the, on the planet, and so she doesn’t have a lot of options, so in some ways it works as a forced proximity in a, in an unusual way. So, I mean, there’s, there’s just, you know, like, something about the way certain authors have put words together, as you said, and put tropes together that, that does still seem to, to be eternal.

Sarah: Yeah. It really, it – and once you know what tropes work on you, you, you get to find a lot more books; it’s pretty great.

Angela: [Laughs] And which ones don’t work on you, so you can avoid them?

Sarah: Yes! Oh, oh yes! That was a very good lesson for me. That was a very good lesson for me.

So what are you reading right now that you want to tell people about? Other than your Malory reread?

Angela: My Malory, and I did a Kristen Ashley reread, which that’s another conversation too. I love, love Kristen.

I, I have been doing a lot of rereading. So when I think about what I have been reading recently, I recently discovered a Black author by the name of Christina C. Jones who is just, I have been working my way through her backlist, and her contemporary romance is one of, like, well, you would say again, it gets stuck in your brain, and she uses tropes really well. I started with her The Wright Brothers. I read The Wright Brothers – with a W, W-R-I-G-H-T – and Getting Schooled, and I love, like, the trope of, of family, brothers, where I can go from brother to brother and read all the books; that actually works really well on me. I’m a series reader in that way. And also, she’s another person who writes heroines who are just fantastic and unapologetic and, and, and smart! Like, so smart, in a way that draws you into their world, and I, and I say that because it’s based, some of it’s based in academia? So it’s based in the, the university setting, and you, you just, like, just really get captured by these characters, and so I’ve been really loving her work.

Of course everybody’s talking about Nalini Singh, her Guild Hunter series, and I just finished, is it Archangel’s War? So I’m ready for the next one. [Laughs] I’m always ready for whatever Nalini writes.

[Laughter]

Angela: Grocery list, Nalini? Bring it on.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Angela: You and I have talked about Sherry Thomas and the Lady Sherlock series before.

Sarah: Oh – [sighs] – so good.

Angela: Yes, so good, and I think you’re doing an event with her that will have taken place –

Sarah: I am!

Angela: – and I, I love Sherry. Again, Sherry’s another one who writes like, just, like, super smart books that make you feel smarter for having read them? [Laughs] Because the characters are so smart!

Sarah: Oh, absolutely.

Angela: Oh, you know what, I, I, we, we might have talked about this, or you might have heard me mention this: I have been reading a nonfiction. For those of you out there – [laughs] –

Sarah: Hmm?

Angela: – who are raising teenage girls, I’ve been reading Untangled by Lisa, I think her name is Damour? And it’s Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions into Adulthood, and I have a fif-, a fifteen-year-old, she’s going to be fifteen, and we’re definitely going through some teenage anxiety, and this book has really kind of reminded me what it’s like to be a, a teenager working through friendships and hormones and emotions? And it’s –

Sarah: It is such a soup.

Angela: It – [laughs] – it’s, it’s so, oh my gosh!

[Laughter]

Angela: Some days I’m just like, like one minute she’s just happy, and the next minute she’s not, and I, and I keep talking to my husband about the fact that we just have to be understanding and remember that high school – she’s a freshman in high school – is so hard. And –

Sarah: Oh, it really is.

Angela: – so much harder than it was ever was for us, honestly. So it’s, it’s a process!

[music]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s podcast. Thank you to Angela James for hanging out with me and talking about all of the different things. If you would like to find her, her website is angelajames.co, and you can find her complete portfolio and a whole bunch of books. You can find her on Twitter and on Instagram as well, and I will have links in the show notes to all of the books we talked about, so do not worry.

Today’s podcast is sponsored by Unravel You by Diana A. Hicks. If you like steamy contemporaries with a touch of suspense, you will love this billionaire romance. College graduate Valentina never expected to fall for the hot as hell and very intimidating Derek Cole when she accepted his offer to rent his property. From cottage to mansion, Valentina is certain she doesn’t deserve the fairytale unfolding. But just when Valentina and Derek think they have a handle on their happily ever after, their past and future collide. A Book Lovers Emporium Book Blog called it a fantastic ride, and the I Love Books Blog loved every minute of it. Unravel You by Diana A. Hicks is available now on Amazon and free with a Kindle Unlimited subscription. Find out more at dianahicksbooks.com.

Today’s podcast and transcript are brought to you by The Modern Breakup by Daniel Chidiac. Part confessional diary, part tell-all from multiple points of view, The Modern Breakup has become a social media sensation that’s intensely relatable for anyone who navigates the dating world and still isn’t sure what to make of it. So many women are connecting with The Modern Breakup, finding questions they’ve asked about their relationships inside Amelia’s perspective as well, helping them feel less alone. Reviewers on Amazon call it a must-read, saying, “It’s like this book is reading my mind.” You can find The Modern Breakup by Daniel Chidiac everywhere books are sold, and stayed tuned: at the end of the episode, I have a sample of the book for you.

I will have links to all of the books we talked about, and I will have links to where you can find Angela if you are interested, but as always, I end with a terrible joke, and this one is really, really bad. I love this joke so much because, well, I love them all, but this, this one is really terrible, and I hope you enjoy it too. [Clears throat] Are you ready?

How do you get two whales in a car?

Give up? How do you get two whales in a car?

Well, you start in England, and then you turn west.

[Laughs] That’s from /notadadbot, which I don’t know if it’s a bot or a person on the Dad Jokes subreddit, but this made me laugh. I hope you enjoyed it. [Laughs more] Drive west!

On behalf of everyone here, thank you very much for listening. We will be back next week with a new episode, but until then, we wish you the very best of reading. Have a wonderful weekend, and don’t forget, audiobook sample after the music!

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

[gentle music]

[Sample of The Modern Breakup by Daniel Chidiac, read by Our Sarah]