418: Romance Recs with Amanda and Sarah: Psychic Pining!

[music]

Sarah Wendell: Well, hello there! Would you like a podcast? Good! I have one! This is episode number 418 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I am Sarah Wendell, and with me today is Amanda! We are back with reader recommendations. We are going to start with Amanda’s current attempts to learn resin art and preservation. We are talk about our cats, and then, get ready for psychic pining. Leanne is looking for romances with telepathic main couples, and we are here to help her out. So thank you to Leanne for writing to us, and also, hello again to Kate and her new baby.

If you would like reader recommendations or you’d like to email us and tell us what’s up, we would love to hear from you. You can email us at [email protected], or you can call 1-201-371-3272 and leave us a message. Especially if you want to leave us a bad joke; we like those a lot.

Now, in this here episode right now, the one that I am recording and that you are listening to, I have a compliment! Yes!

For Elizabeth H.: You are better than warm socks fresh from the dryer, a cool breeze on a humid day, and that one drink that you really, really like that you make very well. TL;DR: You’re great.

If you would like a compliment of your very own, have a look at our Patreon at patreon.com/SmartBitches. Monthly pledges start at one dollar. Every pledge makes such a difference in keeping the show going and making every episode accessible to everyone. So thank you and hello again to our Patreon community.

This episode is brought to you by Ritual, a daily multivitamin obsessively researched for women. It is vegan-friendly, sugar-free, non-GMO, gluten-free, and allergen-free. All of the sources for the nine nutrients inside are provided for you to research on your own. We deserve to know what we’re putting in our bodies and why, which is why Ritual’s founder’s on a mission to reinvent the vitamin industry. Ritual is also designed to be an easy way to build a…ritual! Get it? I like that it’s easy: specifically, a new bottle delivered the minute I finish the old one. I really like the fact that I know what’s in each capsule and why it’s there, and I like that the source is provided for each multivitamin component so that I know what’s, what’s there and why, and it never makes me nauseous! Daily changes can lead to big results, so smart small today. Ritual is offering you ten percent off your first three months. Try it out, satisfaction guaranteed. Go to ritual.com/SARAH – that’s SARAH, S-A-R-A-H – to start your ritual today. That’s ten percent off during your first three months at ritual.com/SARAH!

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We mention a lot of books in this podcast and links to things, and never fear! They will be in the show notes at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast. Every book, every link, all the things, fear not. We like to help you go shopping ‘cause we don’t have any impulse control either. And I will end this episode with a terrible joke; fear not.

But let’s get started with this reader recommendation fiesta with Amanda as we talk about psychic pining! On with the podcast.

[music]

Amanda: So for resin and stuff, I have, like, come up with so many cool ideas, but my casting resin isn’t here, so my new – not my new, but I had a really cool idea where I get some, like, book subscription boxes, and they always have, like, postcards with, like, gorgeous artwork on it. Like, this is not one; this is a sympathy card – [laughs] – but they always have, like, these gorgeous postcards with, like, book artwork, and I’m like, what am I going to fucking do with them? And I thought, I was like, I could kind of cast them in resin, like thick blocks to make them book stands.

Sarah: Oh, like bookends!

Amanda: Yeah, bookends. So I think I might try to do that at some point.

Sarah: That’s cool!

Amanda: So I can do something with, like, the, these really pretty book character postcards that I get in, like, subscription boxes that I don’t know what to do with, and I don’t want to throw them away!

Sarah: You’re going to have like a whole new crafting empire. Like, I’m going to connect –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – and at one point there’s going to be, like, beakers and smoking test tubes in the background.

Amanda: Well, I, because resin is, like, a toxic vapor, I’m like –

Sarah: I was going to say, it, it’s not –

Amanda: – I, I have, like –

Sarah: – it’s not super safe.

Amanda: – I bought a, a half mask, like, respirator with, like, bright pink, like, filters on the sides.

Sarah: Nice!

Amanda: Everything is here but the resin.

Sarah: You can just wear that everywhere though, right? Like –

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: – with a mask that powerful it would be like, I’m going to go to the store now; I’m going to go to the library; I’m going to go interact with humanity during the pandemic with this big mask.

Amanda: Get a, get a tan line of the mask on my face.

Sarah: Oh, hell yeah! I had to get, I had to get my semiannual, or my biannual fasting blood work.

Amanda: Wilbur, Wilbur is cleaning his beans in the background!

Sarah: That is the loudest noise he makes. I will be shocked if the microphone does not pick up the sound of Wilbur licking between his toes. It is the loudest sound that he makes.

Amanda: Linus bites his toenails.

Sarah: Oh my gosh, really?

Amanda: Yeah, he can hear him chomping on them when he licks his beans.

Sarah: Little toes. Well, I got my semiannual blood work today, and, you know, it’s all contactless, so I go and I pull up in my car and I tap, I’m here! And, you know, I think they had to take five or six vials – I get a lot of blood twice a year – and –

Amanda: Do you have good veins? Is it easy?

Sarah: I have one good vein.

Amanda: Oh.

Sarah: Just the one.

Amanda: I’m chock full of good veins.

[Laughter]

Sarah: And I was like, just, this, just trust me: this one looks good, but it, it’ll, it’ll hide and disappear the minute you try to stick it. Just go for this one; it’s all good, it’s fine. And I, I’m so used to blood work it doesn’t even, like, bother me. Like, oh!

Amanda: That’s how I feel about my thyroid blood work which I have to do every year because both my mom and grandmother have thyroid conditions?

Sarah: Yep.

Amanda: So I’m like a ticking time bomb for a thyroid problem? Yeah, and it just –

Sarah: Yep, fine, here, go ahead.

Amanda: You can use – yeah.

Sarah: The hardest part is that I can’t have coffee, and I’m sleepy and I’m groggy and I’m cranky, and my coffee is sitting in the travel cup that Adam used to work, used to take to work, but he, we haven’t used it since March, so, like, we had to go dig out of the cabinet.

Amanda: You don’t go anywhere.

Sarah: Yeah, and we haven’t had to leave the house with our coffee. So I have the coffee just waiting, sitting there next to me while I wait in the car, and I go in –

Amanda: Just counting down the seconds until you can chug it.

Sarah: Oh, I’ve done that. And I go in, got my mask on, all the phlebotomists have masks and, and a, and a guy comes out. She’s like, well, there’s going to, there’s a person exiting, so you have to wait before you go in, and when he comes out, then you can come in. I’m like, okay, great. So this guy comes out, and he’s wearing a bandana tied below his eyes, hanging down, like he’s robbing a bank in 1812 –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – and I’m like –

Amanda: Yes.

Sarah: – what the hell is wrong with you? That’s not doing anything for you or me.

Amanda: It’s like the easy thing of, like, I don’t want to wear a mask, but I have to or I’m going to get kicked out of a place, so I’m just going to –

Sarah: Uh-huh.

Amanda: – tie this –

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: – bandana around my face.

Sarah: It was, I was like, I can see your whole mouth. I haven’t seen people’s mouths when I go out in public –

[Laughter]

Sarah: – since March!

Amanda: Like, please, sir, can I see your mouth?

Sarah: And then I have to give them my ID; like, they have to check my ID, and, and, like, I’m like, are we going to get new IDs with masks on, because you can’t, I mean, I could be anybody with glasses and hair.

Amanda: When I, when I flew in late June, you had to wear a mask, and so –

Sarah: Of course.

Amanda: – at TSA, when you would hand them your ID, they would ask, can you pull your mask down for a second? So you’d go boop! And they would look at your face, and then boop!

Sarah: That you flash them? [Laughs]

Amanda: Yep, you flash your mouth.

Sarah: With your mask, hello!

Amanda: Flash your mouth and then close it.

Sarah: That’s amazing.

Amanda: I bought a bunch of masks – I think I have one here that – from eShakti? So they had a thing where it’s like if you buy five masks you get one free. I have my one that I wore, but they all have, like, a nose thing, but the ear things you can tighten –

Sarah: Oooh!

Amanda: – and it comes with a string so it hangs around your neck –

Sarah: Oooh!

Amanda: – so you don’t have to put it anywhere, but it’s like –

Sarah: That’s really nice!

Amanda: And it’s got cute little triangles on it?

Sarah: Oh, it’s super cute. That’s a good fabric, too.

Amanda: Yeah, it’s super breathable, but I have, like, a striped one; I have one with, like, little embroidered mushrooms on them. Like, eShakti has some cute fucking masks, and, like, if all you’re buying is masks, it’s free shipping.

Sarah: Ooh!

Amanda: Yeah, like, treat them like a fashion statement! Match ‘em to your clothes! Like, honestly, I’m looking so forward – I know this sounds so weird – I’m looking forward to wearing masks in the winter?

Sarah: Oh, I know exactly what you mean.

Amanda: Because my –

Sarah: I had that same thought this morning!

Amanda: – my nose always gets super cold in the winter, and I’m like, I wish I had a way to keep my nose warm without looking like a weirdo and wearing a, you know, what is it, bala-, balaclava?

Sarah: Balaclava.

Amanda: I – yeah, I always come up with, like, baklava? It was like, no, you don’t – I mean, I want baklava in my mouth.

Sarah: Mmmm.

Amanda: Not necessarily on it. [Laughs]

Sarah: I could go for baklava now.

Amanda: So I’m looking forward to having my nose be warm.

Sarah: Ohhh! I was thinking that today. Like, this is going to be really comfortable when it’s not 91 with eighty percent humidity!

Amanda: I mean, it sucks for the glasses wearers of the world. We all know.

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: You have to get the right positioning of the mask so it doesn’t fog up your glasses?

Sarah: Yep.

Amanda: But yeah.

Sarah: You ready to get started with some recs?

Amanda: [Sings] Readyyy!

Sarah: All right, so first, I got an email from Kate who had a new baby, moved far away from her family, is already isolated because of that, plus there’s the Quarantimes, but she emailed me specifically to say thanks for the podcast and told me that my episodes with you are her favorites.

Amanda: Ohhh!

Sarah: So hello, Kate!

Amanda: And congrats on the baby.

Sarah: Yeah! I hope you and the baby are doing fabulously.

All right. So we have an email today which I am calling “Psychic Pining.”

Amanda: Which I think is good!

Zeb: Woof!

Sarah: Yeah, right? Zeb agrees –

Zeb: Bark!

Sarah: – he thinks this is great.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: It’s, it’s fine. Adam’s like, shush! Sarah’s recording! And Zeb’s like, I don’t care! There’s a person!

Amanda: I feel like if Zeb doesn’t bark, people are going to be like, where’s Zeb in this episode? Like –

Sarah: He gets his own line in the transcript, right?

Amanda: Yeah! It’s fine!

Sarah: All right, so this email is from Leanne H. Do you want to read the email this week?

Amanda: Sure! Let me look at it!

Sarah: Seems like a good plan.

Amanda: [Laughs] Let me glance at it. Okay. From Leanne H.:

“Dear Sarah (and all at Smart Bitches),

“First off, thank you for being one of the few providers of joy, happiness, and wonderfulness during these quarantimes.”

Sarah: Aww!

Amanda: “I am a member of your podcast Patreon and a long-time listener (and blog reader), and I can’t –“

Sarah: Yay!

Amanda: “ – and I can’t tell you how much of a lifesaver your interviews have been. I love how real you are and how well thought out your questions are, too. It always makes me feel better after I listen.”

It’s so sweet!

“Second… I have a favor to ask. I think –“

Sarah: It’s not a favor; we’re thrilled to be here.

Amanda: [Laughs] “I think this request might be a bit too specific, and if so, I apologize in advance for wasting your time!”

Listen –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: First off, reading romance is like rule thirty-four of the internet. It’s like, if you can think it, there’s a romance for it.

Sarah: Pretty much!

Amanda: So it’s fine. And then she says, “But, I’ll give it a shot. I was hoping you and the Bitchery might be able to recommend me some romances with a telepathic main couple. I was recently inspired for this by Crosstalk by Connie Willis. While I didn’t *love* the book overall, I DID love the romance plot, especially the idea that two people might be mutually pining for each other, but they have to work even HARDER to hide it because they can read each other’s minds. 😀 So naturally I am hoping to find some other books to fulfill this catnip!

“Thank you so much for your time, the energy you spend on the blog, and the podcast – all of it.

“Best wishes,

“Leanne H.”

Sarah: You’re so welcome, Leanne. Also, we get so many email messages that are like, I’m looking for a type of romance that features a hero, and then there’s very, many specific adjectives. Like, it’s –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – it’s like the opposite of a HaBO where someone’s like, I remember this book, and the hero had a blue suit, and there was a tree, and someone in the community will know the answer? But two, we also get requests for books that are incredibly specific. Like, I need a hero and heroine –

Amanda: That also.

Sarah: – who only meet on Thursdays.

Amanda: I will also say that part of the beauty of HaBOs, I find, is that sometimes we get a very interesting request where we have, like, a, like, one theme that they can clearly remember, and it’s totally bonkers, and I –

Sarah: That’s always my brain.

Amanda: – and I think, oh my God, someone knows this. Like, they have to be able to guess it from this scene alone, ‘cause it’s just so wild, and then of course in the comments you get like ten fucking books that have this exact same bonkers scene, and you’re like –

Sarah: [Laughs] Yes!

Amanda: – well, maybe it’s not as – [laughs] – of a one-off as I thought it was!

Sarah: So I remember they were doing it on horseback, but the bridge was going up, but they jumped, the horse jumped the bridge as the drawbridge was opening and made it to the other side just as he climaxed. Oh, there’s only one book – nope! There’s fifty. [Laughs]

Amanda: Yeah, yeah. Like, oh, you thought you were original? JK!

Sarah: Yeah, sorry!

Amanda: Everyone else has that horseback –

Sarah: Yeah, we, we know all about that horseback scene.

Amanda: – bridge sex.

Sarah: All right, Leanne, get ready. So my first thought was, I love psychic pining, because part of what happens in a romance is that the protagonists almost develop a language just for one another, and sometimes that’s, like, through notes. Like, I love epistolary romances where they’re writing to each other privately. Or in one, for example, in one of Shannon Stacey’s books, I think it’s Yours to Keep, they leave Post-it notes for each other because they’re pretending to be in a relationship, and the bathroom is the place where they leave notes for each other so they can, like, inform each other of different things that they like to get –

Amanda: Can you imagine, though, like, stumbling across, like, someone’s love Post-its in a bathroom?

Sarah: Yes! [Laughs] It would be amazing!

Amanda: Is this for me? Who is this for?

Sarah: [Laughs] So there’s, the, the, the psychic pining is like a much more intense version of the individual language you, you want to develop between the, the protagonists. I also think there are three main strains, let’s say, or, or varieties of psychic pining in romances. One, you have a mating bond that creates telepathy. Like two vampires meet and their mating bond includes, you know, direct access. Like, they have little ne- – 

Amanda: I think, yeah. 

Sarah: Yeah, they have, like –

Amanda: Those are mostly my recommendations I feel like are in category one.

Sarah: Exactly. And then you have, like, the instant Nextel ability to –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – communicate with each other. Beep, beep! Yes, hello, dear!

The second option is that there’s a telepath on one side more than the other, so one person can talk to the other and can hear the other, but they’re really the only one who can initiate the connection.

Amanda: Think I do have one recommendation that’s that one.

Sarah: I have one like that. And then there’s just telepaths on both sides who find each other. Which I have one of those, but I, I have to recommend it –

Amanda: I don’t have any.

Sarah: – I have to recommend it with great, great caution. So do you want to go first? You want me to go first?

Amanda: I mean, my list is shorter than yours. So it’s up to you.

Sarah: Okay, why don’t you, why don’t you go?

Amanda: Okay. So the first on my list is Dragon Bound by Thea Harrison, ‘cause I vividly remember this scene. Pia, who is the heroine, steals something from the dragon hero, from his hoard, and –

Sarah: Bad idea.

Amanda: – he wants it back, and I remember, early in the book, she has stolen the object, and he kind of like projects into her mind through, like, a dream sequence in order to try to, like, figure out who she is, what she looks like, where she is, and I remember that so clearly. ‘Cause I’m like, ooh, this is weird, but also kind of hot, and I think I’m into it, but I’m not sure. That’s – [laughs] – how I felt about that scene.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: I also listened to it on audio, so that might also be like, hmm!

I believe the Dark Protectors series by Rebecca Zanetti heavily features, like, a kind of like mutual dream world? And I think it’s like book six or seven, Marked, especially, the hero and heroine have been, like, meeting in each other’s dreams for like two decades.

Sarah, I think you’re muted. I don’t know. Maybe you’re not.

Sarah: I am muted. I’m, I’m –

Amanda: Okay. [Laughs]

Sarah: You, you just, you just started talking about that, and it reminded me of a webtoon I had been reading about two characters –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – who fall asleep and wake up in their dreams in the same bed.

Amanda: You had to google.

Sarah: Yeah, and I’m googling, and I don’t want to be, like, in the background, tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap! So I totally muted.

Amanda: Okay. So I think that series, I think all of the books have, like, kind of like a dream, dream-ish world where the hero and heroines kind of connect across space and time!

The Dirk & Steele series by Marjorie M. Liu, which is bananas! A bananas paranormal – [laughs]

Sarah: So good, though. So good! Like, if you like your paranormals completely off the chain, this is the one you want.

Amanda: Yeah. And I feel like they’re very underrated, too. I liked those.

I have to mention Kresley Cole.

Sarah: Whaat? You have to?

Amanda: Yeah –

Sarah: Of course you do.

Amanda: I have to!

Sarah: I left that off my list specifically so you could talk about it!

Amanda: I was, I was wondering. I was like, was this on purpose?

Sarah: Uh, yeah!

Amanda: [Laughs] A lot of her books feature the first category Sarah introduced, where it’s kind of like fated mates and they have, like, a connection. For example, like, the vampires in Kresley Cole’s Immortals After Dark series, their hearts start beating again when they are around their mate. You know, we’ve talked about this before: demons break their jizz seal when they are –

[Laughter]

Amanda: – around their mates.

[More laughter]

Amanda: It’s like when you’re, like, peeling off –

Sarah: Oh no.

Amanda: – a lid, from, like –

Sarah: Oh no!

Amanda: – sour cream, but they filled it too high? So when you, like, peel the plastic off, like, it releases that air bubble and a little sour cream comes out? Like, that’s what I – [laughs] – I’m sorry this is so gross, everyone. [Laughs]

Sarah: Going to be sick now. Holy God.

Amanda: I mean, we spent, we coined the phrase, was it love mayonnaise on Twitch yesterday, so we’re just keeping on brand.

Sarah: If y’all are not aware, Amanda and I stream twice a week playing Stardew Valley, and we’re very silly, and we always end up talking about food or debating deeply esoteric questions.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: But there is a demon in the sewer in Stardew Valley named Krobus, and you can woo the sewer demon with void mayonnaise, which you get from a void chicken, which you get by buying a void egg from Krobus, so I have the void chicken and I’m making the void mayonnaise so that Amanda can woo the sewer demon, because the sewer demon will move into your home and be your platonic life partner and help you raise your children!

Amanda: And as someone who loves mayonnaise, that really speaks to me –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: – that to woo him I just bring him little jars of mayonnaise!

Sarah: Right!

Amanda: He’s like, I love this!

Sarah: Right!

Amanda: Like, I do too!

Sarah: Right!

Amanda: Yeah, so Kresley Cole has, like, a connection gets forged between two characters because they’re, like, mates and, like, something either physically changes within them or mentally, there might be, like, a psychic connection, but there is that kind of force that happens and they remain, like, changed.

And then Amanda Quick/Jayne Castle/Jayne Ann Krentz also – [laughs] – has a couple series that has this. As Amanda Quick, she has the Arcane Society –

Sarah: Good call.

Amanda: – which is probably the most different out of all of my recommendations because it’s historical. A lot of these are just straightforward paranormal romances, but this one is kind of like historical paranormal –

Sarah: Right.

Amanda: – so if you want, like, a departure in setting. And then under the Jayne Castle penname, she has the Ghost Hunters series, which also, I think, falls for me under Dirk & Steele, like, super underrated? I think my mom had the books and I read them a long-ass time ago? I think I might want to reread them. So those are –

Sarah: That would be a good idea.

Amanda: Yeah, I’m just, yeah, a lot, I know it’s different for everyone, and we’ve talked about this many times, but some people’s first romances were, like, old school historicals, but mine were, like –

Sarah: Off-the-wall paranormals.

Amanda: – late ‘90s, early 2000s paranormal – [laughs] – romances –

Sarah: Yep.

Amanda: – that my mom kept in, like, Rubbermaid tubs in our shed and was like, have at it.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: So, yeah, she was the one who, like, pushed the, was it Merry Gentry and Anita Blake series into my hands –

Sarah: Oof! Oof!

Amanda: – and I’m like –

Sarah: Oof!

Amanda: – later on, thinking back on it, I was like, Mom, are you sure you should have given those to me?

Sarah: I read those books in the woods at a sleepaway camp that was Sabbath-observant, and I worked in the office, so I couldn’t do my job from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: I literally couldn’t do really much of anything except eat and read, and I had to leave the bathroom light on, ‘cause you’re not supposed to turn the lights on and off, ‘cause the camp was, was –

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: – shomer Shabbos, Sabbath observant, so I would leave the bathroom light on, and I would open the door, and then I just closed the door when it was time to go to bed, and I had to sleep with the door open and the bathroom light on for, like, a month and a half because I was reading those books, and the first like six of them scared the absolute poodle out of me.

Amanda: I, I feel like people who are in therapy go back, be like, when was the moment in my life history that, like, put me on this path to having to go to therapy?

Sarah: [Laughs] With the Anita Blake? Oh my gosh!

Amanda: Reading Anita Blake as a thirteen-year-old girl –

Sarah: [Laughs] Oh!

Amanda: – might rank up there. [Laughs]

Sarah: Oh no!

Amanda: But –

Sarah: Oh man, ‘cause there’s always that moment when you look back and you’re like, wait, wait, wait a minute.

So here’s my list. Some of these –

Amanda: It’s an extensive list. 

Sarah: It’s an extensive list, but some of these come with extensive caveats because, well, reasons. So let’s start:

The one that I thought of almost immediately with psychic pining was the id-, was the third variety, of telepaths on both sides? Sarah Rees Brennan wrote a YA trilogy called the Lynburn Legacy. The first one is Unspoken, and in the first one, the two protagonists can speak to each other. They’ve never met, but they’ve always been able to speak to each other in their minds, and so in the first book it’s how they actually end up in the same place and meet, and what they don’t know about each other and what they do know about each other from having been able to talk to each other in their own minds. It’s super dark, there is a love triangle, but the connection in the first one seems like what Leanne is looking for. It’s also very heartbreaking, it’s very sad in a lot of ways, but here’s the thing: I suck at series, so I didn’t read books two and three! I read book one; was like, okay, that was fine; and then I moved on! So I’m terrible: I know that the first one fits, and I know what happens in the, in the end of the first one, and I know that there are other connections that are formed in the course of the tri-, of the trilogy from reading Goodreads reviews, but I don’t know how it ends! So proceed with caution; your mileage may vary.

Amanda: That’s, that’s how I feel about the Sookie Stackhouse series is that –

Sarah: That’s on my list! It literally says, Sookie Stackhouse – ehhh?

Amanda: Yeah. I think it was –

Sarah: [Laughs] That says, that was my whole rec! Like, ehhh?

Amanda: Yeah. I paused at a certain point in the series, and every so often I’m like, whatever happened? And I’ll go and, like, read the Wikipedia page, and I’m like, boy, am I glad –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: – I stopped, or I would have been so mad as a reader who, like, kept up with the series.

Sarah: I really want a Moviepooper for some books? Like, just tell me what happens; give me the straight spoilers here. Give me the poop.

Amanda: I get so mad when I can’t, like, if there’s a movie that I’m like, this looks interesting, but I’m not going to go fucking see it and, you know, whatever. I’m like, why, why doesn’t the Wikipedia have a full plot synopsis yet?

Sarah: Movie- – 

Amanda: It’s been out for two days!

Sarah: – -pooper. Moviepooper is your new best friend.

Amanda: I love that! I was like, okay, I want to feel like I’ve seen the movie so I can talk to about it, talk about it with people and say how horrible it was, even though I did not watch it and I just read the summary, and now I have feelings.

Sarah: Sometimes reading the Moviepooper just, even, even just the spoiler, like, here’s how it ends? All of a sudden I’m like, oh, that’s why I didn’t like it! Because it ends like this, and it should have done that, and – yeah, it’s my, one of my favorite, favorite websites. All the movies that I’m not going to go see, I just read the summaries there. And life is good!

Amanda: Also, Sarah’s nails on camera look like this really nice, deep, plummy, eggplant color? And they –

Sarah: They are –

Amanda: – they match your shirt. It’s very pretty.

Sarah: Oh, thank you! These are ILNP. This is what I call Space Grape Ape? It is a very deep, deep, sparkly purple.

Amanda: Yeah. It looks really good!

Sarah: And then one of my other nails, on this hand you can see my –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – fourth finger? Is light space purple.

Amanda: Ohhh!

Sarah: But I, like, I do, it’s manicure, it should be manicure day tomorrow, and I ordered new nail polish.

Amanda: But do you, do you fully remove everything and just start from scratch?

Sarah: Yep! I fully remove everything, I file down, I push my cuticles back.

Amanda: Do you do it weekly or biweekly?

Sarah: Weekly. Toes are every two weeks; fingernails are every week. It’s one of the things that I started doing during the Quarantimes because it makes me stop. Like –

Amanda: Yeah! Smart.

Sarah: – I can’t, I can’t do anything! My nails are wet! I can’t work, I can’t type, I can’t do anything, so I –

Amanda:  That drives me nuts! ‘Cause I’m like –

Sarah: – I set up –

Amanda: Oof.

Sarah: – at the kitchen table, have a little lamp, I have all my little stuff, and I put on, like, Great British Bake Off that I’ve already seen? Like, one of my favorite seasons, like, one of my favorite seasons is the one with Benjamina because she is so talented and she’s so kind and just has all these incredible ideas, so I love watching the Ben-, Benjamina season, and I just sit there and I paint –

Amanda: Who won that season, Flo? Florence? Am I remembering?

Sarah: Frances, I think?

Amanda: Frances? 

Sarah: I don’t remember. I have to, I have to look.

Amanda: So one of my favorite pieces of Great British Bake Off, like, knowledge is that after season, or series seven, so Candice won, and she, Candice always has the really great lipsticks that she would wear when she baked?

Sarah: Her lipstick, that’s the season with Benjamina, I think.

Amanda: Is it? No!

Sarah: No.

Amanda: No.

Sarah: No, that’s a different one. You’re right; I was watching a different one. ‘Cause I watched a, I watched a Candice episode while I was –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – painting my nails last week.

Amanda: So Candice was the winner of series seven –

Sarah: Mm-hmm?

Amanda: – and one of the runner-ups was Jane, who was like this older woman, and they had such a great friendship that after the series ended, Candice and Jane went on, like, a foodie road trip –

Sarah: [Gasps]

Amanda: – around Europe together?

Sarah: I love it!

Amanda: Isn’t that so adorable?

Sarah: That is precious!

Amanda: Yeah. Also, do your toenail colors match your nail colors, or is it completely separate?

Sarah: Sometimes they match if I’m, ‘cause I do my toes every two weeks?

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: So last week my toes and my nails were the same color.

Amanda: Oh, that’s true, and then you change the nails.

Sarah: And then I change my nail color, so right now my toes are, like, a light coral. But I’m switching from OPI to ILNP. I just ordered myself a whole bunch of ILNP nail polish ‘cause it’s a little lighter and thinner, and the –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – OPI gets really thick and goopy, and I’m constantly having to add acetone to thin it out. So my tail, my toenails are, like, like, thick and, like, there’s chips that I don’t like, so I’m going to do both my fingers and my toes this week. It’s very exciting in my world.

Amanda: You heard that here, people.

Sarah: Yeah!

Amanda: Sarah has chippy, thick toenails.

Sarah: No, the polish. My toenails –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – my, my nails, my fingernails and my toenails are actually very thin, so, like, having polish makes them stronger; it’s kind of nice.

All right, more psychic pining?

Amanda: Yes!

Sarah: All right. Uncertain Magic, Laura Kinsale, but this is a one-way, ‘cause she hears the thoughts of others. And that’s a common trope you’ll find, like she can hear everyone’s thoughts except his; why is that? Twilight was like that; he can hear everyone’s thoughts except hers. Why is she this vacuum of, of perfection?

Amanda: That sounds miserable.

Sarah: Right. Like, I could barely handle crowd noise in the grocery store. Hearing everyone’s thoughts would just send me right out the door.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: So Kinsale: it’s angsty. It was published in 1987, so your mileage may vary. However, the audio- – 

Amanda: Is this the one with the hedgehog, by the way?

Sarah: Is this the one with the hedgehog? I think it might be. ‘Cause there’s, I get, like, I get the one with the hedgehog and the other one mixed up, ‘cause there’s two that are sort of light and fluffy? The fluffy is –

Amanda: I, I will google hedgehog while you –

Sarah: Hedgehog Kinsale. Now you’ll get, like, the hedgehog of Kinsale, Ireland.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: Now, the audiobook for Uncertain Magic is narrated by Nicholas Boulton, and that is a treat for your ears. All of her books are narrated by Nicholas Boulton, and they are wonderful.

Now, the other one that immediately popped into my head is a two-way telepathic connection, but it’s also a mating bond telepathy: Dark Prince and many of the Carpathian books by Christine Feehan. Now, the first one has some really dubious stuff in it, and I can spoil the details if, if you, if you think it’s a good idea, Amanda, but –

Amanda: ‘Kay, wait. Pause for a second.

Sarah: Yeah?

Amanda: It seems like Laura Kinsale owns the domain name hedgehoginc.

Sarah: Yeah, that’s the name of her company.

Amanda: I didn’t know that!

Sarah: That, that’s the name, I think that’s the, the, the company under which her books are published.

Amanda: What in the – ? Continue. No, it’s Midsummer Moon.

Sarah: Midsummer Moon, that’s right –

Amanda: – the hedgehog.

Sarah: – is the, is the one with the hedgehog, and you know people were screaming at the podcast when we were stumbling over that one.

Amanda: Sorry, everyone!

[Laughter]

Sarah: So Dark Prince has some really dubious shit in it. It’s not so much the, the sexual dubious consent; it is more emotional shit? Like, the hero, the hero creates a bond with the heroine that is then dangerous and damaging for her, but he doesn’t tell her the terms before he does it, and so she’s, like, miserable, and she doesn’t know why, and he hands, like, hands her off to this priest to, like, play cards with her until the, the bad period of time is over, but doesn’t ever tell her what’s happening. He just sort of bonds with her and doesn’t really tell her, and she’s not Carpathian, she’s human, so she doesn’t know anything about his culture. It’s really awful.

Amanda: I just – [laughs] – now it sounds weird, but that setup reminds me of, like, a single dad whose daughter is, like, experiencing a period for the first time? Like, I don’t want, know what to do; I don’t know how to handle it. I’m just going to give you to, like, a monk to play cards for a while until your period’s over.

Sarah: [Laughs] I can’t deal with this; I’m just handing you off.

My fan on my laptop is running, and I’m trying to separate my mic from my fan so that it’s, like, not going to pick up the background noise. I’m sorry this is a noisy one. If I’m, if I’m doing Skype I can’t use the sound box, so I’m sort of out in the open.

Amanda: I don’t hear anything.

Sarah: Okay, good to know. I can hear it, but I’m very sensitive at this point.

So in Dark Prince, the telepathic connection starts on like page one or two. Carpathians are very emo, yo. They’re just really emo.

Amanda: Oh, like, it –

Sarah: They’re super emo, and even with the, with the part that makes me really irritated and I think the hero takes advantage of the heroine emotionally a lot, every time I reread this book I get stuck reading it. Like, it’s so sticky for me, and I don’t know if it’s ‘cause one of those, it’s one of those formative titles that I can’t let go of, but –

Amanda: Yes.

Sarah: – whoa! Like, I’m, like, it – [deep breath ] – it really works on me in a way that is, I, I should probably examine more. But that, that has telepathy from the start, and then a lot of the Carpathians are also telepathic with their, with their partners, and this is, much like Amanda said, off-the-wall paranormal –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – bonkers.

Amanda: Well, like, I –

Sarah: It is really bonkers.

Amanda: – I always hesitate a little bit when I’m recommending –

Sarah: Yeah, me too!

Amanda: – these old, older paranormal books to readers who not necessarily are new? But might not have experience with these books during the time in which they were published.

Sarah: Right, because the romance –

Amanda: That makes sense.

Sarah: – the way in which romance is written and the plots that were common change and evolve, especially in paranormal, because I like to think – and I could be wrong about this, but here’s my working theory – that paranormal romance was the last major trend before social media, so –

Amanda: Ooh!

Sarah: – so that was why that trend was so popular for so long, because then social media came and blogs came and newsgroups and social media and Twitter and Facebook and Facebook groups, and then you see trends cycling through a lot faster. Like, erotic romance lasted a while, but it wasn’t, it didn’t seem as long as paranormal, and then the trends –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – move through faster and faster and faster and faster until the point where, like, books, there are trends that are like potato chips. Like, you just eat them, and then it’s on to the next flavor. Paranormal took forever to wane, and I think that’s, my working theory is that it’s because readers weren’t really talking to each other as much, and there were –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – very few channels of information, and so the, the Carpathians are sort of part of that high, the high point of the paranormal, I guess I want to call it the paranormal bubble?

[Laughter]

Sarah: Like, there was just nothing but paranormal everywhere: vampires all the way down! And so there’s some really funky stuff that goes on in some of these books, that you would look at them now and be like, what the hell is this? But at the time, overbearing, emotionally unavailable, manipulative jerkwad heroes were everywhere!

Amanda: What makes me, I guess, saddest about paranormal as a genre is, like, I got into it as it was still popular, so I’m still reading series that started, you know, in the early 2000s.

Sarah: Oh yeah!

Amanda: You know, like, Nalini Singh’s books are still being published in the Psy-Changeling series.

Sarah: It’s next on my list!

Amanda: Kresley Cole – great segue, Amanda!

Sarah: Nice job!

Amanda: [Laughs] But J. R. Ward is still coming out with books –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: – tied to the Black Dagger Brotherhood –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: – and I miss having something new to jump into that doesn’t feel like I have to do a bunch of homework to kind of get to –

Sarah: [Announcer voice] Previously – [laughs]

Amanda: Yeah. Previously, previously on the Black Dagger Brotherhood: everyone’s still wearing leather pants and sunglasses.

Sarah: [Laughs] That’s one of the things I like about Nalini Singh’s Psy-Changeling world is that she brought the first sort of arc to a –

Amanda: Yes.

Sarah: – to an end, and now there’s the Psy-Changeling Trinity where if you’re like, if you’ve heard these books are so great but you don’t want to start with book one, you can start with the first book in the Trinity part, which is now, like, you’ll be, you’ll be caught up pretty quickly.

Amanda: But I feel bad, like, recommending a, like, a, a series that’s on book sixteen. It’s like, listen, there are sixteen books in the series, but it doesn’t start getting good until book four –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: – but you do have to read books one through three to get the idea, and then, like, you might want to skip that one, and it just, like –

Sarah: That’s –

Amanda: – I wish it were easier.

Sarah: – exactly why my, my, my list of recs says – and I quote – “Sookie Stackhouse – ehhh?”

Amanda: Like, do you need to read it?

Sarah: I mean, Dead Before – what is it?

Amanda: It’s Dead Until Dark.

Sarah: Dead Until Dark is, is a great book. I’ve read that book multiple times. Like –

Amanda: Yes.

Sarah: – that book worked on me on a number of ways, but I’ve never gone past book three!

Amanda: Listen, I – if I remember correctly from reading what happened –

[Laughter]

Sarah: Bookpooper.

Amanda: I –

Sarah: We need a Bookpooper is what we need.

Amanda: I l-, so I was an Eric Northman stan? And I believe at the end of the series she ends up with Sam? Listen, I don’t care if this is a spoiler; the books and the series have ended years ago, so you’ve had your time.

Sarah: Listen, my rule is, if it’s, if the movie is on an airplane, then you can spoil it. The book has been out for so long –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – it’s just kind of like lore now. I think it’s okay.

Amanda: But I was, like, an Eric Northman fan, and I was never really a Sam fan, but at the end of the series I believe she ends up with Sam, and – did Eric at one point become a realtor?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: I’m sorry, I’m googling.

Sarah: It took us a while to get to the google of this podcast.

Amanda: No. Bill at one point dated a real estate agent.

Sarah: Well, it’s better than being a real estate novelist!

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: Who never had time for a wife!

Amanda: What does that mean? So, yeah, I was disappointed and, you know, I’m glad I didn’t stick with the books because, like, that probably would have gotten a book tossed out of a window? So Alex Skarsgård. The whole Skarsgård clan, I, I’m going to go on record and say I think I like them better than the Hemsworth clan of beautiful brothers. But I also have had sex dreams about Pennywise the Clown, who was a Skarsgård brother, so – Sarsgard, Skarsgård?

Sarah: Apparently, there, apparently we have unlocked a secret to your unconscious.

Amanda: Skarsgård, yeah, yeah. So there’s Bill –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: There’s Bill, who plays Pennywise –

Sarah: Right.

Amanda: Alexander, who is a tall drink of water – tall drink of Swedish water, and you know that shit’s fresh ‘cause it’s coming off the glaciers. Gustaf, who’s been –

Sarah: Damn!

Amanda: He’s been in Westworld?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: He’s really good in Westworld, which also, which also had a Hemsworth brother, oddly enough. God. I’m sorry, I’m just going through, like, IMDb now looking at all the –

Sarah: All right.

Amanda: Val-, Valter, who’s twenty-four? I don’t know who, I’ve never seen Valter, but he’s there.

Sarah: You’re just going to have to go on a Skarsgård tour!

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: Yeah!

Amanda: Instead of like a, like a ghost tour of St. Augustine, I want a Skarsgård tour of Sweden. There are a lot of them.

Sarah: Okay.

Amanda: Anyways. [Laughs] Sorry, back to psychic pining.

Sarah: So psychic pining. Now, there are a lot of telepaths, as you said earlier, with the Psy-Changeling. There are a lot of telepaths in the Psy-Changeling world, and sometimes it comes with sort of the ability to understand what your partner’s feeling? Not so much having a conversation, but intuiting things very, very deeply, and that sort of psychic connection plays through a lot of the couples in the Psy-Changeling world.

Now, there’s also a book called Whispers in the Dark by Maya Banks, which I read a really long time ago. It has a telepath – one-way telepath – who talks to someone who’s prisoner, being held prisoner, and then they can talk to each other, but he doesn’t know who the, who she is. It’s a paranormal suspense, and it’s Maya Banks, so please expect a lot of boning in really strange circumstances. Like, Maya Banks is like the Empress of Danger Boning.

Amanda: Oh yeah.

Sarah: Like, the bad guys are, are, are after you, so you really need to take time out for some banging, like right now. There’s a lot of danger boning, but it can be really fun, and her Scottish historicals were really fun.

Another one that’s off, like, of this same sort of older paranormal, over-the-top, off-the-wall sort of –

Amanda: Those are the paranormal oeuvre? Is that, did I use that correctly?

Sarah: I think so.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: It’s a very specific flavor of paranormal. Like, paranormal now and paranormal at this point were very different things.

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: Lord of the Fading Lands by C. L. Wilson has some psychic connection between the characters, but wow, is the heroine perfect. She’s the most perfect, perfect, perfect –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – person in the history of perfection.

So next on my list was – as I said earlier – Sookie Stackhouse – ehhh. I mean –

Amanda: [Whispers] Just skip it! Just skip it!

Sarah: [Laughs] Now, I did find some other recommendations that are not books that I have read, but do feature this connection, and this was one I hadn’t thought of until I saw it and was like, oh, of course! Aliens and alien technology and aliens are often, have telepathic collect-, connections to people.

So Robin D. Owens wrote some mating-bond telepathy set in alien worlds. Another option is the Hexworld series by Jordan L. Hawk. They are animal shifters, but after they’ve had their mating bond they connect telepathically, and then alien technology with Lisa Henry in Dark Space. The alien technology creates this telepathic connection, and there’s a lot of cheats around that.

Like, for example, with the Murderbot series, all of them have the feed connection, so they’re constantly connected to each and they have private connections to each other where they can talk without really talking. Like they’re almost connecting through thinking. Well, I mean Murderbot can; the humans do something –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – called subvocalizing, which I’m trying to figure out how that would work, but they, they are able to connect to each other privately, which isn’t the same as telepathy, but I wanted to make sure to mention it.

And then –

Amanda: Yeah, I mean, it’s always hard; it’s like, I feel like what happens in paranormals isn’t exactly telepathy in, like, a standard definition.

Sarah: No, it’s a mating bond perk.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: It’s a mating bond perk. Not quite the same thing.

Amanda: But that would, like, that would fucking suck. Like, I love Eric to death, but I don’t want to hear his thoughts half the time!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: And I don’t think he wants to hear what I’m thinking half the time either.

Sarah: There are times when Adam is like, wait, that’s where your thought process went? I’m like, yeah, pretty much, that’s how my brain went.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: He’s like, wow, that’s not how my brain works. And I did –

Amanda: He’d keep it.

Sarah: Yeah – I did find the webtoon that I was thinking of. It is called “Asleep Beside You.” It appears to be complete. There are 406 editions of it. It is free.

Amanda: Wow.

Sarah: And it is by an artist named F. Arnott. The premise is that these two people fall asleep and wake up in the same bed somewhere they don’t know where they are, and they’re not sure if they can get out of the bed. They’re not, like, inappropriately connected. They’re just asleep in the same bed, and they wake up in their dream, and they talk to each other, and they get to know each other in this sort of dream world. Again, my catnip. I love stuff like that. Now, I know –

Amanda: How interesting, because, like, this, this trope doesn’t interest me at all? I don’t dislike it, it’s not something that I avoid, but it’s also not something that I will see in a book description and be like, ooh, that’s my jam!

Sarah: See, that, it’s, it’s my jam because I’m very much a reader who likes internal conflict, and the internal conflict of being so intimately connected to someone yet not necessarily knowing them all the way, but having this connection that is entirely unique and deeply, deeply intimate and isolated is really interesting to me.

Amanda: And I think, maybe because, like, I’m not a huge internal conflict person? I like my stakes to be higher, as we’ve mentioned.

Sarah: Mm-hmm. Yeah, you like it when the world is about to end –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – unless you bone.

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: Yeah.

So I know that we have definitely left off books that people have thought of.

Amanda: Oh yeah.

Sarah: So if you have ideas for telepathic pining for Leanne, please email us, because we would love to hear your suggestions, and we will do a future update, update episode where we add on to this recommendation list. You can email me at [email protected], or you can tweet at us @SmartBitches or @_ImAnAdult. Are you still an adult?

Amanda: I mean, God, with the shit I’ve had to deal with the last couple weeks, I’d better be a fucking adult!

Sarah: I think you’ve leveled up. Like, I think you get to start, like, whatever’s after adult – so if you have, you have suggestions that did not make onto this list and you’re like, how could you forget so-and-so? Please email us and we will update in a future episode about –

Amanda: Yeah, and if you, if you have a favorite Skarsgård brother, let me know! I want to hear –

Sarah: Yeah, ‘cause she’s –

Amanda: – who you enjoy.

Sarah: – she’s going to do a deep-dive research into Skarsgårdian lore.

Amanda: I’m going to rank them by height.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: No, I’m going to make little, what is it, I’m probably going to butcher this matryoshka dolls? Where you, like, finish little –

[Laughter]

Sarah: Okay, sure, sounds great, why not? Oh my gosh.

Amanda: Bill goes at, goes inside Stefan, and Stefan goes inside Alex.

Sarah: [Laughs] What the hell?

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: Okay, sure, sounds great.

Are you reading anything you want to talk about?

Amanda: I just, I haven’t started it yet, but I just picked up The Family Plot by Cherie Priest. That is my latest library book haul.

Sarah: Ooh!

Amanda: Which we’ve talked, we talked about it on Twitch, and we featured it on sale, but it’s like Southern Gothic horror. I love me some Southern Gothic horror. This woman’s family owns, like, a salvage yard, and she gets tasked with heading up a team to go and kind of get salvage parts out of this old, creepy house.

Sarah: Whoa, that sounds really good.

Amanda: I heard there’s like a, not necessarily like a twist, but I heard, like, the third act is intense. So we’ll see.

Any, any new library hauls? I know there’s quilting!

Sarah: Well, my, my library books are all books about how to quilt, so I got all my crafty books to learn how to quilt, ‘cause I’ve decided that’s my next thing, I’m going to learn how to quilt, and I read a book last night that really didn’t work for me. Too many children in peril and too much sadness, but next, I’m rereading Network Effect, the Murderbot novel, because that’s –

Amanda: Which, which reread is this? Four? Three? Five?

Sarah: Five, I think. Five times since it came out? Yeah. It’s like where I’m hanging out, basically. I’m looking at my spreadsheet right now.

And then I have a book called The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue?

Amanda: [Gasps]

Sarah: Oh, oh, okay?

Amanda: Oh my God. Sarah, I think you’re going to love it.

Sarah: [Laughs] Have you read it?

Amanda: I have started it, and I’ve been talking with Kristin, who is the publicist, Kristin Dwyer of –

Sarah: Yes?

Amanda: – Leo PR, who’s amazing.

Sarah: Yes.

Amanda: And she’s like, I sent it to Sarah; I think she’ll like it. Do you think she’ll like it? I was like, I think she’s going to like.

Sarah: Yeah, that’s next on my list.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: I’m trying to sort of, I’m trying to be patient with my brain because I can’t necessarily make it do the work of reading new stuff when I know that it’s tired?

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: So I’m like, all right, brain, we, we have a really great book to read. Let’s, you know, let’s get ready for this really great book. We can reread things, we can read cartoons.

Amanda: It’s very transportive. Like, it will –

Sarah: Oh, I’m in, I’m in. That sounds great. That’s exactly what I’m looking for.

Amanda: – take you places.

Sarah: That sounds exactly great.

Amanda: Also, this brief little end talk, I wonder if we should do a post on the site about what kind of like new hobbies we’ve taken on?

Sarah: Oh yeah, for sure! That would be a great idea!

Amanda: Yeah, like pandemic stuff like, you know, I think everyone – no offense to anyone – I think we’ve all moved past the point of sourdough starters, and –

Sarah: I was never in the sourdough starter crew.

Amanda: I wasn’t either! I have had friends be like, can I drop off some sourdough starter for you if you want some? I was like, nah, I’m good!

Sarah: Nope.

Amanda: So I’m very curious. I want to hear, like, what other sorts of like projects people are taking on? Like the McElroy brothers of My Brother, My Brother and Me did, like, a series of like what they’ve started doing and, like –

Sarah: I’m putting this on the calendar for the site –

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: – to post.

Amanda: One started doing woodworking; another one did, like, candy making?

Sarah: Well, I mean, one of my hobbies is clearly doing my nails and being really retentive about it. Like, I really take my time?

Amanda: That’s fine!

Sarah: Sewing.

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: I, I will post pictures of the – so I finished a cross-stitch, this big cross-stitch that says, I read past my bedtime? And then I made it –

Amanda: Yeah, it’s very, very cute.

Sarah: Thank you! And I made it into a pillow; I bought the fabric on eBay. Now I’m going to be quilting. I made masks. Like, early on in the pandemic –

Amanda: Yes.

Sarah: – I made some masks. And I’m cooking a lot, but I always cook. Like, we’ve always cooked a lot, so –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – now I’m just like, what desserts can I make with absolutely no guilt? No more guilt: eat what I want.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: And I’m using the nice wine glasses all the fucking time. That’s my other hobby: drinking! In fact, my current cross-stitch project is a giant chart of drink assemblies.

Amanda: Though I’m not an Old Fashioned fan, the Old Fashioned square on Sarah’s cross-stitch is adorable ‘cause it has, like, a little cherry?

Sarah: It’s so, it’s so cute. But I have the discussion question about our, our pandemic hobbies on the, on the calendar –

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: – for our discussion.

Amanda: Yeah! Just see what people are dipping into, what they –

Sarah: Heck yeah!

Amanda: – are trying.

Sarah: Right!

[music]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. Thank you to Amanda for hanging out with me, thank you to Leanne for writing to us, and hello again to Kate.

If you would like to email us with a reading or a book type request, we love those. You can email us at [email protected]. You can find Amanda and me on Smart Bitches, of course. She is on Twitter @_ImAnAdult, and we stream twice a week on Twitch playing Stardew Badly, so if you like our podcast episodes, you’ll probably like hanging out with us there, and we love talking with people in the chat. And that’s at twitch.tv/smarttwitches.

Hello, and thank you again to our Patreon community for supporting the show. If you would like to join, have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches.

This episode was brought to you in part by Native Deodorant. Native is wonderful. I’ve been using it for a few weeks, and I’ve been using their most popular scent, coconut vanilla. I understand why it’s most popular: it’s pretty great. And I believe that reading labels is important for me, certainly. I really like knowing exactly what is inside Native. It is aluminum-free, paraben-free, and talc-free. It won’t clog your sweat glands, and it’s never tested on animals. You can try Native risk-free. There’s free shipping on every order, and Native offers thirty-day free returns and exchanges in the US. Do what I did and make the switch to Native today by going to nativedeo.com/TRASHYBOOKS or use promo code TRASHYBOOKS and get twenty percent off your first order. That’s native D-E-O dot com slash TRASHYBOOKS or use promo code TRASHYBOOKS at checkout for twenty percent off your first order.

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I will have links to all of the things we talked about, including the nail polish, Moviepooper, the place where we talked about getting masks, and that webtoon, which I know you’re not going to want to miss, and I will have links to all the books we mentioned as well. And like I said, if you think of a book that we forgot to mention and that you think we should definitely pass along to Leanne, email us at [email protected], or ask for help for yourself. I’ll be doing regular episodes with Amanda ‘cause they’re really fun and you really seem to enjoy them.

As always, I’m ending with a bad joke. This joke is really bad, and it’s so bad that when my husband saw it on Reddit he said, did you see this one? And I said, yes, I did! And he said, you’re going to use it, right? And I said, yes, I am, because I’m terrible. This was inspired by Reddit user /HaysStays. It’s super bad. I love it.

What do you get when you move the Wi-Fi router out to the barn?

Give up? What do you get when you move the Wi-Fi router out to the barn?

Stable connection.

[Laughs] I just hit my headphones on the microphone! And the cat is staring at me like, what is wrong with you? Stable connection! Given how many storms and power outages have been in the area, that made me laugh so hard! [Laughs more] And I know many of you pass these along to people, so I hope that’s worth making many friends and family groan as much as, you know, my husband and I groaned at each other! [Still laughing] Stable connection.

On behalf of Amanda and myself and Wilbur, who is now investigating my closet loudly – oh my gosh, buddy! – we wish you the very best of reading. Have a wonderful weekend. We will see you back here next week.

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

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