420. When No One Is Watching, with Alyssa Cole

[music]

Sarah Wendell: Hello, and welcome to episode number 420 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell, and my guest today is Alyssa Cole! Yes, she is back on the podcast! This time we are going to talk about the release of When No One Is Watching, which is out on September 1st. We also talk about her speech at the Chicago North Spring Fling and about hosting online events for Date Night with Loyalty Books. Plus you’re going to hear a lot of roosters. A whole lot of roosters.

Special note to garlicknitter: the roosters don’t need to be in the transcript unless you feel like putting them there. I certainly will not stop you. [We’ll see… – gk]

I also want to give a general warning that we do a lot of discussion about – [inhales] – racist garbage people, basically, and the awfulness of history for indigenous and Black Americans since forever.

I will have links to all of the books that we discuss and where you can find Alyssa Cole and of course where you can find When No One Is Watching if you have not preordered it yet. [Whispers] It’s really good. Really, really good!

If you were looking for a new podcast to listen to while you do all the nifty things that you do, may I suggest Too Stupid to Live?

Becky Feldman: Hey, everyone! It’s Becky Feldman here, and I am too stupid to live. And do you want to hear something crazy? I also host a comedy podcast called Too Stupid to Live! How did that happen? I have no idea. Anyway, on Too Stupid to Live, I am joined by some hilarious guests where we review romance novels five dollars and under, and we have covered the gamut of romantic fiction from historical romances to dinosaur erotica, which, you know what, now that, now that I think about it, I think that’s, like, also a historical romance. Anyway, each episode we go on this engaging journey. I’ve had Sarah MacLean, the fabulous author, talking about the power of romance to Nick Wiger of the Doughboys podcast reading a sexy excerpt in the voice of Elizabeth Holmes. That one still gives me very sexy nightmares, but I just can’t get enough. So TSTL puts out two episodes a month, and you can find it wherever you get your podcasts.

Sarah: I will have links where you can find Too Stupid to Live in the show notes at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast.

And speaking of the show and noteworthy things, I have a compliment in this episode!

To Christine C: After much debate and thousands of messages, an international association of grammarians have decided that the plural of you is a marvelous of Christines.

If you would like a compliment of your very own, have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches. Monthly pledges start at one entire dollar per month, and every pledge keeps the show going and is deeply, deeply appreciated by me and everyone who loves the transcripts. [Me too! – gk] Thank you again to our Patreon community for being so awesome.

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I will end the episode with an absolutely dreadful joke submitted by a listener, because you are all so awesome. But for now, let’s start the podcast! On with my interview with Alyssa Cole.

[music]

Sarah: Congratulations to you and the roosters on When No One Is Watching. When we last talked it had, like, just been announced, and the cover was just unveiled, and now it’s almost here!

Alyssa Cole: Yes!

Sarah: And it’s, it doesn’t seem like it’s that long, but given the Quarantimes, it feels like we last spoke literal years ago –

Alyssa: [Laughs]

Sarah: – and in that time, a, the way in which we talk about the issues that are in this book has, has really changed. It’s like almost –

Alyssa: Yeah.

Sarah: – like everyone gained a lot more fluency in all of these things that are in this book. Does it change how you think about the release and the world that this book is coming out into?

Alyssa: I think on one, one aspect is that it does make the release weirder for me, because seeing –

Sarah: Ahh, yeah!

Alyssa: – so many of the things that are discussed in the book and that are, you know, central to the book start of, sort of play out in the real world – I mean, they were already playing out in the real world to some extent – but play out in this way and kind of have more, like you said, more people aware of them. I guess one –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Alyssa: – thing that will change is that I was worried – or not worried, but prepared on some level for people to kind of say it was an exaggeration or, you know, unrealistic or – I mean, it’s fiction, but you know what I mean. Like, oh, heavy-handed –

Sarah: No.

Alyssa: – perhaps. When, but then when you look at reality, at what’s going on and what’s being exposed, which is just like a fraction of what’s going on in America, you see that it’s not an exaggeration. So I think –

Sarah: No! It’s actual plans, yeah.

Alyssa: Yeah, it’s, it’s just, like, strange, it’s very strange seeing this play out, but in a way it’s kind of – I’m not glad that any of these terrible things are happening, but I am, in a way, glad that more people are being made aware of them? One aspect of the book is how these things go on because no one is watching. Like, it’s literally in the title because people do these things and they get overlooked, or they get brushed to the side, or no one is really believed when they say these terrible things are happening to them or happening to their community. So I guess –

Sarah: Yeah.

Alyssa: – one interesting thing is seeing these things come to light and seeing people and communities kind of fighting back against this. So it is very, you know, like I said, it is very strange to have this as the backdrop to the release and seeing these things happening and, like, wanting to talk about them, but also in a weird way, like, not wanting it to seem like – like, I don’t want to use that for promo – [laughs] – if that makes sense? But, like –

Sarah: No, absolutely! I get it!

Alyssa: But also, all of those things just being very central to what’s going on in the book, and even, like, the other week, I saw an article saying that Breonna Taylor, who was killed by the police, and because they had a no-knock warrant –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Alyssa: – they could just bust into her house, and then reading that –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Alyssa: – the warrant was served as part of a plan kind of trying to get rid of elements that were not wanted in a, you know, historically African-American neighborhood that was undergoing gentrification, it really was just like –

Sarah: Yep.

Alyssa: – you know, when I was writing this book and talking about it with people I was like, it’s a conspiracy theory book, but none of the stuff I was writing is, was researching is, you know, is really a conspiracy theory; it’s not a conspiracy theory if it’s real. So it’s strange to see it so blatantly being played out and discussed, but also glad that there is light being shed on these issues and hopefully change coming.

Sarah: Yeah, it, one of the things that I was thinking when I was reading it – and I promise no spoilers – you know, ‘cause you and I talked about how you and I lived in the same place. We lived in Jersey City for a time, and I moved there in ’97, so I was basically an early gentrifier, ‘cause I was priced out of Manhattan, and Hoboken by that point was like its whole planet of economics. Hoboken is still –

Alyssa: Yeah.

Sarah: – a whole other planet of economics. But I was, I was basically early, early gentrification, and when we talked about living in Jersey City and watching it slowly change, and not being able to really articulate that sense of, why are there condos where my middle school used to be? Why are there so many places to bathe a small dog?

Alyssa: [Laughs]

Sarah: What, why, who needs all this sushi? There wasn’t a name for that really sort of unnerving sense of dislocation, and, and that works in the book, because, because the poor heroine is like, I, I don’t know how to articulate how weird this is, but there’s definitely weird shit going on.

Alyssa: Yeah.

Sarah: And there’s real names for it. Much like when you were writing The A.I. Who Loved Me and all of this stuff came true, now there’s, like, a whole proper language and miles of think pieces about it!

Alyssa: [Laughs] Yeah. I mean, the, the, I feel like this was really, for me it was a good topic for a thriller, because there is this sense of unreality, of wondering if you’re imagining things, if you’re overreacting. Losing –

Sarah: Yeah!

Alyssa: Like, losing aspects of yourself or of your – I don’t know, I feel like it, for, like, as I was writing, I was just thinking, like, you know, just that strange sensation when, you know, you show up – [laughs] – you show up in the place you grew up and, like, the video store is gone, and there’s a giant condominium with, like –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Alyssa: – tennis courts on the roof. So –

Sarah: Yeah!

Alyssa: [Laughs] So it, it really, I feel like, is like horror in a way, and I feel like, you know, it’s not just cities. It happens, you know, change happening in small towns or big cities where there’s this sense of, you know, obviously nothing stays the same, and it probably wouldn’t be good if where you grew up is exactly the same as it was when you were a kid, but there is this kind of –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Alyssa: – sense of loss and of feeling unmoored, I guess? When you go back to –

Sarah: Yeah.

Alyssa: – find something familiar and it’s disappeared, and it’s been replaced by something that is just, like, kind of alien? [Laughs] Even if it’s something, like, you enjoy? So yeah, it’s, it’s very strange. And, like, for me, part of it, like, you know, is from that, from where I grew up, but also I live, I lived in Brooklyn for, you know, most of my adult life until I moved here, and –

Sarah: Yep.

Alyssa: – and I lived in various places. I lived in Park Slope, but in Park Slope I was, like, at the edge of Park Slope, like down where all the car dealerships were under, right, the overpass was, like, right over there. Living in –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Alyssa: – [laughs] – living in an illegal apartment that was like a one-bedroom apartment cut in half.

Sarah: Yep!

Alyssa: You know, Williamsburg, Fort Greene, Crown Heights, Bed-Stuy, and, you know, because often when you live in New York you move a lot, or I did at least, but –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Alyssa: So just getting to see all of the – it’s something kind of I just also absorbed over the years, just being, moving to all of these different places, seeing what I could afford in those places and how the rent was rising over the years, seeing other people being dislocated even as I moved in, because, you know, in some ways, even though I’m Black and I was really into Black communities and I wasn’t wealthy, I was still someone paying as the rent prices went up, paying these higher rent prices –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Alyssa: – and in that way contributing to gentrification? Like, in other ways, obviously I still used many of the resources of the community and the businesses, or frequented the businesses and things like that that were already there –

Sarah: Yeah!

Alyssa: – those were part of the appeal –

Sarah: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Alyssa: – for me, but, like, there’s just this, you know, idea of, like, how do you, how does a neighborhood change for the better without – first of all, what is change for the better? What – and how does a neighborhood change in a way that benefits the people who live there, who have spent their lives there, who have, you know, worked to own these homes and keep their neighborhood together –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Alyssa: – with, how do you change something without, like, then being like, okay, well, all of you who are here need to leave now. [Laughs] And I don’t –

Sarah: Yeah.

Alyssa: I don’t know what the way is, but I feel, you know, I feel that right now, the main solution is, let’s just get these people out of here at any, you know, by any means necessary so that we can make more money.

Sarah: Yeah. Oh yeah. Because the real gentrification is real estate corporations and government permission to deny mortgages to some and then allow other people to build tax-free. Like, that’s the –

Alyssa: Yeah.

Sarah: – actual villainy of gentrification.

Alyssa: And raising property prices.

Sarah: The people who are taking advantage of it are part of it! Yeah, exactly, exactly.

You dove into some real history in this book and connected the villainy back hundreds of years. Were there details that you learned that you didn’t put into the book? And are there things that you read about that have since come to light where you were like, I thought I was the only one who knew about this?

Alyssa: [Laughs] There are some things like, you know, obviously there, I was getting the research from somewhere. The research for this, I did do a lot of research, specifically for the book, but also I have writ-, because I’ve written, you know, several historic-, American historicals and several set in New York, I have been kind of doing this research for years at this point and –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Alyssa: – kind of had a lot of these ideas in the back of my head because, you know, like Sydney, the protagonist in the book, when you’re looking at this history of marginalized people, you definitely start to notice some trends. So things that I came across – I mean, there are things that I came across that I feel like I didn’t, I tried to keep it very Brooklyn-specific, but things that I came across that are, like, kind of just touched on in the book was, you know, reading about colonial history was fascinating to me, and when the Dutch came over and set up New Amsterdam and they had enslaved African people who –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Alyssa: – you know, were working the farms for them, but also, like, they had some level of autonomy but were still enslaved and would still have do, you know, what the farmers wanted them to do, but also learning more about how the indigenous groups who were living in the area were treated, I think a lot of the research that came up was just about people doing really unnecessarily evil things? [Laughs] And always having a reason –

Sarah: Yeah?

Alyssa: – why it’s not their fault or why they should do it. I mean, we just, I woke up this morning seeing tweets about Tom Cotton saying – who is a piece of shit – saying that slavery was a necessary evil. So those people who are terrible pieces of garbage still exist, unfortunately. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yep.

Alyssa: So, you know, it’s just this, a lot of it is just seeing, and seeing that history repeats itself in so many ways because human behavior follows similar patterns. Like, history isn’t something that just exists independent of human behavior; it’s the result of human behavior, and even how it’s reported and shared is based on human behavior and whose history is prioritized and whose is seen as unimportant or – yeah. I could go on a whole tangent about this. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah. The more things change, the more things stay the same –

Alyssa: Yeah.

Sarah: – and people, people have very easy, easily ready reasons that sound really good at first glance when, when the motivation is profit.

Alyssa: Yes.

Sarah: It’s really easy to motivate profit and to excuse a lot of heinous treatment of people when the reason is, well, because there’s money. I mean, look at the, look at the quarantine, even! Everything is, well, we have to reopen. I don’t understand, why do we have to reopen bars and restaurants? We’re not a bar and restaurant culture in the US! No, we’ve got to reopen bars and restaurants to the point where people are dying! Why? ‘Cause of money. Oh, geeze!

Alyssa: Yeah. It’s, it’s ridic-, it’s ridiculous.

Sarah: It is! It’s utterly ridiculous. And what works so well in the book is that you have the, the tangible creepiness, like there are bugs and there are things and there are, you know, pieces of – how do I say this? – things that influence the characters that they didn’t mean to, they did, they did not mean to interact with, and then there’s much larger things at work that when you try to explain them sound like a conspiracy theory, like you said, but they’re real. Like, redlining is real! Denying mortgages is real. Giving people a tax break to build a giant condo so that international, international criminals can buy condos that they don’t live in, that’s real! That happens right now! So it, it works in that sort of sense of dislocation and creepiness, plus actual creepiness! Like, did you scare yourself writing this at all?

Alyssa: [Laughs]

Sarah: Did I ask you that before? I’m, I’m not sure if I asked you that before, ‘cause you scared the bejesus out of me.

Alyssa: I did. There were some points in the book that I was writing scenes – I mean, for many of the scenes, like some of, there is some, like, straight-up kind of horror stuff, but I really tried to –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Alyssa: – think about the things that I would find scariest, even, like, emotionally and psychologically, and, like, so yeah, some of the scenes, as I was writing them, it was like, you know when you get, like, that itchy feeling between your shoulder blades –

Sarah: Yes.

Alyssa: – that’s, like, anxiety creeping in? And I was like, I am writing this. I know – [laughs] – I literally know what’s about to happen, but yet, even just the thought of the, you know, the situation is, like, making me want to jump out of my skin. So yeah. There, there were a lot of scenes that kind of really, I was like, is this too much, or is – [laughs] – like –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Alyssa: I, I don’t, in the end, I hope, I think it wasn’t too much, but, like, I really wanted it to be, like, very tense for the reader. And I was like –

Sarah: Yeah.

Alyssa: – I was telling someone –

Sarah: Yeah.

Alyssa: – because, you know, people have been asking, what is the difference between writing a thriller and the romance, and, you know, I’ve been talking about how romance itself is a, a mystery? The mystery is not will –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Alyssa: – will these two people fall in love? It’s how will these two people fall in love? Because we know that they’re going to fall in love. Like, that’s – [laughs] – when we pick up the romance book, we know that they’re going to fall love, in love, and the writer has to trick us into believing that something will happen to keep them apart on some, in some way. So I feel like –

Sarah: Yeah.

Alyssa: – most romance writers really are mystery writers as well on some level? But, so that aspect wasn’t very different from a romance, but I just leaned into different emotions. Instead of leaning into, or instead of focusing on a romance – though there are romantic elements in the book – instead of leaning into, like, those good romance feelings and the progression of those, I leaned into the terrible anxiety feelings that we kind of just sprinkle in sometimes in romance so they, like, when we are like, oh no –

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Alyssa: – something’s going to happen to this couple, or – and I just kind of focused on that aspect of, instead? So, like –

Sarah: Yeah.

Alyssa: – I sprinkle in clues about that instead of, like, how the couple will come together.

Sarah: Yep. And it works, too! It’s really, really good!

Alyssa: Thank you!

Sarah: You’re welcome! Thank you for scaring the bejesus out of me.

[Laughter]

Sarah: I had to read this book in the afternoon sunlight so I knew I was not, like, alone in a dark room!

Alyssa: You know the funniest thing – I was just going to say, the funny thing is that I actually am a huge scaredy-cat now? Like, when I was a kid I watched all kinds of horror things and read all kinds of horror things that I shouldn’t be reading or watching, like, as an eight-year-old or a ten-year-old, but now, like, I find it very difficult to watch horror movies or read scary things or, like, hear ghost stories. I’m like, oh no, I’m going to go in the other room! So – [laughs] – so it is funny to me on some level when people are talking about how scary the book is because I’m like, would I be even able, would I even be able to read my own book that I wrote if I didn’t write it?

Sarah: [Laughs] Well, I mean, and you, you, you really explore and play with the different ways of scaring people. It’s, I can see why your, why, why your own experiences with being scared are in the book.

Alyssa: [Laughs]

Sarah: This past weekend, you gave a speech virtually at the Chicago North Spring Fling. When you were talking about looking at what romance does, it reminded me of your speech, also really good. When did you start thinking of the idea of America culturally as a romance villain and the lack of grappling with its own past? When did you start thinking about that?

Alyssa: Uhhh – [laughs] – three hours before the speech when it was due and I had to write it?

[Laughter]

Sarah: Nice!

Alyssa: I –

Sarah: Nice! [Laughs]

Alyssa: I think, I mean, you were at RWA last year when I had to do the Librarian’s Day keynote and could not write it for the entire week but was only able to write it like three hours before, when it was at 8 a.m. on the Saturday.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Alyssa: So that’s kind of like how my –

Sarah: Yeah!

Alyssa: I guess that’s just how my brain is with that stuff. And I started to write the speech, and I didn’t actually know going in that that’s what I was going to write about? I was just thinking about the, you know, the administration and how kind of, the unfairness of what’s going on in America right now, and I don’t know, I just was like –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Alyssa: – we wouldn’t tolerate this behavior – [laughs] – from anyone. Like, I was just kind of just thinking about romance, because I did, initially I was just going to talk about romance as, you know, something that gets us through these hard times, but as I was writing that, I did start to think about–

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Alyssa: – how there are so many different aspects of how romance gets us through, and, you know, yes, it’s like the romance, but people also, you know, you read for romance; you read for sexytimes if that, if you’re into that; you read for – but a lot of it is about connection?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Alyssa: It’s what people enjoy, readers enjoy when they’re reading romance, and that – but I also thinking about accountability, and probably somewhere in the back of my head I was thinking about, there was a conv-, I had taught a Conflict and Characterization in Dialogue class, but you know, there’s recently been the conversations about conflict and how much conflict is necessary, but I think I was just generally thinking about the kinds of conflict that there are in a romance, and somewhere in my brain –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Alyssa: – I kind of pulled it together with the fact that romance often teaches us things. And, like, you know, again, it doesn’t have to teach us anything, because that’s not something that we put on other genres to do; no one says that a science fiction or a mystery novel has to –

Sarah: No.

Alyssa: – teach you anything. But I do think that romances are different in some ways from other novels because of the emotional resonance that they have?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Alyssa: And this is not saying that other rom-, other genres can’t have emotional resonance, but also the emotional resonance that readers are looking for when they pick them up, and I think that, you know – and I’m sure you’ve discussed this before; I think you probably have it in your book, about how people, romance can kind of teach people what we need from relationships? Because, you know, who else is teaching people what they need from relationships? There aren’t classes in school; there aren’t really healthy public discussions of what people should get from relationships; there are just kind of, well, you know, the pressure for people to be in relationships or to get married, not caring whether they even want –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Alyssa: – to do that, but if they do want to do that, there’s not really any kind of, like, framework for, as a society, for telling people, you know, what they should expect, how relationships –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Alyssa: – really work. I think society often teaches parents to hide how relationships work from their children on some level. So romance can really be –

Sarah: Yes.

Alyssa: – like, supplemental education –

Sarah: Yes.

Alyssa: – on some level, whether that’s the intention of the author or not. They can serve as kind of supplemental education on the level of someone reading it can be like, they’re not necessarily going to be like, okay, I need to find, like, a billionaire boss – [laughs] – to, like, sweep me off my feet, but they can say –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Alyssa: – okay, so I notice that I like the kind of, I like books where the hero is very careful and loving with the heroine, or –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Alyssa: – so, but the person I’m dating is not careful or loving with me, and in fact makes me feel bad. Maybe this is not the right relationship for me. I mean, this is like a very general example, and I don’t think it’s necessarily –

Sarah: Yep!

Alyssa: – a conscious thing, but I do think showing patterns of people being treated well, being treated with love – and then what I talked about in the speech was that, in addition to teaching, you know, people, in addition to the appeal being connection and showing how people can be loved, it’s also about accountability. It’s, because, like, when we pick up a romance, we know and, like, anticipate that someone is going to mess up! [Laughs] Someone’s going to do something –

Sarah: Yep.

Alyssa: – really annoying, something’s going to hurt the other person’s feelings, or they’re both going to hurt each other’s feelings in some way, but then that they will grovel – you know, we call it the grovel in romance? – they will grovel, they will realize that they made a mistake, and they will try really hard to fix it and to show the other, their love interest, that they won’t hurt them in that same way again, and, like, just as I was thinking about it –

Sarah: Yeah.

Alyssa: – I was like, why can’t we expect that from our country? Why can’t we expect that from –

Sarah: It’s a good question.

Alyssa: You know, like, because I feel like the relationship with America can be like a bad, a gaslighting, abusive relationship. You keep getting beat down; you keep having things taken away and then being told, well, no, maybe it’s your fault, or, you just need to try harder, or, that’s just the way things are, and, like, we would never accept that in a romance novel from a fellow protagonist, and obviously this is, you know, this is just a, a, a simplification, obviously, but I really feel like, for me, it just kind of really struck me that if people can understand why a hero needs to grovel or why the protagonist who messed up needs to grovel and needs to make amends, they should be able to understand why people are so upset at the state of America right now after so many terrible things happening –

Sarah: Yeah.

Alyssa: – and never even getting a, oh, sorry! [Laughs] Like, let alone –

Sarah: Yeah.

Alyssa: – like, actual, tangible things that will make things better.

Sarah: And the constant message that if something is wrong then it’s your fault and you did something to deserve it. No matter what went wrong, it’s, it’s your fault.

Alyssa: Yes.

Sarah: It’s, it’s constant gaslighting; you’re right.

So you talk in the speech also about the bleak moment, which makes more sense than black anyway – which, yes, yes, it does. Was that something you also were thinking about in, prior to writing the speech, or did you get to that point and be like, no, hold up! Let’s call it something else.

Alyssa: [Laughs] I mean, again, it was probably something that was in the back of my head, because, again, I had been teaching a class about conflict and there had been discussion of conflict, and there was, like, the dark moment, the black moment.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Alyssa: If there’s another, better way to describe it that doesn’t have, give negative color connotation, why not? I mean, I think –

Sarah: Yes.

Alyssa: – the bleak moment works just as well and is more fitting, because we’re talking about the emotional, generally that is the emotional downfall of the characters, not, or the emotional trough from the character, so we don’t, like – I, I’m going to use it moving forward. I don’t think that, you know, I’m sure maybe some people will have feelings about that, but I don’t understand why anyone really would. [Laughs] It’s not that big of a deal to just say bleak.

Sarah: Never underestimate the power of somebody to be upset about something like that. And that’s –

Alyssa: I know. I mean, I –

Sarah: Somebody will, for whatever reason.

Alyssa: I imagine someone would, but I, I, if they want to waste their energy on that, that’s fine with me. I’ll just –

[Laughter]

Alyssa: – continue on. I can only control –

Sarah: Obviously.

Alyssa: – my own energy, so.

Sarah: And, and you’re right that one of the major components of a, of growth in a person is to be able to say, yeah, that was wrong; let’s fix that. Let, let me make sure that I fix it and I don’t do it again. And that is not a lesson that has been learned on a larger level, whether you’re talking about gentrification or you’re talking about police brutality or you’re just talking about abuse patterns. It’s –

Alyssa: Yeah.

Sarah: – it can get really disheartening and overwhelming to see it repeat like that.

Alyssa: It is! It can, and, like, when you, you know, you write up police brutality, like, when you really think about all the protests that are going on right now, they’re literally because people said, can you stop beating and killing black people? And the police said, no – [laughs] – and in fact –

Sarah: No. Yeah!

Alyssa: – we are mad that you even asked us to stop, and now we’re going to beat everyone. [Laughs] Like, this makes no logical sense! It – and I know racism is not logical, but –

Sarah: [Laughs] It really does not, no.

Alyssa: But, like –

Sarah: – It makes absolutely no sense.

Alyssa: – it really, like, drives me up a wall when I think about it. Like, literally, imagine someone just being like, hey, can you stop, like, hurting me? And them being like, no! And now I’m enraged because you pointed out that I was hurting you. Like, it’s so ridiculous, which is why it’s also so upsetting, because –

Sarah: It’s abuse!

Alyssa: Yeah, it’s just ta-, it’s abuse, and also, the thing that I always come back to is, think of how much energy we have to put into pushing back against this, trying to make things right, trying to even get things to a sense of basic normality where, like, someone can even admit that they have done something wrong or that, you know, police or politicians have done something wrong. All of that wasted energy – [laughs] – for, just because someone is being absolutely –

Sarah: Yeah!

Alyssa: – ridiculous! Like, it’s pathetic! But –

Sarah: Yep.

Alyssa: – I mean, their, their actions and their rationale are pathetic, and then we have to waste so much energy dealing with it. It’s very frustrating.

Sarah: And often the energy being devoted to something that like that is so nonsensical and irrational and illogical is often a smoke screen and a, and a distraction from something else that’s much, much worse.

Alyssa: Yeah. I mean, there – I mean, we can come back to – [laughs] – conspiracy theories.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Alyssa: But, like, you know, there are just so many, there are so many terrible things going on, and I know this sounds, this is, like, becoming a very bummer podcast, but, like, it, part, there are also good things going on in the world, but when, to the conspiracy theory situation, like, I feel like a lot of times, conspiracy theory or the sensation like the, oh, well, that can’t be true! That has to be an exaggeration. It’s kind of a form of protection, like, for our –

Sarah: Yeah!

Alyssa: – our mental health, because having to acknowledge, like, all of the, like, levels of really fucked-up stuff going on is overwhelming!

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Alyssa: But I –

Sarah: It really is.

Alyssa: But I do think that, you know, right now, more and more is coming out, more and more history is being researched and presented to general audiences outside of, you know, historical, historical circles, historical research circles, so hopefully on some level people will begin to, you know, think of it differently, about what’s going on and, I guess, the fact that we can’t just – [laughs] – you know, I, I feel like we talked about, this is something else we talked about a long time ago – the, you know, there’s the idea that the arc of the moral universe point, bends toward justice, and that’s not –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Alyssa: – it’s not true! [Laughs] It’s –

Sarah: It’s not.

Alyssa: It doesn’t naturally bend that way. It’s trying to bend the other way, or it’s being pushed the other way, and so hopefully more people will be – I guess history is kind of just a back-and-forth of who is on, who and how many people are on either side of it pushing one way or the other? So hopefully right now it seems like more people are getting on the right side, pushing toward justice, and hopefully it stays like that some period of time –

Sarah: Yeah.

Alyssa: – and that we are able to keep pushing. But that’s, you know – and I think at the end of the day, that’s all we can do. That’s what people before us have done, even when it feels very disheartening.

Sarah: I hope so.

Alyssa: It’s what people have always done, and, you know, it, it’s, that in itself can feel overwhelming: like, ugh, this goes on and on. But we’re still, you know, the thing that I try to always focus on is that we’re still able to, to enjoy life on some level for the most part, or at least on some level. Not, I know that’s not true of everyone. We’re, as a communities, we’re able to come together to support one another, and hopefully in the near future we will be able to, you know, have a country, and I’ll say multiple countries, because a, a lot of countries are going through it right now. Like, there is something –

Sarah: Yep.

Alyssa: – definitely not great in the general political air that hasn’t been for a, a few years now. So – but hopefully people start to get things together, start to really understand how bad things will get if everyone doesn’t start pushing that arc toward justice, because just standing there is not going to help anyone.

Sarah: Now, to turn towards better subjects, you have been hosting Date Night with Loyalty Books, and you’ve had some really great conversations and guests. How did that begin? What, what are you doing, and how much fun has this been for you?

Alyssa: [Laughs]

Sarah: And how much do the roosters enjoy it?

Alyssa: Well, the roosters are usually sleeping during Date Night –

Rooster: Cock-a-doodle-doo!

Alyssa: – but the frogs and the crickets –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Alyssa: – do enjoy it. Loyalty Books is a Black-owned bookstore. I met Hannah at an event; you know, I did an event at a bookstore and then – that she worked at – then I did, when she opened Loyalty Books I did an event there with Mia Sosa that is still one of my favorite events because it was, like, a heat wave, and right before the event started the electricity went out. People still showed up, so we folded paper fans for the people who were coming, and we lit candles, and, you know, people showed up and, like, handed out, they went and got, like, cold drinks. I think the electricity came on halfway or toward the end of the event, but it was, for me, you know, obviously it was like a really nice mini-encapsulation of the romance community and how we can come together to just –

Sarah: Yeah.

Alyssa: – handle things as they pop up. But – so that was fun – but anyway, so after, you know, things started to shut down, we were talking about doing a, a one-off event, like a bookstore event –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Alyssa: – because, you know, everyone was kind of looking for ways to help indies keep their businesses going. It basically –

Sarah: Yes.

Alyssa: – started, we were going to do this one event, and then I was like, but what if we do it like every two weeks? And then Hannah and I kind of both just, like – [laughs] – adding things on: now we can do this! Now we can do this! And so then it turned, it turned into a series of –

Sarah: Yep! That’s how it happens.

Alyssa: [Laughs] And it’s been really great. You know, it’s really been fun getting to speak to so many different authors, and also having, like, a point of connection while so many people are isolated, whether that’s, you know, or even –

Sarah: Yeah!

Alyssa: – even if they’re not isolated and they, you know, are essential workers or still have to go to work or interact in other ways, just kind of a distraction from all of the terrible things going on, because even when the world is on fire, you can’t just sit and stare at the fire the whole time. [Laughs] Like, that –

Sarah: No.

Alyssa: – is just not healthy. It’s become a, something really nice for me, as well as hopefully the people who watch it, and I actually am in the process of putting up, of making, like, a little –

Sarah: Yes.

Alyssa: – an archives page and putting up the videos for people who missed the event, and I’m going to try and put the videos up and then also work on getting closed captions for them too. But it’s just, it’s been really cool, and also because, you know, it’s been so disappointing for authors. So many authors who were going, who were, like, going to go on their first book tour or have their first, you know, like, trad pub release –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Alyssa: – and then everything shut down. So it’s just kind of been a way of, like –

Sarah: Yep.

Alyssa: – ho-, like, many people are doing, kind of connecting and trying to boost books and boost bookstores and boost morale, I guess.

Sarah: So what are you working on right now?

Alyssa: Right now I’m mainly working on the second book in the Runaway Royals series. So the first book, How to Catch a Queen, is kind of a, a contemporary romance take on the Bluebeard fairytale? Without, you know, killing all the wives?

Sarah: Ooh!

Alyssa: And the second book is a, a take on Anastasia, the movie Anastasia? [Laughs] But it’s, you know, contemporary and with lesbians. The heroine, one of the heroines is, you know, kind of someone who is extremely healthy. She is living with her grandmother; they run a, a B & B in Atlantic City, and her grandmother has told her that, like, that, there’s been this lifelong thing of her grandmother saying that she had a summer fling with a runaway prince and that, you know, they are actually heir, her, heirs to this, you know, small country somewhere, and, like, her grandmother exaggerates, so she doesn’t really believe her –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Alyssa: – and also has her own reasons for not believing her, but then the country starts doing a search for the lost royal family, and then someone shows up searching, to see if she is one of the lost heirs to the throne. So it’s like contemporary, you know, there’s a bit of adventure, and also, like, a little bit, because, you know, there’s a little bit of reality show aspect when she gets there because they’re kind of trying to milk this search for all they can – [laughs] – as far as, like, tourism promotion and stuff like that. So, you know, someone who – it’s also about someone who once believed it was possible for her to be a princess and then who at, at some point along the way stopped.

Sarah: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Alyssa: So yeah. And then the other thing I’m working on is the second book, the follow-up to The A.I. Who Loved Me, which is Yan-, her friend Yana’s story –

Sarah: Ohhh?

Alyssa: – and it is a rom-com, sci-fi rom-com take on forced proximity is all I will say – [laughs] – about that for now.

And also working a little bit on possibly – so I’m working with an artist named Erin O’Neill Jones, who is really amazing, and we’re working on some Reject Squad stuff? If you read Can’t Escape Love, there was an anime in the show that the characters bond over, over the course of the book –

Sarah: Yes!

Alyssa: – and so we’re working on making a little comic and seeing what happens.

Sarah: Awesome!

Alyssa: Yes!

Sarah: So what are you reading? Do you have any book recommendations that you want to share?

Alyssa: One book that I read recently, it’s a short, it’s a novella, a short novella; it’s called Resistance: A Love Story by Nia Forrester, and it is –

Sarah: Ooh!

Alyssa: – a romance that takes course over one night at a loca-, at a, a protest set in the present day. It’s really well written, and it also really captures the spirit of what’s going on. It’s very visceral and also just, like, a really well-done romance set during, you know, this current period, and it’s really interesting because, you know, so, I feel like especially after the election, so many people were saying like, oh, I want more activist romances! So I, I would recommend this. So that’s Resistance by Nia Forrester.

A couple of YA recommendations, one that I have read and one that I’m about to read:

One that I read and really, really enjoyed –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Alyssa: – was the book Legendborn by Tracy Deonn, and it’s like Arthurian legend –

Sarah: Ooh!

Alyssa: – meets Southern history. It’s a girl who goes to college, and she kind of finds her way in to the secret soci-, secret society. I don’t want to give away too much, but there’s, there’s Arthur-, Arthurian legend, Southern history: of course I love these things. There’s, like, swords and history and romance, so if you want to learn more about it –

Sarah: Awesome!

Alyssa: – I don’t want to give away too much by accident, so just, like, read the blurb? Legendborn by Tracy Deonn. That, I honestly think needs to be, like, a thing. Like, I feel like this could be a big book, because I want it to be, because it is – [laughs] –

Sarah: Ooh!

Alyssa: – but also because it’s really good.

I will also recommend this book that I didn’t read yet, but I’m super excited to read. It is called The Sound of Stars by Alechia Dow. It’s A-L-E-C-H-I-A Dow, D-O-W, and it’s a YA –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Alyssa: – romance with, it’s set in a world where there’s been an alien invasion, so there, there are alien overlords. They think humans are too emotional, so they’ve kind of restricted all of their access to things that cause emotion, like books, music, and all of those things. And there’s a teenage girl –

Sarah: Ooh.

Alyssa: – who is hoarding a secret library, which, you know, you already had me at secret library hidden from alien overlords. But then there’s the alien commander who discovers the library and needs to take her for execution, but hears some music for the first time and understands that music is amazing, and so then they go on a road trip to save the world together and bonding over a love of art and music. I, again, I have not read this yet, but I, I just feel like it has so many elements of things that I would love, and I’m super excited to read it.

Sarah: Awesome!

Alyssa: And recent books that I’ve read and enjoyed: Rebekah Weatherspoon’s Harbor, which is part of her Beards & Bondage romantic suspense series. So in this book there’s a woman who finds out that her fiancé was murdered, and he was murdered in bed with the woman he was cheating on her with, and then she meets – the woman was in a relati-, a polyamorous relationship with two men – she meets the two men. You know, some months pass and they all are kind of grieving in this way and decide, why don’t we all, you know, we were both betrayed by these people; we both lost people. Maybe we’ll just, like, work something out, and you know, of course then they all fall in love.

There – [laughs] – I read, like, a lot, a lot of books lately.

Farrah Rochon’s The Boyfriend Project, which came out recently, even though it feels like ten years ago in –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Alyssa: – in these times – which is really awesome. There’s, like, really strong female friendship. The hero is super hot and has a really cool job that I’m not going to discuss, ‘cause you need to read the book, and it’s also set in the tech world, and the heroine is a Black woman working in tech who is working on an app. It’s just a really great contemporary romance, so I am recommending The Boyfriend Project.

And I could keep going, but I’m going to stop now, I guess.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Okay! Thank you!

Alyssa: Oh, it would just be like another half an hour of me giving, giving recommendations.

[music]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this episode. You can find Alyssa Cole at alyssacole.com, she’s on Twitter @AlyssaColeLit, and I will have links to all of the books that she just talked about, as well as links to buy When No One Is Watching, which is out on September 1st.

What are you doing with your free time, aside from reading books, obviously? Maybe you’re playing Best Fiends? Maybe? I am rather hooked, and if you’re anything like me, you will be too! Best Fiends gives you a fun way to have some socially distant competition with your friends. Best Fiends updates the game monthly with new levels and events, and it never gets old! Best Fiends also treats the game like a service for their players, and I like that every time I open it there’s something new: there’s a new character or a new piece of the story. There’s always new monthly themed challenges, and it’s fun and easy to try to beat a new level while I’m waiting in line to pick up food or pay for my groceries. And if the cell service is not so great in the store, doesn’t matter: I don’t need a connection to play! Best Fiends has thousands of levels already, with new levels, events, and characters added –

Wilbur: Meow!

Sarah: – every month. It is hours of fun right at your fingertips, Wilbur likes it as well, and you can even play offline! With over one hundred million downloads and tons of five-star reviews, Best Fiends is a must-play. Download Best Fiends free on the Apple Store or Google Play. That’s Friends without the R: Best Fiends.

Thank you again to our Patreon community, most specifically because they send me bad jokes, and then I send them to you through the podcast, and then you send them to other people, and it’s pretty great! This week’s joke comes from Tara C. I am very sorry to all of you for the following joke; it is terrific. And, in fact, I have a whole entire teenager in this room, and maybe he’ll groan when I say the joke. Are you ready? No. Okay. Are you ready?

What do you call a superhero who writes novels?

Give up? What do you call a superhero who writes novels?

An au-Thor!

Heh? Huh? Huh? No, shaking his head. No. That means it’s a good one! [Laughs] Au-Thor! Thank you, Tara C.!

If you would like to send me your bad jokes – you know I love them so much! – you can email me at sbjpodcast@gmail.com, or if that’s not going to stick in your memory, Sarah with an H at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books dot com [Sarah@smartbitchestrashybooks.com] goes to the same place!

On behalf of everyone here, including one teenager, one cat, and myself, we wish you the very best of reading. Have a wonderful weekend, and we will see you back here next week.

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

[mellow music]