556. Excellent Romance & Recs with Olivia Waite

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Sarah Wendell: Hello and welcome to episode number 556 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell, and joining me today is Olivia Waite. We are going to talk about her New York Times romance column and her best-of coverage for 2022. We also talk about writing, about grief, writing her column, and what’s next. We also take a side trip into discussing the emotionally intense books that are popular now, and the similar properties that had an emotional hold on us when we were younger.

This is an episode that I held onto due to the HarperCollins strike earlier this year. I’ve actually edit, edited this episode twice. I did it once to remove the HarperCollins titles and then again to put them back. So if you’re thinking, wait a minute, it’s March 2023! Why are you talking about year-end coverage? Well, as I often say, any book you haven’t read is a new book! So hold on to your TBRs, ‘cause we have got some recommendations.

I also have a compliment, which makes me so happy.

To Emily K: Did you know that beneath the soil trees grow as wide and as far out as the branches that we can see above ground? It’s true! And there is a tree near where you live that likes you so much it has spelled out your name with its roots.

If you have supported the show with a monthly pledge of any amount, thank you! You are helping me ensure that each episode is transcribed – hi, garlicknitter! You keep me going each and every week, and you’re making sure that the show is accessible to everyone. And, well, you keep us going, so thank you. If you would like to join the Patreon community, please have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches. Monthly pledges start at one dollar a month, and Patreon members get bonus episodes; a wonderful Discord, which we actually talk about in this episode; and many, many more things, so please have a look. And a special hello to Kir, who is a new member of the community.

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All right, shall we get started with all of the books that we’ve ever wanted to talk about ever? Yes! Let’s do it! On with my conversation with Olivia Waite.

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Olivia Waite: Hi, everyone! I’m Olivia Waite. I write queer historical romance, science fiction, and fantasy. I’m also the romance fiction columnist for the New York Times Book Review, which is extremely fun, and especially this year, because this year, for the first time ever, the New York Times is doing a year’s best romances roundup in their big holiday coverage, and I got to write that, so we’re here to tell you all about that.

Sarah: That’s so awesome. Do you still get like a little, like, tingly thrill every time you say I’m the romance columnist for the New York Times Book Review?

Olivia: Yeah, I do. Like, I mean –

Sarah: Like little butterflies erupt like –

Olivia: – usually when –

Sarah: – This is still great!

[Laughter]

Olivia: Yeah, it’s this, like, this job did not exist back when I was reading the Book Review? Like –

Sarah: Nope.

Olivia: – as a bookseller? ‘Cause my association with the New York Times Book Review was working the late shift at a bookstore, and the register would get quiet, and you’d entered all your catalogues and you’d tidied everything up, and then you were allowed to read the Book Review to keep tabs on what was being reviewed, because inevitably somebody would be asking about one or more of those books.

Sarah: And they would come in and be like, I think I read about this in a newspaper, and the cover was like kind of green, and you’ll be, Oh, this one! In the Times review I just read.

Olivia: There was something about a bank?

Sarah: Yeah, something about a bank.

Olivia: Yeah, it was something – yeah. And I loved being the person to solve those puzzles, and let me tell you, when you can solve the really vague ones, people get so impressed? It’s very fun.

Sarah: It’s like, it’s like magic.

Olivia: Yep…

Sarah: So we do that, we do that with Help a Bitch Out, and people are like, I can’t believe you figured that out.

Olivia: [Laughs] It’s still one of my favorite things to see. Like, every time that comes up I’m like, I roll my sleeves up, and I almost never get them, ‘cause they’re, like, wildly obscure.

Sarah: Oh yeah. Oh yeah, they’re, those are, they’re hard to get sometimes. Sometimes I get one in my email and I’m like – [gasps] – I know this one immediately! And I feel like I won. Like I won something.

Olivia: Yes. It is; it’s that very Jeopardy! champion feeling.

Sarah: Oh, a hundred percent Jeopardy! champion, which I’m never going to be.

So tell me about the column! How is it going, and what is, what are some of the things you’re talking about?

Olivia: Oh, it’s been really fun. It’s been a wonderful coincidence that my tenure at this column has overlapped with a real surge in queer romance specifically?

Sarah: Yeah.

Olivia: ‘Cause it feels like there’s more of that now than we’ve ever had, and –

Sarah: There absolutely is.

Olivia: – and it’s like we have, like, multiple types of queer romance? We have bi romance; we have m/m; we have Sapphic romance; we have queer Black romance coming out from traditional publishing? Which has been, like, decade, like, you have to go all the way back to, like, Ann Allen Shockley to get that earlier, but now we have D’Vaughn and Kris from Chencia Higgins; we’ve got Alyssa Cole’s, like, that was Avon’s first f/f romance in forever; and then there’s been so many more afterwards: you’ve got Meryl Wilsner; you’ve got Alexandria Bellefleur; we’ve got various couples and groups and Casey McQuiston’s, like, kind of opened a lot of doors for people, and it’s just been spectacular. And so writing this, the hardest part of the column is trying to pick which books.

Sarah: Always.

Olivia: ‘Cause there’s always so many more books than I can possibly not only feature, but, like, get to as a reader. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yep. It’s absolutely true.

Olivia: So!

Sarah: So what are some of the books that you have covered this year that you think are the best of the year? Like, what are your top books this year?

Olivia: Well, I think my number one favorite for me has been The Dead Romantics, speaking of, like, paranormal stuff, because (a) I love ghost romance, and it’s been a really good year for it. Like, Therese Beharrie has one out, but The Dead Romantics, for me, was both a really solid, swoony romance, gorgeously written, and it had, like, it had such a sharp and up-to-the-minute view on publishing?

Sarah: Yes.

Olivia: That I just, I couldn’t resist it. Like, there were more current romance novel names dropped in that book than I’ve ever seen.

Sarah: This was written by someone who is deeply fluent not only in romance but, forgive me, all of the bullshit behind the scenes of producing romance?

Olivia: Yes!

Sarah: I was like, Oh wow, this is, this is, this is very –

Olivia: This is somebody on the inside.

Sarah: This, this is very gossipy.

Olivia: Yes.

Sarah: Yeah.

Olivia: Yes.

Sarah: This is like –

Olivia: Like, this, this is –

Sarah: – royal insider tea, but publishing.

Olivia: This is not somebody who likes being a writer writing about how great it is being a writer. This is, like, somebody who knows how the sausage is made saying, This is disgusting, but we have to do it.

Sarah: Yep! And it was so very grounded in very specific things about the industry where I was like, Oh, oh yeah. I, yeah, that’s right. And then, you know, ghosts! On top of that!

Olivia: Yes!

Sarah: Absolutely! I accept all of this.

Olivia: Well, and like, you know, the whole ghostwriter starts seeing ghosts things, you can see how it would start as a joke, and then she treated it so seriously.

Sarah: Yeah!

Olivia: And that’s possibly my favorite thing is something that starts as a joke that you treat with utmost, like seriousness.

Sarah: If you walk up to somebody and say, The ghostwriter can see ghosts, people are like, What?

Olivia: And then you make the sentences beautiful, and nobody can resist. It reminded me a little bit of Rebekah Weatherspoon’s, oh, it’s the first of her rancher series. The title is not coming to me, but it’s the one with the amnesia. Yeah, she did, like, a very serious, very realistic take on amnesia for her cowboy series. A Cowboy to Remember, that’s the one! And the heroine has a head injury, and she forgets, like, everything, like, and it’s not comfortable. Like, she has to, she has to relearn basic, like, a lot of, like, basic motor skills. She doesn’t remember what she does for a living. Like, it’s really, it’s devastating, and it’s complicated, and she’s prone to headaches, and she needs a long recovery time. It’s not like pretty, jokey comedy, and it’s like amnesia; it’s like, we’re-going-to-check-you-for-concussion-every-hour amnesia.

Sarah: Yeah, it’s head trauma chronic illness amnesia –

Olivia: Yes.

Sarah: – not wouldn’t-it-be-great-to-just-forget-things-for-a-while amnesia.

Olivia: Yeah.

Sarah: That’s an excellent choice. What else you got?

Olivia: Tanked, Mia Hopkins. I don’t know if you’ve been reading Mia Hopkins’s, like, series, the Eastside Brewery series?

Sarah: Tell me everything.

Olivia: Contemporary.

Sarah: Right.

Olivia: Three brothers: they have a brewery. The eldest two have, like, criminal pasts; they’re, like, ex-cons. They’ve been raised extremely rough. It’s very – I don’t normally go for, like, the dark mafia romance and the gritty romance, so this is not that. This is incredibly straightforward, grounded, realistic stories about people in very hard financial circumstances with very difficult obstacles, like, in their past. This recent one, Tanked, is, like, the youngest brother’s story, and he was never in prison. He got shipped off to relatives when his brothers were sent away, and so he’s kind of trying to reintegrate to the family?

Sarah: Yeah.

Olivia: To survive, he became like an, he was an underground fighter, like, in a lot of illegal fights, and so he has a very shady relationship with the law, and he ends up falling for this social worker who’s just lost her job. And her job, she’s actually the, one of the brothers’ former case worker.

Sarah: Ohhh! Interesting!

Olivia: Yeah. And they end up having, like, a connection, because he’s super hot and super into her, and she’s in the terrible place, and they end up bonding, and it’s just, it’s beautiful. I mean, all of Mia Hopkins work is so gorgeous. The second one is entirely from the hero’s point of view as well, which is, like, extremely rare in contemporary romance? And she j-, like, her heroes are these big, tough, beautiful men with these incredibly nuanced, tender characterizations, and it’s irresistible to me! [Laughs] Like –

Sarah: Yep.

Olivia: – that combination: they just, they pine so lovingly, and, like – and the sex scenes are gorgeous.

Sarah: That’s always good.

Olivia: Yes. But one of the things I really appreciate, appreciated about Tanked was it actually dealt with the world as it is. It put COVID right on the page. Like, people were wearing masks; people had to test; at one point, secondary characters came down with COVID and everybody was very worried and left groceries on their doorstep; and it was just presented as part of the world as it is now; and I know, I have a hard time with a lot of contemporary romance ‘cause they’re pretending to be in this eternal present where COVID doesn’t exist. That worked okay in the first year of the pandemic.

Sarah: Yeah. It’s such an interesting question, right? Like, is there COVID in the book? And do you want to read –

Olivia: Yeah.

Sarah: – a world with COVID in it, or is that not something you can do? It’s good to have choices, but I am always fascinated by the sort of, not, not honesty, because it’s not as if the eternal sunshine contemporaries aren’t honest; they’re honest about what they’re doing. It’s more –

Olivia: Yeah.

Sarah: – a frankness. And, and –

Olivia: Yeah, there’s the – I use the word brave about it. Like, the, the bravery…

Sarah: Yeah! That, that also works! Absolutely! Absolutely.

Olivia: Yeah, this world has something terrible happening. We can have happiness anyway.

Sarah: Yeah. Which fits romance; we’ve done that a lot.

Olivia: Yes. Pretty much all the time. [Laughs]

Sarah: Pretty much all the time

Olivia: Yeah, like, I mean, do you remember that rash of, like, COVID as gimmick books that came out at the start of the pandemic?

Sarah: Yeah. Oh, we’re, we’re, we’re stuck in the –

Olivia: Oh –

Sarah: – bus station together, and yeah, mm. No, I couldn’t –

Olivia: Yeah.

Sarah: – I couldn’t; it was too present and too scary and not a, not a cute situation.

Olivia: No. No, and it, those felt really, those felt really cheap and facile.

Sarah: Twee.

Olivia: Twee! Exactly. And this is the opposite of that. And unfortunately, I’m getting to a point where if I don’t see any reference to COVID on the page, I start to get anxious.

Sarah: Yeah.

Olivia: Like, you know, it’s like reading Red, White & Royal Blue right after the election.

Sarah: Yeah.

Olivia: It poked a sore spot?

Sarah: Yes! Absolutely. It, it, it pushes on your bruise. Absolutely.

Olivia: Yeah. And –

Sarah: And I remember the same thing happening after 9/11.

Olivia: Oh, definitely! Yeah, people –

Sarah: Do you make 9/11 part of this? ‘Cause that was a big change! That was a very, very big cultural shift, and –

Olivia: It was huge.

Sarah: – political – it was huge; it had a lot of effect, so the idea of, of incorporating 9/11, it’s a big question! It’s hard; it’s not easy to do –

Olivia: Yeah.

Sarah: – but I’ve seen books that, like, invoke that particular shift in the world in ways that are thoughtful and nuanced and interesting! It’s –

Olivia: Yes.

Sarah: – really hard to do, but when it’s done well it is truly incredible.

Olivia: It is; it feels very healing when somebody gets it to work.

Sarah: Yes! That’s, that’s exactly it. It’s like, it’s acknowledging all of the, the painful feelings and then giving them a resolution.

Olivia: And I think that’s one of the things that I love about romance is when somebody – and, like, I always come back to romances that are about grief, because I’m very interested in grief, and probably never more so than right now.

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Olivia: When romances really address grief, it is so cathartic.

Sarah: Oh yes.

Olivia: But, like, but you have to do it responsibly. Like, I think a lot of the popularity of Colleen Hoover is because it feels like she’s addressing grief, but really what she’s doing is using grief as a little puppet to, like, tug at you?

Sarah: Yeah.

Olivia: And it’s not the same thing as actually exploring it.

Sarah: It’s not, it, it’s not doing active work all through the plot; it’s a dressing.

Olivia: Right. And even, even if you’re treating grief in like a potboiler way, like Sonali Dev always has like this wealth of tragic backstory in this very, like, Bollywood tearjerker kind of way, but, like, but it feels like that’s organic to the story that she’s telling –

Sarah: Oh yeah!

Olivia: – and even then sometimes I’m like, I personally cannot do this right now. [Laughs] Like! But it feels like she’s, I don’t know, it feels like her story structures make sense, but with Colleen Hoover I’m just like, again, it feels like somebody poking you with a sharp stick just to get you to react.

Sarah: I understand why it is popular; I also know that it is not for me.

Olivia: Yeah! And it does feel like this is the first time, with Colleen Hoover it feels like this is the first time where there’s a generational split in the readership and I’m on the side of the olds.

Sarah: Yes! Oh my gosh, me too! I’m like, do I need to just get my rocking chair and park my ass on the porch of Romancelandia? Is that where I am now? Okay!

Olivia: Yeah, and maybe it’s easier to think of it as something like E. L. James or Stephenie Meyer, where, where they came and they were hugely popular and then kind of vanish, because that’s, that’s something that happens with, with really popular fiction. Like, you look at the bestsellers of years past, and people don’t read them, and people don’t teach them.

Sarah: No.

Olivia: They’re just like all of these names that were hugely famous and then just, poof, they’re gone.

Sarah: You remember when all of the thrift stores got piles and piles and piles of copies of Fifty Shades of Grey?

Olivia: Yep.

Sarah: Yeah, same thing’s going to happen. I also think that with –

Olivia: Yeah.

Sarah: – with Hoover, there’s also the question of the pool of emotional experience? So my theory –

Olivia: Oh?

Sarah: – is that young people – I have teenagers, so I think about this a lot – young people have small pools of emotional experience ‘cause they haven’t been alive that long.

Olivia: Yeah.

Sarah: I’m thirty and thirty-two years older than my children, so my pool of emotional experience is very large. So if you drop a rock in a lake it’s like, all right, little waves, and that’s fine; no big deal. If you drop a rock in a little tiny puddle it’s like ka-boom! And all the water’s gone! So when you have a small pool of emotional experience, it doesn’t take much to make a massive emotional impact.

Olivia: Yeah!

Sarah: And so with Hoover, she is using big rocks in a small pool of emotional experience, and that readership is completely overwhelmed by the incredible catharsis of having their feelings recognized and validated, and then having this sort of experience of, you know, expunging all of that pain and grief and sadness. They get to do that work through the book, and I have read books like that. I have absolutely done that myself –

Olivia: Oh yeah!

Sarah: – but now –

Olivia: Yeah.

Sarah: – my pool is so big, this, this rock is not going to, going to do much emotional work for me.

Olivia: I think that’s, I think that’s a perfect encapsulation of it. I do think that this is, this is a stage that readers and even people tend to go through.

Sarah: Mm!

Olivia: Like, you have to in order to learn, but, but there’s some times where you stumble into a book when you’re too young for it, and you like it, but then later you grow to like it in different ways and in better ways –

Sarah: Yep!

Olivia: – and I think that’s kind of always what I’m looking for?

Sarah: Yeah.

Olivia: As opposed to the, well, here’s a little soap bubble. I mean, on the one hand, you know, it’s like, if you have the right fling at the right time, and that’s all you need, that’s great?

Sarah: Absolutely.

Olivia: But I’m always kind of looking for the love affair, for, like, the love of my life.

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Olivia: Reading-wise!

Sarah: Oh yeah. Me too!

Olivia: So yeah.

Sarah: Absolutely. And I remember, I remember going through something similar when the movie Titanic came out? Do you remember when –

Olivia: Oh yeah.

Sarah: – Titanic came out, and people were frigging –

Olivia: I was –

Sarah: – obsessed with it?

Olivia: Look, I was in high school when Titanic came out, and I remember very clearly sitting in the living room at the house I grew up in with the Celine Dion song on endless repeat –

Sarah: Yep!

Olivia: – and that would have been a CD by then. Even though we had a record player, it would have been a CD; we did not have that on vinyl. God help me, did they put Titanic on vinyl? I have to go check. Just listening to that tragic song over and over and over in a loop and sobbing.

Sarah: Yes, and the vinyl is pink, by the way.

Olivia: Oh my God, that’s amazing!

[Laughter]

Sarah: Yeah, the vinyl is a limited edition of one thousand individually numbered copies on translucent pink vinyl!

Olivia: Translucent pink vinyl: oh, what a nice touch.

Sarah: Yep!

Olivia: Well, now I wish I’d sprung for the vinyl at the time.

Sarah: [Laughs] But I remember people were obsessed with it; I remember listening to – ‘cause I would have just graduated college.

Olivia: Yeah.

Sarah: I remember, like, radio DJs just devoting whole segments to talking about all the things they were learning about Titanic. It was like everyone went to read the Titanic Wikipedia, and we all grieved over these people, and it was very easy to locate all of your big feelings on this movie, and then, you know –

Olivia: Exactly.

Sarah: – add some pennywhistle and Celine Dion, and that’s it! We’re done! That’s all we need!

Olivia: Yeah. Well, I mean, you have giant jewelry; you have the cool science of finding the shipwreck, which was real! Like, I’d been a Titanic nerd for a lot of years before then –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Olivia: – because they kept sending exhibits around, and it’s a cool story, and it’s this big – and, like –

Sarah: Yep!

Olivia: – I remember, I remember the day when they actually found the wreck!

Sarah: Yes! Oh my gosh, me too!

Olivia: …fancy little submarine that went in, Alvin, and everybody loved Alvin like the way they love the Mars rovers now.

Sarah: Yep. Absolutely. Do you know that there’s a, a, a very silly sort of send-up of the nonfiction narrative podcast called Did the Titanic Really Sink?

Olivia: No!

Sarah: And one, there, and, and the people who do it are, are Scottish, I’m sorry to report?

Olivia: Oh my gosh, that sounds amazing.

Sarah: So let me find – yes, Did Titanic Sink? It is kind of a parody and kind of, like, kind of a, a send-up of, of, of a lot of, you know, historical investigation –

Olivia: Oh, the conspiracy theories?

Sarah: – and conspiracy –

Olivia: Yeah.

Sarah: – theory podcasts. Yes, it’s like – so have you ever listened to The Renner Files? Which was a true crimes –

Olivia: I haven’t!

Sarah: Okay. I listened to it in the car with my husband. I think it’s six episodes. We were driving from DC up to JFK ‘cause our flight out was out of New York, and we listened to it in the car, and there was a point where I really thought we were going to have to pull over because we were laughing so hard. It is a, a true crime sort of investigative report into the Jeremy Renner app? Why did Jeremy Renner –

Olivia: Oh yes!

Sarah: – have an app? But it’s like –

Olivia: I’ve read the article that’s based on; it’s magnificent.

Sarah: The whole podcast is hilarious, and it does all of those things like Fresh Air and all of the investigative – Do you know why? I don’t know why, but we did this – and, and there’s all of these intros –

Olivia: Oh!

Sarah: – and the, and the very tense but melodic music. It’s a perfect, perfect send-up, and Did Titanic Sink? is similar in that way. And it’s like –

Olivia: Oh, that’s perfect!

Sarah: – Oh, you’ve, you’ve, you’ve pinpointed a nerd area that I didn’t know I had: thank you! [Laughs]

But that, that was the same thing for me. You know –

Olivia: Yeah.

Sarah: – I’m grieving over the – and it was 1997; I just looked it up, so it was actually the year I graduated college. It was before 9/11. I could grieve –

Olivia: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – for rich, white people; I had no problem with that. I couldn’t do that now. My brain is a completely different landscape.

Olivia: Well, and they gave you the out, right? Like, Kate Winslet was a rich, white person, but she hated her douche-y fiancé, Billy Zane –

Sarah: Yes. Who was an abusive turd.

Olivia: – and then became not a rich, white person at the end –

Sarah: Yes.

Olivia: – and sympathized with the steerage people! So it’s like, Oh, I get to feel progressive –

Sarah: Yep!

Olivia: – for doing –

Sarah: Yep, very window dressing

Olivia: But still get, like, the costumes and the jewelry and, like, you know, the hot, young, like, Leonardo DiCaprio in his floppiest hair days.

Sarah: Oh my God! Between that and Romeo + Juliet it was epic hair, ‘90s hair flop.

Olivia: God, I love Romeo + Juliet. That actually, that, that version, the Baz Luhrmann holds up so well; it’s so beautifully done.

Sarah: It’s so –

Olivia: It’s so good.

Sarah: [Laughs] But, like, even –

Olivia: I love it.

Sarah: – that was a movie where I could locate my emotions.

Olivia: Yes.

Sarah: Even that was –

Olivia: I mean, the whole fish tank scene!

Sarah: Yes! Pining and yearning and all of that! Like, oh! Abs- –

Olivia: Mm-hmm!

Sarah: – and Claire Danes was coming out of my, My So-Called Life? Like, that angsty, yearning, difficult –

Olivia: Yeah.

Sarah: – tricky, emotional, being teen, being a teen is hard? Like, I could – and I, and so now I look at that and I think, All right, I understand the Hoover fandom. This is not for me, this is not my emotional jam, but I get it. I’ve been there.

Olivia: No, but the kids need this.

Sarah: Yes! This is, this will happen again. Twilight was the same thing!

Olivia: Twilight was the same thing, yeah.

Sarah: And Twilight was all about, like, the secret world of what you do that your parents don’t know about, and secretly becoming –

Olivia: Yep.

Sarah: – an adult and, and coming of age, and maybe a werewolf will, will imprint on your ovary; like, that will happen; it’s okay.

Olivia: Oh my God! Right! Oh, the baby! Oh God, no!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Olivia: Oh my gosh, have you been, have, do you watch What We Do in the Shadows?

Sarah: I have not seen all of it. What’s happening? Please don’t tell me there’s a character named Renesmee.

Olivia: There, no. But they do deal with vampires raising a baby in the later seasons?

Sarah: Oooh!

Olivia: No, it’s, it’s amazing. Like –

Sarah: I’m –

Olivia: – if you haven’t gotten there I’m not going to spoil anything –

Sarah: Okay!

Olivia: – but, like –

Sarah: It’s on my watch list.

Olivia: – but if you, if you started the series, you’ve got to keep going, because eventually you get to, like, Jackie Daytona and, like, I love, I love Matt Berry so much, but my favorite, I have to admit my favorite vampire is Colin Robinson. Like, he’s awful, and I love him so much.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Olivia: Like, he’s the one that made me fall in love with the series. I love them all dearly, and Matt Berry can get it, my God, what a hunk, but, but Colin Robinson was the one where, in the pilot, I started laughing so hard I cried.

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Olivia: And it’s like, oh. Yeah. So they’re, they’re definitely, like, playing with that, and they’ve got, they’ve got werewolves. At one point, at one point they play, they actually do play, I think it’s kickball?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Olivia: The werewolves and the vampires play kickball in the snow in New York, and, in Staten Island. Oh. Spectacular.

Sarah: Amazing! But even –

Olivia: Yep.

Sarah: – even that, even, even Twilight was the emotional obsession of its time.

Olivia: Yes. But Twilight also spawned really great series of essays and insightful blog posts and people talking about this in really interesting ways, like –

Sarah: Yeah.

Olivia: – Yes, Bella is a complete wet blanket of a heroine, but also the narrative is designed to give Bella everything she wants, even if other people, even if Edward doesn’t think she should have it?

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Olivia: And I’m like, Ooh, that’s interesting.

Sarah: Yeah! It’s, it’s absolutely a fulfillment fantasy.

Olivia: So.

Sarah: Did you read Season of Love by Helena Greer?

Olivia: I have not.

Sarah: Okay. All right. So. You need to read it. It is so charming? It is so good. It is so thoughtful. There are so many pop culture references. But it is a – so a social media artist influencer –

Olivia: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – named Miriam finds out that she has inherited a share of a Christmas tree farm from her great-aunt. All of her family and all of the people who work there are Jewish, but they run –

Olivia: But they own the Christmas tree farm.

Sarah: – a Christmas tree farm in the town of Advent, New York, which just, like, hoses itself down with Christmas –

Olivia: Oh yeah.

Sarah: – every year, and they are just – my favorite thing was it was really capturing the feeling of being Jewish at Christmas when everything is Christmas?

Olivia: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: Like, literally, I can buy Jesus at Costco right now? He’s in aisle three with like two different Nativity scenes? I can purchase Jesus at Costco right now, and yet they are just very quietly determinedly Jewish, and they do all their Jewish things, and the timekeeping of the story follows the Jewish holidays?

Olivia: Oh, that’s beautiful!

Sarah: Miriam –

Olivia: I do need to read that! That sounds like just the thing this year.

Sarah: Miriam meets the, the, the person who maintains the trees – the keyword being lumberjack.

Olivia: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: Her name is Noelle. Her name is Noelle! And she is a –

Olivia: [Laughs]

Sarah: – literally described as a fat butch. And they are so into each other, and it, and it takes all of those familiar –

Olivia: Oh, that’s wonderful!

Sarah: – Hallmark – this is one of those books where you know that the writer is extremely fluent in the beats of Hallmark –

Olivia: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – Christmas movies and also Christmas romances, because all of those beats are there and immediately subverted. Like, Miriam is engaged to somebody, and her fiancée is this incredibly wealthy, Southern, blonde woman, and you think, Oh, ice queen. Well – kind of.

Olivia: Well, yes and no.

Sarah: Yes and no.

Olivia: Yeah.

Sarah: But there are some parts –

Olivia: That sounds perfect.

Sarah: – that are so good, and it, and it, it’s so, so charming. I can’t tell you how charming it is, and then – I’m trying to find a quote, because this is my favorite part and I’m going to – [hums a little] – m’kay. So this is later on; they’re going for a sleigh ride, because, like I said, Christmas Hallmark beats, right?

Olivia: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: Noelle is asking her questions to get to know her: You’re bi! What does, what does that mean to you? There’s no universal This is what bisexuality looks like; what is it for you? You don’t date men it doesn’t seem like?

Miriam: I mean, not to get too deep into queer theory –

That is the sexiest thing anyone’s ever said to me, Noelle interrupted.

Olivia: [Laughs]

Sarah: So they’re aware of themselves in a way that is going to make you very happy.

Olivia: Oh yeah. That’s going, that’s going immediately next on my list, because let me tell you, one of my big plans for this coming weekend is I’m going to wallow –

Sarah: Yes!

Olivia: – in all of the Christmas stuff that I can. I’m going to watch While You Were Sleeping; I’m going to watch this new musical Christmas Carol with Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell?

Sarah: Oh, hello!

Olivia: Yeah! Like, it’s basically they’re, they’re redoing Scrooged, but it’s a musical starring Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell and Octavia Spencer for some reason.

Sarah: Wow! Okay, amazing! This sounds like an excellent plan!

Olivia: I’m just like, You know what? Sold! I, I want, I want to see Will Ferrell make jokes about Tiny Tim. Like –

Sarah: Yes, you do!

Olivia: Yeah, specifically about not remembering Tiny Tim’s name, and I don’t know why that made me cry-laugh, but it really did.

Sarah: [Laughs] You will –

Olivia: And yeah.

Sarah: – you will love Season – I have –

Olivia: Oh yeah, so Season of Love is in there.

Sarah: Season of Love, I have –

Olivia: I love, I love calendars…

Sarah: – bought it for people; I have told all my reviewers about it. I did an interview with Helena and her editor –

Olivia: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – because this was also her editor’s first acquisition at Hachette as an Assist-, as an Assistant Editor? And it, it is, it is just such a perfect holiday confection that acknowledges Judaism and being marginalized and being queer and being bisexual and all of – and there’s a lot of –

Olivia: ‘Cause we need so much –

Sarah: Yes.

Olivia: – so much more of that, of this, and I want –

Sarah: Yes.

Olivia: – I want those good feelings. I want, like –

Sarah: Yeah.

Olivia: We were watching, again, we were watching Jeopardy! yesterday; that’s like the one TV show we keep up with – [laughs] – but they had a commercial that I’d seen like a hundred times, and it’s this family, and the dad and the daughter keep pretending they’re going to the playground, but they’re really going to play games at Best Buy.

Sarah: Yeah.

Olivia: And so the mom surprises them with a console at the end, like Ha-ha, I’m onto you this whole time. But it’s on like the third or fourth repeat that I realize everything in their house is blue and silver, and they have a menorah in the window, and it’s just this casual acknowledgement that Jewish families exist.

Sarah: Yep.

Olivia: And, like, and I’m like, Hey! Look at this!

Sarah: Look at that! Yep!

Olivia: This is amazing!

Sarah: Yep!

Olivia: And it’s just, and it, of course, you know, the candles make everything so glowy and beautiful, and, like – and it was so nice! And, especially, especially at this time of year, it can be really –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Olivia: – it can be really important. Like, I love A Christmas Carol, and I love a Christmas, like, story, but especially ones like – speaking of ghost romance – ghost Christmas books are like my catnip. But –

Sarah: Oh, they’re so good!

Olivia: – but it’s always so nice to see, like, the other, the other side of that experience. The, this can actually be really isolating; this can be lonely; how do we deal with that on the page?

Sarah: Yeah.

Olivia: I mentioned Rose Lerner’s Sailor’s Delight, and one of my very favorite things about it so far, every chapter opens with the date on the calendar, the date on the Jewish calendar, and the wardroom toast for that day of the week.

Sarah: As you do!

Olivia: As you do.

Sarah: As you do.

Olivia: Because it’s about, you know, like, a Navy man –

Sarah: Yep!

Olivia: – and so, like, so they do the wardroom toast. And that’s actually something that, you know, when, when the pandemic started and everybody was really into sea shanties and we all knew why, Mr. Waite and I started to do the wardroom toasts every day, just between the two of us, in our little, like, old house that creaks like a ship when it’s windy, and when I met him he was on a sailboat, and he was a captain, and so, like, this became kind of our, our pandemic ritual, just the two of us –

Sarah: Aw!

Olivia: – casually toasting absent friends –

Sarah: Oh!

Olivia: – on, I want to say Sundays.

Sarah: That’s adorable!

Olivia: Yeah.

Sarah: I love that!

Olivia: And so to see those, like, crop up and, like, we, we actually printed, I designed a poster in Canva, and we printed it up to put above the bar so we always, like, have an easy reference for what day is what.

Sarah: That’s adorable! Will you send me a picture?

Olivia: Yeah. Yes!

Sarah: Awesome!

All right, do you have any additional books that you would like to mention?

Olivia: I do. Yes, ooh, Ocean’s Echo. People need to know that Ocean’s Echo is great.

But the other one that I want to talk about is The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches.

Sarah: Ohhh, such a charming, charming-ass book, and again –

Olivia: Yeah.

Sarah: – little bit of grief too.

Olivia: Yeah. Like – and I almost, I almost put it down in the beginning, ‘cause I’m like, is this too sugary? ‘Cause the house was so pretty, and then I’m like, Eh, but, but the writing’s good, but I just, you know – but I, I have, I have faith in this.

Sarah: It gets so close to twee, right? It gets so close to twee.

Olivia: Yeah, it goes right up against it and then, like, the garden? And I’m like, What?!

Sarah: Yes! Oh my God.

Olivia: I, I started yelling.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Olivia: And I’m like, Oh my God! Oh my God! This is not something I expected! This is – and it wasn’t like a twist-twist.

Sarah: Yeah.

Olivia: But, like –

Sarah: It was a big secret.

Olivia: It was a note, yeah, it was a note I did not expect, and I instantly loved it.

Sarah: Yep.

Olivia: [Laughs] I could not stop, and then the ending was just a slam-bang of a finish.

Sarah: I did not see either part coming? I didn’t see –

Olivia: Yeah.

Sarah: – it coming, and I was like, Wow. Wow! I love being surprised! This is so great!

Olivia: It’s the kind of book you just want to get a stack and start chucking them at people on street corners and just going –

Sarah: Yeah.

Olivia: – Just read this!

Sarah: This is going to make you so happy; just trust me.

Olivia: Yep.

Sarah: Absolutely.

Olivia: Just keeping pushing. I know, it’s super cute in the beginning! Keep going.

Sarah: It’s one of, one of the absolute best books I’ve read this year, no question.

Olivia: Yeah. And I think it’s, I’m, I’m hoping it’s going to be like one of those sleeper hits that keeps coming up year after year.

Sarah: Yep.

Olivia: Which are never the ones we talk about at the time.

Sarah: Nope.

Olivia: Like, staying power is always an interesting –

Sarah: Yeah, what endures is very cool.

Olivia: Yeah. Yeah, so that and Ocean’s Echo, just because, oh man, like, military science fiction psychics like force-bonded, like, everything you want about the Vorkosigan character-forward sci-fi romance-y type stuff with some of the poetry of This is How You Lose the Time War.

Sarah: Yeah.

Olivia: Like, all the descriptions of when their minds are meeting, and oh. Loved it. Absolutely loved it.

Sarah: That’s awesome.

Where can people find you if you wish to be found?

Olivia: Well, assuming Twitter exists, I do still spend a lot of time on Twitter, but the best bet is my website, which is oliviawaite.com, and even better, I’m actually being more regular about sending out the newsletter, which is tinyletters –

Sarah: Oh, very good!

Olivia: Yes! Which has been really, really actually quite fun, and I usually send out links that I found from other places, like your, your Discord is actually one of the places where I’m like, Ooh, this link’s going in the newsletter!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Olivia: But –

Sarah: I’m so glad! It’s such –

Olivia: Yeah! No, it –

Sarah: – a lovely Discord? I, I was very nervous about –

Olivia: It is!

Sarah: – setting it up because I was like, I don’t, I don’t want another thing to moderate; I already moderate a bunch of things. But this is such a, a welcoming, chill, warm –

Olivia: It’s very chill.

Sarah: – fun community?

Olivia: [Laughs] It’s so nice.

Sarah: Like, let’s find books –

Olivia: Yeah.

Sarah: – and share links and look at our pets, and it’s like, oh, perfect!

Olivia: Yeah, it’s like pets and crafting, and here’s a TV show I’m enjoying, and I’m like, Yes, this is what I want.

Sarah: Yep!

Olivia: Exactly.

Sarah: I’m, I’m so happy that it has become what it is.

Olivia: Yeah. And it’s –

Sarah: So thank you!

Olivia: – it’s really wonderful. It’s a wonderful, wonderful space. So.

Sarah: I’m so happy about it! Thank you!

Olivia: Oh yeah. So, so those links go in the newsletter; it’s like artsy things, research stuff I find. There’s stuff on, there’s a section for crafts and what I’m making. There’s a list of recommended reads? So I always put the column in there, now that that’s monthly, which oh my God, but –

Sarah: Yay!

Olivia: – but yeah, there’s, yeah, so there’s books I’m reading, books I’ve put in the column; all that stuff go – little snippets of poetry that I found like, ooh, hey! This poem came across my timeline. It’s a, it’s a really fun newsletter, and I love doing it.

[music]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. Thank you to Olivia for hanging out with me late last year. I’m curious: what was one of your favorite books of 2022? Is there a book you’re still thinking about, even though we’re, you know, heading into second quarter? Tell me! I’m always looking for recommendations.

And I will, of course, link to all of the podcasts and movies and episodes and books – so many books; this was a really long book list for this episode – in the show notes. And you know where that is, right? Smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast.

As always, I end with a terrible joke, and this week’s joke comes from Clay’s nine-year-old. Thank you, Clay; thank you, Clay’s nine-year-old. Are you ready?

Why do bees have sticky hair?

Why do bees have sticky hair?

Because they use honeycombs.

[Laughs] I don’t know if you remember or watched Phineas and Ferb, but there was one scene where a character says as, like, a throwaway line, Stickiness is the most underestimated of all the –nesses, and I completely believe that is true. Stickiness is absolutely the most underestimated of all the –nesses.

On behalf of everyone here, 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.

[end of music]