569. Romance in Libraries with Robin Bradford

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Sarah Wendell: Hello, and welcome to episode number 569 – pause for you to say Nice! Well done – of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell. My guest this week is Robin Bradford. Robin Bradford and I have known each other for a very long time, and Robin has a new book: The Readers’ Advisory Guide to Romance! So we’re going to talk about what Readers’ Advisory is and how she teaches libraries to welcome readers looking for romance and to introduce romance to readers who aren’t aware that it is something that they might like. Robin talks a lot about book covers as marketing devices on Twitter, so of course we’re going to talk about the evolution of romance covers, summer book lists from schools and the media, and different online sources for book discovery. Robin also gives library workshops to other librarians, and that workshop is about diversifying collections, so we talk a lot about that experience as well. Most importantly, we talk about how you can support your library. Robin has suggestions, so get ready.

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I have a compliment this week for Lisa B.: Grammarians and linguists have decided that the plural of you is a superlative of Lisas.

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All right, you ready to talk library? We’re going to talk library, books, covers, Readers’ Advisory. Robin is one of my favorite people to talk to, and I’m so glad to share this conversation. On with the podcast.

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Robin Bradford: I am Robin Bradford. I am a Collection Development Librarian in Washington State. I have done collection development for a very long time. I’ve been a librarian for a very long time. I’ve worked in libraries for a very long time. [Laughs]

Sarah: Do you ever look back and be like, Oh my gosh, I’m so old? How did this happen?

Robin: Yes!

Sarah: How, how have I been here so long?

Robin: Constantly!

Sarah: Like, what?

Robin: Constantly.

Sarah: But the actual reason I’ve asked you here today is because you have a book! Tell me about your book!

Robin: I do!

Sarah: Congratulations!

Robin: My book is The Readers’ Advisory Guide to Romance, and it’s part of the Readers’ Advisory Guide series that ALA, American Library Association, puts out for different genres. The purpose is to help libraries who kind of get a little shell-shocked when people come and ask them for help on a thing, and to – even if you don’t read it – to help you know how to situate that thing, whether it’s romance or mystery or YA or graphic novels or whatever, how to work with that in your library and how to work with that with the people coming in to look for it. So it’s part “How do I help people coming to the desk?” and part “How do I showcase it when people aren’t coming to the desk?”

Sarah: So it’s not just, Hey, I want a romance to read, and you are going to come up with recommendations; it’s programming and displays and –

Robin: Exactly.

Sarah: – and, you know, tables full of seasonal books. Like, it’s about to be summer reading. There’s going to be a lot more –

Robin: Exactly.

Sarah: – romance and women’s fiction on the table. If you don’t know much about that genre, this book is going to help you as a librarian.

Robin: Yes. So I guess the third part of that would be, it’s also a brief history – and I do mean brief – [laughs] – of the romances that you see today, and also, you know, what’s the, what’s the landscape like for romance and romance readers? So it’s also trying to get people to maybe lose a few of the stereotypes that they have – [laughs] – about romance, and –

Sarah: Stereotypes about romance –

Robin: There are a few! There are a couple.

Sarah: – among librarians?! [Gasps]

Robin: Yes, and we’re trying to maybe just scoot that on out the door; it’s been too long.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Robin: And to get people just to understand that even if you don’t love it, it’s not your thing, you prefer, you know, mysteries or whatever, you can still help people!

Sarah: Yeah.

Robin: And you can do that without making them feel ashamed for what they came to ask you for.

Sarah: Yes. I have found personally that making a recommendation to somebody and then having them come back and say, Oh my God, that was just what I needed; what else do you recommend, ‘cause that was incredible? That’s the best feeling.

Robin: It is! It is! And it’s –

Sarah: It’s such a good feeling.

Robin: It’s also, when people come in and they’re like, Yeah, it was okay, but I didn’t like this part – oh my God! Good! Now I know not to give you marriage of convenience stories; let’s try something else!

Sarah: Yep!

Robin: So I like all the feedback.

Sarah: Oh yeah!

Robin: All the feedback.

Sarah: So Readers’ Advisory is my second-favorite term in the professional library world. My first –

Robin: What is your favorite term?

Sarah: My favorite term is Adult Services Librarian. That is never going to fail to make me laugh, because it is so funny to my completely immature soul.

Robin: Yes! Yes! That is –

Sarah: So I’m sad that you’re not an adult, Adult Services Librarian. You’re, you’re in charge of collection –

Robin: I am an Adult Services Librarian, but I specialize in collection development. But I –

Sarah: And that’s something that you’ve been doing on Twitter for, for fifteen, twenty years now?

Robin: Since I’ve been on Twitter! Since 2009, I have done, ‘cause I, I mean, even then I was working as a Collection Development Librarian, so it was just –

Sarah: And your job is to buy books for the library.

Robin: Yes. My job is to –

Sarah: And you would tweet why you’re buying a certain book.

Robin: Yes. Or, I mean, it, it started off kind of mean-spirited, I can’t lie.

Sarah: Oh, never! Really? Oh!

Robin: [Laughs]

Sarah: I don’t know that or-, I don’t have anything in common with that origin story at all!

Robin: [Laughs more] It started off a little mean-spirited, but –

Sarah: You Bitches have gone too far!

Robin: Exactly.

Sarah: Yeah, we probably did.

[Laughter]

Robin: But we, we, we swi-, we quickly shifted to, you know, making fun of, of covers is fun, but –

Sarah: I do it every two weeks!

Robin: – let’s talk about, instead –

Sarah: Yeah.

Robin: – why this book that has a wagon wheel on the cover but says that it’s a science fiction book maybe won’t find its audience. Let’s, let’s talk about that instead, and so it, it quickly shifted into, you know, why we’re buying this, why, what the cover can represent. You know, we tell people all the time, Don’t judge a book by its cover, blah-blah-blah, but the reality is, that is how people first encounter your book –

Sarah: Yes!

Robin: – and so if you don’t want – if you want your book to find its audience, then you have to put those clues on the cover.

Sarah: Yes. Absolutely.

Robin: Not everybody is going to come by and pick it up just out of curiosity if it looks like something they don’t want to read. If something looks like it’s a World War II novel –

Sarah: Right.

Robin: – I’ll probably keep walking.

Sarah: And, and if you notice – lately I’m sure you have – there are so many books being released that look similar. Like, there’s all the book –

Robin: Yes.

Sarah: – blob covers, and all of the book blob cover –

Robin: Yes.

Sarah: – I don’t know if you’ve, you’re aware of this, but many of the book blob covers are by authors of color?

Robin: Yes!

Sarah: Don’t get it!

Robin: In romance, that used to be a wicker chair or wicker furniture or, or a landscape.

Sarah: Flowers.

Robin: Yes.

Sarah: Turgid castle, yeah.

Robin: Exactly. Yeah, it’s, you know, we don’t want to put people of color on the cover because white people won’t pick it up, and so now instead of, you know, wicker furniture, we have the very artistic blob.

Sarah: Oy.

Robin: [Laughs] The colorful blob.

Sarah: Oy.

Robin: One of the things that drives me nuts about the, the illustrated covers is when they don’t have eyes.

Sarah: Oh, G-, why?!

Robin: And I know this is a me thing –

Sarah: Why?!

Robin: – but I hate it sooo much. So much.

Sarah: I don’t understand why some of them have tiny, tiny heads and really long arms and legs! Like, what’s that?

Robin: [Laughs]

Sarah: I don’t understand this style! It might even have a name; I still don’t like it.

Robin: It’s, we’re trying to separate ourselves from all the other covers that look just like it. Okay, but give the guy some eyes, please!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Robin: Please. I just saw one like fifteen minutes ago, so it’s fresh in my mind, and I’m like, Please –

Sarah: That man has no eyes.

Robin: No eyes!

Sarah: Is it a plot point? Is it a plot point or just artistic choice?

Robin: And if you’re look, they’re looking right at you and there’s no face!

Sarah: No. Anyway.

Robin: Sorry.

Sarah: Let’s get heated about books. Yes, breathe, breathe.

Robin: [Laughs]

Sarah: So do you still do readers’ advisory in person when you’re at work?

Robin: I don’t, because I don’t work with patrons in that capacity anymore. Most of my readers’ advisory now, it’s for staff.

Sarah: That makes sense.

Robin: And so helping them try to do displays or do book lists –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Robin: – or things like that, so that they can then help patrons.

Sarah: It’s almost book list season for summer reading for my high schoolers –

Robin: Yes.

Sarah: – and when I tell you those lists are so out of date, some of those books aren’t even in print anymore.

Robin: Yeah, it’s one of the, one of the things that, you know, once you make a list it will exist forever, and sometimes people update them, but nine times out of ten they do not.

Sarah: Nope. It’s weird. It’s really weird.

Robin: So I do some lists – I do some lists personally for our Overdrive page, and I get the temptation to just use last year’s list; I get it because it’s, it’s already done.

Sarah: Yeah.

Robin: But there’s a whole year that passed, you know, for –

Sarah: A few books have come out since then.

Robin: A few books have come out since then!

Sarah: Robin, a few books –

Robin: You know –

Sarah: – have come out since we started talking.

Robin: No kidding!

Sarah: Yeah, right?

Robin: [Laughs] You don’t have to redo the whole list! Add the new titles to the top.

Sarah: Yeah, just pick a few and shove ‘em in there.

So I didn’t put this in my list of questions, but it occurs to me that as someone who shops for books for her job all the time, that you might have a really sort of unique perspective into what’s happening in romance right now and what you think might happen next. Do you have any trend ideas? Are there are things that you’ve noticed or any things that are pissing you off? Like, you know, heroes that don’t have eyeballs on the cover?

Robin: [Laughs] One of the things that is a little irritating right now are the illustrated covers that kind of speak to rom-com that aren’t rom-com.

Sarah: Oh!

Robin: And so people looking for that level of lightness or humor, that just –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Robin: – isn’t present in the book, and people are getting a little bit, you know, unhappy about what they perceive. And I don’t know if the perception is wrong, that all of those covers should be light and rom-com-y or, you know, if it’s something else, but that’s what people perceive it as, rightly or wrongly.

Sarah: Well, I mean, the marketing of those books under-, underscores that. The, if I search my inbox for rom-com I will get hundreds of pitch email messages from the past three months, because everything that’s contemporary that has a slightly zany aspect is now called a rom-com. And I don’t quite get this from a, from a reader perspective, because, first of all, romantic comedy movies have different beats and tropes than romance novels. They’re not quite the same medium. They have things in common, but they’re not the same. And the things that play really well in a rom-com movie, I don’t like reading about. And also, comedy, very hard, very difficult, very difficult.

Robin: And a, a measure of comedy relies on the actor, for me, to –

Sarah: Of course!

Robin: – make that funny, and so it’s much, much harder in a book, where I don’t have, like you said, I don’t have any background on the person; like, I don’t understand why this is funny. This isn’t funny. You’re like, I’m supposed to laugh here; this is supposed to be, you know, the meet-cute –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Robin: – or whatever, but to me it just feels like secondhand embarrassment.

Sarah: I, I, I can’t read it. The other thing that pisses me off –

Robin: So, yes.

Sarah: – the other thing that pisses me off is all of these books that are based on premises where if the characters just had some boundaries, the book wouldn’t exist.

Robin: [Laughs]

Sarah: Like, remember when people were talking about erotic romance and, like, well, what’s the difference between erotic romance and erotica? What’s the difference between erotic romance and a really hot contemporary? Well, with erotic romance, if you take out the erotic elements the book falls apart; it’s a foundational element to the plot. That I get, but when you have characters who just don’t have any boundaries and that’s why they’re in the situation that they’re in, I’m like, I can’t, like, Okay, so you inherited your uncle’s failing business and you have to save it. But why? Like, what if you don’t want to?

Robin: [Laughs]

Sarah: What if you don’t want to be an accountant? Like –

Robin: Just say no!

Sarah: Just say, say no! And you have to, you know, you have to do this stuff for your family. Okay, but what if you said no and they dealt with their own shit like adults, like they are? Like, there’s so many zany families where no one has boundaries. I’m like, This is stressing me out!

Robin: Well, and, and a few years back, it was not having conversations that was the, that was the thing. It’s like –

Sarah: Yeah!

Robin: – if you guys just talked about it, this book wouldn’t exist, because you would have seen this, and he would have seen this, and they would have done this, and it would have been two chapters!

Sarah: Yeah!

Robin: But instead, nobody had a conversation –

Sarah: Nope.

Robin: – and we got twenty-five chapters –

Sarah: Yeah.

Robin: – until they had their conversation, and then the book was over in chapter twenty-six.

Sarah: Yeah.

Robin: So yeah, in, in terms of trends, I mean, witches are still huge, and they have taken over, kind of, the illustrated landscape –

Sarah: I’m sorry –

Robin: – of books. [Laughs]

Sarah: – I, I really wanted more witch books, and I kept talking about it, and I feel like this is partially my fault. Also, we –

Robin: Yep!

Sarah: – haven’t run out of witch puns in the title yet.

Robin: That’s, no! And I don’t, I don’t feel that we ever will.

Sarah: We’re never going to run out of witch puns. It’s a, it’s a –

Robin: No!

Sarah: – bottomless, bottomless source of joy!

Robin: It is, and people love them! I’m not saying they don’t! I’m just saying there’s –

Sarah: There’s lots of ‘em.

Robin: – there’s a, there’s a lot of them.

Sarah: And I, and it’s interesting to think about, like right now? Witches are inherently stories about women grappling with power, and we are at a time –

Robin: Yeah.

Sarah: – when women’s power is being diminished –

Robin: Yes.

Sarah: – and people’s individual rights are being diminished, so it, I mean, I love escaping into a story where an ordinary person is the most powerful person in the room and can, like, burn it all down.

Robin: Well, and the funny thing to me is that these are, at least the ones that I’ve seen, on the lighter end –

Sarah: Yeah.

Robin: – and for me, because of what’s happening, I don’t know why they haven’t taken this dark, angry turn yet.

Sarah: Think that’s coming soon?

Robin: Okay. I wonder!

Sarah: Rage romance.

Robin: I wonder.

Sarah: Rageful, vengeful –

Robin: Yes!

Sarah: – witches romance.

So what are some of your most effective methods for staying aware of what’s new in romance, beyond the – I mean, I know you get promotion, and I know you get pitches, and I know you, you have many publicists who email you about things, I guess, but what are the ways that you stay aware of what’s new in romance?

Robin: Twitter is huge.

Sarah: It’s making me sad, Robin!

Robin: It’s, it’s, it’s huge. Not like it used to be, because so many people have fled, which I don’t blame them, but I’m –

Sarah: No. Are you going down with the ship? You just going to go down as it burns?

Robin: I’m going down with the ship, yes.

Sarah: Yep.

Robin: But it’s, it’s a good place to, especially for self-pub and indie authors, to celebrate themselves and also their friends, because –

Sarah: Yeah.

Robin: – these are things we don’t get told about. It’s really kind of sad. I tell everybody, There are so many books published every month that you will never hear about. No one will ever send you an email; you’ll never see an ad in a magazine; they just –

Sarah: Mm-mm.

Robin: But they’re there, and they exist, and your patrons know about them because they don’t care, you know, about all the New York Times bestsellers.

Sarah: Yeah.

Robin: They want to know about their specific thing that they love.

Sarah: Yes!

Robin: And so they’re following these authors!

Sarah: Yeah.

Robin: And they’re on Amazon, and they’re, you know, on email newsletter lists and things for their favorite authors.

Sarah: And Facebook groups. Facebook groups are huge book discovery channels –

Robin: And Facebook groups.

Sarah: – but they’re closed!

Robin: Yes.

Sarah: They’re closed channels –

Robin: Yes.

Sarah: – you have to be admitted. It’s not the same as, like –

Robin: It is, yes.

Sarah: Hello!

Robin: And I’m on a couple of those, too.

Sarah: Yeah?

Robin: Couple of romance-specific ones.

Sarah: Are there any that you recommend?

Robin: The League of Extraordinary Historical Romance Authors, Upturned Petticoats and Undone Cravats.

Sarah: Oh my goodness!

Robin: [Laughs] That one’s my favorite. Sweet, Hot Curves for Romance Readers; Talia Hibbert’s Hopeless Romantics.

Sarah: Right, yeah. The thing that bums me out, and I’m sure you’ve noticed this too, is that as Twitter collapses under the weight of its owner’s ego, you, you lose that sort of openness? It’s like the difference between playing a videogame where there’s one track and playing a videogame where you can go in any direction? With a, with a, with a Facebook group, with a mailing list, even with a group that’s multiple people, that’s still a closed, you know, channel; that’s still one particular silo, especially if it’s devoted to a particular genre or flavor, whereas with Twitter, when it, back when it was good, you could find lots and lots of people talking about books that you didn’t know.

Robin: Yes.

Sarah: And the discovery potential if you, if you knew how to follow or you knew like a few people to follow, and then you could see who they were following? You could build a network of book people very, very quickly and just find out what people are reading, and it’s different –

Robin: Yeah.

Sarah: – than being in a Discord channel that’s like, This is the romance channel, and I have to think, Okay, what am I recommending? What am I saying? Whereas with Twitter it was like, Hey, have you read this? ‘Cause I want to know what you think. That was a completely different environment. I’m going to miss it so much!

Robin: And so many people who were in different genres, ‘cause I also follow a lot of mystery and thriller authors, and the, the connections that they made amongst themselves through me was kind of nice! Like, there’s thriller authors reading romance now –

Sarah: Yeah.

Robin: – that may have not before, but they see romance authors talking, and they’re like, and then they join in, and they have conversations, and then, here we go! And we’ve cross-pollinated –

Sarah: Yeah!

Robin: – all the genres, and it’s beautiful! And yeah, I’m going to miss it too.

Sarah: So back to you: how long did it take you to write this book? I understand, having done it myself, how daunting it is to try to capture a genre that evolves hourly.

Robin: Yes, and when they asked me, I, at first I was like, Mm, I don’t want to do that, because of that exact thing.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Robin: By the time the book comes out, it’s going to be out of date. And that paralyzed me for quite some time.

Sarah: Understandable! Oh my gosh!

Robin: I – for quite some time! I started this book in 2019; well, and then we had a pandemic.

Sarah: Oh, little bit, yeah.

Robin: So I could have finished, you know, early. I finished on time. It was due in 2022; I finished it in 2022. There were –

Sarah: Well done!

Robin: [Laughs] There were months when I was just like, I should be doing something, but oh my God, I can’t do anything. I really just didn’t want it to be obsolete before we even started, and so I had to figure out a way for myself to think that it’s not going to do that before I could even get started writing anything. And so that’s how I came up with the idea of, you don’t have to put in the newest book for every little thing that you’re talking about –

Sarah: Yes!

Robin: – because by the time you get it, it’s not going to be new –

Sarah: No.

Robin: – and that really was, was stopping me. Like, Oh my God, I’m going to put in this book, and it’s going to be three years old by the time –

Sarah: Oh well.

Robin: Just relax. It’s just going to be suggestions. And so this –

Sarah: I have always said that a book that a reader hasn’t read –

Robin: Yes.

Sarah: – is a new book to them.

Robin: Exactly!

Sarah: Yeah.

Robin: And if, if it’s an older book, maybe the library has it on their shelf, and that is good, and they can use it in a display. Instead of, you know, these are all of the books that you should have about friends-to-lovers, and if you don’t have these, then you’re a terrible librarian. Meanwhile, you know, two hundred friends-to-lovers books came out last month.

Sarah: Yep!

Robin: So what are you doing?

Sarah: Yep.

Robin: So I really had to push past, you know, it’s going to be the most up-to-date, the newest titles that anybody could want for their library, and just say, Nonono, these are examples –

Sarah: Yes!

Robin: – of friends-to-lovers.

Sarah: Yeah.

Robin: Please don’t stop here, and I tell people how to find other books. I tell people that Google is their friend. Don’t be afraid – a lot of librarians are, they look down on Google, and I’m like, That’s nice, but do you know romance readers love to make lists?

Sarah: Oh my gosh, it’s so true!

Robin: There’s a zillion blogs that love to make lists.

Sarah: No, really?

Robin: There are a zillion lists on Goodreads.

Sarah: Oh my God.

Robin: Please! Please, please, please: if you don’t know a, a trope or a subgenre, please google it! This book will give you like, you know, five of friends-to-lovers –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Robin: – but the world –

Sarah: There’s a million on Google.

Robin: There’s a million on the Google! So please – and they’re newer!

Sarah: Yeah.

Robin: Because this book is printing now! There’s not picking up the books that came out last week. So please google!

Sarah: Or in the last twenty-five minutes. Yeah.

Robin: [Laughs] Please google! So I, I tried to just hint at things, places to start, and then give them tools to keep going so that they can fill out those lists, because you’re not going to fill out a book list or a display with the titles in this book, because there aren’t that many.

Sarah: Right. But if you google –

Robin: Right.

Sarah: – friends-to-lovers Goodreads May 2023 Seattle, you might find –

Robin: Yes!

Sarah: – people talking about friends-to-lovers books published now that are set in Seattle! Like, it’s not unheard of!

Robin: Ex- –

Sarah: It’s just a question –

Robin: – -actly.

Sarah: It’s more of a question of sort of figuring out what terms a reader will use when they’re googling –

Robin: Yes!

Sarah: – and – I mean, that’s what just, that’s what good SEO is, right? Figuring out what terms –

Robin: Yeah.

Sarah: – people are going to use?

Robin: And that’s, that’s what we do. Like, we don’t talk about tropes in, in Library Land. Like, that’s just not a thing.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Robin: You talk about things like setting and theme and all of these lofty words that apply mostly to literary fiction, and that’s wonderful, but when you’re talking to romance readers, talk about tropes.

Sarah: And monster-fucking.

Robin: Which is a trope! [Laughs]

Sarah: Which is totally a trope!

Robin: So if you want to speak the language of the romance person –

Sarah: Mm-hmm?

Robin: – talk about tropes! And so then we go through some of the tropes. Not all of the tropes, and I wish I would have put more in, but that’s what edition two is for.

Sarah: Yeah.

Robin: So, but we, we talk about the main tropes, and I help people understand that this is a way to search books. There are people who only want friends-to-lovers.

Sarah: Yep!

Robin: There are people who never want enemies-to-lovers. And if you can understand that, that’s (a) another way to put together a display or a list –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Robin: – and (b) a way to talk to people so that you can get closer to what they actually want when they come to you and ask.

Sarah: Which is part of the job of being a librarian, right?

Robin: Which is part of the job of being a libr-, yes.

Sarah: I’m going to connect you with the book that you want to read.

Robin: Right!

Sarah: Or I’ll order it from another library –

Robin: And if you know –

Sarah: – if we don’t have it.

Robin: If somebody comes to you and you don’t know anything about romance and they’re like, I really love the friends-to-lovers trope, if you read the book you will understand, Oh, I got it! Okay, like these, right?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Robin: Let me help you find some others.

Sarah: And what’s so interesting to me in the way that readers have changed the way they talk about books and the language of books evolves with readers is that tropes are ways of describing some of the feelings you’re going to get in that book, because, you know, romance traffics directly in empathy. The book wants you to –

Robin: Yes!

Sarah: – feel things, and it’s a safe place to put your emotions. But tropes are ways of describing the feelings you’re going to get, and I think one of the things that’s so effective about BookTok is that it’s people acting and demonstrating how a book made them feel. And there was a lot of really shitty press coverage like, Oh, if you cry about your book it’ll sell on TikTok. Well, actually, no; what someone’s doing is portraying to you how a book made them feel? And if that’s the feel you’re after, we can go for that. Same thing with tags –

Robin: Right!

Sarah: – on fanfiction; this is going to tell you about the feels inside this story.

Robin: You know what? That is very good. I will have to remember to compare tropes to tags, ‘cause I think a lot of people who are internet readers –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Robin: – understand tags –

Sarah: Oh yeah. I’m –

Robin: – because this is how they, you know, AO3 and all of the –

Sarah: Yeah!

Robin: So this is how they are sorting their books.

Sarah: Yeah.

Robin: So when we say things like tropes, they’re like, Yeah, okay, if you explain it, I get it, but tags –

Sarah: Tags.

Robin: – is immediately something that they are familiar with.

Sarah: Right? Like, if I come to you and I say, I just read a hurt/comfort, nursed back to health, only one bed, mortal peril story, you’re going to be like, Oh! ‘Kay!

Robin: Right!

Sarah: Tell me more, right? Like, I, you can break down how is this book going to make you feel? We’re all looking to describe the feel, and I think what’s interesting about books that really take off, like Emily Henry, for example, that’s a very specific feel. Like, her books have a very specific tone, and it’s very insider-y, have you noticed that? There’s a lot of –

Robin: I have not noticed that.

Sarah: There’s a lot of book fluency, like talking about what books do in the process of the characters doing things. Especially true with Book Lovers.

Robin: Oh! Okay!

Sarah: And The Dead Romantics was very insider-y. Did you read that?

Robin: I did not read that one.

Sarah: Okay. There’s a, basically, the ghost writer for a romance author who’s been straight writing this author’s books for years is called in because the book is late, and the problem is she can’t write it, she’s got writer’s block, and she meets her new editor who’s like, Well, the book needs to be here by the end of the month –

Hey! Stop fighting while I’m on the mic!

Cats. Assholes.

Robin: [Laughs]

Sarah: The book is late. If you don’t get it to me by the end of the month, we’re going to end this contract, and the ghost writer’s like, Okay, I can’t tell this person that I write the book, but I write the book. Fuck, what do I do? And it turns out something happens to the editor, and he is either in a coma or he’s dead, and his ghost starts haunting the ghost writer.

Robin: Oh my God!

Sarah: And I was like, Okay, first of all, that, the, even the first chapter is so much insider publishing. Like, somebody who worked in publishing wrote this book.

Robin: I love this already!

Sarah: Yep! It’s super wild.

Robin: I’m, I’m adding this to my list.

Sarah: Yes. I also think that there’s a lot of books that tie very tightly into pop culture. Have you noticed that?

Robin: Yes. Yes. And I –

Sarah: And I don’t remember that being as true before. Like, I remember historicals referencing children’s books and historicals referencing song titles, but I don’t remember them being deeply rooted in popular culture the way contemporary romance is right now.

Robin: And I, I feel like a part of that comes from sports romance too, where you had –

Sarah: Oh, good point! Yeah!

Robin: You had sports romance that was – and you had some that barely referenced the sport, and then you had some that went deep dive, and I think, I feel like the hockey romances especially were very – like, I can read a hockey romance. I, hockey was my pandemic sport.

Sarah: Ah!

Robin: So I had watched before, but I really got into it during the pandemic.

Sarah: Right.

Robin: And so now I can read hockey romance and see the level of love that an author might have for the sport, because they are down to talking about line changes –

Sarah: Yeah.

Robin: – and things like that, and I’m like, Yeah, you’re a hockey fan. Like, you’re –

Sarah: You are –

Robin: – a real hockey fan.

Sarah: – fluent.

Robin: You’re not just like, Oh, yeah, he’s hot, and I think hockey players are hot. We’re not going to talk about hockey, but we’re going to surround it with hockey, which is so different than some of the others. And so yeah, I think people, when they are writing about or setting their book in a hobby or something that they really love?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Robin: You get that level of, it’s permeating –

Sarah: Yeah.

Robin: – the whole book.

Sarah: It demons- –

Robin: And I love that!

Sarah: Oh, me too. It demonstrates a high level of fluency into what, what they’re talking about. And then you have books that are based on, like, celebrity stories.

Robin: Yes.

Sarah: Or retellings of what could have been a celebrity love story that didn’t end happily: let’s give them a happy ending.

Robin: Look, give them a – yes.

Sarah: Yeah.

Robin: Which, yay!

Sarah: Right?

Robin: I mean, again, fanfiction!

Sarah: It, how much of an influence –

Robin: Exactly! Exactly what fanfiction used to be! I haven’t read any for a while so I’m not sure if it’s still that way, but we didn’t like how this story ended.

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Robin: We didn’t like how this played out.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Robin: We didn’t like – I think that I want this character to do this, so I’m going to write it.

Sarah: Well, all of Olivia Dade’s trilogy –

Robin: Right!

Sarah: – is a fix-it fic for Game of Thrones –

Robin: Thrones! Exactly!

Sarah: – including the actors who got screwed getting happy endings. Like, inside the book series are fix-it fics that the characters are writing, and then the book series itself is a fix-it fic; it was very meta.

Robin: Yep!

Sarah: It’s extreme meta! That’s another thing! Extreme levels of meta commentary.

Robin: It, it’s so interesting to compare that to, like, the ‘90s and ‘80s stories where –

Sarah: Yeah.

Robin: – there is none of that. No, it is very much not of this time; very different!

Sarah: Oh yeah. Like, if you read older contemporary romances, like say when an author like Jude Deveraux switched to contemporary, first of all, they’re all wealth fantasies, which is part of the –

Robin: Yeah.

Sarah: I think that’s a historical element too: it’s all wealth fantasies, because, let’s face it, when you have enough money to pay to solve your problems, you’ve got fewer problems. But also when you’re reading a fantasy contemporary world that’s all white, it’s very alarming –

Robin: Yeah.

Sarah: – and I don’t see as much of that anymore, which is really frigging good!

Robin: Yeah, I wonder – I mean, now it’s noticeable. If you, if you see it now you’re like, What, what, what –

Sarah: How is everyone in New York City white? Where is this place?

Robin: How?!

Sarah: Right?

Robin: How?!

Sarah: How?! Where?!

Robin: How is anybody, everybody in Iowa white? It’s, I understand it’s Iowa, but there are Black people there.

Sarah: No!

Robin: There are Asian people there. It’s very noticeable when you see it now.

Sarah: Yeah.

Robin: Which is –

Sarah: Good!

Robin: – amazing, because we saw –

Sarah: How long were we talking about that?

Robin: Yeah!

Sarah: Ten years.

Robin: Years.

Sarah: Ten years, at least, easily.

Robin: You know, even with publications like Library Journal, which used to do the, the Best Black Books of the Year, and it’s like –

Sarah: No.

Robin: And I yelled at them year after year –

Sarah: Ooh!

Robin: – after year and embarrassed them on, on Twitter until they finally stopped.

Sarah: Best Black Books of the Year? And it, and that would be books about Black people, books by Black people –

Robin: I think it was fiction, so maybe it was best Black fiction.

Sarah: Oh boy.

Robin: Because, you know, Black authors couldn’t compete with every other author in best fiction, and it’s like, Are you, are, are you serious right now? Like –

Sarah: When you talk about making book lists, if you make a list that is all white authors or, and books that are all about white people, that’s also noticeable.

Robin: Yes, and so my friend Becky Spratford and I go around to libraries and we teach people not to do this.

Sarah: Oooh!

Robin: So she focuses on readers’ advisory, I focus on collection development, and we teach people (what shouldn’t need to be taught) –

Sarah: Yeah.

Robin: – but that you don’t have to have all-white book lists.

Sarah: No.

Robin: You can actually diversify those book lists not just for Black History Month or Asian-American/Pacific Islander Month, which it is right now.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Robin: You can put those books on a list based on what the book is about. It’s perfectly okay! I know! And people act just like, the head like –

Sarah: Yeah, like – [gasps] –

Robin: – Really? This is a thing we can do? You mean, you mean to tell me if it’s a mystery where the protagonist is a trans character, we can put that on a mystery book list and not just a Pride Month book list? And if that book is set in New Jersey, you can put it on a New Jersey book list too. And if it’s, you know, hard-, is it hardboiled? You can put it on a hard- – don’t put it on a cozy list!

Sarah: No.

Robin: You can put it on a hardboiled list!

Sarah: Wow. Shocking!

Robin: And so we get a, we get a lot of question like, How is that not pandering? And it’s like, Well –

Sarah: Wha-, what?!

Robin: Yes, when people ask us –

Sarah: Wait, I’m sorry, time, time out.

Robin: [Laughs]

Sarah: So this is a – okay, I’m sorry. [Sputters] Okay. Give me a second here. So this is a presentation, a workshop that you are giving to other librarians, right now –

Robin: Yeah.

Sarah: – in the year of 2023.

Robin: Yes.

Sarah: In, in this con- –

Robin: Yes.

Sarah: – this, this contemporary world you are giving this workshop about how to basically decolonize your lists –

Robin: Yes.

Sarah: – and people are like, Isn’t including people who aren’t white pandering?

Robin: Yes. How do I do it so it’s not pandering? And –

Sarah: You just do it?

Robin: – my answer is, my answer is, If you put that trans book that’s hardboiled mystery on a cozy list, that’s pandering, because that is not what that book is about. It is not a cozy; you’re putting it on that list because somebody told you, I have to diversify my lists. You can diversify that list with other cozies, not with the book that doesn’t fit the list!

Sarah: Right.

Robin: That would be pandering. But! To put it on a list where it fits is not pandering. You would be surprised the, the questions that we get.

Sarah: Oh God.

Robin: You would be surprised –

Sarah: Do you drink heavily after you do these?

Robin: [Laughs] I did the first time.

Sarah: Okay.

Robin: But now I’m used to it! And the, the scary thing is that we get the same questions – we’ve done it from coast to coast –

Sarah: Right.

Robin: – now.

Sarah: Yeah.

Robin: And we get the same questions, no matter where people are.

Sarah: Holy cow.

Robin: It doesn’t matter if they’re in a big city, in a small town, rural, urban, we get the same questions. One of my favorite questions is someone had said a patron came in and they’d been, you know, doing the things that we suggested and making displays and blah-blah-blah, and someone came in and said, But where are your regular people books?

Sarah: I’m sorry, what?!

Robin: [Laughs] Yes! Where are your books with regular people?

Sarah: Wow.

Robin: Yes!

Sarah: So I take it that librarianship is still – and I haven’t been to an ALA in many years – I take it that a librarianship is still a pretty white profession then.

Robin: Eighty-six percent!

Sarah: Eighty-, eighty-six?!

Robin: Eighty-six percent!

Sarah: Wow. So you are often the only Black woman in the room –

Robin: Yes.

Sarah: – when you’re doing these presentations.

Robin: Sometimes there’s one at the library that we’re presenting to, so maybe I’m not the only one, but oftentimes yes.

Sarah: Two!…

Robin: [Laughs]

Sarah: …two!

Robin: Yes. And so –

Sarah: And do you give each other the look like, Yeah, I heard that question; did you hear that question?

Robin: [Laughs]

Sarah: Is there a whole lot of look subtext going on?

Robin: There is a lot of – oh, wow, huh. We try to make it not uncomfortable for people because we understand –

Sarah: Yeah!

Robin: – that, you know, we’re here to basically take the brunt of your fuckery, but –

Sarah: Oof. Also, you’re, you’re a guest, so that’s going to give you –

Robin: Right!

Sarah: – a very thin layer of protection, plus you’re from the outside and some-, presumably somebody who wants to make changes brought you to do the workshop, so –

Robin: Right!

Sarah: – you –

Robin: And that’s the other part.

Sarah: Yeah.

Robin: That’s the other part: like, someone brought us in because they want to do this work.

Sarah: Wow.

Robin: And so trying to make you feel bad about it is not going to –

Sarah: That’s very counterproductive.

Robin: – right, exactly. Exactly. But sometimes you do just have to take a deep breath, and Becky and I talk about these questions beforehand so that we’re prepared. So we get the questions beforehand, we talk about them, how we want to answer them, but we also take questions in real time.

Sarah: I’m afraid to ask; what are some of the questions you’ve heard a bunch of times?

Robin: [Laughs]

Sarah: I’m afraid to ask this question.

Robin: Well, because I knew you were going to ask –

Sarah: Oh boy.

Robin: – one of my favorite questions that we got, and this was from, a lot of our sessions are virtual, but this was from an in-person session where we were talking about, you know, it is possible to diversify most of the things, and somebody said, Well, what about Amish romance? You can’t diversify that, so should we just not buy it? I love when people give me gotcha questions because it’s always –

Sarah: Wow, they really thought they owned you in that moment, right?

Robin: They really thought that they had me, and it’s like, Well, no, of course not! If you have people who love Amish romance, keep buying Amish romance! But you can diversify religious romance.

Sarah: Oh!

Robin: And once upon, you know, sometime in the future, there will be a more diverse Amish romance; it’s just a matter of time. Everybody gets diversified. We have Amish vampires in space. You will have Black Amish people, you mark my words. And when it comes, when that day comes, then you buy the thing! [Laughs]

We have a question about where are the regular books? Where is my flag? Because a library had done all of the LGBTQ flags –

Sarah: Right.

Robin: – and someone had come in and said, Where’s my flag? If you bring in your flag, we will display it. But we understand, we also tell people, People are just trying to throw you off. Like, when they come in and they say, Where’s my flag? –

Sarah: They’re just trying to make you uncomfortable. Like –

Robin: They’re just trying to make you uncomfortable and to make you think twice about your display.

Sarah: And their feelings being the center of the moment, not, like –

Robin: Yes!

Sarah: – anyone else’s.

Robin: And so don’t let that throw you off. We get, one of the most questions we get, or one of the questions we get most often: What about conservative books? You’re telling me to do all of this woke diversity displays and buying all these woke books; what about the conservative books? Where are they? Where’s that display? And the, again, we don’t display books that are super popular. We’re not telling you to display all the James Pattersons, because does James Patterson need the boost? No, he does not.

Sarah: James Patterson –

Robin: So –

Sarah: – does not need a library display.

Robin: Right! So where are the, the conservative books? Well, you have Brad Thor, you have Vince Flynn; those books are checked out.

Sarah: Yeah!

Robin: You have Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh; those books are checked out. That’s where they are. There at somebody’s house. They’re not on display because they are already super popular. We’re here to tell you to display the things that are underrepresented.

Sarah: Because that’s going to increase the patron count in your library, and the more patron activity –

Robin: Yeah.

Sarah: – you have in the library, the more the library can justify the funding that always is threatened because.

Robin: Exactly!

Sarah: Do you want more human beings in the library? This is how you do that.

Robin: That’s another one where people think that they really got us –

Sarah: They really got you with that one!

Robin: – because you’re telling us to do all this, but where’s, where’s the books, you know, for the people that I like? Do you think we don’t have Vince Flynn?

Sarah: Come on!

Robin: We also get the question of, Does it matter what percentage of people we have in our community that fit the demographics? So if we only have, you know, five percent Black population, does that mean that only five percent of our books have – and – [laughs] – this is library-wide.

Sarah: Wow!

Robin: Like, people –

Sarah: Rob-, Robin, they’re trying to get you with math! [Gasps]

Robin: People really want to only do the least, the minimum, and I always quote Justice Ginsburg, like when people asked her how many women on the Supreme Court are enough? And she said, When there are nine.

Sarah: Yeah!

Robin: That’s my answer to you. You’ll have as many diverse books as you can fit on your shelves. I don’t personally care if they’re all diverse; that would be fantastic. But no, we’re not going to get into the game of, We have 7.6 percent Hispanic community, so that means 7.6 percent of our books have to be by a Latinx author. No! Twenty-five percent of your books can be. And if you don’t have a large population of whatever, whoever, in your service area that they’re seeing at the grocery store or at the school PTA –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Robin: – at the movie theater, at the library, then you might need those books even more.

Sarah: Yeah.

Robin: So you might have a 7.6 percent population of someone; you might need a fifty percent because you’re not seeing those people anywhere else.

Sarah: But if you start seeing people at the library and you start serving all of the communities in your library –

Robin: Right!

Sarah: – then it helps your library.

So effectively your book is like a complementary accessory to the presentation that you’re giving, because basically you’re trying to decode for people how to build effective reading lists.

Robin: Yes. So the book is specifically about romance –

Sarah: Right.

Robin: – and we talk about the gamut of –

Sarah: All the genres.

Robin: – all the genres. But yes, it is, because we’re trying to get people to understand what romance is –

Sarah: Yeah.

Robin: – and what it is not.

Sarah: Yeah.

Robin: So there’s a, there’s a very firm, It has to have a Happily Ever After or it is not a romance.

Sarah: Yeah.

Robin: And it’s not about rules; it’s about expectations. When people come and they’re looking for a romance, they want to know at the end of the book it’s going to be happy. That’s what it is; and so people will argue, Well, but Romeo and Juliet, or Well, but Wuthering Heights, or Well, but Nicholas Sparks, and it’s like, Nonononono. [Laughs] Nonono. A love story is great!

Sarah: Mm-hmm

Robin: We love a love story, and if they die at the end and it’s sad and we’re crying, it’s cathartic, wonderful!

Sarah: Not a romance.

Robin: But if someone comes in looking for a romance –

Sarah: Don’t give them that.

Robin: – and you give them Dies at the End, duck.

Sarah: We’re, we’re going to be mad. We’re going to be mad.

Robin: [Laughs]

Sarah: And we’re not going to come back to the library.

Robin: Right! So that, so helping people understand reader expectations: it’s not about, Well, the rules say blah-blah. It’s, if every reader decided, No, we don’t care about that, the rules might change!

Sarah: Yeah, for sure!

Robin: But the readers have not decided that.

Sarah: No.

Robin: The readers have said, I don’t care what they go through as long as at the end there is happiness and they are together.

Sarah: Right.

Robin: We honor that –

Sarah: Absolutely.

Robin: – like we honor mysteries that are solved at the end.

Sarah: What?!

Robin: [Laughs]

Sarah: What?

Robin: If you give me a mystery that I don’t know at the end whodunit –

Sarah: Ah, we give up; who cares? Doesn’t matter.

Robin: – I’m mad!

Sarah: Yeah.

Robin: So helping people to understand that part of it, before we even get into titles and tropes and –

Sarah: Yeah.

Robin: – subgenres, just understand what is a romance.

Sarah: And what is reader expectation. Before you do the advisory –

Robin: And what is reader expectation.

Sarah: – you have to understand the genre.

Robin: Yes.

Sarah: Speaking of libraries and readers, what can readers do to most effectively support libraries and librarians, in your opinion, right now?

Robin: Write. Write letters. Call, email about the good things that you’re finding in your library. The loudest voices are usually the ones that are full of discontent?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Robin: And they want you to get rid of the thing or put the thing behind the desk so kids can’t see it, even if it’s in the adult collection. [Laughs]

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Robin: If you love that your library stocks erotic romances, tell everybody at the library! Write the director; write the head of adult services; write everybody! Tell the staff at the front desk; tell everybody! Write a letter to your newspaper, put it on Nextdoor –

Sarah: Oy!

Robin: – [laughs] – just put it everywhere –

Sarah: Ooh, Nextdoor! Eesh!

Robin: – that my library is doing all of these things that I love.

Sarah: One thing my library has a great, great collection of is cookbooks?

Robin: Yes!

Sarah: I love test driving cookbooks from the library.

Robin: Me too!

Sarah: It is the greatest! ‘Cause cookbooks are expensive and I don’t have that many shelves!

Robin: Exactly.

Sarah: But if I borrow a book from the library and I PDF two recipes, good.

Robin: Yes.

Sarah: I’m great.

Robin: Yes. And that is definitely how I use the cookbook section as well. So tell people, because there are a zillion cookbooks put out every month –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Robin: – and we can look at circs, yes, and see like how are they doing, but if you tell everybody that this is how you use your library –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Robin: – this is how your library is helpful to you in this way, they will buy more of the thing.

Sarah: I borrowed a book this week called Dinner in One, which is all about making dinner in –

Robin: Yes!

Sarah: – one pan, one pot.

Robin: Yes!

Sarah: I have – so you, when you, when you put a book on hold, you get, like, the, the receipt, almost like a, like a checkout receipt from the grocery store, it’s on that same thermal paper, so I start tearing that into strips and I start marking the recipes that I want to try, and as soon as I get to five I’m like, Well, game on. Here we go.

Robin: Yeah. This is one that I probably – you know, if I get the urge to check it out again –

Sarah: Yeah.

Robin: – or renew it –

Sarah: Yeah.

Robin: – I need to go to, to buy the book.

Sarah: Yeah! That’s, and given that cookbooks are minimum twenty-five, thirty dollars on the consumer end, unless you’re buying them used, yeah, this is, this is brilliant!

The other thing my library has is all the manga you’ve ever seen in your life.

Robin: Oh my God!

Sarah: It just goes on for miles. It’s just miles and miles –

Robin: [Laughs]

Sarah: – of manga, and it’s just so frigging cool.

Robin: And, you know, again, millions and millions published; we can’t buy it all.

Sarah: Nope!

Robin: But if we know that there is a dedicated audience, there are people who absolutely love this because they themselves cannot buy it all –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Robin: – then that says to us, Oh, there’s an important aspect here that we may have overlooked in the, Oh my God, there’s so much, but there are people who are relying on it.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Robin: There are people who actually love it, and not everybody is going to do a patron request –

Sarah: No.

Robin: – but for the people who love it, please tell us!

Sarah: Oh yeah!

Robin: Please tell us.

Sarah: So the, so one of the most helpful things we can do is write to the people in charge of the library and write –

Robin: Yes.

Sarah: – to the county or town executives that are overseeing the budget to say, I just want to say, this library is terrific. It is wonderful.

Robin: Yes.

Sarah: I appreciate everything they do. They never have enough money; you should give them more.

Robin: Go to library board meetings! Anywhere there are people who are in charge of something –

Sarah: Yeah.

Robin: – who are always hearing about what you don’t like.

Sarah: Yeah.

Robin: We don’t like that you have this book. And so we need the, the counterbalance to that. My kid found this book about, you know, bodily autonomy that was in the juvenile section. It’s very age-appropriate, and thank you for having this book.

Sarah: Oh yeah! I had a librarian from my Patreon Discord, Clay, did a whole workshop at their library about children’s books that talk about autonomy and consent. Like…touch my body; who, who gets to have access to me? That kind of thing. And did a whole reading list for me for Smart Bitches of young, middle-grade, and hi-, and older books that talk about consent for young people. This was not a topic when I was a child. This wasn’t really –

Robin: Right!

Sarah: – a topic when I was raising my children, and they’re seventeen and fifteen now.

Robin: Yeah! I mean, and, and to have – I just read earlier this week about some library that had complaints because of books about consent for children, or books about sex or body parts –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Robin: – or anything that we don’t think kids should know about, even though they are owners of bodies –

Sarah: Yeah.

Robin: – with parts.

Sarah: And that they have to learn how to basically pilot themselves through the world.

Robin: Right! And how dare you have a book that describes in detail what they see every day? I –

Sarah: What to do when you don’t want to hug a relative.

Robin: Right!

Sarah: And, and a book that says –

Robin: Right.

Sarah: – it’s okay to not want to hug people.

Robin: The amount of time that people spend complaining about that or trying to get it banned or trying, you know, to get it moved out of the juvenile section – well, I’m sorry, it is a juvenile book. It is meant for the audience of people, you know, four to seven.

Sarah: Yeah.

Robin: We’re not going to put it in the Young Adult section for fourteen-year-olds.

Sarah: So what books are you reading that you wish to tell people about? I’m sure you have no books, none books to talk about.

Robin: None. Currently, I am reading A Rogue’s Rules for Seduction by Eva Leigh?

Sarah: Oooh!

Robin: I love this book. I love the series; it’s book three. I got it as an ARC. It’s out now, so that tells you how my reading is going this year.

Sarah: [Laughs] Little behind, are we?

Robin: I’m reading the, I’m reading the advanced copy of a book that’s out.

Sarah: Yep, been there! Been there.

Robin: It’s, it’s terrible and terribly embarrassing, and along that vein, Who Cries for the Lost by C. S. Harris, which is part of her Sebastian St. Cyr series; that’s a mystery. Also, I got it as an ARC; it’s been out. Like, at least Eva’s book came out this week. [Laughs] This book has been out for a couple months, and –

Sarah: Oy!

Robin: – I’m just now reading.

And one that I’m kind of excited about that’s going to be next up when I finish those two is called The Art of Scandal by Regina Black.

Sarah: Oooh!

Robin: And I’m not sure if this is a romance or if it’s general fiction? The cover is very romance-y – clinch cover, in fact.

Sarah: Ooh!

Robin: But in a very stylized way, so it could very well be general fiction, but I was talking about it on Twitter ‘cause I was showing the cover, and somebody was like, The book is even better than the cover, and I’m like, Okay! I’m sold!

Sarah: All right!

Robin: Thank you! So –

Sarah: I have a rec for you.

Robin: Yes!

Sarah: You probably might, you probably got an ARC, but one of my reviewers, Lara, absolutely frigging loved The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies.

Robin: I have not read this!

Sarah: Okay, so it is a mesh of cozy mystery and romance. There are two sisters who are old maids, and they figure out how to get women, their contemporary women, like the women in their communities and around them, how to get women out of terrible situations and help women who are being blackmailed, help women get away from abusive spouses, and one of the things that’s interesting is that it has three different sort of little mysteries that the two sisters are solving, but there’s overarching things, because at one point they end up knocking a highwayman unconscious, and then they figure out that he’s actually someone quite posh, bit of a, a, a lord, and so they rope this poor guy into their plot, and they’re like, Well, you don’t have a choice about it. So it’s –

Robin: [Laughs]

Sarah: – amateur detectives who are spinsters in a historical setting. I think you might really like it. I’m, I have it next to read because Lara just absolutely loved it.

Robin: It reminds me a little bit of a Vanessa Riley book that I read not too long ago, where it was one of her historical romances; it was like The Spy, the Lady, and the Baby, or one of, one of those!

Sarah: A Duke, the Spy, an Artist, and a Lie?

Robin: I don’t know if it was that one in particular, but it was one of those in that, in that vein.

Sarah: In that series, yeah.

Robin: Yes. And it was, there was a character there that helps ladies out of predicaments.

Sarah: Bad situations, yeah.

Robin: Yes. So I was, this, this might be a thing that’s, that’s co-, another trend that’s coming!

Sarah: Women in very limited circumstances who are bound by social or economic or both restrictions figuring out ways to get out from under them and help other women who are caught there?

Robin: Helpers, yes.

Sarah: Yeah. The idea of helping and having community is something that I love when I’m reading.

Robin: One of the things, another trend that’s, that, you, when you said that, it reminded me: older ladies –

Sarah: Yesss!

Robin: – is a trend right now.

Sarah: Oh yes.

Robin: And across, across genres.

Sarah: Older ladies in mystery, older ladies in romance, yeah!

Robin: And they are so underrepresented right now in media, period.

Sarah: Yeah!

Robin: Like, it’s all young, young, young, young, young, youth, youth, youth, youth, youth –

Sarah: Yep.

Robin: – and really books, again, at the forefront of the, of the media trend where, Oh, we’re, we’re murdering people – [laughs] – as, as older women, or oh! We’re solving mysteries, or oh! We’re actually doing both, or we’re falling in love with older men! It’s, it’s…

Sarah: It’s a whole trend.

Robin: …right now. Yes!

Sarah: I’m okay with it. I’m certainly fine with that. Meets where I am.

Robin: Yes, exactly!

Sarah: Old lady on the porch of the romance old folks’ home, rock, rock, rock, rock…

Robin: Exactly!

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

Robin: [Laughs] You can find me on Twitter –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Robin: – @Tuphlos, T-U-P-H-L-O-S.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Robin: It means blind, which I am. Or Instagram, same handle. Those are the places where I’m at the most.

[music]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. Thank you, Robin, for hanging out with me and talking about all the library things. Remember, if you want to support your library, let ‘em know how much you love what they do and, you know, write to the people in charge and tell them how awesome they are.

I will have links in the show notes to everything we talked about, all the books we mentioned, and some of the Facebook groups she brought up as well, so never fear: smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast under episode 569.

As always, I end with a terrible joke, and this joke comes from JF Hobbit in the podcast Discord. This joke originated with someone on Twitter named @shonfaye, and it’s brilliant.

What do you call it when you let a madwoman stay in your attic?

What do you call it when you let a madwoman stay in your attic?

Eyre B & B.

[Laughs] It’s so bad, I love it! Thank you, JF Hobbit, for sharing that joke!

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.

[awesome music]