571. Geeky Gen-X Romance with Cathy Yardley

[music]

Sarah Wendell: Hello there! Welcome to episode number 571 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell, and my guest today is Cathy Yardley. Cathy’s going to talk about her new book Role Playing, which is a Gen X romance featuring “an unapologetically grumpy forty-eight-year-old hermit” who joins a gaming guild under the name Bogwitch and meets a healer named Otter who thinks that she’s eighty, while she thinks he’s a teenager. I’m sure many people have just hit Pause to go find this book; welcome back. We are going to talk about writing romance for twenty years and counting, and Cathy also has some videogame recs and book recs too!

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All right, are you ready to talk about Gen X romance and writing romance with Cathy Yardley? Let’s do this. On with the podcast.

[music]

Cathy Yardley: I am Cathy Yardley. I have been writing contemporary romance and rom-coms for, oh God, over twenty years now? [Laughs] So –

Sarah: So wait, so you’ve been writing rom-coms since before all the books started being called rom-coms?

Cathy: Yes. Before, like –

Sarah: Wow! Okay, so definitely you –

Cathy: I’m putting on hipster glasses and being like, Before it was current – yeah.

Sarah: Before it was cool! Yeah, you and me and bunch of other people, we have little rocking chairs on the front porch of the Romance Old Folks’ Home. We’re just going to sit there and be like, I remember rom-coms! [Laughs]

Cathy: I published with Harlequin Duets; that was my first book.

Sarah: Nooo!

Cathy: Yes!

Sarah: That, that imprint died like ten years ago? More?

Cathy: Well, it was, I signed the contract for that in ’99 and got published in 2000. I had no idea what I was doing –

Sarah: [Laughs] That’s funny! Neither did I!

Cathy: – and it was just like a, Sure, and this is where, you know, we rocket to the – and it was, no. [Laughs]

Sarah: Wow! Harlequin Duet. Man, there are so many Harlequin imprints that I miss! I miss Harlequin Bombshell. Do you remember the Bombshell books?

Cathy: Oh my God, yes!

Sarah: They were so good, and, you know, you look now! It’s like they were ahead of a trend, ‘cause if you look now there’s all of these female-forward adventure stories, I think is what they’re technically called –

Cathy: Yeah.

Sarah: – in the industry. Got Darby Kane, you got Deanna Raybourn, you got all of these people in different parts of romance writing, you know, women doing cool stuff?

Cathy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: That was Bombshell! [Laughs]

Cathy: I know! I know! They had, like, weird glints of brilliance –

Sarah: Yeah.

Cathy: – here and there, where it was like a, where you could see the potential.

Sarah: Yes!

Cathy: [Laughs] And then things just jumped the rails.

Sarah: Yep!

Cathy: And then they disappeared.

Sarah: Yep! They, amazing ideas; never enough support. Welcome to the story of publishing.

Cathy: Yes. Alas.

Sarah: In all aspects.

Cathy: Yes!

[Laughter]

Sarah: You have been writing for twenty years. Wow.

Cathy: Yes.

Sarah: Okay. So your latest book is Role Playing. Just –

Cathy: Yes.

Sarah: – tell me all the things about this book.

Cathy: All the things! It’s coming out from Montlake Romance. It is a Gen X romance.

Sarah: Oh, I’m listening. Hi, yes.

Cathy: [Laughs] It is about a forty-eight-year-old feral hermit woman whose son has recently gone to college, and she’s having some transitional issues. She’s mostly worried that he’s not going to be social. They’re both kind of introverted. She has not been a great role model for this. So they make a deal where she will try to be more social if he does. And –

Sarah: I feel so naked right now. This is, like, literally my story.

[Laughter]

Cathy: I’m getting that a lot, strangely. Because she sort of, she joins this online gaming guild as a –

Sarah: Right.

Cathy: – as a kind of sop toward that, and she meets Otter the Healer and the leader of this guild. The thing is, this guild is from a community college; she assumes that he’s twenty. He got her contact information from his mother; he assumes that she’s eighty. So you – [laughs] –

Sarah: For the record, listeners, I almost just spit water all over my desk. [Laughs]

Cathy: At one point in the story her friend jokes it’s like, It’s like You’ve Got Mail meets Harold and Maude!

[Laughter]

Sarah: Everyone listening who’s now like, I’m sorry, what was that book? That book is Role Playing by Cathy Yardley. Thanks for listening; it’s been great having you. [Laughs]

No, actually, I know that what my listeners do is pause and then add things to their wish list or add things to their cart and then come on back, which I appreciate y’all very much.

So please go on!

Cathy: So needless to say, meeting in real life, hijinks are going to ensue and things like that. This is totally – and this is also kind of an Old School term – but this is a book of my heart. When I turned it in I was just like, They are going to be like, What did you do?!

[Laughter]

Cathy: The heroine is Vietnamese-white biracial –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Cathy: – which is my lived experience. You have older protagonists; you have – a little bit of a spoiler, but it, it applies – there’s LGBTQA representation –

Sarah: Awesome!

Cathy: – which I feel strongly about. It’s set in a small town, but it’s not a small-town romance! [Laughs] So, like I said, I really did think they were just going to be like, Okay, you must have been high, and let’s start over. But they were so like, We love it! [Laughs] So then we just sort of ran with this.

Sarah: That’s fabulous! And they’ve done such a nice cover for it. It’s very cozy; it’s, it, it is very familiar. All of the things, especially, for example, the heroine is wearing really slouchy socks?

Cathy: I – [laughs] –

Sarah: I was like, I, I have those socks; I’ve got like five pair. [Laughs]

Cathy: When we first got the cover – and I love Leni Kauffman’s work –

Sarah: Oh, Leni Kauffman is –

Cathy: It’s the best.

Sarah: – ridic- – like, Leni Kauffman is going to be like our, our, our Pino. Like, of this generation of romance readers, Leni will be our Pino.

Cathy: When I first got the sketch –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Cathy: – the, the female main character was barefoot, and I was like, Nonono, she has to be wearing the chunky socks. It’s got to be the thick socks. And a lot of the feedback I’ve been getting from the book so far, because right now it’s available in First Reads, which has been great, even though it launches officially in July –

Sarah: Right.

Cathy: – but the people who are reading it are like, It’s so cozy; it is so ridiculously cozy. This is, the cover, it says what the book, it’s like right what it says on the tin: this book is like cozy-core; it’s ridiculously cozy.

Sarah: It sounds like this was really fun to write.

Cathy: It was. It’s a love letter to a lot of different things that I appreciate. Gaming culture and the fact that she is basically like a honey badger –

[Laughter]

Cathy: – and he is like the cinnamoniest cinnamon roll to ever walk the face of the earth, so they just work.

Sarah: And it’s, it’s interesting because you’re hitting on a particular period for a lot of people where there are these very vividly, publicly defined roles where you are a parent of a young person, you are a parent of a high-schooler. That child leaves the house. Well, now you just disappear! There’s very, very few –

Cathy: Your job is done! Thank you for the –

Sarah: Your job is done! You are of no further use. Please report to your elastic-waist pants and adopt some cats. Like, first of all, I’m all in favor of both of those things? I do not wear hard pants if I can avoid it, but, like, there’s very little in the way of, And here are possible narratives for what your life might look like now that you are done with this incredibly time-intensive, emotionally intensive role of raising a person in your household. Which is not to say that everyone, like, graduates college and leaves and that’s it and you’re done. Like, obviously you’re a parent forever, but this is a, this is a, a place where I think there’s a lot to explore, and it’s, it’s kind of weird that there hasn’t been more until now? Although I’m very excited about this and the slouchy socks.

Cathy: It hadn’t occurred to me to write – and granted I was trained in the trenches of Harlequin, so I remember, you know, like, Okay, your heroine, if it’s, like thirty is later in life, which is like, What?! [Laughs]

Sarah: I didn’t know anything at thirty. I knew jack. That was when –

Cathy: Yes, exactly.

Sarah: – I had my older child. I really didn’t know anything.

Cathy: So it didn’t occur to me to be like, You know, I can write, you know, forties, fifties protagonists. This –

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Cathy: – at the, at present, this is with my lived experience, and just having the different kind of issues that you do face. And it, it, the funny – [laughs] funny – the funny thing is, it is still a rom-com, mostly in banter, and there are just some weird and funny sort of situations, but it does touch on empty nest; it does touch on caring for elderly parents, because that’s what Aiden, the, the male main character is going through, where –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Cathy: – he is trying his best to deal with a family that doesn’t quite get him –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Cathy: – but he’s trying to take care of them as best he can. And that’s, I mean, I think that you never quite finish – or at least I’m hoping you never quite finish [laughs] – learning about yourself. That’s not a thing that’s just in your twenties or just in your thirties.

Sarah: Nooo!

Cathy: And it’s not like a midlife, I’m-going-to-buy-a-red-car figure yourself out.

Sarah: No!

Cathy: It’s just like a, it’s a slow build! You figure it out!

Sarah: Oh yeah! And the idea that you should have all the answers at thirty is quite damaging to all of the people who are turning thirty and thinking I don’t know anything. I mean, I had –

Cathy: Exactly!

Sarah: – I had a baby at thirty! I was deeply unqualified for that new job, and I, and I constantly tell my kids, actually, listen: I have never been the parent of two people who are the ages that you are right now until right now, so –

Cathy: Yep.

Sarah: – I might screw this up a couple times, but just say nice things about me in your autobiographies; that’s what I need you to do.

Cathy: [Laughs]

Sarah: But it sounds like that for you this was, this book was, writing this book was about also recognizing yourself in a lot of ways.

Cathy: Yes. Although, if I’m honest, all of them are?

Sarah: Well, I mean, that’s kind of the process, right?

Cathy: Yeah, well, I always, like, go in with a theme and then come out with something else completely that I, my subconscious was screaming at me to know?

Sarah: Yeah.

Cathy: Like, I wrote like four books on workaholism before I, like, finally went, Oh! [Laughs]

Sarah: Oh, wait a minute! Hold on, the call is coming from inside the house!

Cathy: Exactly! [Laughs]

Sarah: So you’ve been writing and publishing romance for a really long time, as we have discussed, and I’m really curious – I love talking to people who’ve been in romance for a long time – for me, the site is seventeen years old, so I’ve been writing about romance for seventeen years. It has changed a wee bit in that time –

Cathy: [Laughs]

Sarah: – and I’m curious: what are some of the biggest changes that you’ve noticed that you’re really happy about, and what do you wish would hurry up and improve already?

Cathy: I love seeing the diversity, ‘cause obviously –

Sarah: Oh gosh, yes.

Cathy: – when I started I – like, and I’m half, I’m Vietnamese-white, biracial, and I pretty much knew initially not to write Asian characters because they weren’t going to sell.

Sarah: Yeah.

Cathy: Or at least that was my thought. I –

Sarah: There’s a lot of subtle messages that underscore that me-, that, that idea.

Cathy: I probably shouldn’t tell this story a whole lot? But, so – [laughs] – the first RWA convention I went to –

Sarah: Oh God.

Cathy: – and it was like, I’m an introvert, so I blew out my fuses like – [laughs] – in a day, but I went to the Harlequin party, and I don’t know if you’ve ever –

Sarah: I have; it is, it is the prom, and it’s big, and it’s huge.

Cathy: It’s overwhelming! There was just, like – and I, I had signed a contract, but my book hadn’t come out. I didn’t know anybody.

Sarah: Right.

Cathy: So this woman comes up to me, and she’s like, Cathy Yardley! I’m like, Why, yes! [Laughs] And she’s like, I’m a publicist with, with Harlequin; it’s great to see you. I was like, Well, thank you! How do you know it’s me? And she’s like, We’re the only Asians here.

Sarah: [Gasps]

Cathy: Yeah. And so that was jarring, to say the least. But when I came up, chick lit was coming up, so a lot of the, the setup for chick lit was three, basically three primary characters. It would have one that was the book description, but then you had three that just, three storylines.

Sarah: Yeah. And –

Cathy: I was able to make sure I had at least one Asian in the three storylines, and I was like, I thought I was, you know, fricking underground –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Cathy: – resistance up in here, which was ridiculous – [laughs] – but I was like, Hey, Asian characters! But –

Sarah: Snuck ‘em in! No one noticed!

Cathy: I know! Mwah-ha-ha! But, and, there’ve been, you know, there’s been some progress. Has it been slow? I’ve been here for twenty years; it’s – [laughs] – been kind of slow!

Sarah: It’s slow.

Cathy: But I, I love seeing more of it now, and honestly, I do feel that having indies come up is what pushes traditional to change.

Sarah: Yeah.

Cathy: Where it’s like, see? This can succeed.

Sarah: Yep!

Cathy: We, we can try different things. And they’re being much more open; they’re actively looking, and I love that. Love all, everything about that.

So what do I wish would kind of hurry up? There are some weird things about traditional publishing as far as, honestly this is marketing and taking cues from indies as far as, like – and this is wonky, but live links! Would it kill ‘em to have live links to like a newsletter or back matter or something like that? It’s like –

Sarah: Well, how do you mean? Do you mean the dynamic links that update on your end? So explain what a live link is and explain why it’s missing, ‘cause I think I know what you’re talking about, but I’m sure someone listening’s going to be like, What’s, like, what, they don’t, they don’t code the link? It doesn’t go anywhere?

Cathy: Yeah. Well, they don’t even have links in some cases –

Sarah: Oh boy.

Cathy: – buy links in traditional books, and if you get an indie, I mean, a lot of times they have it locked down, or it’s like, you, by the time you finish that story, they have, they’ve got a bonus scene, so you can sign up for their newsletter. They have buy links that are live for any other book that they’ve got, and they can track them. [Laughs] So these are all, in my mind, good things, because it’s never about the sales; it’s about the sell-through. But I think traditional publishing, weirdly, is still so married to the print model that they don’t, either they don’t understand it, or they don’t want to. And –

Sarah: Or there are people who understand it, and they haven’t been able to convince the people above them that this is important.

Cathy: And that –

Sarah: And they burn out and go work for a tech company or something.

Cathy: Exactly!

[Laughter]

Cathy: That, it just baffles me. I, my brother’s an MBA and I’ve talked to him, and he’s just like, How does this work? Why would anyone in the world – business doesn’t run this way, and I’m like, Welcome to publishing, man! [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah! And there’s so many ways in which indie authors have pushed traditional publishing forward by, you know, getting redistribution deals, by getting a print deal for a, a digital series that’s done really well, and you see, like, these new ideas, and it’s like, Wow! This is so clever! And romance, especially romance authors –

Cathy: Yes!

Sarah: – in the indie space are so creative technologically and in terms of marketing, it’s astonishing!

Cathy: Well, I, I hear – God. I feel like I should be on my front porch with, like, a mason jar of, like, lemonade or something, but –

Sarah: Yep.

Cathy: – Back in my day –

Sarah: Back in the day. Once upon a time. Rock, rock, rock.

Cathy: [Laughs]

Sarah: Young whippersnappers!

Cathy: I’ll hear people – oh my God – I’ll hear people being like, you know, Publishing doesn’t, you know, they’re not going to give any kind of marketing support; you have to do it all yourself; and I’m like, They didn’t really back in the day, either? Yes, they are really encouraging or, you know, kind of dropping the ball in your court as far as like a, Okay! You know, you do your marketing! But what marketing they were doing wasn’t like – I don’t know what people are thinking was happening. [Laughs] I’m just like, It’s – you’re fine. This is not the, this is not the thing to rail against. Honestly, in some ways you’re better off doing your own marketing, because no one’s going to know your book like you?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Cathy: And, again, with indies, you can learn a lot! And –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Cathy: – and do all these things. That said, even after all this time it’s kind of like, Ah! I do have hope.

Sarah: Oh –

Cathy: I genuinely do, because I do think that, honestly, the readers are – especially in romance!

Sarah: Oh yes!

Cathy: I mean, like, it’s like the Avengers. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yep!

Cathy: In the good way, where it’s like –

Sarah: Yeah.

Cathy: – you just release them and they’re sort of like, you know, if you can point out a bad actor or if you’re like, you know, This is a great book; I think this should be – I mean, obviously we all were like, My book is great! Hello!

Sarah: Yes.

Cathy: But when something strikes a nerve –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Cathy: – it’s the most generous and the most like, All right! [Claps] Let’s get the word out! [Claps] Activate!

Sarah: And this, and this relates to something that you’ve been writing about for several years, which is that the readers who are coming into romance and are there now are used to functioning as a fandom, and they know what a fandom can do, and so they function in the same way that geekery fandoms and nerdy fandoms and videogame and, and cosplay fandoms have been operating for a lot longer. That energy has been brought into romance, and fandom is a wonderfully powerful thing.

Cathy: I absolutely agree, and I have noticed that over the, the – it was different before social media.

Sarah: Yes! Extremely.

Cathy: It didn’t have the same ways to connect. And now –

Sarah: Yeah, I was social media back in the day; I was a blog!

Cathy: Yep! Yep!

Sarah: I’m a blog with social media.

Cathy: So now you do have – what I’ve noticed with especially popular authors – I mean, like, merch was not a thing.

Sarah: Oh my gosh, I know! And I remember back, back, back, back, back, L. A. Banks, who, who –

Cathy: Oh!

Sarah: – died a number of years ago, she was one of the first people I’d ever seen talking openly about her street team.

Cathy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: I have a street team, and that came out of hip-hop. Like, she told me the whole genesis of that community of people who supported her books and showed up to her signings and would get people to come, and I was like, Wow, that’s amazing! How do you do that? Now that’s a standard expectation, but back then it was really wild! People had not been encountering organized fandoms around an author in romance before. And that was urban fantasy, so it was like romance’s very close cousin.

Cathy: Yes, yes. I, I remember that kind of overlap a lot.

Sarah: Yeah!

Cathy: [Laughs] Absolutely love that story, because you hear street team like you hear, you know –

Sarah: Facebook group.

Cathy: – newsletter. Oh yeah! It’s just –

Sarah: Facebook group.

Cathy: – it’s like a, it’s a standard. It’s always been here. And I –

Sarah: Yeah, I’m like, No, this was a new thing, and it was really cool. Yep

Cathy: Yeah.

Sarah: Now, you mentioned that you are obsessed with gaming, and I wanted to ask you, for the listeners, for some recommendations for videogames that a romance reader might like. What are some of your favorites? I thought that having some gaming options to discuss, especially because, you know, the weather can be very variable; we might want to be inside in the air conditioning playing videogames. Please give me your recs, ‘cause I know this is an area in which you have a great deal of expertise.

Cathy: [Laughs] Relatively speaking.

Sarah: Relatively speaking.

Cathy: Just – and it’s funny because I, my son is like very, very, very hardcore gamer, so he’d be like, No, you’re not!

[Laughter]

Cathy: As only a teenager can.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Cathy: But I grew up with games. Relatively recently I’ve played things like the Skyrim or Elder Scrolls online. I loved Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I have not played Tears of the Kingdom yet, mostly because I’m a little intimidated by some of the mechanic parts of it. [Laughs] But that said, I don’t play the game the way a lot of people do, as far as I’m –

Sarah: Oh, me neither!

Cathy: – I’m not a main quest battle person. I will actually go explore the countryside for hours and hours and hours. It’s like, when I played Breath of the Wild it was like I, I’m going to do all the, the shrine quests, the side quests, so I can get the fancy outfit –

Sarah: Yeah!

Cathy: – and I can go look for all these little, cute seed things, ‘cause there’s a little broccoli guy that dances – [laughs] – and my son went nuts. He’s like, Why are you doing this?!

Sarah: Why aren’t you doing the main quest? I have been playing –

Cathy: Exactly!

Sarah: – Witcher 3 for years. I am still not through the game because I love to walk through the environment, I love to walk through the world, pick flowers, wander around, see what it looks like, ‘cause it’s beautiful! And I’ve got, got music. If I’m on a boat I’m just sailing, and sometimes I encounter bandits, and sometimes I have to kill them, which is like, All right, fine, I’ll kill you, but I’m, you know, I’m really, I’m really powered up because I’ve been picking all these flowers. My favorite thing is that there’ll be a bandit, right, and he’ll have a helmet and a sword, and he’ll be wearing like medieval tighty-whiteys and shoes, and that’s it, and I kill him, and it’s like, loot. I’m like, Well, what does this guy have? An entire roast chicken is what I loot off a dead bandit. In his pants? Like, what’s he keeping in his trouser-, like, what?! I love this so much. I pick flowers, I loot bandits, I get a roast chicken; sometimes it’s a chicken sandwich. It’s great. I love wandering around, and I, and I’m, like, on whatever the easiest mode is. I love just –

Cathy: Right.

Sarah: – wandering around a world, especially because I know how much work goes into the programming of that, like, open-world environment? I love secondary quests! You want me to go do a treasure hunt? Oh, let’s go! Let’s go! Main quest? Oh, that can wait.

Cathy: Yeah. Then Legend of Zelda: that’s your thing.

Sarah: Ah! Yes!

Cathy: And any of the Elder Scrolls things. They, they are just total open world: you can cook, you can do all kinds of things.

Sarah: Yep.

Cathy: For people who are really more kind of casual, I love Stardew Valley, because you can get married too. [Laughs] My husband is Elliott right now, and I’m very happy. The guy writes me poetry –

Sarah: Ohhh!

Cathy: – and it will do chores and take care of the baby. He’s got like the long, I hate to say it, but the Fabio hair, and he’s –

Sarah: He’s got Fabio hair and he writes romance novels if you select that option.

Cathy: Yes!

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Cathy: I’m like, love this guy! So that’s just fun, ‘cause you can farm and do stuff like that too. And it’s –

Sarah: And you can pick the thing that you want to do.

Cathy: Yeah! You, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. It’s very, very, very open to just, you do what you want to do.

Sarah: Yeah.

Cathy: There is a big YouTube gamer, Markiplier –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Cathy: – who, I mean, he has like thirty million subscribers or something nuts, and he’s funny, and he’s – respectfully, he’s a good-looking young man.

[Laughter]

Sarah: It helps. Helps on the YouTubes!

Cathy: Actually, he was, he was in some ways kind of an inspiration for my first book with Montlake, because I got it, it, the, the main male character is a, a gaming YouTuber –

Sarah: Oh, that’s cool!

Cathy: – who’s Vietnamese-American, and, yeah, it was just, it’s all about kind of the YouTube world, which I was very fascinated by. But anyway, he, he did a review of Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator, and I just lost my mind. I was like, this can’t be a real thing! And yet, here we are.

Sarah: Uh, yeah! Yeah! I also love reading books about YouTubers, because it’s another way of exploring fandom, and I think one of the things that romance explores a lot is sort of your inner and your outer personas; your, your real self and then your public self; and a YouTuber has a lot of public/private self conflict. It’s almost like a, a new, a new variation of celebrity romance, especially if you’re talking about that many millions of followers.

Cathy: It’s true! In this one, in that, the name of that book was Love, Comment, Subscribe.

Sarah: Nice! Very nice. Very nice.

Cathy: [Laughs] Thank you! And he is a, obviously the, the gaming YouTuber, and the female main character is a beauty influencer?

Sarah: Ohhh!

Cathy: And they, they knew each other in high school. They were both like total geeky, nerdy people? She was not happy about this; he was, you know, completely happy with this; but they have this kind of, it’s not enemies-to-lovers to say; it’s annoyance-to-lovers. That’s a term I’m hearing more and more now. So –

Sarah: That’s a good term! Annoyance-to-lovers, ‘cause it’s not like you’ve done heinous things to each other; you just bug each other, yeah.

Cathy: Yes! And that, he, he’s joked that he’s like the golden retriever that would love to just, like, hang out with her, and she’s a cat who would definitely claw him if he came too close. [Laughs] It’s like, he’s like, This is not going to work!

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Cathy: So, but they do wind up collaborating because a lot of the name of the game in YouTubing is collaboration –

Sarah: Yeah.

Cathy: – to try to build your numbers. So she’s like, Ahhh, I’m going to have to work with this guy because I think it’ll really help, and he’s like, She’s one of my oldest friends; of course I’m going to help.

Sarah: Yeah.

Cathy: And the fact that I’ve had a little thing for her for ten years is – [laughs] – notwithstanding.

Sarah: Oh, I love harboring a nice pine.

Cathy: Yes, pining.

Sarah: Pine, pine trees just keep for so long.

Cathy: [Laughs]

Sarah: So I always ask this question: what books are you reading that you want to tell everyone about?

Cathy: I just finished Tal Bauer’s How to Say I Do, which, it’s got that left-at-the-altar groom kind of trope?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Cathy: And so he goes on the honeymoon, and he meets a guy there, and they wind up having a fake relationship because everyone’s assuming that, you know, they’re the grooms, even though the guy was going to marry a woman. And of course they fall in love but, you know, the groom is from New York City; the fake-relationship guy is, has a, a vineyard in Texas; and I don’t know if you’ve read Tal Bauer’s work?

Sarah: I have not.

Cathy: The angst!

Sarah: Ooh!

Cathy: Is just chef’s kiss, and not in that kind of like manufactured, like, misunderstanding – none of that. It’s just oh my – and lyrical. The guy writes just beautifully. So I was like, Okay! Tal’s got a book out! I’m there! [Laughs]

Sarah: Oh, awesome!

Cathy: So I just finished that, and next I want to read Jeevani Char- – uh, sorry – Jeevani Charika’s Playing for Love, which is, like, so up my geeky alley. It’s, she said it’s got a quadrangle where – but it’s only got two people. [Laughs] Because it’s a woman in love with a guy’s online persona, falling in love kind of with his nerdy real self, not realizing they’re the same person.

Sarah: Oh, that’s very –

Cathy: And vice versa. [Laughs]

Sarah: That is one of my favorite conflicts. I love the, like I said, I love the public and private persona and trying to work out where the real person is between those two things. Oh, yes, please!

Cathy: Yep.

Sarah: That is so good.

Cathy: So as soon as I heard about that I was like, Bing! One click!

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Cathy: I’m there!

Sarah: Any other books you want to mention?

Cathy: I don’t know if it’s still on sale, but I just snapped up This Is How You Lose the Time War.

Sarah: Oh-ho! No one’s talking about that book!

Cathy: I know! [Laughs] I figure if it’s good enough for Bigolas Dickolas it’s good enough for me.

Sarah: There were people cosplaying as him holding the book at cons. Like, I, I just, speaking of fandom, like, that is the perfect storm of fandom that you just – like, that’s a meaningful experience. Like, I get a, for example, I get a lot of pitches from publicists and whomever that’re like, This book has over eight million views on TikTok, and I’m like, Okay, what does that mean? Views of what? Views of one video? Views of a hashtag, views of a –

Cathy: Yeah!

Sarah: – what, views of all the books, all of the videos about – what channel? What were they – like, what is, why is that a meaningful statistic? ‘Cause I don’t actually believe that 8.6 separate people all looked at this book. Like, I don’t believe that that’s possible, but with This Is How You Lose the Time War, I absolutely believe that 8.6 million people looked at that book! [Laughs]

Cathy: I’ll be honest; a friend of mine mentioned it before this whole brouhaha?

Sarah: Yeah?

Cathy: And I was just like, Okay, that sounds interesting. Then this kind of hit, and I was like, Well, okay.

Sarah: Yeah.

Cathy: Now it’s a bit of a cultural, like, thing.

Sarah: Yep. Awkward, earnest squee can do a lot, and I think it’s really hard to fake that. Like, it’s really hard to fake earnest squeeing about a book, ‘cause it, you can sort of tell the disingenuousness.

Cathy: I was actually talking with another author; we both like reaction videos? [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah!

Cathy: What’s not to love? Because you’re never going to be able to experiencing, experience something for the first time again –

Sarah: Yes! That’s –

Cathy: – but when you watch a reaction video it is, you get that, like, dopamine hit of seeing someone experience something for the first time and having those shocks, and it’s like when you make your friend watch something, and you’re watching them –

Sarah: Yes!

Cathy: – rather than the screen, ‘cause you want to see that – yes.

Sarah: Yep.

Cathy: I don’t think that writers have that same thing, except for live tweeting. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yes. That was an old art.

Cathy: When someone tweets what they’re reading, I am hooked! I’m just like a, Okay, they’re going to get to the good part!

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Cathy: [Laughs] I’ve got to see how this turns out! I would love to see more of that.

Sarah: I loved live-tweeting books before Twitter went to hell in a handbasket.

Cathy: Alas, it is just – I’m like, I just got the hang of this cesspool! Yeah, still kind of casting about for an alternative to that.

Sarah: I haven’t found one. I’m so sad!

Cathy: ‘Cause, yeah, I just don’t see the same functionality for, I mean, I like Instagram but I’m not a photographer or any kind of graphic designer. TikTok, I got nothing. I – [laughs] – I eventually hopefully will figure it out? I enjoy watching, like, the short videos, but I –

Sarah: Yeah. TikTok, TikTok is a creativity in a department that I don’t have a lot of skill set in? And I, I am so excited that people know how to think in Creating a TikTok; I do not know –

Cathy: Yes.

Sarah: – how to think in Creating TikTok. I know this about myself, but it’s awesome that it works? Just, it is just not for me.

What are you working on right now, in addition to book launch?

Cathy: I am working on another Gen X romance, because –

Sarah: Hell yeah.

Cathy: – this was so fun! But this one is about a widow who, she has gone to live in a, in her, in her aunt’s house, I guess her great-aunt’s house – I can’t remember [laughs] – and she’s working on a cookbook because that used to be what she did before her husband died. She has basically been in like a limbo state.

Sarah: Yeah. Grief stasis.

Cathy: Grief stasis, and also she was a caregiver for a long time, so that tends to do things to you.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Cathy: But next door is a hobby farm with a smoking-hot – [laughs] – handyman guy who wants to own his own restoration business, who’s used to fixing things. But –

Sarah: Oh, I just hate when that happens, when there’s a hot hobby-farmer guy next door.

Cathy: [Laughs] But there’s like a whole family there, where his parents live there, his oldest daughter lives there, and his son’s probably going to move there. They have goats that are, like, he’s basically convinced are demonic. [Laughs] It’s like –

Sarah: I mean, fair assumption.

Cathy: Yes. There’s a dog that keeps running away. Anyway, the premise is basically you, my widow is very, she’s the type of person that does not take help. She does not –

Sarah: Oh!

Cathy: – want to owe favors. She is very, like, very polite, very almost posh, but she helps him with his dog, so he helps with something else, and she’s like, Nononono. And they get into one of those, like, Midwestern, like, favor cycles where it’s like, No, no! I can’t owe you anything! [Laughs] And they just keep –

Sarah: The Midwestern favor cycle! [Laughs]

Cathy: Yes. So then they just keep helping each other out of almo-, it’s like an escalating, like – [laughs] – I don’t know how to get out of this!

Sarah: They’re just trading the same casserole dish back and forth.

Cathy: Yeah, and it’s, well, and it is the sort of thing where every time they try to help each other, something usually jumps the tracks, and then the other person is still trying to compensate where it’s like, Here, you know, I’ll, I will fix your garage. Well, now my dog has broken into this!

Sarah: Yep.

Cathy: Okay, you gave me this; I’ll make you this. Oh, it went horribly wrong.

Sarah: Yep.

Cathy: [Laughs] I just –

Sarah: I get it! Yep! And that’s a, and that’s an interesting way to build conflict, because there’s people who are trying to be kind and be nice to each other, but are also like, But if I really, really had my option, I would not leave the house.

Cathy: Yes.

Sarah: Yep.

Cathy: I, I do think, and I, I’m sure in some ways – not that the pandemic’s going to be in the book, but I do think that that has kind of accelerated that whole, like, I don’t want to be around people necessarily?

Sarah: Oh, yes.

Cathy: And I do think that as you get older –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Cathy: – you don’t have the same, like, friendship-making sort of skills or, you know, like – and when your spouse has died, you know, that network, any network that you might have had isn’t necessarily there, dep-, if you’re not an extrovert.

Sarah: Yeah.

Cathy: Then it becomes this, like, okay, I guess this is me now.

Sarah: Yeah. And like we were saying earlier, that role becomes everything, and then when you don’t have that role, well, what are you? What do you do? What are you doing? And who are you again? I have a life that I, I have all this time? Like, what do I do with it? It’s a, it’s a big transition, and like, like we were saying, it’s not really represented a lot, even though it’s incredibly common.

Where can people find you if you wish to be found on the internet?

Cathy: Well, of course I do! Obviously not TikTok. [Laughs]

Sarah: Nope. Clearly not!

Cathy: I am on Instagram, I am on Twitter, both at @cathyyardley. And I do have a Facebook readers’ group called Can’t Yardley Wait.

[Laughter]

Sarah: I do love puns.

Cathy: So it’s, it cracks me up. It’s, it’s a small but dedicated group of…mostly just like kind of, you know, give it some, like, share nerdy memes. [Laughs]

Sarah: I mean, that’s what Facebook is for at this point. It’s the only good thing left: groups and memes.

Cathy: Yeah.

Sarah: Right?

Cathy: But, but yeah, that’s, that is where I hang out, and I do like interacting with people. Otherwise, I can always, I have my website, cathyyardley.com, where I can, you know, be emailed and things like that.

Sarah: Awesome!

[music]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. Thank you to Cathy Yardley for hanging out with me. I will have links to Role Playing and all of the other books she mentioned, plus links to everything we talked about, including, I found a, a clip of the late L. A. Banks thanking her street team fourteen years ago. It’s kind of a cool artifact. It is definitely a cool artifact, actually. She was lovely. I will have all of that in the show notes at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast.

As always, I end with a terrible joke. This joke comes from Ernie from Sesame Street by way of JF Hobbit in the podcast Discord.

Why couldn’t the little flower ride a bike?

Give up? Why couldn’t the little flower ride a bike?

It didn’t have any pedals.

[Laughs] I think I’m going to tell that to the seven-year-olds in my neighborhood and see if they get mad. I bet they’ll get mad. Thank you, JF Hobbit, and thank you, Ernie from Sesame Street.

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.

[cool music]