652. Smart Bitches Turns 20 with Candy Tan

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Sarah Wendell: Hello there! Welcome to episode number 652 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell, and my guest today is Candy Tan, who twenty years ago co-founded Smart Bitches, Trashy Books with me. I’m so excited for this episode. We are going to look back at the founding of Smart Bitches, about her reaction to the Bridgerton adaptation, and her perennial favorite romances. We talk about the ways that romance has changed since 2005 – there are a few – and then I show Candy the casting photos for the Black Dagger Brotherhood adaptation, and that’s a lot of fun.

I will have links to all of the books we talk about in the show notes, and you can find those where you’re listening in whatever app or at smartbitchestrashybooks.com under episode 652.

I have a compliment this week, which is always fun.

To Laura W.: There are seeds underground right now getting ready to grow near your home that are so excited to show you how snazzy they are, because they admire your style and your wit so much in every season of every year.

If you would like a compliment of your own or you’d like to support this show, have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches. Members get a bonus episode once or twice, you get the full scan of the Romantic Times magazine, coming back in February, and you get a wonderful Discord community. Plus you’re helping me make sure that every episode has a transcript hand-compiled by garlicknitter – hey, garlicknitter! – [Hi! – gk] – so if you’d like to join, patreon.com/SmartBitches.

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All right, are you ready to start a podcast? I’m ready to start a podcast. On with my conversation with Candy Tan about Smart Bitches turning twenty years old.

[music]

Candy Tan: Hello! I’m Candy. I co-founded Smart Bitches back in the day with Sarah, and –

Sarah: That’s true!

Candy: – yeah! We came up with the idea in 2004, I think like late 2004?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Candy: Yeah, this was just peak mean humor time, I feel. South Park was super popular.

Sarah: Yes. That, that is very true, and it was, snarkiness was, was, like, king. All of the cultures of niceness were getting, like, chipped at, basically –

Candy: Yes, yes.

Sarah: – and romance was no different. And we were not the first to be snarky, either.

Candy: No, no! We weren’t. God knows Mrs. Giggles was an inspiration. Like, it’s amazing! She has a website? She has a co-reviewer, I think potentially her, her husband, partner? There’s a, there’s a Mr. Mustard, and they’re putting out reviews very, very regularly. Yeah.

Sarah: And they review everything from instructional manuals to albums by Sophie B. Hawkins? More power to ‘em!

Candy: Yes, yes, precisely. But yeah! Rereading my old stuff? Some of it’s like, Oh, okay! I said, I said some funny stuff; I said some smart stuff. But I would say a solid fifty percent of the time I’m like, Ooh, damn! Oh, I was, I was so fucking mean!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Candy: Yeah, anyways – [laughs] – you know, consider this kind of like a, a blanket apology for all of the extremely fucked-up stuff I once upon a time said. And I guess it’s like a sign of growth or something? I don’t know. It definitely makes me want to die a little bit inside – [laughs] –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Candy: – some of the stuff I read? It’s like, Oh no! I said that with my own little fingers! Oh no!

Sarah: There’s a, there are a couple times where I’ve been looking in the archives at, like, Cover Snark or older reviews, and I’m just like –

Candy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – Wow, I would not say that that way now.

Candy: No! No.

Sarah: Like, I’m, I’m, you know, we’re both –

Candy: God.

Sarah: – twenty years older, and I’d like to think –

Candy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – I’ve learned something, and –

Candy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – I remember hearing a podcast from an activist named Layla Saad, and she said something that basically, You have to honor the stages of the journey that you’re on, even as you recognize some of those stages were hella cringe. [Laughs]

Candy: Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah: I, I feel a, a blanket repleteness of a lot of cringe in the archives.

Candy: Ahhh!

Sarah: So how’ve you been? Whatcha up to?

Candy: Oh God! I’ve been okay! I’m, I’m better these years than I have been. Let me see, like –

Sarah: I’m really glad to hear that.

Candy: Yeah. I, I stopped reading for almost ten years post law school. I, I just lost –

Sarah: Oh wow, that’s some –

Candy: – all pleasure in reading.

Sarah: – burn out! Yikes!

Candy: Yeah, yeah. I, the, the only authors I could reliably read and, like, finish a book for were Naomi Novik and – [laughs] – boy, this name feels different in my mouth now – Neil Gaiman. But –

Sarah: Oh no! Oh! Oh cripes –

Candy: I know, right? Yeah, that was such –

Sarah: – I’m sorry. Oh.

Candy: That was, that was a fucking bummer. But yeah, so – [laughs] – for, anyway, so for, for, for twelve-ish years I would finish maybe one book a year if I was lucky? And then, and then Red, White & Royal Blue reignited my love in like late 2019?

Sarah: Yep!

Candy: And I, I read it, I was like, This is incredible. I forgot how much fun a good romance novel is, and then I just started, like, rereading all of my old books on my shelves. I, I did like a comprehensive Loretta Chase reread, which highly recommend. Most of those novels, like, absolutely hold up.

Sarah: Oh, absolutely.

Candy: Re-, yeah, went through most of my Lisa Kleypas and, you know, I, I love her, but some of – [laughs] – some of the, the earlier stuff, I don’t know. I had, I struggled. And I still am not through, ‘cause she’s a lot more prolific than Chase. You know, there, there’s, like, the, the ones from the early 2000s about the, the theatre troupe? I, I kind of stalled out –

Sarah: Yeah.

Candy: – there, and I, I, I skipped ahead. The, the Ravenels – if that’s how you pronounce that name; I don’t know that I’ve ever heard it said out loud –

Sarah: I’ve never heard it either, so we’ll just you’re right!

Candy: Okay, yeah! So the Ravenels were a lot of fun. The, the first, the first one, Cold-Hearted Rake, was, you know, it’s whatever. It’s Lisa Kleypas, so it’s very readable, but I wasn’t super into it, but, like, Marrying Winterborne hit all of my Dreaming of You buttons –

Sarah: Ohhh yeah!

Candy: – so I was like, Okay! All right! [Laughs] We got, you know, we got, we got the dark, you know, dark, tall, self-made man and, like, a, the, the timorous heroine, fine. You know, that, that hit some, some pleasurable buttons.

Sarah: What do you remember about starting Smart Bitches?

Candy: Oh God! So I remember following your blog for some reason –

Sarah: Oh yeah. For, you –

Candy: – your old blog.

Sarah: – I had a recipe for raw cat food.

Candy: Oh, was that it? Is that how I found you?

Sarah: Yeah. Your cat had –

Candy: Oh my God!

Sarah: I remember this part: you had a kitten with the shits, and you were googling –

Candy: Yes!

Sarah: – cat food recipes –

Candy: [Laughs]

Sarah: – and I had been making my own cat food because, for the record, I did not have children then, so I had more time.

Candy: Yes, yes.

Sarah: And you found my site because of the cat food recipes, which I think –

Candy: Yes.

Sarah: – I think I still have them printed out somewhere.

Candy: Oh my God. Okay, yes.

Sarah: My cat is, one of my cats is on my desk right now, and I’m like, I’m not making your food, girl. Just eat the, eat the kibble; you’re fine.

Candy: [Laughs]

Sarah: You get a special anyway, ‘cause you get bladder stones, so, you know, eat your food.

Candy: Yes.

Sarah: But you found my site because of the cat, and then you were commenting, and I think we started emailing. This part I remember: after the tsunami I emailed you because –

Candy: Yes!

Sarah: – I had remembered you as being from Indonesia, and you’re from Malaysia, which are –

Candy: Yes.

Sarah: – not the same place. And we started emailing back and forth and somehow started talking about romance novels, and somehow we’re like –

Candy: Yes.

Sarah: – let’s start a blog! Which is a totally different concept than starting a podcast!

Candy: [Laughs] So different!

Sarah: Lot less work.

Candy: Ohhh, yeah. Oh, like – God. The nice thing about starting a blog with someone whose writing you trust is that you don’t need to edit each other.

Sarah: That’s very true. That’s very, very true.

Candy: There’s not, there’s not, like, minimum, you know, hour or two editing work you have to do for, you know, every episode or whatever.

Sarah: No, and writing is already, like, if you’re going to polish it? You, you take out all the ums and the uhs in your audio; that’s just polishing; it’s just that takes much more time. I’m really good at spotting –

Candy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – what an um looks like in a waveform though now. I can spot those from across the room.

Candy: [Laughs] Amazing.

Sarah: One thing I do remember is that I think one of us bought the domain, smartbitchestrashybooks –

Candy: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Sarah: – and then I think you did the first banner, which was Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Novels?

Candy: Yes! I know, yes!

Sarah: And they didn’t match? I’ll give you a spoiler; on Friday, on Friday –

Candy: Ah-ha!

Sarah: – we’re putting the original banner back at the top of the site for the weekend.

Candy: Yes! Oh my God! And I remember it drove people crazy for a while, and I –

Sarah: Yes! It drove them sideways…so frustrated!

Candy: [Laughs] People were like, So is it novels or books? And I was just like –

Sarah: It’s both.

Candy: – Look, look, novels are book, okay. Deal with it. And then I finally fixed it like, I think like a year or two down the line or something? It’s like, okay, fine –

Sarah: It wasn’t a priority.

Candy: It wasn’t a priority!

Sarah: It was not that big of a deal. Some people –

Candy: …exactly.

Sarah: – still refer to it as, as SBTN, which makes me feel like –

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: – we have our own network.

Candy: [Laughs]

Sarah: Smart Bitches Trashy Network.

Candy: The smart, the Smart Bitches TV Network.

Sarah: Yeah, right? That –

Candy: [Laughs]

Sarah: Do you remember when –

Candy: Oh God.

Sarah: Do you remember when there were, like, online television shows about romance? There was like a whole romance TV –

Candy: Oh God.

Sarah: – online channel?

Candy: Yes!

Sarah: Like, it was –

Candy: Very vaguely.

Sarah: We were, we were multimedia back in the day! All these –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – all these websites.

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: The other thing I remember is how quickly people found the site. Like, I didn’t think it was going to be anything. I didn’t think –

Candy: I was –

Sarah: – anyone was going to pay attention.

Candy: Same! No, I, I remember the two of us putting up a couple of random reviews. I think the very first review was Archangel by Sharon Shinn? Oh no, or Angel-Seeker?

Sarah: Angel-Seeker.

Candy: It was, it was, it, yeah, it was one of the Sharon Shinn Samaria novels –

Sarah: Yep!

Candy: – and I, and I loved it, and I was like, Eh, it’s romance; it’s romance, sure! [Laughs] It’s – and then, yeah, and, and I don’t know how people find us, found us. I –

Sarah: I have a theory.

Candy: Oh, what’s your theory? I want to hear it.

Sarah: My theory is that a lot of authors were searching their own names.

Candy: Oooh! Okay, okay! Yeah. Yeahyeahyeah.

Sarah: Or people were sharing the link, ‘cause I remember in the first like couple of years, the biggest referrer was email servers, people emailing each other the link –

Candy: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Sarah: – and then clicking in from, like, Yahoo! And what was the other? Hotmail, AOL.com –

Candy: Uh-huh!

Sarah: – like, we had a lot of email traffic. People like, Did you see this? Did you see this?

Candy: Yeah, and I remember, what I remember was we, for a little while, we did keyword search roundups.

Sarah: Yes!

Candy: How did, how did people find us?

Sarah: Dominican bitches. Do you remember Dominican bitches?

Candy: [Laughs] Dominican bitches!

Sarah: I don’t know, but the thing about the Dominican bitches person, wherever you are, I hope you’re well, because when we were doing those referral searches they came with an IP address, so we, like, it was, you know, one IP to this search. That person kept coming back!

Candy: [Laughs]

Sarah: Like, over and over! Like, (a) that we’d turned into Dominicans or (b) that they just really liked what we were doing. You know, so Come for the Dominican Bitches, Stay for the Man-Titty was a –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – was a slogan at the top for like a really long time. [Laughs]

Candy: It was! Yes! Oh my God. Yeah.

Sarah: And if you read that now without the context it’s like, What the hell is wrong with you?

Candy: [Laughs] I just wonder what that person thought. You know, like, Okay, these people are bitchy enough.

Sarah: Sure!

Candy: Not my preferred nationality/race, but –

Sarah: But that’s fine! That’s fine!

Candy: You know?

Sarah: Yeah, same. I hope that person became a very successful romance reader or author or whatever they were looking for, but –

Candy: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Sarah: – Dominican bitches kept me laughing for like fifteen years, easily.

Candy: No. Absolutely. Amazing stuff. Yeah. Early days. God, we did Cover Snark very early, ‘cause it felt like low-hanging comedy fruit, and it –

Sarah: It was so abundant.

Candy: – continues to be! [Laughs]

Sarah: It’s still abundant! It’s just so different now. That was actually one of my questions, because we had been writing about this, but what do you think of the change in covers over twenty years? The art and the marketing are so different now!

Candy: Yeah! So what I will say is I failed to appreciate the classic acrylic painting bodice ripper/clinch cover?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Candy: I don’t think – I think I found them so embarrassing for so long that I, I didn’t see all the work and all the skill it took? ‘Cause, you know, first of all, they had to find models, and then they had to take photos of the models.

Sarah: Yep.

Candy: And, and the models were frequently not in comfortable positions.

Sarah: No.

Candy: [Laughs] You know, like, and, and I know, and I know that, you know, oftentimes they had to be like, they had to get wet; they had to, like, put up with, like, a lot of wind blowing at them because, you know, they needed to get the, the, the hair flying back.

Sarah: Yes. As you once said, the, the, The grass has to exhale in multiple directions.

Candy: [Laughs] Yes! Was that for Man of My Dreams? I can’t, I can’t remember. That, that, like, the, the wind direction was always so funny to me. It’s like, Okay, it’s coming from up; it’s coming from, from every cardinal direction…the weather.

Sarah: Multiple weather systems! Yeah, multiple weather systems –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – are happening on these people right now. Yeah.

Candy: Yeah, like, Bitch, get in your shelter; there’s a hurricane coming. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yes. And it’s under your skirt, apparently, and also behind him.

Candy: Do not neck-fuck the hot redhead; she’s very hot! [Laughs] But you’re about to get blown away, not in the way you so desire.

Sarah: It’s not going to be good for you, my guy; promise. Promise it’s not.

Candy: For fucking real. But anyway, so those – and then, and then, and then they took those photos and gave them to the cover painter, and the cover painter would genuinely enact some fucking magic, because they would add all these elements, right? Genuinely, like, man, if I could ever get my hands on a Robert McGinnis, like, original?

Sarah: Oooh –

Candy: Oh –

Sarah: – yeah.

Candy: – if I had enough money and, like –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Candy: – resources to get one of those, I would, I would in a heartbeat. ‘Cause his, his Johanna Lindsey covers are all spectacular.

Sarah: I never understood the Johanna Lindseys where the hero looks like he’s got jaundice and fungus? Like, he’s kind of green?

Candy: [Laughs]

Sarah: Like, I’ve never understood that color scheme, but I just figure that worked at the time, so I won’t question it –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – but he does look like he has both jaundice and gangrene at the same time.

Candy: Yeah, and I, I, I think part of it, too, I wonder was a, the color technology of the time? I know that –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Candy: – our color printers are so much better now?

Sarah: Oh yeah. Lot more color range.

Candy: Yeah, yeah –

Sarah: And faster.

Candy: – and, and also some of it’s fading, too? I don’t store my books the most carefully –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Candy: – and some of them, you know, the spines have been really faded, and –

Sarah: Yeah.

Candy: – and what it does to skin tone is astonishing, ‘cause it’s, the reds go first, so what you’re left with are the greens and blues, so you do get a little bit of, like, zombie guy look.

Sarah: Yeah. Lots of zombie-looking dudes.

Candy: [Laughs] Yeah.

Sarah: I did an interview with a photographer and an artist who worked together on photo shoots and then covers for, like, bunches and bunches and bunches of novels, shifting from, like, acrylic and oil painting to digital painting, and one of the things they told me was it’s actually really hard to get good cover models, because the models have to be able to move in an –

Candy: Mm-hmm!

Sarah: – in a facsimile of intimacy. They have to be really comfortable being close? They have to look like they’re having a good time, and there has to be some sort of movement in the pose –

Candy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – and a lot of models are just used to standing still and looking at a camera.

Candy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: So the people who were being hired to be on covers had a very specific skill set –

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: – that I personally did not appreciate until I learned that and thought, You know what, that is really hard. I would not be able to look like I was having a good time with a total stranger in a bathtub –

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: – wearing a scarf –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – with a fan. Like, I’d be cold!

Candy: Yeah, no! Absolutely! Like, the models were doing something really, like, technically difficult.

Sarah: Yes.

Candy: Yeah, and then, and then the cover artists were doing something technical and difficult too? The fact that they were able to paint these so freaking fast –

Sarah: I know.

Candy: – and fill in so much detail, ‘cause, you know, like, the, I don’t think the set dressing was ever what, you know, what you ever saw on the cover –

Sarah: No.

Candy: – so they had to come up with landscapes and –

Sarah: Flowers.

Candy: – backdrops and bowers, and all of that was the cover artist, and, you know, I am in awe, and people like Elaine Duillo and Pino and all the other people who were, like, insanely prolific, I – God! The, the work ethic and how fast they did it and –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Candy: – like, just how well they captured everything. I, I just didn’t know what we had until we lost it, until we moved into the, basically the cursed stock photo era of, you know, just, like, taking stock photos, airbrushing the hell out of it, oftentimes jamming two photos together –

Sarah: With different lighting –

Candy: – two models together, with, with different lighting –

Sarah: – that don’t match.

Candy: – drives me crazy!

[Laughter]

Candy: Oh my God! And, and you know, I wonder if, like, you know how AI art has that weird, uncanny lighting to it? I think it’s because so much AI art has been trained on cheap genre covers where the light source is all fucked up.

Sarah: There’s as many light sources as weather systems, yeah.

Candy: Yeah, yeah.

Sarah: For sure.

Candy: Exactly.

Sarah: That’s a really good theory, actually, because that, that explains the weird lighting and the sort of uncanny valley lack and presence of focus in different parts?

Candy: Yes, yes! Exactly, exactly.

Sarah: Makes a lot of sense. And then you have –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – all of these illustrated covers that have gotten more and more simplistic and flat over the years, to the point where sometimes it’s just like a person with no face standing next to another person with no face, but the dog on the cover has a face. These two just have no – it’s creepy as fuck!

Candy: I really, really hate them. It, I, I find the faceless people kind of –

Sarah: Ugh!

Candy: – nightmarish, especially the, if the, if one of the characters has, like, a, a little, like, facial hair and still no nose and no eyes and no mouth, I’m just like, Oh my God, this is nightmare fuel! What are you doing? No!

Sarah: Congratulations on your Sharpie goatee there, but, like –

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: – who, are you an –

Candy: Mm-mm.

Sarah: – what’s happening here? Are you a horror creature? What is going on?

Candy: Yeah, and, I mean, the thing that drives me nuts about these illustrated covers is, it’s not as if illustrated covers are a new thing. Many genres have been using illustrated covers for a long time: literary fiction, a lot of horror, a lot of science fiction and fantasy. Even, even murder mysteries have used a lot of illustrated covers for a long time before romance jumped on the bandwagon. I don’t know why this genre gets the bottom of the barrel again. But actually, I mean, like, when I say I don’t know why, I do know why? It’s just, it just irritates me? So I have to yell this rhetorical question out loud. But you know, like – [huffs] – like, because illustrated doesn’t have to be cheap; illustrated doesn’t have to mean flat or without detail or clumsy. You know, you can see all kinds of illustrated covers that don’t do this, but for some reason romance is stuck in this mode, or at least romance publishers are stuck in this mode where there’s this determination, I think, to still show in a very literal way, Oh yeah! Here are, here are the two people this book is about, or even, Here’s this one person who’s going to stand in for the love story that this book is about. And, and not really thinking outside of the box, because I remember seeing the cover for Winter’s Orbit by Everina Maxwell –

Sarah: Yes!

Candy: – and being blown away by how good it is. It, you know, it, it, you don’t see faces, but you do see these two enormous silhouettes against, like –

Sarah: Yeah.

Candy: – against this gorgeous, kind of like vaporwave sky, right –

Sarah: Yeah.

Candy: – and their, and their silhouettes are overlapping, and you see stars, and it gets across everything you want to know about the book, you know? Like, it, you know, it, it looks romantic, like, ‘cause of the, of the color palette. It looks like a science fiction novel because of the stars and of the, because of the composition, and – and I was just like, Why can romance novels not get something like this? And, and we kind of are! I mean, I feel like a lot of romantasy and YA, and YA fantasy get beautiful-to-okay covers, but historical and contemporaries get clip art with no faces.

Sarah: Contemporary is so interesting because it really seems like they’re moving away from the very flat, singular – like, the, it looks the same as an icon as it does full-size?

Candy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: It’s just, it’s just very, I would call it like an, a cartoon cutout: it looks like cutout shapes –

Candy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – like, very flat.

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: Now there are more illustrations that have incredible backgrounds and a lot of more color schemes –

Candy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – and they do tend to gravitate toward one color. I spent a lot of time collecting all the covers that I could find that were all peach, and they were all blue, and they were all green!

Candy: [Laughs]

Sarah: Lots of ‘em! Trying to figure out what the color of the year was. But the illustrations are getting deeper and more interesting –

Candy: Good, good.

Sarah: – and I think part of that is because you can resize them and they don’t pixelate as much? ‘Cause we’ve got –

Candy: Yes.

Sarah: – better technology, and it, and it, and it includes more. Plus, the other cool thing, like, much like the artists like Pino and Elaine Duillo, the, the illustrators are now having their own brand identities, so you can spot –

Candy: Yes.

Sarah: – like, a Leni Kauffman character, or a Leni Kauffman illustration –

Candy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – from like two feet away.

Candy: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Sarah: The illustrators are developing their own fandom the way that the artists used to.

Candy: Yes, yes!

Sarah: Historical, I think, that’s where it’s really weird.

Candy: Mm-hmm! Yeah.

Sarah: Because they’re one of the few genres left in mass market; there are –

Candy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – very few genres that are still publishing in mass market; and you have the group of fans who want the clinch. Like, every time I post classic covers, there will be comments like, Why don’t books look like this anymore?

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: How come we don’t do this anymore? And then there’s –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – people who’re like, I was, like you said earlier, I was embarrassed by those covers. I don’t want them to come back.

Candy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: Like, I don’t want people –

Candy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – to see people, like, you know, hooking up in a windstorm on my book while I’m reading. And I, the, the, the historical, like, the larger, the trade format covers? There’s so much experimentation going on there, but I don’t know –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – what has stuck. The thing that seems to be the most obvious is just the, the Bridgerton tie-in covers that are on all the Bridgerton books now.

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: Which is wild, because the ca-, the casting of the show is incredibly diverse, and the casting of the books, not so much.

Candy: [Laughs] Yep, yep. I have, I have a lot of Bridgerton feelings.

Sarah: What are your Bridgerton feelings? I’m curious!

Candy: I watched Bridgerton, and I immediately – [laughs] – was like, Oh! You know, Penelope and Eloise, right? Like, come on! Obviously, and, and then I looked up the book listings and felt very sad. I was like, No, really? Colin? What?

Sarah: Nope.

Candy: The most boring Bridgerton? Oh my God! And then, and then, you know, and then the, the bisexual Bridgerton I was like – whose name also starts with B, right, but –

Sarah: Benedict.

Candy: Benedict? Benedict, yeah. And I was like, Woo! [Laughs] Hope there, and I was like, Aww! I had more mixed feelings about the mythology that they were trying to build up about the char-, you know, characters of color holding aristocratic titles and all that? Like, I’m not sure that that worldbuilding quite worked for me entirely, with the, with the, with the whole Queen Charlotte thing?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Candy: My problem, my big problem was Jonathan Bailey? Fantastic actor, very easy on the eyes. My God, I spent all of season one wanting to kick him into the Thames. Just – [laughs] – like, Yeet the entire man!

Sarah: He’s so annoying in season one, and he gets totally –

Candy: Oh Lord!

Sarah: – unbent in season two. Like, he is so, he’s knocked in half by how out-of-control things are for him, and he does not like it, which is one of my favorite tropes, when there’s a –

Candy: Yes.

Sarah: – hero who has incredible amounts of control, not just –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – of themselves, but of their environment.

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: They manage everything, everyone does what they say, and then –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – someone shows up and you’re like, You’re messing up everything, and I hate it, and I, and I, and I can’t stop thinking about your hair, and this is terrible! Yeah. That’s one of my favorite undone hero tropes.

Candy: [Laughs] Yeah, no. Extremely same…

Sarah: Had everything under control, and then you showed up.

Candy: I mean, it’s why I love Lord of Scoundrels so much, right.

Sarah: Yes!

Candy: It’s, it’s, it really is like Clash of the Titans, where –

Sarah: Yes.

Candy: – you know, Dane has full control over his extremely debauched, extremely, you know, hedonistic lifestyle, and then Jessica Trent shows up and proceeds to fuck it all up.

Sarah: Blows it all up.

Candy: Hates it; he hates it. But, and, and then he keeps getting hoist by his own petard. You know, he tries to seduce her and ends up seducing himself somehow. [Laughs] That glove scene…

Sarah: You’re hot and you’re smart? It’s just not fair!

Candy: No, exactly. So I, I do love that trope a whole lot.

Sarah: Yeah.

Candy: And I think, I, I have in, over the many years made many, many friends read Lord of Scoundrels. Many of them, who have never read a romance novel before or who’ve only read a couple and were like, Eh, not for me. So I made, you know, I make them read Lord of Scoundrels to change their minds, and they’re like –

Sarah: Well, that was how you got us in, you, you got us into the whole Cassie Edwards mishegoss –

Candy: Oh! Yeahyeahyeahyeah!

Sarah: – because you gave a friend Lord of Scoundrels, and I don’t remember –

Candy: Dark Lover.

Sarah: – Dark Lover, and I think it was, I looked, I looked at Shadow Bear. I have to look and see –

Candy: Yes. Shadow Bear.

Sarah: – which one you looked at. But you, she –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – that person came back and was like, There’s some weird shit in here, man. There’s some really weird shit in here. [Laughs]

Candy: Yeah. [Laughs] Like, these weird didactic passages that break character voice? I mean, what character voice there is in the Cassie Edwards novel? Like, this is weird; let’s look into it. But yeah.

Sarah: That became a whole thing. I did not expect that to be –

Candy: Yeah, it really did!

Sarah: – a whole thing. Not at all.

Candy: No, we – yeah, I did not expect us to ever make it into The New York Times, and we sure did! It was a wild ride, so.

Sarah: And I think that was one of like two things –

Candy: Uh-huh.

Sarah: – that made the site, like, seem legitimate to other media? First it was publishing a book? Like, all of a sudden –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – the book made the website more legit, which I will never understand. Like, I –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – I comprehend the reasons?

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: But I think those reasons are silly. And then once – so when the Cassie Edwards thing, this thing I, this I remember very clearly – I remember at the same time, there was a controversy about Jerry Seinfeld’s wife making a cookbook about, like, grinding up the vegetables inside recipes, and another cookbook author –

Candy: Right!

Sarah: – accused her of plagiarism? I’m like, Oh, that’s –

Candy: Right!

Sarah: – that’s going to get all the attention.

Candy: God.

Sarah: I was wrong!

Candy: No! I know, I know. I, I think, I think it was the, the sheer absurdity of plagiarizing a passage about black-footed ferrets? I think that was irresistible. We made it onto “Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!” you know. I mean – and by we I mean the guy who actually wrote the Defenders of Wildlife article made it onto –

Sarah: That would be Paul Tolme.

Candy: “Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!”but anyway.

Sarah: We were! However, we were named when NPR talked about it. They said that it was 2008’s sexiest plagiarism scandal, so I would just wear that title with pride.

Candy: [Laughs] You know, I, I just love that we made NPR say the word bitch a whole lot?

Sarah: Oh yeah. That’s my favorite – and, and if I ever am writing for someone I’m like, Okay, I have two versions of my bio. One of them has the word bitches in it. How does your editor feel about that? And sometimes the editor’s like, It’s fine, and sometimes the editor’s like, No! We cannot say the word bitches!

Candy: Yeah, I know. It, it is, it is the no-no word.

Sarah: It’s a no-no word.

Candy: I, I was, I was going to say, I want to go back to Lord of Scoundrels for just one –

Sarah: Please – one of my questions to ask you was to, to, I wanted to know, you know, we spent a lot of time talking about our favorite romances and the ones that we, when we started the site, we were reviewing books that had been out for a while.

Candy: Mm-mm.

Sarah: Like, we weren’t reviewing new books. I still remember getting contacted by a publicist and be like, Would you like to be on my list? And I was like, List of what?

Candy: Right!

Sarah: What are you, what? Books? Then –

Candy: I know, right?

Sarah: – then I thought you had to send them back. Like, I thought it was a lending library, and I would get these –

Candy: Yes!

Sarah: – paper ARCs, and like, Do you want this back? And they were like, Absolutely not! Do not send that back!

Candy: [Laughs]

Sarah: When I moved from Jersey to Maryland –

Candy: Ah.

Sarah: – ten years ago, I had ARCs from 2006 in the basement that I was, like, afraid to throw away?

Candy: Oh my –

Sarah: – and so I just put them in the basement and forgot about them. I had an original ARC of Slave to Sensation by Nalini Singh, ‘cause I was too afraid to get rid of it!

Candy: No! I mean, but that’s a collectible now!

Sarah: Right? And they’re so, those were so expensive. That was heavy paper; that was –

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: – a really heavy, like, stock paper for those ARCs?

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: So I can understand why everything has gone digital. But I wanted to ask you, ‘cause we were writing about books that were out that we loved, that were old. What are, are your unquestionable faves still similar to what they were when we started?

Candy: That’s a good question. And I will answer in just a second. When I make people read Lord of Scoundrels, their reactions are usually, Wow! Dane is such a tremendous asshole. But also, you know what? Because of that beginning, the, the first chapter of Lord of Scoundrels is basically just showing you why Dane is the way he is? You know what? He sucks as an adult, but we actually, you know, had a lot more patience and, and sympathy for him –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Candy: – because of, you know, we saw what he went through as a kid. And, and I think, for me, that was the magic of Lord of Scoundrels and how a lot of books, including Judith McNaught, have all these heroes that, you know, are just, like, grade A buttholes, just absolute jerkwads, and we don’t quite know why. Like, like, Clayton; I don’t know, you know, and I – I do know why he is the way he is. He, you know, like, genuinely and horribly, he is the way he is because he’s never had anyone check his power, so meaning, like, of course he feels fine about whipping Whitney with a crop, and of course he feels fine punishing her, you know, with a rape because she’s his and –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Candy: – his to do with as he pleases. But, I mean, like, from a, from a human perspective – [laughs] – people with a sense of empathy for, you know, other people having a hard time, we kind of wonder how did the heroes get there, and Loretta Chase, I think, was the first to do it and, and do it so explicitly and do it so well, and for that, you know, still, always and forever, my respect, and it’s definitely still in my, you know, top – oh God, I – top, top ten, top twenty romance novel faves?

So to go to your question about whether my faves are still the same –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Candy: – many of them still hold up, I think. I still maintain that Dreaming of You by Lisa Kleypas is, you know, a masterpiece in many ways because of the way it kind of subverted all of your expectations as you went along. You know, lower class hero, self-made hero. He never ever rapes the heroine. In fact, in this delicious and amazing, amazing reversal, you know, Sara is horny for Derek; Derek holds off. Derek keeps pushing Sara away because he’s convinced that she’s way too good for him and he’ll only ruin her life, which I, I don’t know that I’d seen that in any romance novel ever, and it was absolute catnip to me as a teenager, and, like, I –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Candy: – it honestly still is kind of catnip to me today? Lord of Scoundrels, obviously. The Windflower, I, I still really fucking love The Windflower, but, you know, as an adult, I feel like I have a deeper appreciation of exactly how cuckoo-bananas-bonkers the prose is? I –

Sarah: Oh.

Candy: – I, I, I knew it was something astonishing and different back when I first read it when I was like eighteen? But now, I reread it recently as a forty-six-year-old, and I was just like, This book goes so unimaginably hard, and, and also something that I didn’t really pick up until I was in my thirties, I think, was how, like, the real love story isn’t Devon and Merry; the real love story is Merry and Cat.

Sarah: Absolutely true.

Candy: And –

Sarah: And it’s so interesting how re-, how novels read differently when you –

Candy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – look back at them when you’re older. Like, this book –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – meant so much to me. Okay, I can see a lot of flaws –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – with it –

Candy: Yes, yeah!

Sarah: – but I also see a lot more in it.

Candy: Yeah. No, absolutely. And you – yeah, there’s a, a richness that experience lends to the experience, as well as, yeah, God, just having more life experience and going, Oh! [Laughs] What, this is what it’s about! When, you know, when you’re eighteen or whatever reading, some stuff just doesn’t hit as hard, and then you read it as an adult and you’re like, Oh, shit. Okay. This is coming for me right where I live. Okay, fine…

Sarah: And it’s a long book. Like, if you get it in print, those words –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – are very small. There’s –

Candy: Yeah…

Sarah: – a lot of words in that book.

Candy: And it’s also over five hundred pages in small print.

Sarah: Yes!

Candy: [Laughs] It is bonkers long.

Sarah: It’s absurd.

[Laughter]

Candy: Yeah! Yeah! But I do have, like, a lot of new favorites. Oh! Oh, I do have to say: Laura Kinsale absolutely still has, like, this comprehensive grip on my mind and my heart. I think part of it’s just the way she writes her sentences? Like, I just, her, when I read her sentences, they just, people, people sometimes talk about Laura Kinsale having a really particular or really strong voice when she’s writing. For me, I, I’ve always struggled to identify Laura Kinsale’s voice because part of it’s like she’s, she’s a little chameleonic as she, as she moves from the Regency era to, like, the Victorian era. Like, her syntax absolutely changes as she goes, oh, and of course, you know, with For My Lady’s Heart, she includes some modified Middle English for her dialogue. So part of it –

Sarah: Even her dialogue in Flowers from the Storm, even the dialogue –

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: – of –

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: – the, the lead character after he has a stroke.

Candy: Yeah, stroke, yeah.

Sarah: Yeah! After that whole, that, that dialogue is consistent until other characters start echoing it back to him in the dialogue.

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: Like, that’s, yeah, you’re so right about that. Her strength is so much in the dialogue.

Candy: Yeah, and, and also just, like, I don’t know, like, I, it’s always been hard for me to pick up on what people mean by Laura Kinsale’s voice or writing style, because to me she reads like what books should read like? [Laughs] Like, it’s, it’s really odd. Like, her sentences are so tight and so beautiful and kind of exactly where they need to be, they do exactly what I want them to do, that to this day I still haven’t been able to pick up what a “Laura Kinsale voice” is? I’m just like, But that’s just, it’s just the platonic ideal of writing! I just don’t know what you guys are talking about.

[Laughter]

Sarah: And much like Laura London and Julia Quinn, Laura Kinsale is the only one who writes like Laura Kinsale.

Candy: Mm-hmm!

Sarah: Like, they’re, you’re not going to say –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – This is just like Flowers from the Storm. There are not that many books that are just like Flowers from the Storm. I would really have to think to come up with something that could compare. They’re like –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – they’re like their own sort of special thing. I think that’s –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – that’s one of the most fascinating parts about romance as a, as a fandom and as a genre and as a community: there are lots of books that are like other books. Like, if you like this –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – style; if you like light, bubbly, effervescent historicals, I can give you a list in alphabetical order –

Candy: Yes.

Sarah: – of authors and titles you’ll like. If you like dark and angsty historicals or you like really, really emotionally mushy, gripping, terribly emotional contemporaries, I know how to tell you. But –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – like, if you’re like, I want to read books like Laura Kinsale, your answer is, Well, you should read more Laura Kinsale! [Laughs]

Candy: No, no, right, yeah, you’re like, Well, good luck. You know, like, read, read Laura Kinsale. Potentially, maybe, Sherry Thomas will be your bag? You know, there’s, like, a lot of overlap there.

Sarah: That’s a really good point –

Candy: Yep.

Sarah: – although Sherry isn’t writing romance so much anymore.

Candy: No, no, right? Yeah, yeah. She, like, she’s a tremendous writer.

Sarah: You know, you’re right; I think Sherry Thomas would be the most comparable –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – historical writer. Yeah! That’s a good call.

Candy: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But, and, and, and also, honestly, weirdly, I feel like Loretta Chase too? With, with completely different voices and completely different, like – Laura Kinsale’s muse is, I think, in many ways kind of like a tragic muse, and Loretta Chase’s muse is a comic muse? But I think the, the things that people love from Laura Kinsale, which is I think, like, mostly, like, emotional intensity and a commitment to the bit for the characters?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Candy: Like, she, she really does have this grasp of, like, Okay, this is the character; he’s this way. He’s got to be messy as hell –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Candy: – and I’m going to, I’m not going to let him skate by being anything less than the complete mess that he is. And Loretta Chase does very similar things with her characters, and that’s kind of like my through line for like why I love Kinsale and Chase, even though they’re, you know, they both write extremely different romance novels with a very different vibe.

Today I will say that my favorite romance author is K. J. Charles?

Sarah: Ohhh, that’s a good choice!

Candy: I, I am absolutely fucking obsessed with, you know, like a good number of her books. I don’t think I’ve ever given any of her books anything less than like a B or a B- maybe? Like, like, God, some of them, some of them just absolutely live rent-free in my head at all times. Like Any Old Diamonds, the Will Darling Adventures, I, I just, they are immaculately constructed. The sentences are very, very good, and again – I think this is probably the pattern we’re seeing with me – Charles lets her characters be incredibly messy.

Sarah: Oh. So –

Candy: Like, oh God –

Sarah: – very –

Candy: – the Society of Gentlemen trilogy, where she’s like, You want, you want a, you want a Regency romance of, like, you know, rich assholes? Let me show you what their politics were like –

Sarah: Yeah.

Candy: – and let, you know, let, let me show you, like, what period-accurate attitudes are, and then somehow still makes them these, like, deeply flawed characters that still deserve love! And, and, and it’s incredible, because I, I genuinely at, like, in this really visceral level, dislike some of the characters she’s written, but I…

Sarah: Some of them are rank assholes!

Candy: …same time.

Sarah: Yeah!

Candy: Oh, I mean – yeahyeahyeahyeah, no, absolutely. And hilariously, though, the rank-asshole characters that I am super mad at are not the same – you know, hilariously, the jewel thieves who, like, kick people’s heads in at the, at the least provocation? Not on my naughty list?

Sarah: No.

Candy: You know, the, the – [laughs] – the, the, the rich Tory guy who wants nothing more than to be, like, you know, constantly humiliated sexually, but who views poor people as not quite human? You know –

Sarah: Oh, fuck that guy.

Candy: Yeah, no, fuck that guy.

Sarah: Yeah.

Candy: [Laughs] I was so angry at Dom all the time! And yet, A Seditious Affair is genuinely one of the most perfect romance novels I have ever read. I, I closed that book and I was so mad at it, ‘cause I was like, Well, first of all, how dare you?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Candy: Second of all, how fucking dare you? Third of all, this was actually like a perfect book! And then fourth of all, wooow! I really hate one of the characters! Like, I – it was amazing. Like, I had not felt that strongly about a book or, or a series of characters in a very long time.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Candy: But basically, K. J. Charles is an auto-buy. Cat Sebastian, another auto-buy.

Sarah: Have you read Hither, Page and The Missing Page by Cat Sebastian?

Candy: I have been holding off on The Missing Page. It’s like the one Cat Sebastian book I haven’t read yet, but I’ve read everything else Sebastian has put out. I am just a tremendous fan of her writing.

Sarah: I love that series; I hope that it continues because –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – they’re just, they’re just so good. And the balance of emotional caretaking and romance and sex –

Candy: Yes!

Sarah: – and then a mystery –

Candy: Yep.

Sarah: – like a genuine, genuine puzzle that the characters –

Candy: Yeah!

Sarah: – have to solve –

Candy: Yeah, yeah.

Sarah: – while hiding in –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – society openly. Like, we, And They Were Roommates –

Candy: [Laughs]

Sarah: – is the whole, like, overarching deceit here. It’s –

Candy: Yes.

Sarah: – this, that, that, oh, I love that. I hope there’s a third. I hope there’s a fourth.

Candy: Yep.

Sarah: I’m greedy –

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: – I would like ten. You know.

Candy: Yeah. Yeah. For me, my absolute favorites of hers are her midcentury American-set romance novels? The Cabot series –

Sarah: Yes.

Candy: – is, oh my God. I, so when I read, I usually don’t reread very often because –

Sarah: Mm-hmm?

Candy: – it, books stop feeling fresh and fun for me that way? But when I read Tommy Cabot Was Here I immediately, like, flipped to the beginning and reread it. It’s a novella, so it was easy to do, but I just, it just hit me right in the heart. It’s a second-chance romance, you know, and it’s about, God, like, you know, how, how difficult it is to communicate when you are not allowed to be honest with yourself about what you want or what you are, and obviously that hit home for me –

Sarah: Yeah.

Candy: – [laughs] – real hard. So, yeah, God. So, and then Peter Cabot Gets Lost is genuinely, I think, one of the most perfectly constructed road trip romances I’ve ever read.

Sarah: I do love a road trip.

Candy: It is so good. And the, the, the thing about the book that drives me absolutely insane is there’s not really a plot. It’s about Peter Cabot, who just graduated. His dad’s running for president, and he’s feeling really just kind of hemmed in by his life –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Candy: – giving a ride from Massachusetts to, you know, California to his classmate Caleb, who is poor and takes a very dim view of, you know, rich nitwits, and Caleb thinks Peter’s a rich nitwit, but, you know, of course he’s wrong: Peter’s rich, but he’s not a nitwit. And, like, about halfway through, the sexual tension is resolved, and yet we still get a lot of incredible emotional and romantic tension that, that Sebastian magically manages to sustain all the way through to the very end, and it, it, like, reading that book feels like witnessing, like, really brilliant sleight of hand every time.

Sarah: Yes!

Candy: I’m like, I’m going to get it! I’m going to, I’m going to, I’m going to catch how she fucking does it, and –

Sarah: Nope.

Candy: – every time, no. Like, I – part, and part of it’s just because I am so immersed in the story that my, that my critical, critical brain turns off, which is really, really hard to do –

Sarah: Yes, that’s the –

Candy: – you know.

Sarah: – biggest drawback to writing about romance and thinking about it all the time is that it’s really hard to turn off my critical brain?

Candy: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Sarah: And worst of all, if my critical brain is bored, it’s like, Well, then we have absolutely no reason to read this! Let’s move on.

Candy: No, no! I mean, and this was one of the things that, you know, that I struggled with the most when we were running Smart Bitches. Like, I, you know, getting review copies and making myself read books I wasn’t super into? And, like, my, if my brain doesn’t want to do it, like, it, it does become like torture. So these days I’m just like, You know what? If it doesn’t spark joy –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Candy: – or if it doesn’t spark rage – [laughs] – either rage or joy: I need some kind of energy to see me through the book. It doesn’t have to be good energy; it can be spiteful energy.

Sarah: That’s fine!

Candy: [Laughs] Yeah, no, that’s fine! You know, like, I had, like, if you look at my, I keep a detailed reading spreadsheet – the ones that y’all put up, actually –

Sarah: Oh wow!

Candy: I, I, I grabbed it and I modified it ‘cause it’s, it’s a magnificent reading spreadsheet.

Sarah: It’s so adaptable! I love it so much! That’s so cool that you use it!

Candy: …so good. Yeah, yeah, no. Abs-, I absolutely use it. I, I have my own idiosyncratic rating system, so I had to, like, change the formulas to, like, reflect that. [Laughs]

Sarah: Ah, piece of cake.

Candy: But, you know. Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. But anyway, so if you look at my ratings, it’s usually like everything’s either 8 and above or like 3 and below.

[Laughter]

Candy: It’s like, just like all the 5s and 6s just never get finished! I’m like, I’m bored. Bye!

Sarah: I’m bored. This, this book –

Candy: Later!

Sarah: – had some words in it, and I am moving on with my life.

Candy: Yes. You know, life is too short to read mediocre stuff.

Sarah: Amen.

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: There’s a really good thing that there’s a whole website – many websites, actually – about that.

Candy: I know. [Laughs]

Sarah: It’s quite a, quite a wonderful development of the internet.

Speaking of rage, one of the things we did on the site today on, on Tuesday was to, like, post about 2005 books as if they were new? Like Twilight.

Candy: Oh my God!

Sarah: Twilight came out in 2005. It Happened One Autumn came out in 2005, but what I want to know –

Candy: Yes!

Sarah: – is have you seen the casting photos for the PassionFlix adaptation of the Black Dagger Brotherhood?

Candy: Nooo! I have not!

Sarah: Okay.

Candy: Oh!

Sarah: Okay, I’m going to put the link in the chat to a Reddit post, and I just want you to tell me your thoughts and scroll through these pictures, because I –

Candy: [Laughs] Ah!

Sarah: – am beside myself about this. It’s so fun.

Candy: Ohhh! Yes! Yes! Ah! The endless, God, the, the endless riffing and what we would now call memes, right?

Sarah: You just opened the link –

Candy: Whoa, no!

Sarah: – didn’t you?

[Laughter]

Candy: That, I was, oh, I, oh God. That, you know what? Actually, that is Phury with the – [laughs]

Sarah: With the hair. So then if you –

Candy: The long hair! And the cheekbones! Oh!

Sarah: Look at those, look at those ‘90s chunky highlights.

Candy: Ohhh –

Sarah: Like, that is some –

Candy: – it is –

Sarah: – Nickelodeon child star highlights; I love it. And then if you click –

Candy: Oh!

Sarah: – to the next one, it’s Zsadist, right?

Candy: [Laughs] That’s not how I picture Zsadist, but you know what?

Sarah: This isn’t how I pictured any of these people, but that’s fine! [Laughs]

Candy: I, I think I can – actually, Phury is kind of close. I think I picture Phury with, like, darker hair and more olive-looking skin, but also these are vampires so, you know, what-the-fuck-ever.

Sarah: Whatever, right?

Candy: All right, so that’s Zsadist; amazing.

Sarah: Rhage looks like the father in the movie versions of the Twilight movies? He looks like Cullen!

Candy: You know what, he looks a little bit like what if we ran, what if we ran Jensen Ackles through Midjourney a couple of times and his eyes were blue?

Sarah: Oh my, oh, oh, oh God, yes, that’s true!

Candy: Which is like, that is like, just, okay, you know, it, clearly the bitch in me has not died yet, but, like, that’s just like my immediate thought, like –

Sarah: No.

Candy: – Oh! You’re – [laughs] –

Sarah: Okay.

Candy: – you’re, you’re Jensen Ackles F.

Sarah: Yes.

Candy: Ohhh, no, Vishous!

Sarah: [Laughs] That’s the one I saw first, and when I tell you I was sobbing-laughing, I could not believe that was the makeup for Vishous. Why are there knives pointed at his throat?

Candy: I mean, I guess, you know, and some pointed at, at his heart. That’s all that matters, I guess? I don’t know!

Sarah: I mean, even if you are fighting, that’s not a good place to store your Black Dagger –

Candy: No!

Sarah: – because anyone can get that from you. It’s hanging off your stomach!

Candy: I know!

Sarah: It’s incredible, right?

Candy: Oh my God!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Candy: …expression and the little – ‘cause, okay, that, that is, genuinely and objectively, that’s a goof-ass expression. I wonder if it’s, did, did this actor piss somebody off? [Laughs] And they were like, Okay, we need to pick the least flattering look for him to, to get, like, oh my God, the little cigarette sticking out of his mouth?

Sarah: I know.

Candy: The way that he looks like he just got caught doing something he shouldn’t? It –

Sarah: He looks like a bit character in a really, like, gory movie who’s been brought up, brought in, he’s only on the scene to clean it up. Like, he’s putting on his glove like, All right, you guys –

Candy: Oh shit! You’re right!

Sarah: – have really fucked up. I’m going to have to do some deep forensic cleaning now. I’m going to have to get the…go back and get the big truck, because this is such a mess. Really disappointed in you guys; now get out of here. Like, that’s, this is the guy who’s doing gory, violent film cleanup.

Candy: No, you know what? I – you know Harvey Keitel had that role for a little while?

Sarah: Yeah, the cleaner!

Candy: Yeah, he was the cleaner, right?

Sarah: Yeah.

Candy: So this is like he’s, he’s Harvey Keitel’s, like, backup?

Sarah: Yeah. He’s inherited Harvey Keitel’s business ‘cause Harvey’s retired and lives on an island somewhere. Yeah, this he’s inherited.

And then if the next one is Tohrment and he’s stabbing himself in the head! You know those headbands where you put an arrow, put a headband on and it looks like an arrow is going through your skull? That’s what this looks like!

Candy: Yes!

Sarah: He’s wearing – like, first of all –

Candy: No!

Sarah: – you’re going to cut yourself! Put the knife down!

Candy: And also the, the, the black? I get, I get it: Black Dagger Brother?

Sarah: I get it. They’re Black Daggers. Right in front.

Candy: But these are the stupidest positions possible for Black Daggers. I –

Sarah: It’s so true.

Candy: My God. And –

Sarah: It’s very Spirit Halloween –

Candy: Why –

Sarah: – Dagger.

Candy: Why – [laughs] – yes! And why is homeboy stabbing himself through the head?

Sarah: I don’t know!

Candy: Ohhh my God! Wooow!

Sarah: It has been quite an interesting development since these photos came out, and I mean, like, they’re just so far away from what I pictured when I read these, you know, twenty-odd years ago? The, the, the campiness is just turned all the way up, and the problem I have is that PassionFlix is owned by Tosca Musk, who is Elon Musk’s sister, and she has been online defending him, especially the whole Nazi salute thing, and so romance authors and readers are like, Oh, I’m sorry; hold on. You’re related to whom and you’re doing what now? So, like, there’s this whole sort of bigger awareness of the money that’s funding this, and so I have this real moral dilemma. Like, if I subscribe to PassionFlix purely to watch this and report on it –

Candy: [Laughs]

Sarah: – what kind of a donation offset? Like, I need a moral offset. Like, you know, like carbon – I need a moral offset –

Candy: Yeah! Yeah, yeah.

Sarah: – like ten times the amount that I would pay to, to PassionFlix? Because –

Candy: Yes.

Sarah: – I would feel so morally crushed. Just…

Candy: No. I know! Like, like –

Sarah: Right.

Candy: – God, like, you know, like, funnel like a few hundred dollars to, you know –

Sarah: Oh yeah. I, I have, I have a big –

Candy: – like a trans rights org or something.

Sarah: Several, yes.

Candy: Yes, yeah. Oh my God.

Sarah: This is the, this is the funniest thing to me, because it’s, it’s, it’s just as campy as the original books –

Candy: Yes, it is!

Sarah: – but in a totally different direction!

Candy: Yeah, well, I mean, okay, you know what? Honestly, so the characters’ faces don’t look like how I pictured them –

Sarah: Well –

Candy: – when I read – I think I read like, I read the first one all the way; I think I tried a second or third one and then could, just could not anymore with the off-the-chaining and the, and the – [laughs] – hilarious attempts at hip-hop, hip-hop slang? But I will say that the, this kind of, like, upscale soap opera lighting and aesthetic? That was –

Sarah: Oh, that’s a really good way to describe it. Yes, it very much is.

Candy: That is exactly how I pictured it from the books. Like, so when I read books I, I tend to picture them very vividly, and part of the, my problem with the Black Dagger Brotherhood was that every single page was lit and blocked and set-dressed as if it were a soap opera because of the prose of the books, and I just – [laughs] – which is like, I just couldn’t take it! And so, like, seeing this, I was like, Wow! Okay, they, the, the, the costumes and the lighting are weirdly nailing what I saw in my head, but the faces and definitely kind of like the aesthetic and, and, like, fashion choices are not quite what I was envisioning. But, but I, I, dare I say, they, they hold true to kind of like the vibe of the books. ‘Cause the books are not especially, I don’t know, the books took themselves seriously? I –

Sarah: Oh, very seriously.

Candy: But I never took the books seriously myself as a reader, so, you know, like –

Sarah: Yep.

Candy: – Okay, this is the, exactly the correct vibe? But yeah!

Sarah: And those books got real weird after a while. There was one where char-, one character I think had black jizz.

Candy: Wooow! All right! I mean, you’re a vampire, so – [laughs] – no, not a whole lot of doctors specialize in checking out your vampire peen, but –

Sarah: No. It, it’s hard to find –

Candy: – you know.

Sarah: – good medical care when you’re immortal and that’s very suspicious.

Candy: Yes. But that, that’s just some real horror movie stuff. I do know that the books are still going, so –

Sarah: Oh yeah!

Candy: – yeah! Like, God damn. You know, like, all the respect, and it is hard to sustain a series for that long, and she has absolutely done it. And, and, you know, also, clearly, tons and tons and tons of people freaking love these books.

Sarah: This was a book that had a real fandom. Like –

Candy: Oh! Oh! For real! Yeah!

Sarah: Yeah.

Candy: Yeah. And then, and then, and then Twilight, of course, the –

Sarah: Also in 2005!

Candy: – YA. No! I, you know what? So the thing is, I remember learning about Twilight before it had gotten big –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Candy: – because one of our readers –

Sarah: Yep!

Candy: – emailed us and was like, Hey, so I go to the same church as this, as this woman who has written this incredible vampire romance novel.

Sarah: Yes, that would be the Mormon church of Latter-Day Saints –

Candy: Yes.

Sarah: – like, I go to the same church. Okay!

Candy: Yes.

Sarah: Yes!

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: I, mm-hmm.

Candy: [Laughs] Yes.

Sarah: Sure, okay.

Candy: Yeah.

Sarah: Got it, yeah. Mm-hmm.

Candy: Yeah. So anyway, so yeah, so, and, and I remembered going, Oh, okay! You know, this person seems really hyped about it. Like, I, I need to check it out. The library had it; there wasn’t even a hold on it. I was, like, able to just basically get it immediately, and I tried reading the first chapter and, and then gave up.

[Laughter]

Sarah: So my, the, the question I usually ask when I’m winding up an interview –

Candy: Mm-hmm?

Sarah: – is what are you reading right now that you want to tell people about, and where can people find you?

Candy: Right! Gosh. Right now I’m actually rereading an old favorite book of mine called The Blue Hawk by Peter Dickinson. It’s, it’s a children’s book. It was published, I think, in the, God, like the ‘80s? Maybe even in the ‘70s. It, it won a couple of awards? And it is set in a fantasy equivalent of ancient Egypt, and it’s about a boy who is given over to the priesthood as a very small child –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Candy: – who rescues a hawk, a wild hawk who was meant to be ritually sacrificed to renew the king’s soul, and, and then kind of like follows kind of like the fallout of everything that happens as Tron, the, the main character of the book, you know, like, what happens after he, he does what’s this really shocking taboo thing. And it holds up. It’s really beautifully written in a way that I haven’t seen for middle grade or Young Adult fiction these days? The sentences are really beautiful. The worldbuilding is really intricate and complete and does not overexplain anything? Like, it, it trusts the reader to figure out stuff as they go along, and yeah. Like, it, it, it doesn’t read like anything written today. It, if you like Ursula LeGuin?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Candy: You will probably really like The Blue Hawk. I’m reading it as an adult, and I’m not – I mean, like, you know, the, the character is really young; he’s thirteen. But it, it doesn’t feel like it’s catering to someone younger. Like, the, the sentences are not, well, they’re not really complex sentences, you know, in, in terms of, like, sentence structure. You know, there’s not, like, long, elaborate, Latinate clauses or whatever that might trip up a younger reader?

Sarah: Mm-hmm?

Candy: But it also doesn’t flinch away from using bigger words; it doesn’t flinch away from talking about difficult, weird, thorny problems. Anyways, I, I, I’m about twenty-five percent into this reread. I have-, I haven’t read it since I was, God, like twelve, thirteen maybe? And I’m having an absolute, like, whale of a time. But I’m savoring every page and every sentence as it comes.

Sarah: That’s very cool. I love older books like that where you go back and it’s just as rich as it was?

Candy: Yeah, no!…

Sarah: You don’t do that with, like, Sweet Valley High or anything.

Candy: [Laughs] No, no! I, I recently tried to reread the Dragonlance novels, which I, they were like my entire identity, I feel, from like age fourteen through sixteen. Like, I was just a Dragonlance girlie, and –

Sarah: As you do!

Candy: – I could not. I.

Sarah: Oh no.

Candy: Could. Not. I, I, I’m going to give it another shot in a, in a few more years and see whether I’ve changed my mind. ‘Cause, you know, like, sometimes you just hit yourself at the wrong point. But the Dragonlance books did not quite hold up. [Laughs] The Blue Hawk absolutely holds up!

And then where you can find me: you can find me on Bluesky at beautifulduckweed. You can find me on AO3, also beautifulduckweed. Gosh. I think that’s most of the social media-esque – oh yes, hang on: Tumblr, yes. You can find me on Tumblr at beautifulduckweed. I’m, I guess I’m, my, my username’s beautifulduckweed in all of the places where I care to be found these days.

[outro]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. Thank you so much for joining us, and thank you to Candy for hanging out. If you are in the Patreon or you would like to join the Patreon, next week’s bonus episode is going to include some extras from this one, because we talked for like two hours. It was a very long and very fun conversation. When we got going on Tumblr it was, it was just great.

As I mentioned, you can find all of the books we talked about in the show notes at smartbitchestrashybooks.com under episode 652.

And as always, I end with a bad joke. I would never leave you hanging. This joke is horrible! Which is why I’m telling it to you right now.

Did you hear about the mummy covered in chocolate and nuts that was discovered in Egypt?

Yeah. The mummy covered in chocolate and nuts that was discovered in Egypt?

Archaeologists believe that it may be a Pharaoh Rocher.

[Laughs]

On behalf of everyone here, we wish you the very best of reading. Have a wonderful weekend. We will see you back here next week.

And in the words of my favorite podcast of yesteryear, Friendshipping, thank you for listening; you’re welcome for talking.

[end of music]