665. RT Rewind – February 2015 Reviews

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Sarah Wendell: Well, hello there! Welcome to episode number 665 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I hope you have some snacks, I hope you have a drink, I hope if you’re doing work or commuting or cleaning you have endless stretches of time ahead of you, because this is a long episode, and it’s all so fun. This week we are going back to February 2015 to look at the new releases of RT magazine from ten years ago, and my guest is the author on the cover, HelenKay Dimon, who also writes thrillers as Darby Kane. Because HelenKay is an author she has a different perspective on the magazine, on the convention, on the reviews and the ways that different genres have changed. And we cover how HelenKay discovered romance, how her career has evolved, and of course we talk about all the books. This is long because I couldn’t cut anything. It was all so interesting, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. I, of course, have listened to this three times now. You get to listen to it now; please tell me what you think, and if it’s too long, please feel free to let me know, Yo, that was way too much time.

I also want to say hello and thank you to the Patreon community, especially today. Patreon support helps me procure more issues of Romantic Times, it keeps the show going, and it helps ensure an artisan transcript handcrafted by garlicknitter. Hey, garlicknitter! [Heya! – gk] Your support means a lot, basically. If you’d like to join, it would be awesome if you did. Have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches.

And if Patreon support is not in your cards, might I ask you to consider leaving a review for the show wherever you listen, or just tell people – many people, random strangers; go ahead, tell them about the show.

Most of all, thank you for listening. I’m really happy you’re here.

Shall we get started? I don’t want to waste any time, because we have a long and excellent episode ahead of us, so let’s get to it. On with my podcast with HelenKay Dimon as we go back to February 2015.

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HelenKay Dimon: My name is HelenKay Dimon, and I write full time. I also write as Darby Kane; I write thrillers, so if you are, you know, looking for a book where somebody kills a bad husband, the Darby Kane name is the right one –

Sarah: [Laughs]

HelenKay: – and if you want romance, then HelenKay Dimon is the right one.

Sarah: Fabulous! And you are the cover author for this issue!

HelenKay: I am! [Laughs]

Sarah: Do you remember when, do you remember this, when this happened? Like, was it thrilling to be like, Holy crap, that’s my book?

HelenKay: It, it was. It really was, and it was, you know, just seeing it, because, you know, what happens is you’ve seen every other author you know, and you’re like, They’re such a big deal, they’re such a big deal! And then if yours is on, and you’re like, Okay, I’m not such a big deal, but still, it’s the coolest thing! [Laughs]

Sarah: Okay, first of all, you are a big deal, and –

HelenKay: Well, thank you. [Laughs]

Sarah: – second of all, having looked at all of these issues, all the way back to the ones – I think the earliest one I have is 1988 – it is so fascinating to me how Kathryn Falk and this magazine were able to basically be the, the publication of romance. Like, I know there were other magazines, but this one had the duration and the longevity, and the influence that she and this magazine had on the genre are much larger than I had suspected.

HelenKay: It’s huge! I mean, right? Because there were things that, like, I can’t even remember the names of them. Right, like, other things that came and gone and other places you could look at for reviews, but this, you know, as an author, when it came out you were, like, excited and also panicked?

Sarah: [Laughs]

HelenKay: Like, like, Oh no, am I going to get a two? [Laughs] You know, you know, like that kind of, that kind of thing, but between that and the convention –

Sarah: Yes!

HelenKay: – I…a convention or a conference – just the, I’m always amazed at the, Okay, authors, here’s what I want you to do: you’re going to pay your own way –

Sarah: Yep!

HelenKay: – you’re going to pay for your own hotel –

Sarah: Yep.

HelenKay: – you’ve got to work while you’re here.

Sarah: Yep.

HelenKay: If you want to show off your books we’re going to make you pay for a table for that too.

Sarah: Yep.

HelenKay: And welcome! [Laughs] Like, and we all did it!

Sarah: Yep!

HelenKay: Year after year after year.

Sarah: And if you think about it – and I mean, you probably know these figures even better than I do because you were so close to the RWA conventions – publishers would send like half their staff –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – to this thing. There, like, there would be publicists everywhere. Basically, if a whole bunch of authors from the same house were going, it was in their best interest to send a team of people to look after those authors, be the ones with the box cutters and the Sharpie markers. This is absurd levels of work!

HelenKay: It’s absurd, and then they would have to, they would host a party.

Sarah: Yep!

HelenKay: Right, like, so, like, you’d go to the Avon party, and the authors were there, and they’re giving away books, and…

Sarah: And wine! And chocolate!

HelenKay: …and wine and food, and then, you know, like, like the more – I guess we didn’t call them influencers then, but the influencer-type crowd – you – is, and others, you know, you, you would, sometimes there’d be like a special dinner or –

Sarah: Oh gosh, yes! That was the weirdest thing when I realized that I was being invited to schmoozer dinners.

HelenKay: [Laughs] And, you know, nowadays you’re like, Please give my ARCs away.

Sarah: Right? Can you please mail them for me?

HelenKay: Exactly!

Sarah: And if you think – then there would be all of, like, the, the, they take you guys out to lunch, you’d have –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – and then you’d also, if your agent was there you’d be meeting with your agent, so it was this weird thing where everyone was there doing business, but it was at a fan convention and everyone was paying their own way.

HelenKay: [Laughs] It was so, when you think about it now I’m like, She was brilliant. I mean, she –

Sarah: Oh my God.

HelenKay: – she really, she convinced us all. Plus, like, do you remember there’d be like ads on elevator doors –

Sarah: Yes!

HelenKay: – ads on, like, hall- – I remember Jaci Burton, I think, once had one, like, on the floor in front of elevators, and, and those things were thousands of dollars, and people would fight over who got doors, who got the keys to the room, who – you know, all of those – it’s crazy.

Sarah: The amount of branded promotion –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – was beyond, like, was well ahead of its time?

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: But it also was very interesting as a gathering mechanism, because if I had the keycard – the one I remembered most was a Sabrina Jeffries book, because if you think about it a hotel keycard is book-shaped!

HelenKay: Yes.

Sarah: So, you know, paid ten grand or however much it was to put your book on every keycard. I’m like, Oh, this is just for us. We’re getting these cool keycards.

HelenKay: Yes…

Sarah: Like, it was a very cool souvenir idea? And at the same time, I was once there early when they were putting up all those clings. Every elevator door, inside the elevator and outside the elevator, there would be somebody – there was one elevator that was a split image of, it was so awful, it was Susan Elizabeth Phillips, and it was a, an author photo of her where she’s sort of leaning towards the camera? But it was split in half so…

HelenKay: So she’d be like –

Sarah: – [laughs] – the two sides of her face would open, and you’d go out!

HelenKay: [Laughs] That’s awful.

Sarah: But those were so expensive and so coveted –

HelenKay: So expensive.

Sarah: – and it was, it’s sort of like what you said about being on the cover. You’re like, Holy crap, that person’s a really big deal! They have, they have an elevator cling! They have a window cling!

HelenKay: Of course what people didn’t know is that, I don’t know, eighty percent of the time the authors paid for that.

Sarah: Yes!

HelenKay: I mean, it wasn’t like Avon is just, like, handing out money for everybody.

Sarah: [Snorts]

HelenKay: I mean, if you were one of their top people I’m sure you probably did get, but it was, it was, it was expensive, and I remember I had a book – actually, it was a, a book, it’s called Mercy, and it was the start of a series. It was, it was, like, an erotic romance type, and it was on the elevator door. So when you’re in the elevator the doors would close, and it was right there, and it was a beautiful cover. It was white, and the woman was stunning, and she was in a white shirt, but I remember them trying to get that approved because the hotels had, some of these hotels had really strict, like, No-no, we can’t have that in our lobby where four-year-olds are walking by. You know, so you had, you know, it was like this weird dance of, of, you know, is it the, is it the right type of place? Is it for this type of color? And, and, you know, erotic romance took off while RT was going on.

Sarah: And RT was a major driver –

HelenKay: Major!

Sarah: – of erotic romance, especially of the small, indie, digital presses that were publishing it. Like, did you notice the number of presses that no longer exist in this one issue?

HelenKay: There, there is one I – it started with an E – I –

Sarah: E-topia.

HelenKay: I had never even, like, I have no memory of that one at all. Like, I remember, you know, Triskelion, Samhain; you know, I remember, but –

Sarah: Lucid.

HelenKay: Lucid, but – that one I was like, Okay, no, I got nothing. I have no memory –

Sarah: Who?

HelenKay: – whatsoever of that one –

Sarah: Who?

HelenKay: – zero.

Sarah: It’s also interesting to look at the magazine as a whole and to see these ads that are all book covers and to be like –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – Okay, books don’t look like this anymore, and looking at the difference between what does a contemporary romance look like in 2005 or 2015 versus 2025? It’s a massive shift! Like, you don’t think about how much it’s changed, but it’s like, Oh, you, you couldn’t put that on a cover now; it wouldn’t, wouldn’t work! Your, that audience isn’t there!

HelenKay: Oh, I know! And there, there’s an ad in there where I had to chuckle because it has, like, you know, the women’s fic/romance hybrid books on there, and they all, all of them have Adirondack chairs on…

Sarah: Oh yeah –

HelenKay: – and it’s like –

Sarah: – Adirondack chair porn.

HelenKay: – I forgot we had, like, an entire kind of cycle where that was all you were allowed to put, it felt like, on a woman’s fiction cover, and nowadays, like, like, I don’t even think Elin Hilderbrand has, has them on anymore, and she has a Nantucket series! So an Adirondack chair works!

Sarah: Yeah, right?

HelenKay: You know, but –

Sarah: We left that in 2015.

HelenKay: I guess! Weird.

Sarah: So you and I are taking a look at the February 2015 issue with you on the cover. Well, technically it’s the cover model. We’re, we’ll talk about it more in ads and features, but I really suspect that might be John DeSalvo, simply by the chin divot, but I could be wrong.

Also, your website is really kind of amazing, given how many series and books that you’ve written. How many books have you written? Did you count? Have you counted lately?

HelenKay: I have, I have not…

Sarah: Boooo!

HelenKay: I, I always say something like forty –

Sarah: No!

HelenKay: – and there’s no way that’s humanly possible, because I think I’ve written like, Harlequin Intrigue alone I’ve probably written twenty-five.

Sarah: You, you need to sit down or, like, you know, just give it to your spouse and be like –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – Count ‘em up, ‘cause I, I will, I will take the over/under that it is over a hundred.

HelenKay: I think, here’s what I think it is: so that article came out recently, you know, that Meta or whatever stole all of our books…for AI?

Sarah: Oh yeah, mine too!

HelenKay: And when I looked, between Darby Kane and HelenKay Dimon, it was 118 books.

Sarah: …cow. That could be all of them.

HelenKay: Some of them, I think, were also foreign edition copies, but it was 118.

Sarah: Okay, first of all, fuck that. That’s terrible.

HelenKay: Yes!…

Sarah: Number two, they, they, they took my book and the one I coauthored about romance that has tentacle porn sex in the end? This la-, Candy messaged me; she’s like, Did you see that our book is in there? So I’m like, Can you imagine the words that that LLM is going to use now because of us?

HelenKay: I hope so. I honestly hope that happens.

Sarah: I hope some lawyer decides to ChatGPT a brief and ends up with the word man-titty; it would make my heart happy.

HelenKay: [Laughs] Or some kid in college.

Sarah: Right? Right.

So let’s start with Historical Romance, which is always the first section, and I have this theory, have this little theory, and I cannot prove it, but I think that one of the reasons why historical romance was so popular for so long was because of RT.

HelenKay: Yes.

Sarah: You agree –

HelenKay: I totally agree.

Sarah: You agree with me there?

HelenKay: And I think part of the – have you – like, I only have this one, so you have, you have a collection, but how many times did you see a lower than four –

Sarah: Oh no.

HelenKay: – four, four rating for historical romance. Like, never.

Sarah: We talk about this all the time: they do give threes for, they have given threes to, like, queer books before? Which, okay, RT. Historical, always between three and four and a half stars TP, and I rant about it all the time, because first of all, the rubric at the top of PDF page 20, I will never get over this. Did you see the rubric at the top? So.

HelenKay: [Laughs]

Sarah: >> Scorcher: borders on erotic, very graphic sex. Hot: most romance novels fall into this category. Ranges from conventional lovemaking to explicit sex?

I still don’t know what that means! What does that mean?!

HelenKay: [Laughs] Do you like it dirty? Or do you like it not dirty? I mean –

Sarah: I mean, conventional lovemaking sounds really boring!

HelenKay: It’s actually, yeah, it, it, it doesn’t, there’s nothing sexy about that, no.

Sarah: No. Conventional lovemaking? Okay.

HelenKay: No. Mm-mm.

Sarah: But as always, the most common range for Historical is three to four and a half. So, like, if you’re opening this magazine, you really do not have to worry about getting a two unless you wrote a series because they go in on the series.

HelenKay: Yeah. Get, and then this one there are, there’s – oh, there is one three.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

HelenKay: Okay, I missed it. ‘Cause I was like, that is a lot of four and a halves.

Sarah: Mm-hmm! Yeah.

HelenKay: And like three or four of them are Top Picks! Come on, now.

Sarah: Yep!

HelenKay: Come on, now. I’m not saying historical isn’t great.

Sarah: ‘Cause it is!

HelenKay: And I, ‘cause it is – and, you know, it’s interesting, because I had never read romance, right?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

HelenKay: So an attorney in the office hands me three romances, and the first romance I ever read is The Bride by Julie Garwood.

Sarah: You started with such a good book!

HelenKay: I, I mean –

Sarah: Oh my God! [Laughs]

HelenKay: I mean, what, like, out of the park, right? So, so of course what I do is I read all of her books.

Sarah: Of course.

HelenKay: One of the other books was a Jayne Ann Krentz book, it was Perfect Partners, and then I figured out she was also Amanda Quick, so I read all of her books.

Sarah: Yeah.

HelenKay: So I start – and Daniel’s Bride by Linda Lael Miller?

Sarah: Oh boy!

HelenKay: And if you haven’t read that, you have to go find a copy, because it has, it has orphans, it has a dead first wife, it has somebody dying by snakebite. It, there is, like, anything – I can almost visualize her sitting there being like, Yeah, let’s throw a snake into – yeah, okay, come on –

Sarah: We need a snake.

HelenKay: – let’s just…

Sarah: Just need a snake.

HelenKay: …drug abuse. Everything you could possibly think of…

Sarah: I’m crying-laughing. [Laughs]

HelenKay: And, and of, and of course there is a sex scene where he, like, bends her over like a wagon wheel or something. [Laughs]

Sarah: No, ow! Splinters! What? No!

HelenKay: I’m, I’m telling you, the book is spectacular. I’m not going to lie. It’s spectacular.

Sarah: [Laughs]

HelenKay: And it’s always so funny to me, because so much of my early romance reading were these historicals, right?

Sarah: Yeah, me too!

HelenKay: And, and, and, you know, when it comes to, especially with Amanda, Amanda Quick and Julie Garwood, they had, like, a little bit of hu-, like, sometimes a little bit of hu-, and then I loved that, I loved, like, all of it? And –

Sarah: Julie Garwood especially –

HelenKay: Oh –

Sarah: – was so good at writing funny –

HelenKay: So good.

Sarah: – funny dialogue.

HelenKay: So good! And, and it’s so funny now, when I pick up romance and, like, when I pick up romance from like the last ten years, it’s almost never historical!

Sarah: Never.

HelenKay: And I don’t know, I don’t know, like, where, where I changed or why I changed? It’s not like the books – I mean, you know, the books are still great, but it, it’s fascinating to me that that’s what kind of gets me into the genre, and then I take like a right turn into contemporary romance, and romantic suspense is, you know, is, is my fave, so. But yes, there. That has nothing to do with RT; that’s just, isn’t it weird?

Sarah: No, but it’s, it’s absolutely, it’s absolutely interesting. That, okay, whoever that, are you still in touch with that lawyer?

HelenKay: Yeah!

[Laughter]

Sarah: Did you ever tell them, Thank you for changing my life, oh my God?

HelenKay: I, I did. She was leaving the law to go, to move to Nashville to go into music. So that’s a…

Sarah: No!

HelenKay: – of the law. We are all leaving –

Sarah: Don’t do that! [Laughs]

HelenKay: But yeah, she did. It was those three; it was Perfect Partners, Daniel’s Bride, and The Bride. And I mean I raced through these – ‘cause I was a, you know, I was – you know – I was, like, custody. Like, it was, I was a divorce lawyer, and my main thing that I did in my office was contested custody cases. So everything was unhappy all the time, and then I read The Bride.

Sarah: You did high security clearance custody cases, right –

HelenKay: Yeah, yeah.

Sarah: – so you were already working with people who –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – like, you, you cannot talk about any of this.

HelenKay: Yeah, it was a – ‘cause I, ‘cause I practiced in the DC area, and what inevitably happens if you practice family law in that area, you’re going to, you know, Secret Service, FBI agents, CIA agents, they all get divorced, just like everybody else, right?

Sarah: Yep.

HelenKay: So you end up, you have to go through this process to kind of – especially with the CIA – to get approved, because you’re looking at documents that can be – like, there’s a special way you have to do depositions. When the case is done, they come and take the file.

Sarah: Yes! This is my favorite thing you ever told me. Like, you would leave the office and you’d come back, and it would be fucking spotless.

HelenKay: And it’s, it’s, like, all the notes are gone, and you would be having a deposition and somebody – like, this isn’t real, like, but he’d be like, So how long were you in, in Egypt? And be like, We need to stop the deposition. I’m like, Why do we need to stop the deposition? Nobody should know she was ever in Egypt, so now we have to call, and people have to come in, and they have to – I was like, Okay. [Laughs] It’s –

Sarah: Wow!

HelenKay: Once you do it once –

Sarah: You can know –

HelenKay: – you know…

Sarah: – know how to handle it?

HelenKay: You know – [laughs] – you know how to handle it, but man, that first time, you’re like, Is there anything we, I can ask? Anything at all?

Sarah: How, how, how shall I do my job?

HelenKay: [Laughs]

Sarah: But also, if ever there was a person primed to discover romance, it was you? Like, oh my gosh!

HelenKay: I think that’s true.

Sarah: Because everything you’re doing is sad and miserable, and custody is so fraught?

HelenKay: And they’re fraught. So fraught. And then imagine – and I read mystery, suspense, and thrillers, so, like – which do not have happy endings, right? So imagine me when I am reading The Bride, and it is this kind of like refreshing – like, she, I loved her. I kind of loved him because he was like this alpha but not a jackass, you know, and it was, it was – you know, she’s taken weapons off the wall. I’m like, This is fantastic.

Sarah: Oh yeah!

HelenKay: …spend my whole life.

Sarah: More of this, please.

HelenKay: [Laughs]

Sarah: So starting with Historical –

HelenKay: Mm, mm, mm.

Sarah: – which, what did, what did you want to talk about in this, in this section? I noticed you have a few things that I wanted to, that you wanted to talk about.

HelenKay: I just wanted to point out that there is a title called The Reluctant Berserker?

Sarah: Yeah!

HelenKay: And I had to spend a second being like, Wait, what is a berserker?

[Laughter]

HelenKay: And why would you want that in your title? I’m just, I’m just saying…

Sarah: Not only that, but The Reluctant Berserker is a male/male book by Alex Beecroft, and the characters – [laughs] –

HelenKay: Mm.

Sarah: – the characters are named Leofgar and –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – Wulfstan.

HelenKay: Yeah, no, no. This is where I have to admit, I mean, this is why I think I have, I’ve always had a problem, like, reading fantasy and stuff that – and, and I had problems sometimes with Jayne Ann Krentz. Like, she has a heroine named Iphiginia, and it took me a very long time to figure out what – so if I read a name and it is like nineteen consonants and one vowel – and, and, and that’s perfectly, like, like, you will see that in…

Sarah: Oh, all the time!

HelenKay: – languages, right? I will then spend the entire book obsessing about how to pronounce Iphiginia, and is it really Iphiginia or does the P-H some other sound, and I can’t really concentrate on the book –

Sarah: No!

HelenKay: – so, just saying.

Sarah: I understand completely! This was particularly a period when we still had historicals, there’s 1800s Caribbean, 1812 Caribbean, 1800s American West, 900s Saxon Europe. Like, we were all over the time, all over the map, and I think that what happened eventually is that historical got very, very narrow –

HelenKay: Yeah, yeah.

Sarah: – to very specific periods, and now it is widening again?

HelenKay: I do wonder if some of it now is ‘cause, okay, we know mass market is basically dying. Right? Like, or dead.

Sarah: If it’s not already dead.

HelenKay: I, I –

Sarah: Which is such a shame.

HelenKay: It is a shame! They’re, they’re rereleasing my first thriller, Pretty Little Wife, in mass market in September, and the emails to me literally are like, This is the last one! Like, this, like, this is it! And, and I write for HarperCollins!

Sarah: Wait, so HarperCollins is telling you this is the last mass market paper rerelease we’re going to – holy –

HelenKay: They’re like, they’re like, This is, this is the last thriller we’re redoing –

Sarah: Holy crap!

HelenKay: – and I said, Are, are, there’re not going to be romances in – and they kind of didn’t answer the question, so I’m not a hundred percent sure what the answer is, but if you think about it, there were some things that we just, I think, kind of ingrained in our head that were mass market.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

HelenKay: Romantic suspense –

Sarah: Yes.

HelenKay: – and kind of that very tight box of historical romance –

Sarah: Yep.

HelenKay: – Regencies, because people, for some reason, are Regency people, like, that should be mass market, but Caribbean historical, that feels bigger, different somehow, put that in trade.

Sarah: Yeah!

HelenKay: I do think the change in kind of, the moving away from mass market has helped to open up –

Sarah: Yes.

HelenKay: – some of these –

Sarah: Hundred percent.

HelenKay: Because for some reason people are willing to, you know, pay the – and I, and I get it! I mean, trad-, like, they’re like nineteen dollars, you know?

Sarah: Oh yeah!

HelenKay: I mean, it’s, trade are really expensive, but it’s not like Regency isn’t worth nineteen. It’s, it’s like some weird thing we all have in our head that clicks on and off. I don’t understand what it is.

Sarah: When Amanda was working at a bookstore, she was saying that readers younger than her, and she’s in her mid-thirties, they don’t want mass market! They don’t want mass market; they don’t want clinch covers. And if you think about it, how book reviewing became book influencing and became much more visual – like, I say all the time I really don’t want to talk to camera; I can do it, but I don’t want to.

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: If you’re showing a book, ultimately what happens is that you have both the romance reader and the romance collector –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – and sometimes that’s the same, and sometimes it’s not, but for a lot of people, and I don’t mean this disparagingly, the book has to match their aesthetic.

HelenKay: Yeah. I agree.

Sarah: The book is an accessory as much as it is an entertainment product.

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: It is an accessory, and it’s a visual accessory. For some reason, mass market paperback was not visually and aesthetically appealing, and it’s disappearing, which is kind of shocking!

HelenKay: It, it is shocking, ‘cause you, like, if nothing else, from a cost perspective.

Sarah: Yeah!

HelenKay: I mean, I mean the whole point was, Oh, self-publishing took off so big in romance because they could play with the pricing and they could lower it.

Sarah: And they were all, they were all print-on-demand in mostly trade, because print-on-demand was trade and a heavier bond paper.

HelenKay: And now it’s like, well, I don’t understand: everything’s more expensive, so now you want to pay twenty dollars for a trade paperback? Like, what –

Sarah: So what book did you want to talk about inside the Historical section?

HelenKay: Well, I – Taming His Viking Woman, because first of all, let’s just talk about how great that title is.

Sarah: That – that, that does –

HelenKay: I mean –

Sarah: – what it says on the tin.

HelenKay: [Laughs, muffled] Exactly!

Sarah: That is, and also, that is a Harlequin Historical, so it fits within the Harlequin, Harlequin naming conventions. Verb-ing –

HelenKay: Oh yes.

Sarah: – verb-ing, possessive, adjective, gender.

HelenKay: [Laughs] Sorry. And there’s a sea king! So you got that title, and then you get a sea king, and I honestly don’t know why you’re looking at anything else in that, in that, in that section, because come on, now! Come on, now!

Sarah: All right, so I’m going to ask you to do something terrible. Would you read the review and the summary?

HelenKay: [Laughs]

Sarah: ‘Cause there’s a great name in here.

HelenKay: I, I – oh, I knew you were going to do that to me with the, with the names?

Sarah: Hrolf – Rolf with an H! Huh-Rolf!

HelenKay: [Laughs]

Sarah: Hell yeah!

HelenKay: Before you, before you even get to, okay, so the summary for Taming His Viking Woman is:

>> Styles pens another winning Viking historical with realistic settings, fast-paced action, and two protagonists readers will champion and root for. This is exciting, engaging story of an invincible –

I love this.

>> – invincible shield maiden –

Again, I don’t know what that is.

>> – and the rugged sea king who sets out to tame her, only to lose his heart.

But the best part is in the summary, is the first name, and I, I’m, I’m mad at you for making me even try this, but I’m going to –

Sarah: I have earned your, I have earned your ire.

HelenKay: I believe the first thing is Sayrid –

Sarah: Yep.

HelenKay: – S-A-Y-R-I-D –

Sarah: Yep.

HelenKay: – and then it becomes very, very difficult. Avildottar?

Sarah: Avildottar.

HelenKay: Is that just –

Sarah: So this is Icelandic naming convention, which I know because I had a friend who was an Icelandic graduate student? So that’s Sayrid Avildottar. That means daughter of Avil, and if you look, Hrolf Eymundsson is Eymunds’ son.

HelenKay: …Okay! Well done! Then his name is –

Sarah: Huh-Rolf.

HelenKay: – I guess it’s Rolf, but it starts with an H!

Sarah: I love it! Hrolf!

HelenKay: Which I have never seen before.

Sarah: I’ve never seen it either! I want to, like, call Michelle Styles and be like, Please tell me what naming book you were using, ‘cause this is outstanding.

HelenKay: And then it’s like:

>> – seal his alliance with the –

Sarah: Jarl.

HelenKay: Jarl.

Sarah: Jarl.

HelenKay: It’s like I, like, like I understand some of the words standing by their own, but when you combine them I have almost no idea what this summary is – [laughs] – is saying.

Sarah: And this is set in 830 AD Sweden. Can you imagine –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – pitching a romance –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: I’m going to pitch you a historical – let’s call your agent, be like, We have a historical romance, and it is set in 830 AD Sweden. Which one of nine publishers are clamoring for this right now?

HelenKay: [Laughs]

Sarah: Could you just, just send us to all of them?

HelenKay: I’m kind of surprised even then it was – right? Because it still seems like during this time period there was a, there was a box – it was a different box, but there was a box, and –

Sarah: Yep.

HelenKay: – this feel – 830 AD feels like it’s outside of it, but maybe I, maybe not, so.

Sarah: There were a lot of Vikings from Harlequin Historical.

HelenKay: That is true. That is –

Sarah: They did like Vikings.

HelenKay: There, we, we did have, we went through the Native Americans, and then I guess we moved to Vikings.

Sarah: Vikings, the Normans and the Saxons, lots of Saxons.

HelenKay: Always. We can’t have enough Saxons, yes.

Sarah: Never, never-never.

HelenKay: And when you have Normans and Saxons, that’s even better.

Sarah: Yep.

HelenKay: Yes. Yes. [Laughs]

Sarah: So do you want me to read this?

HelenKay: Yeah, because you can say the words, so…

Sarah: [Laughs] All right, so here’s the summary, in case you’re thinking, I need to read about 830 AD Sweden – yes, you do.

>> Sayrid Avil-, Avil- –

Oh, this is hard.

>> – Avildottar –

HelenKay: See?

Sarah: >> Sayrid Avildottar has fought hard to gain the respect of her peers as a shield maiden.

Basically, female ass-kicker.

Sarah: >> Hrolf Eymundsson needs a wife –

As they do.

>> – to be a mother to his daughter and seal his alliance with the jarl.

Who’s, like, the head dude.

>> Since Sayrid helped his first choice escape –

Girl!

>> – it is only right –

HelenKay: Mmm!

Sarah: >> – that the curvy warrior take her place –

No.

>> – but to win her, he must defeat her in combat!

Okay, this sounds awesome! [Laughs]

HelenKay: See?

Sarah: >> The two –

HelenKay: See? [Laughs]

Sarah: You are, you have good taste.

HelenKay: Thank you.

Sarah: >> The two are evenly matched, but one slip and she is his. They, there are lessons to be learned on both sides, desires to be explored, passions to be satisfied! But first they must discover the traitor who threatens all they have come to love.

Wow, that’s a good pick! I kind of want to read that.

HelenKay: I know, right? It’s just spectacular. I just, I just had this view of them fighting, then having sex, fighting, then having sex.

Sarah: What, what else are you going to do in a Viking romance?

HelenKay: Well, that’s it, right? I mean –

Sarah: Battle and bone, baby! Battle and bone!

HelenKay: It’s cold. [Laughs]

Sarah: So the book that I wanted to look at is pretty – I love when this happens in, in RT. Every so often we’ll run into someone’s breakout book –

HelenKay: Oh…

Sarah: – that became massive. And so in this issue is The Nightingale –

HelenKay: Which is amazing.

Sarah: – by…Kristin Hannah. It was set in 1939 France, so you know what that means, and it is a four and a half star Top Pick! It’s a –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – 4.5 TP!

HelenKay: See, they recognized –

Sarah: They recognized!

HelenKay: – how great it was going to be.

Sarah: This book was mammoth for her! Like, this is why she’s a top-tier author: this was her breakout title.

HelenKay: But, and people still talk about, even with sisters and all the other – like, if, if you’re, if you’re on Instagram and you’re, like, watching the review folks and they’re like, Books you have to read no matter what, there’s always a Taylor Jenkins Reid book in – you know, usually Daisy –

Sarah: Daisy Jones and the Six, yeah.

HelenKay: – this book, and this book!

Sarah: Yeah!

HelenKay: And, and, you know, I didn’t read it when it came out, ‘cause again, my historical – it was – when I read this, when I saw that it was in here, like, I went online; I’m like, That book has been out that long?

Sarah: Yes! Can you believe that? It’s still –

HelenKay: People talk about it like it came out two years ago!

Sarah: It’s still so relevant? It must be in its like twenty-fourth-and-a-half printing at this point!

HelenKay: Oh, more than that. Way, way more than that.

Sarah: Incredible! It is on Face-. Like, once you break into, like, the Facebook mom groups –

HelenKay: Yeah, yep.

Sarah: – your book is solid, right?

HelenKay: You’re it.

Sarah: The same thing happened with The Red Tent by Anita Diamant; do you remember that book was everywhere?

HelenKay: Ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah!

Sarah: This is the kind of thing where it’s, like, very specific, deeply historically rooted, women’s fiction novel with a lot of historical detail about, like, hard times, anguish, and stuff.

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: This, this book takes off. So here is the review, in case anyone is curious what RT had to say – and I will say, by the way, so many of the reviews in the Historical section and in other sections? They’re not really reviews? They’re, like, word salad that’s meant to be a cover quote?

HelenKay: [Laughs] A love letter!

Sarah: They don’t actually say much, but this actually says something.

>> Hannah crafts a compelling World War II novel that will grab readers, drawing them into the story of two sisters whose lives, beliefs, and world are torn apart by war. Told from two different perspectives and fifty years apart, the story is realistic, chilling, adventurous, and heartbreaking. Hannah’s portrayal of the horrors of Nazi occupation and each woman’s decisions will have readers on the edge of their seats. It is safe to say you will need a box of tissues on hand.

Very true.

HelenKay: Which is a quote that I think could be in all of her books –

Sarah: Yeah! Please –

HelenKay: – on the cover. Yep.

Sarah: If you wish to weep – do you need to have a catharsis? Here’s a, here’s a list of authors for you.

HelenKay: This is your book!

Sarah: We got you. We got you; you’re good. This is –

HelenKay: That’s awesome.

Sarah: – it is so cool to see someone’s breakout book –

HelenKay: It’s amazing.

Sarah: – and they’re like, Oh yeah, this is really good, the month it comes out. I love when I run into that.

HelenKay: I love it, I love it. And there were so many times when I was looking at this, like, like, Vicky Dahl is, is featured in this –

Sarah: Yep!

HelenKay: – and, you know, and, and so she makes the move to, she changes the name and she makes the move to thrillers and knocks it out of the park with her first one, Jane Doe. And, and –

Sarah: Oh, it’s such a good book. Holy crap.

HelenKay: It’s so good, right? And Ally Carter is in here, who, you know, when she did YA, hit it out of the park –

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

HelenKay: – right at the very beginning, and now she’s doing kind of these rom-com-y mystery, and her latest one, like, hit out of the park, the one, the Christmas one, which I thought was really good. And so it’s just amazing to see kind of like the names?

Sarah: So I have a theory that there are some authors who are RT authors, which is fascinating, that you can be connected to a publication and a convention and build your career from there.

HelenKay: It is, it is. And, and now, can you? Can you do that? I mean, where would you do that? I don’t even know, ApollyCon maybe? I don’t know! I don’t know.

Sarah: I don’t know! Because there’s all these conferences now, but they’re reader gatherings, they’re a weekend.

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: The other thing that I think people who have never experienced RWA or RT understand is how long it was! It was a week!

HelenKay: Oh my gosh, it was exhausting.

Sarah: RT was like a week? I would get there early just because it was cheaper to fly, and –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – like, oh!

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: Exhausting!

HelenKay: It was so exhausting, and, you know, like, as an author, and I’m sure you had this too, it’s, you kind of feel like you have to be on.

Sarah: Yes! Oh yeah, the minute I stepped out of my hotel room I had to be dressed –

HelenKay: Yes.

Sarah: – I had to look good, and it’s all women, so we all, like, we –

HelenKay: Yes.

Sarah: – I called it the conference plumage? We had conference plumage.

HelenKay: Yes! I would, I would say to myself, no matter what, like when I walked out of the room, when I walked into, like, some book signing, whatever, every single time, and I still do this to this, to this day, I say to myself, and sometimes I say it out loud, Don’t be an asshole.

Sarah: [Laughs]

HelenKay: Right? Like, like, I don’t think in general I’m an asshole, but I, I always try to remember you’re exhausted, especially by the time you get to Saturday; you just want to –

Sarah: Oh God, you’re so –

HelenKay: – crawl home.

Sarah: – tired!

HelenKay: Right?

Sarah: And you can’t talk, and you have a cold!

HelenKay: You, you can’t talk. Your, your, your voice is gone.

Sarah: Ugh.

HelenKay: But this person is going to see you for thirty seconds –

Sarah: Yeah.

HelenKay: – on that Saturday. You cannot be an ass; you have got to give them whatever you can, or you’ve got to go back to the room.

Sarah: Yeah.

HelenKay: Those are your only two choices. You can’t come out here and be an asshole, because I don’t think I am, but I know how easy it is –

Sarah: When you’re, when you’re tired and cranky?

HelenKay: – when we’re tired and cranky!

Sarah: Yeah! And you’re exhausted and it’s loud and you’re like, Fuck it, I don’t want to do this.

HelenKay: Frankly, for RWA, so I was on the board –

Sarah: I am aware!

HelenKay: – and so we had to come, like, early. Like, I think the conference starts, it started on like a Wednesday maybe.

Sarah: Yeah.

HelenKay: We had to come like the Friday before…

Sarah: Yeah, for board business.

HelenKay: Yeah. By the time you got to Wednesday and the conference was –

Sarah: With all these people! [Laughs]

HelenKay: – I was like, I am done! Why can’t I go home?

Sarah: I’m trapped in a conference room for nine hours, and now I have to talk to three thousand people? Fuck you! [Laughs]

HelenKay: Like, the chances of me destroying my career by accident are like a hundred percent!

Sarah: Oh yeah!

HelenKay: [Laughs]

Sarah: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I would have to be ready, up, caffeinated; I would have snacks. If we were switching time zones I would have, like, those protein shakes that give you the nasty belches?

HelenKay: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sarah: I would have a little container; I would buy almond milk. I would get – I was, like, very careful to eat on schedule. Like, you cannot be cranky; you cannot –

HelenKay: You can’t.

Sarah: – be irritable; you cannot be hangry –

HelenKay: No.

Sarah: – because –

HelenKay: Exactly.

Sarah: – someone’s going to want to meet you at one way random moment in the elevator, and that’s very meaningful, because this is the public face of your career.

HelenKay: Yeah, exactly.

Sarah: It’s a lot.

HelenKay: Exactly. It’s just, it’s a lot, and just, just, like, seeing the convention part, and I was like, Oh! All that anxiety just came rushing right back! [Laughs]

Sarah: It’s a lot for a bunch of introverts. It’s really a lot!

HelenKay: And the only, I mean the good thing is it’s a, an entire conference of extra-, of introverts, right, so –

Sarah: Yeah.

HelenKay: – we’re all trying to pretend that we’re better at this than we were.

Sarah: Yeah. And that’s, RWA is very much introverts wearing bras and nice shoes.

HelenKay: Yes.

Sarah: RT had some extraverted performance people.

HelenKay: Performance: you hit the right word!

Sarah: Theater kids.

HelenKay: Well done!

Sarah: Big theater kid energy at RT.

HelenKay: Well, and there was, I went to, I didn’t actually go to RT a huge number of times. I went, the first time I went, and this will explain why, it was in Pittsburgh?

Sarah: Oh God, no! That was the worst one!

HelenKay: And the hotel was –

Sarah: That was my first one too!

HelenKay: – I can’t remember if it was being – all I remember is, like, the ceiling was falling down.

Sarah: Oh God, I take this so personally, ‘cause that’s my home town, and I ended up just giving people directions to Mercy Hospital downtown because all of the construction dust gave all the asthmatics breathing problems –

HelenKay: It was –

Sarah: – and I had to be like, You’re going to go two blocks that way, turn left, Mercy Hospital.

HelenKay: I actually remember being in the room, and I called my husband. I’m like, I’m – I lived in DC at the time – I’m like, I’m coming home early.

Sarah: [Laughs]

HelenKay: Like, Wait, what? I was like, I can’t – I don’t know what’s going on at this conference, but – [laughs] – this is not for me! And I left a day early.

Sarah: It was awful!

HelenKay: Needless to say, after Pittsburgh I was like, I’m not sure –

Sarah: I don’t –

HelenKay: – that convention’s for me. It took a little while to get me to go back again.

Sarah: I can’t say that I blame you.

HelenKay: Yeah. [Laughs]

Sarah: God, that was so bad! And I was like, This is in my home town; I know where everything – oh my God, it was dreadful.

So what book did you want to talk about inside Inspirational?

HelenKay: Always on My Mind by Susan May Warren. The, the reason is –

Sarah: [Laughs]

HelenKay: – in the, in the, like, before the summary, you know, like the little review piece, it, it literally says:

>> Casper –

I can’t get over that.

>> Casper’s life will resonate with readers who identify with being the middle child.

Sarah: That’s the whole conflict!

HelenKay: And I’m like, is, is it? I mean, I have a brother who would say that absolutely –

Sarah: [Laughs]

HelenKay: – is completely valid. That, that’s – [laughs] – he believes his entire existence – this is confirmation for him. But I read that, and I was like, Is that really the story? I don’t know! I mean, it got four and a half stars! See, that’s the problem, right? Like, when somebody takes, takes a book and breaks it down into like two paragraphs, to them it makes sense, but to other people, like, who haven’t read her or haven’t read a series or whatever, when you read it you’re like, What, what now?

Sarah: What’s the, what, what is the book precisely? Like, what is the point to this?

HelenKay: What is, what is happening?

Sarah: Yep.

HelenKay: Like, for my thrillers, the sales team has joked that we should just call the, all of them, It’s Always the Husband. And I’m like, Yes, I’m fine with that, because I think that is, that is, there is no middle child Honduras confusion.

Sarah: Mm-mm!

HelenKay: That is clear about what that book’s going to be.

Sarah: Yeah!

HelenKay: I’m just saying. I’m just saying.

Sarah: I also would like to suggest the title of The Wife Wife-d Wifely?

HelenKay: [Laughs] Don’t, because that will probably be my next one, so. I, I am, my next book that’s coming out, the Darby Kane thriller, took us three months –

Sarah: Oh damn!

HelenKay: – to agree on a, on a, on a title. I originally, you know, like, I always have to have a, a title when I’m writing. Otherwise –

Sarah: Like a working title, yeah.

HelenKay: – yeah, I can’t do anything, right, and it was called Dangerous Women. So when I turned the book in my editor’s like, There’s no way they’re going to say yes to Dangerous Women. Like, okay, it’s not, like, cool enough! And then we went through, it was like, Okay, so you want something with Girl or Woman in the title, so I give all this list. Sales is like, No.

Sarah: [Snorts]

HelenKay: Like, okay? So then we’re like, Okay, well, all of these amazing thrillers without Girl or Her or Wife or anything in the title, so here’s a whole ‘nother – and they’re like, No. I was like, How, how many times do they get to say No to a list before it’s their job to find one? I’m just asking, you know, just…

Sarah: That’s a very fair question.

HelenKay: Just in general.

Sarah: If they have requirements, they need to be like, We need the word Wife or Girl.

HelenKay: [Laughs] I know. Well, they wanted Dangerous Women to be Dangerous Wives, and I’m like, It doesn’t fit with the book; like, it doesn’t fit with the book, and I don’t actually think that’s better. So –

Sarah: No.

HelenKay: Yes. So, but it did, it took, it took almost four, it was like three and a half months. At one point we suggested kind of Clever Girl, you know, which is a little bit of a play on Jurassic Park, clever girl.

Sarah: Such a Clever Girl, yeah.

HelenKay: And they’re like, No. So finally, in the third round, I added Such a to the beginning, and I’m like, Such a Clever Girl. Now it sounds a little nefarious, and they’re like, Yay, we got a winner! Four months to get there.

Sarah: Well done!

HelenKay: Four months!

Sarah: So your next book is Such a Clever Girl.

HelenKay: [Laughs] Such a Clever Girl.

Sarah: Next up: Also Clever Wife.

HelenKay: [Laughs] My God! That’s the sequel?

Sarah: That’s the sequel! Sure.

HelenKay: [Laughs]

Sarah: So do you want to read the summary or the review for this one?

HelenKay: I can read – well, I, I told you the most important part of the review, which is the middle child. I really don’t –

Sarah: Middle child part. You want to read the summary?

HelenKay: – don’t know that there’s anything else. So the summary is:

>> After a major fight with his brother Owen, Casper took off for an archaeological dig in Honduras. Regretting leaving –

Raina, do you think? Raina?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

HelenKay: >> – and her budding relationship, Casper decides to return home. He’s shocked to find Raina pregnant with Owen’s child.

Sarah: Oh!

HelenKay: See, he’s the only one who’s surprised.

Sarah: Oh dear!

HelenKay: He’s the only one who’s surprised. Come on, now.

Sarah: This is definitely not being about the middle, this is not about being the middle child. Unless that’s like –

HelenKay: Yeah, I don’t think that’s the main problem here.

Sarah: Wow. I don’t think that’s his big issue? I think there are other things?

HelenKay: Just guessing! [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah.

HelenKay: I’m just, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that was the problem.

Sarah: So your brother shtupped your girlfriend after you went to Honduras, and you come back and she’s pregnant. Okay!

HelenKay: And isn’t there part of you that’s saying to yourself, Wait, which one’s the middle child?

Sarah: I don’t know.

HelenKay: Casper, I guess? [Laughs] I don’t know.

>> Casper struggles –

Of course he does!

>> – to rebuild his relationship with Raina as friends, trying to find his place, helping out at the family resort in the depths of winter.

Sarah: Huh!

HelenKay: Hmm!

>> Is it possible for the two to begin again, or does God have –

Now I’ve got to switch pages.

>> – another plan for all their futures?

You have to admit, there’s a part of you that wants to know.

Sarah: Oh, a hundred percent.

HelenKay: Your brother’s sleeping with your wife –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

HelenKay: – I mean, that happens to all male, middle –

Sarah: It’s because you’re a middle child that that happened.

HelenKay: [Laughs] Absolutely. No question. No question.

Sarah: The dig in Honduras? Because you’re a middle child. Yep.

So I selected, on page 32, PDF page 32, The Amish Clockmaker.

HelenKay: Mmm! Mm, mm, mm! Mm, mm, mm.

Sarah: And I hate this review. Four stars, mainstream. I don’t know what mainstream it means in terms of inspirational; it’s just, it’s not Amish, it’s not historical, and it’s not fantasy, so it’s like now, I guess?

HelenKay: Well, I guess!

Sarah: >> The third book in the wonderfully written series has well-thought-out, kind –

HelenKay: Mm.

Sarah: >> – characters.

This –

HelenKay: Mm.

Sarah: That sentence has all of the personality of a wet Saltine cracker.

HelenKay: Mm.

Sarah: This –

HelenKay: Kind characters: those are interesting to read about, I think. [Laughs]

Sarah: Well, well-thought-out?

>> The storyline flips between the present and fifty years before. The authors each have their own writing styles and have combined them beautifully.

If you’re curious about the summary:

>> Matthew Zook is expanding the family store. When he and his wife discover a unique clock, Matthew is determined to return it to its owner. Clayton Raber was the local clockmaker fifty years earlier. He kept the Amish ways, but then his life took a nosedive and he was wrongfully charged with the murder of his wife.

Ooh, a wife!

>> When he is released he is shunned and moved away. Matthew feels he is being led by God to right a wrong and to make things right for Clayton, if only he can find him in time to offer Clayton redemption.

So this isn’t mainstream; this is clearly an Amish romance.

HelenKay: No question.

Sarah: But well-thought-out is one of the most meaningless, like, air puff of a description in a review. I don’t like rang true; I don’t like that one either. Weaves a tapestry –

HelenKay: Mm-mm.

Sarah: – no, we’re not using that. Like, I have a whole list of phrases that I dislike in a review, and well-thought-out and rang true are, like, right at the top.

HelenKay: Yeah, no. This hits every – and I can’t even imagine how, what a book about all kind characters – like, it just sound so – I don’t know. I’m sure it’s brilliant. Here’s my problem –

Sarah: You write murderers; that’s your problem.

HelenKay: Well, that is number one…

Sarah: [Laughs] Your problem is that your writing is homicidal, and I mean that in the best way!

HelenKay: In the best possible way! I grew up in Amish country, Pennsylvania, so any, any romance that ever had a woman in a bonnet or the word Amish anywhere on the cover, I was an automatic no-go –

Sarah: Nope.

HelenKay: – and I am sure these authors are brilliant and they understand the community and whatever, but as somebody who grew up in it –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

HelenKay: – I’m just going to assume they didn’t and that I cannot read it –

Sarah: Yep.

HelenKay: – and it’ll make my head explode. So –

Sarah: It’s like, it’s like somebody writing bad lawyer-ing.

HelenKay: Yes, I can’t do that either, although, wow. [Laughs]

Sarah: I do miss the lawyer romances. Remember we had so many lawyer romances?

HelenKay: I know. I, I was always really upset. I’m like, I wish I weren’t a lawyer so that I wouldn’t know that the whole idea of you have to marry this person or you don’t collect under the inheritance, in reality that is not a thing? That is not a thing. Will, will readings are also not a thing, but that’s okay. It’s not a thing, so it would kill me, because I loved marriage of convenience stories.

Sarah: Oh my gosh!

HelenKay: …just love it!

Sarah: Oh, it’s one of my favorite forms of internal conflict!

HelenKay: Absolutely love it, but it’s amazing how often it is hard to do that in a contemporary setting because you’re like, Wait, what? [Laughs] Like –

Sarah: I have joked so many times – so. Many. Times – that I am going to go romance novel law school, and I’m going to write the wills that make you get married, and I’m going to read the wills in the most dramatic – like, do you ever watch The Traitors and see Alan Cumming come out, and his dress is like nine – that’s me at the reading of the will. I’m going to be the most dramatic, over-the-top weirdo reading these wills once I go to romance novel law school; it’s going to be amazing.

HelenKay: You would look fabulous –

Sarah: I would be so –

HelenKay: – in those outfits.

Sarah: – incredibly – like, my posture would be incredible, I would feel so good. Those outfits are amazing.

HelenKay: I love the show, but I actually watch to see what he’s wearing; I’m not going to lie.

Sarah: I don’t even need to have the volume on. I just want to see what he’s wearing!

HelenKay: Fabulous.

Sarah: Give me the –

HelenKay: It’s just fabulous.

Sarah: – give me the clip show of his, of his costumes. Whoever is doing his costumes deserves, like, all the Emmys.

HelenKay: All the, all of them.

Sarah: All of them.

HelenKay: All of them.

Sarah: But yeah, I’m going to go to romance novel law school, and that’s what I’m going to look like when I read the will to the family so they can have a fight.

HelenKay: I’m, I’m very excited for that! [Laughs]

Sarah: Excellent!

Moving on to Mainstream Fiction. What did you want to talk about in this section?

HelenKay: First I want to say that Sally Hepworth, I was stunned to see her in here. She writes, she lives in Australia –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

HelenKay: – and she writes thrillers, and I think they’re even bestsellers here. Like, they’re bestsellers everywhere, but they’re, they’re very, like, you know, like, I saw him throw his wife off a cliff type thrillers, so when I saw her here I was stunned ‘cause I had no idea – I’m, I’m always amazed by the what people wrote before that I didn’t even realize –

Sarah: Yeah.

HelenKay: – they wrote before? And you’ll also notice the reviews on – there are twos –

Sarah: Yeah.

HelenKay: – there are threes.

Sarah: Mainstream, they and, Mainstream and Fantasy and Science Fiction, they can get very persnickety. There’s two –

HelenKay: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – two-star reviews in this section.

HelenKay: Two two-star reviews, and one of them is, okay, Pieces of You by Ella Harper?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

HelenKay: I just think this sentence – this is the first sentence of the review:

>> There aren’t many redeeming qualities about Harper’s latest novel.

Sarah: Good Lord!

HelenKay: I would just go get a job at, you know, like, Target!

Sarah: Ouch!

HelenKay: Right? Like, that is horrendous! I don’t know! I haven’t read the book, but, I mean, like, I felt for her, ‘cause holy crap!

Sarah: Yeah!

HelenKay: [Laughs]

Sarah: That’s, that’s pretty brutal for them, too.

HelenKay: And the last line is:

>> This book does not deliver.

Sarah: Oh!

>> It’s difficult to like any of the main characters, and their trials of infertility are tedious.

Good Lord!

HelenKay: Yeah, yeah.

Sarah: I always wondered which sections were farther from – like, this is a section that’s a little farther from romance? This is Mainstream Fiction?

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: So are they going to be much more critical because it’s not part of their main house of book reviews, you know? Like, they have a, so RT has a vested interest in promoting romance –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – and softening their grade rubric to a much smaller range, because they want all those people to pay – [laughs] – for the ads and pay for the convention –

HelenKay: [Laughs] Exactly!…

Sarah: – and pay for their spots in the magazine, so they’re not going to be so harsh, whereas this one’s like, No, this sucked! Like, whoo! Damn!

The book that I picked was This House Is Not for Sale –

HelenKay: Hm.

Sarah: – and I just want to say, my comment here is your homophobia is showing.

HelenKay: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: This is by E. C. Osondu.

>> Osondel’s no-, Osondu’s novel reads like an epic about the patriarch of an African community.

Okay, well, what if, I think it is, actually!

>> Grandpa is as much of a hero as he is a villain to some. His rule over the infamous Family House is at times eerie, as the young narrator who dwells there brings the house itself to life. Osondu –

I think I’m saying this right.

>> – Osondu creatively blends folklore, superstition, comedy, and the ills and passions of humanity that transcend that community. The dialogue flows easily, making the nuances explicit and entertaining. This, this novel is an idiosyncratic page-turner.

I don’t think anyone’s put an idiosyncratic page-turner at the top of the book as a pull quote, but okay.

HelenKay: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: Here’s where we get a little bit of Wait, I’m sorry, what now?

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: >> The Family House is full of people indebted to Grandpa.

So patriarchy.

Sarah: >> He provides shelter, while they supply service and labor, which increases his wealth.

Again, patriarchy.

HelenKay: Mm!

Sarah: >> Many try to curse it when they are rejected or when it harbors their enemies; yet it still thrives.

Here’s where you just need to hold onto your butt.

HelenKay: Mm.

Sarah: TRIGGER WARNING for homophobia.

>> The Family House runs the gamut of scandal and suspicion: avarice, bribery, murder, rape, homosexuality, adultery, child abuse, and more.

[Sings] One of these things is not like the other!

HelenKay: [Laughs]

Sarah: Here’s the weirdest line I’ve read in this magazine –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – in a really long time. This is a weird one:

>> Like a great ventriloquist, Grandpa gives life to the Family House.

What the hell does that mean?

HelenKay: I, I have no idea, and do you notice Family House is capitalized?

Sarah: Capitalized, right?

HelenKay: So I’m like, Is it a thing and not an actual house?

Sarah: Maybe, maybe it’s one of those houses like in the UK –

HelenKay: A business?

Sarah: – where they all name the house? I don’t, I don’t know. Family House with capital F, capital H? Ooh.

HelenKay: I don’t, I’m lost.

Sarah: But avarice, bribery, murder, rape, adultery, child abuse, and – [sings] – homosexuality. Wha-, what? What?!

HelenKay: …Mm, mm-mm.

Sarah: Yeah, okay, how did that make it through copyedits?

HelenKay: That is something else. Mm!

Sarah: This, this whole section was just something else.

HelenKay: And, and everything, I mean, look, you know, it’s like, you’re right, Housewitch, and then we’ve got this one, which has, like, a villain Grandpa, and then we have, we have one with infertility. It’s, like, so bizarre!

Sarah: The Secrets of Midwives, yeah. There’s a Beth Kendrick in here! Beth Kendrick went on to write, like, erotica, a lot, erotic romance, yeah.

HelenKay: Yeah!

Sarah: This is, like, early books. But oof! This is a brutal section.

HelenKay: That is, that is something else. That’s all I’m saying: that is something else.

Sarah: Moving on to Teen Scene, Teen Scene is one of the most interesting sections. I haven’t identified where it first appeared? I’ll probably figure it out at some point? Every genre is in Teen Scene, so rather than by genre it’s by targeted reader. So sometimes –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – you have sections that are genre, and sometimes you have sections like these are for the teenagers. And there’s so many Top Picks.

HelenKay: There are so many Top Picks, and there are so many names that are still big names.

Sarah: Yeah!

HelenKay: I mean, Maureen Johnson, Ally Carter, Gayle Forman. I mean, these are people who –

Sarah: Victoria Aveyard is in here.

HelenKay: Yeah! I mean, that is some serious longevity in this, in this section. I’m incredibly impressed by that.

Sarah: Im-, it’s really impressive. You wanted to talk about Ally Carter.

HelenKay: I’m an Ally Carter fan? Like, I, I liked her, this isn’t, this ser-, this is the Embassy Row ones, but she, you know, she had one where it’s like school for kids of spies, right? And I just thought she was really clever, and I love that she’s kind of taken that voice with that kind of mix of a little bit of romance, some kind of mystery, and she’s now shifted it to adult, because that’s what she’s giving us now, like these rom-com kind of murder mystery, like, just completely fun?

Sarah: Mm-hmm! Capers!

HelenKay: – and –

Sarah: She’s writing capers.

HelenKay: They are capers, yes. I couldn’t think of the word. And I just, I just love the kind of, the kind of through-line of her career, and she’s remarkably talented. She’s a Top Pick here. I mean, absolutely thrilling? I don’t think anybody’s ever said anything I wrote was absolutely thrilling, so – [laughs] – that’s, you know, it’s certainly – I’m a little, little envious, maybe? But, but it’s the start of a series. I mean, it says, like –

>> – could not be more promising – a tantalizing hint of even more to come.

I mean, this is, like, as good as a review gets –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

HelenKay: – for, for the first in the series, and –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

HelenKay: – good for her.

Sarah: And this is absolutely a review that is full of cover quotes.

HelenKay: Mm! Mm-hmm!

Sarah: >> Absolutely thrilling start to finish, the seemingly innocent beginnings of the All, All Fall Down quickly take readers into a world filled with danger, intrigue, and unexpected twists.

HelenKay: Yeah, no question.

Sarah: And that’s something they do a lot. Like, if it’s a Top Pick or even a Top Pick Gold?

HelenKay: I forgot about the Golds!

Sarah: Oh yeah, the TPG.

The book I wanted to talk about is Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard, which is in this –

HelenKay: Wow.

Sarah: – magazine, and again, it’s like, Oh wait, that was a massive book. I have seen that book over –

HelenKay: Yes.

Sarah: – and it’s got that, one of the new, like, the, at the time, brand-new cover motifs of a crown –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – with stuff dripping off of it? We’ve got a lot of drippy crowns in romance.

HelenKay: Got a lot –

Sarah: But I would just also like to say, this is 2015? Lot of people now, 2024, 2025, think that rrromantasy is a new genre? I’m sorry to say you know that it’s not. This –

HelenKay: [Laughs]

Sarah: – is a rrromantasy – and you can’t say it without trilling the R; it’s my favorite.

HelenKay: No, that’s perfect.

Sarah: It’s a very important –

HelenKay: You actually do that very well. It’s –

Sarah: – very important.

HelenKay: – well done. Well done.

Sarah: Fantasy, four stars.

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: This is her debut.

HelenKay: Oh, it’s her debut!

Sarah: Like, holy shit!

HelenKay: [Gasps] Oh, it is her debut! I’d missed that part. Okay, that’s just impressive –

Sarah: Holy shit, right?

HelenKay: – every way you look at it. Yeah. Come on, now.

Sarah: >> Aveyard’s debut showcases her impressive worldbuilding skills as readers are dropped into a divided magical universe. Readers will root for Mare and swoon over her love interests.

Is this before she moves to Easttown? This has to be before Mare moves to Easttown and is played by Kate Winslet, right? Can’t be the same name. Can’t be the same name.

HelenKay: No, it’s the same, it’s the same per- – she’s been, had a full life, though, a very full life.

Sarah: She’s, so she’s been a red, drippy queen in a fantasy world, and then she moved to Easttown, Pennsylvania.

HelenKay: Absolutely! Well, because not everything works!

Sarah: No.

HelenKay: You know, you’ve got to keep trying new things until you find the thing, and –

Sarah: And if the monarchy is not working out, then Pennsyltucky is a great second choice.

HelenKay: And let me just say, as somebody who grew up in Pennsylvania, I had never seen anything from her hair to her clothes to the surroundings – I was like, somebody nailed what the entire look of the place –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

HelenKay: – feel of the place –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

HelenKay: – how do people, you know, the community of it. Well done.

Sarah: So:

>> Readers will root for Mare –

Pre Easttown.

>> – and swoon over her love interests as she navigates a merciless society. Some slow parts may stall readers’ attention, but stay with it! Fantasy fans in particular will be pleased.

This was her debut!

HelenKay: That’s incredible. It really is incredible.

Sarah: That’s fucking amazing. I love when I bump into somebody’s book and I’m like, Oh my God, this book was so huge, and here it is. And this is the person’s first book!

HelenKay: That’s unbelievable, actually.

Sarah: It’s really fun to read this. This, this magazine is such a combination of, like, a celebrity gossip magazine – especially early issues; they were very gossipy.

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: I learned so much gossip about Danielle Steele? Holy shit! Oh my – matched Vuitton luggage, two matching blue Mercedes! Clearly made an impression. So you have fan mag- –

HelenKay: Well, we all have that.

Sarah: Of course. I have –

HelenKay: Come on.

Sarah: – I have three, personally.

HelenKay: Yes, okay, good, good.

Sarah: I have to, I have one of those elevator garages where you pull in the car and it goes – yeah.

HelenKay: [Laughs]

Sarah: It’s very important. But, like, this is both a celebrity magazine and a, and a book review magazine and a fandom magazine. This is –

HelenKay: It’s everything!

Sarah: – it’s, it’s, it’s one publication that is as much for readers as it is for the authors and the magazine. This was your promotional opportunity; this was the readers’ way to find out all of the books. Like, it’s so incredible! It’s why I’m recapping it, ‘cause I just am blown away by it.

HelenKay: I love it.

Sarah: So Science Fiction and Fantasy does have mostly three to four and a half TP. Very narrow range.

HelenKay: Hm.

Sarah: But this is also when steampunk was still a big thing? Like Viola Carr’s The Diabolical Miss Hyde came out in this month, which I remember that book coming out and everyone going, Ohhh! Steampunk Jekyll and Hyde! And it’s a girl! Whoa! Like, that made an impression.

HelenKay: Well, that title is spectacular.

Sarah: In- –

HelenKay: I mean –

Sarah: – credible.

HelenKay: – spectacular.

Sarah: And the cover is whoo!

HelenKay: Just, I mean –

Sarah: Super gorgeous.

HelenKay: – come on, now. Come on, now! I mean –

Sarah: So what did you want to talk about?

HelenKay: Well, it’s Jaca-, Jacaranda? Is that –

Sarah: Jacaranda, that’s a plant.

HelenKay: It’s steampunk; it’s a novella. The last line of this review – so it’s like a, like, we’ve all gotten this one? Where you’re like, Oh! We were so close!

>> – seems to be building to something bigger than it ultimately winds up being.

Sarah: Ouch!

HelenKay: Ohhh my God, ouch! That’s just like, mmm, ah – [laughs] – ‘cause you can see a publisher going through and they’re being like, Okay, we’re going to take out vivid and interesting and just put that –

Sarah: Yeah.

HelenKay: – in quote.

Sarah: Yep.

HelenKay: Take out the enough. We’re going to skip that whole middle section there, and there you go!

Sarah: Yeah!

HelenKay: Got a great quote!

Sarah: Vivid and interesting! So many of them have promo copy language in them.

HelenKay: Yeah. Well, and as somebody – like you said, it’s not that – you know, like, you get frustrated ‘cause there aren’t enough, there aren’t that many reviews or whatever out there, and sometimes they’ll be kind of a great review? Or there’ll be an introduction, like somebody will post and it’ll be like, I love this book, and then the review is basically just kind of a here’s what, here’s what happens in the book? And you’re like, there’s nothing…that I can kind of use. You know what I mean?

Sarah: Yes.

HelenKay: You’re, like, searching around for How do I make this work…

Sarah: How do I make this useful? Yeah. Part of the problem, and I have this with people who submit reviews to me, is that people often mistake a book report for a review.

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: A book report is what happened in the book. A review is what happened to you when you read the book.

HelenKay: Yes.

Sarah: Those are different things, and if you don’t know what to say about the book or you’re not sure how to articulate it, you just end up doing a book report.

HelenKay: Which –

Sarah: I noticed ‘cause the Jacaranda by Cherie Priest, the summary:

>> Just off the coast of Texas on the –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: >> – island of Galveston is a hotel named the Jacaranda. It, it would –

[Laughs]

>> – it would be the nicest resort in the area if not for the fact that everyone who comes there is dying!

Oh, hello! HelenKay, they’ve sent up a signal!

>> Now a –

HelenKay: I know! This, it appealed to me for a reason, you know? [Laughs]

Sarah: >> – a priest with a bloody past, a nun with a bloody secret, and an old Texas Ranger who specializes in the odd and uncanny have all come to the Jacaranda to put whatever hungers there to rest or, or die trying?

HelenKay: Well, and you know, let’s talk about priests for a second. There was a time where they seemed to be popping up kind of over and over and over again –

Sarah: Oh yeah!

HelenKay: – in different, like – and I remember, I, I still write for, May, May Chen at HarperCollins is my editor, and back then I was writing romantic suspense, and I was like, Wouldn’t it be cool? And I pi-, you know, just talking to her, said something about a priest, and she was so funny. She was like, No. Absolutely not.

[Laughter]

HelenKay: I said, I said, Are you anti-priest? She’s like, You are not writing a priest in a romantic suspense. She’s like, I don’t want it as the hero; I don’t want him as the villain; I don’t want him killed. Absolutely, we’re not doing any of that. I was like, Fine! [Laughs] Fine!

Sarah: No priest-y for you!

HelenKay: …do it. [Laughs] She’d let me do it in a thriller, I bet.

Sarah: Unfortunate. So the book that I picked is also on the same page, PDF 48. It is –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – Fancy – oh boy – Finn Fancy Necromancy.

HelenKay: I would have bet money you were going to pick that. I, honestly –

Sarah: That’s very, it’s a very Sarah title.

HelenKay: It’s, it’s, it’s, I don’t even know what to do with it, to be perfectly honest, but go ahead! [Laughs]

Sarah: I’m sorry; I need everyone who’s listening to this, I just need you to strap in, ‘cause you are not prepared –

HelenKay: Mm-mm.

Sarah: – for these words.

HelenKay: Mm-mm.

Sarah: All right, so Finn Fancy Necromancy by Randy Henderson, fantasy, three stars!

>> Finn Fancy Necromancy is ultimately just an okay read.

HelenKay: Oh.

Sarah: Ohhh! Right in the chest!

HelenKay: Oh God!

Sarah: >> The secret, magical world of arcana, alchemy, and more is well developed –

There we are again.

>> – and intriguing, but the characters aren’t great.

HelenKay: Mm, mm.

Sarah: >> Having been exiled from the age of fifteen to forty, the protagonist should still have the mindset of a teenager when he returns to real life, but instead he immediately starts acting like a competent adult. Further, the dialogue is far too often goofy and unrealistic, especially from a fellow exile who speaks like Mr. T and constantly says the word Fool for no apparent reason.

[Laughs] Oh my God! Now, first of all –

HelenKay: I don’t even know what to do with this one.

Sarah: – that is a review! They are explaining what their problem was. I understand the problem. And if you’re wondering, like, what the hell was the exile?

>> Twenty-five years ago, fifteen-year-old necromancer Finn Gramaraye –

HelenKay: Good shot, good try.

Sarah: Gramaraye? Like gamma ray with an R.

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: >> – was framed for the crime of dark necromancy and exiled into the Other Realm, where his memories were fed on by the Fey.

That sounds super shitty. Also, dark necromancy is a great book title.

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: Also the name of my ska band.

>> Now that he’s finally been released, though, someone is determined to frame him for another crime and have him exiled again. Finn has three days to figure out who’s doing it and why. Luckily, he has a motley group of magic-using friends and family to help.

Apparently one who talks like Mr. T!

HelenKay: Love it. I have to admit, I am confused why the reviewer was upset that the person sounded like, the protagonist sounded like a grownup? To survive fifteen to forty –

Sarah: Yep!

HelenKay: – in another realm, I’m assuming you –

Sarah: You’re going to grow up fast!

HelenKay: [Laughs] Yeah. I just, like, I’m just betting, like, you have some life skills; that’s all I’m saying. That’s all I’m saying.

Sarah: He immediately starts acting like a competent adult. Well, I mean, he’s been in the Other Realm, he was framed, he’s got his memories munched on by Fey people. I would grow up pretty quick.

HelenKay: It’s almost like the reviewer was, really wanted to say too stupid to live, but we only say that about females.

Sarah: Ohhh!

HelenKay: So they had to come up with this instead. We could do three hours on my thoughts on that particular thing. I’m like – [sputters] – mm! The thing makes me kind of – [growls] – get my back up more than seeing – and they did it in romance all the time –

Sarah: All the time.

HelenKay: – too stupid to live. And it’s like, Okay, just because she didn’t make the choices you would make does not make her too stupid to live. And people make bad choices, and the example I would always give when I was speaking was, I’m like, Look, I don’t think I’m a particularly stupid person, so the first time the alarm goes off, off at my house and I am home alone with the dog, in a townhouse, so I’m upstairs, what do I do? I don’t hide under the bed; I don’t go into a closet. I walk downstairs to figure out why my alarm is going off. I’m not a particularly stupid person! It is human nature to be like, to not assume – I mean, now that I write thrillers I probably would assume the worst, but – to not automatically assume, like, someone’s breaking into my house. I was like, Why is my stupid alarm – they’re going to charge me fifty dollars for this – why is my alarm going off? So that’s not a too stupid to live character; that is somebody who maybe, if you were a little more astute you would not handle it that way, but it’s a way that a normal person would handle it!

Sarah: Yeah!

HelenKay: And, and –

Sarah: It’s like if a car, a car alarm going off does not make me look for a car thief.

HelenKay: Well, that’s exactly it! It makes me look for my keys and be like, Dang it! Why is it going off?

Sarah: Did I sit on the dongle again? God damn it.

HelenKay: [Laughs]

Sarah: I just want you to know, I wrote down on my future guest topic list, HKD TSTL.

HelenKay: Oh.

Sarah: I want you to come back and give me your rant on too stupid to live. I would fucking love to hear it, and I bet everyone who is listening to this is going to be like, Oh my God, please tell me yes!

HelenKay: I could go on forever and give examples of, like, real life and books…

Sarah: I would be delighted.

HelenKay: This is not too stupid to love, people! This is just decision-making. [Laughs] That’s all this is!

Sarah: And it’s always, what you said earlier about how no one calls men too stupid to live?

HelenKay: Ever. Ever.

Sarah: It, it is always a way to judge other women’s choices, as a way to soothe yourself that your choices are superior. Like, this won’t happen to me, because I wouldn’t make those choices.

HelenKay: Exactly.

Sarah: Like, everyone is victim to some kind of scam at some point.

HelenKay: Absolutely.

Sarah: You think it’s not going to happen to you, but it could! It has! I’ve been scammed. It sucks! I feel dumb! But, like, it happens.

HelenKay: It happens!

Sarah: It’s something that is really leveled only at, at female characters.

HelenKay: Always.

Sarah: Okay, so –

HelenKay: Always.

Sarah: – I have a note, and we’re going to come back to that. Don’t worry, people, I am not letting that one go!

HelenKay: [Laughs] See future podcast.

Sarah: Yes. Like, seriously. My favorite iss-, my favorite episodes are the ones where I’m just like, Please go off.

HelenKay: [Laughs]

Sarah: Nerd out, go off, I don’t care. Like, I, one of my favorite episodes, I had Rose Lerner on because she was pretty sure that everything she’d learned about writing romance she had gathered from watching professional wrestling.

HelenKay: That is spectacular.

Sarah: How to develop compelling characters; how to maintain a persona; how to go from being the hero to the heel; you know, what does that mean? What are the characters? Why do you always have to have conflict? Like, why can’t you just exist in this happy land where everyone’s the champion? Like, such an interesting perspective, and I’m like, Okay, I’m just going to hit Record. Just go. [Laughs] This is amazing!

HelenKay: Love it! Love it!

Sarah: So moving on to Mystery and Thriller, which is your favorite genre presently.

HelenKay: Actually, it is my favorite! Yeah!

Sarah: I would like to call everyone’s attention to PDF page 52. Suspense, Obsession in Death by J. D. Robb, four and a half stars Top Pick.

HelenKay: Woo-hoo!

Sarah: I just want to share with everybody the first line:

>> It takes an astonishingly talented author to keep a series exciting and compelling for forty books.

HelenKay: [Laughs]

Sarah: Well, as of right now there’s sixty-one! Sixty-one! Yes, I looked it up, and I just want to share with you – I will put this in the show notes; never fear – I am sharing a link with you to the Wikipedia page for In Death, and I just want to, want you to look at the second section after the top summary: Deaths. All of the deaths – murder victims, murder investigations – that occur in the books, including weapon, cause of death, and the perpetrator! There’s just a list of the deaths in the In Death series! [Laughs]

HelenKay: That’s spectacular.

Sarah: That’s the top item on the Wikipedia page for this series!

HelenKay: That is absolutely spectacular.

Sarah: Who, how do they die, who died, who did it, what weap- – oh! I mean, it’s a bit spoiler-y, but then you get, like, you know, disemboweled, removal of kidney.

HelenKay: That’s amazing.

Sarah: Like, it’s, it’s just, it’s just my favorite Wikipedia page, like, ever, ever, ever, ever.

HelenKay: Believe it or not, I have never read the In Death series. I’ve never – I know! You should see how big your eyes are.

Sarah: [Laughs]

HelenKay: But here’s why: because by the time I was going to read it, like, it was already like, I don’t know, fifteen books in, and who can, like –

Sarah: Not me!

HelenKay: I can’t, I can’t imagine starting it today and being – I mean, what, am I going to be reading it in assisted living? I don’t, I don’t –

Sarah: [Laughs]

HelenKay: Like, like, how do you, how do you get excited to be like, there’s so many books, to say, I’m going to jump into a sixty-book series. I mean, I just, I think it’s amazing –

Sarah: Yep.

HelenKay: – that she has been – nobody else can do that.

Sarah: Nope.

HelenKay: She can do it.

Sarah: Yep.

HelenKay: But it is, for me as a reader, it’s daunting. That’s all…

Sarah: Oh, it’s extremely daunting!

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: I think that’s one of the reasons why Nalini Singh is so smart, because she has the Psy-Changeling series, but that, that first season, as she put it, had an arc –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – and then they started the, the Psy-Changeling Trinity part, which expanded the world and added, like, water and air creatures and shifters and, like, all of this stuff. But she’s pretty clear: Here are the entry points. It’s like –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – the Discworld series: you can get a map of where to enter.

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: There’s no entering in the middle, because this is a linear story.

HelenKay: Yeah! I just don’t know, I can’t even figure out how to tackle it, so I’ve always just been like, Go! Good job! Keep…

Sarah: I will tell you, if you want to read the first one, you can read the first one and, like, call it a day?

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: My favorite things about the first one are the fact that it’s set in 2042, which is not that long off; women who –

HelenKay: [Indistinct]

Sarah: – women who are homemakers or stay-at-home parents draw a salary in that world?

HelenKay: Love it.

Sarah: Right? Like, there’s all of these little moments of the future where I’m like, Oh, I wish! I wish! I wish!

So what book did you want to talk about? I bet I know.

HelenKay: Can you tell by the title?

Sarah: I think I can tell from the title.

HelenKay: My pick, of course, is The First Wife –

Sarah: Yes!

HelenKay: – by Erica Spindler, because I can honestly say, so, Darby Kane, there are five books are out; the sixth one comes out in January. The books that have Wife in the title –

Sarah: Yeah.

HelenKay: – like, it’s, it’s Pretty Little Wife, The Replacement Wife, and What the Wife Knew, those are three –

Sarah: Yeah.

HelenKay: They sell exponentially better than the ones without Wife in the title, which I think is just – I don’t know! And everybody says it’s because of Gone Girl, and I’m like, But there’s no Wife in that title, but okay! [Laughs] I’ll go along with whatever your theory is on why it works, but I know! It’s spectacular, and it’s not just me! Erica figured it out in 2015! I’m just saying!

Sarah: Wow!

HelenKay: Good job, her!

Sarah: Now I’m wondering, like, why is that?

HelenKay: I don’t know! I mean, they all, there is a big, like, you know, everybody gives Gillian Flynn whatever. I’m like, there were – and, and I get it. Gone Girl –

Sarah: Was huge.

HelenKay: And it changed the game.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

HelenKay: Like, it certainly changed the game for female, for women thriller writers –

Sarah: Yes.

HelenKay: – who went from, the thriller went from being James Patterson and a male playground with a few women to, I think now, majority women thriller writers. That’s like a –

Sarah: Yes.

HelenKay: – what you get with thrillers.

Sarah: Yeah.

HelenKay: But it’s not like she’s the first one that ever wrote about a bad wife, but it is fascinating that it, it’s, you know, if, if wife used to be the victim –

Sarah: Yep!

HelenKay: Now, thanks to the rise of the antihero and women being angry and everything else, now they can be the villains, the killers, the pursuers, the vigilantes, the whatever, which, which I think is fantastic.

Sarah: I also think it has to do with the fact that, especially in American Culture and the way that our gender dynamics function, women are not necessarily taken seriously –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – until they are somebody’s wife or somebody’s mother. That’s why you have all, As a mom, I think – okay, listen, just because I have birthed a human does not give me superior insight into humanity. In fact, it kind of makes my brain like Swiss cheese a lot of the time.

HelenKay: [Laughs]

Sarah: Like, the idea that you attain authority and adulthood when you are married and when you have kids means that this is a person who is an adult but is in a, wife is subservient, you know –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – according to a lot of custom, to the husband, but if this is a tale of how she’s getting power back, if she’s self-actualizing and taking on her own autonomy, and then also, you know, killing some shitty people –

HelenKay: Yeah. I’m all for that.

Sarah: – that is, that is subverting all of that subservience.

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: And it makes, and it’s, it’s the same, it’s the same kind of, Oh, wait a minute, unsettling deviance from societal expectation as, like, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle?

HelenKay: Yes.

Sarah: Like, you’re not supposed to be mistrustful and suspicious of your mother or your nanny or your caregiver. Like, that, those are people who are caring and loving and ben-, and beneficent.

HelenKay: Yes.

Sarah: And the wife is supposed to be, you know, helping and loving and supporting and cooking and whatever and doing all the household labor, and this wife is actually killing people. So I think it’s the wife part subverts a lot of the power dynamics –

HelenKay: Yes.

Sarah: – in a way that sums it up in one word, which is very handy. You’re going to run out of wife adjectives, though, which is why I think your next book should be The Wife Wife-d…

HelenKay: I, I am not! You, you are underestimating my ability –

[Laughter]

HelenKay: – to – ‘cause the one that I’m about to start writing, when I pitched it, it has Wife in the title.

Sarah: Hell yeah!

HelenKay: I was like, I’m ready for you guys! I am ready for you! [Laughs]

Sarah: I’m Wife-ing out! Just call it Wifey and see if anyone notices.

HelenKay: [Laughs] Just The Wife –

Sarah: The Wife!

HelenKay: – that’s what I should just call them all.

Sarah: Wife. Or make it, like –

HelenKay: No.

Sarah: – make it like a, like MILF? Like an acronym, W-I-F-E? What does that stand for?

HelenKay: [Laughs] Exactly. But I, I do, I, it’s one of the things I love about, I loved it about romantic suspense, too, of, like, women in this position where they’re taking power back –

Sarah: Yeah.

HelenKay: – in some way, but in thrillers, you know, there’s always this bizarre idea that women don’t, women are nicer. Like, women are whatever, and I’m like, No! We’re the –

Sarah: Uh-uh!

HelenKay: – like, no! It’s just –

Sarah: No!

HelenKay: – just, we know what the societal expectations are. You think I don’t get angry? I’ve been furious since 2016. [Laughs] Like, like, there’s – I’ve been furious!

Sarah: We shall not discuss our cortisol levels at this time. Oh yeah!

HelenKay: You know, so, where can I control the world where it, you know, the woman in this story is not an afterthought, an add-on, a, a sidekick, a mom?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

HelenKay: Like, like, she is a woman who may be all of these other things, but she’s a woman, and that is the focus –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

HelenKay: – of the story –

Sarah: For sure.

HelenKay: – and that’s what I love about, I love about thrillers. So when I saw The First Wife I was like, there you go, Erica. There you go.

Sarah: Do you want to read the summary? ‘Cause you mentioned –

HelenKay: Sure!

Sarah: – in the notes that this plot point is perennial, which I love, I love seeing a new take. Like, we were just talking about marriage of convenience. I love a new take –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – on a perennial trope.

HelenKay: Yes. Let’s see:

>> It didn’t take long for Bailey Browne to marry Logan Abbott – days, in fact. After the two wed, Logan takes Bailey to his family’s Louisiana farm, and a dark past resurfaces. As this new bride is left questioning her husband’s involvement in the disappearance of his first wife and the other women in the area, she wonders if she’s in store for a fairytale ending after all.

She’s not.

Sarah: She’s not; he did it. Totally did it.

HelenKay: She’s not, no. I’m –

Sarah: She, she, he did it, totally.

HelenKay: Bailey, no. Run, honey.

Sarah: Yeah.

HelenKay: But it, but I love that this – and this, like, oh, Rachel Hawkins has a book that, that feels like this. There’s, there was a recent thriller called The Inheritance that feels like this. Right, like, it’s this idea of these kind of deep, disturbing family secrets –

Sarah: Yeah.

HelenKay: – that something about the new wife coming in –

Sarah: Yep.

HelenKay: – just makes it all just implode?

Sarah: And you’re blending Gothic –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – with the rural farm, and you’re, you’re blending, you know, Rebecca and –

HelenKay: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Sarah: – all of that sort of like the new wife and, and Jane Eyre. You’re, you’re relying on some classic new wife tropes that are very established and fun to play with?

HelenKay: When I read it, I’m like, Is the first wife dead in the attic? It’s a guess. Let’s guess. [Laughs]

Sarah: I mean, or she’s just living up there, and she’s like, I’ve got my own apartment. Just, all of you can just fuck off…

HelenKay: Exactly right.

Sarah: Please leave.

HelenKay: Get out of my house.

Sarah: So I picked, on PDF page 52, a mystery that is historical – I, I, I do love a historical mystery.

HelenKay: You do, you do.

Sarah: I do. Murder in the Queen’s Garden by Amanda Carmack, four and a half stars Top Pick! Now, I looked this up; this is book three –

HelenKay: Oh!

Sarah: – of the series. I looked it up. Book one is in KU, and I started reading it this morning, and it is really fun? It’s court intrigue –

HelenKay: Oh, excellent!

Sarah: – right at the end of Queen Mary’s reign, before Queen Elizabeth takes over?

HelenKay: Nice!

Sarah: And she’s the court musician to then Princess Elizabeth, but Elizabeth, for most of her childhood, was either in the Tower of London, under investigation, locked up in some house somewhere because she was a threat to power, because she was the Protestant daughter of Anne Boleyn, and Mary was the Catholic daughter of the original –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – the first one, so – was that Catherine? That was a Catherine, right? There’s…

HelenKay: Yeah, Catherine. There’s like nine thousand Catherines.

Sarah: Nine – what is with the Catherines? It was like being in elementary school with me –

HelenKay: There were six names.

Sarah: – and nine Sarahs. What the hell?

HelenKay: Yeah. There are like six names, and they just keep using them. Mm-hmm.

Sarah: Yeah! So I started this book this morning, and it’s actually, I’m, like, kind of into it? So I’m really –

HelenKay: That’s awesome!

Sarah: I love when that happens, when I find like book three of a series; I’m like, Ooh, wait! And the first one’s in KU? Let me try it at no risk! So:

>> Carmack delivers sharply researched and gracefully written novels set in Elizabeth I’s reign. This dramatic period is filled with intrigue, religious conflict, betrayal, and danger, which the writing brings out brilliantly. Kate Haywood, daughter of the chief musician, is smart yet vulnerable and willing to risk her life, family, for family, friends, and Elizabeth. The story nimbly moves from the court to the back alleys, providing a complete treat for anyone who loves historical mysteries.

That’s pretty cool, right?

HelenKay: Nice. That is very cool.

Sarah: So the summary is:

>> Kate, as the queen’s personal musician, is involved in the court life and the parties and the gaiety taking place six months into Elizabeth’s reign.

Spoiler alert: Elizabeth becomes queen. I don’t, I don’t know if anyone didn’t know that, but that’s…

HelenKay: How can you tell people that? Now what are they going to do?

Sarah: I know. It’s like spoiling a movie you can watch on the airplane. Such a dick move.

HelenKay: [Laughs]

Sarah: >> The famed astrologer Doctor John Dee is part of this illustrious group, but he is cast into possible dishonor when a body is found in the queen’s garden, and then further, one of his men is murdered. The queen asks Kate to investigate, placing her in mortal danger, but with religious tension rising, the rumors about Dee have to be stopped.

HelenKay: Stop!

Sarah: I love a good intrigue story.

HelenKay: Yep. Yep.

Sarah: And where you have to keep up the public performance and then, like, this one scene – this is early in the book, so it’s not a spoiler – there’s one scene in the first book where Kate figures out which of the secret passageways in the house that were like these little alleys for the servants to move through the house –

HelenKay: Mm-hmm!

Sarah: – unseen, she’s like, Oh shit, there’s like nine of these! I can use all these things! So she has to do this public performance, being the musician, and then she’s literally sneaking around in the walls to figure out what the hell’s going on. I love, I love a private/public performance di- – oh, it’s my favorite. So I’m really excited. I once, once again found a series to read in RT from, you know, ten years ago! That’s fine!

HelenKay: That’s very cool. [Laughs]

Sarah: So Romantic Suspense!

HelenKay: Yaaay!

Sarah: Yeah, you know, it’s fine.

HelenKay: [Laughs]

Sarah: You’re in here! You’re in here: Playing Dirty by HelenKay Dimon is in here!

HelenKay: It is, yay! Yay! We love that! We love that.

Sarah: So you got four stars and Hot!

HelenKay: Hot.

Sarah: Apparently you write hot sexytimes.

HelenKay: Well, I do, but then it says at the bottom that it thinks it needed more sexual tension, and I –

Sarah: [Snorts]

HelenKay: – I say no! I say you’re wrong. It is, it’s, you know, it’s a book where he’s the, you know, he’s the next-door neighbor, so, but he’s really on surveillance, so, and people, it’s interesting, ‘cause in romantic suspense, you know, nobody cares in a thriller who I killed, who lies, who does whatever. Like, I never, nobody ever says anything. But it’s like, okay, but he’s living next door to her, and he’s, like, doing surveillance, and she’s not always super nice. I’m like, Okay, so you don’t care – [laughs] – that he’s lying and doing whatever. She could be nicer to the man she doesn’t know…

Sarah: Always harsher judges of the women.

HelenKay: Right.

Sarah: Always harsh judgment of the women; the men can get away with everything. This has been true since historicals. Like, look at all those rape-y-ass heroes and be like –

HelenKay: I know.

Sarah: – Oh, but he’s so dreamy! I’m like, no? No! No. No, no, no.

HelenKay: [Laughs] No! And, and there’s a scene, like, early on where, you know, he’s, he’s – this is not a euphemism – he’s fixing her plumbing – not a euphemism – so he –

[Laughter]

HelenKay: – he’s, like, under her sink, and she walks in and, you know, like, it’s like the T-shirt has moved up and his little jeans are sitting on his, on his hips, and I can’t remember anything I ever write, and I remember writing that scene because I thought, I thought like, How fantastic that would be to watch…

Sarah: Hot. That’s hot as fuck! Are you kidding?

HelenKay: [Laughs] But they do say:

>> Few people write romantic suspense like Dimon, as this –

Sarah: Damn right!

HelenKay: >> – pulse-, pulse-pounding, complex opening to the bad boy’s undercover proves.

Yaaay!

Sarah: >> Though the sizable cast and detailed premise may appear daunting, the fast-paced action and unpredictable plot will keep readers absorbed and craving more.

There’s your cover quote! Will keep readers absorbed –

HelenKay: Love it!

Sarah: – and craving more.

>> On the suspense side, those looking for nonstop, high-stakes action will delight in this novel, but those looking for romance may want greater sexual tension between the leads, especially early on.

They just met!

HelenKay: I know.

Sarah: You can’t just –

HelenKay: I know.

Sarah: – bone your neighbor; that’s awkward! I mean –

HelenKay: I mean –

Sarah: – sure, if he’s hot, but then he’s living next door! Like, you don’t want to do that!

HelenKay: And the boning, I’m, well, and he, he also thinks, like, her family is, like, like, her dad’s a killer, you know, so – [laughs] – it’s, it’s always –

Sarah: He might not want to bone her either.

>> This debut offers a wealth of promise for the series to come.

But this was not your debut book; they’re just talking about the debut of the series, right?

HelenKay: This is the debut, this is the, the debut romantic suspense mass market. Before this I had written for Kensington and Brava –

Sarah: Right!

HelenKay: – so there was, like, a little bit, there was some suspense, but this is like the full-on slap the title of romantic suspense on it?

Sarah: Yeah.

HelenKay: And this is the, this is the first one, and it’s a series based on a, a group that’s half MI6 and half CIA, and that’s actually a thing?

Sarah: Ahhh. Wait, re-, re-, really? That’s a thing?

HelenKay: Yeah, there are groups that they, they co- – there was a Showtime – it’s gone out of my head – there was a Showtime series –

Sarah: Wow, Showtime. That takes me back.

HelenKay: I, I know, right? Where, that was MI6 and, and CIA, but it wasn’t romantic; it was just like let’s go and kill people.

Sarah: Yeah.

HelenKay: And I was, I remember thinking to myself, How great would it be if this series, like, had a rich kind of romance? Each, each operative gets a, you know, whatever. So that’s what the series was based on, and this sold during a time where it was like the, the theory was nobody was buying romantic suspense. Nobody. And this series went to like a six-publisher auction to, to sell.

Sarah: Wow!

HelenKay: Yeah, yeah.

Sarah: What?!

HelenKay: Yeah. It was, it was, ‘cause there was so much, like, romantic suspense – this is during a period where, my view, quick and dirty on romantic suspense is that romantic –

Sarah: Tell me everything.

HelenKay: – romantic suspense grew, and people really liked romantic suspense, and then what happened is, it was almost like they kept saying, Make it darker, make it darker, make it darker?

Sarah: I agree.

HelenKay: And then, you know, the world, like, the economy gets weird and things get weird, and what ends up happening is people don’t necessarily want to read dark.

Sarah: No.

HelenKay: Right? Like, they wanted something –

Sarah: It’s like right now.

HelenKay: They wanted Adirondack chairs. Right, exactly. So it was very, very hard to sell single-title romantic suspense at this time. I was writing – in fact, it was so hard I was writ-, I went into Intrigue, Harlequin Intrigue, because I wanted to keep writing it and keep my kind of skills fresh?

Sarah: For sure! Because it’s a lot of plotting skills. You have to do –

HelenKay: Lot of plotting skills.

Sarah: – the romance plot and the suspense plot, and they have to, like, merge together correctly.

HelenKay: And Intrigue was a great place for that because it, you had to do all of that in fifty-five thousand words, not one word over.

Sarah: Yeah. It’s like, Nora Roberts used to call it dancing Swan Lake in a phone booth.

HelenKay: [Laughs] It’s true! It’s true, so it was a great – so this was like the first, okay, now we’re going to, we’re going to buy romantic suspense, and –

Sarah: And you got 384 pages! That’s a lot of room to make that suspense happen.

HelenKay: There’s a lot of room! And, and the series was so fun, in part because I wrote this one first, and then I went back, and they asked me to do a novella to kind of like introduce how the MI6/CIA group got together? And you know from Playing Dirty that the woman who leads this team – it’s a woman –

Sarah: Right.

HelenKay: – who leads the team – and it’s about her in the novella, and it is, it’s a book called Running Hot, and it is one of my favorite openings, because it opens with him, the CIA guy, tied to a chair. He was unconscious, he wakes up, he’s tied to a chair, and she’s going through his wallet.

Sarah: [Laughs]

HelenKay: ‘Cause she knows he’s not who he says he is, and, and it’s the whole time, like, he’s trying to, like, you know, charm her and smooth-talk her, ‘cause that’s what he does, and do all this kind of stuff, and she is not buying it.

Sarah: Nope.

HelenKay: She’s like, basically, I will blow your head off and not think twice. It was so much fun to write this series where she was the one leading. He gets injured, so they’re together, but she is the one leading, doing the dirty work, and all of these, like, you know, dudes have to answer kind of to her. So this was great fun. It’s an international series, that’s part of the MI6 piece, so they take place all over the place. There’s one that takes place on the glacier between Pakistan and India.

Sarah: Damn!

HelenKay: There’s one that takes place, like, like, in Russia, like, where, like, the, like – they’re just all over. So it was so much fun to write the series, and this is the first one, which is a little more US-based, but the rest of them kind of jump back and forth.

Sarah: That’s very cool!

HelenKay: It was very fun.

Sarah: I agree with you, that, that the romantic suspense plus increasing darkness?

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: I think the same thing is happening with romantasy – or rrromantasy, sorry.

HelenKay: Yeah!

Sarah: The same thing is happening there: it’s dark, it’s angsty, and there are people who want that catharsis, but we also have this incredibly fast-growing cozy –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: Cozy like, cozy contemporary, cozy fantasy, cozy mystery, cozy, cozy, cozy –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – all the cozy. ‘Cause, you know, shit’s fucked outside.

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: You don’t necessarily want to read about –

HelenKay: You don’t.

Sarah: – darker things, yeah.

HelenKay: ‘Cause I remember there were couple times where, like, like, I was invited to do this thing in Hawaii as – so a lot of the readers were military wives?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

HelenKay: And they would see this cover and be like, I just, I just can’t! My husband’s deployed. I just can’t. Like, I – and it was, it was very eye-opening to me on, like, just how mood readers, like, how –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

HelenKay: – what people need to take from it was really, was really clear in this series.

Sarah: I also think that’s one of the reasons why the visual commentary review style through TikTok or Instagram Live or whatever, I think that took off because, you know, everyone used to make fun of people, Oh, people just crying on books, crying about books on TikTok. You just go on TikTok and you cry about the book, and it’s a bestseller.

HelenKay: [Laughs]

Sarah: No, what someone is, what someone’s doing there is actually showing you how this book is going to make you feel?

HelenKay: Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah: And romance is very into, I’m going to make you feel this set of emotions in a safe space because you know the ending. So demonstrating how a book is going to make you feel is also going to help the mood readers, ‘cause I am definitely a, a mood reader in my interests. Like, I remember in the pandemic, like summer 2020? I read the whole damn Psy-Changeling series, because –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – that is a fantasy world, and it is fundamentally about the creation and preservation of empathy. ‘Cause all of the Psy –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – have their emotions removed. This whole series was about empathy, and I was like, This is exactly where I want to be. Not here –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – not now. Focusing on empathy. And there’s a lot of –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – not-here, not-now books right now, too.

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: Can’t imagine why!

HelenKay: …Ah yeah, gee, I wonder why that is? The, one of the funniest things from this series – this isn’t, I guess – it cracks me up; I still remember this to this day – is, so one of the books does, takes place on this glacier between Pakistan and India –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

HelenKay: – and if you know anything about kind of how the world works, there’s a constant battle for control of this glacier.

Sarah: Yes, they do not get along. Not, not good friends on that border! No.

HelenKay: And there was a review that said, you know, I really like the book, but I don’t think she needs to make up wars –

Sarah: [Laughs]

HelenKay: – to write a book, and I was like, Wait, what just happened? I was like, No, no, guys, really! Really! India and Pakistan! It’s a thing! That’s not me making it up!

Sarah: Oh wow! Okay!

HelenKay: And, and part of the thing about the whole thing that inspired the book was this group called the Fab 5, and what the Fab 5 is, is, they were helicopter pilots at the time – I think the technology has gotten better. They were the only people that could fly up, like, K2.

Sarah: Yep.

HelenKay: They could fly up and do rescues way up high on the mountain –

Sarah: Yep.

HelenKay: – right? And it turns out that the Fab 5 is part of the, like, the Pakistani Air Force, or Army – one of them; I can’t remember. So I had, you know, you’re trying to do research, and of course it’s all top secret, but, and we were, that, that reviewer was like, you know, They shouldn’t make up, and there’s no way for a helicopter – I’m like, guys, re-, I swear to God! [Laughs]

Sarah: Oh, honey.

HelenKay: This is, this is real!

Sarah: Oh man! I have some news for you!

HelenKay: [Indistinct]

Sarah: International disputes that are really fucking old.

HelenKay: I’m like, that one’s been going on for a while –

Sarah: Also –

HelenKay: – and it’s not over.

Sarah: Also, much like Israel and Palestine, United States, Caribbean, all of, Haiti, all those problems? It’s England’s fault.

HelenKay: [Laughs] Yes, yes. Almost always.

Sarah: I mean, literally all of our problems go back to England –

HelenKay: [Laughs] I know.

Sarah: – I’m sorry to say. Like –

HelenKay: …just stopped. [Laughs]

Sarah: – you know there’s a whole song about “Blame Canada”? You just leave Canada alone. They are fine –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – they are nice – it’s blame, it’s blame England. They are –

HelenKay: I’m totally with you.

Sarah: – hundred percent their fault. [Laughs]

HelenKay: This, this is also the series where a copyeditor, God bless ‘em, somewhere in the series is the DIA, which is the Defense Intelligence Agency –

Sarah: Yeah!

HelenKay: – and, and the copyeditor is like, You shouldn’t, you shouldn’t make that – if you’re going to make up a thing, you’ve got to be careful, because it sounds too much like the CIA –

Sarah: Oh –

HelenKay: – and I’m like, Y’all are killing me! [Laughs]

Sarah: Oh, honey. Come on! Like –

HelenKay: I swear it’s a thing!

Sarah: – everything here is initials! Like, literally everything.

HelenKay: Google’s right there!

Sarah: Yeah!

HelenKay: That’s all I’m saying. [Laughs]

Sarah: Oh boy. [Snorts] I love copyeditor stories, by the way.

HelenKay: I know. God love ‘em, they have a terrible job. [Laughs]

Sarah: It’s a hard job. I couldn’t do it.

HelenKay: No. Mm-mm, mm-mm.

Sarah: And I loved my copyeditor that I hired. I hired Sara Brady to copyedit my, my Hanukkah novella?

HelenKay: Yeah?

Sarah: She was amazing.

HelenKay: I love it.

Sarah: She’s so much fun as a copyeditor. And also, like, if I did something really dumb she’s like, Okay, so here’s the rule…

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: Okay! Cool! Interesting.

HelenKay: I know. I know. And they’re always, you know, they al-, you get a little grumpy because they’re exactly right. They’re like, Um, they were on the fourth floor two seconds ago; now they seem to be on the seventh. I don’t think anybody moved. I’m like, Okay, fair…

Sarah: Nobody had sex in the stairwell. They could not have moved. This is romantic suspense: you cannot change floors without boning in the stairwell; it is the law.

HelenKay: It is the law, because, as I have always said –

Sarah: Danger boner!

HelenKay: That, well, people don’t realize how hard it is to write romantic suspense, because the sex sounds like stop, drop, and roll if you’re not careful, right? Because –

Sarah: [Laughs]

HelenKay: Right? If a serial killer is following you, you cannot be like, Okay –

Sarah: And now –

HelenKay: – but let’s stop and kiss for a second. I mean, it’s just very hard to fit in, that’s all I’m saying, literally fit it in. However you want to take that, go ahead and take it. There you go.

Sarah: B-dum-tish!

Shall we move on to –

HelenKay: We shall move on! I think we should move on. [Laughs] Okay.

Sarah: Contemporary Romance! This is a beefy section. There’s a lot of books in this section.

HelenKay: Which is interesting, because, so your campaign, Save the Contemporary Romance, would have been before this?

Sarah: Oh, very much so before this. That was between –

HelenKay: Yeah?

Sarah: – like 2006 and 2009.

HelenKay: Oh! Wow. Okay, yeah.

Sarah: Yeah, it was early. You know what? I’m going to date check myself. Save the Contemporary – I don’t even know if it’s still on. All right, so let’s see: Save the Contemporary. Oh my God, I used to have a website for it. Geeze Louise –

HelenKay: You did!

Sarah: – I owned savethecontemporary.com. All right, so 2009. Flat-Out Sexy was one; Instant Attraction was one. So yeah, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011. I did Yours to Keep by Shannon Stacey. Flat-Out Sexy by Erin McCarthy was one. Jill Shalvis was a – Smooth-Talking Stranger by Lisa Kleypas. Hot Finish by Erin – yeah, we did a, it was all 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, so before this. Contemporary is just fine now, by the way?

HelenKay: Yeah, it’s just fine. Nobody has to save anything.

Sarah: I think it’s okay. I don’t, nobody needs to save it.

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: Yep.

HelenKay: But before that, it was like –

Sarah: It was, there was like nothing!

HelenKay: There was nothing, It was all, it had to be werewolves and vampires and…

Sarah: Yep. ‘Cause we were still in, like, the post 2001, post 9/11 –

HelenKay: Yep.

Sarah: – we need to make the bad guys really, really bad and visibly bad and, like –

HelenKay: Yep.

Sarah: – recognize their badness and, you know.

HelenKay: Twilight, Twilight, Twilight.

Sarah: Twilight, Twilight, Twilight, yes. Another thing that changed everything.

So you wanted to look at the one two-star book in this – no, there’s another one! Joanne Kennedy’s How to Kiss a Cowboy. Apparently two stars for kissing cowboys don’t do it. But you wanted to look at another two-star book.

HelenKay: Well, the reason being, I think it’s a stripper romance, right? Let me dial down to it here. I don’t remember that other than Pretty Woman –

[Laughter]

HelenKay: …movie? I’m like, Did we go through a stripper stage? Did we, in romance?

Sarah: Yep.

HelenKay: That I don’t remember; did we? Yeah?

Sarah: Little bit. I mean, Sharon and Tom Curtis wrote one ages ago. They wrote a, I don’t know if it was Candlelight or Signet, but they wrote a story where the hero, I think, was a stripper.

HelenKay: Fascinating!

Sarah: Yeah! I mean, romance has always handled the idea of sex work really, in a really chill ways and been, like, weird or –

HelenKay: Oh –

Sarah: – slut-shame-y about it at all. So no –

HelenKay: Yeah, no, no shame, no shame whatsoever. And, and okay, so this is Scorcher. This is Surrender by Violetta Rand, and it’s a Scorcher. So I was fascinated that it wasn’t – ‘cause there is an erotica, erotic.

Sarah: Yep. I, Amanda and I debate this all the time. Like, if this is a, a Scorcher, and the Scorcher is Borders on erotic; very graphic sex – there’s no conventional lovemaking here – but sometimes –

HelenKay: Excellent.

Sarah: – books that I would think were erotic are in other sections, or books that are in the Erotica section could have been elsewhere, and I think the publishers are the ones who would submit by category?

HelenKay: Ohhh.

Sarah: That’s our guess. I haven’t confirmed, confirmed that. But this was Loveswept, and this was also, I think, a period when publishers hadn’t entirely embraced full-on, hard-core sexytime books, because Brava was one of the earliest ones –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – and you were writing for Brava. And again, Kate Duffy was like, Sexytime books are going to be very popular.

HelenKay: Yeah. Which, you know –

Sarah: We should have some, we should have some deep, deep penetration. No conventional lovemaking books. We need the sexy books. I think that publishers were not yet embracing, like, erotic romance as a concept yet?

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: So this was submitted to Contemporary. That is entirely conjecture, but that is my guess.

HelenKay: That is fascinating, ‘cause, you know, ‘cause writing for Brava, it is interesting because, I mean, they also had, Kensington also had Aphrodisia.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

HelenKay: That was clearly their erotic line.

Sarah: Oh yeah!

HelenKay: And people would look at Brava and be like, Wow, it’s really erotic, and I’m like, Is, is –

Sarah: We’ve got more than that.

HelenKay: – is it, though? [Laughs]

Sarah: ‘Cause, I mean, once you’ve experienced, like, what erotic romance –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – could be?

HelenKay: Yeah. Like –

Sarah: There was some –

HelenKay: Totally, totally…

Sarah: – very acrobatic things going on. Like, I remember debating with, with Jane from Dear Author about Jaci Burton.

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: Jaci Burton is not an erotic romance writer –

HelenKay: No.

Sarah: – unless she’s specifically writing erotic romance? She writes really fucking hot contemporaries.

HelenKay: Exactly.

Sarah: There is a difference.

HelenKay: Exactly. There’s, there is a difference, and I wondered, with this one getting a two, if this had been in Erotica, and it looks like, you know, it’s like a, this is a, an eBook –

Sarah: Yeah.

HelenKay: – I’m assuming, and, you know, so I think it’s when they were testing –

Sarah: Yeah.

HelenKay: – we’ll, we’ll do something very not insulting and put the erotic books only in eBook and not put them in print. Not insulting at all.

Sarah: No. I remember a publicist once said on a panel that digital is the new midlist, and I was like, What are, what are you doing?

HelenKay: Ohhh dear.

Sarah: What are you – that’s not going to work. That’s –

HelenKay: Ahhh.

Sarah: – that’s going to be bad! Not going to go the way you want!

HelenKay: That’s not. There’s nothing good coming out of that.

Sarah: [Laughs]

HelenKay: So it, it is, it is interesting, ‘cause I, I, you know, sometimes wonder if this is just in the wrong place. Like, is it because it’s a story of a stripper and her “white knight” that they automatically assume it’s erotic, but you’re right, if it’s a placement by the, by the publisher.

Sarah: They’re going to say, Oh, this is a Contemporary.

HelenKay: But they do say it’s an unsatisfying story –

Sarah: Yeah.

HelenKay: – of a stripper and her white knight, so yeah.

Sarah: So why don’t you read the review, and I will read the summary, because this is wild.

HelenKay: It is wild, and I have to admit, when you read the summary, I am like, I would not have picked this one up. Like, drug dealer den books, I’m not, I’m not, I’m not an, I’m a no-go on those. I’m just saying.

Sarah: I can’t read, like, mafia books? I can’t.

HelenKay: Yeah, I can’t either. I, there’s a whole, there are people who do these books extremely well –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

HelenKay: – but if I see mafia, rock stars, biker gangs –

Sarah: Oh God, yeah, that’s a –

HelenKay: – drug dens –

Sarah: That’s another one. Mm-mm.

HelenKay: – I, I’m not, like, somebody has to promise me before I pick it up, No, no, HelenKay, this, like, I know what you like; this, this, I know this copy suggests it’s not a HelenKay book. It’s just not my thing, and I love that there’s a thing for everybody’s thing?

Sarah: Yes.

HelenKay: Like, I love that. It’s just not my thing.

Sarah: Yeah. I can’t read books where there’s a high percentage of likelihood that there might be child trafficking?

HelenKay: Yeah. I –

Sarah: And organized crime and biker gangs are trafficking organizations a lot of the time?

HelenKay: Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah: So I understand the concept, and I understand why it’s hot. I, like, it’s, like, like I say a lot about, like, different fandoms, like, this is not my fandom, but I get why you dig it.

HelenKay: Right.

Sarah: Like, it’s cool.

HelenKay: Right. There are a whole bunch – I mean, you think, like, okay, if I really have written 118 books, and I write, and I write thrillers now, how many of those books have a woman being sexually assaulted or raped? Zero.

Sarah: Oh my goodness!

HelenKay: Absolutely –

Sarah: But that’s not –

HelenKay: – zero!

Sarah: – historically accurate, HelenKay.

HelenKay: Well, I just, I, you know, I got so frustrated by those being used as plot devices? It’s –

Sarah: Hate it, hate it, hate it.

HelenKay: That I’m like, I bet I can write thrillers and romantic suspense and not have that in. I bet I can! And 118 times, apparently, I’ve done it.

Sarah: Well done!

HelenKay: Just saying.

Sarah: So well done!

HelenKay: All right, so let’s look at Surrender.

Sarah: Yes.

HelenKay: >> While the first book in Rand’s Devil’s Den series has plenty of sexy scenes and a hot alpha hero, readers may have difficulty connecting with the improbable story and its cast of predictable characters.

Uh-oh.

>> Dual first person –

Which is shocking, because back then first person in romance was not a thing that happened much.

>> Dual first person –

Sarah: It’s like a New Adult thing.

HelenKay: No, right? Like, I mean, nowadays we see it all the time, but not, not then.

>> Dual first person points of view combined with dull prose –

Uh-oh.

>> – are an added drag on this trope-y and unsatisfying story of a stripper and her white knight.

That’s, that’s rough…

Sarah: That’s rough, but also trope-y is not necessarily a bad thing? Like, everything right now is marketed –

HelenKay: Well, now it’s not!

Sarah: Well, everything now is marketed and, like, pitched –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – on trope, and then you write the story around the trope. I feel like that tropes are like rest stops and we’re just driving from trope – well, now there’s only one bed!

HelenKay: [Laughs]

Sarah: And now we will be enemies! And now – like, we’re just driving from trope to trope, and the story is connecting them all.

So the summary is kind of wild!

HelenKay: Wild.

Sarah: Want me to read that one?

HelenKay: Wild.

Sarah: Okay, everybody, strap in.

HelenKay: Ready?

Sarah: Yeah.

HelenKay: Everybody ready? [Laughs]

Sarah: Yep.

HelenKay: >> Now twenty years old, Robyn Gonzalez has been on her own since her mother kicked her out at fifteen. To pay for her education, she became a stripper at Devil’s Den.

Sarah: [Snorts]

HelenKay: >> She’s doing okay until she sees a drug dealer beat up a man.

Ooh.

>> She only escapes with the help of Garrick Dempsey –

Thank you, Garrick.

>> – who turns out to be the new head of security at her club. Garrick has returned to Corpus Christi after a successful career as a mechanical engineer.

I’ve got to admit, I did not see that coming, that part.

Sarah: I did not see mechanical engineer coming in, no.

HelenKay: No. Mm-mm.

Sarah: Did not expect that.

HelenKay: >> He’s drawn to Robyn’s mix of sensuality and innocence. After taking her virginity –

There you go.

Sarah: Oh!

HelenKay: >> – they fall hard for each other. Her job, his jealousy, threats from the drug dealer, and a disapproving family place, place more than one bump in the road on the road to forever.

There’s a lot, there’s a lot going on there.

Sarah: So of course she has to be a virgin. Can’t be a stripper –

HelenKay: Well, come on, now.

Sarah: – and you have to be paying for your education. You can’t do it because it’s like a legitimate way –

HelenKay: No.

Sarah: – to make income and –

HelenKay: No.

Sarah: – have flexible hours where you’re surrounded by women and in a secure environment with a lot of physical protection and sometimes included childcare?

HelenKay: Yeah, no. Mm-mm. No.

Sarah: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, she has to be a virgin! She has to be doing it for school!

HelenKay: [Laughs]

Sarah: She can’t be doing sex work for, like, boring old reasons. Wow, that’s a lot of clichés. There’s a lot of cliché in that one.

HelenKay: Yeah, that’s for you. That was my gift for you.

Sarah: Thank you!

HelenKay: Mm!

Sarah: My book that I wanted to talk about was on page 64. It is The Unexpected Consequences of Love by Jill Mansell, four stars, Mild. It’s not even about this book? I just want to mention that Jill Mansell has been consistently writing –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – a very specific kind of romance women’s fiction-y type stories. There’s almost always a, like a really weird, quirky town. Sometimes it even has hyphens in the name. It’s in Cornwall; it’s in Devon; it’s in the Peak District; it’s all over the UK, like everywhere! She writes the coziest, most, like – they’re just really perfect confections of a book.

HelenKay: Yep. Yep.

Sarah: And they’re very easy to get into; they’re very friendly. It’s not, like, super traumatic? Like, sometimes bad shit happens, but it’s not like drawn-out trauma, and everyone’s really, like, cute and kind of wants to get along!

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: And Jill Mansell is really, really good at that kind of book.

HelenKay: Yes, I would agree. But there’s something incredibly comforting, right? Like –

Sarah: Yes!

HelenKay: – like, like, there’s a British show called Escape to the Country where people are, like, leaving London and Edinburgh and moving out to the country. It has the same feel –

Sarah: Yes.

HelenKay: – that community warm hug.

Sarah: Yes.

HelenKay: Not that bad things don’t happen there, but it’s a very different kind of feel to it.

Sarah: Yes! It’s exactly that. I also want to point out in Contemporary that there is a book by Victoria Dahl, Flirting with Disaster? When she started writing sexy contemporaries, they were so good!

HelenKay: So good. So good.

Sarah: Talk Me Down was so much fun. This one is about an artist and, I think he’s a marshal – yeah, a marshal. She writes great dialogue; she writes great banter. She has great –

HelenKay: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: Like, this, her hot contemporaries were so much fun.

HelenKay: So much fun. And it’s interesting, because when she made the shift to thrillers, unless she writes under a penname I don’t know about, I don’t, I don’t think she writes any romance anymore. I think it’s just the, just the thrillers.

Sarah: It’s just the Victoria Helen Stone books, yeah.

HelenKay: Yeah!

Sarah: Which is –

HelenKay: Just fascinating.

Sarah: Well, this, you guys did the same thing that happened with historical authors, because after a while in the ‘90s, all the historical authors started writing thrillers.

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: Julie Garwood did; Catherine Coulter did; Jude Deveraux wrote some thrillers. Like, all of the big names that were writing these sweepingly massive, you know –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – the actual bodice rippers, like bosoms in –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – in windstorms on the cover, they all shifted to thriller too!

HelenKay: They did.

Sarah: We just, we all just moved towards killing people. It’s just what happens.

HelenKay: Well, it’s just, you know, refreshing. We’re just going to say it that way. [Laughs]

Sarah: It, it’s just a little, you know, it’s a little refreshing shift of power.

So in Series –

HelenKay: Oy. There’s a lot of them.

Sarah: There’s a lot of them, and these reviews are just like a paragraph? Like, they’re not even a review so much as a two-sentence summary and a one-sentence comment?

HelenKay: Yes.

Sarah: These are really high. There’s like one two?

HelenKay: Oh my God!

Sarah: They’re all so high, and this is where you would sometimes run into, like, a one-star.

HelenKay: Yeah. There is a two-star somewhere in there.

Sarah: Yeah, but if you were looking for low review grades, it’s always in the Series section, but this is all like, This was a great month! Good job, Harlequin!

HelenKay: Yeah. Wow.

Sarah: I mean, it’s all them. It’s just this, this section is –

HelenKay: Definitely. Yeah.

Sarah: – just them!

HelenKay: Yeah, but wow. Wow. I, you know, I picked, in the Harlequin Romance section, a book because I’m completely confounded by the title.

Sarah: I mean, fair!

HelenKay: It’s, this is the title: Best Friend to Wife and Mother [Question Mark]? What does that mean? What – what?

Sarah: [Laughs]

HelenKay: I’m like, are, is it missing a word? From Best Friend to Wife and Mother? But then why’s the question mark there?

Sarah: Best Friend to Wife and Mother [Question Mark]?

HelenKay: I, I, I mean, I –

Sarah: I’m going to go out on a limb here and say Yes?

HelenKay: I know!

[Laughter]

HelenKay: I know!

Sarah: Because it’s Harlequin?

[Laughter]

HelenKay: I just, I – ‘cause, I mean, we’re going to just go ahead and admit that they have some fantastic titles.

Sarah: Ohhh –

HelenKay: Right, like, they just –

Sarah: Yes.

HelenKay: – The Sultan’s Harem Bride. You know, Innocent in His Diamonds. There, there are just –

Sarah: His Lost and Found Family.

HelenKay: Yeah, they work on this. That’s why Best Friend to Wife and Mother [Question Mark]? –

Sarah: Err?

HelenKay: – is confusing to me.

Sarah: That was not a real, like, stellar title from their…title meetings.

HelenKay: No. I, I just, I think somebody put that down with a question mark like How do we make a title out of this? And they accidentally made that the title –

Sarah: Uhhh?

HelenKay: – that’s my view. That’s my view.

Sarah: That was like a, like, it was like a margin note, and everyone’s like, Nope, that’s the name of the book.

HelenKay: Like, oh shit.

[Laughter]

HelenKay: Put it on the cover!

Sarah: Don’t ever suggest things off the top of your head, because that will be the thing that sticks.

HelenKay: Yes. So that’s my, that’s what stuck out to me –

Sarah: Nice.

HelenKay: – complete confusion.

Sarah: I picked a Harlequin Presents by Sarah Morgan, who writes fantastic –

HelenKay: I love her.

Sarah: – Harlequin Presents. I don’t know if she still writes them. I think she’s mostly doing single-title contemporaries?

HelenKay: And not just that, like, Sunday Times bestsellers –

Sarah: Yes.

HelenKay: – hitting them out of the park.

Sarah: Yes.

HelenKay: Go, Sarah!

Sarah: She is a massive seller, a massive, massive star in the UK. So this is Playing by the Greek’s Rules, four and a half stars Top Pick! Her Presents are so fun.

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: The heroines are always so clever. I mean, she writes great characters.

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: But here’s the review, in case y’all are curious:

>> Eternal optimist Lily Rose’s need for love usually ends in heartbreak, so she decides a one-night stand will give her new perspective.

Sure!

>> She’s got the perfect Greek god gazillionaire in mind. Nik Zervakis knows that love is a myth. His past proves it, which is why his motto is Pleasure Without Permanence. Then he meets a beautiful free spirit who blows his mind and questions his beliefs. Morgan’s page, powerful page-turner is a tale of two opposites. Her narrative is richly entertaining and informative, the settings are elegantly opulent, and her characters are so real they become your friends. Lily’s anecdotal humor steals the show.

Perfect ex-, example of a Sarah Morgan book. Like, that is –

HelenKay: Absolutely.

Sarah: – what they’re like, and they’re so good.

HelenKay: Love it.

Sarah: So good.

HelenKay: Love her, too; she’s lovely. If anybody, like, ever runs into her, she’s, she’s absolutely lovely.

Sarah: So, last section; we did it!

HelenKay: Whooo! Yes!

Sarah: Erotica! Erotica –

HelenKay: Yes.

Sarah: – I just want to point everyone’s attention to Quarterback Draw by one Jaci Burton.

HelenKay: Yay, Jaci!

Sarah: This first sentence:

>> Readers can count on this series for passionately inventive love scenes, and Quarterback Draw has the sexiest interludes yet.

HelenKay: Nice!

Sarah: Nice. Now, this is a very positive review?

>> While the characters are relatable, they are also exciting enough to give the reading, reader a bit of escapism. The dialogue is snappy, and the banter between the protagonists adds extra spice to their exploding chemistry.

So why is this four stars?

HelenKay: I know, right?

Sarah: Like, I, there’s –

HelenKay: Why is this only four? I don’t get it!

Sarah: – there’s no differentiation in their, in their rubric. It’s like, Eh, four, four and a half! Like – [sputters] – how?

HelenKay: And of course where you are on the list is like, like, if there are six four-stars and you’re the last one before the three-star, that means you were the last of those six, and that’s where she is, and I’m just, I –

Sarah: That’s weird, and it’s –

HelenKay: – don’t know who, who I can call and complain about that, but…

Sarah: I know. It’s, it’s not even alphabetical.

HelenKay: Yeah. Yeah, very upsetting.

Sarah: It’s weird. But yeah! That first sentence? That’s excellent.

HelenKay: It is excellent, and she’s amazing.

Sarah: So you, you selected Amorous Overnight.

HelenKay: Again, I only picked this based on the title because I –

Sarah: [Laughs] It should have a question mark!

HelenKay: – because it should! It really should. That would make this. Then I would get it.

Sarah: [Laughs] Add a question mark, like Best Friend to Wife and Mother?

HelenKay: [Laughs]

Sarah: Amorous Overnight? [Laughs]

HelenKay: I’m like, first of all, amorous? Is that really the word that you thought was going to draw people in?

Sarah: Bone Town.

HelenKay: But then I’m just like, Amorous Overnight, so, like, there’s a time limit? Like, like –

Sarah: Just the one.

HelenKay: – like, you know, for the, for the other twenty-two hours a day, it’s like nothing?

Sarah: Mm-hmm, yeah.

HelenKay: I don’t know. I was just fascinated by this; I’m not going to lie. I was just fascinated.

Sarah: Amorous Overnight is not, it’s not a great title.

HelenKay: Well, and then, as part of the review it says:

>> Thought the terminology is awkward –

I’m like, Well, it started with the title. [Laughs] And I just think it just kind of raced downhill from there. That’s all I’m saying.

Sarah: How, how is the terminology –

HelenKay: I don’t know what that even means!

Sarah: – awkward?

HelenKay: What does that even mean?

Sarah: Okay, again with the homophobia, RT:

>> The exploration of same-sex relations is very –

HelenKay: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: >> – interesting, as –

HelenKay: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: >> – is Cecine and Shelley’s mating with Hastion as their third. The terminology awkward –

No, it’s not! It’s a threesome! It’s not hard!

HelenKay: Mmm.

Sarah: Yeah. Okay!

HelenKay: There’s something going on there, and I don’t know what.

Sarah: Yeah. That, there’s, some of these read, sometimes these reviews read like code?

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: And I’m like, I am not, I am not understanding this at all. I don’t understand.

HelenKay: And I also do want to point out, ‘cause you know at the bottom it says who the publisher is and, and those kind of things: in 2015, this book was seventeen dollars!

Sarah: Holy crap! From Samhain?

HelenKay: Yes!

Sarah: Was it made with amorous endangered species?

HelenKay: I mean, now my thrillers in trade are nineteen. Why is this so expensive? Especially because there’s another one from Samhain in the same section that’s fourteen…

Sarah: And in meanwhile, Jaci Burton’s book from Berkley is fifteen.

HelenKay: I know, right? Like, it just, the seventeen, the number seems shockingly high to me.

Sarah: 328 pages, either! It’s not like if it’s, it’s not even like it’s a big old mama jama book!

HelenKay: No, it’s not like six hundred or something.

Sarah: Damn! That’s weird.

HelenKay: I know, right? Everything about that raises questions. There’s your question mark!

Sarah: So, what – there’s your question mark!

HelenKay: All the questions.

Sarah: Amorous Overnight?

HelenKay: [Laughs]

Sarah: So what did you think of the books so far in this issue? We’re going to go back and do the ads and features, but what did you think of the books in this issue?

HelenKay: The main thing that hit me, like how much that, you know, we had erotic; we have, we have mystery; we have steampunk – like, how much –

Sarah: Yes.

HelenKay: – of stuff there is. Right, like how big the range is, because my memory, if you had asked me, my memory would have, was that it was a much more narrow field –

Sarah: Yep.

HelenKay: – right, and that’s part of why eBook and then self-publishing takes off, because it fills in all of those pieces that traditional publishers, like, We have a tiny box, and if you can’t fit within that tiny box we can’t help you. But it was actually a bigger box than what I remember it being, which I think is –

Sarah: Mm-hmm. There’s a lot of books in here!

HelenKay: – which I think is really fascinating. I know, and a huge number of books, right? And also, just the longevity of some of these authors –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

HelenKay: – who both stayed in the same lane and who switched lanes.

Sarah: And are still going! It’s ten years later, and they’re still going!

HelenKay: Right! And I know, like, in other careers you’re like, Well, ten years, that’s not that long, but in writ-, do you know how hard it is to stay relevant, to stay Ally Carter for a decade? It’s almost impossible.

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

HelenKay: It is almost impossible.

Sarah: Especially given how many books are published now.

HelenKay: Yeah! Yeah! So –

Sarah: According to the cover, this was 248 new books reviewed and rated. That’s a lot!

HelenKay: Well, and, you know, people have whatever views they have about RT, and sometimes it’s like the convention merges over into the magazine, but how much work is that?

Sarah: It’s an astonishing amount of work.

HelenKay: It’s astonishing amount of reading, reviewing –

Sarah: Yes.

HelenKay: – putting this together every single month that I don’t think I really appreciated at the time?

Sarah: Yeah.

HelenKay: The massive amount of work, because now when you try to put this together, like every, every week on my, on my Instagram page, I try to highlight books that are coming out, like –

Sarah: Yeah!

HelenKay: – six, you know, whatever. Sometimes it’s four; sometimes it’s six; some, some weeks it’s like eight.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

HelenKay: And it is exhausting –

Sarah: [Laughs]

HelenKay: – and I haven’t even read them. Right, like, it is exhausting –

Sarah: Yes.

HelenKay: – to find them and not have them all be like the same book by the same white authors, right?

Sarah: Yep.

HelenKay: Like, it’s, it’s really hard, so to be able to put this together is an extraordinary –

Sarah: It’s so much.

HelenKay: – extraordinary feat.

Sarah: Yes.

HelenKay: And they did it month after month for year after year.

Sarah: Yes, and they were working, at this point I think print time was a little shorter. In the earlier parts of the magazine, Kathe Robin, who was the big historical reviewer –

HelenKay: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – she would talk about how she would get, she would ask authors to Just send me your manuscript. Just send me the manuscript. If you know it’s going to be published, your publisher isn’t going to give it to me in time. If you want to hit the deadline, just send me the manuscript. Here’s my home address.

HelenKay: That’s amazing.

Sarah: ‘Cause they had, like –

HelenKay: And series –

Sarah: – such a lead time to get this into print.

HelenKay: And series, I mean, the series stuff, that, that wasn’t ready that much more before, and for them to be able to read, like, the person who read Intrigue, they had to read six of them!

Sarah: Yep. And that’s, I think, why the reviews are so short. Summary, summary, one line.

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: Summary, summary, one line. That is a much lower lift in terms of reviewing? But they do –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – every single one.

HelenKay: Every single one! I loved Harlequin Intrigue; I loved Desire, Harlequin Desire.

Sarah: Oh, Desire was fun!

HelenKay: And before Desire, what’s the one that they got rid of that I can’t –

Sarah: Blaze.

HelenKay: Yes, and, but the other one where, like, Jayne Ann Krentz started, and –

Sarah: Oh!

HelenKay: Temptation.

Sarah: Temptation? Yep.

HelenKay: Loved! Like, loved!

Sarah: Yeah.

HelenKay: And, and those were gateways, right? Like –

Sarah: Oh yes.

HelenKay: – you could, and you could go to a conference, and you could get like a couple free series and a couple free single titles. It was totally a gateway, and that is all gone, and I think that is a shame for the industry and for readers and for writers.

Sarah: Oh yeah.

[outro]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. Let me know! What’d you think? Too much? Too long? Just right? Really interesting? What happened? You don’t remember? Either way, I would love to hear from you. You can email me at Sarah@smartbitchestrashybooks.com. You can find me on Bluesky @SmartBitches. You can find me on Instagram @SmartBitches. You can also join the Patreon and come talk to us in the Discord. It’s one of the most lovely communities; I love being there. But I’d love to know what you thought.

And if you’re thinking, What book was that? I will have links to all of the books. They are in the show notes, which you can find at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast under episode 665. That’s a really big number.

As always, I end with a terrible joke. This is really bad. I hope you will tell many people. Right after you tell them about the podcast. Or just tell them the joke, and then tell them where they can find more? Either way. Up to you what you do with this joke. But you’re going to groan.

Did you know researchers have found that the spaces between ladder rungs has increased?

Yeah, ladder rungs are now farther apart. Manufacturers claim it is due to climb-it change.

Get it? Climb-it, climate? [Laughs] So bad! I can hear you groaning from here.

Come back in two weeks and HelenKay will be joining us again to talk about the ads and features of this issue, and I hope you will join us because, again, it is so interesting and such an, a fascinating way to learn more about romance from an author’s perspective, especially an author who has been writing for as long as HelenKay has.

On behalf of everyone here, we wish you the very best of reading. Have a wonderful weekend, we’ll see you back here next week, and in the words of Friendshipping, thank you for listening; you’re welcome for talking.

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