682. Pivoting Between Historical and Contemporary Romance with Valerie Bowman

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Sarah Wendell: Hello there! Welcome to episode 682 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell. My guest today is Valerie Bowman! Valerie is returning to talk about her new book, The Honeycrisp Orchard Inn, out on September 9th. Valerie’s written over thirty historical novels and was a guest in the past to talk about her appearance in RT Magazine, where she talked about being on Say Yes to the Dress. But when she was asked by her agent if she’d be interested in pivoting to contemporary, Valerie jumped on this opportunity. So please join us as we puzzle through the reasons why historical romance isn’t as popular right now and what led to the pivot that so many authors are making. Plus, Valerie shares the differences and similarities in writing contemporary and historical and what question she gets the most from historical romance readers.

I will have links to all of the books that we talk about in the show notes, and you can find those at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast under episode 682.

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To Cotton Lamb 10: If your personality were items of clothing, you would be the warmest, fuzziest socks; a pair of perfectly stylish and comfortable trousers; and a sweater that looks good with absolutely everything. In other words, you would look fabulous and comfy, because you are fabulous and lovely to be around.

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The topic of historical romance is one that’s being discussed online and offline in many places, and I’m really honored that Valerie Bowman reached out to me to talk with me about it. On with the podcast.

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Valerie Bowman: Okay, so I’m Valerie Bowman, and I, I’m a romance author, and I have written Regency romances for most of my career, and I have a few contemporary romances, and I’m, I’m, I’m moving into that direction. So my, my next book that’s coming out is The Honeycrisp Orchard Inn, and that is contemporary.

Sarah: Congratulations!

Valerie: Thank you.

Sarah: Welcome back to the show.

Valerie: Thank you.

Sarah: Last time we talked about Say Yes to the Dress. This is a very different topic: we’re talking about the massive shifts in popularity away from historicals, which is tangentially related to RT, since RT was gung-ho for historicals, and –

Valerie: Yeah.

Sarah: – I think is probably one of the reasons why the, the genre itself had such longevity, because the major publication was such a champion for it for so many years.

Valerie: Yeah.

Sarah: Moving away from historicals is not a small topic; we have a lot to talk about. What made you want to talk about this? Because I can imagine that pivoting and rebranding and starting a new genre, that’s really hard!

Valerie: It, it has been a challenge, but it’s also been fun. It’s been fun, and I, I kind of, a couple years ago, started hearing the rumors like historical isn’t as popular, and I was like, What? That’s crazy!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Valerie: So I was not, I was not paying attention, honestly. I just was writing my books, you know, and I wasn’t really, like, listening to that kind of buzz about it, but then this year it’s just gotten so loud. And there’s just a recent article in Bumble or something…

Sarah: In Book Riot, yes.

Valerie: Book Riot, that was it, that was it.

Sarah: Yep.

Valerie: Yeah. So I read that recently, and I was like, Yeah, I’m feeling it. Like, I see it from, my newsletter subscriptions have gone down.

Sarah: Oh, yikes!

Valerie: Yeah! Yeah, it’s, it’s been very strange. It, just in the last six months. And my – well, we’ll talk about later what, what my historical readers are always saying to me, but –

Sarah: Yes.

Valerie: – other authors are saying the same thing: they’re not getting picked up for historical, they’re kind of being pushed toward contemporary, and I have been indie Regency for several years, so I just wasn’t paying attention. I was just writing my books, like I said, and then when I started to realize that it was actually a big thing, I started to think, Oh, should I be trying to pivot? And yeah, I mean, it’s been, it’s been a big deal, and very shocking to me on one hand, but not, not surprising on another.

Sarah: That’s interesting! Why do you think it’s not surprising?

Valerie: Yeah, so, so what I think is not surprising is that young women are pissed – [laughs] –

Sarah: Whaat?!

Valerie: …so.

Sarah: Listen, I’m an old woman; I’m pissed too, so I get it!

Valerie: Young and old! Yeah, sorry. We’re pissed, and so we don’t maybe want to read about men being in charge and hierarchical society. I totally get that! And I think, I mean, when I was a kid I grew up reading historical romance, my mom had historical romance all over her bedroom, so I just went and snuck them all out –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Valerie: – and read them all, so for me, it’s, it’s kind of like a comfort read, and that’s why I like to write it too? But it’s not surprising to me in this political environment that wom-, all women, young and old, don’t want to read about women being, you know, at the mercy of men, essentially. [Laughs] So that’s the not-surprising part?

Sarah: Yeah.

Valerie: The surprising part is they’ve just been so popular for so long, and it was kind of an escape, plus with the Bridgerton factor, why aren’t there, you know, young women picking up the books based off of that? Because I know many young women – my own daughter’s twenty – she watches Bridgerton. She does not read historical romance and has no interest in it, including my books. [Laughs] So that, and, and I’ve talked to friends who have daughters the same age. They all agree: they’ll watch Bridgerton, but they don’t want to read it, and it’s just so interesting to me!

Sarah: That is really interesting! I wonder if it is because the difference between the television Bridgerton series and the writing there isn’t in any historical romances.

Valerie: I, I wonder that too. And I’m – and, and, you know, there are definitely people writing people of color in, in historical romances –

Sarah: Oh, absolutely there are! Yeah!

Valerie: – and, and LGBTQ. That, that’s all happening, but I don’t know that the young women know that! I think they may think – this is just a guess; I have – [laughs] – no facts to back this up, but I think they think it’s all a bunch of, you know, cis white people, and of course it’s not, but unless they were, you know, looking into it a little further they might not know that. But, ‘cause the Bridgerton books themselves, of course, were written so, you know, many years ago, and they, the show has taken license with the books themselves…

Sarah: Oh yeah! Yeah, the first book came out in 2005, which is the year the website was founded, so it’s been a minute.

Valerie: Yeah.

Sarah: And they’re all white in the books. No matter what you put on the cover, those people are, are all white, because that’s what was historical twenty years ago, and before that it was mostly white people. I mean, we, we did have an unfortunate side trip into Native American/indigenous romances, but that really does not count at all – [laughs] – for inclusivity. As a matter of fact, that reinforced a lot of terrible stuff!

I also wonder, with historicals, that there has been an expectation that TV or movie popularity would lead to book popularity? And, you know, you see it with book tie-ins; you see it with, like, the cover of a book being redone to reflect the movie like, Hey, here’s the book that this is based on. Like, we’ve had books come out of Younger that were ghostwritten by authors; we’ve had movie tie-in covers, but I am thinking really hard, and I cannot think of a television show or movie that then made a genre popular. Like, for example, The Gilded Age television show is apparently very popular this year. The Fug Girls called it – [laughs] – Getting upset about soup and wearing hats about it.

Valerie: [Laughs] I love that so much!

Sarah: Like, it’s basically like The Real Housewives of 18-twenty-something, and it’s, it’s very much a portrayal of how people were and lived in that time. Like, I don’t see anyone saying, This is completely off the wall. Like, no, this is how it was, but that has not created an increase in Gilded Age books. So if something takes off in one medium, it’s not necessarily going to translate, no matter what the idea might be. Just, it doesn’t happen.

But also, historical romance is also, in a lot of ways, especially all of the historical romances that are from the lineage of Georgette Heyer? Those are white supremacist wealth fantasies.

Valerie: They are!

Sarah: And it’s, I can understand younger readers not being into that, but I also look at the popularity of television shows, and I’m wondering is it just, is it just the medium, or is it more than one thing? And I think you’re right about younger readers not gravitating towards them, whereas for us, people of our age, that was our literary inheritance from people: either we stole them or we were given them, but that was –

Valerie: Yes!

Sarah: – our literary inheritance, and that’s not happening now.

Valerie: That’s what we read, and, and because at first that was kind of all – I remember reading a LaVyrle Spencer that my mom had, and it was, it was in the ‘80s. I think she had bought it in the, maybe late ‘70s, and I was reading it in maybe the late ‘80s, and I remember thinking like, I don’t like this ‘cause it’s way too contemporary! Now if I read it it would just make me laugh, I’m sure – [laughs] – but I didn’t like that back then, ‘cause I was, my thought was, I don’t want to read real life! I want to read something that’s completely made up!

Sarah: Yes, my, my reading has very much gravitated towards Not right now and not here, thank you.

Valerie: Yeah. [Laughs]

Sarah: I’ve got, I’ve got enough drama in both of those, both of those situations.

I’ve also heard a theory that romance readers who would have been into historical are now into rrromantasy. That rrromantasy is the thing, because it has class boundaries, it has hierarchical status, it has all of the elements of class and interpersonal tension that a lot of historicals have, yet authors like you are pivoting to contemporary and thrillers! So you’re either making really contemporary, modern Happy Ever Afters or you’re killing people.

Valerie: Yeah. [Laughs]

Sarah: What made you decide not to kill people? [Laughs]

Valerie: I can’t kill anybody. First of all, I don’t, my, it’s my voice. I just have a really light kind of happy –

Sarah: Yes.

Valerie: – voice, I think? So I, I can’t go to the dark side. I always want to read a happy book; I always want to laugh in my books; I always, you know, it’s just – my daughter loves horror, and I just am like, Where – what? [Laughs] But I don’t want to read anything that’s, that’s just sad, basically. I want happiness.

Sarah: I get it!

Valerie: Plus I can’t plot a murder, so – [laughs] – there’s my problem right there.

Sarah: This is my favorite kind of conversation to have with an author, by the way: you know, when you talk about voices in your heads and plotting a murder I’m like, whoever listens in is just so entertained. [Laughs]

Valerie: Well, and what’s really weird is what I love to read for fun is True Crime, but I cannot write –

Sarah: Oh, you’re kidding!

Valerie: – it? Yeah, I love it. I will read some True Crime every minute, but I will – and I love a True Crime podcast, I’m really into it, but I can’t make up a fake – [laughs] – murder. No way. It’s too, the plotting’s too intricate for me. I cannot keep that all in my brain.

Sarah: I get it! I totally get it.

So when did you decide to pivot and rebrand? When did you decide to make this change?

Valerie: Well, I’d been writing, I wrote one contemporary trilogy. It’s called the Austen Hunks, and it started with a book called Hiring Mr. Darcy, and I didn’t have a contemporary following, so it’s not, it’s not a widely read book. It’s about a hot history professor who has to turn her brother’s best friend, friend into a Mr. Darcy for a Jane Austen competition. So – to, to beat her ex-boyfriend and a starlet, by the way, who…

Sarah: I support all of this.

Valerie: [Laughs] So she takes him to England and gets him a bunch of Mr. Darcy outfits and, and, you know, hijinks ensue. But that didn’t really have a big readership because no one knew me for contemporaries, my historical readers didn’t want to read it, so that trilogy’s sitting out there? That’s for sale right now. But it didn’t have a big readership, and then – and I didn’t really push it, because I just wrote it kind of for fun to see if I could even write a contemporary?

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Valerie: And then last year my agent actually called and, and asked me if I wanted to write The Honeycrisp Orchard Inn for Avon HarperCollins, and I was like, Oh my gosh, I’ve been trying to get into contemporaries, and I love fall like all white women do. [Laughs] And I was like, I would love – it’s a rom-com, it’s sexy, it’s cozy. I love all of that, so I was like, Absolutely, I’d love to write this book. So just kind of came out of nowhere. It was, it was just an opportunity I couldn’t pass by, so that’s where it came from.

Sarah: So they came to you with the, with the idea and the concept?

Valerie: Yes, yes.

Sarah: Oh, that’s interesting! I didn’t know HarperCollins was, did that! That’s so interesting. What did they come to you with, like, the idea or –

Valerie: Yeah.

Sarah: – the outline or what?

Valerie: A book idea. They said, We’d love a book that’s kind of a cozy, sexy story about – they kind of, they, they let me pick some of it. I just kind of did a proposal for them.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Valerie: But they wanted it set on a Long Island orchard? I came up with the heroine and the, the plot. The, the conflict’s kind of she’s an event planner who just got fired, and she has to go back to her parents’ apple orchard – well, they own an inn on the property, and then her childhood friend is the hero who has stayed there the whole time, and he’s the apple farmer, so, and he’s grumpy, so – [laughs] – they, they kind of clash. [Sings] And they fall in love!

Sarah: Well, I mean, that is the given, right?

Valerie: Right.

Sarah: That’s very cool! Was it a new experience, writing based on a publisher’s suggestion?

Valerie: Yes! I’ve heard that that had been happening? I just –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Valerie: – heard little rumors. I have a couple friends who’d done similar things? But I had no idea how anyone would get in to do something like that, but yeah, my, my agent called me and, and asked me, and it was really the perfect idea for me. If it had been an idea that I was not interested in, I would not have –

Sarah: ‘Course not!

Valerie: – you know, done it? But it was so, such a perfect idea for the type of thing I like to do, and of course my agent, you know, knew that about me, but I was like, Of course, I would love to write this! So, so yeah, I’m really excited about it.

Sarah: That’s awesome! When does it come out?

Valerie: It comes out on 9/9, so –

Sarah: Oh, easy to remember!

Valerie: [Laughs] Very easy to remember!

Sarah: Very easy to remember.

Valerie: I live in Florida, so I’m so hot already I’m already ready for fall, so I’m just – [laughs] – all about the fall vibe already; I don’t even care!

Sarah: It is nineties and humid. I understand looking forward to fall.

Valerie: Love it! [Laughs]

Sarah: So I wanted to ask you about writing historicals and writing contemporaries. These are different genres, but you mentioned that there are similarities and some differences, yet some things were pretty consistent for you. Can you tell me more about that?

Valerie: First of all, I think anyone who’s written a historical and a contemporary will tell you the best, best thing by far – [laughs] – is that you don’t have to look up every word!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Valerie: Of course, of course I know by now – I’ve written like thirty-five historicals – I know that, what a, there are words I can use, but every once in a while I’ll still have to look something up, or I’ll forget and I’ll have to go back and change it. So writing a contemporary is just absolutely fast for me – [laughs] – and so much easier to just use any word I want. I love it! The, the funny thing is – I’m just going to give this little story real quick and then I’ll go back to your question.

Sarah: Please tell me!

Valerie: I’m, I’m no longer thirty years old? And so my, and my heroine is? So I have a friend who I used to work with at my corporate job who’s thirty, and I will text her dialogue and say, Would someone your age say this? [Laughs] And she’ll write back and either say No, or she’ll give, she’ll give me – [laughs] – she’ll give me, like, a line instead, because I don’t, I don’t want – that’s actually probably the hardest part of writing contemporary is, if you’re not thirty and you’re writing a thirty-year-old, you don’t want to sound like, you know, fifty. So – [laughs] – so that’s, that’s actually been really fun. And she loves it! She’s like, Oh, keep it coming! This is so fun for me. And I was like, All right! [Laughs]

But, so contemporary heroines have kind of more internal issues, right. It’s about kind of their, you know, maybe their mental health or their stuff they put on themselves about their job or their family. That’s the difference, and historicals, it’s more external: society; they need to get married; you know, they have to have a good marriage or, or their, their reputation is so important. Things that contemporary heroines don’t have to worry about.

And so that’s kind of the biggest difference? Of course the similarity is you want your heroine to end up with the Happily Ever After and to be, you know, fulfilled emotionally, and so that’s the same no matter what year you’re in, and, and that’s kind of the – the fun part about writing historicals is you, you get to kind of show your reader that arc and, and have the heroine be fulfilled at the end, despite some of the external constraints that she has to deal with.

Sarah: Yeah, I was thinking similarly that what you said about boundaries and expectations and maintaining a reputation. Historical comes with a lot of external conflict and especially external expectations for the heroine. There are very clear and stated expectations of what the appropriate thing to do is for most historical heroines, and they’re having to navigate a very strict social hierarchy. With contemporary, there’s just fewer social boundaries and expectations, and a lot of the times when I read a contemporary, part of the tension is someone letting go of expectations that they don’t want to meet and they don’t have to. They just have to get to the point where they’re like, You know what? I don’t actually care about this thing that I’m told I have to care about. I don’t give a shit, and I’m not going to care about it. Which is –

Valerie: Yes.

Sarah: – extremely satisfying to read. Like, I love reading characters that are like, Wait, I don’t have to put up with any of this!

Valerie: Yeah, I love that too. [Laughs]

Sarah: It’s a more, I think, overt grasping of autonomy in those cases?

Valerie: Yeah.

Sarah: Whereas within the historical, within historical romances, you know that there will be – if the worldbuilding is consistent across all of the different historicals, ‘cause we’re, we’re, at this point, historical romance is sort of writing in this really large shared universe – there are consequences to social deviance, and there are consequences to breaking the rules.

Valerie: It’s, it’s not only a difference for the arcs of both types of characters, but, I mean, obviously the plots as well, and maybe that’s one of the reasons, now that I’m thinking about it, that I like writing historicals is the plots can be so, you know, the, it’s just more of a structure, you know?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Valerie: It has to be this; it has to be that. Like, you don’t have as much of a – you can do anything you want. Like, you have to keep it within these, these boundaries.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Valerie: Although I would say, historic writers, we do kind of do whatever we want. [Laughs] We, I mean, there are many of us who are writing feminist heroines. I, I’ve actually gotten letters from readers saying, like, Your book’s ridiculous, ‘cause no woman back then would have said or done this!

Sarah: Well, first of all, so what? And number two, they’re wrong! There have always been activists. They’re, they’re there in every year; they’re always, there are always activists and deviant people and people who are being subversive. Like, they’re always around. It’s not like a new invention. How do you think anything changes? ‘Cause of those people making lots of noise! This – okay. But also: so what?

Valerie: Exactly. So what – [laughs] – is exactly right. Don’t read this if you don’t like it! I mean, I’ve, I’ve done crazy stuff like Re-, Regency bachelor auction, which of course would not have happened, but I don’t care! You know, and that kind of, with a wink acknowledge its silliness, but, I mean, I like that. I like any kind of, like, kind of silly plot. That, that’s ‘cause I want, I want it to be funny, and I want laughter in my books…most of them. [Laughs]

Sarah: That is also my, my favorite type of historical, the ones that kind of wink at the reader and be like, Yeah, we know this is, this is a little over the top, but let’s have a good time!

Valerie: Like, in my first book, my debut, it was called Secrets of a Wedding Night, I used every clichéd trope from every historical romance I could remember because I love them all so much. Like, I had a virgin widow, and I – just every single – I, I think I had, like, she takes off her glasses and is beautiful, and I got so much shit for it, but it’s like, I wasn’t doing it because I’m cliché! I mean, I, I get why people thought that, but I was actually doing it as a wink and a nod to all of it. You know, just, like, this is what I love, and, like, I’m going to just throw up all into one big book, but, I mean, I, I just love all that stuff.

Sarah: Okay, I think that’s hilarious and awesome, personally! I mean, hell yeah, throw it all in there! I mean, there’s no, it’s no difference from books being marketed by trope now, where you like a picture of the book, and here’s all the tropes and cliché things that happen in it. Like, okay, that’s called marketing is what that is!

Valerie: I loved it. [Laughs]

Sarah: When you mentioned in your pitch romance in the age of rebranding, I love this description so much; I think that is a very smart way to describe what’s going on, because you do have a lot of authors pivoting outside of historical to thriller, to mystery, to contemporary, to something entirely different, and I know I have seen Harper St. George talking about this and Amalie Howard talking about this, how their option books – which, if someone is not familiar, the option book is Here’s the contract, and we would like first, we would like to have the first look at your next thing, so they have the option to pick you up – and a lot of publishers are saying to historical authors, Okay, well, you know, you do have an option, but we’re not interested in historical right now. Try something else, but I have a lot of empathy for people who are in that position. The pivot is real.

Valerie: Yes.

Sarah: I find so interesting because I started reading romance with Catherine Coulter historicals and Julie Garwood historicals and, and Jude Deveraux historicals, and her contemporaries, ‘cause they were all just completely off the wall banana-pants. And did all three of them pivot to thrillers? Yes, they did. And I remember reading a – I remember this so clearly – I remember getting a Catherine Coulter book out of the library and not realizing that I had picked up a totally different genre, and I’m sitting on the beach like, What the hell is this? I’m scared, and I hate it!

Valerie: I know! I did the same thing. I can’t remember if it was Coulter; it might have been Jude Deveraux. I can’t remember. I did the same thing.

Sarah: They all did it! We have been here before. I, I am seriously going to have to start a series of videos where I borrow my neighbor’s rocking chair and put it on my porch and be like, This is Dispatches from the Romancelandia Old Folks Home. Here’s the latest that we’ve done before, folks! Here’s a little history for ya. Because we did this! We, we have been through this before. Also, historical after that came back in popularity and, in my opinion, no genre is ever truly dead? It comes back in a new form? I don’t think historical is dead; I don’t think that’s true at all. I think it will come back; it will come back in a different form and will, will, something will happen to change it; that’s my belief. I don’t have a whole lot of evidence except the history of we’ve been here before.

But we’ve done this rebranding; we’ve seen other people do this rebranding. Tell me about yours.

Valerie: Well, I was kind of just thinking that I wanted to write something else, also just to see if I could, and what else would that be? And the only thing I could think that I would even be interested in to write otherwise is cozy, sexy, contemporary, funny. You know, so, so that was, I didn’t have a choice, ‘cause that’s all I have kind of in me – [laughs] – those two things, I think. I can’t write a thriller; I can’t write a mystery.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Valerie: I just don’t have that, and so when I decided to kind of rebrand – and I literally did rebrand my website too, ‘cause it was a little more historical looking – when I decided to do it, one thing that really did surprise me was, first of all, there just is a much, much bigger readership for contemporary. There just is, and, and I knew that? Like, that wasn’t a surprise intellectually for me, but just the outpouring of people telling me they can’t wait to see the new book, to read the new book versus any of my historicals being that, you know, looked forward to, I guess? Anticipated maybe? Has been a shocking thing to me. I, I just have not – I, I knew there was a bigger market, but it’s a much bigger market. So I see why some of these, you know, the people you mentioned, why they would have shifted, because the, the market is just much, much bigger.

Sarah: And this is a job. Right? Like –

Valerie: It’s a job! Yeah!

Sarah: This is our, as readers, this is our entertainment, but as an author, this is your job. Like –

Valerie: Yeah.

Sarah: – pivoting happens in business.

Valerie: Yeah, and when I started to see my newsletter subscribers go down?

Sarah: Yeah.

Valerie: You know, and then you’ve got to wonder, like, Is it something Mailchimp’s doing? Is it Gmail? You know, there’s all that to worry about too, but it’s been enough where I’m like, Nah, it’s people are just not as interested as they were in it. I’ve heard people say, Oh, well, the historical readers are older and they, they might be dying. And I’m like, They’re not dying in huge numbers! [Laughs] That doesn’t make sense!

My rebranding has been very purposeful, but it’s also, it’s been eye-opening to see the different market; I will say that.

Sarah: Is it discouraging at all?

Valerie: It’s not, because I do, I do still plan to continue to write Regency. So even if I make, like, five dollars a book, I probably will still write it, ‘cause I love it! I love it, and I always have a new idea for a new, a new one. I’m about to write a Regency Ab Fab.

Sarah: Oh my stars!

Valerie: [Laughs] I can’t wait!

Sarah: Right! Well, I mean, listen: so much of my own career has been me going, Kind of want to do this. Who’s going to stop me?

Valerie: Yeah, yeah. Yeah!

Sarah: No one’s going to stop me! Then why not? Give it a try! Who cares? See what happens!

Valerie: Yes.

Sarah: So who’s going to stop you?

Valerie: Exactly. [Laughs] It’s exactly right.

Sarah: One thing that I think is more and more challenging, and this is a problem that I struggle with as a business, is, you know, I have a community. People come and hang out on the site; I have people who listen to the podcast – hi, folks – and, you know, I, I have a community that I talk to, that talks to me, and these are some really wonderful people, and I value and protect them very much.

Valerie: Yeah.

Sarah: Finding a new audience is very hard, because we’re not doing this in public anymore. Used to be blogs, everyone could see who was, who was doing this and link to other blogs, and everything was sort of out in the open. And social media: out in the open. Unless you somehow private-d your account, even if, you know, there are ways around all of this. This is happening out in the open. Now you have closed Facebook groups, you have Discords, you have private group channels, you have more private communities for people to discuss the things that they’re reading, especially in romance, and one of the major reasons I created After Dark was because I know that people don’t want to be open about the things that they’re thinking about regarding romance, because we’re talking about all kinds of very vulnerable things going on in the genre. They don’t want to say that out in front of the rest of the internet where some rando for whom doxing is their favorite hobby decides to make that person miserable because they said they didn’t like a character in The Hunger Games – gosh…

Valerie: No, I just, I saw that! Aagh!…

Sarah: Oh my God! Geeze Louise! Like, I get it! You, you, you can’t say things publicly that you might say to your friends, so you create closed communities with your online friends to discuss these things, but the problem is that makes it really hard to find reader communities that aren’t already closed. Are there collaborative efforts happening among other historical romance readers to cross-pollinate with each other like there have been, or has that not worked either?

Valerie: We’re always in touch, and we – you know, I’m in touch with, with many other historical romance authors, and we, I think it’s a really supportive community, but like I said when I, when I have been talking to my friends or just seeing their newsletters come out, they’re, they are pivoting. I mean, thrillers, mysteries –

Sarah: Yep.

Valerie: – historical mysteries, historical thrillers in some cases, but definitely not romance. So I’m going to be really interested to see how the historical thrillers and mysteries are doing, because is it the history or is it the romance? [Laughs] That, that people don’t want as much anymore.

Sarah: You know, that’s a really good question, ‘cause I personally love a historical mystery? I like how slow everything has to be. You can’t get –

Valerie: Yeah.

Sarah: – anywhere quickly! I love the slowness and the obstacles of lack of speed and lack of communication are all fascinating. I like that part very much? But that’s a setting thing; that’s not a conflict thing.

Valerie: Yeah.

Sarah: Yeah, those are just obstacles to getting information, which suits a mystery very well.

Valerie: That’s another thing, the difference between contemporary romances, you know, and contemporary, I’ve had to be like, Oh, she’d have a cell phone and could just – [laughs] –

Sarah: Yeah!

Valerie: – ask a question and do the thing! And the other thing that I find fascinating about writing contemporary is, you know, I’m thinking like, these books in twenty years are just going to be ridiculous, whereas the Regencies in twenty years, they’ll probably be ridiculous too, but for a different reason? [Laughs] Because it’ll just be like, Oh, that was such a 2025-written historical romance, versus They what? They used to have a cell phone that you had to do that with –

Sarah: Yep.

Valerie: – instead of a flying, you know, whatever by your ear or whatever it’s going to be in twenty-five years? [Laughs] And I just, as somebody who just loves history so much, just to think about that difference there is just – I mean, I always cringe while I’m writing the contemporaries because it’s like, Oh, this is just going to be, it’s just going to feel weirdly out of date in twenty years instead of – there’s, I mean, there’s an evergreen aspect to historicals that you’re writing, you know –

Sarah: Yeah.

Valerie: – two hundred years later, so.

Sarah: It’s a shared universe.

Valerie: Yeah.

Sarah: And everyone kind of, if you’re in, if you’re familiar with historical romance, you’re familiar with some elements, if not many, of that universe.

Valerie: Plus, I don’t have to worry about that thirty, thirty-year-old issue, because I’m always in the head of a, you know, twenty-two-year-old Regency heroine or whatever.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Valerie: Or even my older ones who’ve been in their later twenties. I don’t know what a thirty-year-old’s going to sound like twenty years from now here – [laughs] – so.

Sarah: No.

Valerie: Have to ask my grandkids or something, you know…

[Laughter]

Sarah: So tell me, tell me, what question do you get the most from historical readers?

Valerie: So I went to a signing in Winter Park, Florida, in March, and a lot of my readers came out. It was, it was great to see, to see some of them. And all of them, all of them asked me – and kind of with pleading like – [laughs] – hands and eyes, Please tell me you’re going to keep writing historical, please! Because they’re hearing from all these authors that they’re pivot, pivot, pivot, pivot, and they, you know, when you like something, you like it! You do not want – it’s kind of like when Lisa Kleypas wrote her contemporaries I was like, No! Now, I read them and I loved them, but –

Sarah: You needed to know.

Valerie: – when you like something you like something!

Sarah: You needed to know that she was also going to write historicals still.

Valerie: So you’re like Don’t do this to me! So that’s what they’ll ask –

Sarah: Yeah!

Valerie: – every – e-, they email me; they, they, when I see them in person they’ve asked it; and they’re, it’s very desperate when they ask it. They’re like, Please tell me you’re not going to stop. Please, please! And I’ve said to them, I have no plans at this time to stop. I can’t say that I never will, but I, I, as long as I have an idea for a Regency, I’ll keep writing in. So that said, it’s surprising to me because you do, you do hear, Okay, nobody wants to read it, but then the people who are reading it, they want to keep reading it!

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Valerie: They love it!

Sarah: That does not surprise me, given the recent, you know, press coverage of historical dying and what are the reasons, and what’s happening? And here are all the authors pivoting to some form of contemporary or other genre. I get it! It sucks to be told the thing that you love is not as popular.

Valerie: I know, I know. So I’ve been reassuring them, especially in my newsletter. I’ll say, Here’s news about the contemporary, here’s news about the other contemporary, and don’t worry – [laughs] – historical readers.

Sarah: This historical is coming!

Valerie: Coming, so, yeah. It’s, it’s kind of sad to, to see how they’re that worried that it’s going to, it’s going to go away, but they’ve been reading all the same things we have. They, they know the discussions going; they, they’re seeing in newsletters, Oh, I’m writing a thriller now, or I’m writing a mystery now, or, like me, I’m writing contemporary now, and they are scared that their, their yum-yums go away.

Sarah: Yeah.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Yeah, I don’t think it is, and like I said many times, I don’t think genres die; I think they become quiet or dormant for a little bit, and then they come back, but they don’t ever fully die. It, so maybe what historical romance needs is a really good event.

Valerie: There were some, there were a few where they had to – oh gosh, I’m not going to remember the name of it. The historical, where you go to the hotel and you dress, everybody dresses up. I had to stop going to those ‘cause I don’t have a bunch of dress – I’m not a dresser-up…

Sarah: [Laughs]

Valerie: I love to see it, I really do, and I love watching Bridgerton for just that reason, but I don’t have a bunch of costumes. I, I just have never gotten into –

Sarah: Valerie –

Valerie: – all that?

Sarah: – we’ve been over this. We’ve been over this: you need to say Yes to the dress. We’ve already done…

[Laughter]

Valerie: [Indistinct] I did have one dress, but then I did get rid of it ‘cause I’m a serial declutterer, so I –

Sarah: Oh my gosh, me too!

Valerie: [Laughs] It’s so fun!

Sarah: Oh, it’s the best, but yes, that is going to get in the way of keeping big dresses around, ‘cause it, it’s a lot of fabric! It’s a lot of fabric.

Valerie: I just recently got rid of my reticule. I had a little reticule I had made with my – [laughs] – with my dress, and I was keeping it, and I was like, When am I going to use a lavender reticule? So I gave it to Goodwill and I’m like, I cannot wait to see who, like, I’d love if I could know who ends up with the reticule, but it cracks me up that it’s out there.

Sarah: Where am I going to wear this? Where – well? The events that I’ve seen that are trying to attract historicals, there was that Bridgerton Ball that was not great, and there, it was like the Willy Wonka Experience for historical romance? There have been other, you know, balls and things. I wonder if what really would work is, like, high tea, but –

Valerie: Yeah, that’s period…

Sarah: – but then you have to get –

Valerie: But I don’t know…

Sarah: – then you have to figure out where and how to get people there –

Valerie: Yeah.

Sarah: – and where, where geographically is the largest concentration of historical romance authors and readers? I have no idea! Like, you can’t quantify that!

Valerie: Yeah, and, and like I said, there are a couple people still, still doing stuff, but it’s not, it’s not like it was.

Sarah: No, it really isn’t. Like I said, it’s not dead, but it’s, it’s hurting. It’s hurting real bad at the moment.

Valerie: Just think, in society in general, just feel, I don’t know, again, I don’t know if this is true – just gauging from my own kids, it’s like, nobody wants to leave their house anymore. I mean, I never wanted –

Sarah: Me neither.

Valerie: – to leave my house, but I’ve always – [laughs] – just a big introverted writer/reader? But it’s like just in general, people just don’t want to leave their house. I mean, my twenty-year-old daughter, she’s in college. When I was in college it was like 10 p.m. at night on a Saturday, I’m getting ready to go out with my friends. She’s, like, asleep –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Valerie: – and just like, Don’t ask me to – you know, and, and it’s like, Okay. And I, I actually wish I could have been in her generation, ‘cause I was – [laughs] – bit more, as far as that goes, but it’s just different! They don’t, they don’t want to go out!

Sarah: No.

Valerie: They don’t want to go to like a signing or something, and people just don’t want to leave their house…

Sarah: Well, it’s socially awkward. Signings are, can be very socially awkward, but, you know, the pandemic, I think, and all of us having a lockdown for a while and canceling everything really changed –

Valerie: Yep.

Sarah: – the way we look at obligatory and non-obligatory gatherings. Nothing is fully obligatory.

Valerie: Which is good. I mean, for those of us who never want to leave our…

Sarah: Yes!

Valerie: – I’m all for it.

Sarah: If you were, if you were reliant on a large in-person convention to boost and sustain a particular genre, that’s going to be a problem. So I wonder if the pandemic and the cancelation of major like RT and then the downfall of RWA really had a lot to do with how historical is thriving less. Although I may be giving too much credit to RT and RWA in my, you know –

Valerie: No, I think you’re onto something. I never really thought, put that together, but I actually think you’re really onto something.

Sarah: I, who knows? I’m as full of crap as anybody.

Valerie: Can’t have helped it, I know that! It cannot have helped –

Sarah: No. I mean, people were reading more; my traffic was bananas during March, April, May 2020 because people were looking for things with happy endings; but the, the genre was still, the genre popularity was still shifting even then, and I wonder if the, if the pandemic and the lack of in-person large conventions is part of what did it. I would, I’m going to have to think about this more, ‘cause this is a, this is a half-baked idea I’m going to have really ponder, ‘cause I don’t know if I’m full of crap or not.

Valerie: Yeah…

Sarah: I could be.

Valerie: No, I’m with you on this.

Sarah: What books are you reading that you want to tell people about?

Valerie: Well, I’m always, always, always reading True Crime, but I’m not going to tell romance readers about that, so. [Laughs]

Sarah: You can give some True Crime recs. I know there’s True Crime people who listen to this; there’s no way there’s not!

Valerie: Oh, just, I’ll read any True Crime, so I don’t have one specific one to, to recommend, but I love to use BookBub for True Crime because I can buy just so many and I’ll, I’ll read all of them immediately. That, that’s just my personal favorite thing to read, which is so weird, ‘cause I will not read fake crime; like, I don’t really read mysteries and thrillers, and I don’t like to watch any kind of fake crime TV, except for Law & Order. Weirdly, Law & Order gets through for me, but – [laughs]

Anyway, as far as, as romance and maybe women’s fiction, I love Sally Kilpatrick. Her voice is just hysterical. I, I just read Nobody’s Perfect from her. She’s amazing, and she’s – actually, I got a sneak peek of her latest book, which is about to come out. It’s called Little Miss Petty? Oh my God, it’s so good! It’s about this woman who goes around and does petty acts of revenge like a PI? It’s just the funniest thing ever. [Laughs] And –

Sarah: My heart just stopped. Little Miss Petty. Wow, does that win a titling award from me.

Valerie: So funny! It’s so – I just love her voice.

And I’m still really into the hockey romance. Jennifer, is it Su-, Sucevic? I don’t know if I’m pronouncing her name, last name right. I love anything she writes. Kennedy Ryan, I’m reading that. I know hockey was really popular, but I still think it’s popular and I’m still reading it…

Sarah: Oh yes, it’s definitely still popular.

Valerie: But I’m, like, I’m bringing up the rear usually on what everybody else read something like five years – like, so next year I’ll start with romantasy. [Laughs] Have not read any of that, actually, ‘cause I don’t love a, I don’t love a tome. My husband loves a tome. That man, he’s read War and Peace; he, he will read, he read Gone with the Wind. Now, I have read that too, but if it’s a bigger book, he’s like, Hand it over. I like a lot of littler books. I like to move.

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Valerie: So, that’s my, that’s been my issue with romantasy is, like, wow, that’s a commitment. ‘Cause I’m actually a really slow reader, ‘cause I read every line and kind of savor it, so it’s going to take me the rest of my life to read some of these romantasies, but I, I will start next year, ‘cause I’m always a couple years –

Sarah: It’s, it’s good to have a timeline that works for you.

Valerie: Yeah.

Sarah: I do have recommendations for you. I don’t know how much trime, how much writing about True Crime, like True Crime writers writing about True Crime would be of interest, but there’s an anthology by Sarah Weinman called Evidence of Things Seen, which is multiple different True Crime writers writing about their genre and cases that they haven’t solved or things that they are thinking about, and it’s basically an examination of why True Crime is popular, how it works, and what True Crime writers are doing within the genre. That’s called Evidence of Things Seen: True Crime in an Era of Reckoning.

Valerie: [Indistinct]

Sarah: Sarah Weinman edited the anthology, and there’s a introduction by the host of the Undisclosed podcast, Rabia Choudry, who did the, the, I think it was the, the parallel podcast to Serial? Pretty –

Valerie: Yes, yes, I know what you’re talking about.

Sarah: Yes.

Valerie: Yeah, Serial’s such a good podcast.

Sarah: I did an interview with Sarah Weinman. We talked about ethical True Crime and how pursuing cold cases and pursuing, you know, crime, True Crime requires a high degree of sensitivity and ethics? And her perspective is that, you know, as soon as it becomes a TikTok trend people just, will just doorstop people outside their homes to ask them about the worst day of their lives like it’s, you know, no big thing. I thought that was a really interesting perspective, ‘cause there is a way to write about this.

Valerie: Yeah, yeah. I have so much respect for the True Crime writers. All that research and – I could never do that either, because I don’t have the patience for that kind of research. Now, you would say, well, do you have the patience for the historical research? I do! Because I love to read historical books. Like, that’s what, kind of my, like, jam just, I have so many just books about that time period in history. But True Crime, you can get sued if you get it wrong…

Sarah: And also –

Valerie: [Laughs, indistinct]

Sarah: – here, here’s, here’s another thing I just realized – ‘cause we talked about historical having a co-, historical romance having a common world? When you’re researching –

Valerie: Yeah.

Sarah: – a True Crime, you have to research that crime. And you can reuse your research methods, but the sources that you use for one True Crime story are not necessarily going to apply to the next one you investigate, and same with contemporary: if you’re research a specific, you know, career or expertise or, you know, your story the guy has an orchard. I’m assuming you had to learn about orchards! And trees.

Valerie: Oh my gosh, I went so deep on what can kill apples, and at –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Valerie: – one point I was like, Oh my God, this is going to be one line in this book, and nobody – [laughs] – really cares about what, what could kill apples, but there’s actually a lot of weird stuff that goes on with apples that I had no idea about, but now I know.

Sarah: And see, this is what happens when a historical writer writes contemporary: I need to be exactly precise and fully understand the context of apples and what happens to them. Listen, I completely understand. I wrote a fanfic and was researching how an old, like way, way, way in the distant past, how a blacksmith would make a needle and ended up at a historical re-enactment where there were people from that time period doing blacksmith stuff, and so I went up, I was like, Could you make a needle? And they were like, Oh, that’s a great project! Thank you! And I watched this guy make a needle for an hour –

Valerie: Oh my gosh, yes!

Sarah: – for one scene in a fanfic. Like, I, I understand is what I’m trying to say here. I completely –

Valerie: That is so fun!

Sarah: – get it. No, you want to know, like, how did you do this? Let’s watch somebody – and what goes wrong? And this is important. Well, with historical romance, a lot of the time you might research one particular thing, but then that’s going to be useful in other books because you are still writing something about that shared world, so if this law created this situation multiple people are going to be affected by that, so that can show up in other books. That detail, that piece of research is –

Valerie: Know what happened. Yeah…

Sarah: Yeah, it’s, it’s not necessarily recyclable, but it’s applicable in different contexts.

Valerie: Prison! Prison stuff that I’ve read about the Regency I’ve used in multiple – [laughs]

Sarah: Exactly! It’s not like they’re going to, we’re going to all go back in time and invent a new prison, right? Like, that’s not going to work.

Valerie: The weirdest thing I ever learned that, when I tell people about Regency, the history of the Regency that they’re, they always go What? is that the – [laughs] – and I’m like, It’s true! – is that the Prince Regent himself was married to his wife, who he hated, famously hated, and then he – [laughs] – got married to Maria Fitzherbert, who was a Catholic, in the Catholic church, and he was married to two different people at the same time, and that was perfectly fine because it was two different religions, and it’s, that’s the craziest to me, but he did.

Sarah: Your bigamy does not count. Surprise! There’s a, I won’t spoil it, but there’s a major historical mystery series that’s based on a bit of that information. But if you think about it, okay, you’re writing a historical? If that’s the piece of gossip of that time, like, Did you hear he’s actually married to this Catholic chick, oh my God? That could show up in multiple places and have multiple different effects. That one historical piece of research is applicable in multiple venues, whereas with True Crime or contemporary, unless you’re going to write, like, a lot of apple fiction –

Valerie: Right. Right, right, right? [Laughs] I’m not.

Sarah: Lot of apple contemporaries here. Which, I mean, as branding? Awesome. But also, that’s not necessarily, you’re not going to go as deep about apple blight as you are on another problem that affects – like, this, this makes sense to me, that we are all creating this shared world, and the pieces of research are re-, applicable in multiple contexts.

What other books do you want to talk about? ‘Cause I have another recommendation for you.

Valerie: Oh yeah, yeah, what?

Sarah: Okay, so I reviewed this recently. There’s a book called Homemaker by Ruthie Knox and Annie Mare, and Ruthie, Ruthie Knox also wrote terrific contemporary romances; I loved Ride with Me? Homemaker is a mystery about a woman in Green Bay who is ostracized from all of the other moms because she (a) got a divorce and (b) uncovered an OB/GYN assaulting patients. And one of the other moms disappears, and she’s convinced that she figure out what happened and what, what caused this woman to disappear. And so it’s like part True Crime, because she’s doing all of the True Crime things as an amateur sleuth who’s noticing things that, you know, professional investigators would not notice, because they are not moms in the pickup line and they haven’t seen these women every day for five years, and that sort of blend of True Crime, amateur sleuth, and there’s a light romance? It’s pretty good. I, I inhaled it. Like, I just Big Gulped that book. I read it over like a day and a half and was like, Nobody talk to me; I’m enjoying this.

Valerie: [Laughs] Oh, I love that. I love to hear when people have a book experience like that…

Sarah: Oh, it’s the best.

Valerie: I just read – this, this book isn’t published, but I read a book by Kate Happ; she’s an aspiring writer, and she wrote a time travel? So she was calling it Dumb Outlander, but it was so good! It was so…

Sarah: [Laughs]

Valerie: I’m…that book so bad, ‘cause it was, I couldn’t put it down. And so – and I’ve never been one for time travel, but that’s another, some people, if you throw in the time travel, ‘cause it’s really contemporary heroine, but she goes back into I forget what the year even, like 1830s maybe. But such a good back.

Sarah: Tell me again who wrote it?

Valerie: Kate Happ, H-A-P-P.

Sarah: Do you remember the name of the book?

Valerie: Nope. ‘Cause I think she was actually calling it Dumb Outlander, and she has – it’s not published yet, so that’s the problem, but I don’t know what she’s going to end up calling it; I need to ask her. But if she ends up self-publishing that, oh my gosh, I’m going to recommend it to everyone, ‘cause it was absolutely excellent.

Sarah: I want to read that.

Valerie: And see, okay, there’s another issue! You’ve got some really great talent out there who know they can’t get in to write historicals with the, with the pub-, the top five, so, or the big five, so they, they’re trying to pivot, and it’s like, This book is so good it needs to be out in the world!

Sarah: And I don’t know; you, you are self-publishing. Alice Coldbreath seems to be doing great, and she’s writing medievals! What trad pub has touched medievals in your recent memory?

Valerie: Yeah! That is such a good – [laughs] – question. Um, none? One of the things that – I think I might have mentioned this last time – is I had been asked to make my books Victorian, and I was like, No. I’m not doing that. Victorian, to me, is not, I don’t want Victorian. They’re all, they’re too tight. They’re too buttoned up. I like the Regency. So that was weird! I…

Sarah: Why would you shift from Regency to Victorian? Did they think that was going to be the –

Valerie: As if, as if I can just – I mean, the amount of information I know about those like ten-ish years of the Regency –

Sarah: Yep!

Valerie: – is ridiculous, and I would have to completely – and it was almost like, if you like history you’ll just switch to the Victorians! I’m like, No. No, that’s not, it’s not like that.

Sarah: Well, I mean, this is just like we were talking about: you have all of this research knowledge that isn’t applicable except in that shared, historically based world, you know?

Valerie: Yes.

Sarah: And also, Victorians are a challenge, I think, to write about, because the public expectation of behavior is so far removed from what people were actually doing in private that trying to span that distance is, that would be really hard, ‘cause Victorian people were buttoned up but also freaks. They were so freaky. Oh my goodness!

Valerie: [Laughs] I love that – my problem with Victorians has always been – like I told you, my husband loves to read tomes. He’s over there –

Sarah: Yes.

Valerie: – reading, like, all the, just the wor- – Charles Dickens. I hate Charles Dickens so much. I can’t –

Sarah: [Laughs] He got paid by the chapter, and it shows!

Valerie: God bless him! God bless him, and, and I know there’s Charles Dickens fans out there – my husband’s one of them – but I’m like, whenever my husband’s reading Charles Dickens I go, Like, it’s all so effing sad! And I just cannot – [laughs] – I’m like, The world is a mess! I do not want to read about an orphan who needs more porridge! Like, no!

Sarah: No. No, we’re, I, I have my own misery. I’m good? I’m good.

Valerie: So I will not even, I won’t touch that. Even in A Christmas Carol, which is probably his least awful…

Sarah: Maudlin? Yeah.

Valerie: I just, oh, God, I just can’t with any of it.

Sarah: I was listening to a podcast that was quoting a media scholar whose name just flew out of my head – I’ll have to put it in the show notes – but in times of crisis, people sometimes really lean in to the feelings of fear, despair, anger, you know, terror, be-, in fiction, because they know that it will be resolved. So they get to experience the same feelings they’re enduring now, but in a context where there is resolution and some-, sometimes, often there’s justice, depending on the story. And other people are like, I want nothing, I want none, no, I want the most cozy; I want no plot, just vibes. I want, I want books that are like glazed doughnuts that I love  and adore and I don’t have to think about too hard? I want, I want glazed doughnut comfort; that’s what I want. Which, I love glazed doughnuts. I get it! You could go either way!

Valerie: Yeah, for sure, for sure, for sure! And I definitely am someone who wants to go the happy way. But the one thing I have, the pivot I’ve done within my actual historicals – something you just said just make me think of this –

Sarah: Mm.

Valerie: – is I’ve been trying to make them way, way sexier. So my last trilogy I just finished, it’s called Love’s a Game, all three of those books – they’re kind of short, ‘cause I’m writing on the shorter side now, ‘cause I just love a really quick chapter? I love to keep the pace super fast? They’re all super throw down in bed books now? Whereas my older books weren’t quite – I mean, they were, they were sexy, but they weren’t, like, as sexy? So that is a pivot within historical that I’ve been doing, ‘cause I, I’ve just got, I know that readers – you know, there’s something readers will say, like, I skip over those, or I don’t want – and I’m like, not, The sales do not back that up. [Laughs] The sexier the better, as far as sales go.

Sarah: That is fascinating!

Valerie: But yeah.

Sarah: I mean, we’re at a period of time of great sexual and expressive limitation and condemnation. Be like, We do not embrace sexualities in our culture at this moment, we condemn them, so yeah, it makes sense that in historicals and any other books we’re getting more frisky! That is fantastic! That is (a) good; I, I’m all in favor of this, but also that is really interesting that one pivot you’ve made is to make them more sexy –

Valerie: Yeah.

Sarah: – because the, the readership that you have responds to that. That’s very cool!

Valerie: Yeah, and I’ve gotten some of my best reviews of all my books on this last trilogy as well, so…

Sarah: Hell yeah! Throw down in bed all the way! I like that name for that genre: throw down in bed books?

Valerie: [Laughs] More sex is coming, y’all! More sexy!

Sarah: I love this! Actually, I’m going to start using that; I will credit you: the Throw Down in Bed books. They getting it on all the time.

Thank you so much for connecting with me and, you know, sort of out-loud puzzling through what happened to historical and what will happen and how your pivot is, how your story and your pivot reflect so many other author journeys at this time. Like, that’s really kind of cool. Thank you so much for connecting with me to, you know, puzzle through What’s going on with historicals?

Valerie: Thank you so much for having me. What a fun discussion, yeah.

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

Valerie: [Laughs] I do wish to be found!

Sarah: Some people are like, No, don’t find me.

Valerie: No! [Laughs] I am at valeriebowmanbooks.com, and the social media that I, I’ve kind of burned on all the social except for Facebook and Instagram. I’m actually loving Instagram. I could watch those dog videos or puppy videos all day long every day. There’s, I’ve never seen bad stuff on Instagram; it’s always happy, so that’s where I am mostly.

[outro]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. Thank you again to Valerie Bowman for reaching out. If you have opinions or questions or you’d like to share why you think the historical genre is not as popular right now, please email me at Sarah@smartbitchestrashybooks.com, or if you’re in the Patreon leave a comment on the post for this episode. I would be delighted to know your opinions, especially because I know many of you love historical romance.

I will have links to everything we discussed, as well as links to Avery Flynn’s signed swag goody bags giveaway at different romance bookstores. There are so many romance bookstores now; it’s so cool! And I will have links to the episodes where Valerie has joined me and to various articles about historical romance.

As always, I end with a terrible joke, and this week’s joke is really bad, and that’s why I’m sharing it with you. This is from u/ThereuHavit on Reddit, and it’s terrible, and I love it.

Where do elephants go when they develop a rash?

Give up? Where do elephants go when they develop a rash?

The pachydermatologist.

[Laughs, sings] I can hear the groaning now! [Laughs more] Pachydermatologist.

On behalf of everyone here, we wish you the very best of reading. Have a wonderful weekend, and we’ll see you back next week. And in the words of my favorite retired podcast Friendshipping, thank you for listening; you’re welcome for talking!

[end of music]