697. Holiday Wishes V with Shana, Sue, and Rhonda

[intro]

Sarah Wendell: Hello, and welcome to episode number 697 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell, and once again my guests are all of you! This week we are talking with Shana, Sue, and Rhonda about book recs and wishes, plus fantasy and magical bureaucracy, grief in romance, shtupping by volume, and inventions for readers to find even more books!

There will be links to all of the books we discuss at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast under episode 697.

I have a compliment this week!

To Beth: When it is cold and windy, literally or emotionally, your friends think about you, because you are always warm and always calm in the middle of any storm. Plus, you are a dynamo at picking out snacks and entertainment.

Our Patreon community is the reason why there are no dynamic ads before or after the show. With listener support I was able to turn off all dynamic ads – those are the ones you hear immediately before or after an episode, sometimes right in the middle? Sometimes right in the middle of somebody’s words, which I always find alarming? I turned off all of the dynamic ads with Patreon community support to avoid ads for ICE and other right-wing propaganda. So instead of Patreon offering ad-free episodes, our Patreon community made every episode free of dynamic ads for every listener. Thank you!

In addition, Patreon support helps me procure more issues of Romantic Times, it keeps the show going, and it makes sure that we have an artisan, handcrafted transcript from garlicknitter – hey, garlicknitter! [Hello! – gk] TL;DR: your support means a lot. If you’d like to join the Patreon community it would be awesome if you did. We have some wonderful benefits, and you can get a free sample of all of our bonus content at patreon.com/SmartBitches. And you can gift a membership! This show is more independent because of our Patreon community, and, y’all, I cannot thank you enough.

And if Patreon support is not in the cards, may I please ask that you leave a review for the show wherever you listen. Above all, thank you for listening. I’m honored that you’re here.

Also, I want to remind you that there is still time to order your Smart Bitches candles; there will be a link in the show notes. We have a Smart Bitches 20th Anniversary Candle and a Bad Decisions Book Club Candle available individually or as a set, but this is a limited-time offer. Sales will end in early January, and they ship so fast. Seriously. I want to say thank you to everyone who has ordered and told me how much they love the scents. Thank you. Look for the link in the show notes to order your set or to gift some.

Support for this episode comes from Skims, who have new pajamas, and they’re truly incredible. As I’ve mentioned, most of my pajamas are old T-shirts, lightweight pajama bottoms. I don’t know how old they are; I don’t where they’re from. But when I received a Soft Lounge Sleep Set from Skims I thought, Oh, pajamas! I have some; here are more. Ha-ha! Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. I am now living in this lounge set. I am so angry at how great it is. I can’t stop wearing it. The fabric is so soft and very supple, but it’s not too thin or too thick. It is the right amount of cozy, but it is not like I am roasting inside some fleece; it is the perfect temperature for me. The deep green color is gorgeous, and I kind of look Instagram-stylish, which is a new experience for me. I have joked many times that my overall aesthetic is Pajamas, But It Looks Like I Tried? The Soft Lounge Sleep Set is pajamas and I look fabulous, and I am now planning every day that I will spend all day in the Skims Soft Lounge Sleep Set. They are truly incredible and a wonderful, wonderful gift for anyone who likes warm, cozy, fabulous, stylish, gorgeous color pajamas. You can shop my favorite pajamas at skims.com. After you place your order, be sure to let them know we sent you: select Podcast in the survey and be sure to select our show in the dropdown menu that follows. And if you’re looking for the perfect gifts for everyone on your list, the Skims Holiday Shop is open now at skims.com.

All right, are you ready? Let’s do this. On with Holiday Wishes Part Five! With Shana, Sue, and Rhonda.

[music]

Shana: I’m Shana! I’m in Sacramento, California, and I sometimes review books on Smart Bitches, Trashy Books.

Sarah: Yaaay! So what book or books – it’s fine if there’s more than one – rocked your world in 2025?

Shana: It’s fine if there’s more than one? I worked so hard to get down to one! [Laughs]

Sarah: Some people are just like, I couldn’t, and I’m like, Oh well!

Shana: Okay! Well, I did ultimately choose Tusk Love, and it is by Thea Guanzon? And so it’s a fantasy romance. It’s very cozy. It’s about a half-orc and a human who also has fire powers. And I don’t actually read a lot of fantasy, but actually my top two romances this year were both fantasy?

Sarah: Really!

Shana: And I’ve been kind of grumpy about romantasy pushing out historical romance, so I just don’t know how this happened? It feels wrong, but it also feels really right? So I love this one, even though the heroine, she’s very wealthy, she’s kind of naïve, she hasn’t left her town at the beginning of the book, and she definitely had a little bit of Too Stupid To Live vibes?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Shana: I almost gave up on the book in the first couple of chapters ‘cause I thought, Really? We’re still doing dumb heroines? But, but she really grew on me? Like, she’s just sweet and sunshiny, and she’s naïve, but she’s also smart in her own way, and I think we really see over the course of the book how it was her circumstances and specific things that her terrible family did that kind of kept her from knowing more about the world. You know, it’s nothing about her own, you know, drive and grit and intelligence. And the hero, you know, who rescues her when her caravan is attacked, you know, he really sees that. And there’s a lot of humor around her not necessarily understanding the world outside her ivory tower. So it was very cute! I recommend it. The sex was good too. No complaints.

Sarah: Excellent! Do you remember what the other book was that you thought was so great that was a romantasy?

Shana: Yes! I loved Monster of Mine, and now I forget who the author’s name is, which is terrible! [Laughs] But it’s a dark romantasy, and, you know, the heroine is, like, injured badly at the beginning of the book, and she doesn’t remember who did it, so it’s kind of a mystery where she finds her way back to the city. She’s an underdog and very poor, and figures out a way to enter this magical legal system to try to find out, you know, who it was who hurt her. And she worries that it’s, you know, her mentor in the legal system. So again, it’s not a book I usually read! I don’t love dark romance necessarily, but I thought the worldbuilding was just really smart, and the heroine is just so strong and has difficulty asking for help? And so I really loved her kind of learning to soften a little bit and then solving the mystery along the way.

Sarah: I love fantasy worldbuilding that includes a little bit of bureaucracy.

Shana: It just, I think I might too! Is it, I don’t know if it’s, like, proximity to government jobs?

[Laughter]

Sarah: There is one, there’s a book coming out from a, it’s coming out at some – or no, it’s somebody’s work-in-progress, oh. Somebody’s work-in-progress: Odette Locke is working on a book called A Corps of Health and Safety? Which is about magical health and safety – it’s like fantasy OSHA? And I’m like, okay, I wrote a whole post on it because, first, the idea that OSHA and, and workplace safety oversight is now in the realm of fantasy romance makes me very sad, but on the other hand, I am so curious, right? I’m so curious about just magical bureaucracy, because if you’re going to have all of these people or individuals with all of this power, there’s going to need to be some governance, right? Otherwise it’s just mayhem and rule of the one who can set you on fire the most.

Shana: Mm-hmm. [Laughs] That book sounds amazing, and I’m disappointed that it’s not out yet!

Sarah: I know! I’m like, poor, this poor person. I put it on, on the site, and then I thought later, oh, I probably shouldn’t have done that, ‘cause it’s still a work-in-progress. I probably scared the shit out of her – sorry!

Shana: [Laughs]

Sarah: Is the book you were talking about This Monster of Mine by, by – buh-buh-buh-beh – This Monster of Mine by Shalini Abeysakara?

Shana: Yes! Yes, that’s it.

Sarah: I google very quickly and quietly when I podcast. It’s a, it’s a skill.

Shana: Thank you! Thanks for finding it!

Sarah: So what wishes do you have for people going into 2026?

Shana: Well, I really hope that people have a lot of pleasure in whatever that means to them. It could be orgasms or, like, just a really cozy bed with clean sheets that you didn’t have to change yourself or lots of delicious, tasty food. Maybe just, like, a perfectly fitting soft and yet sexy bra.

Sarah: Ooh! That’s a good wish.

Shana: If you do get that and it comes in a G cup, cup, you know, people could just let me know the brand; that would be awesome.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Shana: But I just hope all of that happens for everyone, and for me too!

Sarah: Did you bring a joke? It is okay if not.

Shana: Well, I did kind of? I brought something that I saw on social media that I thought was funny.

Sarah: I, I am in, I am, I am in. Let’s do it.

Shana: Okay. So I saw that someone said the biggest recession indicator is the fact that Rachel Dolezal is white again.

Sarah: [Gasps, laughs a lot]

Shana: I had a similar reaction!

Sarah: Like, is there a name for the laugh where you start out by gasping and then guffaw? Like, is there a name for that one, because that is exactly what I did.

Shana: [Laughs]

Sarah: Oh no. I’m not prepared –

Shana: So funny.

Sarah: – for Rachel Dolezal to be a recession indicator. I’m just not.

Shana: I looked at her Instagram, and she has these photos of her where she looks like Katy Perry. Like – [laughs]

Sarah: Oh, for heaven’s sake!

Shana: That was Uppity Negress who said that. It was very amusing to me.

Sarah: Okay, I love that account, and thank you, because oh dear God. Mm. Terrible recession indicator, but also very funny!

Shana: [Laughs]

[music]

Sue: My name is Sue. I am in southern California.

Sarah: What book or books rocked your world this year?

Sue: This year I read a few books, and I fell down like an Abby Jimenez-shaped reading hole.

Sarah: Which is good, ‘cause there’s a few! There’s a few of those books!

Sue: There, there is just a couple of them. I re-, I saw or read some interview where she said that she writes portions of her books on her iPhone?

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Sue: Which is insane, but I was like, Okay. But it really changed, like, my view of how, how and when things get done, right? So one, one big reason I don’t get stuff done sometimes is like, I’m like, Oh, that’s a, that’s a big computer –

Sarah: Yeah.

Sue: – like, task, right? I need to do it on the big –

Sarah: Yeah, that’s a big task.

Sue: That’s a big task, but the thing is, most things now can actually be done on your phone? And so I read, I heard that clip of her, and I was…Interesting take! And I was like, Okay, so maybe now I don’t, like – ‘cause then I end up with to-do lists, right? So I was like, Okay, maybe I just, like, do the thing when I’m like, I could do this now. And then I was like, I wonder what it looks – I wonder, I don’t know why I thought this was – I was like, I wonder if you can tell – [laughs] – that she wrote it on her i-, iPhone. I don’t know, like, would the formatting would be different? I don’t know.

Sarah: Right.

Sue: So I was looking, and I was like, No! It just – however you get there is how you get there. So that was a tiny life…lesson, and then I just, like, cried my face off reading Part of Your World?

Sarah: Yep!

Sue: The one where the heroine is a doctor, and she’s, comes from a family of high-achieving doctors. So that one –

Sarah: That might have spoken to you a little bit?

Sue: It did.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Sue: And then I did the thing where, like, you tell your friends about the book? But, like, my pitching is very terrible? I was like, You have to read this; I cried so hard. And they’re like…

Sarah: That does not sound like an experience I wish to have! Thanks, though!

Sue: I was like, It ripped my heart out! And they were like, So read it? And I was like, It’s amazing!

Sarah: Do you wish for catharsis? I’ve got the book for you.

Sue: [Laughs] I was like, Do you want to have feelings? Then read this book.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sue: And then I read Just for the Summer, and I’m about to start a third one, but I got waylaid by a number of recommendations. This is, this is a you-guys thing: have the best of intentions, and the ‘Ma-, and then Amanda’s like, Guess what? Here’s a bunch of books!

Sarah: Yep!

Sue: And then I get started on reading other ones. So –

Sarah: Yep.

Sue: – I would say Abby Jimenez was the big part of this year, and then you had a guest with HelenKay, is it Dim-, Dimon or Dimon?

Sarah: HelenKay Dimon! Yeah, she writes as Darby Kane.

Sue: Yes! So she had mentioned a novella where the heroine, the opening scene is two CIA agents, and she’s bound and gagged, the, the rival, like, spy agent?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sue: And I was like, Put this in my eyeballs! So – [laughs] – it was Running Hot, and I read it, and then I read like one more in the series, and I’m trying to track them down, but they’re a little bit older?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sue: So a little bit harder to get from, like, the library.

Sarah: Yep, yep. And I think those are, yeah, they’re from 2014, so I can see why they might be a little challenging.

Sue: But you know what’s interesting is, like, it’s kind of like clothes fad-, like trends? When you’re in it you don’t realize that it’s like a thing? But ten years out, reading these, I was like, oh, like, we were deeply in like a, a military –

Sarah: Oh yes.

Sue: – law enforcement, like – there was a whole Julie James, like, FBI, like, series that I ate up so fast…

Sarah: That was the FBI and US attorneys series, and half the time –

Sue: Yeah!

Sarah: – the conflict was because they were really fricking busy!

Sue: I love competence porn. It’s just people who –

Sarah: Ah!

Sue: – good at their jobs.

Sarah: Competence porn –

Sue: But –

Sarah: – with a serving of, you know, either military propaganda or copaganda, but those are –

Sue: Yeah.

Sarah: – the good people, and they’re trying to do good? Like, wow, that must read really weird right now.

Sue: It, it did, and so –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Sue: – like, she’s an incredible author. Like, the book was amazing, but I was just having a really hard time –

Sarah: Yeah.

Sue: – like, with the premise? And I was like, Wow, ten years ago, we were, you know, in, in a 2014 place, 2015 place; we were in a very different ability to suspend disbelief –

Sarah: Ohhh!

Sue: – I guess.

Sarah; Yes, very true.

Sue: It’s different now, so –

Sarah: Yes.

Sue: So it’s just like clothes, where I’m like, Wow, I can’t believe that used to be the outfit. You know, like, when you’re in it you’re like –

Sarah: Oh!

Sue: – I look really cute! And I still think they look cute, but now I’m like, Oh, that photo is from 2014, and I know because those jeans –

Sarah: Yep.

Sue: – are cut a certain way.

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Sue: And so, yeah. It’s really interesting to do it with books.

Sarah: For sure, especially when you see not just, like, trope trends or character trends, but even the way things are talked about is different? The, the Julie James series in, specifically, I feel like that’s like a piece of the world that doesn’t even exist anymore.

Sue: No. No. It’s like back in 2020, I love Brooklyn Nine-Nine –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sue: – like, as a TV show?

Sarah: Yeah.

Sue: It’s so funny; it’s still really great, but…

Sarah: One of my favorite shows of all time!

Sue: In the, in the spring/summer of 2020, everyone was like, Welp, I guess we’re done. Like, it’s just, we can’t go back. There’s just, the world has changed. Our lens has fundamentally shifted, and so –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sue: – you’ll always be happy about the, that media, books, TV, whatever –

Sarah: Yeah.

Sue: – but, like, so much of you has changed that it’s no longer, it’s no longer possible to desist, to suspend your disbelief.

Sarah: Especially with Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which was a comedy about cops?

Sue: Yeah.

Sarah: And it was, like, very heavily, like, inspired by, I think, by Barney Miller? Also a sort of comedy drama about cops? And there’s nothing funny about cops right now.

Sue: Nope!

Sarah: Not, not in the least little bit! I also notice it with the change in how military positions are included in romance? Like, there’s fewer and fewer, and more people are like secret ops or secret organizations that you don’t know about, so you don’t have any baggage assigned to them, as opposed to, like, CIA or FBI. Even –

Sue: Yeah, yeah.

Sarah: – even if it’s a secret society – like, for example, Deanna Raybourn’s series that started with Killers of a Certain Age, they are a secret spin-off covert organization, like, started after, I don’t know, World War II, and it’s called The Museum, and I’m like, There’s no baggage! I can read about old lady spies kicking ass! This is great; no baggage.

Sue: Yeah, you were like, Greatest Generation? Sign me up!

Sarah: Yep!

Sue: Like –

Sarah: And then there’s, like, Sandra Hill, who wrote the immortal Viking vampire angel Navy SEALs? I, no, mm-mm.

Sue: Bingo!

Sarah: I –

Sue: Bingo card.

Sarah: Yeah. I, I can do all of it up to the Navy SEALs, and then I’m just like, Well, you know, if you’re participating in extrajudicial killings I don’t want to see you as hero, thanks-byyee!

Sue: Viking? Sure! Shifter? Sure!

Sarah: Immortal angel?

Sue: …of course!

Sarah: Absolutely.

Sue: So that, those were the two I would say, like, authors that I sort of explored some of the backlist this year. And then Amanda, I think, is part of Smart Bitches After Dark?

Sarah: Oh yes!

Sue: I don’t know; I sign up for everything you guys have. Every product you have, I sign up for. I’m going to buy a candle at some point.

Sarah: Thank you! There’s two! I had – Sue, they smell so good. I worked –

Sue: What do they smell like?

Sarah: Okay, so I actually have the notes in a file; just let me pull it up.

Sue: – one of them how it smells when you’re Bad Decisions Book Clubbing? [Laughs]

Sarah: It’s very subtle and peaceful, actually.

Sue: Oh good.

Sarah: I don’t like, like, a heavy, heavy scent? Like, there was one that I was sent a sample of that was pumpkin horchata? And both of those things smell good, but I was like, This is too much; this is too much in a candle.

Sue: Yeah.

Sarah: So Bad Decisions Book Club smells like sweet tobacco, which does not smell like cigarette smoke; it’s more like a –

Sue: No!

Sarah: Yeah.

Sue: Tobacco is very comforting.

Sarah: Yeah. Tobacco, book pages, leather, rose, and sandalwood. And then the 20th Anniversary Candle is sea salt, book pages, sandalwood, and jasmine.

Sue: Nice.

Sarah: And they’re really subtle? So, like, you take them, I took them, the samples out of the box, and I was like, These don’t smell like very much, and the chandler, Jen, said, No, you have to light them. These are scents that help when they’re warm and as they’re melting, and sure enough, I, I lit one and I was like, Oh my gosh, this smells great! It’s not super overpowering; it’s not like you’ve walked into Bath & Body Works in 1995; it is very subtle. [Laughs]

Sue: Or a Lush?

Sarah: Yeah, no.

Sue: You walked into Lush and you’re like –

Sarah: Oh! My sinuses hurt just thinking about going inside Lush.

Sue: I walk by it and, like, my chest hurts. I’m like, mm.

Sarah: It’s so – I mean, how do you work there?

Sue: You just go nose-blind is my guess.

Sarah: I’m guessing! Or, like, you’ve, you’ve got, like, really, like ear plugs, except they’re up your nose so you block your smell? I mean, I –

Sue: Yeah, yeah, you take your inhaler with you? I don’t know.

Sarah: Yes. I, I worked really, really hard to make these as, as chill –

Sue: Yeah.

Sarah: – and as soothing as possible, and I’m so excited.

Sue: I imagine it’s the same if you use like a candle warmer versus, like, burning it, right?

Sarah: Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

Sue: I can’t be counted on to blow out my candles before I fall asleep, so – [laughs] –

Sarah: Yeah.

Sue: – using a candle warmer is my, my way. Okay.

Sorry! That was a massive –

Sarah: Listen, I’m, I’m –

Sue: – side, side quest.

Sarah: – I’m really grateful that you are supporting –

Sue: Well –

Sarah: – everything we do. It’s, it’s really an honor! Thank you!

Sue: You’re welcome! Thank you for continuing to think of us –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Sue: – and all the things that we’d be interested in, and not, like, you know, random, I don’t know, random products that I’m like, Why are we doing this?

But, okay, so, to, to backtrack: part of, I think, Smart Bitches After Dark, you get a Rec League, like a, like a recommendations email from Amanda.

Sarah: Quarter-, quarterly recommendations: you fill out a Google Form –

Sue: Quarterly recommendations.

Sarah: – tell her what you’re looking for, what you like, you know, give her a link to your Goodreads, and she comes up with damn good recommendations.

Sue: They were so good I had read two before!

Sarah: [Laughs] That’s good!

Sue: And she was like, What about this? And I was, I’ve read it! And she was like – [sighs]. [Laughs] So it was like, so clearly, you do know what I’m – like, I’m, you’re, you’re inter-, you’re interpreting my words into books, ‘cause two of the four I had read. So then I read the other two!

Sarah: Yup!

Sue: And one was Cara Bastone’s Promise Me Sunshine, which was excellent.

Sarah: Oooh!

Sue: Very, very good. So it’s someone who, the heroine has had a terrible thing happen in her life, off-screen, prior.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sue: I don’t think it’s a spoiler. So her best friend and probably her soulmate in life dies –

Sarah: Ohhh!

Sue: – and she is in a deep, dark hole and is, like, I mean, like, genuinely, like, barely holding it together, and so the hero is a family member of the girl that she nannies –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sue: – and I genu-, generally don’t love plot moppets, but this kid is not a plot moppet. Like, she’s believably a kid and, like, isn’t necessarily around for all of the parts. Like, it’s believable that it’s a job is what I’m trying to say, right? So, like, they’re, the, the kid doesn’t, like, magically turn up every moment they need to, like, move the plot along.

Sarah: Yes.

Sue: It’s just, like, how it starts out. And I thought it was really incredible, and I might have also ugly-cried there. There was a lot – [laughs] – there was a lot of ugly-crying this year, I guess. But –

Sarah: I mean, we have a lot to grieve, right?

Sue: There’s a lot to cry about?

Sarah: Yeah! We have a lot to grieve, between, like, you know, the pandemic that we never really talked about or processed and all of the things that are happening right now that – there’s a lot of grief. I think we’re going to see – actually, I should have added this to my 20-, 2026 predictions – probably going to see a lot more books that deal with recovery from grief!

Sue: Yeah!

Sarah: Which is fine, because any place you can emotionally process is a healthy thing to do, right?

Sue: Yeah! And it, for a lot of these it’s about processing your grief with other people and not trying, or not-trying, to do in isolation?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sue: Which is probably a lesson that a lot of people are trying to learn and trying to, like, live out?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sue: But it’s tough, and so –

Sarah: Oh, it’s very hard.

Sue: – it’s nice to see, it’s nice to see it happen for someone – [laughs] – I guess.

Sarah: Yeah. Yeah.

Sue: And then I know, like – I don’t even know how many books this is now – but the last one I have to tell you, which, like, I genuinely was like, I did not think I was going to be into this, but my friend was like, You have to read it; it’s insane and also extremely spicy? ‘Cause I’d been complaining about books that don’t show, like, they’re all closed-door or, like, fade to black?

Sarah: They’re, some of them are very, very tepid with the –

Sue: Yes!

Sarah: -sexual content, yes.

Sue: And I’m like, not that I want – maybe I do! On the label I find it silly, but, like, I can’t, can’t believe I’m reading romance novels where there’s no banging. Like –

Sarah: [Laughs] I get it!

Sue: – excuse me! [Laughs] But I’m like, this is, this was, we had a contract, and the contract was you clinch in the front and you bang in the pages. But this is, so this is my, this is my, like, hot take is that, like – and I think about, actually, I think about this all the time: you quoted, I think, Lisa Kleypas saying that a sex scene makes as many problems as it fixes. Like –

Sarah: Yes.

Sue: – it’s a plot, it is to move the plot along –

Sarah: Yes.

Sue: – and sometimes I’m like, If you’re not showing it, then I don’t, I have a hard time believing, like, that this has solved or created any problems.

Sarah: Yeah. It’s just a time out. It’s a pause, yeah. A, a good sex scene –

Sue: Yeah.

Sarah: – needs to – as, as Lisa Kleypas says; you’re exactly right – needs to cause as many problems as it solves, and it can’t resolve all of the sexual tension, because then it’s like, okay, then why are there extra pages in this book if the whole point was the tension between these two people? There still needs to be some tension left over.

Sue: So a book that really bangs it out was Lana Ferguson’s Under Loch and Key? And I was, like, reading it; my eyebrows were, like, up. I was like, Oh! Oh, we’re going there!

Sarah: Is this the one where the hero is the Loch Ness monster?

Sue: He’s a Loch Ness monster; there’s apparently more than one.

Sarah: Oh, handy! Okay!

Sue: There are multiple –

Sarah: Okay.

Sue: – and you’re asking why did my eyebrows go all the way to the top of my head? Friends, she does fuck him. She does fuck a Loch Ness monster.

Sarah: Wooow!

Sue: Parts of him are loch-y. Parts of him are human.

Sarah: Oh my! Okay!

Sue: Mm, mm.

Sarah: Listen –

Sue: Mm-hmm?

Sarah: – I just got finished saying to Amanda – we were recording the 2025 and 2026 predictions? – and I just got done telling her that I think that one of the reasons why BDSM took off, BDSM romance took off, you know, fifteen years ago was because it was a new form of sex that we hadn’t read before! It was like sex and accessories and rules and – it became much more mainstream because if you’re reading a lot of books that have a lot of sexual content, a new sex is very interesting. So now we have, you know, Omegaverse and shifter fucking and –

Sue: Yeah.

Sarah: – it’s a new sex! We will, we will read some new sex; yes, we will.

Sue: It was new sex, and I was like –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sue: – Oh! ‘Cause I think my friend was like, Do you really mean what you say when you say you want more banging in books? And I was like – ‘cause I’d gone through, like, before that, like –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sue: – three or four books where, like, all the banging was closed-door, and I was getting, like, really frustrated?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sue: [Laughs] In some ways. And I was, What, what is this? Like, what, am I just picking up the wrong books? Like, what do I do? And she’s like, I got a, I got a, I got a cure for you! I picked up the book and I was like, Holy crap! She’s like, Yeah, I told you. And I was like, This is amazing. But it also solves problems and –

Sarah: Yes.

Sue: – makes more problems, right? ‘Cause she’s like, Oh, now I want to bang a Loch Ness monster!

Sarah: Yep! Oh, how am I going to fix this problem? I have a recommendation –

Sue: Yeah, well –

Sarah: – for you, by the way.

Sue: Oh, go!

Sarah: Okay, so if, if you like lots and lots of sex and some new sex and also monster-fucking, Kathryn Moon, K-A-T-H-R-Y-N, Kathryn Moon has A Lady of Rooksgrave Manor, which is basically like doc-, Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde introduce this young woman to a manor where there’s lots and lots and lots of sex with lots and lots and lots of, you know, different things that are doing all of the fucking. The second one in the Tempting Monsters series is called – ooh, there’s a third one! Holy hell! – the second one is called The Company of Fiends, which is vaguely related, but that’s more of a theater company? Again, it’s like reverse harem, lots of monsters. The third one – let’s see here – Sanctuary with Kings. Wow, where have I been? She’s trapped in a place and some stuff is going to happen, and there’s going to be a lot of sex. That’s what’s going to happen here. There we go!

Sue: Do you think we’re going to end up like the, in this, like, dicho-, like a split of, like, this kind of, like, new sex, crazy sex, and, like, fade to black? I haven’t found necessarily what I would consider, like, a middle, like a Kleypas, Jude Deveraux – like, you know? Like a, like a classic sort of middle of the road? It’s either like a lot of banging or, like, no banging.

Sarah: You know, I don’t know! I honestly don’t know. I think the books that get talked the most about are the ones who are either fade to black or we having all the sex. And the most popular series that people seem to be really talking about are based in lots and lots and lots of sex.

Sue: Yeah. There should be like a ratio of, like, pages or whatever, and you should be able, like, is it fifty percent? Is it twenty percent? Is it zero percent? I just –

Sarah: It’s like instead of Jesus by volume, shtupping by volume?

Sue: Shtupping by volume, right –

Sarah: Shtupping by volume.

Sue: – ‘cause the chili peppers don’t necessarily tell me. Sometimes I’m like, How is this a two? So I think a ratio might be more, more measurable?

Sarah: Yeah. And also, if you’re, if you like, I know, for example, in Australia sometimes books are published with chili pepper ratings or sex, or sexuality ratings, and a lot of reviewers use chili peppers, but my four chili peppers may be very different from your four chili peppers, right?

Sue: Just like on a menu: is it Thai spicy?

Sarah: Is it white people spicy or is it, like, legitimately spicy?

Sue: Yeah, is it Indian spicy, Thai spicy? Is it, is it Japanese spicy?

Sarah: Right, ‘cause –

Sue: Is it, like, Middle America spicy?

Sarah: Thai, Thai spicy will take me into the next century. I will be just –

Sue: Thai spicy, I ask for not spicy! I end up at the spice level I can handle, right?

Sarah: Right.

Sue: Like, it just depends. So that, yeah, that’s – and so I think a ratio, just like a, what is it, what are the units for, for spice? It’s –

Sarah: Scoville.

Sue: Scoville!

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sue: Right, and, like, you can argue that, like, sometimes it’s not the same, but, like, it’s at least a unit?

Sarah: Yeah.

Sue: That is measurable?

Sarah: Yeah.

Sue: I’m, I’m going to put this, I’m going to – I don’t know how, but there should (a) okay, I know we’re against AI. I know we’re against AI for creativity, but I think one…

Sarah: As an assistive technology? I love assistive AI, assistive AI to help people do things? Great. Generative AI can fuck off a pier.

Sue: Correct. But assistive AI to, like, count words and give me a ratio of banging to not banging – I sound like I’m really obsessed with sex; I’m not. I’m just – [laughs] – I’m just saying –

Sarah: No, you want the books you want to read! Now I’m wondering –

Sue: I want, yeah.

Sarah: – so if you’re going to teach an AI how to quantify the amount of sex in a book, what words do you need it to flag? Like hard, hardness, slick – like, what are the words that you need to tell it, Yeah, this is most likely a sex scene. We need all the sex words in one place.

Sue: Yeah, and, like, all, like, the flowery euphemisms that…

Sarah: Oh yes, the purple ones and the very explicit ones: cock, dick, fuck, you know.

Sue: Yeah. [Laughs]

Sarah: But then, like, Her cinnabar cavern of gold. Her love grotto.

Sue: But, like, God forbid you have, like, you end up, like, with a gardening book, and it’s just like a lot of flowers, and so –

Sarah: Yes.

Sue: – it’s like a hundred percent and you’re like, Jesus! And you’re like, no –

Sarah: No.

Sue: – actually it was about gardening the whole time.

Sarah: This is a completely different kind of pollination. Sorry!

Sue: [Laughs]

Sarah: I do like this. I think you’re right: there is definitely a need for more clear explanations of sex. We’ve gotten really good and detailed with content warnings and trigger warnings? I think we can, I think we could quantify the sexual content of a book. I mean, better than the RT magazine rubric. “Some lovemaking” – what does that mean? “Explicit sex, some –“

Sue: Sensual!

Sarah: What, what does that mean? Sensual!

Sue: Did you guys ever figure out what Sensual means?

Sarah: Not a clue. Not one single clue. The rubric still makes no sense. “Explicit sex, some lovemaking” –

Sue: Every time Amanda goes Sensual! I’m like –

Sarah: Sensual!

Sue: – what does that mean? [Laughs]

Sarah: No idea, but it’s in all caps, so we have to say it like that: SENSUAL!

Sue: Oh, it’s in all caps!

Sarah: Yes.

Sue: I see, I see.

Sarah: $4.99, Dell, Dell Press, SENSUAL! [Laughs]

Sue: Like, whoa!

Sarah: Yeah.

Sue: Oh my!

Sarah: That’s, it’s very similar.

Sue: Yeah! So I think for me, I’ve ended up, like, I’ll find the author, and I understand, like, where they are –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sue: – on the Scoville?

Sarah: Yep.

Sue: And then I go, Oh, okay, well, it’s, it’s more likely that they’ll be this way.

Sarah: Yeah. Did you read the Ali Hazelwood Bride and Mate?

Sue: I didn’t. For two reasons. Is this the one with – is this, is this the one with the – I had to look up the term, and then I was, I was…at work?

Sarah: That would be, that would be knotting.

Sue: That would be knotting! And –

Sarah: Yes, that would be knotting. Common feature of Omegaverse.

Sue: [Muffled] I googled it on a work computer?

Sarah: Oh no! You googled it on a work computer!

Sue: [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah, okay.

Sue: It’s fine. It’s fine. ‘Cause then I immediately googled again, as a saving – uh, uh, what did I – like, crafting!

Sarah: Yes! [Laughs] Knotting! Uh, macramé. Macramé, knots, boats! Yeah, that’s, that’s what I was going for! Knots and boats.

Sue: Crochet.

Sarah: Crochet.

Sue: [Laughs] I was like, Oh!

Sarah: Yep.

Sue: [Laughs] Here, let’s do it this way! And then I told my friend, and she was like, Oh no. And then she explained it, and then I was like, I’m glad I didn’t click on anything, ‘cause then it – now all they have is the google searching…

Sarah: Yes.

Sue: – clicking. I didn’t touch anything! I didn’t, one, because prior to the Loch Ness monster book I would have told you that I was not really into, like, shifter books or monster-fucking books, which apparently this book has made me a giant liar, so maybe I will try? And then I had read other Ali Hazelwood books in the past and, like, not particularly cared for them? But I’d read all the STEM ones?

Sarah: Yeah.

Sue: And so, and for me they fell really flat?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sue: For, I’m sure, personal background reasons. I was like, I cannot with, I cannot with some of these heroines.

Sarah: I, I don’t know if I recommend them, because they pissed me off, but they were very good at bringing up sort of some of old-school paranormal romance and a lot of sexual tension? The thing that made me the most angry about them is that the heroes treat the heroines like shit, and there’s really never discussion of how shitty they are. And they’re very shitty. So, like, if you look at books like that, that have, you know, a new kind of sex, that was probably a lot of people’s first introduction to the concept of knotting? I had to write, I was writing a list of, like, Twilight read-alikes for the anniversary of the Twilight movie this year, and I put in Bride and Mate and was like, And some innovative sexual interactions, is how I had to put it in the Times, as something really vague, and I was like, Y’all, it’s knotting! [Laughs]

Sue: A lot of my friends come, and I think like Ali Hazelwood, come through the fanfiction –

Sarah: Yes.

Sue: – paranormal fanfiction portal?

Sarah: Yes, precisely. Yeah.

Sue: And so they were like, How do you not know this? And I was like, ‘Cause I read, like, other fanfiction!

Sarah: Yes.

Sue: I don’t read shifter fanfiction! And so I was like, The ones in mine, they’re just, like, people! [Laughs]

Sarah: I’m pretty sure – and someone will correct me if I’m wrong – I’m pretty sure that the Omegaverse is an outgrowth of the Supernatural fandom, which is already a multilayered cake of fucked up? So I’m just kind of in awe of all of it! Right, like, look where we are now! This is incredible!

Sue: Oh, I had another product I really want to make happen, but I don’t think can make happen.

Sarah: Okay.

Sue: I’m just going to put it in the universe. Okay.

Sarah: Manifest it! That’s why we’re here.

Sue: Okay. You know your favorite authors from back in the day, from Yuletide, from AO3, from fanfiction.net. Like, I’m talking early 2000s, right?

Sarah: Oof, Yuletide, yeah!

Sue: All of them, many of them wrote under pseudonyms. You know that some of them have now become authors, but not all of them are, like, openly, like, fanfiction, spoken or unspoken about their pasts. Like –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sue: – Mariana, Mariana Zapata is one that we know about. But I have to tell you that there were a number of Twilight fics that I read, the authors were incredible! Like –

Sarah: Mm.

Sue: – truly incredible, and I would read anything they wrote, but I have no way of connecting their old pseudonym –

Sarah: Yep.

Sue: – to their current real or new pseudonym –

Sarah: Yes.

Sue: – like, real name or pseudonym. But I just want, like – and you, like, test in, I guess? As, like, having credibility and being able to keep a secret? ‘Cause I understand if people don’t want to –

Sarah: No, of course!

Sue: – like, like, go back and read all my weird…

Sarah: You have to be part of, like, a secret club of, you know, we’re going to find out if any of these fanfic writers have since published. ‘Cause, I mean, my God, did Twi-fic inspire so many careers. Like, so many.

Sue: Yes. And a lot of them were better than the, like, better written than the original, right, like –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sue: – like – not rehabilitated, but, like, better characterized a lot of stuff, like – anyway, and a lot of the AUs were incredible, so I was like, These are basically books. Like, I would read this as a book-book. If this person has kept writing, I would have, I would love to support? There’s just, I’m sure there’s a list somewhere. I’m sure someone’s listening, I hope someone is listening is like, Let me DM her.

Sarah: Yeah.

Sue: I want to know! And I think we should be able to, like, have some sort of, like, private group where, like, this kind of information is traded if you can keep a secret –

Sarah: Right

Sue: – and also buy these books.

Sarah: And it’s like, you’re not, you’re not interested in doxing these people? You don’t want to have –

Sue: No.

Sarah: No. Because there is a problem with, with readers who are, like, trying to dox and find authors, like one person got an AirTag in a mail, in a piece of mail at their P.O. Box so someone could find out, like, where they live?

Sue: That’s so gross; that’s gross.

Sarah: Yeah, this is not what we’re talking about. We do not want to dox people –

Sue: No!

Sarah: – we just want to support writers that we loved at one time who might have published since then, and we want to support them. Like, that’s, that’s a good secret club. I would be in that secret club.

Sue: Yes. And the other thing is, like, even at author signings, I have to hype myself up for a full day before, ‘cause I don’t like to break the fourth wall. I think it’s really, like, I do – yeah. So, I will go to, like –

Sarah: Oh, I don’t want to either. I don’t want to know.

Sue: – like a – right? – a book signing?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sue: I think it’s hilarious ‘cause, like, we talk, and so, like, obviously it’s fine, but, like, I get, like, very concerned beforehand? And so I’m no, I have no interest in, like, doxing or, like, stalking or, like, being all up – I just want to buy your books…

Sarah: I do not wish to perceive you, and I do not wish for you to perceive me. I just want to read –

Sue: Don’t look at me.

Sarah: [Laughs] Don’t look at me.

Sue: The fourth wall? I love it!

Sarah: Yeah!

Sue: I live behind it.

Sarah: That’s, that’s the name of your club, The Fourth Wall. We don’t break it; we just buy books.

Sue: We don’t break it!

Sarah: We don’t break that wall!

Sue: Rule one: the only rule of this club –

Sarah: Is we don’t break the fourth wall. There’s, there you go. We’re going to start The Fourth Wall Club, and we’re going to very quietly email people and say, Hello. I loved your fic. If there’s any chance that you have published, would you be willing to just send a message, and we will, we will share it with secret, qualified people. Although if I got an email like that I’d be like, What the fuck?! [Laughs]

Sue: I’d be like, Oh no! Right?

Sarah: Oh, they found me!

Sue: Just…yeah.

Sarah: Although it would be –

Sue: There’s no way!

Sarah: – it would be way better than the AI-written Hey, I want to put your book in front of a million book clubs for a hundred and fifty dollars emails. Those can go fuck off a pier too.

Sue: Or the ones with, like, the, the one, like, the, the big detective, like, investigative journalism you did earlier in the year?

Sarah: Mm-hmm, all the fake AI authors and narrators? Yeah. Yeah, that’s enough.

Sue: No. That’s my, that’s my second product. I realize I’m supposed to be talking about books, but now I’ve come up with…

Sarah: No, I, I actually, I think that your idea of the, The Fourth Wall secret society, I just want to support authors whose fanfic rocked my world ten, fifteen years ago, that’s all I want to do. I don’t want to perceive you. I don’t want to know anything about you.

Sue: No.

Sarah: Just give me an author name –

Sue: No.

Sarah: – and off I go.

Sue: And if you ever thought, as a fanfiction writer, I wonder if anyone would be interested if I wrote real fiction? Yes. The answer –

Sarah: Yes.

Sue: – is yes.

Sarah: I have written two – one is a short, so three, I guess – pieces of fanfic, and I still – and they’re ten, twelve years old – I still get comments like, Did you ever write anything? And I’m like, Well, actually yes, but I’m not telling you that I have written an entire website for twenty years, because that’s, you know, I’m out here on the internet on my own name like a dumbass. If I’d thought that through better I would be like, Yes! By, why, why in fact I did! Here you go! All of my books. But yeah. I can see –

Sue: Yeah.

Sarah: – both sides of it, but the reader part of my soul is like, Yes, we just want a, we just want more of your gift. That’s all – we want to know –

Sue: Yes.

Sarah: – that you, you’re still writing, ‘cause you’re so talented.

Sue: Yes. So I’ve put it out in the universe, but I’ve done zero work, because I realize on the opposite side of it there are people who genuinely would not want to connect the two, for whatever reason –

Sarah: Mm-hmm, I get it!

Sue: – with a larger audience, and I understand it. But I’m telling you, boy, do I miss some of those fanfic read-, writers.

Sarah: Ohhh, and when you find a good one and it’s complete and you can reread it, and the magic is still there, it is the best!

Sue: You’re like, Wow! This is, like – the, the fanfiction part of it, like, the universe it’s set in is, you know, incidental, right?

Sarah: Yeah.

Sue: Like, the actual writer is actually talented.

Sarah: Oh yes.

So what wishes do you have for people in 2026?

Sue: I have one wish. I wish it for you; I wish it for everyone. I wish it every year, but this is the year I thought about it and I was like, Oh, that’s a good one.

I hope you get at least one book, but ideally a series, where they really stick the landing. Like, you’re reading the whole book, the whole – if you’re reading a really good book and you’re like, My God, I really hope they stick the landing, I really hope they stick the landing, and then they don’t?

Sarah: It’s the worst.

Sue: it’s a little upset- – yeah. And it, like, drags the grade down. The grade is still good, and you still want to tell people about it, but you kind of have to warn them, like, Hey, they don’t, they don’t really stick the landing. They are really close, but they don’t. But when they stick the landing, I want to, like, shout it from the hills. Like –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Sue: – just, like, hills are alive, spinning around and around, ‘cause, like, that’s so satisfying.

Sarah: [Laughs] It is.

Sue: And so I hope for everyone this coming year, they get at least one book, ideally a series, where, like, you know, like, the last book of a series is always like, it’s the couple that everyone’s been thinking about the whole time, and you’re like, Holy shit, this is going to be incredible?

Sarah: Yeah.

Sue: I hope that one is, like, everything you want it to be. I hope they land, they stick every landing, and you just, like, feel like the entire book from start to end was an experience that you like.

Sarah: I –

Sue: Like ten, thirteen out of ten, no notes!

Sarah: I love this wish. This is such a great, such a good wish, because it, when it happens, it is the greatest. Right? It’s just –

Sue: Yeah!

Sarah: – the greatest.

Sue: Yeah. And you can’t tell when it’s going to happen.

Sarah: No, you really have to persevere to the end. Good thing I have –

Sue: Yeah.

Sarah: – a book blog. I hope, I hope I can –

Sue: Yeah.

Sarah: – help you find some in the next year.

Sue: I would say Part of Your World, like, really stuck the ending. I was, like, start to finish, thirteen out of ten, no notes!

Sarah: Awesome!

Sue: Immediately start-, immediately started the next book.

Sarah: Yep.

Sue: [Laughs] That was –

Sarah: Okay! Or the other thing, when you finish it and then you start over and read it again, ‘cause you went like, That was so good; let me do this one more time.

Sue: Yeah. Like –

Sarah: Oh yeah, I’ve done that.

Sue: Yeah, exactly. So that’s, that’s my wish.

Sarah: That’s a lovely wish. Did you bring a bad joke? It is okay if you did not.

Sue: I did.

Sarah: Ooh! ‘Kay! Yay!

Sue: This is from an Instagram Reel or something I saw the other day. So it was:

What is a lawyer’s favorite dessert?

Sarah: What is a lawyer’s favorite dessert? What?

Sue: It’s a tort.

Sarah: [Laughs] That’s excellent! I did not guess that; I did not see it coming. Well played!

Sue: [Laughs] Me and lawyers of the internet, they’re very funny.

Sarah: They’re very funny. Thank you! Thank you, thank you, and thank you for doing this!

Sue: Thank you for doing this every year!

Sarah: It is one of my favorite things to do, and I love how every episode is just, just makes everyone happy and they hear from all of the people who listen to the show, so it’s, my favorite part is when y’all are my guests.

Sue: I leave with a very long TBR.

Sarah: Yeah, me too. It’s, it, it, every time I do one of these it’s like, Oh, got to get that one, got to get that one –

Sue: I mean, I got, got three on the list to…

Sarah: Yep!

Sue: A lot, a lot of them do. I listen when I’m, like, driving, so I’m like, Oh, go back to it. And so thank you, garlicknitter, for all the, for all the posts – [you’re welcome! – gk] – and in the posts you, like, drop the little, like, snapshot, so it’s really helpful. And by helpful I mean, it decimates my TBR.

Sarah: Yes, there’s a whole display of all of the books that we talk about in every post at Smart Bitches. It’s one of the best features.

[music]

Rhonda: My name is Rhonda, and I live in north central Pennsylvania, and I work at a University with faculty writing grants, which means typos annoy me.

Sarah: I bet they do! Also, grant writing is a very specific skill set. Nice job!

Rhonda: Yeah, we don’t actually write the grants; we, we wrangle all of the, the other forms and things around them.

Sarah: Yeah. But –

Rhonda: Which has been interesting this year.

Sarah: It’s, it’s a job! Made harder this year, for sure.

So what book or books rocked your world?

Rhonda: Okay, I, I actually have three.

Sarah: Perfectly acceptable. Some people are like, Oh my gosh, I worked so hard to get it down to one! Maybe I should be like, Up to three in future years. Like, it’s, it’s fine.

Rhonda: Well, two of them are memoirs, which I know isn’t quite the podcast jam, but –

Sarah: If it’s a book, it works.

Rhonda: The first one that came out this year is called Forest Euphoria – I have my notes – Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature, and I looked this up, but I’m probably still going to butcher it: by Dr. Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian.

Sarah: Oh my goodness, this book sounds cool!

Rhonda: It was very cool; it was very readable. It’s an interesting blend of, like, her – it is a memoir of her up through, at the time of publication, and I assume she still is – I didn’t check – a mycologist at the New York State Museum in Albany? So it’s a combination of her memoir growing up and this meditation on queerness in nature, and it just was fascinating.

Sarah: Oh wow! And she’s a mycologist!

Rhonda: Yes! It’s all about fungi.

Sarah: Okay, this sounds so cool! Thank you for introducing me to this book! I am so excited!

Rhonda: And in a very different type of unusual memoir, I am in a, there’s a wonderful person who I didn’t quite overlap with in college, but I went to Bryn Mawr, so, you know, women’s colleges – does this quarterly book club of memoirs written by alumni –

Sarah: Oh!

Rhonda: – of the college, and she does a good job alternating people who are alive and dead, and often if, if they are alive they kindly join in our Zoom sessions. So one of the ones we read this year is called Choosing Life: My Father’s Journey in Film from Hollywood to Hiroshima by Leslie Sussan? I thought it was out of print, but bookshop.org has it. And it was fascinating, because it is almost, it is about her father, but is her memoir of trying to figure out her father? Because in World War II, he had been in film and television, and so right after World War II he was part of an army unit that was documenting the effects of the atom bombs.

Sarah: Ohhh!

Rhonda: But then at the end of that, they took all the film and classified it, so then his, her father spent years trying to access these films and interviews he had done.

Sarah: And they were classified.

Rhonda: So this is partially her efforts, including living in Japan for a year and even meeting some of the people her father had interviewed…

Sarah: Whoa!

Rhonda: So she was there in the late ‘80s, you know, was still able to sort of almost re-interview some of the people her father had interviewed. So it was just, it was fascinating in a whole different way, and it was somebody with degrees in history. Just her approach, and it was just, it was just fascinating. [Laughs]

Sarah: Wow!

Rhonda: So.

Sarah: That –

Rhonda: You can tell I don’t like straightforward memoirs. [Laughs]

Sarah: I mean, if you’re going to write a memoir, why not blend fungus and queerness and classified films of Japan with your memoir? I’m kind of surprised and delighted that there are enough people who went to Bryn Mawr who wrote memoirs that you can have a book club about it. Like, this just makes me profoundly happy.

Rhonda: It’s only quarterly, but still.

Sarah: I mean, that – I don’t know if there are four memoirs that came out of my extremely small women’s college. I’d have to ask.

Rhonda: I think Bryn Mawr’s maybe twice the size of yours. I mean, it’s only about, like now it’s about thirteen hundred students, I think, but it, it’s part of what gives those of us might be dubbed ordinary Mawrtyrs an inferiority complex. [Laughs]

Sarah: Wow. I –

Rhonda: But it’s fascinating and, you know, all kudos to the person who does this.

Sarah: That’s amazing! And what a cool book club!

Rhonda: Yeah! It really is, and it’s really fascinating when the author’s able to join us.

Sarah: Oh yeah. Especially because with a memoir you know there’s stuff that they didn’t get to put in. So there’s always more interesting stuff to be added once you’re familiar with the book. You know there’s going to be extra stuff, which is my favorite part.

Rhonda: Yeah. They’re just, there have been some very interesting ones that – and actually the one I just finished for, for in a week or two is just, it’s called The Forgotten Girls, and it’s about this woman sort of using her growing up and escaping by going to college from rural Arkansas with, like, the fate of her best friend who kind of got trapped there, and it actually was really interesting, ‘cause it explains, I felt like it explains a lot of our current political situation?

Sarah: Yeah! When you are confined to a very small, rural, and conservative area, you are confined in many ways that you may not actually see until you leave?

Rhonda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: And that can, that can include, like, bodily autonomy; that can include religious autonomy. That, that’s a real – wow, okay, I’m writing that one down too.

Rhonda: And she was looking into depths of despair among women, because we hear about it more among men –

Sarah: Yeah.

Rhonda: – but act-, apparently there’s actually as many or more women with overdoses and things like that. So anyway –

Sarah: Yeah.

Rhonda: – I have much lighter –

Sarah: Please!

Rhonda: – a much lighter recommendation.

Sarah: Go on!

Rhonda: So my actual romance recommendation, and the author, I have then related to other series of hers, but the one that came out this year that I, has just been, like, my coziest comfort reread all year is called Diffidence and the Rift by Amy Crook? And it, she’s an indie author. It’s set in basically kind of a fantasy alternate Berkeley?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Rhonda: And our, our main character Diff – part of the reason I enjoyed it is Diff is in the last year of his Ph.D. in Extemporaneous Magic –

Sarah: Okay.

Rhonda: – and has a remarkably pleasant experience finishing his Ph.D.! So this book kind of covers the last year of him finishing his Ph.D., including a couple classes, and his main project, which is trying to close this Rift he accidentally created as like a thirteen-year-old.

Sarah: Oops!

Rhonda: And at the same time he has had, he has to go to the Goblin Market regularly for things –

Sarah: Right.

Rhonda: – and so he has had a crush on, and then this becomes a romance over the course of the book, with Ergi, who’s a half-orc, who is, runs the bakery stand, because the witch who owns the magic bakery stand can’t handle customer service. So it’s just this delightful, cozy – like, nothing bad happens. So it’s just this lovely, gentle fantasy romance.

Sarah: This looks adorable!

Rhonda: It is adorable! It really was. I, I don’t know how many times I’ve already read it this year.

Sarah: And it’s, it’s not small! It’s like four hundred-plus pages!

Rhonda: Yeah! But it reads pretty, pretty quickly.

Sarah: I love that!

Rhonda: I do want to –

Sarah: Thank you!

Rhonda: – flag two other, well, it’s two other series from the same article, because Amy Crook’s series Consulting Magic just came out on audio this year. Right now there’s four books and some shorts, and she just released a book that has all the shorts. That, I don’t know if that’s on audio, but the, the main four books are. And it’s fun, ‘cause it’s a mage – it’s, it turns out like by book two you get clearer that it’s like an alternate magic London.

Sarah; Mm-hmm.

Rhonda: But Alex is a very grumpy mage who does forensic consulting for the equivalent of the police, and Julian, who’s this young lord who is about to be married – and there, there’s complicated backstory, but they end up meeting because Alex is invest-, helping investigate the murder of Julian’s fiancé.

Sarah: Oh boy!

Rhonda: And so the first one is, it’s a com- – you know, so the whole four-book arc so far is, is a combination of their developing relationship, their evolving lives and careers, and after the first book, there is so much food porn.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Rhonda: ‘Cause I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that by the end of the first book, Alex ends up with a Brownie couple? He makes an agreement with them, and they live with him, and so we, for the next three books and all the shorts, you get all of this amazing food. Alice, the female Brownie, make, makes and feeds them, so there’s just, like, amazing food porn.

Sarah: I love this. And the audiobook is in Hoopla, which is very cool and often connected to many people’s libraries.

Rhonda: Yes, I’m hoping more people find it. And then her other series that starts with To Hive and to Hold, the second book is out, and she’s working on a third book. It’s another gay romance. It’s a magical apothecary, Arthur, and the nonbinary tattoo, medical tattoo artist Jade, who moves in across the street from him. And it is another of these just super cozy, there’s so much community building. I’ve seen it called hopepunk, but I don’t know enough about hopepunk to, to tell you whether that’s actually appropriate, but it’s just lovely, like, the relationship building and the community building, and it’s just another warm and cozy.

Sarah: That’s adorable! Oh, also in Hoopla! How excellent!

Rhonda: Oh good! I, my library uses Libby, not Hoopla, so I’m, I’m never quite sure what’s out there.

Sarah: Oh, I look at all of them. I actually have a plug-in that shows me Hoopla, all of the libraries that I’m a member of, so if I go to a web page like Amazon or Barnes & Noble and I pull up the book, it will show me availability in Hoopla and then all of the libraries that I have a card for. It’s called Library Extension; it’s fabulous.

Rhonda: Mm. Yeah, my local library’s so small I have, I have a card from Free Library of Philadelphia –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Rhonda: – which has been go-to.

Sarah: Oh yeah. Once you find a good library –

Rhonda: And I now need to fight my way through their system, ‘cause it doesn’t want to renew my card.

Sarah: I know; it’s very annoying.

Thank you so much –

Rhonda: Yeah.

Sarah: – for these recommendations. I’ve already thoughten of, like – I’ve already thought of about three people who need to know about these books, so thank you.

Rhonda: Oh, that’s great! And I have, then, just in the last week or two, I have sh-, I, I posted in the Discord, I had to share The Angel Wore Fangs with the yarn shop gang on Saturday, and it was so nice ‘cause I was like, Oh! I can just find it in the, in the notes from the transcript, ‘cause the previous time I was sharing it with a romance book club I’m now part of, I had to do so much digging to find it –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Rhonda: – so I just super – and then I had to share with my knitting Zoom group one of the, the patterns that was in the, the links of patterns, the one with the cat, The Stare.

Sarah: Wasn’t that great?

Rhonda: So. I, I haven’t bought it yet, ‘cause I’m not a huge colorwork fan, but –

Sarah: It’s so cute!

Rhonda: – it’s just adorable.

Sarah: So cute! And –

Rhonda: So I shared that with a different group of friends, so I’ve just been able to, to send out Smart Bitches into the world.

Sarah: Thank you! That’s the best thing to do is send us out into the world. Did –

Rhonda: And as well as the romance book club, I, I got invited in the spring, and it’s hysterical because it’s run by two of our junior faculty member, and I am honestly like twenty years older –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Rhonda: – than every-, practically everyone in this group. So they, they do share sharp, when they’re doing – it’s trope-based; it’s like, read this trope for this month?

Sarah: Right.

Rhonda: And so they have gotten good about including Smart Bitches recs if the trope, you know, is in, in that –

Sarah: Oh!

Rhonda: – in the Google Doc.

Sarah: That’s so great!

Rhonda: So we’re getting more people to know about Smart Bitches that way too.

Sarah: Please tell them thank you! That, that’s like the best way to spread the word about the site! Ooh, that’s delightful! Thank you!

Rhonda: Yeah, they helped me learn about, like, Reddit as a source for truly weird things, like when I was trying to finish some book bingos this summer, but –

Sarah: Oh yes. Reddit is great for truly off-the-wall recommendations, and they’re very well read; it’s very cool. I always get excited when I’m on Reddit and I see somebody recommend Smart Bitches, and I’m like, Ooh, yay! [Laughs]

What wishes do you have for everyone for 2026?

Rhonda: On the one hand, this feels a little privileged, but on the other hand, I think it’s the same wish I made last year, which is especially, given just the chaos of 2025 –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Rhonda: – I wish that everyone can find at least a little space to breathe.

Sarah: Yes. I think that’s a very good wish, and also, I don’t think it’s privileged at all. I think everyone needs, like –

Rhonda: Everyone needs it; I know everyone’s not able to.

Sarah: Yeah.

Rhonda: So.

So I have two jokes, and I’m trying to decide which to tell you.

Sarah: You can do both.

Rhonda: Neither is mine. My, my – okay, so one of them is from the weird little newsletter they put up in the bathroom stalls at work, and then I’ve, you know, generic-sized it a little?

Sarah: Okay!

Rhonda: So –

Sarah: Wait, you –

Rhonda: – why did the bison go to the gym alone?

Sarah: Why did the bison go to the gym alone? Why?

Rhonda: He wanted to get buff alone.

I mis-worded it slightly; it should have been Why did he go work out by himself, but.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Rhonda: Our mascot is a bison.

Sarah: Okay!

Rhonda: They come up with –

Sarah: I love that? I also love that there’s a newsletter in the bathroom with jokes on it? Like –

Rhonda: They just put one little joke in it, yeah.

Sarah: I love it!

Rhonda: I mean, it’s out of, like, in affairs, or something like that. Yeah.

Sarah: I dig it. So what’s the other one?

Rhonda: So this one, credit goes to my spouse. I don’t know if he wrote it or found it, but it – he was doing an online role-playing game for charity, and there was like, if you make a donation, there was a dad joke involved, so.

What did the firefighters name their pet duck?

Sarah: What did the firefighters name their pet duck? What?

Rhonda: Fire Quacker!

Sarah: [Laughs] It’s great when the jokes come to me! Thank you! Oh, that’s delightful!

Rhonda: I was a little worried if any variants would show up in the Discord…

Sarah: Nope. Nope, you’re clear on that one. Thank you so much!

Rhonda: Well, thank you! This is always so fun, and these episodes are always great.

[outro]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episodes. Thank you tremendously to Shana and Sue and Rhonda for connecting with me. We will be back next week with more Holiday Wishes.

And as a reminder, you can still get Smart Bitches candles, you can gift a Patreon membership, and you can find all the books that we talked about at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast under episode 697!

I have a joke, because what’s one more, right? You need one more. This is from wimpykidfan67, and it’s really bad, which is why I’m sharing.

If a king sleeps on a king size bed and a queen sleeps on a queen size bed, where does a prince sleep?

On an heir mattress.

[Laughs] Air! [Laughs more] My other favorite joke about air mattresses being, They are for when you want to sleep on the floor, but not right away. [Still laughing] Heir mattress.

On behalf of everyone here, including the cats, who made this intro and outro recording extremely difficult with all of the fussing – hush! – I wish you the very best of reading. Have a wonderful weekend, and we’ll see you back here next week. And in the words of my favorite retired podcast Friendshipping, thank you for listening. You’re welcome for talking!

[end of music]