700. An Art History Analysis of Romance Covers with Amanda Matta

[intro]

Sarah Wendell: Hello and welcome to episode number 700 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell, and my guest today is Amanda Matta. Amanda is a debut author. Her book is coming out in 2027. She is a media commentator, a royal analyst, and an art historian. Now I have mentioned Amanda before, specifically her podcast Art of History, which I love. In each episode, she focuses on one particular piece of art and explains the history, the context, the symbolism, and even gives details about how it was made. I really like this show and I thought, Hang on, why not have Amanda Matta give the Art of History treatment to some classic Old School romance covers? It was very fun; I’ll spoil it right now; it was terrific. It’s big fun. I’m so excited to share it with you. We also discussed royal watching, racism, influencing, commentating on popular culture, Henry VIII’s codpiece, art history, and more!

As I mentioned, this is our seven-hundredth episode, yay! And it will be both video and audio! Now, the audio will be available on your regular podcast feeds. If you are listening to this episode because it arrived in your queue, hello there! This episode will include both of us discussing and describing the covers in question. However, on the video, you get to see both of us, and more importantly, you’ll see all the covers. There will be a link in the show notes, should you wish to watch it on YouTube, and I hope that you will! The new software I was using to edit the video was a bit exasperating and also very fun, and I’m still working on that learning curve, so I hope you enjoy it.

And speaking of YouTube, did you know the podcast has a YouTube channel? Totally does, it’s true! Each new episode is automatically uploaded, so if you prefer your podcasts on the tube, we have got you covered. Also, between us, this channel is brand spanking new because I had to recreate it after YouTube deplatformed my last one with no explanation. I am presuming bitches are to blame, but I can’t prove it. The, you know, the name Bitches, not like actual bitches? Like, I’m not calling anyone at YouTube a bitch. I’m just saying, you know, the word bitches is probably the reason. So anyway, I would appreciate it very, very much if you would be so kind as to subscribe to the YouTube channel. Again, link in the show notes. And if we hit one hundred new subscribers, ohhh, Amanda and I will live broadcast something very fun and extremely silly to thank all of you.

Most of all, thank you for being part of the podcast community and helping us reach seven hundred episodes! The show is here because you are here, and this is a massive milestone. Thank you very, very much.

I also have a compliment this week, which is my favorite. Okay. My compliment this week is for Gillian S.

Gillian: If there was a trophy for the most excellent French fries, the greatest hugs, the most infectious laughter, and unparalleled style, you would win it every time, and all your friends would be nominating you.

If you would like a compliment of your very own, have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches. Our Patreon community is the reason that there are no dynamic ads before or after the show. With listener support, I was able to turn off all of the dynamic ads, the one you hear immediately before or after, sometimes there’s more than one. I turned them off 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 everyone. Thank you.

In addition, Patreon support helps me procure more issues of Romantic Times; learn software that is kind of annoying, but also useful; keeps the show going; and ensures an artisan, handcrafted transcript by garlicknitter. Hi garlicknitter! [Hi, Sarah! – gk] Your support means a lot. And if you’re curious about subscriber benefits, there is a collection at Patreon of our bonus content, and I will be adding new samples soon. (I do love a sample.) If you would like to join our Patreon community, it would be awesome if you did. Have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches.

And if Patreon support is not in the cards, might I ask you to leave a review for the show where you listen, or just, you know, tell people, tell everyone you know. That helps too.

So are you ready for episode 700? I am very ready to share it with you. I’m so excited. On with the podcast with me and Amanda Matta and some classic Old School romance covers, which some of you helped me select.

[music]

Amanda Matta: I am Amanda Matta. I am a royal commentator, but an accidental one. I stumbled into this space about four years ago when Harry and Meghan went on Oprah and we all had thoughts. And my explainer for how I got into this line of work is I had no one in my real life to share these thoughts with, so I made a TikTok, and boy, did I come out of the gate running. The, the subject of my first, my inaugural TikTok was who in the royal family was racist about baby Archie.

Sarah: Oh, wow! Okay.

Amanda: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sarah: That’s not even just the deep end. That’s like, wow, here’s the middle of the ocean: that’s where I’m going to start.

Amanda: Yeah. I had no idea, ‘cause I wasn’t really in the royal-watching spaces before that. I, I, I love watching the royals, but I did it at home – [laughs] – in the private of my own home before that. I had no idea how crazy it could get, and was going to get, ‘cause that was really the beginning, the outset of the cuckoo-bananas land that royal watching has turned into in the past five years. So.

Sarah: I have, I, I’ve said this before: I have always been fascinated with the language about the British royal family because it is a microcosm representation of how we talk and manage and negotiate with colonial pasts, racist, racist pasts, wealth disparity. The way that the royal family in England is so protected –

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – and, like, they’ll just make up whatever the hell they want to justify that narrative? That is like a microcosm of exceptionally powerful propaganda, and it is everywhere now.

Amanda: Yeah, and, and not only the royal family making up stuff, the press –

Sarah: Yeah!

Amanda: – doing it for them with this not-so-invisible contract anymore?

Sarah: Yeah, it’s real –

Amanda: Right out in the open? [Laughs]

Sarah: I’m in Maryland and I can see it from here?

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: I say this all the time: it, it is, because monarchy is still a system of government, you know, it’s not just Kate Middleton in a coat dress – it’s never just a coat – people’s attitudes towards the monarchy really are a reflection, like you said, of their worldview, like conservative, traditional versus progress, change. Like, that, it is, it’s a microcosm of what’s playing out in the world on a global scale. So yeah, when you say to me, I don’t know – not you – when, when someone says to me, Oh, there’s just something about Meghan, I can’t put my finger on it; I didn’t, I didn’t jive with her. I liked her in the beginning, I was rooting for her, but – I’m just like, There it is! [Laughs]

Sarah: [Whispers] It’s racism. Yeah. White supremacy.

Amanda: All of the –isms. When people say, you know, What was, what was wrong? Like, what was the problem? Where did it all go wrong with – ? I’m like, name your –ism: racism, classism, colonialism, xenophobia –

Sarah: Xenophobia.

Amanda: – misogyny.

Sarah: [Laughs] Jinx, you owe me a soda.

Amanda: Yeah, exactly, exactly. It’s all of them. So anyway, I dove right in with that, and now I’m in my fourth year of royal commentating. I’m writing my own first book.

Sarah: Yaaay! I’m so excited for you.

Amanda: Thank you so much. Yeah, it’s forthcoming from Ten Speed Press in spring of 2027. I’m delivering the manuscript in a few months, but they print in the UK, so there’s like a little bit of a delay, but –

Sarah: Always.

Amanda: Always. And the world of publishing, don’t even get me started right now. [Laughs] But yeah, so that’s forthcoming. I also do some podcasts in addition to TikTok and Instagram.

Sarah: I am aware.

Amanda: [Laughs] I, so I co-host a royal news podcast with Meredith Constant, who is another lovely commentator. She’s more into the newsy side of things, and my jam has always been history and culture and fashion and art. So we meet up once a week, and it’s a fabulous time if you want to dissect royal media narratives.

And then I also have an art history podcast, which is my baby. [Laughs] You’re jumping up and down. It is…

Sarah: Bouncing in my seat ‘cause I really love the show – anyway.

Amanda: Thank you! Yeah, I think I was like a year into doing royal commentary, and I had built my platform up to a certain point and I was like, What do I want to be doing with this platform? And I have two art history degrees, and it was the pandemic, and the museum industry collapsed, and I said, Here, here is a way I can use my art history degree finally. So the Art of History podcast, yeah, also in its fourth year. I love it so much. I’ve had to scale it back over time because, like I said, writing a book. [Laughs] But I will never let it go, like ever. I love that show so much.

Sarah: That’s why I like it, ‘cause I can tell how much you’re having a good time.

Amanda: Yeah. It’s just me and a mic. Like, I don’t have a production team. I have a network, but they just really put ads in the middle. It’s just me writing, recording, editing.

Sarah: Look at my production team!

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: That’s my sound assistant, my cat.

Amanda: There she is.

Sarah: Yeah, I hear you; it’s just me too.

Amanda: I love it. It’s, I think, the best way to create content, ‘cause – not just being a control freak, but you can say whatever you want. You can make whatever jokes you want. I’ve recorded with some shows where there are producers on the call and they go off of scripts, and I’m just like, I’m so deeply uncomfortable right now. Like I do not, that’s not my style at all. Kudos to anyone who, like, has gotten to that level. I,I really admire you for your work ethic and getting to that point. I just feel like it would be a double-edged sword for me.

Sarah: I will script my intros, but it’s mostly bullet points so I know I don’t –

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – forget something. I don’t know if I could do like a scripted narrated podcast. Mine, like you, has always been me and a mic and maybe a guest or my frequent co-host Amanda – other Amanda.

Amanda: Yes!

Sarah: Lots of Amandas! And I, like, I get it. The idea of, Well, I’m interested in this and I’m gonna talk about it, and somebody else must be interested.

Amanda: Come along for the ride!

Sarah: That’s how the internet works! So here I am –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – with a website, and I have a blog and a podcast about romance novels, so I understand what you mean.

Amanda: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, for me, with art history, I, I was looking for art history podcasts during the pandemic, but I’m very picky in the format that I like to listen to. I’m not a big interview listener? I, I’ve gotten better at sitting through an interview, especially when it’s women talking to women.

Sarah: Yes.

Amanda: But I’ve noted that men talking to men, I cannot do. I can’t sit through an episode like that. [Laughs]

Sarah: My biggest problem is that sometimes, like, I’m listening to you and you’re listening to me; we’re actively listening and responding to each other.

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: Whereas there are a lot of podcasts, and it’s not just by gender, but this is definitely a habit with male hosts, where they’re just waiting for their tone, their turn to talk? They’re, they’re, it’s like two people are having conversations at each other, but they’re not actually talking to each other. I can’t do that.

Amanda: Yeah, yeah.

Sarah: I can’t do that either. I get –

Amanda: They have their talking points. And I don’t know if it’s something with, like, the rise of AI, like, spitting out a script or something. They have these one-liners they want to get in, and I’ve noticed that like over the years as well. It’s just like, this is not a conversation I would sit, I, I would participate in. I do not want to sit and listen to it. [Laughs]

Sarah: No, It’s like –

Amanda: But –

Sarah: – when people think out loud. I don’t want to do that either.

Amanda: – I don’t have that problem with this show or my own. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yay!

Amanda: We’re winning.

Sarah: So, I – first, before I forget, I want to make sure you are, you’re aware of Tressie McMillan Cottom, right?

Amanda: Hmmm.

Sarah: You –

Amanda: No, I’m not familiar with her.

Sarah: Okay, Tressie McMillan Cottom is a sociologist; she’s a MacArthur Fellow; and she is, I think, currently at, I want to say UNC. She’s a chaired professor of sociology. She wrote a book about predatory for-profit higher ed, and she also talks a lot about class. Now, she’s looking at society as the, as a Black woman –

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – and she wrote a really good article about, I think it was during the period of, like, where the hell did Kate go? Where she talks about watching the royal family is like celebrity watching through Mason jar glasses, because it’s all about class. And her thesis –

Amanda: Mmm.

Sarah: – is that when things are chaotic, we cling to class because that reassures us of our place. And since the UK, especially the English, are fucking fetishizing class – like, it’s their most subtle; comprehensive; nuanced; societal, like, delineation – when times are chaotic, people start grabbing onto their class structure?

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: Who is higher than them? Okay, so if the people who are higher than them are still there, then they are still higher than the people they feel superior to, and they can start, you know, they can continue to punch down. It’s all very much reassuring yourself that you are where you are because the people who you consider above you are still above you. And that –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – that informs so many things, both – and in, in the US, class is education. That’s, our message was you, you move up in class by getting educated, which is now why there’s all these obstacles to anybody who’s not a white guy getting into college: funding, schools, support, all of that. All of that is because our education and class systems are connected? Her, her talks on this are incredible. I actually recorded one of her Instagram Lives like a fucking creeper –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – ‘cause she’s talking about this. I’ll send it to you. It is – like, I’ve watched it ten times and –

Amanda: Yeah, please!

Sarah: – and my mind goes – anyway.

Amanda: And you did, you plugged her book Lower Ed; it’s on my reading list. It’s so funny, ‘cause we were just in Ireland, and actually, one of our taxi drivers said basically that same thing? He said, I love America, ‘cause we said, you know, we’re American; he asked where we’re from. I love America. Everyone’s the same; everyone’s in a pool together.

Sarah: Buddy, no!

[Laughter]

Amanda: He had –

Sarah: So sorry!

Amanda: – the right spirit.

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: But he was directly comparing it to their neighbors in the UK. You know, there is that class system, and everyone knows their place! You’re absolutely right. They’re, and it, it’s comforting in a way, I guess, to those sorts of people who really do care about class because – but then it could also so easily be threatening, which I, again, I think brings us back to Meghan, which, as so many things do, you know? It, it all really can come back to Meghan. People sometimes get up my butt, you know: Why are you bringing Meghan into this story about Will and Kate on vacation? It’s like, well –

Sarah: This poor woman.

Amanda: – ‘cause she’s right there. [Laughs] Because it’s right there, and if we are looking to pick apart media narratives and worldviews, I have to do it. I’m so sorry.

Sarah: No, you can’t ignore it! Ignoring it is part of the problem. Pretending like it’s not happening is part –

Amanda: Right.

Sarah: – of the problem. And like I said, it’s, it’s soothing to have your biases confirmed? And then once your biases have been soothed, it’s really easy to just push you into other biases. Like, oh, yes, absolutely. And if you think about it, the, the clearest illustration is how before Meghan everyone was, like, subtly and not so subtly picking on Kate’s middle class-ness.

Amanda: Her parents had a paved driveway. That’s a real narrative.

Sarah: How dare they not have –

Amanda: It was so crass of them.

Sarah: And if they, if they had put down gravel, it would have been the wrong size.

Amanda: Right.

Sarah: Wouldn’t have understood.

Amanda: The wrong grit.

Sarah: Yes!

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: Precisely.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: You know, you have all of these little nit- – Well, she, she jumped her place. And then Meghan came in and it was like, Okay, now, she really – like, we don’t even have a, a way to recognize this –

Amanda: Too many -isms. We can’t – for me, you know, I’m, I’m coming up from, I’m really bootstrapping my way into royal commentary. Most of the royal commentators and reporters have immense amounts of access and connections.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: And it’s, you know, I’m in an interesting transition period because I’m starting to get quoted. I, I’m a contributor to Us Weekly; that’s, like, where you can usually find me in the royal headlines. If you open to the –

Sarah: …I’m sorry –

Amanda: [Laughs] I know!

Sarah: – you’re a commentator to – hell yeah!

Amanda: I know.

Sarah: Congratulations! That’s massive!

Amanda: Thank you. I can’t believe it either. Yeah, so if you open to the cover story, you’ll usually find, like, royal expert Amanda Matta. I’m like, I’m not an expert. I just, like, I know the system. I, I’ve looked into it quite a bit over the years. But I get some flack sometimes because I am so vocal about Meghan, and now I’m mostly commenting on Kate and William and the children and Charles and Camilla, and it’s like, well, some people will look at that and say, You turned tail; now you’re shilling for the palace. And –

Sarah: Huh?!

Amanda: – I find that so fascinating because it’s like, no, royal news has, has always been royal news, and that’s where I’m interested in looking. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a “woke” person or a progressive voice kind of being inside that commentary space.

Sarah: Are you kidding? Yeah!

Amanda: ‘Cause that’s the best way to change these attitudes and combat these worldviews, from inside. I actually just saw, Kamala Harris was on, was it, it couldn’t have been Colbert, because Colbert is done. A talk show – [laughs] – where she was talking about –

Sarah: Well, Colbert is on the air through 2026, or did he get taken off the air?

Amanda: I’m not sure; it might’ve been Colbert. It was very early this morning when I was watching.

Sarah: His, his show is allegedly supposed to run through spring 2026, but the way he’s been carrying on –

Amanda: [Laughs] Right.

Sarah: – he really is just like, Fucking I dare you, bro.

Amanda: I wanted to say it was Colbert; it must have been.

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: So she was talking about not wanting to run for governor again because the system is broken, and she doesn’t want to participate in that system right now. And she was reflecting on, you know, going into the field of prosecution and her family, like, really questioning being a prosecutor. And the thing she said that stuck out to me was like, I can’t change the system if I’m on the outside. Like if we’re on bended knee, like, just pleading, banging on the door, changing the system, that’s not, that’s not helpful. That’s not going to be constructive. And I think the same can be said if we’re looking at royal news, royal media as a microcosm of the global stage, like, for that. You know, you’ve got to kind of –

Sarah: Completely.

Amanda: – be on the outside. You’ve got to be the person writing these histories, illuminating what’s going on in order to see progress.

Sarah: Well, I have some bad news for you.

Amanda: [Laughs] Oh boy.

Sarah: You are very likely going to be a threat to white supremacist narratives – specifically, yay, royalty! – ‘cause, I mean, personally, I think royalty is a human rights violation, and this particular one is a white supremacist prop. But also, you’re going to be a threat to established media in the UK, and they don’t like that.

Amanda: Yeah, Richard Eden – you know Richard Eden from the Daily Mail?

Sarah: Ohhh!

Amanda:  He has a beef with me.

Sarah: Somebody, somebody pees in his Cheerios like every morning! This guy is so unhappy! 

Amanda: It’s ridiculous.

Sarah: Would you just smoke a joint and sit down?

Amanda: He, he loves to call people that do exactly that, challenge the system, Meghan cheerleaders. So in my merch store, you can get a Meghan’s Cheer Squad t-shirt – [laughs] – if you consider yourself a Meghan cheerleader.

Sarah: Fuck yeah! All right. Listen, I am relentlessly fascinated by this and I could talk to you for hours, but I did bring you here for a very nefarious purpose.

Amanda: I’m ready. My body is ready.

Sarah: Please tell me a little bit about your degrees and how you got into art history, because this is a really interesting, but also, as you noticed, vulnerable field right now.

Amanda: Yes.

Sarah: To go and see the art, you have to go into a place, and sometimes going into a place means exposure. And now those places are being underfunded or eliminating their funding, so it’s already even more precarious. Please tell me how you got into this field. Like, what is your experience?

Amanda: Well, so I was an art kid growing up, but I was also, I, I was raised in, like, a very economically conservative family. [Laughs] So I never even for a moment entertained the thought of, like, studying studio art. I, I love painting, I’m an oil painter, but –

Sarah: Ooh!

Amanda: Yeah – I never really thought seriously about, Hey, like, I could actually go to art school. It had to be channeled into a more constructive, more academic – [laughs] – sphere. And I, don’t get me wrong, I love, I love my program, I love the degree I got, but that’s how I got into it? So yeah! I live in Pennsylvania. I was looking at online programs, junior year of high school as you do, and Juniata College here in Pennsylvania actually has one of the very few combined art his-, art history/museum studies programs in the country?

Sarah: Oh, interesting!

Amanda: I want to say it might be more now; it might be less now, actually. At the time I think there were like twelve programs in the country that, that offered this. So I got a joint degree in art history and museum studies, so I was getting that practical gallery experience while I was doing the art history. And I, I absolutely love it. I really fell into the education side of things? After I finished my bachelor’s, I went on for a master’s in, oh, it’s like a dual program at Drexel. It’s art administration and museum leadership, so both museum governance and, like, running an art gallery were in that program. And then COVID happened. Yeah, art, politics –

Sarah: Art and politics…

Amanda: Liaising with a board; I had a whole course on that, yeah, so –

Sarah: Oh, dude! You had a course on liaising with a board? Oh my –

Amanda: We just did case studies on, Hey, what if your board, like, won’t talk to each other? What do you do? Like it was, it was fantastic.

Sarah: Oh, that’s comprehensive –

Amanda: Yeah, yeah.

Sarah: – ‘cause I have met many a board that was much dysfunction.

Amanda: Yeah, it was great. So yeah! I, I took it that route ‘cause I love going to museums. I’ve always loved learning through museums. Experiential learning, I think, is a really underrated tool for education? And like I said, then COVID happened – [laughs] – and I got my degree December 2019, got my first museum, like, job full time March of 2020?

Sarah: Ohhh –

Amanda: Yeah –

Sarah: – nooo!

Amanda: – yeaahh.

Sarah: Oh.

Amanda: So I hung on there for a while, but the field really is undergoing a lot of change. Funding is being cut. I mean, it has been for years and years, and so museums are always restructuring. The museum I was at, it was really more of like a science education center, and I was writing curriculum there for about two years, and then – [laughs] – our CEO decided that we should really, what we should really be doing was getting into e-sports.

Sarah: I’m, I’m sorry.

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: E-, e-sports.

Amanda: E-sports! Like video gaming, competitive, which, don’t get me wrong, I think there’s merit in that, you know. Wasn’t what I signed up to do. I was, I was writing STEM curriculum, which was already a little different from my art background, but I had fun with it. I was making it work. And then when e-sports happened I was like, I don’t know if this is the place for me anymore.

Luckily at that point I was already kind of coming up on TikTok with the royal commentary. And I don’t want to say luckily I got doxed, but like, it might’ve been the best thing that ever happened to me.

Sarah: Oh, I’m sorry it did; that blows.

Amanda: It was really shitty at the time, I will say, but the reason I got targeted online – it was thorough harassment, up to full-on doxing; they contacted my employer, the science center I was working at – but it was because I wasn’t racist enough about Meghan Markle. So, you know, again, every cloud has a silver lining, right?

Sarah: Holy shit! I’m really, really sorry!

Amanda: That’s all right. No, it’s, it’s fine. ‘Cause it –

Sarah: That’s abominable!

Amanda: What it did, though, was enable me to go back to the drawing board and take creating content very seriously and revisit my art history degree. You know, start the podcast, and we wouldn’t be sitting here talking if that hadn’t happened. So.

Sarah: It’s true. But –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – at the same time, as someone who’s been on the internet, like the website’s twenty years old now and I’m out here under my own name, that fucking sucks. And it’s appall-, it’s appalling how many people find it their hobby to discover someone’s identity and make them miserable and personally scared. Like why –

Amanda: Right.

Sarah: – is that your hobby? Could you –

Amanda: Because –

Sarah: – not?

Amanda: Because I think you shouldn’t be racist against a princess that neither you nor I will ever meet. Yeah, uh-huh, it’s wild. Anyway, you asked me about art history. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yes.

Amanda: No, but –

Sarah: In terms of art analysis, it –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – it sounds like, so if I, if I understand correctly, the art history part is How did this particular style, where is this particular image or this particular work located in a larger timeline? But also –

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – what does it mean and what is it saying? Because –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – things that are art that endure tend to have a lot of nuanced context. And it’s almost like a puzzle, or there’s a bunch of visual clues. You have to look at this thing and then figure out, What is it saying? How is it saying that? And where, where is it located in the larger conversation of all the other art that was happening at that time and the politics of that as well?

Amanda: Yeah, absolutely.

Sarah: …about right?

Amanda: Yeah, you nailed it. Visual clues, context clues –

Sarah: Yes.

Amanda: – are so important. Art historians are so good at media analysis because the first year you’re in school with an art history program, you’re learning how to look, like how to see. And I, I don’t know if the statistic is, you know, viably sound, but one of my professors told us the first year – I think we were in Survey of Western Art – she said, Do you know that the, one of the most successful non-science degrees, if they go on to take the MCAT, is art history. So, like, if you, for some reason, were an art history degree and you decided to make a massive pivot to medicine –

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: – and take the MCAT, you would be set up for success there because you’ve learned how to look and to step back and see what’s in front of you for what it is.

Sarah: Ohhh!

Amanda: Not, not see what you know. That’s one of the biggest lessons, too, with studying art is you have to look at what’s actually there. So I’ve, I’ve always found that fascinating. That’s one of the things I love most about looking at art. Anyone can look at art. It’s, it’s just a matter of turning off your thinking brain for a minute and then kind of reactivating it later down the line.

And then for art history, yeah, placing it in the context. I love a big timeline of what’s happening on the world stage, what societal movements are going on. And that’s, with my show, kind of why I chose the history lens, because you can learn so much about a period in time, a place in time, through the art that is being created.

Sarah: Yes. Like –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – when you, you did a deep dive – forgive me for not remembering the name or looking it up before –

Amanda: Right.

Sarah: – but dead guy in the bathtub.

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: Stabbed.

Amanda: Marat. Yeah, The Death of Marat.

Sarah: Thank you! Dead guy in the bathtub.

Amanda: Mm-hmm!

Sarah: That’s what, that’s what, you know, we’re friends. That’s how, that how I call him.

Amanda: Not anymore you’re not!

Sarah: Nah, it’s true, ‘cause he’s dead in a bathtub. One of the things you talked about is how that image has sort of become a shorthand image for rebellion and uprising and organizing. It has a very subversive tone because of what it means. And if you don’t know that, it’s like, oh, dead guy in a bathtub. ‘Kay!

Amanda: Martyrdom, yeah.

Sarah: Yeah!

Amanda: Yeah, he was, he was seen as a martyr for the cause of the French Revolution. And, I mean, it’s been parodied so many times because of that? I’m waiting for Stephen Colbert to put his face on it; you know what I mean? Like –

[Laughter]

Amanda: – I feel like that’s coming up in the zeitgeist.

Sarah: Speak that into –

Amanda: Yeah! [Laughs]

Sarah: Speak that into existence.

Amanda: I might have to make it myself. We’ll see.

Yeah! I don’t know. It’s, it’s an often-overlooked lens to learn about history, a very accessible way to learn about history, which is why I love it so much. And for me, it also led me to the royal commentary, because I was finding that when I was studying art, I was always drawn to the stories of royal patrons, royal portraits that maybe were a little subversive or where there was like a hidden backstory. So then it all just meshed together in my weird content-geared-before-I-even-knew-it brain.

Sarah: Listen, I have that same brain. I have a website –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – and a podcast about romance novels, but…

Amanda: Right.

Sarah: – whatever the hell I want that’s interesting ‘cause it’s my brain. I, I also think, in terms of royals, correct me if I’m wrong –

Amanda: Mm.

Sarah: – but when you were an artist way back in the day, you –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – were either a patron, you, or your patron was either the church or a royal or a really wealthy person who wanted to show off their wealth. Like, that was how you made money, right?

Amanda: Right, yes.

Sarah: So you kind of had to flatter all these people; whoever was your patron, you had to make them look real good. So there’s a lot of royal portraits out in the world for that reason, made by really prominent artists.

Amanda: Absolutely. And art for expression’s sake, art for art’s sake came way later.

Sarah: Way later!

Amanda: Like 1800s, like, the very beginnings. The Impressionists were some of the first to, the Realists, the Impressionists were some of the first to kind of strike out on their own because the patron system was no longer serving them. The Academy in France and others were barring entry to anyone they didn’t see as toeing the line, as following their very academic standards.

Sarah: Wow, there’s absolutely like no parallels to the current day.

Amanda: Mm-mm, no. I –

Sarah: …one. Wow, what an, what an archaic and weird thing to do that we don’t see anymore!

Amanda: Yeah, we always see this, like, death burst, this extinction burst with these institutions, I will say, and then things get good for a while. So there is hope. There is hope.

Sarah: …die en masse.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: Now, question, and, and totally okay if not, but are you a romance reader?

Amanda: So, I am a romance reader. I have had –

Sarah: Yay!

Amanda: I’ve had an up and down history with fiction in general –

Sarah: Oh –

Amanda: – because, because, you know, art historian, royal commentator. I’ve got to read a lot of nonfiction for that, and in the past few years I’ve really fallen off, and I’ve taken a really conscious look at what I’m reading in the past year and tried to, like, inject some novels and romance back into it. It’s, it’s slow going, I will say. I have listened to audiobooks like never before, ‘cause –

Sarah: Oh!

Amanda: – I think that counts towards your reading goal as well.

Sarah: Oh, there’s – don’t let anybody tell you you’re not reading…

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – you’re putting a, a narrative in your head. Like, come on, absolutely reading.

Amanda: Yeah. But no, I love a romance book. When I was younger, I used to, I was a big fiction reader. I used to sneak books when – I had two brothers, and we had one shower at my house, and we took our showers in the evening. I used to sneak my books into the bathroom, and I would sit between the shower curtain and the liner and I would read – [laughs] – ‘cause it was peaceful and –

Sarah: Nobody was going to bother you!

Amanda: – no one would bother me. And I had my little books.

Sarah: [Laughs] All these damp books?

Amanda: I – my little fantasy books, yeah. I wasn’t a flashlight under the ki-, under the covers kid; I was a read between the shower curtains kid. I don’t know if that’s, anyone else can relate, but I’ve been trying to, like, rediscover that, and luckily I rent my own apartment with my fiancé, and I can just read on the couch and –

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: – he knows not to bother me. [Laughs]

Sarah: …always hang a shower curtain if, if it makes you feel more at home. Just the, yeah, put the liner –

Amanda: Put the rain sounds on in the background.

Sarah: Recreate it. Recreate your own little nest.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: So you are familiar – ‘cause I also know you work at a bookstore –

Amanda: I do!

Sarah: – you are familiar with the romance genre, and you’re familiar with –

Amanda: Yes.

Sarah: – what it, what it used to look like.

Amanda: Oh, am I. So, –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: – my mother, God love her – she’s still with us, but, I will tell her, I won’t tell her anything about this episode; she’s not allowed to listen. So she had a shelf of romance novels when we were growing up, and they were just right there in the living room, which, kudos to her!

Sarah: Yep.

Amanda: And – [laughs] – that was part of my, shall we say, self-discovery as a tween, teenager?

Sarah: Very common.

Amanda: Skye O’Malley.

Sarah: Oh boy, you just jumped right in.

Amanda: I dived right – again, as I do, right in the middle of the ocean. They were right there, though, so, like, come on! The Bertrice Small – I think there was, like, a fairies series? Anyway. So that was my early exposure to adult romance novels. And I remember flipping through them and being like, Oh. ‘Cause I was, like, looking for things to read. I loved to read, and I had read all of my books. And I remember stumbling upon, you know, some of these scenes –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Amanda: – and thinking, does my mom know that these –

[Laughter]

Amanda: – that these books are so smutty? And –

Sarah: Uh, yes, yes, she does.

Amanda: – obviously she did; that’s why, that’s why they were there.

Sarah: That’s why she kept them, ‘cause it’s Skye O’Malley! [Laughs]

Amanda: Right. Right, right, right. So yeah, that was my first exposure to romance. And like I said, I’m getting back into it now as a thirty-year-old woman with my own purchasing power. [Laughs] Yeah! It’s, it’s been a wild ride.

Sarah: This makes me very happy.

So what we are going to do today – do-do-do-do – I have sent you a file full of some old romance covers and some art, and I am very excited to hear your thoughts, both as a person who understands how book marketing works and a person who understands how art messaging and art communication works.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: I think it’s art marketing, but the cover is doing something.

Amanda: Some heavy lifting, yeah.

Sarah: There’s some heavy lifting, because, I mean, a book cover has a lot of work to do. It has to grab your attention; it has to make you be, Oh, what’s that? Has to communicate some very basic things like genre, character, that kind of thing. It’s got to –

Amanda: Vibiness.

Sarah: Vibe, totally the vibe. It’s got to communicate all that very quickly when you glance at it, and your brain –

Amanda: Yes.

Sarah: – has to process all that information. And as I’ve talked about many times, the history of romance cover art is so fascinating? Like, I have this little secret idea to make a coffee table book of the history of romance cover art up to like, you know, the 2000s?

Amanda: Oh, you should do it!

Sarah: Because a lot of these cover artists are dying, they’re older, ‘cause they were working in the, you know, ‘70s. But this was all, originally it was all oil paint. And they would take a bunch of photographs as sort of model images, and then they would develop all of these different things for the covers. But this is all originally oil and then became digital, which meant that it was faster. But you would have, you know, full works of art on the cover of your book, and you can find them for sale now, and they’re frigging dope!

Okay, so we’re gonna look at some old-ass covers and talk about what they’re doing.

Amanda: I love, I love this. I’m so excited.

Sarah: You have no idea how extremely excited I am. All right, I am gonna share my screen. [Sings] And I opened up. Okay. So. You’re currently seeing A Heart So Wild.

Amanda: Sure am!

Sarah: Okay, so this is the original; like, this is what I found. The problem with a lot of these is unless you own them and you scan them –

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – they’re not, like, the greatest of resolution. But I did find a better resolution version of this one.

Amanda: I do think, in a way, though, that lends some mystique to these covers? It’s like Vaseline on the lens, right? It, it –

Sarah: Yeah!

Amanda: – it – I love the vibe here. But okay, higher res, let’s do it.

Sarah: You ready?

Amanda: Yeah. Oh yes.

Sarah: Yeah, so this is –

Amanda: Ooh!

Sarah: – this is a scan. So this is actually a bit over-exposed. This is a scan of a hardcover version of this book that is for sale. But this is Johanna Lindsey’s A Heart So Wild. I asked my audience, the podcast audience, I asked everyone who would listen to me, what are your favorite, absolutely off-the-wall romance covers?

Amanda: Sure.

Sarah: …the ones we’re looking at, starting with this one because wow!

Amanda: Wow.

Sarah: Wow.

Amanda: I didn’t notice the fire.

Sarah: Yeah!

Amanda: Or the gun.

Sarah: Nope!

Amanda: Or the – how many arms are happening here? One. Okay.

Sarah: Yes.

Amanda: One on her thigh, one on her waist.

Sarah: …later. We have, we have, we have arm questions later.

Amanda: [Laughs] Okay, I knew that there was going to be an arm question. Okay, perfect. It’s not this one.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: Wow! That’s certainly a cover!

Sarah: Isn’t it, now?

Amanda: Are those two Rs in the Heart, the title? It’s a little different from the low-res version, do you see? Like –

Sarah: Ooh, yeah! There, I wonder if that’s a typo?

Amanda: Instead of a T, it’s an R at the end of Heart?

Sarah: An R – that’s a T. You know, maybe – did somebody Photoshop this, or is this just an error? I’m going to…

Amanda: [Sighs]

Sarah: – mis-link?

Amanda: Did AI, like, crisp it up? I’m so sorry.

Sarah: You know –

Amanda: I hope not. I really hope not.

Sarah: I do not know, but it’s either a Heart or a Hearr.

Amanda: Or a typo. A Hearr So Wild.

Sarah: It’s like when they OCR scan – no, those letters are totally different. It’s like when they OCR scan old text and arms becomes anus.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: It’s really fun. So first of all, I’ll, I’ll leave the higher res one on, even though the, the title isn’t correct. I have always thought that this looks like Barbra Streisand.

Amanda: You know –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: – crispy jawline –

Sarah: Yep!

Amanda: – a nice profile.

Sarah: Very strong profile.

Amanda: The blue eyeshadow.

Sarah: I think this is really, this is vintage Babs. So Babs is in a pink, low-cut dress. It’s like a deep, you know, deep scoop neck.

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: She’s got a little tie on the sleeve there. She’s got one leg out. Nobody – forgive me for being crass – the fire is very close to them. Neither of them should fart.

Amanda: It would be – [laughs]

Sarah: Bad idea. The fire is right, like, behind them, and also –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – that tree looks dead?

Amanda: I’m, there’s a lot of flowing hair and fabric –

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: – to be this close to a –

Sarah: Tell me –

Amanda: – fire.

Sarah: Tell me what you see when you look at this –

Amanda: [Sighs]

Sarah: – at this cover. Like, what is it saying other than these people are horny? I mean, that’s the, the bottom…

Amanda: You know, I love a draped woman, and we have that here.

Sarah: [Laughs] We sure do!

Amanda: She is draped over – he is –

Sarah: Oof!

Amanda: If she, if she let, or if he let go of her, she’s on the floor. You know, she is limp, which I love. But a lot of tension in the neck, because you’ve got to have it. [Laughs]

Sarah: Very true.

Amanda: So many emotions being communicated here. Wow. I’m just trying to take it in. And the face is saying, No, don’t. But the body language below the neck is saying something different.

Sarah: Yes, very much so. It – you’re right about that. The, he’s very interested. He’s actually lifting her, the, the shoulder of her dress. Like, it –

Amanda: Ohhh!

Sarah: – he’s looking over her carotid artery to see how big her boobs are. Like, what’s going on in here? He’s lifting away –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – the bodice of her dress? And she’s got one arm behind his head, even though she’s turned around, and this really does – yes, exactly –

Amanda: Ooh. Ooh!

Sarah: – does represent the tension, I think, of romances at this time, because these were published right after the first, the first wave of feminism, when –

Amanda: Yes.

Sarah: – we got credit cards and had, you know, bank accounts in our own name, and –

Amanda: But don’t we all just want to be ravished by a man in blue jeans with a hip holster?

Sarah: Exactly!

Amanda: I mean, come on.

Sarah: A very erect hip holster?

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: In a lot of these books, heroines weren’t really, it really wasn’t going to be accepted by the reader for the, for the heroine to have horny pants –

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – and to be sexually adventurous or even sexually interested. You know, sex had to be visited upon her, so she has to both communicate willingness, but also not so much willingness.

Amanda: I mean, I have to say, given my first exposure to this type of romance was Skye O’Malley, like, I’ve picked up on that from the beginning. It’s like, it’s like Baby, It’s Cold Outside syndrome, right? Like, people –

Sarah: Yes!

Amanda: – love to say that that, that song should be canceled; it’s about non-consent. It’s like, actually, the big brain take is that this was how we communicated our desires. We played this game of No, don’t! But maybe. And I’m not saying we shouldn’t update our language to reflect that, but as a time capsule, I think these stories were always formatted this way for a reason.

Sarah: Yes.

Amanda: You’re bang on. Yeah.

Sarah: And it’s a code, right? That’s one of the things that I find so fascinating about these is this is all a code. They’re –

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – trying to communicate, Yes, this book has some sex in it, but…

Amanda: Right.

Sarah: – tension, and what’s happening?

Amanda : There’s tension, there might be some danger. We have a gun, we have fire, we have dead trees, but she’s alive. She is in bloom, to use a Jane Austen, you know, term. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah!

Amanda: She’s, she’s being brought back to life, dare I say.

Sarah: And she’s also the brightest thing on the page.

Amanda: Mmm.

Sarah: Like, one of the thing I notice with, with a lot of this, these images is that, you, you have, obviously, artists have ways of directing where you’re going to look and directing where your eye is ultimately going to go. There’s a journey that you take visually –

Amanda: Yes.

Sarah: – that has been plotted by someone.

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: Because she is the lightest and brightest thing on the page? She’s the thing that stands out.

Amanda: Mm-hmm! Absolutely, and we find this in art history a lot too, especially in, like, Baroque art where we have something called tenebrism where there’s like an extreme dark and an extreme light. It was kind of inspired by stage lighting, and that’s exactly what’s happening here. And then you have her bright, pale skin and the curve of her body. You can move your eye with her body, and it moves you around the composition. And that’s something like the old masters were doing, and we see it here on a Johanna Lindsey cover. I love it!

Sarah: This is a McGinnis, and he –

Amanda: ‘Kay.

Sarah: – passed away recently.

Amanda: Oh.

Sarah: You want to see something super sad?

Amanda: Oh.

Sarah: So a lot of romance readers – really myself included, although I understand that they are vintage and not applicable to, to today’s marketing environment – a lot of people miss these covers, myself included, and because, one of the reasons is this is what they look like now.

Amanda: Aww, that’s a bummer.

Sarah: Right? The new cover is a photograph of a blonde woman –

Amanda: She has iPhone face.

Sarah: Hundred percent. She has, she has Instagram hair.

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: Right?

Amanda: She’s got layers; she has balayage.

Sarah: Yeah!

Amanda: See, like Kate Middleton blow-out!

Sarah: I’m sorry, is that blouse cheetah print? I think that…

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – be blue cheetah print?

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: That’s a bummer.

Sarah: And it’s like, okay, I, maybe this is historical? The cheetah print and the balayage are throwing me, but she’s, it’s clearly a photograph. She’s leaning up on some wagon wheels, which I don’t think were originally there behind her.

Amanda: Hmmm.

Sarah: It’s all very mixed media. It doesn’t, it doesn’t do what that’s doing.

Amanda: I, I’m so fascinated by taking the love interest off of the cover, too.

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: It’s just her.

Sarah: That’s something that’s been happening a while. First of all, the historical romance genre is kind of in a coma right now? So –

Amanda: Hmmm.

Sarah: …run out of covers to discuss ‘cause it’s not going to be published as much, certainly not in mass market paperback. So what you’re going to see is the older authors getting new covers because the, they’re still selling. With this, it’s like – does this –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – communicate anything?

Amanda: I would not pick this up. Like, you, you mentioned, you know, judging by books, by covers: that’s how I pick up a lot of my books, because I, I do events at an independent bookstore, and I get freebies; I get the ARCs. I also browse – we have flat lay tables for our new releases. I’m going by cover! I would not think twice –

Sarah: It has a job!

Amanda: – about this. Yeah.

Sarah: It has a job to do, but is this, is this an old Western? Is this –

Amanda: It looks like frontier, yeah, Christian romance, maybe.

Sarah: Which I can tell, even, even though, like, you know, I, I quilt and sew, and so I’m looking at that and going, Oh, well that’s synthetic fabric. This isn’t –

Amanda: Mm!

Sarah: You know, because that, no fabric would drape like that.

Amanda: It looks so thin!

Sarah: Exactly! That’s a, that’s a synthetic, so, you know. I’m going to be nitpicky about the fabric, and –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – this doesn’t work. I’m sure whoever designed this was like, I needed to redo the cover in a way –

Amanda: We’re also –

Sarah: We’re sweeping, flipping back and forth between having the hero only?

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: A lot of contemporary romance is just the hero. He’s often very shiny and very muscular. Single woman on the cover is less and less common.

Amanda: Interesting.

Sarah: So shall we move on to the next cover in our collection, which is –

Amanda: Please.

Sarah: – one of my – are you ready?

Amanda: I, no, but yes. [Laughs]

Sarah: Okay. You’re prob-, are you old enough to remember Lisa Frank? Was Lisa Frank relevant to you?

Amanda: Mm-hmm! Oh yes!

Sarah: Okay. I do not mean to be condescending.

Amanda: No, you’re, it was, it was elementary school for me, but I had some folders. Yeah.

Sarah: All right, so here you go! If Lisa Frank –

Amanda: Hmmm!

Sarah: – threw up on a cover – could you just describe what’s going on here? This is A Certain Magic by Kathleen Morgan –

Amanda: Okay –

Sarah: – bestselling author of Fire Queen!

Amanda: Bestselling, award-winning author –

Sarah: Yes.

Amanda: – excuse you.

Sarah: Excuse me.

Amanda: [Laughs] So, okay, golden Pegasus being – oh, no, I don’t know if anyone’s actually holding the reins – flying us through a pink and purple sky. And on said Pegasus, we have heroine with heaving bosoms –

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Amanda: – again, getting a crick out of her neck, leaning back onto a hero sitting behind her on Pegasus. I’m, I’ve just noticed the sword – [laughs] – directly behind her buttock. That would not be comfortable.

Sarah: Where’s the rest of the sword? Please don’t tell me it’s in the Pegasus. No wonder he looks pissed off. Like, buddy –

Amanda: He’s, like, Ah!

Sarah: – buddy, buddy, the thing’s poking me.

Amanda: A little alarmed. Yeah, wow! Wow, that’s certainly, that’s certainly A Certain Magic –

[Laughter]

Amanda: – is all I can say. Wow!

Sarah: I am fascinated by the clothing here? Because they’re really, the artist is really trying to communicate a time period. I could not –

Amanda: I don’t know what time period…

Sarah: …what time period it is.

Amanda: Yeah! [Laughs]

Sarah: He has this deep, square neckline.

Amanda: It’s almost toga-ish

Sarah: Yeah, it could be a doublet; it could be a toga. She’s got off-the-shoulder bar wench –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – kind of style?

Amanda: It’s, it’s Snow White, but make it sexy and –

Sarah: Yes.

Amanda: – take away the blue colorway

Sarah: And that is the most decorated horse.

Amanda: He’s, yeah, he’s pimped out. He – I love –

Sarah: He’s got bling!

Amanda: So there always seems to be, it’s an outdated term, but, like, some sort of Orientalism with these fantasy books, and I’m wondering –

Sarah: Ohhh –

Amanda: – if that’s what we’re going on, we’re going for here?

Sarah: Very much so. Yes –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – there’s a lot of Orientalism and exoticizing of especially Middle Eastern cultures during this time and still, like –

Amanda: Hmm.

Sarah: – still to this day at this point.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: They are, of course, flying over a castle.

Amanda: Yes. Another phallic image, perhaps?

Sarah: There’s a lot!

Amanda: I just assume, for the rest of this episode, if something looks like a phallus, it is a phallus.

Sarah: I mean, I think that’s a safe assumption.

Amanda: [Laughs] Save myself some mental energy.

Sarah: Yes. Yes, but, like, every single one has something, right? 

Amanda: Yeah, there’s always something.

Sarah: Like if we go back to A Heart So Wild, we have a gun –

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – we have this tree; we have, like, her body in a long, pink line. Like, okay.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: And if we go back to A Certain Magic, we’ve got a sword, and we’ve got a castle. Even the horse has a little, little gem on the middle of its –

Amanda: Oh, mm-hmm.

Sarah: – fore- – I, I don’t, what’s the front of the horse between its eyes to its nose, whatever that part is?

Amanda: I only know bridle; I don’t know.

Sarah: So whatever – horse people, I’m sorry; forgive me – but whatever that is, it’s like a little pointy thing just sticking –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: It’s like a, it’s like adding on a unicorn horn.

Amanda: Yeah. And even if it’s not –

Sarah: …got wings.

Amanda: – even if we don’t have phalluses explicitly, there’s always a lot of, like, triangular imagery –

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: – too, which I think –

Sarah: Oh, you’re right!

Amanda: – whether it’s subconscious or not is an, a more ancient symbol for like male virility. You know, the triangle upright, and then the triangle down or like an open V is female, typically. I, I see a lot. That was –

Sarah: …blow my mind.

Amanda: As I was flipping through the ones you sent me, I saw a lot of that triangle orientation, which again, in art history, it’s a very commonly used format because it’s the most structurally sound shape? It lends stability to your image.

Sarah: Hmm.

Amanda: But I’m just thinking here, the people, the man and the woman, are making a little triangle shape.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: The horse is making a little triangle shape with his ear there. And then you have the castle at the bottom. I don’t know, triangles. [Laughs]

Sarah: And this, and the, the metal medallion bridle decoration is a triangle pointed downward just below the horse’s chin.

Amanda: Oh, mm-hmm.

Sarah: That and those little gold circles are in an open bottom pointing triangle.

Amanda: I’m just saying!

Sarah: You’re just saying! I mean, it’s there. You can believe us or not. [Laughs]

Amanda: For all who have eyes to see. [Laughs]

Sarah: Okay, the triangle part just blew my mind. Like, I’m, my brain is like Jiffy Pop right now. Even, even the decoration on the chest strap of the horse has downward pointed triangles on it. Holy cow. Okay!

Amanda: Yes.

Sarah: So speaking of phallic, here we have When Love Awaits –

Amanda: Oh yeah!

Sarah: …Johanna Lindsey. Now I thought that this was reminiscent of a Klimt.

Amanda: Ooh, mm-hmm!

Sarah: Do you think so?

Amanda: Yeah, absolutely. Klimt or, I mean, it even goes back farther than that. Obviously all art is derivative.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: Greek sculpture, Hellenistic sculpture, which is Greek sculpture with like a little bit more expression mixed in?

[Laughter]

Sarah: It’s Greek sculpture with feelings!

Amanda: Once they realized, like, we didn’t have to be so rigid, they got a little bit experimental. I love it! I, I thought that too. I don’t know if it was this one specifically, but maybe it’s coming up. Yeah, there’s definitely a clear throwback to these images of love and romance. I thought of Sleeping Beauty when I looked at this one because, growing up, I had these paper dolls by an artist I think who worked in this era. I cannot remember the name for the life of me, but his Sleeping Beauty was very, very akin to this cover model. [Laughs]

Sarah: And again, she is the lightest thing on the page. She’s very, very pale. She’s very blonde,

Amanda: And decked out in pink and purple, which I don’t know if, again, synthetic fabric wise, we could have obtained in the medieval era.

Sarah: Very flowy.

Amanda: I love the pink and purple covers, though. That’s like, give it to me. It’s so good.

Sarah: Oh, if it’s not fuchsia –

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – is it romance?

Amanda: Is it even a romance?

Sarah: It’s, why, why are we even here if you’re not including fuchsia? There’s no fuchsia?

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: I’m just leaving. But again with the, with the phallic symbols: we have a big old sword –

Amanda: Oh!

Sarah: – a castle with a tower. He’s got a little helmet over – is that a helmet? Maybe it’s a –

Amanda: Yep!

Sarah: …can.

Amanda: It’s a hel- – no, I think it’s a helmet with a plume. I was just at the Tower of London recently and walking through the, the arms and armor. You can see Henry VIII’s helmet and also his codpiece. So –

Sarah: I know. He was really –

Amanda: – that’s top of mind for me.

Sarah: – really compensating for something with…

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: How many people buy tickets to that be like, All right, let’s go see this guy’s groin?

Amanda: And it’s eye level if you have children, because they put the suits of armor up on little platforms, so it’s, like, right there.

Sarah: Yep.

Amanda: I had, I overheard many an uncomfortable conversation. [Laughs]

Sarah: See, I bought my ticket specifically to be like, I got to see this codpiece from…

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – are we talking about here?

Amanda: And I love it because some of the arms and armor in that ex-, exhibition, you know, we recognize they were kind of like recreated, they were cobbled together, but, like, the Henry VIII ones were like, no, no, no, this is him. Like this is, he decided to do this. [Laughs]

Sarah: It was, he was worried about the ample accommodation of certain parts of his body.

Amanda: Mm-hmm! Mm-hmm!

Sarah: He’s also very smooth, very shiny – on the cover, not Henry VIII – and I think he might be naked?

Amanda: I think he’s naked too, and I love that there’s like a tan difference as you get down to his like hip area; it gets a little paler. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yep. He’s, he’s got –

Amanda: So I think that is telling us he is naked.

Sarah: It’s not farmer tan. It’s like Johanna Lindsey hero –

Amanda: Fabio tan? I don’t…

Sarah: Fabio tan. Just from the waist up?

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: Very tan.

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: So I have two of the next one. I have a lower…

Amanda: Wait, can I, can I call out once again, though, you have the phallic sword going down, and then on her little waistline you have an open V belt!

Sarah: You do! Thank you for noticing that!

Amanda: …saying!

Sarah: Oh damn!

Amanda: Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

Sarah: So we have the V at her belt – I know that’s very pixelated now – we’ve got Vs on the shoulder, and there’s kind of a V at her bosom too.

Amanda: And it’s receiving, you know?

Sarah: Yes. It’s, it’s all pointed up to his downward thrusting sword. Oh my God.

Amanda: Yep. It’s there! [Laughs]

Sarah: You, you totally nailed that one – no pun intended.

Amanda: Uh-huh.

Sarah: You’re right! Oh, it’s amazing.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: All right, so let’s take a look at The Hawk and the Dove. So this is a cover flat? They don’t make these anymore, which is –

Amanda: Oh!

Sarah: Used to be able to just get the cardboard of the cover in a big flat, and then you could…do stuff. Like, I have one for my first book in 2009, and it’s the coolest thing? So this is like the full cover. This is sort of like the complete, what you would see if you held…

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – all the way open.

Amanda: The jacket, yeah.

Sarah: There’s a – thank you – that, there’s a lot going on here?

Amanda: A lot. Are any of these authors – sorry to interrupt you – are, are any of these authors using pen names? Virginia Henley? Like, is that her real name?

Sarah: You know what, I don’t know if Virginia Henley was her real name. A lot of them were. Let me see here. Virginia Henley – it’s the first google of the episode, everyone. Are you excited? Virginia Henley, I believe – okay, first of all, bless her, she is still alive and kicking at age eighty-nine, Miss Virginia. Virginia…

Amanda: God bless.

Sarah: Virginia Henley’s maiden name was Virginia Syddall, S-Y-D-D-A-L-L.

Amanda: Okay!

Sarah: I’m going with Sy-, Syddall? And she married Arthur Henley in 1956 –

Amanda: All right! So –

Sarah: – and he passed away in 2013, so that is her name.

Amanda: Wow! See, looking at romance covers, I always question, am I the one with a dirty mind or is it just being laid on too thick? And that was one of those moments.

Sarah: Por qué no los dos?

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: So with The Hawk and the Dove, I, number one, I don’t know what they’re lying down on. They –

Amanda: A bed of roses, perhaps?

Sarah: And half – it’s a waterbed?

Amanda: A waterbed of roses.

Sarah: A water – ‘cause there’s water behind them.

Amanda: It’s the Dove’s nest.

Sarah: Yes, they’re floating around in it. Also, he looks like he’s wearing jeans.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: Okay, so there’s a couple of things I want to ask you about: what jumps out at you? Let me see if I can make this a little bit bigger.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: Yeah. What jumps out at you?

Amanda: I have to say, woman on top; we love to see it.

Sarah: Yes!

Amanda: That’s the first time I’ve noticed it. And I’m looking at the tagline: He married her for money. So she is the one with power in this relationship. And I love to see that communicated in a cover image.

Sarah: Look at all the jewels and the fabric –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – and the amount of fabric. Like, the amount of fabric as a signal of wealth always grabs my attention?

Amanda: Mm-hmm! It’s coming back in fashion right now.

Sarah: Oh yes, it really is.

Amanda: Which I think is telling as, for the era that we are in, that excess of fabric and materials is on the runways. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yes, especially because as someone who buys fabric, a lot of this fabric is printed overseas and has become very expensive because of tariffs. We don’t have a lot of fabric…

Amanda: The next, the next status symbol.

Sarah: The next…

Amanda: Anyway.

Sarah: Fabric and food! So she’s got a lot of fabric; she’s got a lot of lace; she’s got some pearls hanging off both of her boobs.

Amanda: Love.

Sarah: Love it.

Amanda: But unbound hair, because is it even a romance cover if your hair isn’t loose and flowing?

Sarah: Yes.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: Hundred percent. We have a little castle, but we also have some ship masts.

Amanda: Hmmm!

Sarah: Ah-ah-ah! Now here’s something that I would love to ask you about.

Amanda: Please.

Sarah: If you look at his finger, the one that is not grabbing her thigh –

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – there is a tiny bird on his finger.

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: Why?

Amanda: To show that he’s gentle. He’s so delicate and has soft hands. That’s the female gaze right there. [Laughs]

Sarah: Look at how –

Amanda: Little birds come down to land on his finger because he’s such a tender-hearted soul is what I’m assuming.

Sarah: With nipples like dinner plates.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: There it is.

Amanda: Rippling muscles.

Sarah: Rippling muscles. This is, by the way, the Fabs. I’m pretty sure that’s the Fabio. That’s Mr…

Amanda: It looks like him, yeah. Now that you said it.

Sarah: Yeah. It’s, it’s, usually you can tell by the jaw.

Amanda: Uh-huh.

Sarah: …square, then it’s the Fabs.

Amanda: Yep.

Sarah: The hair color is completely irrelevant. You also – now that you’ve pointed that out to me, this is the only thing I can see – we have the V of her necklace; we have the open Vs of the pearls. I mean, why wear pearls around your neck when you can attach them to your bodice and drape them under your boobs? Like, what, why, why even go with the old way?

Amanda: It’s so good. She’s giving Queen Elizabeth – the first, not the second.

Sarah: Yes. Yes.

Amanda: [Laughs] In a way.

Sarah: Although QE2 could have, I mean –

Amanda: She loved the, she had like a brooch, it was the, two of the Cullinan diamonds?

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: And she called them granny’s chips, because granny –

Sarah: Yeah, why not?

Amanda: – granny used to wear them. She loved a jewel! I will say.

Sarah: Yeah. But –

Amanda: Her taste was a little tacky, but –

Sarah: Lizzie, Lizzie II could have done a lot by wearing a lot more of this, whatever all of…going on here.

Amanda: Stomach pearls…

Sarah: Yeah. All of this. This is by Sharon Spiak, who is still with us and is a, I’ve interviewed her before. She’s a fascinating, fascinating –

Amanda: You need to write this book. You have to. Basically –

Sarah: You think so?

Amanda: So my publisher, my publisher specializes in gift book coffee table books. If you ever want to submit a proposal, I will give you their names.

Sarah: Thank you. I will –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: I will be like, Hey, my agent who I’ve made nine dollars for…

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: …nine whole dollars.

So I, this is one of the covers that a lot of readers from my site and a lot of listeners suggested, because this is the one they think of when they think just over the top.

Amanda: It’s, yeah.

Sarah: Like, there’s a, there’s a Yiddish word I love, ongepotchket, which means over-decorated, over-done, just like we hosed the wall down with everything. This is an ongepotchket cover.

Amanda: Yeah, ‘80s excess. I’m, I’m assuming this is from the ‘80s just by looking at it.

Sarah: I’m gonna verify, but I think you’re right.

Amanda: It’s gotta be, right? The opulence, the extravagance.

Sarah: Originally published in 1988. Nailed it!

Amanda: Hell yeah. Yep. Very –

Sarah: [Laughs] And this is very ‘80s colors, too.

Amanda: The mauve, yeah. I, my godparents still have like a mauve living room color coordinated with their sofa, and I’m like, where am I? It’s 1982 – [laughs] – whenever I step into their house.

Sarah: It’s like when you go to a condo and it hasn’t been updated since the ‘90s. It’s like, wow –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – burgundy and dark green.

Amanda: And they just embrace it. I love it.

Sarah: Yeah, it’s like, okay! I love this cover because it is just so much. It’s…

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – even pretending to be anything other than, no, this is a romance novel and it’s going to be horny.

Amanda: It is, yeah. And I mean, again, this is sort of coming back in a way; we’re obsessed with the pre-Raphaelites right now? She’s giving –

Sarah: Yep.

Amanda: – a little bit of a pre-Raphaelite vibe with her long, red tresses. They’re –

Sarah: Yeah!

Amanda: – kind of curly on the top of her head. The roses. I’m into this. I like – this might be my favorite one so far.

Sarah: Ooh! You’re very right; this is very pre-Raphaelite. I just, all of these staffs and arms and –

Amanda: Masks.

Sarah: – masks, it’s just kind of –

Amanda: I’m thinking of waves, like the energy, like, pulling you forward and then back a little bit and then forward again, and it’s very sensual.

Sarah: Yep. Ships are all about schtupping, everybody.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: So this was suggested by one of my listeners and readers: Heart of the Falcon. This is again the Fabs. I could not find a higher res –

Amanda: There it is.

Sarah: – one of this – I apologize – but this one is –

Amanda: That’s okay.

Sarah: – this one is wild. Tell me, what do we got going on here?

Amanda: I mean, is this Anthony and Cleopatra? Like, what’s going on?

[Laughter]

Amanda: I love a pyramid. Again, upright triangle! Hello!

Sarah: Upright triangles!

Amanda: Hello!

Sarah: And big, big, upright, phallic palm trees –

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – reaching towards a full moon. Just the upright, the top right corner of this is already sexual. [Laughs]

Amanda: Wait, okay, I was gonna comment on the purple-pink, the fuchsia in ancient Egypt, I’m assuming. Then I realized he’s holding a sword. It’s in his hand.

Sarah: Oh yeah!

Amanda: What’s he going to do with that sword? Suzanne!

Sarah: Suzanne – wait, maybe, maybe they’re, like, on a, on a boat and he’s just paddling with his –

Amanda: Oh, maybe, maybe it’s not a sword; maybe it’s a –

Sarah: I know it looks like he’s about to, like, haul up and stab her. Like, he’s, like –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – getting ready to, to impale…

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – sword and not with his manly –

Amanda: So much, like, potential energy here. Like, with that in his hand and his rippling back muscles, like, it’s very evocative of, like, they’re in the moment kind of – swelling is the word I want to use? [Laughs] I don’t know if that’s quite right.

Sarah: Usually perfectly acceptable way to –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – to use in this context, absolutely.

Amanda: Mm-hmm. Wow.

Sarah: Also, irises are some very vaginal flowers.

Amanda: Mm! Mm-hmm!

Sarah: Yep. There’s a lot –

Amanda: Georgia O’Keeffe had…

Sarah: There’s a lot of Georgia O’Keeffe.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: But look at the number of open irises just folding around them. It’s incredible.

Amanda: It’s encouragement from nature. It’s –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: It’s divinely ordained that they shall…schtup. [Laughs]

Sarah: They shall, they shall visit Bone Town. Wow.

Amanda: I, I – she’s made up to the gods, though, and I love her little earring sparkle just so you know that this is a, a wealthy woman? [Laughs]

Sarah: Yep! And it’s very costume-y. Like, you know that –

Amanda: It is.

Sarah: …costume-y, but at the same time, it’s like, okay, I know the era, I know what’s happening, I – there’s a lot of tension. What’s going on?

Amanda: We didn’t try to make it naturalistic. We just went full send to, like, This is our interpretation and you’re going to, you’re going to read it! Like –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: – you’re gonna read it.

Sarah: Yep! Hundred percent!

Now this one I have a special affinity for, just because this is the art that I have on my wall.

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: The larger version – I don’t know if you can see over my shoulder – there’s a garden behind them, and there’s a very phallic gazebo.

Amanda: Mmm!

Sarah: Yeah, it’s kind of in the glare. I’ll have to find a better picture of it when it’s not, like the sun isn’t coming in this window?

Amanda: I wonder how many of these images, like, were originally expanded and, like –

Sarah: Oh –

Amanda: – we’ve just, we don’t know because they’re on a book cover and we can’t get the originals anymore.

Sarah: Yeah, you have to really go to an old bookstore, like a used bookstore that has bunches and bunches of the, you know, big fat paperbacks and then open them up, because usually the art goes alll the way across the back. Yeah, it’s like one piece. And if you see some of the original art, there was an exhibit. I want to say it was in Yardley?

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: Yeah, it was, it was last winter. So I drove up from DC because I was like, I’m not missing this. It was, it was all one artist’s cover art.

Amanda: Wow.

Sarah: And then paired with the books that it ended up on. But a lot of them were these huge landscape-oriented pictures, you know, two couples going to Bone Town, maybe a little miniature vignette of them for the spine.

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: The rest of the setting had this big empty space for the cover copy? Like, they’re just…

Amanda: Yeah, I love that!

Sarah: That’s how they were all designed.

This one, that’s John DeSalvo. I have a special soft spot for him because when I was writing my first book, The Smart Bitches’ Guide to Romance Novels –

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – I reached out to Fabio; I reached out to some other cover models. John DeSalvo was the only one who emailed me back and answered my questions.

Amanda: Bless his heart.

Sarah: …super chill and into it? One question, and we haven’t seen a lot of that on, on, on these covers, but one question that has always made me confused is there are so many romance heroes who have their shirts open but still tucked in? Like, who unbuttons his shirt without pulling it out of your trousers first? Like, I don’t understand.

Amanda: It’s the heat of the moment. I don’t…

Sarah: Yeah, he’s like, it’s like, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s the tension.

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: Now that you’ve said that, it’s a V! Of course that’s why!

Amanda: Leading the eye and –

Sarah: Leading the eye down to the –

Amanda: That’s what we have here as well. Can I just say the –

Sarah: Well, well, yes!

Amanda: – the, the, what is this? A sh-, I want to say shoulder belt. I know there’s a word for it. Is it a quiver? Are there arrows involved on the back? I don’t know.

Sarah: It is a hot pink gladiator toga, though.

Amanda: It’s nice. I, I’m into it. And I like the ar-, the one arm brace for protection, presumably.

Sarah: Yep.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: Just in case you’re, you know, punching somebody, they’re not going to grab your wrist. She’s – okay, first of all, ye olde bra is doing the work here. Her, her breasts are extremely lifted in a way –

Amanda: Sky high.

Sarah: Yes. Like –

Amanda: She’s hoisted.

Sarah: And look at how many V’s there are! Her necklace, her neckline, and his, his pants – or his pants – his skirt and the top –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – and the wow!

Amanda: And even her pulling up her skirt kind of creates this upward triangle –

Sarah: Yep.

Amanda: – leading you to the groin area. I’m just saying!

Sarah: You’re, you’re not wrong.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: With this one, what else – I mean, other than horny and Vs – do you notice anything else about this particular cover?

Amanda: I’m trying to look here. I’m counting arms, ‘cause I know that’s coming – [laughs] – but I don’t think this is the one.

Sarah: Still coming.

Amanda: Where, I mean, his hair might be better than hers on this cover.

Sarah: Do you know – I’ve talked about this – I used to think, when I was a kid, ‘cause I was, I was born in the mid ‘70s, so, like, the big, like, purple fuchsia, giant bosom romance novels, well, those were the ones that I first started reading in like the early ‘90s. I really thought that when I grew up, when you reached adulthood, your hair just did that.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: Like, everything that’s happening on a romance novel cover with the long flowing, never frizzy, never tangled, even though they’re on a ship hair, that’s what your hair was gonna look like when you were an adult. That’s not what happened. I’m very sad.

Amanda: No. Even with the best of dry shampoo and –

Sarah: I know!

Amanda: – styling creams, I cannot achieve that level of perfection.

Sarah: Also, you notice we have lot of redheads in this collection? I didn’t do this –

Amanda: Oh, always, always.

Sarah: …a lot of redheads.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: It’s very interesting.

Amanda: ‘Cause they’re not like other girls.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: You know? They’ve got to be, our heroines must not be like other girls.

Sarah: No, they can’t be like other girls. That’s silly.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: All right, so the next one is one of the most legendary covers in romance.

Amanda: This is the one!

Sarah: This is the one. Castles in the Air by Christina Dodd.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: This woman, this woman is my avatar on a lot of places. You remember, like, back in the day on the internet, you could set an avatar and it would kind of follow you through all the different comments sections?

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: This was my avatar, this woman, because if I had three arms, do you have any idea how much I would get done?

Amanda: How powerful you would be!

Sarah: I would have so many things going on. I would be the queen of multitasking, but yes, this is the woman with three hands.

Amanda: There they are. Wow! Okay, so I love, there’s tension in that, too, in the fact that she has three arms. You have the one that’s down by her side.

Sarah: Yep. Holding her up.

Amanda:  And the alternate was holding the man’s hand. So it’s a question of, do we want her to be being ravished or an active participant?

Sarah: Yep!

Amanda: I, I think there’s something there.

Sarah: There’s a duality in these three hands.

Amanda: [Laughs] And then the one, of course, she’s just trying not to fall over –

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: – on the other side.

Sarah: I always wonder if the, if the people on these covers are like, Ugh, rocks? Really? Really, rock. Really doing it on rocks again? Do we have to? Like, what if we didn’t?

Amanda: And I wonder, like, with the models, were they brought into a studio to do these, do these poses, or are we actually referencing something like Greek sculpture? Because there are plenty of Greek – I’m thinking Cupid and Psyche as a reference. You can –

Sarah: Yeah!

Amanda: – bring it forward to Rodin; he has a couple of making-out couples. Are we just referencing for poses and then the faces are the models? I would love to be like a fly on the wall for one of these sessions.

Sarah: From what I remember from my interview with Sharon Spiak, the models are hired, but it’s very specific models, because much like doing an interview with someone –

Amanda: Mm.

Sarah: – very well, but you’re having a pretty like, you know, intimate conversation, you have to, like, get past the initial small talk and have a deep conversation with someone you don’t know? These models have to act like they’re super into someone they don’t know.

Amanda: Right.

Sarah: And they were telling me that they, they started having favorite models just because they understood how to make this work? They are –

Amanda: Sure.

Sarah: And also they had good chemistry…

Amanda: Chemistry, yeah, that’s what I…

Sarah: – people they were working with. So there was one period when a famous soap opera actress named Ewa Da Cruz was on all of them because she was just so good at cover modeling. But they take a whole bunch of photos –

Amanda: Hm.

Sarah: – and then the artist will paint based on those photos. I wonder if it’s, this is the pose or it’s also, you know, this is the pose and this is the piece of classical art. I have one –

Amanda: Right.

Sarah: – that I really wonder is like, okay, were you really leaning into classical art here?

Amanda: Right, right, right. Yeah, that’s so interesting about, like – and I wonder if there were certain pairings of models that would work together, like, kind of like a Dave Franco and an Alison Brie, like they just know they worked well together.

Sarah: Yep!

Amanda: They have good chemistry and they look good on a cover, damn it.

Sarah: The McAdams and Gosling of romance covers? Absolutely –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – there were.

Amanda: Anyway, back to the three hands – [laughs] – do we know why this happened?

Sarah: I think it was an artist’s mistake that no one noticed. The, the author, Christina Dodd, has a whole page on her website, like you…that the book, that your book cover has three arms, what do you do? You tell everyone!

Amanda: Yeah, it’s brilliant. I love it so much.

Sarah: You tell everybody! Yes. One –

Amanda: So good.

Sarah: And even without the third arm –

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – this is, this is clearly like a Knights Templar plot era. Like, he’s got chain mail; he’s got a big red cross on his chest. There’s a lot of V action in all of that. She’s got half off the shoulder and half square neckline.

Amanda: Yeah, he must be really pulling for that type of dress with that embroidery around the shoulders to be slipping off.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: Like, some real tension there.

Sarah: Yeah, he’s really yanking down her dress.

Amanda: [Laughs] And she’s belted, but I love when we look at these models; there’s often like a transition from they’re very, like, structured and rigid on the top, like the bodice?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: And then the flowing skirt, like a little bit more free, a little more loose.

Sarah: Oh, you’re right!

Amanda: I love that.

Sarah: There is a lot of tight boning and tailoring that, the bodices are always tight.

Amanda: But then we’re, we’re hiking up the skirt, or the skirt is –

Sarah: Yep.

Amanda: – kind of coming, coming undone and flowing in the wind, ‘cause –

Sarah: Yep. Like, two…

Amanda: – tension is the key word.

Sarah: Three yards of fabric for the top and fifty for the bottom.

Amanda: Right. [Laughs]

Sarah: So I added this one just real quick because this is my favorite Why are you having sex here?

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: This is Edith Layton’s For the Love of a Pirate. I didn’t –

Amanda: My gosh! That would hurt so, that would be so painful for everyone involved.

Sarah: They’re on spiky rocks. He is kneeling. She’s also kneeling and putting her leg up over him, but there are these massive waves behind them that are about to drown them both.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: So why here?

Amanda: The only permissible explanation is that this is Elizabeth Swan and – I don’t know his character name off the top of my head – Orlando Bloom at the end of that one pirates movie where he has to go back out to sea for –

Sarah: Yep.

Amanda: – seven years or whatever. This is the, this is the moment. They cannot move; they do not have time.

Sarah: It’s true! You know what? You might be right there. He’s, at that point, think he’s Davy Jones. He kind of controls –

Amanda: Right.

Sarah: Or maybe he gets like a little bubble, like the water will part around him magically.

Amanda: Hmm! That would be nice. I would, I would read that scene.

Sarah: I will forever love this cover. This is just, okay, sure! Right there. I under- –

Amanda: Why not?

Sarah: Sure! That, that can’t be comfortable, but –

Amanda: I love the wide angle ‘cause we had to get the waves in –

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: – to, like, raise the stakes.

Sarah: Waves cresting. There’s a lot of waves cresting language when you have an orgasm, too.

Amanda: Mmm.

Sarah: Clearly they are about to go to Bone Town.

The next one I sent you is –

Amanda: Oooh!

Sarah: – The Rose & the Flame by Patricia Phillips. This was suggested by a reader and listener. This is –

Amanda: Okay!

Sarah: – very opulent.

Amanda: Mm-hmm. It’s a little against type, I will say.

Sarah: I got a, I got a lot of questions here, starting with what is this outfit he’s wearing?

Amanda: [Laughs] It’s 14th-century realness is all I can say.

Sarah: Very baggy in the chest area.

Amanda: But velvet, very sumptuous.

Sarah: Oh yes.

Amanda: Not synthetic.

Sarah: Nooo!

Amanda: [Laughs] Beautiful! I really like this. So she’s a little bit more buttoned up than the other ones we’ve seen, particularly because her hair is done and, like, you know, if you watch period pieces, you know, if a, if a woman has her hair up, she’s married and off the market, and if it’s down, it’s flowing, it’s loose, she’s either single, a child, or just, like, rebellious and doesn’t care.

Sarah: Or, or Kate Middleton.

Amanda: Or Kate Middleton, the queen of the bouncy blowout. But I think that’s why you always see the, the loose flowing tresses on these covers, because –

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: …women cannot be contained, and I love that this one is just going the opposite direction. And I, I assume, you know, shortly it will be unbound, given context clues in this image.

Sarah: She also has incredibly rich, dark, black hair.

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: It is gathered up into, like, okay, so there’s a, a cowl net at the back. You can see –

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – netting, but then the top is kind of like, if you had a French twist, but it stuck up a lot and went all the way to your forehead, like a big sausage mohawk.

Amanda: But also like Nancy Reagan poof on the top?

Sarah: Yes! Lot of poofy in the front there too. He’s, he’s also got floofy, puffy mullet.

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: But look at all of the pearls in her hair.

Amanda: Yes.

Sarah: Very, very suggestive. Pearl everywhere.

Amanda: Yes. Oh, it’s so fascinating. The netting kind of containing it, and her bodice is not slipping. It’s low cut and she’s heaving, but it’s not, it’s – she’s fully clothed, which –

Sarah: Oh yeah!

Amanda: – you can’t always say. And then –

Sarah: …much progress here.

Amanda: You do have the transition, though, in the image from very structured up top to, okay, the rose of flame, The Rose & the Flame – I’m sorry. It flows outwards and it becomes very loose. Her dress turns into roses –

Sarah: Yep!

Amanda: – question mark? [Laughs] Wow, a different take on the genre! I love it!

Sarah: And his, his outfit, I’m guessing that’s a doublet or something with a doublet?

Amanda: Got to be. There’s layers here. Yeah, it’s like early Tudor, if I’m placing it in royal history, but I don’t know much about, like, the fashion history of that. [Laughs]

Sarah: It almost looks like, because it is so wrinkled and lumpy in the front, it almost looks like his bodice in the back, like the back of his doublet is open, and it’s loose in the front because she –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: …his clothes off

Amanda: The Velcro on the back is loose again.

Sarah: Yes!

[Laughter, crosstalk]

Amanda: We’re mixing eras too, ‘cause she’s dressed for Versailles in like –

Sarah: Yes!

Amanda: – 1760, and he’s 1450, easy.

Sarah: Wait, this, maybe this is a time travel. Usually –

Amanda: …romance? [Laughs]

Sarah: Do you remember those? They used to be like all over the place. You get time travel forward, time travel backwards. Everybody’s time…

Amanda: I, the only ones I’ve really read are the Outlander books, honestly.

Sarah: Ooh! Oh-ho-ho.

Amanda: Which – [laughs]

Sarah: Also time travel.

Amanda: …heavy, heavy one.

Sarah: Okay, so, according to – okay, this is a very interesting cover copy. The Rose & the Flame by Patricia Phillips, if you’re curious, 3.63 stars with sixteen ratings on Goodreads. If you like this book, it needs some help…

Amanda: About to be seventeen.

Sarah: That’s right.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: >> She was a rose ripe for the plucking. He was a flame burning hot with desire. Sultry and exquisitely beautiful Elena was sought after by every man in Mary Tudor’s court.

Amanda: Mary Tudor!

Sarah: Mary Tudor!

Amanda: Heck yeah! Here we, here we go.

Sarah: >> But golden as the sun, Luis de los Santos had given her a taste of ecstasy in his strong arms. Driven apart by pride, they reunited by destiny on the sun-drenched plains of a Spanish rancho.

Amanda: Okay, I love this because, historically speaking, that’s very compelling. The intersection between Mary Tudor – if we’re talking about Mary, like Bloody Mary?

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Amanda: Who married the King of Spain –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: – and the meeting of those worlds? I would read that book if it wasn’t a romance novel! 

Sarah: This is so interesting…

Amanda: It’s about to be seventeen reviews on Goodreads. I’m going to…

Sarah: Hell –

Amanda: – this up! [Laughs]

Sarah: Hell yeah!

>> Now Luis belonged to another, but his forbidden love for Elena…no bounds! They would battle the dangers of their turbulent era and forge a new life together.

I could put this under a box with a little stick and you would be like, it would be like Amanda bait

Amanda: Yeah, you’d capture me.

Sarah: I would just, like, boom! This, this is what we would call fucking through history.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: All of this stuff is going to go down, but you’re also going to get a lot of history lessons. Like, that’s the other thing about reading a lot of romance?

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: You learn a lot of history.

Amanda: You do! Like, you get, you learn approximate knowledge. You’ve got to fact check a little bit, but approximate knowledge about a lot of different eras.

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Amanda: And we’re globetrotting. Like, I don’t know, I’m thinking of Skye O’Malley. Didn’t she get captured by a Muslim warlord or a sultan at one point?

Sarah: At least…

Amanda: Something like that?

Sarah: Could have been twice!

Amanda: [Laughs] Probably multiple times, because we never learn our lesson.

Sarah: It was a, it was a series, so another kidnapping may need to have happened.

Amanda: Mm-hmm, so to drive the plot yeah, mm-hmm.

Sarah: Of course!

Amanda: ‘Cause once they have kids and they settle down, we’ve got to bring them back into the plot.

Sarah: Yeah! Got to get the band back together and head out back to sea.

Amanda: [Laughs] Wow, this is incredible.

Sarah: This is, this is the one that grabs you.

Amanda: Yeah, it really does. Especially ‘cause of, like, we got, we were so meticulous about his outfit, even though it is like a Party City costume version, and hers is just three hundred years later. I’m so impressed with that. [Laughs]

Sarah: You’ve got to wonder, like, if you’re staging these, you know, do you have just costumes and they just –

Amanda: Is it, yeah, just what you had in the back?

Sarah: …ye olde costume? ‘Cause, I mean, you could also make this different colors and make it like a Mississippi riverboat madam.

Amanda: And I, I don’t really understand it either, because it’s not like tits weren’t out in the Tudor era; like, they kind of were? I, my friend Ann Foster, that’s one of her slogans on her podcast Vulgar History, Tits Out, because there are so many examples of badass women from history in portraiture and in real life just loving having their boobs on display. And it goes back to the Tudor times, so I don’t know why necessarily we had to fast forward three hundred years to France for this costume, other than, yeah, maybe it was just what they had on the rack in the studio that day. Yeah.

Sarah: It does not look – this is a 1990, no, 1989 novel – does not look like the digital rights were ever sold, so if you want it, you can only get it in a paperback.

Amanda: All right, I’ll start scrubbing the bookstore for it. [Laughs]

Sarah: All right, so the next one, I think, draws – this is a very old cover – I think this draws a lot from classic art, and I want to know what you think. Are you ready?

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: All right!

Amanda: Oh yeah, there it is! Cupid and Psyche.

Sarah: Yep!

Amanda: Right away! So we have the woman underneath arching her body up. [Laughs] I’m, like, trying to do it. Arching her body up towards the man who is floating, question mark? Down towards her?

Sarah: He’s, he is almost horizontal.

Amanda: He really is, and so she’s reaching up –

Sarah: He’s flying!

Amanda: Yeah. That’s… Antonio Canova, Cupid and Psyche, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Look it up. That’s what this is. [Laughs]

Sarah: Antonio –

Amanda: Canova, C-A-N-O-V-A.

Sarah: Cupid und Psyche. Oh, look at them!

Amanda: There they are.

Sarah: Yeah!

Amanda: There’s probably one that’s a bang-on match. Oh yeah, there are so many examples. So you can also look at Theodore Friedl, Cupid and Psyche, 1890. [Laughs] Let’s see, I’m just, like, doing a Google search. And then yes, Psyche Revived by Cupid’s kiss by –

Sarah: Oh!

Amanda: It’s the arm –

Sarah: It’s –

Amanda: – the outstretched, rounded arm.

Sarah: It’s the, yes, the arm reaching up –

Amanda: Yep.

Sarah: – in a big curve, and the way that he’s looking, he is looking down at her, and she’s looking slightly away.

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: Yep! Yeah, this is very Cupid and Psyche.

Amanda: I –

Sarah: …a little, a little Michelangelo with all the drapey.

Amanda: Yeah, and I was thinking, like, even something like the creation of man.

Sarah: Oh yes!

Amanda: God touching Adam’s finger almost, but, like, not quite. We’re almost there, but we’re not touching. Like, her hand is hovering.

Sarah: Wow.

Amanda: [Laughs] What can you say? It’s very high brow.

Sarah: It’s really, gets the job done, doesn’t it?

Amanda: Yeah, I’m, I’m intrigued.

Sarah: The other, the other thing that jumps out about this is the light. This is a very dark –

Amanda: It’s gorgeous.

Sarah: It’s gorgeous, but this is a dark cover!

Amanda: Yeah. If they’re being lit from behind, though, she’s way too bright, way too illuminated – [laughs] – ‘cause we need to have her be the focal point?

Sarah: Yes.

Amanda: But I love it! I love the colors of the background, that, like, watercolor –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: – moody sky? I’m assuming it’s a sky?

Sarah: Yeah, I think it is. But if you’re, if you’re talking about The Creation of –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – Adam, yes –

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: – this, also there’s –

Amanda: In a way.

Sarah: – draping and flowing and almost touching.

Amanda: The, the limp hands, like almost, yeah.

Sarah: And he’s, he’s, well, he’s got a blue bed sheet is what he’s got.

Amanda: He looks like Jesus!

Sarah: Look at that jawline. Look at that face!

Amanda: Clenched.

Sarah: That’s like this, that’s like when you see a mountain, and the edge of the mountain look like the old man’s face in New Hampshire, the, the –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – the craggy – like, that guy’s face –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – craggy. It’s a cliff. Like –

Amanda: Chiseled.

Sarah: Yes, chiseled. It is very, very – wow, that’s a jawline.

Amanda: I would dive into the ocean off of that chin.

Sarah: I mean, you could take shelter under his nose.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: Look at how gorgeous this is, though. Like, I would hang this on a wall.

Amanda: This, yeah. I really –

Sarah: This is –

Amanda: – into this.

Sarah: This is really leaning into the, it’s very Renaissance.

Amanda: Mm-hmm, very Renaissance. I’m trying to think what else. It’s a little Expressionistic, because we do – I don’t know if it’s just the resolution of the image, but, like, that background being so moody and like a, almost like a Turner painting, the sky.

Sarah: Yes! Absolutely.

Amanda: Gorgeous. I’m a fan.

Sarah: There are very few high-res versions of this one, and there are –

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – some low-res ones that have more, that have, like, turned the brightness up, but I like how dark this is.

Amanda: Yes, I like the vibe of that. I think it lends to the charm.

Sarah: All right, we’ve got three more. Are you ready?

Amanda: I am so ready.

Sarah: This is one of the classic, most memorable covers: Savage Thunder –

Amanda: [Gasps]

Sarah: – by Johanna Lindsey.

Amanda: Oh my gosh. I was at Goodwill the other day and I picked up – ‘cause I knew we were going to record this – I was looking at the shelves. I don’t think it was this exactly, but I saw a book cover ninety-nine percent of the way there. This is –

Sarah: Yep!

Amanda: – classic.

Sarah: There are people who have staged photo shoots of themselves –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – in poses.

Amanda: You have to!

Sarah: People have Photoshopped their faces onto this one. I mean, and that is the Fabs.

Amanda: I was just going to say.

Sarah: That’s the Fabs.

Amanda: You can tell!

Sarah: Oh yeah! It’s, it’s always in the jaw and the nose. You can just, oh yeah, there’s, there he is.

Amanda: There he is! I love – okay, so we have moccasin boots, a fringed leather vest on him.

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Amanda: So did he take his shirt off and then put the vest back on?

Sarah: Oh, he’s so manly, he doesn’t need a shirt.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: These, these are romance heroes for whom shirts are irrelevant.

Amanda: Unbridled stallion in the background, a very phallic cliff – ant hill? I don’t know. [Laughs]

Sarah: Amanda, you are going to die when I read you the cover copy of this one; oh my God.

Amanda: I’m so excited.

Sarah: Okay. So before we get to the cover copy, not only do we have lots and lots of V’s, but we have a lot of straight lines. We’ve got the fringe; we’ve got the –

Amanda: Mm.

Sarah: – the rock formation in the background; rearing horse. There’s always –

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – an animal freaking the hell out in the background.

Amanda: Cacti.

Sarah: Yep. Cactus.

Amanda: Spiky, spiky environment.

Sarah: Yep. Yeah, I, I, I – very suggestive of something. Oh, and he’s got a gun.

Amanda: Oh, mm-hmm! He’s got a gun.

Sarah: There it is. And the back of her shirt is of course that deep V.

Amanda: Mm-hmm!

Sarah: All right, are you, are you – you’re not ready for the cover copy here.

Amanda: Au contraire: I am more than ready.

[Laughter]

Sarah: >> Newly widowed after a shockingly brief marriage to an elderly British lord –

[More laughter]

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: – Jocelyn Fleming still aches with the pain –

Amanda: Jocelyn Fleming!

Sarah: >> Jocelyn Fleming, who aches with the pain of unexplored desire. Now her restless heart is leading her far from the protective bosom of polite London society to the perilous beauty of the American West and – [dramatic pause] – to Colt Thunder

Amanda: Colt – [dramatic pause] – Thunder.

Sarah: That’s his name.

Amanda: Did his mom give him that name? [Laughs]

Sarah: I bet she did! She knew what was going to happen: this baby looks like Fabio; he’s going to grow up to be a romance novel cover hero.

Amanda: He has rectangular pecs. Like, they’re just –

Sarah: They’re square.

Amanda: – like loaves of bread.

Sarah: He’s a Lego. He’s made of Lego, this guy.

>> Recklessly exciting, but dangerously unpredictable, Colt is a loner –

Oh God.

>> – whose Cheyenne blood burns hotter than the blistering Arizona sun.

Oh boy, it’s a –

Amanda: Ohhh!

Sarah: – “Indian romance.”

Amanda: Oh.

Sarah: >> Jocelyn’s wealth land title mean nothing to this stranger whose passion rules his actions and his heart.

Side note: that’s not a great choice for a partner, someone who’s unable to control their emotions and, you know, have regulation. You need, kind of need that.

Amanda: I need to, I need to know why she needs to go to the American West if she has a title and is widowed by a wealthy English lord. Like –

Sarah: Literally –

Amanda: – I want the setup.

Sarah: To quote novelist Alisha Rai, In, in that setting, dick is plentiful and of, of low value.

Amanda: That’s true. [Laughs] This is true.

Sarah: >> But neither the wired, wild desert stallion nor the untouched English rose can deny their irresistible attraction!

Oh my gosh!

Amanda: The English rose trope: there it is.

Sarah: Yep! There it is. Although she’s a ginger. How, how well would she have been accepted, because they got all these hang-ups about gingers being low class.

Amanda: She looks like a box-dye ginger. Like I, I, I don’t know if it’s just the res of the image? Like, the color is bleeding out of her hair as I’m looking at it. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah, it’s, it’s definitely flaring into the sunset. Her hair is the color of a sunset for sure.

Amanda: Mm-hmm. Wow.

Sarah: There’s another book that I have read a whole bunch of times, and I can’t remember if it’s The Lion’s Lady or The Black Lyon – I think it’s The Lion’s Lady – where the heroine is a blonde woman who’s adopted into a tribe, and I want to, she might have been Comanche; I’d have to look it up. But it turns out that she’s secretly, it’s a secret princess story. She’s secretly –

Amanda: Hmm.

Sarah: – heir to a great fortune and is brought over to England to be part of society and to have her come out. And it’s like, wow, this is so problematic.

Amanda: So many different directions.

Sarah: Yes!

[Laughter]

Sarah: It’s layers of yikes, and –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – as a lost princess story, it’s a very popular older romance.

Amanda: How do you feel about, like, the tropification of novels, especially like now where we’re marketing books just based on tropes? Like Lost Princess; we have Indian romance here. Like, I don’t know.

Sarah: I think – I have to correct myself, ‘cause people are going to start screaming at me, and I –

Amanda: [Laughs] I don’t, to be clear, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with these tropes?

Sarah: I know.

Amanda: I like to figure them out for myself. I don’t love to be sold a book based on, oh, it’s enemies-to-lovers; you’ll love it.

Sarah: Yes. I have a lot of thoughts on that.

So the book I’m talking about is The Lion’s Lady by Julie Garwood. I just had to make sure I had that right, ‘cause someone was going to be like, So I can’t believe you didn’t remember that, ‘cause I love, love Julie Garwood.

I think that what is happening right now is that we have a number of things converging in terms of book marketing? Right now –

Amanda: Mm.

Sarah: – it’s very heavily marketed with the tropes up front. Like, a lot of the promo is, you know, there’s only one bed, enemies-to-lovers –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – second chance. Like, they’re marketing books very heavily on the tropes, especially online. That is because the audience that has, I think, in part, the audience that has read fanfic and has tagged all their fics –

Amanda: Hmmm.

Sarah: – is now looking at pubbed –

Amanda: That’s such a good point.

Sarah: – traditionally published things and being like, Oh, well, what are the tags on this? Just as we have the more common usage of content warning and trigger warnings, we also have an increased use of tags indicating what kind of story this is. And it’s useful because BISAC codes are not very specific. Like, I could talk –

Amanda: Mm.

Sarah: – about contemporary romance, and you could be talking about contemporary romance, but when you –

Amanda: It’s two different things.

Sarah: Right. You could be meaning like a, like a, like a dark mafia romance…

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – sex trafficking, and I’m talking about something really very, you know, wholesome and on the coast with some roses and some geraniums on the cover, maybe a rocking chair, or an Adirondack chair. There was a period when they all had Adirondack chairs.

Amanda: [Laughs] Yes! That’s so – okay.

Sarah: Very evocative, right?

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: Because those two terms are the same thing but mean different things, readers have developed a lot more specific language. And part of that is tags, and part of that is nicknames, and, you know, we call this Old School romance because it’s very different from what’s being published now. Like, you could go back and read these, and I can give you all of the warnings, but you just have to be prepared that this is going to be holistically different from…

Amanda: Right.

Sarah: – read right now ‘cause the genre’s changed.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: So, like, the, the, the trope forwardness is useful in terms of readers communicating with each other because you know what you’re going to get, and readers now are very, I think, discerning in terms of the very specific things that they want, which, awesome. The downside is that I think that books are being created based on the tags? Like, starting with the marketing and then working backwards.

Amanda: Right.

Sarah: In a lot of ways, that creates what we call no plot, just vibes.

Amanda: No plot, just vibes! Sure.

Sarah: ‘Cause there’s no stakes!

Amanda: Yeah. That’s so smart, though. I’m, I’m really glad you explained the fanfic angle? Yeah –

Sarah: That is my theory.

Amanda: – the fanfic-ification? [Laughs]

Sarah: That is my theory, yeah.

Amanda: ‘Cause I was ready to chalk it up to, like, a decline in, I mean, media literacy –

Sarah: Well, that too!

Amanda: – reg-, regular literacy, take your pick. But that gives me hope. It’s just, like, people’s tastes and how we approach these stories is changing. But yeah, I will say, like, there are some books recently that I’ve read, I can tell, like, I’m not going to say no plot, just vibes, but we included certain plot points just to hit a check mark –

Sarah: Yes, I –

Amanda: – of that trope.

Sarah: I liken it – you will understand this analogy very well, thank you! – I liken it to driving on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: You can drive from rest stop to rest stop to rest stop, right? Like –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – are you, are you, are you at Breezewood, or are you at Carlisle? Like, there’s –

Amanda: …Mountain?

Sarah: – plot there! If you’ve been on the Pennsylvania turnpike, there’s not a lot there. You’re driving from stop to stop and so –

Amanda: No plot, just vibes! [Laughs]

Sarah: – no plot, just vibes, and sometimes – and, well there is a plot to the Turnpike is, the plot is it’s bad. ‘Cause it’s never finished. It’s, they’re always going to fix a part of it, right?

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: But, like, you, you start with the tropes, so you move the characters from trope to trope with – and sometimes without the underlying tension that creates the reason for that trope. Like, if you just met and there’s only one bed, okay, well then sleep head to foot. You’ll live, be comfortable…

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – night’s sleep, but if you’re like –

Amanda: Right.

Sarah: – secretly carrying massive horny pants and suppressing all of your unresolved sexual tension, well, then there only one bed is a whole other thing.

I also think that the fanfic influence on romance, especially the marketing, indicates a very specific kind of, it’s a very specific kind of literacy that comes with a taxonomy.

Amanda: Mm.

Sarah: So the, the, the tropes and the elements and the things that are labeled that this book has, including the content warnings and the trig-, and the trigger warnings, that’s all a taxonomy mixed with literacy.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: And it’s a completely different way of talking about books. It’s fascinating!

Amanda: Yeah, dare I say it’s the best genre for that reason. It’s so, it’s a rich text in and of itself.

Sarah: Absolutely! Especially if you’re looking at a, a particular slash pairing that isn’t in the original and it’s nothing but tags of all the different ways these characters’ tension can be recast?

Amanda: Mm.

Sarah: We’re all just recycling the same tension, you know?

Amanda: Mm-hmm. Well, thank you, that actually gives me so much chew on. Wow.

Sarah: That’s my theory. That’s my theory, anyway.

So I’ve got two more, and we’ll end with my, my favorite. This is another Johanna Lindsey. Johanna Lindsey had the greatest covers, I think.

Amanda: Mm.

Sarah: …covers. This is, I think this is the same guy as A Rose in Winter? Maybe they increased his chin.

Amanda: He got a haircut, yeah.

Sarah: I have to tilt my head all the way to the side to check out that guy’s face, but –

Amanda: He, errr.

Sarah: He’s very, he’s very craggy. It was…all the same model, I can find his name. This is the one where he is butt-nekkid, and he is basically thrusting his naked man parts betwixt her bosoms. Like, he is straight up humping her sternum.

Amanda: As you do.

Sarah: As you do. So what do you see? [Laughs]

Amanda: What do I see? Whoo! Tan lines, once again. [Laughs] She’s a little bit tied up in her flowing garments, I will say, which I don’t know if that’s a plot point. Her hand almost, like, looks like it’s bound behind her back! Oh my! Tender Is the Storm. Okay. I see ‘80s blue eyeshadow –

Sarah: Oh, very, yes.

Amanda: – and drawn-on brows, which I’m a big fan of here. I can’t get over the thrusting of the groin into the chest. I’m sorry.

Sarah: I mean, haven’t you always wanted to have your sternum addressed in such a manner?

Amanda: Above a canyon?

Sarah: Yeah, right on the edge of the canyon.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: …just –

Amanda: And it looks pretty breezy. I’d be worried about toppling over.

Sarah: But it’s interesting because his hair doesn’t seem to be moving much except for the top –

Amanda: Mm, mm-hmm.

Sarah: – but her hair and her dress and the bush behind her and the skirt, they are all blowing –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – off the side, like his thrusting is disturbing the wind velocity in the –

Amanda: [Laughs] Oh, he’s an immovable force. When a man’s passion explodes into violence – oh God – only a woman’s desire can turn it to love. See, another thing you could never write and publish today. Or you could if you’re Colleen Hoover. You just have to, like, package it in a floral dust jacket.

Sarah: Yep!

Amanda: But, wow! I love her little hair ornaments that are still in place. See that, she’s got, got like a little crown or something? [Laughs]

Sarah: It, it’s like three little medallions, right?

Amanda: Yeah, in her hair.

Sarah: So this is the original cover.

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: And it was very controversial because, well, you know –

Amanda: That’s a sex act. Like, that’s what’s happening here.

Sarah: Yes, exactly. The problem was actually his ass! The problem was his butt!

Amanda: [Laughs] Nooo!

Sarah: There are more cover versions, which I’m about to show you, of this cover. We did a, we had a guest post from Steve Ammidown, who’s a romance historian and former librarian at the Browne Popular Culture Library. And this was painted by Robert McGinnis, who passed away earlier this year, and he was the, he was the one who painted this one and many other of the original Lindsey covers? He also did a lot of pulp movie posters like Live and Let Die. The –

Amanda: Mm.

Sarah: – original Breakfast at Tiffany’s poster with the colored border and Audrey Hepburn on one side, that was also him.

Amanda: I’m going to pull that up.

Sarah: Isn’t that incredible? Then Barbarella, the original movie art was also this artist. He had a very, very long and –

Amanda: It’s very campy! I’m into it!

Sarah: Extremely campy.

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: So first, I will show you that we had, we had some controversy here because of the naked man ass.

Amanda: Yes.

Sarah: So the first option that was explored was to cover his ass with a Coast to Coast Bestseller!

Amanda: [Laughs] Oh, fantastic!

Sarah: Right? The naked man butt was like, it’s like a peen on prime time. We can’t do that.

Amanda: Well, and it’s not even on the original. I’m assuming this is the original, the first one you showed me, where he’s like, he’s slightly in the bush. It’s, he’s not even –

Sarah: A little bit of –

Amanda: – full side butt.

Sarah: – sage is just tapping his buttock.

Amanda: But that edit reminds me, I mentioned Bachelor in Paradise earlier.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: I think we were off mic. There was a couple, a couple seasons ago on the main season of The Bachelor, ABC, now owned by Disney or their conglomerate – I don’t know – ABC, parent company Disney, decided that women in bikini bottoms was too risqué, so they painted on, like, additions to the women’s bikini bottoms on as it aired? So there’s a whole season of The Bachelor where you can find, like, women with painted-on, like, diaper butts, unfortunately.

Sarah: Ohhh, wow!

Amanda: Yeah, that’s what that’s reminding me of.

Sarah: This is –

Amanda: But the heaving bosoms is okay.

Sarah: Oh yeah, the bosoms are fine. The bosoms, the open mouth, all of, like, you know, all of it. Having three arms? Fine. Naked man butt, no.

Amanda: No.

Sarah: Is that, is the, is The Bachelor with the original cut, is that like the butthole cut of Cats, where…?

Amanda: [Laughs] Almost. Yeah, I can send it to you. It’s, it’s really just like MS Paint level.

Sarah: Ah!

Amanda: I’ll send you some images. Yeah.

Sarah: Why, why? Why even bother? I think there are so many parallels to now and the, and the heyday of the Hays Code? And the way that our media is being restricted and our culture is being limited in what we see, similar to –

Amanda: Regressing, yeah.

Sarah: …code. Yeah, we’re regressing. We’re going to just be like, you know, I have this great idea. There’s this code; it’s the Hays Code! We should bring it back! Like, that’s next.

Amanda: Hmph!

Sarah: The worst version of this cover, as sent to me by Steve Ammidown, is this one: they gave him a Speedo.

Amanda: They painted on a Speedo!

Sarah: Yes! It’s Bachelor treatment!

Amanda: They did; they gave him The Bachelor edit.

Sarah: Yep!

Amanda: Wow!

Sarah: Incredible, right?

Amanda: That’s really good. Very period accurate, I will say.

Sarah: Yes, ye olde banana hammock.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: Very prevalent in the ‘80s, in the 1880s in the West, yes.

Amanda: Oh my.

Sarah: That, and, and if you look, they –

Amanda: Oh, they went along the shadow.

Sarah: Yeah, they just went with the shadow of his hip and painted it. Isn’t that incredible?

Amanda: [Laughs] So now it’s okay.

Sarah: Yeah, now it’s fine! But the idea of naked man buttocks was just, like, startling!

Amanda: Well, listen, I went to school in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, and I remember –

Sarah: Fair.

Amanda: – we read Romeo and Juliet and we watched the 1968 movie, which –

Sarah: Boobies in that!

Amanda: – boobies. The problem that parents had with it was not the boobies; it was the actor who looked like Zac Efron showing butt was the reason they wanted us to not watch that movie. The boobies were fine, even though the actress was underage, I believe.

Sarah: Yep. I, I also remember when it was scandalous on NYPD Blue for Jimmy Smits or David Caruso to show their – like, Oh my God, there was butt on primetime! And I’m like, What – okay.

Amanda: And now, like, look how far we’ve come. We have Jason Isaac’s full frontal on HBO Max.

Sarah: Right? We got dick for days.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: But McGinnis painted a lot of these, painted this one, and you can see the similarity in style to, where is it, When Love Awaits?

Amanda: Yeah, this one’s very – yeah.

Sarah: That’s also him.

Amanda: Mm-hmm, okay.

Sarah: I believe this is also him.

Amanda: Could be the same model, too.

Sarah: Yeah, I mean, it’s the, it’s the one guy.

Amanda: Like I said, I love a draped woman.

Sarah: It’s, she’s just drapey. We got a drapey woman over here –

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – got a drapey woman over here; lots of drapery. This guy’s wearing a drapery.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: All right, we’re going to end with my favorite cover. The co-founder of Smart Bitches is Candy Tan. She and I co-founded the site in 2005 and had no idea it was going to become like a big deal. We were like, Oh, no one’s going to read this. We were wrong. It’s like you jumping into the royals commentary.

Amanda: Yeah. Uh-huh.

Sarah: Like, oh, no one’s going to see this! [Laughs]

This is Candy’s all-time favorite –

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: – cover ever.

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: Danelle Harmon’s The Beloved One.

Amanda: Oookay.

[Laughter]

Sarah: …ask an art historian, she’s like, Ohhh!

Amanda: She, she better be the beloved one if she’s on her knees in a rose garden.

Sarah: No, it’s, it’s him. I’m pretty sure it’s him, ‘cause there’s –

Amanda: He’s the wild one.

Sarah: But I will, I will double-check. I think it is, I think this is one of those, you know, brotherly series.

Amanda: ‘Kay.

Sarah: Yes, it’s the de Montforte Brothers.

Amanda: ‘Kay.

Sarah: The Beloved One. That’s Englishman, wounded in battle, Englishman Charles de Montforte. This takes place in the 1770s, 1780s?

Amanda: Sure, why not? [Laughs]

Sarah: Yep. Yep, she’s –

Amanda: Wow.

Sarah: I think this is a revolutionary, maybe? Either way.

Amanda: Oh!

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: Not with that color dress. That’s not –

Sarah: No, definitely not. And those pleats on that sleeve –

Amanda: Okay, sorry, I’ve got to get past the fashion history.

Sarah: You know what, you can bring in the fashion history because I’ve got questions about the pleated sleeve on her dress there. Like, what –

Amanda: I like it! I’m into it, but, mmm,  I have questions on placement in the world – [laughs] – if this is 1770s. [Laughs]

Sarah: Well, we had that one where he was in the 1400s and she was in the 1700s. I mean, we can make this work!

Amanda: You’re right, you’re right.

Sarah: We’ve got people having sex with blue aliens; we can make a little time travel work now. [Laughs]

Amanda: I don’t know! These aren’t really her colors, either. She’s very, you know, raven-haired; she’s got the red lips.

Sarah: She’s a Winter!

Amanda: She needs to get her colors done.

Sarah: She definitely needs to have her scarves laid. Absolutely.

Amanda: I’m thinking a fuchsia might be –

Sarah: There’s only a tiny little bit of fuchsia on this cover!

Amanda: I think we need more fuchsia.

Sarah: She needs more fuchsia.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: I do love that color, but I think fuchsia would have made her features pop more.

Amanda: Wow. And he does not look thrilled to be here. He looks –

Sarah: He looks so annoyed! Like, he –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: Look at, look at the, look at the tension grip on his hand?

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: Like, look at, look at the tension grip where he’s gripping her arm. He looks annoyed. Like –

Amanda: Girl, get up!

Sarah: He’s about to throw her off of him like, Get off me.

Amanda: Girl! Stand up! You’re better than this! [Laughs]

Sarah: So that’s Amy Leighton. She is a desperate plight, and he’s –

>> His heart is profoundly moved by this plight, but the noble British lord is already taken.

Amanda: Mm.

Sarah: >> …lures him away from past loyalties to the crown and fiancée with the golden rapturous promise of love and happily ever after.

Okay!

Amanda: Toxic!

Sarah: Yeah.

>> Amy’s long prayed for someone to enter her life who would take her away from the drudgery imposed upon her by her cruel, unloving step family.

So she’s dark-haired Cinderella.

Amanda: Mm, mm-hmm. And she needs him to enter – [pauses] – her life.

Sarah: That is among the other things –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – should be entered here. I, I, I guess the, the, the columns are…

Amanda: Mm-hmm, yes, that’s what I was going to say next. Right through the middle of her skull, that one.

[Laughter]

Sarah: She’s got dick on the brain.

Amanda: [Laughs] Literally!

Sarah: Literally and figuratively!

Amanda: Yes.

Sarah: And look at his shirt: unbuttoned, tucked in.

Amanda: Tucked in.

Sarah: Deep V.

Amanda: Uh-huh. Drapey, towards her mouth.

Sarah: This is a draped hero. This is both a draped heroine and a draped hero.

Amanda: Oh my good- – and a blond hero. Have we seen a blond hero yet today?

Sarah: No, I think they’ve all been dark-haired! All – we’ve got a lot of redheads, but –

Amanda: Right.

Sarah: – I don’t think we got any blond dudes.

Amanda: That’s very rare, isn’t it?

Sarah: Yeah, you usually got a lot…

Amanda: The dark and handsome is the one that’s going to get the girl in the end, typically.

Sarah: Yup. A hundred percent. That was definitely the case.

Amanda: Breaking all the tropes.

Sarah: Breaking all the tropes, and she’s in a submissive position.

Amanda: Mm-hmm, very much so.

Sarah: He is lit-, literally looking down his nose at her.

Amanda: Mm-hmm. Sneering, I would say.

Sarah: Sneering, and it, it’s a little suggestive.

Amanda: It’s, I mean, quite. Uh-huh, she’s, like, leaning on him as she’s, like, kneeling, as well. It’s not a powerful, I’m going to take the reins and show you the time of your life kneel. It’s a – didn’t you say she’s desperate? [Laughs] That’s –

Sarah: Yeah, she’s a, she’s, she’s got drudgery, man! She’s got drudgery from her step family. I’m trying to zoom in. Look at the size of that belt buckle! That’s –

Amanda: Oh wow.

Sarah: …long as her hand!

Amanda: I mean –

Sarah: He’s got a, he’s got…

Amanda: – you know what they say about a man with a big belt buckle.

Sarah: Man with a big belt buckle. He’s got…

Amanda: …belt loops.

Sarah: – weight lifting belt on. One of those belts that keeps your kidneys from popping out your back? That’s what he – and look at the amount of fabric in this sleeve.

Amanda: Yeah, it’s sumptuous.

Sarah: He’s wearing a circus tent.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: He’s probably related to the guy – [laughs] – he’s related to the guy from A Rose in Winter who’s got his – you know how, like, the secret to the, the universe is that you’ve got to have your towel? These guys got to have their drapery.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: These people just need, these guys, they just need their drapery.

Amanda: I’m, I’m upset it’s not giving Mr. Darcy like straight out of the pond drapery? I need to see some nipple through that white shirt.

Sarah: There’s, there’s hardly any nipple, hardly any nipple shadow, and if he was wet, it would definitely improve things.

Amanda: Wow.

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: Compositionally, not the strongest that we’ve looked at today, but there’s a story being told here –

Sarah: Yes, it’s –

Amanda: – for sure.

Sarah: – it’s, this is a cover where there’s almost as much background as there is –

Amanda: Mm, mm-hmm.

Sarah: – person? Like, in most of these, the –

Amanda: And it’s in focus, too, which you don’t always see.

Sarah: Everything is relevant, apparently, and they are less than half, the couple is less than half of the total real estate?

Amanda: Hm.

Sarah: But he’s very erect. He is erect. The…are erect. Everything –

Amanda: The pillars.

Sarah: …erect.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: I wonder what that means.

Amanda: Hmmm!

Sarah: Do, do you wonder what that means?

Amanda: Erect but not happy about it.

Sarah: So not happy about it.

So those are the covers. Thank you so much for taking this journey with me. I hope you –

Amanda: That was a journey.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: Much like on The Bachelor. Can you tell I love The Bachelor? We desc-, we can’t describe the process as a process; we have to call it a journey.

Sarah: Yes, it’s a journey. Unless you’re on Love Is Blind; then it’s an experiment

Amanda: [Laughs] I have not ventured over to Love Is Blind, purely for the time commitment? Isn’t it on six days a week?

Sarah: It’s –

Amanda: Five days a week?

Sarah: I had to watch the entire second season for a pod-, podcast that I was on? I had a podcast with Alisha Rai called Love Struck Daily. It was like ten-minute, like, happy love story.

Amanda: Daily.

Sarah: We did an episode of, about Love Is Blind, and she made me watch it. I am not a reality show person? My secondhand –

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – embarrassment is way too strong?

Amanda: Sure.

Sarah: But it was really something?

Amanda: Yeah. And that’s why I love The Bachelor, because it’s like the OG, and Bachelor in Paradise. Again, they’re microcosms of what’s happening on a larger scale with dating and –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Amanda: – gender politics. That’s why I love them?

Sarah: Oh yeah, for sure!

Amanda: And if The Bachelor keeps going on hiatus, I might transition to a different show eventually, but for now they are keeping me fed.

Sarah: I mean, there’s enough seasons.

Amanda: Mm-hmm. I did send you The Bachelor painted on, the butts –

Sarah: Ohhh!

Amanda: – to your email.

Sarah: Thank you, I appreciate that. I’ll add that to the show notes.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: So what were your impressions of all of these covers? Did it make the art history part of your brain go, Oooh?

Amanda: It scratched an itch, for sure.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: The color compositions I’m really into, ‘cause the fuchsia, of course, but I love the color combos we come up with when we’re diverting from the fuchsia. I like a yellow dress, I’ve learned, on these covers; that really pops. And yeah, my – [laughs] – my penchant for a drapey woman stands!

Sarah: Listen, if you like drapey women, Old School romance will keep you fed.

Amanda: Yep.

Sarah: Lot of –

Amanda: I need to, I need to start buying these paperback romances again. So I, I do the events for the Midtown Scholar Bookstore in Harrisburg. Do you know, we do not have a romance section because the book buyers and the managers are all men.

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: And they don’t see the need. [Laughs] So since I’ve come on – I, I think I’ve been there for about four years, going on four years now – we’ve started participating in Bookstore Romance Day –

Sarah: Yay!

Amanda: – and doing pop-ups of romance tables and tropified a little bit of our sections for – [laughs] – for some of those. But next on my list is a dedicated romance section, ‘cause right now it’s just, they go into fiction.

Sarah: Well, if, if money is what speaks to them, you –

Amanda: Right!

Sarah: – you can tell them that in the past few years, more than a hundred romance-only bookstores have opened.

Amanda: Yes! And, and we’ve talked about it, and we, we had Julia Quinn a couple years ago – I got to interview her; that was a highlight of my life – and we talked about, you know, it’s the biggest, like, seller of the publishing industry. It’s what’s keeping – [laughs] – more academic pursuits afloat, because romance readers will always buy books. So I, that’s my next crusade, is –

Sarah: Well, listen –

Amanda: – a dedicated section.

Sarah: – if you need me to file, like, an amicus brief about this?

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: I have some things to say?

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: But, like, it’s money? It’s money. And also, the other thing about bookstores that’s so interesting to me is that they are becoming destinations that have their own aesthetic?

Amanda: Mm-hmm. Yes.

Sarah: Where you want to take pictures of it and of yourself in it? It is itself a set? Like, we all have a set in our houses?

Amanda: That’s what we do best. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to the Scholar.

Sarah: I have not!

Amanda:  It’s so gorgeous. It’s in an old department store, movie theater that we’ve converted. Well, not we; twenty years ago, they converted it. It is a destination. We were Publishers Weekly’s Bookstore of the Year in 2023 –

Sarah: That’s so cool!

Amanda: – I, I purely think because of the vibes. [Laughs] And we host the Harrisburg Book Festival every year. So we just announced our 2025 lineup, and we put out, we do a poster every year. We commission a poster from an artist, and this is the first year, like, I think we’ve really nailed the vibe, because people are asking for T-shirts – [laughs] – and they’re asking to take home the poster. And I’m like, Oh, I’ll have to see if we can license this.

Sarah: Merch!

Amanda: Merch, merch, merch. Yeah, get on the merch train, so. But yeah, I, I love a bookstore as a destination. My favorite thing to do when I’m in the bookstore is sit and listen to all of the first dates that I can tell are happening? And it’s usually a man showing a woman around, and the, the cringiest part of it for me is always, if they know our store, if they’ve been in before, we have a, an early edition of Mein Kampf by Hitler?

Sarah: Ohhh! This is, no, this is not your, no, God.

Amanda: It was published here in Pennsylvania, and Hitler actually sued the publishing house for copyright? [Laughs] So there’s not very many of them left, and we have it in, like, a glass case, but, like, men come down to show their dates this book, and they don’t know that story, and they’re just like, Look, Hitler! [Laughs]

Sarah: Ugghhh!

Amanda: So if you do make the bookstore your destination, maybe read up on, on the history of that book before you show it to your date. [Laughs]

Sarah: I am entirely made of cringe at this…Ohhh, ohhh!

Amanda: Sorry, you did say you have secondhand embarrassment. I’m so sorry.

Sarah: Oh no! Like, guys, what are you trying to say here? Did –

Amanda: What’s the point? Yeah.

Sarah: Do they get a second date?

Amanda: Is it a litmus test? I don’t – yeah, ‘cause, it’s really fun ‘cause our little area – I’m only in there like one day a week at this point – our area where we have our office space set up, it’s just behind some very tall bookshelves, so people don’t know that we’re there, but we can hear everything – [laughs] – that’s going on, and the dates are my favorite part to listen in on.

Sarah: Honestly, like, there are –

Amanda: …dates.

Sarah: – there are Facebook groups and, and, and private chat threads of people just like, I went on a  date with this guy; here’s what happened. Like, this is – what was it during 2020, like West Elm Jeff or somebody –

Amanda: Oh, mm-hmm.

Sarah: – went, went – Lest Elm, West Elm Lance?

Amanda: I don’t, I forget –

Sarah:  …this guy’s name. But he, like, he was the guy from West Elm, and all these women were like, Oh my God, we’re all dating the same bro? Do you think that there’s like a group chat or a Facebook group like did you go on a guy that showed you a first edition of Mein Kampf, and all –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – and they’re like, Oh my God, yes? What?

Amanda: There’s got to be! There, there has to be. I think there’s an Are we dating the same guy like central PA, so –

Sarah: Yep.

Amanda: – yeah.

Sarah: Just go to that group and search Mein –

Amanda: I’ll search!

Sarah: …see what happens! [Laughs] These, I wouldn’t give somebody a second date if they were all excited to show me, like –

Amanda: Right.

Sarah: – like, a first edition of that!

Amanda: Just, I would get the ick immediately. If you –

Sarah: If, if you were bringing me to show me the Speedo painted on backside of that –

Amanda: Sign me up!

Sarah: – I will, I will go on a second date!

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: I mean, I’m married; I’m not dating anybody; but, like, seriously –

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: –  I would be in.

Amanda: Take notes, fellas.

Sarah: I always ask this question –

Amanda: Please.

Sarah: – what books are you reading that you might want to tell people about?

Amanda: Hmm! So, gosh, what am I reading? I’m trying to get through the second of the new Nora Roberts series? The Inheritance, I think was the first one?

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: And the second book came out, I think, last year. The third one, I need to get to the third one; it’s coming out this fall. The second book has bad middle-book syndrome.

Sarah: Ohhh! You know what? That happens a lot, though.

Amanda: Yeah, and it, it could have been a duology, but I think her publishers probably made it into a trilogy for retail –

Sarah: Nora’s a trilogy of kind of girl.

Amanda: – purposes. Right. So, but the plot is great. And the, the, it’s – have you read this one?

Sarah: I read the Inheritance…

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – bride, ghost bride –

Amanda: Yes.

Sarah: – creepy ass.

Amanda: Big manor that she inherits from a long-lost relative. I’m very into it, but the middle book, they’re kind of just planning a party for most of it?

[Laughter]

Amanda: To open the house to the community and piss off the ghost.

Sarah: Piss off, ghost!

Amanda:  I’m slogging through it. I want to get to the third one, which is my motivation. So the plot’s great in the first one; the middle one, I think you can skim.

But I will also say I’m also rereading the Emily Wilde’s Comp– –

Sarah: Ohhh, the…

Amanda: – series?

Sarah: Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of –

Amanda: Yes.

Sarah: – Faeries!

Amanda: And the third one of that also just came out. They’re my, like, comfort books. I love those books. Yeah, Compendium of Lost Tales, that’s the last one. So I’m –

Sarah: They’re so –

Amanda: – I’m rereading the new one. They’re so delightful!

Sarah: And they’re so good in audio.

Amanda: Yes, that’s how, I am listening to them right now.

Sarah: They are so good in audio.

Amanda: The, the voice actress is very, very good.

Sarah: The thing about Nora’s trilogy is there have been a few where I have loved book two and could take or leave book one and…

Amanda: Hmm.

Sarah: – and there are books where I had nothing to say about book two and I was jonesing for book three.

Amanda: That’s me right now! I, like, I, I know where this is going; I know book two is just going to be more exposition. Give me book three right now. I will go feral for it as soon as I finish book two. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yep! And you get ARCs, right? Like, you get NetGalley links and stuff?

Amanda: Sometimes, yeah. I haven’t gotten any Nora ones yet. Is there an ARC for the third one right now?

Sarah: I do not know. They’re very selective –

Amanda: They, they have to be.

Sarah: – with ARCs. I once –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – ages ago, when she was writing the bridal quartet, do you remember that?

Amanda: I do! Yes!

Sarah: Okay, I loved those –

Amanda: My mom had those!

Sarah: I loved those so much, but I got an ARC, and it was numbered. It was hand numbered…

Amanda: Yeah. That’s an, that’s coming back too.

Sarah: And it was a paper ARC! And I’m like, What do you think that I’m going to do with…

Amanda: They don’t want you to sell it or –

Sarah: Like, you’re going to sell it, and I’m like –

Amanda: Yeah. ‘Cause they can trace it back to you then. That’s coming back as well.

Sarah: Exactly! And I’m like, that is not a thing –

Amanda: I saw someone else…

Sarah: – not a thing that I’ve ever done.

Amanda: Yeah, so I’m, I’m, that’s my, like, comfort cozy reading right now.

What am I reading? Oh, I do have an ARC I just got by Gareth Russell, who’s like a British royal historian, I want to say? He wrote a book called The Palace about Hampton Court, and his new one is The Six Loves of James I – First and Sixth.

Sarah: Oooh!

Amanda: So it explores his homosexuality.

Sarah: [Gasps] Shocking!

Amanda: So I’m going to pick that one up this week.

Sarah: I have two recommendations for you.

Amanda: ‘Kay.

Sarah: One, if you’re looking for cozy, the second book in this sort of world came out, but the first one is outstanding. It is Sangu Mandanna’s The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches was the –

Amanda: I’ve been looking at the cover of this one…catching my eye!

Sarah: And the second one is A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping, and they are fabulous. They are quirky and cozy and loving, and, and – this is something I’ve been thinking a lot about. There’s a podcast going on right now with Rob Morrow and Janine Turner where they’re recapping Northern Exposure, which just got –

Amanda: Mm.

Sarah: – to Amazon Prime. It’s called Northern Disclosure, and in one of the first episodes the producer was on and was talking about how you can get away with some absolutely banana-crackers behavior in the world of Northern Exposure, as long as there’s no malice behind it. Even if you are being a rank asshole, the minute there is malice, then there’s a problem. And this is like a small society in a small town, allegedly in Alaska (it was actually shot in the Pacific Northwest).

Amanda: Mm!

Sarah: There’s a, there’s sort of a vibe to places where the land can kill you if you’re stupid? And that’s, like –

Amanda: Sure.

Sarah: – like, permeates this? The, the, the Sangu Mandanna books have that same fundamental, We are going to keep trying even though it’s hard because we care about each other. Things are hard, but we care about each other, and we’re going to look after each other. And that, that sort of vibe is so enjoyable? And then it’s quirky, and there’s stakes. It’s on the New York Times list, I think, for like two weeks now. It’s –

Amanda: Okay!

Sarah: – great.

Amanda: Just came out! Yeah, okay! I’ll see if we got it. I’m going to go to the bookstore tonight. We have – Oh,  I’m so bad at names.

Sarah: That’s okay; me too. Which is really bad…my job is to recommend books? I’m like, Okay, so it’s…

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah:  – girl, and she’s kind of draped. Yeah.

Amanda: Okay, we have Katie Yee tonight, Maggie: Or, A Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar. She’s coming into the bookstore. So I will look out for the Sangu Mandanna books while I’m there. Okay?

Sarah: …documentary series called Windsor Castle: A Royal Year. It is four seasons at Windsor Castle.

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: If you find it on YouTube, the resolution and the fashions are going to be mwah, but they show you what’s going on at Windsor Castle, spring, summer, fall, and winter. What are the people who work there doing? There’s one where they get ready for a state banquet, and you watch them measure where –

Amanda: Mm!

Sarah: – utensils go? My favorite is the royal clock watcher, or the clock keeper? He has to go through the whole Goddamn place and change the clocks back manually at daylight savings and daylight standard, and at one point he’s on camera with the camera –

Amanda: How many clocks?

Sarah: – and he gets lost?

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah:  I don’t, I don’t, I don’t know where I am.

Amanda: Oh my God!

Sarah: We’ll figure it out! I, I mean, we’ll find a door eventually! And, and you can hear the camera people being like, We’re fucking lost in this castle?

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah:  It’s very old and it is like total –

Amanda: 2005.

Sarah: …kissing?

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: But it’s about the people who run Windsor Castle, and you would find a lot to enjoy in it.

Amanda: Incredible. Yeah, I’ll watch that for research purposes. I’ll purchase it as a tax write-off if I –

Sarah: Hell yeah!

Amanda: – use some of it my book. [Laughs] Yeah, ‘cause for the book I’m writing, it’s kind of a guide book or like a field guide to royal world? So the stuff like that is so valuable, hearing from people who work for the royals, because it is an international institution. It takes a lot of people to keep that ship afloat.

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Amanda: Fascinating! Thank you so much for the recs. This is the best podcast to be on: you get tailored recommendations at the end!

Sarah: That’s like the whole job, right?

Amanda: [Laughs] Thank you.

Sarah: You have been so generous with your time. Thank you for that.

Amanda: Happy to do it!

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

Amanda: Oh, so many places. So Instagram and TikTok, I am at Matta, M-A-T-T-A, of fact, so underscore of underscore fact [@matta_of_fact]. I also have my Substack newsletter, which is called The Fascinator That’s biweekly, meaning two times a week. [Laughs] So, royal news, royal history, deep dives, just anything that strikes my fancy?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: Same thing goes for the Art of History podcast: anything that strikes my fancy in art history is fair game on there! I very rarely theme out a season; It’s kind of just vibes, but, like, rigorously researched vibes. And then Off With Their Headlines podcast is the last thing I have to plug. That’s my show with Meredith Constant. That’s every week on Thursdays, wherever you get your podcasts, if you like royal news and pulling threads in the media.

Sarah: So the last Art of History that you did, I, I have to say I loved the “Witchcraft in Art” episode. That was one of my favorites.

Amanda: It’s really fun. I love – so, like, I’ll theme out Halloween episodes usually? I like to pick a theme for that as, like, an extravaganza.

Sarah: Yeah! It’s not like there’s not enough pictures of creepy shit.

Amanda: No, I have so many. I think this year I might either do clowns or, like, skeletons in art.

Sarah: Oooh!

Amanda: Yeah. So.

Sarah: Oooh!

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: Dig it!

Thank you so much. I’ve had the greatest time. I could talk to you for like another hour.

Amanda: I know.

Sarah: Thank you so, so much for being so generous with me. I am very grateful.

Amanda: No, I loved it. I’ll come back anytime if there’s new batshit covers or –

Sarah: Oh!

Amanda: – yeah. Happy to do it.

Sarah: We could do a whole ‘nother hour on the cartoon covers and what they’re doing and not doing.

Amanda: The rom-com covers, yeah! That’s, yeah.

Sarah: There’s a whooole lot to explore there in terms of messaging and flat lay and also iconography. My theory is that those are designed for icon size.

Amanda: Mmm!

Sarah: They’re designed to look good in little teeny-tiny size.

Amanda: You’re right, they don’t quite look – they, they do look too, like, stretched when they’re on book cover…

Sarah: Mm-hmm. Yeah, they’re – much like books are being written to trope, the covers are being designed to, how – the, the, the most common way you’re going to see it if you’re, especially if you’re reading digital, which is weird, because people younger than me, they don’t want digital; they want print.

Amanda: Right. Yeah!

Sarah: And trade, not, not mass market; not mass market! We don’t want any of that anymore. Mm-mm!

Amanda: Mm-mm. Nope.

Sarah: Thank you.

Amanda: [Laughs] No, thank you for all the hot takes. I’m going to be doling these out when I’m in the bookstore this week.

[outro]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. Thank you tremendously to Amanda Matta for her time – she was so, so generous – and all of her analysis and how much fun this was. I could not have asked for a more entertaining seven-hundredth episode, and I hope you think so too.

I will have links to all of the books that we discussed, including all of the covers; do not worry. And I will have links to the various sources that we referred to. And, of course, all of the podcasts that we mentioned, because what’s more podcasts except a very good thing, right?

As always, I end with a terrible joke. Now this joke comes from stockinitial4460, and then the follow-up is from compuwiza1, and I’m deeply grateful to both of these people, because this is so bad. I know you’re going to tell literally, actually, factually everyone. I can see the future; I know it’s true. All right.

Did you hear about the baker who has red hair?

Yeah, baker who has red hair? He was a ginger bread man!

And listen, it is really hard to buy bread from him, because no one can catch him.

[Laughs] It’s so bad! I love it so much! Like, liter-, literally, this is what it looks like when I tell jokes into the microphone. I am deeply, deeply amused and having a very good time. He’s a ginger bread man!

On behalf of everyone here – I think, I think I’m alone, actually, so no, no, no cats? Not even a cat under my chair? Nope, none cats, so on my behalf – it’s just me – on behalf of me, I wish you the very best of reading. Have a wonderful weekend, and we will 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!

[groovy music]