720. RT Rewind: December 2012 Ads & Features

[intro]

Sarah Wendell: Hello and welcome to episode number 720 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell; with me is Amanda. We’re back in the time machine, heading back to December 2012 to look at the ads and features from Romantic Times magazine. Y’all, this episode features an extremely high-grade amount of extreme zany. We – [laughs] – this is such a wild episode. We have so many treats for you? We have the Steeple Hill drinking game, Jude Deveraux’s thoughts on modern romance heroes of the time, shifters, and more.

If you want to check out the images that we’re talking about, they will be at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast under episode 720. You can also go to our YouTube channel; there’s a video of us, and I put up the images that we’re talking about while we are discussing them. So you can choose whichever method you would like.

I want to say a special hello to Varian in our podcast Discord. Varian started reading The Folly of the World, which, if you remember, was the book from episode 718 where the review said that it was really gross, and the plot summary summarized exactly no plot whatsoever? According to Varian, and I quote:

>> The Folly of the World drinking game: take a sip every time someone’s balls are mentioned. I have never read about so many testicles in my life, and I’m on page 50.

[Laughs]

>> Further, I would compare the plotting to Edgar Rice Burroughs if instead of goofy adventure novels, he wrote incredibly violent historical fiction where no one is a good person.

[Laughs more] So there’s, there you go; there’s the book. We still don’t know what’s going on; Varian remains confused. But Varian took one for the team to read it, so thank you.

I also have a compliment this week.

To Stacy AT: People in your life anticipate seeing you with as much excitement as a five-year-old being handed an enormous globe of cotton candy and a puppy! Because you are made of delight, happiness, and possibly spun sugar.

If you would like a compliment of your very own, I invite you to take a look at our Patreon community, where, well, that’s one of the benefits: to get a compliment from Yours Truly. But you will get the benefit of joining one of the most lovely groups of people on the internet. You make sure that every episode continues with a handcrafted transcript from garlicknitter – hi, garlicknitter! – [Hello! – gk] – and you make sure that every episode has no dynamic ads, thanks to our Patreon community. All new episodes are void of dynamic ads before or after because we wanted to avoid ads for ICE and other right-wing garbage. So that’s the Patreon community: they’re wonderful, and if you would like to join and support the show, patreon.com/SmartBitches. Seriously, this community would love to welcome you.

Support for this episode comes from The Undergrads: Student Union by number one New York Times bestselling author Julie Murphy, a sexy new rom-com about a college marriage of convenience that goes way beyond Chemistry 101.

Clover Rowan Walsh knows The Plan: 1. Get a full ride to her dream school, Wexley University. 2. Conquer the school of business. 3. Say good-bye to the paycheck-to-paycheck life she and her mom have known for years. There’s just one hiccup: with the first semester rapidly approaching, Clover learns her housing grant has fallen through. But a loophole presents itself! Married couples can live in the dorms for the price of one student. Clover is willing to sacrifice the sanctity of marriage, even if it means proposing to the one person she swore she would never speak to again, Bennett Andrew Graves.

Bennett can’t refuse Clover, the girl he grew up with and whom he completely devastated years ago. He owes her this, but that does not change the fact that these two can barely carry on a conversation without getting at each other’s throats. Forget about sharing a dorm – much less one bed.

But as Clover and Bennett hide the true nature of their marriage, they find that playing house isn’t all that bad – especially with certain marital benefits in the mix. In fact, Clover and Bennett are soon forgetting that the most important part of their fake marriage of convenience is that it’s supposed to be fake!

With tropes like forced proximity and friends-to-enemies-to-lovers, you will not want to miss this first book in a new trilogy of romance novels that follows a group of girls as they navigate love, friendship, and new adulthood. Ali Hazelwood calls The Undergrads: Student Union “one addictively swoony book.” The Undergrads: Student Union by Julie Murphy is available now wherever books are sold.

Support for this episode comes from Hatch. You know how when you finish a romantasy and you just need the next thing immediately? Hatch has made that thing. It’s called Ophelia, an original audio drama inspired by Hamlet, where Ophelia finally gets to be the main character. Forbidden magic, a crumbling kingdom, a slow-burn love triangle with a prince and a very guarded, very intriguing best friend. The kind of love triangle where you will absolutely pick a side, and you will not be quiet about it. Book one of the three-part series is now available for free wherever you stream, with new chapters dropping every Tuesday. For books two and three, check out hatch.co/Ophelia, or find the link in the show notes. And as a treat, I have a sample of chapter one at the end of this episode so you can experience Ophelia for yourself. Thank you to Hatch for sponsoring this episode.

All right, are you ready to go back to December 2012 to look at the ads and features from RT? I’ve got the snacks; the seats are nice and comfortable; let’s get in the time machine. Off we go: on with the podcast.

[music]

Sarah: All right, it’s ads and features time. We’re going back to December 2012, and you picked this one for the cover. And fortunately for us, the cover article is very early in the magazine, so we’ll get to it.

Amanda: Yeah. I picked this one because it’s talking about Harlequin’s Love Inspired line? And Harlequin has been in the news a lot lately.

Sarah: A little bit, yeah! Little bit, little bit.

Amanda: Yeah! So I thought this would make a good jumping-off point to just talk about Harlequin’s interesting decisions.

Sarah: Many, many interesting choices. I just want to point out –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – so the cover image is, you know, all the headlines, RT Book Reviews, blah-blah-blah. So there’s a sled in the snow with a bunch of books popping out of it, but there are three different perspectives here, and it’s really trippy the more you look at it, or least the more I look at it? So first of all, there are tracks in the snow, but the sled is not in those tracks. It is sitting on top of the snow, not leaving any tracks. So apparently something was barely, was, like, tunneling through the snow under the sled, and it has stopped, ‘cause the sled is not leaving any tracks. The sled is three-dimensional. The tracks and the background are three-dimensional. All the book covers are just flat. Pictures just exploding.

Amanda: Yeah, and then they’ve got a, a Photoshopped little pull, pull rope –

Sarah: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Amanda: – that’s in the shape of a heart, but that’s clearly not attached to the sled at all.

Sarah: No, it just ends at the front bar of the sled, and also it’s so small; that rope is not pulling anything. That rope is going to pull right off the front of that sled.

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: That just, this is very, it’s very silly and twee. And it’s like, oh, stock photos; this’ll do. That, it’s very much of the stock photo era.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: So, also, the headliners on the cover include E. L. James, Kerrelyn Sparks, and Jude Deveraux. It’s fine. I mean, if you’re going to cover a whole line of a publisher, like Harlequin is (a) pretty much the only one you can do that with, because every line has its own branding, but it’s fine. We’ll get to the cover article – 

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – don’t you worry.

Now, on the inside cover is one of the ads that people pay, paid a lot of money for. This is from Kaylin McFarren, Creative Edge Publishing. And there’s three books. There’s Severed Threads, Buried Threads, and Banished Threads. I don’t recommend this as a titling motif because I would never – I still can’t even remember –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – which one is which in the Kresley Cole. Is it Dicking Deeds and the Night Edge, or is, like – who’s, who’s – [sputters] –

Amanda: There are so many.

Sarah: – similar titles. But the problem is that the, the font for these covers, I keep seeing different words on all three titles. I think the first one is Severed Heads, first of all. And the second one is, Buried Threads, and the third one is Banished Shreds. Like, it’s the same letters, but because the background is so different and sometimes the background muddies the text, it looks like three different sets of words! [Laughs]

Lady Barrow’s letter to the editor. It’s a gift this month, isn’t it?

Amanda: This is – I mean, every time we read it –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: – I’m like, Wow. But this one, in particular, has a certain flavor.

Sarah: It is very unique. So finally the digital edition of RT Book Reviews is available and, quote:

>> It simply looks beautiful on my computer’s large screen.

Brag. So the pages look the same, but there are bonuses. You will never guess what you are able to do!

Amanda: She explains –

Sarah: One of the neat features is that you –

Amanda: – control-F.

Sarah: Control-F! You –

Amanda: She explains control-F.

Sarah: [Laughs] It’s mind blowing, isn’t it? I mean, this is the magazine that, to be fair, was teaching a lot of people how to use e-books when, you know, there were a million formats and all these different readers, so I get it that she might want to do this. [Laughs more] But one of the neat features is you can search for words in the pages of the magazine because it’s a PDF!

Amanda: and a list will be generated of every page that word appears on.

Sarah: That’s how control-F works! [Laughs] Amanda has her hands on her face. It’s just like, what are we even doing here? I would like you all to know that if you were a print subscriber, you got the digital edition for free. But if you only wanted the digital edition, it was twenty-five dollars a year, which is not –

Amanda: That’s still not bad.

Sarah: That’s not bad.

I am remi-, I am remiss in something: we have a new source for some of these magazines. Lauren Dane gave me a pile of the RT magazines that she had appeared in, and I agreed to take them, and then as I digitize them, I’ll send her the, the PDF, which, by the way, you can search for your name in – we’ve learned that now.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: So this magazine is courtesy of Lauren Dane; thank you, Lauren Dane.

Amanda: Thank you, Lauren.

Sarah: Also, there’s always a sort of, I guess you’d call it like noblesse oblige or, you know, humble-bragging or not even humble-bragging. Kathryn likes to brag about shit, and this is just, there’s some, there’s some bragging in here.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: The, the upcoming conference is Kansas City in May, which, for the record, was one of my favorite RTs ever. That was a good conference. She mentions that she:

>> will be hosting a private party with our coterie of pioneer historical authors in a glittering aerie atop the hotel with views of Kansas City at dusk. The lucky booksellers and librarians will have a chance to fête and tête with Bertrice Small, Virginia Henley, Cynthia Wright, and Mary Balogh –

And many other writers.

>> These are the creative spirits who started the genre that we know and love today.

She’s basically celebrating a reunion of historical romance authors from pre-1985, which is, there’s a lot. That’s a rich text, let’s be honest.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: I love how she’s having this coterie, private party, fête and tête. Are you kidding me? Fête and –

Amanda: Nooo.

Sarah: I’m using that every day now. [Laughs] Was it the Fête or was it the Tête? Also –

Amanda: I don’t think you’re allowed to ask that.

Sarah: – we’ve already touched on this in reviews, that some of the publishers were like – what was it? Tao of Liz, taoofliz.blogspot.com?

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: There are so many book blog URLs in this magazine that are just hysterical. So on page 7, there’s a full page ad for Forever and two historicals and I guess a paranormal or an urban fantasy, but the top quote is from bookloons.com! [Laughs] This is peak book blog era, and I miss it so much!

Amanda: Is BookLoons still around? Have we checked?

Sarah: Oh yes, girl! Yes! And it’s all Comic Sans! Ooh, it’s a Comic Sans. They’re Canadian; good for them.

>> Your corner bookstore with the global village, with over twenty-nine thousand book reviews – nonfiction, fiction, teen, and children’s books.

Amanda: Okay!

Sarah: Twenty-six new book reviews. Let’s see: January 26th editions. Recommended reads 2025? I don’t know when the last time that they have updated is. But yeah, they’re still publishing reviews, and –

Amanda: Okay!

Sarah: – their header image is terrible. You can’t read anything that’s on it. Like, it – wow. And it’s, and it’s so small. Did, did you see it? Like, the actual, the actual layout of the website is like a tiny square because it’s, it’s designed for very, very small resolution screens. It’s like this little itty-bitty square. [Laughs]

Amanda: I’m looking at it.

Sarah: It’s not adjusting. It’s not –

Amanda: Oh God!

Sarah: It’s so teeny, and it’s all Comic Sans! Yay!

And so we have BookLoons –

Amanda: I don’t like that.

Sarah: – BookLoons on page 7, and then on pa-, page 8 we have CozyChicksBlog.com! This was also the peak era when authors would get together and start a group blog. Do you remember that?

Amanda: I also remember people loving to use the word chicks in everything.

Sarah: Oh yes, chicks was very popular. But there was the Squawk Radio, which was a bunch of really prominent authors: I think Lisa Kleypas, Eloisa James, Christina Dodd; Sophia Nash was in that, I think? So we have Cozy Chicks blog, where they’re writing into the letter to the editor to promote themselves and say, Hey, you didn’t feature the Midwest in your last article.

Now, in the previous issue – this is December – in November, Jessica writes in by way of email to say how much she was so impressed to see an article like “Once Upon a Romantic Times.”

>> I love how the magazine looks back on how authors got started and what books were hot at the time.

So this was apparently a, a series that was going on, and this issue has the Jude Deveraux edition, and ooh, boy, is it special.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: On page 9 is a full-page ad for Lisa Jackson, and there’s two things I want to point out here. Number one, do you remember when thriller meant that the hair was in the model’s face?

Amanda: Yes.

Sarah: So we had a lot of hair in the face covers. Would you look at that smoky eye? That –

Amanda: I saw that. I was like, Wow, that’s a lot of eyeshadow, huh?

Sarah: That – it, it is brown and it is gold and it is green, and she’s –

Amanda: All the way up to the brown bone.

Sarah: All the way up to the brow bone. What’s it called when you put the eye shadow on, on the water line? Her eye, her eye liner is on the water line; it’s on the inside of her eyelid. This is a smoky eye. I just need you to know that.

And in the lower right, there’s this little tag that says Scan the tag to start reading. And it’s like a precursor to a QR code, but my phone could not read it. I kept trying! It’s just little triangles. Amanda’s going to try it right now. [Laughs]

Amanda: I’m trying it, sorry.

Sarah: It’s all little triangles! It’s not like a QR code that I recognize, and my phone was like, I don’t care what that is. That’s nothing!

Amanda: No.

Sarah: Nothing!

Amanda: It’s not picking it up on anything. No.

Sarah: I can’t figure it out.

Amanda: Dang!

Sarah: I know – what was it?

Amanda: Dang!

Sarah: What did it, what did it lead to? Scan the tag to start reading.

Amanda: Maybe like a sample?

Sarah: Yeah, that’s –

Amanda: Like a little –

Sarah: That’d be cool! I’m a fan!

Amanda: – excerpt? Yeah!

Sarah: And here we go. Let’s get to it. [Laughs] And it’s –

Amanda: I picked this issue, okay? I picked it. I did this to myself.

Sarah: Are you mad about it? Are you mad about it?

Amanda: I did this to myself.

Sarah: All right. So let’s start with the cover story itself. This is the fifteenth anniversary of Harlequin Love Inspired, and there are some choice sentences in this profile.

Amanda: I hate this font, first off.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: I don’t like it. It looks like it’s for children.

Sarah: It’s, it’s a variation on, there was a fart – fart, there was a fart.

[Laughter]

Sarah: There was a faht! [Laughs] There was a, there was a fart on Pod Save America, I’ll tell you that.

Amanda: Yeah, oh my God. That killed me. Ugh!

Sarah: I will include a link, but oh my God – let me make a note. Pod – this is the note –

Amanda: Pod Save America fart is the – [laughs]

Sarah: Pod Save America fart. I played that for Adam and he –

Amanda: Pod save fart.

Sarah: I played it for Adam, and he couldn’t breathe, he was laughing so hard.

Amanda: The one bad thing I will ever say about Brian is they do not understand the, like –

Sarah: The –

Amanda: – the siren song of a good fart joke. They are –

Sarah: The inherent hilarity of farts?

Amanda: Yeah, fart and poop jokes do not do it for Brian, and I don’t, I don’t understand how they cannot.

Sarah: I am –

Amanda: They’re –

Sarah: I am baffled. Farts are universally funny! Like –

Amanda: Oh my God. My –

Sarah: Look, gas explodes from our backsides! This is funny!

Amanda: My favorite Instagram account is this guy, I think he walks in Central Park, and he just, like, walks by people and does like an interpretive dance fart? Like, he’ll do a little spin and then, like, stick his butt out and fart as if he’s, like, you know, just walking by? And – [laughs] – everyone’s like, What?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: He’s just so animated, and I love it so much. Brian does not get it.

Sarah: I mean, farts with dancing is even better than just farts alone!

Amanda: I love it. Anyway.

Sarah: So there is, there used to be a font that was like a party font that everyone used on kids’ invitations. This looks like its cousin. It’s all loopy and twirly, and, and it’s very juvenile.

Amanda: I don’t like it.

Sarah: All right. So here’s a phrase that I really just had to stop and think about. They talk about how Love Inspired started, it was popular, they started publishing more of them, ‘cause that’s what publishers do. Love Inspired books – oof.

>> Our mission is to publish wholesome Christian romance that helps women to better guide themselves, their families, and their communities towards a purposeful, faith-driven life, and there is clearly an expanding readership for our books.

It is so weird to read this, especially when they talk about acquiring another line of inspirational romances from another publisher called Barbour, and they’re putting those in direct-to-consumer the following year. It’s, it’s really interesting to, to read them talk about acquiring these very, very Christian books when inspirational, like the Love Inspired, were sort of, like, mostly flavorless Christian. They weren’t specifically Catholic; they weren’t specifically Protestant; they weren’t ever really a specific denomination. They are like flavorless Christian. They are the, the plain yogurt of Christianity. Meanwhile, they have just acquired Heartsong Presents, which is a series of contemporary and historical from Barbour.

>> These appeal to the conservative evangelical Christian reader, whereas the Love Inspired series are non-denominational.

Okay, they’re –

Amanda: I’m going to bite my tongue clean off –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: – is what’s going to happen here. I’m just going to –

Sarah: It is –

Amanda: – start drooling blood on this video.

Sarah: [Laughs] It is wild to be like, We have books that appeal to the conservative evangelical Christian reader. I would really like it if we stopped appealing to the conservative evangelical Christian. It would be great, because they’re fucking things up right now. Geez Louise. However, I have a little –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – I have a little treat for you. Before, before we move on to what I have brought to the, to the table –

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: – did you, was there anything in this article that you wanted to bring up?

Amanda: Yes.

Sarah: Please –

Amanda: There are –

Sarah: – tell me everything.

Amanda: There’s a, a –

Sarah: Oh, hey –

Amanda: – section –

Sarah: – there’s that same logo again. They worked really hard on that, on that graphic with the sled –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – and the rope.

Amanda: Yep!

Sarah: They put it in here again.

Amanda: So on PDF page 12 –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: – they’re talking about, like, trends –

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: in the space. What are the major trends in both category length and single title inspirational romance?

>> Explains Golan, “There always seemed to be two different streams of editorial in Christian fiction. One, like the current bestselling Amish trend and many of the historical romances, especially Westerns, shows nostalgia for simpler times and cultures in closed communities where faith is the norm.

Sarah: Mmf!

Amanda: >> The other shows characters striving to lead Christian lives in hedonistic and materialistic cultures such as the Regency world of the ton and the contemporary 21st-century world as well.

I’m sorry. Materialistic and hedonistic. Are we – I’m, my brain is going to explode out of my body. As someone who grew up in the South and has seen a mega church or two in my day –

Sarah: Oh yes.

Amanda: – don’t even start on the materialism here. Like, which I’m – flames on the side of my face is what’s happening. And then they talk about how they want to delve more into, like, speculative fiction and sci-fi and fantasy, and I –

Sarah: We don’t need more Christianity in space. Leave it here. Just leave it here. We don’t need to – no. [Laughs]

Amanda: Can you imagine approaching –

Sarah: Space Christians!

Amanda: – some alien being, and it’s like, Do you have time to talk about our Lord and savior Jesus Christ?

Sarah: Sure! [Laughs]

Amanda: And that alien just –

Sarah: I’ve got some chapters to fill.

Amanda: – Thanos-snaps you out of existence.

Sarah: Okay. That, that sounds terrible, actually. [Laughs] It sounds really bad.

Amanda: But also, like, what judgy adjectives.

Sarah: Yes. It is really hard to talk about inspirational romances without co-opting judgmental language. Like, for example, earlier this person says:

>> “We prefer to characterize Love Inspired romances as wholesome rather than sweet, as the Christian worldview doesn’t deny that temptation comes from within as well as without. Our authors develop stories about characters who struggle and succeed in living with integrity in an impure world.

Like, I just disagree with the entire worldview of these books. I cannot engage with them, because I can’t accept that the, the world that I live in is inherently impure, bad, hedonistic, and materialistic. I don’t need materialism, but I’m all for hedonism, for the record. I just need y’all to know.

Amanda: I firmly applaud –

Sarah: Hedonism?

Amanda: – Mala being neutral in, in putting out this article, because my teeth would be ground down to little nubs –

Sarah: Mala, you did –

Amanda: – talking to these folks.

Sarah: Mala, you did a great job on this one, ‘cause yeah, this was, whoof! And it’s three pages. This is a, this is a long one.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: >> “It’s nice to be reminded that God can use all circumstances for his good. Love Inspired reminds readers of that, of that in almost every one, if not all of their stories.”

What, was there one where it was, like, Satan? I, I was, by the way, I was listening to a whole podcast about Melissa Joan Hart, who has also become, I think, right-wing conservative –

Amanda: Great.

Sarah: – and hangs out with Can-, Candace Cameron Bure. But it is interesting to look back: the, the Sabrina TV show. Remember the, the TV show she was on?

Amanda: It was set in Boston!

Sarah: It was set in Boston, and they worshiped the devil! Like, the aunts would make jokes about, Oh, the Dark Lord won’t like that! And I’m like, how is this on TV? [Laughs]Oh my God, if that happened now, people would lose their minds.

Now, do you want to discuss some other Harlequin things before I bring us to the little treat that I have brought for us? Cause Harlequin –

Amanda: Oooh.

Sarah: – has made some really weird decisions lately –

Amanda:[Sighs]

Sarah: – and some of them just suck.

Amanda: Well, like, we’ve, we’ve seen the Harlequin Tilt-A-Whirl quite a, quite a time or two –

Sarah: [Laughs] Harlequin Tilt-A-Whirl.

Amanda: – where they, they have a new thing, they’ve got a new line, and then that new line disappears.

Sarah: Oh yes, they do the Hokey Pokey all the time.

Amanda: And they turn themselves about. Yeah.

Sarah: Yep.

Amanda: And was it, was it last year they announced the closing of Harlequin Historicals, and then they’re going and using an AI entertainment service to make little mini animated dramas out of their titles. Many, like, and –

Sarah: I have so much to say about this.

Amanda: – and authors are not aware –

Sarah: No.

Amanda: – that this is happening to their books.

Sarah: Harlequin is the brand. You are an author writing within the brand. That’s why Harlequin Presents is often bigger than the name of the author on the cover? Sometimes the name of Harlequin is bigger than the name of the author. You are, you are, you are part of Harlequin’s brand, and their contracts reflect that. And so a lot of authors found out that their books were being sold into these projects when it was announced.

They’ve contracted with a company that makes the vertical shorts, which we’ve talked about in other episodes, the, you know, the vertical short films that you see on your phone; they’re like thirty seconds per chapter? They have contracted to sell their stories to one that is using AI to make animated films, and I can’t, I mean – [sputters] – setting aside the absolute depravity of AI generative and environmentally, just setting that aside for just a few minutes – do you want to watch animated versions of Harlequin novels? Is this a thing?

Amanda: No.

Sarah: Who wants this? Am I wrong? Am I losing my mind? Animated? I don’t want to watch Harlequin animated. Like, some of these – like, what about that one where there’s anal sex on the piano? Is that going to be animated? Are we going to, are we going to, like, go to, go to the butt zone? [Laughs]

Amanda: I don’t think –

Sarah: Using AI animation? Like, what – I don’t understand! And if you know this –

Amanda: I think the content will have to be severely censored and removed!

Sarah: Or it won’t be very sexy. There won’t be sex, they don’t just, it’ll just be kissing. I mean, they can’t be programming sex scenes. I mean, what, what on earth?

They also have let go of a lot of their translators and are using AI to translate.

And they still don’t have a tie-in cover for Heated Rivalry, which seems to be the biggest own goal I’ve ever seen. Like, how do you not have that? The theory that I’ve heard is the contracts that Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams signed include provisions that use of their images, that they will be given a portion of any, any revenue used through their images. They get a cut if they use their pictures, and the theory is that HarperCollins or whomever doesn’t want to pay for that. And I’m like, But they – do, do you not like making money? Is, is making money just hard?

Amanda: Yeah, cause the fact – fans would buy those covers just to get the actors to sign them at some…

Sarah: Fans are making the covers because they can’t get the cover, and then they announced – I put it on the site – they announced the hard cover, and it looks like two Tron robots kissing. Like, it has, it, it looks like robots. It’s so weird. One person on, on Bluesky suggested that the reason that the cover looks so not anything is to try to app-, appeal to people who are outside of the fandom. And I’m like, What are you even doing? If that’s the reason, I don’t understand.

Amanda: No. The point of having a fandom is so you can make things –

Sarah: For the fandom!

Amanda: – that appeals to the fandom!

Sarah: Yes. Okay.

Amanda: Yeah, I, like, Harlequin makes some very head-scratching decisions –

Sarah: Many times.

Amanda: – on a regular basis.

Sarah: However, there is a book featured in this article that is called Joanna and the Footloose Cowboy. Is that like literally the movie Footloose? Is it Kevin Bacon? [Laughs]

Amanda: Kevin Bacon in the town that doesn’t dance.

Sarah: [Hums like hoedown music] Do you ever think about how absolutely stupid that is?

Amanda: That movie is so good, though.

Sarah: It’s so good, and the whole premise is, well –

Amanda: Dancing is illegal now.

Sarah: – dancing is, dancing is, is hedonism! It’s hedonism.

Amanda: And I love how Kevin Bacon just gets so worked up that he has to go dance it out in an abandoned factory.

Sarah: Yes, he needs to let it go. Do you – I have heard him talk about this: you know, he tips DJs if he goes to a wedding or anywhere where there’s dancing, he will give the, the DJ a fucking massive tip and say, If anyone asks you to play “Footloose,” you don’t do it. Because everyone expects him to dance. [Laughs] And so he pays off the DJ.

So – [laughs] – I have a little treat for us.

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: Here is the little treat. So the copyeditor of my Hanukkah romance, Lighting the Flames, is a person named Sara Brady, who I have known forever. Sara Brady has worked as a freelance copyeditor on so many romances, including mine. She is still a copyeditor. She’s great, and if you’re looking for a copyeditor, her website is Sara – without an H – Brady dot com [sarabrady.com] – I’ll put it in the show notes.

She once sent me a truly treasured piece of memorabilia. She used to edit for Steeple Hill. Steeple Hill was the, was a division of Harlequin, and they were sort of inspirational. They were more towards single title and women’s fiction, but they are of the inspirational genre. And there is, there is a list. The list of taboo terms in Steeple Hill books. The words –

Amanda: Mmm.

Sarah: – you’re not allowed to use. Concepts, scenes, things that happened, dialogue tags, it’s all in this list. The things you’re –

Amanda: How, how long of a list is it?

Sarah: Well, it’s one and a quarter pages, single-spaced –

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: – on a, on a doc. And I, I would like you to guess – now, the major curse words are obviously not on the list; just take it as a given.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: But in the previous episode we talked about heck –

Together: – and darn.

Sarah: So I will give you damn, darn, dern, durn with a U, and heck are all taboo in a Steeple Hill.

Amanda: What about shoot?

Sarah: Shoot is not allowed; it’s taboo.

Amanda: Shoot is not allowed?

Sarah: Nope!

Amanda: Oh. Okay, fudge? I know we mentioned that last time. I feel like fudge should be okay.

Sarah: That is allowed, that is allowed.

Amanda: Okay, fudge –

Sarah: However, I will, I will add to this adventure by informing you of the second piece of this glorious list. I was sent this list because Sara used to have a drinking game with her friends where they would try to come up with words that would not be in a Steeple Hill, but are not in this list. So example, fudge-packing? Not in a Steeple Hill, but it’s not on the list, so give it a try! [Laughs]

Amanda: Well, unless you work at a, a fudgery.

Sarah: [Laughs] Exactly. When are you going to talk about fudge? All right, do you have any other, any other, any other guesses?

Amanda: For, like, word guesses.

Sarah: Yeah, single words for most of them.

Amanda: [Sighs] Shoot. Darn, dern. Dang it?

Sarah: Shoot. Dang it, dang, and dang nab it: taboo. Not, not allowed, on the list.

Amanda: Wow.

Sarah: You’re scoring lots of points, though. [Laughs] You’re doing real good!

Amanda: Yeah. Okay, so ass I’m sure you can’t say.

Sarah: Absolutely not.

Amanda: Can you even say the word butt?

Sarah: Nope! And buttocks is –

Amanda: You can’t say the word butt?!

Sarah: No, you can’t say butt in a Steeple Hill book. You also can’t say buttocks unless medical. [Laughs] Buttocks, unless medical; then it’s okay.

Amanda: What if you have a doc-, I guess like a doctor, but I don’t know, like –

Sarah: [Laughs] You can’t say butt!

Amanda: – a doctor saying the word buttocks to me? I –

Sarah: Buttocks, yeah. Posterior, yes.

Amanda: Okay, so then you probably can’t say tit.

Sarah: Nope. That was not, that is not even on the list. That’s just so out of – no, mm-mm.

Amanda: [Laughs] Oh my God! Okay, no butt.

Sarah: No butt.

Amanda: I’m trying to think – I mean, obviously none of the penis words.

Sarah: Nooo!

Amanda: None of the penis words.

Sarah: None, none, none, none, none. No. And you’ve cleared out the D section, by the way: damn, darn, dern, durn, dang, and dang-nab-it. Oh, also, I beg your pardon: devil. The devil is a taboo term, except in the religious sense, but this would be a rare thing.

Amanda: Okay. I bet you, I bet it’s like you can’t even say Oh my God or Oh my gosh.

Sarah: No! No, no, no. No taking of the Lord’s name in vain.

Amanda: Ohhh Lord.

Sarah: [Laughs] Gee, geeze, and gee-, like geeze with a G or a J –

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: – also on the taboo list, but you can use sheesh instead!

Amanda: These people are so unserious.

Sarah: I know the editor who wrote this list, and she was very proud of it, and she should be!

Amanda: Wow. What’s the most surprising on there, you think?

Sarah: For the love of Mike. [Laughs]

Amanda: What?

Sarah: You’re not allowed to say For the love of Mike! or For Pete’s sake! You’re not allowed to see either of those –

Amanda: Who’s Mike?

Sarah: – or For heaven’s sake. You’re not allowed to say that either. You can say for goodness’ sake instead. But For Christ’s sake is absolutely not happening. That is just a no-go.

Amanda: So my very Christian grandmother – may she rest; very lovely woman – ran Bible study; my grandfather was a pastor. She would always say Oh gee, so G-E-E, on the phone. She would never say gosh or guard.

Sarah: Oh gee!

Amanda: Oh gee.

Sarah: [Laughs] Are you ready for more of this list?

Amanda: Yes.

Sarah: Any more guesses? And I’ll give you the whole list.

Amanda: No, I feel like I’m tapped out!

Sarah: Okay. Here, here are, here are the terms. These are the taboo terms for Steeple Hill.

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: If you’re going to write for Steeple Hill – I don’t even know if they’re still publishing – you can’t use the word arousal.

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: Bastard. Bet.

Amanda: Bet? ‘Cause of –

Sarah: Bet.

Amanda: – like, gambling?

Sarah: Oh yes. We’ll get, we’ll come back to that. Blast, like Blast it or, or, or, you know, or he blasted into space or finger-blasting her clitoris? [Laughs] Like what is it?

Amanda: Yeah, I was thinking, like, a different kind of blast.

Sarah: Bra.

Amanda: What?!

Sarah: You can’t say bra – [laughs] – or brassiere.

Amanda: So are these women just loosey-goosey out there?

Sarah: [Laughs] Like Barbie dolls, they don’t move. Breast, except for breast cancer, if necessary.

Amanda: If necessary!

Sarah: If nec- – if you must use the word breast.

Amanda: Not even medical. You –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Amanda: Just breast cancer. [Laughs]

Sarah: There are some, there are some people who do not ever want to hear the word breast. Butt or buttocks, unless medical. Curse. Damn, darn, dern, durn, devil, dang, and dang-nab-it. For heaven’s sake, for the love of Mike, for Pete’s sake. Gee, geeze. Halloween. [Laughs]

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: Can’t have Halloween. Har- –

Amanda: Halloween doesn’t exist.

Sarah: [Laughs] No. Harlot. Can’t say harlot. Heck, hell, holy cow, or holy used in any non-religious sense: holy crap, holy cow, holy none of that. Panties – [laughs] – undergarments of any kind. And now do socks count as undergarments? Like, what, what counts as an undergarment?

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: Panties, passion, shoot –

Amanda: Passion!

Sarah: Passion. It, you know, makes people think of sexytimes.

Amanda: Yeah, God forbid anyone has any passion.

Sarah: Saint, name of saint, swear, swore, undergarments of any kind, as I mentioned, and whore. [Laughs] But you know what’s not on this list? Fisting. Double penetration. Like –

Amanda: I, I didn’t hear C-U-N-T on there.

Sarah: Nope! You can say cunt – [laughs] – in a Steeple Hill. Oh my God.

Amanda: Cunt is the poophole loophole, as we’ve mentioned before. You could say that if you want.

Sarah: It doesn’t say poophole!

Amanda: You can do poophole if you want!

Sarah: You found another poophole loophole. I’m so proud!

Amanda: You can do poop chute like C-H-U-T-E.

Sarah: That’s right, poop chute, yep. Poophole loophole.

Amanda: Poop chute is allowed.

Sarah: So here are the other guidelines –

Amanda: Wait, what about cum and jizz? Those aren’t on list.

Sarah: No – [laughs] – those aren’t on the list, so they must be – [laughs more]. Spunk?

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: Skeet? I really struggle when character descriptions in, in cover copy is like, She showed a lot of spunk, and I’m like, You need to use a different word. [Laughs]

Amanda: No.

Sarah: Would you like to hear the rest of the, of the guidelines for editorial?

Amanda: Yes.

Sarah: Okay. Christian characters should not smoke, drink, gamble, or play cards, and terms associated with these activities should only be used in connection with bad guys or disapproval. It is acceptable to say He cursed or to mention cursing, but sparingly for realism. Flag based on content: Angel only when in a biblical context. Miracle only when used in a biblical context. Oh my God, oh God only allowed when clearly part of a prayer. (I’m guessing not during a sex scene.) Heavenly –

Amanda: That could be a prayer. Some people might –

Sarah: I mean –

Amanda: – be praying.

Sarah: – I have joked, I have joked for probably twenty straight years that erotic inspirationals – oh my God, oh God, oh God – would be a great line for Harlequin, and they never take me up on it.

Heavenly only when used in a biblical context. And this is my favorite part: Situations to be avoided. Can you guess what some of them are?

Amanda: A man and woman ever being alone.

Sarah: [Laughs] Well, hero and heroine sleeping in the same house without a third party, even if they’re not together or in the same room is on this list. [Laughs] So situations to be avoided: Kissing below the neck. This is all you get, right here. And this is, this is wild considering how many covers are in this issue where the heroes have all lost their heads. [Laughs] They don’t have any heads.

Amanda: But also, like, how do –

Sarah: They got kissed off!

Amanda: I feel like also family and family planning and babies play a large part of the story –

Sarah: Yeah, but we don’t –

Amanda: – but we can’t make any reference to what happens to get –

Sarah: Nope.

Amanda: – get those babies.

Sarah: Not on the list, baby. Situation to be avoided: Visible signs or discussions of arousal. Nobody is horny, nobody has a hard on, there are no pointy nipples, none of that. Nudity. People changing clothes on screen or any character clad in only a towel should be avoided. Here’s a real loss for me: Double entendre. Not allowed to do that. I mentioned Hero and heroine sleeping in the same room without a third party –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – or in the same house without a third party. Not even in the same room; they can’t sleep in the same house without a third party, because who knows what they’re doing in the night when we’re not watching. Okay.

Amanda: God forbid. Oh, sorry, can’t say that.

Sarah: Can’t say that. This is my favorite part of this list. Situation to be avoided: Direct dialogue with God on screen in the sense that the author has given Him actual lines of dialogue. Characters can talk to God; they cannot get dialogue in response! [Laughs] What were the situations in which this became a necessary inclusion on this guide? How many books were submitted to Steeple Hill that had God as, like, a full speaking character?

0Amanda: Like, Yeah, sure, that sounds great!

Sarah: You should totally kiss her below the neck, bro. [Laughs]

So there you go.

Amanda: Thanks for reaching out, Jake.

Sarah: [Laughs] There you go; those are the taboo terms for Steeple Hill. I have saved this document for many, many years, and I love it so much.

Amanda: That sounds boring.

Sarah: [Laughs] The list was really fun; what are you talking about?

Amanda: I meant books from that list sound boring.

Sarah: Well, goll derg it?

[Laughter]

Sarah: Amanda, you’re so hard to please! Durg darn it. [Laughs more] Oh God! Oh, that was fun. Thank you, Harlequin, for –

Amanda: Yeah, now I want a book where, like, like a normie gets transported into an inspirational romance, and it’s kind of like The Good Place where she goes to curse and something, like, bleeps –

Sarah: And it’s like Spoons! Yes, it’s –

Amanda: She’s like, What the fuck?

Sarah: It, it is just like that. That’s, that’s probably the best example of, of what that would be like. [Laughs]

Amanda: God!

Sarah: For the love of Mike – who’s Mike? [Laughs]

Amanda: Who’s – I’m assuming it’s like a reference to, like, Michael –

Sarah: I presume?

Amanda: – and same for, like, for Pete’s sake, like Peter.

Sarah: Right? I guess?

Amanda: But all, like, what the fuck?

Sarah: Absolute bananas. I love it.

So back –

Amanda: …reaffirms that inspirationals are not for me!

Sarah: Not for you. And listen, if you like inspirationals, more power to you. I do have issue with the, I, I have issue with the idea that Christianity should be so centered and made so important in the genre, and I find that’s one, I think that’s one of the biggest issues with the genre overall and how it develops culturally is there’s so much primacy and importance given specifically to Christian stories, and I just, that really, that’s not helping anything in the genre, especially a genre about, you know, self-determination and self-actualization. There’s a lot of –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – movement within Christian communities in the United States that do not want any of that.

May I direct your attention to PDF page 16?

Amanda: I feel like we’ve seen this photo before.

Sarah: We have seen this photo before, but we got a hat! Hat watch!

Amanda: Hat watch.

Sarah: Not only a hat watch, a hat that matches the jers-, sweater, sweater, jacket. What is that? It’s a wide white border with some diamonds down the front. Maybe it’s like a cowboy shirt with fringe? But –

Amanda: And it’s like, the hat looks like a blue suede, a velvet?

Sarah: Yes, it’s rounded.

Amanda: It’s got texture.

Sarah: It’s rounded on the top, and it’s rounded on the sides. This is Ginger Rapsus, BooksByGinger.com. That’s a good hat.

Amanda: I feel like it’s not even on her head; I feel like it’s just, like, perched.

Sarah: It’s, it’s per-, like, well, look at her hair!

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: That’s some big hair! Like, that takes, like –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – teasing, and – it is so funny to go look at Instagram after looking at these pictures and all of these women with, like, stick-straight thin lines of hair, except for the barrel curls, and then in the magazine it’s like hair out to here!

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: On page 17, I just want to tell everybody that Pocket Star eBooks – I don’t even think that exists anymore – they were releasing digital versions of some holiday books, and one of them is Just Curious by Jude Devereux, which was in an anthology with a book by, I think it was either Janet Dailey or – I think it was Janet Dailey, or maybe Julie Garwood – and Andrea Kane’s Yuletide Treasure was also in there. Just Curious is one of my favorite cheesy Jude Deveraux short stories. It is cheesy; it is silly; it is very fatphobic because it’s a Jude Deveraux story from this time period. Oh my goodness, did I love this story. I used to read it all of the time.

And then on page 25, who are we talking about?

Amanda: Jude Deveraux.

Sarah: Jude Deveraux. Did you read this?

Amanda: Oh wait! Didn’t we get a, like a mailbag letter about this or, like, this feature? ‘Cause I’m like, if they had –

Sarah: Oh –

Amanda: – like, a mailbag letter, I’m sure that was, like, for a different edition?

Sarah: Yes, it was “Once Upon a Romantic Times” in the November issue in 2012 –

Amanda: Okay, so this is like a recurring –

Sarah: – was about the magazine and a different, and a different author, I believe? But –

Amanda: Yeah, I was like, what kind of time-traveling nonsense is happening?

Sarah: Yes, exactly. No, I think this is a continuing series that they were doing, because at the Kansas City Conference there was a special session where Julie Garwood and Jude Deveraux were interviewed live on stage by Morgan Doremus, who used to work for RT. I think she ran their website. She was doing, like, films and interviews and, like, they had a whole video channel, mostly because of Morgan. But she was moderating a conversation with Julie Garwood and Jude Deveraux, and I remember it so clearly because I stood up to ask a question. I was cold and sweating and shaking. My inner thirteen-year-old was truly losing her shit, because I could not believe I was in a room and about to talk to Julie Garwood – who is, who was, by the way, one of the nicest people; she was so lovely – and Jude Deveraux. And I was like, I can barely stand up and speak.

I also got put into Twitter jail because I was tweeting so fast what they were saying, I went over a hundred tweets in an hour, and I was put in Twitter jail, leading to the creation of @SmartBitches2 – [laughs] – because I wanted to keep going.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: You’re not going to stop me, Twitter! I’m going to be tweeting.

So this is a profile of Jude Deveraux who, you know, needs no introduction. And she has some things to say that are, well, pretty, pretty rough in terms of gender. It’s just, it’s really wild to listen to an author talk about this. And I just got through mentioning how Jude Deveraux is very, like a lot of her books are extremely fatphobic? She talks about how she wrote A Knight in Shining Armor, that she had Linda Marrow as her editor. And I just want to read this section to just show the difference between what editing used to be and how it was changing.

>> “For many years I had Linda Marrow as my editor, and I didn’t have to talk her into anything. She was gung ho for all of it. If it’s told with passion and enthusiasm, she likes it.”

>> That wasn’t always the case. After Marrow moved to another publishing house, “I entered the dark ages of editors who couldn’t care less what I wrote.”

I feel kind of bad if one of the editors is reading this article, y’all.

>> “It was very, very difficult to work without any kind of feedback. I’d turn in a book, wait three months for it to be read, then receive a four-page letter telling me things like I didn’t tell where the hero went to pee after he drank a beer. There was no talk of character or concepts, just itty-bitty things that didn’t matter. It was a depressing time, and I came close to giving up writing altogether.”

That sounds like a you problem, ma’am.

>> Fortunately for Devereux’s many fans, she’s back with Linda. “She reads my books in fifty-page segments and talks to me about every character, every joke, every tear. It’s as though I have a whole new career.”

May I introduce you to Wattpad? And if that’s a little bit too much –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – try AO3. If you want feedback on fifty-page segments, there is an entire internet ready to do that. But here is where I really just about lost my mind. If you ever think about the difference between heroes now versus heroes when Jude Deveraux was writing, like in the ‘80s and ‘90s –

>> When asked about the biggest change she’s seen in romance after nearly thirty-five years in the business, Deveraux gives a full-throated defense of heroes who are alpha to the core. Unlike many of the men being penned today, she notes –

Gender essentialism, ahoy.

>> – “They are now so girly, it’s hard to recognize them. All they seem to do now is stand around and feel sympathy for the heroine. They understand her, see all that she does, and marvel at it. They are the best girlfriend a girl ever had,” she said of the current crop of heroes. “I am so sick of PC men who aren’t like real human men that I want to scream. But no matter how loving and caring I make the men in my books of the last ten or so years, I still get told that my heroes aren’t PC enough. The males in romance today make me long for men who sit around and drink beer and don’t listen to a word a woman is saying.”

Wow!

>> Interestingly, Deveraux was inspired to become a writer when the loutish behavior of heroes in too many rape scenes had her throwing books in fury.

The cognitive dissonance is measurable on seismology equipment right now. Like, wowser. Yeah.

Amanda: That’s a big oof.

Sarah: Heroes are too girly; they’re too sympathetic. Holy shit. Wow, huh?

Amanda: Big oof on that one!

Sarah: And think about it: this is being written in 2012. And so Kathryn and the magazine are, you know, are centerpiece-ing authors who are advocating for romance heroes from ten to twenty ye-, twenty years previously. I mean, isn’t that wild? Like, nonono, you –

Amanda: It’s also to think like, this was in 2012, and we all know –

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: – what happened in 2016.

Sarah: Right? Yeah.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: This is, this is not that far from 2016.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: You are so right about that. Yeah, wasn’t that truly – that was really something.

Amanda: Something?

Sarah: That was –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – something else. I just, wow.

Also, I feel bad for the editors who were working with her, because, okay, it sucks to inherit an author, and it sucks to be inherited. I’ve, I’ve been on the, the author side of that. I actually ended up very lucky, ‘cause I had two editors read my second book, and I, I was edited very well, and I was very grateful when the person who acquired me –

Amanda: Well, I think –

Sarah: – left for law school.

Amanda: This sounds like a classic case of she’d been working with an editor for a long period of time, so they had –

Sarah: Yep.

Amanda: – a very unique relationship –

Sarah: Clearly.

Amanda: – that she was not going to get with someone who is now her editor and she has no sort of established connection to that person –

Sarah: No.

Amanda: – but still expected to be treated that way.

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: So good thing was working with her editor again.

Sarah: Yep! I mean, and like I said, if this isn’t working out, you know, there’s always Wattpad and AO3. Lots of people want to give you some feedback.

Amanda: Could you imagine?

Sarah: On PDF page 27, there are some covers. So first of all, I need you to see the cover for An Imperfect Proposal by Hayley Ann Solomon. I –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: Okay, first of all, I think that is Johnny Bailey, Anthony Bridgerton? Bit of a resemblance there.

Amanda: Oh! I can see it, yeah.

Sarah: Actually, if it’s, if it’s Anthony Bridgerton and David Boreanaz had a baby, that’s this guy.

Amanda: Ooh, I can see that, yeah.

Sarah: But would you please look at those fuck-ass children behind the tree?

Amanda: I don’t like it. No. Get out of here.

Sarah: [Laughs] Okay.

Amanda: Scram.

Sarah: So this guy is, you know, he’s got his, he’s got his jacket off…

Amanda: Whose children are these?

Sarah: I do not know! But he’s, he’s clearly sitting on a blanket having a picnic with a girl in a green dress, and her hair’s all up, and her eyes are closed, and he’s leaning in and holding her hand, and it says An Imperfect Proposal, so you assume that’s what’s happening, and behind them is a tree. Now, the tree is blurry. The tree is very watercolor. But these children are perfectly in focus. There’s a little girl and a little boy. He is wearing a big velvet ribbon as a tie? It’s giving me very, it’s giving me antebellum costume?

Amanda: It’s giving me Colonel Sanders.

Sarah: Yes, thank you! That’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a reverse Colonel Sanders. So what’s, what’s that about?

Amanda: That sounds like a sex move.

Sarah: [Laughs] But I bet it’s not on the Steeple Hill list, so you, you can put it in a –

Amanda: They didn’t mention anything about the reverse Colonel Sanders!

Sarah: [Laughs] The reverse Colonel Sanders!

Amanda: Look, if you’re listening to this, tell us what you think the reverse Colonel Sanders is.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Oh boy. So there’s these two little fuck-ass kids hiding behind the trees spying on them while this proposal is happening, and I’m like, Kids, kids, kids, you, where’s your governess? You need to –

Amanda: Go away.

Sarah: – not be witnessing whatever’s about to go down. ‘Cause you know what happens when a hero and a heroine are on a picnic by themselves! They get up to stuff!

Amanda: Yeah –

Sarah: Yeah, that was quite a cover.

Amanda: – out in the, out in the fields? Yeah!

Sarah: And then on the same page, there’s a picture of, Texas Wide Open is the title, and it’s a pair of legs with, like, really, really kind of hot red, high red boots, like knee-high red boots with heels. Those are cute. But sh-, you can tell that the woman is resting with her legs u, and her hands are just draped in her crotch. Like, her hands are just –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – hanging in her crotch. [Laughs]

Amanda: Well, for me, the cover that got me was like the nipple right in the middle of the –

Sarah: [Laughs] Yes! We might have snarked this because of the expression on –

Amanda: Maybe! It’s got, like, a woman –

Sarah: Look at the expression on their faces!

Amanda: – opening a man’s shirt, but she’s, like, opening it to reveal his nipple, and she’s looking right at you –

Sarah: Yes!

Amanda: – right at you while she’s doing this.

Sarah: And her expression is like, ehhh? Like –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – look what I found? [Laughs]

Amanda: Like, it is intentional.

Sarah: Oh yes. And look at his face. He’s making, like duck lips.

Amanda: Like, duck lips. [Laughs]

Sarah: You saw my nipple! [Laughs]

Amanda: God.

Sarah: Oh God, this whole page is a gift. And then there’s Fern Michaels, and it’s just pictures of presents. It’s fine; it’s clip art.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: We, we got it at Shutterstock; it’s good.

On PDF page 44, this fucking guy. Okay, I put another image –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – off to the side for you to enjoy.

Amanda: Yeah, you, you put this image in, and I’m like, I’m sorry, Sarah, I’m too busy looking at this Santa dog! Sorry!

Sarah: [Laughs] And the little angel and devil children, children on the bottom there?

Amanda: I don’t know what those are.

Sarah: That poor dachshund. It’s so, it’s so unhappy, has a big old Santa hat on.

So in the top left we have Margaret Mallory’s The Warrior. And subsequent covers seem to have a lot bigger muscles than the ones on this guy. [Laughs] He looks kind of like, you know, Bob from Accounting.

Amanda: Wait, his – this is going to be so mean. I’m so – [laughs] – this episode. His abs.

Sarah: His ass?!

Amanda: Ah! His abs – hold on.

Sarah: Oh my God, his abs are like, like, like –

Amanda: All right –

Sarah: – sea cucumbers! They’re just long and skinny!

Amanda: I’m putting this in the Slack.

Sarah: Oh God.

Amanda: This is what I think of when I look at his abs. Are you ready?

Sarah: This is what I think of when I look at his – Nooo!

[Laughter]

Sarah: Oh no! You should watch the video for this episode! Oh no! What the hell is that?

Amanda: It’s the underside of a stingray!

Sarah: Oh God! [Laughs] His abs do look like that. No! They’re, like, long and tubular!

[Laughter]

Sarah: Oh my God. Yep, okay, I can see it. I can’t wait to edit this video. This is going to be quite a treat. Also –

Amanda: Yeah, that’s what I think of.

Sarah: – his hair is not his hair. That hair –

Amanda: No, correct.

Sarah: – was not on him. In fact, on the side there, it looks like it’s pasted in. It looks like it’s…

Amanda: Yeah, just because, like –

Sarah: – just pasted a strip on!

Amanda: The color doesn’t quite match his facial hair color.

Sarah: No, he’s like auburn, and the rest of him is brown!

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: And those abs, those, those sea cucumber abs. Wow. He also has a lot of things wrapped around his upper arms. Do think he has a blood pressure problem?

Amanda: I don’t know!

Sarah: Like, are those like – there’s two cuffs and a, and a loop of rope. Like, buddy, are you, is there a – [laughs] – is there a problem?

Amanda: Well, he doesn’t have a shirt to put a pocket protector in, so that’s –

Sarah: It’s true! It’s where his –

Amanda: – where he keeps his ballpoint pens.

Sarah: Where his phone goes in there under his biceps? Okay. [Laughs]

On page 59 – I hope you all are having as good a time as we are, ‘cause –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – oh my goodness. All right, so on page 59, PDF, there are some, there are some books. One is –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – Pulse and Prejudice, Pride and Prejudice with a bloodthirsty twist by Colette Saucier.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: Follow the cursed Mr. Darcy as he strives to overcome his love and bloodlust for Miss Elizabeth Bennet. Hate when that happens. And, well –

Amanda: A shifter romance!

Sarah: A shifter, a shifter romance with, yeah. Please tell me about the shifter romance.

Amanda: So the hero is a Yorkie shifter –

Sarah: [Snorts]

Amanda: – and his wife is a Russian Blue shifter.

Sarah: Oh no.

Amanda: Yeah, so you got cats and dogs living together.

Sarah: The – no, she’s a dog! Russian Blue Maltese.

Amanda: No! I googled it!

Sarah: Wait, is that – wait, is –

Together: A Russian Blue Maltese is a cat?!

Sarah: [Gasps]

Amanda: Yes!

Sarah: Oh my God! ‘Cause I had a Maltese; that’s a dog! His name was Toto. He was very –

Amanda: ‘Cause I was like, I’ve never heard of that, and it’s either like Russian Blue or Blue Maltese or Russian Maltese or Maltese cat? But it is a kind of cat!

Sarah: Maltese is a coat color, not a breed. I mean, unless it’s a dog. Oh that’s interesting! I learned a thing today! How exciting.

Amanda: But the Yorkie shifter just sort of tickled me.

Sarah: A Yorkie shifter with a cat shifter – and can we talk about the model that they’ve used for Love and Death in the Big Easy, Shifter Tales 2?

Amanda: Too smarmy. Too smarmy –

Sarah: He’s smirk- –

Amanda: – for a Yorkie.

Sarah: He’s smirking. Yorkies do not smirk.

Amanda: No.

Sarah: They do not. Oh my God, he’s a Yorkie shifter, and his wife is, is a cat.

Amanda: Mm-hmm!

Sarah: They battle a new monster in town. Carnage and mayhem. I don’t want to know about carnage and mayhem if we’re talking about a Yorkie and a cat. All right, I need –

Amanda: Though I just, I love shifter romances where it’s like a departure from the usual, like, wolf, jungle cat, bear. I want the weirdos.

Sarah: Bull?

Amanda: Give me the weirdos.

Sarah: Okay, it’s still available – no, and it’s not released digitally. It is out of print. I am sad.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: A new game of tag. Oh boy. The dog and cat play more than tag when with their son and mixed array of shape-shifting friends, they battle a new monster in town.

Amanda: They have a son? What is their –

Sarah: It’s a, he’s a Yorkie!

Amanda: What does their son shift into?

Sarah: It doesn’t say! Oh, we’re being cheated.

Amanda: I have so many questions.

Sarah: All right, he’s a, he’s a Yorkie shifter. Why are there not more Yorkie shifters? Wow.

On page 80, this guy’s exposed muscular chest looks like a lumpy dick.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: This is Katie Lane’s Trouble in Texas. And he’s looking down like he’s about to pull his belt buckle away from his body and make sure his penis is still there. But his chest looks like a lumpy dick. And this was a problem for covers, because, I mean, you know about the, the Jo Goodman and the – I mean, we’ve already talked about Kiss of Snow by Kresley Cole and Gina Showalter where the shadow makes an upright dick on their stomachs, right?

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: But yeah, that guy’s dick looks like a lum-, that guy’s stomach looks like a lumpy dick.

All right, you picked the next page. Please tell me what’s up.

Amanda: It was on page 115, and it’s in the Erotica category, and they reviewed this book, but it’s for, it’s a cover for, called Jane Eyre Laid Bare –

Sarah: Ohhh –

Amanda: – and it’s a photo of a corset –

Sarah: Yes.

Amanda: – but the corset is like this pinkish-red, shiny-ish material, but I also can’t tell if it’s, like, aged or, like, weathered or dirty a little bit? I can’t tell, but it just reminds me of like a marbled piece of beef, and I don’t like looking at it.

Sarah: [Laughs] Jane Eyre Wagyu Beef?

Amanda: Well, that’s what it – it looks like a –

Sarah: Prime Grade A Jane Eyre. It does look beefy.

Amanda: I don’t like it.

Sarah: It’s –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – very beefy, you’re right. This also did not get a good review, if you’re curious. Jane Eyre Laid Bare –

Amanda: No…

Sarah: – by Eve Sinclair and Charlotte Brontë.

>> Claiming co-writing credit implies a certain idea that this erotic retelling will be close to the sexual undertones of the original, but Sinclair seems determined to shoehorn in as much erotica as possible, often at the expense of both story and character, just for the sake of titillation. The shocking ending managed to encompass three lessons: sex is bad, BDSM is bad, and women who want sex and own their sexual power are bad. Unless you like your erotica with a side heaping of guilt – and this reviewer does not – pass this one up.

But again, two stars. You have a, you have a ranking that means skip this, but you don’t use it.

Amanda: Do you, do you think people were allowed to be titillated in the Steeple Hill books?

Sarah: No! [Laughs] No, definitely no titillation. I’m sure just the idea of the word tit – like even that bird that’s a tit, you can’t talk about that either.

Amanda: [Laughs] What about the, the woodcock? Can we talk about that bird?

Sarah: The woodcock? No. Or the –

Together: – Blue-footed booby?

Sarah: No, no boobies, no boobies.

 Amanda: Oh, dang.

Sarah: So here’s a weird thing: on page 116 and 117 is an article. This article’s a little weird. So, it is an article about a group of moms who are the Divalysscious Divas or the Diva Moms “helped launch E. L. James to superstardom, and how they’re doing the same for Tiffany Reisz.” So this was a party, and I’m looking at this; I’m like, This looks familiar. Have I read this magazine before? And so I look in my photo archive. I was at this party. This party was in a clothing boutique on the Upper East Side, I think? Yeah, this Upper East Side. There were, there were jeans that were very dark blue – this was skinny jeans era – and they were eighteen hundred dollars, and they looked like – forgive me – someone had jizzed on them. They had white splatter in random places; it was gro- – they were, they were very expensive. So already I’m like, what is happening?

So the context is the Diva Moms hosted an evening. They hosted a launch party for E. L. James. And one of the reasons why Fifty Shades of Grey took off was because it was super popular with rich women on the Upper East Side and Long Island. And that is the major content source for things like The Today Show and Good Morning America, because that is their audience and their, and that is who they are as well. So they hosted a launch party for E. L. James, which led, I believe, to an article in the, what was it? The Sun or, no, it was the Post.

>> A new book about sex games and a bondage-loving billionaire has New York City moms reading like never before.

The, these, this group of women had a lot to do with the trajectory of Fifty Shades of Grey. Now they’re hosting a party for Tiffany Reisz because she has a book called The Angel, and so there was a reading, there was a dominatrix who was there to, like, demonstrate and give some ideas of how to dominate their men, and Dr. Logan Levkoff, who is a media sexologist who was famous at that time. Everyone is super tall; everyone has the same hair; everyone who’s in this room was very, very wealthy.

And I looked up my pictures from this event. I took pictures of the book in the window. There was champagne; there were snacks. This was the type of boutique where there was like five things, maybe six total things in the store, like, and then, like, racks around the room. And it was really weird to hold a book event in a clothing store. But it worked! ‘Cause, I mean, they were closed, and there was this whole table of sex paraphernalia. I will, I will share an image or two in the Slack for you, and I will put some pictures in the show notes of this party. I barely remembered going to this party, but this party was expensive.

Amanda: That photo is one that’s like what they used in the magazine, with the flowers and the stuff on the table?

Sarah: Yep! I took the same photo. Everyone’s wearing cocktails and little high-heeled booties.

Amanda: Yeah, when the little booties were a thing, for sure.

Sarah: Little booties were definitely a thing here. I’ll show you another, here’s another picture. This is, this is Tiffany and Logan Levkoff and Lyss Stern, who I think is the founder of Diva Moms. And they’re all posing, and you can see the clothes behind them. That’s probably like fifteen thousand dollars’ –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – worth of clothes. This was a very nice boutique. So this was, I didn’t remember this until I was like, Wait a minute, I know that dress. Why do I know Tiffany Reisz’s dress? ‘Cause I was at this party.

So, like, RT went to cover the party for Tiffany Reisz, and a lot of it is about E. L. James. I’m sure if this were being published now, the SEO would be worth millions of dollars for Tiffany Reisz, because it would be one, two, one, two.

But you also went down a rabbit hole with this article, didn’t you?

Amanda: Holy shit, did I.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: So keep whatever you want out of what I found. So I was curious if Diva Moms was still operating.

Sarah: I did the same thing! I did some googling!

Amanda: Yeah! And so the founder, Lyss Stern –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: – doesn’t look like Diva Moms is operating as like a book club or anything like that, but Lyss Stern has spun out her own, like, PR and marketing business from doing Diva Moms. The website is – I don’t know; there’s, there’s clearly some unfinished stuff on there? Like, if you go to Events, it still has, like, the placeholder text of Event 1 Here, Caption Here.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: So I don’t know how much Lyss is doing with, like, the PR marketing stuff. I did, however, find out that she runs a Jewish hand-beading business –

Sarah: Okay!

Amanda: – and she’s selling $350 hand-beaded challah covers and, like, matza covers.

Sarah: Ooh, okay. I want to see –

Amanda: It’s very expensive. Here’s some links.

Sarah: Where are the, is, is – oh, oh, oh, oh!

Amanda: She also made a custom clutch for Pete Hegseth’s wife!

Sarah: Oh honey, no, you didn’t! No, no, you didn’t!

Amanda: That says We The People, and you can see it featured on Pete Hegseth’s wife’s Instagram –

Sarah: Nooo!

Amanda: – which I also put a link to.

Sarah: Oh, girl, no. What? Oh honey.

Amanda: Yeaahh.

Sarah: Oh honey.

Amanda: She also, huge Andrew Cuomo supporter –

Sarah: Oh –

Amanda: – has photos on her Instagram hanging out with Andrew Cuomo, and –

Sarah: Oh, fucking, some of her bags are cute. Oy Vey All Day –

Amanda: And also – yeah.

Sarah: – Schlep to the Hamptons. [Laughs] Schlep. I want a bag that says Schlep with beading. My mother-in-law would kill for this! Oh, what a fucking bummer, ‘cause some of her shit is cute!

Amanda: Yeah. And also, like, a lot of like Pray for New York when, like, Mamdani was getting elected, so, you know. But also, we have more followers than her on Instagram, so.

Sarah: [Laughs] Do we really?

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: Oh no!

Amanda: She’s got under 10k.

Sarah: Oh my! Well, she doesn’t need it. Okay, her –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – her beadwork challah covers are really –

Amanda: The beadwork is beautiful.

Sarah: – fucking gorgeous. There’s one where you put a big fucking pink bow, like a giant pink bow on your challah. It’s fucking kitschy, and it’s $485! [Laughs]

Amanda: Yeah. So pricey.

Sarah: It’s a headband for your challah! Oh my gosh. I mean, if it’s hand-beaded, then you know what? I hope they’re paying their artists well, because – okay, they’re – okay. On the challah covers, there is a parody or a, or a version of the Dior book bag, because of the banner in the middle on the bag from Dior it would say J’adore Dior and there’s like blue flowers? And on the bag, it says J’adore challah. You know what? Bitch, me too. I also adore…

[Laughter]

Sarah: Fuck! It’s so – and of course the, the Hegseth purse has its own special page. Oh honey.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: That’s a bummer.

Amanda: It was an interesting rabbit hole to go –

Sarah: That is an interesting –

Amanda: – to go down.

Sarah: It’s a bummer, because, oh my God, some of her shit is so fucking cute.

Amanda: Yeah, some of the beadwork, like, there’s one where it has, like, pomegranates and stuff, and, like, the reds and pinks are really pretty.

Sarah: [Sighs] They’re so pretty. What a fucking bummer.

Amanda: But also, so expensive!

Sarah: Ugh! And also, Hegseth: ugh.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: Thank you for that rabbit hole. I feel like we both brought –

Amanda: You’re welcome!

Sarah: – we’ve broth, we’ve both brought real gifts to this episode. I hope everyone –

[Laughter]

Sarah: – everyone’s grateful.

On page 122, they’re talking a little bit about the conference agenda. It’s December, the conference isn’t until May 2013; it’s in Kansas City. Like I said, that was one of my favorite RTs. There was all kinds of shit, like talking about Victorian women’s clothing and erotic romance having a moment, and e-book retailers and financial sub-, subsidiary rights and how to be a self-published author. And the reader program is like Pimp My Badge: get, you know, bling up your badge. Montlake mania scavenger hunt; the, there’s always a trivia – I used to love when there was a trivia – cover model karaoke. Like, that was the kind of thing that I missed when RT ended. Just really dumb shit in the middle of the day when you’re not really drunk, unless you, like, got an early start, but everything is very silly.

On PDF page 128, this is the page of all the giveaways.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: And we’ve talked in, before how it was always one email address, like giveaways@RTBookReviews, and you used to be like, Oh my God, the person who has to check that email account, that poor person.

Amanda: Now it’s Liz.

Sarah: Now it’s just Liz. Poor Liz! Liz@RTBookReviews is getting at least ten different contest email messages, and the instructions are Put this in the subject line. And as we have discussed before, do people do that? No. So she had to –

Amanda: So she has to go and open these –

Sarah: – fucking messages –

Amanda: – one by one.

Sarah: – and weed them into the right place, and oh my – poor Liz. Liz, I’m so sorry. This is a terrible system.

Amanda: This has to be, like –

Sarah: Go back to –

Amanda: – her full-time gig.

Sarah: Go back to giveaway@RTBookReviews. This is just mean to poor Liz. And she, she, maybe she has, like, other work email coming in, and she’s got all this contest crap, and she’s going to miss something? That’s way too stressful. Free Liz; free Liz from this inbox.

Amanda: [Laughs] Free Liz!

Sarah: This is terrible.

And on the back cover, what do we have on the back cover? We have a douchebag on the back cover.

Amanda: I hate, I hate this man.

Sarah: [Laughs] Would you please describe this douchebag? This is such a very specific style from a very specific time.

Amanda: From, from, yeah, the, like, early to mid 2010s.

Sarah: Yep!

Amanda: So this guy has like a knit beanie –

Sarah: Yep.

Amanda: – but it’s sort of like pushed back a little, so you can see like a little peek of his hairline, which is generous to call it a hairline.

Sarah: [Laughs] He’s very clearly short-, shortly shorn.

Amanda: Yes, and then he’s got a, like, heather gray, maybe it’s like a cowl neck sweater? I can’t tell –

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Amanda: – if that’s like a separate scarf or if it’s attached.

Sarah: No, I think this, this scarf is separate, yeah.

Amanda: And then some dark wash denim, and he’s –

Sarah: Yep.

Amanda: – embracing this woman, but he’s looking right at us.

Sarah: And he is –

Amanda: He’s looking right at us with his –

Sarah: – sneering.

Amanda: – big shiny teeth.

Sarah: He just looks like he, he just, he – if this guy gives, buys you a drink, you’re like, Oh, fuck, douchebag.

Amanda: You cover your drinks around this man.

Sarah: Cover your drinks around this guy. This is some terrible stock imagery; oh my God! Dark wash skinny jeans, a flaccid beanie, and some really big extensions and a big scarf. This is so 2012.

Amanda: You know the back of that beanie has him looking like an uncircumcised penis.

Sarah: [Laughs] I was not expecting that. Oh my God. Wow. He does look, you, he absolutely looks like an uncircumcised penis.

Amanda: We’ve all seen what hap-, we’ve all seen those loose beanies, come on.

Sarah: What is with this beanie? Why was this beanie a thing? Why is this beanie still a thing? Do you know?

Amanda: It’s possible that he was sensitive about his hair and he’s like –

Sarah: I mean –

Amanda: – A beanie will fix it.

Sarah: Fine, that’s fine. I mean, I invite you to go to r/bald. Have you seen?

Amanda: Yeah, of, like, people just doing it –

Sarah: Yeah, and they’re like –

Amanda: – and they look so much better!

Sarah: Gentlemen, is it time? And there’s like, there’s specific memes and images where they’re like, Yes, it’s time. And then they pic-, post a picture of themselves having shaved their head, and it’s like, Awooga! These people –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – are hot, hot. Yeah, what, what, what is, why was this beanie a thing? Why was this, why was this, why is this beanie still a thing? Why are beanie – I have a beanie problem, apparently. I didn’t know that I touched a pool of rage about beanies in myself, but apparently I did.

Amanda: I like a beanie when I, like, need to flatten down my hair for a second, or –

Sarah: That is never a thing I’ve needed to do. [Laughs]

Amanda: The wind, the wind is particularly brutal in Boston sometimes, and I hate –

Sarah: That’s true.

Amanda: And I have bangs, so then my bangs get all, like, flipped up like this, so.

Sarah: Yep. I, I can’t have wind over my ears; it gives me a headache. It’s like –

Amanda: Oh!

Sarah: – it’s just a bad headache.

Also, this ad with this douchebag in a beanie is for Loose Id, and I’ve never understood why their, why their logo had a lizard and a leash and a collar. I never understood why Loose Id had a lizard. I guess maybe this was what the gecko Geico was doing before he got the job for Geico? Maybe?

Amanda: Keep your gecko leashed, everybody.

Sarah: You’ve got to leash your gecko.

And on that note, what did you think of this episode? Did this, did this issue leash your gecko?

Amanda: I thought –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: – this was a weird one, but I say that, like, positively. This –

Sarah: Yes.

Amanda: Between Sandra Hill in the reviews –

Sarah: Yep. And the VVangels.

Amanda: – and then the, the Steeple Hill naughty list in this one –

Sarah: I, I brought – thank you to Sara Brady for letting me share that list, and if you’re looking for a copyeditor, sarabrady.com.

Amanda: Yeah. This was, this was a fun one.

Sarah: This was very fun. You chose very well. Among our other choices included in an issue that I also got from Lauren Dane where the cover story is the Smutketeers, which is apparently an author collective, but they, they do those vintage old-timey cowboy sepia-tone photos, and they’re, it’s full of se- –

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: Yeah, it’s, it’s wild. Maybe we’ll do that one next.

Amanda: Okay!

Sarah: And I also have the – did I show you these?

Amanda: No!

Sarah: Oh my goodness, I can’t believe I haven’t shown you these. Well, guess what? I won –

Amanda: What?

Sarah: – the eBay auction for two of the original 1981 issues of Romantic Times. I beg your pardon, this is 1982.

Amanda: Wow!

Sarah: This is Romantic Times 1982.

Amanda: How does it feel?

Sarah: It is, it’s a newspaper. It’s a tabloid news –

Amanda: Does it feel like it’s going to crumble into dust at any second?

Sarah: No, but I do have it in plastic. It is a little crispy. This one is a full newspaper. It’s got their first anniversary issue, and –

Amanda: Oooh!

Sarah: – there’s a whole bibliography. There’s a two-, massive two-page article about Anne McCaffrey. Oh my God, I have to scan this. There’s a bunch of book reviews – you will never guess what genre.

Amanda: Historical?

Sarah: Historical. My ten favorite historical romance by Monique Beaux, an avid reader, includes Kathleen Woodiwiss, Jill Gregory, Dorothy Garlock. There’s also an excerpt in here. [Clears throat] Book excerpt: Orient Affair. And is the woman in the illustration looming over a man? Is she possibly Asian? Yes, I’m very sad to say.

So this is like a whole newspaper. I have two of them.

Amanda: Oh boy.

Sarah: I’m very afraid. I, I might actually take this to a copy center to have them scan it. Look how big this is! I can’t put that on a scanner.

And then I also have another issue from the same period of time. This is summer of 1982. And we have book excerpt: Barbarian Princess.

Amanda: Ohhh!

Sarah: Yeah – new summer reads, but this is my favorite. She already had Harlequin, but suddenly it’s more than romance. It’s Super Romance.

Amanda: What does it even mean?

Sarah: I don’t know! Look at these covers. Look at that.

Amanda: Oh my God.

Sarah: It’s incredible, right? Sorry, the text is backwards. I have to flip my camera.

Amanda: That looks like it’s in good condition, though.

Sarah: They are in good condition. There were six of them; I think they all sold. I managed to get two. Thank you, Patreon community. This is, this is a, this is because of you. So I’m going to take this probably to a local print shop and ask them if they can scan it without damaging it. But as you see, I have it in –

Amanda: Mm.

Sarah: – I have it in plastic because I don’t want anything to happen to it. Cats will not vomit near my Romantic Times is what I’m saying here. That is not happening.

I thought this issue was really fun!

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: I really enjoyed this issue, mostly because we laughed a lot? This was –

Amanda: Oh my God.

Sarah: – this was, this was on the border of silly and taking itself too seriously, which is, which is pretty great.

Amanda: Yeah, reverse Colonel Sanders, how can we ever forget?

[outro]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. I am curious: what do you think the reverse Colonel Sanders is? Do you have an idea? [Laughs] I would love to hear what you think should not be in a Steeple Hill, but is not on the Steeple Hill list. And if you would like me to publish the list, I’ll probably put it up on Patreon so everyone can enjoy.

I end every episode with a terrible joke. This week’s joke comes from Bull, who is a member of the podcast Patreon. Thank you, Bull! Tusen takk!

How do romance writers learn the craft?

Give up? How do romance writers learn the craft?

Apprentice-shipping!

[Laughs] Apprentice-shipping! I love it! That was brilliant! Thank you, Bull!

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

[end of music]