722. RT Rewind: May 1996 Reviews

[intro]

Sarah Wendell: Hello and welcome to episode number 722 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell, and Amanda is with me. We are back in the time machine for more Romantic Times Rewind. We love the ‘90s, and that’s where we’re headed. We are going to look at the impossible glowing mullets from Romantic Times magazine in May 1996. We’re looking at the newest books, including the second book in a series that is much loved at this point and is fifteen books long. We have memorable character names, we’re going to find out what’s wrong with this man, and we’re going to learn a shocking truth about Amanda’s reading history!

There is also a video of our conversation with the covers and other visual aids. I will link to it in the show notes, or you can find it on our YouTube page under Smart Podcast Trashy Books. You can also find all of the books we talked about at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast under episode 722.

I am talking really, really fast because I can see a tree service truck out my window, and they are about to start grinding? Whatever it is when you put, like, the big chunks of tree trunk and stuff in the, in the grinding machine, and then, I guess, take mulch to other places? It’s about to get so loud, and I am talking as fast as I can so that I can finish this file before they turn on the truck, and I’m watching them. I’ve got like two cups of coffee – okay, drink your coffee slowly, folks; I’m almost done. [Laughs]

I have a compliment this week!

To Helen M.: Helen, you have more innate vivacity and contagious joy than a fleet of charter buses full of theater kids, fireflies, and sparkly unicorns.

If you would like your own compliment or you’d like to support this here show, patreon.com/SmartBitches. Our Patreon community is full of the most wonderful people. We have a glorious Discord where people give lovely book recommendations, and we chat off and on all day around the world. And if you’re a Patreon member, you get the entire PDF scan, and many of these issues of RT are not available online, so it’s a special benefit. If you would like to join, patreon.com/SmartBitches.

Are you ready? The time machine is fully charged up. We have snacks. We’re going to have a nice little trip back, oh my gosh, thirty years, to May 1996. On with the podcast.

[music]

Sarah: Good afternoon!

Amanda: Good afternoon!

Sarah: I am here to tell you that the official drink of, of RT Rewind is a Tropetails with gin. So I’m going to be day-drinking today.

Amanda: I just have a caffeine-free Diet Coke, ‘cause that’s –

Sarah: Oooh!

Amanda: – where my life is at right now.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Listen, I can’t have caffeine this late. I don’t, I don’t understand – like, I know that it’s possible, because I know many people who do, but, like, the idea of having caffeine after, after twelve o’clock noon? I just, I’m like, Wow! That, wow, that’s wild! ‘Cause if I do that –

Amanda: I can’t do it.

Sarah: – around eight or nine o’clock at night, my heartbeat’s going to be like, Hey, dunga, dunga, dunga, do you want to go to sleep? Dunga, dunga, dunga.

Amanda: Brian will have like two and a half cups of coffee a day. I don’t know how they do it.

Sarah: My heart rate would be so high –

Amanda: Mm-mm.

Sarah: – and I would never sleep! Ugh. I, I actually can feel it when I have too much caffeine and I’m trying to go to sleep. I kind of descend, and then I just hold at this one part where I’m just, you’re not quite asleep! You’re not going to get there; you know why? Woonga, oonga, oonga. It’s your heart, dumbass. You had caffeine too…

All right. We’re here to look at May 1996.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: What do you think?

Amanda: Well I was seven, so –

Sarah: [Laughs] So you weren’t reading Bobbi Smith’s Lady Deception?

Amanda: [Laughs] I was not a subscriber to the, the magazine at this point.

Sarah: [Laughs] I love how there’s this very, very central sort of Gen X-Millennial conversation that we’re always having where you’re like, I don’t, I was not even alive for that.

Amanda: Nope.

Sarah: In May 1996, I was finishing my junior year of college; I graduated in ‘97. So I was finishing up being a junior and finally figuring out everything about my college and all the things I needed to do. And I only had one year left, so it was just in time to leave.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: Isn’t that the way? You, like, you figure everything out and it’s like, Oh, it’s time to go! Great.

Amanda: Yeah, that’s usually how it happens.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

So we’ll, we’ll talk more about the cover in ads and features, as –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – we usually do. This is quite a cover. She’s going to shoot his nipple off.

Amanda: I mean, I mentioned this in the notes, but we’ve done a Bobbi Smith cover before –

Sarah: Oh yes, we did!

Amanda: – and that was for the book Haven with hot Oates –

Sarah: Hot Oates!

Amanda: – sexy Oates, and we also loved that cover. So I think –

Sarah: I mean!

Amanda: – Bobbi just knows, knows what she’s doing when it comes to these covers and these stepbacks.

Sarah: They’re giving Bobbi good covers? And this is a Pino, so you know it’s good. It’s a Pino illustration. But we’ll cover it more, and we’ll show much more pictures. I might even do a close-up of that nipple, because it’s really speaking to me.

Amanda: She’s going to shoot that thing off.

Sarah: She’s just going to – pew! – blow that nipple into next week.

But as usual, we start with – ah! – Historical Romance.

Amanda: Oh my God, they’re – and the older issues –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Amanda: – have so much, have, like, the reviews are, like, packed at the end, kind of?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: There are so many other features happening that you really, I feel like when I was looking for the Historical section I was like, Where the hell is it? I just keep scrolling.

Sarah: This magazine, as scanned, has a hundred and thirty-two scanned pages, and Historical is not until page 38, which is kind of a lot, because usually it’s a little sooner than that? I beg your pardon, page 35 of the magazine PDF is where we start. And if you notice, with the May ‘96 Historicals, that’s a full page. All of the other genres, except for Series, it’s like a little tiny number of books. And I wonder –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – sometimes if one of the reasons why Kathryn just folded the magazine, folded the conference, was like, I’m done, checking out, thanks, bye, was just because there’s too many books! You couldn’t possibly review them all anymore. I mean, imagine trying to do this now.

Amanda: Yeah! I mean, I’m very curious what it would look like now, especially with romantasy for sure.

Sarah: [Snorts]

Amanda: But there’s, what, would Kathryn Falk use romantasy, or would she be staunchly against it? That’s what I, one question for her.

Sarah: New readers call it romantasy, but we’ve known it forever as fantasy romance from the likes of –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – author B, Author A, and Author C, but we know what you’re talking about. Oh yeah. There’d be a little –

Amanda: But with, like –

Sarah: – a little bit of Hmm!

Amanda: – so, so many indie self-pubs, I’m, yeah, I would be very curious sort of how they would curate releases.

Sarah: I mean, it’s –

Amanda: I think –

Sarah: – so hard to even think about. Like, how?

Amanda: I’m –

Sarah: How would you do it?

Amanda: Well, they went digital too, and I think digital would have helped? Of, like, you could probably update digitally more regularly? And then just have a select few, like, big releases in the magazine? I don’t know.

Sarah: I don’t know that publishers would pay for the ads that they pay for in these issues.

Amanda: No.

Sarah: I don’t think that’s where they would put their money.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: And I think they would, if they were still around, they would have a much bigger video component, because that’s pretty much the predominant form of social media at the moment, although I think it’s changing?

Amanda: Would they be on TikTok? Would RT be on TikTok?

Sarah: Hundred percent. Can you imagine Kathryn Falk on TikTok? What a glorious, glorious event that would be.

Amanda: Man. We missed out on some, some good shit then.

Sarah: I know. It could have been incredible.

So what did you pick in Historical? What did you discover in this big ol’ section?

Amanda: Yeah, I was very confused, because I was looking through the reviews and I saw a book called Beguiled by Arnette Lamb –

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Amanda: – in here. And I’m like, that’s ringing Amanda’s little memory bells. And I checked, ‘cause I had added it to my Goodreads, and I’m like, I would only add this to my Goodreads if we were talking about it on RT, ‘cause how else would it –

Sarah: [Laughs] You’re not going to just, like, cruise the Betina Krahn backlist?

Amanda: Yeah, like –

Sarah: Why the hell not? [Laughs]

Amanda: – how else would it show up in, in my – [laughs] – my normal –

Sarah: Why the hell is it there?

Amanda: – everyday, everyday life? And we talked about this book. So that book is mentioned on page 37 of the PDF – 

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: – and we mentioned it in the July 2000 ads and features episode. So…

Sarah: Interesting.

Amanda: – did it get a re-release and they’re promoting it four years after it was published? Like, what’s going on? Anyway, that’s a little aside, ‘cause I was like, Why the hell is this book in here?

Sarah: It wasn’t a hardcover at this point, right?

Amanda: No, it’s a pocket.

Sarah: And why would you cover something in July 2000 and May 1996?

Amanda: I don’t know.

Sarah: Maybe it got a re-release!

Amanda: No clue.

But I picked The Marriage Bed by Stephanie Mittman, and it’s on page 38 of the PDF. It’s set in Wisconsin, 1897, four and a half stars. There’s just, I was reading this and I’m like, Wow, this is –

Sarah: I’m like, Wow. [Laughs]

Amanda: – a lot. It sounds like a lot; it looks like a lot. So American Historical, 1897, Wisconsin.

>> It seems like forever since Olivia fell in love with Spencer Williamson and he married her sister instead.

Sarah: Ouch!

Amanda: Yeah, I know. Like –

Sarah: Ohhh, yikies, that’s not good.

Amanda: Yeah.

>> Now Kirsten and their two children are dead, victims of scarlet fever, and Olivia is Spencer’s bride.

Which, hoo boy.

>> She longs to be the perfect wife and someday the mother to his children. Never wanting to feel the pain of loss again, Spencer has locked his heart away. He may have married Olivia, but he will never truly be her husband, and even if they consummate the marriage, he vows they will never have children.

So this paragraph, to me, makes it seem that, like, Spencer really did love Kirsten and, you know, wasn’t blackmailed into mailing the sister, ’cause I feel like sometimes there’s that sort of like, Oh, I married her but never really cared about her or loved her for reasons? So –

Sarah: That’s true! And didn’t we read a whole angry column from a histor- –

Amanda: How that wouldn’t be accepted in –

Sarah: Who, what –

Amanda: – at least England.

Sarah: Who writes those? Was it somebody was real mad, and the name is –

Amanda: It was an author!

Sarah: Yes, and it was –

Amanda: It was a historical romance author.

Sarah: And it was compl-, the name is completely escaping me. Someone is screaming it.

Amanda: I want to say –

Sarah: Somebody’s screaming it.

Amanda: I want to say it was a C? A, some C name?

Sarah: Was it Virginia Henley?

Amanda: Mm! It might, it might be?

Sarah: I’m going to, I’m going to say I’m like fifty-seven percent confident that it was Virginia Henley.

Amanda: This was a recent one, so you might be able to go back, I don’t know, two or three RT Rewinds and find it.

Sarah: Yeah. But in that article, in that rant, she said that if you marry the, if you marry your late spouse’s sibling, it was looked at as incest. It was considered –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – quite inappropriate.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: Olivia, you are, it really sounds like Olivia has decided that the only path for her is the one that is a twelve percent incline all the time. Like, my life needs –

Amanda: Yeah. ‘Cause –

Sarah: – to be uphill in order for it to matter. And like, girl!

Amanda: ‘Cause it gets worse.

Sarah: Oh God, it gets worse. Y’all, I’m so sorry.

Amanda: >> After three long years, Olivia can wait no longer for a family, so she brings two orphans into their home, hoping to melt Spencer’s icy heart.

Surprise! I went out for milk, and I came back with two children.

Sarah: Surprise!

Amanda: >> For the first time, Spencer truly looks at Olivia and begins to see her for the wonderful, loving woman she is.

Excuse me, sir, she just brought two children home without consulting. [Laughs]

Sarah: Wait, you don’t, you don’t do that? Just pick up some random children and be like, Hey, come on! Let’s go!

Amanda: I, I do not, ‘cause that’s probably a crime.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Hey kids, are you busy? Come this way! Just get into this white van with no windows. It’ll be a totally normal thing. Of course there’s no white van in Wisconsin in 1897, but you get the point!

Amanda: >> However, Olivia has learned the truth about their sham of a marriage, and though she promised to teach Spencer to love again, she believes she has failed. It will take a near tragic accident and separation for Spencer to try to win her love, this time forever.

>> Stephanie Mittman creates warm, true-to-life characters who work their way into your heart. Reminiscent of Linda Howard’s classic Sarah’s Child, The Marriage Bed reveals Stephanie Mittman deserving of a place on your list of favorite American romance authors.

Sarah: Hmm! I feel like I’ve read the whole book now. I feel like I’ve read the whole book.

Amanda: Yeah, but the fact that, like, this dude married your sister and had children with her, and then you marry him hoping that he will love you and give you children, and then three years –

Sarah: Right.

Amanda: – goes by and he hasn’t done that, and then your solution is to shore up some orphans somewhere and –

Sarah: Fetch your orphans!

Amanda: – go to the orphan store!

Sarah: [Laughs] Go to the orphans store! Is that like the money store?

[Laughter]

Amanda: Just go to the, go to the orphan aisle at your nearest Market Basket. Yeah! I just, I feel like Olivia loves a bad decision. She’s never met a bad decision she wouldn’t make.

Sarah: It really sounds like Olivia has convinced herself that the only way for her life to be meaningful is if it’s as hard and emotionally crushing as possible.

Amanda: And it has to be with this guy.

Sarah: Like, I promise you there’s at least one other – I know that Wisconsin is not widely populated, especially in 1897, but I there has to be one other guy here, right?

Amanda: [Laughs] There’s got to be at least one more.

Sarah: Right? I am searching –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – furiously through my Google Drive where I have all of the transcripts, text outputs, notes and everything, and I’m having trouble finding it, so maybe it wasn’t Virginia Henley, but I still feel like it was.

Amanda: Have you, my, also secret too, is go through and control-F the transcripts.

Sarah: Mm-hmm! Oh, I do that all the time.

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: That’s why I have a transcript, in fact, for SEO purposes.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: I mean, I obviously it’s for, like, accessibility, but the benefit to having, to, the benefit to doing an extra step of a transcript for any podcaster is that it makes the audio of your show somewhat indexed, because it can’t, the crawlers can’t index an MP3, but they can index a bunch of text. So it makes your podcast more discoverable, in addition to making sure that everyone is included in the experience of it.

Amanda: Hmm.

Sarah: And I know there’s some people who only read the transcript. Like, they just wait for the transcript and read the episode, which I think –

Amanda: I’m going to –

Sarah: – is very cool. [Me too! Hi, transcript readers! – gk]

Amanda: I’m going to find it. I –

Sarah: All right, you’ve got this.

Amanda: – I take this as a challenge now. While Sarah –

Sarah: Well, you’re –

Amanda: – [laughs] – reads her review.

Sarah: I should give you a login to my Google Drive. You’d be like, Oh my God, this is a mess! Bleah!

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: All right, so my is also, my, my pick is also on the same page. It is The Unlikely Angel by one Betina Krahn. And I picked this one because it is a TPG! It is a four and a half Top Pick Gold! And Amanda, I think you’re going to like this heroine! Are you ready?

Amanda: Okay, I’m ready.

Sarah: This is set in England in 1882.

>> What would you do with a million pounds? That’s what Madeline Duncan has dreamed of all her life. And when she inherits a fortune, she decides to put it to good use and begin helping mankind by ridding the world of women’s corsets.

Amanda: [Laughs] Instead of bra burning, we’ve got corset burning here.

Sarah: >> When the trustees refuse to allow Madeline to open a factory and recruit workers in a utopian community, she takes them to court, and the wily old judge appoints Cole Mandeville as her “overseer.”

Ew.

Amanda: Ugh.

Sarah: That’s not great.

Amanda: [Laughs] We all had the same reaction –

Together: Ugh!

Sarah: >> Long a cynic, Cole is none too pleased to become Mad Madeline’s nanny –

She’s even got a nickname.

Amanda: Ugh!

Sarah: >> – until he witnesses the passionate do-gooder in action. Cole realizes that someone has to guard Madeline’s interests. Before he knows it, Cole has been dragged into Madeline’s enterprise, The Ideal Clothing Company. But not before she has fallen into his arms.

Like, like from a high place, like she – [laughs] – fall off something?

Amanda: In her factory, yeah, one hundred percent.

Sarah: Yeah, whee! Thunk.

>> Madeline confronts problems head on, but when she is unjustly criticized in the newspapers, besieged by domineering aristocrats, including Sir William Morris, and then her workers revolt and the factory blows up, things become almost –

Amanda: That took a turn. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah.

>> – things become almost too much for her.

Now I’m just going to say that would be too much for me.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: >> Cole becomes her guardian angel, although he seems unsuited to the role.

>> Readers will delight in this wondrous romance filled with warmth, love, compassion, and the purity of the spirit.

What?

>> Betina Krahn truly makes us believe in the goodness within and the ability we each have to enrich the world, just as she enriches our lives with her magnificent stories. Sensual!

Amanda: That last sentence was a little much for me.

Sarah: It, it, there’s a, there’s a certain motif in a lot of these reviews when it’s positive or it’s just like, Betina Krahn truly believes in X and knows how to make readers feel Y, which is why she is among the greatest who has enriched our lives with all – it’s like you have to locate this author in her own backlist and proclaim how great she is. It’s like, okay. But I’m here for – although I, I do wonder why the workers revolted; that seems like some unfair labor practices might have been a problem –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – I am here for someone who’s like, You know what, I just inherited a bunch of money. Fuck uncomfortable undergarments. Like –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – hard same, girl! [Laughs]

Amanda: Also located, located the author in the feature.

Sarah: See, this is amazing. How did you do this? Tell me.

Amanda: I just went through the last few ads and features and then control-F to incest –

Sarah: You know, I was –

Amanda: – which is always a great – [laughs]

Sarah: I was searching my Google Drive for incest too, and now I’m a little concerned about what that will result in for me.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: So what did you – that was my, my attempt, but Google Drive, I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but Google Drive Search and Gmail Search, especially Gmail in the app, is ass! It is –

Amanda: I also hate the new Google workspace icons.

Sarah: Do not like it! Do not like them. Hate everything.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: There’s a whole subreddit called DeGoogle about all the alternative things that you can use to not –

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – have Google in your life, and my God, how comprehensively they have invaded our lives. Like, it’s actual work and difficulty to disengage from any Google product.

Amanda: To do a conscious uncoupling –

Sarah: Yeah! [Laughs]

Amanda: – of Google.

Sarah: Yeah, I want to consciously uncouple from a lot of bullshit from tech companies, and that, that’d be a great start. So was I right? Was it Virginia Henley?

Amanda: No, it was –

Sarah: Bah!

Amanda: – the June, it was the June 1997 –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: – episode, and it was Mary Jo Putney.

Sarah: [Gasps] Ohhh! I did say I was fifty-four percent, fifty-four per-, fifty-four percent confident there. But, so it was, it was that if you marry your late spouse’s sibling that it’s considered incest at that time. I was right about remembering that, right?

Amanda: Yes.

Sarah: I got the important stuff! Good job, brain. Good job.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: I got the gist of it. What’s that meme? Well, he had the spirit. [Laughs]

So let’s move on to Mainstream and New Reality, which is all the way on page 86. Like, I was like –

Amanda: I know!

Sarah: – Where the hell are the rest of the books? Are there no other books in here? It’s going to be a really short reviews episode.

Amanda: That’s what I thought too. I was like, Where the fuck are the books?

Sarah: There are no books. Now, Mainstream and New Reality, if you’re just joining us, is something that the magazine had in the ‘90s into the early 2000s, where they kind of put everything in this one category. And it includes contemporary romance and angels and ghosts and paranormal and romantic mystery and romantic suspense and time travel. Like, everything is in there. So there’s a lot in here. What did you pick?

Amanda: I was very confused at first ’cause I went to yours and I was like, I don’t remember why I picked this one, and then I’m like, Oh, I didn’t pick that one –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: – Sarah picked that one.

Sarah: Sarah picked that one.

Amanda: I picked, it’s a paran-, it’s listed paranormal, and it’s called Déjà Vu by Louise Titchener, and wow, there are a lot of names. So –

Sarah: I am so ready for this.

Amanda: – buckle in.

>> Ever since the death of his brother from the rapid aging disease progeria, Dr. Cole Herlihy has been obsessed with studying the effects of aging. A noted gerontologist, he is fascinated with one of his elderly patients’ claims to have seen a long-lost love on the street recently, but the woman seems not to have aged. After keeping her secret for hundreds of years –

Strap in, everyone.

>> – beautiful Ariane Marie DuVerlis Bragonier Brasseur feels –

Sarah: Oh my gosh!

Amanda: Yeah. How many names is that? One, two, three, four, five names, everyone.

>> Feels –

Sarah: I’m glad they included all of them. Do you think –

Amanda: [Laughs] I know!

Sarah: Do you think there was like a word count and, and this person was short and was like, You know what, just, I’ll just include all her names.

Amanda: I’m curious if, because she’s lived hundreds of years, she’s gotten married? And so she just, like, collects married names like Pokémon, and her name just gets longer and longer and longer.

Sarah: That’s a good theory.

Amanda: That’s my theory. So she –

>> – feels compelled to return to New Orleans when she reads of the gruesome death of wealthy businessman Philip Bragonier. While Ariane Marie has never met Philip, she feels intimately involved, for he is her grandson.

Sarah: Oh!

Amanda: What?

Sarah: Oh, okay!

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: All right!

Amanda: >> More than half a century earlier, wife and mother Ariane Bragonier –

I’m assuming that’s her.

>> – disappeared, and her family presumed her dead. Ariane will now return under the name Marie Brasseur and uncover the murderer of her descendant.

Sarah: So she’s –

Amanda: Are we all following? [Laughs]

Sarah: So, so, so, so Dr. Herlihy is studying aging, and this person –

Amanda: Yes.

Sarah: – does not age.

Amanda: Correct.

Sarah: She doesn’t say she’s immortal, but I’m guessing she just ages really slowly, and so now she’s going to investigate the murder of her grandson. That seems emotionally fraught.

Amanda: Yes. ‘Cause she was married to his grandfather, but then disappeared, and everyone thought she was dead.

Sarah: Right. Probably ‘cause she wasn’t aging.

Amanda: So now she’s coming back – yeah – under an assumed name.

Sarah: Why doesn’t she just make like the Twilight vampires and go to high school over and over?

Amanda: I don’t know!

Sarah: I mean, that seems like a much –

Amanda: …high school’s awful, so.

Sarah: I, I, I agree, but that was their choice! Seems like a little easier choice. Anyway.

Amanda: >> Handsome and charismatic Donato Egypt –

Sarah: Huh?

Amanda: >> – has been –

I know! We have another person who has entered the villa, essentially.

Sarah: [Laughs] Entered the villa!

Amanda: [Laughs]

>> – has been planning his revenge for years. Donato uses young women to lure middle-aged and elderly men to their doom. Once the men marry these girls, they are eliminated and the wealthy widows pass on their fortunes to Donato. Cole traces Ariane to New Orleans and is bowled over by her spirit and beauty. Can he get her to trust him enough to reveal her incredible secret? Cole may never get the opportunity to find out, for Ariane has become a target of Donato’s evil influence and is thus destined for destruction.

>> Author Louise Titchener pulls out all the stops with the most unusual and intriguing novel of murder, vengeance, and immortality.

Sarah: Hmm!

Amanda: >> Déjà Vu makes for provocative and compelling reading, but I would have preferred a bit more explanation and closure at the end of the book.

Sarah: Oh no, not no closure! [Laughs] Does everyone just sort of throw up their hands and go, We have no idea why she’s so old? Oh, well!

Amanda: Oh well! I don’t know what’s happening, but –

Sarah: My goodness.

Amanda: Yeah! Isn’t that – what a weird little word salad of a book that is.

Sarah: So many names.

Amanda: So many names. And I feel like I would need some sort of, not necessarily like a genealogy tree, but, like, one of those flow charts of, like, she was married to this guy and hates this guy; this guy –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: Like, I would need one of those.

Sarah: And that’s her grandson. I have a question about Donato Egypt.

Amanda: Yeah. [Laughs]

Sarah: He uses young women to lure middle-aged and elder, elderly men to their doom. Once they marry the girls, they are, the men are eliminated, and the wealthy widows pass on their fortunes to Donato. I mean, if you are maneuvered and you are a young and vulnerable person and you get maneuvered into that position, I can imagine being taken through this whole process with a great deal of persuasion from Mr. Egypt. But if this Ariane Marie woman has been alive for hundreds of years and she’s figured out that she either has to disappear or die and not give away the fact that she is immortal, you’d think she’d have a lot more ability to take care of herself than, than be targeted by Donato, unless what Donato is planning is for some guy to marry her and then kill her.

Amanda: Hmm! Interesting. But, so I think, like, maybe, but I think whatever Dona-, Mr. Egypt uses –

Sarah: Mm-hmm. Mr. Egypt: we have to be polite; we don’t know him.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: We’re not on a first-name basis. [Laughs]

Amanda: Yeah. Whatever Mr. Egypt uses to sort of blackmail or swindle or sort of –

Sarah: Mm!

Amanda: – you know, get the women on his side to give them their fortunes –

Sarah: Right. Whatever he has over them.

Amanda: – I don’t, I don’t know if that would work for a man, ‘cause I’m assuming that, like –

Sarah: That’s a good point.

Amanda: I don’t, I don’t know, but I just have so many questions about everybody mentioned.

Sarah: Yes, but then once you have a review that ends with I would have liked a bit more explanation and closure, that says to me, I’m going to be unsatisfied by whatever is happening, so it’s not worth me investigating. I’ll just –

Amanda: Yeah, or –

Sarah: – I’ll just make up my own ending, I’ll just fanfic that and move on with my life.

Amanda: Or however they explain her aging.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: Or not aging.

Sarah: Gah, yes, for sure.

All right. I picked Claudia’s Shadow by Charlotte Vale Allen, one of the very few books in the section that got a low grade. That’s got two stars, which means Good! One star means Acceptable, so we’re still grading on that weird-ass curve. I want to con-, give a TRIGGER WARNING and a CONTENT WARNING for mention of suicide in this review. This is a contemporary. It’s from Mira. Remember Mira? Do they still exist?

Amanda: I feel like they did exist recent-ish-ly, but –

Sarah: No, maybe it exists. I don’t know. You know what? I, the brain cells that I might use to keep track of what Harlequin lines are open or not are much better used for other tasks, so I’m not even going to employ them.

Amanda: Wikipedia is saying that it’s still in existence.

Sarah: Maybe I’m confusing it with Luna. Either way, if Mira’s still around, cool! This got two stars, which means Good, but – eh, all right.

Amanda: Whatever. [Laughs]

Sarah: >> Notified of her sister’s suicide, Rowena Graham is in shock. Though she and Claudia have never been close, Rowena cannot believe her sister would kill herself. When she inherits the family home and her sister’s business, a very trendy restaurant, Rowena moves right into her sister’s life. Rowena’s life before this has always been quieter than Claudia’s, but moving into her house, Rowena discovers just how twisted her sister was.
Further examinations might also explain why as Rowena uncovers untold family secrets.

>> Charlotte Vale Allen explores a topical issue in Claudia’s Shadow and will educate readers along the way, though some might find the plot thin.

Amanda: That’s it. Wow.

Sarah: Okay, so what’s the, what, what, what, what’s the, what’s the plot? What – Rowena bad? Like, was she actually murdered? Like, what, it – and it says it’s a contemporary; it’s not even a suspense or a thriller or a mystery. It’s just – what is this book?

Amanda: I’m also curious too about the age of Claudia, because I feel like people who are on the younger side don’t often have wills? To then leave –

Sarah: You should have a will, people.

Amanda: Yeah – to leave your businesses to? So Claudia was prepared, whether she killed herself or not. But I’m very curious what these twisted revelations are that Rowena discovers when she moves into her sister’s house. Also, that’s got to be rough. Like, I can’t imagine losing a sibling and then, one, taking over their business, and then moving into their house?

Sarah: And if they’re not close, why did your sister leave you her apartment and her business? Like, do you know anything about the restaurant industry? That’s a hard industry! It’s not like you can just be like, sure!

Amanda: Sarah, come on! You know that in these situations they know nothing about whatever industry they’ve inherited.

Sarah: That’s very true.

Amanda: That’s not the way this goes.

Sarah: I am trolling reviews very quickly, and I have to translate one real quick. I am trying to figure out – DNF, boring as hell. Never trust Harlequin romances – written in French! Yikies!

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: It’s, it’s even more posh in French, of course.

Amanda: Oh boy.

Sarah: I do not know what the story is here. Like, this sounds really like a bummer.

>> Rowena’s character became tiresome with her self-doubt and lack of trust in anyone.

Ooh! We find out what fetal alcohol can do to a child. So the topical issue that educates readers is probably fetal alcohol syndrome, which, ooh, goodness. Yikies. That’s not – ooh! – that’s –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – that’s a bummer.

Shall we move on to sci-fi?

Amanda: Yeah. Sci-fi, but they also include fantasy in here.

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Amanda: I feel like most of these are fantasy. [Laughs]

Sarah: Well, I mean it’s all the same thing, right? That’s why sci-fi and fantasy –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – get lumped together, ’cause they’re exactly the same.

Amanda: Ugh. So –

Sarah: Somebody’s growling right now. They’re listening to this going – [growls]

Amanda: I know. So I picked an Ace release, and these are similar to, like, the Series reviews where they’re all just sort of lumped into, like, paragraphs. They don’t –

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: …like their own little thing. And I picked, in the first column, a book called Instrument of Fate by Christie Golden. Let’s see.

>> Also keep an eye out for Instrument of Fate, three stars, an engaging new fantasy by rising star Christie Golden. When a rival elven kingdom decides to go to war with the neighboring human kingdom of Byrn, Falaran Elf Prince Liandir dispatches a warning in the form of a magical lute to be delivered to the Queen Mother of Byrn. But his enemies commission the services of a feared Changer to retrieve the instrument from its unwinning carrier, a young minstrel girl, whose life then becomes a living nightmare. But with the help of a former guardsman hired by an unexpected ally, she just might complete her mission after all.

>> Although Miss Golden is still developing in conceptual power, she already brings a sharp edge of consequence to standard fantasy elements that will make fans stand up and take notice.

I was like, what the fuck does that mean? Still developing in conceptual power. Like, her concepts are kind of good, but not quite there?

Sarah: Sounds like it. What’s the sharp edge of consequence?

Amanda: Don’t ask me, I don’t know.

Sarah: This is, this is a really high volume word-salad issue, isn’t it?

Amanda: And it’s very, like, a lot of them, lots of word salad, very vague. It’s like you’re just eating a giant bowl of iceberg lettuce.

Sarah: Amanda, I bet it was written by AI.

Amanda: Don’t, don’t say that.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: Don’t say that!

Sarah: In 1996! [Laughs] I just want to say something funny that this, that your pick made me think of, also having to do with my husband, Adam. So one of my neighbors has little girls, and she texted me and was like, Hey, I bought some fairy doorways to put up, you know, in the garden, ‘cause you know, one of their, one of her daughters is obsessed with fairies. Can I put a fairy door in your yard? And I was like, Absolutely! Just make sure it faces the street, not the house, and tell me when it’s there and I’ll, you know, put stuff outside of it. She was like, Okay, sure! And I’m, and I’m not sure if she was, like, thinking I was insane. So I’m telling Adam about this, and Adam, for the record, it, what is the opposite of being woo-woo? Whatever that is, that –

Amanda: Like, logical?

Sarah: Like, so logical. Like, and it’s so funny because he reads so much urban fantasy, so many fantasy novels. I mean – [laughs] – he said in, to some friends recently, if the book has a fire hose of lore, I wish to be hooked up to it. Like, he loves a series that’s like ninety bazillion editions long. More lore, all good. So I’m telling Adam about this, and I’m like, I know that you do not see the world in the same way that I do sometimes, but having read as many fantasy books that you have read, do you fuck with the Fae? And he was like, Oh God, no! And I’m like, see?

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: I want to know where the door is! I don’t want it to face the house, because I don’t want to be like, Hey, you see, we brought you into this world. You see this nice house? You can have it! Nonononono! You do not fuck about with the Fae! You need to have boundaries! You need to have boundaries in place! And it, and Adam’s like, I think you’re bonkers, but I also agree. [Laughs] So I appreciate his support, and also, neighbor –

Amanda: Well –

Sarah: – if you’re listening to this, it’s totally cool! I just think it’s very funny that my utterly un-woo-woo husband is like, I don’t believe anything of what you’re saying, but absolutely no, nonononono. Do not ever fuck with the Fae.

Amanda: You can never be too careful, right? Like, you would rather –

Sarah: I mean, yeah!

Amanda: – you would rather, like, hedge your bets –

Sarah: Yes!

Amanda: – and, and be cautious.

Sarah: I want to be respectful and have boundaries in place for everybody so we all can live together! Because, I mean, I was like, You’ve read about the Fae. He’s like, Oh yeah, you don’t want to mess with the Fae.

So my pick is Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb. If this sounds familiar, if you’ve read the series, this is book two in the series that I think ultimately became fifteen books.

Amanda: Wow.

Sarah: >> May is truly a wonderful month with the appearance of trade paperback Royal Assassin, four and a half stars, the second volume in dazzling newcomer Robin Hobb’s Farseer Saga.

I love when we encounter a book and they’re like, The author is a newcomer, and I’m like, Not now, they’re not! Ooh, girl!

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: >> The illegitimate FitzChivalry –

That’s one word, capital F, capital C.

>> The illegitimate FitzChivalry barely survived his childhood in Assassin’s Apprentice. Now he faces the even more difficult task of living through early manhood. As the Red-Ship raids increase and Prince Regal plots to seize control of the kingdom, Fitz desperately tries to protect those he loves from the coming disaster, and only by paying the ultimate price will he have the slightest chance of success.

This is back cover copy. This is just, you know, some things happen in this book. Read it to find out.

>> Although second books have the thankless task of developing rather than resolving plot issues, Miss Hobb’s tale is so strongly rooted in character that readers will experience a tremendous sense of growth and completion. It will be hard indeed to wait for the next thrilling installment in this landmark fantasy series.

Now, first of all, it is a landmark fantasy series, ‘cause it went on and on and on. But isn’t that an interesting thing to say about a second book, especially a second book at what at the time was a trilogy? ‘Cause the second book –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – is usually like, Let’s move the plot along. And I, and you and I talk all the time about how reviewing later books in a series, especially after like book three or book four, is just, everything you’re going to say is going to spoil all the prior books, so, like, what do you do? I encountered that problem with Platform Decay because it’s like, I don’t want to spoil anything, but what do people want to know? Yes, it’s good. Here’s the mentality you should have going into it. I really enjoyed it. I think you’ll like it. Like, that’s about as much as I can say, which is why, why that review is pretty spare.

Amanda: Yeah. Well, I think like, what is it? Lara recently reviewed the last book in the Archangel series by Nalini Singh?

Sarah: She reviewed the…yes, and she also has a review on file for the last in the, what is it, Dark Olympus, the Katee Roberts series?

Amanda: Oh yeah.

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: But I remember, like, that review was like, If you want to know if, like, all of the buildup has been worth it, it’s like, yes, but I can’t really say anything else –

Sarah: Yeah!

Amanda: – if you’re not following – [laughs] – the series.

Sarah: Yeah, I mean sometimes all you want to know is is it good?

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: Right? And sometimes that’s the job of the review. Also, speaking again of my lovely spouse, Adam loves this series. He loves this entire series. He was so into it. Like, he was, he had bad book hangover when he finished it and was like, There are no new books in this series, and I’m, like, so bummed. And he was, like, really quiet about it. Like, I’m so bummed, man. Like, there’s –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – there’s, there’s no more books in the series. I’m, like, so sad. And I’m like, I know! I know that feeling. So if you are curious –

Amanda: That’s when you start over!

Sarah: That’s when you start re- –

Amanda: Just go back!

Sarah: I mean, like I said, fire hose of lore. So he has read the series, and if you’re looking for a fantasy series, he says it’s great and you will like it a lot.

What a cool thing to say about a second book. It doesn’t just move the plot –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – it has character. And you know who’s really good at book two in a trilogy? Nora.

Amanda: Ohhh!

Sarah: Some of my favorite of Nora’s trilogies are book two. Like, I love Born in Ice more than I love Born in Fire and Born in Shame. There’s another trilogy of hers with, I can’t remember which flower goes with which, but the second one was my favorite. Like, she’s really good at book two in a trilogy.

Amanda: I’ve – spoiler, or not maybe, like, spoiler, but confessional – I’ve never read a Nora. I’ve read a J. D. Robb, but I’ve never read a Nora.

Sarah: Ooh. Punch my microphone.

Amanda: Yeah, that’s, I made Sarah angry with that statement.

Sarah: Yeah. [Laughs] No, now I’m like, huh!

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: If Amanda wanted to read a Nora Roberts, which one would I recommend?

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: I might recommend, this might backfire, but I might recommend that you look at some of her early ones that are all oxymorons, like Hot Ice and whatever the hell they – all the titles are oxymorons.

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: But they’re all, like, really friggin’ cool jobs.

Amanda: Yeah, I remember we’ve talked before about how Nora really picks, like, interesting niche jobs.

Sarah: Yes. In 2013 we did a, a re-, which one first recommendation for Nora, and a lot of people suggested some of the ones that I couldn’t read ‘cause they were – like Blue Smoke, I can never read that book again. That was way, way, way too violent, and you spend way too much time in the bad guy’s head? But the Chesapeake Bay trilogy is pretty good, although there’s a character who’s kind of like toxic, grumpy masculinity a lot of the time.

Amanda: I tried her later sort of like dystopian one, Year One, and I couldn’t get through it.

Sarah: Oh! Yeah, that didn’t work for me either.

Amanda: But I remember my –

Sarah: I –

Amanda: – mom had the Bride Quartet series growing up.

Sarah: That was a good series! That was a good that was a good series. I just, there’s always – Nora’s characters come in sort of like, in sets and archetypes, and you can trace them to other characters. And I’ve said so many times that Born in Fire, the hero is proto-Roarke from In Death? I do like the Born In trilogy, though, especially book two, Born in Ice. Like I said, that’s my favorite? Jewels of the Sea [Jewels of the Sun], Tears of the Moon, and Heart of the Sea, that trilogy, the Irish trilogy, that was, that was pretty good too! But, like, what are – [sighs] – what the hell are the, it was like Hot Ice? Nora Roberts. Which one is that?

Amanda: Also, apparently Nora’s coming out with a new trilogy at the end of the year, everybody.

Sarah: What are you talking about? She wrote, she wrote four books since we started recording forty minutes ago.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: What’s wrong with you? [Laughs] What’s the new trilogy?

Amanda: It is called Birth of the Witch, A Coven of Three trilogy.

Sarah: Oh, it’s a paraNora!

Amanda: Mm-hmm!

Sarah: I do love a paraNora! I wish that there was a way to sort books on Goodreads so you could say, show me all the books in reverse publication date order on an author’s page.

Amanda: Yeah, you can do original publication year, but it you’d have to, you, you can’t filter by where it starts. You, it starts with the newest one.

Sarah: No, no. I would say if you were going to start, maybe the in, the Born In trilogy or the Chesapeake trilogy, those are, those are the, that’s the Quinn brothers, but I think it became a four-, I think the, there was a fourth book a few years later. But also –

Amanda: Hot Ice is the name of a Nora Roberts…

Sarah: Yes, I know that’s one of them. And when I was in college, the librarian loved Nora, and so there would always be the newest Nora on the paperback shelf, which was like three shelves? But they’re, the, the early ones are all oxymoron titles. Like, the, the title itself is an oxymoron, and I am desperately scanning through Goodreads to find an example. Honest Illusions, Private Scandals, Hidden Riches. That, yeah, that’s what I’m – Honest Illusions, I think, might be one that you’d like. Just the cool job ones.

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: But also, you know, if they’re not for you, they’re not for you! That’s okay!

Amanda: I, I mean, like, I haven’t tried any of the older ones. It’s, I think I tried Year One ’cause I think Elyse was reading it at the time, and –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: – couldn’t get into it. And then that was it.

Sarah: Interesting!

Amanda: I was like, okay!

Sarah: All right. If, if you’re listening and you have a Nora Roberts suggestion for Amanda after having listened to Amanda for all of this time, which –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – which Nora do you think she might vibe with the most?

Amanda: And if you don’t know who I am for whatever reason –

Sarah: This is, this is Amanda! [Laughs]

Amanda: Hello! Enemies to lovers, wide open doors. No doors, please.

Sarah: Oh, she writes sex, do not worry about that!

Amanda: Interesting jobs are fine, graphic violence is fine, angst is always appreciated. I prefer an external conflict to an internal one. Yeah. Hopefully that helps. Hope that helps.

Sarah: Yeah, if you want to, you can comment on the website. You can email us, Amanda and Sarah at – like, those are two email addresses, Amanda at, Sarah at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books [Amanda@smartbitchestrashybooks.com and Sarah@smartbitchestrashybooks.com]. If you want to record a voice note and email it to me, that’s cool; I can include it in the podcast. But I would love to hear your recommendations. I’m really, I’m really going to think on this, because it’s been a while since I’ve, like, auto-, auto-read the next Nora? It’s been a while since I was in that state? But I will think about this, ‘cause maybe there’s one you’d like.

Amanda: I feel like my mom was a big Nora fan. She had a lot of her books, for sure.

Sarah: Well mean if you wanted to read romance there were going to be like five Noras a year. You were set!

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: You, it was a buffet! [Laughs]

What’s next? Do-do-doo!

Amanda: Mystery and Intrigue.

Sarah: Mystery and Intrigue is up next.

Amanda: I, I passed on this one, ‘cause this is like another sort of short section.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: Though I did note that some of the reviews, they, like, vary wildly in length. Like the review in column one for publisher Onyx is like a paragraph and a sentence.

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Amanda: That’s all it is. And then the one after it for, like, Doubleday is one book and it’s like five or six paragraphs.

Sarah: Yeah, it’s very uneven.

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: The book I picked is from Fawcett. There’s one book, three paragraphs.

>> Harry Kemelman hasn’t given us a new story featuring Rabbi David Small for several years, and I was beginning to fear we’d not have another. My fears proved groundless with the hardcover That Day the Rabbi Left Town, four stars.

>> After resigning from his temple in Barnard’s Crossing, Rabbi Small accepted a position in nearby Boston at Windmere College.

The following sentences are very confusing.

>> The staff has diverse personalities, but Professor Malcolm Kent stands out above the rest. At age seventy, he is boring, cantankerest, cantankerous, sexist, and a fake. He is also –

Amanda: Gross.

Sarah: >> – the widower of the college founder’s descendant. His body is discovered in Barnard’s Crossing, and the police are faced with a sensitive issue. All evidence points to Rabbi Small’s replacement.

I’m guessing the replacement rabbi at the temple is what they’re trying to say here?

>> However, all is not lost, for Rabbi Small is on hand to use his own brand of wisdom and experience to find the real killer.

>> Filled with facts on Judaic life –

Which is not an adjective I’ve heard in a long time!

>> – and New England in general –

Totally the same thing.

>> That Day the Rabbi Left Town moves swiftly, and is enhanced by the author’s clever character descriptions. May the eighty-seven-year-old Harry Kemelman continue –

Amanda: Oh my gosh.

Sarah: >> – to delight the mystery world with his marvelous Rabbi David Small stories.

The author is eighty-seven!

Amanda: Good for him!

Sarah: Go, dude! Also, I’m, I’m presuming that the issue is that the killer looks like the rabbi’s replacement, which is kind of odd that they don’t name them, although I guess they have a limited number of inches here. That sounds like –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: That sounds like it could either be extremely, like, deep, detailed portrayals of the Jewish life and New England life as the review indicates, or it could be, like, real dull.

Amanda: I’m curious what, like, how many books were in the series, given that –

Sarah: I am –

Amanda: – he was, like, writing later in life.

Sarah: If I google Rabbi David Small, well, first of all, he’s the clergy of Emanuel Synagogue. [Laughs] Rabbi David Small, do you know that there is a mystery character named after you? But in West Hartford, Rabbi David Small is chilling. Let’s see.

Amanda: That is New England!

Sarah: He was introduced in the 1964 Edgar, Edgar-Award-winning novel Friday, Friday the Rabbi Slept Late. Is the unorthodox – well obviously – brilliant spiritual leader of a Conservative Jewish congregation in Barnard’s Crossing, Massachusetts. He uses a rig-, rigorous Talmudic, Talmudic training and penchant for analytical logic to outthink the local police chief. [Laughs] Oh boy, twelve books, each usually named after a day of the week running from Friday to the final book, The Day the Rabbi Resigned. And there was a 1976 television movie and a TV series called Lanigan’s Rabbi! Ah!

Amanda: Oh wow.

Sarah: That’s so great, dude! Congrats! I, I mean, what a great, what a great run, right?

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: That’s awesome. I kind of want to know if I could dig up this TV movie.

Amanda: TV, made for TV movie.

Sarah: Short-lived TV series, part of NBC’s Mystery Movie series, starring Art Carney – [laughs] – as Chief Lanigan and Bruce Solomon as Rabbi Small. That’s –

Amanda: I wonder if there’s, like, a really terrible, like, ripped quality on YouTube somewhere.

Sarah: I’m kind of charmed as hell by this, by just learning about this series. Starting in 1964 and ending shortly after 1996 or 1997. I love that! That’s so cool! Go, dude! I love a long career; it makes me really happy.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: Because it’s, it’s so hard now, right?

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: So let’s move on to Series. This is where you find the one-stars.

Amanda: Yeah, there are a few ones in here.

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Amanda: And I pi-, I picked one.

Sarah: So did I. Because, I mean, what is, what else are we doing here? I, I almost picked –

Amanda: Yeah, fair.

Sarah: – I almost picked the two-star Apache Dream Bride –

Amanda: Oh no.

Sarah: – by Joan Elliott Pickart, but I didn’t because I just didn’t want to say that many words –

Amanda: Oh no.

Sarah: – and also I’ll give you a little spoiler for the ads and features: we’ve got a lot of Native American and Indigenous romances in this issue, so I was just like, I don’t need more. Tell me what you picked.

Amanda: So on 104 of the PDF, I picked Harlequin Presents. It is One Night of Love by Sally Wentworth. This review is two sentences. Okay?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: Two sentences.

>> When a handsome insurance rep falls for a lovely oceanographer on a salvage mission –

Sarah: [Laughs] I’m sorry! I was not expecting any of that.

Amanda: It’s, it’s a real Mad Libs of a sentence, for sure.

Sarah: [Laughs] It’s like you’re picking jobs out of a bowl!

Amanda: Yep!

[Laughter]

Sarah: So we got a handsome insurance rep and an oceanographer on a salvage mission. Okay.

Amanda: Yeah.

>> – their romance leads to One Night of Love. Sally Wentworth delivers a gripping tale weakened by an unappealing conflict and hero.

What’s wrong with the hero? Is it ’cause he’s an insurance rep? Like, what? And it’s not as cool as an oceanographer? What’s wrong with him?

Sarah: You need to say why! There’s no why! There has to be a why. Why?

Amanda: Yeah, like why is he unappealing? ‘Cause what’s –

Sarah: Was it –

Amanda: – unappealing to me might not be unappealing to Sarah.

Sarah: Right! This is the It has too much sex in it rule. Like, we need to know the why in order to know if it works for us. That’s a very important part of our review.

Amanda: What’s wrong with this man?

Sarah: Does, is the sex bad? Is that what happened? I mean, they’re having sex on a salvage mission. That can’t be very comfortable.

Amanda: Let’s, we’ll see. Let’s –

Sarah: Oooh, yes, let’s –

Amanda: – Goodreads.

Sarah: [Sings] I’m in! What do we got? What do we got?

Amanda: One Night of Love, Sally Wentworth. Wow, this is a –

Sarah: Please know, by the way, that we don’t really google beyond just reading the reviews until we’re recording. So if you’re like, Oh my God, they’re googling again, we do this on purpose because we want to discover more while we’re talking.

Amanda: Okay. I haven’t read the reviews, but the cover – this man has the head of a Lego man.

Sarah: A man whose head is a square!

Amanda: Yeah, it’s like you –

Sarah: You’re looking at the one with, you’re looking at the one with him with the big overbite and the glass of champagne and she’s wearing a robe?

Amanda: Yes.

Sarah: Okay. Yeah, I’m, I’m –

Amanda: As if there could be another.

Sarah: As if there could be another one. What was I thinking?

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: All right, I have to save this. I will, I’m going to put it in the show notes. Never fear; I don’t ever want to leave you out. One Night of Luuuuve.

Amanda: What’s wrong with this man?

Sarah: I mean, short of –

Amanda: They’re on a ship –

Sarah: – short of needing some orthodontia for the, to the, for the jaw there?

Amanda: Okay. What – the hero finds out that the heroine was the other woman in a love triangle involving his sister and her husband.

Sarah: Whoooa! Whoa, wait a minute. So the hero finds out that the oceanographer was the other woman in a rel-, in an interfering relationship between his sister –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – and her husband.

Amanda: Yeah. But the heroine had no clue that her supposed boyfriend was actually married.

Sarah: But I’m sure that Mr. Insurance Agent is going to hold it against her either way. It’s still going to be her fault.

Amanda: Yes.

>> The hero doesn’t want to hear her side though, so bullying, verbal abuse, and tart-shaming periods are scheduled every hour on the hour with some –

Sarah: Tart-shaming!

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: I’m writing that down.

Amanda: TRIGGER WARNING, trigger warning, trigger warning.

>> – are scheduled every hour on the hour with some attempted rape thrown in –

Sarah: Oh!

Amanda: >> – because this hero is going to punish the trampy, tarty heroine for her sins.

Sarah: [Gasps] What a –

Amanda: This is a review by –

Sarah: – fucker! I’m sorry, that’s way more than unappealing.

Amanda: Unappealing.

Sarah: That is –

Amanda: This is a – [laughs] – this is a review by Goodreads user boogenhagen. So – and it’s a long one. So, and they gave it two stars.

Sarah: I am appalled! So, it, wait, abuse, tart-shaming, and –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – and attempted rape? Even though –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – she didn’t know that this guy was married.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: Be mad at your brother-in-law, you dipshit! Oh my God. And how is that, how are you going to hand-wave that away under “unappealing”?

Amanda: And the reviewer mentioned that a more believable HEA would have been that as soon as the heroine made it to shore, she took off from the hero, dumped her job, and none of the other characters saw her again.

Sarah: Why not just toss him overboard?

Amanda: And one of the tags for –

Sarah: I’m, I’m voting for overboard, by the way –

Amanda: – for this book is –

Sarah: – as the solution for this guy.

Amanda: – brain-transplant-please.

Sarah: Oh, yowch!

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: Ooh, that is a, I think that one star was underselling it!

Amanda: It’s two stars!

Sarah: No!

Amanda: Yeah. So someone else calls the hero –

Sarah: So it’s good!

Amanda: – a mis- –

Sarah: So it’s good! Two stars is Good! Would you call this good? I do not call this good.

Amanda: No. Oh, sorry, it’s one star in the magazine, two stars with this Goodreads review.

Sarah: Oh, so then it’s Acceptable. Still not acceptable. Jeez Louise!

Amanda: Yeah, someone calls him a miserable bag of excrement. Apparently –

Sarah: Okay!

Amanda: – there’s a scene where he, like, locks her in a room.

Sarah: Yeah!

Amanda: Wowee!

Sarah: Let’s gooo!

Amanda: Yeah, this is way more than unappealing.

Sarah: What the hell is the – so the, the cover for Harlequin Presents – I found the Mills & Boon cover, which has a much bigger illustration? The cover for the –

Amanda: Hmm.

Sarah: – Harlequin Presents is like the illustration inside this weird squiggly line that kind of looks like intestines.

Amanda: Yeah. It seems like this book was, it has a 2.75 on Goodreads. Most, there are a lot of twos and ones.

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Amanda: And they definitely explain why the hero was “unappealing.”

Sarah: Unappealing! God, I should say.

Amanda: Yuck!

Sarah: Well, I am so sorry to continue the unappealing, for I too have grabbed a one-star that is not great. This is for Child of the Night, one star, by Lee Karr, which sounds really gross.

>> A beautiful psychologist is caught between her growing attraction to a widowed tycoon and her professional commitment to his troubled young daughter in Child of the Night by Lee Karr. Why has the little girl been so hostile to her father since her mother’s death? Although this hero does not seem to have the faintest understanding of professional ethics and the resolution is weak, Miss Karr has an intriguing twist or two to keep us entertained.

So, what, the father is like, You make my kid better by any means necessary? No, I didn’t kill her mom; she’s just making, like, making shit up. Like, what, what in the world? Now I think I need to google Child of the Night by Lee Karr. Silhouette Intimate Moments. It has a 2.5-star average on Goodreads with two ratings and one review. This review is going have to do a lot of work.

Amanda: Oh boy.

Sarah: >> I couldn’t get into the book because most of the characters were so hateful –

[Laughs]

>> – I didn’t understand why the hero Clay around, allowed such people around his kid!

Oh, here’s a spoiler:

>> Cassie, his daughter –

If you were wondering what happened –

>> – has ESP and sees her mother’s accident and misinterprets her father’s involvement and withdraws from him. Tyla is the child psychologist treating her, and she too had ESP when she was younger. So we see Tyla trying to figure out how to get Cassie to open up while keeping Clay at a distance and not falling for his charms. Clay had a terrible marriage, but he stayed in it, exposing his child to a bad environment and allowing her vitriolic grandmother to stay around.

>> I never believed the romance. Tyla sleeps with him. The next moment she is ready to believe he murdered his wife, and then suddenly all is lovey-dovey – not buying it. And Clay’s disbelief towards ESP was never resolved, among so many other things.

Thank you, Saly, S-A-L-Y? Cheers for, like, just letting me know what was going on with this book.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: Sometimes I just need to know. I, I, I just sometimes need the book version of Movie Pooper. Do you remember Movie Pooper?

Amanda: [Laughs] No!

Sarah: Movie Pooper – it might still exist – was a website where it spoiled the ending of movies.

Amanda: Mmm!

Sarah: And so it used to load, and there would be this big picture of Albert Hitchcock: Do not tell your friends the shocking secrets of Psycho! And it was like sometimes the only reason you want to know about a movie is to figure out how it ends, so it would just tell you the spoiler of all of these movies! And I used to love that so much because I don’t need to see the whole thing; I just want to know what happened!

Amanda: I do that for movies that I’m, like, curious about that I know I will never watch, but I just read, like, the Wikipedia plot summary and I’m like –

Sarah: Oh, bless, it still exists!

Amanda: Good.

Sarah: Good for Movie Pooper.

Amanda: Aww! [Laughs]

Sarah: So on to Regency, which is our last section.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: What did you pick?

Amanda: I picked, on page 111, Lord Sayer’s Ghost by Cindy Holbrook, which is a Zebra. And it got two stars, but that still means Good, so keep that…

Sarah: Oh yeah. Sure!

Amanda: >> If you’re in the mood for an amusing few hours in Regency, England, pick up a copy of Cindy Holbrook’s diverting new romance about a prim young miss and a very sexy ghost.

Right?

>> Miss Prudence Campbell most definitely does not believe in ghosts. Nonetheless, the shade of Lord Sayer, the former owner of her new home, cannot be ignored as he rattles his chains and pinches the maids. But when he scares off her only suitor, Prudence vows to rid Shadow Hall of its pestiferous spirit once and for all. Imagine her surprise when the ghost turns out to be a very much alive Lord Sayer in hiding after several murderous attempts on his life. Although the wily lord wrote his will to prevent his estate from being distributed for a year, his efforts to scare off his eccentric relatives from taking up residence in the hall now prevent him from discovering which one was willing to commit murder most foul. And thus ghost and miss embark on one scheme after another to lure the relatives back to the hall, with often hilarious results. Although logic plays only a slight role in this romp and the developing –

[Laughter]

Amanda: >> – and the developing relationship between the two destined lovers is a bit too modern in tone, Miss Holbrook offers lashings of good fun to keep us well entertained.

Sarah: I love a good lashing of good fun.

Amanda: Here’s the thing, though: one, I don’t read ghost romances in general, just because, like, my brain is immediately like, How are they going to make that work? One of you is dead.

Sarah: [Laughs] You’re way too demanding. God!

Amanda: But also, if I picked up this book being like, Hell yeah, I love a sexy ghost, and then it turns out that he’s not a ghost at all and I’ve been bait-and-switched, I’d be kind of peeved! Also, how do you convincingly get a whole household of people to believe you’re a ghost when you’re actually alive this whole time? How does that work?

Sarah: I don’t know. I just put the cover in a side comment.

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: You have to see the cover for this book?

Amanda: Oh boy. Ohhh.

Sarah: It’s so cute!

Amanda: Okay, the article or the review does not mention that there’s a little cat.

Sarah: Yeah! I mean, major detail missing from all of these paragraphs. The cover is just a cat! It’s super cute! No people, just –

Amanda: A cat on a little, on a little chair that has a lamp and a candle and –

Sarah: Yeah, a little black cat! Looking very cool. This review on Goodreads from Heathy:

>> It wasn’t completely terrible, but I had to force myself to finish it. All the characters had stuttering problems, or at least that I would, that’s what I would assume because of all of the broken sentences. But, but I can’t! Yes, yes, I will. We, we, we, we should go! And the word indeed was way overused. The plot line becomes laughable when the ghost starts showing himself in public areas like pubs and barns!

[Laughs]

Amanda: This guy –

Sarah: Going to the pub, huh?

Amanda: – is bad at being a ghost!

Sarah: He’s really not skilled at it, is he? My gosh.

Amanda: No!

Sarah: That’s funny.

I picked A Crime of Manners, on the same page. Three – [laughs] – three stars by Rosemary Stevens, and I want to see if you can tell me why you think I picked this one.

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: >> Fawcett introduces a sparkling new talent with a gift for diverting drawing room comedy and engaging romance. Giles Vayne, eighth Duke of Winterton, is a man besieged. Even from beyond the grave, his deceased father’s voice, mimicked by a parrot, can be heard night after night importuning his son to marry and produce an heir. Although a blanket over the cage will silence the bird, there’s no escaping his own conscience.

[Laughs]

Amanda: I would have murdered that bird.

Sarah: Why are you here at this marriage event, sir? Because I have this parrot that sounds like my dad.

>> Still, he does have certain standards that the mother of his heir must meet, and the shy Miss Henrietta Lanford does not even come close to his concept of an eligible bride. In fact, he is so irritated by her aunt’s blatant attempt at matchmaking that he allows a scathing remark to escape his lips that almost ruins the young lady’s debut. But Henrietta is stout of heart and promptly turns the tables on the stuffy Duke.

You go, Henrietta.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: >> And so they’re off on a madcap duel of hearts that turns society on its ears. And with the unforgettable assistance of a truly remarkable feline, a merry romp is brought to a happy conclusion.

>> As Miss Stevens polishes her grasp of the social niceties of the time period, her lucky readers can look forward to delicious entertainment indeed.

Is that like a way of saying she doesn’t really get how, how society functioned and doesn’t have the details right, but, I mean, cat and a parrot, right?

Amanda: That was similar to the last words of the review I picked of, like –

Sarah: Yeah!

Amanda: – it’s too modern!

Sarah: It’s got stuff. Oh, girl! Amanda! This is a Cats of Mayfair book!

Amanda: Is it…

Sarah: Do you remember those?

Amanda: We talked – yes! I, I meant –

Sarah: What yes, this is a Cats of Mayfair book! How did I not pick up on that?

Amanda: Well, they don’t mention it’s a Cats of Mayfair book.

Sarah: No!

Amanda: But we did, I did mention it in the ads and features ‘cause there’s a big ad for the Cats of Mayfair series.

Sarah: Yeah, there’s a huge cat, this is a Cats of Mayfair book! And this is the one, if we remember the cover with the woman in the white dress and the guy in the black cutaway coat and, like, tan knee breeches, and behind them is a white cat with a little black bandit mask in its fur.

Amanda: What are the odds that we both picked the books that have cats on the cover?

Sarah: I’m –

Amanda: And we didn’t even know!

Sarah: We didn’t even – look how good we are!

Amanda: [Laughs] I know!

Sarah: Our, our pickers are not broken.

Amanda: No.

Sarah: It got 3.4 stars. And I –

>> I almost abandoned this one. In hindsight, I probably should have.

>> It was trite, banal, and l riddled with clichés and a sophomore storyline. I seriously lost brain cells along the way.

I don’t know. It’s a cat! I mean, the cat is going to save a lot for me, honestly.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: >> A heroine almost without substance, a hero with few distinguishing characteristics, and a plot that hinges around a completely unbelievable action by a cat.

That review is from Glen. Look, Glen, everything that cats do is completely believable. I don’t know what to tell you here. Every- –

Amanda: Also it’s a Cats of Mayfair series, okay? Cats –

Sarah: Yeah!

Amanda: – are going to be involved.

Sarah: The cats, I mean, they’re going to be weird, and it’s going to be fine, but they’re going to be involved, and that’s okay. But still, that’s pretty great. I’m excited that, I’m excited we found another Cats of Mayfair.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: So those were the reviews. Are there any books that you’re thinking, yeah, I want to read that?

Amanda: Certainly not.

Sarah: No, not this time, unfortunately.

Amanda: No! The ones that we picked, most of them weren’t, like, Oh, this sounds cool; I want to read it. It was like, What the fuck is this?

Sarah: What is happening? And then you go for the reviews –

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: – and it’s like it even makes less sense now!

Amanda: It’s even worse than you thought!

Sarah: What a bummer!

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: Well, I didn’t see anything that I wanted to read, but come back in two weeks because my God, are there some incredible –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – features in this issue.

Amanda: There’s a lot.

Sarah: There are incredible ads; there are some articles that are just like in – just, just so much, so much to discuss. I’ll give you a hint: we got creepy dolls, y’all.

Amanda: Yeah, we do.

Sarah: We do.

Amanda: And you can find them on eBay.

Sarah: You can find them on eBay.

If you are in the Patreon, you will get the complete scan of this issue, so you can read the whole thing with us. And if you would like to join the Patreon, patreon.com/SmartBitches. But until two weeks from now, that will be all for us in May of 1996! See you later!

[outro]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. Come back in two weeks for the ads and features! Why? Because it’s 1996, and some of the cover art is incredible. I even put the centerfold portion – it’s not like the centerfold in Playboy; it’s just the midsection in color – I put pictures of that on Reddit. I’ll include a link in the show notes, because it’s so good. Like, the, the images in this one are fantastic, so come back in two weeks, and don’t miss the visual aids.

I’m still beating this tree truck, by the way. I’m so proud of myself.

As always, I end with a terrible joke. This is a really bad joke. That’s why I’m telling it to you.

What do you call a line of people at a gay bar?

Give up? What do you call a line of people at a gay bar?

An LGBT-Queue.

[Laughs] First of all, queue is one of the funnest words to type! [Can confirm! – gk] And second, the line is never straight. [Laughs more] I hear you groaning and snarling; it’s great. Ha-ha!

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 – which I have started re-listening to and is very enjoyable! – thank you for listening. You’re welcome for talking!

[end of music]