13. Reader Mail: October 18, 2011

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Sarah Wendell: Hello there, and welcome to another podcast! This is the Dear Bitches, Smart Authors podcast. I’m Sarah Wendell from smartbitchestrashybooks.com, and with me is Jane Litte from dearauthor.com. This week we are looking in the inbox; you get to peek in our email box with us and answer some listener mail, or reader mail. We call it reader mail even though you’re listening ‘cause we’re all talking about books, which is really about reading. So we’re going to talk about whether or not paranormal and vampire romances are on the way out and whether we’ve reached market saturation, and we’ll look at some other surprises that our inbox might hold for us, and I will read aloud a book involving the word “chicken.” All the answers from our email are here for your enjoyment, and, as always, there will be a list of the books we talk about.

This week’s music is provided by Sassy Outwater. We always like to feature original music at the beginning of the podcast, and this is Peatbog Faeries, and the track is called “The Naughty Step.”

Now, on with the podcast.

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Sarah: So hiss is an, this is an email from Kim:

Kim’s email: Hi, Sarah and Jane

I thought I’d let you know that the production value of the podcast was much better.

Sarah: I am trying to work on that! I swear I’m trying to work on that and make it better every time.

Kim: As for future topics, I was wondering if you would be discussing whether or not we finally reached the saturation point on paranormals or if it will simply undergo some sort of change. It seems as if there are now quite a few angel stories instead of vampires. I was wondering about the decline of paranormals because Linda Howard announced on Facebook that her book Warrior Rising has been put on long-term hold. Here was her full explanation: “I’m sorry, but our publisher has decided that they don’t want to publish Warrior Rising. The bottom has dropped out of the vampire market, and they don’t want to risk the book. They want more books co-written by LJ and me, but not a vampire book, so Warrior Rising is now on long-term hold. –Linda H.”

Sarah: Kim continues:

Kim: I feel like publishing is becoming identical to the movie business: Twilight was a hit, so every publisher wanted to buy paranormals. The plethora of paranormals out there every month and the limited shelf space, the number of historical and contemporaries released by publishers must have suffered. One other suggestion is to have fewer author interviews; it’s – is to have a few author interviews.

Sarah: We’re going to do that, I promise, but let’s go back to paranormal. What do you think of her question?

Jane Litte: Well, I think that paranormals are still strong, but that’s a market that’s very difficult to break into, and I do see a lot of angel and demon stories and, and less vampire stories, and if they are vampires that they’re named something different, like I read Altered Destiny by Shawna Thomas, a Carina Press book, and they have bloodsuckers in there, but they’re never referred to as vampires. They’re known as Svistras, an entirely different race.

Sarah: Interesting!

Jane: But I’ve also, you also just see a bunch of mashups, like – [laughs] – Sandra Hill has a series coming out in 2012 that apparently is based off the Seven Brides for Seven Brothers –

Sarah: What?

Jane: – and it’s called Viking Vampire Brides or something like that?

Sarah: No! No! Viking Vampire Brides? Oh, sign me up; I’m all over that. I love that!

Jane: Yeah, it, it’s a new Viking – oh, wait, it’s a new Viking vampire angel series!

Sarah: No! [Gasps!]

Jane: To be launched in 2012. It, it’s – let me read it to you. A new –

Sarah: The only thing better, the only thing better is if she had Jane Austen in there.

Jane: [Laughs] A new Viking vampire angel series, Deadly Angels, will be launched in 2012 with the first of seven brothers, Kiss of Pride. Expect Sandra’s usual humor and sizzle in a new setting: Transylvania, Pennsylvania.

Sarah: No!

Jane: [Laughs] Yes.

Sarah: Oh, she’s bringing it to my home state. Booyah! I can only hope they drink Rolling Rock and Yuengling, and then it will be totally authentic. I hope –

Jane: Well –

Sarah: – they’re Steelers fans! They damn well better be.

Jane: I can’t, like, totally criticize this crazy idea, since it’s well known that I have a secret shame – it’s not so secret if it’s well known, is it? – that I love Caris Roane’s series, which is, I mean, it’s an embarrassment that I like this series.

Sarah: I don’t think you should be embarrassed! You like what you like. I happen to have an absolute love for The Very Virile Viking by Sandra Hill. I love that book. I love it like crazy.

Jane: So maybe this, this vam-, Viking vampire angel series will be right up your alley.

Sarah: [Laughs] I’m definitely going to try it. I actually really like her, her series because she comes up with crazy plots, and you can tell she doesn’t take herself so seriously that, that she doesn’t have a sense of humor about the fact that, yes, her Vikings are time-traveling and bring their kids too, why? Why do you think that’s strange? I, I love that. I, I love that a lot.

Jane: I can’t tell whether Caris Roane is just totally toying with her readership or whether it’s supposed to be taken seriously, ‘cause her books are not funny. But there’s just kind of unintentional hilarity in the books. Wings of Fire by Caris Roane, which came out Aug-, the end of August, beginning of September features a guy, the, the hero and heroine are mates, and they’re psychically connected, but she’s been spirited away to some place where they can’t sight, telepathically speak to each other, except for at the moment that they’re both orgasming.

Sarah: What?!

Jane: Yes. So the other thing about mates is they have these scents. Like, the next book in the Caris Roane series features a French guy who has long hair, wears brocade bows, and his mate smells like a croissant.

Sarah: What?

Jane: Yes.

Sarah: Really?

Jane: [Laughs] Are you going to take back the statement that I shouldn’t be embarrassed by, that I enjoy this series? And –

Sarah: I, I, I like croissants.

Jane: [Laughs]

Sarah: I like them a lot.

Jane: Do you wear your long hair with brocade hair bows?

Sarah: No, I have never been a bowhead. I wish I could pull it off, but I’m a little too Sporty Spice for that.

Jane: [Laughs] So talk about emasculating, right?

Sarah: Brocade bows. Maybe that’s what we should give away as swag.

Jane: [Laughs]

Sarah: When we next go to a conference, we should just hand out brocade bows and tell all the men to wear them. That would be awesome.

Jane: So in the, so in this book, the, the way in which the mates recognize each other is through scents, so Antony’s, Antony Medichi’s mate smells like tangerines to him.

Sarah: Oh my!

Jane: And so every night after a long battle with the bad vampires, he goes to his massive kitchen and makes himself a limoncello; he has to have his limoncello. Excuse me.

Sarah: Oh, I, I, I’m on that. I like limoncello. Yeah, I, I’m still with him; let’s go.

Jane: Then he gets a bowl of tangerines, and he takes it up to his bedroom, and he starts peeling the flesh off the tangerine, and the smell is exploding in his nostrils, and his blood starts, you know, to beat a little faster through his veins. Then –

Sarah: What is he, Bunnicula? Is he going to lay a, is he going suck the veg-, suck the juice out of the vegetables at, at night? Oh my God, he’s Bunnicula! That’s awesome!

Jane: [Laughs] And so as he’s peeling the, the outer rind of the tangerine, the juices start to run down his fingers, and then he plunges his fingers into the flesh of the tangerine, and it is just, he’s just to the point of near-painful arousal, and then he sticks his tongue in the tangerine, and it’s like he’s touching her flesh, and that’s how he brings himself to orgasm, and then at the point of orgasm, she’s obviously doing something, but not with tangerines.

Sarah: Why doesn’t he just, like, juggle them or something?

Jane: [Laughs] Then, at the moment of their mutual orgasms, they’re, they’re able to, like, speak to each other.

Sarah: That was awesome. I have to go to the grocery store. [Laughs] That’s awesome! Oh my gosh! I think I need to read these. I don’t blame you for liking them! That’s, that’s, that’s enjoyable crazysauce right there.

Jane: It’s crazy, right? I think that in order for some of these books to be successful, they really have to be crazy.

Sarah: Wow.

Jane: At, at least she’s bringing it. I mean, there’s no holding back. I mean, she’s, she’s just –

Sarah: You’ve got to respect that.

Jane: – one crazy concept after another.

Sarah: Yeah, you have to respect someone who brings the full crazy. You can’t not.

Jane: And have you ever read that story before?

Sarah: Never! Especially the tangerines or, or the croissants or the brocade bows.

Jane: [Laughs]

Sarah: That’s pretty hot.

Jane: I think, I think the next hero might even like rainbow-colored brocade bows.

Sarah: Oh, baby, this guy’s, like, historical metrosexual!

Jane: Yeah. Well, he is from France.

Sarah: Oh, well, that explains it! Why didn’t you just say so? That’s –

Jane: I did!

Sarah: I know that everyone in France – you, you said that? I missed it, ‘cause I know everyone in France wears brocade, brocade hair bows. Right now someone in France is like, I do not! I wear them on my shoes! [Laughs]

Jane: Pretty, pretty shoe, pretty sure both bows and brocade were invented by the French.

Sarah: They have to! They have to have been! And, you know, because they also give us good wine, I will forgive them for that.

Jane: But isn’t it hilarious that his heroine smells like croissants? Like, why not, like, good red wine? Or – you know, but she smells like croissants. She smells like a baked bread.

Sarah: Yeah, I can’t say that I want to smell like baking bread, because that’s alarmingly close to yeast, which is not a smell you want to associate with a human.

Jane: Well, and then – [laughs] – it’s much harder, I think, to tongue a loaf of bread than it is the tangerine.

Sarah: That’s true. I, I like the tangerine imagery; I think that’s pretty, pretty fricking sweet.

Jane: [Laughs] All right, what we were talking about? Oh, we’re back at reader mail.

Sarah: Paranormals. Yeah, I –

Jane: But Caris Roane, if you are listening to this series, I do love your series. You –

Sarah: She loves it a lot! She talks about it all the time.

Jane: But it is kind of crazy; you have to admit that.

Sarah: Well, you know, I think if she’s going to own the crazy, more power to her.

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Jane: We received a reader email from Tina M. Thank you so much for sending us your comments. You stated:

Tina M.’s email: I just wish you would not bash the m/m every chance you get. I find it insulting and disappointing. If you don’t like it, please get someone who does to comment on them. As a woman, I love –

Jane: She includes her age, but I, I didn’t want to state that.

Sarah: You’re a kind person. Don’t let anyone tell you different.

Tina: – I love, I love m/m in all its forms. Just like romance, there are some stinkers and bad writing, as you stated when you read one, from one in the podcast.

Sarah: Whoa.

Jane: [Laughs] I’m sorry I’m laughing – not at you, Tina M. – but just remembering the –

Sarah: [Laughs] Not in the NFL?

Jane: The N – yeah, the, the vision of Ben Roethlisberger and Ben Urlacher, or Brian Urlacher in bed is, just makes me giggle.

Sarah: I, I have a somewhat different reaction to that.

[Laughter]

Jane: By, by the way, another person emailed us and said that if there is a story written about Roethlisberger and Urlacher, it would not be fanfiction; it would be called real-person fiction, RPF, so just so that we get our acronyms correct.

Sarah: Yeah, we have to get this stuff right.

Jane: So anyway –

Tina: I chalk it up to an out-of-touch author who thinks that a gay man playing sports is a novel idea, which it is not. And please get over how quickly the characters grope or have sex. That is one of the joys of m/m: rarely there are hang-ups, hesitations, or major issues about having sex, and they can find other things they love about each other. I’m so sick of the hesitant, virginal woman in romance. I turn to m/m as a refreshing change.

Sarah: Well, you know, I can’t say that I blame her for that, but I do want to point out that we did not particularly like Not in the NFL, but we don’t as a rule bash male/male romance. I mean, you, you review it; I have reviewed it. I don’t read it exclusively, like this reader seems to, because I find that a steady, a steady stream of them – and I, there’s really hard to avoid inadvertent sexual puns here, so I’m just going to have to own the fact that I’m going to say something with a bit of an entendre to it – I find that a, a steady stream of male/male romance tends to make me very frustrated because (1) there is an often-employed trope where the character who is perhaps not out of the closet comes out of the closet to the person that they’re interested in, and then it’s rainbows and great sex and everything’s awesome, and from what I understand, myself not being a homosexual, my, my, from my familiarity with the, with the process of coming out is that it’s ongoing. You have to keep doing it in different situations, and sometimes it’s hard, and sometimes it’s easy, and I get irritated by the sense that once this person has come out to the person that they’re interested in, it’s easier for them, and, and it’s not. I also get frustrated with the way in which many books tend to gloss over real and present homophobia and discrimination and don’t deal with it as, as much as I wished as a reader, so I get very frustrated with the sort of, I want to call it the Glossing, the glossy quality of it. It’s, like, really attractive, awesome, without any of the really painful parts? Does that make sense? And again, another entendre; that’s not what I mean. I’m having a hard time describing my frustrations here, but I do not bash male/male every chance that I get. I find that there are some books that I loved. I loved Strawberries for Dessert by Marie Sexton – I still think about that book – and I know that there are several male/male romances that are entirely beloved by the romance-reading community. I also don’t think that there’s an entire genre that I would outright bash. I’ll say I don’t like it, but I won’t bash it as if it doesn’t have a right to be.

Jane: Well, we are firm supporters of the m/m fiction subgenre in romance. We review it quite heavily on Dear Author. In fact, I –

Sarah: Yes, you do.

Jane: – I often get complaints that we aren’t including enough mainstream romance.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Jane: So I appreciate that our giggling over Not in the NFL might have been taken as a bash on the m/m genre, but it was not. It was just a bash on Not in the NFL.

Sarah: Yes, ‘cause that particular book was kind of shocking and appalling. In a lot of ways.

Jane: And even with m/m romance, I would expect to have some development in character before the two fall in bed with each other, because I don’t actually think it’s necessarily true that all gay men will hook up immediately without any hesitation or pause.

Sarah: Yes, I agree. I don’t think that they jump right into the sack and have at it. I think, I think that there are heterosexuals that do that, and I think there’s probably hom-, homosexuals that do that, but I also believe that there are, I know that there are homosexuals who are very cautious with their dating and very selective, which I find totally normal!

Jane: We also received a RITA recommendation from Alyssa N., and it was for Flat-Out Love by Jessica Park, and neither you nor I knew the other had bought and read this book, so I find it –

Sarah: Yes!

Jane: – kind of ironic.

Sarah: Well, we both – did, did you, did you buy it because of this email?

Jane: Yes!

Sarah: Yeah, me too! And I was like, all right, I’ll try it, and I’ll ask, I’ll ask Jane, and, and we, we both independently bought it and read it, which I find awesome.

Jane: And, and your feelings were?

Sarah: Well, I found it compulsively readable. It was a very quick read. In the end – and it’s a little difficult to talk about this book, because there is a very big twist that is a massive spoiler, so we’re not going to reveal the ending, but when it got to the point of the giant reveal and the big plot twist, I was a little let down, because I felt that the characters, who are supposed to be in college – it’s a YA novel, but the characters are in college – I felt that they were incredibly immature, even the adults, and I had a very hard time believing in the maturity and the intelligence of the characters because they did so many bizarrely immature things. But at the same time, I really wanted to find out what was going on, and I really wanted to find out what was going on in the story and how it ended. I read it very quickly; I thought it was a very quick read. The other thing that bothered me was that once the big reveal is revealed, the character who has the most to forgive gets over it way fast, and given the depth of what’s going on in the story, there was not enough time for the aftermath of the big spoiler and the, and the reaction and the sort of recovery time from the effects of it. It’s, it’s a very quick, oh, okay, I’m over it now, thanks, bye! And I didn’t buy that at all, and at the end I came away thinking, these people are all a little crazy.

Jane: I –

Sarah: What about you? What about you?

Jane: I agree. I had the same, I had the same problems. I felt like the narrator, the primary narrator was very immature. I didn’t feel like she was consistent with her age?

Sarah: Yes.

Jane: Although, you know, the, maybe younger people – [laughs] – would have a difference of opinion. So from my viewpoint, I like reading YA; I don’t read a ton of it, but I have a hard time really reading really immature characters, ‘cause those are just not time, people that I want to spend time with in my books, and so even in the YA, I probably hold them to maybe a different standard than a younger reader would –

Sarah: Right.

Jane: – but I had the same problem. I felt like the heroine was really immature. I had a struggle with the family, especially when the spoiler’s revealed and I reflect back upon all the people that were involved in the spoiler.

Sarah: Yes, there is, it’s a, it’s a great deal of com-, is it complicitness that I’m looking for? Com-

Jane: Yeah.

Sarah: It’s, yeah –

Jane: Compli-, complicitness in the subterfuge.

Sarah: You go, girl! My God, that was like a five-dollar set of words right there. Next you’re going to start talking like an attorney. Heretofore and whereunto and –

Jane: [Laughs]

Sarah: Hook me up with that –

Jane: Aforementioned.

Sarah: Yes, aforementioned; that’s a big one. Whoo, baby. Yeah, I agree that the degree to which the family is complicit in the spoiler is shocking to me by the time I realize the full extent of it. But I am really glad that Alyssa emailed us about this book. We probably should have summarized it really quick.

Jane: [Laughs]

Sarah: Okay, quick nickel summary of Flat-Out Love by Jessica Park, because now we’ve talked about it, you probably want to read it, right? Right, of course. Okay. It’s a, it’s a YA novel, but the characters are in college, and the heroine moves to Boston believing that she has an apartment that she and her mother secured by way of craigslist, and she gets there and there is no apartment. There is, there’s nothing above the, the address that she was given; there’s nothing there. There’s literally no apartment, so she’s been swindled out of her rent and deposit and is alone in Boston, far away from home, with suitcases, standing in a not-great part of town. Her mother remembers her former college roommate lives in Boston and contacts her and asks her for help, and the former roommate says, well, of course she can come, and she should stay with us right now; I’m sending my son to get her. And so the heroine moves into this home. There’s an older brother who is at a different school but also in college; an older, older brother who is traveling; and a younger sister who is very strange; and then the parents, who are both professors at another local college. And so they’re all, they’re all affiliated with a college, except for the younger sister, and she moves into the family’s home and then ends up staying there for the, for the year and becoming extremely involved in the family drama, which is unlike other family drama that you may have experienced, and that makes up the bulk of the novel: what’s going on with this family, and how can the heroine help?

Jane: Right, and I agree with you that the resolution from Julie – that’s the female protagonist – point of view –

Sarah: Yes.

Jane: – was too quick, and I think it’s – and I think the time period was several months, but it, in, in, in page time –

Sarah: Yes.

Jane: – it happens, like, in the next chapter –

Sarah: Yes.

Jane: – in the next page, and so that, that was problematic.

Sarah: That’s something that I struggle with with a couple books, when, when I feel that I am, am, as the reader, am not given enough time to recover from what I have learned, where the characters move on quicker than I do, and I have trouble moving on from what I have learned about the characters. I had that problem with the Simon Blackwell book? The Something Something Something of Simon Blackwell? The Secret Passion of Simon Blackwell by Samantha James. I had that problem with that book because when you find out what, what Simon Blackwell’s secret is, it’s near the book, near the end of the book, and I needed time to get over what he reveals. But thank you to Alyssa for recommending that book; I’m glad that I read it.

Jane: I am too; I appreciate it. Even if it didn’t work for me, I’m still glad I read it, and for anyone who’s interested, that book has eighty-one reviews on Amazon, and it’s an average five stars, so I think there’s, like, seventy-one five-star reviews and –

Sarah: Wow!

Jane: – like, seven four-star reviews, so I think that maybe we’re not the target audience for this book? Maybe?

Sarah: Yes, perhaps we are not.

Jane: And it’s hitting the sweet spot for other people.

Sarah: Yes, and it’s not expensive. How much is it? It’s, like, ninety-nine cents or something.

Jane: No, it’s $3.99.

Sarah: $3.99! Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s at a not, it is, it’s at a not-unacceptable price. It’s at a completely acceptable price at $3.99.

Okay, so here’s another email. This is from Barbie:

Barbie’s email: I enjoyed your podcast, and you are right, there are no podcast audio or video about romance novels, and I enjoy your blogs –

Sarah: Thank you!

Barbie: – and I like the fact that you guys express your true opinions about a particular book or author. I think that you women have the opportunity to steer women away from the duds and lead them on a path to enjoy reading their books.

Sarah: Well, that’s the goal.

Barbie: Since the podcast is all about romance novels, I do not see it running low on topics yet.

Sarah: Yeah, us either.

Barbie: I would suggest, if you have time, insert some audiobook reviews if you can, and I’m looking forward to the next show.

Sarah: Now I recently listened to an abridged copy of Sylvester by Georgette Heyer, mostly because people were telling me how awesome it is that Richard Armitage narrates it, and they were right: it was awesome! It was wonderful! He should read all of her books. It was a wonderful, wonderful audiobook, and I don’t often listen to audiobooks, but that one was awesome. However, I do not, I don’t have a lot of other examples of books that I’ve listened to, unfortunately. What about you?

Jane: Well, I actually do have an Audible subscription –

Sarah: Ooh!

Jane: – and, but most of the books that I request from Audible are nonfiction books, ‘cause I enjoy listening to those when I drive. But one of the times I did request a romance, and it was, I can’t remember how I, why it was this particular romance that I requested. I think I had had a hard time reading it, and sometimes when you read a, when you listen to a book, you like it a lot better than if you had read it.

Sarah: Yes!

Jane: Maybe ‘cause the actors make it sound interesting.

Sarah: Oh, I completely agree. There have books that, that I’ve listened to that I’ve gone back and read and thought, why did I like this so much?

Jane: It could have been free, too. I don’t remember.

Sarah: [Laughs] Free always makes it better.

Jane: So –

Sarah: I am much more forgiving of free content; it’s really sad.

Jane: So it was Michele Hauf’s book, and it – [laughs] – I don’t even know if I can talk about it without laughing. And, and this is not an insult to Michele Hauf, ‘cause she doesn’t have, obviously, any choice about who picks her book, who reads her book, but the book features a, I guess a French-speaking hero or something, because the narrator adopts this faux French accent, and it’s just really kind of like, the, there’s, like, kind of a musical undertone that has a porn feel to it, and then her –

Sarah: Ooh!

Jane: – so the narrator’s female, and she has the, she’s speaking like the male with the faux French accent, and she’s coming on to the heroine, like making some sexual innuendo, and I don’t think I listened to more than five minutes of it because I was just so embarrassed for everybody involved.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Richard Armitage –

Jane: But how –

Sarah: Richard Armitage does try the female voices, but he does a somewhat fair job of changing the tone of his voice that it doesn’t sound ridiculous.

Jane: Uh-huh?

Sarah: That, the, the accent and the coming on would make me laugh.

Jane: Yeah, it, I can’t actually, I think it was called, oh, I think it was Seducing the Vampire. If you can listen to an excerpt before you buy this book, that would be my recommendation. [Laughs]

Sarah: There are some, there are some – I know that the, the audiobook community has voice actors that they follow, and they will listen to a voice actor read a book that they’re not particularly following, a genre that they’re not particularly into, just to have the experience of that voice actor reading that book. I find that amazing. I know there was a, there are a few voice actors who do regularly the major romance authors, and I think that’s really cool that the community follows the actors as much as the book, ‘cause it’s not easy to read an audiobook. I have trouble reading these emails aloud. [Laughs] I start to stutter.

Jane: Yo, I think there’s a real skill to it, and I think one of the reasons I stay away from romance is because I think it does sound really cheesy when it’s articulated out loud. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yes, it does. Somebody asked me, somebody asked me, I want to read a book or something, and – oh, I wanted to, I wanted a selection of erotic romance to read aloud with my husband, and I had to email her back and say, I don’t know if you really want to do that –

Jane: [Laughs]

Sarah: – ‘cause when you read it out loud it sounds goofy. But if you read crazy erotic out loud, it is awesome, as evidenced by Not in the NFL. Reading erotica that’s well, even the best of it, reading it out loud to someone else sounds very goofy, and it’s not as exciting as, as one would think. So a good audiobook is worth it.

Jane: And we’ll give you a perfect example, because we’ve selected another erotic title for Sarah to read.

Sarah: Yes. Yes, yes, we have. Oh, you lucky, lucky people. So we have one more message here from Lynn, who won the Bella Riley book! If you recall, we said you need to find us the most Adirondack chairs on a single cover, and she came through. Susan Wiggs, More than Words, count ‘em up: three. Three Adirondack chairs! Well done, Lynn! Also of note, because she entered the contest so that, so that her mother could read the book, ‘cause she knows her mother will love it. I love that; that makes me so happy. But yes, three Adirondack chairs. Well done.

[music]

Jane: The book that Sarah will read from is Fury by Laurann Dohner, and it is about a woman who’s masquerading as a scientist at a secret government research facility, and there’s a lot of those secret government research facilities testing paranormal beings going around.

Sarah: Yeah, it’s, it’s amazed that, it’s amazing that they stay hidden.

Jane: [Laughs] All right, this is book one in the New Space, Species series. Ellie, the heroine, has infiltrated a, a pharmaceutical company who is doing illegal experiments. She’s a scientist or a lab tech or pretending to be one. She has become somewhat attached, I guess, to one of the subjects and comes across a guard who is going to do him harm. So she runs off to get some kind of weapon or something and takes forever and a day, because by the time she comes back, the gu-, the guard has strapped this guy, chained him to the floor, his clothes are off, he’s put things on his body, beat him, and was, you know, raping him, and she is able, for some reason, to kill the guard, and then she is attempting to provide medical treatment – very strange medical treatment –

Sarah: Yes.

Jane: – and I’ll let you share that.

Sarah: Somewhat un-, unobjective medical treatment. So if you’re not familiar with how, how, how Jane and Sarah read erotica on the podcast, in order to keep away from an NC-17 rating, if you hear me say “chicken,” I mean male chicken. Different word, okay? So if you hear me talking about chicken, just substitute a different word and enjoy how unintentionally hilarious it makes this.

Okay, I will attempt to read this without making any comments, but I can’t promise I won’t giggle.

Jane: And just for the record, just because we’re reading this and giggling and kind of making fun of it doesn’t mean that we don’t like scientists, paranormal beings –

Sarah: Erotica.

Jane: – or, or erotica.

Sarah: Yes, we just, we just are curious about the, the, the type of medical care that is being given in this particular scene, because I have a, for example, I happen to have a male gynecologist, and I would not want this to be the case if I were to show up having had the crap beat out of me or having been in a car accident, but, you know, moving on.

Excerpt from Fury: Red marks marred his stomach. Her fingers traced the proof that Jacob had punched him there. She felt his ribcage where more marks showed. She didn’t feel any broken bones. His belly had firm, hard muscles, even while he lay lax, but she didn’t feel anything that would suggest internal bleeding. She tried to stay professional, but her fingertips lingered a little too long as she traced an integrate, integrate, into –

Sarah: I believe this is supposed to be intricate, but it’s integrate.

Excerpt: – an integrate pattern of muscle grooves.

Jane: [Laughs]

Excerpt: She couldn’t deny touching him affected her as a woman. He was forbidden, dangerous, and sexy.

Sarah: And I would like to add unconscious, but moving on.

Excerpt: Her gaze lowered to his pelvic area, unable not to look at the male she found so appealing, and she gasped. She moved before she thought, gripping his slightly engorged chicken and working the painful-looking bands down the shaft. She tried to be gentle, but Jacob had wrapped a, tightly wrapped a thick piece of rubber around the man’s chicken a few times. She managed to work it loose and threw the offensive thing away as soon as she got it off. Her fingers gently massaged the reddened skin before she realized how inappropriate the action was. Her gaze lingered there, realized that even mostly soft, he was impressive. Blood flow had been painfully constricted and prevented from reaching the shaft.

“That son of a bitch,” she muttered, cursing Jacob for doing such a horrible, vicious thing. Her cheeks warmed when she realized what she’d done. More embarrassment slammed her when she realized how her body responded to touching him, even just to remove the offensive implement of torture. She’d been handling his chicken.

416 growled. Her gaze flicked up to his face. He watched her with dark, furious eyes. She realized she cradled him still inside her palm and released his chicken quickly. “Sorry! I had to remove it.” She glanced down at his appendage and saw the line where the rubber band had injured him was still red and angry looking. “I’m sure it will be okay.”

She hoped so anyway. Jacob had obviously done it to hurt 416. If left that way too long, lack of blood supply to his chicken would have done severe damage, but of course that bastard had planned to kill him. It would be a horrible crime to disfigure such a sexy guy. The thought made her want to groan and made her more aware that her body responded to the naked male sprawled in front of her. She mentally shook that line of thought away, couldn’t afford to go there, and needed to stop looking at his bare body.

Sarah: So he’s unconscious, bleeding, had the crap kicked out of him, and has something wrapped around his chicken, and she is turned on by performing medical care.

Jane: That’s right!

Sarah: Yeah.

[Boom]

Jane: Oops.

Sarah: I, I’m, I’m going to bet, I’m betting, I am betting, I will bet you an entire dollar that we will get an email telling us that this particular type of erotica has a name.

[Laughter]

Jane: Is it medical porn? I –

Sarah: Medi-porn! Or, or harm porn or hurt porn or, you know, if you’re really unhappy and feeling ill, that’s going to turn somebody on. I’m, I’m betting you we’re going to get an email that this has a name. Watch.

Jane: They all do, don’t they?

Sarah: They all do, and that’s the wonderful thing about the internet: no matter what you’re into, no matter how crazy it is, you are not alone. Which is a good thing, and a little scary sometimes too.

Jane: [Laughs]

Sarah: So I have one last email, ‘cause we got this, this email yesterday, and this, this totally made my day, so I wanted to share it. This is from Ellie:

Ellie’s email: I just wanted to write a quick note to tell you how much this week’s podcast brightened my day. I was having a frustrating day at work when I saw there was a new podcast, so I popped in my headphones and gave it a listen at my desk, after saving it to my desktop so as not to crash your server.

Sarah: Thank you.

Ellie: Within minutes, my abs were hurting from trying not to laugh out loud. I started to worry that my cube neighbor would wonder what, what on earth I was listening to. About the time you started to talk about Savage Thunder, I actually had to wipe away tears of laughter, so thank you for turning my day around and making me smile.

Thank you,

Ellie

Sarah: Ellie, you are so welcome! I hope today is much better.

[music]

Sarah: That’s all for this week’s podcast. I hope you enjoyed that little peek into our inbox. If you’d like to send us a message, the email address is sbjpodcast@gmail.com; that’s S for Sarah, B for Bitches, J for Jane, podcast at gmail dot com.

Future podcasts: author interviews. We’ve been sneaking around and inviting authors to join us. Our first one might be, like, major, major, major time zone crossing.

As usual, the list of books we talked about will be available on our websites, and the music is provided by Sassy Outwater, who you can find on Twitter at twitter.com/SassyOutwater. This week’s music is by – I’m not even making up this name – Peatbog Faeries. They are a Scottish band, they produce contemporary folk music, and they’ve won the Live Act of the Year at the Scottish Traditional Music Awards, which totally makes me want to go to Scotland like you have no idea. You can find their music on iTunes, or you can find them on their website at peatbogfaeries.com.

I hope you enjoyed the podcast, and this week we wish you the very best of reading.

[stepping music]