We're so back!

We're so sorry we haven't been back! 

We've been struggling (I think maybe we are not alone?) but we are coming back with a celebration of a kind of book we're struggling to define but we totally know what we're talking about and hope you do too. They tend to be paranormal romances, but don't have to be. They come in long series and you can usually debate for ages about where you should stop reading them. Every woman you know knows about them but almost none of the men do. They have big worldbuilding (often to the point where by book 20 they're completely different books and now everybody is a demon in hell and also a rock star but they still have killer outfits) and their fans are real fans, they get into the first one and read fifteen more in a week, they write fanfic, they want to live in the world. They somehow have a little bit of a fanfic vibe even in the original. There's something a little "guilty pleasure" about them. A little, dare I say, "cringe".

Well fuck that, if we're going to meet the moment we need to smother the part of us that thinks a pleasure could be guilty or that sincerity is embarassing. We're embarking on a special mini-series we're calling the Bodice Tipplers Cringe Binge! We're reading Sherrilyn Kenyon! We're reading Charlaine Harris! We're reading JR Ward! We're sure as shit reading Nalini Singh!

And before somebody pops out of a garbage can to tell me there's nothing cringey about these books, please go and look at a list of the men's names in the Black Dagger Brotherhood books and check yourself. If you truly want to overcome your instinct for embarassment you're going to have to read a book about a grown ass man named Phury, don't come complaining to me, I don't make the rules. Or the rhules.

So join us starting Labor Day for our first one, Fantasy Lover by Sherrilyn Kenyon!

She's Anita, a zombie raising hate crime enthusiast! He's Jean Claude, a vampire who's in the Chamber of Commerce and shops exclusively at International Male! They do not do it until the fifth book! It's Guilty Pleasures, the first Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter book by Laurell K. Hamilton!

This was a serious thing for Sara back in college, who is currently having an existential crisis about the trashbag fakeass non-intersectional feminism of the all of it. It was new to Courtney, who hated it. It's halfway to Halloween, so we pulled this one out of a musty old crypt where we honestly kinda forgot about how we recorded it!

I mentioned a quote and I mentioned the author but there were, like, twenty minutes between the two in the episode, so let me clarify that when I talked about how "the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house" I was referring to an essay of the same title by Audre Lorde, from her collection Sister Outsider which is a) a quick read, go read it right now, it won't take you but a minute, and b) about being constantly asked to be the only Black woman, or the only lesbian, or the only Black lesbian, at every conference and on every panel. "As women, we have been taught either to ignore our differences, or to view them as causes for separation and suspicion rather than as forces for change. Without community there is no liberation, only the most vulnerable and temporary armistice between an individual and her oppression. But community must not mean a shedding of our differences, nor the pathetic pretense that these differences do not exist." Audre Lorde would eat Anita Blake alive.

There's actually quite a bit of content-warning stuff in here - obviously there's vampire-typical violence and lack of consent and all that, but there's also a ton coming from ol' Anita - you got some fat shaming, some kink shaming, she's really got it in for sex workers, she can't stand it when other people have any kind of good time, she's Not Like Other Girls... I bet there's even a bit in here where she talks about how unfashionably big her boobs are and how unfashionably beautiful her skin is and how unfashionably thick and lustrous her mane of hair is.

We had a great time sitting down with Grace and Kate from the New York Public Library (as I explained to my husband "the one with the lions") to talk about NYPL's "Best New Romance Books" list of their favorite 2024 romance novels. We talked about everything from Johanna Lindsey cover art to the sad dearth of true pirate romances these days to romantical rubber duckies!  I cut the worst of the shop talk but it was so exciting to get to talk romance readers' advisory with like minded professionals!

We recorded this months ago, in the fall! We are sorry! He's Brendan, a DOJ attorney ferreting out white supremacists! She's Caroline, a counselor whose mom calls all the time! Will they ever buy curtains to spare the neighbors' tender eyes? Find out in Heat Wave by Barbara Delinsky, another of our “five heart romances”! If you’re new to this, we’re doing episodes on the list of books that Romantic Times reviewer Melinda Helfer awarded five hearts to (there are sixteen, out of ten thousand!) So far, Melinda did not miss.

No real content warnings in this one except that I do not think sex scenes should ever, under any circumstances, include the word "womb". Gah.

He's Marius, a vampire who keeps getting stuck in things! She's Pandora, horny middle aged lady goals! Forget it, Jake, it's Anne Rice!

We promised a special January 6 "we're not going back!" episode because... we thought it was going to be funny because we expected things to go somewhat differently! Ha! Ha! So funny! So it's a damn good thing we ended up all loving this book. We're joined by our usual Special Guest Claire and had a great time talking about ol' "yeah but can you fuck" Pandora, bless her.

Content warnings are the usual vampire business, the usual Anne Rice xenophobia, and a lot of Roman-style slavery.

Also, Anne Rice had a huge-ass doll collection and it was left to a museum in, for some reason, Pennsylvania! Read about it here!

Welcome to our fifth year of reading Anne Rice books for Halloween, with special guest Dr. Claire Mischker! He's David Talbot, nobody's favorite old man/young twink vampire! She's Merrick, too cool for these dusty losers, out here committing perfume crimes! In accordance with long-established tradition, this episode is rambling and yelly and has weird sound! Note: I promise we actually do know that Guatemala is in Central America, but once you make a mistake one time on a podcast it's really hard to not keep making it.

As usual there are a slew of real content warnings about anything our girl Anne writes - in this one there is some really gross sexualization of a child (although she is an adult when they actually bang it out); there's somebody letting Anne Rice write about race and colorism which was, let's say, a mistake; and there's quite a lot of talk about suicide. If you need support, the new 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is available by phone (just dial 988) or by text or chat at https://988lifeline.org/. You are not a fictional vampire; we are glad you are here and want you to stay here.

Aye lads and lassies and wee bairns (wait, this is no place for wee bairns!) This is our hundredth episode, to our vast surprise, so we're gonna make enemies and talk about Outlander! He's Jamie, the only feminist in eighteenth century Scotland! She's Claire, a time traveling nurse with a boring husband! Buckle up, sassenachs, because if you know this book you know you're about to trip over a giant content warning.

The book, the TV show, and absolutely this podcast have a great big neon "sexual assault" warning on them. There is no ignoring the rape in Outlander - it's an omnipresent (and equal opportunity!) threat, it's not something you could just skip a few pages and miss, they probably don't even have a word for it in the way that fish don't have a word for water. Forget it, Jake, it's Outlander. It's traumatic and has real emotional and physical consequences and if it's something you prefer to avoid you definitely should not read, watch, or listen here. There's also some... I don't know how to put this, some spousal discipline? It doesn't really read as abusive, but he does hit her with a belt, which half of us were kinda into and half of us were absolutely not into, so your mileage may vary. And of course there's quite a bit of beating and murdering and witch burning and torturing, just for variety.

He's Stephan, a time travelling good Nazi! She's Laura, a woman he will not leave alone! It's Dean Koontz's Lightning, the first of our summer road trip books! To explain the amazing graphic my husband ran up for this - I am almost certain this is Koontz's own Terminator fanfic, predicting Badass T2 Sarah Connor years before that movie came out.

If you didn't see this amazing profile of Dean Koontz in the Washington Post last year please enjoy this gift link! Why yes, it is weird! He really does wear his hair like that! Is it his hair? I dunno, I mean, I'm sure he owns it, yes. Every day! All the time! His wife just walks into a room and there it is! People's lives, man!

So if you're new to the Koontz, prepare for some damn content warnings - this one's got wack-ass ableism, Fated Child Sex Abuse, the strangest fat shaming I've ever seen, kids burning alive, oh yeah Nazis (at least they're the bad guys, never thought I'd live to have to say that!), I probably forgot some. I will say that when we call this guy a "good Nazi" what we mean is a traitor to the Nazi cause, not the other thing. We wouldn't be reading one with the other thing.

He's a bear. Like an actual bear. She's having a midlife crisis. This seems like a pretty extreme response. This is Bear by Marian Engel, which won the Governor General's Award in 1976 and is evidently the most controversial Canadian novel of all time. Sounds like a skills issue to me.

You know that joke about how you can build a bridge with your bare hands and they don't call you a bridge builder, and you can saw down a tree and cut it into boards and make these cabinets but they don't call you a carpenter, but if you fuck one bear... anyway this book is about Lou the bearfucker.

This is, of course, our addition to the discourse on "man or bear?" - if you've been living under a rock, there was a whole thing that started on TikTok but ended up in print media of all places about asking women if they'd rather be alone in the woods with a strange man or a strange bear. And then a whole bunch of men on Reddit very handily made it clear why women will pick the damn bear. The entry I found most interesting was this one I mentioned in the episode from a woman who does extreme wilderness bikepacking - worth a read if you haven't seen it.

His job is Amish! She's an accountant with an ulcer and a bad case of second chance romance! Will they fall back in love? Can she get over that weird beard thing? Find out in Cheryl Reavis' A Crime of the Heart, another of our "five heart romances"! If you're new to this, we're doing episodes on the list of books that Romantic Times reviewer Melinda Helfer awarded five hearts to (there are sixteen, out of ten thousand!)

This one is very sweet but their problems are real and grounded - if "I had your baby and I gave it away" adoption stories or religious communities shunning family members are an issue for you, they're discussed here in a way that's pretty realistic and therefore troubling to some people. Spoiler - they do not go find the adopted child.