We're back with Martha Waters for her second book, To Love and to Loathe!  If you remember, Martha had the unique bad luck to release her first book the week the world ended last year, and it's been so long that she's back with a sequel.

The widowed Diana, Lady Templeton and Jeremy, Marquess of Willingham are infamous among English high society as much for their sharp-tongued bickering as their flirtation. One evening, an argument at a ball turns into a serious wager: Jeremy will marry within the year or Diana will forfeit one hundred pounds. So shortly after, just before a fortnight-long house party at Elderwild, Jeremy’s country estate, Diana is shocked when Jeremy appears at her home with a very different kind of proposition.

After his latest mistress unfavorably criticized his skills in the bedroom, Jeremy is looking for reassurance, so he has gone to the only woman he trusts to be totally truthful. He suggests that they embark on a brief affair while at the house party—Jeremy can receive an honest critique of his bedroom skills and widowed Diana can use the gossip to signal to other gentlemen that she is interested in taking a lover.

Diana thinks taking him up on his counter-proposal can only help her win her wager. With her in the bedroom and Jeremy’s marriage-minded grandmother, the formidable Dowager Marchioness of Willingham, helping to find suitable matches among the eligible ladies at Elderwild, Diana is confident her victory is assured. But while they’re focused on winning wagers, they stand to lose their own hearts.

It's out today, so get it wherever you get your books!

You guys you guys this is it!  This is the big one! We are fifty episodes old and we are going BIG!  We have gotten so many requests for this one - we read The Thorn Birds, you guys, and we're gonna watch the miniseries (check social media for upcoming details about watching it with us!) and we got a secret guest (spoiler: Courtney's secret brother Nate) all the way from Australia, and of course it was a whole ass thing.  We lost Courtney for half of it!  It was a beast, but we had a blast and we offer it up to you as our 50-episode birthday present to everyone.

The Thorn Birds is one of those big family sagas they used to love to make a miniseries about.  There's a big house.  There's a spite will.  There's a million characters who mostly don't matter and a million things happen that also mostly don't matter.  There's Meggie, only daughter of the most ridiculously sterotypical Irish family to every Irish its way to New Zealand and then Australia.  There's Ralph (RALPH!), tormented priest and self-absorbed piece of crap.  There's other people who are related to these people but admit it, you're really here for Meggie and Ralph.  

You should not read this book if you're sensitive to depictions of grooming (nothing sexual happens between Ralph and Meggie until she is an adult, but they meet when she is a child and he is clearly obsessed with her and behaves in a way that isn't sexualized but is deeply inappropriate), vividly described marital rape, stealthing (!) by a woman, priests breaking their vows... oh and for some reason these people castrate lambs with their teeth?  I cannot WAIT for all the furious YouTube comments about how we don't understand that "people were different back then".

 You guys.  We have done it.  We have finally gone so far down the rabbit hole of vintage romance that we have found one that is not on Goodreads.  Welcome to The Leopard Tree by Valerie Parv, reigning queen of Australian romance! 

There's a UFO!  It's Australia!  He's a... he's an ex-military rodeo bronco buster and she makes ugly jewelry and has an awful fiancé and she'd like to pretend that he's from outer space but really there's a sad and sordid little crime story!  I dunno, all crammed into fewer than 200 pages!

This book does have a kidnapping and threatened rape (although not by the hero) and a disabled character who stops needing his wheelchair because he finally realizes his daughter needs him.

Yooooo, it's a pre-Plum Janet Evanovich!  It's got capers and slapstick and... business!  Ivan is a schooner captain.  Stephanie is an ex-cop, now cute bread and breakfast owner!  Tess is maybe a ghost!  It's got no major trigger warnings beyond what you'd expect for this sort of madcap comedy business - gggggghosts, cold-ass Maine water, possibly a lie about a shower?, a whole ass town gaslighting this poor woman, bad cooking!  I don't want to give anything away but if you're okay with "screwball" including that gaslighting business this is harmless.

Happy lunar new year!  We rang in the Year of the Ox with Butterfly Swords, which was Jeannie Lin's first book.  It won the Golden Heart Award back in 2009 and started her illustrious career.

Ai Li is to be married to the powerful and hawt Li Tao, a scheming jiedushi.  When she discovers his treachery and his murder of her brother she escapes to warn her father, the Tang Emperor.  Except her father isn't really all that fussed about it?  She's helped along the way by Ryam, Noted White Guy.  They travel all around China meeting people and running away from people and hitting people with swords, which is delightful.

There's really no content to be concerned about in this book  - if you dig action packed historical romances there won't be anything in here that's an unpleasant surprise.

 Y'all, it's our first Loveswept!  She's a children's librarian, he's stripping to fund his owl-rescue habit!  It's incredibly sweet and just wonderful in every possible way, there are no major content warnings, just read this one - trust us.  

Are... are you actually ready for this?  (We were not.)

Get ready for some Jackie Collins all up in your face-parts!  Lucky Santangelo is a boss businesslady who Has Sex.  A whole lot happens in this book - everybody gets married six times, at least one hotel is opened, dirty deeds are done on yachts....  I honestly do not know how I could possibly describe the plot.  I can tell you that if you are sensitive to literally any content whatsoever you should not read this book because it has it all.  Child brides!  Rape!  Child rape!  Gratuitous dead babies!  Everybody has sex with everybody else's dad!  Racism!  Fat shaming! The idle rich!  One of these people has so much cocaine she has to have a special cocaine panic room in her house to keep her cocaine in!  So if any of that sounds like something you definitely do not want to hear about, by all means do not listen to this.  If all of that sounds like something you absolutely need to hear about.... by all means, join us.

We were asked if we'd like to interview Melissa Croce about her new book, Single and Forced to Mingle - a guide to what to do if you're unattached and have to go do things.  (Somebody remind me what doing things is like?  I think I've forgotten!) It comes out today, so go get a copy wherever you buy your books! 

Happy holidays, y'all!  We all needed something a little... lighter.  Something a little more... snowy.  Something with a mustache.  Enter Diana Palmer's The Humbug Man, the tiniest little book that packs the most chest hair!  He's another ranchin' Tate (why is that a trope?) who hates kids and loves ranchin' (childfree.)  She's a secretary who moved to Arizona to be close to Montana who needs some deep dicking, stat, but isn't going to get any until the last two pages.  It's really sweet and has almost nothing in it that's disturbing!

He's a cat burglar, she's an ethnobotanist, they both get their cardio in and it's Medicine Man has a weirdly paced baby with Romancing the Stone!  On this special Thanksgiving episode we give genuine thanks to Stacey Abrams for her tireless work flipping the state of Georgia oh my freaking god you guys!  And if you'd like to thank a black woman for doing a hard grimy job nobody else wanted to do, don't give her more work to do - give her money!  Go buy her books!

No major trigger warnings for this episode except that it's romantic suspense, so there's some torture-murder in it.  And a lot of instant oatmeal.