Content Warning: NSFW episode! Please at least wear headphones when listening to this at your desk...

Spicy? Smutty? Clean? Romantasy? Alpha? WHAT ARE ALL THESE WORDS? Don't worry, we'll get into it.

Questions/Comments/Concerns/Recommendations? Email us at [email protected]

(Bonus - listen to the postcredits for what a Jen/Jackie conversation sounds like outside of the podcast)

Books we mention:

• Ruby Dixon
• House of Flame and Shadow by SJM
• A Court of Mist and Fury
• Beverly Lewis
• Nora Roberts
• Sorry, Bro by Taleen Voskuni
• Bridgertons by Julia Quinn
• Tamora Pierce
• Jennifer Lynn Armentrout
• Rebecca Yarros
• Juliet Marillier
• A Song of Ice and Fire by Georg RR Martin
• The Witcher by Andrzej Sapkowski
• Lord of the Rings by Tolkien
• HM Long
• Marion Zimmer Bradley
• Bride by Ali Hazelwood
• The Fake Mate b Lana Ferguson
• Blacktop Wasteland by SA Crosby
• Whispers of the Deep by Emma Hamm

The Mortal Queen of Faerie Smut (VanArendonk, 2024)

"Lexington-Richland school board votes to remove fantasy series from district libraries" (Grenier, 2023)

Publisher's Marketplace

"Hot stuff: why readers fell in love with romance novels" (Darbyshire, 2023)

#79 Krampus episode

Diversify your reading!

Questions/Comments/concerns/recommendations? Email us at [email protected]

Books we recommend:

• Nicola Yoon, The Sun is Also a Star and Everything, Everything
• One of Our Kind by Nicola Yoon
• The Scourge Between Stars by Ness Brown
• Women who Dare series by Beverly Jenkins
• An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole
• The Accidental Pinup by Danielle Jackson
• Talia Hibbert, esp. The Brown Sisters
• Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute
• Lore of the Wild by Analeigh Sbrana

Content warning: Discussion on the use of rape fantasies in early romance books.

We're so happy to have gotten the chance to sit down with romance author extraordinaire, Susan Elizabeth Phillips! Tune in for an interview full of laughs, knowledge, and Jackie even saying "yes ma'am" on more than one occasion.

Questions/comments/concerns/recommendations? Email us at [email protected]!

Susan Elizabeth Phillips website

Tour info!

Titles:

• The Copeland Bride
• Just Imagine
• Fancy Pants
• Simply the Best
• Glitter Baby
• Natural Born Charmer
• When Stars Collide
• Happiness for Beginners by Katherine Center
• Flame and the Flower by Kathleen Woodiwiss
• Flowers in the Storm by Laura Kinsale (sp. The Fabio Cover)
• Lorelei James
• Mariana Zapata

Sarah J Maas interview with Jenna Bush Hager on the Today Show (Youtube)

"The Mortal Queen of Faerie Smut" (VanArendonck, 2024)

Did you know that we run a romance book club? Between the Covers is hosted every month at NOPL North Syracuse, and you are formally invited! If you can't join us, though, don't worry, we'll give you a post-meeting rundown of the book and our feelings on it.

Join us virtually on Zoom, or in person at North Syracuse!

Last month we read "Verity" by Colleen Hoover, a book that took the book world and romancelandia by storm. Let's take a peek between the covers...

Other authors/books to look at:

• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
• Ruth Ware
• The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins
• Frieda McFadden
• The Only One Left by Riley Sager
• Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

CONTENT WARNING: We will be discussing snakes and similar slithery creatures in this episode, as well as dubious consent through legends and myths.

Dragons and Unicorns and Virgins, oh my! Ever wonder why virgins keep getting tied to mythical beasts? don't worry, Jackie's got you.

Questions/comments/concerns/recommendations? Email us at [email protected]!

Unicorn images!

• Unicorn tapestries
• Elasmotherium, 1878 reconstruction
• Elasmotherium reconstruction on X
• Broken horn unicorn
• Unicorn and maiden

Other episodes to listen to:

• #57 Dragon Shifters
• #54 Witches
• #71 Chivalry and medieval pt. 2

Books/texts we mention:

• Moby Dick by Herman Melville
• The Iliad (Jackie recommends Emily Wilson's translation)
• The Physiologus
• Historia Naturalis (Pliny the Elder)
• Etymologies (Isidore of Seville)
• Expositions on the Book of Psalms (Augustine, transl. 1845)
• King James translation of The Bible
• Golden Legend (Legenda Aurea)
• Ctesias' Indica
• The Bridge Ladies by Betsy Lerner
• King of Battle and Blood / Queen of Myth and Monsters by Scarlett St. Clair

Sources:

• "Dragon" (Medieval Bestiary)
• "Unicorn" (ibid.)
• “In a Word: Of Serpents, Snakes, and Sobriquets” (Hollandbeck, 2023)
• “Separating Myth from Legend about the Medieval Dragon” (Diaz, 2018)
• “Understanding the Book of Revelation” (White, 2014)
• “Snake to Monster: Conrad Gessner’s Schlangenbuch and the Evolution of the Dragon in the Literature of Natural History.” (Senter, Phil, et al., 2016)
• "Exposition on Psalm 148" (Newadvent.org, 2023)
• "Enter the Dragon: Happy St Margaret's Day!" (British Library, 2014)
• "Chapter 8 The Unicorn as a Symbol for Christ in the Middle Ages" (Beal, 2018)
• “Qilin” (britannica.com)
• “Zevachim 113b ~ On the Identity of the Re'em" (Talmudology.com, 2018)
• “The Hunt of the Unicorn Tapestries Depict a “Virgin-Capture Legend” (Morgan, 2021)
• “The Virgin Captures Myth in the hunt of the unicorn during the middle ages” (Frederici, 2021)
• “Cult of the Virgin Mary” (Intriguing History, 2016)

Favorite reads of 2023? Let's go!

• Undertaking of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen
• A Soul to Revive by Opal Reyne
• I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston
• Fangirl Down by Tessa Bailey
• Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood
• Spells for Forgetting by Adrienne Young

(bonus mention - Casey's next book is The Pairing and it's out August 6th!)

Happy 2024! Did you struggle like Jen and Jackie in 2023 to meet your reading goals? Don't worry, we have some advice (that we're going to try and be keeping too).

Email us at [email protected]!

Sites we mention:

• Goodreads
• Storygraph
• Graphic Audio
• Hoopla
• Libro.fm
• Audible

Books we mention:

• American Prometheus (Oppenheimer biopic)
• Game of Thrones (Song of Ice and Fire) by GRR Martin
• The Witcher by Andrzej Sapkowski
• Dog Man by Dave Pilkey
• Percy Jackson by Rick Riordan
• Kristen Ashley
• S.A. Cosby
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• Shel Silverstein
• Nikita Gill
• Jacqueline Woodson
• Robert Frost
• The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty
• Butcher and Blackbird by Brynne Weaver

Break out the notepad, it's time to add to the TBR!

• House of Flame and Shadow by Sarah J Maas out January 30th
• Don't Want You Like a Best Friend by Emma R Alban out January 9th
• Courting the Countess by Lyssa Kay Adams
• Bride by Ali Hazelwood out February 6th
• The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo out April 9th

Check out Between the Covers book club too!

Have any book releases for us that you're excited for? Email us at [email protected]!

We made it another turn around the sun! Thank you for listening during the craziness that was 2023...let's talk about some of our favorite episodes.

Don't forget to email us with your favorites at [email protected]. Happy 2024!

• #78 Gilt-y Pleasures: Dollar Princesses and Husband Hunters
• #76 For the Love of True Crime
• #74 Things Are Getting Tense...
• #69 Lost Genres pt. 4 - Feeling Fine in the Medieval Times

**Apologies for the audio - we went back to our Zoom roots and it did us dirty**

Thank you to Jennifer Armentrout for sitting down and talking shop with us! Buckle up for a LONG discussion on things like fan merch, Etsy, book banning, burn out, inspiration, publishing contracts, television deals, and MORE!

Make sure to check out all of Jennifer's books! The ones we mention are:

• Blood and Ash (series)
• Flesh and Fire (series)
• Storm and fury/Harbinger (series)

Find Jennifer on Instagram, Facebook, JLanders reader group, and her newsletter

Books/Authors we mention:

• The Vampire Diaries by LJ Smith
• The Witcher by Andrzej Sapkowski
• Game of Thrones by George RR Martin
• Sarah J Maas
• Fantasy Lover/Dark Hunters series by Sherrilyn Kenyon
• Consort of Fire by Kit Rocha
• Kerrigan Bryne
• Guild Hunter series by Nalini Singh
• Larissa Ione
• JR Ward