Shelf Love: Romance Novel Discourse

Antagonist April: discussing killers in romance. Fangirl Jeanne is back to continue our discussion of Manacled, a dark romance fan fiction story. What is the appeal of enemies to lovers? How do readers wrestle with justification for killing in romantic stories, and how does Manacled explore a romantic relationship, not just a romantic fantasy for an individual? How does creating within communal systems, as opposed to capitalist ones, enable different kinds of stories?

This is part 2 of 2 discussing Manacled. Check out episode 116 for part 1.

Content Warnings: the text we discuss is a dark romance fanfiction and we discuss how the text handles rape, war, violence, and genocide.

Shelf Love:

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Discussed: Manacled by SenLinYu (Dramione AU Fanfiction)

Manacled - Chapter 1 - senlinyu - Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling [Archive of Our Own]

Guest: Fangirl Jeanne

Website | Twitter

Jeanne’s tweet thread on the power fantasy of being the singular focus of a powerful man present in Romantic literature and fan fiction: https://twitter.com/fangirlJeanne/status/1507407313220485122?s=20&t=Esqbm4RcOJtUeqnB58DInw

Shelf Love:

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Antagonist April: discussing killers in romance. Manacled by SenLinYu is a wildly popular dark romance fanfic with Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger, that remixes alternate universe Harry Potter with Handmaid’s Tale. Fangirl Jeanne joins me to discuss how war is hell, what it means to be a killer in a world where there are fates worse than death, and the appeal of the murderous antagonist hero. What does it help us understand about conceptions of masculinity and emotions as well as feminine desirability within patriarchy? This is part 1 of 2 discussing Manacled. Check out episode 117 - out now - for part 2.

Content Warnings: the text we discuss is a dark romance fanfiction and we discuss how the text handles rape, war, violence, and genocide.

Shelf Love:

Join the Conversation on Discord: https://www.patreon.com/ShelfLove

• Sign up for the email newsletter list | Website | Patreon | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube
• Email: [email protected]

Discussed: Manacled by SenLinYu (Dramione AU Fanfiction)

Manacled - Chapter 1 - senlinyu - Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling [Archive of Our Own]

Guest: Fangirl Jeanne

Website | Twitter

Jeanne’s tweet thread on the power fantasy of being the singular focus of a powerful man present in Romantic literature and fan fiction: https://twitter.com/fangirlJeanne/status/1507407313220485122?s=20&t=Esqbm4RcOJtUeqnB58DInw

Shelf Love:

• NEW! Substack for original writing and stuff | Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube
• Email: [email protected]

Data scientist Dr. Andrew Piper joins Shelf Love to share how data science can help the romance community answer the big questions that close reading can’t answer. Andrew’s the director of McGill University’s .txtlab, a laboratory that uses machine learning to ask questions like why do people enjoy the work they love? And once we empirically quantify what’s going on here, he asks us to think about what we’d like to do about it.

Guest: Dr. Andrew Piper

Website | Twitter | Enumerations: Data and Literary Study

Andrew Piper is Professor and William Dawson Scholar at McGill University. He is the director of .txtlab, a laboratory that uses machine learning and data science to understand literature and culture.

Shelf Love:

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Tweets discussed in this episode:

@katrinaJax: “is it me or are there so many more white romances this year and being announced? like... a lot...”

@momonoki8: Who is critique use of blonde, pink lips, thinness, small waists and blushing cheeks etc in contemporary white-led romance novels? @ShelfLovePod

Shelf Love:

• NEW! Substack for original writing and stuff | Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube
• Email: [email protected]

Swan Song (2021) is a movie that forces us to confront the "After" part of Happily Ever After. Shelf Love's Sad Media Correspondent, Dame Jodie Slaughter, is here to discuss lax security at cloning facilities, the ethics of cloning, the aesthetics of the future: pretty much anything that allows us to avoid the banal truth about our own mortality.

Content Note: discussion of death and mortality.

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Discussed: Swan Song (2021)

Guest: Dame Jodie Slaughter, Shelf Love’s Sad Media Correspondent

Website | Twitter | Instagram

Check out Fair Fight Action! Thank you to Cynthia for bidding on the quilt I donated to Romancing the Vote and for supporting Fair Fight!

Shelf Love:

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Shelf Love:

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Do our fated lovers smell like ambrosia because of the cosmic love connection? How do romance novels use language to convey romantic love? I propose a spectrum that ranges from "fated sex mates" to "perfectly matched" using examples from 4 romance novels (not all of them recommended).

Shelf Love:

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Thanks to the Shelf Love Discord members for sparking the idea for this episode!

Books Discussed:

• After The Night by Linda Howard (not recommended)
• Scandalous Desires by Elizabeth Holt (not recommended, YMMV)
• As You Desire by Connie Brockway (recommended)
• The Other Guys Bride by Connie Brockway (recommended)

Shelf Love:

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Have you ever wished you could just escape the anxieties and mundanity of modern life by traveling back to Qing Dynasty China? How does time travel romance create a simulacra of a “glorious and wealthy feudal past” that allows audiences to “effortlessly become a love interest and an admired woman through the male gaze shaped by multiple admirers”?

Shelf Love:

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Discussed:

• Startling by Each Step (2011)
• Palace (2011)

Guest: Dr. Huike Wen

Professor teaching media studies and global cultural studies at Willamette University

Website | Romance in Post-Socialist Chinese Television

Shelf Love:

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The Hunger Games may have featured a prominent love triangle, but are those the relationships teen girl audiences care most about? Dr. Tina Benigno shares her research about how the teen romance narrative for the extra-ordinary girl in some ways reinforces neoliberal feminist or popular feminist messages around empowerment discourses, on the heels of postfeminism.

Discussed: The Hunger Games, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

Guest: Dr. Tina Benigno

Website | Twitter

Shelf Love:

Join the Conversation on Discord: https://www.patreon.com/ShelfLove

• Sign up for the email newsletter list | Website | Patreon | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube
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Shelf Love:

• NEW! Substack for original writing and stuff | Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube
• Email: [email protected]

Romance-Friendly Bookstores with Copper Dog Books (and everything about the supply chain you've never thought to ask)!

Copper Dog Books is an independently-owned, genre-inclusive bookstore in Beverly, MA and co-owners Julie Karaganis & Meg Wasmer join Shelf Love to share the joys, challenges, and future possibilities for romance in brick and mortar bookstores. 

Guests: Copper Dog Books: co-owners Julie Karaganis & Meg Wasmer

Twitter | Instagram | Website

Shelf Love:

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Get signed bookplates & White Whiskey Bargain by Jodie Slaughter!

Meg is looking for kinky books with warm fuzzies, a la Sunstone, a graphic novel series by Stjepan Šejić. Let her know if you know of the perfect recommendation @megpyre on Twitter

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Popular at (or Recommended by) Copper Dog Books

• Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert (covered on Shelf Love)
• Fix Her Up by Tessa Bailey
• October Daye Books by Seanan McGuire
• The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas
• A Touch of Darkness by Scarlett St. Clair
• Ice Planet Barbarians by Ruby Dixon
• The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood
• Reminders of Him by Colleen Hoover
• The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang (covered on Shelf Love)
• A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
• The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
• Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
• The Witch's Heart by Genevieve Gornichec
• One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston
• Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
• My Cone and Only by Susannah Nix
• Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff
• The Love Con by Seressia Glass
• Dating Dr. Dil by Nisha Sharma.
• Battle Royale by Lucy Parker
• The Mercenary Librarians by Kit Rocha
• Hunt The Stars by Jessie Mihalik
• Delilah Green Doesn't Care by Ashley Herring Blake
• Payback's a Witch by Lana Harper
• The Ex Hex by Erin Sterling
• Wayfarers series by Becky Chambers
• A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking by T Kingfisher
• The Paladin Prophecy by Mark Frost

Shelf Love:

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Love & Marriage...and The Simpsons. Join me & my IRL love partner to celebrate what "ever after" looks like this Valentine's Day. We discuss how romantic love, infidelity, & marriage are portrayed in The Simpsons.

Reader...I married him and he DID eventually redo my website.

Shelf Love:

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Guest: Joe Martucci, romance podcaster husband

Shelf Love:

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Mary Fisher lived in a palace by the sea, and like all romance novelists, just needs love to complete her idyllic rose-colored life. Too bad the man she wants is married to bored housewife Ruth, who embarks on a journey of revenge. But who is the titular She-Devil in this 1989 film starring Meryl Streep and Roseanne Barr? What does this film imagine is worse than being a bored housewife? Whom do we root for, and who gets to be selfish in life and love? Morgan & Isabeau from Whoa!mance invite me to join them on a very special Whoanus spectacular.

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Discussed:

She-Devil - 1989 Film starring Meryl Streep as Mary Fisher, the romance novelist, and Roseanne Barr, as Ruth

Shelf Love:

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Guests: Whoa!mance (Morgan and Isabeau)

Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | Website | Listen on any podcast app!

Morgan & Isabeau joined me in episode 076 to discuss Strange Love by Ann Aguirre

and

Episode 089 to Problematize Romance

Shelf Love:

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• Email: [email protected]