This February, in honor of the season, we dove into a Valentine’s themed romance with Amy Lea’s EXES & O’S. Fittingly, its heroine is the exact kind of woman we’re on a mission to figure out on this podcast: a romance-genre aficionado and book influencer looking for love IRL. Join us as we discuss BookTok, tropes, and sex that transports you to an alternate dimension. Happy (belated) Valentine’s Day! 💖

Talking points include: Trigger Warnings (tw: trigger warnings), The Ao3-ification of Books, Taylor Swift Media Literacy 101, and Doing It (Yes, It!!!) for the ‘Gram

Thanks, as always, to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Deoxys Beats⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for our intro and outro music, "RedLips."

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We’re back from hiatus, coming to you live as married women! For our triumphant return, we read THE SUMMER I TURNED PRETTY by Jenny Han to see how the source material measures up to the TV show that had all the girlies (and Taylor Swift) obsessed this summer. Love triangles, brooding heroes, and the perils of puberty await!

Talking points include: millennial nostalgia, the lure of bisexual men, and Stranger Things (R.I.P.).

Thanks, as always, to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Deoxys Beats⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for our intro and outro music, "RedLips."

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Kilts, magic, and bonnie lasses abound this week as Lena and Nadine travel to Scotland via Lana Ferguson’s UNDER LOCH AND KEY. Yes, the Loch Ness Monster is a man in this one, and yes, that is predictably disappointing to us. But hey, at least there’s some fun monster sex!

Talking points include: Is Bush Back?, In Defense of Graveyards, Third Grade Reading Comprehension, and Scottish Dirty Talk.

Thanks, as always, to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Deoxys Beats⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for our intro and outro music, "RedLips."

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Creative Commons / Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Holiday magic is in the air this week as Nadine and Lena return to the first author they read for this podcast, Tessa Bailey, and dive into her holiday rom-com WRECK THE HALLS. Were we too harsh on Tessa in episode one? Have our standards been lowered after plumbing the depths of Kindle Unlimited self-pub erotica? Or is this just another off-puttingly overprotective hero and meek one-dimensional heroine for the books?

Talking points include a kink that's not really a kink, codependency red flags, and the Netflix original film HOT FROSTY.

Thanks, as always, to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Deoxys Beats⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for our intro and outro music, "RedLips."

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Creative Commons / Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Welcome to Eloraton, NY, where the burgers are always slightly burnt, it rains in the afternoon, and there’s a moody stranger with ~minty green eyes~ ready to charm his way into your heart. This week, Lena and Nadine dove into A NOVEL LOVE STORY by Ashley Poston, where our heroine takes a wrong turn off the highway and ends up in the fictional quirky small town of her favorite romance series. 

Talking points include: straw man literary bros, jail for “good girl,” the argument against a happy-ever-after.

Thanks, as always, to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Deoxys Beats⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for our intro and outro music, "RedLips."

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Creative Commons / Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0)

If you’re looking for a book that will really scare you this week, look no further—Opal Reyne’s A SOUL TO KEEP has all kinds of frights up its sleeve, like almost comically poor writing and a heroine who thinks reading is boring. Oh, that’s not the kind of spooky season fright you were looking for? Unfortunately, it’s all we have to offer. That, and a two-foot-long purple monster dick with tentacles. Sorry!

Learn about the elite college students who can’t read in The Atlantic here. Check out some of the (explicit, you’ve been warned) fan art of Orpheus and Reia here.

Thanks, as always, to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Deoxys Beats⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for our intro and outro music, "RedLips."

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Creative Commons / Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0)

You do KNOT want to miss our latest episode, where we dive into Ali Hazelwood’s latest best-seller and first foray into paranormal romance, BRIDE. (Don’t worry, everyone—there are still plenty of petite girlboss women in STEM to go around.) This book has it all: cringe one-liners! Evil villain monologues! Sexy blood-drinking! Weird off-putting twin vibes! And for the layperson who has never heard the phrase “omegaverse” before, we brought in Thinking Straight’s first ever guest expert to give you the lowdown.

To see the word “knotting” printed in the hallowed pages of The New York Times, read on. To understand the Karlie Kloss joke Nadine makes towards the end of the episode, go here.

Thanks, as always, to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Deoxys Beats⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for our intro and outro music, "RedLips."

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Creative Commons / Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0)

We’re back! We’re 💍 ENGAGED! 💍And we’re diving into the highly requested oeuvre of Emily Henry with People We Meet on Vacation, a friends-to-lovers romance that your favorite friends-to-lovers lesbian couple was probably primed to enjoy. Talking points include: justice for Sarah, I’m not like other grumpy hunks (I wear khakis), and the first known woman to ever successfully get a real job in media because she ran a small blog. 

P.S., Sorry the audio is so janky at certain points — we were gone for so long our recording program updated and reset our presets, so it gets kinda staticky and gross any time we talk too loud or laugh (which we do a lot). We will fix this for the next episode!!!

Thanks, as always, to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Deoxys Beats⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for our intro and outro music, "RedLips."

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Creative Commons / Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0)

A dragon without its rider is a tragedy. A rider without their dragon is… a horny 20 year old! Join Lena and Nadine as they unpack the romantasy sensation that took TikTok and the NYT bestseller list by storm.

Talking points include: Tall Dark and Shadow-Wielding, Rebecca Doesn’t Know What a Parapet Is, Fever-Induced Ombre, and a several minute segment nobody asked for on our favorite fanfiction of all time.

Here is the picture of Mr. Burns as an alien that Lena showed to Nadine, and here is Lena’s review of “Ripley” on Netflix.

Thanks, as always, to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Deoxys Beats⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for our intro and outro music, "RedLips."

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Creative Commons / Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Ready, set, bake! Lena and Nadine read their first baking romance of the podcast for this episode, and it’s a little… undercooked. Tune in for matcha tiramisu, conversations about representation and diversity in the romance world and beyond, and a shocking revelation about Lena’s late-night audiobook listening habits.

The movie set in Clearwater, FL that Lena talks about at the end is “Suncoast” (Lena’s review here). We highly recommend it to anyone who wants to reminisce about Clearwater and/or cry very hard.

Thanks, as always, to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Deoxys Beats⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for our intro and outro music, "RedLips."

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Creative Commons / Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0)