Whoa!mance: Romance, Feminism, and Ourselves

Whoa!mance is back in the saddle with a cozy sleeper set on the Colorado front range. In Cheryl St. John's His Secondhand Wife (2005), Noah's rakish brother is murdered in a saloon, leaving behind a pretty new bride, and a baby on the way! Honor demands Noah take Kate home. And boy howdy is Kate grateful that this brooding hermit of a rancher who hates gaslamps and sunlight has whisked her away from a life of drudgery in ye old Boulder. But Kate just wants to be of use, and Noah won't let her. Cue the slow burn.

Morgan and Isabeau dig into the Beauty and the Beast bones of this one — the formula, the fantasy, and the lies we tell ourselves about who we are and what we deserve. Sometimes it takes a beloved outsider to call us on our nonsense and set us straight. And underneath it all: what does it look like when two people's vulnerabilities are seen and honored?

Hitch the wagon, listeners — we're going for a ride!

Tags: romance novels, historical romance, western romance, Beauty and the Beast, marriage of convenience, forced proximity, slow burn, reluctant hero, pregnant heroine, Cheryl St. John, book podcast, romance podcast, cowboy romance, Colorado, frontier romance, redemption arc, vulnerability, emotional romance, found family, cozy romance

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Is that a wand base metal in your pocket, or are you just happy to see us again? This episode yr grlz begin their conversation about ALCHEMISED by SENLINYU.

You're probably wondering how Helena ended up in a storage facility with most of her memory gone. So is she! And so is the High Reeve. The could-be inheritor of a very evil overlord and the person (zombie???) tasked with finding her pesky hidden memories in order to track down the last shreds of resistance in Paladia,.OR IS HE WONDERING AT ALL?!?! Cue flashback and oh, look at that, they were once in love...can they ever be again?

What does hurt/comfort tell us about desire? How can we negotiate our nostalgia urge via FanFic? How do we even talk about this book?

Only one way to find out...tune in for PART 1!

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We dive into the exquisite love-letter architecture of This Is How You Lose the Time War and ask what happens when desire is literally written into existence. We linger on what it means to love with (or without) a body—across a multiverse full of potential and very real war crimes. Red and Blue, our sapphic leads, slip across timelines and into each other’s hearts in achingly human ways.

But let’s say the quiet part out loud: romance does not need literary fiction to legitimize it. Distinct genres have distinct pleasures and emotional beats—that’s not a bug; it’s a feature. Excellent books exist within the genre, and outside it--maybe we just stop trying to collapse the publishing multiverse and let genre conventions function as intended?

Come for the yearning and love letters, stay for the unapologetic defense of the kissing books.

#RomancePodcast #SapphicRomance #ThisIsHowYouLoseTheTimeWar #EnemiesToLovers #EpistolaryFiction #QueerRomance #BookDiscussion #ScienceFantasyRomance

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And now we arrive in Ireland. Finally. To discuss THE GROUND SHE WALKS UPON by MEAGAN MCKINNEY (1994).

Ravenna is a social outcast who is also magically bound via geish to the Lord of her home, County Lir. Either Niall, at 20 years her senior, woos her, a lowly peasant, or his family looses the land they occupy in Ireland.

What is the point of magic if it is just friendship or whatever? Does good romance determine a good romance, or is it all the other stuff? Is there ever such a thing as a good aristocrat?

Trigger warnings: We talk about death and political violence.

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What was 2025, really? What did we say we were going to do—and did we do it?

In this Year-in-Review episode, we take stock of the year with clear eyes. We revisit the wins, the misses, and the pacing problems from our shelf this year—from Ali Hazelwood’s Deep End to the dark-romance chaos of Nocticadia. We did a shadow-daddy bracket (a rigorous, peer-reviewed process; dissenting opinions noted for the record) that functioned as a useful tool for Isabeau, and found time to accidentally fall head first into the zeitgeist.

Who earned the hardest Whoa!? Who took home the most definitive No? And which couples earned space on our mental shelves forever?

We close by looking ahead to 2026: what we’re pursuing, what we’re done negotiating, and what we’re leaving behind—because not every arc deserves a redemption.

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Man the canons, yr Colonels in the War on Christmas are attacking THE EARL'S CHRISTMAS PEARL by MEGAN FRAMPTON.

The titular Earl meets the titular Pearl after her family abandons her in London over Christmas a la (kind of, vaguely) Kevin McAllister. He uses his skills as a Welshman to care for the young miss, even though his ankle like, really hurts and he doesn't even LIKE Christmas that much. Along the way, he doesn't just fall in love with the holiday...

Are wealthy twenty somethings in historical romance essentially just teens? What story elements are crucial to a Christmas tale? Are purple prose penises better than just "Penis"?

Tune in - we're stokin' fires AND frying' eggs this Yule.

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additional sounds in this eppy:

sleigh bells_.wav by Stagno

sexy funk + strings & piano by kbrecordzz

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In part two of our discussion of NOCTICADIA by KERI LAKE yr grls dive into chapters 39 - epilogue.

Does the ambiguity of an HEA in horror make it impossible (if already strange) bedfelllows with romance? What is the appeal of "dark" romance and what is the bright side for those of us who don't lean into taboo? TWINS???

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Stop twitching, that isn't the fluttering of dusty moth wings in your ear - its yr grls discussing NOCTICADIA by KERI LAKE.

Lilia Vespertine is a destitute but extraordinarily hot smart orphan in evil Baltimore who happens to get a mysterious full ride to spooky Dracadia University - a private institution on an isolated island with a 30-year-old tenured professor of...biology? I guess? Let's see if you can guess what he looks like. If you screamed "ADAM DRIVER!!!!!". Yeah. You're right. You got it. They both, unbeknownst to one of them (no points for guessing this one), share a research interest in these specific moths and their gooey babies. But it turns out...sing along it if you know it...that is not the only interest they share. Nor, the only mystery...

How does horror work, or not work, with romance? What is the itch that dark romance or taboo romance scratches? Can all this be solved by the appointment or a new Provost? Okay, sure, but what about a more robust student council?

Don your velvets. We're putting the slimthicc (ah, those were the days) in Gothic.

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Don't be scared! That is just the loud cracking of our ankles over a totally normally recording of Whoa!mance's discussion of THE RUIN OF EVANGELINE JONES by JULIA BENNET.

The titular Evie is a psychic medium scammer under the control/support of a Svengali type. Harcastle is a Due under the oppression of his dead father. Plus his hobby is busting fake spiritualists in Victorian London. But, Evie is tempting in that mysterious buttoned-up-but-secret-nudie-photo-past that maybe...just maybe...he'll be doing bustin' of a different kind. Please don't tell anyone that I wrote that.

What isn't a gothic romance (shoutout to Emerald Fennell's Wuthering Heights trailer)? Why would you include a plucky child and/or dog in your novel? What IS good pacing anyway?

Touch pinkies and tuck winkies - this seance we're summoning a big ol' Whoa.

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