We reached out to Whoa!mantics on our Instagram and Twitter for December Holiday Romance Novella recommendations and got back some real winter winners.

Novellas are ideal for just a taste of holiday cheer in your regular reading rotation. So we are excited to share this sampler of stocking stuffers.

In case you’d like to stuff your very own stocking, or the stocking of a friend, with these books, we’ve included relevant links to the author’s website. No ad, no affiliate stuff, so don’t worry about accidentally supporting us. (If you’d like to support us on purpose…)

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Mangos & Mistletoe by Adrianna Herrera 

The MC is a baker, ultimate contempo-Christmas content career. And she moves from the Dominican Republic to Scotland. So some unexpected fish-out-of-water stuff is in there as well.

Per the GoodReads:

Kiskeya Burgos left the tropical beaches of the Dominican Republic with a lot to prove. As a pastry chef on the come up, when she arrives in Scotland, she has one goal in mind: win the Holiday Baking Challenge. Winning is her opportunity to prove to her family, her former boss, and most importantly herself, she can make it in the culinary world. Kiskeya will stop at nothing to win , that is, if she can keep her eyes on the prize and off her infuriating teammate's perfect lips.

Sully Morales, home cooking hustler, and self-proclaimed baking brujita lands in Scotland on a quest to find her purpose after spending years as her family’s caregiver. But now, with her home life back on track, it's time for Sully to get reacquainted with her greatest love, baking. Winning the Holiday Baking Challenge is a no brainer if she can convince her grumpy AF baking partner that they make a great team both in and out of the kitchen before an unexpected betrayal ends their chance to attain culinary competition glory. 

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One Bed For Christmas by Jackie Lau

Episode coming soon!

Friends to lovers, if you’re asking me, makes the most sense in the short run. Not unlike just one bed! And this novel delivers faster than Santa with ten full-size reindeer (would tiny ones be faster actually?)

Per the GoodReads:

Let me be clear: I’ve been friends with Caitlin Ng for more than a decade, and I’ve had a crush on her for just as long. And I’ve known, all that time, that I wasn’t her type.

When we met, we were both studying computer engineering at university. She was near the top of the class, and I was in danger of flunking out. Now, she’s a CEO, and I, well…

I’m wearing an inflatable T-Rex costume and dancing along to Christmas carols sung by an elderly barbershop quartet.

Yes, I’m being paid to do this.

And that’s how Caitlin finds me when she leaves work late in the middle of a snowstorm. She asks to stay with me because her house is farther away and her power is out. Of course, I say yes.

When the heat goes out in my apartment and she asks me to join her in bed to snuggle for warmth, I say yes, too.

But being so close to her is dangerous for my heart…or could a weekend of Christmas fun actually lead to the romance I desire?

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A Christmas Gone Perfectly Wrong by Cecilia Grant

Episode coming soon!

This one was ADAMANTLY requested by many, including the Scarlett Peckham who recommended it thrice.

Per the GoodReads:

It should have been simple...

With one more errand to go—the purchase of a hunting falcon—Andrew Blackshear has Christmas completely under control. As his sister's impending marriage signals the inevitable drifting-apart of the Blackshear family, it's his last chance to give his siblings the sort of memorable, well-planned holiday their parents could never seem to provide.

He has no time to dawdle, no time for nonsense, and certainly no time to drive the falconer's vexing, impulsive, lush-lipped, midnight-haired daughter to a house party before heading home. So why the devil did he agree to do just that?

It couldn't be more deliciously mixed-up...

Lucy Sharp has been waiting all her too-quiet life for an adventure, and she means to make the most of this one. She's going to enjoy the house party as no one has ever enjoyed a house party before, and in the meanwhile she's going to enjoy every minute in the company of amusingly stern, formidably proper, outrageously handsome Mr. Blackshear. Let him disapprove of her all he likes—it's not as though they'll see each other again after today.

...or will they? When a carriage mishap and a snowstorm strand the pair miles short of their destination, threatening them with scandal and jeopardizing all their Christmas plans, they'll have to work together to save the holiday from disaster. And along the way they just might learn that the best adventures are the ones you never would have thought to plan.

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A Kiss For Midwinter by Courtney Milan

Milan is beloved for a reason, so this feels like a reliable choice in a season when reliable sounds so nice.

Per the GoodReads:

Miss Lydia Charingford is always cheerful, and never more so than at Christmas time. But no matter how hard she smiles, she can't forget the youthful mistake that could have ruined her reputation. Even though the worst of her indiscretion was kept secret, one other person knows the truth of those dark days: the sarcastic Doctor Jonas Grantham. She wants nothing to do with him...or the butterflies that take flight in her stomach every time he looks her way.

Jonas Grantham has a secret, too: He's been in love with Lydia for more than a year. This winter, he's determined to conquer her dislike and win her for his own. It all starts with a wager and a kiss...

A Kiss for Midwinter is a novella (38,000 words) in the Brothers Sinister series. It follows The Duchess War. Each book stands on its own, but those who prefer to read in order might want to read that book first. 

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The Captain’s Midwinter Bride by Liana De La Rosa

Jeez, how nice would it be if Christmas was really mid-winter and not early winter? This is mostly a localized problem, but typing it up a second time really made me think…

Per the GoodReads:

Life at sea sharpened Captain Phillip Dalton into a shrewd and strategic military man...yet none of those skills prepared him for the intricacies of planning his daughter’s upcoming Christmas wedding. His family, most especially his wife, are all but strangers to him thanks to his service to the Crown. But if Phillip finds himself bewitched by his practical, charming, and guileless wife, he does his best to hide his struggles.

Annalise Dalton raised two children and built a comfortable life for herself while her husband of convenience provided for them from afar. But now Phillip's home to stay, and she finds it impossible to ignore his gruff manner, brilliant blue eyes, or the gentle way he looks after her needs. And if Annalise is unnerved by the budding feelings her husband inspires in her, she does her best to hide how they unsettle her.

When past secrets and misunderstandings threaten the tenuous steps they've taken to create a real and loving marriage, can Phillip and Annalise overcome the years they spent apart to forge a happy future together, and for every Christmas to come?

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His Brother’s Christmas Bride by Aislinn Kearns 

A Jerry Springer concept, in a Christmas bow! The salacious title rivals that of its inspo - “While You Were Sleeping”.

Per the GoodReads:

Is she really the woman he thought?

Will Callaghan wants nothing more than to lick his post-divorce wounds in peace, so he’s spent the last two years hiding in the family estate outside the city. But then his brother calls to announce he’s getting married there to a woman Will has never met. Worse, the wedding is on Christmas Eve—six days away—and the bride is arriving early to make last minute arrangements.

When Molly Patterson steps out of her car, Will knows instantly he’s in trouble. His brother’s future wife is exactly his idea of a perfect woman, and as the days pass, he increasingly struggles to keep his loyalty to his brother and his honor intact.

But when his brother finally shows up, Will realizes Molly might not be the woman he’d thought… 

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A Timeless Christmas  by Alexis Stanton

Now a Hallmark Channel original movie—need we say more?

Per GoodReads:

Megan Turner is in love with the past. As a tour guide at a beautiful historic mansion, she tells visitors about its original owner, Charles Whitley. An inventor and businessman in the early 1900s, he rose from poverty to wealth…only to disappear without a trace.

Charles was always intrigued by the future. He just never expected to go there. But when he repairs a mysterious clock he bought on his travels, he’s transported to the twenty-first century, with his home decorated for Christmas and overrun by strangers.

Charles is determined to find a way back to his own era, especially when he learns about what happened after he left. But as Megan introduces him to the wonders of smartphones, pizza, and modern holiday traditions, they both feel a once-in-a-lifetime connection. Could it be that, somewhere in time, they belong together? 

Can’t get enough holiday spice? Check out a playlist of all of festive book reviews! Including a reindeer shifter and, of course, Kleypas.

Festive episodes about festive books. Snuggle up!

This isn’t not a Richard Armitage fan blog…

Dear Listeners, 

Pre-Covid, yours truly had an insane commute. Back in the halcyon days before the pandemic, where I rode buses and trains and walked to work, I would shuffle through podcasts and news outlets in the morning and listen to romances to unwind on the way home. It was a delight, it was wonderful. It was a good way to get reading and a good way to wash the workday away. It was, in a word, TRANSPORTING. 

Good audio romance is all the best parts of text romance with the bonus of some pretty goddamn hot sounding people gently pouring sex whispers, moans, shouts, or whatever into your ears. It is sensual, so much so that I often found myself blushing and terrified that my earbuds would hop out of my phone and expose me to the train at the most explicit scene. 

Sometimes that terror made the listening hotter, the fear of being caught being a common kink and all. 

Anyway—if you’re tired of the bad news bonanza and want to dip into something a little sexier—here are my top romance audio book picks.

editor’s note: all of the images link to their respective title on Audible, but keep in mind many libraries have digital audiobook lending programs.

You can listen to the episode that inspired this conversation, about “Ten Week Turnabout” here.

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Wanderlust by Lauren Blakely 

Narrated by Richard Armitage and Grace Grant

I’ll be honest, I got this book for Richard Armitage. Long time listeners know I’m not a huge contemporary romance fan—but I fucking love Thorin OakenShield aka #hotdwarf, and I have long loved the grumbly emphasis that Richard Armitage infuses his vowels with. I have a small obsession with the BBC adaptation of North and South where Armitage steals the show with his intensity, his deep-water pool of a voice, and if there was an ASMR channel of just him talking I’d die.

This book takes place in Paris where a British tour guide meets a Texan chemist and sparks fly. I love this audio book because it is so hot—the sex scenes will singe your ears! And the head hopping between heroine and hero feels organic and playful when voiced by these two talented actors—never jarring, never unearned. The book itself also unfolds like a delicately wrapped confection from the pâtisserie so strongly featured—I found myself genuinely engrossed in their budding romance and the obstacles in their way. The love affair between the two characters is like a summer rainstorm; instant and refreshing. 

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Flowers from the Storm by Laura Kinsale

Narrated by Nicholas Boulton

It should come as no surprise that this barnstormer is just as good in audio form. When we spoke with friend of the pod Melonie Johnson about this gem, she clued us in on the audio work that Kinsale herself pioneered for the romance genre. Kinsale knew there would be big bucks in audio tracks for novels and created her own studio and hired the one and only Nicholas Boulton. This forward-thinking author can craft a business as well as she can craft a line—because from prologue to “the end” this audiobook DELIVERS.

Boulton as all the characters doesn’t falsetto his voice for the heroine, but he does gruff up for our hero. And I realized in the listening that where other male narrators patronize female characters (and sometimes the genre) Boulton really takes the challenge and delicacy of romance to heart and delivers a stunning performance of a world class work.

You can listen to our discussion of this novel with Melonie Johnson here.

Hunted by Meagan Spooner

Narrated by Saskia Maarleveid and Will Damron

I know this work is technically a YA—but if you are jonesing for a true Beauty and the Beast retelling with a 17th century Imperial Russian twist look no further. To describe this scene setting as lush is an understatement, to describe this beast as a shifter is closer to the Baba Yaga truth. I loved every turn of this book, maybe especially because the ‘beast’ as narrated by Will Damron, features so little and only as atmosphere for half the novel. Making the hero function in shadow and whisper and growl in the audio version ratchet up the tension by 1000. 

Listen on a cold dark night.

The Write Escape by Charish Reid

Narrated by Shari Peele

Do you want to escape? How does a solo honeymoon to Ireland sound right now? EXACTLY. Download this Emerald Isle gem, that is both very fun and very heart warming. I wasn’t sold on Shari Peele’s Irish accent to start but it gets there—almost as our heroine begins to feel less like a fish out of water and more like a woman falling in love.

Ayesha at Last by Uzma Jalaluddin

Narrated by Roshni Shukla

Full disclosure I downloaded this book for the episode we did—in order to hear the names pronounced correctly. I wanted to get it right. I only needed the preview to do so, but because of the empathy and joy of Roshni Shukla’s performance I went ahead and got the full book. 

Listeners shouldn’t be surprised to hear that I prefer explicit romances—open door, lights on, bed rocking, walls shaking—so a sweet romance isn’t a usual grab. But ohhhhhh. The longing as narrated by Shukla in this book is like watching Darcy and Wentworth on any BBC adaptation. It is searingly written and voice acted—it aches. And I was made to ache—AND I LOVED IT. Give yourself the gift of this pining pair.

You can listen to our discussion of this novel here.

The Novelization of Romeo and Juliet by The Bard

Narrated by Richard Armitage

While not a technical romance I HIGHLY recommend this novelization. Armitage plays a lot here with accents and breath, which makes it a fascinating and surprising listen even as you know the moves. Further the novelization flushes out some side characters you might be interested in particularly Nurse and Lady Capulet. Honestly, I love fanfiction—full stop—and am fascinated when fanfiction can be sold as ‘literature’. I am always curious about the moves publishers and authors make in terms of denying fanfictions relevance while also selling it.

It’s a quality listen on its own and raises interesting questions about the intersections of fan culture and literature.

You can listen to our discussion of some fanfiction pieces here.

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At the end of our Spring Fling discussion of Whitney, My Love by Judith McNaught, participants got to ask Scarlett questions. We did not have time to get to all of them! Scarlett generously offered to answer questions we didn’t have time to answer or get into as deeply as she wanted here on the blog. She plays FMK Red Herring Heroes Edition, gets into Fifty Shades, the influence of WML on her own works, and what we carry with us from romance of the ‘80s.

You can listen to the whole episode, and her answers to a few other questions, here.

Without further ado…

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From Kate: I always thought Whitney should have ended up with Nicolas!

I totally get that!! Here’s where I’m at in my own journey: as a youth, I was completely in the tank for Clayton. (Listen, it was 1996, what can I say?!)

Upon rereading the book as a grown woman, if I had to do a f*ck/marry/kill on Whitney’s suitors...I’d want her to: 

• Sleep with Paul: It would be extremely perfunctory and he would not care about her pleasure, but he wouldn’t sexually assault her, at least.

• Marry Nicky: They could go back to Paris where people appreciate Whitney rather than desire to crush her spirit. And I think Nicky is genuinely in love with her and intends his dominating air to be read as a flirtation to be playfully parried back...in contrast with Clayton’s menacing expressions of his rage-driven desire to conquer Whitney.

• Kill Clayton, and fast: Because if she doesn’t, he will 100% kill her first.

From Leslee: Rape fantasy in is the fantasy of being violently violated.  There are submissive masochists who genuinely have that fantasy.  Most women, however, have ravishment fantasy, which is the concept of "this isn't my fault because he wants me so much, I can't resist" aka, what we were just discussing as far as not having to choose.  I argue that the 2012 D/s fantasy is more of a misunderstanding of the D/s culture than in relation to either of these things.

I think we were talking about Fifty Shades of Grey when this came up. I haven’t read that book since it came out, so it’s not fresh in my mind, but as I remember it, I agree with you that I didn’t read the Anastasia/Christian dynamic precisely a rape fantasy. It seemed more like more of a loss of control fantasy to me, with a Chosen One trope? 

I definitely agree with you that it is a problematic representation of the ethos of kink and BDSM, which are thoroughly and beautifully based in active consent and clear boundaries. The way that Christian forces his interest on Anastasia when she’s not looking for a D/s relationship...the way he offers up a written contract but doesn’t really care about her boundaries or enthusiasm in negotiating it...  The many times he wears her down despite her explicit and implicit lack of interest in his kink… The way she keeps finding herself in the red room anyway… Yeah: NOT HOW TO DO IT.

I will say I don’t think the book was all bad. It helped build a cultural acceptance and de-stigmatization of kink, and an interest in practicing power exchange in vanilla relationships, even if it was a problematic representation of it. 

I am also eternally grateful to the book for giving us “laters baby,” which I think is the pinnacle of comedy to use as an email signature. 😈

From Skyler : Scarlett can you see any way that the original WML whipping scene imprinted on you?

No way absolutely not and how dare you!!!!!!????

Oh, sorry, wait. I do vaguely recall writing a book about a whipping house with a scene where a guy humbly asks his beloved to wail on him with a riding crop?  So, ok, YOU WIN THIS TIME, Skyler! ❤

From Carole: What I want to know is why? Why Judith McNaught wanted to write it and why people loved reading it?

To the first question, why McNaught wrote this: lucky me, that one’s a freebie. I have no idea!! You gotta ask Judith! 

Next, as to why it’s beloved...I think there are a lot of genuinely delightful things about this book, even rereading it for my fifth or sixth time from a perspective of despising and feeling emotionally drained by reading it. Like:

• The dialogue is sparkling and sharp and made me laugh out loud at least twenty times.

• The relationship between Whitney and Clayton--if you take out the violent and abusive parts--is full of witty banter and palpable chemistry. (If you removed the dirty rotten abusive nature of every single part of their relationship, they’d be a great couple!) 

• The book is compulsively readable with a wide range of convincing and interesting characters.

• Whitney is charming, hilarious, smart, sassy, defiant, brilliant at both surfing on ponies in britches and decimating dukes at chess... of the most memorable characters I have encountered in literature at large, let alone romance novels.

• And, the book gorgeously nails or even originates many of the tropes that have become enshrined in romance…The sexy interlude with a tall, dark handsome man on the balcony outside the ballroom; the makeover/ugly duckling gets her revenge; the sexually charged competitions with the hero; the arranged marriage; the love triangle (quadrangle?)...I could go on and on.

But then there is the darker fantasy WML selling, and that is a way more complicated issue....which you also bring up, conveniently, in the next question!

From Carole: Why is this complicity so attractive? McNaught makes it justifiable as it ends in an HEA.

Forgive me for writing a memo on this, but I think it’s a really valuable and complicated question. (I tried to shorten my answer, but I have become too lazy to do complicated acts of writing if they do not produce novels I can sell on the Internet.)

Also please keep in mind that I am just a woman who dresses her cat in bowties and believes she has a psychic connection to her house, not a Scholar, so this is just my humble opinion.

But, ok:

First, there is the powerful archetype of male dominance and female submission as the basis of the traditional narrative of courtship in Western culture. And this narrative reflects centuries of reinforcement through cultural and religious tradition, lived experience, political structures, popular entertainments, etc. In other words, we have all been swimming in a fish tank of patriarchy and rape culture for generations, and the social and psychological conditioning created by this dynamic has no doubt been absorbed into every single living person on earth, like exposure to radiation after a bomb. 

There are a lot of ways femme-identified people might react to absorbing and living within such a society, and these are reflected in our romance novels. Which is not surprising, because romance novels are about our relationships, which are a central locale for the power of patriarchy in the collective unconscious to come out and play.

Romance novels reflect some common reactions to this dynamic we see in real life:

• Romanticizing dominance and possession as love and protection (and more extremely coercion/violence into fantasy)...perhaps to gain a subconscious feeling of greater control and safety. 

• Internalizing the view that women are physically or emotionally weak, or less deserving of power and dignity and bodily autonomy, and enacting that, either upon themselves or their relationships, or other women, or all three.

• Rejecting the dominant narrative and the harm it causes, speaking out, protecting yourself and your loved ones in whatever way you can, and agitating to change the status quo, including in your relationships. 

• Or--and probably the most common by a mile--you mix and match a little bit of all of these and the million other reactions, because most of us are just doing the best we can with what we have to work with.

WML is a product and mirror of these reactions...and I would propose that is why is it is magnetic and repulsive, polarizing, and so searingly reflective of the world we live in today, even if its politics are firmly and deeply problematic in the context of modern notions of consent, feminism and healthy expressions of love.

This brings up a point from another person in the chat. Which was:

Heather: Also earlier books lack women’s agency in the way we understand it today.

I agree--culture changes rapidly, and our notions of agency, consent, etc evolve with it. I dread the day (and also know with one hundred percent certainty it will come and maybe way earlier than I would hope) when people will look at my books, which I labor over so carefully to imbue with female agency and self-determination, and moan “ugh how regressive and problematic, gross!!”.  But the thing is you can never outrun the march of time! Apologies, future readers! I tried!!!

This is not to say we can excuse all problematic content as a marker of the passage of time--sometimes people have really bad intentions!--but it bears mentioning that WML is  a reflection of its specific moment in history. (It was written in 1978 and published in 1985.) 

Women were navigating the polarizing politics of the feminist/women’s liberation movement and the conservative/“family values” movement. They were being told they should cultivate careers, but also that they were rejecting the traditional Christian role of wife and mother if they did. They were told they should be sexually liberated, but also not to be a “slut” or to put themselves in danger, because getting hurt would be their fault. They faced open sexism, harassment and barriers to success in the workplace. If they didn’t work outside the home, they had to worry about seeming un-ambitious and regressive. And for queer people and people of color, there was a whole separate and malevolent layer of oppression, judgment, violence and bias to contend with. Meanwhile, no matter their identities or careers or personal politics, women were still expected to take on the vast majority of emotional labor and domestic responsibility in their households. And don’t forget they were expected to be groomed and desirable, including having to figure out how to use hairspray, which is a whole separate nightmare.

Are you stressed out just reading this? Are you exhausted? Cuz I sure am. A lot of it we still contend with today, and it is still exhausting, but at least we have done the incremental work of making some of it better, and more out in the open where it can be processed and interrogated.

If all of this was ricocheting in my mind in 1985, and every choice I made seemed to be in some way aligned with a political statement I wasn’t sure I had deliberately made--and amidst all this static I was trying to figure out what *I* wanted and whether I had the privileges to get it or what I might lose in choosing it--I think it might  be very relaxing to disappear into a fantasy where everyone just tells me exactly what to do and how to act and I have literally no choice, so as to spare myself this GOD-AWFUL UNWINNABLE MORASS.

Anyway, back to Carole’s original question on this topic: why is Clayton positioned as a hero and Whitney’s falling in love with him despite his violence positioned as an HEA? 

Again, I can’t speak for McNaught.  But I would speculate the answer is: it was in her head. The same way the weight of these questions is still in all of our heads, and we keep having to inch and claw our way out from under it, screaming. 

From Lori: I'm curious about Scarlett's approach to writing consent, and active consent. Does it depend on the character? Do you see the way the characters are seeking/giving consent as a way to learn more about the characters?

It is very important to me that my characters do their sexing consensually, and by that, I mean enthusiastically, vocally, continuously, and in very special moments, in a way that wakes up the whole inn.

I absolutely think how they consent is a function of character and their relationship arc with their partner. When the characters are getting to know each other and each other’s bodies, I put more of an emphasis on how they are communicating and listening for consent--learning each other’s bodies, joys and boundaries. 

In the service of this, I sometimes write uncomfortable moments during the course of the growth of the intimacy between the protagonists. To be clear, I don’t mean dubious consent or coercion (let alone assault). I mean moments in which, while consent is freely given, physical or emotional cues are missed or held back during the encounter, and must be grappled with during or after it. Things like shame leading to a behavior that is not fully addressed in the light, moments of not checking in when you should have thought to do so, moments where because of your acculturation or religious beliefs you don’t feel confident expressing your boundaries or desires fully to your partner. In other words, how to negotiate subtleties and talk about sex, in ways that go beyond vocally consenting.

I do this not because I want to valorize misattunements as an example of good, healthy sex--but because I think they are true to life, and something we are still very much reckoning with in the present. By problematizing them, I want to show how strong, honest, trusting sexual communication with active consent and clear boundaries and discussions of tastes and fantasies leads to stronger relationships and better sex. I want to model partners finding the language to say actively and explicitly exactly what they want and how they want it and what their limits are, and how to listen for that and honor it...So that they may  keep their fellow patrons at the coaching inn up all night with the volume of their enthusiastic and active consent.

From Andee: What about Georgette Heyer...These Old Shades

Confession time Andee. I have never read a single Georgette Heyer! I have tried but it just never takes. Sorry!

*BONUS From Morgan: Do you have a political project in mind when you are writing? Why or why not?

Yes broadly, but with a varying degree of specificity. On a macro and somewhat highfalutin level, my goal is to use the conventions of historical romance as a trick mirror to explore the continuity between sexual and domestic politics from the past to the present, with a feminist lens. In other words, to see what I can say about the present by recontextualizing modern sexual and romantic anxieties in the era of wigs and chamber pots.

But it is not incidental that I do this with a hefty dose of horny tropes and delicious angst because I am very sincerely writing genre romance novels here, not thinly veiled political treatises. 

Sometimes this ends up coming out in more of a diffuse way than in one pointed argument. For example, The Earl I Ruined, is borne out of a melange of musings about outing, public shaming, callout culture, toxic masculinity, paternalism, my annoyance over the fate of Emma in Emma...but also a purely creative desire to write a fizzy second chance honor-marriage fake relationship romance with a spanking fetish and fruit masturbation.

In contrast The Rakess is very obviously and openly driven by “let’s deploy the worst-case-scenario of a female rake trope to punch you in the face with my rage about the alive-and-well horrors of patriarchy and sexual double standards, the trauma and anger and vulnerability they elicit in femme-identified people and/or those with uteruses, and the perils and joys of calling it out and fighting oppression.” The romance arc is secondary, and a way of asserting that this woman society has deemed worthy only of scorn actually deserves every single thing she wants...including compassion and love and torrid rain sex from a sweetheart nurturer jacked Scot who honors her beliefs and values despite his acculturation in patriarchy. Because they both think she is a goddamn hero, fuck you very much.

Thanks for your questions and thanks so much for having me, Morgan and Isabeau! Laters baby!

-Scarlett Peckham

editor’s note: all links were added by us

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About the author

From her website…

Scarlett studied English at Columbia University and built a career in communications, but in her free hours always returned to her earliest obsession: those delicious, big-hearted books you devour in the dark and can never bear to put down. Her Golden Heart®-winning debut novel, The Duke I Tempted, was named a Best Romance Novel of 2018 by BookPage and The Washington Post and called “astonishingly good” by The New York Times Book Review.

A (G)Chat with Becca, editor of Ten Week Turnabout and co-creator of ConSensual

I got the chance to chat with Becca about blowing up form, directing audio sex scenes with your sister, and what it means to be a Riot Grl in Romance. Check the raw, uncut (typos and misnomers abound!) G-Chat below.

And, if you haven’t already, check out our episode on the multi-media experience coming out soon! And their show as well.

Soft, suggestive spoilers about halfway through…

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Becca

Good morning! 

Morgan

Good morning!

I'm chatting with Becca, right?

Yes, this is Becca! Let the record show that, not knowing if this was a video chat or not, I did put on mascara for the first time in perhaps a month. 

Noted. And appreciated!

So Becca, so far "Consensal" the podcast is releasing chapter by chapter radio drama episodes of "Ten Week Turnabout". Is there going to be a podcast after the final chapter is released? Or is this a limited engagement?

Once the entirety of season one is released, we'll release ten Week Turnabout as a novella on Kindle, but we've actually already written the novella for season two! Ingrid's best friend Cleo gets her love story in the second season. 

The hope is to keep going and growing! 

So did the novella or the concept for the radio drama come first?

The radio drama! Well, really it all started in the desire to create romance for a generation of young, feminist readers.The format of a serial fiction romance podcast with a corresponding multimedia element is something I started drafting out about a year and a half ago, and then I started chatting with some of my other romance writer friends, who had all sorts of ideas for plot lines that would work in this format. Thus, Ten Week Turnabout was born! 

We did write it as a novella first, only because that's the form we're used to working in. Then my business partner, Rachel, used her theatrical genius to convert it into a script. 

YES. I want to get into the ethos behind this project. But I have questions about the form, first, have to get it out of my system. Because I am RIVETED listening to this play out, it is so much more three-dimensional than just an audiobook. Were you a longtime fan of audiodramas? What inspired the choice to create this sort of layered, experiential, performative, lots of adjectives, audiobook?

So I'm actually a huge audiobook listener, but it drives me crazy listening to dual perspective audiobooks where the person puts on an effected voice to read the lines of the other characters. It's so annoying and pulls me out of the story! But we didn't want to lose the audiobook feel altogether. We still wanted to keep those chunks of description instead of keeping it solely to dialogue. Rachel did a brilliant job of crafting the script so that it was a healthy balance of both. It was also totally her idea to give the characters Instagram accounts. While this whole mess was my idea in the first place, it'd be nothing without her. She's a genius and will never admit it. 

It's also noteworthy that while my background is in writing and marketing, Rachel's is in writing and theater.. And I think it's a very theatrical experience, overall. Which is wonderful, especially now, when live theater is...nonexistent. Frickin' corona. 

We'll blur out the "she's a genius" part to maintain your integrity.

Ha! Thank you.. 

It's corny to say, but we say it all the time: this wouldn't be possible without every single person. I'm the wizard of oz for most of this, the man behind the curtain pulling all the strings. But without Rachel to direct it, without our sound engineers and voice actors and of course Amelia who wrote the novella, we'd be nowhere. 

It is very theatrical. I love that there are four cast members to tell the story. Having someone "do a voice" is much harder to get into than this.

Ugh, right? Especially in a sex scene! 

Are y'all present when the actors are recording providing direction?

Like, I do not want somebody else pretending to be the person they're having sex with! It's weird! 

Yes! We recorded the whole thing over the course of a month, and we were all crammed together in a little studio with Rachel directing our actors. That said, we're not sure it'll be the same for season two, given the pandemic. Which is a bummer! We'll lose that cast-like feeling. But we gotta do what we gotta do. 

I've also been trying to reframe "settling" for something during the pandemic as "an opportunity for creativity". 

What was it like directing the steamier dialogs?

Okay, love that optimism, I need to channel more of that. 

Okay, so something that not a lot of people might know is that the voice of Ingrid is actually my sister. 

So when I say it was awkward...it was like, really awkward. 

!!!!!!!!

But when we did our first read through as a cast, I stopped everybody when we got to the first sexy part in chapter four and said 'Okay, so pause, everyone. This is going to be weird, right? Like, especially weird for Allison and I because she is my sister. But if we can't laugh at the word 'cock' we're never going to get through this. So buckle in.' 

Just acknowledging it and letting everyone be like 'okay, this is a little awkward, but here goes nothing.' It helped a lot. 

Allison and Travis, who play Ingrid and Noah, would also 'tap in' and 'tap out' of scenes by, like, high fiving from behind their microphones. Just to acknowledge that they were starting a scene, they were performing now, this isn't real. Anything we could do to create that space of performance to make it less awkward. 

The fact that high fiving prior to a sex scene made it LESS awkward really illustrates how awkward it could have been.

HAHAHA 

I'm cracking up. 

I do love that, though. Those little tips and tricks. One of the things we talk about a lot with romance, is that when things get too heavy, you can close the book. It is interesting how that same kind of principle can be applied to performing a romance novel.

Were there any romance novels that you felt influenced this work in any aspect?

Not so much romance novels as Hallmark movies. We wanted to take the traditional Hallmark movie structure and turn it on its head. Instead of the big city woman learning to love her small town roots when she returns to middle America, it's the opposite. She hates where she grew up, and then where she grew up follows her to the big city. 

Love that. Isabeau and I talked about that as she is a Hallmark Holiday fan. What did you want to keep from those movies and what did you want to shed? Or maybe just address.

I'm obsessed with Hallmark movies. My mom and I treat Hallmark Christmas movies as more important than the rest of the holiday season, to be honest. 

But if I have to see one more cold city woman learn to love a small town because a Christmas tree farmer shows her how to slow down, I'm going to hurl. 

hahahahahah

Actually, no I'm not. I'm going to keep watching those movies because i love them unabashedly. 

But the city isn't a bad, evil place! You can find love in the city too! And you're allowed to be a powerful business woman who prioritizes your career. That doesn't make women unlikable. It makes them powerful. 

Ingrid learns a level of respect for where she grew up in Indiana, but that wasn't nearly as important to us as Noah seeing that New York isn't the hellhole he thinks it is. 

As someone who moved to a Big City from a small town I felt all of that so deeply. Noah and Ingrid really represent the two poles of feeling that I think each person carries with them when they go through that sort of transition.

Precisely! 

It was nice to see them fall in love because it feels like a reconciliation of identity. (spoiler alert, but not really, because HEA, of course).

Precisely. Again, spoiler here that you can leave out, but it was super important to us that Ingrid didn't leave New York and move back to Indiana. That's what would happen in a Hallmark movie. But that's never what we would do. I would never leave Chicago and my career and my friends here for a man. Hell no. He can make it work with me. 

The literal meeting halfway. *chefs kiss*

So that kind of gets into the very specific kind of audience you are writing for. Cue Bikini Kill. Cue L7. 

RIOT GRRRRRLS.

YES 

What does being a riot girl or that identity mean to you?

God I love Bikini Kill so much

That movement is so alive today, that punk rock feminist movement. But there's not enough of it in romance. Yes, there is romance that celebrates consent, and there's romance that shows strong womxn, but there are still way too many patriarchal values in the romance industry that we're trying to work against. 

I think some of it is that romance writers like to work in a friendly version of feminism. But it isn't always friendly and palatable. Sometimes it's rough  around the edges women. It's more voices for queer people and rape culture, which means straightforward consent every. damn. time. 

We're just going to get into it more and more with future seasons, showing more queer people, gender nonconforming people, fat women who aren't apologetic or embarrassed about their fatness. It's powerful. I'm so excited. 

I was really intrigued when I read that you wrote romance for riot girls, because I think romance does have a "friendly feminism" status quo. And I also think that riot girl ideas don't obviously coalesce with romance novel-try. 

But as I was reading your novella, I remembered this interview with Liz Phair about when she was creating Guyville.

And the vibe in the Chicago alt-scene was very masculine, hence Guyville. And being punk rock was about being outrageous--like Black Market White Baby Dealer.

And then one day she realized that the fact she wanted a boyfriend was as shocking to everyone else in punk as that other stuff.

And she decided to write honestly about those desires.

Oh my god, YES! 

Like, listen. I don't need a man. But I have one, and it's fun and fulfilling. Give me a love story that doesn't make me compromise my punk rock attitude. Show me a woman who doesn't compromise, doesn't make herself smaller. 

Riot grrrls need love too 

ALSO. We see Cleo dip her toe into non-monogamy. And the problem is that her partner sucks, not that non-monogamy sucks. That was super refreshing.

Yes!! That was really important for us to get across. Not that non-monogamy is wrong, but that he's doing it wrong. 

She doesn't write non-monogamy off completely, she writes him off.

Because he doesn't actually have the enthusiastic consent of his partner to be doing that stuff. He's just disappearing into the club and blowing her off to fuck two other women in public without being safe about it. 

It's important to be that we have more positive portrayals of nonmonogamy and of queer people in future seasons. But Bo just sucks. 

Being the change you want to see in romance!

I don't want to take up too much more of your time, you are a person with ambitious projects. I do want to ask if there is anything you haven't had the chance to talk about in promoting "Ten Day Turnabout" that you really really want to?

The floor is yours, Becca.

Should you want that floor.

Can I dance on the floor? 

I'm trying to think if we missed anything. 

Yes, it is also available for tumbling.

Okay I'm taking an aerial class right now and there are people who can like do handstands and shit and I'm really jealous of them so maybe I'll be tumbling by season two 

For now I'm just sore all the time so I do less tumbling and more writing. Which I should go do more of now. But thank you for chatting with me! 

Yes, thank you for chatting with me!

Obsessed with the fact that there are other feminist romance readers in this city. Now if we could get a vaccine so I could meet you IRL. 

Yes, soooommeedaaaay we'll have to meet up.

Really excited to see where this goes. Read the book already and still get excited for new episodes because it is like you've created two distinct, fresh objects to enjoy. Can't wait for Cleo's story, so please hop to it.

Whitney, My Love, My Cocktail

A drink inspired my Judith McNaught’s Novel

Subscribe to the show on your favorite Podcast App to catch our Episode with Scarlett Peckham on Whitney, My Love - coming sooooon

I wanted this cocktail to illustrate Whitney's journey through Judith McNaught's novel.

Gin sits at our base, which represents Whitney's beginnings in England and her eventual return at the behest of her father.

Creme de Violette is Whitney's blossoming in France. Its floral notes, mixed with the slight sharpness of the lemon and sweetness of the cherry liqueur come together to reflect her coming of age.

The Pernod hangs over the cocktail a note of anise on the nose. This bitter moment that makes the sweet that much sweeter and adds a quietly lingering complexity..like a memory...

To prepare a Whitney, My Love…

Stir together…

3/4 oz London Dry Gin

3/4 oz Creme de violette

3/4 oz. lemon 1/2 oz cherry liquer

Then, in your glass, pour a splash of Pernod in the glass, swirl, toss

Pour the cocktail into your serving glass.

The only thing I would insist on using the brand name on is the Cherry Liqueur. Otherwise, the drink will be too sweet and too dark. But you can use any absinthe (I chose Pernod because it is super duper French). For the gin, anything dry. Seagrams works! Just avoid botanical gins. If you can’t find Creme de Violette, it might be easier to track down Violet Liqueur.

About the author

Adam Lott is an artist and lead bartender at The Bourgeois Pig in Lawrence, Kansas.

He creates signature cocktails, conceptualizes menus, illustrates whimsical and existential pieces, and has no desire to be involved in a holocaust of emotions.

You can see more of his personal art and commission pieces on Instagram at @alottacomics and his collaborative work @manapeapeman. You can enjoy his drinks @thebourgeoispig (currently offering curbside pickup).

Hello and welcome to the textual extension of our newest series within a series: entrop[e]y. Here we will share additional resources on the stuff/tropes/subgenres we’re trying to understand, if not love. Each episode, we’ll update this page with further recommendations from our listeners, articles and other pieces referenced in the podcast, and other stuff.

You can learn more about our selection process and upcoming books here.

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Amish Romance 

Episode 84: Amish Romance (Entrop[e]y #1) — The Wish by Patricia Davids

Novels/Series recommended to us*

The Amish of Cedar Grove by Patrica Davids

Returning His Favor by Jacqueline Francis

Forbidden Rumspringa by Keira Andrews

The Amish of Ice Mountain by Kelly Long

*all recs courtesy of jackiereadsromance

Popular Amish Romance (a Goodreads list)

Some other stuff other people have said about Amish romance that is open access

Follow This Part 2 Amish Romance (Netflix shortform documentary)

Fifty Shades of Amish: A Strange Genre of the Romance Novel by Leah McGrath Goodman

Bonnet Rippers: The Rise of the Amish Romance Novel By Valerie Weaver-Zercher

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Sports Romance

Episode 85: Puck Bunnies (Entrop[e]y #2) — Pucked by Helena Hunting

Episode 86: Laces Out (Entrop[e]y #3) — Fumbled by Alexa Martin

Novels/Series recommended to us

Hook Shot by Kennedy Ryan Basketball M/W

Intercepted by Alexa Martin Fooball W/M

Fire on the Ice by Tamsen Parker Figure Skating W/W

Hitting on the Hooker by Mina Carter Rugby W/M

The Fake Boyfriend Series by Eden Finley Hockey, Baseball, FB, M/M

The Perfect Play FB W/M; Changing the Game BB W/M by Jaci Burton

Him by Sarina Bowen & Elle Kennedy H M/M

Us by Sarina Bowen, Elle Kennedy & Teddy Hamilton H M/M

The Wall of Winnipeg & Me FB W/M; Kulti Soccer W/M; From Lukov with Love FS W/M by Mariana Zapata

The Friend Zone; The Game Plan by Kristen Callihan FB W/M

The Good Luck Charm by Helena Hunting H W/M

Rush Me; Imaginary Lines by Allison Parr FB W/M

The Fast Series by Kat Ransom Formula 1 W/M

Nashville Assassins Series by Toni Aleo H W/M

Some other stuff other people have said about sports romance that is open access

Sports Romance That Aren’t Steeped in White Supremacy Culture by Jessica Pryde

Sports And Romance Novels: A Match Made In ... Hockey by Karen Given

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Military Romance

Episode 87: In Uniform (Entrop[e]y #4) - Beyond What Is Given by Rebecca Yarros

Novels/Series recommended to us

Deadly Obsession by April Hunt

The Hero and the Hacktivist by Pippa Grant

Dirty Deeds by HelenKay Dimon

Vixen and the Vet by Katy Regnery

---

Secret Baby

Episode 88: Baby On Board (Entrop[e]y #5) - Nobody’s Baby But Mine by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Novels/Series recommended to us

A Precious Jewel by Mary Balogh

The Best Thing by Mariana Zapata

Some other stuff other people have said about secret baby romance that is open access

What Makes a Great “Secret Baby” Romance? by Pamela Mingle, Ever After Romance

The Success Behind the Secret Baby Romance by Red Feather Romance

Isabeau and I talk about our problems with cartoon covers often. But as one negative iTunes review pointed out, we have barely scratched the surface of all the ucky feelings this kind of cover can inspire in us.

Not to get all Medium article about it, but I wanted to lay out my personal thoughts and feelings regarding this very specific thing (in this case, cartoon covers) that speaks to (I think) the larger BAD thing of genre erasure and femme subjugation.

I understand things change. More than that, romance is responsive and reflective of the moment of its publication. The overwhelming and sudden popularity of this re-thinking of the key signifier of our genre— THE COVER — bears interrogating.

A note before we go, this is not about critiquing the content of the books themselves. We are merely judging covers here.

Let’s boogie.

---

Reason 1

Cartoon covers don't communicate heat

Romance novel covers are a language. One of the key things they communicate is heat--or how sexually explicit a text is. For example, here is the cover art for a sweet romance, Morning Comes Softly by Debbie Macomber:

You can listen to our ep on this book here

And here is the original cover for the very steamy, The Magic of You by Johanna Lindsey, also published in 1993:

We did a whole series on the v. steamy JL.

Super easy to determine which fades to black and which slaps the back.

Now, try to figure out which of these is steamy and which is sweet:

If you guessed The Tourist Attraction is the Macomber, you are correct! Highly recommend buying a lotto ticket if you got that right (unless you already read these) because reading these covers isn’t the educated guess it used to be.

---

Reason two

Cartoon covers are the Watermelon Vapes of covers

Look at this collection of YA Romance covers.

If anything, these look like they could be steamier than say, The Right Swipe by Alisha Rai. But that wouldn’t be the case. 

Not to be sex-negative (more on that later) but I’m not sure an adolescent reader would feel good reading about the physical intricacies of sex, or the consent-icracies of dirty talk. There is a lot of stuff that goes on in the fantasy of adult romance, especially steamy adult romance, that requires a nuanced understanding that comes with life experience. Sex and young people is precarious stuff.

Additionally, why would a grown person be more comfortable reading a book that looks like it was written for teens than a romance novel? 

Let’s get into it.

---

Reason three

Sex-Negativity

Here is where the rubber really starts to hit the road for me. The romance genre’s consistent claim to subversity is that it has centered female sexuality since Kathleen Woodiwiss published The Flame and The Flower. It reflected the interiority of womens’ sexuality and its many shades--desirous, experimental, curious, voracious, apprehensive--before any other media knew that mattered. It then became an early space for queer sexuality and romance to take a place of privilege in a text. With the advent of self-publishing, stories about the ownership of sexuality and love and personhood for a whole range of subjugated identities and preferences has become more accessible through romance. Sex and love is imbued in each character. Through this move, the capital of being a person capable and worthy of love, being a desirable and desirous person, is granted to each character and the identities they hold.

So why neuter these characters in the most forward-facing aspect of the text?

One of these top selling covers displays affection, and it is a chaste nuzzle on the forehead. | Photo by Isabeau Dasho

Why hide sexuality, affection and desire? Why deny it? Why play coy? None of these questions are rhetorical. And the answer often leads me to point number 4.

---

Reason four

Romance-Negativity

One of the resounding beats in the cartoon cover parade is that it “attracts new readers”, “makes romance accessible to new readers.” How does it do this? Self-negation. 

Romance criticism often revolves around this idea of quality. The Industry, the Catholic Church, The New York Times, and feminist publishing have all sniffed at the genre for a long time. So have plenty of writers. Romance has been and is still dismissed as shallow, poorly written, or just ignored completely. Therefore, the genre is considered unworthy of criticism. If they are unworthy of interrogation because they are simplistic and superficial, then reading them is a waste of time and mental capacity. 

Fuck that. Reading for pleasure is the only kind of recreational reading that exists. Because we are people who make choices in our own self-interest, choosing a romance or choosing a different kind of book is done in self-interest. Whether to relax, to escape, to gain new perspective and understanding, or to fit in at book club. Placing a value on any of these choices denies the breadth of human experience. At any given moment, any person may need any of those things from a book.

That rant is to point out why romance shaming is wrong. Cartoon covers can be understood as an erasure of the genre, a form of shaming not so different from the way major news organizations did not review romance. Or the fact that “good” bookstores don’t stock them at all. By changing the look of a romance novel cover completely, the books status as romance is effectively hidden and denied.

---

Reason five

They are regressive, not progressive, design

I can appreciate cartoon covers, aesthetically. I’m only human after all. Cartoon covers are designed to be broadly appealing, a baby could appreciate these covers aesthetically. Bright colors! Geometric shapes! And then also, on a deeper level, faces but not racialized! Not distinctly beautiful in the way we’ve been socialized to understand as beautiful and use as a yardstick against which to find ourselves short! 

Traditional covers have proven they can do more for progressive inclusivity than cartoon covers can. Popular example (for a reason, I mean seek out that stepback), Brazen and the Beast by Sarah MacLean, which featured a model with a fuller figure than the classic cover heroine. The cover of Alyssa Cole’s Once Ghosted Twice Shy is speaking clearly to the characters inside--an androgynous model, natural hair, being flirty, lots of eye contact and casual embracing. Or how about The Rakess by Scarlett Peckham? A model with strong, athletic features, and a serious facial expression that speaks to complex feelings for the hero.

Maybe you never connected with these kinds of covers, even with all of the little cues they send about the content and love people deserve. Perhaps you feel nervous reading romance in public (that is valid, you’ve been socialized to expect people to judge you, even when they’re busy on their own commute or day at the park). If you want something new and fresh for romance, why can’t it just be new and fresh for design as a whole? Romance is a genre that pushes boundaries. The full package should convey that. 

I would argue, then, that we should create a new language of cover art instead of duplicating what was already successful in Chick Lit. Not to keep crying about it, but why can’t romance have nice things just for it?

---

Reason six

Cartoon covers are a bare-assed, capitalistic grab for our dollars

Cartoon covers cost less money. A graphic designer can typically create the concept start to finish. That cuts out models, costuming (although publishers seem happy to skimp on that as well), and photographers.

On O Magazine's list of 38 Romance Novels to look forward to in 2020, 24 had illustrated/cartoon covers. Check out the mast graphic: 

So bright!

Look, everybody has to eat. I get that people need to make money, that we are all trapped on this capitalism hamster wheel. And perhaps this fact, because it is true for all of us, makes it the least offensive. But it also makes it the most insidious. 

Ignoring the preferences of devoted readers, of authors who dreamed of their clinch cover moment, speaks to the true goals of publishing. And can help us uncover what is really centered in the choice to go cartoon. The question of disinvesting in the most profitable sector of publishing is unique to Romance. I mean, look at all of the Dune re-releases—where is my beautiful hardback, footnoted edition of Indigo? 

And that question makes me cognizant of another facet of this issue. Basic business practices tell us it is far more profitable to maintain a customer than acquire a new one. It does not make sense to change the formula, potentially alienating a very loyal, dependable consumer base. Publishers are obviously prioritizing new readers. 

Maybe it is because in spite of all the ink that has been spilled describing how key romance readership is to publishing success, the years and years that fact has been proven out, publishers still see this side of their business as evergreen as it is disposable. Cover art is a way that publishers conscientiously communicate the value they perceive a publication to have. Less money spent on covers can be understood to convey less value on the text.

Cartoon covers feel like another way to subjugate romance readership. These covers are a tool to exploit reader-shame in order to further denigrate and deny the genre’s relevance and importance--both economically and culturally. And I think romance deserves better.

Reading right now is hard. Minds fogged with economic and social and death anxiety, bad feeling reigns. For us, it is almost impossible to clear a path and make way for the latest romcom. Escapism makes sense. But the idea of a clear blue morning and whimsical dress feels exhausting.

Rather than trying to clear the fog, let it envelope you even more. Retreat deeper into that dark id, find titillating little nuggets waiting for you there. Trust us - this is what we do here.

Here are five recommendations, signature pieces on our Whoa! Shelf, to bust that slump wide open. Please note, pretty much all titles come with a hefty content warning.

The Foggy Outsides, Insides

Sleeping Together (Perfect Drug #1) by Kitty Cook

There’s this thing called the Seattle freeze that happens in late fall and lasts until March. Denizens of the Emerald City hole up when the sun sets at 3:00pm and drink their IPAs and snuggle further into their flannel alone, or with a perfectly curated friend group that is loath to accept newbies during the freeze. Maybe Washington is killing the curve because they practice isolation so much already. 

Mewd.

In any case Sleeping Together is the perfect book to luxuriate in that feeling of aloneness. A tome about the ways we isolate ourselves from connection only to find it in the unexpected caverns of a shared dreamscape. It’s one part drug trip, one part forbidden office romance, and all parts hot. 

-Isabeau

No one in the book looks like the people in the cover.

Outlander + Slaughterhouse Five =

Awaken, My Love by Robin Schone

When this book was first released, the opening scene was a hot topic--the heroine masturbating next to her sleeping husband. Outlander’s trimmer, wackier cousin, Awaken My Love pulls no punches. The heroine time travels via shared, sad orgasm to a place even more unstuck in time than she is.

Features include:

Sex on a horse

A weird picnic

Uncomfortable Orientalism

A witch seeking incest revenge

...and so much self-annihilation.

Our overweight, middle-aged, independent, unmarried heroine is “fixes" her self-esteem. Not by learning to love herself (whattup 1995?!) but by becoming a hot, teenager in the 19th century who prefers to live as if she is in the 18th century.

Possibly one of the most neccessary gifs in Romance

It is a lot. But no more than is needed.  

-Morgan

TL;DR: The book lives up to the cover

The Little Mermaid meets Coast to Coast FM

Mermaid’s Kiss by Joey W. Hill

Listen. Listen. Listen. I love this goddamned trash book so much. You want hot angels fighting with God? You got it! You want God to be a woman? Sing it sister! You want to be fucked like Ariel with her floating red tresses and adorkable je ne sais quoi? LOOK NO FURTHER.

God is a woman.

Did I mention there’s a giant naked mole rat that enthusiastically consents to be a waterbed in an erstwhile threesome? I didn’t???? Try and get that image out of your head now. I dare you. 

Mermaid’s Kiss is the kind of book that people who don’t read romance like to imagine the genre is like. It’s dramatic, unrealistic, full to bursting and more than a little ridiculous. But that’s where this book shines. It is so fun--you literally never know what is going to happen next--and no rational person could guess. 

This is the kind of book that you let wash over you, where you allow yourself to laugh out loud at the absurdity, it’s the whole cake and you get to eat it too. It’s guilty pleasure turned up to eleven and it makes no apologies for itself. Which makes this mess just a little bit bad ass too. 

Did I mention the Sea Witch could turn into a dragon?

-Isabeau

This book also lives up to the cover.

Understands the true appeal of Gothic Romance, delivers Gaywyck by Vincent Virga

AKA The Grandfather of Gay Romance, AKA The First Gay Gothic Novel, is a saga. It is also a collage of references. From Poe to dialog lifted directly from Joan Crawford’s cellophane lips.

Ye olde Twink Robert Whyte takes a job when his mom dies. Organizing a decrepit, bursting library on Gilded Age Long Island, he starts to fall for his boss. Who could resist certified mysterio-hunk Donough Gaylord (it gets even more on-the-nose than that last name)? Whyte finds himself in a shimmering, pulsating, very gay gothic mystery-mance with keyhole love scenes to boot.

The metaphor is…there.

Crashing waves and crashing emotions, sex, violence, exotic birds, the pleasure of library-ing, opera and erotic statuary abound. Wrap yourself in the strange mysteries of the house, as well as the strange pleasures of the wealthy elite, and brace yourself for a far more bloody baroque payoff(s) than just a wife in the attic. 

-Morgan

An e-book

Love in thin air

Improper Arrangements by Juliana Ross

I love every single Juliana Ross book I’ve ever read. The real crime is that there aren’t many. She packs a thorough historical punch into as few chapters as possible. Her sex scenes explode on the page like summer storms, the prose between is concise, detailed, and lush. Improper Arrangements follows that mold exactly, with our botanist, mountaineering heroine and her insanely hot guide locking eyes on the path to town and setting the door to her suite on fire before they even know each other’s names. 

This is the kind of thing the heroine was up to when not macking.

One thing I do want to mention about this historical romance is that our heroine has weathered the scandal of having an affair with her art teacher. And when asked about this, whether she was duped, seduced, taken advantage of--she says no. That she was simply curious about sex, and her body wanted him, damn the consequences. This frank appraisal of a woman’s desire was met by our hero and heroine both as the plain fact it was. And I love this book for that, for making sexual desire be the banal thing it can be sometimes. That it can be about curiosity, or boredom as much as it is about fireworks and adventure. 

The sex is so hot, the characters so impressively opaque to each other that their obstacles feel totally uncontrived. For me the whiff of death in the mountains makes this hard hitting novel a chef’s kiss of a romance. And one I return to over and over again because I love it so much.

-Isabeau

See Awaken My Love Caption

Oldie but a Baddie

Beast by Judith Ivory

While the stepback would have you believe otherwise, this hero is not traditionally attractive. He compensates with a sense of humor, oozing charm, and being a very generous lover, but is also super chippy and obviously self-conscious. He meets his match in the form of a pretty American teenager, that paper doll archetype of pop-culture desirability, who has never tried to compensate for anything. As a result, she is flaky, selfish, and direct in a way that isn’t charming.

They both kind of suck, and yet--how I looooonnnnnnged for them to just be in love like a couple of normals. Two words: wrist kissing. Five more words: at your parent’s garden party.  

This through-a-mirror-darkly Beauty and the Beast retelling has sumptuous surroundings that surely had a direct influence on one-on-one dates on The Bachelor (you sit outside and no one eats). And screaming matches, and webs of lies, and perfumerie, and FRRRRRAAAAAHHHNCE, and a steam ship, and, and, and….

Does happen, multiple times, in this book

Way back in 2018 this was the second book reviewed on our podcast and our first divergent decision. Upon further review, this is one of the signature Whoa!s that we return to again and again. This is a sore tooth of a romance, I can’t stop licking.

-Morgan

I don’t know what to say about Beast as a whole. It feels like three discreet romance novels in one. It is problematic and it oftentimes spins past itself. But it is the only romance novel I have revisited. But I have only revisited one scene. And it is this scene that I want to talk about. It is this scene that I would like to use to convince you to read Beast. Wrist-kissing at the Heroine’s family’s garden party.

The scene plays out like a little snowglobe of the whole genre itself. The hero longs for the heroine, the hero is thwarted until he earns the right to be with the heroine, sex. Except the sex here is not really sex.

Charles, our hero, arrives at a party hosted by Louise’s family, his in-laws, late. He goes on this Odyssian journey to his frigid, teen wife, intercepted by different figures who wish to prevent him from getting to Louise. A pack of students objectifying her body, an old flame, an old flame’s husband. When he finally locates Louise, goes over and talks to her, there is a break in the tension that the text has been building between our two characters (who, for myriad complexities, have not been physical).

What you need to know is, essentially, Charles negotiates the opportunity to kiss Louise’s wrist. He ends up taking full advantage of the opportunity with biting and licking and sucking and kissing in full view of the party. Both hero and heroine like it. It is cut short because of its public nature.

This scene pays off owing a lot to the strange nature of the character’s relationship with their bodies. A significantly longer piece on the nature of bodies and the function of bodies in this book deserves to be written. But allow me to iris in on this one particular moment, which creates this one particular point about the bodies.

We have two people who have never been given the opportunity to want or long for something tangible, physical. Perhaps they long to be seen as something more than their physical appearances, perhaps they long for love. But they’ve never been hungry. They have never been cold. They have never been abstinent on accident. Physical need is something with which they are each unaccustomed.

So when Charles sets upon Louise’s wrist it is a corporeal need being filled. Neither party was aware that they become more than infatuated, they had become comfortable, dependent on one another’s physical touch. Like reaching water in a desert, there is not space for consideration of other parties. He drinks and drinks and drinks.

What a thing. To be treated as truly be needed. To be treated like air after holding your breath or food after a famine. It is a dizzying, erotic scene that has nothing to do with the relationship between the characters - which is queasy - or the characters themselves - who are not likeable. It is a sex scene that forgets sex as a specificity, as an act. Even the exhibitionist positioning of the scene is (pretty much) entirely devoid of eroticism. It is the focus, the unbidden expression, the gushing out of need that is so appealing.

Beast is book that is somehow made more spectacular through its obvious flaws as a romance.

Hero and Heroine, as characters, understand their value in their world as something sexual. Which, truly, that is where the value of these romance characters But they are also creatures of ennui, especially romantic. Constantly desired the way that they both prefer. For Charles, without strings or complications. For Louise, much the same, an affection she can control. They are shaken from this state by a dearth of resources. They withhold that preferred desire from one another. And the act of affection, of desiring, becomes vividly recontextualized. And concentrated. Sex is reformed between these two characters in this scene.