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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Welcome to the Shadow Daddy Bracket: Final Four, where our pleasures are interrogated and pitted against one another. Our contenders? Rochester brooding in his attic-bound domestic gothic, Rhysand a fae High Lord wielding sovereignty and seduction, a couple of aristocrats flexing thier authority, and Buffy’s Angel/Spike—vampiric embodiments of tortured desire and ethical ambiguity.

But the bracket isn’t just about who wins a romance face-off. We’re also asking: why now? At a moment of resurgent authoritarianism, and renewed assaults on feminist gains, the cultural magnetism of shadow daddies feels especially charged. Join us as we illuminate the shadows and the allure, tackling the familiar pleasures and the deeply unsettling things it may reveal about us.

#shadowdaddy #bracket #romance #romantasy #acotar

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Shadow Daddy's abound. But how do you pick the best one? what would the best even mean? How do you quantify or categorize the shadows and the daddies?

Morgan and Isabeau developed a tournament style bracket ranking the shadow daddies of the past, present, and super natural--follow along and make your own!

Who will take the crown?

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On this whoa!nus listen along as Morgan and Isabeau engage with Time magazine's 50 Best Romance Novels to Read right now (August 2024). You can hear in real time (haha) as Isabeau is faced with the dubious metrics of 'acclaim and social impact'. What books did the list get right? What books did they miss? We cover it all and share our opinions on what Romancelandia really needs. As always come to your own conclusions--just maybe don't make it a listicle.

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Over one frenzied month Morgan read all five of Emily Henry's original adult romance novels. Along the way, she lost herself. She turns to Isabeau to help her trace her way back, though the work and the public and personal reception.

What differentiates a romance novel from everything else? And what can we learn from a breakthrough star?

Assumptions are challenged. Late capital is contoured. The word "prophylactic" is uttered.

Featuring special guest appearance by a piece of loose leaf notebook paper with a completely normal matrix of EH novels!

This one is quite different from our usual stuff, but maybe you will still like it (almost unlike Emily Henry novels in every way).

Isabeau references Love the One You're With and Baby Proof by Emily Giffin.

The Substack post Morgan references is, in fact, a poorly remembered comments thread on this piece.

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Join fan fav and beloved friend of the pod Andrea Martucci from podcast Shelflove as we discuss 2024's 'Your Monster' a love story about female rage and personal growth. This discussion spans personal taste, romance conventions as adapted by other mediums, and of course that great white way: Broadway. As we've said before horror and romance share a wet middle in the venn diagram of genres, but what happens when they're part of the same narrative arc? Hot takes and divergent opinions make pod friends forever

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