It’s a New Year Whoa!mantics, but early forecasts are projecting the same holocaust of emotions. This week, Morgan and Isabeau cut through the red tape in A Lady’s Guide to Mischief and Mayhem by Manda Collins. When our heroine Lady Katherine Bascomb hastily publishes overlooked evidence to a recent murder case in her newspaper, Detective Inspector Andrew Eversham becomes seriously butthurt. But when Katherine finds herself at a house party turned crime scene, Katherine and Andrew must put aside their differences before the killer strikes again. What happens when Romance tries on the tropes of True Crime? Why is every example of a good cop usually a fictional character? Who actually keeps us safe? This one’s for all the out of work editors out there - we need you now more than ever.
We know the solstice is the real holiday y’all are out here getting wild for, but like any bird of prey, the Christmas-Industrial-Complex must be fed. This week, Morgan and Isabeau take aim at propriety with Cecilia Grant’s Blackshear Family novella, A Christmas Gone Perfectly Wrong. When the uptight and proper Andrew Blackshear ventured to buy a falcon for his sister’s impending marriage, the last thing he expected was to himself become the hunted. Our heroine and daughter of the falconer, Lucy Sharp, is anything but conventional; and when a carriage ride from Andrew results in calamity, they must assume the role of happily married, in order to share a bed in the home of some acquaintances below their station. But as passion creeps into Andrew’s waking life, the couple must decide between ardent love and social customs. What’s your preferred mode of hunting? Does convention handcuff progress? And does dry humping ever really solve anything? While we hope y’all are forever grabbing life by the scruff of its rodent neck, for fuck sake please stay home this holiday season. You deserve a break anyway.
Holidays are hitting different this year, what with all the plague, but we at Whoa!mance are pledging to keep our Christmas humor to the last. This week, Morgan and Isabeau shack up with this festive friends-to-lovers novella, One Bed for Christmas by Jackie Lau. Our hero, Wes Chang, a freelance artist and barbershop quartet mascot, is thrown by fate or meteorological happenstance into close proximity with his college friend, long time crush, and successful dating app CEO, Caitlin Ng, when a sudden snow storm leaves her stranded in Wes' modest working person’s apartment. What began as a convenience of warmth blossoms into a confirmation of long held desires, as Wes and Caitin are imbued with the magic of both holidays and snow days. Does capitalism prevent us from keeping the holiday spirit alive year round? Does the kaleidoscopic nature of Christmas belie a dragon chase of toxic nostalgia? Is the “one bed” a metaphor for our singular planet hurtling toward climate destruction, leaving us to grasp and cling to whomever happens to be closest? This one's dedicated to all the bars we wish we could close this holiday season. Stay home and stay safe.
Did you ever watch those Geico caveman commercials and think, “I bet that hoss can really lay some club?” This week, Morgan and Isabeau plow for answers in Transcendence, a prehistoric romp by Shay Savage. It opens with our heroine and unaccompanied minor, Beth, traveling tesseract-style through millennia to arrive in the welcoming and paternally minded arms of our hero, a Homo savage known only by the guttural proclamation of, “Ehd”. Beth, similarly truncated to just “Beh” for the ease of her new partner, must navigate a preverbal relationship, find footing in a vastly undeveloped world, and acquiesce to a blossoming love affair that only the threat of death can provide. Where would you journey to in a personal time machine? Does Beth being 15 make it weird? When you picture a prehistoric man, what do you see, and why is it a tan Brendan Fraiser? Tune in for questions and commentary guaranteed to make your bed rock.
Spooky season may be over y’all, but it’s gonna take more than a new month to get yr girls out of Scotland. This week, Morgan and Isabeau embark on a historical romp through the Highlands in The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie by Jennifer Ashley. Our titular character, Lord Ian, is shrouded in rumors and hearsay when he crosses paths with our heroine Beth, on the arm of her then fiance. As her fiance’s appetites wend beyond the scope of Beth, our heroine is thrown further into the orbit of the mysterious Lord. But as suspicions gather around Lord Ian’s potential role in a double homicide, our lovers are forced to question the very fiber of their beings. What helps ensure the successful portrayal of neuro non-typicality? How do we account for perceived limitations of accurate historical representation? Could this election finally be over? All this and more on your favorite pod sluicing app.
While the Ball rages on, yr girls have to refuel on angst and mood before another heavy bout of haunting. This week, Morgan and Isabeau journey to the edge of the Cornish cliffs in Mistress of Mellyn by Victoria Holt, a nom de plume of Eleanor Hibbert. Our heroine Martha Leigh is past her seasons. In lieu of a husband, she becomes a governess to the daughter of gaunt widower and lesser of two heroes, Connan TreMellyn. But as Martha gets closer to her aloof employer, questions surrounding his wife’s death disrupt their nascent arousal. In a mansion of lavish decor and furnishings, something lies rotten. What remains in the absence of a loved one? How should we remember roads not taken? What’s it like to trust and be trusted by a horse? Saddle up and stay shook y’all.