Bodice Tipplers

He's Tarquin, a yard dog who needs to be run off with a broom and a hose. He's Lestat, who is remarkably patient about all of this because he's shopping for a new Louis, one assumes? He's also Goblin, Tarquin's, uh, twincest ghost invisible friend? Spoilers. I really don't know what to tell you. Strap in, Jake, it's Blackwood Farm. Yes, it's our Anne Rice-O-Ween episode! This book has. God. I don't know how to tell you. We didn't even talk about the cockfighting in the podcast. There's... well there's all the vampire stuff but honestly this book is so boring there's barely vampire stuff in it. There's really poorly thought out racial politics (although it turns out by the way that the plantation house was in reality built by a formerly enslaved person, but not in ANY way you might expect.) There's ghost sex. There's ghost twincest. There's really gross underage sex. There's everybody walking in on you with your dick out glazed like a Krispy Kreme. There's torture murder. There's some feet business with ya grandma. There's an intersex character handled surprisingly fine? There's ghastly interior design choices. There are crimes against punctuation. There is an EIGHT HUNDRED PAGE BOOK where VERY LITTLE HAPPENS. There are lies about Lestat being in this. This one was a struggle. Anne almost did us in this time. I do apologize if this book is your jam but we found it... difficult. Let's say we found it difficult. Like, I was longing for the halcyon days of The Tale of the Body Thief. Anyway for a palate cleanser instead of the Kenneth Branaugh Hamlet these people cannot shut up about how about this amazing Soviet version? If you just want a taste skip to around the 22 minute mark to see the g-g-g-ghost! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzN1isLYc_A We do apologize that this episode is this long but to be fair, so was this goddamned book.    

He's Roarke, a billionaire who's at least up front about making his money through crime and exploitation. She's Eve, a spunky pain in the ass who cuts her own hair. Together they're in like sixty freaking books! This book does have some copraganda and some unpleasant attitudes towards sex work - it's a murder mystery cop-noir style, so you kinda know what you're in for. It's also, interestingly, set in the future. If you're paying attention you can tell we recorded this MONTHS ago, like this past spring! We are very sorry! You can tell from the way we talk in it that we had no idea that Grande Doyenne Jayne Ann Krentz would ever want to speak to us, so although Nora has not called, we have not yet come down from that high and it might seem a little odd if you didn't know these are recorded out of order. We are trying to get back on it! And here is my shirt where I make it clear how horny I am for public works:  

Romance legend Jayne Ann Krentz (also Amanda Quick, Jayne Castle, Stephanie James, etc.) spoke to us about romance history and her new book (Enter the Nightmare, out June 30 wherever you get your books!)  We talked about the ups and downs of the romance alpha male hero, the academic essay collection on romance novels she edited in the 90's for the University of Pennsylvania Press (Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women, still very much worth a read!), the difficulties of writing paranormal romance when nobody else was, and more! We are SO excited that we got to do this - she's very cool and has been thinking about all this stuff that we're constantly talking about on the podcast for decades and had a lot of really interesting things to say about all of it.

He's Wrath, an ancient seven foot tall vampire who dresses exclusively in unflattering leather pants. She's Beth, a reporter who has no idea she's about to hit Vampire Puberty. All of their friends have ridiculous names! There are ten million books in this series and people are feral for it, let's find out why! We are very sorry - we are doing our best but . We recorded this before Christmas! So happy every-holidays, I guess. This one has bad dogs who die, Vampire Nonsense, murdered sex workers as a plot device (I don't think the author really treats them disposably but characters in the book certainly do), Cop Nonsense, some sex-pollen consent issues, attempted rape, and reckless use of surplus consonants. Oh, and if you want a visual of what somebody thinks these people ought to look like, check out these amazing casting announcement photos.  

He's Marius, a real piece of work! They're... it doesn't matter who they are because once they become too difficult for him to deal with he just makes another younger vampire to replace them. Yes, it's our annual Anne Rice-a-thon! This time we read Blood and Gold, a book which recaps almost every other Vampire Chronicles book including and of course especially Memnoch the Devil, the one we refuse to read. You will not break us, Anne. This seems to be the eighth book in the series and we're pretty sure she's writing them just for us at this point. If you haven't read any of the other books or listened to our episodes on them, this may not be the best starting point - this book was clearly written for the loreseekers. You gotta be up on a whole host of weirdoes for this one to make a lot of sense. I didn't even remember some of these jabronis! So, remember all the gross grooming business from The Vampire Armand? (Real grooming, the youth pastor kind.) It is far, far more distressing in this book because now you see it from Marius' perspective instead of Armand's, and it is so much worse. We found it actively distressing. Additionally, this is generally a book about an enraging sack of shit mansplainer. It has all the traditional Anne Rice mess turned up to 11 (although surprisingly she elides the "shit your pants" part of turning into a vampire in this one? Small blessings.) So, read and listen with care for yourself.  

She's Grace, the world's least qualified sex therapist! He's Julian, a sex slave who lives in a book! Together I really wish they fought crime! It's Fantasy Lover by Sherrilyn Kenyon, the first Dark Hunters book! We actually forgot to do content warnings in the recording (we are out of practice!) but this one does have some creepy stalker business, some off-screen magical "Cupid's Arrow" use by the "hero", a lot of sexual pushiness (light ravishing?), the f-slur, a white voodoo priestess, and it's also deeply stupid. This is the first episode of our Cringe Binge miniseries, where we read a bunch of books we are not calling guilty pleasures! For more info see our preview episode.

We're so back! We're so sorry we haven't been back!  We've been struggling (I think maybe we are not alone?) but we are coming back with a celebration of a kind of book we're struggling to define but we totally know what we're talking about and hope you do too. They tend to be paranormal romances, but don't have to be. They come in long series and you can usually debate for ages about where you should stop reading them. Every woman you know knows about them but almost none of the men do. They have big worldbuilding (often to the point where by book 20 they're completely different books and now everybody is a demon in hell and also a rock star but they still have killer outfits) and their fans are real fans, they get into the first one and read fifteen more in a week, they write fanfic, they want to live in the world. They somehow have a little bit of a fanfic vibe even in the original. There's something a little "guilty pleasure" about them. A little, dare I say, "cringe". Well fuck that, if we're going to meet the moment we need to smother the part of us that thinks a pleasure could be guilty or that sincerity is embarassing. We're embarking on a special mini-series we're calling the Bodice Tipplers Cringe Binge! We're reading Sherrilyn Kenyon! We're reading Charlaine Harris! We're reading JR Ward! We're sure as shit reading Nalini Singh! And before somebody pops out of a garbage can to tell me there's nothing cringey about these books, please go and look at a list of the men's names in the Black Dagger Brotherhood books and check yourself. If you truly want to overcome your instinct for embarassment you're going to have to read a book about a grown ass man named Phury, don't come complaining to me, I don't make the rules. Or the rhules. So join us starting Labor Day for our first one, Fantasy Lover by Sherrilyn Kenyon!

She's Anita, a zombie raising hate crime enthusiast! He's Jean Claude, a vampire who's in the Chamber of Commerce and shops exclusively at International Male! They do not do it until the fifth book! It's Guilty Pleasures, the first Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter book by Laurell K. Hamilton! This was a serious thing for Sara back in college, who is currently having an existential crisis about the trashbag fakeass non-intersectional feminism of the all of it. It was new to Courtney, who hated it. It's halfway to Halloween, so we pulled this one out of a musty old crypt where we honestly kinda forgot about how we recorded it! I mentioned a quote and I mentioned the author but there were, like, twenty minutes between the two in the episode, so let me clarify that when I talked about how "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house" I was referring to an essay of the same title by Audre Lorde, from her collection Sister Outsider which is a) a quick read, go read it right now, it won't take you but a minute, and b) about being constantly asked to be the only Black woman, or the only lesbian, or the only Black lesbian, at every conference and on every panel. "As women, we have been taught either to ignore our differences, or to view them as causes for separation and suspicion rather than as forces for change. Without community there is no liberation, only the most vulnerable and temporary armistice between an individual and her oppression. But community must not mean a shedding of our differences, nor the pathetic pretense that these differences do not exist." Audre Lorde would eat Anita Blake alive. There's actually quite a bit of content-warning stuff in here - obviously there's vampire-typical violence and lack of consent and all that, but there's also a ton coming from ol' Anita - you got some fat shaming, some kink shaming, she's really got it in for sex workers, she can't stand it when other people have any kind of good time, she's Not Like Other Girls... I bet there's even a bit in here where she talks about how unfashionably big her boobs are and how unfashionably beautiful her skin is and how unfashionably thick and lustrous her mane of hair is.

We had a great time sitting down with Grace and Kate from the New York Public Library (as I explained to my husband "the one with the lions") to talk about NYPL's "Best New Romance Books" list of their favorite 2024 romance novels. We talked about everything from Johanna Lindsey cover art to the sad dearth of true pirate romances these days to romantical rubber duckies!  I cut the worst of the shop talk but it was so exciting to get to talk romance readers' advisory with like minded professionals!

We recorded this months ago, in the fall! We are sorry! He's Brendan, a DOJ attorney ferreting out white supremacists! She's Caroline, a counselor whose mom calls all the time! Will they ever buy curtains to spare the neighbors' tender eyes? Find out in Heat Wave by Barbara Delinsky, another of our "five heart romances"! If you're new to this, we're doing episodes on the list of books that Romantic Times reviewer Melinda Helfer awarded five hearts to (there are sixteen, out of ten thousand!) So far, Melinda did not miss. No real content warnings in this one except that I do not think sex scenes should ever, under any circumstances, include the word "womb". Gah.