Illicit Liaisons

Illicit Liaisons: Bea from Mama Needs to Read Romance

• Jenna Harte • Season 2 • Episode 9

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This week, we talk with book influencer Bea from Mama Needs to Read Romance about the state of historical romance, being a booktuber, and more.

LINKS TO BEA

Mama Needs to Read Romance YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@mamaneedstoreadromance
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mama.needs.to.read.romance/
Goodreads: goodreads.com/user/show/75674482-mama-needs-to-read-romance

AUTHORS & BOOKS MENTIONED ON THE SHOW

Joanna Shupe https://amzn.to/4m9lOYA
Kate Bateman https://amzn.to/4mb9qHE
Teresa Medeiros https://amzn.to/4sZ264y
Lindz McLeod https://amzn.to/4txFW9n
Ice Planet Barbarians by Ruby Dixon https://amzn.to/3PSOBom
Bridgerton Series by Julia Quinn https://amzn.to/41h9BHS

NOW READING & RECOMMENDED

Once Smitten, Twice Shy by Chloe Liese https://amzn.to/4c8PPDc
With This Ring I Thee Kill by Jenna Harte https://amzn.to/4vtSUa6
Thessaly Affair by Urna Semper https://urnasemper.substack.com/s/the-thessaly-affair
Shadow of Betrayal Eva LeClerc https://evaleclercauthor.substack.com/s/shadow-of-betrayal

TENDER & TEMPTING TALES

Tender and Tempting Tales Substack: Subscribe and get a FREE story! https://tenderandtemptingtales.substack.com/

Tender and Tempting Tales on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tendertemptingtales/

ILLICIT LIAISONS PRODUCED & HOSTED BY

Tara Leederman: https://taleederman.substack.com/
Jenna Harte: https://jennaharte.com/

Outline and Show Notes: T.A. Leederman
Editing: Jenna Harte

SPEAKER_00

Hello, romance readers. Welcome to Illicit Liaisons with Tender and Tempting Tales, where each week we talk about the good, the bad, and the naughty of romance fiction. I am Jenna Hart, a romance author of the Southern Heat Contemporary Romance series and of the sexy Valentine Mysteries. And I'm also the managing editor of Tender and Tempting Tales, a romance anthology for people who like romantic quickies.

SPEAKER_02

And hi, I'm Tara Lederman, social media manager here at Tender and Tempting Tales, and Laura Maven for Starship Valkyrie, a science fiction game and story universe. I write science fiction stories, including romance, and you can often find me in our anthologies and on Substack.

SPEAKER_00

And today we're very excited because we have Bee from Mama Needs to Read Romance, who I've been watching for a long time. Bee is a booktuber and bookstagrammer who enjoys romance novels, especially contemporary and historical. And of course, we're gonna have links to all of B's links, particularly your YouTube channel, as well as any other books or resources we mentioned on the show. They will be in the show notes. Bee, thank you so much for being here and chatting with us about books today.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, thank you so much for having me. I've been really looking forward to this, and I just can't wait to talk about all the bookish news with you.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's get started because Tara and I do like to talk about bookish news, drama, all of it. We love it. Recently, there are news with this week is, and I know you've done videos on this with Harlequin had announced that they are going to end their historical line. They've stopped taking submissions, and the last books will come out in 2027. And I know you recently had an boxing in here. They're saying to us by in 2027, the last set of books will go out. We know there's a lot of people like you that still enjoy historical drama. It's sort of interesting to me with the popularity of things like Bridgerton and period dramas. We have new reboots of Jane Austen stories coming out, new Pride and Prejudice, New Sense and Sensibility. So it's striking to me that this would be ending. It's going to impact a lot of authors on that, and of course, readers. And we're just curious, like what your take on this whole thing is.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, absolutely. Recently I got to see Joanna Schupp in a talk, which was lovely. She also writes as Mila Finelli for Mafia Romance, but she's primarily known, at least in my circles, for historical romance. And she was saying that they've done research that the popularity of the shows, for example, in historical romance isn't the silver bullet that historical romance authors was hoping that it would be. That the it doesn't translate directly from, you know, oh, we want to watch the show too, we want to read the books. Right now, all the hype is primarily for romanticy. I mean, that's like the biggest thing going on right now, especially in romance and publishing. Um so people are starting to go that way. Even historical romance authors are starting to go that way. But um, it's been interesting to see, you know, and there was a there's a show that is set during the Gilded Age. It might even be called the Gilded Age, I believe. Um because Joanna Shoop writes primarily Gilded Age. She was hopeful, and this is I think where she started her own research, that maybe the Gilded Age show would translate into more Gilded Age reading interest, and it really hasn't. So you make a great point. I mean, we're seeing a lot of twists, read you know, different takes on Jane Austen, and obviously again Bridgerton, season four coming out, but it's just not translating to the wide publishing of historical romance right now, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_02

Didn't Down Abbey lead to a lot of interest in Edwardian uh romances?

SPEAKER_01

Yes, absolutely. And and again, what's so interesting though, too, is we don't see much Edwardian uh romance except for like the more dramatic. I a lot of the Christian authors that I speak with or inspirational authors, they tend to veer towards Edwardian, but I am not really seeing that much at all in like the more spicy historicals, you know. And it's interesting, I had a conversation with Kate Bateman, who I adore. Um, you know, she's been writing a historical romance for a very long time. She started out indie, then she was picked up by St. Martin's, I believe. And St. Martin's did not renew her contract, unfortunately. But uh, she and some other authors have echoed the sentiment that they've there's been sort of a boxing in of, you know, you can't really veer away from the Regency era, which is only nine years long. It's amazing how much is written within the Regency, primarily because of, you know, Austin and all of that. But um many authors are actually excited, or they're turning lemons into lemonade by moving more indie because they can do more of what they want. Whereas, you know, there was just the strong push for Regency, maybe Victorian, but you know, there just wasn't much else that they could do within the wide world of publishing, you know, the popular publishers like Avon and Berkeley and things like that.

SPEAKER_02

That's disappointing, especially considering how popular 18th-century romance was for a really long time. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00

Well, and where are the where where have those readers gone? Like it a publisher wants to make money. And if they are getting rid of a line like Harlequin or any other publisher decides we're not gonna publish, like, where did those readers go?

SPEAKER_01

Many of them went to romanticy or contemporary romance, unfortunately. Um, I think another thing that we're seeing too is a lot of the publishing is happening in print. And nowadays people are getting their what they're reading, what they're reading in in so many other areas, like on their Kindle or, you know, their e-reader, audiobooks, things like that. So people just weren't physically buying, like for example, Mass Market Paperbacks, which I know I'm I'm going a slightly off topic here, but those were so frequently historical romance or romance novels, and now those aren't even being made anymore. They stopped making them at the end of 2025.

SPEAKER_02

So it seems like a lot of printing is really like the same books being printed over and over again in different special editions with sprayed edges and stuff, and it's a lot of romanticy books. You know, it's like fourth edition of this thing with this new cover. You know, like they're trying to get more and more money out of the smaller and smaller group of authors and readers.

unknown

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

Well, there are readers who do that, right? And I've heard of readers buying ordering their books from England because they have a different cover than that that is here, and they might have the same book with five different covers.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Yes. Yes. Is it oh Blackstone? That's not it. Yeah. Is it Blackstone? That's it. Yeah. There was one author who's historical romance who I adore. She actually just found out that her contract wasn't renewed, despite the fact that she was planning two more books in the series. She was really frustrated because she's also writing paranormal romance and they only wanted to put it out in hardback. And she knew that this was going to really impact her sales. You know, this was before I feel like sprayed edges became a real thing recently. But here, and actually getting back to your original question, because I feel like I've taken this off course. I'm sorry, it happens all the time. It's okay. Like you know what you're getting. And more and more, it's interesting, readers will say, we want a short story, we want a quick fix, we want, you know, something we can pop in our pocket. But what the sales are telling the people in the industry is that readers want an experience. They want fully immersive. This is also where, as you were just saying, Tara, we're getting the sprayed edges, we're getting the special editions. Like people don't want just to read something quick and be like, I want a nice Duke in 200 pages. I want to live in this. I want to look at it on my shelves. I want the full-blown experience. And so a quick 200-page Harlequin with the title like Her Forbidden Duke for the 20th time. I'm not knocking it. I love Harlequin historicals, but there's a time and place for them. Um, it's just not selling. And Harlequin's even said they're not getting rid of the rest of their lines. I mean, they're putting out roughly five to six books in all of their other lines still. But they the Harlequin historicals are not selling. So what they're doing is they're ending in, I want to say September or October of 2027. And that is because they're they're upholding the contracts that they've already got, but they're not renewing.

SPEAKER_02

So I'm surprised they're not pivoting, honestly. Say again, they have so many lines already. If if I were them and I knew what the trend was, I would probably go to fewer of them and do book boxes and special editions and make it more of an experience. Yeah, ask people if they want to subscribe to a Harlequin historical book box and send people teacups and stickers and whatever else they want for their experience and go whole hog. Yes. That would be fun. That would be fine for me. But they have another line.

SPEAKER_00

Was it two years ago they brought in, and I can't remember the names of the lines, but they brought in a line that was just for the TikTok readers, right? It was newer type, and it's it's what can they make money on? They know their system works. People are buying the book boxes, ordering them every month, or they're walking into Walmart or bookstore and grabbing them off the shelf there, whatever's inside the store.

SPEAKER_02

So looking forward to Harlequin romanticy.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, right. Exactly. That is that is something you wonder like, is the next line gonna be a romanticy line, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I hadn't even thought of that, but that's Tara, you're brilliant. If you open a new line, I would put money on that being the new line. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Harlequin, make me an offer. You can't afford me. I like tender and tempting tales.

SPEAKER_00

Because I had fixed it at Harlequin for almost two years. And by two years, I mean like 23 months, and it was there forever. And uh that's when I got an agent. And I was like, Can you contact them and tell them when I think they're dick? Because I don't know if you know, but when you're an author and you're trying to go the trad route, you have to sit and wait. And they really frown on multiples. And I got caught up in all these, so you think you can write things like year after year, or whatever they did it. I was caught up and got put, oh, it made me crazy. Anyway, I, you know, I can't remember when I found you. I want to say it was during COVID, and I've always enjoyed your YouTube because you know, you're very entertaining, you are always positive about books, even if you don't love them. Actually, I think you have a six-star setting instead of the five stars. Some of them have extra stars. Yeah, I love that. And I actually recently watched your uh spicy level video. Oh, right. Because as a publisher, we have spice levels, but everybody sort of sees it different. We were on a similar line. So ours are like medium and up. Well, right.

SPEAKER_02

And then share your video for people when they ask us what do you mean by this? Because I think that would really help. But we always have people asking, it's like, okay, just go watch B's video.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. It was fun. But I guess my question is obviously you're an avid reader, you love romance. What made you decide to like go on the internet and start talking about romance books?

SPEAKER_01

Oh my gosh. Well, I fell in love with, for example, Crystal of Crystal's Bookish Life, Christy of Christy Reads a lot. And at the time, I was watching a lot of their videos. They got me into reading romance, which really just saved me. I was a stay-at-home mom, obviously, it was also during COVID. And, you know, I have three kids, two of whom are special needs. And I had been a teacher, so I was able to sort of, I don't know, channel that into different things. I before COVID, I was a homebound teacher for children who weren't medically able to go to school, and I was able to sort of channel all of that energy in those directions through education and things like that. And once COVID hit, and it was just a lot of pressure, um, and being my older two children were both used to having entire teams of people, and then all of a sudden it was just me for all three of them, and one was a newborn, and anyway, it was a lot. And I found myself really finding such a beautiful escape in these beautiful romance books because initially I was going in like people magazine, and I was like, What are you reading? You know, what are they reading? But so often they would leave a bad taste in my mouth, and I realized what I needed the most were happy endings, and so I started going on YouTube and finding recommendations of people that I knew had similar tastes to me. And so I started talking with them, and then they some of them did a video like Jess of Peace Love Books, Tiffany of Tif Talk's Pages, Tori of Novel Life, Cheyenne, that tall book girl, that whole crew were like, they did a video about like why you should make a channel. Don't, don't wait, don't hesitate. And I was like, I want to do this because I would finish the book and I'd want to talk about it, and I'd look around and there's no one to talk about. That's quick. So it became an incredible outlet. And I'm gonna tell you something that you already know, which is the romance community is the best community in the world. It's true. There's not a day that goes by that I'm not uplifted and encouraged by either the things that I read, the authors that I speak to, the publishers that I talk with, the people in our community, like the viewers. I mean, they're my friends. And I honestly don't know how I would have stayed sane the last six years had it not been for the romance books, authors, community, et cetera. So that's how that started.

SPEAKER_02

It's wild that you say that you are that you are you taught special needs kids and everything. And like I just I feel like every time I meet people in the romance community, they're like saints. It's like people who are social workers, former social workers, teachers, stay-at-home moms. It's just like everyone is is saintly. I don't feel saintly enough to be in this community sometimes.

SPEAKER_00

I see your wings, Tara. Yeah, computering behind you.

SPEAKER_02

Cleaning up puddles of pea in my house from my trauma.

SPEAKER_01

But that's part of what romance is so good about, and I think that's why it resonates with so many people who are in similar uh work positions to me. And what you just mentioned is there's something about unconditional love and acceptance and seeing a person flaws and all, and realizing how incredibly valuable each individual is, and how they can be upheld and uplifted through romance and within the community. I mean, that's I think that's probably why you're seeing so many of us. Cause like it's just we're all just sort of there encouraging each other and lifting one another up. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And it's great that people are talking about romance because when I was coming up, if you read romance, you sort of kept it under the hood, right? People look at even today, they still look at you funny because somehow love is bad, right? You wouldn't call your spouse frou fru and all the things that people say about romance fiction, but they say that about the romance genre. But today, so many people talking about it. I really enjoyed COVID. I also watched TikTok and all, particularly Millennial and Z women just out there gushing and this book broke me. And I just I just thought that was so great because my generation didn't do that. I mean, the authors I knew who didn't want anybody to know they were writing it now. It's such a great thing that we can talk about it. And if people poo-poo it, well, poo-poo on them, right?

SPEAKER_02

Well, I mean, I didn't notice that like on like Instagram, bookstagram for romance, it's so much more positive than any other genre, you know. Like I just noticed that the romance writers there are much more positive with each other for the most part. It really stands out when someone is not extremely positive. Although, I mean, I'm I'm a captive audience on social media as our social media manager, and I was just wondering, because you're also a bookstagrammer and a booktube. Um, I was just wondering what you thought about like the changes over the last eight or nine months as there's been like a higher influx of AI, and I think writers have been doing a lot more to try to get attention. I was just wondering what you thought about all that, like your your take on what you've seen.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. Well, I will preface this with I'm not always the best person to ask that sort of thing, because with drama sort of baked into my life, I tend to avoid that. And my it's funny, my audience is aware of that. I'll even say, like, I encourage you to check out so-and-so. Because, you know, for me, I feel like my platform is always going to be primarily about being uplifting and encouraging. And although I am always interested, I do want to hear it. But um, it's been interesting from a and like an educational standpoint, if you will. I've done some research into how AI is changing YouTube in general. And um, it's interesting that YouTube actually will scan transcripts now of every video that's being published, whether it's booktube or not. And it will actually see whether or not the person who's created the video is putting out something new or something that's going to get be attention grabbing. And if it's not, YouTube does not promote it as highly. It's fall, it kind of sifts down to the bottom of the pile or floats down very quickly. Um the other thing that I think is difficult, because it uh you wouldn't be surprised to know that Bookstagram and especially Booktube is oversaturated with booktubers. Everybody who won't read and wants to talk about books, there's quite a few of us, hundreds of thousands at least. Um, and um, oh my gosh, I just lost my train of thought of what I was gonna say. Um, so people are not flocking to YouTube and even Instagram as much as they were. It's sort of interesting when you talk about um readers wanting to flock to longer and wider experiences within reading, bigger books and things like that, wherein uh people who want to grab information quickly are actually going the opposite route. And Chat GPT is frequently replacing now YouTube and Instagram rather than going to your YouTube channel to like how to do something or what's the top 10 of this or that, you know, you'll just go to ChatGPT and say, tell me what the top books are right now, or tell me, you know. So it's been interesting because I've been veering more towards like the they call it edutainment, which I love that term. But I love to sort of I'm curious to learn more about the history of historical romance and and the entertain or the educational aspect of that. Um one of my best videos recently that did really, really well had to do with the timeline of historical romances from the medieval era to the Edwardian period.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, awesome!

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and because I wasn't even sure of the difference between Regency and Victorian. Oh, you know what? I want to learn. And and that video resonated so much more, like it was crazy the spike that happened with that. And people are saying, you know, I want to see far more of that. And I'm all about that. Um, so I'm sorry, I don't know that I'm answering your question very well. I know that I know that negativity definitely, you know, perks people's interest, and so that's going to sell. But yes, in terms of AI, I know that people are, you know, always concerned about how that's going to replace things. And yeah, as I said, people are starting to gravitate towards, for example, Chat GPT instead of hopping on YouTube, for example, to see, you know, what's popular.

SPEAKER_02

No, I'm glad to hear that. You're doing what we were doing, which you're looking for another way to add to add value to your content for people to come to you, you know, not just book recommendations. If they're going to Chat GPT for book regime recommendations, you have information about historical romance and different time periods and stuff for them to still have like value from your content. And that that's what we've been doing as well. It's why we started the podcast back up again and why we've been doing articles on Substack, like trying to provide something to people other than just buy a book, please buy a book. We have books. Would you like books?

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. Yeah, and that's the tricky thing because the two things that you can't, well, the one thing I think that you can't get from AI is the personality. And so, you know, as each of us is aware, doing what we do, you can only be yourself, you know, and hope that the people that appreciate that will find you. That's been lovely for me. So that's that's one thing is to make sure your personality shines. But then the other, like you said, adding value. I'm always asking myself, like the main question is how can I contribute to this community? And if I don't feel like I'm contributing something that 10 other people aren't already doing, you know, I'm gonna try to, you know, swerve a little bit and try something else. And so far, going in a slightly different angle of you know, the history elements, learning new things and sharing that with my viewers, that's really seemed to resonate. So I'm really excited about going forward in that direction.

SPEAKER_02

Well, I'm saying you might like our podcast with Annie because we talked a ton about 18th century romance, like actual romances from the period. Annie and I I did my PhD in 18th century literature, so the two of us were just bouncing back and forth with like, have you read Belinda? Oh my god, Mariah Edgeworth. It was it was a good time. You might like to, yes.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, I can't wait. I want to hear all of it. Because I think she said out of our posts, she says Pamela could be the first romance out there that we would as as readers would recognize as a romance. So I would say I guess I better pick up that book.

SPEAKER_02

Jenny, you would be so mad at Pamela. I gotta tell you right now, you'd be so mad at Pamela. Oh, she's yeah, well tell me after you read it.

SPEAKER_00

I will be very entertained with Well I might read one of the other ones first.

SPEAKER_02

So you will love Evelina. You would love Evelina so much.

SPEAKER_00

So many books. Yeah. If you go to that podcast B, you'll see we have a list of all the books they mentioned. And you could tell me how many of them you've ever heard of. Because you know, Weathering Heights, yes.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Oh my gosh, very cool. How exciting. I love it.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. But if you ever wanted a, I don't know, a list of just 18th century and early 19th century romances. I could probably give you one if you wanted like a you know, a place to start.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Beyond like the Bronte sisters, beyond uh Jane Austen type.

SPEAKER_01

Yes. Yeah. Yes. I love that. Oh my gosh, so cool.

SPEAKER_02

Also, I know that this was a space of uh of research for you, but I was wondering if you could talk to us about like your thoughts on. I mean, we were talking about AI earlier, about AI narration. You know, I know that it's an accessibility tool for some folks, and but it's also like replacing audiobook actors. I'm just wondering what you thought about that.

SPEAKER_01

Yes. Well, I would definitely differentiate or distinguish between uh uh what was the term you just used? Something about a tool, not an auditory tool.

SPEAKER_02

Accessibility tool.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you, accessibility tool. Um, I would differentiate between the accessibility tool and then like just general AI narration. An accessibility tool is more I think of like talk to text or you know, like a more robotic type of thing, and that absolutely is super helpful. I have friends who have vis vis vision issues and it really helps them access certain things that don't have audiobooks. But I've been thinking a lot about um, you know, the fact that AI narration is really becoming a thing. Like the other day, and this is what made me think of it, I've listened to Teresa Medeiros's Yours, oh my gosh, forever yours. Never mind, it doesn't matter. I was listening to an audiobook by Teresa Madeiros. It's an older one, didn't have narration, but it had AI narration, so Audible was able to sell that to me. Oh, uh-huh. Yes, and the thing is, and I thought, well, you know, in a way, this is good because I was not going to have time to read this book with my eyeballs. Like I needed to be able to listen to this book, and I have done the accessibility options on, for example, my Kindle with some of the arcs that I've gotten, where like I'm folding laundry and I, you know, but it's kind of painful sometimes to listen to that. So now the AI narration I found to be pleasant. It was like a pleasant British voice, female British voice. And but it didn't have any of the style, it didn't have the drama, it didn't have the emotion, even during the more emotional parts. So I thought, okay, this couldn't replace currently, it couldn't hold a candle to real narrators that I love. Now, the fearful part is that certainly it could, I'm sure someday, you know, AI is always, you know, evolving. Um, so anyway, the good is we're getting books that we wouldn't necessarily get to experience that have never been narrated. The bad part of that is, yes, that does concern me in terms of narrators who I love potentially having their jobs taken away from them, or narrators who are just trying to start out who aren't even going to be able to get their foot in the door. That's probably the bigger problem. Because, like you name your big narrators, they're probably going to be fine. You know, they're not going to be impacted. But it's like the newer up-and-comers who would do a beautiful job voice acting these incredible novels that may never get to because, and I hate to say this because I started researching this. I feel like I need to do more because I was going to do a video on it, and I feel like I I want to do more research first. But I can tell you, Amazon is courting publishing companies who adopt AI narrators. They're pushing AI narration and they're rewarding companies who are adopting AI narration. And as we all know, Amazon is really responsible for so much of you know being the tastemakers in terms of what's going on with anything regarding publishing.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So it does concern me.

SPEAKER_02

Good advice. Paris, one of our editors, did it. He like to put like a few minutes of his one of his stories into one of the AI narration things, just trying to trying to create something. And one thing he said was that like the ROI on it was really not there. Like it took him forever just to get it to sound good. Um I think it depends on what it is, right? Like he hit the stuff he writes is kind of sci-fi romance, kind of romantic with a lot of strange words. So he had to go in and do a lot of a lot of like tweaking and stuff. So it might this might be an issue for romanticity with a lot of like weird words in it and like weird names that it might take a lot of work to try to go back in and get the AI to say things correctly. Um, but then there's also like readers' reactions to it, you know. Like I feel like even if Amazon pushes it, a lot of readers might react really negatively to it.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Sorry, go ahead, Jennifer.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Well, I was gonna say, you know, it's one thing to go in and poke a button in Amazon and it automatically narrates your book. It's there's gonna be issues, but there are tools out there that authors are able to use where they have a little bit more control of that. They could do a multicast, for example, and they have a little bit more control over uh the sound, even the inflection. So the question has to do with what about these narrators? My understanding is that there are some narrators who are licensing their voices, but I don't know how widespread that is, and I don't know how that works, right? Like if I pick Joe from Piscopo, how much does he get paid to do the guy who fills up the tank and the you know when they get gas? Like, you know, there might be one piece of dialogue or something, right? So I don't know how it works, but it it's it's AI, this whole thing is just another example of our technology gets ahead of us before we fully thought through what are the ramifications, good and bad. Right. We we just see good. Oh, look what I can do at a poke of a button, but we don't recognize how it can impact people. And of course, around the writing industry, narrators, editors, you know, there's a lot of people who are highly impacted by that.

SPEAKER_01

And I have to say, on the other side of the coin again, and I'm not disagreeing with anything you're saying because I do have concerns. Many of the authors I've spoken to are indie authors. And some of them, it's so funny. Before I even started talking to authors, before I was really into books, I assumed that every author, that's what they did for a living. They got up, they didn't have other jobs, like they drank a cup of coffee and typed beautifully for a little while, and then published a book. And you know, that was it. Right. And then you learn, like you start talking to people, and one woman in particular, she is I adore her, she's one of my favorite indie authors, and she said that her hope is to break even as an author because she puts so much of her own money into publishing, and she pays narrators thousands of dollars to perform. Yeah, and then there's, and I don't know that you want to get into this, I'm gonna bring it up, and if we can gloss right over it, because man, this is something I had heard about in terms of AI and scandal, but you know, the book covers the AI book covers, you know, they and they'll some of my favorite authors will pay artists again hundreds or thousands of dollars to these gorgeous covers, and these poor authors aren't making any money. I mean, they're losing money to get their work out there, and so my heart goes out to them and those that want to use uh AI to support their work, I get it, you know. Yeah, it sort of goes back.

SPEAKER_00

Remember when we were talking about Harlequin and they're ending a line because they're not making money. They are a publisher who's all about making money. You're an author, you are a business, yeah, and you're you're told you have to have all these things. So the option is no audio, which we know is selling really well. We know, especially influencers like you. There's there's only so much you can sit and have your eyeballs on a book, but you can listen to a book while you're taking the kids wherever, or you know, folding the laundry, like you said. And so a lot of times it comes down to a business issue, but unfortunately for indie authors, that can go badly for them in in terms of the covers or in terms of the narration. It's it's really a struggle. And you know, there's some authors out there that are just bold and they're like, Yep, I did it. And a lot of authors that are just like fingers crossed, they don't get caught. And it's just unfortunate because you you don't go into writing books to become rich. Are there rich authors? Yes. Are there rich indie authors? Yes, but the vast majority, like you said, are going in the hole or coming out even maybe if they're lucky. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

The one thing that Parish and I talk about is whether whether this item would exist or not exist, right? So, like, for instance, if you are posting the Substack every day and you are posting like a portion of a chapter, Substack will promote you if you have an image associated with that. And if you create a little AI image just to do, just to create like a little illustration, you are helping your your writing that you wrote that's not an AI get seen because of Substack's algorithm. And people might say, like, well, but you could have had an illustrator make that for you. And it's like, well, an indie author's not going to pay an illustrator to make that for them. It's not possible. So they might make something in Canva. That's what I do, or they might have AI put something nice together for them. If you're not particularly good at Canva, if you didn't do seven years of art like I did, you might want to just have AI make something nice for you to get people's attention so that they come and read your actual writing. And like, this is not something that would exist otherwise. This is not something you would go pay someone to go make for you necessarily. Like, if you don't have the money to make it, it's not gonna exist. It's the same thing for audiobooks, right? Like there's a lot of authors who just don't have the money to make an audiobook. And I do see a lot of readers demanding it, saying, like, when are you gonna have an audiobook? And it's I don't think that they understand how much money it is. And I think I think readers often demand things that without knowing how much they cost or how much time they take. And are like, well, you could just pay someone to do it.

SPEAKER_00

Or maybe thinking authors are making money hand over fist early than affordable. Yes.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that's I can tell you that's what I thought. That's I was like, it's their job. Every and now everybody works together, they all get paid great, it works out great. I had no idea how it worked.

SPEAKER_00

I remember watching an episode of Bones where her publisher bought her a car or something. And I was just like, how did Kathy Rags let that like did her publisher buy her a car?

SPEAKER_02

Like castles and showcases, yeah. Things that we're like, we're we're just like riding around in limos and stuff. Yeah, getting our nails done.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, I love it. But I remember when I started writing thinking someday that'll be it. And yeah, no.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I tell you.

SPEAKER_00

Um, we uh as you know, we uh started publishing a series of anthologies. We next week have actually a little kind of easing going out that has a couple short stories and feature articles, and this sort of started because I went to an event. I love going to events, and they in my swag bag I had Ellery Queen and like Isaac Asimov. And I was like, why is there no magazines like that for romance? Because like I read that, right? And so somehow that morphed into this, where we have these anthologies. One of the interesting things is is readers are changing, they're reading serialized fiction, they're they're buying authors through pay Patreon or whatever. We're seeing that Amazon now offers their short stories, but anthologies is sort of something that we're discovering. Okay, this is a little bit different to get out there. Uh, and even myself, I was like, well, when was the last time I read an anthology? Like, here I am, like, you're gonna love all these short little quickie stories, you know. You want a you want a quick little romance with a little spice, a little steam? Awesome, we got that for you. I'm just curious, being a reader and a book person, what is the best way to reach readers in terms of letting them know, hey, we've got these shorts for you to read when you only have a little bit of time, or what would attract a reader to that?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, no, that's a great question. I believe that what I've experienced, readers love anthologies that are tied especially to seasons, holidays, things like that, a particular theme or a trope. You know, if they're in the mood for, you know, cowboy romances or alien romances, or, you know, as I said, like a theme or yeah, like a holiday, you know, the whole obviously I feel like every year I always talk to people that want to do like their holiday novel-a-thons and their, you know, they want to do, I I always try to at least read at least two Christmas anthologies, historical romance, Christmas anthologs, uh a winter, you know, because they're it's it's fun and it's a neat way to experience various authors too that you wouldn't have experienced otherwise. So I tend, and what my viewers tend to do is grab an anthology because it has a season or a theme that they're interested in, but also maybe it has an author or two that they know, and then they'll give the other ones a shot as well.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, but I've been hoping that we would more do more like headliners and stuff, because I think that if we have headliners, we're more likely to grab people from amongst those folks, and then it can filter down. But we've been doing like yeah, we've been doing like summer anthologies, which I think do pretty well. Two of ours are summer anthologies, and then we have the winter anthology Midnight Mischief and Mistletoe. And the zines are based around tropes and like smaller subcategories of romance. So, like the next one coming is Anemies to Lovers Romanticy, um, which is gonna be pretty fun. Like people seem to love that. So I thought that would do pretty good.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, or one coming on Monday is Pause and Peril. So it's romantic suspense, but it has to have a dog in it, and the dog can't die, right? Like it is romantic suspense, right? So, but yeah, no dead dogs. No dogs will harm the creation of this.

SPEAKER_01

It's a very important rule. That is a yes, absolutely. In fact, I think you're describing about half of the harlequins that I've seen on the shelf right now, either through the suspense line, the intrigue line, you know, and then the love-inspired ones, they pretty much all have a dog, and nothing's gonna happen to that dog. Nothing better happened to those dogs.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. No it's got a bunch of featurettes and stuff in it. So yeah, we're just like trying to like find the readers who are looking for those small little experiences, you know. And it's it's hard to find like get a signal out through the noise. There's a lot of noise. Oh my gosh, so true. So true.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And there's I I notice, I mean, you you do a lot of books, a lot of different books, but some of the people I watch, each time I watch, they're all talking about the same book, right? Because this is the new book coming out. And of course, uh you have to, as someone who needs views, you have to do the book that everybody's looking to know about, right? Initially, initially, yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Especially, and that's again through my research when I was trying to get bigger in Booktube. They don't know, people don't know you. Like they look at your thumbnail, they're like, Who is that? But if you have a cover that they recognize or with an author, especially with an author, you know. So initially I did more of that. And actually, it's interesting. I spoke to quite a few viewers that say, we really appreciate it when you're reading things that we're not getting from every other booktuber. Yeah. So it's sort of like again, what you were saying, a headliner, like the lead-in is the widely popular something that people will recognize. And then, so that's how you initially get them to click on the thumbnail, for example, and then they come in and they see, oh, here are other things. And then of course, you know, they realize very rapidly for each booktuber whether that person fits into what they like or not. And and for me, I know that I only I I I'm trying to focus more and more on historical romance because that's what people tend to come to me for. It was funny though, I had somebody come to me and they were like, I only come to you, uh the reason I come to you is for your sapphic romance reviews. And I'm like, I think I've only ever read four. Like nothing against us for them. Right.

SPEAKER_02

I was like, That how funny. Like, where I'm not from. You've got a niche. Apparently. Well, there aren't a lot of sapphic reviewers out there. I'm actually doing a zine later this year, Sapphics of Saturn. And like trying to find people who will like talk about that is difficult. Like it's a it's quite a niche.

SPEAKER_01

It is, it is, and that's so funny because I'm gonna be, I have uh, oh my gosh, I have somebody, uh Lens Lynns McLeod is she's in Scotland. She's going to be on my channel next month, and we're gonna be talking about her ostentatious Jane Austen twists that are all sapphic. Nice, and then I'm going to have this summer, I'm gonna have a gal who's doing um, it's like urban fantasy, and they're all sapphic. I love it. I know, right? But they're all coming to me, and I'm like, I really don't read that much sapphic. I've I've there's some of my favorite books are sapphic, but I'm not like Savic, you know what I mean? It's so funny.

SPEAKER_02

Well, like if you want, I'll send you Sapphics of Saturn if you're interested. I I know you're going more historical, but like I would I would love to hear your take on the story.

SPEAKER_00

That one will be that one will be short. There'll only be a couple stories in it.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, just be a few stories.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

But yeah, I'm sorry. I took a so-off course there, but my yeah, no, my my point is it's readers do like to hear about things that they've they're widely known, but booktubers I think are more worth their salt, will realize too, like I need to try to dig deeper and not just read what everyone else is reading. I want to bring something new to the table. That's again another way to contribute, not only to the viewers, but also to the authors. You know, I've been trying to court more indie authors too, because they deserve to have their voices heard, you know, for us. Right? We love that. It's not all about Rebecca Yarros, guys. I mean, we gotta be.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. Oh, good. There are so many good writers out there, and it is, it's hard to get to be heard, to be discovered. And all the things they tell authors to do, yeah, you could do it. They'll be it on Facebook or Instagram. That doesn't mean anybody's gonna see you. It's a very difficult thing. And if you're lucky enough to have a booktuber who's read you and has said, oh hey, awesome. I mean, that's how a lot of books have blown up. That's how a lot of these, um, you know, L Kennedy and Anna Wong and all them, that's how they ended up now being published in a trad deal, right? Yeah, because it was uh book talkers and booktubers who discovered them and talked about them. And you know, everybody wishes to have that, right?

SPEAKER_01

To that's what I'd heard with romanticy too. Like romanticy was kind of indie. Exactly. And now it's been pushed, you know. So we're hoping the pendulum will swing the other way because whereas, you know, historical was more trad, and now it's gone. I think the best of it is starting to go indie.

SPEAKER_03

I don't think so.

SPEAKER_01

Like I'm honestly more excited frequently for indie published historical romance authors than the trad published, because again, they're so often pigeonholed and sort of boxed in with what they're allowed to do. I'm still reading as many arcs as I can. Um in fact, I'm being more particular about accepting arcs that are widely published historical romances because even though sometimes they can feel more vanilla, and I think all of my historical people, we've been talking about that. Like it's not like the old bodice rippers, which had their own issues, but there's they're just not as adventurous, they're not, there's not as much meat on the bone, and unfortunately, but I want to make sure that I'm uplifting or using my platform to push the widely published historical romances so they're not all just going to disappear. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Are you are you worried about the subgenre?

SPEAKER_01

Historical romance? Yeah. Well, so many of the historical romance authors have had their contracts dropped or not renewed. I think it's probably a better way to put that since since like 2024. I can't tell you how many people I know personally who have had to go indie or they've switched and now they're doing like a hybrid of historical fiction or historical romance and mysteries. We're getting like historical romantic, yeah, C Belize and Holly Howard.

SPEAKER_00

I like romantic steampunk.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, steampunk. Yeah, yeah. Yeah right. Yeah. I like to say that Bridgerton is a kind of historical romantic. It's kind of a hot take.

SPEAKER_01

That's so funny that you say that because I we were just talking about that last week, like the clothes and all of that. I mean, it does, it's not it's bright, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Well, let's go ahead and talk about Bridgerton because season two at the beginning of the year, and it is a historical, it comes from a book, you know, Julia Quinn's books. I just saw an interview with her when she talks about being approached, and they asked her, she was like, Yeah, okay. And they asked her if she was willing to relinquish creative control, which is very scary for. Author. I don't know. You know, the first attempt to make Twilight was not Twilight. Like Bella was not Bella. She was athletic. And you know, all this stuff that's not the book, which always makes me wonder if people love the book, why do you change it so much like that? Right. I mean, we know they have to adapt, but to change a character like persuasion that came out last year, like that was a disaster. But anyway. Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah. Um, anyway, she was like, she was ready to let it go because she's like, it's a deal, like it's a movie deal, like, right? Like, yeah, Chiching. She went to Ching, but she, you know, it was a big deal. But she also said she felt she could trust Shonda Rhimes, you know. And I'm just curious, what are your thoughts about Bridgerton, particularly season four? Because that one I thought was really interesting.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, I tell you. So I have not watched Bridgerton. I have to start with that. The reason I have not watched Bridgerton is the aforementioned children that I have that are often around. And I there's just never a good time for me to watch it. I watched Queen Charlotte, but I had to watch it on like double speed. And I knew I could get through it. I know. Did you know that you could watch Netflix on double speed? I did not. Well, don't ever do that. Honestly, we'll try it for a second. You'll be surprised at how well it conveys, even like sped up. I was I was impressed. Um, but that was the only way I could get through it. Yeah. I will tell you what I have heard. And I I will tell you also that I've read all of the Bridgertons, I read the the prequel novels, which I actually like better than Bridgerton. Some of us still scratch our heads in the historical romance community as to why this specifically was adapted, because there are other series that are so much more beloved in the community. And quite frankly, we don't tend to talk too much about Julia Quinn, except in as far as it relates to the show, honestly. That's not to knock her. She's she's a decent to good historical romance author, but she's not any, I don't think most of the time she's not like in a lot of people's top tens from what I think the book was left in a hotel room and she read it, and then she rest.

SPEAKER_00

That was the story I heard. Chandra the book was just there and she picked it up and read it. Because I agree, there's a lot of uh authors that might have been yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Just looking at the show, if I had to hazard a guess, it looks to me like something in the book sparked Shandra Rhyme's imagination. It has that kind of look. It's very, very it's very florid, you know, it's it's lush. And so you can tell it really sparked something in her, you know. Um I think probably especially that first book. Like there's an energy to that first season and like an energy to the look, you know. Like I I really think that like it just sort of like just became a whole world in Rama Ram's imagination.

SPEAKER_01

For more so, and again, this is uh I I did get to see the transcripts or whatever of the first season, some of the first season, and there's so much more going on in the first season than in the first book. I mean, there's very little happening. So yeah, they do pour so much more vibrancy into the series than is in the the books themselves. I can tell you that from what I uh know, everyone loved the first and the fourth probably the most, those seasons. Whereas the second one, you know, people were it seems like people go either way, and then the third one is from what I've heard again, the least loved. Yeah. I find it fascinating that they opted to switch books three and four. I still I don't know if you heard anything about the reason. I don't know why they didn't.

SPEAKER_00

Except for maybe they I don't I don't know. I except for maybe people were I I really don't know. I I like the first, I did like the second season. I think the chemistry between Anthony and Kate, those two actors, oh my god, like it was coming off the screen in exactly the way any person who loves romance would do it. And even now when they make their little guest appearances, you still see the sizzle between them. Yes, for me, the the problem with the third is they were shoving way too many stories in there, and we didn't have enough of Penelope and Colin. And I don't know why they changed it. Season four, I enjoyed be because we see another element of society. And the changes they made from the book, I was happy with because there were things in the book where I thought this is this could be problematic. I just I thought Benedict's at sometimes was just like no. Um and they and they made changes in those parts where he wasn't where he was better.

SPEAKER_01

So I'm glad to hear that because Benedict is probably my favorite. He and Violet are my two favorite characters from the series, the the you know, the novels. Yeah, and but yeah, I in that particular book I preferred Sophie's character to Benedict's hands down. So I'm glad to hear that they were able to make him more likable in the show. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

There was like two scenes in that book where I just thought, wait, what? Like you know, they they did change those. Um, but the basics of the story are still there. I liked in the show that they really highlighted how the rules of society that are supposed to make it so much better were were hurting people. I mean, the line when Benedict tells his mom, You've you've told me to fall in love and get married, and now I have, and I can't. Society says I can't. Anthony tells him he can't. But then when uh Francesca, this is the season where spoiler alert, Francesca's husband passes, or John passes, and and in the show she thinks she's pregnant, so it is a little different from the book. She thinks she's pregnant, and they want to examine her for the passage of the Kill Martin line. They want to examine her to make sure. Uh, and Benedict is just trying to stop it, not do it, and then he doesn't succeed. And the next scene is them doing this evasive examining society for the good. You know, this poor woman who just lost her husband is now having to it. It was just to me, this season had way more emotion um and societal differences. And so to that part, I really thought it was really good compared to the other.

SPEAKER_02

You watch any season, watch season four. It's really good. It's really, really good. My favorite.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I like it better than season one. It's hard to get me to a place where I like anything better than season one.

SPEAKER_00

Well, it's the first, it's the first, right? The first time you see anything. I did hear that they were looking at doing Violet Story. Violet story. So that would be great.

SPEAKER_01

Oh boy.

unknown

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I know at some point I'm going to watch all of these. I don't know if I'm gonna wait and binge them all before the last one comes out. I don't know. But I need to find time. I want I'm always saying, like, I need to watch part.

SPEAKER_00

It looks like Michael is Michaela.

SPEAKER_01

So yes, and I think the other thing that I heard that I I don't know what you had heard, and do let me know. I'm very curious, but that there's the what I have heard is that the public outcry has been primarily negative because of Francesca's issues with conception and fertility, for them to give her a sapphic romance, it's sort of it sort of undercuts the weight.

SPEAKER_00

She's supposed to have two or three kids, isn't she? I think of the book, she has two or three children with Michael. So yeah. So I don't know how I don't know how to do that. And I I also wonder about Eloise because we haven't seen what's his face since season one. And he's not very likable anyway. So I'm like, let's get a new guy. Let's get a new guy from Eloise. Please, please.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. No, we saw him in season two. Did we? Yeah, brief briefly. He's a he's a nerd. I love that. You can kind of see him doing well with Eloise. I mean, they gotta bring him back in. Right? Like it's always distracting.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

But they're trying you know, they're setting up the next thing usually. I mean, and two, and three, with Colin and Penelope, they had to set up Francesca's marriage. And then, you know, Violet seeing somebody and you know, all this stuff. So I just didn't feel like we had enough Colin and Penelope. I was disappointed in that.

SPEAKER_02

So you know, honestly, I it the problem for me, because I, you know, they're doing the, you know, the group of people more and more, and I felt like it worked fine in season four. And so it leads me to wonder if the problem was that they just hadn't set up their story well enough, you know, because they are friends to lovers. And I don't know if it's the chemistry between the actors, I don't know what it is, but I I felt like there's just something missing there from that story because when they they continued with the the kind of entourage of of acting and with all these different storylines and four, but it worked. Like it was still fine. We had all these, we had all these servants running around, we had all these former people and and their romances happening, but I didn't find it distracting in the way that I did in season three. So I'm not sure if it's just the if it's the presence or something about that particular story that shouldn't have been swapped.

SPEAKER_00

Well, coming after Kate and Anthony, yeah. They were their chemistry, it is amazing. That is amazing.

SPEAKER_01

Is Colin more likable in the show than in the book? I would ask, because that was my problem with him, but I hadn't gotten that from the show. So perhaps they made it more likable. Yeah, maybe that's yeah, I would have a puppy dog problem.

SPEAKER_00

In the book Penelope has a glow-up type of thing, right? And in the show, he loved her just the way she was, even though she was still kind of short and round, and that's different from the book, and that was nice to see as well.

SPEAKER_02

So even though she did have a little bit of a glow up, but that was just they stopped putting her in orange dresses, and yeah, so you gets to pick her own chusseau and her own dresses and her own colors, which is important because she's a redhead and she should not be wearing bright yellow.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

She looks like a flower. I feel so bad for her. And she hates that color. She's like, oh, it's uh it's very yellow.

SPEAKER_01

Very few people I know can pull off bright yellow.

SPEAKER_02

So she is not one of them. Bless her heart.

SPEAKER_00

Oh my gosh, too funny. Uh Tara, do you want to go to book recommendations?

SPEAKER_02

Oh my goodness, yes, like book. Oh, all right. So normally we try to do a book recommendations, try to get find out what each host is reading and and see what they recommend.

SPEAKER_01

Oh boy, that's exciting. Start with you, B. Oh, good to go. What let's see. Um well, currently I am reading Once Smitten, Twice Shy by Chloe Lease. Uh it's the third book of the Wilmot Sisters trilogy. We're doing it for book group in for the Sweeney Scone Society in April.

SPEAKER_00

Isn't she the one with the brothers?

SPEAKER_01

Yes, the Bergman Brothers.

SPEAKER_00

I adore the Bergman Brothers. I'm going to do. And I it's on my list because she's just talking about them. So I wrote it down. Even my daughter's like, yeah, those are good.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and that's another great example. And I'm not going to get on my soapbox again, don't worry. But it's another great example of unconditional love and being loved for who you are, regardless of what sort of disabilities you may have or um flaws you may have. I mean, we we see it runs the gamut. And in the book that I'm currently reading, in Once Smitten, Twice Shy, which is again the third and final book of the Wilmot Sisters trilogy, we have our hero who has autism and sensory issues, and then our heroine has connective tissue disorder with chronic pain. So uh we're we get to see them navigate life that way and still be able to find love and be absolutely lovable. We see the ensemble cast doing their thing and being wonderful. It's great to see you know the other two couples so very happy. So I do love Chloe Lee's for that. This is a modern take on Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, which is really fun. And it's funny. I mean, I've read Twelfth Night, it's been a minute, but one of my favorite movies is She's the Man, which I don't know if you're familiar with Amanda Bynes, and so frequently as they're trying to emulate 12th night, I'm mostly going back to She's the Man in my mind. Like the characters are named, the same characters from Twelfth Night.

SPEAKER_02

It's funny it's like no adaptation of Emma will ever be as good as Clueless.

SPEAKER_01

That is exactly it. That is exactly it. Yes, yes. So yeah, I've I've been enjoying that one. And uh yeah, so I would say, you know, that's also a recommendation of mine if you enjoy unconditional love, steam, great writing. Yeah, so there you go.

SPEAKER_02

Getting recommendations from a professional book recommender here is actually quite true. What about you, Big? What about you, Jenna?

SPEAKER_00

Uh I just finished a book called A Matter of Taste by Nikki Davenport, which I picked up at the Suffolk Book Festival. She tried to push the first book on me, and I was gonna buy it until she said it ended at a cliffhanger. And I was like, no, ma'am, I don't do those. And they're like, well, buy the second book, and I'm like, but then I have to commit to reading 800 pages, and that may never happen. But she had this little novella. She has an island, she's a BIPOC author. She has this made-up island in the Caribbean where there's a queen, is the main story. Um, but this little novella I got was her stylist and her chef, and they're both older, a little bit older. It was really cute. I enjoyed it, but then I picked up um and I started reading last night, Devious Delectable Decades, because I'm in it for one. But it is an anthology, and there's like 27 stories in it, and it all had like up to 15,000 words. I tried to order the book, it was 40 bucks, but it never came. So finally I just downloaded the the ebook. And these stories are you you could pick any time in the history of the world and write a story about it. So, you know, seeing all the different times and the types of stories and all the up many of the authors, I don't know. One of them was at Suffolk, actually, because I saw the little sign and I was like, I'm in that. Anyway, so I started reading that and and have enjoyed that so far. I I read a couple of stories and then I read my own because you know, I'm an author that needs to read, you know, how does it look in the book? What typos did I miss?

SPEAKER_03

No. Oh good.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02

Uh oh yeah, I I need to take a look at Debious Delectable Decades. Did they ever get any sci-fi romance in there? Have you seen any yet? I haven't seen any. Oh boy. Well, I guess it's not in the history of the world, it's in the future history of the world, right?

SPEAKER_00

There could be a future. I haven't gotten that. There's 27 stories.

SPEAKER_02

It's 27 that thing must be huge. Oh my gosh. Uh well, uh I read a lot of uh authors on Substack, as you know. So I just finished The Thessaly Affair by Erna Semper, which was really, really good. I love the ending, uh, and sent uh sent Paris some comments about that because it's you know it's it was its first pass through Substack, so it was sort of like, well, you know, you need a spicy scene here and all that stuff. I've been reading uh oh gosh, uh what is it called? A show Shadow of Betrayal by Ava Leclerc. Been getting getting my feet wet with that. That just started serializing. Uh, and I've been reading Jenna's book with this ring Ivy Kill, uh, part of the Valentine Mystery series. Oh good. Oh my goodness. Yeah. And a book on Boshido for research purposes.

SPEAKER_00

Bushido.

SPEAKER_02

Ooh. Have fun.

SPEAKER_00

Well, that's fun.

SPEAKER_02

Started my own like another like a sci-fi romance story that I've been writing uh called Vox Protocol. I'm probably gonna serialize that to Substack.

SPEAKER_00

We're trying to bring in sci-fi romance a little bit more because it's one of the subgenres there's uh it hasn't been a whole lot of, unless you count Ice Planet Barbarians, but you know that's a new cover.

SPEAKER_02

I need to get a get a copy of the new cover.

SPEAKER_01

Uh oh, I have all 10 of the ones. I love me some Ice Planet Barbarians.

SPEAKER_02

I'm so glad to hear that. The new cover looks beautiful. Have you seen it?

SPEAKER_01

Which one?

SPEAKER_02

There's a there's a new cover, it's it's gorgeous. It was it was illustrated, it looks really good.

SPEAKER_01

So you're talking, you're not are you talking about something newer than this?

SPEAKER_02

Yes, that looks great.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. So I have these are the first. I'm not gorgeous. I know they're all and the colors and oh my goodness. I mean, this one is my favorite because she has is hearing impaired and she is saying, I love you in sign language on the cover. Oh, nice! Oh, I love that. I love that. So and this is Barbarians Touch, the seventh book of Ice Plan of Barbarians. But yeah, they they put the first ten with just gorgeous, gorgeous covers.

SPEAKER_02

So yeah, I'm I'm so glad that Ruby Dixon exists and follows. There's not a lot of us out there, and people who think that sci-fi romance is just just monster banging and shifter romance, and I have to be like, no, no, it's not, it's not that's right. I mean, we're there to tell you something wrong with that, but it's just it's not what it is, it's not all tentacles. Yeah, it's not even mostly tentacles.

SPEAKER_00

So romance will do what it did to fantasy, they will do it also with science fiction, right? There you go. We're gonna dominate it all. That's right. Romance is moving into horrors. Well, so there you go. Oh, that's true. Yeah, yes, yes. Well, B, thank you so much for being with us today. I'm so excited to have talked to you because I love watching your videos. You know, your personality is so great. You're always so positive and so fun. So thank you so much for joining us today.

SPEAKER_01

Oh my gosh, this was my pleasure. I love chatting with you, and I cannot wait to see what you guys have coming forth in the future. This is really exciting. So thank you for having me today.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you so much for coming. We appreciate it. And look well, we are Tender and Tempting Tales. You can find us on Substack. Uh, that's TenderTimmy Tales at Substack.com. Uh, you can find us on Instagram. That's Tender Tempting Tales Without the And if you want to find us on Instagram. Of course, we have our readers group on Facebook. Uh, you can find us there. That's the Tender Timmy Tales Readers Group. And until then, Jenna.

SPEAKER_00

Until next time, peace, love, and happily ever after.