Illicit Liaisons

Illicit Liaisons: Dark Paranormal Romance with Eva LeClerc

• Jenna Harte • Season 2 • Episode 25

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This week, we chat with author Eva LeClerc, who has a secret. We discuss hot takes around slow-burn romance, use of pen names in romance fiction, and what happened in the finale of Outlander. 

Eva LeClerc set out to write a dark mafia romance set in New York City. Somehow, that turned into a dark paranormal romance set in New Orleans, serialized to Substack and now published just this last week as Shadow of Betrayal, the first book in the Oathmarked series. Eva loves myths and folklore that involve magic and romance, and she’s also intrigued by the city of New Orleans, a whole world of folklore and magic on its own. 

Eva LeClerc Website https://www.evaleclerc.com/
Eva LeClerc Substack https://evaleclercauthor.substack.com/
Eva LeClerc Amazon https://amzn.to/4fKvM01
Eva LeClerc TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@evaleclercauthor
Eva LeClerc Instagram https://www.instagram.com/evaleclercauthor/

BOOKS MENTIONED ON THE SHOW

Shadow of Betrayal by Eva LeClerc https://amzn.to/4x5VUcD

Black Dagger Brotherhood by JR Ward https://amzn.to/4w5vNSo

In Death series by JD Robb https://amzn.to/44UW1f2

Contact Unknown by T.A. Leederman https://amzn.to/4wlSpyK

Outlander (books) by Diana Gabaldon https://amzn.to/4fCqTpx

Outlander (Starz/Prime TV) https://amzn.to/44UMQLD


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/

Tender and Tempting Tales ARC Team: https://booksprout.co/reviewer/team/56782/tender-and-tempting-tales

Calls for Submissions: https://tenderandtemptingtales.substack.com/p/write-for-tender-and-tempting-tales

ILLICIT LIAISONS PRODUCED & HOSTED BY

Tara Leederman Substack: https://taleederman.substack.com/

Jenna Harte: https://jennaharte.com/

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

SPEAKER_01

Hello romance readers, welcome to Illessit Liaison 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 the sexy Valentine Mysteries, as well as the managing editor of Tender and Tempting Tales, a steamy romance anthology for readers who like quickies.

SPEAKER_00

I am Tara Lederman, social media manager here at Tender and Tempting Tales, and Laura Maven, a main fiction writer for Starship Valkyrie, a science fiction game and story universe. I write science fiction stories, including sci-fi romance and urban romantic, and you can often find me in our anthologies and on Substack. And today we have as our guest host, Ava Leclerc. She set out to write a dark mafia romance set in New York City. Somehow that turned into a dark paranormal romance set in New Orleans, the Substack, and now published just this last week as Shadow of Betrayal, the first book in the Oathmark series. If you like gothic paranormal fantasy, romance involving fated mates, swoony warriors, smart sassy women, you're at the right place. Ava loves myths and folklore that involve magic and romance, and she's also intrigued by the city of New Orleans, a whole world of folklore and magic on its own. She's working on a series of books and short stories in which she combines those loves, and you can find her not only in Kindle Unlimited and Paperback, but also at Sass over the weekend in Richmond, Virginia, and in our upcoming anthology, Starlet and Spellbound. And why am I introducing her? Well, that's because Ava Leclerc is actually one of the many pen names of Jenna Hart. Hi Jenna, or should I say Eva.

SPEAKER_01

Hello. I answer to it all.

SPEAKER_00

Well, I hope this isn't like a huge reveal to everybody, but yes, Jenna and Eva are the same person. Yeah, I'm kind of making her do this.

SPEAKER_01

Uh all the all the Jenna followers sort of know because when you start brand spang and there's nobody who knows you, the only thing I know to do is to go to the people who know me and say, hey, there's this other thing. If you're interested.

SPEAKER_00

I I think the people on the right with heart called uh definitely know. Although I've been talking to other people who are associated with us and they are just figuring it out from mostly from the similarity between what you said in your Jenna Har email and what we were saying in your Eva email. So if they followed both, they were like, wait a minute. Wait a damn minute. Are these the same people? How dare. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Yeah. Waiting for somebody to come to me and say, this other lady, Eva, is stealing your, you know, likeness or something, right?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, we're talking to identity thief. Yeah, today. Who has stolen Jenna's identity and broken her printer, I have to say.

SPEAKER_01

I'm not in the mood for fixing a broken printer today. So all right.

SPEAKER_00

Well, Diddy, do you want to take us into news?

SPEAKER_01

Okay. Well, normally we like to talk about bookish news or interesting hot takes that we've come across in the bookish world to see where what we're all thinking about in terms of all this stuff. I I will be honest, lately I've been getting tired of some of it. Sometimes I feel like people are just trying to fuss to fuss, right?

SPEAKER_00

Like, yeah, yeah, I agree. I feel in the same way. I was watching hot takes like, oh my god, people.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, why is this a thing? Except content, I guess. But anyway, my hot take is that I'm not a huge fan of slow burn. I I do not like to wait forever for a couple to come together in a book. I've been even known to get to a point. If I'm at 1 page 20 and there hasn't been any kissing or anything, I'm like, what's going on? How long is this going to be? But what's interesting is some of the reviews of this new book, Shadow Betrayal by Eva, um, have mentioned a slow burn. And I purposefully put in a scene earlier. I knew the couple would not be finally coming together till later. So I I did put in a kind of a spicy bit where Damien is alone, so to speak, just so people didn't have to wait forever to have have that little spicy bit. And it and it isn't thrown intuitously. He is being impacted by this bond with her. So it in my mind made sense, would make the non-slow burn people happy. But at the same time, there are people on Reddit who are saying that there's um not enough effort putting in all these little spicy bits to earn the chemistry and all that kind of stuff. And again, it's like, are they fussing just a fuss? Or I guess I see what they mean. I see sometimes spice could seem gratuitous, or why is this happening? The couple hasn't earned it. I don't know. What do you think, Tara?

SPEAKER_00

I don't really like slow burns. I, you know, I actually feel like a lot of romance is pretty impatient. Like I'm gonna go back to this actually, Neon Gods. I was I like using neon gods as an example because I feel like I'm really punching up at something. I felt like it was really impatient, like impatient with its world building, impatient to get to the sex scenes, impatient with its couple, impatient with creating chemistry, impatient with emotional stakes. Like it was just very like, all right, we gotta get to the sticks, it's gotta happen right now. It was like, whoa, whoa, like chill out. I read a lot of short stories that come into us, and you know, like they all have to have a three chili pepper spicy scene. And I feel like I have like a pretty good detector now for like impatience, you know, like is this person like incorporating the sexy scene into the plot? Does it feel like it's there for a good reason? Does it feel like it's advancing the like emotional like stakes of the couple and where they're at? Yeah, or is it just here because it's a requirement that we've put here? And like my my judgment of it is sort of like based on that scale. Like, I don't think Shadow of Betrayal is a slow burn. I when I was reading it, like I noticed that you put in that spicy scene, the self-love scene, like, oh okay, we gotta make sure we get keep the people who don't like slow burn happy. I think that calling it a slow burn is sort of indicative of where we are today in Rome. Like, people expect to get to the spice very quickly and are are used to a certain amount of impatience. I I didn't find it to be a slow burn. I also read your another first book in in your series, the uh uh um uh Deadly Valentine. And I guess by today's standards, you could call it a slow burn. Like they don't get together real later on in the book, and she's kind of like pushing back on him, and he's kind of pursuing her, you know. Like, is that a slow burn? Like, maybe by today's standards it is. I thought it felt just right. I think a lot of romances that I'm quite used to or that I like would could be slow burns by that, by that standard. I do think it's time to put in the chemistry.

SPEAKER_01

I'm sorry, yeah. I I mean, I guess then what is the definition of slow burn? Right, I guess is part of the thing. Um yeah, at what point is it like that it's taking too long? Because you're right, there are a lot of books that kind of out right out of the gate or within the first 30 pages, maybe something's going on. And oh, and a lot of times that needs to happen. You know, there are some books out there where it starts with I'm at a wedding and I hook up with this guy, and how fun was that? And then they go into their new job the next day and it's their boss, right? Like, I mean, so out there there, you know, there are things like that. Traditionally, in terms of because again, I'm old, having read all the old school the Nora Roberts and all those, a lot of those, it just felt like those first spicy scenes came at around between 100 and 120, let's say. I and I remember noticing this when I wanted to start to write, because I I guess that's what I gotta do. You know, like like this is the rule. Um so for me, if it's a third of the way through the book or something, that kind of makes sense because there's usually a kiss or something beforehand, right? Or there's so, but you know, maybe at this point, now that we there's much earlier in some books that have more frequent, right? It I ghost right, my client likes to have six to eight of these scenes. Six to eight is a lot. Um, so you know, yeah, maybe that's it. In my mind, slow burn was nothing happened till the end of the book, and so it really ratches up things. And I know a lot of readers like that. They like all the angst, they like all the tension, they like to be coiled real tight when the good stuff comes. Um I think that's great.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

But I think I wait, I can wait to page 100 or 150, right?

SPEAKER_00

Like, oh right, yeah, yeah. It's a patience. Yeah, I think that in today's in today's romance scene, I think real slow burn to me is uh like romanticy duologies where the romance is taking place or trilogies or or you know, four books or whatever, how long uh however long a romanticy set is going to be, where you have the romance taking place over two or three books, and you know, maybe you don't even get the real partner until book two or three, and things are taking a long time with another partner, like with Tamlett. Like that to me is a slow burn where it's not even I can't even quite tell that it's a romance. Like, yeah, like A Court of Thorns and Roman Roses is it's difficult to tell that it's a romance at first, but it's very YA in that way. It's like it's seems like her story, like her coming of age story. And and then she meets this this fairy guy, and he seems like a monster, and then it's like, oh, it's a beauty of the beast story. Oh, okay. And like I know it's a romantic because I'm reading it now. But yeah, I people at the time must have been like, is this a romance? And then she doesn't even end up with that guy. So, like, that's a slow burn, I think. Like, that's a slow burn, and that's fine. Not I don't think Shadow Betrayal to be.

SPEAKER_01

There is a spicy bit in there before the the final thing, but yeah, yeah. But then the good the other part of the question sort of was because I mean that's the thing about romance, right? That somebody out there is like, this doesn't exist, but it interests me. I'm gonna write it. I'm gonna write, you know, about an alien romance, or I'm gonna write about having format, right? Like, I mean, the independent authors push push the envelope. So then the question is now that a lot of these books have moved to the spicier side, uh, is is it just thrown in there? And I would argue that even if it is, those readers probably don't care. But the Reddit question shows that some readers do care. Yes, you know, that it's you know, not just sort of, and it was hard. I I know the short story I just wrote. Um I knew to to fit the theme, you know, I had to have a spicy bit in there and was finding it difficult where to put it. And then even when I found the spot, it I had to work really hard to make it not be okay. This just ticks off that box. Something else had to be going on in that moment, right? Like they're coming together, but there's still for her the element of he still doesn't really know me. I've just handed over my whole self, even my body, but he doesn't really know me, you know. So that, you know, and I'm hoping that's enough, right? That that that would feel like for her, okay, you know, this was there, I've loved this man for a long time. But there's still that element of okay, I've done this, but he doesn't know me really. So I don't know.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I I mean I've seen a lot of griping from people about the lack of chemistry or the lack of longing, the lack of yearning in romance, and you know, feeling like it's just I mean, I think I think, but basically what I'm seeing is a lot of people complaining like I do about a lack of patience in romance. Yeah, and that that uh that argument feels very familiar to me. Like, and I I don't think that it's per it's wrong.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I like yearning. It makes me think of the hand flex in Pride and Prejudice, yes, in the Matthew McFaddean. Yeah, people love that.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, I remember Elaine and I watching that when it first came out, like it was a sport. Like we were watching it like it was the freaking World Cup, and we saw him do that, and we were like, oh my gosh, like we you were like, that was sort of a yearn, right?

SPEAKER_01

And touched her, she didn't have a glove on, he didn't have a glove on. So it was it was actually quite sensual in a lot of ways, but only people who love romance would would catch that, right? And of course, in the other Bennett sister, there's a a scene where he's rolling up his sleeve, so we see his forearm. That is like the hand flex for that because she's like looking like oh goodness.

SPEAKER_00

The electricity of the moment is quite good.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I think like that snap crackle pop, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, the first season of Bridgerton, uh is that a slow bird? I don't like by these standards. Like, I feel like a lot of things that I really like could be termed a slow burn by the there are certain romance plots where you get the spicy bit quickly, but I still feel like the romance takes a long time to really get off the ground, right? Like if you go to a wedding and you you have like a fling with a person, yes, the spicy bit has happened early, but the romance still has time, it's a lot of time to really like play out from there. And in a way, the fling might actually slow it down in some way. So the question is not, is it a slow burn, but where's the spicy bit? Like, is it is it early or late? Yeah. I don't think that these are necessarily the same thing or mutually exclusive.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And then the example of having a hookup at a wedding and then the next day he's your boss, that hookup isn't gratuitous because it plays into walking into and seeing, oh my god, the guy I slept with last night is my boss, right? Yeah, and so that is you know part of now the conflict that uh plays into the rest of the story. Um, so yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

It's interesting. I would call that like the romance between Meredith and Derek in Grey's Anatomy a kind of slow burn. I mean, it's a it's a freaking soap opera, so of course they're like back and forth, and then his wife shows up, and there's all this stuff that happens, right? But like they start out having a fulling at a bar, like it's the show.

SPEAKER_01

The first scene, he's passed out on her couch, near this is something, right?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so which I love, you know, she's just like, you you have to go now. I have to go to work, and then he's there at work. I love that. That's great.

SPEAKER_01

But that's mostly what she wanted, right? He was the he's the one who wanted more, and she's the one, like, we did that, done that, off we go.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly. But yeah, so she finds out he's a surgeon at the hospital, and she's like, I'm not getting together with you. You're yeah, I'm I'm an intern. That's not happening, which is very smart of her. She does not keep that up, but I appreciate her trying. Yeah, yeah. All right, let's get on with this. So, Eva, you now have an Oathmark story in Debious Delectable Decades, which you just showed me and is a gigantic doorstop of an anthology.

SPEAKER_01

It's like a dictionary, right? It's huge.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I could study that for school. A reader magnet out, which I really like, that talks about some of the the veil and a faded couple. Fun fact reader, she actually wrote this originally for Midnight Mischief and Mistletoe and decided to use it as a lead magnet instead. And now your first oathmarked book published Shadow of Betrayal, with your next one beginning serialization soon on Substack. So can you tell our listeners a little bit about those stories in your larger project? Golly, where do I start?

SPEAKER_01

Well, I you know, as you mentioned, I I thought maybe I would write a mafia story because as a ghostwriter I've written a lot of those, but I I wanted to do something different because that's how you set yourself apart. And I decided to set it in New Orleans because actually the mafia first came to America through New Orleans. Um, but then I thought, golly, you set something in New Orleans, that changes everything because that city just has its own, it's its own character in many ways. And how could you set something there and not include some of the woo-woo elements that are down there, right? And so that's when it's it began to shift. I also like I enjoy the Black Dagger Brotherhood books. I loved the ideas of a brotherhood. So that's I started going with that. What if there was a brotherhood of warriors who were assigned to protect the Vale, but they're not necessarily the leaders, they're controlled by a council, so there's political intrigue, and it just sort of went from there. And so what we have now is what will be a series of five books, and in this first one, one of the council members is killed, and his brother is one of the warriors and is trying to figure out like who would kill a council member, like what is going on here, and and as the story progresses, we begin to get little bits of what will be an overarching story over five books that I don't want to give away too much. Although, if anybody reads the story in Devious Delectable Decades, they will have a hint of of what they're missing, but through the book, they will discover what happened in that story that's in D because the story in the Devious Delectables is set in 1830, and it is it is the source of a prophecy. But these guys don't know anything about that, and so each book will be a different couple. There is a faded mate, they do not know there are faded mates in their world, it's one of the things they will discover. But in this first book, what I tried really hard and was a challenge to do was to indicate that that was there, that that the faded bit was there, but they're very confused by it. You know, like this pull to this other person confuses them. They do have rituals around bonding, they do bond. I do have an arranged bonding between this couple, so they're always saying that's what this is, that's what this is, but it isn't because there is a faded thing. The other thing around that that really I wanted to try really hard to do was that these people aren't together solely because fate said so. I wanted them to acknowledge there's this piece of me that really loves this person, so it's not that the world said, Oh, here's my mate, but that that there is the feeling of love there. But then also with that is this is your person, and together they're they're stronger than the sum of their parts, which is what the council fears, right? They don't want their oath marked warriors to be stronger.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Anyway, yeah, I like seeing a faded mate story tangling with like how it feels to be a faded mate, and like also, you know, developing feelings for the person, but not necessarily because of, but almost in spite of the faded mate aspect. I think that that's that's like to me the the preferred way to go. We we received a lot of faded mate stories for fantastical foes, and so I got to see sort of a range of what faded mates could be. Uh and I found myself really liking the ones where there were there were some choices for the couple to make about how they felt about it and what they do.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Yeah, because I, you know, I remember reading Black Dagger Brotherhood, and there was there was sense that the guy would all of a sudden be in the world woman's orbit. And it reminded me of Doug the Dog from up. Remember, he was like, Squirrel, squirrel. They sort of had that response, like, whoop, her, you know. And they always fought it and all that kind of stuff. And I always had a sense that in the end they love each other and everything, but it was really important to me that it wasn't just the universe saying you two need to be together or whatever, that it really was mutual as well.

SPEAKER_00

I like I I and I like in your stories that like the veil seems to have kind of a personality and wants, you know? Like it feels like another character that's sort of being like, hmm, this is what I want.

SPEAKER_01

And this is the struggle I'm having in terms because I've always written in the real world. So the struggle is to have a veil that um sort of pushes against things, but it isn't a in powerful in and of its on its own, right? It's trying to make its intentions or make things go the way it needs to go. But it can't just actually do it. And you know, I it it was very difficult to do because in some ways it's like controlling air or something.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's a force, it's a force. We have a lot of forces in both sci-fi and in fantasy, and like there it's not really a person, but it can still have wants or desires or tendencies or you know, push things in a certain direction.

SPEAKER_01

In my mind, it was sort of a natural thing, like it's it's seeking balance. So it's like if you had a mobile, like a baby mobile, and if it's uh it hangs in in balance, but if you take if you pick up one of the things and like lift it, and that weight is no longer there, it goes wonky, right? But the way the world works is it's always gonna try and pull back into homeostasis. So in my mind, that's what the veil's trying to do.

SPEAKER_00

It's like try to find kind of complicated ways of doing that, which I think is. Yeah. All right. So Eva and Jenna, I should say. I also have a second universe going with fantasy and dark romantic, which appears in Fantastical Photos with Devil's Handiwork. And I have a lot of novelized material on my hard drive and stuff on my Substack. And you and our editor, Rachel, counseled me some on whether I should start a second pen name for it, which I ultimately decided not to do. And I was I was wondering if you could give our listeners a little bit of an inside scoop about why you chose to make another pen name for Oathmarked, especially given that Jenna is like a very established pen name of yours.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Well, you know, it's funny when uh I was writing my cozy mystery series, uh it was brought up whether or not to use another pen name for that. And I just thought I can't be me, much less two people. And I opted not to do that. And in the end, I sort of regretted it. Because those are the books don't get promoted as much because they're so different. My readers like romance. And while there is a romantic element to those books, there's no spice in them. Talk about slow burn. We don't even realize to the end of the first book that sh she recognizes that or he she thinks he is acting like a big brother, not as a guy that likes her. So that doesn't happen till like the very end of the book, first book. So I sort of regretted that. The other thing is just has to do with branding and an expectation. And in romance, expectation becomes really important. Right. So if they see Jenna Hart, they're gonna think, okay, this might have a murder mystery in it, maybe. I'm thinking of book two in the Southern Heat series, where he was in the military and some really bad things happened. And so I touch on that, or even in book one, where Drake is this guy who's been raised to be business first always, uh, and sees being sensitive as being weak or something like that. So the they touch on real things, but it's a it's not gritty. There's no F-bombs in those books, it doesn't have gritty dark side. There's not on page violence. Someone might get shot. I think I shot somebody, but but I knew with these new books I wanted to do that. I wanted to go into something that was grittier and darker. I wanted to up the language. The spice, I would argue, they're probably comparable. It's just the language is a little different, right? So and I so I didn't want to shock dinner readers by having them read something. Yeah, they were like, wait, what's happened here? Now I have told them long ago when I started this, I told them I was doing this, and I would give them little teasers and say, if you like this, if this is interesting, you can follow, you know, let me know, and I will put you on the list. So when this book comes out, but but there are people who don't like that and wouldn't like that. So that's so it's a more of a branding thing. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I I think I have very like sci-fi fantasy instincts, and I think it's just very normal in sci-fi fantasy for people to have multiple stories, multiple like worlds, even worlds that are like one fantasy, one sci-fi, like Margaret My Master Bajol has a fantasy series and a sci-fi series, both of which are pretty acclaimed. And so my my brain is just sort of like, why not have two? Like, if if these guys over here can have like two genres that they're writing in, why not? But I was really shocked when it came into romance, and I we were talking to I think Cynthia, and she was talking about all like starting up another pen name, how much people were just sort of like, oh yeah, and then I have another pen name over here for this kind of thing. And and I think it's because in romance the expectations are much more ironclad. It's like if you follow an author, you expect a certain, like not just a certain caliber of romance, but a certain like brand of romance, a category of romance that you and you expect that to go a certain way and you have a certain trust in them. Whereas, like, I don't know, I think in sci-fi and fantasy anything could happen and you kind of have to be okay with it.

SPEAKER_01

Even though there are real with sort of tone and language, right? Like if it if these books had come out in the same tone and language as the others, I'm I might have done it under Jenna, but you know, the first time they I mean the F bomb is dropped pretty early in chapter one.

SPEAKER_02

I like that.

SPEAKER_01

And it's not that there's no cursing in my other books, it's just not that word, you know.

SPEAKER_00

There might be a think you might have dropped an F bomb in like one Valentine mystery I've read so far, and it was very like, whoa, that was an F-bomb. Right.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, now I'm gonna have to look.

SPEAKER_00

I think no. I remember I think I feel like I remember Jack saying an F-bomb like once.

SPEAKER_01

Really? Usually it's a thought. Or I'll have him say he says an expletive, right? But I don't have to do the expletive.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, um authors have certain important brands and like certain things that like readers do not want to receive a thing from them that doesn't that does this thing, right? Like, you know, if someone's a clean author, a pure author, they couldn't suddenly have a spicy line over here. People would completely throw a riot, right? Like they would have to have a new pen name and not tell people about it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and it that's the cue, right? So it's many authors write different things, but the cue is like, I know with this name I'll get this. It's sort of like anything else. I can get, you know, I can get Coke or Seven Up or Coke, and that brand has a bunch of different flavors, right? And each one is different, so it's the same thing. Nora Roberts would she write so fast. And she would the publishers came to her, and it was like, it's just too fast, too much. We need another name. She was like, No, I'm not gonna do it. And then ultimately she agreed to do it, but only if she could write this totally other thing over here, which was the JD Rob books, yeah. Um, and so that's sort of how they got around that and decided to do that because she was like, and that's how they explained it to her, right? Is there's like coke or there's Pepsi? I can't remember how it really was, but they did enter the terms of a brand. Yeah, people are they expect coke.

SPEAKER_00

If they're suddenly getting Pepsi, we have a problem. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, how much does she write a day, by the way? Like, seriously.

SPEAKER_01

So I've seen interviews with her where she's talking like around eight hours a day, every day.

SPEAKER_00

Well, she I know it's eight hours, but even on vacation. Even on vacation. My god.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, this woman, this woman, she's always writing. Um at least that's how the interviews are. You know, I mean, at this point, it seems like she could retire, so but I I you know, I haven't seen that. I don't think I could do that even if I had the time to do it. My my brain would be anytime I've written more than eight, nine, ten thousand, and I've had 12,000 word days before. I cannot function. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

You know, I've had a 13,000 word day, and that was that was a lot. That was a lot of words.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, even with dictation.

SPEAKER_00

It's a lot, it's a lot, yeah. So all right. Let's get on to the next one. So you have another story coming out soon. This one in Starlet in Spellbound with us. In these cases, listeners, Parish and I take take on the bulk of editing decisions to make sure things are fair so that Jenna's not reading her own story and being like approved. And we made poor Jenna's life a little difficult on this one. Uh I thought the setting for this very life is difficult on We gotta hold your feet to the fire. Poor Jenna. Uh, I thought the setting was really fun. Since I I love New Orleans culture and I really liked having like a jolly Cajun fella for our MMC. I was wondering if you could tell our listeners some more about your story in Starland's.

SPEAKER_01

About how y'all picked on me? No, I'm just kidding. Tell them, tell them all. Actually, what's interesting is I was given feedback on the story that was right. And it was another one of those stories where I was having a difficult time ticking the box off for the spicy bit. And there'd been a reason I hadn't put it there, put it in the spot that it ultimately ended up in. On my mind, there'd been a reason I hadn't done that. But I'm a good little player, and you know, when the editors come back and say this this isn't working like this, and we think you should do this, of course I'm gonna listen. But it's one of the things about being a writer, you do want to defend yourself and your decisions, but you also need to be open to hear what people are telling you and the critique. And that's probably the hardest part because I've certainly received edits where I've been like, nope, my way, but you have to be open to see what other people are telling you. And in this case, you guys were right that that's needed to be moved. So I did it, and I I think absolutely it's better for it. I think the ending is cuter for it, so I want to put that out there. Um, the other about the story, I I didn't want to set another story in the oath marked world just because I was afraid, what if I do something and then it messes up the rest of the series? But because it's Eva, that pen name, I wanted to put it in New Orleans and of course have the little woo-woo around it. So in this case, I have a woman who at a young age drowned and was brought back to life by a tratour, and ever since then is able to see the thread of fate on other people. And it's not a good thing when you're a kid to be able to know exactly when somebody's gonna go, but she gets recruited by a group, kind of fate's little group, to make sure that fate happens because sometimes it doesn't, and she doesn't make it happen, she doesn't really intervene, it's just sort of there to make sure all the stars align and things go the way they're supposed to go. And our little Cajun guy here, things ain't going the way they're supposed to go. He has defied fate a couple of times, so she's brought in, but immediately there's an attraction between them, and now she's in a rock and a hard place because she does accidentally interfere at least once, purposefully interferes another time, but that then some fate is gonna collect somebody, right? And it could be her that it collects. So that's wanted to play with. I liked playing with the Cajun, I liked getting out on the bayou. I think he's fun. It's not as dark and gritty necessarily as like the Oathmarked books, which was the other thing that I was sort of like, okay, this is sort of sounding like Jenna. But I, you know, it it I it was closer to that to Eva world, so that's why I did it as Eva. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I I read it as it being is easily fitting into Oathmarked, especially we talked about there being a traitor. I was like, this this could be like tangential to Oathmarked, you know, there could be this little group of people who keeping fate who are keeping the veil happy, basically, but making sure fate happens or something. And so if you if you're gonna begin the series that is part of it, you could loop it back in somehow if you wanted.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, the real challenge of it was how to end it happily ever after. I mean if something has to be handed over to fate, right? If some life has to be handed over to fate, like how does it end? And I think I did all right.

SPEAKER_00

I thought it was good. Yeah, I've I've I've read a lot of series or what and watched a lot of series that do this sort of thing. Dead remind me of Dead Like Me, kind of a New Orleans Dead Like Me. That has a bunch of grim reapers in it, and like death has to happen, and they have to make sure that that happens. And it's very similar to your fate, although it's it's zanier, it's very like Ruby old machine with like little gravelings that are like mad at them if they don't let it happen. So it reminded me of that, which was great. And also it reminded me of uh a couple of different anime slash manga that I've I've really enjoyed over the years. A little bit of one called amnesia. No, the the tone is not it's not like amnesia, folks, which is an Otume anime, but it does have this like loop where you have this young woman and this young man who are together, and then she dies in one reality, and he starts jumping realities to find a reality where they where she lives. The problem is there's no reality in which she lives, and he does too. Like there it's just not allowed, basically. Like she's supposed to die or he's supposed to die. So he keeps getting offed as he jumps, and it basically breaks his brain, and then she starts jumping as well to help him and finds out, and he just turns into this like maniac, basically, and and like they have to sort of heal this rift in the time space continuum. And also, it made me think of that, like the way that like it's finally healed by sort of like making her survive one minute past midnight, and he also survives and it breaks everything. I thought that was cool. So you serialize Shadow of Betrayal to Substack, somewhat at Mine and Parish's urging, because we also serialize there. And I was wondering if you have any thoughts about your experience serializing there, like what would you tell other authors about serializing novels to Substack if they were considering it?

SPEAKER_01

You know, the reason I did it mostly was because I wanted to get it done so I could have it ready for SAS. And this was a way to put my feet to the fire to make sure that I was posting. And I set a pretty aggressive schedule. Well, not compared to Parrish, but you know, I think for most people, it was four chapters a week that I it was posting.

SPEAKER_00

And Parrish doesn't do four chapters a week, you have to remember he publishes different stories throughout the week from like things from different stories, but he's still a lot of writing.

SPEAKER_01

It's still a lot of writing. Yeah. Yeah. I think a lot of people who serialize might have one or two chapters a week. Yeah. Yeah. Of one thing, right? Like um, anyway, so but I wanted to get it done. The other thing I was thinking of is because nobody still nobody really knew Eva, um, was it could be a way to find readers. Yeah. Um, and so that's that's why I did it. It it's challenging because I don't work ahead, I wasn't enough ahead. So there are many days where it's like I gotta post a chapter, I gotta write it. Because it's an alternating point of view, and chapters are might, you know, 2,000 words long, maybe. For me, that's doable. I can do that. Like for a lot of writers, especially new writers, that would be like daunting. But I was like, I could do that. But those those were the tough days, those were the more those chapters were probably needed the most work, you know. Um, but so that was the hard part. You know, now I'm getting ready to serialize the next one. And I wanted to have started doing it already, but again, I haven't written a word of it. I'm still trying. I mean, I know what happens in each book, I know what is revealed and stuff, but getting the you have to have the nitty-gritty. You have for me, I have to have the chapter by chapter summary uh to do that. I can't I cannot panster through something I have to write every day and post. So that's sort of why, and really sort of thinking about what Mathis is. I really thought I want to have one of them be like a musician. And I was thinking Mathis was would be it, but then I was like, no, because Mathis is a tattoo artist, so I've decided to make him an art more artist. I think I might put Theo in a band. He's my flame person, and uh yeah, and this other woman, how does she fit in? And so I'm really trying to get the nitty gritty. She's in their world, but is her sort of outside their world. There, there are families that have been sort of pushed out of the world because they're problematic for one reason or another. Gotcha. And that's her family, yeah. So anyway, so I'm just trying to get down to the chapter by chapter and make sure, okay, what are the clues I dropped in the first book? How am I going to respond to them in the second book? Or expand on them and all that. There's just a lot more stuff. It's more challenging than fancy worlds. Then it's more challenging than what I've ever done.

SPEAKER_00

Well, this might uh sound strange because like you are normally a cohort co-host, but so but I was wondering if you have any questions for me or discussion points you'd like to circle back to.

SPEAKER_01

Well, the only thing I can I think about is how you write sci-fi fantasy, sci-fi romance, and again, it's a world that you've completely made up. It has its own rules, its own history, it's you know, all this stuff. And it's I you know, it's like how do you keep track of it across because I I my fear is I'm gonna break one of my own rules. And readers are good, they'll know it. Like I would know it as a reader, but as a writer, it's surprisingly easy to mess up with your own thing. Call someone the wrong name, for example. Um or break a rule because all of a sudden that rule is keeping you from doing what needs to be done. Like, how do you keep track of all that?

SPEAKER_00

Well, I to some degree I think it's a self-selection thing, especially if you're a sci-fi fantasy writer. I am, as you've definitely noticed, a detailed person, like just that that person, right? Like I obsess over commas and uh I obsess over punctuation rules, and I like to write out absolutely everything in our podcast outline because I get nervous if we don't have that. And um, I I make entire calendars for every single month of camp for my for my writing group so that I know what's supposed to be on every single day. And I have a planner with every single thing I do in a day, a little checkbox, right? Like including my supplements and the the number of drops I'm supposed to put in my eyes. Like I'm just a details person. And so that makes me a kind of a natural fit for something like my original role in Starship Battle Creek community was the lore maven, right? Like it was my job to collect all of the little bits of lore from games and put them in the wiki wiki. I made the wiki originally. A lot of the articles are made by me. I interviewed a lot of different players and put that information together. And the reason why it's me is because I am that kind of person, right? The other thing that really works for me is that I do have an entire community of people who've played these games, and my husband is the is our mechanics bleed, but also has played a lot of Valkyrie and has a very good memory and a very good sense of where like Valkyrie is and what is allowable. We both have a really good sense of it. One thing we did last night is we were gaming through a fleet battle game, basically, like talking about the numbers of ships, of enemy ships that had to be at a a battle that didn't have any players at it. And we were sitting around being like, is it 24? Is it 30? Here's my sense of it. And it was a lot of math, but it was also just a lot of world of lore details, you know? And and Rob has a really good memory for this. You know, he he remembers that the Z ships that have mazers are called Havocks. He remembers that the Z ships that chomp on you are called the chase ships because he has that kind of brain. So between the two of us, uh it's it's not easy, but it is it is much easier to keep track of continuity. Uh, and I can always ask him, you know, like, oh my god, like what what month did you know this happen to like to indocs indoc five? Like, why did we bomb indoc five? You know, like all things like that. And you know, I do sometimes get surprised with things that happened before I joined the game, especially. He'll come back in and be like, oh yeah, we they die, they bombed indoc five because of a thing we did on Sigurin. I'll be like, What how many war crimes did you commit on Sigarin? So some of it is just that the world consists of things that players have done. And if you want know one thing about RPG players, they remember the shit that they've done forever. And they will tell you war stories about it, ad nauseum, they'll remember all of the things. And you know, like if if you find listening to those kinds of stories boring, it might not register with you. But if you're like me and you like making wikis, you're like, yeah, oh yeah, tell me more. Yeah, why did you decide to bomb Mars? Please tell me all about that. And then you make a wiki and stuff like that. So it's to some degree it has to do with the kind of person that I am.

SPEAKER_01

I wonder if I need to make a wiki.

SPEAKER_00

Make a wiki, make a wiki.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I'm thinking that maybe it would help me, but then I'm thinking it would also might be assuming readers enjoy the book, something that you like to look at too. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00

Make a wiki for yourself. You'll know even if it's just for you, make a wiki. I I the wit the Valkyrie wiki, I still, even though I wrote most of it, I use it as a resource. Yeah, you know, and I also use it as a way of interesting players and stuff.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, because I've been to wikis, like I I mentioned earlier, I enjoy the Black Dagger Brotherhood. And I I don't know if it's a wiki I know wiki fandom or something like that, maybe. I I don't know exactly what it is, but it's one where it's like I forgot who this is, I can go look who this is. I know the major brothers, but sometimes there's other people, and I'm like, I don't remember who that is. Yeah, so I can go look because her world's gotten pretty big.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so yeah. I was using the Outlander Wiki yesterday, which is by the way, like a little weirdly put together, but it's still it's a fandom wiki. We it used to be Wikia. Starship Valkyrie used Wikia, and then when they they transferred over to being fandom wiki, right? Which is weird because it's actually made by the people who run the game, and it's still a fandom wiki, but it was Wikia before when we started it. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So that was a good question, Jenna. Oh, as you all know, folks, uh, Outlander ended this year, and Jenna has been raring to talk about it. I had like some serious catching up to do on this since I don't have stars. And season seven basically got to the last of the material I had read and then started getting into stuff I hadn't read in the last few books. And I haven't read the most recent novel. So I was I was wondering what your thoughts are about the ending, Jenna, and what's most sticking in your craw. And you know, feel free to talk to me about it and what I I think happened. I've basically put it all together in my mind. I've got things that annoy me and things that I think were great. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

It's not really in my craw, it's just needing to process it with somebody. I I do want to say when I was watching the season, it felt a lot like, oh, we gotta wrap all this stuff up and show all these people and stuff. Um which is which is Nice, but sometimes it feels a little jumpy. Like, what are we doing here? Like, what's going on? Um, so there was that. There was the episode, and there'll be spoilers in here, people.

SPEAKER_00

So oh, yeah, by the way, you you don't want to be spoiled for season seven, eight of Outlander. This is your time to exit, folks. We are gender and tempting tales. Please find us on Substack and Instagram. Go ahead, Jenna.

SPEAKER_01

That's right. Um, there was an episode where the woman has the babe, two babies, and one of them seems to pass. And then and then there's Claire with the blue light. And I remember in the moment watching it, going, What? What like what is this? And then I had to remind myself, oh yeah, okay, so this is a woman that went through time through the rocks. But for the most of the series, that's the only woo-woo element, really. Yes, right.

SPEAKER_00

It's very it's low fantasy in the in the lowest form.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, the only thing is the time travel. And then I remembered back, oh, there was the Native American woman who told her you will come into your power, you know, all this stuff. So I was like, okay, it's coming back to me now. So this must mean this must mean something, and I was on edge. What is gonna happen? Is he gonna die? Is he not gonna die? Is he gonna die? Is he Jamie? Because there's the book. It was Frank effing with them.

SPEAKER_00

I was recording them, but you're saying that.

SPEAKER_01

But through the whole time, you know, I was with them on like what is going on here? Then there was the part where um Bree says her nickname, and it turns out the book is dedicated. And then I was like, okay, why would they not know this by now? Like, how would Claire not know that that was the nickname? How would she have not looked at the book and know that that was not the nickname and understood what Frank was trying to do? So there was that bit where I just thought, okay, they were playing fast and loose a little bit.

SPEAKER_00

There's a lot of fast and loose, yeah. I think so. They had to wrap it up quickly. There's ways, those reveals that they did, they're very different from the reveals in the book.

SPEAKER_01

But the thing that really stood out, and the and the whole thing about uh Franny, Fanny, Franny, Fanny.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, don't this is the thing that this is the thing I'm mad about.

SPEAKER_01

That I thought was uh why, why you know, like what was the point of it? Except we know she's a time traveler, so clearly maybe there's a future for her doing something, but anyway, the ending was the thing that when it was done, I had to go back and watch it a couple times because I have a sense in my mind what I feel like what happened. I think you can interpret many ways in what happened, and I know what my choice is, right? But I also like wanted to be what did other people think, and of course, what happens was for some reason Jamie's men were not very good. We feel like we won the battle, but somebody did not disarm one of the leaders of the opposition, like that guy needs to be punished for that, and he shoots Jamie in the heart, basically in the heart. Yeah, um, Claire feels it immediately. She goes back, uh weeps over him, and she will not leave him. And this is interesting because she's a healer, she's been around life and death quite a bit in both the worlds. She understands what this means, but personally unable to leave him. That's the kind of angst and yearning and an ache, an ache. I think readers, when they talk about winning it, that's what they want. They're like, you know, they leave her alone there. Pretty soon, Roger and Ian and Ian are there. I'm like, why hasn't anybody gotten anyway? Whatever. Because they're like, it's like two days. She's just weeping and grieving, and and then we see the montage. We see the montage, okay, which again is like okay, a great reminder of what we've been through these last eight years. Um, confirming Jamie was the one looking up in the window, yes, 1940s. Um, and then the whole the thing where he walks away, but now he's walking uh he's at the stones, and the flowers come up, the flowers that lure her there in the first place. So I'm like, this is not the first loop of this, right?

SPEAKER_00

Like they're forget-me knots, yeah. I and they're they're the flowers that she goes up to collect.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so like he sets the flowers there. Um, so we see all the things, and then of course, at the very end, we see her laying with him, her hair is now completely white, her eyes open, and he gasps. Yeah, he gasps for breath. So in my mind, okay, blue light, like the baby, they're gonna go live again. In my mind, that's what's happened. But I think some people think she died with him. I don't know. What do you think?

SPEAKER_00

I you know, I watched it, I saw it, I it was very clear to me what happened. I is I think that they telegraphed this very well. For a fantasy, they over-telegraphed it actually. They they telegraphed it three, four times to make sure that we got it. And I was really surprised that people were like thought this was a controversial ending. I I look, I was watching on YouTube last night trying to figure out like, why does Dennis say this is a controversial ending? I felt like it was very obvious that they survived.

SPEAKER_01

It I didn't think it was controversial. I thought it was there was different ways people were looking at it, and I needed someone to process it with me.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I know. I saw a lot of people being like, Did did they did she go to heaven? That like it was there was controversy over this. People were like, what happened in that ending? And I think that that's bad media literacy if that if you don't know what happened, it's very obvious. Like, there's this she's told you will come into the height of your power when your hair turns white. She brings the baby back, part of her hair turns white. She's giving part of her life force to bring someone back to life. It's easier to do this with a baby because they're small, much harder to do it for for Jamie. It takes her all night to make it happen, and it turns all of her hair white. I think that she basically shares her life force with him and brings him back to life. I they've done all this telegraphing, and it seems to me like Frank made sure she was there to make sure that that would happen as a sort of last act. And he was, it didn't seem like he was also messing with them. It's kind of a D's nuts. You can't you can't get me back from the grave, you know, like I could get my last one in on you. But I do think that he was making sure that Claire would be there to to save Jamie if she could. Now, I don't think he knew it was via magic, but probably with surgery or something.

SPEAKER_01

I think he did it to protect Brianna. Yeah, possibly that too. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I yeah, my thing is she brought him back. The thing is, is like there's a lot that you have to remember, even though they tried to really sort of remember this, remember this, remember this, remember this, remember this. Um, there is a lot you sort of have to remember for this that scene to work, really. Because I don't know that they replay did they replay when the Native American woman told her.

SPEAKER_00

No, they did not get a go back to that. It was something you have to remember from three seasons ago.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. You have to remember that. So, anyways, so you think he came back to life too, right?

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I think it's pretty another day.

unknown

Yep.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I I and the other I saw there were multiple things they did to sort of reassure us of of this. They so I think the Faith thing was done specifically to establish this, and that they they did that in a in a rather rushed way from the end of season seven, saying that Faith survived and that Claire was able to bring her back with the blue light in order to do this. Like there's no other purpose to it other than to give us fanny. I don't like it, to be honest with you. Uh, and and then they had her bring back another baby just in case we didn't get it. And then they made sure that David cannot travel through the stones so that we know that Brianna and Roger and the whole family won't be leaving them, so we don't have to worry about that. Like, they did a lot of things to be sort of like Claire and Jamie live, and Brianna and and Roger stay there with them, and all the grandkids can stay there with them, and and the the post-credit scene, which I also hard know do not like, but they did it anyways. I gotta talk about it. They show Claire writing in this journal, and yeah, it's implied that Diana Gabbledon gets from the journal the whole story. Now, this story is very long, and Claire had just started writing it in season eight, and ain't no way she finished it. Look how long it's taken Diana freaking Gabblin. Claire did not finish right now. She's got years to go to finish writing this 30 by my count. She doesn't purpose of Diana Gabbledon. Yeah, I thought it was a cute wink. It was cute, it was very cute, and then going back to the 90s to do it with and seeing that old that old cover, man, that took me back. But it was a little too cute. You know, I found it a little too cute. I was like, oh Diana, come on, you guys. Yeah, but yeah, Diana Gabledin wrote the the second to last episode of this season. She was there the whole time advising them and stuff like that. The Faith thing, apparently, she's gonna reveal in in book nine. I I've seen some writing for that, uh, with a with a locket of fannies, I guess. Um I think it's there to establish this. I mean, there's there isn't another good reason to do it other than to establish that Claire can bring someone back to life. Um, to me, I mean, I went I actually went back and re-watched the episode Faith from from season two, and they do bathe her in blue light. I thought it was mood lighting because Louise Delatour gets bathed in it when she comes to visit her. And the the timeline doesn't make a lot of sense to me because like if she still has puperal fever when it's happening, then when Master Raymond comes to help her, he could just tell her Faith is alive. I've got her, it's cool, come find me later on. And if it's after that, then like uh how did he come back and get her after he's already hailed Claire? And he also knows she survived because he's the one who healed her, so why would he keep faith from her? Neither of these things make sense to me. I think it cheapens the whole thing. And to to to save her life just to kill her in a like later and to kill one of her daughters is nonsensical to me. The only reason they do it is to establish this thing.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, right. They had a difficult life. What you know, the old eldest daughter had a very difficult life.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, she's a prostitute, and I I it's lovely to see Claire and and Jamie taking in Fanny and taking care of her. That's I that's fine with me. But that that she's actually Faith's daughter is yeah, because then we never feel like Mother Hildeberg would let that happen.

SPEAKER_01

Right. I mean, my mind that's what it was. They're raising a child together because you know, by the time she comes back, Fergus is grown up and yeah, all that kind of stuff. I didn't like, you know, the Fergus episode too broke my heart a little bit, but good for Marcelly, man, and her kids, like, do this.

SPEAKER_00

You know I can't believe they killed him off in another printer fire. Like printer shop fire going down. It's like, how many printer shops? It's true that printer shops did tend to light on fire, but Jesus a lot of fires took a lot of things.

SPEAKER_01

You know, we have a I live here in Virginia. I live not far, I live only eight miles maybe from Monticello, and less maybe than a mile is where Monroe lived. They were neighbors, and there's tell of a ghost there that was killed in a fire from the fireplace. Like she was set on fire from the fireplace. Like the house didn't burn down. She just you know, fires were an issue.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, that's very true.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, kitchens and stuff like that. The other thing about Fanny that I was thinking about was that Fanny's mother is you know, Jamie and Claire. Um Fannie can tie if Fanny times travel, can she go forward? Like, how does the time travel like could she go forward? Like, let's say David was in there and and Jamie, you know, remember Jamie says, hey, if this goes bad, leave the baby with Ian.

SPEAKER_00

Leave the baby with Ian, yeah. But also, like Claire tells him that's not happening.

SPEAKER_01

We're not doing that. Yeah, I know, yeah, I know that. But I mean, let's say he could travel and this went badly or whatever. You know, could Fannie go forward with them? Of course. Because no, I've never we've never have we seen people go forward. Yeah, we have. I've only seen people go back and come back.

SPEAKER_00

Buck goes forward. Buck goes forward to Roger. Yeah, Buck goes forward. Okay, yeah, Buck goes forward in a season seven, which that's material that I'm familiar with. I like Buck a lot. Forgot about a levy thing. I was like, oh yeah, this is fun. This is yeah, he goes forward. The the the rules of it are basically that you someone has to be waiting for you on the other side to pull you to them, and that controls the year you go to, or you use blood and stones to control where you exit, right? So either a person does it or magic.

SPEAKER_01

Seems like a lot of people didn't necessarily have a stone. I don't know. That gets a lot of things. That was one of those rules that got a little weird. And I don't know, like, do they really need blood or just what's her face? Gaeless just think that.

SPEAKER_00

You do not need blood. Do you do not need blood? Claire never used blood. Um I so Gaeless says that it keeps you safe, and it does appear to keep her safe. She doesn't get knocked out when she goes through the stones, and she is able to control where she goes, and no one's pulling her to where she goes, you know. Gaeless goes where she wants to go, and the everyone else is getting pulled to various people, and it's it's more uncontrollable. I mean, that's the reason why Buck is pulled to 1980 is because he pulled right to Roger. Right. And he can't control where he's going. Yeah. Anyway, that was a crazy show.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I want to watch Blood of My Blood now, goddammit. Once I get an outlet or brain, I can't turn it off.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I like I said, I started to watch it, and then there was just things going on. I was like, I I just don't, but I I would be curious about the future, like what happens after the war, and you know what Mandy in particular, you know. I mean, as a young woman, she could go forward and she'll be in the 80s and 90s, and it's still hard for women, but harder back in 1880 than it is in 1980. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So the show really privileges the family staying together. That's the thing that seems to be the most important to the Frasers and the Mackenzie's at least, you know. I just I like the idea in Blood of My Blood of going back to the good old days of like, you know, Dougal and Gayliss and being in Scotland. I I want that kind of stuff. I mean, I was watching this and I was like, you know, I could be watching season one the whole time through. That's hard to that's hard to undo. The the American war stuff is to me like feels like I'm back in like fifth grade social science.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Yeah, I wish they would go back. I wish they had gone back to Scotland and stayed in America. I mean, he's gotta be war weary.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, seriously. And and Scotland's safe at this point. Scotland in the 1780s is great, they're starting to get close closer to the Scottish Enlightenment. That's good stuff, you know. Like go back there, you go be a printer again. Yeah, um, yeah, I I do like in season seven where we get more Scotland. It's nice to be back at Lallybrock for both the 1739 stuff and also Jamie going back um and dealing with his unfinished business. That was I like going back to Scotland and dealing with that. I thought they did a really good job because the last thing I read in the books was Sir John and Claire getting married, and then Jamie reappearing. That's that's at the end of the last book that I read. And I like the way they did the the like Jamie getting his friendship back with Sir John, all that was really nice. Uh, I like the the way that he and Claire had it out, that was really good.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. That was another one of those ones, too, though, where uh and I've said this before, if Claire sometimes is too hard on the men who love her the most. Um of course he'd be jealous, you know. Of course, Jamie would have feelings about this. Um and you could tell he could understand it. The guy understands, but that doesn't mean he has to like it, right?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Jamie can roll with some stuff, and Sam Hugan can pull off some difficult lines. Yeah, just like not bad lines, just really difficult lines. Some of the things that he says, it's like I could not pull off that sentence. Not with the feeling that he does. He talks about a Lord John Lord John and Claire both tell telling him like that they were they were effing him with each other, he pulls off that line like a freaking channel. Like, that is a hard line to say.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and you could think, you know, like we can be say, yeah, they were kind of drunk and doing whatever, you know, wasn't really about each other, right? It was about him. Yes, but when you're him, doesn't make a difference, right? Like you had your hands on my woman, but of course, he's not into women, so that's you know.

SPEAKER_00

Um, yeah, so they're trying to explain some very difficult feelings to a like Scottish 18th century warrior, and I gotta add it to Jamie. He can he rolls with some crazy punches.

SPEAKER_01

I I think it it would be really natural, would be difficult to you know, we thought you were dead. Well, okay, but I'm not.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I see that you were both screwing me through each other, but but I'm me. I have to live with this now.

SPEAKER_01

Um and I could even see, you know, I I could even see him being okay with them getting married because he's protecting her, like yeah, from being yeah, from being executed.

SPEAKER_00

My god.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, but the the actual sleeping together, that would be a difficult one, but they yeah, you know, he gets through it like he always does.

SPEAKER_00

Of course, I wanted to go back and watch season one immediately. The ghost thing. Okay, no, the ghost thing. This this was so nice, actually. This has been my theory since I was a kid, that the ghost was actually sort of him having this near-death moment. And he has two near-death moments, well, several near-death moments, but he has this one, and he also has another one on Collodin, which I had always thought that his near-death moment at Collodin was the one that led to this young man looking at her up at the window. That, you know, you don't know if Diana Gabbledon planned to do all these books or planned to do anything past Cullodin, but I I to me it's this it's Jamie Frozen in that Cullodden moment where he sees her. And it was kind of nice to have that affirm that it's actually not him at the end of his life, but actually in the middle of a near-death moment, sort of like pulling Claire back to him. And there are a lot of moments where she is either brought brought back from the brink or he is brought back, where you sense that their connection allows them to share life force. Um, the thing that I I went back and watched the season two episode, Faith, because I was like, okay, where in Mother Hildegard's speech does this happen. But the thing that stuck out to me is that the miracle in that episode is not Claire bringing Faith back to life, it's they're saving herself. She she like saves herself, she heals herself. They they make it more Raymond healing her, but really she's healing herself. He says call out to Jamie. And it's like their connection is the thing that allows her to heal herself. And then you see her enacting that again, using their connection to heal Jamie. And he's the thing that pulls her across the stones so many times. So I I really think that they were going back to that connection so that she could save him. That's why it's kind of like a faded mate, huh? Yeah, a little bit at least time loop mates kind of. It's a closed loop, right? You know, like she came back to him in the past, he is a ghost in the past, made sure that the the flowers were there to pull him back to her. Closed loop. And I I like that. That's neat.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and off we go again. But you know, then now I'm curious, like what's their life now, you know? Yeah, hopefully in peace and back in Scotland. But it's still the middle of the Revolutionary War, right?

SPEAKER_00

Back to Scotland with you, all of you, go back to Scotland, no more Fraser's Rage, get out of there, get out of America.

SPEAKER_01

Oh my golly. Jenna, press news. News. All right. Well, I'm gonna be at SAS, which stands for, I believe, sexy and sensual signing or something like that. It's a romance author event in Richmond, Virginia. I'll be there this week. This Saturday, I'll be there with Rachel, who's my sister. She's gonna be actually uh manning the Tender and Tempting Tales portion of this table that has me and Eva.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, Rachel's also one of our editors, folks. That's why she's manning the Tender and Tempting Tales table. Thank you, Rachel.

SPEAKER_01

She's gonna help. Terrace's gonna be at Elf LFG Con in August with copies of the anthologies and and her own book, right?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I'll be there with Contact Unknown. My first author signing event for it. I'm very excited.

SPEAKER_01

Fantastical Foes came out this month, and you gotta grab a copy because those stories are really nice, those are good ones. Um, Sapphics of Saturn call comes August 1st. So if you write Sapphic, if you write sci-fi, Tara wants to read it. It needs to be 7,000 words or less, though. Vows and Valentines will have a call for in October. That will be an anthology for Valentine's Day. 2027 anthology and zine calls are posted over on our substack, and we got a lot of them. There's something for everybody there. Whatever. Go look if you're a writer, there'll be something there for you.

SPEAKER_00

Uh pirate sports romance. We got everything.

SPEAKER_01

Pirate sports first responders. The only, you know, it needs to be a romance, needs to have a three chili pepper spices, are really it. We also have Laura Ray, who we had on the podcast, mentioned us on her YouTube video where she gave some updates of her previous topics, but still not the dino.

SPEAKER_00

She hasn't figured out that the dino, there's been justice for dino, but we are on justice for dino watch at this point.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Anyways, it was a real it's a good video. Go check it out. And then author August, who's hosted by Friends of the Press, Mariah Inkeman, begins soon. And you can check that out on Instagram.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, all right. Thank you, Jenna. I I like giving you some news to read out. All right, folks. That was a long episode. We talked about Outlander for a while. Hope you really enjoyed it. We are Tender and Tempting Tales. You can find us on Substack where we have romance articles every week written by Jenna, by myself, by guest authors. You can also find our podcast there. You can also find us on Instagram. That's TenderTemptingTales at Instagram. Basically, we have a post every day talking about our books. You can learn all about our anthologies. We also have a freebie story if you sign up for our mailing list. That was written by Jenna Hart. It is it's about time. It's about damn time, and that is linked to her story. It's a matter of time in fireworks and flirtation. You can find all of Eva's links in the doobly-doo for this or in the in the show notes. And just know that Jenna also just did the release of Shadow of Betrayal through Ava Leclerc. It just came out more recently, and you can go and order it. Please do take a look at it. And she's gonna be publishing to Substack very soon, her next book. So you'll want to follow her there on Substack. And thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01

Now the first chapter is still on Substack. If you go to even Substack, we'll take the first chapter of Shadow of Betrayal. And I know you'll want the next one.

SPEAKER_00

You gotta go get it. And it's on Kendall Unlimited. So if you have that, you can go read Shadow of Betrayal right now. Yep, yep, yep. And remember, we're a small indie press. So reviews, getting the books, reading us on Kendall Unlimited, telling people about us, that's all really important to us. We're not only an indie press, but we're also uplifting new and emerging indie authors. So if you like indie authors, if you want to sport indie authors, if you want to discover new romance, new romance categories, new romance authors, this is the way to do it. Come and read Tender Intending Tales. Hot girls, read Tender and Tempting Tales.

SPEAKER_01

Now you won't get in trouble, though, for saying it.

SPEAKER_00

So that's right.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, everyone, thank you for listening. Wherever you're listening to us, please, you know, follow and you know, leave a comment, leave us a hello or whatever. Maybe you have a different take on Outlander. Love to hear it. Uh and until next time, peace, love, and happily ever after.