Illicit Liaisons
Illicit Liaisons
Illicit Liaisons: Tropes & Love Triangles with Suzy Langevin
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
This week, we chat with author Suzy Langevin, discussing tropes, love triangles, and Suzy's new release, The Plus One Pact.
Suzy Langevin writes happily ever afters where people are loved because of, not in spite of, the things they see as their flaws. She is the winner of the 2024 RWA Golden Heart Award, and her short fiction appears in anthologies and magazines. Suzy lives in Massachusetts and does, in fact, run on Dunkin'.
Suzy's Website https://www.suzylangevin.com/
Suzy's Books https://www.suzylangevin.com/team-3
Suzy on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/suzylangevinwrites/
MENTIONED ON THE SHOW
Plus One Pact by Suzy Langevin https://amzn.to/45wspVJ
Mr. Perfect by Linda Howard https://amzn.to/4znhETe
V.C. Andrews https://amzn.to/4gsq0Ay
Eye of the Dragon by Stephen King https://amzn.to/4gsq0Ay
The Dead Zone by Stephen King https://amzn.to/4gF38if
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
Hello, romance readers. Welcome to Illicit Liaisons with Tender and Tempting Tales, where each week we discuss the good, the bad, and the naughty of romance fiction. I am Jenna Hart. I'm the 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_00Hi, I'm 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.
SPEAKER_03And today we're very excited to have Susie Lingovan back. Susie loves love, even though she forgot how to say it in Latin when she was a contestant on Jeopardy. There's a part of me that thinks we should do this show sometime like a Jeopardy show.
SPEAKER_00Like romance jeopardy.
SPEAKER_03Romance trivia, for sure. Yeah, romance trivia. Anyway, she channels that love into writing happily ever afters where people are loved because of and not in spite of the things they see, their flaws. She is the winner of the 2024 RWA Golden Heart Award, and her short fiction has been featured in several anthologies and magazines, including ours. Susie lives and writes in central Massachusetts and does, in fact, run on Duncan. She has a new book coming out called The Plus One Pact, and she'll also appear in our upcoming anthology, Starlet and Spellbound. You can also find her at the Fall in Love New England in Marlborough, Massachusetts, October 23rd and 24th. Susie, welcome.
SPEAKER_02Thank you for having me. I keep waiting to have y'all get sick of me, but if you're gonna have me back, I'll just keep yapping over here.
SPEAKER_00You can not get sick of our authors.
SPEAKER_03People might get sick of me. Or me and Tara.
SPEAKER_00I think people get more likely to get sick of my ass than anything else. I'm pretty bonkers.
SPEAKER_03Anyway, we actually normally like to talk about bookish news or hot takes that we come across in the bookish world to see what everybody's thinking about what's going on. But today we decided to mix it up a little bit. Kind of uh for you, Susie, because of your books. And I was curious because the plus one pact has a has a trope that is fun. So today we thought we would talk about a few tropes. I got three here that we can discuss. The first one, friends to lovers or enemies to lovers, which one has the higher stakes?
SPEAKER_02I feel like I'm in the minority on this, at least if you look on like book talk and places like that where people are all about the enemies to lovers, Morley Gray, love interest, all that good stuff. I actually feel like friends to lovers is a higher stakes element because you have something to lose. If it doesn't work out with a person you hate, okay, whatever, you can just go back to hating each other. But if there's somebody that you have this pre-existing relationship with, there's this tension of if this doesn't work out, not only did the romance not work out, but I'm losing this person who I've had in my life in an important way as a friend. So I always feel like friends to lovers has that inherent tension there that enemies to lovers is just like, what's the worst that could happen? You hate the guy more than when you started? That's not not that serious, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I guess it depends on whether it's like a romantic enemies to lovers, where like they're literally gonna stab each other. So that seems like it's pretty high stakes. If like stabbing is in the offings. But other than that, I do agree with you. Yeah, I I also prefer friends to lovers, and I do feel like emotionally at least, it is higher stakes. If there's a dagger behind someone's back, there's other stakes are involved. If there's a stake behind someone's back, very high stakes. Uh, but otherwise, I absolutely agree with you.
SPEAKER_03It sort of assumes that the enemy would actually follow through on the stabbing, and it's hard to love somebody who would actually go through with stabbing you.
SPEAKER_00But this is what people are asking for. People are like, I want actual enemies, they have to hate each other, they have to be fighting, they have to want to stab one another. Like, I've seen that desire out there a lot. And so writers are making sure to satisfy it, but that means that stabbing is a possibility. Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02I think it's less that I care about are they actually enemies or not, like making that intense. I just want truth in packaging. Like, if it's mildly annoyed to lovers, okay, call it. Don't tell me it's enemies to lovers when it's just that they don't like having to share a desk at work. Like enemies, there's there's a higher bar to clear here, if that's what we're doing.
SPEAKER_03And I I think some people have actually said it it feels more like rivals to lovers than enemies in many cases. For example, in the workplace or something like that. Yeah, yeah. I agree. I think there's something nice about friends to lovers, and here are these people who have every element they need to have to be in love, and they're not. I mean, they have everything a couple needs to have in terms of friendship and respect and support, and the but the tension there is, yeah, being afraid to ruin it, ruin the friendship. What if the other person and I mean they're if done right, there there is an unrequited love element, right? Maybe they're both in love with each other, but don't know it. Sometimes only one is in love with the other, and the other's just slow to kind of come around to it, right? But either way, there's an unrequited love to it. There is something delicious about that, I think. I mean, just the angst of that, yes, of of wishing, and then assuming their friendship, they have seen their this person with other people. That would be difficult to love this person, they're your best friend, and they're taking someone else home tonight. There is something about that that's really nice.
SPEAKER_00Some ideological difference, or like I think you could probably sell workplace or PhD candidate enemies to lovers if you really grab something that one has done to the other that is nasty. Well, if you've ever been a PhD candidate, had someone scoop your dissertation topic, you know how much you can hate a person. So do that. Like you have to actually get over something. You have to actually like have a thing that they're fighting about that was really bad or really nasty. Something like one of them was a jerk to the other, and have them give grace or forgive the other for that and then fall in love. But I think if people do that, they're worried that readers won't like that person.
SPEAKER_03Well, that's that's the the risk you have, right? Like that how you know there's some things people can do that may seem easy, why would she put up with that or why would he put up with that type of thing? We do have these dark romances with these morally gray men, and somehow they come over, but that they they start out like that. They didn't steal someone's thesis. They said, What are you doing in my home while holding a gun up to their head, right? Like, so there is a difference, but yeah, that's the hard thing. I think with enemies to lovers, that's there's a tight rope there where are they true enemies? If they're in different camps, if they're warring factions, whether that is in the real world and ones on this side of this country and this side of that country or a fantasy world, but you still have that fine line of how far can they go to try and kill each other before it's unredeemable? Yeah, okay, yeah. So, all right, moving on. Second chance or faded mates. What do you think? Which do you prefer reading? What's more gonna write, even?
SPEAKER_02So I will admit I don't spend a ton of time in the paranormal space, which is where you tend to see more of the faded mates trope. I think it's a fun concept to like play with of that say how far can you take it? Sort of sensibility, right? Like, how far can you take stretch sort of the bands of incredulity to despite everything that is going on in this relationship, they still know they they are going to end up together in some way, shape, or form. So I think there's an interesting thing there, but I love second chance romances. I think there is something so interesting about like the dual timeline aspect of it. So understanding what went wrong the first time and how is it going to be different this time, and the almost like inherent arc that gets built for a character in there was a reason why it didn't work out the first time, and we've got to fix that or bend that arc in that direction for how it's gonna work out in the current timeline. I I love dual timeline stories in general, like getting to see people at different points in their life, even if it's just in flashbacks or things like that, sort of getting to see where people were and how they got where they are, both as the starting point for the arc of the current story, and then how is that going to contribute to their growth in the present? So I just I love them immensely. And so that will always be like my favorite trope. But I know there's a lot of people who are like second chance romance, no, thank you. If it didn't work out the first time, there's a reason for it. Leave them there, girl.
SPEAKER_00Um, who could possibly really there are people who don't like second chance. I haven't actually seen that take before, fortunately. I feel like everyone is at least kind of okay with it, but I yeah, I haven't seen someone say like no thank you. I don't I don't write faded mates. I mean, I write sci-fi romance, there's not really like a good way to do that, but I mean I suppose there there could be. I mean, I I'm reading Ice Planet Barbarians, which is very faded mates. I was really surprised by that too. Actually, I got to that and I was like, what the shit is this? Faded mates and a science fiction romance, but it's I mean, I'm enjoying it for it, it is very weird, but it I like weird, so that's fine. I really like second chance romance. I like dual timelines. What remains is a very long second chance romance with dual timelines. I really enjoyed writing that. That's wonderful. Erin and I, my my sister did a deep dive on Luniverse last year for my blog, and that is probably the like the deepest and weirdest that I've ever seen Faded Mates get as a kind of fan in or or a or a shared canon universe where it's like it's a really intense world, like shared world-building metaphysics on how faded mates works for this kind of like vaguely omega verse y type story. And everyone shares it sort of meant like Omega verse, they share this metaphysics, so they don't have to explain it to anyone, it's just like it's a lunaverse, you know how that works, and then they kind of explore all the ways that it can go wrong, which I think is kind of interesting and subversive, you know? It's like, hey, we've already you don't have to think too hard about why faded mates are a thing. We have this lunar goddess, and she baits people for each other, and sometimes she gets it wrong, and sometimes guy's a jerk, he's an alpha hole, and that doesn't work out, and then she gives there's a thing called a second chance Luna, which is like a second chance faded mate the first time sucked, so the lunar the lunar goddess gives you another one.
SPEAKER_02This is breaking my brain a little bit, but I'm here for it.
SPEAKER_00It's insane, it's like probably like the weirdest that I've ever seen faded mates get. Like it's a lot of people exploring this idea kind of together in this shared, very strange project. So, like if you're really into faded mates, I recommend that you go over to like one of these weird apps, like the Dream app, and read a lot of Luniverse. It's very weird.
SPEAKER_03I for me, they're part of the same thing in terms of the universal fantasy underneath it, is that these two people are destined to be together. Yes, I love that, right? So the second chance is things went wrong, but they're supposed to be together, so there's another chance to come back together and make it right. And faded mate is sort of the same thing, except there's this underlying thing that has set it up. I I've been writing a faded mate, and in the world right now, they don't know that there are fated mates. But when these warriors encounter this woman, there is a reaction they don't understand, and it's not lust, and it's not like it's there's something there that they don't they don't completely understand, but at least through the first book, and I get I'll probably do it in the second book. Um when she's in the orbit, their abilities heighten.
SPEAKER_00Whatever their other half is, like whatever complements them. Yeah, I was about to ask you if you're gonna do a second chance fated mates.
SPEAKER_03Well, the way it's plotted right now, the way I have each of their mates is determined and stuff like that. Well, what I wanted to say is not second chance. Um, I haven't done that. But what has been important to me is even though they are fated to be together, and there's definitely they experience a difference together that they don't completely understand that doesn't have to do with sensuality or anything like that, um, is that they still make their own choice at the end about being like it's not just okay, you two need to be together, and they're like, well, whatever, or that they are manipulated or coerced or that type of thing. Like in the end, they still have agency around it, they still have uh it's sort of like recognizing we're supposed to be together, but I'm choosing that to type of thing, I guess. And that's the the challenge, I think, around faded mate. But for me, both of them love them because underneath it all is these two people that are destined to be together. I'm all about one true love, out of love for you. Yeah. All right, let's move on. Fake dating and engagements. And of course, this one comes up because we do have a fake dating coming up in Susie's book. Uh and Tara, you have one too, right?
SPEAKER_00In in in Corlana Lights and in Valvarion Nights, our stories in uh fireworks and in Starlit are both fake engagement.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So, do you read a lot of these? Are there differences between writing fake date dating versus fake engagement?
SPEAKER_02So, with fake dating, I think I read a lot of them, and I always think it hinges on the why. Like, what is the reason why these two people are choosing to be in a fake relationship rather than a real relationship? And so if you can get to a why that makes sense for both characters, that's where I think it kind of takes off. And there's been like I feel like a lot of really big romances have fallen into that category. I think the love hypothesis is fake dating, the Spanish love deception, like there's been these really big books, and their success is really based on that, the urgency of why they have to come together in this contrived fake arrangement that doesn't exist in real life ever, but exists in a third of all romance books. So that for me is what it really hinges on is what's what's the motivation? Where is that sitting? And how can we make it as compelling as possible while still within the realm of, because I write contemporaries, so still within the realm of like uh a realism reason why this is something that would happen.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, like my favorite season of Bridgerton has well, one of my favorite seasons. I I really like season four too, so but my my previous favorite season, the first season, has basically fake dating, we fake courtship, right? It's the Regency version of it. But the the reason is quite compelling. I mean, it's a weird turn from her being the diamond of the season to suddenly like undesirable because her brother is such a bore, but it is quite believable. You can see exactly how it's happening and how she's becoming like unmarriageable essentially, and and no one can court her. And so the the Duke kind of comes in and helps her, and he has a good reason for wanting to keep the ladies off him. So, like, they have very good reasons for coming together, they they build a compelling friendship. You can see how they're starting to become attracted to each other, and like I think that all of that was really nicely done. And like, and I also read your fake engagement story from last year, your your Christmas novel. And I loved that. I love that I find that setup really, really engaging. I I there's like so much that can be done with it and a lot of built-in tension. The best tropes have built-in tension to them. Like, you can see how the situation is like coiling the spring tighter and tighter and tighter in order to like make this romance go off. And so I I really enjoy that. I don't know if I I don't know what quite the difference is between fake dating and fake engagement, other than I think the lie in fake engagement is more dangerous, and so the situation is more dangerous and has higher stakes, right? Like fake dating, it's easy to be like, oh yeah, we broke up, right? Like, but fake engagement, you have to tell your people that like oh we're not engaged anymore. It's a big deal, and it's a big deal to hide an engagement in the first place. So if it family is involved, I think the fake engagement one is really high stakes.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I I think it goes to motivation because what would the engagement give that dating doesn't or that marriage doesn't? Like I've done a marriage of convenience, and it wasn't fake, but it was the same thing, you know, they were marrying because she needed money and he needed help in a custody battle, right? Like, so you know, I mean, there were pretty high stakes there going on. So what what is an what is the engagement going to get that just saying we're in a relationship doesn't? That would be the first thing. The second thing is I do think there is a difference because fake dating, you could just have been dating for three weeks. An engagement is you're acting like you've made a commit, lifetime commitment. So the way you're gonna interact is gonna be different, right? The expectation you're gonna sleep in the same room or something, right? Like they're and and how you're gonna look at each other and how you're gonna interact, and you're gonna touch, and you're all these extra little elements that would be expected between an engaged couple who are excited about getting married. So, of course, they're all difficult hard to be around because they're too lovey-dovey, and after a while you're like, just stop, get a room, whatever, right? Like newly engaged, excited. So I there is I think that would be the difference in terms of like you don't want people questioning whether or not you're really getting married, because there's no chemistry there type of thing. So to me, that would be the difference. You you'd have to have a really compelling reason to say it's an engagement over just dating, but then the engagement would have to, you'd have to come off looking like you've been together for a bit and you're planning a life together. So that would be I'm trying to think. Have I ever done a fake date? Have I done fake dating? I don't know. I've done a marriage of convenience. I cannot I for my in ghostwriting, I definitely have done um fake stuff, and of course, I've done a lot of arranged marriages.
SPEAKER_00Um, it's just the next step beyond fake engagement.
SPEAKER_03Well, it depends what it is. Like if it's mafia or something like that, then it's a business deal. But like I did write a marriage of convenience, and I mean you could argue it was also a business deal, but she had agency, she entered into it willingly. Whereas in these mafia ones, a lot of times these women are handed over by their fathers, right? So she's a chattel. I know.
SPEAKER_00God, yep. So, Susie, you have a new book coming out because you always have a new book coming out. And I like to say you like to say that you've girl bossed too close to the sun, attempting me to call you a chickerous. Yes, I love it. This one's called the Plus One Pact, and it really makes me think of like that endless wedding season of my life where I felt like I was attending a wedding like every five minutes. Fortunately, I had a husband for the whole thing, so I didn't have to worry about my date, but I could totally understand not wanting to show up without a date. So I was hoping you could tell us more about it.
SPEAKER_02Yes. So it is actually out now. It came out July 21st. It is here, it is yellow, and I love the cover so much. So the basic premise of the story is that we have Alyssa, who has been in love with her best friend from high school for years. And he is getting married to the woman that he has been with in an on and off relationship for the entire time that she has known him. So there's never really been a time when it was definitely going to happen between her and this friend, but she's always sort of held on to this kernel of hope that, well, maybe, maybe eventually he'll realize that I'm the one sort of very Julia Robertson, my best friend's wedding, kind of set up. And so she's living in New York. The wedding is in San Diego. She's like, Well, I can't do this by myself. I'm I'm not going to do this whole wedding weekend on my own. And so her roommate Hannah says, Well, why don't you take my brother? Who has just moved to New York? Jeff is a recent law school graduate who is also grappling with an anxiety disorder. And he's a former college athlete who has very high, like perfectionistic standards for himself. And he's really just never been able to get it together in that relationship aspect of his life because he's been trying so hard to look like he has it all together from the outside. He really feels like he can't let people in to the mess that he feels like he is beyond the perfection persona that he tries to put out there. And he also needs a date to a wedding. So they agree mutually that she's gonna go with him to the wedding. That she that he needs a date for, and she's gonna go, they're gonna go to San Diego together. And so it's this gradual unfolding of the relationship between the two of them that is Jeff learning that he doesn't have to be perfect to be loved, and that there is a person out there who isn't gonna want to fix him or have him be different, but is going to walk this road beside him. Um, and you have Alyssa working through all of this angst about this relationship that she's kind of held out hope for for all these years, accepting that it's not gonna happen to allow herself the opportunity to fall in love with someone new. Um, so it's really a lot about their kind of internal journeys of how do you get ready to meet the person who's going to be your person, and how do you figure that out when they're actually standing right next to you?
SPEAKER_00I love what you're doing in a male main character with anxiety disorder. I've actually dated a man with anxiety and I married a man with anxiety, so it's really nice to see that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you know, the setup offers some interesting thing because for him, um he he, I'm assuming he knows she had a thing for this guy that she's going to see get married. So it would be very risky for him if he has started having the feels for her, knowing I'm second best. Maybe. Yeah, and that is like if she chose me, I'm the consolation prize, right?
SPEAKER_02They actually have that exact conversation in the book that I want to be sure that you're choosing me and not just choosing not him. And so they get into all of that and talk that through. The funny part is that obviously they're joined by this her his sister, her roommate Hannah, who sort of spills the tea on both of them to each other. So she's kind of the conduit sometimes of like, listen, here's here's the actual deal of what's going on here. She's one of my favorite people I have ever written. I need a Hannah in my own life to be like girl, get your shit together. Um, so I I love that they both have that person to lean on, and that she gets to kind of play that role of not really translating for the other person, but being able to say, like, no, they're being sincere. Like this, this is really what what this looks like. So to have that sort of other dynamic in there, who's just this rock for both of them, I think was a fun thing to play with, too.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I love that trope of the matchmaker friend. I love that so much.
SPEAKER_03But that would be a challenge too, right? Because the friend would be like, Well, I don't want to tell her because she'll tell her brother, and the brother will be like, I don't want to tell her because she's gonna tell the friend. So she's she's gotta be very astute and insightful, and yeah, to be able to ferret all this out.
SPEAKER_02That's a piece of something that they talk about too, because you have this character of Alyssa, who really her first friend, the person that she hung on to in her life, is this man that she is hopelessly in love with and it's never gonna happen with. So she's really learning with Hannah how to be a friend and how to hold on to a friendship throughout things changing or circumstances looking different. She talks a lot about how her and this other guy are really, when they're with each other, stuck in like their high school versions of themselves, and that her relationship with Hannah is how she started to grow, having that friendship and having somebody who was in her life in a different way. She has kind of a tumultuous childhood that she talks about in the book too. So it makes sense, sort of in an arc, that this was something she kind of grabbed onto and couldn't figure out how to let go of. And it's only through building these relationships with Hannah and then Jeff where she's able to see, oh, this can look different. It can look healthy in a way that I haven't seen before. And it does mean I don't have to hold on to something that worked for me five years ago. I can move to be a different person and be different, things can be different for me now. So there's some, it was an opportunity to play with some fun dynamics around both friendships and relationships, and how do you sort of skate that middle path? It has also resulted in the number of people saying that they hate Nick, who is the guy that she's been in love with since high school, in various reviews or or blogs posts has been absolutely hysterical. Like, I did not think he was that obnoxious when I was writing him because he's got some reasons for the way he shows up, the way he is. But yeah, people hate Nick. So I'm like, all right, let's go. We have a we're not standing for toxic men anymore. I like it.
SPEAKER_00How did your beta readers respond to him?
SPEAKER_03Does Nick ever know? Well, I have to read the book. Never mind. Yeah. We go there. Um in my mind, in three years, he and his wife are divorced, and all of a sudden he went and she's like, Nope, happily married. Meet my car.
SPEAKER_02Um although that was something that I did think about too, is that I never wanted it to be that it was Alyssa versus Lacey, who's his his fiance then wife. Like, she's not the problem. It's not that Alyssa is like the other woman and that she's jealous. That was never what it was about. It's about Nick's own internal stuff that he has not dealt with. Beta readers were like more kind to him, I would say, than the reception was in the book overall. So it's just been funny to see that thread emerge that people have been so like nope, ethnic, he's awful. I'm like, all right, we're not doing toxic anymore. I like this.
SPEAKER_00It's so weird. The beta readers will like will check, will notice that. So you have a sense of like where that's gonna go. It's so weird for the beta readers to not to be like, oh yeah, be very kind, and then for everyone else to be sort of like fuck this guy.
SPEAKER_03Well, you know, everybody sort of layers their own thing on top of it, right? Yeah and you know, people read with expectations or something. So I mean, I remember watching my best friend's wedding and being like, wait, what, they don't get together in the end? Like, oh yeah, yeah. My my romantic self was sort of like going there.
SPEAKER_00So um it's like a battle of two universal fantasies, right? It's like there's like you're gonna get together with this guy that you're fake, kind of fake dating and going to the the weddings with, or the other universal fantasy is that guy that you've been in love with all this time actually falls in love with you and doesn't just and decides not to get married. So it's at that point, it's like which universal fantasy are we going with? One is in conversation with the other. I think it's pretty pretty obviously projected which one we're going with here, but you can see the other one tugging on it, yeah, right.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. And she's very upfront about the fact that like this is a thing I've got to resolve. Like, I can't stay in this liminal place with this relationship with Nick and have any kind of functional romance in my life. Like it this needs to go one way or the other. Um, because otherwise we're we're in a spot that's just not gonna work out for me long term, no matter how much I feel about this other person.
SPEAKER_00Spending too much time in an unrequited love can get poisonous. I don't want to use function because it's just a thing you're doing to yourself, essentially, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, not having read it, but so I don't know Nick, but like if he's oblivious to this whole thing, that's I mean, but if he knows other things he he can do to I mean, that would be difficult, but if he was totally oblivious, it's hard to blame him for being who he is if he has no clue. Like, you're just my friend. You're just my friend, you know. That would be hard. The friend zone. There we go. Umzie, you have a new series starting next year when we've already talked to you about a little bit, but maybe you can tell listeners what they can expect in the first book in the series, like characters and some of the troops, and I'm super excited because this is the first series I've written.
SPEAKER_02So this is the longest I have like hung out with the same characters and really followed the evolution of their stories throughout the three books of the series. Um so the first one comes out in February. It is called Yours to Keep. And the I am a millennial to my core. I own this 100%. So my thought process, both in writing this and then constructing kind of what came back around it, was I wanted to write an early 2000s WB teen drama. That was the construct for this entire series was the like over the top, intense OC, Dawson's Creek, like that whole feel to what I wanted to do with this series. So we follow a group of college students who are working on Martha's Vineyard for the summer. And Martha's Vineyard is an interesting dynamic because it is very much a place where very wealthy people go to vacation, and there's this whole ecosystem underneath of people that need to prop it up. You know, people who are maids in the hotels and wait on tables and run the ferry and are lifeguards. So it was looking at that contrast between people who are in this very like high-end resort atmosphere on the other side of the table, and as the people who are working out there.
SPEAKER_03Umstairs to the other. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02It's very upstairs, downstairs, coastal, inland sort of feel to it. So that was very much the dynamic that I wanted to show. We have an interesting mix in this particular group in the first book because there's a couple of characters who actually are themselves very wealthy. But due to some family angst with their parents, they have both decided like, we're gonna do our own thing for the summer. We we've been to Martha's Vineyard before as like the other side of the table, but we're gonna come here and we're actually gonna work here this summer. And so they're sharing a house with other kids who are more like working class and who are working for the summer to be able to kind of pay their way through college. And so there's some inherent tension between how do you thread that needle as somebody who is of the sort of upper crust off the island, but your identity for this summer is tied to this rundown bungalow that you're sharing with four other roommates. Um, and so the first book tells the story of Olivia, who is a 19-year-old. This is her first time. She's really kind of living on her own. And she decides that because she'll make more money as a lifeguard on Martha's Vineyard than doing anything else, she's gonna go do that for the summer. And she moves into this house with four other people who all know each other and have an interesting web of connections behind them. Two of them were previously in a relationship, but have since ended their relationship, so that gets super messy. And then these two cousins who are very wealthy but have decided to come work for the summer. So this is the storm that she is walking into and has never met these people before, doesn't know what's going on. And so it's the very like high drama of her finding her place in this group of friends, initially starting a relationship with the guy from the couple that just broke up, and that blows up fairly spectacularly. Um, and then she falls in love with Wes, who is the person who comes from money but is kind of doing his own thing for the summer. And we learned about his family background and his mom, who has is struggling with some mental illness stuff, and how that shapes his experience. So you really get to see their journey as a couple over the course of that first summer to learn about each other and fall in love and and build kind of a life independent of what they've known from their parents. And that's really the theme for the whole series is as a young adult, because these are all college-age kids, how do you figure out who you are independent of your family? And what do you hold and what do you let go of? And they all have complicated, but I think very real relationships with their parents. And so it's them walking this road to try and figure out who do I want to be in the world through the lens of this kind of petri dish situation of an island for the summer. You've got 14 weeks and 57 square miles. Figure yourself out.
SPEAKER_00Um it's like a it's like a kiln, a kiln for teenagers. I love that you're doing the WV like teen romance. I I went to high school in the odds, so the millennial in me sees the millennial in you. Like I remember all this like Dawson Creek, even Smallville. The drama.
SPEAKER_02All of it. And so the title, Yours to Keep, one of my favorite like Easter egg parts about this series is it's called the Sound of Summer series, because all three books pull their titles from songs that I firmly believe could have been ant credit music of a WB soap opera. Oh, anthem. Yours to Keep is from Vanessa Carlton's song White Houses. The second book is called Yours to Break, which is from Dashboard Confessionals hands down. And the last one is Yours to Take, which is from Look After You the Frey. So it's all kind of tied back to that feel of that. Dashboard Confessional.
SPEAKER_00I'm having flashbacks. The best.
SPEAKER_02I still love dashboard. I will die on that hill.
SPEAKER_00Um I think we were slightly different teenagers, but I love that. I have a dashboard professional, like, oh my god, I'm I'm back at high school. All right. So, Susie, you have a holiday story coming out as well. Is it another of your holiday novellas or something else? And like, do you plan to write another holiday novella? I really enjoyed the last one.
SPEAKER_02So I do have a concept for what I think will be the last of the books in the Christmas in the city collection. Whether it happens this year or next year remains to be seen with the rest of what I have kind of going on with my editing. But so the Christmas in the City collection, which Tara has read one of them, are what I lovingly call my Hallmark movies in reverse. So instead of a successful citywoman goes back home to her small town, it's a small town boy, runs away to the big city, falls in love with a queer woman, and she gets the guy and the job. So there's one more concept that I'm playing around with that one. So we'll see if that comes out. But the one that I do have coming out is part of it's an e-book anthology. Um, lists of love is the title, and it's really based on there's a nice list and a naughty list. And so the nice stories are all very like sweet kisses only romance, and then the naughty list is just all better off. Um so I you all knowing that I I write for tender attempted girls. You're on the naughty list. That is where I have landed. And uh the story is called Seven Simple Rules for Staying Friends with Your Ex, because the the conceit of the um anthology is also everything has a list theme. So it is about a woman who has sex news romance, a woman who has moved away, broke up with her boyfriend, has now moved back, and is like, no, we can do this, we can be friends again. So they make a list of rules to say, here's what we're gonna do to keep our relationship in the friend zone. Uh and slowly throughout the course of the story, it's structured as they break every single rule. Um I love it.
SPEAKER_00But Liz Lucy better be in this anthology. Lucy always does lists and rules.
SPEAKER_02Oh, I love that. So yeah, so that's the the story that's coming out there. It's out December 10th. And as I said, that one's ebook only. And I don't know if we've identified where yet, but the proceeds for that will be going to charity. So that's an exciting project to get to be a part of. But we can shout them out.
SPEAKER_00What what press does this?
SPEAKER_02It's Catherine Swift is the the organizer who does them. So she's done a few different anthologies in a few different genres too. She's done a poetry collection, things like that as well. So she's got stuff all over social media. Catherine Swift is Miller Craft. She's great.
SPEAKER_00We'll we'll find her and try to link her. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I like I like I like charity anthologies. It's nice. I mean, it's a lot of work to write something and stuff, but it is nice to have something that is helping while people are enjoying reading short romantic stories.
SPEAKER_00So some friends of mine did a cozy library anthology to benefit libraries in their area, and it was all cozy library creatures, and it had like a little library dragon. So of course I had to get it for my sister, but it seemed like such a cute idea. And it had the cutest cover with little library creatures. I love it. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03The SAS anthology this year benefited muscular dystrophy. Matter of fact, um it's on sale till the end of August, and then September 1st, it comes down and we get our rights back. So go support the muscular dystrophy next year. I think they're supporting a group for literacy.
unknownNice.
SPEAKER_03So we know you're a proponent of body diversity, and I do think in the plus one pack, she's a curvy girl. Yes, she is. But also in your MMCs as well. So, what can readers expect in terms of body diversity in the plus one pact and maybe in your other upcoming projects?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so one of the things that I always like to think about is as a storyteller, why am I choosing to have a character look the way that they look? And that we don't just default to they're conventionally attractive because it's a romance story, and we want people in romance stories to be conventionally attractive. That there's a a purpose narratively to why they look away the way that they do. And so, like in plus one pact, for example, Alyssa is explicitly stated in the text she's a size 20. And what I loved about writing her is that I wanted to create a character who was plus size, but that wasn't her whole identity. That it was a fact about her, the same as her hair color or eye color. And it comes into play like it does for any of us who sort of navigate life in a larger body, but it was not her defining characteristic, and her arc was not about accepting and loving herself as the fat girl. It was a whole different thing. Jeff, meanwhile, is a a former athlete, and so he is somebody who is very traditionally like romance author, y, tall, dark, and handsome kind of thing. But his body serves a purpose, and that there's an element of perfectionism that extends to his appearance. And you know, there's a scene in the book where he's kind of debating with himself, can I eat that? Which is not often a thing that we see male characters thinking about. But it ties into his overall way that he sees himself and sees the world, and that uh his appearance is as much a reflection of that sort of need for perfection as anything else. So while he does kind of fit that stereotypical trope, it's for a purpose. Like it's not just it's something we kind of interrogate and take a look at. It's not just, oh, well, obviously he's built in muscular because he's a romance hero, so he's supposed to be built in muscular. I feel the same way about like hype diversity in male characters, that so many books you read that he's like, well, and I in some romanticy books it's like bordering on comical, that the male main character is like six foot eight and it's so big you can't put your hands around it. But then the female main character is this sweet little pixie, like what are the physics of this? How is this working? So I have thought a lot about like how do we create male characters that are explicitly five foot eight? How do we talk about that? How do we have that be a part of the conversation? And so in my story in Starlet and Spellbound, it's actually like a part of the conversation that the female main character is taller than the male main character, and that's a thing that is in the text. In the Sound of Summers series, in the second book, the the hero of that book is a shorter guy. And though the female character in that book is also quite short for again reasons, um, his ex-girlfriend is five foot ten and described as like this woman who's super willowy and tall. So with those dynamics of like it doesn't always have to be big burly man with tiny wee woman, like it can be different ways that we can look. Plus, I think we've got Tom Holland and Zendea out there proving that this you don't have to be taller than your wife to be everybody's favorite internet cinnamon role husband.
SPEAKER_03So yeah, like taller than all of her husbands, so yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I always think of Jessica and Roger Rabbit. She loves that rabbit, so much shorter than her. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I I think it's fun to play with all sorts of things like that. When I first started reading, the women were always tall, lean with long hair, and the men were always at least six feet, maybe more. Um, every now and then a man might be described as I don't know, lanky or something, but there was still a strength about them, right? So maybe they're lean, but still quite strong and muscular. They're just not bulky. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I finally wrote a tall FMC for Fox Protocol. She's finally tall. She's gotta be tall because everyone she's dating is very tall, and it didn't make sense to me to do the tiny pixie and the really, really big. I mean, a measelite are big dude. So they're immediately they see a human who's taller, like a woman, and they're like, Ah, yes, I like that you are taller. It's just so funny you talk about like the romanticy trope with the big dudes and the tiny pixie women that's happening in sci fi as well. Well, Ice Planet barbarians is a perfect.
SPEAKER_03I was about to say there must be a universal fantasy around being a petite woman with a ginormous man and all that goes with that, right? And that that is innuendo, people.
SPEAKER_00Giant blue man's Susie, this might sound a little weird, but we like to treat our guests like co-hosts. And we were wondering if you had any questions for us or wanted to circle back on anything.
SPEAKER_02Ooh, so there was um a different trope that I wanted to throw out there because it's the book that I'm finishing up now. Thoughts on love triangles. Because this current like book talk thought is people don't like them. But I think people are lying because Summer Turn Pretty, Twilight, like all of these huge romance properties that have been so popular in other media, they're literally all romance triangles. So I feel like people who say they don't like romance triangles are lying. I want to know what you think.
SPEAKER_00I think they're giving way to white shoes. I think that the love triangle is changing to white shoes. I've been doing a love triangle that is that I'm sort of debating back and forth of how I want to end it. I'll probably go in the direction of white shoes, but I'm not sure. I like the dynamics of a love triangle. I just get the feeling that people don't like the where I I think Polly's getting really popular now, and the idea that like the FMC generally has to choose one of two guys is ridiculous to people at this point. No, I've read I've been looking at things like I want to figure out what cozy Omega Verse was. So I read one of the the or I read a cozy Omega Verse uh story, and I've been looking at the rest of that series, and they talk a lot about like packs, and there are a lot of guys in these, and and nobody's jealous or anything like that. The guys aren't necessarily in relationships with each other. So that's kind of a bummer for me, but at least you get it's very much a Y choose kind of thing. Like there's just no need for any of that. So I can see that the the basic dynamic of the love triangle is that you have to choose one, and that's dissolving in romance quite a bit. I so I think that's what people are talking about. I don't think that it's strange. I mean, I think that they like older triangles. I think that Twilight's still very popular. I I wonder if it was written today, if it would become a Y choose, to be honest. I mean, there is a Y choose instinct to it, right? Like the the weird thing with her daughter being the the actually the person that Oh strange yeah, it's so weird. It's it's I don't like that, but I can see what's happening there. There's a Y choose thread to it, basically, that he was in love with like the the spark of her child within her or something. It's kind of what it's implicating. And I think it would have been much better as a why choose. Honestly, it would be less weird if it was just a Y choose.
SPEAKER_02See, I do I don't mind Y choose. I think I do think you're right. I think, especially in the indie space, that's gaining a lot of steam. I always feel though, like if it's going to be a why choose, I really just want it to be a thruple. Like we need to go wholesale into the other side of it. Because otherwise, we're just choosing to not resolve the conflict. So it feels like it's like retreating from the conflict of no, it's okay. Everybody like they she can be with both of them because you're right, it is usually the female main character. Like, well, no, I want there to be a resolution to this because otherwise we've built up to this thing. Elle Kennedy wrote a book that was ended in sort of like a why choose place. I can't remember which one it was, it was in her most recent trilogy. Um, and I was just like, it's a cop-out. Like, I want there to be a resolution of some sort, even if it's that the boyfriends become boyfriends. Like, I'm cool with that resolution. Let's go down that path.
SPEAKER_03But oh yeah, that'd be awesome if they dumped her. And another time the love triangle was her and two guys, and what it was was a guy and a guy and a girl, right? Yeah. I do not love this. Is me personally, I do not love like love triangles because they hurt my sensibility of one true love for everybody, right? That's my my go-to universal fantasy. So that I don't like that element. And going to the twilight, because that was kind of the first time I came across this. The whole time I just thought, this boy is 14 and you are 18. Like, there was that seemed weird. The the resolution was he's faded to her because she has an egg in her that is his person, which was weird. For me, it was always Edward. I never understood the other. I never, I mean, I liked the character. I also didn't like that we had his point of view instead of Edwards.
SPEAKER_00I was Team Jacob, to be honest with you.
SPEAKER_03When I when I started reading the book Midnight Sun, the one in Edward's. I was like, man, that would have been so much that should have been in Twilight. You know, like because I was like, he ain't that scary until you read that book, and you and he's thinking, I have to eat the whole class, and then we're gonna have to move. He's cycling through if I if I indul if I do what I want to do to anyway. I do not love like triangles mostly because of that element of one kind of true love. It's why I'm I don't love why trues, but that does every what I like if I don't like secret child either. People love it, so everybody has their thing. I assume there are people out there who like the tension between a love triangle, who is she going to pick, and I there's probably a fantasy of having two men fighting over you, so there's probably that element there. So I totally see that there are people who like it, but it ain't me.
SPEAKER_00I think a lot of love triangles don't work because they are uncompelling, right? Because the I think the author has chosen which one of these is the real MMC and the other one is not, right? And like I've I've written a love triangle where it's very obvious which one of them is not going to make it, right? And really that that that second guy is just providing tension, he's just providing conflict between the main couple and highlighting some things that are wrong in their relationship. I've ever written that before. That's not really a love triangle, right? It's just a it's just conflict. I think sometimes I see why choose in these spaces, in indie spaces, because I think that there are some cozy writers who are allergic to conflict. It's a way of not being confrontational, it's a way of not resolving conflict, as you noted. Uh Susie, I've read your stuff and you are not allergic to conflict. Like you go, you want to resolve whatever the conflict is and you want to get there. I have, but I have read indie writers where I feel like the the they're calling something cozy because it it is so low stakes and so low conflict that it can't really be anything else. And I the low confrontation and the low stakes-ness of some cozy stuff frustrates me. So if you're moving from a love triangle to why choose just to avoid conflict, that's a cop-out, right? But it's also like some love triangles are just bad because also like it's not really a conflict. You can't really imagine the girl with the other guy. And it's not really providing a lot of conflict to the main couple, it's just kind of like, why is this here? Right. So an uncompelling love triangle, a a why choose to avoid conflict, those to me are just not good.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I really think that these why chooses, a lot of them, a woman with two, three. I've seen some with four men, I think it's just all about the spice, right? Not that there's not a story there. I'm not saying that at all. I I am not, but I'm saying that part of that element is there, right? Here's a a woman who has four different treats.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they're they're almost, I mean, they almost read like erotica. I did read the composion. I mean, it was very like that, it was procedural.
SPEAKER_03In a history of the world in which men might have many wives, right? We we haven't seen a woman who gets to have many husbands. So I I think there's some element of that. I think there's a fun to it and a playfulness and a sensuality to it that makes it fun for readers.
SPEAKER_02The love triangle that I'm currently finishing up is a Satholic love triangle. So it's all women, which leads to a different dynamic in a lot of ways. And I think it's very similar, Tara, that who the main couple is going to be kind of from the start of the book, as like a giveaway. It's the two characters we've known since the first book. So characters sort of drop off through each of the summers as they move into like their real adult life. And that's actually a theme in the last book is that we're kind of the last two standing, and what does that mean for us and where we are in our life? Um, you're you're pretty clear, like going into it where this is gonna go. But it's the representation of these two paths for the main character in that book is do I choose the love that is like scary because it's somebody who doesn't need me but wants me? Or do I choose the person who is interested in me, attractive to me, loves me, whatever, because they need me? And that's a dynamic that existed with her previous relationship. So it's this very like inherent tension of do I choose, even though it's the new person, the path that feels comfortable, or do I go towards again friends to lovers, this person who's been a friend of mine for a really long time and I'm scared about losing that? But it's it's a dynamic that's new and different for me in that we're mutually choosing each other rather than feeling like we're dependent on one another. So there's a lot of really fun things to play with.
SPEAKER_00You're bringing in a rival to highlight a problem that's kind of already been there, right? The appearance of a rival is really just the conflict that was already present.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's also kind of fun because there are two so there were a bunch of the characters work at a hotel. So in books two and three, we introduce characters who are sort of ciphers for the Hilton sisters. If you go back to again playing on the WB 90s theme here, so playing around with the sort of have have not dynamic in a lot of different ways over the course of all three books of the series has been a really fun thing to get in and muck up a little bit.
SPEAKER_00That's extremely fun. Oh, don't mean good. I mean remember in the aughts, the Hilton sisters are suddenly cropping up everywhere with that manufactured celebrity. That was such a weird moment. Like, wait, who are these people? Are they singers? What's going on? Are they heiresses? Do they have talent? Do they do anything? No.
SPEAKER_03Oh, they're related to eventually went away, and the Kardashians never have.
SPEAKER_00And that is they're just they're hanging on like chalk roses. All right, it is my favorite time. It's hot take time. This episode, I want to talk to you folks about book preferences, and I mean like actual books, paperbacks, hardback, dealing with DRM, owning your media versus renting it, dog earing your pages. How do you feel about all of it? Do you actually read books that they have sprayed edges dish?
SPEAKER_02I've gotten into the sprayed edges thing, and I know it's super popular right now, but I think it's partially because I cannot do a hardback book. I am a paperback reader all the way unless I'm e-reading. Although I was thinking recently, I don't know what it is. When I fly anywhere, I always bring my Kindle because that way you can take a whole bunch of stuff with you. It's super easy to take with you. But I need to fly with an emotional support paperback.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I may.
SPEAKER_02Amen. There's like the if something happens to my Kindle, I can't just sit there and not do something. So I have to have the paperback book with me as well every time I get on a plane. Emotional support paperback.
SPEAKER_00No, I always have one. I whenever I go to con, which is which is crazy. If I go to Strategic Con, I'm not reading a paperback. I have so much to do. I run an apartment. I've got like a million events I've got to run, but I bring a paperback just in case. I find two minutes in my day when I'm bored. Like that's gonna happen. And I'm not just gonna sit on the bed staring at the ceiling, shocked from how exhausted I am. But I bring it just in case. It's like an ambitious, it's like an ambition, right? It's a it's an optimistic paperback that I might find a moment in my day to read this. And a magazine. I always bring a magic. And I I've talked about this before, but I absolutely destroy my paperbacks. Like I'm people are very precious about books, and I'm like, oh, I'm really bad with books. Like I dog ear them, I I accidentally rip them, I get them wet in the bath. I'm I'm really brutal on paperbacks. I'm sorry, tender readers telling you all this. I know it's for shopping.
SPEAKER_02I leave them open face down. Oh yes, the sign gets broken.
SPEAKER_00It's I I break them ahead of time to make sure that they're already broken. Like I like like a horse. I want to break it first.
SPEAKER_03I wonder if this is a millennial thing. Um everything you're saying, I'm sitting here thinking, well, I've probably done that, but right now I usually have a bookmark. I I do annotate a lot of my books, so they're stickies. Sometimes I underline things. I do now have these stickies that are kind of like underliney stickies. So that's if like I decide I want to give the book away. Like I I don't sell my books, but I might give them away to the library or something, and they don't want to know my notes inside it or whatever. Um, yeah, I saw I saw a video today where somebody was saying 20 per only 20% of the books, like I can't remember the time, had been purchased, like in the last year or something. And I was and so I was like, Well, the 80%, where are they getting their books? Because it made me think of this. And she had a whole list of libraries, gifts, friends, like, but then she was like, subscription and books already on the shelf. And I'm like, Well, subscriptions and books on the shelf, purchase the books, like right. So I was sort of I was confused by that one, but it did talk about how a lot of people audiobooks were up. We know more audiobooks, digital audiobooks were sold at a higher rate last year than than ebooks, even. So personally, for me, I don't have very many sprayed edges. If they do, that's because I saw the book, I liked it, I bought it, it has it, but that's not why I bought it. My I they are pretty on my shelf, but they're not artwork. So I will open them, I will read them. I don't usually dog ear anymore unless I can't find something to shove in the you know. I use sometimes I used to dog ear if there was something I wanted to come back to, not to say my place, but I wanted to come back to and look at it, study it more. I used, but now I have little stickies to do that. Um so on my shelf I have a good mix of hardback and paperback, and some are used and some are trade and some are mass, and I got all sorts of things. And I um as far as DRM, I don't really move my ebooks anywhere. I have started adding DRM to my ebooks, not because I want to make it difficult for readers, but I would like to make it difficult for people to steal my books. They're gonna do it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you had your books pirated. I don't blame you.
SPEAKER_03They're gonna they're gonna do it. I know there's no hundred percent proof, but you know, that's one thing I could do. I I was thinking, oh gosh, I'm putting this book on Substack.
SPEAKER_00Somebody's gonna take it and in its unedited form, however.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um but anyway, so yeah, I kind of like books in all forms. I have a new copy of Pride and Prejudice, and on the inside of it, there are uh, I don't know what you would call the paper. I can't remember what it's called, but they act like little envelopes, and and every letter that is in Pride and Prejudice, I can reach into the envelope and pull out the letters. Oh, I love that. And then multimedia things. And I can read that. So I got that. Those are fun. Yeah, I just books, just books.
SPEAKER_00I I don't have a single sprayed edge. Uh and mostly I avoid them because I I I some booktubers were saying that they tend to as you because I tend to leaf through with my thumb a lot. They said that they they fade as you do that or the ink gets on your hands. So I kind of avoiding them. I'm just so rough on books that it's a sprayed edge feels kind of wasted on me.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, but for some people it's sort of their their hobby. They're oh, yeah, no, it's nothing wrong with people collecting them. They're collectible, yeah. I mean, because a lot of them, I don't think, read that version. If they have a sprayed edge version, they're not that's not the one they read. That's the one they've turned backwards on the shelf so people can see the print.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, those are book goblins. I'm a press gremlin, not a book goblin. This is very important difference.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, but I have the big thing that has all Jane Austen in it from Bar. It has a gold edge. I've read that book. Nothing came off.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yes. They do have those. Yeah, I don't read those. If they have gold edges, I I'm I believe that's okay.
SPEAKER_03My little string is marked on Wentworth's letter in persuasion, so I can easily go back to it when I feel the need to swoon.
SPEAKER_00I've I've received the gold edges for Christmas before, and I'm just like, oh, oh, sweet person who gave this to me. Don't give me this.
SPEAKER_02Like it's so beautiful, and I'm gonna ruin it. I'm agreed. Like an archival body. Do you remember the embossed paperback covers? Yeah. So they were like essentially the drugstore novels that had the raised letters and pieces on the covers. What happened to embossed covers?
SPEAKER_00Those were the I like those. Those were my mom had a ton of those.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. She was really hard on them. BC Andrews books that I read before well before I was old enough to read B.C. Andrews books had.
SPEAKER_00Millennial and me recognizes the millennial. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02We all read Flowers in the Attic too Young.
SPEAKER_03That's why we're like, Flowers in the Attic too Young as well. That book is old, let me tell you. That book is non-new.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, yeah. I my mom had it and I stole it. I read it. I read the entire series. I read Heaven. I read Dawn. I read the Dawn series.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03Another good one. I think I was a twin when I read that too. And then they made movies about it, which was weirder still. Uh watch. Yeah. Good golly.
SPEAKER_00No, no, why would this be so popular? They have to tell us. Explain to us why this was so popular.
SPEAKER_03Tell us lore of the old times. I don't know. It may be probably just different. I mean, really, they're thrillers, right? Psychological thrillers, right? Like gothic, yeah. Yeah. Um, so there's that element, and but those kids only had each other.
SPEAKER_00And with the inheritance and the murders and everything, yeah, they're you're right. They're thrillers. I never thought of them that way, but they absolutely are.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Anybody know what I thought they were. Stark romance?
SPEAKER_03I don't know. Messed up is what they're yeah. No, they weren't not romance, no.
SPEAKER_00Is VC Andrews her own genre?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah, possibly. Trying to think where they are in the bookstore, but they're probably in regular fiction. I don't know. Anywho. Uh YA, apparently. YA.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03Oh well, you know that. Or there was YA. We were reading VC Andrews and Stephen King. Yeah, they were teenagers. Yeah, I read a lot of Stephen King as well. That time. Dan Rice.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03So much interview with the vampire.
SPEAKER_00Dean Koontz. I read a lot of Dean Koontz, God help me. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Read, read. Everybody should read.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so all the look at all of this wonderful literacy that we are showcasing here. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Well, you're saying that was sort of like this is not real literature, but no fun. They were all these books were mentioned. Stephen King was fun. Just because you're like, good golly, what is in this guy's head that he thought of this?
SPEAKER_00The reason why I'm saying it is because there was a very funny video I was watching recently that was talking about how Harry Potter had created a generation of readers and is talking about me and Susie. And I think I I saw that and I laughed out loud. It was like, no, VC Andrews created a generation of readers. Correct.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah. But I was reading them in high school and younger. I I remember reading those. I remember reading, I wish I knew how old I was, but I was young, not married. Um, Stephen King wrote a I I think it would be considered a YA at this point. It's a pretty thick book and it's um a fantasy. There's a king and a can't remember what it is. I loved that book. It was so different from anything of his I'd read, but I remember really liking it. It was one of my favorites of his. But yeah, I read all the others.
SPEAKER_00I'm gonna look this up for you. I remember I think I own one of these.
SPEAKER_03The stand um Dead Zone. Love Dead Zone. And I loved the show.
SPEAKER_00Are you thinking of Dark Tower?
SPEAKER_03No, no, no, nope, nope. It's got a dragon in it.
SPEAKER_00Stephen King.
SPEAKER_03Can't remember what it was. Anyway, I didn't read romance till much later. The Eyes of the Dragon, Jenna? Maybe.
SPEAKER_00Maybe it's got a dragon on the cover. Probably then.
SPEAKER_03Probably then. I mean, I don't know how it'd be now, but when I read it back 20 years ago or 30 years ago, probably 40 years ago, actually.
SPEAKER_00In 1984. 1984.
SPEAKER_03Okay, so I would have read it. Um I I graduated from high school in 1984. But I think I don't think I read it in high school. I probably read it in college. I really like the book, and I don't know how it would stand up today, but at the time you know you read a book and you're like, oh, I love this book, and then you go back to read it. Mr. Perfect. Did you ever read Mr. Perfect by Linda Howard? Um Linda Howard was a s is well was a staple of romance fiction. Right up there, Nora Roberts, Sandra. I've seen her covers. She wants to romantic suspicions. Spence. She wrote one time, I think it was hers, where they were in the woods and we had the point of view of a bear at one point. And I was like, good, go eat that guy. He's bad.
SPEAKER_00Anyway, Mr.
SPEAKER_03Perfect came out. There's no TikTok or anything like that, but it did. It got a bunch of buzz around it. These women, just for fun, make a list of what would be the perfect guy. But there's also a murder that takes place. She thinks her neighbor is a drug dealer. It turns out he's a cop. So there's a lot of humor. It's sort of funny, but also this romantic suspense. And it just sort of took off. And Rachel and I both really like that book. But if I read it today, maybe it wouldn't hold up. I don't know.
SPEAKER_00I feel like bare POV does not age badly.
SPEAKER_03The books in the night, the things you could do and say in the 90s, you can't really do anymore. So I'm always worried to recommend a book.
SPEAKER_00That's too old. There was a teenage book I bet I read in high school that had dog POV, and it was so good. Like the dog solves the crime. It leads us to the murderer. And it's like dog POV, like the dog's distracted by things.
SPEAKER_03It's just like little oh squirrel moments. Oh, that's funny. So, anywho, should we go on to news? Press news. Okay, well, fireworks and flirtation is still out, and it's still summer, it's still hot. So go get a copy. Fantastical foes is our romantic zine. That is out. It is fun, it's got games. You want to read it. Saphix of Saturn. We have an open call right now through August. So if you have a five to seven thousand word sapphic sci-fi story, Tara wants to hear from you. Submit to Zod. You can get the link over at our Substacker on our website for how to go ahead and submit. Starlet and Spellbound will be our very first ever fall anthology. Last year we did more of a winter one, but we've decided to go with fall this time. Cozy vibes and pumpkin spice and a little woo-woo.
SPEAKER_00So much pumpkin spice in here.
SPEAKER_03I'm actually really excited for this one. Um, so not that I'm not excited about all of them, but there's something about this one that just feels a lot fun. Vows and Valentine's Call will open in October for those of you writers out there that want to write about Valentine's and Vows. That will open in October. We'll publish in January. And then we'll have our next zine call, Oaths and Omissions, which is obsessions. Obsessions. Yeah, whatever. Listen, it's dark, it's dark, it has some sort of organization in it, whether it's the mafia, the bratfa, secret society, academia, dark, morally gray people. That's what I want. All and it could be any category. So it could be historical, it could be some sort of historical, secret society, whatever. Okay, it's oaths and obsessions. So there we go. Um, and all our calls are on the Substack or on our website. Also, again, one of our friends, Mari Enkin Min, is still running her author, August. Check it out on Instagram.
SPEAKER_00All right, folks, we are Tender and Tempting Tales. Uh, I will eventually have an article up on the Substack called Oaths and Omissions, because it is such a good title. We have to have something about Oaths and Omissions. Yeah. You can find us on Substack with wonderful articles and podcast episodes every week for both readers and writers. We have an article up right now about how we like to read anthologies and how we put our anthologies together. It's slightly bonkers, but I wrote it, so that's what you have to expect. You can also find us on Instagram. We are TenderTemptingTales on Instagram without an and. You can also find links for all those things in the doobly-doo underneath this episode. We also have a bunch of wonderful anthologies coming out in zines. Also, I mean, if you are thinking about submitting to Savage Book Saturn, now is the time. Submit to Zod. Jenna?
SPEAKER_03Susie, thank you so much for joining us again today. It's always thank you for having me. Always fun to chat with you. And for everybody who's listening, thank you for listening. Please subscribe wherever you're listening to us. And just a reminder: if you subscribe to our Substack, you will get an email with a link to a free story that you might want to read because I wrote it. And it's a Friends to Lovers, which is a trope we talked about today. And it's set on an island that was founded by pirates. So you definitely want to read it.
SPEAKER_00It's connected to her story in fireworks and flirtation.
SPEAKER_03It is connected to it's a Schoolhaven Bay story. So, yes, if you subscribe, you get that free story. Kind of get a sense of what the anthologies have to offer. So that would be great if you could do that. And until next time, peace, love, and happily ever after.