Illicit Liaisons
Illicit Liaisons
Illicit Liaisons: Witchy Romance with Mara Heath & Jenna Harte/Eva LeClerc
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This week, we continue celebrating the release of Starlit & Spellbound, our first fall anthology featuring 10 spellbinding romances with witches, ghosts, fated mates, enemies-to-lovers, forbidden love, curses, fate & more!
We're chatting with Mara Heath and Jenna Harte/Eva LeClerc about love triangles, witchy romance, and more.
Mara Heath is the author of the new-adult paranormal romance “Out of Bounds” in Starlit and Spellbound, as well as the author of her contemporary fantasy romance novels Harnessed in Gold and Caged in Silver.
Mara's Website https://maraheathauthor.com/
Mara on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/maraheathauthor/
Mara on Substack https://maraheathauthor.substack.com/
Jenna Harte wrote the paranormal rom-com “Quantum Entanglement” for Starlit & Spellbound. She's also the author of the Southern Heat contemporary romance series and the sexy Valentine Mysteries.
Jenna's Website https://jennaharte.com/
Jenna on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/jennaharteauthor/
Eva LeClerc is Jenna's alter ego, author of the paranormal romance, “A Love Stronger Than Fate" in Starlit & Spellbound. She writes the Southern Gothic paranormal romance series, Oathmarked, set in New Orleans.
Eva's Website https://evaleclerc.com
Eva on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/evaleclercauthor/
Eva on Substack https://evaleclercauthor.substack.com/
MENTIONED ON THE SHOW
Starlit & Spellbound https://link.amazon/B05WqBMrH
Echoes in Ashmere by Ann Isaacs https://link.amazon/B04f98I11
The Book Witch by Meg Shaffer https://link.amazon/B04f98I11
Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead https://link.amazon/B05yI8Mca
Succubus Blues (Georgina Kincaid Series) by Richelle Mead https://link.amazon/B0eRfMwrN
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'm Jen Hart, the 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_00Hi, I'm Territ 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 romance, and you can often find me in our anthologies, anthologies, alongside these ladies, including in our upcoming spooky fall anthology, Starlit and Spellbound.
SPEAKER_03And we are still celebrating the release of Starlit and Spellbound with a third of our Starlit podcast episodes. Each of these episodes feature one or two, and in my case, I am two. So is that like two and a half? No, three. Authors and pairs that make thematic sense.
SPEAKER_00In today's episode, we welcome back to the show, Mara Heath, author of New Adult Paranormal Romance Out of Bounds in Starlit and Spellbound, as well as the author for contemporary romance, contemporary fantasy romance novels harnessed in gold and caged in silver. We also feature Jenna herself, whose paranormal rom quantum entanglement appears in this anthology, as well as her alter ego, Ava Leclerc, author of Paranormal Romance, A Love Stronger Than Fate. Hello to both of you. All three of you. Jenna with your two hats. You have to speak with like a New Orleans accent. Like, oh, I'm chair. When we first interviewed you as Ava, I was desperately hoping that you would like come on with a with a New Orleans accent.
SPEAKER_03I haven't mastered it yet.
SPEAKER_00Drinking a Sazerac.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Now that I could do.
SPEAKER_00I believe in your ability to drink a Sazerac on the pot, Jenna. Right, folks. Hot take time, my favorite time. Mara brought this up and I loved it, so we're going to discuss it. Why do love triangles get so much hate these days? We've discussed the idea that the idea of like why choose is a trope has displaced love triangles in a variety of ways, and I think that's true. Um, but I think it probably goes deeper than that as well. So what do you think? Do you have a love triangle you really enjoy?
SPEAKER_01I can think of one that I love. It's not well, it is indirectly from books, and that's but I haven't read the books, and that's from True Blood. Oh yeah. Although I haven't watched the last season because I heard it was terrible and very unsatisfying, and I hear that Sookie doesn't end up with either Bill or Eric.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. But I was very sad about that too.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I have my opinions on that.
SPEAKER_00Um are you an Eric Stan? Please tell me you're an Eric's stand.
SPEAKER_01Oh gosh, yes.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. Thank you. Finally. Yes, I'm on here forever. I was saying I'm a Skarsgard game. It really comes down to the fact that he's played by Alexander Skarsgard. That's the truth of it.
SPEAKER_01He's a delicious character, though.
SPEAKER_00He is. He's so I love okay. So if you read one Sookie Stackhouse novel, read book four, which correlates to the the the fourth season, which I think is the best season of True Blood. Although two is also very good. That one snaps. But season four, I love Eric losing his memory and kind of getting to see his real personality. I love that so much. That is a very good love triangle.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, I did see that season. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I like that love triangle because it doesn't feel like it's obvious which one she will end up with, right? Like there's the guy she's with in the first season, first and then the first book, and then she breaks up with him for very good reasons, and she gets together with Eric for very, very strong reasons. She's with other guys, we see LC, who I also love. Oh my gosh, he's a good one. Whenever Marissa writes her werewolf books, she has a character named Alec, and I always see LC. I love that actor. But yeah, so like that's a really good love triangle. You're not thinking to yourself, like, oh, it's obvious. Like, this is the Edward, yeah, this is the Jacob. Of course, he's not gonna end up with Jacob. Like, that's a lame love triangle where it's like this other guy is just very obviously not the person that the character's gonna end up with.
SPEAKER_01He's like 14 merits, right? Both the guys have their merits, I think, at least from the scene, seasons that I've seen.
SPEAKER_03I hate love triangles.
SPEAKER_00You hate them?
SPEAKER_03I hate them. I hate them. Because my thing is this one true love, Daphne, fate in the stars thing. I and if I if there's books that have sort of insert another person, I tend to stick with the first person. So I like Vampire Bill, right? Um, I was Edward all the way in the Janet Ivanovich books. I want her with Morelli, and of course, the way she's written those books, I don't think Stephanie Plum can pick either Morelli or Ranger, like because the it's so divided, the fans are so divided that she will upset a significant number if she said now I haven't read them all, so maybe she has decided and I don't know. But in my mind, like if she if Stephanie picks one or the other, uh a significant number of people are gonna be upset.
SPEAKER_00And this happens in Aquitar too.
SPEAKER_03You like the first thing, and I'm really feeling it between them, but I didn't read on when I learned that this other dude, who we do meet in that book. Now, my daughter has told me to read on, she's given me the next two books to read. I just haven't gotten to them, so I will do that. Um, but yeah, I I tend to whoever is introduced to me first in my eye mind, that's them.
SPEAKER_01And don't read thrown of glass either. Yeah, she does the same thing in throne of glass.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so I I just don't like them. Just for that, because it's that's my little universal fantasy, is this one. And in my own book, I sort of kind of inserted somebody, but not really. I think it's clear to everybody in the Valentine mysteries that Daniel stands zero chance with Tess. Like it's not even a thing, right?
SPEAKER_00Like Daniel's presence though, and I do think that he is it's still love triangly. I don't and I don't like him in the first book because Deputy Dan in the first book can go screw himself. He's an asshole in the first book. But after that, like book two, he always has standing to tell both Jack and Tess what's really going on. And he knows Tess well enough to tell Jack, like, hey, she's not like that. Like, that's really not what's happening. And like he, even though he's obviously not the person she's gonna end up with, she's with Jack, and he's obviously her true love. And that's that's great. There's this there's a reassurance there that I think that is something you crave as a reader, and so you provide it as a writer. But at the same time, Dan still provides like a really necessary foil to to Jack, and he provides a sounding board for both of them because he knows them both in really really strong ways. Like he doesn't like Jack at first, but he gets to know him, and he does like get up in his face sometimes and be like, You are wrong. And I like that. I really like that there's a second guy who knows too, right?
SPEAKER_03Daniel knows I got no chance, yes, and he doesn't try after, yeah. So yeah, so yeah, I don't love him. I do not, I do not love trying. And I don't know that I've never read a white choose, but I don't think I would like them for the same reason.
SPEAKER_01I have I'm honestly in your camp as far as there's the right one. That's why why choose just I mean, I think it would be fun to read or write, but eventually, I don't know, I just think it's it's human nature you're gonna pick eventually, and there's gonna be jealousy, and I don't know, maybe I'm wrong. But I just like I want my FMC to find the one.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so, but I do love stories where there is another guy, another option, and he's gonna shed light on on how guy A is really so much better. Like the one you're talking about that you have to do.
SPEAKER_03Or in the case of Suki Stackhouse, guy B is better, right? The U guy B, guy C, guy B, guy F.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. I want one to root for. Yeah, I it could be all through the whole alphabet, all 26 guys, but there's a there's the one, yeah, and and you want to see him jealous, and you want to see the angst, and so I like that element, but that her saying, Well, well, I love them both equally, and I can't choose. Yeah, you can you just gotta dig a little deeper.
SPEAKER_03And oh board, but those those are playing to a woman's fantasy of like having all these men love her and all these different I I get that, I totally support that. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah, I think in his reverse harem era right now.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, all the power to it, yeah. Yeah, but I still I remember reading a book, and I wanna I can't remember who it was. It wasn't Maya Banks, but it was, and this is before Fifty Shades, so it was one of the authors that would write that kind of kind of stuff. What is her name? Sylvia something, I think. And there were these these men who would have a woman and they would share her or something. And I and in this book, the first time they go to share this woman, one of the men all of a sudden is like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You gotta go, other friend guy. Like in that moment, he was like, No, I'm not gonna share. And I just remember thinking, okay, I like that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, like pretty realistic.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. And the other guy with a smirk is like, well, okay. Like, like he's understanding what's happening here, right?
SPEAKER_00Like Valkyrie, Stelture Valkyrie is it's it takes place in the future, and so I have to sort of acknowledge that it is a futuristic communist gay space utopia in 140 years. And in that communist gay space utopia, threples are very common, right? And like it's it's normal to have more poly kills and things like that. And like people have found ways of like creating families and having like lives where they have multiple partners, but it's not like I feel like a lot of people who are writing this are not poly, and a lot of the times it seems like the guys don't really have relationships with each other, or they do like they're friends, but they're not really together, right? And like, of course, there are polycules like that where you have two guys who are just with a girl. But I prefer to to do the difficult thing of writing it where all three of them have a relationship, or all four of them have a relationship, and that is difficult, right? Like writing a relationship between two human beings is a lot of work. Writing a relationship between three human beings is even more work because the more people you add, the more possible connections you have to explore. And that's I mean, that's gonna be way more work than just a relationship between two people. And I really think that like writers need to be realistic about it. Yeah, I think, like to be satisfying to me. And if this is universal fantasy and you're just doing a like this girl's with multiple guys, and that's fun, that's fine. I just I find it a little dissatisfying. It like if I'm gonna do it, I'm really gonna get into it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it seems more titillating than emotional. Didn't was it Aubrey Valentine who was doing a why choose? Yes, yeah, talking to people talking about wanting to have yeah, greater relationships between all of them, not just the girl and the guys, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we were talking to her about that actually, because I I was I had been reading a cozy Omega verse that had three guys and one girl. And one of the reviews, actually, that was also like kind of annoyed, like I was, was like, why none of the guys are in relationships together? It's just this huge universal fantasy of like these three guys are friends, they create a household for the girl before they even met meet her, and then she's their like faded mate, their faded Omega. They meet her and they're all like and they're all over her, right? But there's no relationship amongst them, so she doesn't worry about them spending too much time with each other, you know, like they're all about her. It's very, I don't know, there's there's something so indulgent about the fantasy that it feels very much like not only is it is it a fantasy that's being that's being satisfied, but it's also like and then Oprah came, and then we all got a pony at our birthday party, you know? And it's just I don't know, it's almost childish.
SPEAKER_03I don't know. People like it though, so yeah.
SPEAKER_00For me, it's too indulgent, but I can see who I can see how someone would like it. It's just for me, it's very like ponies, ponies for everything.
SPEAKER_01I just need the emotional intensity. And with that, I mean if I want to read something like that, and I have sure. But when I really want a romance, I want yeah, I want all the angst and the emotions and to me, it doesn't feel like a romance, it's the main thing.
SPEAKER_00It feels like erotica, it's so indulgent that it just feels like we're here for the nodding. It is a it's a it's an omega verse nodding story, right? And it's almost ritualistic where it's like, all right, and wow, we have the next date and we're gonna nod in a different way this time, and it's like, oh so it's everything's a setup for the sex.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But it's cozy erotica, which is that's weird.
SPEAKER_03It is very weird. No, in the mystery world, cozy doesn't have anything, right? Yeah, no sex, no swearing, no violence.
SPEAKER_00That's why it was like cozy Omega versus feels like cozy horror somehow. Like these things don't work. So I had to read it, you know. Of course, I was just sort of like, what is this? It's funny. All right, all right, let's let's get on here. You two, three. Uh tell our lovely audience about your stories, starting with Mara, and then we'll get to Jenna's two altery good.
SPEAKER_01So my story is out of bounds. It's I guess you could say a witchy college sports romance. Although, like a lot of sports romances, there isn't a whole lot of sports.
SPEAKER_00Um that you had a team there feels very sports romance.
SPEAKER_01That's that was kind of my because I took the story actually from the first messy 400,000-word draft of this contemporary romance that I had been playing around with a couple of years ago. And I remembered that it had a literal binding spell in it. I thought, oh, this is perfect. I'm going to put this in a different container and use this dynamic here and use that binding spell for this. Sorry, because it's just perfect for that. I needed a situation where young men would be dedicated and loyal to each other. And the only things I could think of were sports or military. And I don't know enough about the military to write about that. I don't really know a ton about sports, but my husband and son do. And they'd been watching the World Cup, so I was like, yeah, soccer, I'll do soccer. I like how to do soccer. Yeah, yeah, they helped me fill in all the blanks. And I was surprised by how much I actually did know just from listening to them and engaging with the World Cup. So yeah, I I wanted to set up my main character, Toby, and the whole story is from his point of view, which I I realized that was a little unusual, but I loved it.
SPEAKER_00I like that you did that. Yeah, I've I've done several with the from the guy's perspective, and I was so glad to see that.
SPEAKER_01I was like, yes!
SPEAKER_02It's really indulgent.
SPEAKER_03Her hard rock series is primarily the male point of view, and I listened to them. Sebastian York was the reader, and I could have listened all day, all night, forever. They were amazing.
SPEAKER_01I think I might be listening to something by him right now.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. He could read the phone book and I'd be there for it.
SPEAKER_00I like that you did soccer as well, Mara, because like I feel like soccer is really intense. And I noticed that the relationships amongst the guys were really intense, and like your your MMC's feelings about the guys and about the the the like the relationships among them was really intense. Like his need for the for the for the team to work in a certain way and for their relationships to work in a certain way was so intense that that was very redolent of a sport like soccer or hockey.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and that's it's I'm glad that came off because that was exactly what I was trying to do with him being captain. You know, those were his guys. He was responsible for them in a in a big brother kind of way, and they mattered to him. And then of course, the whole premise of the story is that his co-captain and best friend Dave, his girlfriend broke up with him because he uh Wim proposed to her, and these are 21-year-olds, and she freaked out and ran the other direction, and he was devastated, and Toby couldn't stand it. Meanwhile, our FMC Anya is this is gonna be confusing, Dave's girlfriend's best friend. Her name is Jess. She's Jess's best friend, and she knows that Jess is also hurting, and so she gets this idea that to try and get them back together, maybe she could do a binding spell on Jess. But and then there's this other factor that Anya was previously going out with another teammate, Alec, and recently broke up with him. So that's someone else that Toby feels responsible for, even though Toby's been out of reels for Anya since the night he met her. She was there to meet Alec, and so he did what the broke out said and backed up, but always felt that they were really wrong for each other, and Anya would just recently broke up with him, and Alec is kind of pouting. So Toby's sort of stuck in that. So how long do I have to wait after this breakup to go for Anya? And then Anya asked him, Will you help me do the binding spell? And of course he's like, Oh yeah, sure. Rest is history.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the emotional intensity of it, other than being very sports, like also just reminded me of college. Like it's very tumultuous in that that very college way. I did take I remember taking notes the first time I was doing, I was reading through it for the edit, and taking notes on the different characters, like, okay, Dave's with Jess, and Alec is with Anya, and Toby likes Anya, and Alec and Anya aren't together anymore, and Jess and Dave aren't anymore, and then there's another guy, and then the girls across the street. Oh, I got it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, it's kind of a complex web. But yeah, it is. And you know, when you have these groups of friends, you got Anya and her friends, and they she goes to the party to meet Alec, and Alec got his friends and they converge, and yeah.
SPEAKER_00I did have a large college group of friends, very much like this, very incestuous. Like this David with with is with Jennifer this week, and oh, he's gonna be the hobby with this week, and then all hung out like at a coffee house together when I was 19. So this is very that, you know. I was like, oh yeah, at least we don't have three Davids. That's great.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00All right, Jenna, tell us about Ava's story, I love stronger than fate, which is number one in our anthology, right up top, folks.
SPEAKER_03Woo! Ava made it.
SPEAKER_00Um I like the story a lot, much as I put you through how while we were editing.
SPEAKER_03I just had to move something around, but it was right. Uh yeah, I didn't want to set it in the same world that I had been already writing just because I was afraid I might mess something up in the rest of the books. But I still wanted it in New Orleans, and of course, still wanted the woo-woo. And you know, just was sort of thinking, what are what are some other things that would be similar? So instead of the veil, I have fate um that decides when people are supposed to go in the world. Um, and uh Marielle, as a child, drowns, um, but she's saved by a tratour. And after that, she can see the threads of people's fate. So she knows when they're gonna die. And eventually she gets recruited into a group that helps fate make sure that these things are carried out the way they're supposed to be carried out, because every now and then it doesn't happen. And of course, Luke is our uh Cajun bayou boat captain uh who gives tours on the bayou who keeps thwarting fate, and by the time they meet, he's he's missed two or three times. Fate has been unsuccessful in taking him, and she has sent to make sure that fate is successful this time, and immediately he's captivated by her, she's captivated by him, and the first time she inadvertently thwarts fate, and then after words, she on purpose, but fate fate's gonna take someone, and so then we have to figure out what's gonna happen here. Who's fate gonna take? anyways, I love the idea. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to fix it properly without cheating. You know what I mean? Like, fate isn't just gonna be all of a sudden like, well, okay.
unknownBack off.
SPEAKER_03So so that was the challenge. I hadn't written a cage in person yet, so it was fun to write Luke and Theory, his friend, who keeps telling him.
SPEAKER_00I just think I'm really glad you didn't you didn't do the thing from the first Sookie Stackhouse book where you made his accent so thick on. The page that it was difficult to understand what he was saying.
SPEAKER_03Well, that's what's really challenging, right? Is is doing that. I've read books that have done that in it, and it makes it very difficult. Like you want that, you want to hear the Cajun. I've been watching a lot of Cajun TikTokers just to get the sense of it. And what I realize is they say all the same words we say, maybe with a little French thrown in, but you know, for the most part, they say all the same. So on when you write them as words on the page, they don't really look different, they just sound different, right? They they don't say th, right? It's it's this or that, but I'm not gonna write that. So even when I write like in the Southern Heat series, Southern, um, I was very careful. Like I would throw in a word, like the sentence would be the same, but they would say fixing instead of fixing or a bless your heart. So you throw in little cues, bless your heart. Yeah, you throw in little cues to indicate this is southern or this is Cajun or whatever. Because yeah, you can't have people come into a screeching halt trying to decipher.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
unknownOh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I also think it tends to, if it becomes too difficult to understand what the character is saying, it tends to devalue their dialogue in writing. Um and I it it's just something I've noticed as I've read a lot of these kinds of things, like, oh yeah, I'm coming up on the Cajun guys writing. Like I this is gonna be really hard to understand. Whereas like if I was hearing him, I wouldn't feel that way. I would be deciphering it differently. My ear would be doing it on my eye. I just think it's better for authors to just do it like a little bit and not get too into it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, that's what I try.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I like that.
SPEAKER_01I read this story and I just loved Luke. I thought he was the perfect picture of a golden retriever. I mean, he was so eager and so sweet and so yeah, he knew right then and there.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, she's the one. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I like this. I like this, I like the way you you changed it based on our recommendations to put the the the cyclical date back at the the the first time they meet. Right again. I I love that. Yes, yeah, I love that so much.
SPEAKER_03I think you like me.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, like that's I mean, you'll see I put that in I when I put together the Swoonworthy Lines, that was the one that I that I put in there for that story because I really like that bit. And that being the end of the story, I was like, yes! Let's talk about Jenna's story, Quantum Entanglement.
SPEAKER_03Okay, this one came about. I love sleuthing couples, and I don't know why I came across this, but I was watching an old bewitched or something, and I was like, what if Samantha and Darren were detective? So I have this idea that I would write a series of a witch and he would be a because I think Darren was an accountant or something in advertising or something like that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I would say he's an he's an accountant, that's why I made Steven an accountant because I like the idea of a witch and accountant.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well, I was gonna make my guy a physics professor, and then I was trying to decide will it be a straight cozy mystery series? Will I turn it into something like The Valentine's where it's cozy but with sex? Um hundred percent. I started it. I have a lot of first act stories written, but never finished. And then when this came up, I thought, you know what, maybe I can do something else with it. Take out them solving the mystery. It was Evie and Edgar, and I had to change it to Effie because I have an Eevee in another story. So Effie and Edgar's murder, and then another murder they're gonna solve, and just used it for that. So it was now it's out of out of my to be written file. I've written something including make a good series.
SPEAKER_00I really do. I mean, I I know I've been encouraging you since you first like it got first it landed in our editor mailbox, but I really like it. I think it would make a good series if you ever wanted to come back to it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Well, I did enjoy I enjoyed finally getting it done. I enjoyed writing Luna, I enjoyed who's her familiar, her dog. Yes, and I enjoyed writing the ghosts.
SPEAKER_00Um ghosts are hilarious, yeah, by the way. The ghosts crack me up so hard.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00Effie, I think we're dead.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. I was trying to channel, like I was trying to channel, like, I guess a little bit of the thin man, but also like Topper. Miriam and George Kirby. I don't know if you know Topper, but kind of them. Um so yeah.
SPEAKER_00I think like poltergeist relationship counseling, I'm here for it 100%.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And of course, the story is really about Anastasia is a podcaster who travels around in a tiny home to places that have interesting lore, folklore, history, all kinds of stuff, and she'll do podcasts around it. And her hometown asks her to come back because they have this house that the historical society bought, and they it's haunted or something, and they can't do anything with it. They're trying to unload it, so they want her to come back. She can do a show on it. The ghosts they believe are Effie and Edgar, who died a hundred years earlier. They were killed a hundred years earlier, and but they also bring um Alexander back, who's a physics professor, because maybe there is something mechanical that's messing up the house. He and Anastasia went to high school together, they always sort of liked each other but never acted on it. Uh, he doesn't believe in magic or witches or anything like that.
SPEAKER_00Wait, howdy.
SPEAKER_03So as close as they were, her bit is sort of like he never has really known me. And so, anyway, so we we go from there. They try to figure out what's going on with the house, and um and the ghosts and the dog might help.
SPEAKER_00I I I like that the that Luna is like, I'm claiming you.
SPEAKER_03Yes, yeah, she adopted him right away. Yes, and he's not happy about it.
SPEAKER_00We did this on accident, but when you and I went to do our second stories, we both added a cute dog in a kind of like I'm gonna split the pot a little bit with a cute dog.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I try not to add animals too too often because I'm worried I'll forget them in the story, right? That's a challenge.
SPEAKER_00Um always has to deal with dog logistics as well.
SPEAKER_03Like the dog wants to be children are the same way. There's a logistic, especially if you're required to put a spicy pit. You have to like, where's the dog or the child gonna be that it's not inappropriate, right? So yeah. So I had to deal with Luna, um, not in the room.
SPEAKER_00You're good at tracking the animals, though. Like I very much appreciated that in the first Valentine mystery, you got that goldfish out of the way before the fire. Oh my god, the goldfish.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, because you're you can't kill animals in books, right?
SPEAKER_00Exactly.
SPEAKER_03You can kill anything else, but not animals.
SPEAKER_00No animals, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So all right, folks. All right, so speaking of Anastasia and and uh Alec, I I did while I was uh thinking about this, consider that actually this looked a little bit like what we might have seen in Mara's story between her character Alec and sorry, and Anya. Well, at least somehow actually how that happened. I like that in so the the the previous couple before out of bounds happened. So you both have stories with FMCs who practice witchcraft who or have some additional paranormal power. So, like Ava, your story has that as well, where you have this this like treature who understands the desires of fate. And you also have stories of male characters who struggle to accept or understand those powers or validate them. So I wanted to discuss this. Like, what do you think? Like, why do you think this you found this romantic scenario so fertile for the drama of your stories? Because we're seeing this again and again in the anthology, and I think it's really neat.
SPEAKER_01Um I don't I I was thinking about it as I was reading Jenna, not Ava, Jenna's story in particular, and thinking the exact same thing. Oh my goodness, this is uh really the same thing, and she's even in a stage even you don't really see me or accept me. And that was exactly what Toby tells us was going on with Alec and Anya. Alec just dismissed her witchcraft, and that whole part of her is just sort of silly and fluffy, I think he calls it fluffy woo-woo shit or something like that.
SPEAKER_00Um she's dancing to Enya and something like that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It just trivializes it, or just oh that's cute, and doesn't take it seriously. Like he can't even wrap his head around it, whereas Toby is fascinated by that aspect of her. Which I find really, really fascinating. And I did the same thing in my series with the FMC and Leo, her previous boyfriend, she tries to tell him she's a psychic and he said, Oh what, like you're gonna take that people and he just dismisses it, and whereas Leo comes along and fascinated by her sees all her power and her strength. And I guess uh the feminist in me is like, what is this saying about us and what is it saying about women and wanting to be accepted for who we are, and then of course, witchcraft is all about personal power and autonomy and desires. And yeah, so I guess I just thought, hey, let's unpack that. I don't know if you guys had any thoughts on that.
SPEAKER_00I like Toby very much in your story because I like the leap of faith he takes. Like he's not coming in, I mean, of course, he's done a bunch of research, but he's still coming into a situation he doesn't understand, he doesn't know what she's doing, but he joins her in it and is like, okay, I'll I'll do this, whatever you need me to do. And he gets he goes into it 110. He gives all of his effort, basically. Like, and he gets really into it and he does add his personal power to it, basically. But she says, like, you're the one who made this binding work. I thought that was really neat. Like that he does walk into it and just sort of like takes a leap of faith with her and is like, I don't understand this, but I'll help you anyways. I want to understand, I want to learn. That's very validating, like, not being a little bit more. He just wants to learn, right? Yeah, he's jumping in with her what her.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because yeah, the reason he's doing it is because it's her. Yeah, and he wants to know this part of her, and then he finds himself getting really wrapped up into it and finds a sort of a side of himself that he wasn't expecting to see either. So I guess witchcraft works for uh for men too.
SPEAKER_00I think it's very brave of him to go into a situation he doesn't understand, as a man, especially, and let her sort of teach him and really be open-minded. I think that that is difficult for everyone. And I think it's particularly difficult for men to not be the one who knows everything. I like it's interesting to me, like uh Alexander in Jenna's story, like he his the thing he kind of insists on is like, I need to know everything. I like I is this is physics, it's science, I understand it, I can explain it. Your your your witchcraft does not explain it, your magic does not explain it. This is my explanation. Yeah, he insists on it over and over again.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00The point of absurdity. He's like, that was just the wind. And she's like, the wind, Alexander, really.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah. My bit is when he's telling her you can measure and you can experience. She says, How do you know gravity? And he's like, Because you can measure and experience. And she's sort of like pointing to the Victrola, like, did you not just experience but his inability? Yeah, I'm heavy deep and real into the feminine mystique and Mitchcraft like that. Mostly I I wanted in my mind, magic and physics aren't that far apart in a lot of ways, and sort of wanted to have that. I ended up getting a book when this was going to be a big thing that talked about the magic of physics, and there's a whole physics study around that kind of stuff, and wanted to look at that, but really looking at these are two polar opposites in a lot of ways. He is amused by what he sees as her whimsical way of looking at life, but of course, he just thinks it's whimsical and folly, and isn't she fun in that way? Like a little bohemian girl or something.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, she goes around, she travels the country, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, he never, never considers that it's real, and even when she finally tries to show him it's real, and she sort of humors him every time he comes up with some excuse for something. She's like, whatever. But when she tells him he he can't see it or hear it or anything like that at first, and I what I I did struggle with the ending a little bit because, well, I don't want to give too much away, but it's sort of like not her that finally brings him around, right? Like it's he he finally experiences something else, and so I struggled with that a little bit, but he does come around and begins to recognize that it's okay that there's things in the world that can't be explained by an equation, right? Or by science.
SPEAKER_00You do it for the purposes of a rom-com. So sometimes we're kind of laughing at him a little bit because it's like he's he's explaining things with science that are like, dude, my dude.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00I remember arguing with him while I was like reading it. I was like, my dude.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. I mean, she's very clearly doing magical things, and he just he just can't, his brain can't wrap around it, right?
SPEAKER_00So I I like that there's different tones of this sort of this theme keeps coming around. Like, we didn't mean for this theme to be a big deal in the anthology, but I think there's like four or five stories that actually deal with this, with people sort of being like, No, magic isn't real, or like, no, you are you can't you're not really a witch, and that sort of that validation being worked into the romance. Mara does this, you do this in both of your stories. Angel Song also does this, where you you have an FMC who is magical in some way. And in in your rom-com, it's sort of more played for laughs, so there's absurdity to it, it's light. In out of bounds, it's more emotionally tumultuous. It's really about like validating a character and who she is. In Love Stronger Than Fate, it's really serious. Like he's like angry at her, like, you've been lying to me. Uh I you've been trying to like hide from me the fact that I'm and I'm gonna die. And it's a really big deal. In in my in my second story, Angel Song, it's the thing that's breaking up a marriage, right? Yeah, and it's like the reason why our our FMC is drifting towards another man who is who's validating of who she is. So there's like we're we have everything from this highly comedic third person all the way.
SPEAKER_03He practically worships her, right? Like, yeah, he's yeah. Luke in uh Love Stronger Than Fate is he's he's a Cajun, so he's grown up in Louisiana where folklore and all this stuff is part of their their mystique and everything, but he he doesn't really believe it, right? Because theories is all my grandmare has said such and such, and Luke's sort of dismissing it, like these are just the stories we grew up with, right? Right, like he so he's well aware of all the woo-woo where he lives, but doesn't really believe in it. But when it becomes clear, and even when he confronts her, it's it's not that he believes it, it's that she believes it and didn't tell him, yeah, that he was he was fated to die.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. But that's a big difference between believing in a faux folet, right? And believing that fate's trying to off you. Yeah. You could be a modern person and be like, oh, maybe there's faux filet bomb. But that doesn't mean you believe that fate's trying to kill you. So I totally understand his anger in that moment. He feels out of control, and this person who he has come to value is acting very strangely and is keeping something from him, and that's why he is that way. And scary things are happening, like it's something he's trying to kill him. Yeah, yeah. So all right. So today we've got the authors of a ton of witchy stories from the anthology. So let me ask this question that Mara brought up. Why do you think witches and romance make such a good pairing these days? I truly don't know the answer myself. So I'm very, very curious about this.
SPEAKER_01I don't either, that's why I asked.
unknownYes.
SPEAKER_03When I was looking for stuff to read when I was struggling, I did pull, I was thinking, okay, I'll read fall. And I and I just loosely tugged out all the books on my bookshelf that had what I considered a fall fame. And it turns out I have a lot of little rom-commy books that have witches in them. Um so it it does seem to be something that um captures people, and it's just a it's a fun little when we think of tropes, character tropes, I I can think of a ton of men tropes, but fewer female tropes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um, so you know, to be able to come up with something, whether she's a witch or she's psychic or whatever it is, it's just sort of fun to play with, and probably another one of those other things to give women some sense of power. Or a lot of the books I read, these women um they don't have good control over it, which leads to some funny situations, or everybody else in their family is really good at it and they don't have any magic, or like there's all these weird situations.
SPEAKER_00I'm gonna feel the theory here. I think this might have something to do with Gen Xers and Millennials. Whenever I was a teenager, these are the kinds of stories that I I wanted to see a lot of. Um, and there weren't a lot of them out there. You know, it's I I grew up reading a lot of like children's fantasy and stuff like that, with like with witches in them. Usually it was either like a young witch, like something like Harry Potter or C, or um it was something where the witches were evil, like Wald dolls the witches, right? And I think the one thing that had a kind of like a main character witch that felt very romantic was practical magic. And I remember in high school, my friends and I watched that over and over and over again. There was and also things like charmed, right? So like I think that that has a lot of like a predominance in the sort of cultural imagination of a Gen Xer or a millennial. Like these are the things that are kind of formative. Charmed is not a romance, but it's highly a lot of romantic subplots in it, right? I mean, it's mostly about the relationship between the sisters. Practical magic is too. You can't really call it a romance, but it is romantic, right? There is a strong romantic bent to it. So it's I don't think that it's a huge leap to for then a lot of authors of this particular generation between, I would say, 35 and and 65, to be writing a lot of this, to like fill in that that sort of desire for more romances with these witchy protagonists, these kind of practical magic-like protagonists. I see them a lot. They're they're Sally's, they feel like that kind of character. And like, you know, I have two witchy FMCs. One of them I've been writing since I was 16 years old is obviously like a latent desire for this kind of character and to really explore it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I was thinking of charm too. You know, witches call one another sisters. Like a covenant sisterhood, a coven. And just women's wisdom. And I I can see that in Jenna's character and Anastasia. There's just this quiet wisdom, and she just calmly humors him and just says, Okay, whatever you say, yes, it's the wind. Yeah. So I think, yeah, I think I I agree with your theory, Tara.
SPEAKER_00I think as we were talking, I was like, wait, I do have a theory. But I have to like go, I have to go internal on that one. Very like, okay, why do I enjoy these witchy FMCs so much? Like, where's that coming from? With practical magic too coming out, that's made me think about it a lot. Or like or hocus pocus, you know, like they're evil, but yeah, you kind of almost root for them a little bit. I mean, not to eat all of the children, but they're still fun. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03A lot of the witchy things have have uh they're doing spells and they're doing herbs and things like that. And I really wanted a witch that was more like Samantha Stevens, right? I wanted her to wrinkle her nose and the dishes would be going because growing up, I just thought that would be so fun.
SPEAKER_01The cozy witch.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Which is what I have to say.
SPEAKER_03She when she deals with Luna's when Luna does her business on the lawn, she does send a little blessing off to the grass or whatever. So I mean, she does have a sense of the earth and all that kind of stuff. But I I just I love the idea of like, yeah, wrinkle my nose and my house is clean, or you know.
SPEAKER_00I like I really like love stronger than fate because of the sense of danger around magic. Like it's not a bad thing, right? It's not inherently evil, but there is danger, right? And you know, I'm always set to phase missiles, right? So like I always want to have a sense of drama to them. And also in in out of bounds as well, like there is a sense that like what they're doing is is important and it is dangerous, and it must be done right and with the right intent. Like what they're doing, it has a danger and a risk to it. I like that a lot. I but I love that I love seeing it in this sort of lighter fair as rom-com. Like I was really enjoying quantum entanglement, and I didn't know, didn't think I would, because I don't normally like rom coms, but with the witchy element to it and with a dog, Primo. You can add a dog and I'm happy.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03And so unless you have an animal, they have to have a personality, right? Like they they are a character too. I mean, Buster in the Valentine mission, he mostly just swims around, but Jack does goldfish them at one point, right?
SPEAKER_00You don't have to give a goldfish a personality, but a dog you must, or a cat.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I like I like I loved bringing Romy into Angel Song as well because Romy is like a fan of Thea and Leopold's like, stop outing me. Put that tail down. All right. So last but not least, I was curious if do you if you two have questions for each other or it's something you'd like to circle back to?
SPEAKER_01Well, I want to know what the inside joke is. I was supposed to ask Jenna about the woo-woo. Oh my god. That's what Tara said. Because I used it in my story and she highlighted it and said something about it.
SPEAKER_00Like, dang, we've got bingo. You said woo-woo.
SPEAKER_03I have a I have a I have a very open definition of woo-woo that Tara doesn't agree with. So I just kept saying I want stories that have woo-woo, that just have something otherworldly. But she had a very sort of specific idea of what woo-woo was, and it would eliminate her story, I guess. I don't know.
SPEAKER_00I'm like, what do you mean by that? I mean, okay, my association with the word woo-woo is from Adam's Family Values. The mom of uh of the young of the the Jewish kid, she's she's from New York, very obviously. She's up on the bleachers and they're watching the play, and she goes, ten thousand dollars for stomachamp and he's missed a woo-woo. Every time she says woo-woo, I start giggling because that's all I can think of. I think woo-woo is something magical. So I was like, wait, so they all have to be paranormal, and I was worried about having the word woo-woo in there and people thinking they had to write a paranormal romance and then they couldn't write anything else. And I wanted to make sure that it was at least enlarged to like you could have a time travel, you could have a sci-fi romance of some kind. It didn't have to have magic in it, something spiritual or something for Starlet and Spellbound. And ever since I pointed out the thing about woo-woo, Jenna uses it in like every podcast. To me, it's bingo. So I added it to my story of Fantastical Foes, and I added it to my story and I added it to Angel Song so that there is a woo-woo in there. It's like a little Easter egg now. Become like a press, it has become a press Easter egg, basically. The word woo-woo.
SPEAKER_01It's a great word. And I put it in my story too by accident.
SPEAKER_00I love that. I was like, do not get rid of this. Don't you dare.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. I I love it. It's a great word. My question would be for Mara is that I know you have a sub stack, and I I was serializing, I've been serializing Eva stories on there. Looking at yours, you you use it a little differently. It looks kind of like a newsletter or a blog type thing. Um, and I'm curious like why you did it and if it's working for you, like as an author, in terms of if your goal is sort of like uh using it as a new letter or newsletter or getting readers and I don't really use much of what Substack has because I'm so active on uh Instagram that I don't use the real social media elements on there that much.
SPEAKER_01So I really am just using it as a newsletter, which works fine, but I'm not sure. I think there are some people who don't want to subscribe because they don't want to have to add the app or whatever, and I think that this is a whole other social media thing. So I'm not sure it's the best for just a straight-up author newsletter. Um I just went for it because it does seem like it was pretty easy. Um you know, I probably should take more advantage of it, but yeah, after being on Instagram all day, I just I can't I can't do any more social media. Yeah, that's fair.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's very good for discovery, I I think on Substack. Like if you post regularly, not necessarily notes, but you can. But if you post regularly to your the newsletter itself, you have a thing constantly coming out. More people who are not subscribed will see you if they're using it more. Um but yeah, there is the other aspect of people being like, Oh, do I need the app to be subscribed to this? Um but it can just go right to their emails, like they don't have to be subscribed. That is a thing that's I keep telling them that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I read in my email.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, me too. Yeah, yeah, but yeah, subscriptions. So yeah, I've been thinking about switching to a more traditional newsletter, um, and then there are other days where like, no, I should really dig into Substack more and see if I can get more out of it. So on any given day.
SPEAKER_03It's just there's so many things, it's like plate spinning, and each of those plates have more plates, right? Like you you don't just post on Substack, you you need to do notes, and maybe you need to chat, and you're on Instagram, and well, you got reels, and then you got carousels, and you stories and yeah, stories, like, and I can't ever figure out what should be what, and and then you're over on TikTok. TikTok now has stories, like so I'm just like scared of TikTok, it won't go. I am so tired, you know. Like it's just too many, and the and one of the problems I think I have is I do a lot of different things, and so I can't master any one of them because all my properties have an Instagram per se. So I've got three or four Instagrams I need to do. Well, I can't I couldn't manage one. How am I gonna manage four? Right, Terror, thank God. Um, you know, so and but then you multiply that. So like Eva has a substack. I have thought about Jenna on Substack to write Dead Guy in a rowboat, um, who's been languishing for about two years in that boat, which is the would be the eighth Valentine book. And I thought if I do that, then I'm my feet are to the fire to to get it written. Um, but even now, Eva, I've fallen behind on book two. I haven't been able to stay, stay on top of it. So I don't know. I don't know. I I think it seems like a substat can be a great way, I think, to um get yourself in front of other people. I was reading something today, it was talking about that authors are told to own their own platforms, so your website and your email. Um, but they're you're also told to be where our readers are. And I'm like, well, readers aren't on our platforms, right? Like we have to go to platforms we don't own to get in front of readers, and then we're at risk if those platforms, for whatever reason, decide they don't like us. So I mean, my TikTok all of a sudden is having no views, and I'm like, who did I upset that I had no views on TikTok anymore? Oh Laura, you know, I'm sorry. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, I I try to I I've really gotten good at cutting things that don't seem to work well for us. I've noticed Facebook, we don't get any traction, so I don't focus on it. I just immediately junk it. Instagram, we do get some traction. We we still get new followers, we still get engagement with people. It's a good place to connect with our author, so I I really invested in learning it and learning it well. So as a social media manager, I just like I I basically like prune quickly what's going to be effective and what's not, and just don't spend a lot of my effort on those things. It doesn't mean that I don't make sure the posts go to Facebook, but are just like not really there trying to turn the trailer because I can't get the engagement. Oh, the trailer? Sorry?
SPEAKER_01The trailer that you made for Starlet Scott on Instagram is just fantastic.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. It was really uh that's that's the thing.
SPEAKER_03You didn't ask if what we would do if we could had magic. And aside from cleaning my house if I were magic, that's what I would do. I would have magic to do my marketing for me to help find readers for my books.
SPEAKER_00I would I would have things try to explain to me what's going on with the platforms. Like I I just this is I mean, I noticed changes on the platforms constantly. Instagram is obviously going through another one. And the big thing is that I think Amazon's going through one, like there's a really big change. And if you don't own the platforms, the platforms change on you. And it's difficult to know what what strategy to go with because you're constantly pivoting.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And you want to do the right thing, is the other thing because you don't want to be pivoting so much that you lose sight of what's right, and that's frustrating as well. I don't want to post to Instagram with like clickbait and rage, right? I don't want to just piss people off, even though that's the thing that works. I don't want to be doing that. And I see a lot of authors doing it, using negativity to get attention. And I was pity marketing or yeah, yeah, pity marketing or angry marketing, or like basically like straw manning their reviewers to get not necessarily pity, but get people fired up. I don't like that. I think that it's wrong. Listen here, people. I think that it's wrong when you straw man your reviewers, don't do that.
SPEAKER_03And the anthologies get are getting good reviews, you know. So it's we we've got quality stuff there, just getting it in front of people and people who are willing to give an anthology a chance, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think a lot of people don't know necessarily how to review anthologies too, and so I think that it's difficult. I think they're getting better at it. It's being like, I like the story, that's fine.
SPEAKER_03When I send them out, I give them instructions.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yeah, for the arcs, yes, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03You know, in terms of we'd like for you to read them all, but here are some tips on how to you can talk about one. You can you don't have to talk about every story type of thing, right? Yeah, like an overall vibe. Anyway, yeah. So the plight of being an author and marketing, you know, the good news is Amazon now is limiting the number of books once again. They two a week to two a week. It was it was ten a week up until, and then before that, what was it before that? It was I I remember thinking, who is posting that much? Three a day. You could do three a day, and and that limit came in 2023, three per day. And 2023 is probably around the time AI came out. But I'm sitting here thinking, the only time I can imagine posting more than one book a week is if I got rights back from a publisher and I'm republishing them, right? Yeah, the idea that an author is going to post unless unless they've like written their series and they're gonna post them all out. There's that. They're gonna post all five of them, whatever. But I I just think that's whack-a-doodle. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I do think you should space your releases out anyway. Space them out, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Imagine the imagine the reader who receives an email who's been following you that like that one author has just posted 10 things. All books, yeah. Please post one thing.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's too much. And the idea, we know the more books you have, the easier it is to gain traction. It's one of the reasons we picked up our publishing piece, but there's a limit too, right? Like, I know Nora Roberts, they encouraged her to get a new pen name because she was saturating her her own market, yeah, and you know, and they didn't want her to hurt her own number, right? Like if she because she's prolific, she writes six books or something, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00Uh even in 2022, a lot of the people who are posting this many books were scammers, people who were paying ghostwriters pennies on the dollar to write things for them that were trending that had SEO like click potential, and we're posting a bunch of things just rent-seeking, basically. Yeah, and you've been doing videos showing these how to do these scams back in 2021-2022 during the pandemic, particularly. So even then, Amazon should have gotten on top of it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, there are authors who rapid release, but even then it's the gap might be a sh three weeks, but usually it's a month or six weeks, yeah. Which is fast. I mean, I've done it, I've written a book in a month.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I saw this, I saw I was reading a blog article about this change, and they were like, well, this might not be good for authors with rapid release. I'm like, rapid release is not more than two a week. Rapid release is like one every three weeks.
SPEAKER_03Unless you're writing shorts or something.
SPEAKER_01To me, rapid release is like every three or four months.
SPEAKER_00Rapid release could be every few weeks, but it's certainly not more than two a week. Like that's not to me, that's not rapid release. I just think like like basically if you're if you're publishing more than that, you're either a basically a large publisher and and should talk to Amazon about being a publisher page, in which case your rates should be different, or you're that like there might be something scammy going on. Oh, you're probably releasing too many books for people to keep up with, anyways.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Let's talk about book recommendations. Tell us a great paranormal romance read for our listeners to enjoy.
SPEAKER_01Well, I just finished a uh Friends Dark Academia Paranormal Romance. Cool. And it was amazing. It's Anne Isaac, and the book is Echoes of Ashmere, and it is highly recommended. Um yeah, your heart will get ripped out of it in a good way. So atmospheric and the prose is just perfection. Just highly recommended.
SPEAKER_03Nice. I've got two. I've got one that's witchy. I just read the book Witch. Um which if you're a reader and if you are an author, there's all these little lovely nods and winks to reading um and writing, and it's kind of cozy. They do they do do the deed, but we don't see it on the page. Uh the love interest is a noir detective from the 1920s Chicago. Um, it was just it was really fun, cute little mystery read. And um, I was gonna mention Black Dagger Brotherhood because when I was I initially Eva was going to write a mafia romance set in New York, and then I was like, everybody does that. So I moved it to New Orleans, and at that point I was like, Well, New Orleans, I gotta add something. I gotta add woo-woo.
SPEAKER_00I can't bingo cards right in the middle.
SPEAKER_03The capital of woo-woo. Um I started thinking that I kind of wanted to have a brotherhood because I I do enjoy those books. I uh the Black Dagger Brotherhood by J.R. Ward. These are vampire brotherhood, and and I just sort of thought, oh, it'd be I I like I wanted the idea of kind of this brotherhood of warriors who are protecting society and the veil and all that kind of stuff. So I thought I'd give a shout-out to Black Dagger, and second season's supposed to be coming out here pretty soon, and that will be uh Rage's uh story, He's the Beast. Oh, so yeah, it'll be fun to watch that.
SPEAKER_00I was just talking to my sister about vampire romance, like a history of vampire romance and like young adult uh versions of it and what was out there. I did my senior thesis on vampire literature, so I've read a ton of this stuff. Oh, really? And I realized that she she didn't know anything about Rochelle Meade and Vampire Academy, which is the OG young adult vampire romance before Twilight, come at me twilight stands, vampire academy. I like I actually think that it is a very good paranormal romance series. I know it's a young adult, but I think it's great. I I love Rochelle Mead. And huge shout out to Succubus Blues. Her succubus series was a six-book series. This was an adult one. It is so freaking good. If you haven't read Succubus Blues, you like paranormal romance, go read Rochelle Meade. She's amazing. Have you read Succubus Blues? Either of you? No. Oh my god, it's so good. It's so it's so hopeful. Like you read it and it's like really dark, and you're like, oh, this isn't gonna end happily. It's got this like urban romance, it's got this like urban fantasy feel to it. To me, it's like the first urban romancy I've read. And it ends so beautifully with her getting her soul back, and it signs so good. I love it. You should read it. I read it when going to Medcon by myself, and I was in love with it.
SPEAKER_03I remember talking to an author, this was when Twilight was all the rage, and I remember saying, Twilight is not the first YA vampire series out there. So why Twilight, right? People might think it's the first because that's the one that got all the buzz initially, but it wasn't. There were others like it. Same with Fifty Shades of Grey. That was not the first books that had that type of content, sort of the bondage and all that kind of content. But why why that? Why did that take off, right? He told me Stardust, and I went to Amazon to look for Stardust to infuse my books with it, but couldn't find it. But it is an interesting thing. You sort of wonder what was it about those books that captured an interest? And the authors before them, on the one hand, must be annoyed, right? Because they're like, I've been doing this, and on the other hand, thankful because now readers discovered them.
SPEAKER_00Xiaomi did get a huge bump, right? Vampire Academy got a huge bump because of Twilight. I think she should be able to sell another series. She has a follow-up series, I think, because of Twilight. So it's really good, but I do think that there's no justice in the world, that Vampire Academy isn't the bigger thing, because I do think it's better than Twilight in every way. I do think, however, that there is something very I mean, I wrote a chapter of my thesis on Twilight and why I think that it is so so beloved. And I think it's I do think it's the universal fantasy. There's a certain amount of like, and you get a pony in Twilight that Vampire Academy doesn't have. Like basically, she gets everything that she wants in it in Twilight, and there are very few consequences. That's not true of Vampire Academy. Like there are sacrifices and it's it gets very ugly, and it's much more realistic. And I think a lot of people read to escape, and I think a lot of people read to have a kind of a fantasy indulged, and I just think that Twilight speaks to them in a way that Vampire Academy does not.
SPEAKER_03Bella's a kind of an average normal girl, right? So I think a lot of young women see themselves. She's sort of klutzing through life, right? And then the most beautiful boy in school.
SPEAKER_00She's a vessel who wants to eater, but then Bella's not a character, she's a vessel, right? Like, if I you were to ask me what are the the what are the things Bella likes? Who are the people Bella loves? It's very difficult to answer that question. She likes some books, I guess, and she likes her dad, I guess. She doesn't really have any best friends. I mean, they're not really featured. By contrast, Rose in Vampire Academy is a person you could sit down with and have a beer with. She's a real person, she's not you. And I like that. I don't want my main characters to be me. I want them to be a person who is not me. But I am not the normal reader, right? Like I think that it is unusual to be like that. I think most people want a character they can sort of dream themselves into. Into.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Bella. Bella could be any young girl who's feeling like the world is boring or whatever, right? Looking for, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00They feel misunderstood and they need to be a vampire right now. Like they were always destined to be a vampire, and that's Bella. You know, and Rose is not like that. Like I think the world sort of shows Rose that she's wrong about some things. And I don't I I like that kind of book, but I can totally understand why it's not as beloved as Twilight. It doesn't it doesn't give the reader what they're looking for, I think, in the same way that Twilight does, and therefore it does not engender the same kind of the same kind of loyalty and the same kind of fanaticism.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00What do you think, Mara?
SPEAKER_01Uh well, I haven't read either. I've read I've seen the Twilight movies, the first two, and read about three-quarters of the book, and that was as far as I could get.
SPEAKER_03I had to read the first book twice. I read it and didn't and didn't get it. Like, why is this big? And then I saw the movie and I went back and read it, and with the movie behind it, I was able to better get through the book. Yeah. I thought Pattinson did a good job.
SPEAKER_00I love Robert Pattinson. He's such a chaos Kremlin. I love it so much. He e he emo that character up quite a bit, and I I like that. I like the emo he adds to that character.
SPEAKER_03Maybe he didn't look as scary as he's supposed to be, but he definitely was broody and his little buffont haircut and his peacoat. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00This is the skin of a killer.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And he wore the glitter well.
SPEAKER_00We should probably wrap this baby up. We are Tender and Tempting Tales. You can find us on Instagram as TenderTempting Tales. That's Tender Tempting Tales without an and, and find updates about all of our upcoming releases. You can find updates about our authors. We talk about our calls for submission there. You can also find us on Substack. That's Tender and Tempting Tales on Substack. You can read great articles about a romance every week. I just recently wrote a review about Ice Planet Barbarians. Jenna has a wonderful poll up about what tropes. If you could only choose one trope, which one would you live with for the rest of your life and never read anything else? Enemies to Lovers is winning, God help us. You can find us on Instagram. You can find out about our calls for submission if you're an author. We have our call for Vows on Valentine's opening at the beginning of October. Please do join us for that. We would love to have some new authors or established authors. We feature folks who are new or established in our anthologies and we're looking for stories of 7,000 to 10,000 words that are Valentine's themes and that had vows in them. Jenna.
SPEAKER_03Yes, I want to thank you, Mara, for joining us. And thank you, me and Eva. Thank you, Jenna.
SPEAKER_00I should have said thank you, Jenna and Eva, for joining us. Thank you, Eva, for joining us with your Sazerac.
SPEAKER_03With my Sazerac. Um Tara, thank you for leading us through the great interview and talking about witchy witchy woo-woo. And I just want to give a quick reminder that if you do subscribe on our Substack, or you can also subscribe through our website at Tinder and Tempting Tales, there is a free story. That's a Skullhaven Pirate story. It's quirky fun, just like quantum entanglements, kind of rom-commy. But it gives you a sense of what a short romance might be like if you're not sure about anthologies and you'll love it, and then you'll want to come get the rest of the books for sure.
SPEAKER_00And if you're if you're an author and you want to see what that looks like, it's a really good story to grab and get a sense of what we're looking for.
SPEAKER_03What we're looking for, yeah. So, and until next time, peace, love, and happily ever after.