← Fated Mates - Romance Books for Novel People
Fated Mates - Romance Books for Novel People
S08.01: Welcome to Fated Mates: Season Eight Cold Open
01:40:18
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- [00:00]
A
God, season eight. I mean, you dummies out there just listening to us.
- [00:06]
B
You know what's amazing is I really. If you had asked me how much could you talk about romance?
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A
17 episodes.
- [00:15]
B
Sure. 1700 episodes, apparently is the answer.
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A
Oh, my God, it's never ending.
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B
But, like, in an amazing way, you know, it's cool.
- [00:24]
A
I literally, as you know, because you have email, I have done a lot of work over the last day.
- [00:30]
B
It's true.
- [00:31]
A
Just like teeing some things up for the end of the year, the calendar year.
- [00:38]
B
Very exciting.
- [00:38]
A
You know, really starting season eight on September 1st. That's when we're recording this. Like, it really feels new and crisp in the fall, as F. Scott Fitzgerald would say.
- [00:51]
B
There you go.
- [00:52]
A
And, you know, I just feel like we are. We always have something cooking.
- [00:58]
B
We do always.
- [01:00]
A
God knows the two of us always have something to say.
- [01:03]
B
Well, I mean, listen, here's the thing, everybody. What you don't know is we don't say it all. Yeah. If the podcast didn't exist, Sarah and I would just have to do it to each other in text all day long. So. Yeah. So anyway, welcome to season eight.
- [01:20]
A
Season eight. Amazing. And you know what? We started this podcast in October, so we're like, a little short of seven. Seven full years of podcasting. And part of the reason why we started it in October was we. Well, not part of the reason, but we were very proud of the fact that we started it right around Halloween because we were going to talk about all these monster romances. This is now, listen, monster romance, when we started this podcast, was not the same as monster romance is now.
- [01:55]
B
No, not. Things have change. I mean, this is. You might be like, what are they going to talk about today? The State of the Union romance style. Yeah.
- [02:03]
A
Welcome, everyone, to Fated Mates, Season 8. I remain Sarah MacLaine, a romance reader and author.
- [02:12]
B
And I'm Jennifer Pro Cup, a romance reader and editor. And, yeah, I think this is basically like, romance banter, because we are kind of like, what are we doing, you know, to start things off? So it's kind of like talking a little bit about what we've been up to this summer, talking about what we think is, like, the current state of romance in general, maybe making some kind of who we are. Right. In case you're new, some people like to just start new.
- [02:36]
A
Start with a new season, start fresh. New and fresh in the fall.
- [02:39]
B
And then I think we're gonna have some, like, a section of, like, predictions and wishes. Right. Things that we think might be happening in romance. Things we wish would happen in romance.
- [02:48]
A
Listen, Jen, I acknowledge your ability to keep us on track because I had forgotten that we had this conversation literally 24 hours ago.
- [02:58]
B
That's okay, Sarah. Maybe we could start off with who we are we've been up to because poor Sarah's jet lag.
- [03:04]
A
How was your summer? It'll just be like an introduction, like a little meet and greet on first day of school kind of thing. You know how to do this.
- [03:11]
B
I do know how to do this. I do know how to do this. So are you going first or am I going first? I'll go first.
- [03:16]
A
What did we do with our summer? With our summer vacation?
- [03:19]
B
What'd you do on your summer vacation?
- [03:22]
A
Well, it wasn't 100% of vacation, but I did go to Oceana, to New Zealand and Australia, and I met the romance writers of New Zealand and the romance writers of Australia. And I had a great time meeting all of these people. We talked about conflict in both places. We did panels in both places. And I listened to some, like, truly excellent people, like, talk about the genre. And it made me feel multiple things. One, it made me feel very sad that rwa.
- [03:58]
B
Yeah.
- [03:59]
A
Collapsed like a flan in a cupboard, as Eddie at Assard would say. And listen, by the way, also, I said this to somebody, not that exact thing to somebody while I was in Australia. And they were like, oh, did you know Redacted is starting a new rwa? And I was like, I did not know Redacted was starting a new W. Rwa, but if you're out there Redacted, why don't I have an email about this?
- [04:22]
B
Anyway, I hope Redacted gets the message. Sure. It'll make it through.
- [04:31]
A
So anyway, so if that's happening, great. But my point is that. And I felt this. I always feel this way when I leave Romancing the Craft, which is the Audrey and Herrera steamy lit partnership. But I am always. I always feel, like, rejuvenated by a room full of people who want to talk about craft and wanted to talk about the genre and care about the genre and care about the health of the genre and care about, like, where we're going. So that was really great. And I got to see old friends and make new friends, and it was really fun. And I went to Tasmania, Jen. And we met and I met several people from Tasmania who are magnificent firebirds.
- [05:15]
B
That's so cool.
- [05:16]
A
And like, rolled up on the hotel to, like, hang out and get books signed, which was so fun. And Eric, when I left, was like, do not, not Return to the Northern hemisphere with theta mate stickers. And so I did my very best to leave them there and spread our seed, if you will, across.
- [05:40]
B
That's a. That's a weighty metaphor to use on a romance podcast.
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A
I mean, it kind of is.
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B
She.
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A
Jed just made a real face, but some of you like that. So I'm just trying to appeal to everyone. So, yeah, so there are a bunch of fademate stickers everywhere. And I met some independent booksellers there who were really great and it was really fun. And I will say I took a tour in Sydney of the original Sydney, like the, the old part of Sydney that was built by criminals who came from colonial Britain. And I felt very, I was very. I had said this in our Australia episode that, like, I felt like I really needed to learn some more about this place where I was sending people. And. And I feel like I did. And so maybe that will turn up in a book or two in the future. And yeah, it was great.
- [06:38]
B
I had a great time. But now you're super jet lagged.
- [06:41]
A
Oh, my God. Listen, everybody's like, the planes are. The plane's gonna be the worst. And appreciating that, like, you have a plane situation, like, no, the plane would have been the worst for you. I did not have a problem on the plane, but I'm a very easy flyer. I do, however, have a problem with the re entry, which is I'm awake all night long and I want to go to bed right now and it's two in the afternoon, so seems bad.
- [07:08]
B
But you know what?
- [07:09]
A
But I did enjoy it. And I will say Tasmania is really beautiful and you should all, if you get a chance to get there, it's cool. So is New Zealand, but Tasmania kind of blew my mind.
- [07:19]
B
What about the, like, did the sky look different? Do you notice the toilets flushed in a different direction?
- [07:25]
A
I did find the Southern Cross.
- [07:27]
B
Okay.
- [07:28]
A
And that was cool. I like have an app on my phone for here for Northern Hemisphere. And I was like, is this app going to work in the Southern hemisphere? And it did. And so I did like have a look at the Southern Cross. So there was that and there was other stuff in the sky. Like all sorts of constellations that I had never really heard of or thought about because I don't see them. We don't see them in our sky. Tasmania is also a dark space. Listen. Oh, you guys, I'll put this in show notes. But there is a great podcast called. Which I think I've talked about on our podcast called this is Love. And if you haven't listened to this podcast, it's so great because every episode is about somebody who loves someone or something or like is. It's about love in all its forms. The first episode of this podcast I ever listened to was about the Mars rovers and it was like interviews with the people who piloted the Mars rovers from Earth and how much they loved these rovers which lasted for like know however many years and then died. And it was like a really beautiful episode about like the way you can love these like inanimate objects and you like imbue them with human like emotion. Right. And there's like, there's this great episode about like bird watching and they interview like a famous black bird watcher and like he talks about like being black in the bird watching community and how much he loves birding and it's really beautiful. And then there's one about Tasmania. Well, not about Tasmania, but about dark spaces and like places on the planet without light pollution. Yeah. That are dark. And there are only like 10 on the planet where like it's true darkness and Tasmania is one of them.
- [09:20]
B
That's cool.
- [09:21]
A
And while I didn't get out to the darkness of Tasmania, like the sky is a real showboat of a sky.
- [09:28]
B
Chicago is. And I'm sure the same must be true for you. Like the opposite. I don't think I have ever literally seen a star from the city of Chicago. There's just too much light pollution. It's.
- [09:40]
A
We had a blackout once and it was amazing.
- [09:45]
B
You were like, whoa, I didn't think they had those here. Yeah, right.
- [09:51]
A
So, yeah. But anyway, so that's another. So that's a cool thing I'm gonna link to. This is love. Because I actually think anybody who loves romance novels as much as you and I love romance novels would understand the premise. Understand the premise of this and really appreciate it.
- [10:02]
B
That's cool. I love it. Yeah, we didn't travel a lot this summer. I feel like we really go. Like it ebbs and flows. Like there are years where I feel like all I do is travel in the summer and then there are years where I feel like I don't really do much. But we went to Martha's Vineyard and we went with my sister in law and her and her family. And so like my nephew who's three was there. I was like, this is places an incredible pain in the ass to get to. Surely this is. I'm gonna hate it. But. Right. Because we, we flew into Providence and then took an Uber to like this ferry that was just like a person ferry. You couldn't take cars on this one. You have to drive further to get the car ferry, but you can't get a car on it unless you apparently like plan six months ahead. So anyway, we got on this ferry. It was the first week of August when we were there and it was. I loved, I loved it. I had the best time. I think it's probably like we've gone a bunch of different places with like kind of my husband's side of the family and I, I really like that his parents were like just very much like once a year we'll all go somewhere and you know, they weren't always super fancy or anything. It was like, we'll go to Orlando or we'll go to Tahoe or whatever. But I really love Martha's Vineyard. It was, it's beautiful. It just really does feel like you're kind of getting away. I think most of the, you know, we are staying in a like rented a house. Right. Rather than a hotel. And that's so nice because it just feels like family. Yeah, exactly. Right. Like you can just like hang out on the deck and you know, like watch TV and wake up early or go to bed late or. Right. Like all the stuff that just kind of feels like it's easier to do in a house than a hotel hotel.
- [11:54]
A
You sent me a picture of the backyard and I said, don't get a tick. And you were like, sarah, I'm never leaving this porch.
- [11:59]
B
I was like adorable. But yeah, that was a big concern for my sister in law because our, my nephew of course was running around in the grass because he's three. But you could like Uber everywhere kind of like once you got there. And so that like kind of wasn't necessarily super ideal, but like it just was like kind of a last minute thing. So we weren't able to like get a car there or whatever. And my sister in law and her family, they had like a, they were able to get like a convertible. You know what, I'm like the last car available to rent in all of Martha's Vineyard. But it was beautiful and we just had the best time. And I thought like, it has a couple of like, listen, I. There is nothing I really love more. And this probably will surprise people because I'm not, I don't think of myself as like being a person who loves like a little tourist town. Yeah. But I'm like, oh, you walk up and down the main street and like buy a T shirt that says Martha's Vineyard right? Like I'm going to love it. And they're like a couple different towns on Martha's Vineyard and they're very different. So like Oak Bluffs is very different than Edgartown or Edgarton. I'm not sure how you say it. So anyway, also the other thing that was really funny is that it is the 50th anniversary of the movie Jaws and Jaws was filmed in Martha's Vineyard and so like there was Jaws shit everywhere. And one night, our last night there, we put. Put my nephew to bed and then we all like so like me and mystery's romance, A little romance. And my sister in law and her husband like we all like stayed up and watched Jaws which was.
- [13:33]
A
And does it hold up?
- [13:35]
B
Yeah. And I was kind of like thinking it wouldn't because I was watching Little Romance, right. I was like, if he is bored then it's boring. Like does that make sense? But he was pretty invested in it and actually was like this. Why is it so scary? You know? And I was like, because I never.
- [13:50]
A
It's the music.
- [13:51]
B
Yeah, that and they like never show the shark just like the claustrophobia of like the scenes where they're just out on the water like waiting for the shark to come find them. Right.
- [14:01]
A
There is. Have you ever seen. On YouTube? I'll send this to you if you haven't.
- [14:05]
B
But.
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A
And we'll put this one in show notes too. But there is a great video on YouTube that shows the like big boat scene with the shark with out the music first. And then with the music and you're like. And the first like without the music you're like, what else? Okay. And then with the music you're like, oh my God, we're all gonna die.
- [14:27]
B
Right? I mean it really is like atmospheric. It does a. So anyway, so that was really fun. And then you know, really the last couple weeks I've just been like mourning the loss of my summer. Pretty much. Yeah.
- [14:42]
A
Back to school.
- [14:43]
B
Back to school.
- [14:44]
A
I went school shopping this morning with two seventh graders.
- [14:49]
B
You deserve a medal.
- [14:52]
A
With a list in my hand. And one of them was like, I need a black folder. And I was like, can you not have a folder of any of these other colors? Just like it says it needs to be black. I was like, well, I don't know.
- [15:06]
B
What we're gonna do about that.
- [15:08]
A
So I was like, I'm pretty sure I have a good friend who's a middle school teacher. And. And I think probably if you rolled into Ms. Reed's romances classroom with a blue folder Instead of a black one.
- [15:24]
B
I would never care.
- [15:27]
A
I think it would be.
- [15:30]
B
Yeah. Something I would never even think to care about. But you know what? I do know that there are teachers out there who get real.
- [15:36]
A
Well, then they should pick a color that's available at Staples.
- [15:40]
B
Well, then.
- [15:41]
A
And that's what I. That's how I feel about that. It has to be available at Staples two days before school starts.
- [15:49]
B
I was like, there is there. You got. You got to it. Yeah. It was available at Staples on July 13th.
- [15:56]
A
Exactly when we made. When.
- [15:58]
B
When the list was made and the minute the doors opened. That's it. That's funny. So. So, yeah, I mean, it was. It was. It was a good summer. It really was. It was quiet and.
- [16:11]
A
Did you do a lot of reading?
- [16:13]
B
I did do a lot of reading. I did a lot of editing. So you know how you have those books that just, like, are in your brain. There's some scene and it's in your brain, and you're like, okay, if I can find it again. Right. It's from 10 years ago or 20 years ago or last week. Who knows? And one of the things I found myself really thinking about is, like, number one is how difficult it's going to be in the future to find those books. As, like, there are people that, like, put a book up and then take it down and it's gone. Right. Like, gone from the Internet. But also, I will never know. There'll be a point where I'll be like, I could have edited that book. Who knows if the person ever published it. Right. So anyway, sometimes that happens. And I think to myself, my poor brain. One of the things, like, in terms of, like, hard resetting what's going on up here is I do try to read things other than romance in the summer and. Right. Like, to just kind of reset and. And then when I go back to romance, it's like, okay, I can, like, enjoy this in a different way.
- [17:18]
A
Sure.
- [17:19]
B
And so I think the good thing is, like, I read a bunch of mysteries. I read tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow three years after everybody else read it and had a great time reading it. I read a bunch of, like, the New Yorkers. I read a couple of nonfiction books. So I do feel like that has been good for me in terms of, like, returning to romance.
- [17:40]
A
I have been reading a lot at night because I am awake for the last week. And I read the Gilded Heiress, Joanna's book, and had a great time with that. And I've read a number of other kind of, like, really delicious books. That are on their way that I will talk about maybe next week and. Or, you know, or we have a. We have our Autumn Reads episode coming. So I've been reading for that. And I did the same thing. I read a bunch of things. I actually read a bunch of things like, that were in the vein of, like, that were sort of hardcover commercial things, because I was like, what else? I wrote one of these. What else are people doing out here in this world? I'm done with that now. Back with romance. I actually have downloaded a bunch of historicals because reading Gilded Eris made me feel like all I want to do is read more historicals.
- [18:44]
B
Last week, Joanna was in Chicago, and I did an event with her at the Last Chapter. And I also did an event earlier this summer with Mia Sosa there. And what was really fun is. And I hope Joanna didn't mind, but I don't think she did is, like, when I'm interviewing someone I don't know as well, like. Right. Like, I'm the conversation partner, but I, like, know my job is to really just, like, ask questions and, you know what I mean? Like, let them be the star of the show. But, you know, I know Joanna better. We've had her on the podcast a bunch of times. I've hung out with her in person. And so I feel like I was a little more, like, loose, like, kind of, like, sharing, like, funny stories or, like, you know, like, saying more about, like, my experience of reading the book or whatever. And I think it was. I think it was really fun. It was a really fun event. There are a lot of people there. I mean, I don't know. So everybody. If you have a chance to go to a romance event, and so many people are doing book tours now, you know, even if it's not your favorite author, Right. If it's close enough for you to get there and go to it, I really recommend it. There's something very restorative about it. It's interesting to hear people talking about the work. There are a lot of people in the audience. It felt really conversational, like, who sort of, like, kind of sharing their. You know what I mean? It was great. It was a great event.
- [20:03]
A
Romance events feel different than all other book events, I think, in my opinion. And I think that's because it's, like, it lends itself to community. Right? We all read so much. We all have so many feelings about the books. We all understand why we're all in the room, you know, at a time when community is becoming more and more vital. It feels great to be in a room full of people who love what you love.
- [20:24]
B
Yeah. So that was really fun. So I did. I had a good summer. Nice.
- [20:29]
A
This week's episode of Faded Mates is sponsored by Vasiliza Drake, author of A Bargain so Bloody.
- [20:36]
B
All right, everybody. So Samara is a witch who is trapped in a magical prison for a crime she didn't commit.
- [20:43]
A
Free Samara.
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B
Exactly. She's resigned herself to essentially just like, I don't know, she's got 15 years in the joint. What's she gonna do until she learns that even the freedom she's been promised is the cruelest lie? So she's like, I have two choices. I either can resign myself to dying in the cold walls of Castle Gramere or pass. Or I could break out. Only problem is, no one leaves Gramere alive. So in order to get out, she's gonna need, you know, a handy undead person to help her. And that handy undead person is Raphael. He is a man, the worst kind of monster. Sara. He's a vampire with a thirst for blood, and of course, mortal enemy of the witches. So she doesn't know what to do because she has to trust this guy. This is the same kind of vampire that killed her mother. He's unspeakably powerful. His super tree trust, his supernatural strength to be tamed only by these enchanted cuffs they forced on him. But he's also the only way she's going to get out of there. So they make a deal. Samara unlocks his shackles and he'll help her to escape. But although Raythiel has agreed to help her leave Graemir, he's never promised to let her go.
- [21:57]
A
But he has. He's gonna help her do something else, too.
- [22:00]
B
I bet. They better listen.
- [22:04]
A
If you are also interested in what else Raphael is going to do to help her, you can read A Bargain so Bloody right now in print, ebook, audiobook, or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited, if your podcasting app supports it. You can click on the chapter title right now, be taken to buy the book.
- [22:24]
B
And.
- [22:25]
A
And for special treat for Faded Mates listeners at the end of this episode, if you stick around, you'll hear a sneak peek of A Bargain so Bloody in audio. So thanks to Vasiliza Drake for sponsoring this week's episode.
- [22:42]
B
I think.
- [22:42]
A
Well, we also said we wanted to sort of introduce ourselves, and so we just vaguely introduced ourselves like, you know, Jen is a teacher by day. I am a writer by day. I have a mom. I am a mom. I also have a mom. But I am a mom. Jen's a mom. Like, you know, we, you know, whatever. We talk about our lives a certain amount, but I think, like, it's important. I think we should go back to the beginning and sort of explain where we came from. So we met on Twitter. We did pour one out for Twitter. And we met because we were both loudmouths on Twitter. And particularly relating to Kressley Cole's Immortals After Dark series, which, if you have not read this this past year, was re Released. It's been in the process, they're beginning to re release them in trade paperback to bring them to a new generation of readers, largely romantasy readers, because Crossly writes paranormal romance. And paranormal romance feels like the right next step for romantasy readers.
- [23:49]
B
Right.
- [23:50]
A
In that you all like dragons. And there are things with wings in these books as well.
- [23:57]
B
Fair.
- [23:57]
A
Anytime anybody's like, oh, this Romantasy is very hot. It's very sexy. I'm like, please. I basically stare at them in Immortals After Dark because these books are bananas, sexy. They spread, they. They tell the sort of story I think of romance in terms of, like, how it had. How it evolved through one particular generation. And we really loved them. And Jen slid into my DMs and.
- [24:27]
B
Said, okay, this is the part where Sarah's crazy, because Sarah's story is that I slid into her DMs and said, we should have a podcast.
- [24:36]
A
Did you not?
- [24:37]
B
Who the fuck would. I'm nobody and you're Sarah McLean.
- [24:41]
A
Yeah, but I mean, I'm not really Sarah McLean when I'm talking about a mortal scepter.
- [24:44]
B
Okay, true, but everybody needs you.
- [24:47]
A
Listen, it was Sarah's idea. Also talked about Derek Craven a bunch on Twitter before we started a podcast. Listen, Jen and I. I thought of Jen as being a very brilliant mind related to romance, who I wanted to make my friend.
- [25:02]
B
And look at us now.
- [25:04]
A
And I don't know. I guess, fine, we'll tell it your way. I said on Maine, we should start a podcast. And then you slid into my DMs and said, yes, I would like to do that. And I know that's true because you're the brains of the operation. And so. And we said, yes. Cool, let's do it.
- [25:22]
B
Yeah.
- [25:22]
A
And then we recorded an episode that we thought was terrific, and we gave it to Eric, who is a podcast producer.
- [25:30]
B
And it was like, why does this sound like garbage?
- [25:32]
A
And he was like, you cannot put this into the world, you lunatic. And I was like, why? It's great. And he was like, it's fucking terrible. And then he set us up with all of our gear.
- [25:46]
B
Yes.
- [25:47]
A
And then he told us what to do, and we did it. And here we are.
- [25:51]
B
Yeah. I will never forget Eric saying, like, really, the most important thing to do if you're gonna have a podcast is, like, the sound needs to be good. And I was like, oh, yeah, I guess, right?
- [26:02]
A
Because, I mean, p. S, everybody. He still says that to us basically every week. And every week we're like, I mean, I guess.
- [26:12]
B
Sorry about my mouth noises, everybody.
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A
You know, here's.
- [26:17]
B
I think the thing that's interesting to me, and I think you were more aware faster, because you write romance, of how doing the podcast made you think about romance differently. And I would say, for me, that was very true. I was more focused. I could. I would say, for me, instantaneously, I think it changed the way I taught, believe it or not, not that I teach romance, but just like I teach English. And so thinking about, well, how do you explain some. I mean, I spent a lot of time explaining things to children, and I think that I immediately was kind of like, oh, I could do something differently. The way I talk about this book with Kit. You know what I mean? Like, it changed the way I thought about teaching. But, I mean, yeah, I would say I. But editing has really been, like, the evolution that I think makes me think about. About romance really differently. And that's all because of the podcast.
- [27:20]
A
Too, because you can see the structure of it now, and you could always see the structure of it if you try. Like, if you really focus, you could see the structure because you're an English teacher.
- [27:30]
B
Right.
- [27:30]
A
But now it's sort of. You really see the bones of it. And that's, I think, how I feel about the podcast, too. I think it. You know, people always ask me, like, did the podcast. Has the podcast changed the way you write? And the answer is absolutely yes. And I think that first season, which was largely deep dives, although we did, like, interstitial episodes that were about tropes. So we would do a deep dive episode, and then we wanted everybody to have two weeks to read the next book. So we started dropping these kind of shorter episodes in between the two weeks where we would talk about a trope. And that was really useful in terms of, like, okay, for me as a writer, like, if I was writing, say, a road trip romance, like, being able to deconstruct what it. Like what it is about a road trip romance that really scratches the itch for us.
- [28:15]
B
Right.
- [28:16]
A
It was very valuable to Me, as somebody who, like, is always trying to write a book that's very sticky, like, where you want to. You want to be in it, you don't want to put it down. You want to keep turning the pages. But then also that first season, which was so much deep dive work, like, and really. And I do still think that Kressley is one of the best of us that there is. You know, just analyzing the text in a way that, like. Like I had never done, because no one in life is ever going to assign you a romance novel to analyze, like, on a textual level. And that was amazing. And then I think it's very clear what books I was writing immediately, like, while we were reading those books. And then the second season, we went back to the books that made us romance readers, which was so powerful again. Like, what were the things that. What were the buttons that were installed for us and why.
- [29:16]
B
I mean, I. I think that we've heard readers say the same thing, right? Like, I just knew I loved to.
- [29:21]
A
Read romance, but now I think about the books.
- [29:24]
B
Yeah, I think about the books differently, and I think that's the part that, for me, has been. But I mean, it was years. I mean, like, I don't think I started editing until probably year five, right. Or, you know, I mean, I don't know, maybe it's been a little longer. But I mean, it was years of sort of, like, weekly work about, like, the books and what they're doing and how they work and why they work the way they do before I started editing. And I mean, I've had years of teaching. I know how to give feedback on someone's writing. Right? So, I mean, that's like a skill set. But, like, the podcast was the other part of the skill set for me. And I think, like, that's. It's been really interesting to think about how it's changed me not only as a reader, but also, like, this other huge part of how I now interact with the genre.
- [30:12]
A
I mean, I think that's all really true. And I think giving ourselves space every week and now, I mean, like, these episodes are an hour and a half long at the least, right? And being able to lift up books and, like, and. And talk about the texts and knowing that there are so many people out there who are listening and who are, like, participating in these conversations and who, like, we have this discord where people can, like, recommend books to us, and it's. So now it really just feels like a big community of readers as well, you know, that said, it does Feel in a lot of ways to me as though, you know, we started this podcast with the. Obviously to celebrate books that we loved, quite literally. But our sort of guiding rule has always been we don't tear books down. Right? We don't. There's just. No, there are so many great books to lift up that, like, talking about books that we don't think work just is not. Why would we waste our space for that? And I think that that also has really, like, made us better as a podcast and as like writers, editors, etc. Like, when we come at the text, we're thinking about.
- [31:32]
B
Yeah, right. Like from a position of, like, what's the strengths of this?
- [31:36]
A
Yeah. We don't think about, like, what we hate, we think about what we love.
- [31:39]
B
Right. Like, so in teaching, there's like the. It's like, it's called the deficit model. Right. Like, if you're only talking about, like, what doesn't work. Right. Like, no one ever. If you're only like, I'm terrible at.
- [31:51]
A
This, I'm terrible at this.
- [31:52]
B
I'm terrible at this. Right. Think about anytime someone's been like, well, what your strengths you want to build on them. The irony of that is, in some ways, if you've ever been in a book club, anybody out there listening? Sometimes a book that everyone loves is hard to talk about in a book club. It's, I think sometimes can be more difficult for people to talk about what works and why they like it or why they think it's effective. Often, I think for like a. I don't know, I'm going to say, like, I mean, because a lot of people have. I mean, I. We now have a lot of practice talking to each other about romance. But also I get a lot of practice every week about talking about it.
- [32:33]
A
Because of my job every day.
- [32:36]
B
I think a lot of people in casual book clubs, right, in their neighborhood or whatever, haven't been in an English classroom in decades, potentially. Right. In a long time. And so, like, remembering how to talk about books is something that they might not remember how to do. And so then if somebody doesn't like something, it often in can feel more generative, like there's more to talk about. I didn't like this thing, and here's why. Here's why this didn't work for me or how. Here's how it made me feel. And so like, that's like a real deficit model. And it's fine when we're sitting around in a room, but I think ultimately if you do that too much, what you're really communicating is I don't like this genre. I don't like these books I don't write. And so, yeah, for us, I think it has been better practice and better praxis to essentially say, no, we're coming. We're talking about books we love and why they work because we love romance. And all we want to do is talk about why it works on us the way. The way it does.
- [33:33]
A
We don't like a lot of books I don't like.
- [33:34]
B
There are lots of books I don't like. I'm. I'm probably more than Sarah. Sarah is the golden retriever, Right?
- [33:41]
A
That is true. I mean, we talked about this on what, a recent episode, the episode, the kombucha gif episode, where, I mean, yeah, I am much more likely to be like, sure, I'll try it.
- [33:53]
B
But I think that for me, it also. And I think maybe this is, like, because of my day job being a middle school teacher. Right. Like, a lot of, you know, you have to kind of like, start as you mean, as you mean to go on. If you're just, like, giving your space to, like, talk in a mean way about things, then what you are is mean.
- [34:11]
A
I think what's interesting about you, right, Is the, at the beginning of the. If you go back and start listening the early episodes of the podcast, right. Like, my introduction has not changed at all.
- [34:19]
B
All right.
- [34:20]
A
I've been Sarah McLean. I'm Sarah McClain. I read. I read romance novels and I write them, by the way, I said that a couple of times. I said, I always introduce myself that way. And so I introduce myself that way in all my sessions on the other.
- [34:31]
B
Side of the planet.
- [34:32]
A
And every time somebody would go faded based. So we love you. Thank you so much for listening. Australia, I love in New Zealand. This week's episode of Fade Amaze is sponsored by Blueprint Box Press, publishers of Kristen Ashley's Finding the One.
- [34:49]
B
So this is the seventh book in the River Rain series. And what we have are two people, Blake and Alice Dare, or Dare, whose parents were family friends. And so when they were growing up, they were forced together all the time, but they basically hated each other. Blake thought Dare was filthy, obnoxious little bully, and Dare thought Blake was a spoiled, prissy princess. But as they grew up and, like, sort of went their own ways and became, like, amazing people, they just sort of forgot all about each other until their paths cross again. Blake is still reeling from her fiance's treachery and what she learned herself by it or during that whole ordeal. Whereas Dare thought he has recovered from a marriage to a woman who is not at all what she seemed. But they meet each other again and they have, you know, both been betrayed by lovers and somehow can just, like, see each other as real people. So they're smitten. They're determined to find out maybe what they have together. But as they are learning to essentially see each other as real adults, their combined family history, full of secrets and lies, threatens to explode in their faces. So can they what they've built together be strong enough to hold true, true, even as their personal demons are tearing them apart?
- [36:08]
A
Oh, well, if you love a contemporary romance with childhood enemies to adult lovers, you are gonna love this one. You can find it right now in print or ebook, and if your podcasting app supports it, you can click on the chapter title right now to buy Finding the One. Thanks to Blue Box Press and Kristen Ashley for sponsoring this week's episode. You started out because.
- [36:36]
B
Oh, yeah, but mine's changed a lot.
- [36:37]
A
You dropped it. But the truth is, you didn't drop it.
- [36:39]
B
I.
- [36:39]
A
Out of your real life. Like, I'm, you know, I'm Jen Prokop, and I read romance novels and I'm a romance novel critic, right? So. And that's because you are, right. You. You write for. You review and write reviews for other places. And so I think. But I think. And this is something that I've been thinking about a lot recently, because I think there is. There's this thing that is happening on the Internet, on social media, that is a great concern for me, and that is authors publicly lambasting critics and reviewers for reviews online. And now, listen, we've talked a lot about how authors need to stay out of Goodreads. Like, that is a space that is for readers. Like, authors need to get a group chat and keep their frustration in the group chat. And I will say, and Jen will. Will affirm this, there are certainly times when I have read a review by accident, stumbled upon a review, right?
- [37:44]
B
Or been tagged in one, or been.
- [37:45]
A
Tagged by one in one. But, like, stumbled upon a review about one of my books that has upset me a lot. I'm not saying that this is. I'm not above this feeling at all. In fact, I'm definitely not, which is why I try really hard not to be on Goodreads at all. And then I take the review into the group chat and I show it to the group chat and I say, these people? And the group chat says, yeah, fuck those people. And I keep it in the Tight.
- [38:15]
B
Group of the group chat, right?
- [38:16]
A
We've had that conversation. That feels like settled law in terms.
- [38:20]
B
Of Goodreads, I would say the exception, of course. Everybody is like, if it's racist, if it's right, like, then I think when authors say, like, this is a racist.
- [38:29]
A
Review, this negative review is out, actually just racist toward me, toward my characters, or Ableist.
- [38:36]
B
That's when I think everyone's like, yeah, thousand percent talk about this. Because I think sometimes maybe people, other people are like, I didn't realize that, or I didn't know that, or I saw it, wasn't sure what was going on.
- [38:46]
A
So a thousand percent. But what I am talking about right now is I have seen an uptick in authors taking their grievances with a public review. Like an actual review journal. Paid critic, you know, somebody who is writing a review as. As a job. Like somebody who is trained to review text, right? Paid to review text. And saying, hey, like, fuck this review publicly. And not because it's racist. Like, no, just because I didn't like it. Because I'm hurt by this, right? Like, because I want everybody to love my book and it hurts me to see criticism of it. Listen, I get that too. Guess what? I've had bad reviews from major publications, right? And that is hard, too. But the reality is that critics are essential to the publishing ecosystem, and that's because they are part of what lifts an art form into a place of cultural discussion. Yeah. Are they the only thing that does that? Absolutely not. Like, absolutely not. But I think, like, criticism is an art form. Like, it is a skill that is honed. And so when we say. When we point at a review journal and we say, this review journal gave me a bad review. And so, like, and I'm going to publicly, like, dissect this review and tell you all the ways that this reviewer is stupid, what are we doing that's not in service to the text or to our business or to our art form or to the ecosystem that we want. Want in order for texts to thrive.
- [40:49]
B
As someone who does this work, I think it's. I'm really interested in it because I think there's so many different, like, vectors on which people sort of attack these things. And one is, like, what you just described. Like, sort of this. Like, it's personal to me. And I didn't like the way it made me feel to read this. I think then sometimes authors get into the space of like, well, they didn't understand what I was trying to do. And I always. When I see those the way I think is, well, I think they understood just fine. I think you didn't execute what you thought you did. Right. And that, I think is. Can be. Can be really hard to hear. It's hard to hear. But part of me is like, anytime I see an author being like, yeah, but, you know, blah, blah, blah, I'm just like, I don't care. Like, the. And one of the things, it's really interesting because I was reading actually a piece this morning that was about film. I'll put it into show notes, because I will.
- [41:49]
A
I feel like, was this. Did somebody share this with us? Did it come from Eric?
- [41:53]
B
No, I don't know. I. I'm not sure. So I post. I saw it this morning, and it was about a guy who's writing about a movie called Civil War, and he was talking about the difference between premise and narrative and how what he is seeing is all of these movies that essentially, like, things happen, but it's. The movie isn't saying anything. And I was very much like, oh, in some. And for me, what I was saying is like, I posted about it on Blue Sky. I was saying, I find reading cultural criticism from across genre and medium to be really fascinating and also very validating because then I often can see. Oh, the problems that we are trying to identify about what's going on in romance are actually problems that are plaguing storytelling culturally large. And so one of the things that he was talking about in this is like, you know, so this is. This is. The author is Jesse Robb. He's like, you know, so he's like, things happen on screen. We're not really sure why. We don't know what it's supposed to mean. And the filmmaker doesn't seem to really understand E. Right. These are the pure vibes in quotes, movies that beg audiences to ascribe meaning to the images they saw on screen. Right. But it's basically like they capture images, but they don't have a perspective. And I found myself really thinking, you know, or there's a part where he talks about a movie called Saltburn, which I've never seen, where he says, dozens of millennials left Saltburn wondering what all of its provocative scenes were for, when the answer is plainly to show provocative scenes to an audience without much else there. And I. One of the things I would say is like, I read a bunch of books this summer that I found myself thinking, like, what is this book trying to. What is this romance trying to say?
- [43:54]
A
Yeah, a thousand percent. I read as something similar. It wasn't it feels like it was a, like, companion piece to what you're talking about earlier this week. And it was also about film. And basically it was arguing that, like, we're in, in this time where the only reviews or, or criticism that we see of film is like, positive.
- [44:17]
B
Right.
- [44:18]
A
And so if. And that's because, like, journalism has eliminated column inches for the critic. Right. And what they were saying is, like, when Siskel and Ebert were doing their, like, movie reviews, they would have their little 30 minute whatever. And it was, there were was often a situation where they disagreed on a movie. Right. Or maybe they both hated the movie or. And then of course, like two enthusiastic thumbs up became like the thing. Like, oh, it got two thumbs up from Siskel and Ebert, which meant, like, it was authentically good. We could trust it because we had also seen that sometimes Siskel and Ebert did not like movies. Right, right. You don't come to, to McLean and Procop for like, thoughtful, negative criticism. That's not what we do. What we do is deconstruct books that we think are great and tell you why we love them. But you would go to them and they would give you all the whole spectrum of criticism, and that's because they're critics. Right, right. And so. And he had a few other examples of like, places where you would go and you would see a bad review of a movie and how that's becoming like, much more rare. And so what it's doing is really like, flatten the whole landscape because if there is no negative, then how can there ever really be true, positive?
- [45:49]
B
And I think, you know, sometimes, listen, the truth is sometimes people are like, why don't you ever do review? Blah, blah, blah. And sometimes I want to be like, unfaded mates. Absence is criticism. I don't know what else to say.
- [46:00]
A
Don't say that about every listening.
- [46:02]
B
Well, it's on top of everybody. We haven't read everything. But part of me is like. Or absences. I mean, I say this in my classroom all the time. There are books that are like YA blockbusters. I don't need to read them because everybody is always reading them.
- [46:17]
A
Exactly.
- [46:17]
B
You know what I mean? Like, nobody needs me to talk about like Emily Henry or Abby Jimenez or Lucy Score. Like, these people are superstars and everyone has read them. And if I'm gonna read a book because I haven't read it and I want to talk about feels to me like my book time is better spent. And it's not to say those aren't great books that with Authors who love them. Right. It's just.
- [46:43]
A
What's interesting is those three names that you just named. We talked about all three of them early in their careers.
- [46:48]
B
Yeah.
- [46:49]
A
And now we're like, everybody's heard of them. Yeah.
- [46:51]
B
We don't need to do it anymore. Right.
- [46:52]
A
And that's not to say, listen, on any given episode, we might mention somebody like that. But there's.
- [46:58]
B
But you're right. Like the goal.
- [46:59]
A
And it's interesting because when I was reviewing for the Washington Post.
- [47:02]
B
Again.
- [47:03]
A
Again, not a critic.
- [47:04]
B
Right. Right. I.
- [47:06]
A
My column for the Washington Post, which ran for three or four years, was every year, every month, I would choose the best books of the month. It's like, Olivia Waits column for the New York Times is the same way.
- [47:16]
B
Right.
- [47:17]
A
Quarterly. And, you know, and that was because I'm a writer. Like, I. These are my colleagues. I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna criticize my colleagues. Texts. But what's interesting is I said from the very beginning, like, people were. Would send letters that said, like, well, she didn't review the new Nora Roberts book. And I was like, no, why would I review the Nora Roberts book when there are a million other books this month that are not gonna get the same attention? So I think. Yeah, that's always been a piece of it, too.
- [47:50]
B
I mean, I think the thing that's tricky is, you know. And listen, I've said something like this privately for a long time and. Right. Setting aside, like, this is not the place for it. To Us.
- [48:01]
A
Us.
- [48:02]
B
You know, until romance can take negative reviews seriously without being in a defensive crouch, I don't think many people will take romance seriously outside of the genre.
- [48:17]
A
Which is upsetting because I do think, like, reviews are becoming less and less.
- [48:22]
B
Well, there's less and less of them. Right? Yeah. I mean. And so, I mean, we just heard ap, which had, like, sort of a book reviewing. Right. A lot of local newspapers will essentially get like, okay, I'm just gonna run the AP's book reviews because we can't afford to pay a book reviewer when they're not doing it anymore. So that means that, like, lots of local papers will just not have book reviews anymore. Yeah.
- [48:47]
A
Well, and then. And we used to have. The Los Angeles Times used to have a book review section. The Washington Post. Post used to have to book like a. A in the Sunday paper, a book section which was full of reviews. You know, I had a monthly column at the Washington Post. I don't anymore because they got rid of it. Like, so. And that's not to Say that there aren't still reviews in these papers, but they're fewer and so. And they become. It's interesting, right, Because I've. One of the things. And now we can sort of start getting into the whole point of this episode, which is sort of like a state of romance. Right. One of the things that I've been thinking. So my book came out July 8th. That took up a lot of my summer. Right. What have we done with our summer? There it is. Right. I put out a book and so I've spent a lot of time over the summer going into bookstores, independent bookstores and Barnes and Nobles and other stores. Right. Books a millions. And Barnes and Nobles is really interesting, right? It's a. So, okay, big box. It's a, you know, it's a. It's a big store. It is a national store. It's a big chain store. Right. But Barnes and Noble, the way Barnes and Noble functions is, you know, several years ago it was purchased by a company that. And it installed a CEO who had come from Waterstones in the UK and came with a kind of vc, a vc sort of tech background and had conceptualized this idea that turnover at bookstores at Barnes and Noble specifically was too low. Right. So if a book sat on the shelf for longer than X number of weeks and was not purchased, that book wasn't the right book for Barnes and Noble. Right. So what they did is something very interesting, which is. And like all of this is to say that I'm not viewing any of this with like val, a value judgment, but what they did was they said, okay, what if we turn individual Barnes and Nobles into local. I'm using air quotes. You can't say it. Local independent bookstores. Like, if we, if we imbued them with this model of like, the people who work there know their customer base, know their local space, know what their customers want to read and are given permission to stock the shelves with that understanding.
- [51:16]
B
Right.
- [51:17]
A
This sounded great. Like, what a great idea, right? Like, if you did have these kind of big stores, but they were operating on a community, as a community, like touchstone, they basically, like, decide. They told all the publishers, you cannot buy co op. Like, you can't buy space on the end caps of like on the, on the front facing space of the shelves. You can't buy table space at the top, at the front. Like, this was all there. This was part of, like, how publishing worked. You could make a book 15 years ago by going into Barnes and Noble and saying, we're going to give you $250,000 to put this book on the front table in every Barnes and Noble right across the country. They said, we're not doing that anymore. You can't do that with us anymore. In fact, we're not taking. We're only going to take a very small number of books on a national level. Meaning, like, yeah, Taylor Jenkins Reid has a new book out. We're going to take. Take. I'm making these numbers up. 10,000 copies of this book. It's going to be in every store, but for the most part, the books are going to be selected by local staff. This was fascinating, except at the same time we had the pandemic and everything flattened, right? So instead of there being, well, we'll take two copies of 200 books in a month. It's. We'll take, you know, 400 copies of the new Emily Henry this month, Right. Or we'll take, like the Romantasy that's famous on TikTok. The, you know, Emily's new book, Taylor Jenkins Reid's new book, Abby's new book. Maybe we'll take Sarah McLean. Maybe we'll take Kennedy Ryan, but she's probably gonna be the only person of color who we're gonna take at sort of this national level. And so it. What it ends up happening is, is we flatten the whole field, and that is deeply impacting romance right now. Right. There just aren't enough. There's never been enough shelf space.
- [53:18]
B
Right.
- [53:19]
A
For all the books that we were producing, but now that shelf space is being taken up by, you know, everybody wanting to read these, like, five authors.
- [53:31]
B
Well, or.
- [53:32]
A
Or is it. The authors are on the shelf and so I didn't.
- [53:35]
B
Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, that's exactly it.
- [53:37]
A
It's the bee. It's a chicken egg situation.
- [53:42]
B
This week's episode of Fated Mates is brought to you by Avon Books, publishers of the Gingerbread Bakery by Lori Gilmour.
- [53:50]
A
So this is the fifth book in Lori's Dream harbor series, which is a small town series that was a number one New York Times bestseller. A town full of quirky people, cozy settings, and romance. And it's exactly what you want from a small town setting. This book features Annie Andrews, the owner of the gingerbread bakery in town, who believes that she deserves a love life that matches her. Business should be sugary and sweet, maybe just a little bit spicy, but instead, all she's got is Max Sullivan, the bar owner down the street, who is infuriating and bothersome and who every time talks to him, they're just like end up in a battle of wits, which is how Mac kind of flirts. Because Mac has everything he wants, except Annie, who he's been dreaming up for.
- [54:46]
B
A real long time.
- [54:47]
A
But he doesn't know how to turn this like, battle of wits into like.
- [54:51]
B
A battle of love.
- [54:53]
A
And with Jeannie and Logan, who are a couple from an earlier book in the series, their wedding is coming up. Annie and Mac are kind of thrown together to do a little wedding work and hang out and hang out a little more than they necessarily would. And as snowflakes fall and forced proximity comes into play and winter's in the air, romance follows. And Annie is going to have to realize that maybe this enemy from the bar down the street is just in fact a lover waiting to happen.
- [55:22]
B
So the Gingerbread Bakery is a cozy romantic novel with an enemies to lovers vibe in a small town setting. He a guaranteed of course and you heard snowflakes, so you know that means forced proximity coming your way. If you would like to check out the Gingerbread Bakery is available now in print, ebook or audio. If your podcast amp supports it, you can click on the chapter title right now to be taken to buy the book. Thanks to Avon Books and Lori Gilmore for sponsoring this week's episode.
- [55:58]
A
And then later on class Warfare. Because the price of books is class warfare, everybody. Like I, I mean the loss of mass market is causing is, is damaging debut romance in a really particular way, I think especially not for new readers. Right? So we have, I feel like there are two separate buckets of romance readers, right? There are the romance readers who came to us into in 2020 like via MM and they started with Emily and Colleen and Tessa Bailey and you know the list, you know the list. Right, right, right. The books that like exploded on TikTok and just like were huge. And the reality is, and I also, I want to say again, none of this is a value judgment. I have loved most of these books.
- [56:51]
B
Right, yeah, of course.
- [56:52]
A
And so that bucket of readers found romance, found joy in romance and like really built like a community and popularity for romance above a certain price point.
- [57:05]
B
Right.
- [57:05]
A
Like these people don't blink at spending $18 on a paperback. Right. But then there is the massive batch of romance readers who lived in the shadow before 2020. And we, because I'm one of them, I look at an 18 price point and I think, oh, that's very expensive.
- [57:34]
B
I think I can wait for it.
- [57:35]
A
For a book that's going to take me four hours to read.
- [57:39]
B
Right?
- [57:40]
A
Like it's time. It's the Text if it's a brand new name, like I'm going to take a risk on like a new author. It's a really, really difficult time to sink your teeth into the genre as a writer. Like. And I think this is why indie romance has had such a boom over the last.
- [58:03]
B
Sure. If you're a high volume romance readers, indie is going to probably be.
- [58:08]
A
Because it's, it's a cheaper risk. Like if I spend $5 on a.
- [58:14]
B
Book, it's a cheaper risk and the books are as good. Years ago I did like my friends, a couple friends and I did. And I in like local people did a series at like a local library about like sort of like so you want to be a romance writer type of thing. And we, and it was really interesting because you know, in one of them we were sort of talking about like self publishing versus traditional publishing. Just sort of like what it looks like, what are the pros and cons? How would you go through this? And it was, what was really interesting is, is one of the librarians who was just like in the room kind of monitoring, right. Like making sure like that, you know, nobody, you know, I don't know, stole the books or whatever came up to us afterwards. And he's like, you know, he's like, I have to admit to you that I've always been a little like judgmental of sort of self published books. And he's like. And I was thinking about it and like listening to what you were saying and then he's like. And I realized how dumb it was. Like I don't judge an indie filmmaker. Right. Like I understand that. And maxing out their credit card to.
- [59:16]
A
Make Reservoir Dogs or whatever.
- [59:19]
B
Right? And it was really interesting because of course as a romance reader, especially if you're a primarily an ebook reader, probably the only way you can tell the difference is by the price point. You're like, well this ebook is 12 and this one is 5. And so my, if you pay attention at all.
- [59:36]
A
Well, because I'm sorry, we're also talking about this as though KU doesn't exist, but it does. And the reality is that like if you subscribe to ku, it feels free. It's not free, but it feels free.
- [59:49]
B
Well, and I think the other thing is it used to be, I mean and like this is real inside baseball, but it, it used to be that there. And I think this is probably still the case, right? Like self published authors are in KU and there was no traditionally public works in ku. KU was for self publishing. And then what happens Right. Is now traditionally published books can go into KU at some point, but they don't have to retract their, like, yeah.
- [60:20]
A
They have a special deal that.
- [60:21]
B
Right. So if you are reading a book in KU and it's self published, you can't get it anywhere else. Like, that's the deal that these authors are meaning with Amazon.
- [60:29]
A
You can only get it from Amazon. You can't get it from Apple or Barnes and Noble or wherever.
- [60:33]
B
You know, you're essentially promising that it will be exclusive. And if, if, I mean, and this is like a real danger to KU authors if then someone like uploads it to some sort of, you know, like, torrent site or, you know, like where you can pirate a book. Sometimes these people.
- [60:48]
A
I can steal your book.
- [60:50]
B
Yeah, right. Then people can essentially lose their cake. You know, Amazon's like, we shut down your account.
- [60:55]
A
We saw it somewhere else and no negotiation, just by.
- [60:59]
B
Right? But now it's like you can read in KU and within a couple of months have access to things that were. Or a $14 ebook, you know, three months ago. And I think that is one of the things I will say is like, as a high volume romance reader, like, I am always looking to stretch my romance dollar as much as. As far as I. As I can, as long as I can. And I am like, listen, this book's gonna be on sale. It's gonna end up in ku. I am a smart, conscientious shopper. I have to be everywhere else in my life, right? Like, as much. I mean, there's like, I live in the city and there's like in the grocery store next to my work. And like, sometimes I go in there and I'm like, okay, what are these prices? Right? Because they are like, it makes Whole Foods look like an Aldi. That's how expensive sometimes they are. Where I'm like, wait, are you kidding me? That this. You know, but you know, sometimes I'm like, whatever, I can walk in here and then go home and not have to make another stop and it's working worth it, right? But I do not shop there all the time. I'd be broke. I think that that's the thing about like, you know, as much as I would love to be like, yeah, I want to buy your $14 ebook, the Truth is I have more books than I could ever read. And if I am willing to wait three months, probably I can get it on a bookbub sale, right? So thinking about that is, it's really tricky.
- [62:29]
A
And I've been thinking a lot about this. I mean, I don't know what this episode is becoming, but I've been thinking a lot about this, this. And I've been thinking about the fact that we used to say, I mean, at the beginning of the pandemic we said a lot. Romance does well in a down economy, right. Like, and the reason why we would say that is because, like, there are things that do very well, vices do very well in soft economies, right? So like if there's a recession, six cigarettes, alcohol, pornography, like there are a number of things that you can track as being things that immediately will boost. And it's because those things are like cheap pleasure centers. Right? And we used to say romance did the same thing. Like books would go soft, but romance would hold in a bad economy. And it felt at the time, I remember, like we used to say it and the. And it felt like, oh, well, well, right, because it's sexy, right? Like it's a, it's a sexy thing. No, it's because it's cheap and also like fun to do.
- [63:40]
B
Right?
- [63:40]
A
Like you can, you could buy a cheap book and have a great time for the week and that would. That. And so the books remained a sort of easy way to inject your like nervous, anxious life with joy. Right now I've been thinking a lot about, about. I think we're probably heading up on a not great economy. I think we could all kind of agree on that.
- [64:06]
B
Right.
- [64:06]
A
We're all feeling anxious about money because of the way the world is tilting on its axis. And $20 feels like a lot of money.
- [64:18]
B
Yeah.
- [64:19]
A
And so I do wonder. And then yesterday I saw Gail Carriager say something about how like the, the sales are soft. Like the, like in general, like, like authors are seeing a downturn in sales. And like, I can't confirm or deny that because I switched genres this year. So I can't compare. But what I can tell you is that if I had had a mass market paperback this summer in Historical, I probably would have seen that shift too. So I think we're in a place right now where like, I guess what I'm saying here is all of you listening still, if you're still listening to us, just like do whatever we're doing here. I would say romance is in a really tight spot here. It's always the rest of publishing, but I'm not going to talk about that. And it's very essential that you buy the books you want to see published. Indie and traditional, whatever it is that you want to see in whatever distribution method yeah.
- [65:31]
B
And you know what? Maybe that just means like, you're like, I'm going to buy backlist. I mean, I would love to say like, I think realistically, like I used to say that and kind of be like, buy the books you want to see in the world. Like, but now I really am like, okay, but if you're like, I can't be buy it. I can't buy a $20 book every month. Right. That's just not in the budget. Right. And one a month is like a joke, right? Like Rome. I mean, I can't buy a $20 book every week.
- [65:57]
A
I can't.
- [65:57]
B
Like, there's just no way. And so I do think that it is really interesting to think about like how we're gonna see changes in that, right? How, how that's all gonna turn out. I do think that reading does bring me, brings all of us here, obviously a lot of pleasure and a lot of joy. But I also know also been like articles all summer about how like less adults read for pleasure or let. Right. Like, you know, you're like, books are class. The price of books is class warfare. But I also feel like reading is reading becoming classist. Right? Just the fact that you're a reader.
- [66:35]
A
I mean, but it, it goes together, Jen. Like if you can afford it, you can't afford it.
- [66:44]
B
Well, that's why they're going after libraries. This week's episode of Faded Mates is brought to you by Lumi Gummies. Consistent, mellow and super delicious, Lumi Gummies are specifically designed to make you feel good, not stoned.
- [67:01]
A
Whether you're looking for an end of day distressor a midday mood boost or help getting the best sleep ever. Lume Gummies has a strain that's right for you. And let me tell you a story with which is I am incredibly jet lagged and I'm having this trouble everyone where I am just very tired all day and then it comes time to go to bed here in the northern hemisphere. And it is. I am very awake. So that's not great. And let me tell you that I took a gummy last night and I went right to sleep. See, unfortunately I took the gummy. I remembered to take the gummy at like 2 in the morning. So I'm going to try it again tonight and see if I could take this gummy at a normal human hour.
- [67:50]
B
Yeah, I mean, I think it's going to work. It definitely is something that helps me every time. So I think everyone should try it. Lumi Gummies are available nationwide. Go to lumigummies.com that's L U M I gummies.com and use the code faded mates for 30% off your order. Again, that's, that's L U M I gummies.com code faded mates lumigummies.com code faded mates. And thanks as always, to Lumigummies for sponsoring this week's episode.
- [68:22]
A
I'm going to tell a story that might get me in trouble. Fine, I'm going to do it.
- [68:29]
B
An hour in. We'll be fine.
- [68:32]
A
An hour in. So here's what I will say.
- [68:35]
B
Say.
- [68:38]
A
Historical has come last to the shift we are starting to see. I mean, it was announced earlier this year that historical, that mass market is done. Walmart is no longer carrying it. Target hasn't carried it for a long time. Bookstores have sort of eschewed it. Indies have never had much space for mass markets because. And it makes sense for, right? Like if you have a limited shelf space and you can fill that shelf space with books that are three to four times as expensive, you will fill your shelf space with the expensive books and not the cheap ones. Fine. I went to a event at Berkeley immediately before the pandemic, probably January of 2020. And, and it was about the format shift. Like it was basically talking about why Berkeley had shifted from mass market to, to trade and why they had moved from photographic covers to illustrated covers. So this is as long as we're talking, right? So five years, five and a half years, almost six, six years ago, historical authors across the board, we all sort of said, oh sure, like it's happening, this move. Please don't leave us behind. And when I say this, I mean literally, like we all went in, we went into our publishers, we had meetings with our agents and our publishers and we all said, please don't leave us behind. Like, you know, if, if, if contemporary is shifting and paranormal is shifting and all of these things are changing, we still are here and you have to move us too. Bridgerton came out December of 2020 and we all. And they re released the Bridgerton books in trade. And we all went in, we had second meetings with our publishers and we said, please don't leave us behind. And they said to our faces, historical is down market. Which means from 1972, women in grocery stores have coupon clipped to save enough money to purchase their Rosemary Rogers historical. They're, you know, Amanda Quick, they're Joanna Lindsay, they're Sarah McLean, they're Tessa Dare, they're Julia Quinn. Like whatever it is, right? This is when they also Told us, like, they didn't think that Bridgerton would translate into the other books, you know, so they weren't gonna. They weren't gonna move us all into trans trade. So we are. So we were left behind, right, As a. As a sub genre. And now they can't put the books on the shelves. Like, there's just nowhere to put them. No one wants them. So they are moving us all in to trade. And it's an interesting situation because it's, again, that sort of beast that's. That eats its own tail.
- [71:41]
B
Real.
- [71:41]
A
Like, are we down market because of the content or are we down market because of the price? Like, and so how do we. We are. We're on the back foot here. But the point is that this is the shift, right? This is the big shift in romance. And I think from a business perspective, that's a big shift. But I want to talk about text.
- [72:06]
B
Too, for a bit. Little. Little bit. Like, right. In the era of book banning, like, I already see authors pulling back, right? I mean, pulling back from romance as a plot, pulling back from sex on page, pulling back from. Right. And I keep wondering, like, is what's going to happen is the way, like, romance is going to survive, at least survive. Book banning is essentially to, like, eliminate it. It's all women's fiction now, right? It's all women's fiction now.
- [72:34]
A
Put the pillow in the peanut butter. Yeah.
- [72:35]
B
We don't have to. So get rid of it. But the truth is, I find a lot of the books that are, I think, trying that to feel like, to not satisfy me as a romance reader. And I'm not saying I'm not going to name names, but, like, I'm not saying I'm. That they're bad books. I'm not even saying that they're. But I'm just saying, like, if that's what's going to happen, then what I'm going to be doing is, like, reading the 7,000 books already on my Kindle and in my house.
- [73:02]
A
But indie, that's the other reason. Like, indie is really shining right now because those books are delivering on the, like, sexiness, the emotional work, the whatever.
- [73:12]
B
We'll admit that sometimes I feel like, you know, okay, great, like, the books are in trade paperback, but they're expensive. And now a lot of them are very boring. And I don't know what to do with that. Like, great, they're in a Barnes and Noble or they're at 57th Street Books and awesome, but I don't want to read them. So what What? I don't. I feel like we won something, but did we lose something else way bigger? And I. And that is really easy for me to say because I'm not an author. I'm not paying my bills, right? I'm just a reader. And I. But I think the other thing I think about a lot. I think about a lot is especially in this, like, shift to, like, right, like historical. Like, they're killing it, right? Is it dead or are they killing it? Kind of question is, I've seen people, like, shifting in lots of different ways, trying new things, going to different sub genres, right? And. And the thing I keep thinking is if you were a historical author and your publisher said, we don't want you to write historical anymore, but they aren't doing anything for you with your new book in whatever sub genre it is, and now you have no readership, and you haven't. You know what I mean? Like, what did that person get out of of that Your historical readers aren't going to necessarily find you because now you're writing something different and your publisher isn't telling people, oh, my God, look how amazing this person is now. You know, doing something. It just feels like we're moving people around the chessboard, but readers are just like, I don't know where to find you now. Sorry, everybody. It's depressing. The state of. The State of the Union is depressing.
- [74:58]
A
That said, though, there are still things happening that are really cool and fun. And so I want to talk about that. Like, where. What we see bubbling up, that feels exciting because we're still here, right? Eight seasons in, and we're still here because there are things that excite us about romance.
- [75:28]
B
And.
- [75:30]
A
I want to talk about that. So what is exciting to you right now?
- [75:36]
B
Like, I feel like an influx of new readers is just really interesting to me because it's the opportunity to, like, share something I love with people who are right. And I think, like, TikTok. And anytime, like a new social media app, like, rises up into the. You know, TikTok isn't new anymore. It's been around for five years. But, like, I'm mostly on blue sky, not on threads. And I've had people, like, sort of come, like, discover. I wrote some dumbass thread about something, right? And people are, like, following me, and I thought. And then, like, might ask for recommendation. So I really love that because I think new readers makes me feel like if people are still attracted to, like, I read actually a thread, awesome Man, Blue sky the other day, where a guy was Like, I think sci fi is down, dying. It was really fascinating, interesting.
- [76:24]
A
Why?
- [76:24]
B
Well, because what he was saying is, like, fantasy is booming. And he was like, you know, like, he was kind of like, we've had big, like romantasy and paranormal, like, kind of big, like sub genres of fantasy, like sort of rise up and are really popular. And he's like, but on the other hand, and I'll like, try and find this and make sure that I can put this in show notes too. He said when it comes to sci fi, he. What he said, and it was really interesting, is like, we don't really call it that anymore. Even though big books, like, what was that book? The Minute Ministry of Time, like time travel is like a sci fi trope. But no one refers to the Ministry of Time as sci fi, right? And he is like, so what we see is that like, instead of sci fi thriving, it's like mainstream fiction is like picking out the things that make sci fi great.
- [77:12]
A
That's John. It's like, consuming genre.
- [77:15]
B
Yes. And as someone who is really interested in genre in general, I am very interested in that. Just like, I'm really interested in the way that speculative fiction as an umbrella has like, scooped up and made horror something that I think, like, you know, back in the day, horror used to be like this backwater, like, you know what I mean? Like, you had that.
- [77:39]
A
Like, there were indie presses who, you know, Stephen King still publishes with indie presses.
- [77:44]
B
Not everybody would treat them seriously. Right.
- [77:48]
A
His darkest horror is in India.
- [77:51]
B
And. But horror is now really popular and really mainstream. And it was a couple of years ago I was at like, nct, which is like the English teacher thing. And all of a sudden they were talking about horror as part of like, the speculative fiction umbrella. And I was. And I was really. So I'm. I'm really. The other thing, I guess I'd say I'm like, I obviously love romance and think I want romance to be a certain way, but as someone who's interested in genre, I'm really interested in, I don't know, like, what's happening in the world as gen as the world changes and we see genres shift in response to it. So I just feel like that's something social media has brought me is like an opportunity to be like, what are the horror people talking about? What are the sci fi people talking about? And like I said, that makes me feel like, okay, hey, what we're seeing in romance is what we're seeing across the board.
- [78:44]
A
And it's interesting, right? Because I have been Thinking a lot about how, like, genre used to live. Live in the shadow. Right. Like, we. I mean, listen, we hid our books from everyone and pretended that we read literary fiction. I mean, I didn't always, but the. You know, a lot of us hit our books and pretended that we were. We were reading literary fiction and didn't. And, like, we're ashamed of the text. Right. That shame is not here at the same level anymore. Right. Like, social media over the last however many years has wrought genre, like, into the light in a lot of ways. Like, it's totally fine if you read romance books. Yeah, right. Go read romance novels, but do read romance books. Right. And so I think what's interesting about that is social media has democratized culture in a way. And so, like, where we used to be pocketed, now we are, like, just kind of everywhere. And it's interesting because it. I can't tell if I'm like. If I find that, like, uplifting and, like, great, because everybody is finding the joy of romance in their own particular way. Like, whether or not, like, a lot of these books. I agree. You, Jen. Like, a lot of these books are not written for me. Like, I appreciate that I'm a romance reader whose buttons were installed at a particular time, and, like, those buttons just might not be the same buttons. But I do think, like, getting the joy. I see some of these readers who came to these newer books and, like, really feel that they are speaking directly to them. Like, they're having the same joyful experience with the text that we are.
- [80:41]
B
That we did.
- [80:41]
A
Right. And so there's something really joyful about that. And then the other side of the coin is, like, I liked it before. It was cool.
- [80:50]
B
You know what I mean?
- [80:51]
A
I knew that band before they were big. And so I know, like, there's a part of me that's like, yeah, don't speak the deep magic to me. I was there when it was written.
- [81:04]
B
Absolutely right, Absolutely. But.
- [81:09]
A
But I think so. I think there's that. I agree with you. I think new readers are really a blessing in a lot of ways. Like, I love seeing, like, the joy.
- [81:19]
B
I.
- [81:19]
A
You know, I. I was in Australia and I was talking about books, and of course, I talked about gorilla twins, everyone at multiple. Multiple times. And I still like, anytime people's eyes, like, light up at, oh, my gosh, that's so bananas. And I just want to read it immediately. And I will say at the end of every session that I talked about gorilla twins, somebody would, like, come up to me and be one foot old not gorilla twins, everyone. It's called the Earl Takes all but the, you know, so I think there's that. I think, and I am really into the fact that in indie specifically, the kind of bananas plots thrive. And I would say, like, I think these bananas plots are thriving in traditional tunes. I just think they're like, glossed over in traditional. But like, every once in a while I'll pick up something that's like really popular and I'll read it and I'll be like, oh, this is like a straight down the middle, like romance novel from 1985, you know, and I think that that's really great because the one thing that I'm always like, I would be devastated to lose in the genre is that sort of like high level of fear feeling. I mean, I think you're right about sex and traditional romance, although I don't know that it's publishers who are pulling the authors back. I think authors are pulling their. Themselves back.
- [82:46]
B
Yeah, I think so too. And I don't. Yeah, it doesn't. Ultimately, I don't care, you know, who's pulling whom back. I. And I'm not saying like sex makes a romance great or not. I'm just saying it's noticeably different.
- [83:00]
A
But I also think, like, I. I think of, for example, Louisa Darling, who we are avowed fans of here@f ADA mates. And you know, Louisa came through contemporary. She could have chosen to write romantasy. And she loves historical, so she wrote historicals. And I think the, the benefit, I think I'm seeing a lot of that right now. Like, and on an individual level, like, I don't know that we're seeing it. Everybody knows, like, I love, I love. I keep lists of things that I think are going to be trends. And I'm not necessarily willing to call this a trend yet, but one of the things that I is, I'm hoping is a trend is I'm hearing from a lot of people who are like, I want to write this thing that is not hugely popular right now, but I'm going to do it anyway. And I think indie is giving them self publishing is giving them an opportunity to do that. And what it's doing is producing books that are bangers because you wrote the thing that gave you joy.
- [83:58]
B
I feel like one of the things, things that, you know, if you've been around long enough, you've been around these romance streets long enough, you know that like everything comes back around. I mean, you know, oh, the. God, where was I? Like, it's just like 90s fashion is back. You're like, oh, my God, where was I? Somewhere.
- [84:17]
A
I was like, listen, the Barrel Jean is an attack.
- [84:19]
B
Don't come for me.
- [84:21]
A
I. I put. I put a pair on the other day and I was like, whoa.
- [84:24]
B
No, I mean, right? You're like, what's happening? No, thank you.
- [84:28]
A
I got rid of these in the.
- [84:29]
B
90S, but like, one of the things is, like, there's a lot of time travel books now speaking of sci fi. And these were like some of my most formative early romances.
- [84:40]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [84:41]
B
So I'm super excited for that. You know what I mean? I feel like sometimes you see like a, you know, like a beloved trope, like, coming down. Like, you're kind of like, there's like a. You're like, is it a mirage or am I really seeing. Seeing that. Right. Coming back? And I think that that is pretty exciting. And I. I do think that sometimes it's like in those spaces, like the, the banana stuff can kind of live. Right. Like, if you're writing a time travel romance, you're writing a time travel romance for a reason. It's not because you actually think their time travel exists. Not in our genre. Right. Yeah.
- [85:16]
A
And historically, Jen, romance has really produced after this kind of. Kind of tight frightening. And I listen, like, this is not me being like, hey, cool that we're just trampling on people's rights. But like, in the past moments of political and social dissidents have produced some pretty great books.
- [85:46]
B
And we've always. Right, that's always been the case. We're really interested in kind of like, what Ro. What is romance doing?
- [85:52]
A
The work.
- [85:53]
B
Right? The work work. And I am finding myself. And like, there are long stretches of time where I'm like, not. I'm not. I'm not in. I'm just like, reading. And then there are times when, like, something bubbles up and I'm interrogating. And I would say that, like, right now I'm very much in an interrogation phase. Right. Why are these books looking the way they are? Why are these the things that are selling and, you know, and. And I have different opinions about kind of, kind of why. What is the book doing and is it. Is it successful at doing it? So in that sense, I am excited same. Because I think that things are going to have to be different because everything is so different.
- [86:44]
A
Yeah. I just think as long as we keep showing up for the. The books, you know, and keep saying out loud, like, I. I have seen, I'm. And I don't know if it's because my algorithm is just tight now. But, like, I think a lot of people are saying, like, they want big feelings, they want. They want the drama, they want the excitement, they want the page turning, they want the high pacing, they want, like, I'm seeing a lot of people saying that they want these things. And I mean, that's. We've been screaming about that for years. That, like, that's all we want.
- [87:20]
B
Right.
- [87:21]
A
And so I think as long as we are, like, the readers are speaking up about what we want, about what we.
- [87:32]
B
What we.
- [87:33]
A
What the genre can be, can do, how it can inspire and evoke and engage and keep us turning pages, and then we're going to be okay.
- [87:48]
B
Yeah.
- [87:50]
A
But I want to speak to the writers out there. This is a real rough time in the world, and I know it is because I too am one and I'm trying to write a book, put it in the text. It's okay.
- [88:03]
B
It's okay to put it in the text. Yeah. I think it's actually vital that we put it in the text.
- [88:11]
A
Well, genre carries the myth, right? Jane Ann Grant forever.
- [88:15]
B
It does. And you know what I find myself thinking about a lot, which is like, you know, I think right now, I mean, whatever, it's where we are. I don't think people will be surprised. Here's talking about, like, politics or what we think is happening. But, like, I feel like right now, right, for like, a big part of my life, the myth of America that, like, we were trying to, like, work towards and build. To me, when I think about it, and is like the Obama White House when gay marriage passed, right. This was like, this was like America, like, saying, this is who we are. And. Right. So if you don't know what I'm talking about, like, they lit up the White House in, like, colored lights. And I think one of the things that we're seeing now is our current administration trying to say, like, no, that's not who we are. That's not who we are in lots of different ways. And I guess I would just say, you know, I'm not going to tell you that, like, reading romance is going to, like, fight fascism, but I think reading romance might give you some solace that will allow you to then go out and do the real work. You know, I think a lot about, you know, turning our backs on black women and, like, forcing that of the workforce and resegregating and. Right. Like, like trying to eliminate trans people from. From American life. And I just want to say, like, I. That if. If you're writing romances that are like, fulfilling that myth, then I, I, I don't want them. Right. I would, I would like romance to really live up to what I think of as like the like, the most important parts to me are like the ones that say, like, anyone who values love in their life is deserving of it. Yep. And that I think is why more than anything, like, I keep reading romance because it's some days is some days are harder than others when it comes to believing that.
- [90:19]
A
Yeah. Now more than ever. And I think that if you are looking, looking at the genre and you're seeing the push, we are seeing that too. Right. The, the like push toward the, the majority.
- [90:34]
B
Right.
- [90:35]
A
But I also think, like, look closer because there are a lot of people out here writing. Yeah.
- [90:43]
B
Joy.
- [90:44]
A
That looks the way we want it to look.
- [90:46]
B
Yeah.
- [90:48]
A
And we try every week to talk about those voices.
- [90:54]
B
Yeah. Why are, why is reading important? It's, yeah. It's a way of seeing the world. It's way being able to live in other people's skin. It's about a way of like, sort of, you know, experiencing a world that like, isn't yours, a life that isn't yours. And like, that's not all it does, but that's like a big thing that it does. And so who gets to tell their stories? Right. That's always been the, the whole ball game.
- [91:17]
A
Well, season eight, I don't know what.
- [91:21]
B
We'Re doing next week.
- [91:23]
A
Next week we're gonna have a special guest to talk a little more about the work of the genre. And we will be recommending a bunch of books, I think, on that episode. And then we've got autumn previews and, and some fun tropes that we're going to talk about over the course of the next month or so. And then we're getting into the end of the year, which seems, I know. Banana pants. And we'll be doing our annual episodes about debuts about best. We'll do best of the year we'll do a holiday episode. So stick with us. We've got a lot of like, big fire hose episodes coming at you where we're just going to fill your TBR piles and make things, make, make sure that you have like, amazing things to read over the course of the next year. We are also coming up on. We know you all are looking for Faded States stuff. For those of you who don't know, we run Faded States, which is a support of political action from Romancelandia. We do phone banks. We do fundraising for the States Project which is trying to flip flip state legislatures and secure state seats for Democratic candidates. State legislatures are where everything that's where the rubber meets the road. That's where all the laws that are terrible come from. That's how things get to the Supreme Court and we need those legislatures and to also that's how gerrymandering happens. So there we go. We work with them. We work with individual candidates on for phone banking. So far we do not have any phone banks set up for this year's election. It's an off cycle election year. But you know, be in touch if you need us. And I've said it before, I will say it again. If you are thinking about running for school board, please let us know. If you are, we will happily give you some seed money for your campaign. We're going to link in show notes or actually if you go to our website, if you go to fatedmates.net faded states, you will find some past episodes, one of where in one of which we spoke to Amanda Lippman from Run for Some Something, who told us that most school board elections across the country can be won with as little as like $2,500. We are happy to give you seed money for your election, wherever that is. We need more great readers protecting books in our communities. It's rough out there. We are a big community of readers. We love this genre more than anything and we love all of you for joining us every week. If you would like to become a part of our community, you can do that on our patreon fatedmates.net patreon for more information on that, you get one extra episode a month and you get access to our Discord, where a bunch of cool people hang out and talk about romance all the time. So how bad could that be? Not bad at all. Actually, pretty great. What else? You can find us on Instagram at Fated Mates Pod. You can find us on Threads at Faded Mates Pod. You can find us on Blue sky at Faded mates. I'm Sarah McLean. I'm here with my friend Jen Procop. It is season eight.
- [94:54]
B
It is.
- [94:55]
A
And we're with you till the end. So thanks for being with us. At the end of this episode, if you stick around, you'll hear a sneak peek of a bargain so bloody in audio. So thanks to Vasiliza Drake for sponsoring this week's episode.
- [95:19]
C
I snatched a scrambling rat before it could retreat to its hiding hole, breaking its neck in one smooth motion. Samara A princess is not meant to hunt vermin. That's what my mother would have said if she saw my dirty fingers grab the rat's matted flower fur, likely as her delicate fingers pinched her nose, I'd have meekly apologized for my unladylike behavior. The dying squeak chased away the echoes of her imagined reprimand like smoke. It had been more than a decade since I'd last heard her voice, pained and pleading. Now I went days, a week at a time, without uttering more than the occasional grunt. It was better that way. Safer. It was all too easy to remember I wasn't a lady, and despite my mother's wild wishes, I'd never been a princess. The prison allowed no delusions. I slid the carcass into the makeshift pouch in my skirts with the others and hustled down the hall to check my traps, adding several more unlucky rats to my collection. My cloth wrapped feet scraped over the rough stone as I worked systematically through the the halls. Time. Somehow it passed too quickly in a day and too slowly in a year. A dozen rats weren't easy to catch, even with the traps I'd made. Especially not today. A new prisoner had come in that wasn't so unusual, but whoever this prisoner was, he'd set off the rest of the inmates. The halls had echoed with screams for hours, the rough crack of the the whip their metronome. The guards like to have fun with the new ones. When the other prisoners cried out, they'd have the whip turned on them as well. Catching rats was tricky at the best of times, but the yelling and carrying on had made my job all the harder. They hid in small corners and scratched and bit to try to escape the inevitable, even after they were caught. Not that it ever worked. Parked something I knew all too well. My mother would have thought it was horrific. Me, I was numb to the task after all these years. The disgust of being around dead vermin wears off pretty quickly once you realize it's keeping you away from the living ones. As I walked into the kitchen, Nelson was at his preferred post, the single half functional chair in the main servants chamber. Chamber. It might as well have been a throne, by the way he ordered everyone about. Hurry up, you lazy. He snapped with his scratchy voice. Kitchen won't wait all day. I picked up the pace, taking care not to drop my haul. Nelson leered at me as I passed. I made a show of speeding up, hoping that would soothe his ego. He wasn't as highly ranked as a guard, but rather was a disgraced noble since son, which made him our superior. He lorded his status over us he was constantly imagining infractions against him. That was how you got sent to clean the toilets. It wouldn't have been quite so terrible if everyone took their turn. Instead, Nelson let his favored few skip their shifts, worsening the smell until some unlucky SAP was sent to clean up. Unlike the rest of the witch kingdom, magic was inaccessible in Greymyr, meaning the feces had to be scraped by hand instead of washed away with an enchanted card. I eased through the doorway, trying to avoid the other servants. The kitchen was half the size it needed to be for the number of prisoners we had. It was the only warm room in the prison, except you couldn't enjoy enjoy it. The air was always sticky with sweat from the workers. I deposited the rats near Cook, who was brewing the main course. He accepted them with a grunt and I didn't bother to acknowledge him before starting on my next task. There was always more to do, and if you looked like you didn't have enough for even a moment Toilets. I delivered the rats just in time to be added to this supper stick stew. Next on my rotation was washing the dishes from breakfast. Technically, Robbie was supposed to do that in the morning, but as Nelson's lone friend and CO bully, he got away with slacking off more than anyone else. Usually he put the blame on me when the dishes weren't done by the evening. Washing dishes had some advantages. It was the one place in the prison where we could actually use soap. Baths were a thing of the past in Greymier. I got used to the smell after a while, sure, but inevitably my fingers were plastered with blood after breaking the necks of the rats all day.