Illicit Liaisons
Illicit Liaisons
Illicit Liaisons: Fireworks & Flirtation with Aline Francoure and Jenna Harte
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
This week, we're celebrating the upcoming release of Fireworks & Flirtation by chatting with Aline Francoure and Jenna Harte. We discuss:
- The Romancestasy controversy
- What inspired Aline's story, Back to Us, a second chance romance with a singing telegram
- Factoids about the mafia and New Orleans, and Blackbeard folklore, and a whole lot more!
Aline Francoure is a passionate romance writer hailing from the picturesque countryside of Spotsylvania County, Virginia. When she's not crafting tales of love and passion, she enjoys the company of her two loyal dogs and my supportive husband. A lover of all things Scotland, she's enchanted by the rugged beauty of the Highlands and the iconic Highland cows. She also has a passion for crime TV, and you can often find her glued to the screen, unraveling thrilling mysteries.
LINKS TO ALINE
Aline's Website: https://alinefrancoure.com/
Aline's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alinefrancoure/
Jenna Harte is a die-hard romantic who writes with heat, heart, and always an HEA. She's the author of the Southern Heat contemporary romance series and the sexy Valentine Mysteries. She's also the managing editor of Tender & Tempting Tales, a romance anthology for readers who like romantic quickies.
LINKS TO JENNA
Jenna's Website https://jennaharte.com
Jenna's Instagram https://www.instagram.com/jennaharteauthor
Jenna's Page on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4x9ZweH
BOOKS MENTIONED ON THE SHOW
Fireworks & Flirtation https://amzn.to/4uacLtQ
It's About Damn Time (free short story) Subscribe: https://tenderandtemptingtales.substack.com/
CURRENTLY READING & RECOMMENDATIONS
Poison Ivy by Misty Simon https://amzn.to/4uBF1pt
Dark and Shallow Lies by Ginny Myers Sain https://amzn.to/43vxBrL
Disability in Romance (article by Mariah Ankenman) https://tenderandtemptingtales.substack.com/p/disability-in-romance
TENDER & TEMPTING TALES
Tender and Tempting Tales Substack: Subscribe and get a FREE story! https://tenderandtemptingtales.substack.com/
Tender and Tempting Tales on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tendertemptingtales/
Calls for Submissions: https://tenderandtemptingtales.substack.com/p/write-for-tender-and-tempting-tales
ILLICIT LIAISONS PRODUCED & HOSTED BY
Tara Leederman Substack: https://taleederman.substack.com/
Jenna Harte: https://jennaharte.com/
Outline and Show Notes: T.A. Leederman
Editing: Jenna Harte
Hello, romance readers. Welcome to Illicit Liaisons with Tender and Tempting Tales, where each week we talk about the good, the bad, and the naughty of romance fiction.
SPEAKER_00Hi, I'm Tara Lederman, social media manager here at Tender and Tempting Tales, as well as a science fiction romance author. And in this very special fireworks and flirtation episode of Illicit Liaisons, our focus is on two of the collection's authors, Aline Francour and Jenna Hart. Jenna here is the founder and editing, managing editor at Our Little Press, helping us usher steamy romance anthologies and spicy zines to all of you. She's also, of course, a romance author, having written the Southern Heat Contemporary Romance series and the Sexy Valentine Mysteries, which features a married sleuthing couple and murder-solving folks called Texts and Jack, and which I've been enjoying immensely. Under her new pen name, Ava Leclerc, Jenna has been serializing a dark gothic romance substack, which I've also been enjoying, called Shadow of Betrayal. We'll have Jenna's website where you can find all of her Valentine and Southern Heat mysteries, as well as where you can get a free story from Jenna and her substack in today's show notes. Welcome to the pod, Jenna.
SPEAKER_02Yay! I'm so happy to be here. And today we have as a guest host, romance author Alain Francourt, who has a story in Tender and Tempty Tales's Moonlight and Margarita's anthology, as well as a new story coming in the new summer anthology, Fireworks and Flirtation. Now, before focusing on romance writing, she wrote and won awards for her fiction and nonfiction through her local chapter, the Virginia Writers Club. She lives in rural Spotsylvania County, Virginia, with her husband and two crazy dogs. And in her spare time, whatever that is, she likes to read, watch any kind of crime TV, and spend time with her grandchildren. Welcome, Elyn.
SPEAKER_01Yay! Hello, hello.
SPEAKER_00Hello. It's good to have you here. Thank you. All right, you two. So it is illicit liaisons, and it's been quite a week of bookish drama, especially authors getting into trouble on the internet with the community. First was an author who'd written a plus size FMC into her romance novel trying to garner pity on social media by using a sock puppet to bully herself for including a plus size character. This is not the first time I've seen sock puppets and straw man reviewers used by authors for pity marketing. Heck, this reminds me of like live journal drama back when I was in high school. And I was wondering what the two of you thought about all this.
SPEAKER_01I just thought this was crazy. This was just crazy. I can't imagine doing this just to garner publicity of any kind. Um it just it just seems so weird to me. Um I I just I don't even know what to say about it. It just seems crazy. It just seems kind of delusional.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Desperate is the word that comes out of my mind. Yeah. And again, it's not the first time we've seen anything like this. And certainly outside of the bookish world, it's happened. Uh, but even in the bookish world, and sometimes it's not like this was pretty clever, kind of what they did, because a lot of times what I see in the pity marketing uh it isn't quite this elaborate, it's just sort of a oh, whoa is me, you know, feel bad for me. I'm about to lose my house, type of thing.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And there's and there might be some truth to that sometimes. I've seen there's an editor that is always boasting how great they are, and then at the same time seems to always have trouble with their landlord. And you know, so I'm gonna give you this great deal, you know, for my services. I've also seen there was um a crowdfunding one time. This is the author that, you know, for two made a bajillion dollars for two years didn't deliver anything, and every now and then would come on and be talking about you know, stuff going on. Oh, woe is me, my business, you know. Um and I I it taps into people wanting to help other people and it shows how good people on the internet could be that they want to, oh, I feel bad for you. Because that's what happened in this case, right? When when people first believed what was going on, people I'm gonna go buy your book. Matter of fact, I think Jasmine Giller Gillory, is that how you pronounce her last name? I think was one of them that went out and bought the book.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, yeah, there was a lot of that.
SPEAKER_02So that's nice, but you're they're duping people, they're not being honest, and there is a desperation to it. And of course, this author has done some other things that seems sort of underhanded as well. The other thing I thought about it when I first saw it, and before I understood when I was watching the video, and before I understood kind of what was going on, my first thought is how weird somebody would direct message somebody to complain about their plus size character. Because we've been seeing plus size characters for a long time.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Like, like this isn't new. And if you look at the cover and you look at the blur, you knew. So if they had a problem, why did they buy it? So there was already something sort of weird about the whole thing. And why would they DM? Because a lot of people who are jerks on the internet they do it out front, right? They do it out in the open, they put the comment in the review or or in a reply on social media. So already there was something sort of odd, odd about it. I don't know. That's my thought.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I this is not the first time that I have seen what I have to call community um posting by authors, which is like I often usually see actually, it's not like I received a DM, although I have seen that. What I see a lot on social media is straw manning of reviews and straw manning of reviewers. So either it's a particular review that they they won't send you a link to it or anything, so you can't go and check it. You usually have to do a lot of like investigating to figure out where this is coming from. Um, and unless they're deleting reviews, it's actually hard to do somewhere like Goodreads or Amazon. You usually can't find the review that they're referring to. I I've seen folks, straw man reviewers who have said just awful things about their characters, about disability representation, demanding that they put spice in YA books, right? Like that one particularly makes me giggle, you know, because I really do not feel like folks who like spicy books are going after no spice authors and being like, why isn't this YA book spicier? Teenagers need to be reading porn. Like, and they act like that's something that they get every day. They're getting messages from people, this these creepy pervs who are like, you need to put spice in your YA books. And I just don't think that that's happening, you know. And I see their Instagram comments, and it's just universally people who believe them, who support them, who are like, oh my God, I can't believe that. But in a like, I absolutely believe you kind of way. And so they're consolidating their community, not only through a shared sense of we all believe this, but also there's these crazy people over here who believe these crazy things, and we need to ostracize them and talk crap about them and make sure that we're different from them. It's almost like a political divide. I've seen this less so with like disability representation, uh, and more so with like spice versus non-spice. Usually, like a no-spice author will be sort of like, oh my god, spicy people are so crazy telling me that I need to put spice in my book, even though like they'll be billing themselves. Like their brand is all no spices on every single one of their things. Like, honey, I don't think anybody is reading your stories looking for spice. Like everything on your stuff says it's no spice. This is not a thing that is happening. And I've even been, I've gotten a little salty and like gone through their reviews looking for the thing that they're talking about and can't find it. Now, I would never say their name, I would never call them out, right? Like, I would never do that. And and like these are people who are perfectly nice in a bunch of other scenarios. It's just like a thing that they do and get away with. I find it very strange. Uh, but it does seem to consolidate their Instagram community is around an identity, a community identity of like, this is who we are, this is what we believe. These are the crazy people over here that we are not like, you know, even though they're romance readers and they're probably not that different from folks who like to read spicy romances.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I that's the same thing too, right? People who like spice, if they see something sweet, they're they might read it and be, you know, I've I've read things that don't have spice in them, but I know that's not coming. Yeah, right. Right. That's literally not coming. So I'm I'm not gonna fuss about it because I, you know, so the idea that somebody would is is odd to me. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I know I've seen people on TikTok who are like, oh, this book is not spicy enough, you know, like they they misunderstood something from the blurb, they didn't see that it was a clean romance. They often blame themselves, like, oh, I didn't read this closely enough, or I didn't realize. But sometimes they're like, Well, this said it was like three chili peppers when I was expecting it a little spicier. And like when it's between two chili pepper ratings, I totally get that they were like, Oh, I was hoping it was a little spicier, or maybe it's a little too spicy, but usually they're not like ragging on it, you know. They're not like, I was expecting a clean romance and I got erotica, you know, like that's not usually what's happening. Yeah.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, usually the the complaint is too much, right?
SPEAKER_00Yes, yeah, it's usually too spice.
SPEAKER_02It's too spicy. Yeah. Even though they were expecting spice, sometimes it's a little bit more than they were bargaining for.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, I mean, I felt that way about Neon Gods, actually. I I actually really I like spicy books, you know, but I did feel like that one was like it's not that I thought it was too spicy, it was that I thought the spice was distracting from the more romantic elements. I I I prefer things to be a little more fantasy. I I I want to explore the world a little more. And it it felt impatient to me. And it's it's when I feel like you're impatient to get to the spice that I get a little annoyed with an author, but I don't blame them for being impatient to get to it. It was a good spice, it's a very good spicy book, you know? Yeah, yeah. I don't know. There's no there.
SPEAKER_02I it I can I understand. I mean, we we're all authors here, we know how hard it is to market, but um it's so easy to get found out. So it's sort of shocking to me when people do these types of things, yeah, to to pity market. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00You're desperately looking for a way to go viral, right? I think you know it's difficult, and I think that a lot of people will hitch themselves onto something like in our next drama uh hitching themselves onto romantic to get to go to go viral. Do you want to introduce that one, Janice?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm gonna do that one. And I I I would say I there's a part of me that thinks they they stepped in it without realizing it and then just went off. But that's you know, so let's talk about that. We had a non-fiction author, and that's partly why I think it was an accident. Here's a non-fiction art, so not even related, um, who doesn't like romantic and decided to make a comment about it, but they spelled romanticy not how the rest of us sell it or spell it. Um, I'm I'm trying to figure out romance to see.
SPEAKER_00It looks like Stacy to me, romance stacy.
SPEAKER_02Romance Stacy, that makes sense. Yeah, they put an S before the T. And somebody decided to respond to that with this is how it's spelled. You know, they got called out for spelling romanticy wrong. And off this author went on um the rails. It just really, you know, it's one of those things where there's a comment made, uh, and then it just keeps going. It just kept spiraling and spiraling and spiraling when people are responding. And what happens a lot in these things I found is people are calling out one thing, but they're focused on the other. Like, well, I just don't like romantic. But what they were calling her out on was she actually used the R word, yeah, um, the ableist, you know, and then later acted like didn't know that that was a slur, which I I mean, that thing has been a slur for that's like one of the aside for racist slurs. That I mean, I remember that from when I was, I don't know, a teenager or a young woman, and I'm old. Yeah, I've been around a while, right? Like this is this it's not new that this word is a word you do not use, right?
SPEAKER_00This is a it's a generational thing. This this woman is actually very close to me in age, and I remember people in my generation using the R slur to say that something was like dumb, you know, to say that like yeah, that's how it was used.
SPEAKER_02But I've known for a long time, you don't know, and maybe it's because I came up, I I was a social worker, I worked in education, so it was a word that was we don't use that, yeah, like that. Anyway, um, it just went on and on and on, and and this person just kept doubling, tripling, quadrupling, uh tupling, you know, uh just over and over and over again. There was no stuff, and then there was an apology, and then there wasn't. It was just it just went on and on. Um, Taylor Rose has a a video on it. There's actually uh if you watch any sort of uh book talk or not book talk, uh booktube, uh more and more people are picking up and talking about it. Taylor Rose has one. Um, and I'm just curious, did you did you guys watch this? And what are your thoughts?
SPEAKER_01Well, I was just taken aback by the by the dragon fellatio and uh unicorn jizz. That's what started it all. Yeah, the unicorn jizz before the R word even came about. I mean, that was bad enough, but that was later. Yeah, you know, unicorn being body glitter was what got me because that's how she started it. You spell this word wrong. Well, all you dragon fellatios, what yeah, how did you get there? How did you go from spelling a word wrong to, you know, some fantasy sexual thing? Yeah. How do you make it really?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that was that was quite a lot. I feel the need to stand up for romantic right now. Like, one, I actually thought these comments were very homophobic, aside from the R slur. Oh, yes. A lot of homophobic.
SPEAKER_01And then there was that, yeah. Yeah. On the hockey players.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's like well, hockey romance is not romantic for one. Yeah, throwing that in with romantic. What? Yeah, like, oh yeah, two male people getting together. That must be romantic. I big more freaking hard. Yeah, I mean, I I don't write epic romanticy, and I there is a lot of epic romantic I don't enjoy, but I would never ever attack the subgenre in this way. This is ridiculous. Like, you you wrote a rock climbing memoir. Get out of here. Like, why are you even talking about this? Like, yeah, uh, but but also like most of romantic is not monster romance, most of sci-fi romance is not most monster romance. Most of it is like the She Lord and you know, his servant, or two members of the Sealy and Unsealy courts, or you know, enemies to lover stuff, or we're in a fantasy realm. It's it's not sleeping with unicorns. But I'm gonna defend that as well. I mean, monster erotica and monster romance is a perfectly legitimate subgenre, sub-subgenre. And there's nothing wrong with it. Like, going out here and attacking it does not make you look great. Even if this was a contemporary romance author, like, especially, I would be really, really salty. Like, I am very sick of like people who write contemporary or historical romance looking down on these other subgenres of speculative romance and thinking that they're so much better than them. You know, like, okay, you write about two generic humans. Good for you. Like, I've done that too in a in a science fiction setting. It's not that weird, it's not that strange. Stop acting like you're gonna get cooties on you by associating with us. Like the bookish community, especially an indie bookish community, is not that big. And even though there's a lot of noise in it, we don't need to tear each other down to be seen. I don't think it makes anything better.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I can't quite figure out because sometimes when we talk in general about people picking on romanticity, a part of me feels like there's envy in there. You're right, jealous, right? Here's here's this thing, Stardust has taken the world by storm. Twilight did it, Fifty Shades of Grey did like, and we don't know what will do it, we don't know what will capture the imagination of the reader, but romanticity did. Good for them. I mean, I think it's great. And so sometimes when I think people are dissing on them, it's this, you know, people diss on romance. And I have the same thought as like, you know, I don't really like reading horror, but I'm not gonna come out here and say, you guys are lunatics for wanting to be frightened by um uh uh a child that comes back to life and hides under the bed and cuts the Achilles heel of you know, which is pet cemetery.
SPEAKER_00Right, yeah, something I'm going after a certain like if you want like saw and you think it's gross, fine, but like that's a whole horror genre.
SPEAKER_02I read a lot of Stephen King. Okay, so that's you know, um there was a time I enjoyed all that, but I you know, I don't go if you love it, awesome. If you don't, okay, yeah, but you don't have to put it down. And so this particular author from the nonfiction world, I you know, I don't, you know, it would be interesting to know what first triggered the comment in the first place, right? Like, you know, were they having a discussion with somebody and just was like, well, I just want to tell the world I don't like this and and spelled it wrong, and then off we go. Like I don't know what triggered this whole thing. Uh, but it really was uh it just went on and on and on. And what was interesting is through it, they start. This is a traditionally published author with a big five. This is a Simon and Schuster author. If I were her publicist, I would they're they're they they start tagging Simon Schuster. And I haven't looked to see if I mean the last time I looked, their socials or her socials had come down. She'd taken them down finally, wisely. Somebody didn't, but the page on Simon and Schuster was still there, and and they were getting review bombed, but they even acknowledged that that would happen. They were sort of like, I know I'm ruining my career, but here we go. And you just sort of like, why would you do that? Right?
SPEAKER_03You wanted her to go viral.
SPEAKER_02I I don't know. It was just very, very, it was very strange. And I I'm trying to figure out if they're just so contrary or obstinate or just like, I'm gonna do it. I'm not gonna be one of those people that are gonna kowtow and say they're sorry to the internet.
SPEAKER_00I'm you know, I I mean it's a curiosity to me that they just Nancy Readers bots, she's calling them all bots, everyone who is responding to her, and acting like they were just not real people, you know, and and they don't have the they don't have the the telltales of a lot of bots attacking her. They look like people who are really upset. Uh, and I mean there's a certain amount of me, it's like you are you trying to go viral by rage baiting people because you know that the romanticy readers are very online and and some of them are very young, and you think that that's going to be good for your career, and and and maybe she does.
SPEAKER_02I don't know how that could be good. I don't either. She's getting review bomb, her publisher's being targeted. Um it so it just seems head. I don't know how you look at that and think anything good comes out of it, you know.
SPEAKER_01Was that was that Ellen? Yeah, I said her publicist head must be exploding when she saw that. Yes. Holy crap.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, my my social media brain is like if one of our authors did this, I would explode. I would absolutely explode.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we'd have to pull the story. There was an author a couple years ago, well, not even that long ago, I don't think. It was another author's behaving badly. They were a YA fantasy author that was a having a debut book come out, and they made these suck accounts on Goodreads, and they started like one starring their competition, uh, and then gave their book, which would have been out on Arc Review, I guess, good reviews. And it didn't take long for people to figure, figure out because they could see everybody that was one starring their book when they went in, like, why'd my book get a one star? You know, you can go and look who who's doing it, and you can see that that person's one starring all the except for this one book, and all of them, it was this one book that was getting five stars. So pretty soon you start to think the five-star book, they're something up. Wow, they got called out, they ended up losing their book deal, they ended up losing their agent. Um, so I don't know how anybody um think uh the internet will find you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Don't even think you're gonna get a school in the internet, you know. Like this stuff is this stuff is pathetic. It really does remind me of live journal days back at when I was in high school, like or like fanfiction.net going in and review bombing everybody with your sock puppets because like they did something mean to you in third period or something, you know. It's like I know it was you, Erica. I know you reviewed my story badly, I know it was you, and you know, like we're in like the the small niche of this kind of slash fanfiction and this fandom, and like you feel like you're competing with me, and it's it's not, it's small beans, the rising tide lifts all boats. As a sci-fi romance author, I do actually feel like romantic is good for me, and like I want to be positive with romanticy, even if there might be a particular book I might not like, like the whole subgenre, like attacking the whole subgenre because you think you're better than them. Pathetic stuff, absolutely pathetic.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Any other thoughts, Alin?
SPEAKER_01No, I just think. She must have been drunk or on drugs.
SPEAKER_00It does kind of look like she was not in control of herself, is the other thing.
SPEAKER_02There was something up. Yeah. I mean, you you do have to wonder how how they just went on, unless unless they were just like, I'm just gonna do it. Yeah. Sort of an obstinate, you know. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I have a double warning for people here, which is that on the one hand, yes, we should absolutely hold people's feet to the fire and we should hold them to a standard of adult behavior online, and that this stuff is not acceptable. Uh, I do not say what I'm about to say next to infantilize this person in any way, but remember that like you don't know these people. And I want to tell a story about one of my favorite authors, uh, Rob Thurman, one of my favorite authors, actually, an urban fantasy writer, had a TBI in the middle of her series, the Calyandro series. And now it was very obvious that she went from being one way to being another with the TBI, and her writing suffered, and she also started going into reader spaces and attacking people. But like people knew she had a TBI, but they still attacked her. And I remember being kind of angry with those people and also with her family for not like taking her phone away because she obviously had this brain injury that was affecting her career, her relationship with her readers. But I didn't blame her. And the reason I say this is that you never know what's going on in the background. Random people online might have something going on in the background, it could be something temporary, like a TBI or drugs, or they're having a really bad day because someone in their life died or something, or it could be something long-term, like uh like some kind of mental health issue or a personality disorder. And you just don't know. And I I recommend that people do not pile on because you just don't know what might be going on in the background. It might not be worth it, and you might be causing them to be could to go viral, you know. I but I do recommend contacting their their representation. There was an author who just contacted their representation, showed them what had happened, and then Simon and Schuster and their agent could take it from there. I think that's a good response instead of like piling on and all of that stuff. And like we're talking about it here as a kind of example to people. On the one hand, as an author, don't do this. If you think rage baiting is good for you, don't. On the other hand, if you are a reader or you're an author and you see people behaving like this, don't contribute. Like, don't add to the fire.
SPEAKER_02The other side of that is that except maybe for traumatic brain injury, people don't become racist or prejudice or all any of that. I mean, that had to be in there.
SPEAKER_00No, absolutely, right?
SPEAKER_02And that's the part that got her in trouble.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, being a vile person.
SPEAKER_02Like if if she was just making fun of unicorn jizz and all that kind of thing, I mean, it there still would have been a thing, but there would there probably have been more humor around it and just people, you know, like oh it was just I don't like this genre because of Dragonfall Asio. Unfair. Yeah, but yeah, so don't read it. But the other, but the parts that upset people weren't that. It wasn't that they didn't like romanticity, it was the the homophobia and you know, the slurs and all that kind of stuff. So, and that's different. And and then some of those when they got it's like that lady that went out and was like, people who love their dogs too much are cray cray. Remember her? And she kept defending killing the dog in the book, and and oh my dear, like that is not the problem. The problem is you call dog lovers crazy, and yeah, and it it's like sometimes they don't see, you know, they see people are responding to what they're saying, but they're not really reading why they're getting the backlash, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they're not seeing it. They go into defense mode, right? Like, and I I do know that like in moments like this, if can feel like a tidal wave of people hitting you, and you can't really read what's happening to you because you're getting notification, notification, notification, notification, notification, and you can't process, you certainly can't reflect on what you've done and said, you know. I think that the arcler probably just comes from this person being an idiot and not getting it through their heads that this is not okay anymore. It was never okay. I just I know that people in the aughts who are teenagers use this all the time as like edgy teenagers and got away with it. It was just it was crappy then, it's crappy now.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but I know we're the other thing is they they did the person who responded to the typo, you spelled it wrong. The author responded to them like eight times. Yeah, I know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, this is where I think that the author's out of like you're just like, girl. Put your phone down. Put your phone down, girl. Yeah. Anyway. Well, enough about this person. So, Alin, I happen to know you're working on a romance novel in the background, alongside your many other um your many other works. And I was wondering if you could tell our listeners about it.
SPEAKER_01Well, I can. I'm trying to work on it little by little. It's obviously a romance and it's about um it's a chance encounter where they meet, but my um female main character is an has a stalker, so there's that component, but she doesn't want to tell the man she's just met about the stalker component. She wants to like handle it herself. She's very strong-willed and independent and stuff. And the male lead that she just meets is very protective because he he has a sister who's dealt with domestic violence. So he's very protective and wants to be involved in situations like this and help protect and stuff. So that's where the conflict will come in. Oh cool. So it's like a romantic suspense. Yes, more romantic suspense, not a whole lot of suspense. I don't put a lot of the stalker stuff in there. That's kind of sort of secondary. I want it to focus more on the the two main characters, but that's where a lot of the conflict will come in.
SPEAKER_02Is he is he the Scottish guy?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, he's my Scottish guy. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I know Jenna has said that you're really good at writing danger, so of course I was kind of like, ooh, danger.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there's a little bit of danger in there.
SPEAKER_00Good, good. Is there a dog?
SPEAKER_01There is a dog. His name is Brody.
SPEAKER_00Perfect. That makes it a perfect romantic suspense. It must have a dog.
SPEAKER_01It must have a dog, yes.
SPEAKER_02Lynn doesn't like uh time travel. So I can't get her to watch Outlander, but if I could get her to watch an episode where it they're just back in time, like there's no hint, and just to listen to them talk.
SPEAKER_00Look, if you read if you did watch any time travel, this is the one you gotta watch Outlander. That's just it's really good. It might not convert you to time travel. I've read a lot of time travel. I re I even read Jude Devereaux Remembrance, which I think is time travel, or was it Night and Shining Armor? Might have been both. Anyways, we no Remembrance Past Lives. Anyway, okay, anyways, Jude Devereaux, 90s. Good stuff. Um, but I think Night and Shining Armor had um had time travel, one of them. But Outlander is the OG time travel one. It's like it might be the only one you ever like, but it's really good.
SPEAKER_02Well, I don't she may never like it. I mean, that's the thing, but that's why it was sort of like if you just watch episodes where she's back there and living there, and there you don't necessarily see any hint that she's because as you m go into the the episodes, you know, she's adapting to their living back in time. So every now and then there might be a voiceover where she talks about whatever, but uh but just to hear them talk.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, although why don't you like a flash and yes, why don't you like time travel, by the way?
SPEAKER_01That just seems very, very complicated and like it can't work. It would just the whole time continuum would be all a mess if you go back to the street.
SPEAKER_00What if the author did a what if the author did a really good job of accounting for that?
SPEAKER_01I don't know that you can because you'd mess up everybody that you can't see. You mess up people that you don't even know that you've come into contact with the episode.
SPEAKER_02We think Jamie's there looking up in the window, right? Member her husband, and so it's like it's a loop, it's just gonna happen again.
SPEAKER_00Well, my mom what my mom asked about this, and I I explained it to her. The reason why they can't change history, and this is a spoiler for a very old series, but the reason why they can't change history is that Claire is part of history. There is, yeah, it's a closed loop. There is no way to change history because if you go back in time, you are part of history. And what they discover is as they try to change history, they're making it happen, which is really cleverly done. It's like you know, she really just she studied the history and did a very good job of showing how in attempting to stop Colladin, they made it happen or they helped to contribute to it happening. It's it's like nicely done. Probably my favorite version of time travel, which is like there's no, there are no like other timelines, there's no like we've destroyed continuity and now we're not gonna exist. Like, no, like she is just part of history.
SPEAKER_02My point is, Elaine, just I think you would enjoy when they're in the Highlands and listening to them talk and yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_00You like Scotland, yeah.
SPEAKER_02I don't even have you watch one where Claire isn't even in it, you know, like or you know, a scene where she isn't even that because she's British, right? Yeah, so you just what it's just fun to hear. We've been watching it again. I've been trying to get my husband to to watch it, and so we watched it and just sitting and listening to the all the the we, the wee bairns and the Xenophashes and the the first half of season three of season three is all like she's in her time, he's in his time, and you only see historical stuff between the 1940s slash 1950s and the 1740s and 1750s, which is really cool.
SPEAKER_00I I like the way that it's done.
SPEAKER_02I didn't like that season because of course Claire and Jamie weren't together very much, so I love Voyager.
SPEAKER_00I love that book, I love Voyager. It's my second favorite of all the books. Voyager is so good. I mean, and they make changes to all the things in it that are bad, right? And I I liked that as well. I did a way better job with Yi Chen Cho um and a better job with like and they just handled stuff better. And I know Danielle Gambleton was like, I didn't know a lot of this stuff, and I you know it was the 90s, and uh and they fixed a lot of things, so it is well and that was her throwaway book, right? It was, and it ended up being really good.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, anyway. I'm excited to read read it because I do like Scotland.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I wish that they would go back to Scotland, of course, and you know this, and you you want this as well. So yeah. So and Jenna, you've been writing under a new pen name on Substack, and you're almost done with the novel you've been writing there, that Shadow of Betrayal, a paranormal gothic romance with a murder mystery and faded lovers, in addition to a bunch of shadowy warfare and politics. Um, and I was just wondering, how have you been liking that process? How has it been different from writing some of your other series?
SPEAKER_02I you know what's funny because I started the idea was I I've ghost written a lot of mafia romance. So I thought, well, I'll just I'll do that too under brand. And then I decided for whatever reason, I maybe because we were going to New Orleans, Elena and I think that's why. And I and I there's something about New Orleans for me, has that something something that Scotland has for Elen. There's that strange pool. And then I thought, well, gosh, if you're gonna set it in New Orleans, a city full of corruption and heroes, you know, like um yeah, I will. Here's an interesting thing the mafia, Italian mafia did start in New Orleans. What?
SPEAKER_00I didn't know that. Yeah, I didn't know that. Yeah, I mean it's a big shipping city, and once it used to be like the mouth of a lot of shipping for the United States, so that makes sense. I just didn't know that.
SPEAKER_02And you know, the muffalata sandwiches from there, and then the axe man seemed to go after Italian families. So, anyway, um, so I decided to mention a muffaletta.
SPEAKER_00Did you miss mention the muffaletta?
SPEAKER_02I did. Oh no, now you're now thinking about it. They're delicious. All the food, my trip to New Orleans was delicious. Um anyway, so I I decided okay, maybe instead of mafia, I would do something that was like secret society. So it's kind of just morphed into something, and the the challenge has been creating a magic or so-called magic system and staying faithful to it. Um, making sure I fully understand because I I'm the type of person that just will write. I'm a pander by nature. I just start going. Um when you when you're writing something that has this fantasy paranormal, you know, that has to have a set of rules that contains it, um, it would be easy for me to go off in left field. And and readers would be like, but wait a minute, you said that that can't happen. So I would end up contradicting myself. So that has been sort of the challenge. But I have enjoyed it. I I'm someone that when I'm writing, I do get heavily emotionally attached to my characters. So I'm totally into Damien and Charlotte and trying to navigate their their story and who killed Alceed, his older brother.
SPEAKER_00So you can't hear that name without thinking about true blood.
SPEAKER_02I know. They're French, they are from, you know, uh historically they're from France. So they're Creole, but uh Louisiana French and the names and everything down there are are sort of to that area. So, you know, I I don't know if there's Al seeds in France, but there's definitely L seeds down in Louisiana. Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00How are you liking the process of of posting it to Substack, you know, using it as an accountability tool, but also, you know, like getting comments and stuff like that and seeing how your views are doing?
SPEAKER_02It's been good as the accountability tool until I get behind and then it stresses me out a little bit. Um I think I'm on schedule and I'm almost done. I I want to say there's four or five, maybe six chapters to go. So that part's been good. I do like getting comments. I mean, I've gone into the manuscript and made notes to myself. So when I go back and edit, it'll better. It is interesting to post something so raw. Um, because the first right is doesn't have all the depth that you want. And but it's I gotta get it up, I gotta get it up. So it's interesting to see what people notice that helped me. Maybe I wouldn't have noticed. I have on my own, I did have to make notes because there were the journal in the folio. I totally lost that thread.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, it's okay though. Everyone knows that it's an alpha version, though. You know, it's I think it's really cool. I love, I mean, I think readers love seeing like behind the scenes on something like that, you know, seeing the first version and seeing an author kind of in process. I it's like being in an artist's workshop.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02We'll see. It'll be interesting to see how it comes out in the end. I, you know, I'm feeling I'm gonna get close to maybe 70,000 words, but by the time it's done, it'll, you know, there'll definitely be more because I mean that's okay for a fantasy.
SPEAKER_00I mean, it's it it does have a fantasy element to it, and I do think that it is fine for those to be an extra 10 to 20,000 words longer than your typical romance novel. They just have more work to do, you know. And you have a lot going on. It's a dark romance, you know, there's politics, there's shadow monsters, you know, you're setting up stuff for the rest of the series. I mean, I think that it's totally fine. Like, and fantasy readers are used to be.
SPEAKER_02There will be an overarching story, so we will find out who killed Al Seed at the end of this book, but there's still a lot more kind of going on because there's a prophecy. Uh my heroes are are working uh as they're sort of warriors for this council and they're defending all this kind of stuff, but it's a lot of stuff has been hidden from them.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, and so through the course of the book, they're going to be learning. Oh, there was this prophecy, and oh, there was this, you know.
SPEAKER_00So I have a question for you for future books on this one. Are you sticking with are you doing the Tess and Jack thing where you stick with one couple? So it's gonna be Damian Charlotte, or you do another couple in the next one.
SPEAKER_02Okay, the next book, I believe, is Mathis.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I like him. Okay, that's cool. Yeah, I like Matthew Mathis. I was like, I was like, I hope he's not the murderer because I'm liking him.
SPEAKER_02No, none of none of the oath marked. So Mathis, uh, Jules and Theo, they will all have a story. And then the fifth, I don't want to give away too much about the fifth because it's part of what they learn as as the series goes on.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Well, I'm looking forward to that. Sorry, that that we got off on a on a tangent there, but I was curious about things. So, all right, so you're both in fireworks and flirtation, the topic of this pod. Uh Alin, you wrote the contemporary romance back to us, and Jenna, you wrote the contemporary romance novel at A Matter of Time. Uh, can you both tell our listeners a bit about your story, starting with Ellen?
SPEAKER_01Back to Us is a kind of a almost tragedy, second chance romance. Um it's about kind of a damaged young man who doesn't think he's good enough for really anything, and kind of walks away from his relationship and um sort of uses uh that failed relationship to better himself over the next couple years and has a chance encounter with uh that uh partner again, with that girl, uh, and realizes that walking away had been the worst mistake of his life, and so he sets out to win her back. And she also has some issues, and she has some trust issues now, understandably. And so she is resistant to his advances, and so it just kind of goes from there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, she comes by those trust issues very honestly. Yes. Yeah. What what about you, Jenna? Tell us about a matter of time.
SPEAKER_02Well, I I had written the um It's About Damn Time, which is our reader magnet for Tinder and Tempting Tales, set in Skullhaven Bay, which is it's Oakra Coke Island off of North Carolina, but it it's more a little more populated, so it's sort of like Chinkateak, maybe not quite as big as Chinkateak, but it's a tourist island that had originally been settled by pirates. The people come there for the pirate lore, and and um I really enjoyed writing that. It was a little quirkier when I wrote my cozy series. That was really quirky, and I enjoyed that. So I was I was happy to write something to have kind of the quirkiness an island settled by pirates. Yes.
SPEAKER_00And the the pirate tourism. Yes.
SPEAKER_02And and so I decided to write a first book with Sheriff Drew Morgan, uh, and his and the bartender of the siren song Get Together. They were childhood friends forever. Uh, they get together, but Drew had a deputy, Nate. And so I thought, well, I'll write, I'll write him. And then in this case, we're again about to have another Founder's Day. Uh, Jasper is an octagenarian who enjoys getting all the youth of the community together to play pranks on the town. Jasper is such a great meme in these points. So they're trying to be prepared for that. And um uh the curator or one of the ladies that works in the museum that has all their pirate stuff in it, comes to say, oh, Captain Hawthorne, who was one of the pirates that settled the island, his journal's been stolen. And she and Nate um won't get along. Uh, she lost a lot of stuff in a flood because he hauled her out of the out of the museum. He was afraid it was gonna flood during a storm. So uh they end up sort of in a forced proximity, they have to go to the lighthouse. Uh, bad weather comes in, and they end up stranded in the lighthouse. And um while they're there, they try to figure out uh what Hawthorne's diary means, uh, all these clues to figure out what really happened. His ship went down, but nobody's ever found it. And Clementine was the woman he loved, and whatever happened to her. So they're kind of solving history and falling in love all at the same time.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yeah. I remember yours was, I mean, I was I was like on you to write a Nate story. So because he's like in the first one. And I was like, Nate needs a romance, he's a stick of the mud. I want to find out what happens to him. But I like that we find out more about Skullhaven Bay in this one. Um, and I like I mean yours is a good model.
SPEAKER_02Well, Elyn told me to write a book, I wrote that book, Terry tells me to write I wrote.
SPEAKER_00We're on you. We're very on you. We're on you about logistics.
SPEAKER_02Well, that's what I do, right? I'm a ghostwriter. Like, what do you want me to write? I'll write it.
SPEAKER_00The Valkyrie community, they tell me to write a thing and and I just make I do a poll and then I'll write whatever they they vote for, basically. So yeah, if it seems random, that's that's why.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's you know, if you can do it, it's fun. But you know, when Elain first asked for uh Patrick's story, I was stuck for a long time because I was like, I don't know what to do with this guy, you know. So, you know, until I could figure out what to do with them, then but then it all turned out really good, and I very much enjoyed writing his story.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, I think it's good to follow reader interest, you know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And if someone notices something in your story that you thought was just like a throwaway and then Like this was interesting. You might discover that actually is really interesting. Like Jasper, I'm not saying Jasper needs a romance, but I'm saying he is hilarious. Yeah. He's very good through line. He's an instigator. I want to know more about Jasper. I don't know what I want to know about Jasper, and I know I want to know more. Can you both tell our readers? I mean, you wrote very different contemporary romance stories. I mean, like Jenna, yours is very quirky and very fun, kind of has a rom-com aspects to it. Ends up being very serious. We learn about the, you know, the this the town. Rachel, yours is very, very serious. And you know, it is a it is an almost tragedy with a lot of groveling in it. Like it almost feels like it's not going to turn out, but you know, finally they get their HEA. And I was wondering if you could both tell your readers a bit about your characters, your inspiration, maybe behind-the-scenes stuff. You both struggled mightily with us, the editors, on certain things. So some behind-the-scenes stuff could be fun.
SPEAKER_01I have no idea where my inspiration came from because I don't have any of that stuff really in my background. I'm I'm a rather boring person. Average, as I say. This average. If you looked up the word, you'd see my picture there. And just all American everyday average. Um, so I don't really know where it came from. I just I just got the idea and just kind of ran with it and thought that it would it would be a good idea. What if something happened and he just left? Well then I thought, well, he'd have to have a good reason to leave. So what would be a good reason to leave? And then he had to come back. So why would he come groveling back? Well, he had to have a reason to grovel, so then that's where my story idea came from.
SPEAKER_00Okay. You've never known like a young person who was like this.
SPEAKER_01Not really, no. Like I said, I'm just your average all-American. I don't care about the American American American.
SPEAKER_00But that doesn't mean everyone you know is averaging.
SPEAKER_01I'm just I'm boring, really.
SPEAKER_00Any behind the scenes stuff. I remember we were we were trying to, I remember we were we were with you on like trying to up the grovel. Um what do you think about what have you read any grovels in in romance that inspired you for this?
SPEAKER_01Um not not too much. No, that's why I was having such a hard time with it because I haven't really read too much about it. And then, but I really liked my singing telegram part.
SPEAKER_00Oh, the singing telegram, oh god.
SPEAKER_01That really seemed to upset you. It's a generational difference.
SPEAKER_00This is absolutely a generational difference. I I would I would murder a guy who sent me a singing telegram. The cringe, the the generational cringe of the singing telegram. I there's a okay, so there's a moment in uh, oh god, this is a Harry Potter moment, but I remember being a kid reading this where um there it's in the second book, and Jenny sends Harry a singing telegram, and it like it just humiliates him in front of all these kids because it like he like falls down, then it's on his chest, and you could feel his humiliation as a 12-year-old boy with an 11-year-old having a crush on him. That is what I think about when I think of that singing telegram. Just like just absolute humiliation. Uh, so when I got to that apart, I was like, ah, kill him.
SPEAKER_01I was just trying to think of things that would just keep ramping it up and ramping it up. And so I thought, well, that would be a good, that would be a good one to end it on. If a telegram. So that's why I left that in there. I couldn't think of anything else except like, you know, that would be worse, would be like a mariachi band or something like that.
SPEAKER_00On the other side of the coin, there is a moment in Gray's Anatomy where um April is with a guy who is uh an EMT, and to propose to her, he gets all the EMTs to do a dance number. And they're like, they're coming in and they're like they're they're doing choreography with their stretchers and stuff, and it's amazing. It is so good. It's like the most romantic uh like proposal I have ever seen. And it's it's also funny, like it's Gray's anatomy, so it just it hits that like romantic, funny line, just absolutely on the nose. And it is basically a singing telegram with like dancing and singing, and it's so over the top that it goes through ridiculous and back into cute. Right. Also, like what April says is that she couldn't possibly say no. Right. Even if she wanted to, she couldn't possibly say no. She ends up leaving him at the altar. Oh no, yeah, because because he proposed in this way in front of all of her friends and all of her co-workers, and everyone was like, How romantic! And she had to say yes. There's no space in that to say no after someone has done that, and so I think of that moment of like, oh, that's so amazing if you know she's gonna say yes, but if you're not sure, it's just pressure.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00So that's that's the thing I think about there. I'm like, well, he's doing a grovel and he might not get a yes out of her, and all of her co-workers are like, it's so romantic, give him a chance, but she's she's justifiably mad, so it's difficult. It's really there's a lot of tension there, there's a lot to play with, a lot of anger.
SPEAKER_02I gotta put a stop to you know, or fine, fine, I'll meet you for drinks, right? Yeah, but he just wants a coffee date.
SPEAKER_00He doesn't necessarily want her to accept his apology, he just wants a coffee date to explain himself, which is fine. Like he he just wants a chance to talk to her real quick. You know, people do deserve grace, even when they're jerks, um, for the most part. And Jenna, what's your what was your inspiration? Other than all of us telling you to write Nate's story.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02Pirates in the Outer Banks is another one of those things. I like places that have lore and myths and things like that. And of course, Okra Coke Island is where uh Blackbeard had his little um hideout. Uh the pirates used to help uh merchants sail through the islands to get to the mainland, North Carolina, because the shoals are always changing underneath. Uh, that part of the Atlantic is called the graveyard of the Atlantic because there's just so many shipwrecks and things like that. Uh the also, it's also where Blackbeard met his demise, and I believe it was Governor Spotswood, and of course Alina's from Spotsylvania. Uh he was the governor from Virginia is like, this has to stop. And so the British went down there, they got him, and the lore is that when they killed Blackbeard, they cut off his head, put it up in the front of the ship, they tossed his body overboard, and it swam around the ship three times before chicken. I love that story. Now I didn't use that one, but you know, I stuff like that I just think is fun. And you know, I did a friend's to Lovers, so I thought I would do an enemies of like a lot of stories. They it's hard to know the specific origin because they sort of come in pieces. Well, what about this? And what about this? And you know, they hate each other. How am I gonna get them? Well, I'll get them stuck in the lighthouse, maybe. Um, you know, I did have some issues because I was like, I don't want them doing the spicy things up there necessarily, so I had to work through that a little bit.
SPEAKER_00Lighthouse spice logistics, yeah. Yeah, and quite I remember you said you didn't want him like they didn't want her ass just hanging out of the lighthouse with everyone being able to see her.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because they're up in the lantern room, right? So yeah, I couldn't really have that. Um, but I you know, it mostly it was him coming around in terms of trusting how he felt about her. I I enjoyed that, but I have a very difficult time, like the origin of things because things sort of mull over for so long and they get pieced together as you go. It's sometimes it's hard to find where it all started, but yeah, find the thread, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's like an Ariadne's maze at that point, right? Like where does this thread start? Right. I you know, I really liked this one because I've been reading a lot of enemies to lovers lately, just helping Parish with uh the with Fantastical Foes, just reading through for you know guidelines stuff. And uh it's it's hard to land, I think, enemies to lovers. I mean, these are shorter, of course, than than what you wrote, but still I think that that that arc seems very difficult. You see people manage it in different ways, you know, with banter or with you know real moments of like gaining trust or you know, like a great act or something like that. And I like the way you landed it with Molly and Nate. You know, like the the reasons they dislike each other are real, you know, they have it's a personality thing, and also there's a there's an event, you know, a reason why they don't like each other. Um and they've been disliking each other for a while. You can feel a sense of history, they've been in this town together for a bit, and like you can really palpably feel their personalities like tugging against each other, but also like their principles, they believe in different things, right? Not incompatible things, but different things that they have to reconcile. And then the way that they come together while solving this mystery is really fun. I like I like that the way that does that, and like the pacing is really well done. So now that I have like, I don't know, I've read enough like enemies to lovers, I can see just like kind of how well done, how skilled that arc is.
SPEAKER_02Thank you, thank you. But I also saw them more like uh when you have school kids that have crushes on each other and then they pick on each other. So in my mind, it was more like that. Like underneath it all, there was this attraction, but they decided that I don't like you because of this, but yeah, uh there was an attraction there. So it was sort of like he was tugging on her pigtail type of thing, and she was I enjoyed the visual.
SPEAKER_00This was one visual really stuck out to me. It was that the idea of her in the in the museum, she's a curator, and she was trying to save all these documents. And I've been an archivist, so I completely related to her trying to save those documents. Like water, whatever, I'll be fine, but I've got to save these documents. And he comes in and just picks her up and walks her out of there. Like, no, like you are going to die. I have to get you out of here. We're on a floodplain. And while she's literally wading through like water with boxes, trying to save these documents, priceless artifacts. And I can completely understand both of their perspectives there. Both of these perspectives are perfectly valid, right? Like for her, these things are so important that she's willing to risk her life and she doesn't see it as that risky because the water is more risky to these artifacts than it is to her in her mind. To him, it's like, I'm not even gonna risk it. I'm walking you out of here. Your life, your life right now, it's more important than these documents. Yeah, but they both water can be very dangerous, right? Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02I remember when I worked for school, a county, and we were having a lot of rain. We're in Virginia, we're having a lot of rain, a lot of rain. Um, and the transportation director goes out to drive the roads before the buses go out, and he decided to drive through standing water, and it did not turn out well. It turned out bad, yeah, bad, but I mean demise, right? Oh my god. Yeah. So water's no joke. Uh and even on the coastal areas, right? So um, because a part of me thought people are gonna be like, what's the big deal that she has to leave? But you know, hurricanes and big storms, I mean, water can be dangerous.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, it's I mean it's dangerous to artifacts, but also, you know, like people I think people think of it like a pool, like it's up to my knees. It's I'm like it's like I'm in a waiting pool, but I think you realize that when it comes into a building, there's suction and forces where it can just suddenly pull you out into a larger flood and you could die and and you can choke on mud and or you could like get poisoned by all the things that are in that water. It's it's it's more dangerous than you might think, even if it's only up to your knees and you think that that's not dangerous. Yeah, well it's not to my neck.
SPEAKER_02This was dangerous for him, and he was like, Why do I have to come out here and drag this crazy lady out of here?
SPEAKER_00Like you've evacuated already. Save your lives, lady, you know, yeah, and I just love it. He just picks her up and walks her through like deep water. That's very heroic, you know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and it stick to, you know, she's reckless in his mind, she's reckless, yeah, in pursuit of her passion.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, I love that. So, as we do every single time, I would like to know your book recommendations, what you're reading now for the week, or something that inspired you, uh, or something that puts you in mind of fireworks and flirtation, you know, maybe your favorite summer or beach read.
SPEAKER_01Well, right now I am reading a book called Poison Ivy. It is by Misty Simon, and it is called a row mystery.
SPEAKER_00Oh mystery. I love that.
SPEAKER_01That's cute. Row mystery. We've met Misty. She wears dresses. Yeah. Yeah, we met her. And so I just started it, but it's I get the idea that she is a plus size. It doesn't say she's plus size, but that's the idea that you get. And she's 20-something and she finally gets to move away from home. She's moving from California to Virginia because she's inherited her aunt's house and business. Her aunt has passed away. So she gets to move out of her dad's house finally, and she's going to Virginia to start this business. It's a costume business, but it also has a lingerie business on the side that she didn't know about when till she gets there. Oh no, a murder mystery that I'm just getting to. And so, and there's a little romance. She's met someone, so I'm not sure if he's the main character or not. So it's interesting so far.
SPEAKER_02Cool. And this is a good thing. It's kind of like I do in my mysteries, right? But yeah, a lot of mystery readers don't like that. So I, you know, I think she was trying to point out you're you might come across something in here.
SPEAKER_00I like row mystery. That's a very good thing. I like that. I'm gonna I'm gonna use that in Valkyrie. I'm always trying to come up with different like genre names for things, so because like you wouldn't still call it the same subgenre name. So, like, for instance, like historical miss romances are called historoms in in the Valkyrie timeline, like way in the future. They're called historoms, and rom-coms are called are called sugar roms.
SPEAKER_02I could see though, if you wrote row mystery, somebody might say it's romantic. And then you're gonna have to get mad and have a theme on the internet. I'm gonna start talking about unicorn jizz.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's funny. Joke's on you. I love talking about unicorn jizz.
SPEAKER_02Somebody's gonna have to gosh, you could have a unicorn shifter or something.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, romanticy authors. I challenge you. I challenge you. I need a book with both dragon fileting and litter jazz from the unicorns. Make it happen. I believe in you. Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_02And it has to take place in Scotland because the unicorn is the animal.
SPEAKER_00That's your challenge, folks. I will I absolutely believe in you. It'll be lovely. Oh my god. All right, and Jenna, what's your what's your recommendation?
SPEAKER_02Well, I'm reading Dark and Shallow Lies by Ginny Meyer Sain. I picked this book up at an event a long time ago, and it is a YA book, but it is in the bayous of Louisiana, and there is some woo-woo, there is some belief in the Rougarou. Um, and basically a teenage girl has returned to this area, and uh in the past, there was a friend that had been killed. So there's this mystery, she's a teenager and trying to reconnect with the kids she had known before she had to leave, and um and there's some woo-woo, and so I'm enjoying it so far. I I think there is a little bit of romance in it, but uh it's mostly cop mystery. Woo-woo. Yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, I mean, as you know, I'm neck deep in Fantastical Foes submissions, just assessing for copy edits. I just finished copy edits on a story uh that was submitted early. And uh yeah, I think I'm gonna be writing the article for the zine, so that means that I gotta, you know, I've read Romanacy, but I haven't read like the big, the bigs in the genre. Like I haven't read Aquitar, so I think I need to go read Aquitar.
SPEAKER_02That sort of launched it, right?
SPEAKER_00Yes, it did. I mean the first book. Yeah, but it's like YA, and I I'm you know, I'm I'm almost afraid of it. You know, it's it's so it's so big, you know, like it's so big that I I don't know how I'm gonna feel about it. I'm gonna try to like empty my mind of any like of any thoughts that I've um that I've had about it, just go in with a really open mind, like, okay, what is this? And then I think I have to read.
SPEAKER_02I mean, it starts out she's hunting in the woods, right? Yeah, so it's transitioning from a fierce young woman, and it's basically beauty and the beast. I you know, I I enjoyed it when I read it. Good, great. Um, excellent. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And it's not spicy, right? It's like more of a it's more of a YA.
SPEAKER_02There is there is if I remember correctly, there is a spicy bit in it, but it I mean it was like a YA. There's a spice. So if you like good spice, that was like for me, it was I don't know, there's just no snap crackle pop for me.
SPEAKER_00I've read a lot of YA series, and I, you know, and a lot of them like so a vampire academy, the first book isn't doesn't really have a lot of spice in it. You have to kind of get further into the series before you find that. And it's you know, it's a teenager, but kind of thing. Um, but I remember it being being well done because of like the the emotions, especially, you know, like the things that happened to Dimitri and stuff.
SPEAKER_02I I didn't get that from there, but then it turns out later she ends up with Ryson, who you meet towards the end of the book, um, when all the stuff is going down, the guy she ends up with. So yeah, that's sort of why I didn't read on at first because I'm like, well, I'm kind of invested in these two. Oh, interesting. But then it sort of changes, and I guess the love interest becomes a jerk more than kind of was. So I don't know, I haven't read on.
SPEAKER_00I didn't know. Right? That was the Hunger Games switch.
SPEAKER_02When we thought she'd be with Gail. Gail, though not Glenn, I'm so sorry. It's been a while.
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah, it's Gail. Like it was I remember that I was not a teenager for Hunger Games. I'm so sorry. Uh yeah, Gail. I thought Gail would be the lump interest because he seems like the the type, right? But it ends up, I mean, I actually was a I I was um more of a a shipper for her and the guy she was in the Hunger Games with. I thought that that was better. Um, and then when she ended up with him, I was like, Yay, I like that.
SPEAKER_02Um, but even when you get to the end of that, you still don't sort of feel it, but it is YA. So, right? It's gonna be low on sensuality necessarily and all that kind of stuff. And yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00The romance is secondary in that series, very much so the dystopia.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and of course, Gail is why uh her sister passes.
SPEAKER_00So yes, I do not blame her for not wanting to be with Gail after that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I I like that she is a very consistent character. What is important to her is her sister, her family, um, you know, her her district. And when yeah, when Gail goes too far, she's like, no, we're done. I I think I like that a lot. I think it's actually a very I think it's a very sophisticated series in a lot of ways.
SPEAKER_02That made me think of the running man, which is member of Stephen, well, uh he was writing under Bachman. Is Running Man under Stephen Butman uh uh Richard Bachmann Bachman? I think so. Yeah, that's what I thought of yeah. I keep reading things that remind me of something else.
SPEAKER_00That's yeah, that's reading for you. Yeah, all right, folks. I don't really want to.
SPEAKER_02But I was telling my mom real quick about the Bennett sister, and I was like, well, this isn't in the book, and that's in the book, and finally she's like, that's what you get for reading. That's what you get for reading.
SPEAKER_00She's got a point. Well, I want to thank both of you for being here. This is really, really fun. It was great to talk to you, talk about all the the spice and talk about all the tea in the bookish world right now. I appreciate it. But I'm really excited to see how fireworks and flirtation looks when it comes out, and I'm really glad that you're both in it and appreciate all of your support for the press up to this point. We will have all of Alyn and Jenna's information down below. We'll have their website, their reader magnets, and a link to Jenna's Substack as well. Um, also, Tender and Tempting Tales, we have uh an open call right now for romance authors that's Starlit and Spellbound. That is a 10,000 words or less short story with an otherworldly element to it. If you're a contemporary historical author, it's still okay. You can still just, you know, do something that is like a like a strange happening or something like that, or a like a haunted house or something, you know, be creative, follow your follow your bliss, of course. And we have a anthology coming out this month that is fireworks and flirtation coming out on the 18th. Please don't miss it. Pick up your copy. Pre-orders are available now. We'll have that available for you as well in the show notes. Um, you can visit us on Substack. We've got great articles every week. This last week, we actually had an article written by Mariah Ankenman from Instagram talking about disability and romance. Um, you can find great articles like that every week from us. That's Tender and Tempting Tales on Substack. And of course, you can find updates about everything that we're doing, all of our publications and author spots on Instagram. That's TenderTempting Tales at Instagram. And until next time, Jenna.
SPEAKER_02That was such a mouthful. I'm always amazed at how you get that all out.
SPEAKER_00A radio announcer voice.
SPEAKER_02Well, Tara, thank you for hosting everything today. And Alyn, thank you for being here. And until next time, peace, love, and happily ever after.