"When the Tides Held the Moon" - Found Family and Forbidden Love

A blacksmith builds an iron tank for a Coney Island spectacle, then realizes it’s a cage for a living merman. That’s the hook that pulls us into When The Tides Held The Moon by Vanessa Kelley, a queer historical fantasy romance set in 1910s New York City with Luna Park energy, sideshow found family, and a love story shaped by captivity, survival, and the risk of choosing freedom.

We also warm up with talk about DragonCon and the kind of bookish news romance readers actually care about: Holly Black’s return to faerie with multiple upcoming books, the surprisingly delightful pull of a themed cookbook, and what an adaptation could get right if it leans into danger, beauty, and worldbuilding. Then we talk cozy fantasy through Sarah Beth Durst’s new announcements and why her stories often work because of one odd, charming “sidekick” element that makes the whole world feel alive.

From there, we get into the messier questions behind the genre. What happens when an author rewrites previously released books to remove explicit scenes and the only versions left are “clean” edits? How does Kindle ebook ownership change the power dynamic for readers, and why does purity culture language still land like a judgment even when closed-door romance is a valid preference? After that, we dig deep into Benny and Rio’s relationship, Puerto Rican identity and belonging, the story’s poetic voice, the debate over the ending mechanics, and why representation matters when a book shows people living openly and unapologetically.

Listen now, then subscribe, share with a romantasy friend, and leave a review so more readers can find us.

Links from the News Segment and Show:

• Holly Black
  • Four new books (one YA, three adult) and a cookbook
  • Folk of the Air has been picked up by Amazon for series with Studio Scott Free Productions
  • Instagram
• Sarah Beth Durst new novel
  • The Ninth Life Of An Erstwhile Witch,  A cozy fantasy about retired war sorceress and her rescued magical cats.
  • Additional books in the Spellshop series (2027 and 2028)
  • Instagram
• Alluxia has revamped their event  
  • Will focus / include Merchants and Makers, Games, Giveaways, Mischief and more
  • Facebook Link
• CM Nascosta
  • Claws & Clickbait series, a high-heat workplace monster series about chaotic office dynamics
  • Instagram

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Transcript

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Disclaimers And Welcome

Mari 0:00

The views expressed in this podcast are solely those of the hosts. All creative works discussed or reviewed are the intellectual property of the creators of said stories and are being used under the fair use doctrine. Hello, welcome to Ab Swords and Soulmates, a podcast where we read, watch, and discuss fantasy and sci-fi stories spiced with romance and ask, is this a kissing book? I'm one of your hosts, Mari, and with me I have Kelly.

Kelly 0:33

Hey everyone, it's Kelly. We also have Ashley.

Ashley 0:35

Hey, it's Ashley. We also have Jonathan.

Jonathan 0:38

What's good, everybody? It's JP. How are we doing today?

Ashley 0:41

We're doing.

Mari 0:42

Doing. We're doing. We're doing good. Yeah, we're doing better than we could have been. I

Mari’s Dragon Con Pitch

Mari 0:48

have just gotten back from DryingCon literally yesterday. So a little a little tired, but also it was a great, great time. I would highly recommend to anyone. So we've got questions too later. Yeah, we can talk now.

Jonathan 1:05

I'm definitely planning to go for next year.

Ashley 1:08

Awesome. I'm very excited. He just gave me this look like, are we? Are we free?

Jonathan 1:12

No, I just it's more of like a it was more of like, is this an acceptable thing? Can I go?

Ashley 1:20

I was like doing damage control about like I was trying to do like proactive damage control about hotels. And I know that it's like the Hunger Games, right? I read a I read a very tiny bit, like the most basic amount that I could have read. I read.

Mari 1:34

Starting October, I think it's like very beginning of October, is when I believe the Western Hunger Games start. So you have to like, I'm talking like in a month. Dragon Con programming is unlike any other con I've ever been to or heard of. It's unlike any Comic Cons, it's unlike anything else. It's a it's a fan run event. So there is literally 24-7 programming. It doesn't close down at any point. Right. Um, you want to do something at 3 a.m. There's probably three or four things that you want to do going on. There's probably 10 things going on, period. And they have different like it's not it's it's called Dragon Con, but it's not about dragons. That's just the name of it. It's really just a fandom con. So there's stuff for like if you're into books, if you're into sci-fi, fantasy, Marvel, DC, comics, uh, anime, cosplay, furries, uh, board games, tabletop games, you know, RPG, video games. I mean, you name it if it's in any way tangently related to anything fandom, there it it goes on there. They do photo shoots, like group photo shoots. There was like uh people dress up and did like a photo shoot for the the TV show The Pit. So basically, whatever you can think of, there's there's probably a group there that you know if you have an interest. The vendors market Mart is like in the Amerismart building, it's a whole different building and it's uh four-story, three-story. I can never remember. So three or four stories is the vending area. So it's very large. They have like comic book artists and and stuff on the top floor and then vendors throughout. In addition to that, they have a art gallery area in the Hyatt that's for like original works of art by like some of the people that you see that have done art for the Dungeons and Dragon books or like Magic the Card game, which are really cool and they do like an art show. I mean, there's like a winner every year, so it almost feels like you're going to like a little mini museum there. And so nice. Yeah, and the price that $115 includes entry to all this stuff, and includes all the panels that are going on at all times, unless it's a very specific panel. There are a few that charge you extra, and those are ones generally that need materials, and you have to sign up ahead of time and pay it something for it. So, like if there's an armor making class and they have to buy the stuff to, you know, the two materials and stuff, and there's gonna be a charge for it. Yeah, yeah. But the vast majority is is all included in the $115. There are big panels, like there's some you know, big name actors and whatnot that come. I tend to not do those big panels because I don't like to stand in line. So my preference, I like the smaller panels, like the fan panels. So, like one of the panels I went to was not anybody big on there. There was no authors, there was nobody famous. It was the Black Dagger Brotherhood panel. So it was just everyone sitting around talking about the show and that versus the books and what we thought about it. But apparently this panel happened last year, and one of the actors showed up randomly at this panel. So you never know who's a Dragon Con person and who's what's gonna happen at these events. There was another panel I went to that was like women werewolves in fiction, in literature, that Patricia Briggs was one of the people on there. And I read my first Patricia Briggs book, listened to it on the drive up to Dragon Con because I knew she was gonna be there and I really, really enjoyed it. So then I so I discovered a new author to me, and then I got to go to DragonCon, not even wait in line. There was like two people waiting in line in front of me, and the whole room was maybe 40 people in that room, and like listen to her talk about werewolves and you know, werewolves in literature and what that means, you know, for in terms of representations of feminism and blah blah blah. To me, I thought that was really cool. Other people might not care, and that's fine. I like that there's such a variety of things to do, so I could, you know, do just book stuff, or I could go to a panel about horror movies, a panel about sewing, a panel about drawing, you know, a panel about the movie Snowpiercer, like you name it, whether it's old, whether it's new, whether it's a a fun panel like that, which is people talking about stuff, or whether it's something a little more serious. Like so there's panels about like different health things, or there's panels about how to um you know be neurodivergent and be comfortable in social situations. There's you know different kinds of panels during the day than there are at night. So during the day, everything's very family friendly. You'll see people, families around with kids and whatnot. And as it comes into the nighttime, you'll see it becomes a little bit more of an adult event. Kids are kind of put away. Put to bed. Yes, put to bed. And then you have more adult things that go on. Yeah, I like seeing the innovation that people do. I like seeing people just be excited about what they made. You know, you compliment someone on their on their costume, whatever, and they'll tell you, you know, all about how they made it. Like because they're so excited, or they're so excited that somebody liked it or that somebody recognized it. Um so while you know, there's still such a thing as bad nerds out there for sure. It feels like you're a group of like-minded people who are all kind of the same into the same things and are all kind of like benefit of benefit of the doubt that we're not gonna be jerky to each other, you know? Oh yeah. So that's my Dragon Con pitch.

Jonathan 6:55

Well, I'm sold. Uh I'm excited uh to hit it up next um next year. Um I'm not sure how excited Ashley is for it, but I'm sure that she's uh she's she'll go.

Ashley 7:10

She's something.

Jonathan 7:11

She's something. She'll somebody's gotta my handler will attend.

Mari 7:15

Yeah. Um Kelly, uh But today we're not gonna be talking H10, we're not gonna be talking Dragon Cont. Um, although I will talk Dragon Con I'll I'll show if you let me. Uh today we're gonna be discussing When the Tides Held the Moon by Vanessa Villa Kelly. But first, as always, some news. I don't

Holly Black Updates And Adaptation News

Mari 7:34

have a ton of news, but I have a few things here. First off, uh Holly Black had some some news that she's announced. So she wrote the Cruel Print, I call it the Cruel Prince series. I think it's officially called the Folk of the Air series, but it's forever the Cruel Prince series. Yeah. That um she's gonna be releasing four new fairy books. It's gonna be one is gonna be a young adult novel, and three of them are gonna be adult novels. And also there's gonna be a uh folk of the air cookbook coming, which I love a themed cookbook. I I I we have so many, and I don't hardly cook. But they're pretty aspirational, yeah. Um, there's apparently also folk of the air has been picked up by Amazon to adapt. I don't know if that's gonna be live action or animated. I have no idea, but it would be really interesting to see Cruel Prince done well. Yeah. It's a good story, especially if they do good costumes and stuff. Like it's a really she I really like the world of fairy that she created where it's very like dangerous. Yeah. So I'm excited about that. Next bit of news I have is Sarah Beth Durst News. She announced the ninth life of an erstwhile witch, which is a cozy fantasy about a retired war sorceress and her rescued magical cats, as well as the fifth and sixth books in the spell shop series are gonna be coming out. Um so she's basically got three big new books that she's announced. Um she's got a deal for to do coming out in 2027 and 2028. So we'll have to talk about books. That's a lot of books. Well, she's also written a lot of books already. So yeah, she's gonna have several really interesting books coming up in the next two years.

Jonathan 9:14

What what do you think the um because there's so she has she typically has a theme of like like a sentient uh like plant or cheese or like some some interesting sidekicks that uh pop out, like whether like uh like dragons, like small little like uh measly stuff, but that you like it. She writes in, she typically writes in like an odd sidekick kind of um or character or something. Yeah, yeah. What do you think she's going with with some of these? With like uh besides the cat, like the cat's a cat.

Mari 9:48

Yeah, I don't think it's gonna be the cat. I think that's too obvious. I think there's gonna be something else. Like, I think it's gonna be something like out of left field, like her cauldron's gonna be alive, or like her broom or something.

Jonathan 9:59

Oh, that would be like a cauldron would be interesting. Yeah, be like, yeah. Um yeah, I like that. Good call.

Mari 10:07

Yeah, we'll see what she comes up with. Her stuff is always a lot of fun to read. So I'm excited about that. Kelly, uh, you had talked about reading the was it the spell. Had you already read the um her the Sea of Charms? And you talked about picking it up. Yeah, I haven't either. We have it, it's in the house. We've just been real busy. Um all right. Next bit of news I have, and it's like it's almost like someone's listening to us. So we talked about Alexia events not that long, I think last episode, and Alexia announced that they're revamping their event. They're gonna have uh they they've announced for the next one they're gonna have merchants and makers, games and giveaways, fandom fun, realm, rivalry, magic and mischief, live music and DJs. That was like the list of things that they had. It seems like it's gearing more towards like a rather than just a book, a book and venture kind of thing. It's almost feels like have you guys heard of these uh events that they have where it's like almost like a live action game where you go and it's like you get quests and it's almost like a Ren Fairy kind of vibe. Have you guys heard of this? I had not heard of that, no. Kelly, have you heard of those?

Kelly 11:18

Somewhat.

Mari 11:18

Right? I I can't think of the name of any of them right now, but they're like almost like a ren fair where you go and it's like you're immersed in this world, and like some of the people will give you quests to go and do, and you have to go like talk to the fairy over there, or you know, get something from the blacksmith, like a little trinket or something from the blacksmith. So it makes it feel like an event, like uh like you're part of a story. It almost feels like they're going for more of that vibe than a just like a book sale kind of vibe, like they're going away from the book convention category. So it'd be interesting to see how that goes.

Jonathan 11:51

Nice, yeah. Uh it'll be I think uh yeah, I don't think you can go wrong with a lot of these things. Like you gotta try it. If it goes sideways, you just you'll you'll you'll you'll turn it around and put it back on track.

Ashley 12:06

Right. Yeah, well, I mean, you they could go wrong, actually. We've heard quite a few conventions going sideways. It's an interesting flex that they're trying to transition it into something else. I wonder if like the whole author part of it just wasn't working out for them. But so many other conventions, right, have done so well with an author event. I hadn't really seen the quest thing, but I I have seen more like fantasy balls and being like predominantly only that. Right.

Mari 12:39

Um, even here in like South Florida, almost like a big theme party, which is it's fine. Right. You know, just let people know that's what it is and that's what their expectations will be for.

Jonathan 12:48

It's like they're uh it's just I think you know what it's coming across, it's giving very uh immersive environments, so like uh very thematic. Uh we're gonna have this come and live, live that fairy life for a weekend and then go back home kind of thing.

Mari 13:09

Yeah. I agree. Um it'll be interesting to see how that goes. I think the big thing for them is gonna be you know, just be transparent with it. And I think if if if the expectations m match what they actually offer, then they'll have a a good event. You know what I mean? An event that will be well reviewed. So we'll see. Alright, the

Cozy Fantasy Announcements And Sidekicks

Mari 13:33

next little bit of thing I have is from CM Nascosta. So she's done all her stuff in depublished, the whole Cambert Creek Creek series, the Morning Glory Milk and Farm. And it has been picked up for traditional publishing by Bloom Books. So I'm really interested in how that's gonna go and what that's gonna mean for how they market it and stuff. You know what I mean? Because most monster romance is indie published.

Ashley 14:01

Yeah.

Mari 14:02

So I think the publishers are finally realizing there's money to be had in that weird, weird market.

Ashley 14:09

Well, there's plenty of weird people out there, right? Like that's a delightful book. I don't care who you are. So I'm glad that they're dipping their toes in the weirdness.

Mari 14:18

I agree. I agree. There was a dude dressed as a dressed as a cow with a giant bottle thing that said morning going milking farm at Dry and Cons. You know what? Kudos to him.

Jonathan 14:32

Didn't Jess had a set of udders on her.

Mari 14:35

Yeah, Jess from kissing and kissing on the onesie Wednesday, onesie day, had like a cow situation with udders with like bottles sewn into the udders. Functional udders, yeah, functional udders.

Ashley 14:46

Randomly, I didn't follow her, and so she fell on my on my ID, and I was like, Oh my god, look at and Jonathan happened to be next to me, and he was like, That's Jess, and I was like, Jess? Fucking clever.

Mari 14:59

So, like, I oh yeah, I got to meet Jess for the first time this at Drying Con. I'm so sorry, I just realized I didn't tell you guys. I've met the Jess.

Jonathan 15:06

You met the Jess?

Mari 15:07

Yeah, I the famous Jess.

Jonathan 15:08

I got uh I kind of got like uh so something I forgot to do was you know you ever have inside jokes, and then you just let your inside jokes become outside jokes, but then you don't tell people that that's an inside joke, and then they're just like, oh wow. So the same the same situation that um that uh Sarah and Brad had where they were like, Oh, what's Jonathan's just saying unhinged shit chats again? They must have been in the same like room, and then Sarah was because I I was like, I had messaged.

Mari 15:40

Yeah, they were roommates for their for that, yeah.

Jonathan 15:42

Yeah, so I'd messaged Jess and I was like, Oh, mommy and bread daddy, and they and then and then I got a message from mommy, and she was like, Hey, yeah, you have to give her background stuff. Can't just like unleash that off her. But that's he picked up an entirely different story. It was pretty much close. It's 80% correct. I I misremembered some stuff, but we got it back on track uh through a series of edits. Uh and then Jess, you know how like you're kind of like the power of okay, like just like not yet. Okay, thanks. Jess says it's the video. She's like, that made perfect sense, Jonathan. Thank you for clearing that up. Yeah. Poor Jess. Yeah, poor Jess. Who's traveling home to Canada? Jess is our uh Jess is our uh Knuckle-headed friend.

Mari 16:35

Yep, yep.

Clean Edits And Ebook Ownership

Mari 16:37

The last little bit I have in this news uh section is more of a um interesting thing about getting your guys' take on it. So without mentioning any names, there's an author who writes romantic books who recently like changed the versions of all her books to take all the spicy scenes out of her books. Um, didn't like release because there are several authors that were released two versions of the same book, one closed door, one open door. Um but she took all the only options now are the options without the spicy scenes that she had already written and were already you know released. Which is interesting, because like she didn't take the killing and the murder and the gore out of her book. That's a-okay but the sexy times were taken out. What do you guys think about that?

Jonathan 17:27

I think that's interesting. Uh it's their work to do whatever they want to do with it. Um it like I I think if she wants to take it out, let her take it out. I have um I it like that reminds me, I have a bud who uh picked up a a book to read uh because he thought it was going to be a murder mystery book. So he was reading it for the murder elements. And he so he's we're at uh we're at brunch on so pretentious of me to say that sentence. We were at brunch on Saturday or Sunday, brunch on Sunday, Ash. And uh and he says, I'm reading this book, you won't believe it. He says, I think I'm reading this murder mystery on my walk. It's like an hour-long book or something like that. And he says, It's about a door. And I said, Oh, Vera Valentine, and he goes, That's the one. Have you read it? I said, I haven't read that one, but if you want to read about the Kool-Aid Man, and so he's like, they're like he doesn't always lean into the the spicier sides of things, but then when I brought up like you know, um uh the Kool-Aid Man one, he was like, Yeah, send me the link.

Ashley 18:30

So a little judgmental about the door one, too. Yeah, I thought I was getting into this murder mystery thing, and it ended up being this sexy time door situation. Like he was he was a little offended, but then when we mentioned the Kool-Aid man, he peeked he peeked up real quick. Did he do synopsis before?

Mari 18:47

I don't know.

Jonathan 18:48

And they because I tagged when I tag I texted him yesterday, I was like, hey, if this comes up on IO, could you cool if I just like if I talk about it? And he's like, Yeah. He said, uh, but in all honesty, there was a murder mystery thing going on.

Mari 18:58

Yeah, there is a little bit of that. There it I mean, all books have contain multiples, multitudes. Like, you know, that there's always something else going on in in the romance books we read, you know, they're they're romance, sci-fi romance, fantasy romance, horror, romance, house invasion, um, um, you know, whatever, whatever situation. So yeah, that there definitely is a sci- a big, fairly large multiple backstory things happening for that being as short of a book as it is, and as I know that it's a sentient object romance, and people are like kind of flippant about it, but there's actually a decent story with it. Like it was my first sentient object romance, and I think if it hadn't been so good, I wouldn't have read others. Yeah, you know, I really liked it. Uh very Vera Valentine is a a a good author. She writes these super short books, but they she puts so much into them in a good way, you know?

Jonathan 19:49

Oh, yeah, definitely. Yeah, so I think I think like if for somebody like him, it's easier to have that kind of uh conversation with him without those elements in there. And also, like sometimes I struggle at at like I have some readers at work, but you kind of have to like slowly enter that conversation with some colleagues where it's like I don't know what you're reading, and you might be a little bit more selective with your book titles where I'm a little bit looser and fine. I I I want smut.

Mari 20:19

Yeah, and I don't mind like I don't mind someone who do who doesn't want the spice or the smut in their book. That's not at all a problem. Everyone should choose what they want to read in the books they read. I mean, that's why it's supposed to be for fun. You choose the books you want to read. This isn't like a class assignment. Uh but I I feel a certain way about an artist taking away or deleting certain versions of their work completely from existence. Because I sit here and think, like, what you know, how many works of art that we have that exist in the world right now would not exist if the artist could have just been like, ooh, I hate all my work, it's all going away. Like, you know, Van Gogh would have probably burned everything he ever made. Let's be honest. You know? And we wouldn't have all these things, all these works of his that we have.

Jonathan 21:08

How did you feel about uh George Lucas remastering some Star Wars stuff?

Mari 21:12

I didn't care. I didn't think it made enough of a difference. So in my opinion, I'm not the world's biggest, like I'm not the I'm not a huge what's the word? I'm not gonna not a fan, but a um I'm not into the the the the tidbits of Star Trek or Star Wars, sorry. Don't come at her in the comments. Don't come at her in the comments. The Star Wars, like I I who you know, all these like little tidbits of like this particular version of this versus this other doesn't affect the grand story to me. It doesn't change the story enough to me. But I you know people are allowed to focus on what they want to focus on. That's why I I didn't think it was a big enough thing. Now, had it been like, oh well, the original trilogy is gonna go away, and the only thing that exists are the are these new movies I've made in the in you know the 2000s. Like, how would we feel about that?

Jonathan 21:58

Yeah. Um What she did? She just deleted entire books, or she was like, Yeah, the old versions of the books no longer exist.

Mari 22:04

So if you didn't have the physical versions of those books, if you had like the e-reader version or whatever, it got it's changed. You don't have them anymore.

Jonathan 22:13

So, I mean, we all go through developments. There are things that I sometimes I'll go back and I'll curate my Instagram stuff and I'll move stuff around and just be like, okay, well, that was a vibe I had then. That's not a vibe I want uh now, and I want to move it to this other space. So maybe it's just something that she did for a period of time and she moves on. I don't think the work is is it's not gone forever, right? So like there's copies of those books somewhere, but it's just it's not in publication at this time. And it's not the it's not the the first time an author has taken a version out of publication, not for the same reason, but for for you know for the people who have purchased the ebook, are they getting the new book for free?

Mari 23:07

I think it changes what you have.

Ashley 23:08

I'm I'm not sure. So that that would be my only beef, right? If I had financially invested in an in an electronic book and an author is making a cognitive intentional decision to discontinue that version and replace it with something else, but I've already paid for the previous version. I better get the new one, even if I never read it again. Like I'd be butthurt about that.

Jonathan 23:32

I mean, you probably get a new one. I mean, that's what happens with who's tracking that e-books to begin with. I mean, it people who have it in their library, but at the same time, you uh you don't own these books unless you have the physical copy, you don't own what's in your Kindle library. Correct, you own a like that correct, yeah.

Mari 23:48

Yeah, which is why all the books I really, really like, I buy physical version of it.

Ashley 23:52

I buy, yeah. No. But like that's when I paid 99 cents for that book, right? Because it was a Kindle deal or whatever, and that book is now suddenly gone from my library. It who on her team is tracking that to make sure that I get the updated version. I don't know that they are. I don't know how it works. I have no idea. Yeah. So that's that's a piece that would piss me off.

Jonathan 24:10

I think I saw something on social media where it happened with like a major, like a more mainstream author where the book that they had in their Kindle was now deleted from their library or something like that. And it was I thought I saw some chatter about something disappearing, but it wasn't like across the So I mean genuinely I think when you're in the Kindle space, the Kindle doesn't owe you anything except the license and the opportunity to get another book. You know, like uh which they're offering, I'm sure, like you have Kindle Unlimited, right? You're not subscribing, you're subscribing to the service, but not necessarily to that individual title.

Ashley 24:49

But that's not true for all of the books. Some books are individual purchases outside of Kindle Unlimited. Right.

Jonathan 24:56

Yeah.

Ashley 24:57

So I think that's two separate conversations in my opinion.

Jonathan 25:00

Yeah, you should probably read your your terms uh of agreement.

Mari 25:03

I mean, I don't know. I pretty much assume that if I don't have a physical copy of the book, I don't actually have it. Yeah. I'm with Amari. But I also I I I feel a certain way, and this is more I probably I probably feel a certain more way, more stronger way about it because of like I have a problem with it's a very American thing of sex being taken out of story because it's seen as bad or dirty or whatever, immoral, but killing and war and murder and gore still being a-oka.

Jonathan 25:36

Um was it take was it taken out for that reason?

Mari 25:41

The author has found a certain religion and has is taken it out for that reason, correct. So it's a purity culture move. Okay. Which is a different debate, I understand. But I very strongly feel like if your books are gonna subscribe to a certain religion, then all aspects of it should. But also, I'm not a religious person and I'm not gonna argue religion with people. So if nothing else, it was a a a red flag to me to not look at or read or or pay attention to anything else by that author. Which is interestingly enough, also happened to me at Dragon Con. In the Ventors area, there was a bookseller who had uh had the I assume she was the author, it was one name, of books out, and at the top uh she labeled it a clean romanticy. And I don't mind closed door books. Like Terabath Dirt doesn't get all up in the in the weeds of the of the you know of the sexy times. Um but I do mind when sex is described as dirty. And if you're saying that not having sex is clean, then you're saying that having sex in the book is white.

Jonathan 26:47

It implies, yeah. By by matter of balance, it implies that that something's dirty. Um yeah, I gotcha.

Mari 26:55

Just a big personal pet peep of mine. Not not not whether or not there's spicy times in the book, but like how it's described, and also this idea of of murder and death and gore being a-okay, but sex between consenting adults is bad.

Jonathan 27:10

Yeah.

Mari 27:11

That's my uh uh soapbox, and I will be getting off of it so we can move on. So sorry, guys. Um

Why This Book Now

Mari 27:20

all right, back to the book at hand here. Why we chose it. It is or it's coming up on Hispanic Heritage Month. So from September 15th to October 15th of every year in the US is Hispanic Heritage Month, and the author is Hispanic. So that's why I pushed for this book. I will at some point in that time frame release some images and recommendations and stuff on the on on social media for different Hispanic authors. Because I know we've read a few for here, but there's also a few others that we can put out. Alright, so this was published April 29th, 2025, so it's not been around for a long time. Let me read the little synopsis and then we'll get into the details. Benino Benny Caldera, known excuse me. I did not type my stuff very well here. Let me start over. Benny Benino Caldera, known as an orphan Barico blacksmith in 1910's New York City, can't call himself an artist, but the ironwork tank he creates for famous Coney Island playground, Luna Park, astounds everyone, especially the eccentric sideshow proprietor who commissioned it. Benny's work earns him an invitation to join the show's eclectic crew of performers, his first welcome in the city, and share in their astonishing secret. The tank Benny built is a cage for the newest exhibit, a living, breathing, in-the-flesh merman, stolen from the banks of the East River under a gleaming full moon. The merman is more than a mythic marvel, though. Benny comes to know Rio as the clever philosopher, an observant traveler, and a kindred spirit more beautiful and compassionate than any human he's ever met. Despite their different worlds, what begins as a friendship of necessity deepens to love, leaning Benny's heart into uncharted waters where he can no longer ignore the agonizing truth of Rio's captivity and his own. A cage is no place for a merman to survive, though releasing Rio means betraying his new family, bankrupting their home, and losing his soulmate forever, Benny must look within for the courage to do what's right, and to find a love strong enough to free them both.

First Reactions And Big Questions

Mari 29:19

What do we think?

Ashley 29:20

I have questions. First of all, I love this book. At no point did this book go in the direction that I thought it was going to go. Some of it, like I had an idea, right? But like the side characters, the the historical factor. Jonathan's got beef about one of the historical facts. We'll circle into that, I'm sure. Um listen, I love this book. I this was so beautifully written, and I felt everything that this author felt while writing it to an extent, right? Because I'm white and I can't I can't go as deep as that. Like I'm not gonna claim somebody else's trauma. But I it was moving, and I was addicted, and I stayed up very, very late on multiple nights to read this almost 500-page book.

Mari 30:13

Yeah, it was chunker.

Ashley 30:15

But I've got beef.

Mari 30:16

Uh-huh.

Ashley 30:17

Is he is he a mermaid now? I think so. I get that he's breathing. I I can understand some of the mechanics.

Mari 30:26

Yeah.

Ashley 30:26

Right? He's a descendant of something very special, some kind of hybrid. Does he have a fin?

Mari 30:32

I don't know.

Ashley 30:33

I don't know. And it bothers me greatly. I am disturbed. You want to know more? It bothers you less.

Jonathan 30:41

Yeah. I just think like you just accepted it? Yeah, I mean, except I I you didn't see that coming the whole time.

Ashley 30:47

The whole time I saw it coming. I wanted to know the mechanics of it.

Jonathan 30:50

I was gonna say, like, guy is like is what a you want to know the mechanics of how a flipper works? No, I want to know if he's if there's like a definite, if like there's like a definite thing. I want to know what it's actually descended to.

Ashley 31:03

I want to know if he actually has the fin. I want to know what he's the actual descendant of to be able to maybe have the mechanics of living, breathing, swimming underwater. Can he handle the pressure? Does he only have the languages part of it and the breathing underwater part of it? And that's why we're shit on well, but no, how is he gonna move through the water?

Jonathan 31:25

Well, he's he got himself. But how do you go through the water? You do your little pick.

Mari 31:30

Not as well as a mermaid, that's for sure.

Jonathan 31:34

I think uh I think yeah, he's got I'll clear this up for you. Yeah, he's got he's got a flipper.

Ashley 31:38

He's got a flipper? Is it a mini one, or does it like come up to full size?

Jonathan 31:41

He's got a regulation size flipper.

Ashley 31:44

Or just webbed.

Jonathan 31:45

You think that you think this is a water world situation?

Ashley 31:49

I don't know, and it bothers me.

Jonathan 31:51

No. He's got yeah, I know he's in there. He's full, he's like sometimes he looks like a trout.

Ashley 31:56

Like a full transformation, maybe like a reverse beauty and the beast.

Jonathan 32:00

He became Whoa, whoa. How do you know that he's not beauty now? He was the beast because he was the person who was holding beauty captive.

Ashley 32:09

All of those things can be true at once. I don't have to be.

Splash Vibes And The Ending

Mari 32:22

And maybe a little bit of like circus vibes. So Greatest Showman, Big Big Fish. Kelly, you mentioned something else that it reminded you of movie-wise, didn't you?

Kelly 32:33

So this movie or this book was heavily influenced by Splash. Yes, that was a classic 1980s movie with Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah. All the way down to the Zayny escape, capture the mermaid, and smuggle her out type scenario at the end, with Tom Hanks jumping into the water with Daryl Hannah and somehow miraculously hand-waving, he's able to breathe underwater, swim underwater, see underwater, etc.

Ashley 33:05

That works. Yeah. So no fins. Nothing. Tom Hanks didn't have fins, and Shape of Water Lady didn't have fins, right?

Mari 33:13

Um, I don't think in Shape of Water it ever goes. The ending is left open. So the the the the sea creature in the shape of water didn't have fins. He had webbed feet and webbed.

Ashley 33:23

But like he granted her the ability to breathe underwater, right?

Mari 33:26

Maybe she maybe she did turn into because she had those gills too in that movie. Like she had the the cuts on her on her on the side of her throat, which is why she couldn't talk. So I think in my head, they turned into gills. Like I think she was somehow partially a shape of water person in my life.

Kelly 33:43

There's a moment in the Austin Powers movie when they he goes back in time and they deadass look at the camera talking about time inconsistencies, and the character deadass looks in the camera and says, Don't worry about that, Austin. And they look at the camera, and you and the audience shouldn't worry about that too. Just have fun.

Ashley 34:01

Not at all. Yeah. True. True, true. I was I felt, I guess because at least and the shit the splash, right? That's what it was called. Like that's very deep. Like I was a kid when I watched that. It was my mom's one of my mom's favorite movies. So now that you say it, I'm piecing that together. And I watched Shape of Water once. Um, so I don't have all the pieces of that one. But like, yeah, I guess I'm just trying to understand the happily ever after part because they're getting it, right? And that's exciting. And I wish I just had a little bit more. That's my only but and it wasn't necessarily, right? Like he makes it and we get we see that part. And I loved that. I loved that closure to know that he was okay, like definitively, but I but I want to know more. Like, I guess it was written so good that I wanted to know more. Shape of water closed it out, right? Splash closed it out. You had that visual. I guess I didn't have that visual, and I'm I'm more of a visual person. It was just it was written so well. You had all of these feelings for a lot of the characters, right? The side characters too. Like you got all this follow-up on the side characters in the epilogue, but all you know is that Benny and what's his name make it, you know what I mean? So I don't know. I just I felt it was so good. And then it just it was very much like like teasing at the end. Like, yeah, you get this happy happily ever after, but you don't get to know anything about it.

Mari 35:26

Yeah. And this is the only book she's written. So, and I don't know that as far as I know, she's not announced anything else. So I don't know if there's gonna be I don't know if she's gonna write another book, period. I don't know if it's gonna be something of this world.

Jonathan 35:39

She's got another one coming.

Mari 35:40

Fun fact.

Ashley 35:41

Jonathan's looking at the website now.

Jonathan 35:43

Uh so she's got uh um it's Manu Faces the Music. And uh it's it looks like it's coming this year. Hold on.

Ashley 35:56

I think it said fall 26.

Jonathan 35:58

Coming 2020. Oh, just uh and that, but that's a graphic novel.

Ashley 36:01

Oh, okay. Okay, yeah, because she was gonna say it looks a little bit more present time.

Mari 36:05

She is an artist, so she did the the the image on the front, and she has done the image of several other books. Like she's she was uh uh she's an artist primarily primarily before she was an author.

Jonathan 36:18

Ash, I think you know there's uh she has an upcoming event. It looks like it's uh at Scholastic Headquarters. In New York. Yeah, you're gonna uh Yeah, she's New York based. Yeah, maybe you can't.

Mari 36:30

911 no less.

Jonathan 36:31

Send her an email.

Mari 36:31

You send her an email.

Jonathan 36:32

Fine, I'll send her an email. I'll message her.

Mari 36:34

I think I've I think I've interacted with her deep before because I would like the book if I told her about it. That one.

Jonathan 36:40

This one? Yeah. It's I think it's past.

Ashley 36:43

No, it's future.

Jonathan 36:44

Oh, is it future? No, 2026. It says June 13th, 2026. Oh, where's that going? Um, yeah, uh, if you message her, can you tell her that uh I I like this book?

Statue Of Liberty Debate

Jonathan 36:57

Uh I'm not uh the only issue I have with this book is that they said that the Statue of Liberty was green, and in uh in that era, the Statue of Liberty was not green.

Kelly 37:07

Correct.

Mari 37:07

It wasn't verdigree yet, it was more coppery.

Jonathan 37:11

That's all I thought about for like a day and a half, just so you know. Okay, and I was like, maybe I got the dates wrong. Maybe this was like in the 20s, and it's plausible, but that was like, no, no, I'm going, but I'm looking at it. No, okay. Hmm.

Mari 37:24

Because I know it was like, wasn't it made like the head was made first or something, the body differently, but did it all turn green at the same time?

Jonathan 37:31

It uh it took like 20 years, uh 20, 30 years for that thing to fully go green.

Ashley 37:37

Could it have been splotchy?

Jonathan 37:39

It could have been like a state, like a mixed state of like dinge and and like kind of like you know, start beginning to oxidize, but it wouldn't have been green as they described it.

Mari 37:50

So I'm trying to remember Kelly and I toured the statue, and what part was it that they toured with to try and get money for fundraising Kelly for the base? Was it the arms? The base?

Kelly 37:59

No, I think it was I thought it was the torch.

Mari 38:01

The torch, yeah. So like the torch was made first, I think, and they were like touring it around the country trying to get money to to to do the base.

Jonathan 38:08

So it was it was glass originally, like it was uh that's a choice, and it was I think it um yeah, there was like a huge I know there was a huge restor restorative process.

Kelly 38:20

And in the 80s they did a huge restoration.

Jonathan 38:23

Yeah. Interesting.

Kelly 38:25

That was the that was the whole joke was for what several years in the 80s, there was scaffolding all around the Statue of Liberty and you couldn't see it.

Jonathan 38:36

Yeah. When we went uh as when I I I just had like horrible luck when we went as kids. It's like it was like we were going to um it was like a field trip and we were gonna go to like the World Trade Center and then to the Statue of Liberty and do all that, do like you know, Ellis Island, all that stuff. And uh the day we went, like they were like, oh, we can't we can't go to the World Trade Center because there was a they was do you remember the garage incident? We won't go that deep into it, um, but uh um it was an attack in the parking garage at that at that time, and so they were like, Oh, we can't go there. And then we ended up going to when we got to the Statue of Liberty, they were just like, Yeah, we're just we're kind of just gonna play it safe today.

Mari 39:25

So I'm I'm just I because I didn't I didn't think about the green thing, but I'm looking up uh different things and different different I'm finding different things. So I found basically parts of it were green before 1920. Because of course it didn't go green all at once. Trying to find a good image here that I can send you guys. But um basically it started to go green by by 1910 it was already starting to go green because there was a proposal by Congress to repaint it in like 1906 because it it was starting to go green. So in 1910, there was probably parts of it that were green, maybe not all of it, I don't know, but I think there was some green to it.

Jonathan 40:07

Yeah, oh yeah, no, I I don't doubt that there was some green to it. I though the way they mention it in the story, it was like it was like a standout of green. Yeah. But it's just uh it's it that's I won't let that define my relationship with this book. I promise. I did like this book. I thought it was interesting. I like uh I like that sort of I like that that vibe, that Coney Island like vibe, that sort of 1920s uh depression era kind of thing that's going on. Um I thought it was I thought it was an interesting story, and I like the underdog kind of like Diamond in the Rough. You know, I'm yeah, there's there's the bangin' element to it that uh is is enjoyable to me. I thought it was uh I thought it was an interesting story. It definitely had me feeling like suspense in when he was in the tank. It was like, oh shit, he's gonna get caught. And then the whole like when he was coming out, when he was working on coming out, he had to come out to himself. You know. What was the word they used? Um invert. Invert. Is that now is that a term that they that was in the time, yeah.

Mari 41:18

That's like an old term for for queerness or gayness. I wanna say Sebastian Nothwell's not not the book we read, but his oh he's got another book and it uses that term in there too. I cannot remember the name of the book now, but yeah, I I've heard that term before. It's like an old-fashioned term.

Jonathan 41:37

Is it considered derogatory?

Mari 41:40

I mean, I think I think all of it was considered derogatory at that time, yeah. I don't think there was a lot of uh public support. You know, it was all that you have to be very, very hidden. It's all very taboo. Yeah. And it might have been illegal in some parts, yeah. Yeah.

Jonathan 41:58

What do you mean like uh me saying it in in the context of our conversation just now?

Ashley 42:05

I mean, I think because it's socially acceptable now. Is is that your question?

Jonathan 42:09

Yeah, I well man, I'm not gonna run around slinging it around.

Mari 42:12

I'm just wondering, like you're like if you if you just said a slur, you're like wondering if you just said a slur, basically.

Jonathan 42:18

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm just wondering if I if I just I don't think so.

Mari 42:21

Not in the con because you're talking about the context it was used in the book about that time period. That's that's how it was referred to in that time period.

Jonathan 42:30

Okay.

Mari 42:31

Yeah, I think it's fine.

Kelly 42:33

Gotcha.

Mari 42:34

It's it comes from that whole mentality that anything that wasn't male-female is opposite of what should be normal or inversion of what should be normal. I think that's where the word comes from and the idea comes from.

Jonathan 42:46

Yeah, I'm Googling it now, and it's it's like so Wikipedia has uh sexual inversion as a theory of homosexuality, popular primarily in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Okay.

Ashley 43:01

It's uh believed to be an inborn reversal of gender traits, which is so it seems to actually be connected to being transgender as well for the time. So like it's not so much that he loved men, but that he was a he instead of a she that loved men.

Mari 43:18

Yeah.

Ashley 43:18

Is what I'm getting out of that.

Mari 43:20

Well, I know like he was inverted. Yeah. And I know that in my lifetime in Hispanic Puerto Rican like culture, this idea of like a man being attracted to a man, the it was almost always tied to or thought of as and talked about as like, oh, it's because that man wants to be a woman, is why he likes men. Like the concept of like someone being a man and still liking a man, you know, or being attracted to men, is something that's newer in the Hispanic culture that I've been exposed to. Which is that is changing. It does need to change a lot.

Ashley 44:01

So that's so interesting too because Native American cultures have very firm beliefs in being of one body but a different gender. Um like it's pretty ingrained in a lot of Native American cultures. And so like to to see how widespread, like how different it is the further out you go, kind of thing, like geographically.

Mari 44:27

Like I can't speak for other Hispanic cultures, but in Puerto Rico, the the so Tainos is the the Native American Native peoples that are in the area of that were in the area in the island of of Puerto Rico. And um, you know, for the longest, what was in taught in the history books and what was taught is that uh well that the Tainos all died out. So it was a very Spanish, like from Spain Spanish culture, you know, Roman Catholic Spanish culture is the main like overriding culture, and the the Taino culture was attempted to be just erased.

Ashley 45:09

Yeah. No, I thought this was a lovely story. Um it wasn't it was very well written, you got a lot of perspectives. You know, the the mermaid had such poetic thought processes, it felt like like every time he was talking to his mom. It was just it was so I thought it was really lovely, honestly. Just like the whole thing. It was it was very eloquent, it got to the point, it didn't go too deep into the weeds, it kind of felt like you were there. It would it they did good word world building, I felt.

Mari 45:46

Yeah.

Final Verdicts And Kissing Book Call

Mari 45:47

Yeah. I uh I first read this book. I thought it was last year, but I didn't. I I I got the book last year as part of a subscription, so it wasn't a book that I purposefully picked up, but then I had it, and I was trying to look through all the books I had like early this year, and I was like, oh, I haven't read this one. Um so I just kind of read it without knowing a whole lot about it, and I ended up really, really enjoying it. Um, I don't think I have read a lot in that time period, so that was kind of new to me, and the whole idea of you know the Puerto Rican experience in New York in that time period where you're like technically a citizen, but also treated like the other, yeah, is you know, was interesting. Yeah, yeah. And then of course you had the magic element, you had for me, it was the first book I'd read that had like Sino and Puerto Rican like mythology stuff into mixed into like a magic world. I know there's there are other books out there now, but it was the first first one I read, and I was just like, this is amazing. It very much spoke to me.

Ashley 46:56

So well, and kudos to the author for the actual illustrations in the book. I didn't know that she was an illustrator, so that makes far more sense. But that was just that that was like the icing for me, right? Is to have those little snippets of visuals, you know, you saw the you saw the tank, you saw the mermaid, you saw them together, you saw the side characters, right? As part of the as part of the show. Um and so that was I just thought it was all really well done, really well packaged. If this was her first book out the gate, like I'm excited for more.

Mari 47:30

Me too. Other than the Statue of Liberty uh things, Jonathan. What would you think?

Jonathan 47:38

I liked it. Yeah, and it was uh I thought it was well written. I thought it was a fun book. Uh I think in the beginning I was not super thrilled with the like the opening of the book, and then kind of when he made his way to Coney Island, that was when I bought in. And then I was like, Oh, okay. Well, now I want to I want to get in into it more, and I started paying attention more than that.

Mari 48:02

It was dark before that, like it was like a dark story. I was like angry for him.

Jonathan 48:06

Yeah, I was I was like, ooh, this isn't gonna like I'll I I like but when we were going through that first part, I was like, this is only gonna last so long before I'm just like listening to it in like as far as background noise. When we got to Courtney Allen, I was like, ooh, and then we started jamming, right? And then I think at one point Ashley was like, Oh, I I should start this book, and then she was like, Where are you at in it? And I was like, I'm done. Like I read it, it's like sometimes you read books, and I'm sure you can relate. Like, you read you read a book and you're like, meh, and then all of a sudden you're like, ooh, there's a hook. Now I'm in, and then you're just like, let me keep going. Because I get, you know, I think I don't know that I quite understand like one more chapter before you know before bed, but I definitely understood like the idea of I want to know what happens next.

Kelly 48:54

Yeah.

Jonathan 48:55

Um, and that doesn't always happen for me, but it happened with this one.

Mari 48:59

Nice.

Jonathan 49:00

How about you?

Mari 49:02

Me me or Kelly or Kelly.

Kelly 49:03

Yeah, I thought it was a good book. I enjoyed it. I thought it blended a lot of the historical accuracy of the time period in there. So overall it was enjoyable. I think that I felt like there was a lot of it. It felt like it was dragged out at some points, like they were kind of as being drug out a little bit. Um but other than that, so other than that, I thought it was good.

Mari 49:28

Yeah. I think it would be a really interesting seeing of like a visual representation of this. Like I think this would be a really interesting movie. Not that it'll ever happen, but I think it would be really a really interesting movie or TV show, like a limited run TV show or something. Because the characters seem like they would all be really visually interesting to see them personify. Um but yeah. I enjoyed it. Obviously, I've already talked about it. I recommended it. I yeah, I absolutely will read whatever this author comes up with next. And I'm I'm curious to see what that is. So we'll see how that how that goes. Do we think that it's a kissing book?

Jonathan 50:07

Yeah, I think it is. I think it's a kissing book. Uh I felt like there was a banganning going on there.

Mari 50:12

Yeah. Callie, what do you think?

Kelly 50:14

Yeah, it was definitely a kissing book.

Mari 50:16

I agree. I agree. It was a it had a very like new new world fairy tale kind of vibe to me. It very much felt like a fairy tale, you know.

Jonathan 50:24

I like that.

Mari 50:25

Yeah. So I'm not sure.

Jonathan 50:26

How long has it been since we agreed?

Mari 50:28

Well, it's been a minute. I feel like it's been a long time. Uh I can't even remember. So yay to us.

Jonathan 50:41

Not me. I like it.

Mari 50:44

Anything else we want to talk about before we wrap it up?

Ashley 50:47

I have

Sideshow Romance Logistics And Gatorland History

Ashley 50:48

questions about the tallest man and the littlest lady. They got married. And that and and and and atomically that seems concerning.

Jonathan 51:04

What do you mean?

Ashley 51:05

What do you mean?

Jonathan 51:06

Have you ever wore like you've never worn a backpack?

Ashley 51:10

No.

Jonathan 51:10

Yeah. It's like the same thing.

Ashley 51:13

That doesn't matter. I mean, you know, maybe it was more friendship related. I just like structurally, I have concerns for the little lady.

Jonathan 51:21

You just get pillows.

Ashley 51:23

Just pillows.

Jonathan 51:24

Stack them up, you know.

Mari 51:26

I thought that was very cute. I'm trying to think who else isn't. I'm trying to remember. Is it Shaquille O'Neal? That's got like a very short wife.

Kelly 51:34

Shaquille O'Neal stands seven foot one, and his wife that he was married to was like five, three.

Jonathan 51:42

Yeah. That's only like that's not that's like two feet. That's nothing. Two. And you I can count to one two. It's two feet.

Ashley 51:48

That's like that like logistically, that's like you and Savannah. Right. Two facing high-wise.

Mari 51:56

Two feet being nothing is something a tall person says. As a five foot three person who is like one inch away from reaching whatever she needs to get without a step stool.

Ashley 52:06

Every inch counts. And then you have like torso lengths versus leg lengths. Like that can really make things feel more dramatic, I feel like.

Mari 52:23

Oh my god. Yeah.

Kelly 52:24

Simone Biles is like four. That's actually yeah.

Ashley 52:26

Yeah.

Jonathan 52:27

How tall is her partner? He's a professional football player. He is.

Ashley 52:31

Oh, you're right. He is.

Jonathan 52:32

A defensive back, or I don't know what he is.

Ashley 52:35

I don't think he's like grossly but I don't yeah, I don't think he's like 6'5.

Jonathan 52:41

Let's see. Uh Jonathan Owens is her spouse. And he I think he is a DB. I don't even know. He's not even having a great yeah. I'm gonna be honest. Like he's for me to sit down and say this, take it with a grain of salt. He's not having a great career.

Ashley 52:56

Definitely hasn't had a great last couple of years. Five foot eleven. Oh, five.

Jonathan 52:59

He's not that big.

Ashley 53:00

No, he's not that big. Yeah. I didn't think he would have. But I to her, that's almost a foot.

Jonathan 53:05

Yeah. Right. It's just it's interesting.

Ashley 53:08

He comes up to like his pectorals.

Jonathan 53:10

Okay. Where's he playing at now?

Ashley 53:13

He's got traded a few times.

Jonathan 53:15

He's playing for the Colts right now.

Ashley 53:16

Is he?

Jonathan 53:17

Yeah. I don't know where he's at in a depth chart, but he's been moved around a whole bunch since like 2018. Cardinals, Texans, Packers, Bears. Now he's at the Colts. Uh too deep, babe. So I'm about it out.

Ashley 53:29

We're getting excited for football.

Jonathan 53:30

That's enough about Mr. Mr. Biles. Mr. Biles.

Ashley 53:33

Yeah, logistically, that one concerns me. I hope, I hope she's careful.

Mari 53:38

Yeah.

Jonathan 53:39

That should be fine. They expand.

Mari 53:42

Yeah, I think that when like people with different anatomies like that were a big traveling sideshow, like the the quote unquote freak shows or whatever, I think that you had a lot of people of different like body sizes and body types and stuff getting into relationships. Because of course you're gonna make relationships with the people who you are tour with, especially if you're touring from place to place. Like um, there is, I don't remember the name of it, but there's a town in Florida that was founded. It's a small town that was founded by like retired quote unquote circus circus freaks, first of like an off-season, and then like when the whole that whole business kind of died down and it's no longer a thing. Now like the touring circus stuff is about the talents you can do, like the sword swallowing or whatever. And there was a my favorite X-Files episode of all time, season two of the old and original X-Files called Humbug was the story was based around that town. So that's my little X-Files sci-fi tidbit.

Jonathan 54:41

Gibson Town.

Mari 54:42

There you go.

Jonathan 54:43

Gibson Town, Gibson Gibson Ton, Gibb Town. Yeah, is an unincorporated community in uh Hillsboro County, Florida. We've all been there. Um we just haven't really. It's like Tampa, Sarasota, Venice. It's probably like that tracks. Yeah. It's like um I want to say like Dade City area. Okay. So we think that's further west. Date City might be a little further west, but it's like uh I think this is further west. Oh, sorry. I mean, possibly. It's like it's in the same neck of the woods. Like you we probably got lost there a couple times. Yeah.

Mari 55:18

All right. That's interesting. Anything else you want to say about the book before I wrap it up?

Representation Matters And Closing Notes

Jonathan 55:23

You know, I think uh the one last piece for me at least. Um I think that when we talk about in this modern time representation matters for Benny to have a representation in found family members that helped pave the way. You know, I have a family member who has many years of sobriety under their belt, and they don't have to go to meetings to maintain. So they don't they're not going for themselves, they're going for others so that others can see what's possible. Um, and so I think uh when when Benny finally had the opportunity to see this uh relationship that he was hiding from himself, but to see it in a in an in a in an acceptable way and just say, like, yeah, yeah, you know, we this is what we are, it's what we do. We're not ashamed of who we are.

Mari 56:19

Yeah, representation matters a hundred percent. And you know, ideally everyone should be able to see themselves in in some story somewhere, to you know, be able to learn to accept themselves as they are, especially if the people around them don't, if the family or the people around them don't necessarily foster that self-acceptance. Yeah, which is why we need to read, you know, queer books year-round, and you know, books with people with disabilities year-round, and and books with people of like all you know ethnicities year-round. And books like this, where you have the intersectionality of all of those. Like this isn't just a gay book, and this isn't just a Hispanic heritage book, and it's not just a historical book about a time in history. It's all the things. So just like uh just like people. We are all multiple things.

Ashley 57:10

How many people with asthma do you think are descendants from mermaids?

Mari 57:15

If I am, then my mermaids, my mermaid ancestors are so disappointed in me. Yeah. I I do not swim well.

Jonathan 57:27

We don't have to limit it to mermaidage. You could be like from space and you're just struggling to breathe within this.

Ashley 57:34

Uh maybe mermaids are from space.

Jonathan 57:37

Like like you know what I learned? This is interesting. I learned that uh tangents. Do you know how many tentacles an octopus has?

Mari 57:44

Uh I think it depends on the octopus. I was saying, I thought eight.

Jonathan 57:50

They have none. They have eight arms.

Mari 57:53

Oh, they're not tentacles?

Jonathan 57:55

Yeah, yeah. The difference is that the suckers are so tentacles are appendages that are shaped like that, are like an arm, but the the suckers are only at one end. But when the suckers go all the way down, like the the extent, that's the uh that's an arm. It's very interesting. I don't know.

Mari 58:13

I was like, uh, so weird. I'd love it.

Jonathan 58:17

Yeah, exactly. I love it.

Mari 58:20

All right. Uh anything else before I wrap it up?

Kelly 58:24

I have nothing.

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Mari 58:26

All right. So thanks for listening to Absorbs and Soulmates. Before we go, make sure to check out the show notes, rate, review, and subscribe to us on your podcast app of choice. It helps others to find us. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Abswords and Soulmates. Check us out on our website of Swords and Soulmates. If you'd like to offer a suggestion for a future episode, book rec or discussion topic, feel free to reach out to us on the DMs of any of those options. And last but not least, we hope you'll join us in two weeks for our next episode where we when we will be doing another choose your own adventure episode. And this time our topic is going to be fall or autumn reads. Bye.