Books, Chaos & Looking Ahead | A Romance Book Podcast Season One Recap

We officially made it to the end of Season One of What the Smut Are You Talking About Podcast and we honestly can't believe it.

This week we're looking back at everything that made this season unforgettable. From our favorite romance books and hilarious author interviews to the behind-the-scenes chaos that listeners never got to see. We talk about the moments that made us laugh until we cried, the interviews that hit us right in the feels, and the incredible growth this little bookish podcast has experienced since relaunching earlier this year.

We also spill some behind-the-scenes confessions, share our biggest recording mishaps (looking at you, Parker 👀), celebrate hitting over 1,000 podcast downloads, (because we lost it att and started from scratch) and look ahead to everything we have planned for Season Two.

Whether you've been with us since the beginning or just recently found the podcast, thank you for being part of our little corner of the romance community. Your downloads, reviews, messages, and support mean more than you'll ever know.

While we're taking a short summer break from our regular schedule, we're not disappearing! We'll still be dropping bonus episodes, re-released author interviews, event coverage from Smutmas in the Smokies, and plenty of unhinged chaos while we get everything ready for Season Two.

Don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, and send us your favorite romance book recommendations because let's be honest...our TBR can always get longer.

We'll see you in Season Two, Book Nerds. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:31

What's up, Book Nerds? Welcome to What the Smut Are You Talking About podcast. We are a weekly romance book podcast where we talk about books and chaos. So yeah, pretty much anything goes.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Join us as we talk about the books we are reading, what crazy shenanigans are happening in our lives, and who knows, we may have some fun guests drop by.

SPEAKER_02 0:52

So grab your favorite snacky snack and your beverage of choice and come hang out and see what the smut we are talking about this week.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Hey, hey, listeners! How's it going? Hey Courtney. Hi. Can you believe that this is our end of season one recap? We are at the end of season one.

SPEAKER_02 1:21

I know that is insane. I it's hard to believe it. It's like it's felt like the longest season, but also the quickest season.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Exactly. Exactly. It felt like the first half of this year has just flown by, but at the same time, I'm like, we're still going. We still have stuff to record.

SPEAKER_02 1:43

I know. So how so busy.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

We have. How's it? How's it felt being being back after your break, your much needed break last year? How are you feeling?

SPEAKER_02 1:55

Doing good. I was scared to come back, but just because I know how much it takes. But it's been such a treasure to have have you on to help with the editing and the planning and the social media stuff. Like it's been so great. The break was hard for me. Like, because I had this feeling like if I took the break, I was like, I'm not gonna come back and do this. Because I am I am one that definitely like gives up very, very easily on projects. So yeah, it's been it's been great. It's been fun. We've had a lot of fun these last few months.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

We have, it's been a lot of laughs. I there are some episodes where I don't think I've laughed so hard than what I did when we were recording.

SPEAKER_02 2:38

I know we have had the best time, and we we have had so many great guests too. Like it's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

It is completely.

SPEAKER_02 2:47

Well, how are you feeling, Mary? Since you know, um this is your first time podcasting. How how's it going?

SPEAKER_01 2:53

It's I would say it's going really well, better than I thought it was going to be. And I don't, I don't know that I had expectations per se, but definitely one of those things where it was like, shit, did I do the right thing or not? And I'm happy to say I feel like I did. And you and I just kind of meshed and vibed. Like we knew from that initial call that we clicked, obviously, two and a half hours later after a phone call together. But I feel like this has been, don't get me wrong, it's a lot of work for us. Like you said, editing and posting to socials and getting an organization of like a calendar of what we're posting and you know, getting our big girl shit together. But reading, all the reading. We have reading, all the reading, which is fun. It's all fun, but I think it's been, it almost feels like it's been easy just because of how well we mesh together. And where one of us is like, Oh, I'm having a shit week, you know. Can you do X, Y, and Z? And the the other one of us is normally like, Yeah, I got you, you know, hang tight, kind of thing. So it's been, it's been a lot of, a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_02 4:08

For sure. And it's funny because like I was talking to my best friend earlier, and she was talking about how like she was listening to another episode. She's like, you know, Mary's been a great addition to this season. Oh, thank you. Thank you. I know for real. Thank you. Yeah, so um, it's definitely, it's definitely been a breath of fresh air. So I'm excited to see where we can take this. And our growth this season has been crazy. Yeah. Um, because you know, we lost all of our downloads. I know we transitioned, and so it's been it's been fun to see like how quickly we have grown it. So for it.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

And I love that we are able to add our little flair at the beginning and re-release the episodes that you took all the time to do over the past years. So listeners are getting to fall back in love with those original episodes, and we just, you know, chime in our unhinged thoughts at the beginning and leave them, leave them to the chaos that transpires.

SPEAKER_02 5:15

Yes. And they're getting a little treat because my editing has gotten way better since I first released. Definitely.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

Well, do you have any biggest surprises of the season? I don't know that I had a big surprise of the season. I think, I think some of the fun is actually going to be coming for season two for our listeners, because for me, some of the biggest surprises were the people who said yes to us and who we have coming down the pipe that listeners haven't heard yet.

SPEAKER_02 5:48

Yes. So excited. So excited.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

How about how about you? What's what's your uh biggest surprise from this season?

SPEAKER_02 5:56

I think, well, either like podcast-wise is how much I was able to let go because you know, I'm very type A. I don't like to delegate. So that's saying a lot that I can let go of some of my some of my stubbornness and some of, you know, I'm relinquishing some some responsibilities. So that has been been a surprise to myself.

SPEAKER_01 6:21

And I think that speaks to how well we work together, though.

SPEAKER_02 6:25

Yes, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 6:27

I really do because because I'm like you, I'm type A on some things, but I think we've been able to like meld together and bring out each other's strengths and and combine and work together. That, you know, listening to our episodes, and I do listen to all of our episodes after they go live, that you can't tell some of the you can't tell which one of us edited it. And I think that I think that speaks to how how one, how well you showed me the ropes, and two, just how well we work together is that the editing feels seamless no matter which episode you listen to. Like listeners can guess, they can see which one of us did it, but I don't even know that we remember which one of us did it.

SPEAKER_02 7:11

That that's for sure. As far as guest-wise, I still can't get over the fact that, you know, we got Chris Abroadbent at the very beginning as like a bonus before season one officially started. And then Sarah Kate, like I was still blown away. Yes. So tell me, do you have a book that surprised you this season?

SPEAKER_01 7:36

I would probab man, that's so hard. What books have I read this season from who we've had on? I would say, I would say From Rome with Hate was one of my favorite ones that surprised me, but also probably what surprised me the most was Victoria Wilder and her books. And I knew, like, let me be honest, I knew Victoria is awesome from meeting her. I knew the stories were going to be great, but my pre-romance reading self who loved crime and suspense and all of that is just foaming at the mouth for her stories. I can't just get enough of that.

SPEAKER_02 8:19

It's yeah, she's so good at it.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Yes, she is. She really, really is.

SPEAKER_02 8:25

I'm gonna have to say for me, it was F1 racing. You know, we had Carly on, and I was like brutally honest, and I was like, listen, this is not my jam. I loved her hockey, but I was like, F1 racing, that's that's not for me. But you know, I picked up SJ Sylvis's newest series. Yeah. So now, so now I'm ready to dive back into Carly's world.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

So I can I loved Carly's F1 series, and I have to say, I've read I read F1 wasn't normally a series I have read either. So I'm with you there. Like it normally wasn't something I picked up a long time ago. I did read The Driven trilogy by Kay Bromberg. And I mean, we're talking, these came out like 2016. So I read 10 years ago. So I read them back then, and I was like, her not anything against her writing. I was like, I don't know that I'm an F1 fan in my romance books. At that time, I was just reading whatever I could to see what I liked. And then I read SJs, I read Overtake, and of course, I'm a huge SJ fan ever since her very first book when I arc read that. And then Carly's series was absolutely hilariously fun. I I fell in love with Carly's series, the Drive Me series. And I I don't think I laughed so hard with Drive Me Crazy. Like that was probably one of the funniest books I've read of 2026 so far.

SPEAKER_02 9:59

That is that is awesome. Yeah. I think the funniest author story that we had was during our Ciel Rose interview, um, when she shared her Reddit thread. Oh my gosh, yes. Learning about Dick Piercing.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

I know. You put that on there, and I was like, yes, that was the most because all that it entailed with the piercings and Reddit and people just coming out of the woodwork commenting on Reddit, like not even dropping private DMs, just commenting on Reddit with pictures and never laughed so much about that. I mean, I'm sure I would be mortified if that happened to me. I wouldn't, I don't even know how I would keep a straight face, but I would die of embarrassment. But yes, that was definitely probably a funny, funniest author story we had, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 10:52

Yeah, I feel like Candace's interview and then La Serena's interview were two of my most favorite just because of how unhinged and funny they were.

SPEAKER_01 11:03

I agree wholeheartedly. Like, I mean, asking to pick a favorite interview is kind of like asking to pick a favorite child, kind of like asking to pick a favorite book. You just can't. But those were so fun. And La Serena, it felt like we were just having a meeting with a bestie, yeah, and chit-chatting away. And the same with Stacey and Candace and so many and Amber and just so many we had on this season, you know, we got to chat with them, and it felt just like we were sitting around, sipping our drinks, having a little chit-chat, some unhinged chaos in the mix. But it was just all of it was so fun. Yes, for sure. And we did, we do have a little bit of emotion in our interviews, and not all of our emotions make the cut into what listeners hear. And some of that is, you know, just our respect for the authors and things of that nature. But I would say we definitely had one of our emotional moments with Stacy. Having her on a on the podcast and just chatting with her and her journey and things that she has going on.

SPEAKER_02 12:24

Yes. We left a little bit that she said was okay in there. But yeah, I and honestly, like I picked up my phone to message her this morning just because she was on my mind, just to see, like checking in, seeing how she's doing. But then work got crazy. So I still need to message her.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

Which I think it's, you know, Stacy. That emotional moment also led to one of our moments of what I think was the best advice for our listeners and anybody who is interested in writing and publishing was Stacy said, How do you you get asked how do you publish a book? And she said, Audacity, that you just have the audacity to do it. And that is probably one of the best pieces of advice and most memorable moments for me that I just knew that that that stuck out to me.

SPEAKER_02 13:16

Oh, yeah, for sure. That was, and I want to say, like, I even clipped that and put it on our Instagram, like just because it was such great advice. I I agree that that one took the cake on it.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

Yes, definitely.

SPEAKER_02 13:31

And then we had so much chaos this season. It was definitely on theme for this season. Um, along with chaos was our unhinged moments. Um that was like a fun segment we added.

SPEAKER_01 13:45

I love that segment. I think it is perfect and blends with our chaos in our reading and our interviews and all across the board of who we are.

SPEAKER_02 13:57

I think for season two, we need we need to change it up just a little bit and do like our unhinged rants of the week. Yes. Yes. I like that. At the end, it was getting more of just being us wanting to vent and rant on what is going on in our lives, which has been amazing.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

Which, hey, you know, part of reading and book community is having your unpaid therapist besties to share the ranting and unhinged thoughts that you have. Yeah. So what was your best or most favorite unhinged moment? I think probably when I said fuck the mental load, because as women, we are fully aware of how the mental load can affect us and how we function. And then all our unhinged thoughts, I went back and looked, and I would say probably 80% of our unhinged thoughts surrounded food. And so love it. So I had to, I had to include all of our unhinged thoughts from the season shaping around food and mostly Mexican and queso. I know.

SPEAKER_02 15:04

I know. I love me some Mexican food and queso.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

And what to make for dinner for the night. If I never had to figure out what to make for dinner for the rest of my life, I would be a happy, happy woman.

SPEAKER_02 15:16

Yeah. I don't care to cook it. I just don't want to figure it out.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

Facts. Facts. I I agree. You tell me what you want for dinner, I will cook it. And I will not complain and I will eat it, even if it's not what I really wanted for dinner. Because I didn't have to put any mental load thought into what's going on for dinner. Exactly. We can move into looking at our numbers for season one. So I will let you take it away, Courtney, of some of the fabulous stats that we've had.

SPEAKER_02 15:48

Yeah. So this season we had 22 episodes released. Oh, which is crazy. Yeah. We originally planned for like 12, but but in this, you know, we had five re-released episodes. We had two bonus episodes, and then just some intro. We had an intro episode at the beginning. So yeah, it's now this one at the end.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

It's awesome. It's yeah, it's been a ride. And we lost count after two of the number of books we discussed on the episodes, because let's be honest, there were so many books.

SPEAKER_02 16:27

Girl, I cannot keep up. Our best discussions went when we started like going down the rabbit hole of something else that reminded us of a different book. So even though we went in with the intentions of talking about one or two books, like ten books later.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

Yes, so many. Like our comfort reads like that turned into way more than just one book.

SPEAKER_02 16:53

I know, I know. We had so many. And since that aired, I I went back and re-listened to the Wolf Hotel series. Yeah, I was like, yeah, I need I need to do that. And we had nine amazing author interviews this season.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

So yes, yes. And we have a couple of bonuses coming up after this episode airs over the summer with some with some authors too to add to our list.

SPEAKER_02 17:22

Yes, that's gonna be a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01 17:24

And our most popular downloaded episode was this is still a smut book. I had to take some liberties, was your interview with author Sloane St. James. So this was a this was one that you had released before before I joined the chaos.

SPEAKER_02 17:42

Yes. So this was uh during our it was right before season one, like we started over with season one released, and I was like building out our new platforms and we switched hosting sites, and so and we immediately lost everything, and I I quickly threw up like four of the most popular interviews I did, um and just so we could could have something out there with our name on it. Yes, so yeah, and I'm I'm so glad I chose Sloane's because her her and her family, they went through a lot last year. Yes, yes. With with her husband's health journey, and it's just fun to re-listen to that. Um I hope we can uh reach out to Sloan and have her back on the show. I would love to have her back on. She is su she's such a vibe.

SPEAKER_01 19:15

Yes, yes. We should note that one of our milestones we reached was we had over a thousand podcast downloads this season.

SPEAKER_02 19:24

Yes, since since starting over. Yes, that was going back to zero was hard. It was really hard because I worked so hard. You worked really hard, yeah. Yeah, so we de we we hit that milestone really early, and I was so excited just to see the momentum because I thought it was gonna take a hot minute because we've been gone for so long to to get those downloads back up.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

But uh yes, for sure. For sure, and our most shared episode so far has been Kinks Chaos and Sports Romance, an unhinged chat with author C. L Rose, which is no surprise to me.

SPEAKER_02 20:03

No, not at all.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

We had so much fun during that episode, and since the funniest author story moment made it from her episode, I am not surprised that that's our most shared.

SPEAKER_02 20:16

Yeah. Well, also, like her episode was also right at the sweet spot before our big girl jobs took over our lives. Yeah. So like we were still like promoting like hardcore episodes, but then like life happened, and so which I want to get back to giving up. But so I think that helped a lot, but then just her team.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

Yeah, they did an amazing job helping to share too.

SPEAKER_02 20:46

Yeah, they shared everywhere, and yeah, it was it was fun. It was fun to see to see that episode get so much longer. All right. Well, the number of times Diet Coke was mentioned because low-key goal is to have Diet Coke sponsor us somehow. That that's a big, big high dream, but it was mentioned 20, 27 times in season one.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

Nice, nice. I think we need to up it to like 100 for season two. And we had obviously all of our authors on have been amazing. We've had two USA Today bestsellers and a New York Times bestselling author on so far this season, along with many authors who have topped charts in Amazon and are doing fabulous things, getting signed for trad publishing, as well as just killing it in their corner of the indie market.

SPEAKER_02 21:47

For sure. We've had so many great authors, and I love, I love, love, love looking at Accolades. So that is so exciting.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

And we had a debut author too. We did, which is so awesome to see a new author publish a book and get information out to our listeners and readers to find someone new.

SPEAKER_02 22:11

Yes, and I can't wait for season two because we have so many cool connections we've made over the last, you know, few months. And I I've been more active on threads, which is sometimes a blessing and a curse. But I've been able to connect with more authors that like I don't I've never even heard of. And because I feel like, you know, with Instagram, it only shows you like the same people over and over again on your feed. Right. So I haven't been able to like really discover new newer authors or authors that is out of my normal realm, but I've connected with so many on threads, and um, I can't wait for the chaos to ensue the season.

SPEAKER_01 22:52

Same. It is going to be it is going to be unhinged.

SPEAKER_02 22:56

Yes, yes, yes, yes. Well, that leads us to our behind the scenes confessions. So I I was definitely looking forward to this. I'm so glad we added this.

SPEAKER_01 23:08

I know, I know. And I'm gonna let you take our funniest recording mishap because you've got one and then I have another. I have one I can add for me.

SPEAKER_02 23:18

Okay. So I still want to do like a bloopers reel, like because it's we have some great ones, I feel like. But it was when which let me let me pull my list up here. And I may try to get fancy with the editing and try to put this blooper in this one. But if not, I'm sorry. I tried. But it was during episode four and we were recording The Hot Shot by Piper Rain, the steamy baseball romance that will be your next obsession is the title of the episode. But there's so many names because there's so many characters in that book. But and a lot of them go by their last names. And for some reason, I had it in my head that one of the boys was named Parker. And I just kept on saying Parker. I know.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

And I'm like, no, that's not it. Can't tell you how many times I said it.

SPEAKER_02 24:11

Because it was a side character in in book one. But yeah, I was like, Parker did this. And you're like, who? I know. Oh my gosh. I can't remember. And like you said, they brought Parker in, like, and then you throw Parker in at left field. And Foster. I'm I'm thank you. Who's Parker?

SPEAKER_00 24:30

I have no idea. That's our last name.

SPEAKER_02 24:33

It could be. Where was that the first time I said Parker? Do you know?

SPEAKER_00 24:36

I think you said it two or three times.

SPEAKER_02 24:38

You might have to go back and just record. You might have to go back and just insert Foster. Um, I can't wait to learn more about the brothers. And I already want to call him Parker again. Damn it. And I'm like, motherfucker, who is it? And I was I was so hoping for Decker. And then, of course, I had to go um immediately to Parker Rain's Instagram page. And Piper. Did I say Parker again? Fuck me, Mary. Why? Why?

SPEAKER_00 25:14

I don't know. I don't know. But it definitely made me laugh.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

And I know mine, my blooper was with the boy garden in bloom with our baseball racks. Is I referred to the main character in mine about a pitcher, and he's a catcher. And I was like, oh, we're just we're just given this series of pictures. And after it released and it aired, I was like, my my friend who wrote this book is going to look at me and be like, Mary, what what the hell? I'm like, can we go back and edit because it's a catcher, not a pitcher.

SPEAKER_02 25:50

Yes. You know what? I don't think I've edited that yet. I need to go back and do it.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

It's all right. It can live in infamy as my recording mishap. We we will be fine. We will be fine. And speaking of mishaps, we would be amiss if we did not discuss my editing mishap where I had all but five minutes of an episode left to edit, and I lost all of it. And I will never forget when I messaged you. I was so pissed. I was like, I want to cry. I want to scream. I want to throw Riverside out the window. But yeah, that was that was definitely a mishap where I was like, what is going on?

SPEAKER_02 26:34

And it was down to the wire too. Like it was like supposed to release like in 2014. In a day.

SPEAKER_01 26:41

Yes. Yes. I was supposed to have it done Sunday night. And then I went in to finish it on Sunday and lost all of my edits for it. And thank God, Courtney, she's like, I got you. She's like, I'm gonna do this. And she got the edit done for that episode. Thank God, because I think I'm going to shoot my laptop and scream into the nether.

SPEAKER_02 27:01

Yeah. Chunk it.

SPEAKER_01 27:03

Yes. Hit it with the flamethrower.

SPEAKER_02 27:06

I mean, Riverside has has its perks, but it definitely has its quirks. Has its quirks as well. Yeah, for sure. Um, I'm surprised we didn't have as many reschedules as I know we did. We only had two people reschedule. One was due to a sickness, and but then Amber's hers was just crazy because she needed no, I think we originally discussed rescheduling with her because it was of a baseball game.

SPEAKER_01 27:33

And then and then I and then the date she picked, the date she picked, I had obligations. Uh yeah. But thankfully, thankfully, we have you're right, we haven't had to reschedule many. And that's been that's been a blessing for a lot of reasons that we've been able to work with the authors and find times that work for them as well as us.

SPEAKER_02 27:56

Yes, yeah. I'm so thankful. So thankful. Because there have been many, many times that we've had to reschedule like crazy. And shooting our shot, that's been that's been definitely a big thing for us this season. Um because we reached for the stars and we did. We did, and we got told no a lot, which is okay. And we've had some amazing guesses. And I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 28:20

I think when we're I think when we're told no, that it it's leading us to the yes that's meant to be at the time for us. Exactly. Like you said, the the yeses have been the guests who have said yes and come on have been just phenomenal.

SPEAKER_02 28:34

Yes, for sure. Something new this season. We had two people ghost us. I've never had anyone ghost us, but hey, that's okay. We know life gets in the way. But please, please, please, if something changes, you're not gonna hurt our feelings. No.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

Just let us know. Don't leave us hanging. Agreed. We don't like the cliffhanger, only in our books.

SPEAKER_02 28:54

Yep. And then we had two people politely decline, which is a-okay. I like when people are nice.

SPEAKER_01 29:01

And then we had we had five no responses. And I know we got one maybe, so we'll keep our fingers crossed there. And we got one that said, get back when we're bigger. Everybody has to start somewhere, even our debut authors and even debut podcasters. So, you know, little people matter. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 29:24

Exactly. But hey, that just makes me want to shoot even higher.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

For sure. I would love shouting this out to our listeners. I would love if by the end of season two we have over 3,000 downloads.

SPEAKER_02 29:39

That would be amazing. I think we can do it.

SPEAKER_01 29:41

I think we can do it. I think our listeners can do it. So, listeners, you can't just you have to hit that download on wherever you stream your podcast. Like, hit the download button too, because that's what's gonna make the difference.

SPEAKER_02 29:55

Yes. I need to go back and look how many listens we actually had. Definitely. Yeah, so for non-podcasting people, you have downloads, which is what everybody like basically rates it on, and then you have listens. So you get a listen as long as they listen to, I think it's like the first 20% of the episode or something like that. Listen are important in their own way, but when it comes to getting guests of certain sizes, when it comes to getting ad deals and all that fun stuff, they're they're wanting to know the actual downloads.

SPEAKER_01 30:33

Yes. It's kind of like it's kind of like when an author reaches a hundred reviews on Amazon. It's the equivalent of that. Because once an author gets that first hundred reviews on Amazon, Amazon will start promoting and pushing it more.

unknown 30:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:47

And it's the same, it it's not, it's the same thing for us. Like, like listens for us is the same thing as star ratings and downloads is the same thing as reviews.

SPEAKER_02 30:57

Right. But also podcasts have ratings and reviews too. And so if you have a favorite podcast, please, please, and it doesn't even have to be us. Like, if you have a favorite podcast, go give them a rate at at the minimum. Give them that five-star rating if you listen to them every day. Because when it comes to like the podcast algorithm, when it's like trying to get you in like the top 200, which is consisted of like the top charts, like it's a mixture of how many downloads you're having in the first seven days, it how many reviews you're getting, how many ratings you're getting. So it's very, very important, especially for indie podcasts. Like, go go give give them some of us. Because I would say at least 80% of the podcasts that are in the top charts are like equivalent to like what a tr traditional author is. Like they they have some kind of production company like pushing them. Some kind of media market backing them. Yes. Yep. So only about 20% of those that's in the top 200 are indie podcasts. So just giving a little FY.

SPEAKER_01 32:10

And that's that is a goal. We will be there. One day. One day, we will be there. I'm not, I'm not, I am not speaking negative into the void. We will be up there one day.

SPEAKER_02 32:21

And then, you know, for next season, we are going on a little bit of a break, but we will still be releasing some bonus content.

SPEAKER_01 32:28

I was gonna say we say that, but we Do we ever we say that, but the reality is, listeners, that you're going to get re-released old episodes. So you'll hear both of us coming on for the re-release. We have bonus episodes that some of them are authors, and some of them are going to be us talking about our experience at Smutmus and the Smokies. That's right. That's going to be fun. Courtney and I get to meet in person for the first time, which let's be honest, we've video talked, we've talked, we've texted, we've voice noted. So it's just going to be the awkward, neat, cute that you know you hope and love for besties.

SPEAKER_02 33:08

So but like I feel like I've known you forever.

SPEAKER_01 33:11

Oh, same, same. I'm just awkward in person. That's that's all.

SPEAKER_02 33:15

And we have 61 episodes to re-release, which I've already done one, two, three, four, five, six, seven of them. But uh yeah, so we've got lots, lots of good episodes to re-release. And if you're a longtime fan, let us know which episodes you think we should bring back.

SPEAKER_01 33:37

Yes, definitely.

SPEAKER_02 33:39

It's really hard. Yes, yeah, it's really hard to figure out when to re-release these. Yeah, so we say we're taking a break, but we're still gonna be putting out some some content. And then season two will premiere on Tuesday, September 8th. So mark your calendars now. Go follow us on wherever you listen to podcasts so it automatically downloads and all the fun stuff. And give us a rate and review if you haven't yet.

SPEAKER_01 34:08

Please, please, please, please, please. And also, we plan to bring you, which let's be honest, this could change because our unhinged chaos could get more chaotic. But we so far for season two have nine author interviews, one narrator, so all our audio listeners, you definitely don't want to miss that episode. And we plan to bring you three book rec episodes, which possibly might include a deep dive into a book.

SPEAKER_02 34:41

Yes, and then we have our first male guest coming on next season. That's gonna be really fun. That is, that's gonna be so fun. I can't wait. I cannot wait. And then two events. Uh, like you said, we're both gonna be at Smutmus and the Smokies in Nashville on July 18th. And then Mary will be at a Meet and Greet Cue in Knoxville on July 25th. So um if you see us out in the wild, please say hi. We're gonna try to do some content while we're at these events. You never know what will happen. But yeah, we'll definitely have stickers. So if you see us, ask for a sticker.

SPEAKER_01 35:21

I know. And if you see us, be sure. I got bookmarks for us. Definitely. And be be sure to be sure to say hi to us. And who knows, maybe maybe we'll have some fun other surprises to you. Well, listeners, huge thank you for joining us for season one, and a huge thank you to our loyal listeners who have stuck around since Courtney began this journey a few years ago. We love having you on this ride for us. We hope that you enjoyed our recap, and definitely drop in the comments or hit us up on Instagram. Let us know if there's other questions you'd like us to be asking authors, if there's unhinged thoughts you'd like us to share, and what books you're reading over the summer, because hey, our TBR list can never get too long.

SPEAKER_02 36:12

Yes, give us the summer, summer lake rex. I'm here for it. And a huge, huge, huge thank you to all of our authors that came on for season one. We had Stacey Hart, Carly Robins, C.L. Rose, Lakin Rhodes, Jennifer Chipman, La Serena McMaster, Victoria Wilder, Sarah Kate, and Amber Cordova. So thank you, thank you, thank you for spending time out of your busy, crazy days to come yap with us.

SPEAKER_01 36:46

Thank you to everyone who helped make season one possible. And especially thanks again to all of our listeners. Courtney and I are beyond thrilled to have you on this journey with us. And shout out to my hubby for our awesome music. Yes, yes, our intro and outro.

SPEAKER_02 37:04

All right. Well, I'm sure we will be causing chaos at our events this summer. And you just stay tuned because we'll still be dropping bonus content, like we said, and go follow our newsletter or sign up for our newsletter because you'll know everything there first.

SPEAKER_01 37:22

Yep. Until next time, listeners, happy summer. Bye! In the meantime, you can catch us causing chaos over on Instagram at WhatThesmut Podcast, and me personally at On Point Digital Services.

SPEAKER_02 37:37

And I'm over on Instagram at Courtney Leanne. If you want to join us for a chat, there's a form linked in our notes. So be sure to fill that out because we would love to hear from you.

SPEAKER_01 37:46

If you enjoyed today's episode, please consider leaving us a review. Reviews help other smut readers find us, and honestly, they make our chaotic hearts very happy.

SPEAKER_02 37:56

And if you really love this podcast and want to show support, we've got a listener support link at our show notes. Supporters get shout outs, special giveaways, and maybe even some exclusive chaos you can't find anywhere else. We also have sponsorship opportunities as well.

SPEAKER_01 38:12

Thanks for tuning in, and we'll catch you guys next time.