S03.05: The Eras Tour (Romance Your TBR's Version)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
For Sim's character, he's kind of like...

(00:02):
Just rockin'.
Just vibing.
Yes.
Disgusting. I haven't had hot water since Monday.
What?
No.
Which was really bad because I went to the gym
and then I came back and I went to shower
and there was no hot water.
And I was like, cool, this is exactly
when I needed this.

(00:24):
The gym doesn't happen to have a shower,
do they?
I do, but I didn't
know that I
would have needed to shower there.
So I've been sponge bathing
like a sickly Victorian
child.
You're in your sickly Victorian child
era, it's fine.
Oh yeah.

(00:46):
Love it.
Love cosplaying.
You don't get stuck with a hot,
non-toothless duke.
You just have to
bathe.
Like they did back then.
At this point, like,
I would take a hip bath
but only if it was

(01:08):
warm water.
I honestly didn't know what a hip bath
was until I think it was
Lydia Lloyd romance.
She like shared a post
and it had like a graphic
and I was like, you're telling me
that's what a hip bath is?
And I was like, I guess it's all in the name.
What's in a name?

(01:30):
What's in a name?
But truthfully,
I didn't realize
that all of you is just out.
Except
the hips.
Did your screen just do the little thumbs up thing?
No.
Mine had like a little thumbs up popped up on your
screen when you did something.
Have you seen like the

(01:52):
FaceTime?
Like, has your phone, do you have the
newest like updated phone or whatever?
I did, but I don't think I've FaceTime since then.
Oh, well it has like little
reactions where like if you do a thumbs
up, it'll like pop a little thumbs up
on the screen. If you do a
piece sign, yeah, you
had a little thumbs up pop up.
What?

(02:14):
It does that in reels.
Like if I'm like filming like a video,
and like you can like, I
accidentally hit like reactions
or something, and then if I make like a thumbs up, it'll
do like a thumbs up and it scares the shit out of me every time.
I don't know why this
website is doing that.
Yeah, that was weird. And mine
clearly isn't doing it.
Cause

(02:36):
I don't know. That was weird.
Huh.
One main character moment for me.
Yeah. Hello, throbbing members.
Welcome to Romancer TBR.
It is us. Back like we promised.
We're here.
You know we made it.
We did. Last week was the week we held.

(02:58):
I'm proud for me. So.
Honestly, this week we even did a newsletter.
And this week I don't have hot water.
So.
Yeah, we. Doing great. I thought
in myself,
I was writing in my notes up at
2am eras
as romance books.
Just so I wouldn't forget apparently.
And then I texted Carolina the next day.

(03:20):
And for some reason I thought that would be easy.
I don't know. Well what's funny is I was
also thinking that. We mind melded.
Look at that. Love that for us.
No, it wasn't easy.
It was harder than picking books for songs.
Yeah. And
I think it's cause I just get so hyper fixated
on like songs.
That it

(03:42):
fucks with me. Cause I'm like
and then I wanted to pick songs
that I had already chosen
for
like some of the songs. I was like I can't do that.
And I think two of my choices ended up being
ones that you had chosen for like
specific songs. And I had like went back to like
read our
or like look at our social posts
for a few of them after I picked mine. I was like

(04:04):
oh so Caroline picked I think it was like
the Wisteria or the League of Gender
Women witches and
one other one. I was like that makes sense.
They are very like the album.
So
yeah it was tricky.
I mean at least with the earlier albums I did have
I had already done
my like historical romance. I was jealous of you.
I was jealous of you. I was posting on Instagram.

(04:26):
Well and so I already had like I had sorted out
what I thought the thematic ties
for each album were.
But in the later one, once I got
to like folklore I was like
oh boy. Yeah.
Yeah. And I had like I have a whole
spreadsheet in Google
Sheets of like all the Taylor Swift songs.
And like I have it divided into like historical
romance and like contemporary just because I

(04:48):
know we do these for
historical. And so it just kind of like
gets my thoughts down. If I read a book I can just like put it
in there so then when we get to that album.
But none of them
I think that I had ended up being
my pick which was great for
me. Loved that.
Same thing for the contemporary. I didn't
have a lot in that sheet.
And again none of them ended up being

(05:10):
the one. So if you did
if you're not subscribed to our newsletter you probably
don't know what we're talking about. Yeah why not?
But last Friday
because I had the week from hell we went with a newsletter
or Saturday actually
because heaven forbid I do anything on time.
Oh that's right it went out Sunday morning.
We wrote it on Saturday.
Yeah. Yeah. God. Okay.

(05:32):
We paired
historical romances. Each of us picked
a historical romance to pair with each
Taylor Swift era in honor of
the era's tour movie streaming.
And as promised
in said newsletter today we're going to go quickly
back over those. Hopefully since we've already
written that we're not going to spend a lot of time
I say staring into my own eyes
as reflected back to me.

(05:54):
Pull yourself together
self. But also
we're
going to do a contemporary pick
for each era also.
Also we're going to do an era also
that. There's just a lot of words
coming out of my mouth right now.
We're also picking contemporary rex
for each era. Which
was harder. Which was not in the newsletter.

(06:16):
And which was so much harder.
You would think it would be easier.
Yeah.
Yeah. I wanted to put like. It's because we haven't read as many.
Yeah. What one's the
I had the most for like 1989
and reputation. That was the one I struggled with
interestingly. Weird.
With both of those. Well but also
I was like limiting
myself to only one author.

(06:38):
Or one book per author.
And the thing is there are some authors where like I could
give an album. Actually I could give multiple
songs. I could do a whole Taylor Swift playlist
for each of Emily Henry's books.
But I was like
okay I have to pick one. Like I cannot
just make all of the albums Emily
Henry books. Yeah.
I'm thinking since you know
you could do that. And I've got like

(07:00):
lists I guess
of these. And like some in
because I had other picks for some of the
historical ones we chose. And I had to narrow them down.
We could like if we ever run out of ideas
for newsletters we could always do like a newsletter
per album.
Oh god. And just like
add a few in.
They don't have to be a lot. But I feel like that
would be

(07:22):
nice. It'd be
easier I think because you wouldn't have
to limit as strategically. Like if you
have to go between two you'd just pick both.
But yeah.
I feel like that would be fun. Exactly.
Exactly. Alright let's get into it.
You girl is sleepy.
Schlappe.
She's a sleepy girl. Alright.
Oh yeah. Oh sorry.

(07:44):
I cut off before who we are.
Just in case someone doesn't know who we are.
I did. I'm Caroline. So I cut you off
again. And just again. Say it one more
time. I'm Caroline.
Cool. And I'm Hannah.
I thought you weren't going to say who you were
first. I was like okay. It's
just me. Just
putting you in the spotlight. You have to be Jule.
Just you. It's fun.

(08:06):
Best believe. Yes.
Okay. Now go into your
Taylor Swift. My
historical romance pick as
you will know if you read the newsletter
was Kit McBride Gets a Wife
by Amy Barry.
If you didn't. These are all based
pretty much entirely on vibes.
And the vibes

(08:28):
were so correct. It was sweet.
It was western.
She's finding her place in this world
which I believe was the lyric you picked for yours.
That's it.
That's my whole logic. It just
felt like the vibes. Yeah.
That one really does. For both of those
characters. They're both finding
things.
Yeah. I picked

(08:50):
I mean I started out with
the
what's the first one in the Wild
Winchester series? The Duke
Heist. Yes. By Erica Ridley.
So that's where I started. And I was like as I
was thinking about it. Okay. Every book in
the Wild Winchester series is about
these characters trying to find their
place in this world within their family.
But then outside of

(09:12):
the family. I mean the Duke
Heist is like I guess
the first one that I thought of. So
I didn't put it in the newsletter but that was
like my first one.
I just think that those books
are just so again like sweet and
very fun, playful.
But then they're still kind of dealing
with not necessarily like growing up
but I don't know. Finding

(09:34):
your place in this world.
Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
You were having micro
or headphone. I'm good.
It was it's just my bangs are pinned
back because. Yeah same. And then
they got flipped and then I looked like I
had a little little cockatoo.
Crest.
Contemporary.
This was so hard. I haven't read any

(09:56):
cowboy romances. Yeah I didn't
either. Like contemporary cowboy.
And I was like that's exactly what I need for this
recommendation and I haven't.
Mm hmm. Read them. Which hurts
my feelings. So instead I went
with actor age Eve Brown by
Talia Hibbert.
Why am I blanking on names?
Also basically for the
vibes of like she feels she's very

(10:18):
like I don't want to say naive
but I feel like she starts
the book not knowing
a lot about herself.
Yeah. Or like where
she fits into the world.
Is that two or three in the series? Number three.
Three. Okay. Yeah.
And over the course of the book
number one figures out
that she's neurodivergent and that

(10:40):
explains a lot about the way that she
interprets the things
around her and interacts with the world.
But also just like figures out
what she wants to be doing.
And where she wants her life
to go.
So that felt correct.
It's also very like young and whimsical
feeling to me.
Mm hmm. Yeah.

(11:02):
This one again was also
hard because it's a very
you know coming of age
album. But
I chose a second
coming of age.
And that is that's
oh my god. It's That Summer Feeling by Bridget
Morrissey.
Basically it's Safik, the
first heroine.

(11:24):
She goes to a
summer camp for adults because
she just got divorced and is
looking to kind of like find herself
again. Her name is Garland.
And then the
other
heroine is Stevie.
She's a little bit more outgoing.
She was a former park ranger. She's not
a cowboy, but she does wear she could wear

(11:46):
a hat in a past life. So for a
profession. But I feel
like the summer camp vibes like the summer feeling
like
it just kind of gives
her trying to find her place again
after her divorce
and all of that. And it's a very soft
like marshmallow book. It was
very good.
And very like vivid and

(12:08):
felt like nostalgic, which also gave me those
debut vibes.
Fearless.
Fearless.
I love that. I want to do this for every album.
I'm so sorry.
My historical pick
was Get The Off My Lawn
by Daria Vernon,
which is just such a fun novella. And I feel like
I bring it up every possible chance I get.

(12:30):
Even though I read it
at the beginning of
last year.
It's simply
so silly and
whimsical and fun.
That was the whole logic.
It felt very young and silly and whimsical
and fun. And like the whole there, they're like
two people who don't have a lot of fun. And then
they meet and they never want to have great sex.

(12:52):
But number two are like, whoa, I feel
so playful.
And it's got kind of like
a star-crossed lovers vibe.
So
there you have it.
I chose
Hather and the Prince by J.J. McAvoy
because that is the most fearless coded

(13:14):
book I have ever read in my life.
At least for historical. Like it was
so good. It's out.
You can read it. Definitely recommend
it. It really
just gave like the young love, like your first
love. Big emotions.
You're screaming. You're fighting.
You're kissing in the rain. Like all of that. It had
literally all of that.
Princess Diaries 2 comp. Literally

(13:36):
perfection. Her father
was not having it.
He went away for a while.
The hero, she had to like
wait for him to come. Like it's still a song
love story. But like
it's also fearless. Like I just
it's so good.
I love it so much.
It's like all of those songs
into one. And

(13:58):
yeah, there's just a
lot of big emotions. And they just felt like
as soon as they got together, like no one was going to
tell them that they couldn't be together.
It was them against the world.
And it felt like very
almost even like new adult. Because I think she was
like 20 and he was like 24.
So they were like very young. Even for
like historical romance that I
normally read. So they just

(14:20):
felt like tiny little babies.
So yeah.
Big fearless vibes.
For contemporary.
Listen, I had
no books for this.
I got
nothing. And so
I ended up being like
you know what?
This is just

(14:42):
vibes. I went with
The Kiss Quotient by Helen Wong.
And my only
reasoning for this is
that, listen, I read this book a million years
ago and I don't remember most
of it, but I do remember
that she becomes fearless
over the
and like very much gains.
A ponytail snap, like her ponytail holder snaps.

(15:04):
You don't remember that?
No. There's like a symbolic
like she always has her hair in a ponytail and then one day
it snaps. I don't remember that.
I do remember that he
is a male escort
and that she hires him to
teach her to have sex essentially.
And that it's
very hot. It's so hot.
It's so insanely hot.

(15:26):
Yeah.
And I just, she
started, she's just like very afraid
of everything. This is largely because
of her autism and the fact that
she, you know, not that
being autistic makes you
afraid, but like the way that it manifests
in her is she has a very strict
like way that she
engages with the world around her.

(15:48):
And he's like plot twist
though.
You could be having bangin' sex
and also learning to speak up
more. And she's like whoa.
She was like whoa. Maybe I will dirty talk.
You know?
And I think about rereading
that book a lot because yeah that was one of the first
like contemporary romances that I like read

(16:10):
after getting on Bookstagram.
So it's been a long time.
I chose a novella
because I just did.
So deal with it.
This is me to me.
I chose another one later on too.
It is A Risk Worth Taking
by Jessica Joyce.
One, what a

(16:32):
banger of a novella. I loved it
so much. I read it on
Christmas Day. It's only 78
pages, but it managed to be
like both hot and like
cute and very like emotional
basically.
They like make eyes at each other
at a bar.
I think she's maybe working at the bar
and then his company

(16:54):
is there.
And then whatever. And then they like meet outside
and they spend the weekend together
and then they spend the holidays. And I think
they ended up, I think
it's around New Year's Eve.
And then they kind of
have to like separate for a while.
But one, A Risk Worth Taking
just sounds like fearless. Like you gotta be
fearless. Her nickname is Claireful

(17:16):
because her name is Claire.
She just kind of has to like release those inhibitions
and feel the rain and
conner on her skin. She does.
It's just a very like
like you kind of gotta just like jump
then fall into that relationship because she was
like very hesitant.
And again
like it's a very short, it's like
78 pages and it did it all

(17:38):
in those 78 pages.
Yeah, I thought it was just like a very cute
relationship but also like very hot.
I was like, wow Jessica, get it.
Or give it, I guess.
To us for a Christmas present.
So true.
Speak now!
I love this journey.
I'm like roommates or something.

(18:00):
I'm trying not to be obnoxiously loud or else I would have belted it.
I picked one that you normally pick.
However, you picked your books before me on this newsletter
and I'm like, I'm not gonna do that.
I'm not gonna do that.
I picked your books before me on this newsletter
and I was like, my time has come.
It's my time to shine.
I can't not include
An Island Princess Starts a Scandal by Adriana Herrera.
One of us has to include it

(18:22):
every time we talk about Speak Now.
It is the law.
Because you're not allowed
to mention
Speak Now moments
and not include
that woman jumping on
his back and yanking on his hair
at the altar.
I literally had a whole paragraph.

(18:44):
I had that. All of it.
I know. And then in your thing you were like
I bet you're surprised that it was this book
and not another one. And I was like, don't worry, Queen.
It'll be included
regardless.
That's it. That's the whole
That's it. That's all I have to say.
I'm so excited for book three.
Yeah. I mean that book is perfect.

(19:06):
They both had to like
Speak Now in various different ways in that one.
But yeah, my choice was Say Yes to the Princess
by Sheris Michaels, which also like I didn't realize
like say yes, like speak yes.
Whatever.
Basically she
Ruff ruff.
Bark now. Basically
she is an exiled French princess

(19:28):
living in the English court. He is
the royal fixer. So he like
fixes all their problems. And she has become a
problem because she just found
relatable Queen. Yeah. Hi, it's
me. She
thinks she saw her brother
in town, which he's also
been exiled and lost to her for like 15 years.
And so
she now starts to kind of like

(19:50):
make a commotion and step out of line.
And so he's tasked with I think
like seducing her. But that man is the nicest
softest person seducing
her. Yeah. Yeah. As you do.
And I was like, hell yeah.
But then he was like, hell no. Like I'm not. I can't do
that. And
he is just the sweetest
person. And she has
she deals with anxiety issues and like their first

(20:12):
interaction. Well, their first like
intimate interaction is her just like
being hugged by him and licking his neck.
And I'm like, yeah, sometimes you gotta speak
now. Sometimes you gotta lick now. And that's
you know how it be.
Yeah. But there's a little
bit of a speak now moment. I think I mentioned it in
our speak now episode.
At the end, it's not
completely, but

(20:34):
he thought he was having his speak now moment.
So that's really all that matters.
Is that you're having your moment in
your head. I also have to say, I know you've read
the next book in that series,
The Ark. I have not.
And I don't want you to tell me anything about it
yet because I am not in a place where I can
read it. However, all
I know about it is from when she did
her cover reveal and she mentioned that he

(20:56):
is like
a lost
prince living in a cave
in the woods.
And now he's a rugged horse
whisperer. And I was like, say less.
Yeah, he is. That's the best thing I've
like, that's the level
that I think more historical
romance authors should reach
for. Like, oh,

(21:18):
he's a duke. Oh, he's got daddy
issues. No, he's a lost prince
living in a cave in the woods as a horse
whisperer. And he's a legit
recluse. Yeah, that's the level
of bonkers I want.
You're going to have a fun time with it. It was very
soft. Yeah.
And I was like, how is this going to work?
And like, I can't wait
till you read it because then we should do an episode

(21:40):
on these two books because I need to reread this
one. And then I will reread
that one when the audio comes out because I am
excited.
Contemporary. Yeah.
Once again, did I
have a good one for this? No, because the thing is
I love a speak now moment in a historical
romance, but in a contemporary,
if one character is
like dating, seeing, engaged

(22:02):
to another person for
too long, I hate
it. I don't think that
it works in contemporary romance almost
ever because there's never a good...
Like in historical, I think you can kind
of play with the like, you can't back out
of an engagement. Like, you
would be ruined. Maybe
the contracts are... whatever. I think
there are valid reasons to be engaged

(22:24):
to another person in a contemporary.
What? I was just going to say, I read...
Is it scandal
wears satin or something or
silk?
Silkus Resonection? Yeah.
And because like,
I wasn't sure I was going to like it because, you know,
he was...
Almost engaged. Oh, yeah.
Almost. That's an important...

(22:46):
But I loved that book. It was so good.
It was a good book.
Personally, I'm a huge
fan of her like,
store getting burned... No.
Yeah. Yeah, her store getting burned down.
And he
just moves them all into
his house. Yeah.
He's like, actually, you're living here now.
Because he was in denial

(23:08):
about so many things. Yeah.
It was so silly. It was so fun.
Yeah. That's a great book. It is.
Hmm.
I said it. In historicals, you can be engaged to
somebody else. And sometimes I'm
annoyed, but a lot of times I understand.
Contemporaries, if you are two
consenting adults, there is no reason
that you can't get out of
an engagement, someone that you're dating,

(23:30):
whatever. Like, no reason.
So I have no
speak now moments in a contemporary
romance. So instead,
I went with the like, fairy tale
vibes
with the fiance farce
by Alexandra
Belfour.
Yeah. Yeah.
I don't remember much about this book.

(23:52):
I do feel like one of the heroines was very shy
and had to, like, you know, have that
like, learn to use her voice moment.
But mostly, I just remember the Cinderella
vibes were strong.
And that's my whole reasoning.
That's all I got.
The one heroine has to, like,
be married or something for like an
inheritance, I think.
Yeah. And the other one, she like, lied

(24:14):
and claimed to be dating this famous
person or model,
cover model.
She was like, yeah, this is my girlfriend.
And then she actually showed up.
A classic
fake dating setup.
I mean,
wish that would happen to me in real life.
That's crazy. Yeah. No, I looked
at that one and I was like going through all my contemporary ones that I read.

(24:36):
I chose, again,
one with like a
speaking verb in it.
Who knew?
I didn't until now.
Say You'll Be Mine by Nana Kumar.
So I
read that one not too long ago.
And basically,
she's been in love
with, like, her

(24:58):
friend for the longest time.
And then now he's getting married.
Well, he wasn't,
I mean, he was in love with an idiot.
Oh, I had a better contemporary
pick I could have done.
Guys, I could have done
The Next Best Fling by Gabriella Gamas,
which is a book.
Being published in July by Forever.
I work for them.

(25:20):
It doesn't actually have a Speak Now moment.
It's the opposite of a Speak Now moment
because she's in love with her best friend.
Who's getting married
to someone else.
And his brother comes into town for the
wedding and she finds out that he's drunk
at their engagement party and he's going to crash it
because he's in love with the bride-to-be.
But she stops them.
This also takes place at a wedding because, like,

(25:42):
this guy's getting married and she's, like, planning
his wedding.
He's an idiot and a jerk and makes
her do everything. And she happens to
be his best man. And
she's being strung along. And so thank
God there wasn't a Speak Now moment
because I would have been like, girl,
get away from him.
He's horrible.
But she did have to find her voice.

(26:04):
She ended up with the right guy.
They were basically, like, set up by their
parents. And they
end up fake dating.
Or, like, a fake
engaged, even maybe.
To kind of
put their parents' pressure off. And then
because she's still kind of,
like, hung up on this dude.
So I just felt

(26:26):
that it was very
cute. You just really wanted to lock them in a room together
and make them kiss. Because it was definitely
very slow burn and she was hung up on the other
dude. But
I think she had her... She, like, got to
ream him out a little bit at the end.
She got to Speak Now to him.
And I appreciated that. And it felt very good.
That's true. Gabriella Kama's that one. She also gets to ream
somebody out.

(26:48):
Love it. Yeah. I love that. Both of those are
like wedding themes, too.
So, yeah.
That one was really good. It was a debut, too, which surprised me.
Red!
I love the
one second prep you do.
You have to prepare.
I have to get myself ready.

(27:12):
I want angst.
I want mess.
I want angsty.
I want second chances.
I want angst. I want mess.
I want messy, painful
ten minutes of being like
I fucking remember.
I feel like we maybe chose the same
contemporary.
I don't...

(27:34):
Maybe not. No, we didn't.
We totally didn't. You wouldn't have picked one.
Again, the magic
was my historical.
Because angst,
mess, second chances, people
spending like a decade
thinking about their lost love
who they...
One of them hates the other one, but do they...
Not really.

(27:56):
They just think they do and they need revenge, but
the revenge comes in the form of
fucking against a tree, relatable.
It's so messy
and so angsty.
And I go feral
a little bit every time I think about it.
That's it.
Subtract the tree, and then you describe private arrangements
by Sherry Thomas, which was my pick.

(28:18):
Subtract the tree,
add her thinking about shoving
her wedding ring
up her hoo-ha
to entice him to get back together
with her, which I think is...
I wish she would have done it.
I was so excited for her to have that moment
for herself. She didn't, but we were
close.
I just feel like, yeah, I needed messy,

(28:40):
angsty, absolutely
feral emotions
across the board. Both of them
were at fault at times. You saw
their beginning of the relationship
and it was so sweet, but then you knew she was
making the mistake, and it happened,
and it hurt so bad.
Yeah. Pain.
That book is pain.
The two authors that are going to hurt you.

(29:02):
Sherry Thomas and Lisa Klypins.
Yeah, I think we nailed
Red with the
historical. Just going to pat ourselves on the back.
I think we earned it.
My Contemporary is another book that
is published by Forever.
My usual disclaimer.
Forget Me Not.
I looked at that one too.
I didn't think you would because I know that you didn't like it as much as I did.

(29:24):
Yeah.
But it's a second chance
dual timeline,
but you get the
hero's POV in the past
and the heroine's POV in the present, which I
normally would not like that, but I like
it here.
It's also
just messy.
You spend a lot of the book trying

(29:46):
to piece together what the
big dramatic breakup thing was.
They're working together now.
There are a lot of feelings.
I had a lot of feelings.
We all had a lot of feelings.
And what is Red if not a lot of feelings?
That is so true.
And I also had a lot of feelings during
John It Goes Wild by Farrah Hagan.
That's a good one.

(30:08):
Which is also published by Forever.
Another second chance.
And thank God.
I thought I hadn't chosen any for Red because I did this
last night and then I
stopped thinking about it.
And then I told you I don't have anything for some of these.
And then I had this one. I was like, you know what?
We're going.
I knew in the part of me that I didn't need
anything else.

(30:30):
This one is one of like
because I'm not a huge second chance person,
especially in contemporary.
But this one hurt.
It was messy. It was tense.
Because basically they hook up
in the past.
And then they get pregnant.
But then they co-parent. So they're not like together.
But they're always reminded of each other.
Because they have to co-parent.

(30:52):
And so that's very
charged
with emotions.
And then they end up having to go on this like
wedding trip to
where do they even... where they end up going?
Tanzania.
Tanzania. And then there's like
tense and
tenseness. And like
I didn't want you to think I said

(31:14):
tense. They're intense.
And they're intense. Yes. Exactly.
Literally.
It just felt like
the story of like in a crowd...
just two people looking at
each other kind of like what the hell do we do now?
In Tanzania.
And just adding the daughter
into it. Like it was just

(31:36):
a very dramatic
angsty
like emotional book.
So that was my read.
1989.
She says it. I gotta say I was born
in 1989.
She's back again with another
Forever
Historical Romance, which has never met a dude like you.

(31:58):
But Amelie Howard.
I just...
What is 1989
if not an It Girl album?
I took a Forever One too. Look at that.
I love that for us.
What is 1989 if not an It Girl
album and who is...
I don't remember the heroine's
name, but she's based on Cher
slash Emma Cher from Clueless.

(32:20):
Cecilia or something? No.
I tell you right now
that's not it. I ruled one out.
Definitely.
The
visceral reaction I just had to that.
It's Vesper.
Vesper.
Not even close.

(32:42):
Not close at all, but...
Vesper who is inspired
by Cher from Clueless and Emma from
Emma. What do all of
those women have in common? They're It Girls.
She's
fashionable. Great wardrobes.
The glitz, the
glam. She also has a cat.
Just like Taylor.
Purr in her lap.

(33:04):
So true.
So true.
I chose another Forever One which was
A Rogue to Remember by Emily Sullivan.
This one was super hard.
1989 was the last one I chose for this.
I almost gave up.
I didn't want to do it. I was like I don't know.
We did a full album. I was like surely I
have... No.
It's hard. It was so hard.

(33:26):
And I just...
And then I was going back
through the years because I read this one
a long time ago. And I was like you know what?
She really did
just go to Italy and live
her best life and escaped
everything. Welcome to
Italy. It's been waiting for you.
She learned to paint. Not very
well, but she did it.

(33:48):
And then
this guy... Because it's Second Chance. So like
kind of. But yeah. It is
Second Chance. Yeah. They never
actually got together, but they were torn
apart. They were on the verge of it.
So that
I think solidified it for me when I was like
oh yeah. So he's coming back into her life.
And
then she's got to go road trip

(34:10):
with him back to England.
He's a hot professor.
That's his
alias, but he's like a spy.
I forgot about the professor alias.
He was so hot.
It just kind of felt like she
was finding her voice again. Like for
the first time because her
I think uncle or something, grandpa,
I don't know, was like very

(34:32):
overbearing
kind of and structured.
And she was finally able to kind of just
like go have her 1989 Icaro moment.
Yeah.
That was a really good book. And it's like
very like sparkling like 1989.
Like very, I don't know,
like the setting was a prominent
part of it. So yeah.
I was proud of myself when I

(34:54):
pulled that one out of the hat because I didn't
think it was coming.
I'm like in this moment I am
debating which one of these two I want to go with
because my contemporaries
were the hardest for this
one, which is funny because you would think I would just pick
a New York book. But unfortunately, I
don't have any that I liked for this.

(35:16):
Do you want me to go?
Well, I want to pick one
just because I just read it.
But the thing is, it's kind of cheating
because we haven't even put it on
NetGalley yet.
I don't think you can do that.
So like literally I'm just
You can drop it at the end of this

(35:38):
section for people here.
Okay. So I'm going to go with
Or save it for a newsletter when it's more
out in the middle. They're both formula one romances.
Because I was like what's more
glitz and glam than
traveling the world with a race car
driver. I think the one
I'm going with here
is I think it's called Off the Edge.
I get the two confused because the first book in the

(36:00):
series is On the Grid.
Off the Grid. On the Edge.
That makes sense, I think.
Off the Edge. No, On the Edge.
What am I saying? I don't know.
I think it's
I think it's On the Edge.
I liked the second book in the series much better than the first.
I've pitched
this one to you. I did it in our episode

(36:22):
where we pitched each other romances. So I don't have to
explain too much if you've listened to that episode.
But she is an intern, doesn't know
anything about formula one.
She's in a meeting
at her job. And
it's this like
playboy formula
one driver who is signing this deal
like sponsorship deal. Or he
thinks he's going to sign it. But it turns out they're like no

(36:44):
there are all these paparazzi pictures of you drunk
last night. And so we need you to clean up your
image. You need to have a girlfriend for three
months before you can do this. And he's like where
you can't like make me have a girlfriend. Where am I going to
get a girlfriend? And they're like don't worry we have actresses
picked out for you. And he's like no
I want her to be my fake girlfriend.
And so for her job she just
is like jet setting around

(37:06):
the world staying in glamorous
hotel suites. And also
having sex with this guy.
Who is very damaged. And they
go back and forth and they like kind of break up
and it's like oh will they won't they?
But also just like fake dating
an F1 driver.
The glitz the glam the will they won't
they of it all.
I'm here for it.

(37:28):
And he's hot so.
And he's famous.
It's all coming together.
It really is. It really is. Yeah this one
well I had like a lot to
choose from I feel like. They were all like
hitting different vibes.
And I feel like I'm I picked
one but I also want to pick the other one in the
series too.

(37:50):
Because currently there are there are yeah
there are only two published currently.
The first one and the main
one I guess because it takes place in New York
is a lot like adios by Alexis D'Aria.
But I do think also
you had me at Ola
could also be like the second
half of 1989.
Like they're famous in that one.
Like their wildest dreams like that

(38:12):
kind of I don't know you know like
things are percolating you know in your brain right
now. I can see it happening for you.
But a lot like adios
is the second chance.
Oh and oh my god they
knew like he like left her 13
years ago so we love a
13 reference.
But basically they were like
high school sweethearts I believe. And then he left

(38:34):
her around prom. It's always prom.
He
is a big LA
gym owner. And then he's
looking to start a franchise
in New York. And she's
in New York and she's helping
him on the marketing
campaign. But she doesn't realize it was like his
company until they meet
dramatically.

(38:56):
So I did want to have because I didn't
do in my 1989
song rec. I did
the an island princess no
Caribbean heiress in Paris.
So not in New York. I wanted to give
some love to New York.
But I think both of those books
are just so hot. I loved
them a lot. And I'm very
excited for book three that was just announced.

(39:18):
But
this one was like fun flirty
again super hot.
I don't know if it I think it's kind of like a she lost
him but she found herself type of deal
like way back when. I mean she's
like very independent in the
future. But he definitely did a number
on her. And it took her a while
to like trust him again.
And I mean he was he was

(39:40):
a sweetheart like he was cute.
Grace but pants are coming to mind. I don't
know.
Like I feel like great sweatpants
great sweatpants
is the move.
First
I don't know why that imprinted on me.
But it did. He's a very hot man. Very
hot individual. Same
thing with you had me at Ola like

(40:02):
that was so hot. That
was so hot.
I was like I can't believe
that was so hot.
Yeah.
But there's a mirror scene in that one.
Sweet Lord.
That one I feel like deals with the fame
and like the playboy and like the
celebrity
reputation kind of of the 1989

(40:24):
era. Whereas a lot like
because one doesn't it start with
her getting like bad press.
Yeah. Yeah.
And then the second chance of it all is
the second book.
A lot like audios.
So there we are.
Reputation.
Reputation.

(40:46):
Reputation.
Reputation.
Reputation.
Reputation.
Reputation.
Reputation.
Reputation.
Reputation.
Reputation.
Guys like
Listen to Like What You
every time I

(41:10):
Made Me Do.
Just Justin Trent.
It's just Jessica Trent showing
up in a bar in Paris
wearing a full red outfit
and like a black veil
shooting that man in
the arm and then
turning herself in
She's being angry that she's not being arrested.

(41:30):
And then they're like, we actually can't arrest you.
It was a crime of passion.
People would die in the riots if we arrested you.
We are in Paris.
And then she's like, what the fuck?
And I feel like if there's a crime
to be committed in reputation, it's a crime of passion.
It's a crime of passion.
But also, you've got a bad bitch who's like,
you're going to ruin my reputation?
Fine, I'm going to shoot you and then force

(41:53):
you to marry me anyway.
But underneath it, we're all softies.
And we're all kissing Dane on his big ugly nose.
Well, big attractive nose that he thinks is ugly.
And we're having a soft romantic time, but secretly.

(42:13):
Because we won't admit it out loud.
Yeah.
That's all very true.
I love Loretta Chase so much.
Also, Reputation is my favorite album.
And that's one of my favorite books of all time.
So it felt correct.
That does feel correct.
And we watched the Reputation Stadium Tour
when we were together in Anaheim.
And then now it's gone.
So let's hope it comes back when she releases Taylor's version.

(42:36):
Because that is sad.
I chose Bombshell by Sarah McLain,
which I feel like is not revolutionary.
It just really fits.
I just feel like it just is.
She's in her reputation era.
She's got a big reputation that really she cultivates,
but it's not really who she is.
But she's not ashamed of it.

(42:56):
She owns her reputation.
She owns who she is and her freedom.
But I think she's still a little bit hurt by it,
like some of the things people say.
It gets to her.
She's not impervious or bulletproof.
But she is still very strong and independent.
But I love how she's absolutely going crazy for Caleb.

(43:17):
And he just runs away.
They have a great kiss.
And then he just literally sails to America.
And she's like, what the fuck?
She's like, what do you mean?
Because she's been trying to get him for so long.
And I just love how she was willing to chase him
and put it all out for him.
It was just a very fun dynamic.
And then he isn't concerned at all about her reputation.

(43:40):
He's like, she's been sexy as hell.
As long as I've known her, I want her.
But he's got his own reputation issues to deal with.
He thinks he'll ruin her.
So then he literally yeets himself to America.
Doesn't come back for years.
Comes back.
And then now they're in close proximity again.
And she is just as attractive to him as in the past.

(44:01):
And he's like, oh shit.
And then I feel like it's them in their own little bubble.
And then everything happening around them and all of the
things that they have to do.
It's a very soft relationship within a kind of, I don't
know, jazzier plot.

(44:22):
That jazzy is not the word.
But plot that's happening.
I don't know.
Yeah, I mean, his whole thing was like, he was just so into
her, and it was hot.
And that frickin' book is the reason why Mary Jane Welles'
American accent does not give me the ick.
A lot of people don't like it.
But for some reason, Caleb Calhoun, whatever she put in

(44:46):
him in that audiobook.
No, I'm with you on that one.
I did have to fight people at the Rip
Odyssey the other day.
Because strangers, as you do a historical romance event, we
were debating Sarah MacLaine books.
And I have opinions about Sarah MacLaine's books that
Sarah MacLaine diehard fans often disagree with.
And I think that's OK.

(45:08):
They were like, I don't really like bombshell.
And I was like, well, you're incorrect.
Everyone says that.
And I'm like, what do you mean?
I don't like the American accent.
And I was like, you're especially incorrect now.
So yeah.
Right, it was so hot.
And it's funny if you read the book.
It's funny about the accent, just knowing
if you've read the entire book.
But it changed me.

(45:29):
I think I gave the book four stars when I first read it.
And then I gave it five stars after listening to the audiobook,
because I was just so turned on by that voice.
And I was like, Mary Jane Wells, you get me.
I was like, I don't.
Caleb Calhoun is a different creature at this point.
And then she gave that same accent to Matthew Swift,
and I was gone.
I was like, OK.
My baby boy.

(45:50):
Did you ever get through the series before this one?
I think I read two.
I didn't read the Scott one.
Is that in this?
Is that the one before?
Yeah, the one in Scott's.
I think that one's when you've, no, you meet them
in the first one, the one with King.
That's when you meet all of the, I can't remember their last name,
Cecily and her sisters.

(46:10):
Talbot.
Yes, the Talbots.
Yeah.
But I think the third one is when you meet Caleb the first time.
Yeah, because he's friends with Serafina.
Yeah.
So I haven't read the Scott one.
That's the one where he kisses her in that book
and then sails to America.

(46:31):
Love that.
He comes back at the beginning of Bombshell.
He's just so funny.
I just sometimes I think about, I wish there were more scenes
in books where they kiss and then one just
runs away from the other one.
They just can't deal with the emotion.
They just run.
George Clooney running in the Hawaiian movie.

(46:53):
I love it.
For contemporary, speaking of sexy men,
I went with Full Moon Over Freedom by Angelina M. Lopez.
Yeah.
Number one, I can't talk about this book
without saying that I can't remember his name.
Nicky, Nicky Mendoza is the hottest fictional man

(47:14):
to ever not really exist.
I, he's not even my type, but whatever Angelina
put in that man, he's like a bad boy artist with long hair.
But he was her sex teacher in high school,
when they were both in high school to be clear.
She was like, I want you to tutor me in that.
I was like, what do you mean they were both in high school

(47:35):
and he was a teacher?
No, no, no.
No, her sex teacher.
She was like, I want to have sex.
And he was in love with her this whole time
because of course he was.
She was just using him for his body and his skills.
Classic.
Anyway, he's so, he's so hot.
I can't emphasize enough how hot this man is.
Also, there's like a little bit of magic in this one

(47:57):
because she's a bruja and I'm like, sleigh queen.
I hated myself as soon as I said the word sleigh queen,
but it's too late now.
I've already said it.
Anyway, she's like back in town.
She is like, she grew up with a lot of pressure.
She's like the perfect daughter, perfect mother,
but now her life is falling apart and her garbage ex-husband
is causing problems.
And she's like, I just need to learn to be bad.

(48:20):
And who does she run into on her way back into town?
Nikki Mendoza, who she hasn't seen since high school.
She's like, wow, this is it.
But then he lies and says he has a fiance.
It's a whole thing.
Anyway, they're working together in this building
with no AC in the summer and he's an artist.
And at one point he says something
about her mommy tunt, mommy pussy.

(48:43):
I don't remember which word it was,
but whatever it was, it shouldn't be hot.
Like out of context, it's not.
But the narrator read it to me in my ear drums and I gasped
and I said, why is that hot when he says it?
Yeah.
Why is this related to reputation?

(49:05):
I don't remember except that she's like not the perfect
good girl she always thought she was.
And she's gonna learn to be bad and like hook up
with this man, but it's also very emotional.
Nice.
I chose role playing by Cathy Yardley for the like,
call it what you want, like safeness in the relationship.

(49:28):
Because they're in a small town, the town sucks.
That fucking town is the worst.
I hate it, they hate it.
It's like, so they're kind of like alone.
I mean, they're not alone,
but they're kind of alone in this town.
And her son on their own, yeah.
Her son is in college, so she is actually alone.

(49:50):
And then he, I don't know what's up with him.
It's been a while, but he also feels alone.
They meet on an online gaming thing.
So for like the first 40% of the book,
he thinks she's like a 90 year old woman.
And she thinks he's a frat boy.
Sure.
And so they've just like developed a friendship.

(50:11):
I'm so sorry, it is mommy cunt.
I revisited another newsletter we sent out
where I recommended it, that's all.
Look at that.
Anyway, we're very on brand.
Continue.
So she ends up getting sick and he's like,
oh, I can drop off soup to this nanny as a grandma.
And then they're not the ages they thought they were.

(50:33):
I think he's like 50 and she's in her 40s.
And they end up having just like the softest,
sweetest romance.
Cause they've been like friends for a while.
And he is both bisexual and demisexual.
And he's been like ostracized from his family.
His family is homophobic.

(50:53):
It's like icky for him, but she is like his rock
and she has like a prime like telling off his,
I think it's his mother who's like the worst of them.
Like she gets so, she like takes off her earrings
at a wedding and like goes to bat for him.
And I'm like, I love you so much.

(51:14):
And I just feel like they would like,
they're just like their own little thing in this ugly town.
And everyone's kind of like trying to like get their hands
on them or like tear them.
I don't know, just like being mean.
And then they're just like adorable and fluffy
and soft and cute.
And that book was really good.
And yeah, that scene at the wedding

(51:36):
was just so freaking good.
My book for Lover is kind of like the opposite.
Like it's like the lover version of this book,
which is funny.
Like it has this same kind of vibe.
I'm excited to talk about that one too.
Cause I feel like Lover and Reputation are like,
you know, different sides of the same coin.
So yeah, that one again,

(51:59):
definitely recommends very soft romance in an icky town.
Lover.
That was your best so far.
Wow, thank you.
I was too low.
In my head, it was like a few notes up.
She does go pretty high.
But I couldn't do that.

(52:19):
So I mean, what is softer than we could be so good.
Yeah, I think I had that one in the back of my mind.
What is softer?
What is sweeter?
What is more like there's fear.
Cause in my head, Lover is like a very fearful album

(52:40):
actually, but the fear is all around,
like not really feeling like you deserve love.
And like you can be with someone
and that they will actually stay and want you.
Kat Sebastian said, relatable.
They fall in love and it's so soft.
And they're just like hanging out in their apartment

(53:01):
in New York, which is also very Lover.
Just being soft and in love.
Yeah, that's how I feel about a rule book
for Restless Rogues by Jess Everly.
Again, it's their house.
They make the rules.
I mean, by the end of it,
they've got the like bar place that they own
and they literally like mention like how they make the rules.
Like the last page of that book is so Lover coded.

(53:24):
As soon as I finished it, I was like, okay, well forever
in my brain associated is this book and Lover.
And it does, I think have like all those vibes
you just mentioned of not thinking you necessarily
deserve the love or, you know,
again, the kind of like reputation having that like very
safe person in a world that is a little bit scary.

(53:47):
And also this one is just like a heavy unfound family,
like my contemporary thick.
And I just, it was just very sweet and soft.
And yeah, I liked it a lot.
My other, my contemporary also is just so Taylor Swift coded.

(54:11):
So what if we just like hung out in an apartment
and we're in love, even though I don't know
that I'm deserving of love.
X's and O's by Amy Lee, which is just the most
Lover coded book ever.
So good.
That's it.
That's my whole rate.
It's just so like, I don't need to tell you anything

(54:33):
about the plot.
Yeah.
It just is so Lover.
And so like, I don't know that anybody can actually love me
and Trevor's like challenge accepted.
Oh man.
Oh, I love that book so much.
That's it.
That's my whole recommended.
I went back and looked at my Instagram posts

(54:54):
from when I read it last year and recommended it.
And the song I used was Daylight.
Hell yeah.
I think it was Daylight.
It really could have been any song on Lover, frankly,
but I'm pretty sure it was Daylight.
I literally have X's and O's as the first one
I put down for this.
But I ended up choosing the third one I put down for it.
So look at that.

(55:15):
I love it.
Two minds we think alike.
I chose With Love From Cold World by Alicia Thompson.
And I think if you've read it,
you kind of see how it's kind of like another flavor
of role playing almost by Cathy Yardley.
It's almost like another flavor of reputation
where they're like coworkers and she's very like buttoned up

(55:40):
and always wears her cardigan.
And is the accountant.
And then he is kind of like the troublemaker
playing like pranks on her.
They just don't really get along.
And then they just slowly become like friends
and like then like best friends.
And like, it's a very like quick progression,
but it felt very real and authentic.
Like they just really got each other.

(56:02):
And it's kind of the same deal.
His family is super homophobic.
He's bi and they kind of like wrote him out of their family.
And he then like finds his own family
within like his roommates.
And like he volunteers with LGBTQ plus like youth.
And it's just very, like he's very soft.

(56:23):
And this is a soft little boy, like B-O-I, boy, emo.
And she is like very surprised by that.
Like under the facade, like he kind of puts on at work.
And then she defends him at his parents' house
when they're there, I think for like a baby shower
or something.
And again, it's like not the earrings off type of defense.

(56:47):
It's the lover version of the defense.
And you're just kind of like rooting for them.
And they were both definitely like fearful
and afraid of like kind of other things getting in the way
and like into that.
And then there was the whole fake,
because they work in like an amusement park,
Cold World in Florida.

(57:08):
And it's like a winter themed.
And it's kind of going under,
so they have to try to like save it.
They get locked in overnight, which is a wonderful scene.
That's like the first time they hook up.
A plus, I think it's like the first time it was so good.
But it's a very soft book and romance,
a lot softer than I thought it was gonna be.

(57:29):
It was just very good.
And then when she really defended him,
like that's one of my favorite like subtropes
or like micro tropes is like a character defending
the other character to either like an enemy
or like someone close to the, you know,
like parents or something, I don't know.
Like it just gets a job done every time.
And it's a very, I don't know,

(57:50):
lover coded thing to do, I feel like.
What a good book.
So good.
Folklore.
Listen, I was just picking historical romances
with the vibes.
And for that I said, Mortal Follies by Lexis Hall.

(58:10):
It's like dark,
not fairy tale, but like mythological,
magical, pop is the narrator.
And when I was thinking about it,
you know how Taylor Swift has those,
like she has three different pens,
metaphorical pens that she uses to write her songs.
And one of them is like the feather, like the quill.

(58:32):
Quill, yeah.
And folklore is like the gel.
It's like glitter gel pen.
Then the quill, and then there's the one.
And then the quill, and then there's the one.
Ballpoint?
Ballpoint, yeah.
Which is like she classifies most of her songs as.
I think me would be like a glitter gel pen.
God, I love glitter gel pen songs.
I won't even lie to you.

(58:55):
But like this Mortal Follies felt like
Lexis Hall might've written it with a quill.
It's just like dark and magical and like funny,
but also quite poignant.
Listen, I'm just here for the vibe.
Also, it just feels like a lot of it
probably took place in a forest.
Yeah.

(59:15):
That's it.
That's the whole rec.
Also, I'm obsessed with that book.
So there you go.
I literally, I restarted that book three times, I think.
I just was not in the mood, I think, for like a fantasy.
It's a very specific.
And I liked it.
I just simply could not pay attention to it
when I was trying to do it.

(59:36):
I think I started during work like several times.
You gotta be paying attention to it, man.
Yeah, I was like, I have to turn this off
because I have listened to her lose her dress
10 million times.
I still don't know what the fuck is happening.
So I will read it.
Because she's been cursed.
I was like, what do you mean?
So I'll get back to it.
I enjoyed the vibes that I got.
The narrator was very good.

(59:57):
But I just could not focus at that moment in time.
Yeah, this one was hard.
I just feel like folklore is like so many different vibes
in one album and it pulls in so many different directions
for me and I was like very like hard to pick one.
So that's why I kind of cheated in the newsletter
and chose The Scoundrels of St. James by Lorraine Heath.

(01:00:18):
It's got a little bit of everything.
It's got a love triangle.
It's got like the childhood kind of like love triangle
that goes into adulthood kind of type of deal.
And I picked the like, and just like a folk song,
Our Love Will Be Passed On as like the lyrical association
just because like Lorraine Heath to me is like love

(01:00:38):
that will be passed on.
Like those epilogues hit every time.
And especially for this series,
they're like the foundation now of her current series
or like her last series and then this current one
like there with you still have traces of them
and like the clubs that they start and all of that.
And like honestly, I think it's been like three series now
that are like the children and like people

(01:01:00):
who like knew these people, like they're still alive
because it's romance, but like they're old
and their children are running the thing now.
I think one of their sons is the hero
in Once More My Darling Rogue.
They like adopted him in one of these books in the series.
And then he, it's like the two dragons or something

(01:01:20):
is the establishment.
So that's why that hero gets like a giant dragon tattoo
on his back.
It's a whole part of that book.
Anywho, these books, like book one, I say
is like the lightest.
It has like the light moments of folklore.
And then book two is like very, very dark, I would say.
I was ill-prepared, very, I don't know,

(01:01:44):
like the introspective like pain of folklore.
And then book three is a little bit, I guess, lighter,
more playful, I think.
I felt like a combination of the first two.
And then the fourth one is just wild.
He was the part of the love triangle
that didn't get the girl.
There's a lot happening in that book.

(01:02:06):
But yeah, that one just felt kind of like the folklore.
Like that's the lore of Lorraine Heath, I don't know.
Again, that one was a hard one for me,
but yeah, I think it does the job pretty well.
My contemporary, she's back at it again
with their forever books.
Guys, mostly contemporary romance, I read her

(01:02:28):
because I'm publishing.
I'm not, I'm working for the pub, whatever.
Before I go by Kennedy Ryan,
it just, I feel like she also wrote this with a quill.
Like Kennedy Ryan sat down and was like,
I'm gonna write a fucking masterpiece.

(01:02:49):
And then she did.
And then she did.
I feel like there's a lot of, there's healing,
like just going off,
trying to put your life back together.
There's not quite a love triangle.
It's a second chance between these two parents

(01:03:11):
who are, they're co-parenting together, they're divorced.
They're co-parenting and running a business together.
So they're definitely stealing each other's lives.
But there was this like very intense tragedy
that broke them up in the first place.
And so there's like a certain element of like
the love triangle where he starts kind of seeing someone.

(01:03:32):
And that's an impetus for a lot of things.
I feel like Cardigan is probably the best,
like the song that best represent the like,
but you'll come back.
Like we just make sense together and we have this history
and we know each other so well.

(01:03:52):
I'm not explaining this well, but like the healing,
the artistry of it all,
it's just, I feel a little bit feral
talking about Kennedy Ryan.
And that book is so fucking good.
And I have to read both of them in that series.
You do, you do.

(01:04:13):
And she just said the New York Times bestseller list.
She did. Hell yeah.
This one was hard because I had one pick
and then I was like, maybe I shouldn't pick that.
Well, I could pick.
I feel like, again, Folklore has like the two kind of like
one's very quill pen, very introspective, all of that.

(01:04:34):
And then there are some songs that like the album
in its whole like is, I listened to it in the summer.
Like it's a very summer album to me.
That's fascinating.
Yeah.
It's just, I think it's like fall album.
Even though it has August.
August, yeah.
But August to me is a post August song.
It is, yeah.
I think I just listened to it in the summer.

(01:04:56):
So like, it just has a very summer feeling.
But I think the book that I chose is like a fall book.
So I guess, I don't know.
I chose The Catch by Amy Lee.
One I cheated because a while back,
Amy posted in her Instagram stories.

(01:05:17):
She posted in her Instagram stories, all of her song
or all of her books with song associations of Taylor Swift.
And the main one for The Catch wasn't a Folklore song
but she did have Cardigan and she had August
as two songs that she associates with The Catch,
which were interesting to me.

(01:05:38):
But then the more I was thinking about it
and like the act of like Mel going into that small
like Nova Scotia like town felt kind of like
the last great American dynasty felt very kind of like
she's an influencer, kind of like a mirror ball.
Like she has to kind of like put on a face for everyone
because that's how she makes her money.

(01:05:59):
And they don't wanna see like the broken pieces of her life.
And then he's a fisherman.
So he's the salt air.
And like, it's like a very, it was just, I love it.
You just read it.
I think you posted about it today.
Like it's the other vibes of Folklore
after kind of the more like deep in our ones.

(01:06:25):
But yeah, the salt air.
And I think that one takes place kind of like in the fall.
Like I think they're cold at some point on a boat.
He gets knocked over from the boat.
And that was so fun.
It's like a while you were sleeping kind of loosely
inspired by while you were sleeping, which was really fun.
The more I was like thinking about it, I was like, okay,

(01:06:46):
the more that kind of fits.
Cause I had like another rack.
I think that hits more of like the quill pen lyrics,
but I'll save that for a newsletter in the future.
But yeah.
Evermore.
Drop a few actives.
Yeah, well she does.

(01:07:09):
This was a tricky one.
I had a much easier time with the contemporary.
I went with the Raycast.
Oh, I had the opposite I think.
By Scarlet Peckham, which is funny
cause it was originally my reputation historical.
But then I really wanted to do Lord of Scoundrels.
And also I was like, I just kept thinking about this.
She would have made such a lovely bride.

(01:07:31):
What a shame she's fucked in the head, they said Lyra.
Which just felt so like, I don't know.
Evermore is a weird, it's a weird album to me.
It's not one that I feel like I understand very well.
I love this.
I love Evermore.
I like individual songs on Evermore.
I feel like it's not one that I've sat down
and really thought about thematically.

(01:07:51):
I will say I understand little of it,
but I sure love it.
Cause she's like making all these stories.
I'm like, girl, I don't know.
The like dark gloomy isolated,
just going to a cabin in this like coastal town
and healing from some damaging relationship of it all

(01:08:18):
is quite literally like the premise of the Raycast.
Like she's back in this mansion in her coastal hometown
and everybody in the town hates her
because she's pro sex.
I don't like, she's a sleigh.
Said lovingly.

(01:08:40):
Term of endearment.
And she's also made a name for herself.
So like that idea of like peace,
like the I can never give you peace.
Like I don't even, your closure.
Like I feel like there are just a lot of songs
that would work for her attitude and her like,
I'm just going to go home in this isolated little town

(01:09:01):
and write my thing.
And also if a hot single dad wants to show up
and have a lot of sex with me, I will do that.
That's not it, Nevermore, but.
It should have been.
It should have been.
Yeah, this one I feel like,
I don't think I had too much of a stress.
I think I put this one down pretty fast
into thinking about the different eras.

(01:09:22):
And that is A Lady for a Duke by Alexis Hall.
Another forever book.
Again, I think my song association in the newsletter
was like the cabin creaking.
The pain wouldn't be forevermore.
I also think like long story short, I survived.
I just feel like the, it's like a very winter album to me.
Like whenever I have my windshield wipers on,

(01:09:44):
I literally hear like tis damn season.
Like for some reason, like I listened to that song so much
when it first came out, like,
and it was like very snowy that year, I think.
And I just, this association.
So like, this is a very like winter feeling book to me.
It's a very like healing in an isolated space.
No cabin, but it is a castle.

(01:10:05):
There's not like a huge forest, but there is like trees
and there's like ivy covered things.
And like willow trees.
It's not a huge forest, but there is trees.
I like was like looking through the book.
And you walk around Central Park like,
it's green.
Tree.
I'm assuming there was a forest.
It just was never mentioned in the book.

(01:10:26):
I couldn't search the word forest and find something,
but there were willow trees and there were ivy covered things
and it just feels like a very like soft romance,
but it hurt.
But in like a different kind of angst
than like a will they won't they angst.
It was just so emotional and like winter coated
and ever more coded and just very like, I don't know,

(01:10:49):
soft and deeply emotional, but a little bit cozy.
And that epilogue gets me every time with Jack Skellion.
Yeah, that one, once the pieces were coming together,
I was like, ah yes, tis all there.
The most ever more coded book contemporary

(01:11:15):
that I can think of, which is funny
because before this exercise,
I don't think I associated the album ever more with it.
And then I was like, oh my God,
I'm the dumbest bitch alive is Beach Read by Emily Henry.
It's so, she literally goes to her little coastal town.
I think I had that one in folklore.
I think I originally had it in folklore
because I tend to get the covers,

(01:11:38):
like the album covers confuse me folklore.
I don't know, there's something about like the color scheme.
I always forget that ever more is like the coastal town one
and that folklore is the forest one
because the ever more cover feels very foresty.
I don't know.
The point is she like literally straight up goes

(01:11:58):
to a cabin on a beach, but not like a summery beach.
And is like, let me heal from the damage
that has been done by number one, this relationship
because I can't be loved.
And number two, my dead dad, relatable queen.
I'm just kidding.
That's not relatable to me.
And all my dad is alive and wonderful
and doesn't have a secret mistress.
It's like that thing going around the spill queen

(01:12:22):
or something.
Have you seen that meme?
No.
Oh my God, I need to find, you keep talking.
I will find it.
Also it's just beautiful.
It's probably, I don't know if it's my favorite,
Emily Henry, because book lovers really did a number on me,
but it has stuck with me the most, I feel like
of the Emily Henry's.
It's my favorite Emily Henry so far.
Augustus just feels so like, I feel like he would love

(01:12:45):
ever more also.
Just like the lyricism of it all.
That's it.
I can't explain it any deeper than that
other than just like it makes sense in my head.
It's like, I need to find this meme
and it's not gonna be a fast process.

(01:13:05):
That's okay.
Cause it's hilarious.
I just apparently have liked so many things
from its creation to now.
This is the second time today this has come up,
but Beach Read, I read it,
I don't remember what the other book that I read was,
but I read it back to back with some other book
that featured like,
I read it.

(01:13:27):
The heroine finding out her father
like had a secret other family.
We're like, oh, I had started reading Clap When You Land
and I didn't finish it then, I finished it later.
But I read those two books
or started the other one back to back.
And I have a very clear, very silly memory
of me going to my dad and being like,

(01:13:47):
if you had a secret other family,
you would tell me right, like before you died.
And he was like, Caroline,
when do you think I would have the time
to maintain a secret other family?
I am, he works from home.
He's like, when?
I'm like, I don't know, you got a lot of business trips.

(01:14:08):
He would never.
Another secret family is sex, lies and sensibility.
If anyone wants to wreck.
The meme was, it was like someone was telling
like a very emotional story
and the other person responds with mama kudos
for saying that for spilling.
It was like not the response.

(01:14:31):
It was not the response that really was warranted.
But mama kudos for saying that for spilling.
Now it's a meme.
And I do love it because it makes me laugh every time.
I don't even know what I was really thinking
about before that, but I had to talk about it.

(01:14:53):
Are we doing ever more still?
Yeah, the contemporary.
Cool, yeah, this one was hard.
I had a few, I chose the one that gave me
the most winter vibes because it is set in winter.
There's not really much more to that.
I chose Kiss Her Once For Me by Alison Conkren.

(01:15:13):
That one is another like while you were sleeping,
kind of like loose retelling.
Basically, it's another inheritance one too.
I think she ends up fake being engaged
to the other heroine's brother.
I think he wants to get married for the inheritance

(01:15:35):
and then she ends up going to their cabin.
This girl she had a magical one night with last year
is there and she's his sister.
So she's like, oh shit.
This person who I've been thinking about for a year
now thinks I'm engaged to her brother.

(01:15:58):
And it's a whole thing.
I loved it so much.
They get snowed in.
It's a very wintery Christmas book.
I really enjoyed it.
I don't know, I feel like just the vibes of Evermore
more so than like the individual songs for that one.
I feel like if she was gonna put an inheritance

(01:16:21):
heist like song, it would maybe go into Evermore.
I don't know.
Even though I guess anti-hero,
she talks a little bit about inheritance in that one too.
But yeah, this one was definitely hard.
I was like, I truly don't know.
I feel like, yeah, it was hard.
I can't keep talking.

(01:16:43):
I'm gonna stop.
Midnights.
There were two options there I had to think.
There's a higher one.
Midnights.
What the fuck?
I was thinking of like,
Mimia Midnight from Lavender Haze.
No.
Mimia Midnight.
No.
I was using the TikTok sound
where they edited together all the album titles.

(01:17:03):
And I think that one is the higher one.
Midnights.
Yeah, I don't, anyway.
But I prefer the lower.
But I prefer the lower.
Listen, this is a hard one.
Even though I love the album.
Jeannie Lynn's The Sword Dancer
is a historical romance I just read.

(01:17:26):
What if that was the end of it?
It's just a historical romance that I read.
I would say, wait.
I would say,
mama.
Kudos for saying that.
For spilling.
Look, the premise of Midnights
is that it's an album about things

(01:17:47):
that kept Taylor awake at night.
And The Sword Dancer,
number one, a lot of it takes place at night
because she's a criminal.
She is trying to find out the mystery
of what happened to her mom.
All she remembers is that they were running
and men with swords were chasing them.

(01:18:09):
And then her mom hit her in a forest
and she never saw her again.
So that's keeping her up at night, number one.
Number two, she's on her vigilante shit
because she did steal some stuff.
She was working with this anti-government group
for a little while and robbing people.
And so now this thief catcher is after her.

(01:18:30):
And the thing that's keeping him up at night is justice.
He is searched for justice.
Yeah, he's searched for justice.
Like call him Batman, the way that he was.
I was gonna say, he sounds

(01:18:53):
I'm Batman.
He just really firmly believes
that people who do bad things
should be punished for their crimes.
And on the one hand, it was a romance
but on the other hand, mostly it was Jeannie Lynn being like
what if we really dove into what it means
to seek justice under a corrupt government

(01:19:13):
with a corrupt justice system
where you can be beheaded for stealing something.
Or in her mom's case,
get out of being beheaded
but instead sold back to the guy who propositioned you
and tried to rape you and then ended up having your husband

(01:19:35):
killed for fighting back against him.
So she's like, what does it mean to have justice though?
And he's like, maybe I should think about that.
No, he said, mama, I don't know if we're saying that.
I keep doing this.
It's just in my brain, I can't stop.

(01:19:55):
She's here for vengeance.
She's here on her vigilante shit.
She's escaping this guy like four times
because he keeps catching her and she keeps escaping.
And it's kind of hilarious sometimes.
Like at one point he just ties her up
and is like throws her onto his horse
and is riding around like that.
And then they go, she's like, I have to go to the bathroom.
And so they go to this restaurant and he leaves her tied up

(01:20:18):
and she's like, can I not be tied up for this?
And he's like, no, hello random woman
who runs this restaurant,
please help my fiance go to the bathroom.
And then she comes back and they go to eat
and she just bursts into tears.
And then it's like, please don't hit me again.
And immediately everyone in the restaurant is up in arms
thinking that he's a kidnapper.

(01:20:39):
And they like caught her free and she escapes.
And then they beat the fuck out of him, I'm pretty sure.
Or they do something to him
because they think he's a kidnapper.
And I was like, that's so slay of her.
Anyway.
That's giving book one and the dangerous damsel series.
That kind of vibe.
Like I feel like Celia would like
absolutely pull that shit on Ned.

(01:21:00):
I tried to choose the entire series,
but I limited myself to choosing the League of Gentlemen.
I tried.
I tried, I yelled, no Hannah, you can't.
So I did choose just book two because that one to me,
like I think when she was promoting the album,
she said that Midnights is like five different feelings.
Self-loathing, check.

(01:21:22):
Fantasizing about revenge, also check.
Wondering what might have been, check.
Falling in love, check.
I was falling apart, check.
That was relatable though.
For the book, not for it, yeah.
I was like, I can't relate to some of these.
But yeah, like I just feel like Charlotte
went through all those freaking emotions.
Alex was along for the ride.

(01:21:44):
And all of her changed like Midnight.
It was a very like finding herself again book
and like just kind of like learning who she is
after being like repressed, like crazy
in her family for like years.
And it just felt whimsical,

(01:22:05):
a little bit of like the sparkling bejeweled moment.
And just so good, so, so good.
Love that for Charlotte.
So true. Delicious.
Glitz, glam, sparkle, but also self-loathing.

(01:22:29):
Also falling in love.
Not really seeking revenge,
but like coming to terms with someone who abused you,
I feel like.
All hallmarks of, I'm bringing it home
with another forever book,
Stars in Your Eyes by Kacen Callender,

(01:22:50):
which is not a light read,
but is a great read, I feel like,
which is these two Hollywood stars,
one of whom is like the bad boy,
like Hollywood loves to trash his image
because he's always out drinking and doing drugs

(01:23:11):
and partying and sleeping around, et cetera.
And the other one is this like up and comer golden boy
and they're cast in this movie.
And oh, it's been a very long time since I read it.
I think they might fake date.
No, I don't think they're fake dating.
The problem is that they're in love and they shouldn't.
I don't know.

(01:23:32):
It doesn't really matter,
but the point is it's like, yay, lighthearted Hollywood fun,
except the bad boy is a bad boy to cope with the like
childhood sexual abuse he underwent as a child actor.
And the golden boy's dad is homophobic.
So they're dealing with some shit

(01:23:53):
and they like on page deal with a lot of shit
and it is very heavy and that felt very midnight to me,
the like surface level Hollywood glamor.
But then that like dark underbelly.
I will say this isn't like a traditional romance
in the sense that it follows.
It's one of those ones that you read and you're like,

(01:24:14):
was it a romance?
But it has an H.E.A.
It's about their relationship.
It's just that it doesn't follow, I think, the traditional.
Yeah, I read one that was like a 13 going on 30, I think.
I think I put that under speak now,
but it felt more like a movie script
or like a movie where like you kind of see them

(01:24:34):
with other people or like it does things
that normally in a book I wouldn't like
in like a book romance,
but it felt like if I was watching a movie,
I'd be okay with it.
Like it felt, I don't know, more cinematic.
It's not so much that they like do things
or that Kacen does things that I don't like.
I feel like it doesn't follow the plot structure
that you typically expect in a romance novel.

(01:24:56):
And like they have to take time apart from each other
to like really deal with their shit.
I thought it was great.
It's a fantastic book.
It just is definitely heavy.
Definitely, again, the content warnings

(01:25:18):
for like child abuse and drug overdosing and all of that.
I don't remember what all of them are,
but it's worth looking into
because I wouldn't recommend this
to like everybody necessarily,
but it felt very Midnights to me.
Yeah, I feel like most of those things

(01:25:38):
that you were saying tie back into mine too,
which is Treasure by Rebecca Weatherspoon.
It's like a long, well, actually it's shorter than I thought.
It's only 106 pages.
I thought it was like one of those 170 page novellas,
but it's so it's a novella.
And basically on the surface,
it's like a very fun plot set up because it's sapphic.

(01:26:02):
So one heroine, she is a stripper,
and then the other heroine, she is in a bridal party
and they end up going to the strip club.
And then she does like a private dance for her
because like one of the girls in the party
like can tell that she's like the other heroine
is like attracted to her.
And she's very like reserved and shy.

(01:26:22):
And it's like a super hot scene.
And then she realizes that, or they both realize
that they are in the same computer science class
like the next day at college.
It's like the first day of classes.
And so they're sitting next to each other in class
and they're like, oh my God, it's you.
So it was like very-
That class romance moment.

(01:26:43):
Literally. Oh dear God, it's you.
And it was just such a fun set up, set up.
And it packed a lot of emotions in the 100 pages
that it was because then like under it,
like under the surface,
the one, she was like a once popular athlete.
She's like a violin prodigy,

(01:27:03):
but her parents are very strict, especially her father.
Content warnings for self-harm, suicide.
She had, I believe, tried to take her own life in the past
and is like recovering from that
and had like people at her old school,
like not be nice about it.

(01:27:25):
And it was like very traumatic in that sense.
And then, but it's a very soft romance,
but definitely like, I think again,
the content warnings can be kind of happy
because a lot happens in the 100 pages,
but it felt very like anti-hero, very you're on your own kid,
very labyrinth, mastermind.
Because I think she even like,
I think Alexis definitely like made her way back into

(01:27:49):
like Trisha's life.
Like she was like, I'm gonna mastermind this
and we're going to be friends because you're very hot.
And I wanna be your friend and also your girlfriend.
And I feel like they both kind of had to have
their bejeweled moment at different times.
And it still feels like a very kind of like, I don't know,

(01:28:09):
like the cover itself screams Midnights to me.
I don't know, like the name treasure
and like sparkling lights.
Yeah, it was a really good novella.
There you go.
We did it.
There we have it.
Mission accomplished.
Look at that.
I'm very impressed.
I mean, that's all she wrote.
I got nothing else.

(01:28:30):
That's so, it's like 20 books.
That is a lot.
No, it's more than that.
It's 40.
That was gonna say, would it be 40 then with the,
no? Yeah, no.
Right?
Yeah, because we're two of us.
Yep.
We can do rap.
Maybe.
I was like, no, it's like 10 albums.
There are two of us.

(01:28:50):
That makes sense.
Does it?
So, maybe.
There you go.
Lots of books to read.
Well, look at that.
I'm impressed we kept it under two hours.
Like that is not in my cards.
So I'm taking that as a win.
And like tangled up in chords.
Oh my God.
Okay.
Ooh.
Well, I have not watched the Arrows Tour movie yet.

(01:29:14):
So I think I'll probably do that.
I saw it in theaters.
I'll probably do that the Friday.
Yeah. I haven't.
Yeah. Yep.
Yeah, because I think the day we released,
because we did this because of the Arrows Tour movie
coming to streaming,
but then the day we actually released a newsletter
was one year anniversary of the Arrows Tour.
So it really worked.
Right.
And then this is just a random Friday after that.

(01:29:37):
But I think I'll be watching the Arrows Tour movie.
It's just when we finally got around
to recording the episode.
Yes.
I think I'll be watching that tonight
if you listen to this on Friday.
So I'm excited.
I'm excited for the new acoustic set songs.
There you have it.
And we'll be back for Tortured Poets Department.

(01:29:57):
Oh Lord.
Post-Gust A Society.
Yeah, that's gonna be intriguing.
Based on the vibes we're getting.
And that, yeah, we have no songs to think like,
oh yeah, that's the vibe.
And we just have her cryptic.
I just don't think it's gonna be a good one
for romance novels.

(01:30:17):
No, but we will figure it out.
I'm a soldier on.
Mm-hmm.
Yep.
May have to read some extra books
to cover all those bases.
I am terrified and deeply excited for it.
I'm gonna read some extra books.
I just hope that it is, I don't know,

(01:30:41):
easier than, which one was the hardest?
I feel like Midnight's was our first one that we did
and I thought that was hard.
And then I was like, oh, that's not hard.
I think it was actually 1989.
Yeah.
How many we done?
I think that one is, not that many.
Has it only been two?
No, we did Speak Now two.
Yeah, I think 1989 was definitely rough.
All right.

(01:31:01):
Anywho, yeah.
Thanks for tuning in, as always.
Honestly, I'm impressed you're here.
So impressed. It's always just so much easier
to not listen to podcasts than it is to listen to them.
That is really true.
That is true, I don't listen to many.
I have some that I cycle to in phases of my life,
but I am not in that phase as of now.

(01:31:22):
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. We're both kind of in reading slumps, I think,
or semi-reading.
It's more just that I've been so busy,
I haven't had time or willpower to read.
And now my problem is I just read the F1 romance
that we're publishing, and it was great.
But I'm only in the mood to read F1 romances

(01:31:42):
or F1 adjacent books, but I don't wanna read
another F1 romance right now,
because I wanna let that one really sit.
Yeah.
So that I can make my marketing plans
and brainstorm ideas for that one.
And also so I don't read another one right away
and get them mixed up.
Yeah.
So I'm like...
And if that one was really good,
you don't really wanna read one after
and have it be overshadowed.

(01:32:03):
Yeah, but I'm only in the mood to read F1 romance,
so the only answer I can come up with,
other than I'm listening to an F1 autobiography right now,
because that's different enough,
the only solution I can come up with
is just immediately rereading it.
Which I could do.
I have done that on multiple occasions.

(01:32:25):
It would feel...
I have to read it with my eyes,
and it takes me so long to read things with my eyes.
It's not like an audio book where I can just pop it on,
but I'm like, am I just gonna reread this book?
Immediately?
I might.
I support you.
Thank you. I support that.
Thank you.
If you look at my reading tracker for the month
and you see this same book.
Just over and over and over again.

(01:32:47):
Because that's just the only thing
I'm in the mood to read right now.
No, I think I did that for The Hating Game
when I first read it.
I think I just reread it.
And then I did that.
It wasn't my first time reading the first Ravenelle book,
The Cold Hearted Wraith.
But the second time I read it,

(01:33:07):
I literally started right back over
and read it a second time.
I don't really even know why.
I was just like, because I loved it the second time,
but I was like, I don't think I was paying enough attention
because I wasn't like actively, I was like, it's a reread.
But then I was like, I just,
there were so many things to unpack.
So I just read it again.
And I was like, this book is great.

(01:33:28):
So I feel I get that.
I can't wait for you to see my reading tracker.
And it's just double apex.
Jensen Button's autobiography.
Double apex again.
I dare you.
I dare you to do it.
I shouldn't, but also I'm working on it.
Well, you should, because it's your book.
So then you have to know it cover to cover.

(01:33:48):
Technically not, but like.
Technically not, but I do have to brainstorm
marketing ideas for it.
You know what, we're doing great.
So now you can really, now you can go deep into it.
So true.
So true.
Well, love that for you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And with that, a long story, not short.

(01:34:11):
We all survived.
Yeah, we survived.

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