Interstitial 2: We talk Bridgerton and all things geek chic with Amanda-Rea Prescott

Episode Transcript
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Adriana Herrera (00:01):
Welcome to Unbound, the podcast where we
take you on a wild ride throughthe world of pop culture and
romance, sometimes with ourrose-colored glasses off.
I am Adriana Herrera and Iwrite romance full of people who
look and sound like my peoplegetting unapologetic happy
endings.

Nikki Payne (00:22):
And I'm your co-host, nikki Payne.
Black Jane Austen fangirl,author of Pride and Protest,
cultural anthropologist by dayand belligerent Y-Mom by night.

Yours is so much better than mine.

The truth.

All right.
So we are so excited.
We have been thinking, talkingabout doing this together for
months now and we have I don'tknow like, how did we come
together?
I feel like we had seen eachother online, seen that there
was an affinity there, thatthere were things, thoughts,

(00:58):
feelings views.

Yes, we were circling each other.

We had mutual friends, friends that we loved,
loved each other, and so we'relike it's something, it's
something about that and I knewfor a fact that this could be
amazing, because I think at somepoint a mutual friend of ours,
allie Hazelwood, told me thatyou had done your dissertation
in the Dominican Republic, whereI am from.
I did, I did, and I was likethis is meant to be.

(01:26):
This is the person who I shouldreach out to join me for an
unhinged Completely unhinged.

We are apologizing in advance.

An unhinged journey through romance and pop
culture and how those thingsintersect, seen from the lens of
two Black women.

Yes, yes, so we know each other, but let's make
sure the audience knows who weare and let's get to know us by
pop culture.
I have a question for you,Adriana.
Are you ready, hit me.
You can tell a lot about aperson by the first thing they
ever purchased with their ownfunds, with their own monies,
their little, the money thattheir parents give them, their

(02:14):
allowance, and then you go outand purchase something that is
completely you.
Can you tell me the first album, cd, single that you purchased
with your own money?

I can, and it was two of them together, and I
grew up in the DominicanRepublic so we didn't have a lot
of record stores that had likethe like.
It took a little time for thethings to come back in the 80s
when I was growing up, but mydad was traveling for work and I
gave him my money that I hadsaved up and placed an order for

(02:51):
him to buy me the cassettes forThriller and the True Blue
Madonna album.
Those were the first two.
The taste, the taste, yes, andthose were my first.
I don't have them anymore, butI remember when I was leaving
the DR, when I was in my 20s, Istill had those two cassettes in
my pile of cassettes Quality.

(03:12):
And so I have a question foryou.
Yes, also pop culture adjacent.
What was the first live concertthat you went to?

First live concert.
It is a story, okay.
Imagine a 10-year-old justgrooving very hard to Anita
Baker.
I was at the Cynthia WoodsMitchell Pavilion and I went
with all of my aunties becauseAnita Baker is chief auntie
music and I'm 10 years old andI'm like, caught up in the

(03:48):
rapture of love.
I did not know what the raptureof love was, but she was my
first live experience and I haveloved her ever since.

I absolutely adore that.
It is so I mean, and it's alsoso formative.
It's such an amazing artist toimprint, to Like.
This is now my standard forlike what I want from like a
live performance, like a livemusic performance.

Like we can start with.

Anita Baker, like I unfortunately started
with Chicago who were kind oflike washed up and somehow ended
up in in like a hotel ballroomin the Dominican Republic in
1992.
And I went to see them.
I love this with my mom.
That was my first one.
But just so that we can likeclose the circle, what was your

(04:37):
first album that you bought withyour own money?

Oh, this is a.
This is a story.
I don't know if they had thesein the Dominican Republic, but
we had a little something calledColumbia House Music oh yes,
where you could purchase 12 CDsfor just one penny and all you
had to do was like promise topay them back, like eventually,

(05:01):
the problem with Columbia like Iactually think they may be
defunct because of that businessmodel was really problematic.
It was a Ponzi scheme.
I got my it was absolutely aPonzi scheme and so I brought my
, bought my first album.
It was Brandy.
It was like the Waiting toExhale soundtrack, which was a
fantastic soundtrack, but I gotit specifically for Brandy

(05:25):
sitting up in my room, which Iplayed forever and ever.
I just thought Brandy was thecoolest person.
She was so snatched all thetime with her little freestyle
braids and I just lovedeverything about her.

She was great.
I mean, that was honestly likethe golden age for like sultry,
the golden age for like, likesultry, like luscious black
women and like r&b.
The television in the 90s wasimmaculate, like so many, and I
was in the dr, like I was livingin the Dominican Republic, and
I remember like like we hadcable, obviously, and which is

(06:02):
why I speak English, and so likepart of like like living single
like I don't know so many oflike I feel like the very like
kind of like seminal pop culturethings that like really shaped
how I like my entertainment.
The way I think abouttelevision came from that time

(06:25):
and I think like Brandy is likeone of those like really iconic
women from that time.

Absolutely, absolutely.
And when you talk about someonelike imprinting on you like
Anita Baker walked so that likeToni Braxton could run Yep Right
, like there was room forsomeone that sultry and low
because of an in-banker.

Absolutely yes.
No, I mean I think that, listen, we're giving like a little bit
of like a rundown of like someof the good stuff of the 90s,
like Chicago notwithstanding.

Oh yeah.
Please.
I'm here for Chicago.
I love dad bands Between ourdads and aunties, like we can
have us a cookout.

For real.
I mean, I do feel like I wasthinking about albums and I
think for me growing up, I feellike the album that I always
think about as the central albumof my youth was Lauryn Hill,
the Miseducation of Lauren Hill.

Oh, miseducation of Lauren Hill was banger
beginning to end, did not pause,just went straight through.
I mean, I even know thespeaking.
Yes, same, I know the words.

Spiritual soul, like pierce something in me
that never like, like it reallywas, like it was like a
watershed type of piece of artfor me and so much of it is the
emotion and like the love andthe heart wrenching and the
heartbreak and that's, and likethe way that, uh, I think, like

(08:02):
a woman of color, like a blackwoman, love expresses, love,
talks about love, thinks aboutlove, beautiful.

And I'm like this teenage girl, like a virgin,
never been kissed, and I'm like,unsure what the balance held.

I touched my belly over, well, and I'm like,
I feel you the decisions I feelyou the well and I'm like, I
feel you the decision, I feelyou the choice.
I was 20, so I was in the midstof making a lot of bad life
choices with romantic partnersat that time and I felt every
single word of that album likedeeply.

(08:42):
So, yeah, I mean, I think, likeI think this is a perfect segue
for us to begin to talk,because I think for me, like I
love, like there's so much musicthat's like heartbreak music
that I love.
But there's a certain thingabout some of those like R&B
songs from that time like tonybraxton, as you mentioned that

(09:06):
like really spoke tospecifically like my experience
of, like how I thought aboutlove and the way love and
heartbreak felt to me inparticular I think the reason
why, like lauren hillyn Hill andToni Braxton and Anita Baker,

(09:27):
like we mentioned, imprinted onus, is because the perspective
matters.

It's the reason why we felt like this was going to
be a really, really compellingpodcast the perspective of Black
women on pop culture.
It adds an extra element ofunderstanding and it moved us,
and I think that this, whatwe're doing here, is we bring
our perspective on to romancenovels and pop culture events

(09:53):
like movies, tv shows and TVseries.
I think that the theperspective, yes.

The point of view is, I think, essential to
how something affects you.
And we we're both romancereaders have been romance
readers for most of our lives.
I I think at some point weshould probably do a podcast
about how we became romancereaders.
But, um, I started readingromance when I was like in
middle school, like 12, 13 yearsold, and so I'm in my forties

(10:22):
now.
That's a lot of romance and alot of that romance has been
about white women, written bywhite women, and I've loved it.
It's been like it's.
It's such an important romance,has always been such an
important part of my life.
But one of the things you and Ihave talked about is now that
we can't know that we have thatthere is so much more to read

(10:45):
how, so how that lens and how,the point of view and the
positionality, the, the worldview of the author and the
characters they write does makea difference it does.

It changes extensively, extensively what is
understood when the readerreads something.
Sometimes I'm watching a showor reading something and I look
around and I say, is everyonereading this or watching this in
the same way that I'm watchingthis?
And as a culturalanthropologist I will say
probably 100 percent know thateveryone is having an experience

(11:24):
with media that is completelykind of wrapped up in the way
that they see the world.

Yes, Like their position, their identities,
where they're coming from.
Like I mean thinking aboutagain, like some of the I mean
some of the books that are outnow, and just being able to pick
out things that are like sosingularly culture is something

(11:51):
that to I mean for both of usobviously, like we have like
picked up on this, that it hasbeen transformative for us to be
able to like consume thesethings that are so singularly
about us, and it's a great timeto dive into it deeply, do deep

(12:12):
dives into.

Yeah and ask.
So imagine, no, go ahead.
I was just going to say so.
Imagine all of our kind ofquivering hearts when Shonda
Rhimes, a Black woman, right,with this particular perspective
, picks up an OG romance, right,like if anyone has cut their

(12:36):
teeth in romance the way that wehave.
We know that Julia Quinn hasbeen writing romance for years
and I was a fan of thatBridgerton series.
It was a fantastic series byitself.
And then when Shonda Rhimessays, oh, I'm going to pick this
up, you're automatically likewhat is she?
What is she doing?
What's happening?

(12:56):
Because you're automaticallyattuned to know that the
perspective in here, theperspective here, matters.

And there was a big payoff for I mean for me in
terms of like the blind,casting the diverse, just being
able to visually take in peopleof color, black women in
particular like existing in thatworld was phenomenal.

(13:21):
It was just like wonderful tosee.
And then this year, who we got,what we're gonna talk about
today tell us, tell us, tell us,what we got, which, which is
the like, the spinoff of thebridgerton series, queen
charlotte.
so it's the backstory of QueenCharlotte, who we know from the

(13:45):
first two seasons, who is theBlack Queen of Bridgerton, and
we both saw that series and wereblown away shook, shooketh
reborn, re healed I was.

(14:08):
I felt like I was healing and Iwas like being reborn at the
same time.
With that, with that series, itwas just phenomenal and we
thought it was the perfect wayto kind of launch these
conversations that we want tohave about the importance, the
value, the impact of of gaze andlens when it comes to pop

(14:32):
culture and romance and how theyintersect, how they work
together.
Something that we were talkingabout when we were kind of like
planning is that, like there isno romance without pop, without
pop culture, like romance is, isvery enmeshed.
It's like, if you want to knowwhat is happening in a moment,

(14:54):
read a romance novel.
If you want to know, what's inthe?
ether, what's in the atmosphere,what the zeitgeist is zeitgeist
I love that word in aparticular time, pick up a
romance novel, and they and youwill get like.
They always have the like, thepulse of the culture, right.

(15:17):
And so with queen charlotte, aswith shonda rhimes, who knows
exactly what she's doing and isalso always so on point when it
comes to what's timely, what'srelevant, yep, it's just the

(15:37):
perfect place for us to starthaving these conversations about
point of view and love stories.

Can I admit something to you, adriana,
please do.
I was afraid to watch this same.
I was like I want to like this,but I don't want to.
I do.
I was like a romance heroine,like I'll never love again.
I I was afraid to watch this.
I had read a lot of thinkpieces.

(16:07):
I was online, you know,watching Twitter and like
watching people watch this, andI was about to stay away.

Me too.
I was ready to stay away, likeI was okay, it's Shonda, like
I'm curious.
I really love the character ofQueen Charlotte from the first
two seasons.
That actress, um, is phenomenal.
So I was like I want to.
But then the think piecesstarted coming out and and I am

(16:39):
in a text chat group with a fewother romance authors who are
also Black women, and we wereall just like ooh, like I don't
want to watch something that'sgoing to be like traumatic or
that's gonna like give me like.
There were a lot of thinkpieces that were really like not

(17:03):
like giving kind of snippetsout of context and it was really
making me scared that it wouldnot be the experience that I was
hoping it was.

And this just like speaks to this the way that
Black women consume media.
There's this way that we almosthave to like, protect our, our
space when we're watchingsomething and it's like, is this
going to be okay to engage with?
And you almost come intosituations tentatively.
I don't want to bring up apainful time in my past, but I

(17:37):
was obsessed with this showcalled Sleepy Hollow and if
you've ever watched SleepyHollow then you know that Black
women are struggling.
I mean, even New Amsterdam is agreat example of what they do
to Black women and their joy andtheir story and their arcs.

We were scammed , we were hoodwinked, we were
bamboozled.
Yes, yes, yes, we were scammed,hoodwinked.
Sc were scammed, scammed andbamboozled.

They hurt us.
They truly did.
They hurt us.
We should do another episode.
If I say the word Sleepy Hollow, in a certain group of people
they're just like oh you know,everything just explodes.
But yeah, and it's because ofthat that I was treading very
lightly on this, of that, um,that I was treading very lightly

(18:28):
on this, I'm like I don't wantto see myself, like fall in love
with a story, with a character,for them to decide that she's
expendable to be hurt or to haveand like and this is something
going off of the experiencesthat we have in the past.

Like we have a large body of evidence of the
kinds of stories that we havebeen served, specifically like
when it's like period pieces ofhow black women are portrayed in
those stories and a lot of itis a lot of trauma.
And so I did not want like Ijust didn't want to be

(19:03):
disappointed because I wasthinking if this ends up being
where, like, the two firststories were able to be okay,
and then the story that is likecentering Black women is going
to be like a lot of trauma and alot of strife and a lot of
struggle, then that's going tobe like really hurtful to me.
Like really hurtful to me.

(19:30):
And so, thankfully, one of myfriends bravely was like I'm
gonna watch the first episodeand I'll report back.
I'm just gonna sit and watch itbrave soul and I was like, okay,
just let us know.
And she was like y'all, I lovedit, I'm gonna watch the second
one like I have.
She was like I love and shewatched like the first.
I mean, if you have watched thefirst of Bridgerton seasons,
you know that it is very easy tosit down and watch the first

(19:50):
episode and just watch all theepisodes and like one sitting.
So she ended up watching likethe first three and by the third
, she like by the third episode,she was like all in.
She was like this is phenomenal, I love everything about it so
far and the romance is likehitting.
So I was like, okay, I'll do it.
And then, thankfully, um like I, I watched it and I absolutely

(20:15):
loved it.
I absolutely loved it, and weare going to talk about all the
reasons why at length oh yes,same thing happened to me.

There was a scout who went out ahead of us and
said I'm going to watch this,and then she came back to report
it is good and then, likeeveryone in our group, watched
it.

Yeah, yeah, and I mean it's a kind of a
testament to just how much wehave been hoodwinked, bamboozled
, led astray by like other showsthat are promise us like a
black female lead with like alove story, and then we end up
like on the floor that, knowingthat it was Shonda Rimes, we

(20:55):
still had our doubts, we did,and Shonda Rimes, like can
deliver.

She has before she she does, Like has before she
does.
She gave us that one scene ofAnnalise Keaton taking off that
wig on primetime TV.
I mean, that was the wigpull-off heard around the world.

Yeah, I mean Shonda, and that is again what
like?
Just like having thatexperience of having been
disappointed, like we really arein that place where, like we
don't want to be disappointedagain with television or a
romance that ends up not doingwhat we needed to do, and with

(21:38):
this one, honestly, like I Imean I have like one note for
that entire show.

Ooh Ooh, let's start at the beginning.
How did you like the way wewere introduced to this
character?

I loved it and I think that it set the set, the
tone for what that show wasgoing to be, which is why I mean
I love the romance in the show.
I truly thought it was perfect.
But what I love the most aboutthis show was that it was

(22:16):
centering women's lives,specifically Black women and
their agency, how theynegotiated it, how they got it,
how they protected it, how theynegotiated it.
And so, to me, how theyintroduced us to Charlotte in

(22:39):
that moment, where she literallyis like about to be sold into a
marriage, and how she reactsand how she like, how she takes
off from there, to me was justlike perfect.

Okay, tell me why.
This is a scene that stood outto me as well, because there was
something so impotent about heranger that she overhears her
brother signing her off inmarriage and she overhears it
just kind of by happenstance, byserendipity, and she can't say

(23:17):
I will not marry.
She can't say I cannot do this.
She can't say like this won'thappen.
She can't say like this won'thappen.
She just pushes over anexpensive piece of art to show
that she is there, to show thatshe is enraged and to show that
she is like alive and an actualperson.
And to me that was it'shonestly the cry of like so many

(23:39):
women of color is like.
I am here, I see this happeningand sometimes my rage is
impotent and that's like I feellike that's.
That was something that stuckwith me for that very reason.

Yeah, same.
And I mean even like thatmonologue that she gives when
they're in the carriage, andlike in the first episode, um,
they are like going to whereshe's basically going to go get
married off to the you know Kingof England.
Sight unseen just gets there tobe married and just talking

(24:13):
about what she's wearing, andlike she's wearing a corset that
if she moves the wrong way likeit'll puncture her lung, and
like just she has a line, that'sgreat, that just like oh, the
joys of being a woman Like she's.
Like I am dressed up, I'mgetting sold off to this guy.
I've never seen him Like I'msuspicious that something's up

(24:35):
with this guy, because likewe're this like tiny little
place in the middle of nowherein Germany and how did I end up
being the one that he wants tomarry Like something out of
nowhere in Germany, and how didI end up being the one that he
wants to marry Like something isclearly wrong here and again to
me, just her like her, givingus that sense that, like she's
no dummy, she could stand up forherself if she's allowed to do

(24:56):
so and she is aware of like hersituation, like her
self-awareness.
I think that to me, issomething that is so invaluable
and I get so much out of aheroine that is self-aware.

Oh, here's why I fell in love with her in episode
one, and one of the things thatthey do with her in like
clothing is like she's sittingthere like in the carriage,
trying not to move, and it's.
She gives this fantasticmonologue, like you mentioned,
but this it's about constriction.
It's about her being unable tomove out of the position that

(25:35):
she's in and that she is angryabout it, right?
So she's doing two things she'stalking about clothes and she's
talking about herself, right.
And finally, at the end, whenshe's like going to make this
choice, trying to decide aboutwhether she's going to go over
the fence or stay, when shedecides to stay and not go over
the fence, she changes outfits,she changes clothes, and I think

(25:59):
that says something about whatshe wants her life to be either
full of constriction or full ofchoices that she's making and
having her own agency.

Yes, and that's also something that I loved, I
mean again to me, shonda Rhimeswas giving us a lot of layers.
I think, if you almost like, ifyou watch it like, I feel like
this is the kind of show thatyou need to watch more than once
because you could miss some ofthe things that she's trying to
do.
Because, like, I feel like oneof the things that she talks a

(26:33):
lot about and specifically forwomen of color is, like black
women and brown women, is thatwe learn very early on that you
have to be pragmatic and youhave the choice.
You have to make the choicesthat you can when you can and
you cannot hesitate.
Have to make the choices thatyou can when you can and you
cannot hesitate.
Yep, and I think that likethat's part of like she's like
again, like the moment she makesthe decision that she's going

(26:54):
to go through that marriage, shelike draws the line in the sand
, like, okay, I'm gonna do this,but I'm going to wear the dress
that I want to wear yeah, yeah.

and there's this one scene that was like the kind
of beginning of a girlfriendship, where Lady Danbury
looks up at her from the rafters.
You can almost see thatcharacter make a decision to be
about that other woman.
Woman, right, like you couldalmost see it wash over her.
And I think sometimes it cantake that like for a Black woman

(27:36):
to look up and say like, okay,I see this one person in this
situation that we could neverhope to be in and I'm going to
do whatever I can and root forthis person to make sure that
they kind of stay where they are.
So there was this moment oflike I see you and I'm going to
see about this.
I mean, and I think I meanthat's a kind of stay where they
are.
So there was this moment oflike I see you and I'm gonna,
I'm gonna see about this.

I mean, and I and I think I mean that's a kind
of great segue to go on intothe piece of like we talked
about the first couple ofBridgerton series or having seen
the first two seasons, and oneof the things that Shonda did
with the series that is not partof like the original text is
that she created this worldwhere, like, black people and

(28:10):
people of color were like partof the aristocracy.
And so in queen charlotte shekind of gives us the context or
how that happened.
And it happened because kinggeorge married queen King George
married Queen Charlotte, who inthe series is a Black woman,
and so part of like how Shondakind of gave us, like rendered

(28:34):
that for us, was putting LadyDanbury in the scene who was
like basically there to look outfor these people of color who
were all of a sudden madearistocrats and made nobility.
And to me that like that pieceof the story is to me, I think,

(29:11):
the key of like how stories withBlack women at the center are,
I feel like singular or notsingular, but like very like
it's a theme that I feel like isa common one in stories about
Black communities or Browncommunities is the piece of you
can't just think of yourself andyour own.
Survival, like survival for amarginalized group, isn't an
individual thing.
It's gotta be survival of thelike, of the community, of the

(29:37):
collective, and so lady.

oh my gosh, this is , this is fantastic.
I just want to bring in like aliterary example of this One of
my favorite books, canon at thispoint, is the Color Purple.
And one of the first mistakesthat Sophia, who was this really
spirited, lively woman, thefirst mistakes that she makes in

(30:03):
friendship to Celie, is thatwhen Harpo is asking her for
advice, you know about what todo, not Harpo.
But like she's asking foradvice and Sophia says, well,

(30:24):
you should beat her.
And she's just she'sessentially saying, like this is
my experience, this is what Iknow.
And then when she comes back toher friend, her friend asks her
you know this, this woundedquestion, you know to say, like
why would you do this to me?
Like why would you say this?
And Sophia did not even know,right, that it was not an okay

(30:45):
thing to suggest.
And the reason why I bring thisup is that, like the extent to
which having a character in whounderstands, right, that you
cannot live and think aboutyourself as the only person
having this experience, and itwas one of the last times that

(31:08):
Sophia kind of thought aboutonly herself and her own
experiences she ends up kind ofgrowing as a character, but that
was her biggest flaw.
Right Is that she was aboutSophia, you know.

Yeah, and the piece of like, and I mean like I
talk about this a lot in termsof like what, how I write
feminism in my books like Ithink one of the things that has
been the most detrimental aboutthe feminist movement is this
idea of like gender equalitywithout like equity in like

(31:44):
other like systems of oppression, like this idea that if women
are able to get in the room withthe men and like play their
games, that somehow we're goingto gain ground and like what we
do is we're just like pawns of,like a system that's not meant

(32:07):
for us to thrive in.
I think, yes, like that'ssomething that like it's very
clear to me that like shondarhimes is functioning from a
place, at least in this story ofand I mean if she does that
also in like scandal, or likeyou know, olivia pope just like
takes down like sexual predatorsor whatever.

(32:29):
But it's the piece of like,lady Danbury, like being there
to remind Queen Charlotte, likeyou are the first of your kind.
We are all depending on you.
This is all very tenuous.
They gave us these titles, thisland, this security, this
generational wealth because ofyou, and if you don't play your

(32:55):
card right, we will lose it, andthen we will lose this.
This like one thing that couldmake everything different for
generations to come, and shedoesn't let her lose sight of
that.
And Lady Danbury, like.
I feel like that's one of thethings I love about this show,

(33:15):
specifically that Lady Danbury,like, is faced with difficult
choices where she has to choosebetween what she wants for
herself or the things that willallow her to have power that she
can use, and she always makesthe choice that benefits more
than just her.
So stay with us, because we'rejust getting started.

(33:39):
The myths are unraveling y'all,and what we find beneath might
just change everything.

Y'all.
I am so excited to sit downwith Amanda Rae Prescott today.
Amanda is a freelanceentertainment journalist on the
Bridgerton Beat and she's hereto give us the inside scoop on
all things Bridgerton.
Her specialty is tracking UK TVwith an eye to racial diversity
discourse.
She's a regular contributor toDen of Geek and her work can

(34:06):
also be found at GBH Drama Club,history Today and Doctor who
magazine.
Her scholarly articles yes,she's a scholar have appeared in
ABO Journal and the Journal ofPopular Television.
Amanda Ray has also been aguest on NPR and podcasts like
Reality Bomb, wibbly, wobbly andthe Thing About Austin.
She currently lives and worksin Brooklyn, new York.

(34:29):
Amanda, thank you for joiningus.

Amanda-Rea Prescott (34:32):
I'm excited to be here.
I have kind of listened toy'all off and on, so I'm like
glad to finally be here, yay.

Okay, amanda, we have to start off with the
hard-hitting questions, as youknow, know, okay, the first
thing that we want to know iswhat was the first piece of
music?
It can be a concert, it can bean lp, it can be a cassette what
was the first piece of musicthat you spent amanda ray's
hard-earned dollars on?
Your, not your parents, yourmoney okay, so this is gonna

(35:04):
sound.

I'm going to date myself a lot here.
I'll buy a lot, buy like awhole lot.
So in whatever year SmashMouth's All Star came out, I
bought that album, which ismoney Wow.
Yeah, so that was like 19,.

(35:31):
What?
Eight, seven, something likethat.
The one was um brian satcherorchestra is a dirty boogie.

So that was the second album I was gonna say
tell us about that, like alittle bit about that journey.
Did british music get you intobritish tv?

or so.
Here's a funny thing I wasalways into brit British TV
because I grew up without cablein the 90s.

Yeah, PBS right.

Yeah, so PBS.
Like I saw Alex Kingston'sboobs at a probably tender age
when I was able to really startlike going all the way into,
like being attached to.
It was oddly enough around whenHouse came out, so yeah.
I went.

Can I also like clock this, but it's interesting
that House, which is actuallyan adaptation of Sherlock, right
it is.

Yeah, it is .
Yeah.
That's the thing.
Like a lot of people I don'tthink clocked that at first that
it was a Sherlock adaptation.
I did not see the full versionof Jeremy Brett's Sherlock until
like, which was what they werekind of basing it on until like
way after, like the Cumberbatchera one and the country happened
Netflix and Amazon in theirearly days kind of just had a

(36:39):
lot of BBC stuff on there and itkind of slowly went away,
licensing and all that.
So like not during COVID, likewe have all these billion
streamers.
There was a lot of time to likefor me to go back and like look
at the quote-unquote classicsand touch notes.
I went back and re-watched awhole bunch of the uh mid, a
whole bunch of all the janeausten's I went through as one
does as one does, as one, allthe dickens ones I went through.

(37:01):
I went through um, several other, um, like you know, and then so
I ended up finding new thingsto like in that list of of new
things to like yes, it isvirginia.
It's.
Virginia was on my list interms of like, I'm going to
cover this as a journalist list.
It started with it start.
I talked about blogging aboutdown abbey um, the big one.

(37:23):
The next big one after that waspoldark um, I kind of had a
bunch of yeah, tumblr, twitterblogs getting kicked out of
random groups for stirringtrouble and uncomfortable
references.
That's honestly where I reallystarted.
The diversity kind of work onwas amanda, isn't that how I met
you?

we were getting kicked out of that jane austen
group well, that's the story.

So this is where this where the journalism
part of me story comes in.
So around 2015 or so, I decidedto go to grad school for
journalism.
So I went to ColumbiaJournalism School, as one does
when you're like I need to padmy resume and get a new skill,
so that's what I did.
So I literally used my DowntonAbbey blog in my application to

(38:07):
Columbia and it worked somehow,I know right.

So, yes, there you go, kids.

I watched Phil Dark a lot.
Then I went online and startedtalking to other fans about it.
Had a problem, because this wasthe word of like.
Okay, there was a lot of olderwhite women on this group and
then a lot of older women ofcolor who are probably from more

(38:36):
conservative backgrounds ohyeah and it's the story has some
misogyny, old time misogynymixed with like world war 2,
post world war 2 era misogyny.
But of course I'mny mixed withlike world war ii, post-war war
ii era misogyny.
But of course I'm trying tostart talking so many issues
with fans.
It was very obvious that, athey had very little
understanding of like anythingrelated to feminism at all.
It was a lot b uh, oddly enough, um, a whole, like whole dark,

(39:02):
like gray area consent rapescene.
A lot of the older women didnot understand why that was a
problem, because they're like,well, it was in the books,
that's how it would have beenback then.
I'm like sure about that, yeah,and I'm like, well, obviously
they have to go with the flow ofthe books because, I mean, they
have authors of state to followand all that.

(39:22):
But I'm like, yeah, this is aproblem.
And I got constantly on to fightsome people in these groups
because they were like not, andanother thing too, on top of
that is they hated the femalelead of the show because it's
like oh wait, how dare you saythe wife has a point?
I'm like, how like, how dareyou defend Imelda?
I'm like what do you mean?
And then I got called a lesbiana couple times for defending

(39:43):
her.
I'm like what.
I'm like what is happening herenot that that's even an insult,
I'm like what.
I also think that all of thoselearning that like how people
hide what they really want tosay and like how people frame
arguments has actually preparedme for more recent things.

(40:03):
If you look at outlander andhow Outlander develops and how
Outlander the fandom reacts andchanges the books it made to the
TV show, there's a lot ofsimilarities with Bridgerton.
So between Outlander andPoldark it has actually both of
those prepared me for Bridgerton.
But of course there's one stepin between Hamilton fandom Older

(40:27):
white people react to Hamilton.

My current children .
When they looked in the historybooks, they were shocked and
I'm being so serious.
They were shocked that thefounding fathers were white.
They were like what is this?
They had no idea.

That's how I was, mommy J, the reason why I
mentioned what is this?
Like?
They had no idea.

That's all, mommy jay so the reason why I
mentioned hamilton becausehamilton actually is important
for another factor in terms oflike the way people talk about
bridgerton the costume issues.
Like I went on facebook one daytrying to figure out how, like,
what patterns are she used forthe hamilton costumes and people
were feeling a kind of a wayabout you shouldn't make
costumes from hamilton, they'rewrong.

(41:09):
But I'm like but wait a second,you work at a museum, I'm just
gonna go to comic-con and I'veseen other people asking these
questions and they get thrownout of these groups.
So I was like, look the bridget, and people are doing the same
thing.
When people want to ask, like,I want to look like kate, I want
to like, y'all are doing thesame thing right now when people
want to ask about penelope'soutfits.

(41:29):
So that's where writing aboutthe pitfalls of outlander in
season one of bridgerton is whatreally prepared me for this
current discourse.
Also seeing people immediatelybeing nasty about the race
bending and harassing actors ofcolor online and all that.

(41:50):
I was ready because of all theprevious experience and, of
course, a little thing inbetween season three, there's
the Sanditon fandom.

Sanditon fandom .
I was going to bring upSanditon too, because that was
also an interesting one as well.
I don't have earrings, but I'mlike taking them off I mean it's
interesting we were talkingbridgerton, sanditon and miss
garland and the duke for me arekind of like all in the same

(42:19):
package they all came around thesame time yeah, and it's
interesting to note too that twoof those shows are masterpiece
tvs shows.

I have a sneaky feeling masterpiece was
not ready for the fandom aspectof it.
They were ready to tell peopleto watch the show.
They were ready to, like youknow, fundraise and stuff, but
they I mean I've met a bunch ofthe masterpiece folks um now
through freelancing and theyreally don't know the wild west.

(42:48):
All three of them haveattracted an audience that is
not used to romance narrativesand in a case of escargot, I
would argue that the romance wasprobably a second or tertiary
thought to the script.

I agree that I think the show creators the
romance aspect was a second ortertiary thought.
The problem was the chemistrybetween Stuart Martin and Kate
was explosive.
From the first episode I meanthat man growled all the time

(43:27):
Right and so From the firstepisode, yeah, I mean that man
growled all the time, yeah,right, yeah and so, like I
imprinted on that show and he'sleft the show now, like they
announced in the end of the lastseason that he was not coming
back, which is, you know, like Ithink the fandom that it gained
through the romance I think isnow gone, which is sad.
But like to me those three,like Theo James in the Sanditon

(43:50):
first season, also just that.
man was like climbing on top ofcarriages.
I mean.
On the run to Rent the.

Green it was giving us everything.
Yeah, so the people who are nowrealizing that Virginia Phantom
is a problem like y'all.
This has been a conversationfor a while on multiple levels.
I mean so like when I washarassing Regé for being
ungrateful, I was like, no, thisconversation's been done.
Been there, done that.
It's now extra nasty because ofrace.
But like I call it the perioddrama male actor.

(44:22):
When they have to, like, leavethe period dramas, I call it um
witness protection.
Yeah, they have to just be.
And now there's a new one forbridget and witness protection,
because clearly people have beenawful and horrible to very to
all, to pretty much all theactors of color.

(44:42):
I mean there's reports um lastyear, I think, of Rue Barger
playing Marina said that theydrove her to suicidal ideation
because they were harassing heron Instagram and TikTok.

So did you find I mean, I have a question given
.
Like one of the episodes we'vetalked about is Queen Charlotte,
the woman was the person ofcolor.
Like have you found that?
Like the discourse, let's say,with Queen Charlotte, and
perhaps even season two, whereit was Simone Ashley and

(45:14):
Jonathan Bailey?
Like did you find it differentthan season one, where the
person of the lead was like aman, that was a person of color,
did you?

find it different.
So here's the.
There's a couple of throughlines through all the seasons.
Here's the.
There's a couple of throughlines through all the seasons
and then there's a couple ofdifferences.
For season one, I think a lot ofthe anti-Bridgerton discourse
came from the fact that peoplewere expecting a white man to
play Duke Correct, people werenot really.
People were not reallyexpecting that.

(45:47):
And then people were sad whenhe decided you know what?
I have other opportunities, I'mgonna pursue them.
You know what?
I'm gone.
And women I feel like there wasa certain type of fan who found
wish fulfillment through Simonand then they could not let that
go.
And, of course, I think, a lotof the other, the people who
were not happy season one,obviously because they did not

(46:09):
get.
They did not.
The whole simon daphne rapedynamic was not fixed in the
show, although it looks likepeople might have wanted that
fixed and maybe it's likely thatquinn and other people pushed
back on that.
So there was mostly thatcommentary around season one.
But a lot of people were likewell, I like season one, let's
see what happens next.
Season two to me was moredivisive for two reasons.

(46:30):
Number one you had a lot ofpeople, the love triangle factor
, which was extended through thebooks.
Number two the fact that simoneashley and taritha chandran
were getting like pitted againsteach other in terms of
promotion and people notrealizing on taritha's side that
she's not the lead, she's theantagonist, because people

(46:51):
really thought she was elite.
I think mixed into thatdiscourse with all the usual
racism was a lot of when I wouldlook at stuff like other people
of color.
There was a lot of interestinglike cast stuff in there because
they're you're South Asian.
I'm like this is looking alittle weird to me as an
American.
I'm like that's not my area,but this looks y'all hate each

(47:13):
other.
I'm quite it wasn't so wild.
But later somebody explained tome that apparently Simone
Ashley comes from like was likea self-starter, and then
Teresa's like family's, morewell connected in England.
So it was a lot like not justthe like cast system and the
cast of them and in class stuffin england as well.
So like it was.
And then I think some of somuch with this french way.

(47:35):
I think we're more worried inthe industry, where I felt like
the fans were hating on her, butit's not that they didn't
realize they didn't read thebooks.
They're like simone's the lead,kate's the lead, and then then
a lot of discourse around seasontwo turned into they ruined our
characters because we don't getenough kate and anthony screen
time.
And that has continued intoseason three in terms of

(47:55):
critiques on the show, alongwith your usual racist nonsense.
And then, of course, you havethe folks who where.
What I found interesting aboutqueen charlotte was that there
was less fandom discourse interms of like, in terms of
everything except lady danbury'sbackstory.
Like I noticed, the bridgernamed fandom was pretty okay
with it.
Only unless for because youknow it is most that material is

(48:17):
not in the books it was allshonda and it was all shonda
created it was all, shonda, itwas all because lady danbury was
just the like, stern, oldermother figure in the con.
In most of the books she reallydidn't have a lot of plot other
than getting angry at people andlike banging her cane.
Because by the time the olderthe later books the series queen

(48:41):
charlotte is deceasedhistorically right yeah but like
.
So that's the other thing too.
Bergeron has a kind of atimeline problem in that regard
as well, because at some pointshe she's gotta go she's gotta
go well, we'll see and so is herhusband.
So like I think queen charlottewas less drama because people
are I mean, yes, you have yourusual bad gaggle racist being

(49:03):
annoyed, but I'm like there wasnot much of the ber burgerton
canon plot line to really beangry about, because most that
was all history or shonda justadding stuff in the whole
explaining why how racism worksin burgerton society.
People like, okay, fine, this isnot we, this is not really.
I think queen shaw was kind ofa calm period of animosity

(49:24):
enough, except for theinteresting.
I had not thought about that,except for the Lady Danbury
storyline, which I could see whypeople had problems with it,
because people felt like it wasa lot of trauma on a
darker-skinned actor.
Of course, my POV, I kind ofagree with that.
But I also feel like,historically speaking, setting
up the fact that women wouldhave been in these awful range

(49:46):
of marriages is kind ofimportant because it yeah
people's motivations on amarriage market and I think,
yeah, I mean I couldn't, I couldsee why people would have
wanted a change on that or likejust thinking that like she, you
know, should have had like anepic romance as well but, it's
such.

It's such.
I mean I'm sorry just to saylike to me Lady Danbury is like
such a Shonda Rhimes, oliviaPope type of character, like an
operator, you know what I mean,like she gets in the room.

(50:26):
That are kind of based on JuliaQuinn's work.
To me Lady Danbury is like aShondaland plant.
You know, what I mean.
But because it was her ownseason, to me it made complete
sense that Lady Danbury's storywas what it was, because it was

(50:46):
straight out of Shonda Rhimes'head.

Where people are not fine.
Now is this season, becausehere's something to keep in mind
Bridgerton and Shritch TrollRunners.

That's right.
What does that mean?
Okay, you're about to say that.
Probably, chris.

Bousin made the first two seasons and he
moved on to the projects and nowjess bronnell, who um has also
worked on previous sean landmaterial, has not stepped in and
she clearly has a differentvision for the books than I
think people intended.
But I also believe to me insome regards this was the
direction that people who didnot read the books were already

(51:29):
kind of anticipating.
So like, for example, to now,we're gonna be in spoiler land
spoiler.
Okay, just saying just everyone.

We're about to get into spoilers.

Turn it up so there are some arguments
about I'm gonna leave pennellbeing called on the aside for a
hot second.
So where people are mad abouthonestly is the fact that none
of the Bridgerton books, interms of main characters,
nobody's queer Right, no one.

Let's keep that one and the Bridgerton the show
fandom.

And the Bridgerton the show fandom there
is a large section of peoplewho read the books before, so
they're expecting the books toplay out on screen exactly as
they were written yeah and thisis a huge problem for shawn
nolan, knowing that we are in2024, are going to want to see
themselves on screen.

(52:24):
Um, I also believe that, um,jess ronald self-identifies as
queer.
Um, so like this is a thing.
They are the people running theshow, are not the purists book
canon fans let go of.

She assigned the like creative control over
the characters, like she advises, but she's not in charge of the
production and she's been veryopen about like she has no
control and is, like, happy tosee some of the storylines
brought to a more modernaudience, even if that means you

(53:03):
know some characters being yeah, like to an extent there is
some book canon storylines.

I wish they'd feature because I feel
like some like, for example, umthe Smythe Smiths, like they,
their parties, are always where,like the couple, drama happens.
And I actually thought in this.

In that episode, when they're at the party and
there's a violin quartet, I waslike, are these the Smythe
Smiths?

yeah, these two.
They kind of make a referenceto musicality.
Drop that immediately.
I was like y'all.
All the couple drama later onhappens there now, but of course
that's never what peoplecomplain about.
Yes, no, what they do complainabout is oh no, the guy I was
picturing in my head is now awoman.
Um knows, that breaks fantasy.
So benedict.

(53:48):
People were already annoyed atseasons one and two about him
possibly being hinged at asqueer.
There were some fans who didnot read books who thought at
one point that benedict andeloise were a couple.
I'm like no oh sis I mean, youcan game of thrones, the thing
you can.
I don't think that's what'shappening here.

Sorry, I think that's AO3.
It's fine, we're fine.

AO3, okay, keep that to AO3.
We're good.
People were already kind ofannoyed about that because
they're like well, what happensto his future spouse?
Yeah, so this season it is veryobvious that the homophobia is
also mixed with misogyny,because now we know that
Benedict, according to there wasa Luke Thompson movie where he

(54:34):
calls him pansexual.
So clearly Benedict is nowpansexual.
Bridgerton doesn't always liketo completely follow real
history, so I'm like in terms oflike plausible or not at all
yeah.

Yeah, is it actually still happening in
Bridgerton's world?

kind of.
Kind of not, because, like, forexample, they still don't
really have fleshed out Napoleonand the wars.
Yeah, right, I think it's likea liminal space.
How is Colin traveling in themiddle of the wars or just after
the wars?
Okay, I mean boyfriend died inthe middle of the wars.
Or just after the wars, okay,melmolina's husband, I mean
boyfriend died in the wars.
It's not consistent at all.

(55:13):
And also they have.

They've decided for now not to deal with
personally, Queen Charlotte isthe season I've enjoyed the most
.

Me too, it's headbound.

It's also one of my favorites because of
the way they like the way Shawnaconstructed the whole Great
Experiment as well.

I specifically loved their.
I mean I love their love story,but I also love the female
friendships.
I thought she just gave so muchtime to really having like
really nuanced moments of womenbeing there for women, even,
like with his, his mom, thequeen mother and lady danbury
like that relationship.

(55:55):
I found so great um and Iwonder what other spinoffs could
there be?
That are like Shonda spinoffs.

I would well, it looks like she's
considered she hasn't completelytaken off another Queen
Charlotte follow-up yet off thetable, and she said that to one
of the trade magazines when Ithink a possible spinoff could
happen in terms of like maybe Icould also see a Violet,

(56:31):
possibly, although violet,possibly, although they need
violet in the main show becauseshe still has to manage all the
unmarried children, not ak-nation like young violet.

So let me ask you just uh, um, I mean just to say
the the subtext out loud.
We're talking about what thespinoffs would look like and how
we could race bend or genderbend or change some aspect or
dynamic to make it palatable tofolks in the 21st century.
Historical accuracy andcostuming and those types of

(57:06):
things Like just lay it all onthe line, like what are people
actually saying in yourexperience and like what does
that mean?

Right, what does it mean?
So I've been working on whatdoes that mean for the past
couple of years now.
Actually, before I go, I'lltalk about historical accuracy.
There's an important piece herebefore I talk about that In
terms of spoilers for Virginianseason three.
It's very obvious the meltdownpeople have had that Michael is
now Michaela.

Yeah, goodness, why didn't we talk about that?

So the meltdown that has caused, first
of all, number one, people whohave read the books are now
spoiling future seasonstorylines for evil.
And now, and it is so obviousthat that reactions are clearly
driven not just by homophobiabut misogyny, because thing is
that there's clear straightwhite women in particular are

(57:59):
mad that they have lost anothermale figure they could project
their fantasies on.
They're mad that they,obviously, but the fact, people
have jumped immediately so theyhave ruined the books by trying
to be quote unquote woke, right.
I'm like that's a red flag tome, because the a lot of people
have not complained about beingthe same way.

(58:21):
The thing is.
The thing is they can.
They can fantasize about twomen being in a relationship,
right, because that's what womenare.

It's the internalized misogyny too.

And also, too, keep in mind, so far, all
Benedict's partners so far havebeen white, so that's why they
don't really care.
It would have been more of aproblem if he.
Yeah, I mean there was also asmall section of fandom who are
also women of color who areangry because they thought that
misali bedusa was going to besophie.
Um, that rumor was kind of now50 true.

(58:52):
I think they were picturing herfor sophie for, like, I think,
like character read reasons.
But I'm like okay right nowthat recover, that cover.

Repackage is gonna be interesting yeah, it's
gonna be interesting.

And also, too, I would argue, some of
those lines about like feelingwicked and stuff like that would
when he was wicked, when he waswicked, that those lines about
sin and all that would hitharder on a queer context than a
straight context.

Sorry, yeah, she would.
The yearning when he was wickedis one of her most like steamy
yearning.
It was wicked is is one of hermost like steamy yearning.
This is bad to do.
Feeling books in the bridgertonseries yeah, we are now.

It's possibility they may have to
redo a bit.
About the um infertility plot Iknow some people were very
attached to, I guess becausethey identified with francesca's
struggle in their own journey.
Um, I would argue, though thisis actually the more problematic
bit is like parts that soundlike baby tramping, which is
kind of weird and not like.
I mean it's written like someof it.

(59:56):
If you look at it now, someaspects of that whole scenario
has kind of aged badly and thosethings are old.
They're old, that's the thing.
People are not there, and theywere not just because the covers
are new and they're like gotthe netflix label slapped on
them.
Those are very old books.
Some of these, the way likethese male heroines are written,
are kind of problematic and wehave to remove some of that.

(01:00:17):
More like problematic.
Um, it's actually a good thingfor series also.
It's a good thing to bring innew viewers with bridget and,
and Bridgerton is a chance tohave a half half happy queer
couples, because so far, in alot of period dramas that have
been repeatedly criticized bythe queer community for just
centering only historical trauma, like there's a chance for them

(01:00:40):
, for these folks to seethemselves on screen in a happy
scenario, because I don't eventhink people realize, even like
Downton Abbey was heavilycriticized for this, like all of
that, that that dialogue hasgone all the way back down at
least, if not earlier yeah thatis only trauma narratives in
terms of queer period dramas andand, of course, when there are

(01:01:02):
a lot of this, um, a lot of thequeer and sapphic focused period
dramas, a lot of them are basedon historical events or
closeted narratives or peoplebeing punished for that, and
it's overdue to have people forqueer people have a happy ending
.
A show like even even somethings I like, like you know,
like Fingersmith and the SarahWaters adaptations and the
Confessions of Franny Langton,still has some kind of trauma in

(01:01:24):
there also many of thoseprevious queer dramas also
heavily white as well.
So it's like finally you get theswitch up there, long overdue.
I feel like people don'trealize.
I'm like just because it's okayif something's not for you we
talk about this so often, aboutlike what happens and that that

(01:01:45):
idea that something is not foryou is actually built into the
quote historical accuracynarrative.
So the historical accuracynarratives are really because
people have learned history 20,34 years ago.
They're watching older perioddramas, you know.
So their assumptions of whatactually happened in history are

(01:02:06):
wrong, completely wrong.
They've learned white historythrough their own historical
education through.
When you're not precise, that'swhen the dog whistle step in,
you know, that's when you're notlike, specific about like.
Sometimes another dog whistlein these conversations is low
quality.
Who is determining quality?
It's not the Emmy Awards board,it's some middle-aged white

(01:02:32):
person in Kansas.
Another one is poor acting,again usually thrown out
exclusively on queer and poc umpeople so, or at characters.
I'm like, yeah, that's anotherexample like poor acting.
I'm like, hmm, yeah, that'sanother.
That's another red flag,another one off.

(01:02:53):
Sometimes, depending on who itis, it's too young.
Sometimes, depending on thecast situation, is it's too
young.
I'm like, yeah, yeah, sothere's never historical
accuracy.
Even when we talk about anovelization doesn't make sense
because the author was make, waskind of make too.

Adriana Herrera (01:03:10):
Yeah, historical accuracy in
historical romance specifically.
It is a funny thing andsomething that has been talked
about ad nauseum in romancespaces that like most like how
many governesses have marrieddukes really in history?

Nikki Payne (01:03:28):
Not a one.
How many dukes are there?
How?

many hot ones with all their teeth in their
mouth.

Come on.

Not many.

Amanda-Rea Prescott (01:03:38):
A lot of these historian type people who
make these comments aboutBridget and other things have
not read historical romance.

Right and I mean even within the historical
romance reading space of, likeyou know, the fans that are now
demanding things be historicallyaccurate we'll read wildly
historically inaccurate work ifthe two main characters are
white correct like as long as itserves their personal fantasy

(01:04:05):
of, like, white aspirational,you know, moments of like.
Of course the nanny can marrythe the prince, as long as she's
white, right.
As long as it's within theirown personal fantasy, it's fine.

But if a Black queer woman is now taking,
as you said, amanda, their ownpersonal, their ability to
fantasize about that white hero,then there's a problem yeah,
and the thing is, what peoplewhat these people don't are
failing to realize is that thehistorians that you listen to

(01:04:42):
and review have been telling youwrong information and like tell
them and I think I especiallyhear these someplace, especially
from the uk and europe, becauseagain, it's for soul.
I think part of anger is thathow dare these Americans tell me
what I think about my ownhistory?

I think volunteer is actually adapting
source material written by aperson of color my god although
I have good news on that front.

Hopefully, fingers crossed.
Beverly Jenkins did get one ofher stories option.
I did see that.
Yes, yes, I did see that.
Hopefully that means camerasstart rolling because it's NBC
and John Legend's productioncompany.

Yes, yes.
I did see that it is hercontemporary series.
It is contemporary.

That's the only thing I think right now,
although somebody should adoptone of her storys, especially
given that Bass Reeves andYellowstone were so popular.
There's a lot of, I think, onthe Hollywood side.
Folks are being short-sightedin terms of where her stuff
could be, and Yellowstone reallyis white nostalgia.

It is definitely, and I think there's
a very specific market, giventhe climate this country's in
right now, where white Americanpioneer nostalgia is very
marketable.
And I don't know, and BeverlyJenkins' books are not that.

They're African American history.
We had the backstory spin off.
I feel like her books would beperfect in terms of a counter If
people want to compete with anaudience.
You could go right there, adaptone of her books and just
compete with the other peopleright there.

We have somehow been all over history.
We have been to RegencyGeorgian, We've even actually
touched on the West, which is,you know, we've come full circle
.

We've come full circle.
Yeah, and what I would say, forall Bridget's imperfections,
there's a chance for bothauthors and screenwriters to do
things in a different way, to dothings in a different way or
work on.
You know, there are thingspeople do and there's not a

(01:06:59):
space to have both the alternateuniverse settings and the you
know, quote, quote.
I don't like using the wordaccuracy, but I like to say
historical recreation.
Yeah, I've been kind of goingaway from that term and like for
a while now, because I'm likeit's so obvious it's becoming a
dog whistle for like I hatewhatever is happening here and

(01:07:20):
not really analyzing whatexactly don't you hate besides?
Oh no, there's a poor person.
Oh no, there's a black person.
Yeah, yeah, I'm like, and ofcourse, there's gonna be a mini
war for this and, uh, literallytomorrow, um, pbs is a a little
um, british murder, crime drama,village drama.
Granch, we are now getting athird hot vicar who is now South
Asian, and I'm waiting foreverybody to be like well, he
sucks because he's.

(01:07:40):
We can't say he sucks becausehe's South Asian.
We're just going to say he'spoorly acting.
I'm like, well, you guys ranthe guy that hid the last white
guy that was there because hewas a millennial, so like I have
receipts, I mean that I feellike renchester's, like another,
like one of those that I felloff um, and probably since the

(01:08:06):
beginning.
I can have a whole ted talkabout how wonderful the show is
and that like, how secretly,like people don't realize, like
the british murder drama ishiding a lot of like secret,
like progressive things.

So I'm like y'all, you are in for a lot we
probably have to have a seasonjust of uh, mr cozy, mysteries,
and we'll have you back on forreal.

Yeah, we'll have you back on.
I love because I because lovebecause there's anything about
crime dramas, I don't alwayscover them.

It's a date for a full-on murder mystery book.

Tell us where we can find you for it, so we can
actually see those receipts youtalk of.
We want to see them live, baby.
Tell us where we can find them.

Obviously, I'm still on the Hell's site
Notice Twitter because I've hadit since 2009.
It's very hard to like so ontwitter.
My uh is amanda r prescott.
I'm a former blue check and I'mkind of just there still
talking about working andwhatever else I'm working on.

(01:09:10):
So, um, yeah, um.
I also have a website,amandarayprescottcom.
Okay, my entire name Um, um, andalso I am on Instagram as
amandarprescott, but I'm notalways checking Instagram and
same with threads.
I am not on the clock app yet,uh, basically because I'd rather

(01:09:33):
people send me the cat and dogvideos.
All right, yeah, all right,yeah.
So I'm also on blue sky as wellas amanda r prescott, because I
couldn't fit the whole name, um, although I kind of forget to
check blue sky.
But, yeah, that's where you canfind me on the web.
Um.
For more um.
British tv period drama funtimes.

(01:09:53):
I do have some Bridgertonarticles coming out.
I interviewed the showrunnerthat's up on Dada Geek right now
.
I have one more Bridgertoninterview coming on Monday, from
Dada Geek as well, that peopleare really going to want to look
at.
I'm just going to let y'all besurprised.

Thank you so much for sharing all of your
knowledge with us and discussingall of the different pitfalls
of the British drama fandom.
Thank you so much.
We appreciate it so much andwe'll definitely have you back
to talk about British history,all the murders, murders,

(01:10:31):
murders.

Only murders in the past, only murders in the
podcast.
Only murders in the podcast.

Oh, that's a good name.

All right, bye.
Now let's talk about LadyDanbury, because she was a point
of controversy, like a lot ofthe think pieces and a lot of
the reasons why people were justlike this is detrimental to
Black women were expressly aboutLady Danbury's storyline.

(01:11:00):
So one of the things thatpeople mentioned was that her
young marriage to her husbandand that what she was
experiencing was essentiallylike non-consensual sex.
What she was experiencing wasessentially like non-consensual
sex, pretty consistently overtime, and that it was played for
a laugh and that this was likeat the expense of this, of this

(01:11:22):
black body, right, and so peoplehad problems with that and they
had problems with her, um, loveinterest and essentially saying
that that she would choose thisto have this affair Right
Instead of like going with thisother Queen Charlotte's brother,
right, and like going thatroute.
And there are a couple of waysI want to think about that

(01:11:46):
critique, but I wanted to throwit to you first to see what you
thought and then we could justkind of volley back.
Hit me.
It to you first to see what youthought and then we could just
kind of volley back, hit me.
The first thing that I thoughtof when they were describing her
experience was.
I think what they were doing inBridgerton was giving a really

(01:12:07):
full-bodied experience ofrelationships and marriage.
Right, I agree, I think in theother two Bridgertons we saw
mostly happy marriages, exceptfor maybe, like the the, the
Duke's dad, mother and father.
But even the Duke, you know,loved his wife.
He just maybe didn't love hisson as much as he should have,
right, and so marriage is seenas this kind of unequivocal good

(01:12:30):
for all and the goal for all ofthese young people is to get
married because marriage is good.
And I think Lady Danbury is inthis situation to show us that
there is an ambiguity about herfeelings about motherhood.
These are things that everyonekind of universally has to agree

(01:12:51):
or universally for the good ofwomen, right, marriage and
motherhood.
And these are the two verythings that Lady Danbury is just
like, maybe cool, cool, cool,but I'm a, not so like.
She feels ambiguous as a mother.
It feels distanced from thewomen who express joy in their
marriage.
She was just like you gotta bekidding me, the women who

(01:13:13):
express joy in their marriage.
She was just like you gotta bekidding me.
And she represents this personwho can be calculating but is
also inherently realistic aboutwhat it means to live a life at
that point.
So when you talk about hersaying you have to make these
choices, you have everyoneelse's on your shoulder.
It's very much because shedoesn't live in a world that has

(01:13:36):
idealized these kind ofrelationships that one has with
their spouse and their motherand their child.
Like she doesn't idealize anyof those things that we're
supposed to, and that's why Ithink those scenes with her and
her husband really focused onthe de-idealization of marital
relations, right To takeliterally the rose colored

(01:13:58):
glasses off of marital relations.
I mean, there are people nowwho are, you know, having
relations with spouses notalways out of glee, not always
out of desire, right, not alwaysout of the joy to do so, desire
right, not always out of thejoy to do so, and so like the

(01:14:19):
idea that her relationship wasstripped of the rose colored
glasses is a testament to hercharacter and why she was able
to have so much agency, I wouldargue the most agency in the
entire show.
Yeah, I mean Lady.

Danbury was a young woman but was grown.
This is a woman who has grownand she is not trying to play
games.
She knows that, that she has,like her life has been
compromised from the get go.
She was born to be married offto this man who was wealthy, to

(01:15:00):
be married off to this man whowas wealthy, and she is very
good at leveraging her choicesand the agency that she gets to
secure more agency for herselfand like.
That's what she does throughoutthat entire show.
That's what she does and Ithink I I I mean absolutely
there were a lot of cringymoments with lady Danbury in the
beginning in those first threeepisodes of the show, a lot like

(01:15:23):
the.
There need to be five of thosescenes.
I can't tell you if that wasnecessary or not.
I could have been.
I was good with one, maybe two.
But I think the point of it isand it's like what you said like
beyond just the fact that liketrue, it was the reality for
some women.
It still is the reality forsome women and I think, like I'm

(01:15:47):
not even like we could get intolike for at that time, like
women of color, how they evenhad a proximity to wealth, how
they could become like you know,the lady or the house, like the
choices that they had.
All of that isn't even likerelevant because this is like a
fictional world, but I thinklike it's important to also like

(01:16:09):
show that there's differentkinds of relationships, there's
different kinds of marriages.
There are marriages that peoplemake because of practical
reasons and lady danbury was apractical woman and because of
that she was able to shape herdestiny and honestly like
influence the destiny of acountry, because she was there

(01:16:33):
with the good word for Charlottewhen she needed it she did the
actual work, oh yeah, and toldher like there's a moment in the
show when, like Charlotte islike she's had can we curse in
this show she's had that gooddick already at least once and
she and we just decided, we justdecided, and she is, like you

(01:16:57):
know, sprung and he is like outthere farming on something, he's
kind of like checked out, she,she is, she is like like
struggling and lady danbury islike she's like literally has
her hair like face pressed tothe window watching him walk
around with no shirt on.
And lady danbury is like yougolden scene it's gold.

(01:17:21):
She's literally like climbing ona on a on like a bench, like
mozart is playing in the literalmozart is playing in her in her
freaking like piano room andshe's like left the kid and gone
to look at the window becausehe's like out there farming or
whatever.
And Lady Danbury's like youhave to get it together.
Like you have got to stoplooking at this man.

(01:17:43):
You are the queen, you are thefirst of your kind, like he's
cute and everything, but youhave got to get your shit
together.
You are just wasting time andlike our titles are in jeopardy
here, but you have got to getyour shit together.
You are just wasting time andlike our titles are in jeopardy
here, yeah, and so she is likethe one that keeps her in check.
Because this woman is like andit's interesting because in to

(01:18:08):
lady Danbury like the idea thata woman could be so into her
husband that she's like not ableto focus on the task at hand
isn't even a possibility.

She doesn't buy it.
She's like what the hell?

She's like what is going on with you, like you
did your duty, you having youknow you're having the marital
relations and like what is goingon that you're so like in your
head and and Charlotte is, ofcourse, like gone for this man.
But it's just like I feel likeit was honestly like I feel like

(01:18:44):
a beautiful way to kind of likeparallel how two young women
can have such differentexperiences, and also like the
fact that, like charlotte isobviously the queen was also
like lighter skinned ladydanvers, like a darker skinned
woman, like, yeah, like therewas a like shonda was doing like
double time, triple time, withthe characterization in that in

(01:19:09):
that series, to be honest, I, Iabsolutely agree.

Another woman that I wanted to think a little bit
about is Princess AugustaAnother great character.
Another great character, really, the kind of architect of the
great experiment in a way.
Essentially, her and LadyDanbury.
What did you think that Shondawas doing with this Princess

(01:19:35):
Augusta character?
I found her abrasive andcompelling at the same time.
You knew precisely what she wastrying to do, which was placate
all of these men while makingsure that her son was protected
with the kind of science thatshe knew at the time.
Right, she wasn't necessarily afan of Charlotte, but she was
doing what she had to do.
Right, she wasn't necessarily afan of Charlotte, but she was
doing what she had to do, whatshe felt to like protect her son

(01:19:57):
yes, I mean and again it's atestament to the kind of writer
that Shonda Rhimes is is that?

and?
And for me, especially, like I,when I'm watching a show where
there's so many women of color,so many black women specifically
, and there's like one whitewoman that's coming in with like
a karen energy, like, it's veryeasy for me to immediately like
villainize her you know what Imean like this lady's out here

(01:20:26):
to call 9-1-1 on the peoplebarbecuing.

She wants to speak to the manager.

She wants to speak to the manager, she wants
to you to turn off your music,so he's gonna write an angry.
And so to me, what was verycompelling about her is a that
she was very clear in herintentions all she wanted was
her son to stay king, and, andshonda rhymes unpacked that for

(01:20:56):
us as we went, like she gave us.
Like this woman has beencarrying the burden of her son
being mentally ill and likebeing vulnerable to losing his
crown, like pretty much since itwas born.
Her husband died.
She was at the mercy of herhusband's father, who was
terrible, terrible, and so she'sbeen carrying this burden for

(01:21:21):
George's entire life and seeingthat things are getting worse
with him.
And so, like you can, you couldfeel her stress, you could feel
her, the urgency for her andher desperation, really that you
could sense her.
And like I mean, that actressis great, like the, the woman

(01:21:41):
who actually played the role,because she was so contained,
and yet you could sense her likedesperation and the stress she
was under, absolutely like Idon't know I have a favorite
moment with her, but I wanted toask you what, if there's a
scene with Augusta that likestuck out, stuck out for you oh,

(01:22:02):
absolutely, it was absolutely.

When Lady Danbury starts to cry.
And she was just like bitch,are you kidding?
Like you can do all the things,but don't do not, not you and
me, you know.
I mean, she was she essentiallylike pulled down all the
curtains to say this is like youare my only real peer, you know
.
And if you pull this, you knowsoft belly bullshit, like what

(01:22:26):
are we doing right?
So it was she.
She was like make your ask andsee.
Like be strong enough to see ifI take it or not.

Like we're doing this, I love it that to me
is honestly probably like mytop three favorite scenes in the
whole show, because it reallyboiled down to me what shonda
was doing in that show in termsof offering to us like a view
into the lives of women.
Like it was like becausePrincess Augusta's like I don't

(01:22:56):
like you, but I respect you andI see what you're doing and like
you are better than to fallapart, crying Like do not do
this, not here.
You are not here to fall apart.
You are here to get your goals.
Like if you yep, you can't,this is not the moment and this

(01:23:18):
is not the time for you to becrying.
She takes out a flask fromsomewhere.
Pour some brandy in, ladydanvers cup and like here have
this brandy and get your shitget your shit together, because
you like, and it was like it wasa moment of like we can
disagree but we can beadversaries, but we are after

(01:23:39):
the same goal and it's like youget what you want and you get
the power to do what you want,and I get what I want.
Like and and I love, like, Ifeel like so much of television
that centers women's, or likewomen going after things, or
women with ambition, like, so itlike really does this lazy

(01:24:01):
thing of making the women whoare powerful and ambitious and
focus, like like they pit themagainst each other.
And this is one of the few timeswhen, like the two, like bad
bitches, like even when they'relike kind of at each other's
throats, like there's respectthere and there's like you can

(01:24:22):
get what you want and I can getwhat I want.
Yes, and that to me again, likehonestly, like those two
artists of Lady Danbury andPrincess Elgasa, I think it's
just honestly like suchbrilliant writing and such
brilliant characterization.
Like, honestly, hats off toChandra Rimes, because she truly

(01:24:42):
is the best.

Yeah, yeah.
One of the last things I wantto ask is essentially about the
hero.
Right, finally, we're?
Let's go to the romance.
Finally, let's talk about thehero.
Right, finally we're let's goto the romance.
Finally, let's talk about thehero.
I found this hero extremelyempathetic.
I felt for him, I wanted his.

(01:25:08):
He was also a person who wasincredibly powerful, but was
without agency in a real way,also a person who was incredibly
powerful but was without agencyin a real way.
And it was almost like QueenCharlotte had like draped over
her agents, like once she foundwho she was, like she almost
like draped him.
You know the, the scene wherehe is he runs out in the
moonlight, you know, and shegets his blanket and like she

(01:25:29):
puts it over him.
And it was like this moment ofdeciding, like I am going to be
like for this person and she shefound her agency, if only to be
his actual agent.
I think she was in real life,his guardian up until he died.
You know like and or she died.
But yes, that that moment ofsaying like I'm going to use my

(01:25:52):
agency and you have actuallyvery little agency despite your
position and I'm going to use myagency to fight for you as well
.
That's another.
It's another case of that verything.
And then like for the hero tobe the person who needs saving
by this woman of agency issomething that I felt like it

(01:26:13):
was so.
It was so soft, it was sovulnerable.

And it was like the kind of like the
reciprocity of them, because allshe wanted was to be okay,
right, like to be safe, like andI think, like I think a lot
about, especially in this moment.
Like it, like I think that's whyhistorical romance,
specifically, is like a reallygreat vessel right now to

(01:26:36):
explore like what we're feelingas women right now, like so much
of the world feels unsafe again.
I mean, it's never felt supersafe, but it's feeling
particularly precarious rightnow for us, for our rights, our
the things that we like havefought for and won, and like
starting to like lose them.

(01:26:56):
And and like Charlotte from thebeginning, like all she wanted
was to be safe, to find someonethat wasn't going to hurt her,
that to be okay.
Like she wanted to be in amarriage where she was safe and
she found that george.
And then george found in her aperson to be safe with, with his

(01:27:18):
mental illness, like the secretthat he had been holding for
his whole life and reallythought was something that no
one could love him through.
Like he really was so afraid.
Like I mean it is the wound.
Yeah, Like he, like the, thewound he felt like, like truly

(01:27:39):
like no one can love me if theyknow this about me, and the way
that she from the first was likeI'm not sure what's happening
with him, but he's my husbandand I am going to have his back,
Like she was his ride or die.

Yeah.

From the get-go .
Yeah, she was Something thatlike moved me was if he needs to

(01:28:22):
be mad, let him be mad.
Right, I mean, I was like honey, you can have all of me, ok, I
understand.
Like if, because the the otheroption was to see him in Agnes
to torture him, and like evenwhen, at one point also, that
he's like sometimes I don't evenknow where I am, like my mind
is not right, and she's like,well, if you don't know where
you are, I will tell you whereyou are.

I will tether you to the earth.

I will tell you where you are.
Like it's that, honestly, thatromance was flawless.

That declaration of love.
That was probably one of thebest declarations of love I've
seen this year.
It shook me.
I was boohooing.
I would say it's one of thebest declarations of love I've
seen this year.

It shook me.
I was boo-hooing.
I would say it's one of thebest declarations of love I have
seen in television.
I don't know.
I mean there's obviously the2005 Pride and Prejudice Like.
That's probably like.

That stammering I love you it still.
It still gets me.
I've seen it so many times,adriana, but I'm toxic.
It is.

Like unmatched let's just leave that in another
place but of like a historicalperiod piece, romance, that,
that declaration from George tolike, like my heart calls your
heart calls out your name.

My heart, my heart calls your name and it's just
like he's in tears and he's justlike pressing him, like do you
love me?

Oh my gosh, I'm getting chills, I've watched it
so many times and it is just soemotional.
I mean and again I mean for forpeople out there, if, if you
listen to this and you're tryingto write a romance, please
watch that series because it isa giving the tip, it is a master

(01:30:05):
class in like building theemotion to a love declaration,
like honestly, like, likehonestly, like few I've seen in
in television and even like Imean there's a lot of great love
declarations in romance novelsobviously, but this is one of
the best ones I've seen intelevision and it's because she

(01:30:28):
really like we were really withthem and like both of them as
they fell in love and likeseeing all the things.
I mean there were so manygenius things that she did in
that show.
One of them was having us seethem get married and then kind
of her like him ghost her, helike he ghosts her and like that
during the honeymoon and thencomes back but he's like pissy

(01:30:50):
about it and then she hears himsay something that hurts her
feelings and then we see himkind of like being really
evasive and like we know thatsomething's wrong.
Like we know the history QueenGeorge had mental illness but
then, like the fourth episode ofthe of the series.
It's from his point of view andwhat was happening with him in

(01:31:11):
those moments that he was kindof like MIA, and then we see
what he's been doing and thenwe're like it's heartbreaking,
and then we again go back tokind of like her point of view.
So again, a masterclass in POV,a masterclass like truly
centering women I there's likewomen's friendships, like I love

(01:31:37):
.
Like the present times, because, like the show is in a dual
timeline, it's like the past ohyes, that's right.

It's also dual timeline.

It's doing, it's the past and it's like the
present and it's like ladydanbury, older um violet, who's
the mom of the bridgerton kids.
She, like her friendship withlady danbury, is interested in
complicated, especially becausewe learned some things about
lady danbury's past that kind ofcomplicates the relationship

(01:32:08):
that she has with violet in someways like even queen charlotte
and kind of like one of thereally brilliant things that
Chanda does is that QueenCharlotte still dresses like she
dressed when she married KingGeorge, because she's basically
like frozen in time.

He wants her Tethering him constantly to a
woman.

Yes, she wants him to know that it's her and
like that's why she doesn'tchange how she dresses.
It's, it's just honestly likeit's just a great romance and
and one of those romances wherewe get the epilogue, because if,
if it would would have been aregular romance novel, the book

(01:32:54):
would have like it would haveended when they had that last
ball, where they have the secondball and like everything's
great and she's pregnant againand like everything's beautiful,
like he seems, like he's okay.
But then we get like thepresent and we see how their
love story kind of like you know, unfolded through the years and

(01:33:14):
even though things are notperfect at all, they still love
each other.
Yeah, and it's still beautifuland it's still like the last 10
minutes of that show the way Icried.

Like something was hurting me, stop.
My kids came in.
Mom, are you okay, dry heaves?
I'm more than okay.

Yes, dry heaving Like dry heaving.
It was truly, truly, truly,like it was just beautiful.
It was beautiful and I reallydo believe that it was.
It made such an impact on mebecause, it was told, I think
really really trying to center Athe lives of women, but

(01:33:58):
specifically Black women.
I really do believe that that'swhat made the big difference
for me.

Absolutely agree.
I mean, if we're summing up ourexperience with Queen Charlotte
and making that bridge betweenwhat we know about romance or
romance culture, I would say thetriumph of Queen Charlotte was
its ability to fixate on, like amarginalized person,

(01:34:26):
marginalized community, and liketurn her experience into a
universal experience.
So often it's the opposite,right, where, like the white
experience is seen as auniversal experience and then,
like people of color, kind ofgetting where they fit in, like
we're just we're reading JaneAusten and like kind of
imagining that you know thatthis could be the other way.

(01:34:47):
But what she did was reversethat, turn that inside out and
say that this, this person ofcolor's experience, is a
universal experience as well.
And that, to me, is the geniusof Queen Charlotte.
There probably wasn't a womanwho watched that.
That didn't say she is like me.

Yes, yes, and I mean again, like, yes, yes,
exactly.
I don't have nothing more toadd other than I agree, agree,
it's, it really truly is, andthe universal experience that
still focuses on the collective,like like a unit, like a, a one

(01:35:23):
person's experience can stillbe grounded in your own safety
and your own well-being, and youcan still be able to think
about the greater good.

Come on, come on.

Come on See how she did that.
You see what Shonda did there?

Yeah, I see what she did.
I see what she did.
Do you have any recommendationsfor people who still want to
vibe this hard and this well?
Any books that come to mind foryou?

yes, um, I actually just reread forbidden
by beverly jenkins, which is oneof my favorite romances ever
and I hadn't read in a couple ofyears.
I listened to it, oh, like in aday, like this week, and I would
recommend that one because thatlike just to give like a little

(01:36:17):
.
I mean, you know, like if youread the, the, the back copy,
you'll know like it's.
It's a man, ryan fontaine, andhe is like his father was a
slave owner, he, his mom was aslave, and he is light-skinned,
so he decides to, he's passing,he has like crossed the collar
line and he is, and this is like18, like it's like in the

(01:36:43):
middle of reconstruction, likewhen reconstruction is starting
to like fragment, yeah, and sothere's like a real conversation
going on.
I mean, first of all, beverlyJenkins is a freaking genius.
Like nobody renders realhistory in a romance novel the

(01:37:04):
way that this woman does it.
Like every time I read one ofher books, I am in awe of her
skill.
Forbidden is top tier it is oneof my favorite all-time romances
of any subgenre.
I've read it so many times andevery time I'm like she is
literally a freaking genius.
But anyway, there's so muchcontext here, I think connected

(01:37:28):
to also what Shonda did withQueen Charlotte in terms of this
is a critical moment in therace.
This is a critical moment inthe race, like there's a
critical moment in the race andyou have to pick your sides and
you got to do your job, yep, andin Forbidden it's the same
thing.
Like Ryan has been kind of beenI'm living as a white guy but

(01:37:49):
I'm helping out the blackcommunity.
Like I'm a good guy but I'mlike white.
So like I'm here and I have,and he and he has a lot of
privileges.
He is able to like maneuver alot of things, but he has to
like he comes to the realizationthat he has to like he like,
he's like he can't continue tolive in both, in both worlds.

(01:38:11):
So it's, it's anyway.
I think it's a book that is agood.
It's a good like.
it's a similar vibe in terms ofeverything that it's negotiating
and the community piece and thepiece of the collective,
especially because, like therewas a time where, like the
Republican Party was reallycompromising so that they could,

(01:38:32):
you know, bring in the whitepeople that were disgruntled,
and all of this stuff.
That is happening right now andso it's anyway Forbidden by
Beverly Jenkins is one of myrecommendations, it is a
freaking brilliant book, genius.

I'm also going to do a historical that I
absolutely loved the DianaQuincy series.
Her historicals are incrediblysteamy, but they also deal
particularly well with race, andwhat I love about her regency
is that all of her heroes orheroines are from different

(01:39:11):
classes.
So some of them are dukes, butsome of them are like merchants
or even lower, like one of themwas like a bone setter.

Yes, I love that bone setter romance.

Yeah, oh yeah, that was good.
And so she deals very kind ofexplicitly with race and the
issue of being kind of Arab inthat time right.
So I think it's analogous tothe story of, like, how one
becomes accepted in this andit's like you have to somehow
erase who you are to be accepted, and that was the thing that

(01:39:40):
her heroines are always pushingup against, like I can't
actually be Arab Right and beaccepted in this space, and
they're moving outside of theton and the aristocracy to kind
of find their happiness and thenmaking changes on the
aristocracy and forcing them tokind of change the way they
think.
And I think that's reallysimilar and it's so steamy, it's

(01:40:04):
so spicy.

Her books are super spicy, super smart.
They always have these likesuper interesting professions.
She has one that's like a mapmaker too.
She has really great.
Diane a map maker too, she hasreally great.
Diane Quincy is great to read.
She is a phenomenal historicalromance author and it's all.
All her heroines are Arab, andsome of her heroes too, so it's

(01:40:31):
Also top tier romance, fantastic, good choices.
Good talk.
I know it was a great talk.
I love that we're doing this.

We hope you can join us biweekly on Unbound and
join our conversation.
Thanks for riding with us.

Your thoughts and stories are the lifeblood of
this exploration, so we inviteyou to engage with us.
Share your insights, yourfavorite moments and the romance
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