Bodice Tipplers

Welcome to Jackie July!  We're dedicating this month to listener favorite Jackie Collins because we're in the middle of a Jackaissance - a fancy new 40th anniversary edition of  Hollywood Wives  is coming out (introduction by Colleen Hoover!) and two of her daughters, Rory and Tiffany, are doing press for it.  We had a blast sitting down for an interview with them and we think you'll enjoy it, too...

She's Luna, in witness protection!  He's Elar, a horny eel monster!  It's Courtney's birthday so we're going off script and reading Electrified by the Eel , a modern paranormal romance short!  (Come for the eel sex, stay for the heartfelt tangential argument about the number and location of centaur dicks.) So the book itself notes trigger warnings for drowning - look, it should have also mentioned...

Buckle up Jane, it's the Regency!  Harriet is a fossil hunter!  Gideon is a viscount, which is evidently a job!  He's grim and broody and has an Evil Past full of Scandals and also a cool scar!  She's Tracy Flick in a pelisse!  There are smugglers!  And parties!  It's Amanda Quick's  Ravished ! Surprise - nobody actually gets ravished in this book.  I know, right?  There's an attempted rape that's...

Gwynne is theoretically a powerful druid! Neil is clearly a date rapist and also a bard! Anyway, here's Wonderwall! This is  Talisman of Valdegarde , which - I swear I am not making this up - is an official Dungeons and Dragons Choose Your Own Adventure-style romance novel! Unsurprisingly there are no content warnings here except for the anxiety that Choose Your Own Adventure books evidently elici...

It's time for our fourth annual check-in with Martha Waters!  That does not seem possible!  And yet! Her latest book in the Regency Vows series is  To Swoon and to Spar . Viscount Penvale has been working for years to buy back his ancestral home, Trethwick Abbey, from his estranged uncle. And so he's thrilled when his uncle announces that he is ready to sell but with one major caveat—Penvale must...

Welcome to the second episode of our Valentine's Day 90's Bad Boys-a-thon!  This time we read Lisa Kleypas'  Dreaming of You , knowing full well that we dare the wrath of the Derek Craven fan club.  He's a moody emo Cockney kid from the mean streets, made his money and unsure of what to do with it now that he's got it!  She's a spectacled young authoress, fresh outta Green Acres - she wants to get...

He's a rake, a dastardly dastard, a blackened heart in a big nosed body! She's Spunky and extremely wee! There's a  really hot  scene with a glove! It's Loretta Chase's  Lord of Scoundrels!  This February for Valentine's Day we're reading all your favorite 90's bad boys.  The spiritual heirs of Edward Rochester. The rakes, the scoundrels, the emo ones. Broody like hens! Inventing Hot Topic! Thinki...

Billy Ikehorn-Orsini is IT.  Extraordinary wealthy, profoundly chic, and her diamonds have names.  Valentine is the next big couture designer.  Spider is a photographer who somehow now is the guy who makes a store cool.  Whatever, just go with it - together they are the minds behind Scruples, the  boutique that sounds suspiciously like a Cracker Barrel that put Rodeo Drive on the map for women lik...

 Honey is a figure of legend, a giantess astride the world!  She is five feet and nine inches tall!  She is a private investigator!  Lance (YES LANCE) is a prince!  His way hotter friend is sheik-adjacent!  This all sounds awesome but in fact it is sadly very boring!   We wanted to read one of the Sedikhan books that everybody seems to really like - but we did  not  like this one.  Please let us k...

Chag sameach! Welcome to our traditional holiday episode, where we do a modern gay Hanukkah romance ever year!  This one is  Eight Nights in December  by Keira Andrews, where Lucas meets Nate and then everybody around them has to go buy a new mop!  It's very sweet but also very sticky. Check out our previous years' holiday episodes - there's only enough podcast for  one  night, but if you delve in...

Lady Emma has two weeks in American to lose her reputation and not be forced to marry the dastardly duke.  Kenny has to drive her around Texas to get back in the good graces of the PGA Tour so he can play pro golf again.  Why yes, this does seem radically mismatched stakes!  It's Lady Be Good  by Susan Elizabeth Phillips!  This is one of those wild Susan Elizabeth Phillips joints, so all of the co...

Welcome to our All Souls Day Spoooooooktacular Tradition!  In accordance with the ancient scrolls, every Halloween we read another Anne Rice book and invite Dr. Claire Michker to drink too much and talk about it!  This year, we read  The Tale of the Body Thief ,  and we have nobody to blame for it but ourselves. If you're watching the show but haven't read the books, or if you've read the books an...

It's a happy Halloween in Bodice Tipplers land!  Get your spooky season on with Vivian, who's 16 and a pain in the ass and a werewolf!  She doesn't care what you think, Mom!  He's Aiden and he's that kid you thought was so deep and mysterious and hot in high school!  Other He is Gabe and he's... 24, and has a job, and is also a werewolf!  It's Blood and Chocolate  by Annette Curtis Klause!   This...

Glynna is a beautiful teenager living on the Virginia frontier on the eve of the French and Indian War.  Kane (seriously) is... what does this guy do, actually?  He's a rich dude masquerading as a tutor but really on the hunt for a tiara his mom misplaced.  Is that really a career path?  Anyway, this is  Fiery Virginia Jewel , by Elizabeth Leigh.... or is it?  You'll have to listen to the episode...

They're a bunch of nuns on the run!  He's a... Basque terrorist!  Sure!  Whatever!  There's also a rich dying New York boss lady and a missing orphan, a secret society that runs all of Spain, several bullfights, at least two prison breaks, a Swiss bank account, and some sex murders!  Look out, y'all, it's The Sands of Time  by Sidney Sheldon! You heard us - we're diving back into the Sidney Sheldo...

Welcome to Nora Roberts'  Opposites Attract ! Their names are, and I am not kidding, Ty Starbuck and Asher Wolfe.  They are tennis champs!  Second chance romance!  Will they go all the way (heh)?  Well table (tennis) that because BUCKLE UP BUTTERCUP to our shock and disgust this is a surprise abortion-shaming book! Seriously, we wanted to do a fun sports book where they're both athletes!  Summer! ...

 Jake is a biographer (is that a job if you're not Kitty Kelly?) and Dixie is... oh come on.  So there's a Missing Star, Devon, and then there's Dixie, the tow truck driver, do I have to draw a map for you or have you ever read a book before?  The Law of Economy of Characters is absolutely in play here.  This is a surprisingly charming book in that "the big lie is gonna come calling" genre; it's e...

Nick is an ex-football player!  Vanessa is a shopping network hostess lady!  I know, it sounds cute, but it was completely overshadowed for us by her terrifying stalker ex! If you or someone you know is experiencing intimate partner violence, which is what we used to call domestic violence, you can get help. Start with these resources: National Domestic Violence Hotline Love is Respect National Te...

Douglas is a mean-ass, uh, spy? and lord of something or other.  Alex is the plainer sister of The Most Beautiful Woman in England but she's got some knockout knockers.  They throw chairs at each other and get kidnapped.  It's our sixty-ninth  episode,  The Sherbrooke Bride  by Catherine Coulter! By the way, there's some discussion in this about whether a fancy Regency lady would pee in the woods...

A threepeat!  The best part of our year is always catching up with Our Friend Martha, who is now celebrating the release of her third book!   Lady Emily Turner has been a debutante for six seasons now and should have long settled into a suitable marriage. However, due to her father's large debts, her only suitor is the persistent and odious owner of her father's favorite gambling house. Meanwhile,...

Sarah is a plucky girl reporter!  Lyle is a hot war correspondent who's also a news anchor I guess?  (Maybe he's a far more uncool Morley Safer?) Anyway he isn't a print journalist but he's decided he's going to restart the weekly newspaper on Compostela, a Caribbean island that we might as well call Smasrshbuda.  She wants the job!  He's incredibly inappropriate and she takes it anyway!  It's 198...

He's Justin, a doctor who just moved to Cookoutville, moved on from his dead wife, and about to move into a swank ranch property.  She's Lorren, a children's book author not interested in love since she divorced an Awful Husband.  It's  Tonight and Forever , Brenda Jackson's first book! Generally all of the potentially troubling stuff in this book happened in the past - there's an emotionally and...

Y'all. It's been a month. It's just been so much January.  So very January. We didn't actually... uh, read two books this month, so in the finest American scholarly tradition we watched a movie instead! Thrill to the very Canadian film adaptation of LaVyrle Spencer's Morning Glory ( you may want to listen to our episode on the book first , but you totally don't have to because obviously  we  didn'...

He's an international jewel thief trying to catch another international jewel thief!  She's a museum... employee?  Evidently?  It's All for Quinn by Kay Hooper, a Loveswept that's also somehow fourth in a series with real continuity and the expectation that you have read the others! And yes, the cover on both Amazon and Goodreads is just a photo of the book somebody took  with flash . It's caper t...

 Adam is a Jewish sub who's tired of seeing Christmas all over the place.  Tate is a trans Daddy who's looking for somebody to take care of.  In our annual December tradition of reading gay Hanukkah novellas, we present  His for Hanukkah  by Reese Morrison! No real triggers in this book - it's very sweet.  The only thing that might be upsetting is that Adam's anxiety, which is very realistic and m...