Plot Trysts

18 books in and the third straight book with the exact same plot and we're as charmed as ever. Does the plot make sense? No. Is there a plot? Also pretty much no. Did we have fun? You bet we did.

Jake and Cleo a ton of fun as long as you're along with them for the ride on their unconventional courtship. If you're not and you think too hard, Jake is a stalker. We didn't think too hard.

In this special edition of Plot Trysts, Meg is joined by Tatianna Richardson, romance author and podcaster on Romance in Colour, to recap The Courtship! Catch Tati at Romance in Colour IG - @romanceincolour & @richardwriteson Twitter - @romanceincolour

Laine and Meg are here for a prissy, smart heroine and a rough around the edges hero. We give a lot of warning when we want to discuss spoilers, so know that if you want to skip from our warning until it's safe: No spoilers after 27:15

Laine and Meg talk about Sarah MacLean’s First Romance Novel and the “girl who is very hot but doesn’t know it” trope.

The world of the Pingkang Li gets richer and more complex with each installment, and we are very here for it. The mystery here let us both down, and Laine wasn't destined to be attracted to a man who has a regular table for staring at his love's front door, but Lin's skill at world building remains exceptional. 

Laine and Meg were both seemingly delirious when recording this episode, but managed to string enough coherent sentences together to review this book. It's fun, it's pithy, the characters are sexy, but something about this just maybe isn't for us? We're still a bit undecided on this series, but it's a romp!

In this special edition of Plot Trysts, Meg is joined by Tatianna Richardson, romance author and podcaster on Romance in Colour, to recap The Courtship! Catch Tati at Romance in Colour IG - @romanceincolour & @richardwriteson Twitter - @romanceincolour

Loved this book. The mystery is more baffling the more we think about it and we couldn't care less. Five stars.

Sometimes you just need to laugh joyfully at a couple who can pretend they hate each other when they definitely don't AND can find joy in cave sex. We were pretty joyful reading and discussing this book.

In this special edition of Plot Trysts, Meg is joined by Tatianna Richardson, romance author and podcaster on Romance in Colour, to recap The Courtship! Catch Tati at Romance in Colour IG - @romanceincolour & @richardwriteson Twitter - @romanceincolour

Jeannie Lin is so talented and her characters really do come alive on the page. Less trauma than the first book, with more bad guys!

In this errata, we share clips from our recent discussion with the Bridgerton 2000 crew in anticipation of season 2, share insight into our different approaches to topics in our episode structure, and continue our discussion of the most ridiculous ways to be ruined.

Pretty much everything about this book worked for us, even the stuff that precedent would tell you we'd hate. We both somehow remembered this as having more sex than it did because the sexy stuff was that good? A+.

This steampunk romance was so dang cute it had us both smiling. It caught us by surprise more than once, but the happily ever after was perfect.

Imperial China might not be our usual romance setting, but we both loved pretty much everything about this book. Be prepared for some heavy subject matter and excellent world building.

This book is a sexy romp that also makes readers confront the bullshit of the patriarchy, which can be stressful. We took different things away from this book, but both really enjoyed it.

Goodness knows we love a spy novel and Elizabeth Boyle, so a whole lot of this really worked for us. It's more farce than badass spy mystery, but there's clandestine makeouts while undercover so we'll take it.

If you're going to give handjobs to pay off your student debt, there's no shame in that game as long as you're honest about engaging in sex work with yourself. We also discuss when in a monster book a line into bestiality is crossed. At one point we analyze our own forearms as a size comparison, but Laine edited that out.

Stephanie Laurens is a genius for writing the same book again, but this time with less logic. We stan.

If Mission: Improper was a TV show, Ingrid and Caleb would have been the will they/won't they pair that kept viewers waiting for all 15 seasons. Luckily Bec McMaster doesn't delay the gratification of seeing these two give in to each other for that long, but we did feel like this love story didn't get the attention it deserved. 

The sentient sex toy from the first book definitely has "brothers" but Liz isn't as thrilled by this fact as you would think. Sexy and funny, this sequel definitely makes you confront the difficulties facing our heroines in the few seconds between sex.

The Dark Olympus series continues with the story of Eros and Psyche, except not really? Both Meg and Laine thought this book's greatest weakness was how few parallels there were to the myth. Otherwise, there's a lot to enjoy here from the wedding day/night sex to the sex in front of mirrors.

Meg is really charmed by taking an absurd scenario to a logical conclusion, while Laine is less so. The unlikeable characters are very fun and add to the book's unique charm.

Meg and Laine love clothes, so you know this worked for us on the fashion front. We loved both main characters and bought the conflict, so we definitely recommend this one in spite of its chastity.