Thinking Straight

We tried to go as far in the opposite direction of Wuthering Heights as we could for this one, and we landed on SO SWEET, a sugar daddy/sugar baby novella where #representation is the name of the game. For better or for worse? Well…  Talking points include: Sexy Jesus, Randomly Generated Sims, He’s Fucking Fifty, “Butt Stuff,” and Jumpscare Bisexuality. P.S., HAPPY BIRTHDAY to our #1 listener, Jak...

Like our heroine, we’re suffering fits of madness in this one, listeners… in the hopes of getting to the bottom of the swirling discourse surrounding Emerald Fennel’s latest film, we read WUTHERING HEIGHTS by Emily Brontë. Is it, indeed, “the greatest love story ever told,” or is it something else entirely? You can probably guess our answer… Talking points include: The World’s First “I Can Fix Him...

This February, in honor of the season, we dove into a Valentine’s themed romance with Amy Lea’s EXES & O’S. Fittingly, its heroine is the exact kind of woman we’re on a mission to figure out on this podcast: a romance-genre aficionado and book influencer looking for love IRL. Join us as we discuss BookTok, tropes, and sex that transports you to an alternate dimension. Happy (belated) Valentine...

We’re back from hiatus, coming to you live as married women! For our triumphant return, we read THE SUMMER I TURNED PRETTY by Jenny Han to see how the source material measures up to the TV show that had all the girlies (and Taylor Swift) obsessed this summer. Love triangles, brooding heroes, and the perils of puberty await! Talking points include: millennial nostalgia, the lure of bisexual men, an...

Kilts, magic, and bonnie lasses abound this week as Lena and Nadine travel to Scotland via Lana Ferguson’s UNDER LOCH AND KEY. Yes, the Loch Ness Monster is a man in this one, and yes, that is predictably disappointing to us. But hey, at least there’s some fun monster sex! Talking points include: Is Bush Back?, In Defense of Graveyards, Third Grade Reading Comprehension, and Scottish Dirty Talk. T...

Holiday magic is in the air this week as Nadine and Lena return to the first author they read for this podcast, Tessa Bailey, and dive into her holiday rom-com WRECK THE HALLS. Were we too harsh on Tessa in episode one? Have our standards been lowered after plumbing the depths of Kindle Unlimited self-pub erotica? Or is this just another off-puttingly overprotective hero and meek one-dimensional h...

Welcome to Eloraton, NY, where the burgers are always slightly burnt, it rains in the afternoon, and there’s a moody stranger with ~minty green eyes~ ready to charm his way into your heart. This week, Lena and Nadine dove into A NOVEL LOVE STORY by Ashley Poston, where our heroine takes a wrong turn off the highway and ends up in the fictional quirky small town of her favorite romance series.  Tal...

If you’re looking for a book that will really scare you this week, look no further—Opal Reyne’s A SOUL TO KEEP has all kinds of frights up its sleeve, like almost comically poor writing and a heroine who thinks reading is boring. Oh, that’s not the kind of spooky season fright you were looking for? Unfortunately, it’s all we have to offer. That, and a two-foot-long purple monster dick with tentacl...

You do KNOT want to miss our latest episode, where we dive into Ali Hazelwood’s latest best-seller and first foray into paranormal romance, BRIDE. (Don’t worry, everyone—there are still plenty of petite girlboss women in STEM to go around.) This book has it all: cringe one-liners! Evil villain monologues! Sexy blood-drinking! Weird off-putting twin vibes! And for the layperson who has never heard...

We’re back! We’re 💍 ENGAGED! 💍And we’re diving into the highly requested oeuvre of Emily Henry with People We Meet on Vacation, a friends-to-lovers romance that your favorite friends-to-lovers lesbian couple was probably primed to enjoy. Talking points include: justice for Sarah, I’m not like other grumpy hunks (I wear khakis), and the first known woman to ever successfully get a real job in med...

A dragon without its rider is a tragedy. A rider without their dragon is… a horny 20 year old! Join Lena and Nadine as they unpack the romantasy sensation that took TikTok and the NYT bestseller list by storm. Talking points include: Tall Dark and Shadow-Wielding, Rebecca Doesn’t Know What a Parapet Is, Fever-Induced Ombre, and a several minute segment nobody asked for on our favorite fanfiction o...

Ready, set, bake! Lena and Nadine read their first baking romance of the podcast for this episode, and it’s a little… undercooked. Tune in for matcha tiramisu, conversations about representation and diversity in the romance world and beyond, and a shocking revelation about Lena’s late-night audiobook listening habits. The movie set in Clearwater, FL that Lena talks about at the end is “ Suncoast ”...

Good day, lords and ladies… in this episode, Lena and Nadine dive into their first true historical romance novel of the pod, complete with a classic bodice-ripper style cover, high-class Victorian English slang, and an unsurprising but still disappointing dearth of respect for women.  Could a steamboat cross the Atlantic Ocean in six days in 1863? Could a woman ever possibly get away with sporting...

Things get a little spoooooky as Lena and Nadine discuss A Lady of Rooksgrave Manor, a gothic Victorian monsterf*cker romance! (Or, maybe it’s just straight up erotica. You decide!) Ever look at a guy and think, “Man, I wish he had some fur or, like, a super weird penis”? If yes, you’ll be 100% ready for this discussion! Everyone else, strap in for some very explicit sex talk, some mildly spicy fe...

Ho ho ho! Merry January 21st! Lena and Nadine read A Princess for Christmas like a week too late to begin with, and then Lena got COVID and everything got annoying but we're back now. Ever wished Hallmark movies had more dirty talk? Love yourself some good Bronx people? Have you read no less than eight of the Princess Diaries books? This read just might be for you! A few of the things mentione...

Uuuuuuugh. On this episode, Lena and Nadine read one of the Goodreads Choice Award nominees for Best Romance of 2023. That book is "Wildfire" by Hannah Grace, a 400-page cautionary tale about the hubris of the publishing industry and the dangers of skipping English class. Are we being too harsh? What do you think of the TikTok-popular-glorified-Wattpad-fic-to-Big-Five-Publisher pipeline?...

As a heads up, we discuss sexual violence in this episode. Today on the pod, Lena and Nadine go toe to toe with a misogynistic priest who almost minored in Women's Studies, Catholic implements are used in ways they never should be used, and Lena gets just plain mad. Was Sierra Simone possessed by a misogynistic ghost or should the romance community get a little more down with critical thinking...

We try to get the real romantasy experience with a niche KU title, A Kiss of Iron by Clare Sager. Nadine hates the lack of detail, Lena is glad not to have to deal with lore, Kat (our heroine) is a deeply ambiguous trama queen, and Bastian (our hero) is such a gentleman we never even see his throbbing member. Throw in some sabrecats and you've got a very robust discussion about the nature of t...

Gird your loins for another surprise weekday episode, a.k.a. EPISODE 8, where Lena and Nadine...actually...really like???? The book???? For the first time???? What is HAPPENING?! If you thought the book that would get us would be poorly-plotted Hades x Persephone smut, that makes one of us! Thanks, as always, to  ⁠⁠Deoxys Beats⁠⁠  for our intro and outro music, "RedLips." ⁠⁠Creative Comm...

Thanks for your patience as Lena battled two colds, the New York Film Festival, and a demanding part-time job to get you EPISODE 7, where we encounter a completely unforeseen phenomenon. Also featured in this episode: Lena and Nadine's Therapy Corner; the word "frottage," mispronounced; puppy snores. ⁠Here⁠  is the TikTok we cited by Kristen Granata. Thanks, as always, to  ⁠Deoxys Be...

FYI! This episode discusses infertility. If that's a sensitive topic for you, you may want to skip, even though the discussion is mostly lighthearted. On our latest safari, we encounter yet another Cool Girl, Lena is actually moved to read a straight romance in her free time (!), and our upstairs neighbor's A/C unit will not stop dripping onto ours and making a goddamn ruckus. If you like...

Thanks for joining us for this (slightly late — sorry!) episode about Pucked , a hockey romance that is light on both hockey and romance but heavy on creative nicknames for genitalia. We laugh out of joy instead of nervousness in this one, so definitely an upgrade! Here is the Jia Tolentino essay Lena talks about in the beginning, and here is the article Nadine cites when talking about the BookTok...

If you want to skip some serious talk about dating violence, including stalking and sexual abuse, that discussion takes place from 32:22-1:03:22. Twisted Love is absolutely a book, we absolutely read it, and now, we are absolutely terrified for the female population! Join us for a deeply researched, at times harrowing discussion of our most bonkers book yet, which features a "romance" be...

If the publishing industry was a dinosaur, Colleen Hoover was a meteor shower. If the girlies who love basic-ass fiction were a house in Kansas, she was an u n s t o p p a b l e tornado. We had, believe it or not, a borderline-pleasant time reading one of her books. On this glorious day, we're talking about Ugly Love by the internet sensation Colleen Hoover. Come for the anticipated cringe, st...

In this episode, follow Lena and Nadine down several rabbit holes, including relationship insecurity, the fascination with Kylo Ren, and big ol' schlongs. Thanks, Ali Hazelwood! Many thanks to  Deoxys Beats  for our intro and outro music, "RedLips." Creative Commons / Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0)