Whoa!mance: Romance and Ourselves

Join fan fav and beloved friend of the pod Andrea Martucci from podcast Shelflove as we discuss 2024's 'Your Monster' a love story about female rage and personal growth. This discussion spans personal taste, romance conventions as adapted by other mediums, and of course that great white way: Broadway. As we've said before horror and romance share a wet middle in the venn diagram of genres, but wha...

This week, we tackle Charolette Stein's When Grumpy Met Sunshine, a listener request that's keeping us honest! We've reviewed this author previously and concluded then that we would like to read her again later. Listeners we did. When Grumpy Met Sunshine is a romance that pits supposed opposites against each other with mixed results. Mabel is a ghost writer with a predictable penchant for bright c...

A listener held us accountable. A listener reminded us that at the end of this very episode from 2018 we said we'd be curious what this author wrote in the future. And now, ahead of that discussion of a very new book by this very same author coming out next week, we want to give all of you the context you so richly deserve. Original notes below.____________________At some point we’ve all felt bull...

Please, no need to swoon - it's just us, talking about MEET ME AT THE ANVIL by KATE PRIOR.Prior isn't just the author's surname, it also describes when we talked about this author re: LOVE, LAUGH, LICH - look it up in the feed where you found this one! Diane is fine marrying Martin - as long as she has her special drawings and her special horn. That is until it isn't fine after one of her frequent...

Trigger warnings abound everyone - sexual assault, dubious consent, Biblical characters of Judas and Satan falling in love, child death and miscarriage, suicide. Tread lightly, be gentle with yourself - it's just a podcast. The Devil is a lie, The Devil is in the details, The Devil is afraid to be vulnerable, The Devil is afraid you can't love him the way he thinks he wants to be loved. The Judas...

Morgan and Isabeau are joined by romance author Esme Brett as we discuss In Flight--a romance that took off in the wake of Fifty Shades. In this free wheeling discussion we tackle fanfiction's influence on the genre, the rise of self publishing, and the ethics of depicting BDSM in romance. What are we responsible for? Who are we responsible to? How can we sell more romance novels in New Zealand? H...

We were in the books in 2024 and now 2024 is in the books. Hardest and softest no!s and whoa!s, the places we visited the most in literature, what we did great at and where we came up short. All that and more as we look back on the year that was...2024.

One last round of eggnog, we're talking "MEET ME IN LOS FELIZ" by KELLY REYNOLDS. Nora accidentally barges in on Bowie peeing and catches feels for the (sort of) Short King. Is king a slur if you're a Brit in LA who inherited a house and tea shop(pe)? Amid the hustle of trying to make it as an actress, Nora makes room for a new love. What makes a novella work? Does normalizing rough sex minimize i...

Ellie from the Butt Out Baby Podcast had the best idea. For all of us to watch Carol (2015) directed by Todd Haynes and then talk about it. Therese gets a funny feeling when she first sees the glamorous Carol, and it isn't just because its Christmastime. But it is the 1950s, and Carol is going through a divorce, and is a devoted mother, and is at least a decade older and a gajillion dollars richer...

If Whoa!mance had a nickel for every time we discussed a novel featuring a werewolf who flies personal aircraft, we would have TWO nickels. Thanks for the hypothetical pay raise, COLD HEARTED by HEATHER GUERRE. Grace has to Teach for America her way away from her terrible ex and terribler Chicago. So she makes her way to the small, insular, warm yet secretive community of Longtooth, Alaska. Even t...

Here it is, the last chapter. The bow tie. The final thoughts. The Darcy. The Rochester. The end.

Ready for some dark romance this holiday season? Sure you are! The days are short anyway. We've got a labrador retriever male main character who makes masked man thirst traps and does some stalking. And we've got a snarky female main character who loves those thirst traps and is looking for a little IRL action. Listen while Morgan and Isabeau untruss this popular bird, get at the juicy bits and ca...

Pride and Prejudice gets PENULTIMATE! In this, the second to last chapter of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, there are lots of sweet nothings and victory laps to be had. And the conversation begins circling the drain that leads to...romance novels?

Darcy and Lizzy need to tell the Bennets what's what

What webs we weave, indeed! This episode we attempt to unknot that cross-over of the century - the NINETEENTH century that is - PRIDE AND PROMETHEUS by JOHN KESSEL. Mary Bennet decides to take one last crack at life before resigning herself to spinsterhood and two people wind up dead. That's what happens when you pin your hopes to the saddest Swiss nerd at the ball. Especially when they have the k...

We're back, and we're going totally medieval on THE FALCON AND THE SWORD by PATRICIA WERNER for the final act of this Ice Wine season. Judith, the most normally named character in this whole book, abandons a convent to find herself in the kingdom of Neustria amongst a bunch of Franks who will never get her as a Visigoth. Along comes handsome-in-a-different-kind-of-white-way, advisor to the King of...

A Re!mance for an extremely special ocassion. Plus an update on Ice Wine Deux. <3 We did it y'all. Yr girls have arrived at the final stop on this Entrop[e]y tour with one last trope: the secret baby. This week on Whoa!mance, Morgan and Isabeau tackle the culture wars relic, Nobody’s Baby But Mine, Book 3 in the Chicago Stars series by Susan Elizabeth Phillips. Jane Darlington, a 34 year old ph...

Naturopathic Practicioner Raven is thrown back into the measured embrace of regular, degular Dr. Jeff when she is accused of poisoning her clients. Because he loves her so darn much, and because it is obviously not her fault, and because it is 1997 and these things just happen, the McSteamy and Holistic Hottie team up to uncover the cause of this mystery illness and get infected with love along th...

Wherein Darcy and Elizabeth have one conversation and Darcy makes all men, and romance heroes look like fools for the next two hundred odd years. #ThanksJaneAusten

In this chapter Darcy shows up and all the young people go for a walk. On the walk Darcy makes all other romance heroes look like fools, for the next 200 odd years. #ThanksJaneAusten

One last time to Nantucket before the cold winds blow! Free-spirited, head-strong Lizzie trades her youthful exuberance for matronly measure and stead-fastness in exchange for the love of one Tavis Mackinoon in 19th Century Nantuckey. Or...maybe "trades" has too much agency? What was America's perspective on history in the halcyon, Laura-Ashley-strewn days of 1994? How do we honestly feel about "b...

Mr Bennet receives a letter he can't wait to share with his favorite kid. Spiraling ensues

Ice Wine Deux launches LIVE and in style from Love's Sweet Arrow (in Tinley Park, IL) with a real bi-coastal bitch - A DANGEROUS MAN by ROSEMARY ROGERS. Tory doesn't care what her dad thinks, or her uncle, or even Sexy, Dark and mysterious "Texas Ranger" Nick Kincade. But she is forced to rely on the latter as she tries to escape her own Manifest Destiny on an adventure up proto-Pacific Coast High...

When the dog days of summer start barking, the cubes start clinking. Yr grls are revisiting their ICE WINE project, a time to interrogate texts published by and for a previous generation. This round, we're pouring (over ice, of course): A DANGEROUS MAN by ROSEMARY ROGERS HEAVEN KNOWS by ELAINE COFFMAN FEVER RISING by MAGGIE FERGUSON But Whoa!mance needs your help choosing between THE DRAGON AND TH...

Knock knock! Who's there? Why! It is Catherine De Burgh! Here to rip Lizzie a new one while Jane and Bingley canoodle in the shrubbery. The worst part is? No one even visits the hermitage. That was here the whole time???? A split decision on this chapter folks, with a scathing rating of three out of five stars from one of our readers. Metadrama and metaconflict abounds.