3.5: Holiday Romance

Our official IAD reread will resume January 2nd, with Néomi (ghost) & Conrad (vampire) and we have so. many. feelings. SO MANY.

Show Notes

- In case you're curious, here's where Jen learned to properly pronounce Therese Beharrie's name. Therese wrote 2 Christmas books this year: A Wedding One Christmas and Her Festive Flirtation, and Jen liked them both.

- Before Sunrise came out in 1995, a sequel Before Sunset in 2004, and a third Before Midnight in 2013. This New Yorker review is a perfect example of everything Jen hates when people review anything romantic, so hate-read it if you're in the mood.

- Jen completely got the name of that chapter book wrong, it's The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.

- Novellas are really common in romance, maybe more than other genres, and Jen anxioulsy awaits the think-piece explaining why.

- Speaking of novellas: The anthology of Chanukah stories that Sarah mentioned is called Burning Bright; Reindeer Games is an anthology of stories with the snowed-in trope; and in Silver Belles, all the characters are over 40.

- Sarah described the cover of A Holiday of Love as an example of a certain type of old-school book package. But just last year, A Christmas to Remember with Lisa Kleypas, Lorraine Heath, Megan Frampton, and Vivienne Lorret followed the same exact cover protocol.

- Epistolary novels are super fun to read (Jen's favorite is Where'd You Go, Bernadette, Sarah is--unsurprisingly--very pro epistolary romance; her favorite is Kleypas's Love in the Afternoon), but Jen's pretty interested in how they are changing in the age of the internet.

- All three of the books in the Men at Work series by Tiffany Reisz are delightful, but the Thanksgiving one is an absolute classic.

- Last year, Jen ranked Thanksgiving romances for The Book Queen.

- How the Dukes Stole Christmas is pretty great, and here's where Jen talked about Joanna Shupe's novella on twitter.