S02.23: Waking Up with the Duke: Lorraine Heath Breaks A Lot of Romance Rules

This week, it’s one of Sarah’s favorites, and by an author Jen has never read! Lorraine Heath is a master of the historical, and this one is near-perfect. It’s complex and nuanced and it has an infidelity plot and THERE IS SO MUCH ANGST!

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In two weeks, we’re reading the Queen of Dirty Talk! Sarah and Jen both love Tessa Bailey — so we’ll be talking about our two favorites of her books, Asking for Trouble (Sarah’s) and Protecting What’s His (Jen’s). Find them at: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, or Kobo.

Show Notes

- Turns out Sarah and Jen aren't the only people who think these Apple keyboards are trash--after winning a 2020 Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, Taika Waititi had quite a bit to say on the subject.

- Tom Beer is one of Jen's editors at Kirkus, and you should follow him on Twitter.

- You can read The Smith College Sophian on line, and we'll link to the interview with Sarah onces it goes live.

- We have Leslie Knope from Parks & Recreation to thank for the glory that is Galentine's Day. Read Jen's column about some books that celebrate women's friendship.

- A few years ago during #RomBkLove, Shantastic/@bardsong wrote a great piece about disability in romance. You can also check out the blog, Sense and Disability by @Callalily.

- Kate Reading is an amazing audiobook narrator, she's the one who narrates Lord of Scoundrels.

- Fridging is a word from comics that is when women characters are killed to motivate a male character, but can be used to describe any time a less powerful or privileged character is used as a plot device. Flat Stanley is a character in children's books, but flat characters you might remember from English class.

- Harry and Meghan are still taking money from the Duchy of Cornwall.

- Jen said she was going to go back and read the other books in the trilogy, and they are bundled together on Amazon for $10.

- The Bechdel Test is a pretty simple way of judging how inclusive movies are of women characters; it's limited but powerful. Jen wrote about external and internal conflict in romance, but we also talked about it on the Priest episode -- and we are always unpacking the way conflict works in romance.

- Dialogue tags get a bad rap, famously Elmore Leonard claimed that writers should only use "said" and "asked." In this part of the discussion, Sarah mentioned her friend Barry Lyga, a YA author.

- Jen thinks these three are codependent.

- Cheating is the third rail of romance. It is. There are some lists on Goodreads of romances that have cheating, but it's complicated and difficult. One Jen read recently was I Want You Back by Lorelei James, but the cheating happened in the past. If you're interested in reading another book about someone who discovers the other family, Jen recommends Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones.

- Next time, we'll be reading Tessa Bailey, The Queen of Dirty Talk. Sarah's choice is Asking for Trouble, and a secondary text is the first one of that same series, Protecting What's His.

- Buy stickers and buttons from Kelly and t-shirts from Jordan.

- We are experimenting with some voice to text transcripts, so here's the first one for this episode.