S03.38: Ravishing the Heiress by Sherry Thomas: She's Good

We’re talking Sherry Thomas’s beautiful, unrequited love/marriage of convenience story Ravishing the Heiress this week — we’ll talk about angst, about why we love yearning so much, about our feelings about heroes who are dummies, about homes vs. houses, and about Victorians being E X T R A.

Next week, we’re back with the delightful Christina Lauren to play a very fun game with bananas romance novels and celebrate the launch of their fabulous book (now Sarah’s favorite CLo book), The Soulmate Equation. Preorder it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, or signed from Vroman’s bookstore!

We’re also going to announce our next read along now, because it’s out of print (but available in audio!), so you will have to do a bit of a used bookstore hunt to get it! Get Anne Stuart’s truly bananas Tangled Lies at your local library or via a used bookseller near you. We recommend checking Amazon, eBay & Thrift Books.

Thank you, as always, for listening! Please follow us on your favorite podcasting app, and if you are up for leaving a rating or review there, we would be very grateful!

Show Notes

This is the Eurographics Moon Puzzle that Jen is doing, and it’s too hard. 

There is a very funny tweet thread trying to drag the Shadow and Bone TV show, but the replies are terrific. 

Jen was texting Sarah in the middle of the night about Ravishing the Heiress, because of the angst! 

Here’s an interview where Sherry Thomas talks about how reading romance influenced her as a writer.

We talked about time slip quite a bit on the episode for A Matter of Class by Mary Balogh.

Millie is 16 at the beginning of the book, and because Jen forgot to talk about it, she wrote a thread about Sherry’s deep respect for teenage girls. 

A little bit about the history of tinned food and the rise of advertising in Victorian England.

All about the dormouse and keeping them as pets, if you’re into that sort of thing. Give us some credit for not making a joke about Of Mice and Men, thank you. 

The Victorians were super extra. Here’s a primer on women in business in the Victorian era. Floriography is the Victorian name for the language of flowers, which ascribes meanings to flowers and plants. For example, chrysanthemums and lavender (and yes rosemary is for remembrance is from Hamlet) have very specific meanings. If you’re interested, check out the book Floriography: An Illustrated Guide to the Victorian Language of Flowers by Jessica Roux. 

Bees that make honey from the nectar of lavender flowers is a different thing than people who make lavender-infused honey. Now you know!

Infidelity in Romance is tricky, and Sarah’s book Day of the Duchess is an example, and there really aren’t that many out there. 

The myth of Cupid & Psyche in literature and art. 

In Season 4 of The Crown, the scene where Camilla Parker-Bowles takes Diana is based in truth, but the name of the restaurant was not Menage a Trois. 

Raise a glass to the incomparable Olympia Dukakis.

Next up, we’re dialing the banana phone with Tangled Lies by Anne Stuart. 

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