Whoa!mance: Romance, Feminism, and Ourselves

We dive into the exquisite love-letter architecture of This Is How You Lose the Time War and ask what happens when desire is literally written into existence. We linger on what it means to love with (or without) a body—across a multiverse full of potential and very real war crimes. Red and Blue, our sapphic leads, slip across timelines and into each other’s hearts in achingly human ways.

But let’s say the quiet part out loud: romance does not need literary fiction to legitimize it. Distinct genres have distinct pleasures and emotional beats—that’s not a bug; it’s a feature. Excellent books exist within the genre, and outside it--maybe we just stop trying to collapse the publishing multiverse and let genre conventions function as intended?

Come for the yearning and love letters, stay for the unapologetic defense of the kissing books.
#RomancePodcast #SapphicRomance #ThisIsHowYouLoseTheTimeWar #EnemiesToLovers #EpistolaryFiction #QueerRomance #BookDiscussion #ScienceFantasyRomance
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

And now we arrive in Ireland. Finally. To discuss THE GROUND SHE WALKS UPON by MEAGAN MCKINNEY (1994).
Ravenna is a social outcast who is also magically bound via geish to the Lord of her home, County Lir. Either Niall, at 20 years her senior, woos her, a lowly peasant, or his family looses the land they occupy in Ireland.
What is the point of magic if it is just friendship or whatever? Does good romance determine a good romance, or is it all the other stuff? Is there ever such a thing as a good aristocrat?
Trigger warnings: We talk about death and political violence.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What was 2025, really? What did we say we were going to do—and did we do it?

In this Year-in-Review episode, we take stock of the year with clear eyes. We revisit the wins, the misses, and the pacing problems from our shelf this year—from Ali Hazelwood’s Deep End to the dark-romance chaos of Nocticadia. We did a shadow-daddy bracket (a rigorous, peer-reviewed process; dissenting opinions noted for the record) that functioned as a useful tool for Isabeau, and found time to accidentally fall head first into the zeitgeist.

Who earned the hardest Whoa!? Who took home the most definitive No? And which couples earned space on our mental shelves forever?
We close by looking ahead to 2026: what we’re pursuing, what we’re done negotiating, and what we’re leaving behind—because not every arc deserves a redemption.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Man the canons, yr Colonels in the War on Christmas are attacking THE EARL'S CHRISTMAS PEARL by MEGAN FRAMPTON.
The titular Earl meets the titular Pearl after her family abandons her in London over Christmas a la (kind of, vaguely) Kevin McAllister. He uses his skills as a Welshman to care for the young miss, even though his ankle like, really hurts and he doesn't even LIKE Christmas that much. Along the way, he doesn't just fall in love with the holiday...
Are wealthy twenty somethings in historical romance essentially just teens? What story elements are crucial to a Christmas tale? Are purple prose penises better than just "Penis"?
Tune in - we're stokin' fires AND frying' eggs this Yule.
______
additional sounds in this eppy:
sleigh bells_.wav by Stagno
sexy funk + strings & piano by kbrecordzz

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In part two of our discussion of NOCTICADIA by KERI LAKE yr grls dive into chapters 39 - epilogue.
Does the ambiguity of an HEA in horror make it impossible (if already strange) bedfelllows with romance? What is the appeal of "dark" romance and what is the bright side for those of us who don't lean into taboo? TWINS???

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.