Smart Podcast, Trashy Books: A Romance Novel Podcast

Pop culture critic and former book blogger Kayleigh Donaldson joins me to talk about BookTok, hockey romance, and the Seattle Kraken. We’re locating this conversation in a larger discussion about fandom, fanfiction about real people, and the ways celebrity culture, fan culture, and romance intersect.

I want to mention that we do talk very briefly about Johnny Depp and fandom, and larger issues of misogyny and sexual harrassment.

Music: purple-planet.com

You can find Kayleigh Donaldson on Twitter @Ceillidhann, and on Pajiba.com. Her newsletter, The Gossip Reading Club, is excellent.

We also mentioned the Dundee Stars hockey team in Dundee, Scotland, and I mentioned Klout, which was a way, way old memory of online weirdness.

And here are the articles she mentioned that she wrote:

• Paste Magazine: "The Hottest Romances of the Season are All Happening On Ice"
• Paste Magazine: "Why is Adam Driver the Hero of Every Romance Novel Now?"
• Pajiba.com: "Krack My Back: Booktok, the Seattle Kraken, and Why You Shouldn't Turn Real People into Your Playthings."

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It’s time for the Ads & Features of the October 1988 (!!) issue of Romantic Times Magazine.

Y’all. We’ve got:

• Vintage gossip!
• Blind items that are very easy to guess!
• Danielle Steel’s two blue Mercedes!
• Fuchsia covers with giant flowers and startled animals!
• Riverboat gambler romance heroes!
• And a truly paltry obituary for an extraordinary author.

It’s 1988. Fuchsia. So much fuchsia.

Blanket content warning for romances written in the late 80s. Be ready for some very offensive tropes.

Do not, and I mean this most sincerely, skip the visual aids. It’s 1988 y’all. The covers are glorious!

LINKS. So many good links!

• “Double Trouble: One or Two Women?” by Gillian Whitlock about the alleged plagiarism of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s The Blue Castle by Australian author Colleen McCullough.
• Sam Lord’s Castle, Barbados
• Sharon Spiak Art listing for Wary Hearts
• Eye Heart Romance’s review for Mistress of the Seas by Ruth Langan
• Clothes in Books: “Mary Burchell aka Ida Cook” – the patterns from Mab’s Fashions!
• Mary Burchell’s Wikipedia page
• A BluSky thread from John Bull on Mary Burchell
• The Pudding magazine interactive article about romance covers by Jan Diehm and Sandra Chiu

music: purple-planet.com

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Kirsty Greenwood’s book The Love of My Afterlife is out now, and it’s bubbly and charming and funny, with a lot of emotion, so we’re going to talk all about it. We also talk about making friends as an adult, and how there’s just about every genre inside this book. There’s even a heist. This might be why it’s the Good Morning America book club pick this month – congrats Kirsty!

Then I learned she’s a former book blogger so there’s recommendations back and forth, all over the place.

You can find Kirsty Greenwood at her website, KirstyGreenwood.com, and sign up for her newsletter. You can also find her on Instagram and on Facebook at KirstyGreenwoodBooks.

We also mentioned:

• Book, Music, and Lyrics
• The Merry Pin craft shop in DC
• Romancing the Vote

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We’re traveling back to April 2006 in this month’s RT Rewind!

We discuss the evolving cover art for the Immortals After Dark series and style changes in illustrated covers. We also talk about

• Well water adventures
• Author photo? MUST be leaning
• A contest made of author prom photos
• Many predecessors to GoodReads
• A book from 1991, promoted in 2006, made into a movie in 2022.

And a FULL PAGE of Mr. Romance.

When I start talking about Redeeming Love, massive trigger warning and content warning, just a giant pile of YIKES. The book summary begins at 35:20.

Thank you for the reviews, the support, and the positive feedback to this series! If you’re enjoying these episodes, please drop a comment below or on the visual aids post and let me know?

Music: purple-planet.com

Don't miss the visual aids! Really, I mean it!

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What happens when you write the books you want to read but are having a hard time finding? Many good things. Kimberly Lemming loves fantasy, and started writing her own catnip, which led to the joy that is the Mead Mishaps series.We answer ALL the tough questions, like how many mead mishaps have we personally experienced? How does one make the bananas spin? And why is Galavant the greatest production ever made?

Note: in the middle of the episode, the email Kimberly sent that gave me a peek at the cover for That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Human, which was in the final stages of development, so you’ll hear me lose my cool.

For the book and video games we discuss in this episode, please visit our show notes page!

You can find Kimberly Lemming at KimberlyLemming.com, and on Instagram @KimberlyLemming.

We also mentioned cover artist Mike Pape, and the cover art for the Mead Mishaps series is visible on his website, too!

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