[music]

Sarah Wendell: Hey there! Welcome to episode number 629 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell, and today we’re going back to October 1999 for the Romantic Times Rewind ads and features. Amanda is with me, as is Alison, who won our Romancing the Vote auction, and we are going back to a real time in history. We’ve got leers, we’ve got horny men, nipples with personality, and we learn about the douche chills. I had a really good time recording. Thank you so much, Alison, for joining us, and I’m really excited to share this with you, ‘cause I’ve had a really good time editing.

I have a compliment! You’ll never guess! It’s for Alison. Alison, we could not have had a better time recording with you. Thank you for ferociously supporting democracy winning our auction. This compliment is for you:

You are hilarious and thoughtful and fun and a joy to have in class or on the podcast, and we can tell that your friends and family love you tremendously. This is not a surprise, given that you’ve defended democracy, you’ve made us a spreadsheet, and you’ve brightened our very long recordings. We were so excited to have someone who’s an active and longstanding member of our community join us. Thank you.

Hello to our Patreon community. Thank you for your support; thank you for making sure every episode has a transcript. Hi, garlicknitter! You’re going to enjoy this one! [I did! If Fashionably Evil Alison doesn’t read the transcript, somebody tell her I thought she gives great podcast! – gk] I mean, I know, ‘cause – so here’s a little behind the scenes: garlicknitter will share the transcript with me and usually shares, like, you know, what, what they thought about the episode, and the, the RT ones are always along the lines of Wow. So I hope this episode is Wow, garlicknitter, and if you enjoy what we do and you enjoy the, the podcast and you enjoy the Romantic Times Rewind, have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches. It would be delightful to have you in that community.

All right, shall we get started? We’ve got a lot to talk about. There’s a lot of things going on. On with the podcast; we’re going back to October 1999.

[music]

Sarah: All right, so the ads and features for October 1999. The way that this scanned, it looks very, uh, purple? But it’s very purple! Like, the scan is pretty accurate! Like, it’s, like, just showing you it’s very purple. The, the thing that stands out the most is Who Will Be the Next Fabio in hot pink.

Fashionably Evil Alison: There was a fairly, I don’t, I couldn’t tell if somebody was, like, phoning it in that month or, like –

Sarah: That’s a question.

Alison: – I don’t know, somebody got sick at the last minute, and they just were like, Here, we’ll just –

Amanda: I mean –

Alison: – put something on the cover.

Amanda: – we have a lot of these covers where it’s just the featured book cover blown up a little bigger.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: This is pretty indicative. I mean, maybe not as bad – [laughs] – ‘cause they just kind of stretched the, the textured purple background until it’s all of it? But this isn’t quite a surprise, in my opinion.

Sarah: No. There are a bunch that have, like, really glamour headshots of authors on the covers? Almost like a celebrity magazine, which I think is really interesting because the magazine is both a fandom magazine, making celebrities out of the authors, and a reader magazine, helping you figure out what to read. What’s interesting about this particular cover is that the majority of it is purple flowers, and in the book cover for the series, they all have these little diamond cutouts, and then on the cover of the magazine is a clinch of this chick in a hot pink gown with perfect hair, and he’s wearing a green kilt, but it’s this tiny little inset. In the actual cover for this book, the diamond has a little, a very erect castle – there’s a massive erection – and it’s some guy running away on a horse!

Amanda: I bet that’s the stepback. I bet they took the image from the stepback of –

Sarah: Which means that they were doing a cutout, which is expensive for book production. But I’m, I’m confused why the magazine cover has this clinch with the pink gown and the guy with the, and, and the hair – like, the wind is blowing in both directions at once; their hair is blowing back…

[Laughter]

Sarah: They’re both very windy, is what’s happening here. The magazine cover has a clinch, which is totally Romantic Times’ bread and butter; they love a clinch. The actual cover, the actual book cover that I’ve seen online that looks like the same, like the same issue, it, it’s an erect, an erect, castle with an erection and a dude on horse. Weird! Very weird.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: Then we move in to Flavia. Flavia Knightsbridge has so much stuff in this magazine. She’s, like, the lead-off; like, the first thing that you come to is Flavia, right?

Amanda: We’re still –

Alison: Are we missing –

Amanda: – trying to track down her identity.

Alison: So where, who is Flavia, though? Like, I mean, am I missing a page?

Sarah: No, Flavia –

Amanda: So Flavia –

Sarah: – Knightsbridge is PDF page 6 and 7, and it’s Under the Covers with Flavia Knightsbridge.

Alison: Ah, okay, I see.

Sarah: Flavia Knightsbridge is in every issue. Sometimes she’s, when, later issues, when they do American Title, which is like the American Idol, but writers, and you have, every month there’s a different segment that they’re competing, and someone’s eliminated, Flavia’s one of the judges, and she’s like the Simon? She’s super mean?

Alison: Okay.

Sarah: In earlier issues she has a gossip column. She’ll, she’ll run blind items about poorly behaved authors, and she did one about, oh, in the last issue that she, she wrote about some kerfuffle on the RWA bulletin boards? And I got, somebody sent me a link to what the kerfuffle was, so we have to do a follow-up to, to discuss the kerfuffle, but yes –

Alison: Ooh!

Sarah: – I, I got a, I got a whole, like, Here, here’s what it was, and it was like 2002! Like twenty years ago! R- –

Amanda: She is like, like, anonymous. Like, that’s not a real person, so we have no clue, the real identity of –

Sarah: None.

Amanda: – Flavia Knightsbridge.

Sarah: My theory is that several writers take the mantle of Flavia, because the writing changes, and the style of the column changes. I think it was just like a We can’t say snarky things, but we’re going to invent a pseudonym who can? Never a picture of her. I’ve never seen anyone with a Flavia Knightsbridge nametag at RT. Like, I never saw anyone with that. But there, the gossip column about publishing was always written about Flavia Knightsbridge, and that’s kind of what this is.

So the whole column remains weird, and it’s mostly just, Here’s what authors are doing with book deals, and then there’s a big picture of Pierce Brosnan, who, by the way, was on my Instagram feed yesterday, and he is a silver fucking fox; holy shit!

Amanda: Yeah! He’s, he’s going to be in the, was it the –

Alison and Amanda: – Thursday Murder Club –

Alison: – mm-hmm.

Amanda: – adaptation. He looks good!

Alison: I – you know, I have feel- – I, I don’t disagree that he looks good. I don’t think he’s appropriately cast. Like, the character that he is playing in The Thursday Murder Club is like a retired trade unionist, and I just, Pierce Brosnan, to me, does not give retired trade –

Sarah: He’s too classy for that role.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Alison: Yeah, I know! And, like –

Sarah: He’s too, he’s too upper-crust-y for that character. That character is like thirty-six percent Oi!

Alison: Yeah, mm-hmm.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Alison: Exactly.

Sarah: Yeah.

Alison: Exactly.

Sarah: I mean –

Alison: Yeah, well, he also needs to be burlier, right?

Sarah: Yeah.

Alison: I think he needs to be burlier. So I’ve actually seen photos of Daniel Craig aged up, and Daniel Craig could totally do it.

Sarah: I mean, Daniel Craig can do anything. Did you see the Photoshop of him –

Alison: Exactly.

Sarah: – with Javier Bardem’s haircut, and I was like –

Alison: Yes!

Sarah: – Still, I’m, I’m on board, sir!

Alison: [Laughs] So there were like four photos –

Sarah: Yeah!

Alison: – of him in various different – yeah, they’re delightful.

Sarah: And his hair is like straw; it’s, like, straight –

Alison: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – like a triangle off his head, and I’m like, You’ve got a weird sweater and a bad haircut; still on board, sir. Well done.

Alison: Yep, me too, me too.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: Hundred percent.

Alison: There’s, there’s two of those photos, though, that if you merged them together, I was like, That’s Ron!

Sarah: That is R-, you’re right. Pierce Brosnan is a little too posh-posh to be Ron; Ron is made –

Alison: Too pretty.

Sarah: – made of Oi!

Alison: Mm-hmm. He’s too pretty. Which, I was having this conversation with my mother about how he’s too pretty, and my father was like, Is this how you talk about men?

Sarah: Yes!

Alison: [Laughs] And I was like, Yes, it is!

Sarah: Have you not been here? Yes, absolutely! What are you talking about?

Alison: I was like, I don’t know what – yeah, where have you been, Dad?

Sarah: I am very, very excited for that movie adaptation, though. Like, that is the movie adaptation of a book where I’m like, Oh yes! I am excited!

Alison: I’m really excited about it, actually. I really liked the books. Amanda, have you read them?

Amanda: No, I haven’t. I mean, I’m just aware of them because they’re, they were very popular and I worked at the bookstore? But I haven’t read them.

Alison: They’re very charming.

Sarah: So moving on to page 7, the Lestat comics? Did you now –

Alison: Yes.

Sarah: – this was a thing?

Alison: I did not –

Amanda: I did.

Alison: – but oh my God. The draw-, that’s her drawing of him? Or it says her personal vision –

Sarah: Yeah.

Alison: – of the vampire Lestat. He looks like Sean Penn!

Sarah: [Snorts] He does look like Sean Penn, and he looks like he’s got gas!

Amanda: He looks like a…

Alison: Sean Penn with, like, a lot of, like, sort of Rod Stewart hair.

Sarah: Oh, very Rod Stewart hair. Coming, coming in September, a comic book adaptation of The Tale of the Body Thief featuring stunning artwork depictings Anne personal vision, Anne’s personal vision of the vampire Lestat. I kind of love that in that, like, the Interview with the Vampire is such a huge show right now? And that adaptation is making so many people so happy, and I’m like, This is the opposite of that! This is not –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: This is weird!

Amanda: It’s like, who asked for this? That’s what –

Sarah: Nobody asked for this. Somebody was like, What if we made money this way?

Alison: Well, and I totally missed that they had redone it, because I was, like, googling for, like, who played Le- – I was like, was that Brad Pitt, or was that Tom Cruise? I can’t remember. And it showed me some totally random guy, and I was like, Oh, I guess they’re doing that again.

Amanda: [Laughs] You’re like, Who’s that man?

Alison: Right? Exactly. I was like, That’s neither Tom Cruise nor Brad Pitt. [Laughs]

Sarah: I did an interview with Freya Marske, and she loves to talk about, like, TV to recommend. She’s like, Here’s why you have to watch this show; it’s so good.

So the Letters to the Editor is interesting this month because there’s always letters like, Hey, whatever happened to this author and what’s going on? But they, they really just, they really just throw readers under the bus here – [laughs] – for medieval romance?

>> How could you do a feature on the medieval subgenre and not mention Roberta Gellis?

I mean, fair question. If you’re going to do a feature on medievals and you don’t have Roberta Gellis, I get it.

>> We rely on our readers to provide lists of their favorite books for the theme spotlight, and this much-loved author was overlooked.

So they’re just blaming the readers of the magazine for not featuring, like, one of the major names in medievals. Okay! Choice work. Glad we’re here, everybody.

Amanda: I feel like a lot of the responses we’ve seen from RT when a letter is slightly critical? Like when someone wrote in about body types, and –

Sarah: Oh God, that response was terrible. It, oh.

Amanda: – I feel like they’re not very good at taking criticism.

Sarah: No! No, they’re not. There’s very much a, a don’t-criticize-us attitude. It’s weird; it’s very weird.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: On page 9 –

Alison: Oh, the To Book Lovers from Kathryn Falk –

Sarah: Yeah, it’s Kathryn –

Alison: – Lady of Barrow?

Sarah: – Falk.

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: Alison, you noticed something on this page.

Alison: I did! I was particularly charmed. Right, they’re talking about some of the workshops that they have available, and they have one that is listed as being called “For the Shy,” which I just thought was so sweet!

[Laughter]

Alison: You know, there’s –

>> Much has been said about Mary Balogh’s Regency master class, but little has been mentioned about the workshops Linda Castle, aka Linda Crockett, and Anne Peach have in store. Anne Peach’s “For the Shy” program is designed for new authors who have the talent but need the confidence to take the first step!

I was like, that’s so sweet!

Amanda: That’s also interesting compared to, like, the, the RT conventions that I’ve attended? Which, nothing shy about those. At all.

Alison: Well, we’ll get to the not-shy part. There’s definitely –

Amanda: [Laughs] Yep!

Alison: – some not-shy parts later. [Laughs]

Amanda: Oh, Mr. Romance, I saw, makes yet another appearance in this magazine!

Sarah: On PDF page 11, which is page 9 of the magazine, there is an ad, the Rising Stars of Romance, and if I understand correctly, authors buy a spot in this feature, and if you’d like to be in the feature there’s an email for two people at the top where you can email them to find out, you know, how to be part of the Rising Stars of Romance? I highlighted a couple col-, covers, because what’s really unfortunate here is when they are mono-, in the monochrome, you don’t really get the full experience, so I’ve highlighted in the document where he’s horny, if you click the eBay listing, there is a full-color version of this cover, and he’s so horny! Look at that guy! He’s so horny!

Amanda: It says:

>> He was larger than life –

Alison: Yes.

Amanda: >> – in every respect, from his broad chest to his muscular arms.

I mean, saying from his broad chest to his muscular arms, we’re still staying in the same range. [Laughs]

Sarah: But that’s not every respect; that’s like one-third of him.

Amanda: I know! That’s why I was like, You’re still on, you’re still on the torso! Look how –

Alison: And of course he has that horned helmet.

Sarah: He’s horny!

Alison: Like the Viking horned helmet, yeah.

Sarah: Super, super horny!

Alison: But, but also it appears to be a time travel romance, because when Jennifer Giordano wishes for help to pay her bills, a handsome Norse warrior lands right in front of her car!

Amanda: I would be pissed! I’d be like –

Alison: [Laughs]

Amanda: – how is this going to help me?

Alison: I don’t know! That sword’s probably worth something.

Sarah: Did he bring money?

Amanda: …Can I sell your stuff?

Alison: He can sell the helmet. He should definitely sell the helmet.

Sarah: Is this like A Knight in Shining Armor, where he time travels into her era, and he’s got old coins in his pocket and they’re worth a bajillion dollars, so they go have a makeover and go shopping? Is that like, does he time travel with wealthy coins in his, in his, doubloons in his pocket? Like, what’s happening here?

Alison: He has no pockets, Sarah.

[Laughter]

Sarah: I mean, well, he’s larger than life in every respect; maybe they’re selling some other parts of him!

Alison: He does, he’s not wearing enough clothes to have pockets.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: And then I was like, Well, what do these other covers look like? Night Whispers by Leslie Kelly, and, um, that’s the cover; I just put it in the document. Look at the expression on this guy’s face.

Amanda: He’s got a punchable face, this man.

Alison: [Laughs]

Sarah: He’s, he’s leering at her! He’s, like, smarmy leering! He’s – I can’t even describe that expression, except smarm.

Amanda: But it gives me –

Alison: He’s tilting his head and, like, really leering at her breasts, I think.

Amanda: It gives me, like, slight Christian Slater vibes.

Sarah: Ohhh –

Alison: Oh yeah.

Sarah: – yeah.

Alison: I can see that.

Sarah: Or the – you know who he looks like? The guy from Dude, Where’s My Car? Sea-, Sean Robert Leonard? Leonard Sean Scott Robert?

Alison: Robert Sean Leonard?

Sarah: Robert Sean – yeah, him, thank you. You know, Dillon McDermott Mulroney. [Laughs] Yeah, look at that face! He’s, and he’s got the, he’s got the ‘90s center part.

Amanda: It’s Seann William Scott.

Sarah: Oh, thank you!

Amanda: I was like, Sean Robert Leonard is not…

Alison: [Laughs]

Sarah: He’s from Dead Poets Society. Okay –

Alison: Oh yeah –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – I am going to leave this –

Alison: Dead Poets Society, yeah.

Sarah: I’m going to leave this in, and I just know that everyone listening is screaming at the radio right now, like, No, that’s not his name! Sorry, I’m really bad at that.

Look at his face, though! I mean, the visual aids for this episode are going to be great. The, the nipple! The nipple on that guy! The nipple has its own personality! That’s a messy –

Alison: …could cut glass.

Sarah: Yeah. You could, like, do things with that nipple.

Amanda: Did you also – sorry, I went down a Dude, Where’s My Car? rabbit hole?

Sarah: As you do.

Amanda: Jennifer Garner is in Dude, Where’s My Car?

Sarah: Wait, really?

Amanda: Yeah, she’s one of the love interests.

Sarah: I have no memory of that!

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: We’re going to have to, like, watch that movie again.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: So, skipping ahead to page 16 of the PDF, page 14 of the magazine, this was the updated release of Whitney, My Love, and we talked about this in the reviews episode. The –

>> Judith added forty-plus pages to the ending, changed and enhanced two additional scenes elsewhere, which she doesn’t want to divulge just yet – it’s more fun to keep it a secret – and tweaked some passages.

Okay. And then there was an interview with her on All About Romance, which I will link to. She revised two scenes and added forty pages because the, she felt the end, the book had ended abruptly. Okay. So what happens in the original Whitney, My Love is that Clayton beats Whitney with a riding crop. Ages ago, like fifteen years ago, Cara Elliot and Lauren Willig, who are both graduates of Yale, did like a special alumna course for Yale students. Bea from The Ripped Bodice was a student in this course at Yale, and they did a whole seminar about romance novels, and at one point I was invited to be a panelist for one of the, one of the cour-, one of the classes with a bunch of other people in publishing. The, at the class, they had assigned Whitney, My Love, but this was in the 2000s some time – ‘cause, I mean, the site was founded in 2005, so it had to be after that – and what happened when they assigned Whitney, My Love is that the teachers had their copies from the original run, and so they were rereading the, the, the original release. All of the students got their books from the bookstore; they got the rewritten book, and so they had this really weird conversation where the teachers are like, Okay, so what did you think of the riding crop scene? And they’re like, Oh, it wasn’t that bad. In the re-, in the revised book, she took it out, toned him down, and in the, in the new version he will raise the riding crop, but he doesn’t beat her with it. So depending on which book you read, there was a lot more violence in one of them, and I love how everyone here in this magazine is like, Oh, she just revised some things and, you know, she took out some scenes. I’m like, She took out a beat down! That’s really important to talk about, because there’s a, there was, at the time there was a huge discussion like, Why did you revise this and not acknowledge why you revised it? Like, if this was a problem and you took it out, why are we not talking about that? And it’s absolutely bonkers to me that there’s this whole, like, Oh, she made improvements! Yes, she made it less violent! You want to talk about how it was violent to begin with? No, we’re not talking about that.

Amanda: It’s interesting because usually teachers specify which edition of a book they want you to read?

Sarah: Mm-hmm?

Amanda: So it’s weird that they might not have mentioned that? But also, can you even get copies of the original anymore? I’m sure you could somewhere, but they might be –

Sarah: Probably in used bookstores, but you’d have to, like –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – specifically look for the release date.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: The revisions are a lot more substantial than these, than, than these euphemistic terms are being let on. They complete change a lot of the violent dynamic of the book? And I read the original, and I hated it because he was such a jerk.

Amanda: I mean, in fairness, McNaught’s heroes are of a certain –

Alison: They’re all like that.

Sarah: They’re kind of douche-y, yeah. She writes a douche-y hero…

Alison: I mean, I think that part of the thing about – or you said that this cover is, like, basically all the romances that were published at the time – is that there just wasn’t a lot of choice, ‘cause, like, I remember reading, you know, romances when I was in high school, and I’m like, Is this the best we can do?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Alison: I was like, How many more virgin heroines do I have to, like, sit with here?

Sarah: Yep.

Alison: I was like, Can we do something besides, like, missionary style sex? Maybe we could? I don’t know.

Sarah: Remember when oral sex was considered outrageous?

Alison: It was!

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Alison: It was, and I was like, could we have anal sex? And, and I was like, No. That is a, that is a bridge too far for romance at this particular point in time.

Amanda: And now look at us!

Sarah: Now look at us!

Amanda: People are loving on monsters!

Sarah: Just sticking it in your ear.

Amanda: Things are going in places that we never –

Alison: Minotaurs! [Laughs]

Amanda: – dreamed of!

Sarah: You got shifters – yeah. I remember there being an editors panel – it might have been at an RT? – where an editor was talking about how everything is much more sexy and said, and I quote, “Anal is the new oral.” It used to be that oral sex was, like, outrageous, that she – okay, first of all, it was always like, she doesn’t know what to do! What is she going to do? And it, it’s like, it’s a blow job; this is not a hard concept. And it was always like, Oh, and she’s a natural! Again! This is not a difficult concept!

Amanda: Well, as we know, anal sex is life-saving.

Alison and Sarah: Yes!

[Laughter]

Sarah: Absolutely. It is, it is truly, truly an important thing.

So then we move in to Love and War, which you also flagged, Alison.

Alison: I did. Mm-hmm.

Sarah: Yeah, so tell me why you flagged this, and it’s probably the same reason I flagged this. [Laughs] I’ve read this –

Alison: I just thought it was really funny because they asked readers to write in and talk about their favorite wartime romances, and they have them grouped by which war they take place in!

Amanda: [Laughs]

Alison: And so, perhaps unsurprisingly, there’s a whole bunch of, you know, American Civil War, the Revolutionary War, but, you know, shout out to the Indian Mutiny of 1857 and the 1956 Russian Invasion of Hungary, which also have a couple of entries! And, you know, it was just, I don’t know, and then the, actually, my other favorite part was the, the footnote, which was that they have plans for other themes.

Sarah: Oh God, I didn’t see this!

Alison: >> Upcoming, upcoming themes planned include Native Americans comma miracles and magical creatures.

And which of those go together? ‘Cause I really can’t say –

Amanda: Well, they, they don’t –

Alison: – based on the punctu- – is it –

Amanda: They don’t use Oxford commas in this magazine.

Alison: I know! So is it, so is it Native Americans, miracles comma and magical creatures? Or is it Native Americans miracles and magical creatures?

Sarah: Is this two or three?

Amanda: My money is on three.

Alison: Three.

Amanda: Yeah, my money’s on three.

Sarah: I love how they’re like, And war is such an interesting setting, completely divorced from the political context and how much war sucks.

Amanda: Oh, but shout out for The Scarlet Pimpernel! That’s one of my favorites, I’ve got to be honest.

Sarah: I mean.

Amanda: I love that book. It’s so interesting, because, like, I don’t – what makes a war book, right? Like, I would not describe The Scarlet Pimpernel as a war novel. But it takes place during, like, you know, the Revolution plays a big part of the story and the setting. But when I think of a war novel, I don’t think of The Scarlet Pimpernel. [Laughs]

Sarah: No. I mean, I would, I would think of, like if you were going to look at the Russian Revolution, Danielle Steele’s Zoya is about the Russian Revolution, but that’s not in here. That’s a wild book, too; that’s a weird one. But I don’t –

Amanda: When did that come out?

Sarah: Zoya? Oh God.

Amanda: Yeah. I was nineteen!

Sarah: 1987.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: So it would have –

Sarah: Right around the time I shouldn’t have been reading that, but I did anyway.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: Right around the age where that was not appropriate reading for me, but did I read it anyway? Yes.

It’s, it’s really interesting to be like, Here are books set in different wars; here you go, grouped by war. And they’re using reader lists without any context about, like, the wars themselves or what was happening or why are we setting a book here? This is an interesting choice. Choices were made.

Alison: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: On page –

Alison: It’s dramatic.

Sarah: Yeah. Whoof! On page 25, there is a full-page ad for the new Romance Club Calendar and Compendium. They did a calendar, but – [laughs] – uh-oh! Well, they advertised it in the last magazine, and they were “in no way prepared for the overwhelming response.” They sold out so quickly after the ad was in RT. Amanda, as a bookstore, former bookstore employee, listen to this:

>> We sold out so quickly after the first ad appeared, we actually had to go to the bookstores that bought them from us and buy some back so we could fill the mail orders.

Oops!

Amanda: Hey, a sale’s a sale. Good for those bookstores! [Laughs]

Sarah: Right? Ouch! Oh my gosh. I, I looked, and I tried to find this calendar, and I could not find any sign of it, but if anyone listening has any memories of the romance calendar, it appears that authors buy a month and then do that month’s calendar page or, or image, which is actually –

Amanda: Is it just – yeah – is it just like a cover model?

Sarah: I couldn’t tell!

Amanda: Because the, the image they have of romance calendar March 1999 to February 2000 –

Sarah: Which is a weird time for a calendar, but okay! [Laughs]

Amanda: I know! But it’s got, like, a cowboy, a cowboy in a lightning storm!

Sarah: Yeah! Which, dude, you should go inside.

Amanda: Yeah, that’s not safe. But, yeah, so I’m wondering if it’s just cover model photos.

Sarah: Or if you buy a month, like, what are you going to put in your month? You’re going to put your book cover, so that’s going to be –

Alison: Yeah.

Sarah: – cover models?

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: I mean, it’s an interesting, it’s an interesting promotional tool. I can’t, I, I can’t believe that there aren’t more calendars, ‘cause, I mean, people still buy calendars!

Amanda: Does anyone base whether or not they buy a cover on what the image is for their birth month? If I don’t like the image for my birth month, I’m not considering buying that calendar.

Sarah: [Laughs] I’ve never even thought of that!

Amanda: Oh, I always look! I was like, What’s the image for April? Ugh, no.

[Laughter]

Amanda: Back on the shelf it goes.

Sarah: This is the most important month and you biffed it! I’m not buying your calendar.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: Screw you and your cats!

Amanda: Stare at that when it’s my birthday month!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: Don’t insult me!

Alison: So our, the calendar we have upstairs in our house is, my mother-in-law gets it for me every year for Hanukkah, ‘cause it has all the Jewish holidays on it, which is very useful. Well, my husband used to be the executive director of a synagogue; he’s recently changed jobs. But, like –

Sarah: Mazel tov to him. That is –

Alison: Thank you!

Sarah: – a terrible job.

Alison: He did it for –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Alison: – well, I guess he did it for total of eleven years at two different organizations. So. But anyway, it’s like the one present she buys me every year, because – [laughs] – I like it, and it goes on the wall, and, like, all of the dates that I need on it are on it, because, you know, they move around. I mean – you know what I mean, Sarah.

Sarah: Yeah, the Jewish holidays are never on times.

Alison: Exactly.

Sarah: So on page 30 of the PDF, there is an ad for irresistible delights, featuring Switcheroo by Olivia Goldsmith and The Black Angel by Barbara Samuel. Notice it reads Rita-Award-winning author, but it’s just Rita, capital R-i-t-a? And we when used to do the RITA Reader challenge where we would try to read all of the RITA finalists before RWA, I was given very specific instructions about how the word RITA was to be typed and what I had to put with it, so the fact that this, that that is not there, I’m like, Oooh, you’re going to be in trouble!

Alison: It’s supposed to be all caps with a trademark or a copyright symbol?

Sarah: That is correct. Yep. I got really good at typing the trademark symbol.

But at the bottom is a book called The Black Angel, and I have a cover of, I have a copy of the original cover, which I just dropped in the document. This man is chesty?

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: That is, that is Mr. John DeSalvo, and the, the shirt is open. It is tucked in. He’s wearing a cape. He’s got a big ol’ sword. And he is thrusting his chest out. His spine is very curved.

Amanda: It, it give me like pigeon vibes. You know when pigeons have, like, puff up and have that, like –

[Laughter]

Amanda: – broad –

Alison: Yes!

Amanda: – chest? I’m getting like bird attention, bird preening vibes here.

Sarah: You know the, the, the horny chicken in Robin Hood, the animated Robin Hood?

Amanda: Yes.

Alison: Yes.

Sarah: Yes, this is, this is Horny Chicken Black Angel.

Alison: [Laughs]

Sarah: So that’s the original cover. Again, Rita, not written correctly, but, you know, The Black Angel, it, it’s John DeSalvo, and then this is the cover when she got the rights back and rereleased it. Um, that’s a prom dress. That, that woman has had a keratin treatment.

Amanda: No, boo!

Sarah: Yeah –

Amanda: Bring back Horny Chicken John DeSalvo!

Sarah: We need Horny Chicken DeSalvo. So this is a woman facing away in a dress – would you call that salmon colored? Coral?

Alison: Strawberry?

Amanda: She’s…of a – yeah, it’s a little darker than a salmon.

Sarah: And she’s wearing very shiny elbow-length gloves and an off-the-shoulder gown, which also doesn’t fit, because you can see the tops of her arms; that’s supposed to be about four inches higher. The shawl that is draped over her is clearly some sort of synthetic fabric, and you can see the fold lines in the fabric above the S in Samuel; you can see where the shawl –

Alison: Yeah.

Sarah: – was folded. Her hair has clearly had –

Alison: Probably a curtain.

Sarah: Yeah. This is a sheer; they ripped it off the wall. And her hair has clearly had a keratin treatment recently, ‘cause it is shiny and smooth and perfect, or it’s a wig?  And it is so different from the John DeSalvo Horny Chicken! [Laughs]

Amanda: I’m disappointed.

Sarah: It is, it is not a, it’s not a great, a great development. It’s very unfortunate.

Amanda: Yeah. It’s not like an, an oomph. This is just like a wilting cover. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah. It’s not super exciting. I will, however, inflict upon you – let me, let me go back to the document – I now will inflict upon you the audiobook cover.

Amanda: Oh no.

Alison: What is that?

Amanda: Ohhh no.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: He looks like a, like an off-the-strip Las Vegas magician.

Sarah: Oh no!

Alison: Yes, he does.

Sarah: Yes, he does!

Amanda: [Laughs]

Alison: It’s a close-up shot of a man’s face with his hands, you know, his chin resting on his hands.

Sarah: And there’s a little bit of hair in his face, and you know that he –

Alison: Yes.

Sarah: – he’s telling you things that he thinks sound really deep, and he just sounds like a big dingus.

Amanda: This guy gives me the douche chills.

Sarah: Douche – !

Alison: Got a goatee. He looks a little bit like Tom Ellis from Lucifer?

Sarah: Lil bit.

Amanda: I can see that in the face.

Sarah: The douche chills?

Amanda: Yeah. So it’s like, you know how we were talking about how you feel something so cringey –

Sarah: Like your…

Amanda: – that you feel it in your spine?

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: This, this is a subset of that where it’s like a guy is just being really gross and cringey, and you’re just getting, like, a full-body shudder.

Sarah: Yeah, he does give you the douche chills. Yeah, that guy is douche-chilly. Okay, that’s amazing; I’m using that for the rest of my life.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: One thing I noticed about this magazine is that there are pages and pages of author, like, author articles, where an author has bought a page, they give you a little paragraph, and they give you an excerpt of their book, and they’re really just buying pages to promote their book, which isn’t something that continues into the 2000s and the 2010s, that, that is not a major feature in the later issues, but here it’s like every new author, every author who had a book coming out that month with a new book was buying a page to, like, introduce the book to you!

Amanda: Well, I wonder if they didn’t have to, like, sell features as much anymore because they were doing a lot more in advertising.

Sarah: Yeah. Maybe. And I don’t know how much printing costs changed over the years, but allegedly this wa-, this had a circulation well above seventy-five thousand issue, people. Like, the, this, this was a big magazine, according to Romantic Times themselves; who knows if that’s actually true? So yeah, I mean, I’m, I wonder how much a full page cost in that time.

Alison, you wanted to look at page thirty-five.

Alison: Oh, if only just because, like, there was a con-, a, a book conference –

Sarah: Yeah.

Alison: – Nora Roberts, Susan Wiggs, Jennifer Crusie, that was like twenty minutes from my home town –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Alison: – and I didn’t know it existed –

Sarah: Yeah.

Alison: – and it’s just a little bit disappointing. Jennifer Crusie was like my entrée back to romance, I would say. Like, her, it was like Welcome to Temptation, and there’s the one with the art forger. Like, she was sort of my, my entrée in – I was like, Oh, romance can be better, and so I’m just sorry to have missed it.

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: What was it – Sarah had this good conversation –

Sarah: I just pulled it up!

Amanda: – with a commenter – yeah! –

Sarah: I just pulled it up.

Amanda: – about – ‘cause I, I featured a book on sale – I think it was The Cinderella Deal – and I mentioned that some people found it dated, and someone’s like, Well, why is dated a bad thing? And for me, like, I am pretty anti-pop-culture in my books, because it significantly dates –

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: – a book? I mean, if it’s part of the book, like, oh, a time travel, and it goes back to whatever, like the ‘80s, that’s fine, but just, like, referencing, like, bands or music or TV shows or whatever, automatically –

Sarah: Right.

Amanda: – puts me off of a book?

Sarah: I’ve definitely read contemporaries where the hero is compared to Johnny Depp, and I’m like, That does not work now. Sorry. [Laughs]

Amanda: Yeah. But, yeah, that was a really insightful response from that, like, commenter about the, the datedness of a Crusie book and how you can still have that nostalgia, but revisiting it might be a little difficult.

Sarah: Yeah, the conversation was between Penny and Maria and me, and Maria was like:

>> Well, it’s dated, but, you know, does it hurt people to realize what it was like for us when these were new books?

And what Penny wrote I thought was really insightful. They said:

>> It isn’t that younger folks aren’t uninterested in how life was historically; it’s more that there’s such a volume of work available, many prefer to read from a current understanding of relational interaction, as opposed to uncritically embracing older material for what it is.

Which I, you know, having read romance for so long, that is something that I do, but what Penny really, what, what Penny said that really resonated me, with me?

>> Unless one is specifically looking for romance novels written from a third-wave feminist perspective, much of Crusie’s work is uncomfortable, if historically accurate. Her current work with Bob Mayer is pretty out of touch. I love Crusie for what she was to me, but she belongs in the past, for me at least.

And I was like, That is exactly how I feel about rereading older Crusie works and reading, like the Liz Danger book? Carrie and I were like, This is not working. There’s a cop with an anger problem who shoots out the tires of a car full of teenagers! Like, there’s nothing about this that’s heroic! What is happening?

But yeah, Crusie is a very specific, a specific time period for me. Is that true for you, Alison?

Alison: Oh yeah. No, and like I said, she was the one where I was like, Romance can be different here, right?

Sarah: Oh –

Alison: Because, like –

Sarah: – her books were unique!

Alison: – the – right? Like, they were weird, and they were funny, and, like, you know, there’s, like, a scene where, like, they’re shooting a porno! Like, you know, it’s like –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Alison: I think that’s Welcome to Temptation, right? It’s like, there, it’s like Coming Cleaner I think is what the – right? And, like, there’s a dead body in the whole mix and everything kind of like goes off the rails, but, like –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: As you do.

Alison: Right? I mean, yeah, we read these reviews, and we’re like, What’s up with the cow? And you’re like, Oh, that’s just sort of normal.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Alison: But, no, and she, like I said, in some of her, I think some of her sex scenes, too. Like, she often had, like, women in lead roles who were not like the sort of, you know, simpering virgin type, but –

Sarah: Yeah.

Alison: I was like, Oh, it could be different! It could be better!

Sarah: Yes; she wrote horny women.

Alison: She did. Mm-hmm.

Sarah: Which is, which –

Alison: She did!

Sarah: And at that time, that was kind of groundbreaking.

Alison: Yeah!

Sarah: And Bet Me was groundbreaking because the heroine’s weight was acknowledged and, I mean, they have to go through this whole journey of how she learns to see that her weight is not a problem, even though her family tells her it is, but, but it’s, was one of the first heroines that I read who was not automatically super thin and fitting a very specific ideal of femininity.

My favorite of hers –

Alison: I think third-wave is the right word for it.

Sarah: Third-wave feminist is exactly the right word for how to describe those books. Like, that was a, such a good comment.

This has been Comments on the Website, part of the podcast. Ah-ha!

[Laughter]

Sarah: Actually, there’s a podcast I listen to that is part of a blog, and they do Comments of the Week, and I was like, Oh! That’s cool!

The other, the other Jennifer Crusie that I love that I am afraid to reread is called Charlie All Night, which is about an all-night radio station, which is such an old concept: old rate, late-night talk shows?

Alison: So Charlie All Night kind of, I read it a couple years ago –

Sarah: Oh!

Alison: – and it – ‘cause, like, I got it, like, on the Free shelf at the library when I was, like, getting some books to take to the beach kind of type thing – and it, like, it doesn’t hold up because, like, the – SPOILER ALERT – the main plot point is that somebody’s afraid of being outed for being gay, and it just, it, like, it doesn’t hold the same valence anymore, but it – yeah, it doesn’t hold the same valence anymore, but it didn’t give me, like, the cringe.

Sarah: Yeah. The thing I love about that book is that there is a rescue puppy, and they’re in this radio station all night, and they’re trying to keep the – and the puppy will only sleep when, when the DJ plays a Billy Joel song? And so you have this song, like, and people are like, Why are you playing the song, like, once an hour? And he’s like, ‘Cause we have this puppy, and it’s the only thing that makes the puppy sleep.

[Laughter]

Sarah: That was the weird quirkiness that you get in a Jennifer Crusie novel, and that has always stuck with me, because it’s so charming. But yeah…

Alison: …like small-town Ohio, like –

Sarah: Yeah. For sure.

Alison: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: For sure. I, I felt awful that I did not like the Liz Danger book; like, I really wanted to like it, and it did not work for me. I was so bummed. So bummed!

But I’ve been to the formerly Romance Writers of New Jersey, now, I think it’s just Jersey Writers? But their Put Your Heart in a Book conference was a great conference, because they were within train distance of New York, so they had really high editor turnout because editors could come down –

Alison: Mm.

Sarah: – for the day? And then be home –

Alison: Yeah.

Sarah: – and they had massive editor turnout. It was a really good conference. I never went when Nora Roberts was a guest, though. That’s pretty great.

Alison: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: Now, you also wanted to look at page 41. You noticed something most excellent.

Alison: Oh yeah! [Laughs] It’s just a charming little description. Yes, Expecting the Best by Lynnette Kent.

>> They were lovers before they were friends. Now they’re parents. Can they rekindle the romance?

And the quote is:

>> A topnotch love story featuring well-defined characters. Effective friction and unwavering sensitivity.

And I was like, you’re saying effective friction here with a straight face! Come on, people! Come on!

Amanda: [Laughs] You know what you’re doing!

Alison: We know what’s going on here. We know what’s going on here.

Sarah: Especially because on the cover she’s wearing this white sheath dress, and she’s very pregnant? Like, that’s like, that’s an eight-month belly right there. That’s –

Alison: Yeah. She looks like Cybill Shepherd.

Sarah: She looks like Cybill Shepherd; she’s got the fully blown-back –

Alison: Hair.

Sarah: I’ve said, I said this last month, and I will say it again: I really thought that when I was an adult, my hair would just naturally do that. That it would be BIG –

Alison: It’s real disappointing.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – and fluffy, and I wouldn’t have a part. Like, none of these people have parts! Their hair just goes back perfectly. I just thought when you were an adult your hair started doing that!

Amanda: If only.

Sarah: I know, right? It’s just a lifelong struggle. Effective friction. Apparently, yes! It was effective, ‘cause she’s –

Alison: Apparently it was.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – very pregnant!

Alison: Very pregnant.

Sarah: And then you also flagged – I looked at this ad and was like, What?! And you flagged it too! This ad on 42 –

Alison: Yeah!

Sarah: – is amazing!

Alison: So the premise of the story seems to be that there’s a, it’s Reconstructionist Era Southwest, which we, I have questions. You know, there’s a mysterious man who’s carrying a portrait of a woman with him – okay, fine, whatever – except we – [laughs] – in the ad we have the juxtaposition of the cover – very traditional clinch; he’s topless; she’s got her head thrown back; she’s wearing some sort of lacy thing, I think – but the portrait, what, what I assume to be the portrait of the woman that he’s looking for is also in the ad, and it’s like a very traditional sort of like 1800s –

Sarah: Big difference! [Laughs]

Alison: Right? Like, painting from the era.

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: Oh no, that’s, that’s the author photo!

Alison: Okay, that’s the author photo.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Wow, that’s –

Amanda: …shot!

Alison: Ye olde bonnet.

Sarah: …shot?

Alison: She’s got the curls by her face; she’s wearing a bonnet and a cloak. [Laughs] But the, the story also sounded kind of bananas. He knows that he was a prisoner at Andersonville and that he loved this woman, but nothing else.

Sarah: Ooh, it’s an amnesia!

Alison: It’s an amnesia –

Sarah: I love an amnesia.

Alison: – Reconstruction Era – I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t know who the woman is or who the woman in the picture is, and –

Sarah: I went looking for a color version of that cover, ‘cause I had a feeling it had to be good. This is the first cover I found for this book. Which looks –

Alison: Ew.

Sarah: – like an academic text book. It’s got like a –

Alison: It does.

Sarah: You think that’s like a Colonial Era silhouette? Like, is that a tricorn hat on that guy’s head?

Alison: Wait, are we looking at the same thing? With the –

Sarah: I just put it in the document.

Alison: Yeah, with the orange and the yellow and the –

Sarah: Yeah.

Alison: – pink?

Amanda and Sarah: Yeah.

Sarah: On the right there, that looks like a profile!

Alison: Oh, I thought it was a profile of a woman with like a bouffant sort of hairstyle.

Sarah: Ohhh!

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: Is this like that thing where, Is it an old woman or is it a young girl? Is it a candlestick –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – or is it two guys?

Amanda: Is it a duck? Is it a lamp?

Sarah: Yeah, ex- – we don’t know! This is, this is actually a psychological test that we’ve been subjected to; we just didn’t know.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: But this the original cover in color. I will put this in the show notes. Amanda, who does that look like?

Amanda: The heroine is a photographer! Sorry. The heroine’s a photographer in this –

Sarah: Really!

Amanda: – in this romance, yes!

Alison: Yeah, this is like the beginning of photography, right?

Sarah: So what the…

[Crosstalk]

Alison: The Civil War was like the, one of the very early eras of photography, right? Like, that’s where you have sort of –

Amanda: How much beer is she carrying around? [Laughs]

Sarah: Is it, and this is when –

Alison: It’s nothing in that dress!

Sarah: And this is when, like, photographs took like a while to, like, develop; like –

Alison: You had, like, physical plates.

Sarah: Yeah, you had physical plates –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – and people had to hold still.

Alison: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: Which is, this is also when death photography was big, because the, the dead people, what, you, you’d pose a body with the family? And that person would be in focus, because they weren’t moving, and everyone else, you, you shift a little bit, you blink?

Alison: But that’s why there are images of the Civil War, because they were taking pictures of dead people.

Sarah: Yes! Yes, you’re, that’s right! Oh, I had forgotten about that.

Alison: Yeah.

Sarah: Amanda, who does that guy look like to you? I think that’s –

Amanda: That guy? No. Norm Macdonald.

Sarah: I think that’s Ben Affleck.

Amanda: That’s giving me Norm Macdonald face.

Sarah: I’m –

Alison: But he’s orange. It’s like Oompa Loompa color.

Amanda: And she looks like Taylor Swift with an extreme facelift. She feels very tight in the face.

Sarah: She’s like Taylor Swift with a lip lift or like early Kim Basinger.

Amanda: Yeah.

Alison: Yeah, Rene Russo, kind of.

Sarah: Mm-hmm. Visual aids, that’s the word I was looking for. I’m going to put this cover in the visual aids; I’m going to do a poll: who does this look like? ‘Cause I think it’s Ben Affleck, but Amanda does –

Amanda: I can see it a little bit more, but my first instinct was like, Oh, that’s a young Norm Macdonald!

Sarah: It could be Norm Macdonald. I mean –

Alison: He’s just orange. I’m really distracted by the orange.

Amanda: Is it a lamp? Is it a duck? Who knows?

Sarah: Is it a lamp; is it a duck; is it an old lady; is it Ben Affleck? Who knows at this point?

[Laughter]

Sarah: This is an, a, a magazine issue with really good covers if you take the extra time to try to find them, and sometimes they’re very hard to find?

Amanda: Yeah. The black and white is a disservice, unfortunately.

Sarah: Yeah. I’m going to drop another cover in the document for you. This is from PDF page 44:

>> Loving Elizabeth by Victoria Dark, a touching, poignant novel that blends heartwrenching emotions and sensuality with a marvelous storyline that keeps readers enthralled until the last page has turned.

And this is three different publications. There was Rendezvous, Romance Communications, and Under the Covers Book Review. This was a Zebra Splendor. Look at her face.

Amanda: She’s doing something mischievous. [Laughs]

Sarah: She’s, she’s up to no good, and I’m here for it.

Alison: But look at how she’s holding that bucket. If that bucket is full of water, it’s got to be really heavy.

Sarah: She’s very strong. She, what, what’s actually about to happen is, she also has a rope in her hand? She’s going to bean him –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – with the bucket, hogtie him, and flip him over her shoulder.

Alison: I think that’s it.

Sarah: Also? Look at that mullet.

Alison: The mullet is some- –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Alison: – doing a lot of work there for him.

Amanda: Surprisingly, doing the RT Rewinds, not a ton of mullets!

Sarah: No.

Amanda: We’ve seen.

Sarah: No.

Amanda: Now you mention it.

Sarah: Great, great, great hats; cats on covers; but that’s one of the most majestic mullets. Most of the time it’s just long, floppy ‘90s hair. They all got the, the JTT floppy middle part. That guy has a righteous mullet; it’s very long. But she looks like she’s going to flip him over and hogtie him.

Amanda: Good for her.

Sarah: Good for her!

Alison: She kind of looks like a Sweet Valley twin.

Sarah: She does look like a Sweet Valley twin. Ooh, that is a flashback. Oh!

Alison: Mm-hmm. And her name’s Elizabeth, right? Wasn’t it Elizabeth and Jessica?

Sarah: Yes, it was! Yep.

Moving on to page 49.

Alison: This might have been my favorite page of the entire magazine, if this is the one I think it is?

Amanda: We can’t escape it!

Sarah: Mister –

Amanda: We can’t escape it.

Alison: Oh no, this is not my favorite page of the entire magazine; there’s, there’s a later one coming up that is, in fact, my favorite page of this magazine.

Sarah: I mean, it’s good to have more than one favorite, because Mr. Romance always is a delight. So this page is Mr. Romance 1999 pageant contestants. The conference was in Toronto at the Sheraton Center – international trip this time – and we’ve got, we’ve got some contestants here in various stages of undress. And I wrote in the document, Much to unpack here, emphasis on pack. There is one guy who is flexing so hard. This is Andy from Germany. He’s got long hair; he’s got little circle glasses ‘cause it’s the ‘90s. He’s got a vest on that’s yellow, open, with his abs flexed, and he’s wearing a floral bathing suit, but the position of the flower in the front of his bathing suit –

[Laughter]

Sarah: – is right over his crotch, and he really wants you to see it, based on his pose!

Amanda: Sarah, did you see that Helen Rosburg’s husband is in here?

Alison: Oh, wait until you get to the – wait, Amanda; don’t get ahead of us.

Amanda: Oh no!

Alison: You, you have to get to the Helen Rosburg – 

Amanda: Oh no!

Alison: – page. Just wait.

Sarah: Oh God.

>> James is married to new romance author and Wrigley heiress Helen Rosburg.

He also has a center part and ‘90s floppy hair.

Alison: He does.

Sarah: And there’s one guy in a, in a tank top, and there’s like three shirtless guys, all different varying levels of shiny, and then there’s some guy just chilling in a restaurant with a glass of champagne. This is my fa-, this, okay, Amanda? This guy’s, this guy’s Tinder bio.

>> Troy is a nightclub management consultant currently living in Florida. He’s opened eight nightclubs, including six in Europe, and loves meeting people.

Amanda: I’m sorry; a nightclub manager in Florida in the ‘90s? That man is on hella amounts of cocaine.

[Laughter]

Sarah: So he’s a little, he’s a little coked up?

Alison: [Laughs]

Amanda: As someone who grew up in Florida, in south Florida in the ‘90s? That man exists on cocaine.

Sarah: He’s, he’s just sweating cocaine? Talking a mile a minute?

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: And then next to him is Jason Love, who was discovered three years ago while managing the local GNC.

Amanda: Oh boy.

Sarah: [Laughs] He knows a lot about supplements, that guy; good for him.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: And then we move on to page 51, which, Alison, I’m guessing that this is your, this one is your favorite.

Alison: This is my favorite page.

Sarah: Ohhh!

Alison: Which, like, I, I feel like people should make sure that they go to the visual aids –

Sarah: Yes!

Alison: – for this page, because there’s no way to fully appreciate it without seeing it in person.

Sarah: Amanda is dying.

Amanda: [Indistinct, because dying]

Sarah: Did you just notice the license plate?

Alison: [Laughs]

Sarah: Amanda is crying. [Laughs]

Alison: Oh, that’s the back of a Bentley! They’re like, Okay.

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Alison: So for people who are listening, we have a photograph of a man and a woman standing at the back of the trunk of a car which I’ve just realized is a Bentley –

Sarah: That’s a Bentley.

Alison: – with a Florida license plate that says CHEW GUM, because of course she’s the heir to the Wrigley fortune. But the text on this page is also outstanding:

>> Wrigley heiress and romance author Helen Rosburg is looking forward to meeting fellow romance lovers at the Romantic Times Book Lovers Convention in Toronto. Also meet “the love of her life” James, who will be competing in this year’s cover model pageant.

And then:

>> She’ll autograph her latest leisure book, Call of the Trumpet, at the Book Fair extravaganza. Call of the Trumpet is a historical romance novel set among the Bedouin tribes of the Sahara Desert –

Sarah: No.

Alison: >> – in which the author writes about what she knows and loves, Arabian horses.

Sarah: That’s, no.

Alison: [Laughs]

Sarah: Mm-mm. That’s…

Alison: And the cover of the book is just amazing! There’s, I, I – how would you even describe that one? I don’t know. It –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Alison: It, she’s, I would say she’s, like, sitting on – like, she’s sort of straddling something and sort of leaning forward with her hips back behind her, embracing a topless man who kind of looks like Patrick Swayze.

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: So Helen Rosburg owns Medallion Press –

Sarah: Yes.

Amanda: – and –

Alison: Still?

Amanda: Yes.

Sarah: No, it closed –

Amanda: She –

Sarah: – didn’t it?

Amanda: Well, I, I guess? But her Twitter bio –

Sarah: Huh?

Amanda: – she goes by Helen Rich now, and she says, the bio is:

>> Award-winning author Helen Rich is owner, president, and executive editor of Medallion Press, Inc.

In her –

Sarah: Filed for Chapter 7 in 2018. I don’t know if it’s still in operation.

Amanda: Wow! That’s probably right after she stopped tweeting, ‘cause her last tweets are in 2018.

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: Is she still married to James?

Sarah: I don’t know; did he win? Did he win the cover? Did he, did he, did he win the contest?

Alison: I don’t think we know.

Sarah: She’s also in this pose showing off all of her jewelry, and both of their hands are framing the Bentley logo so you don’t miss that it’s a Bentley? A, a 1999 Bentley right now goes for about twenty-nine, thirty thousand dollars if it’s in good condition?

Call of the Trumpet is an I’m-about-to-let-one pose. Her back is arched; her butt is up. It’s like she’s about to rip the massive-est fart, and ages and ages and ages ago there was a guy named Longmire who did a bunch of romance parody covers? And this was one of them. I’m about to let one, which is just your, arch your back and just let out a massive fart. That’s what that pose is.

Alison, you wanted to look at page 64.

Alison: Did I? Let’s see.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: Page 64 of the PDF.

Alison: Oh – [laughs] – it was just the Holy Uncanny Valley, Batman. The Honor Among Thieves cover there?

Sarah: Oh, that’s creepy!

Alison: Yeah.

Sarah: I’m going to look for that if there’s any online evidence of it. Well, it’s now available in Kindle Unlimited, but the cover is just a bag of gold. I don’t see the old cover. Unfortunate, ‘cause that, that looks like bad Poser art! Like, their faces are flat.

Alison: Yeah, it’s –

Sarah: Is she holding a teeny tiny gun?

Alison: I think she is.

Sarah: Oh boy.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: I think that’s a sword.

Alison: This was actually sort of a trend here with these photos for the take a bold step into the millennium with an eBook, and all of the covers kind of have that late ‘90s kind of –

Sarah: Graphic design is my passion?

Amanda: Yeah, I mean –

Alison: Yeah.

Amanda: Was it like Samhain and Ellora’s Cave, when they started, like, the erotica eBook sort of stuff online. A lot, most of their covers were Poser covers. Like –

Sarah: Ellora’s Cave definitely, and Changeling. Changeling Press had the most terrifying cover, Pose-, covers from Poser.

The thing that jumps out at me about this millennium eBook ad is that most of these covers are squares. They’re not book size; they’re all squares.

Alison: Yeah.

Amanda: For disk!

Alison: Disks –

Sarah: Yeah, exactly!

Alison: – CD covers.

Sarah: Isn’t that wild that the, the medium is, the, the form of media is influencing the shape of the cover. That’s, that’s really wild. And the next page, too, there’s a couple that are book, that are portrait, but most of them are all squares.

Alison: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: >> A fallen angel, a man of God: two different worlds in one dying, undying love.

I think that’s going to be a high Jesus-by-volume eBook.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Alison: Which one?

Sarah: Falling Star on –

Alison: Oh.

Sarah: – PDF 65 by Karen Wiesner.

Amanda: Oh yeah, we talked about that one!

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: That was the one where it’s like the stripper and the pastor.

Sarah: Fallen angel. Yes, that’s, that’s a very common trope; I’m glad we don’t see it so much anymore.

On PDF page 75, the latest from Mira and DH Audio are audiobooks, and they are two cassettes for –

Amanda: Wow.

Sarah: – $7.99, or $9.99 Canadian. So two cassettes. I remember getting books on tape from the library when I would drive to college. I’d drive from Pittsburgh to Columbia, South Carolina; it’s about nine, nine-and-a-half-hour drive. And I would have to, like, put the cassette in and flip it over and take it out and put the next one in, and I’d do, like, try to time it when I needed to fill up with gas. There were definitely, and I, I listened to like a biography of Mary, Queen of Scots at one point. That was eight cassettes. So two cassettes –

Alison: So –

Sarah: – these are not long.

Alison: These are the three-hour runtimes, probably – 

Sarah: Yep.

Alison: – right? That we saw in the ads earlier.

Sarah: Exactly what I was thinking.

Alison: They also used to do this thing where, like, sometimes they would, like, slow it down? Or, like, so that, like, or you listened to the recording at a slower speed –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Alison: – because, like, they sped it up when they produced it somehow? Yeah.

Sarah: Yeah.

Alison: One of my, my first job – you know, other than babysitting – was working at a Cracker Barrel?

Sarah: Oh!

Alison: And so we used to –

Sarah: …biscuits.

Alison: – rent audiobooks! Well, they used to rent audiobooks, and so you could, like, pick one up in wherever you were and drive to the next one and swap it out for something else!

Sarah: So wait, Cracker Barrel had a roadside eBook library?

Alison: They were – yeah! You could rent books on tape from them.

Sarah: That’s so cool! I never knew that!

Alison: Yeah, yeah, they were up by the front register, up on the front left, and you could go and you could, like – technically, you bought them, right? And they were like $29.99, and they were like those big sort of folding things with, like, all the cassettes in there?

Sarah: Yeah.

Alison: And, but you could return it, basically, for a rental fee, and if you returned it you got like, you know –

Sarah: A credit.

Alison: – all but, all but five bucks back, or something like that.

Sarah: Oh wow!

Alison: Yeah.

Sarah: And so then they would just –

Amanda: I was –

Sarah: – ship the eBooks between different Cracker Barrels.

Alison: Yep!

Amanda: I was recently talking about cassettes with Brian, my partner, and I only owned two cassettes, ‘cause I think I was right on the wave of when CDs were coming out?

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: So my weird uncle gave me an REM cassette, and I was like nine. I’m like, I don’t know who the fuck REM is; I’m a nine-year-old girl. And –

Alison: [Laughs]

Amanda: – and – [laughs] – I also had TLC’s, I think, CrazySexyCool –

Alison: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: – on cassette, and I was talking to Brian, and I was like, Oh, you remember when you had to, like, listen to a cassette, and when you wanted to get to the song you want, you’d have to just sort of keep fast-forwarding until you got to the point, and Brian’s like, No, I don’t remember that, and then I had to remember that my partner is five years younger than I am and has no memory of cassettes.

Sarah: Oh.

Amanda: So that was, that was a painful conversation for me –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Amanda: – to have. [Laughs]

Sarah: I remember cassette singles, where you’d buy like one song on one side of a cassette and then there’d be a B side on the other side of the cassette? Like, like record singles became cassette singles. I had a bunch of cassette singles. They were utterly uneconomical, and I wore them out listening to them.

Amanda: Look, you had cassette singles; we had hit clips. So.

Sarah: That’s true, you did. And then we all had LimeWire, and the world was changed.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: Page 97, there’s a big Oh Shit. Like a really, really, really big oops. Alison, you noticed this too.

Alison: I did.

Sarah: Do you want to –

Alison: I went to make a note of it, and I said, Oh, Sarah already saw this.

Sarah: Oh yeah. Do you want to read this? ‘Cause it’s, this is a big old ooops!

Alison: Yep.

>> Betty Neels, alive and well.

Sarah: [Snorts]

Alison: >> We incorrectly reported in the September forum RT number 186 that Betty Neels, longtime series romance author, passed away earlier this year. Miss Neels is actually alive, well, and still writing. We extend our sincere apologies and regret any inconvenience the error may have caused.

Sarah: Inconvenience! You said she was dead!

Alison: [Laughs]

Amanda: I wonder how many people saw it and, like, wrote in or contacted the magazine to – Betty herself!

Sarah: Betty her- – Dear RT: What the fuck? I’m alive.

Alison: Perhaps somebody found out through reading this and, like, reached out because they, like, knew her or, like, you know –

Sarah: Did you know you’re dead?

Alison: – a family member was like, Did you know? I was, I was so sorry to hear that Betty died, and they were like, What? She did?

Sarah: She’s right here; you want to talk to her? Put her on the phone!

We regret any inconvenience.

Alison: Well, to Amanda’s point, they seem, don’t seem to take criticism very well. [Laughs]

Sarah: They do not. Absolutely not. Ooops!

On page 111, they start talking about the conference, which that year was in Toronto, and one of the things that they’re highlighting is:

>> Late-breaking news: The Art of Seduction. When Toronto native and professional seductress Mary Taylor learned the RT convention was coming to her home town, she made us an offer we couldn’t refuse to share her expertise in a workshop on how to seduce your lover in new and thrilling ways. This three-hour program –

[Laughs] Amanda just, like, jerked her head back.

Amanda: No.

Sarah: >> – three-hour program –

Amanda: No.

Sarah: >> – which is also available on video and soon to be released in print, is designed with the average woman in mind. Mary believes all women, regardless of age or size, are beautiful and have strong seductive powers, but most don’t know how to get started. Overcome your fears, titillate your lover, and celebrate female sexuality. Whether you’re researching your novel or educating your libido, leave your inhibitions behind and learn how to unleash your fantasies on the man in your life. Not for the faint of heart, but a heck of a lot of fun.

Okay. That sounds like something I would not want to do in a conference setting.

Amanda: This sounds like my personal hell.

Sarah: [Laughs] But she’s a professional seductress, Amanda!

Amanda: What does that even –

Sarah: I don’t know.

Amanda: What does that even mean?

Sarah: Well, you get to decide! She’s giving a three –

Amanda: No, I don’t, ‘cause I won’t be attending.

Sarah: A three –

Amanda: I will not be attending this –

Sarah: Three hours! Alison –

Alison: This is, this is, this is the sort of thing that I would have attended with, like, a good friend, just to sort of sit in the back and giggle…

Amanda: Are they going to feed us? That’s three hours! I hope…

Alison: That’s a long time.

Amanda: …a snack.

Sarah: That’s a lot of time talking about boning. But it’s also really interesting that they are overtly advertising to the conference attendees, We’re going to teach you how to be good at sex; we’re going to teach you how to, like, increase your libido. And obviously this is meant for research purposes? But, like, I can’t imagine something more uncomfortable. Three hours with a professional seductress. What did, what – if, if anyone is listening who attended this, please tell us what it was like. I am –

Amanda: And this –

Sarah: – so curious.

Amanda: This also does not fight the stereotype of romance readers are just horny ladies.

Sarah: Mm-hmm. Horny ladies with a very specific venue for their hornypants, and they, they need their porn in the fluffiest of packages. Yeah. Wow. Wow! Yeah, I’m, I’m bummed that I missed that, but I’m also okay.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: I’m also all right that I, that I missed it.

On page 119, we, we love the classifieds? Like, if you look at the classifieds, Alison, it is nothing but services for you to find books.

Alison: Yeah! And there’s, like, a whole bit of, like, the erotic fiction seems to have been relegated to the classified ads in the back, and, like, the whole, including outrageous erotic, erotic variations in spanking fiction with fiery over-the-knee encounters between dominant men and the women who love them. I was like, Okay!

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Alison: Over eighty-five titles you can order from the convenience of your home.

Sarah: Spankity-spank-spank!

Amanda: Right next to a Barbara Cartland ad. I –

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: I hope she loves that.

Sarah: Oh yeah. My personal favorite classified this ad, ad this month is:

>> Miscellaneous: The Romance Connection. Come and experience the passion on the nation’s number one romance and party line. Call 1-473-XXX-XXXX. Regular long distance applies; eighteen and older.

So it was like a group chat on the phone, but you were talking about romance? Was it like –

Amanda: I guess!

Sarah: – spanky?

Amanda: I was never, I mean, I was probably too young for a party line, so my –

Sarah: I have no memories of party lines.

Amanda: – knowledge of party line is just, like, you know, passed along – [laughs] – from internet myth.

Sarah: I don’t know if you remember this, Alison, but I remember – oh God, I’m so sorry; I just googled the number, and it is a Florida number, and it, it belongs to somebody. I hope no one’s calling them expecting the party line!

[Laughter]

Amanda: Oh no!

Sarah: I hope no one’s calling them!

Alison, do you remember the, in the ‘80s and the ‘90s and, and especially at this time, the, you can call this 800 number or a 900 number and –

Alison: Yeah.

Sarah: – we’d get, like, recorded messages from boy bands?

Alison: Yes, I remember that kind of thing.

Sarah: Call and hear your special greeting from New Kids on the Block. Eighteen and older! You can get a special – sometimes we’ll even answer the phone. (Spoiler: they did not answer the phone.) What was this party line like? Were you supposed to call and just start – like, what were you, what were you going to do?

Alison: I don’t know, but there were a lot of, like, the 1-800 and the 1-900. The 1-900 ones were the ones where they were making money off of you.

Sarah: Yes. Yes. Two dollars a minute or –

Alison: Yeah, yeah, like 2.99.

Sarah: – two dollars for the first minute, forty, forty cents each additional minute, but, like, if you think about – like, for example, we’ve been talking for one hour and sixteen minutes, but it doesn’t feel like that long. Conversation takes time. How much were those phone bills? Holy hell!

Alison: I mean, I always just assumed that they were like phone sex operators, right? Then that –

Sarah: Yeah!

Alison: – like, that was what you were –

Sarah: Spanky, spanky.

Alison: – that was what you were paying for. But I was too young to call them.

Sarah: Oh, I never, I never would have gotten to a call.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: I would have gotten grounded until like my age right now. I would still be grounded if I’d called one of those line, numbers.

Alison: I mean, we used to prank call the Hooked on Phonics number, but that was about it.

Sarah: Wait, you would prank call Hooked on Phonics? That’s amazing!

Alison: Yes! [Laughs] Yeah. No, I was a fairly well-behaved child, but yeah, we used to…Hooked on Phonics.

Sarah: Yeah, but Hooked on Phonics had it coming! You were –

Alison: They did.

Sarah: You were coming for them.

And finally, the back cover. The inside back cover is for Shannon Drake, Beneath a Blood Red Moon. It’s really not that exciting. They didn’t, it’s like a, it’s wall, it’s basically wallpaper, and then there’s a moon. Like, there’s not even a good cover.

But the back cover is Bobbi Smith, Brides of Durango: Elise, and there’s a picture of the cover and of the stepback, and I’m pretty sure he’s about to go down on her.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Alison: Oh, in the stepback. I was like –

Sarah: Yeah. In the stepback –

Alison: Yep.

Sarah: – I think he’s about to go down.

Alison: That’s what it looks like.

Sarah: It looks, it’s very erotic. Like, her leg is bent; he’s reaching for her knees; his head is already on her stomach; he’s looking down. Like, this is very suggestive. But as far as covers go, the front cover is just, he’s taking off her dress, but you only see like his eye, so it’s very creepy.

[Laughter]

Alison: Yeah. Is this like a – when is this set? Because it looks like he’s wearing a vest with his name on it, and his name –

Amanda: I –

Alison: – appears to be Pino?

Sarah: Oh no, Pino is the name of the artist who painted that. Pino was a painter.

Alison: Okay.

Sarah: Pino –

Alison: That makes a lot more sense.

Sarah: Yeah, Pino is the painter who did a lot – a lot, a lot, a lot – of covers.

>> She’s a journalist, and she’s going to fake marriage to catch a, catch a thief –

And do-do, do-do, but it doesn’t say what the time period is. But apparently it’s been rereleased by Montlake Romance; lucky us! You know what, I, was this a – yep, this was a Dorchester.

So Amazon bought all of Dorchester when Dorchester went bankrupt. Amazon bought all of their backlist from the bankruptcy settlement and OCR-scanned a lot of the books and made them digital and put them all in Kindle Unlimited. So they bought all of Dorchester’s catalog and it’s now part of Kindle Unlimited.

This is one of those books, but I don’t know when this was set. Clearly it’s Old West, ‘cause he’s got the vest. You, you can’t have a vest unless you’re in the Old West, right?

Alison: Well, I was really hoping –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Alison: – that his name was Pinto Bean?

Sarah: Ohhh! He’s got to go to Bean Manor!

Amanda: The Beans!

Alison: I know! [Laughs]

Sarah: You’ve got to go to Bean Manor!

Alison: I know!

Sarah: So that is October 1999. Alison, what did you think? Was it everything you dreamed of?

Alison: Totally.

Sarah: Did you have a good time?

Alison: I did! It was so much fun! I really enjoyed going through it and, like, like I said, the number of yikes on bikes moments were –

Sarah: Stunning, right?

Alison: – it was something else. I mean, so I have a book that was my father’s, and so my father was born in England in 1946, and I have a book that was, belonged to him. It’s called A Child’s Nursery History of England, and there is literally a page where it says they saved the white people. Like, it’s about the time in India. But I wasn’t quite expecting – like the, the, the bit about the American Revolution is very funny, in fact, because, like, they’re still frosty about it? And, but, like, I wasn’t quite expecting the same sort of stuff in here in 1999, but I guess –

Sarah: These, these are, these are, these are definite time capsules.

Alison: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: You know, like, I’m kind of glad that I’ve, I’ve, have this little collection and I’m digitizing some of them to share, because they are very specific time capsules. What strikes me most of all is the things that we talk about with romance, they don’t evolve as quick as we think they do.

Alison: No, but I think that there’s a lot to be said for sort of how much the readers drag the industry, right?

Sarah: Yes, I completely agree.

Alison: And that they really, like, pull it towards what they want to read, and so, you know, self-publishing and eBooks, etc., like, you can find a lot of stuff that you want to read that isn’t –

Sarah: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. For sure.

Alison: – Whitney, My Love and –

Sarah: Whichever edition you’ve got!

Alison: Indeed, indeed. I just remember, like, the dresses always falling in a pool of satin, and I’m like, How many pools of satin are there, people?

Amanda: [Laughs]

Alison: Like, there’s just so many pools of satin.

Sarah: Like I said, I always thought when I was an adult my hair would do what, what the hair on romance covers would do. Like, my hair would just start getting big and fluffy and puffy.

Alison: Really disappointing.

Sarah: Yeah!

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: It’s just straight and frizzy, so I just cut it all off.

Thank you so, so much?

Amanda: Thank you!

Alison: Thank you! This was so much fun; I really had a great time.

[music]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. I want to share with you what the potential subtitles were for this one? I always write down the subtitles as I’m editing. So subtitle choice number one: That’s Giving Me Norm Macdonald Face. Subtitle option number two: This Guy Gives Me the Douche Chills. And subtitle option three: Bring Back Horny Chicken DeSalvo. It’s really hard to pick one. I only get one, and every one is so funny.

Thank you to Amanda and especially to Alison for this amazing set of episodes. We were so, so happy to have you.

You will find all of the books that we talked about and links to the things we talked about as well, like Daniel Craig and his amazing hair and the conversation about Jennifer Crusie books that capture a very specific time period. The show notes will also have a link to the visual aids, and if we’re talking about romance covers in 1999, which we are, you don’t want to miss them. They’re truly incredible. Every time I found another cover in color and shared it with everybody it was like, Oh, ohhh! Oh, okay! So yeah, visual aids? I can’t stress enough how good the covers are this week. Woohoo!

As always, I end with a terrible joke. This week’s joke comes from Malaraa, and this joke made me laugh. This is from our Discord.

Why could Luke never get his toaster to work?

Give up? Why could Luke never get his toaster to work?

It was a Rebel Appliance.

[Laughs] Rebel Appliance! I love how silly these jokes are. Thanks, Malaraa!

On behalf of everyone here, we wish you the very best of reading. Have a wonderful weekend, and don’t forget to tune in next week. I’m talking to a Real Housewives producer! We’re going to talk about reality TV and romance, and it’s fun, so don’t miss that episode; it’s going to be great.

Smart Podcast, Trashy Books is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. You can find outstanding podcasts to subscribe to at frolic.media/podcasts.

[end of music]