NYPL's Best New Romance Books
Bodice Tipplers
We had a great time sitting down with Grace and Kate from the New York Public Library (as I explained to my husband "the one with the lions") to talk about NYPL's "" list of their favorite 2024 romance novels. We talked about everything from Johanna Lindsey cover art to the sad dearth of true pirate romances these days to romantical rubber duckies! I cut the worst of the shop talk but it was so exciting to get to talk romance readers' advisory with like minded professionals!
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Heat Wave by Barbara Delinsky
Bodice Tipplers
We recorded this months ago, in the fall! We are sorry! He's Brendan, a DOJ attorney ferreting out white supremacists! She's Caroline, a counselor whose mom calls all the time! Will they ever buy curtains to spare the neighbors' tender eyes? Find out in Heat Wave by Barbara Delinsky, another of our “five heart romances”! If you’re new to this, we’re doing episodes on the list of books that Romantic Times reviewer Melinda Helfer awarded five hearts to (there are sixteen, out of ten thousand!) So far, Melinda did not miss. No real content warnings in this one except that I...
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Pandora by Anne Rice
Bodice Tipplers
He's Marius, a vampire who keeps getting stuck in things! She's Pandora, horny middle aged lady goals! Forget it, Jake, it's Anne Rice! We promised a special January 6 "we're not going back!" episode because... we thought it was going to be funny because we expected things to go somewhat differently! Ha! Ha! So funny! So it's a damn good thing we ended up all loving this book. We're joined by our usual Special Guest Claire and had a great time talking about ol' "yeah but can you fuck" Pandora, bless her. Content warnings are the usual vampire business, the usual Anne Rice xenophobia, and...
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Merrick by Anne Rice
Bodice Tipplers
Welcome to our fifth year of reading Anne Rice books for Halloween, with special guest Dr. Claire Mischker! He's David Talbot, nobody's favorite old man/young twink vampire! She's Merrick, too cool for these dusty losers, out here committing perfume crimes! In accordance with long-established tradition, this episode is rambling and yelly and has weird sound! Note: I promise we actually do know that Guatemala is in Central America, but once you make a mistake one time on a podcast it's really hard to not keep making it. As usual there are a slew of real content warnings about anything our...
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Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
Bodice Tipplers
Aye lads and lassies and wee bairns (wait, this is no place for wee bairns!) This is our hundredth episode, to our vast surprise, so we're gonna make enemies and talk about Outlander! He's Jamie, the only feminist in eighteenth century Scotland! She's Claire, a time traveling nurse with a boring husband! Buckle up, sassenachs, because if you know this book you know you're about to trip over a giant content warning. The book, the TV show, and absolutely this podcast have a great big neon "sexual assault" warning on them. There is no ignoring the rape in Outlander - it's an omnipresent (and...
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Lightning by Dean Koontz
Bodice Tipplers
He's Stephan, a time travelling good Nazi! She's Laura, a woman he will not leave alone! It's Dean Koontz's Lightning, the first of our summer road trip books! To explain the amazing graphic my husband ran up for this - I am almost certain this is Koontz's own Terminator fanfic, predicting Badass T2 Sarah Connor years before that movie came out. If you didn't see please enjoy this gift link! Why yes, it is weird! He really does wear his hair like that! Is it his hair? I dunno, I mean, I'm sure he owns it, yes. Every day! All the time! His wife just walks into a room and there it is!...
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Bear by Marian Engel
Bodice Tipplers
He's a bear. Like an actual bear. She's having a midlife crisis. This seems like a pretty extreme response. This is by Marian Engel, which won the Governor General's Award in 1976 and is evidently the most controversial Canadian novel of all time. Sounds like a skills issue to me. You know that joke about how you can build a bridge with your bare hands and they don't call you a bridge builder, and you can saw down a tree and cut it into boards and make these cabinets but they don't call you a carpenter, but if you fuck one bear... anyway this book is about Lou the bearfucker. This is, of...
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A Crime of the Heart by Cheryl Reavis
Bodice Tipplers
His job is Amish! She's an accountant with an ulcer and a bad case of second chance romance! Will they fall back in love? Can she get over that weird beard thing? Find out in Cheryl Reavis' A Crime of the Heart, another of our "five heart romances"! If you're new to this, we're doing episodes on the list of books that Romantic Times reviewer Melinda Helfer awarded five hearts to (there are sixteen, out of ten thousand!) This one is very sweet but their problems are real and grounded - if "I had your baby and I gave it away" adoption stories or religious communities shunning family members...
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Annie's Song by Catherine Anderson
Bodice Tipplers
He's Alex, an Oregon gentleman farmer with a very bad brother! She's Annie, a Deaf woman who's treated like garbage by literally everyone! Welcome to Annie's Song by Catherine Anderson! There are some pretty strong content warnings for this one - it won't surprise you that it's full of ableism, both Original Recipe and Extra Paternalistic, of course. There's also a pretty harrowing sexual assault that starts the book off - it's not graphic on the page but it's very traumatic for the character.
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Danger Zone by Doreen Owens Malek
Bodice Tipplers
This is our first intentional entry in a little project we're doing - friend of the podcast Steve Ammidown posted this fascinating spread with a list of all the books Melinda Helfer, a Romantic Times editor, awarded five hearts in a review. Sixteen books out of ten thousand! Well, it turns out we'd already done two of them - and , both by Sharon and Todd Curtis (sometimes writing as Laura London.) Go check out those episodes, they're fantastic books! So every now and then going forward we're going to do one of these five heart books. This is a mercenary book, but it's surprisingly gentle -...
info_outlineShe's Merry, a naïve teenager who mostly sits around waiting for something to happen. He's Devon, the evil pirate who kidnaps her mostly by accident. It's the War of 1812!
Laura London is actually Tom and Sharon Curtis; we previously did a Loveswept by them that was a lot of fun, Lightning That Lingers. Check it out!
We've been sleeping on this book for forever - it actually got recommended to Sara by a coworker years ago, when we first started, and we should have read it then because it's a blast. The best part, of course, is everybody who isn't Devon - there's a band of Merry Men, most notably Dread Pirate Rand and Disaster Bi Cat, but don't forget Ship Pet Raven who is a person and Best Pirate Dennis who is a pig. It does have a genuinely shocking amount of threatened and past rape for such a fun and fluffy book, most of which are pretty abstract but there's some tragic backstory to some characters, some of it you'll expect and some of it you won't. And of course there's dirty deeds, some of which are quite expensive - although you'd expect more pirating? Honestly though if I'd have known this book had a queer androgynous silver haired bitchy pirate I'd have been on it thirty years ago.