Blood and Gold by Anne Rice
Bodice Tipplers
He's Marius, a real piece of work! They're... it doesn't matter who they are because once they become too difficult for him to deal with he just makes another younger vampire to replace them. Yes, it's our annual Anne Rice-a-thon! This time we read a book which recaps almost every other Vampire Chronicles book including and of course especially Memnoch the Devil, the one we refuse to read. You will not break us, Anne. This seems to be the eighth book in the series and we're pretty sure she's writing them just for us at this point. If you haven't read any of the other books or listened to...
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Fantasy Lover by Sherrilyn Kenyon
Bodice Tipplers
She's Grace, the world's least qualified sex therapist! He's Julian, a sex slave who lives in a book! Together I really wish they fought crime! It's Fantasy Lover by Sherrilyn Kenyon, the first Dark Hunters book! We actually forgot to do content warnings in the recording (we are out of practice!) but this one does have some creepy stalker business, some off-screen magical "Cupid's Arrow" use by the "hero", a lot of sexual pushiness (light ravishing?), the f-slur, a white voodoo priestess, and it's also deeply stupid. This is the first episode of our Cringe Binge miniseries, where we read...
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Fall 2025 Preview! We missed you!
Bodice Tipplers
We're so back! We're so sorry we haven't been back! We've been struggling (I think maybe we are not alone?) but we are coming back with a celebration of a kind of book we're struggling to define but we totally know what we're talking about and hope you do too. They tend to be paranormal romances, but don't have to be. They come in long series and you can usually debate for ages about where you should stop reading them. Every woman you know knows about them but almost none of the men do. They have big worldbuilding (often to the point where by book 20 they're completely different books...
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Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K. Hamilton
Bodice Tipplers
She's Anita, a zombie raising hate crime enthusiast! He's Jean Claude, a vampire who's in the Chamber of Commerce and shops exclusively at International Male! They do not do it until the fifth book! It's , the first Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter book by Laurell K. Hamilton! This was a serious thing for Sara back in college, who is currently having an existential crisis about the trashbag fakeass non-intersectional feminism of the all of it. It was new to Courtney, who hated it. It's halfway to Halloween, so we pulled this one out of a musty old crypt where we honestly kinda forgot about how...
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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!...
info_outlineWe're so back!
We're so sorry we haven't been back!
We've been struggling (I think maybe we are not alone?) but we are coming back with a celebration of a kind of book we're struggling to define but we totally know what we're talking about and hope you do too. They tend to be paranormal romances, but don't have to be. They come in long series and you can usually debate for ages about where you should stop reading them. Every woman you know knows about them but almost none of the men do. They have big worldbuilding (often to the point where by book 20 they're completely different books and now everybody is a demon in hell and also a rock star but they still have killer outfits) and their fans are real fans, they get into the first one and read fifteen more in a week, they write fanfic, they want to live in the world. They somehow have a little bit of a fanfic vibe even in the original. There's something a little "guilty pleasure" about them. A little, dare I say, "cringe".
Well fuck that, if we're going to meet the moment we need to smother the part of us that thinks a pleasure could be guilty or that sincerity is embarassing. We're embarking on a special mini-series we're calling the Bodice Tipplers Cringe Binge! We're reading Sherrilyn Kenyon! We're reading Charlaine Harris! We're reading JR Ward! We're sure as shit reading Nalini Singh!
And before somebody pops out of a garbage can to tell me there's nothing cringey about these books, please go and look at a list of the men's names in the Black Dagger Brotherhood books and check yourself. If you truly want to overcome your instinct for embarassment you're going to have to read a book about a grown ass man named Phury, don't come complaining to me, I don't make the rules. Or the rhules.
So join us starting Labor Day for our first one, Fantasy Lover by Sherrilyn Kenyon!