Whoa!mance

Dear Listeners, prepare to enter a tale as much yr grrl Jane as it is yr boi Aldous because this week Morgan and Isabeau are taking a trip to the other worldly. It’s Persuasion, generations after an event called "the Reduction", where love continues to blossom through the cracks of a biologically-enhanced hierarchical class structure. How does the framework of a mother text allow its children to run amok? Are epistles a creative crutch? Is alluding to it as “butterflies” an appropriate way for young-ish adults to discuss teenage sexuality? If we only had two syllables to describe this episode they'd be: it good.

It’s JANEuary in this beautiful New Year of yr grrl, and we’re going all in out the gate y’all. This week, Morgan and Isabeau are breaking off a little preview of Ibi Zoboi’s P&P remix, Pride, named the Great Big Romance Read of 2018 by the Ripped Bodice. It’s about being a castaway in the throes of youth culture. It’s about that-trendy-new-place-in-an-up-and-coming-neighborhood. It’s about Mr. Darcy’s relationship to the trope of the manic pixie dream girl. It's a modern telling of P&P with... teens. It’s all killer and no filler party people.

Dismissive actions. Furtive eyes. Arguing and making out in the rain. Hate fucking that becomes love fucking. This week, for a special Boxing Day Boner, Morgan and Isabeau unpack the classic Romance trope of enemies to lovers through the lens of the indelible 2005 adaptation of Pride & Prejudice. Darcy. Gazebos. And displeasure turned titillating. Snuggle up with this cozy Boner and get ready because JANEuary, came early.

Whether they’re kicking you and your loved ones off their property, enjoying a solitary brood on the snow swept moors, parroting Ebenezer Scrooge, or simply trying to run a successful newspaper, it seems Dukes are everywhere these days. This week, Morgan and Isabeau explore the men beneath the titles in How the Dukes Stole Christmas, an anthology of novellas by Tessa Dare, Sarah MacLean, Sophie Jordan, and Joanna Shupe. Can love coexist with wealth? Is Heiress Alone just Home Alone with more vitamin D? Does magic shortbread show up on a drug test? It’s a festive Duke down with all the trimmings. Eat and be merry!

We said we wouldn’t do it. We said we’d never talk about Jane Austen on this show. She’s played out. Old hat. But this January, get ready for the faceoff you never thought possible, because it’s JANEuary motherbitches. Morgan and Isabeau are coming fully loaded with genre spanning Jane Austen inspired content, commentary, reviews, Clueless; the whole gamut. But we want YOU to decide what Jane Austen novel to feature for JANEuary! Is it Emma? S&S? P&P? Northanger Abbey? Start thinking about where your loyalties lay, because this January is all about yr grrl Jane. Vote here: https://twitter.com/mance_whoa/status/1072983335704637440

Tenured and bespectacled Roseleen White, Professor of Medieval Studies, has just discovered a rather peculiar sword. Tethered to the sword is Thorn, a Viking warrior who may be summoned at will and is at the mercy of its wielder. Could this immortal and immaculate being be the key to Roseleen’s career advancement and *removes glasses* her sexual awakening? Do you think I look hotter with my glasses on or off? *puts glasses back on* On. *removes glasses once more* Off. No? This week, Morgan and Isabeau unpack the complexities of the culture wars, discuss eyeglass appropriation, and marvel at the novel’s internal adherence to the ethics of time travel. I can’t tell if you’re nodding - are you nodding? You’re just a gorgeous blur. *puts on glasses yet again* Well?

Last year, two burgeoning podcasters recorded what was to be a true and undoctored account of their mental and emotional experience reading A Christmas to Remember featuring stories by Lisa Kleypas, Lorraine Heath, Megan Frampton, and Vivienne Lorret. Sadly, the recording and its sentiments were never recovered. Now, Morgan and Isabeau are back to reignite those lost feelings of arousal and outrage with a passionate reenactment of a previously unreleased Whoa!mance classic. This never-before-heard deluxe edition includes: digitally remastered shots at the patriarchal coding of feminine beauty standards, an in-depth analysis of the capitalist rot beneath Santa’s suit, and takes categorically hotter than roasted chestnuts. This episode is a perfect stocking stuffer for feet of all shapes and sizes - available now while supplies last!

Thanksgiving is a time for indulging in corporeal comforts to distract from the guilt of America’s colonialist origin; the type of bad feeling that requires four distinct potato dishes and the gladiatorial sport of football to placate until bear baiting bubbles back into the zeitgeist. Why else would Debby choose to satisfy her most carnal of appetites in the warmth and safety of her childhood bed, the aroma of turkey fat thick in the air, her family moving about below? What could be better? What could be more repressed? What does your ideal penis look like? Morgan and Isabeau want to know; contains meat.

At some point we’ve all felt bullied. But did you ever think, as you stared out through the slits of a locker, your new home, that perhaps your tormenter just needed to work through some misplaced sexual desire? That in fact, your personal Roger Klotz was just biding their time to tell you how they really felt? What’s the statute of limitations on attempted murder? Can a novel be both problematic and titillating? Morgan and Isabeau grapple with Letty and Tate’s relationship, barn weddings, and what to do when your mind’s telling you no, but your body, your body, has been reshaped by toxic masculinity.

A first love. A religious cult. A hundred corpses. This week, Morgan and Isabeau join Mara Reed as she tries to outrun the violence of her past and survive in the Lone Star State. But not everything about Mara’s past is bent on her destruction: enter Dr. Ethan Stuart, forensic anthropologist and beefcake who needs Mara’s help to solve a mysterious case. Why Texas? Why violence? What is love? These questions and more y'all.

You know that feeling when you’ve been entrusted with your dead dad’s bloodknife to keep the spectral world from culling human victims, but you’re too hung up on getting a little ghost strange from bae to dispatch her to an unknown that’s likely worse than hell? This week, Morgan and Isabeau follow Cas Lowood to Thunder Bay, Ontario on his quest to rid the world of flesh-eating ghosts, chase tail, and pass biology. Trigger Warning - a dude gets ripped the fuck in half like a hamburger. $5 solo cup: keg in back.

What tempts you? What fixations lurk in the corners of your mind? Is it leather? Lace? Or perhaps...MURDER? This week, Morgan and Isabeau take a carriage ride to Whitechapel, London to meet Darcie Finch, and her mysterious new boss, anatomist and shit artist Dr. Damien Cole. But as whispers and disappearances continue to shroud Damien, Darcie is flayed by the peril of choice: to risk her love, or her life. SPOOOOOOKY!

Art. Passion. Surgeries. This week, Morgan & Isabeau explore the fourth installment of Katharine Ashe’s Devil’s Duke Series, The Prince. Is there a purer expression of love than building a prosthetic leg for one’s betrothed? Does the novel’s historical depiction of a culturally diverse Edinburgh resonate as *air quotes* modern or does it have more tokens than a Chuck E. Cheese? Is it time for Romance to outlaw the Shah? These questions and more! Dress code casual.

In this week's episode Morgan and Isabeau tackle Damon Suede's Hot Head a pun-tastic m/m romance about firemen in NYC. These friends to lovers just don't know what to do with their feels. There's a lot to cover in this novel, and Isabeau and Morgan flow between the topics of sex work, sexual discovery, and masculinity over the course of this episode. If you like dicks this is the one for you!

In this episode Morgan and Isabeau discuss a time traveling romance. And it's not Outlander. Our modern day heroine (who lives in Chicago!) is thrown back in time and into an entirely different body! She does her level best to figure out the mystery of how she not only swapped bods but also timelines and she has sex on a horse. Morgan and Isabeau dive deep into questions around corporeal identity, consent, and what rage looks and feels like. Trigger Warning: This book is a lot and deals explicitly with molestation and rape.

WE GET A WEBSITE YOU GET A BONER! But seriously y'all check out our brand new, state-of-the-art, all-mod-cons with water and gas included WEBSITE where you can get caught up on all things Whoa!Mance. It's truly a thing of beauty. https://www.whoamancepodcast.com/ And don't worry, this boner is on us.

On this week's episode Morgan and Isabeau interrogate a new medium for romance--Graphic Novels! Wild Rose is a graphic novel retelling of a popular Irish murder ballad. Writer Nicole Slaunwhite is kickstarting a wild Irish ride with a kick ass heroine who kinda gets her butt handed to her in the first issue---but there's big things in our Heroine's future or so says the witch and the tarot cards! This has it all sex, love, loss, magic, and Irish folks. If you want to support Nicole in her efforts here's her website: https://wildrosecomic.wordpress.com/

On this week's episode Morgan and Isabeau tackle series ender and novella "Making it Last" by Ruthie Knox. The last book in the author's Camelot series--The question on the table is: What is romance and how do we know what counts as a Happily Ever After? Where do the genre boundaries get blurry? And perhaps most importantly what turns your crank when you're cranky?

On this week's episode, our last in our Lisa Kleypas Series, Morgan and guest star Sean tackle Lisa Kleypas's stand alone novel "Suddenly You". A novel about a spinster (she's 30) who orders a sexual awaken for her birthday! Listen in as Morgan and Sean dive deep on the surprises of the genre, how lived in and researched the world is--and the awkward messaging mashup of "scrappy" capitalism and blue-blooded hierarchy. Spoiler alert: they are both the worst.

Lisa Kleypas-ter Syndrome Part 2: On this week's episode we welcome back our good friend Kim and talk about what it's like to grow through an author's work, what that does to how we read characters and setting, what that means for how we view the work and cherish it (or not). Romance is special because you can grow up with it, and grow up through it, and sometimes out grow an author--but can you every really out grow something you loved? Listen and find out! Listen and find out.