Whoa!mance

Over the hills and through the woods, to Velaris we go! Feyre and Rhysand are getting ready for their first C̶h̶r̶i̶s̶t̶m̶a̶s̶ WINTER SOLSTICE together. All while reconciling the recent trauma of the War (see episodes 157, 158). What makes a Holiday Special special? How has the messaging around the true meaning of Christmas morphed in our current therapy-speak moment? Do you feel like you've been sufficiently fan serviced today? Join us as we weave the threads of The Star Wars Christmas Special, "It's A Wonderful Life", and Tom Bombadil together to make sense of the Phenom that is The Worst Book In This Series.

Ho! ho! ho no. This eppy, yr grls go whatever the opposite of carolling is about - Christmas Masquerade: A Pride & Prejudice Intimate Variation by Vivien Norville Lizzie and Darcy (who you know...) are spending their first Christmas together and Darcy is BLOWING it. Or wait, Lizzie is blowing it? Honestly, no one is getting blown. When did the public opinion pendulum swing from sweet to spicy? Is self-publishing the field from which we must harvest the bitter oats sown by celebrating ROI and SEO instead of the HEA as Romance's primary virtue? Is it just a conifer? This Christmas, get duped by Capitalism. Again!

Jane and Lizzie finally get a chance alone to go over everything that has happened. Namely 1) Mr Darcy proposed like and ass but maybe isn't one? and 2) Wickham is the worst person on planet earth. Jane tries to have it both ways and Lizzie has none of it. And is Mrs Bennet a secret proto feminist?

In this stunner of a chapter we again find ourselves in a carriage, but this time it's with the sisters fully reunited and on their way to Longborne. There's a hat box, a question of who paid for lunch and a lot of charm oozing from that youngest and potentially worst/best Bennet sister: Lydia.

Full of the unsought advice of relatives? Ready to be at home with your actual favs and your comfy pants? Lizzie Bennet is too, y'all. Join this female main character on one more annoying carriage ride as she escapes her cousin Mr. Collins' tender and slightly belligerent farewells. Ready to hear us dish on writers and commenters--desperate goobers full of anxiety or blindly confident weirdos? We're serving hot takes only with this post holiday bonus! Get home safe

You traveling this holiday? Lizzie Bennet too. Got relatives telling you which highways and byways and coaching inns are best? Yr girl Liz is in the same spot. Turns out time is a flat circle, and some chickens come home to roost sooner than others. Or in this case blindspots about dads. Enjoy your holidays!

In the thrilling conclusion to our Western Civ I, we tackle shame. Shameless or shameful, shame has a utility. Is it worth examining in the context of romance? You betcha buckaroo. Saddle up while we unpack this particular pair of chaps.

Why, it's Andrea Martucci of Shelf Love stopping by the Whoa!mance desk to talk about darling of her childhood, weird uncle of her adulthood - A LADY OF THE WEST by LINDA HOWARD. Victoria leaves Reconstruction behind for The American West, and, its representative, The Major (with her kid sister and cool cousin in tow). The Major got his ranch the old fashioned way. By murdering his boss's enitre family - or so he thinks - and loosing a testicle in the process. His employee, Jake, also wants to get the ranch the old fashioned way - but with a side of revenge. And Victoria. Mostly Victoria. He also doesn't want to lose a testicle. How can we wrestle with a book we enjoy that has harmful ideology? How can we trace the contours of conscientiousness if characters in romance don't share the text's awareness? Is Scarlett O'Hara the white woman's Patrick Bateman? Andrea, Morgan and Isabeau have some big saddlebags to unpack with this one. Which is why it is a two-parter.

Join us for the what lies the wake of Darcy's thrilling bombshells. While Jane Austen doesn't invent headhopping she does a bang up job of walking us through Lizzie's reaction to Darcy's screed of a letter. Is this what growing up feels like? Who can say? Us. Us can say.

Saddle up the Equimare and/or gas up the Autoduck - this week yr grls pass through the veil of HART AND MERCY by MEGAN BANNEN. Marshall Hart sends a letter looking for a friend into the aether (which is not the strangest thing to do in the strange land of this book) and it lands on the desk of his nemesis - Undertaker Mercy. She also needs an anonymous friend, turns out. Does reading fantasy romance juice your empathy or is it just so much more escapism? What makes a retelling worthwhile? When was the last time you lusted after a blond? You'll want to check your box for this one, because we're sending it straight to your heart.

Wherein Darcy unburdens himself in an epistle to the girl who won't have him. He's fine--thanks for asking! It's only 8am and he's only been lurking in the park waiting for Lizzie to chance by for a little over an hour. He's fine! What makes a manic pixie dream girl? How did Jane Austen know about them? And what makes declaring yourself punk rock? If anything?

That a creaky stair or a creaky bed? Only one way to find out! Time to bust open the doors on "Jinxed" by Torri Heat. Savannah thinks she's gotten the deal of a lifetime when she buys an abandoned house to open a thrift store. And, indeed, she gets far more than knick-knacks. She gets three hunky...well, not ghosts. But like, frozen-in-time-via-a-curse fellas? I guess you would say? Can these three radically different dudes from different historic eras put their differences aside so they can gang make-love-to Savannah? AND break the curse? Sure hope so.. Can a book be conscientious and lean on stereotypes for storytelling? What would a "porn book" be and does it matter? Don't you want your boyfriends to kiss? This one may not be spooky, but it certainly has some twists.

And here it is friends--the moment you've been waiting for--THE PROPOSAL! Darcy unburdens his heart, and offers it trembling and vulnerable with 10,000 a year. He also insults the ever living daylights out of our gal Liz, and she is having none of it. No heart, not money, no ego NO THANK YOU. Mr. Darcy did totally f.ck this up--but did Ms Austen leave him room to wiggle off his own hoisted petard? Listen and find out

Hoist up your bosoms, fill your tankards, and line up for facepaint - this week yr grls are travelling back in time to a general idea of "old" for WELL MET by Jen DeLuca. Simon is an uptight, high school English Teacher by day, and a sexy, flirty pirate by a different time of day. Emily is just trying to be a cool aunt (and make more, if not The Most, of her time in this small town) when she signs up to be a wench in his school's booster club/Renn Fest. Are sparks flying or is it just so many exploding splinters from the joust. Are romance novels influenced by Hallmark movies, or vise versa? What is the utility of an inoffensive book? What does it mean to be a grieving younger sib? Who, indeed, is Sub(aru)ing who? We've got plenty of digressions - our trip to the Bristol Renaissance Faire, "Pirates of the Carribean", etc. But don't worry, it all leads back to the book in the end. HUZZAH!

Ever find yourself on a country ramble when the object of your ire and distain just happens to also ramble your way? No? Just us? Why is Darcy always around? Why is he asking pertinent and insightful questions? Why is his hot cousin talking about things he can't have? Is it all for Lizzie? Who knows dear reader--but we're about to find out!

Nobody move! There's blood on the floor. And yr grls can't find their hearts. Thanks to whispered romance classic- "To Have and To Hold" by Patricia Gaffney. Sebastian has everyone's fave romance hero first name and a brand new estate in an idyllic country town. Total snoozefest, but then most things are to Sebby. That is, until a captivating former-con with (gasp) SHORT hair named Rachel captures his fancy AND his rather horrid whimsy. Will these two be one another's reckoning in a good way or a bad way? Are historical romances actually written about three times - the setting, the publication year, and the time it is read in? How can a text deconstruct while bolstering conservative sexual politic? CAN "the help" consent???

You know how sometimes you build a narrative around someone you maybe like, and then they totally mess it up for you? We're not saying that Lizzie is a bit of a small town girl or that Darcy is a city boy--but we are saying that Darcy got some cold reality and it bites.

In light of the recent events around romance and it's fave sport, hockey, including our eppy on THE DEAL, we're rereleasing our discussion of the iconic stick slapper - PUCKED > Last time, yr girls explored the subversive quaintness of Amish romance in our inaugural Entrop[e]y episode. This week, Morgan and Isabeau are back in the game for our first installment on SPORTS romance with Pucked, by Helena Hunting. Here we find Violet, the step-sister of a successful hockey player, linking up with the impossibly hung team captain, Alex, for a night of passionate goal making. But when Alex starts to pursue Violet, her status among the other players, including her sexually possessive step-brother, takes a bender. What kind of relationship, if any, do yr girls have with hockey? When does a gesture become too grand? And did we mention how buck-fucking-wild this book is? We’re running this zamboni straight through yr five hole for this one y’all, so lace up.

Is Lizzy a hedging sarcastic wit punching up at her social better while he (meaning Mr. Darcy himself) is meeting her in earnest and vulnerability? Is she just trying to be funny in front of Darcy's hot cousin? Hard to tell, but we try to suss it out for you--because we care.

Is that a hockey stick in your pocket or is your weiner just like super big and bent at the very end? Let's find out while discussing TikTok sensation "THE DEAL" by ELLE KENNEDY! Garrett needs help figuring out how different philosophers would justify genocide so he can pass his midterm and remain the beloved captain of his small liberal arts/Ivy-adjacent/D-1 unverisity's hockey team. Enter singer/songwriter/skinny-big-boobs Hannah. She's got an "A" in the class and a deal to strike. Tutoring for mutual orgasms so she can be ready for primetime with her quarterbackin' crush. What's a little sexual healing between friends, right?? Don't let the weird jokes about popular culture fool you, this book packs some high stakes trauma. Why is the US University a Utopia in romance fiction? Was 2015 in general politically unaware? Why hockey? We get timely and historical in this one, suit up and tune in.