Ever wondered how "The Hating Game" fares in a classroom setting? Dr. Diana Filar is back to discuss her experiences teaching The Hating Game book and film in a class about popular genre fiction. We discuss the challenges of translating romance novels into films, how stereotypes of genres are formed and challenged, and what it's like introducing no…

Do you love scent marking, some healthy jealousy, and a beautiful and believable mix of internal and external romance in your paranormal werewolf romance? Get your parka and bundle up for "Cold Hearted" by Heather Guerre, the first book in the Tooth and Claw series, in discussion with foremost vampire defender, Dame Jodie Slaughter. We explore were…

“What is a greater expression of love than eating someone else or wanting to consume and have that person in a way that no one else can have?” Dr. Nicola Welsh-Burke joins to delve into the intriguing topic of cannibalism in romance novels. We explore the intersection of food, eating, and sexuality, discuss the metaphorical use of cannibalism in li…

If you’ve always wanted to hear about a romance that takes place within a traveling circus and features a telepathic tiger, hang onto your trapeze bar: Emma from the Substack Restorative Romance and the Reformed Rakes podcast is here to talk about Susan Elizabeth Phillips' “Kiss an Angel,” a contemporary romance that feels like a historical and fea…

Guest: Sarah Rutherford, a romance reader and Associate Professor of Design at Cleveland State University @sarahatschool on Instagram Highlights: The evolution of romance novel covers from the 1980s to the contemporary post-digital age. The significant role of design elements such as typography, color, and imagery in conveying the genre and themes …

I was a guest on The Categorically Romance Podcast to discuss my category romance collecting addiction, reading some books from Kiss a short-lived Harlequin line from the early 20 teens, and how not being allowed to read romance as a teen actually made me more obsessed with reading romance. Hope you enjoy this episode and I definitely recommend tha…

In this episode, host Andrea Martucci embarks on a journey with Dame Jodie Slaughter to the Covering Romance exhibition. The event showcases romance novel cover art by award-winning artist, John Ennis. Interviews with John Ennis and other attendees, including author Nisha Sharma, romance fan Mary Lynne Nielsen, and Fin, owner of Wolf and Kron books…

An exploration of prison planet romances with Megan Erickson. We discuss Guardian by Emmy Chandler and how it explores issues of consent, agency, and morality through an extreme version of the forced proximity trope. Are these brutal dystopians actually hopeful explorations of humanity and love? Shelf Love: NEW! Substack for original writing and st…

Romancelandia Holiday Fairies 2023! Romancelandia Holiday Fairies is a mutual aid effort for the romance novel reader community to support anyone in the community who could use a little material help with purchasing gifts for themselves, or loved ones this holiday season. Learn more: bit.ly/holidayfairies shelflovepodcast.com/holiday-fairies Shelf …

Is shame productive? This question guides part 2 of a Whoa!mance/Shelf Love convo about A Lady of the West by Linda Howard as we discuss the paradox of enjoying highly problematic books. We interrogate our feelings of shame, enjoyment, and the importance of critically dissecting the pleasures derived from reading, no matter how uncomfortable it may…

I humbly asked Morgan and Isabeau to help me understand why A Lady of the West by Linda Howard had a chokehold on my young romance-reading imagination, and they delivered. We discuss how this book has rules for good (white) women, and explores Manifest Destiny, settler colonialism, sexuality, violence, violent sexuality, and being a desirable (whit…

The difference between erotic romance and romance is all about feelings, in particular, where you feel them. Shelf Love’s Kink Correspondent, Dame Jodie Slaughter, joins the podcast to discuss A Gentleman in the Streets by Alisha Rai. Only enter if you consensually dare. Shelf Love: NEW! Substack for original writing and stuff | Website | Twitter |…

Bisexuality in romance with writer and reviewer Ellie Mae MacGregor (@bisexual_booknerd). When it comes to romance, a genre that explores romantic and sexual desires, what does “good” bisexual representation look like? How can books with or without bisexual representation create worlds that feel safe for bisexual readers? Shelf Love: NEW! Substack …

I own 91 Candlelight Ecstasy Romances, so it was high time I read one... then I read another 13 for good measure. In December, 1980, Vivian Stephens launched a new line of contemporary category romance at Dell called Candlelight Ecstasy. The line pushed the envelope when it came to sex and sensuality on the page. But how sexy are they and how do th…

Mistress of Mellyn by Virginia Holt is often hailed as responsible for kicking off a boom of modern gothics in the mid-20th century. In this crossover with Reformed Rakes, we ask: is this a gothic first and a romance second? Is our plucky main character in love with the man of the house, or just the house? How does Mistress explore transgression of…

What makes a heroine in romance, a genre invested in exploring how can women be happy in culture? Is the genre a place where heroines create integrated identities that reject binaries of what society tells them to be? Dr. Jayashree Kamble discusses her latest book on romance scholarship, Creating Identity: The Popular Romance Heroine's Journey to S…

Four romance reading friends embark on a romance history reading project, based on a BookRiot list, and in this episode, two of them — Leigh Kramer and Hannah Hearts romance — have Flames on the Sides of their Face when talking about the Flame and The Flower by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss. To keep things interesting, we talk less about the book itself an…

What happens when 35 romance scholars walk into a bar, after hours at the IASPR 2023 Romance Revitalised conference? They share their favorite romance scholarship, and why! Shelf Love: NEW! Substack for original writing and stuff | Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube Email: Andrea@shelflovepodcast.com Thanks to all of the contributors to this e…

The fabulous foursome (Morgan & Isabeau from Whoa!mance, Dame Jodie Slaughter, Andrea Martucci from Shelf Love) get meta textual as we reflect on our meta podcasting project on Dreaming of You by Lisa Kleypas. What’s this episode about? Take a guess from this collection of possible episode titles: Panopticon Alert: Meta Reflections on Dreaming of Y…

This week, yr grls at long last encounter Derek Craven in "DREAMING OF YOU" by Miss Massachu herself LISA KLEYPAS. It is time for Morgan and Isabeau from Whoa!mance to wade into this collaboration with Shelf Love. You probably already know this - but Sarah is a regency country mouse who is secretly a best-selling novelist. Facing the dreaded sophom…

Let’s talk about Joyce Ashby from Lisa Kleypas's novel Dreaming of You. We delve into the dichotomous portrayal of Joyce as an irredeemable villainess alongside her foil, the redeemable “hero” Derek Craven. We explore the parallel themes of violence, possessiveness, and animalistic sexuality resulting in problematically differing fates and treatmen…

Amanda Cinelli joins me to discuss representation of autistic characters in romance novels. Amanda shares how reading Helen Hoang’s "The Kiss Quotient" played a big part in her realizing that she was autistic, and talks about some other romances with autism representation that she loved. We also discuss why representing autistic love is important t…

"Somebody’s Trying To Kill Me and I think it’s my husband" by Joanna Russ is a brilliant bit of 50 year old scholarship about modern gothics, but I say it applies just as well to romance novels of today. In part one, I explore the theme of passive protagonists in adventure stories. Part 2, the personal is the problematic. In all parts: unpacking he…

Part 2 of the conversation about North and South with Helena Greer. AI generated these action items from the transcript of this episode. AI responses can be inaccurate or misleading. [ ] Schedule a kiss scene between the main characters for modern audiences [ ] Make the male protagonist more sympathetic by toning down his violent behavior [ ] Make …

Trains! Fruit! Allusions to Hell abound! Victorian industrialist city mortality rates! Writer, sex educator, and librarian Helena Greer is here to discuss North and South. Did the 2004 BBC adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell's 1854 serialized novel make the heroine more likable and everyone else less nuanced? This conversation is serialized just like t…

Dame Jodie Slaughter, Feather Fetish Understander, and I recently discussed how The Savage and The Swan speaks the unspoken, what a winged wolf looks like, and whether this book is a metaphor for toxic masculinity and healing generational trauma. This summary below was written by AI using my episode transcript: The Savage and the Swan by Ella Field…

Starting the year off with some cozy re-reads, comfort reads, and short reads to combat the wintery weather and get through winter cold season. I share thoughts on all the books I read in January 2023, including Alice Coldbreath’s Victorian Prizefighter series, A Holiday by Gaslight by Mimi Matthews, His Majesty by Shon, Better Off Wed by Susanna C…

We need to talk about Anais Nin and her erotic short story collection Delta of Venus. Did Anais Nin write "female erotica"? Is there such a thing? Have Things™️ changed much since 1941? Noted smut writer Dame Jodie Slaughter is Shelf Love's international smut history correspondent. She schools us on the long history of smut, French people, Choice F…

Arranged marriage trope in contemporary Indian American diaspora romance novels with cognitive psychologist and author Sri Savita. Shelf Love: Join the Conversation on Discord: https://www.patreon.com/ShelfLove Sign up for the email newsletter list | Website | Patreon | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube Email: Andrea@shelflovepodcast.com Discussed: Run…

A billionaire romance novel that name drops Citizen’s United only comes along every so often. Carter Sherman, Senior reporter for VICE News, joins me to discuss Preferential Treatment by Heather Guerre. We talk about power exchange, heterosexual marriage as a transaction, and subverting the single script of the hegemonic BDSM billionaire romance to…

Are men in romance novels granted agency & subjectivity, and do readers have the same expectations for male consent as they do for female characters in M/F romance? Lynell from Weekend Reader has some thoughts on mutual consent in romance, especially as she’s binging dark mafia romance with kidnapping plots. What happens when your real life values …

Hear Elysabeth Grace & Katrina Jackson in conversation: a recording from Black Romance and Historical Spaces presentation put on by the Center for Black Diaspora at DePaul University on November 5th, 2022. This episode is a co-release with Black Romance Podcast, hosted by Dr. Julie Moody-Freeman. Shelf Love: Join the Conversation on Discord: https:…

Breaking News! Harlequin Associate Editor John Jacobson is here to give the scoop on Harlequin’s newest, currently unnamed line of sexy new contemporary romances. We talk about Harlequin’s intentions, hopes, and dreams for the line, and also talk about the unfulfilled… gaps in the market, especially for younger readers who want to imagine their own…

Classic fairy tales Cinderella & Beauty and the Beast may have gotten their Disney-fication, but there are many ways to slide your feet into these glass (or are they fur?) slippers, and romance novels love to play with these tropes. Writer Renee Dahlia and podcaster Philippa Borland join the podcast to discuss fairytale retellings, reversions, and …

What is beastliness? Little Red Riding Hood stories used to be tales of warning for young women to manage their sexuality in the face of the dangerous beasts of court, who were smooth on the outside, but hairy on the inside. In the 21st century, paranormal teen romances use enchantment to transform the beasts into objects of desire. Dr. Nicola Wels…

Junior novels were early romances for young readers, published in the 1940s-1960s. Learn from expert guest Dr. Amanda K. Allen how the didactic and heteronormative messages in these novels make a lot of sense when you consider that they were created to respond to demand from librarians and schools for “bibliotherapy” texts to “teach teenage girls h…

Funmi’s Beverly Jenkins collection is complete, and of course it includes the queen of Black historical romance’s young adult romances that were originally published in the short-lived Avon True Romance line in the early 2000s. We discuss Belle and the Beau and Josephine and the Soldier. Did these romances hit the spot for early aughts tweens? And …

Jess joins Shelf Love to discuss the Sunfire romance that shares her name: Jessica by Mary Francis Shura. This historical teen romance from 1984 centers on a highly-competent, independent Kansas teen in 1873 and her many suitors: is the mad man who wins her heart the right guy or is he just the one who gets along best with her bad dad? - Shelf Love…

Sunfire, a historical romance series for young adults, debuted in 1982 with two books by Candice Ransom. 40 years later, Candice pulls back the curtain on her process and how Scholastic editor Ann Reit shaped the series, which was many young readers’ first taste of romance packaged in a girl’s adventure story. Shelf Love: Join the Conversation on D…

A brief overview of romance for young adult readers throughout time, with a focus on the romance series boom of the 1980s and the reverberations into the early 2000s. Wildfire, Sunfire, Sweet Dreams, Oh My! But some people haven’t always been on board with young people consuming age-appropriate romance. - Shelf Love: Join the Conversation on Discor…

Lucy Hargrave shares her research into the history of queer romance. While Lucy dates published narratives of fictional happy endings for queer characters back to 1906, she charts the evolution since then in 5 significant time periods with different political, cultural, and technological climates. Plus, Lucy shares some results from her quantitativ…

Fangirl Jeanne answers the question: Why might people, and women in particular, find serial killers to be romantic figures in dark romance in a hetero patriarchal capitalist, racist, etc. society? We discuss the Darkly, Madly Duology by Trisha Wolfe, a dark romance with 2 serial killer main character antagonists. - Guest: Fangirl Jeanne Website | T…

Readers weigh in on killers in romance novels (AKA people who un-alive other people) and I challenge myself to see if the distasteful elements in the Darkly, Madly duology (discussed next episode!) showed up in less-egregious ways in texts I did enjoy. Also, more thoughts on power, gender roles, and the desire to conquer a protector. Responses from…

Antagonist April: discussing killers in romance. Fangirl Jeanne is back to continue our discussion of Manacled, a dark romance fan fiction story. What is the appeal of enemies to lovers? How do readers wrestle with justification for killing in romantic stories, and how does Manacled explore a romantic relationship, not just a romantic fantasy for a…

Antagonist April: discussing killers in romance. Manacled by SenLinYu is a wildly popular dark romance fanfic with Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger, that remixes alternate universe Harry Potter with Handmaid’s Tale. Fangirl Jeanne joins me to discuss how war is hell, what it means to be a killer in a world where there are fates worse than death, a…

Data scientist Dr. Andrew Piper joins Shelf Love to share how data science can help the romance community answer the big questions that close reading can’t answer. Andrew’s the director of McGill University’s .txtlab, a laboratory that uses machine learning to ask questions like why do people enjoy the work they love? And once we empirically quanti…

Swan Song (2021) is a movie that forces us to confront the "After" part of Happily Ever After. Shelf Love's Sad Media Correspondent, Dame Jodie Slaughter, is here to discuss lax security at cloning facilities, the ethics of cloning, the aesthetics of the future: pretty much anything that allows us to avoid the banal truth about our own mortality. C…

Do our fated lovers smell like ambrosia because of the cosmic love connection? How do romance novels use language to convey romantic love? I propose a spectrum that ranges from "fated sex mates" to "perfectly matched" using examples from 4 romance novels (not all of them recommended). Shelf Love: Join the Conversation on Discord: https://www.patreo…

Have you ever wished you could just escape the anxieties and mundanity of modern life by traveling back to Qing Dynasty China? How does time travel romance create a simulacra of a “glorious and wealthy feudal past” that allows audiences to “effortlessly become a love interest and an admired woman through the male gaze shaped by multiple admirers”? …

The Hunger Games may have featured a prominent love triangle, but are those the relationships teen girl audiences care most about? Dr. Tina Benigno shares her research about how the teen romance narrative for the extra-ordinary girl in some ways reinforces neoliberal feminist or popular feminist messages around empowerment discourses, on the heels …