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 features an arranged marriage that leads to circus life. In a highly contentious conversation between rival podcasters, the one thing we can agree on the importance of conflict and character flaws in creating a compelling story.

Discussed: Kiss and Angel by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Guest: Emma, a law librarian and writer at Restorative Romance on Substack, and a member of Reformed Rakes.

Substack | Reformed Rakes Website

Shelf Love:

• NEW! Substack for original writing and stuff | Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube
• Email: [email protected]

Guest: Sarah Rutherford, a romance reader and Associate Professor of Design at Cleveland State University

@sarahatschool on Instagram

Highlights:

1. The evolution of romance novel covers from the 1980s to the contemporary post-digital age.
2. The significant role of design elements such as typography, color, and imagery in conveying the genre and themes of romance novels.
3. The impact of digital publishing on cover designs, including the preference for stock photography and simplified imagery.
4. How cover designs serve as a branding tool for books and how they contribute to personal branding for readers and collectors.
5. Sarah shares anecdotes about identifying and collecting romance novels based on their covers, highlighting the emotional and aesthetic appeal of cover art.

Shelf Love:

• NEW! Substack for original writing and stuff | Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube
• Email: [email protected]

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 that you check out the Categorically Romance Podcast if you're not already listening.

We read The One that Got Away by Kelly Hunter (Kiss #1) and If You Can't Stand the Heat by Joss Wood.

Learn more about The Categorically Romance Podcast: https://linktr.ee/TheCategoricallyRomancePodcast

Shelf Love:

• NEW! Substack for original writing and stuff | Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube
• Email: [email protected]

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, a genre bookstore. Andrea purchases several pieces of cover art and reflects with Jodie on the cultural significance of fandom and passion for the genre.

Fellow Traveler: Dame Jodie Slaughter, International Fandom Criticizer

Website | Twitter | Instagram

Shelf Love:

• NEW! Substack for original writing and stuff | Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube
• Email: [email protected]

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 stuff | Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube
• Email: [email protected]

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 Love:

• NEW! Substack for original writing and stuff | Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube
• Email: [email protected]

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 feel.

Look at your society, look at your life! Along with me and Whoa!mance, in this crossover episode.

Shelf Love:

• NEW! Substack for original writing and stuff | Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube
• Email: [email protected]

Guests: Whoa!mance (Morgan and Isabeau)

Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | Website | Listen on any podcast app!

Listen to part 1 of this episode: episode 150 Shelf Love

Morgan & Isabeau joined me in episode 076 to discuss Strange Love by Ann Aguirre

and

Episode 089 to Problematize Romance

and

108 She-Devil (1989): Who's Entitled To Be Selfish in Love & Life? (Whoa!mance spectacular)

Shelf Love:

• NEW! Substack for original writing and stuff | Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube
• Email: [email protected]

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 (white) woman.

Button up your white high-necked blouse and gallop on a virile stallion into the wild west with Whoa!mance, in this crossover episode.

Shelf Love:

• NEW! Substack for original writing and stuff | Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube
• Email: [email protected]

Guests: Whoa!mance (Morgan and Isabeau)

Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | Website | Listen on any podcast app!

• Morgan & Isabeau joined me in episode 076 to discuss Strange Love by Ann Aguirre

and

• Episode 089 to Problematize Romance

and

• 108 She-Devil (1989): Who's Entitled To Be Selfish in Love & Life? (Whoa!mance spectacular)

Shelf Love:

• NEW! Substack for original writing and stuff | Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube
• Email: [email protected]

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 | Instagram | YouTube
• Email: [email protected]

Guest: Dame Jodie Slaughter, Shelf Love’s Kink Correspondent

Website | Twitter | Instagram

Shelf Love:

• NEW! Substack for original writing and stuff | Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube
• Email: [email protected]

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 for original writing and stuff | Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube
• Email: [email protected]

Guest: Ellie Mae MacGregor

Instagram @bisexual_booknerd

Shelf Love:

• NEW! Substack for original writing and stuff | Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube
• Email: [email protected]

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 these books hold up in 2023? 

Shelf Love:

• NEW! Substack for original writing and stuff | Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube
• Email: [email protected]

Shelf Love:

• NEW! Substack for original writing and stuff | Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube
• Email: [email protected]