It’s a Jen week this week! We’re reading Bet Me this week, the book many people put right on the top of Best Contemporary Romance lists — one of Jen’s favorite books and a book Sarah liked to tell people she loved but has now discovered she’d never actually read. Minerva and Cal are absolutely terrific, as is this book, and we’re having a rollicking conversation about fat rep, about friendships in romance, about food (Sarah’s love language), about shoes, and about why grown people at little league games are a weird thing.

Show Notes

We're big fans of Carly Lane-Perry from SyFy Fangirls. We especially like her newsletter, Kissing Books--Jen wrote about grandmothers in romance.

Is it criticism if it's all positive?

Baby Foot is sold out, but there are lots of other terrifying alternatives you can try.

Janet Dailey is famous for plagiarizing Nora Roberts. Before that happened, she wrote the Americana series, with one book set in every state. The one set in Ohio was called The Widow and the Wastrel, and Jen's twitter thread about the book unearthed several early covers for the book.

Sarah asked if Jenny Crusie is from Ohio? She is.

This was Sarah's first time reading Bet Me, just like it was Jen's first time reading Gentle Rogue.

Minerva and Diana probably wish they weren't named after Roman goddesses.

So: you want to be an actuary. You want to learn about chaos theory. You're wondering about the gender essentialsim of a book with a title like Men are from Mars; Women are from Venus. You want to learn more about the band Cake.

Love Me Tender is a beautiful song.

Penn and Teller explain the Cup and Ball trick. Oh, and did you hear Sarah mention it's going to appear in Daring and the Duke? Pre-order from WORD in Brooklyn, and you'll recieve a free limited edition yellow Fated Mates sticker.

With these many characters, it might as well be a Robert Atlman movie.

Learn about dyslexia, our understanind of which has dramatically