Shelf Love: Romance Novel Discourse
by Andrea Martucci
Shelf Love is about romance novels and how they reflect, explore, challenge, and shape desire. Host Andrea Martucci invites experts from a variety of perspectives to critically engaging with romance novels. Listen for discussions of individual books, genre discourse, and scholarly topics.
Episodes
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Elaine Gignilliat's Romance Novel Cover Art with Laura Sawyer
Laura Sawyer joins me to discuss the life and work of her mother, Elaine Gignilliat, whose approximately 350 oil paintings helped define the visual language of historical romance in the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s. We talk about Elaine’s unconventional life and career, her transition from fashion...
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Jayne Ann Krentz: Risk & Reinvention in Romance
Jayne Ann Krentz looks back on nearly five decades in romance—from the rise of American sexy contemporary romance and editing Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women to futuristic romantic suspense, fated mates, cover trends, audiobooks, and the genre’s enduring cultural function. She explains why...
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Sought, Surrender, and the Alien Erotics of Inevitability
Dame Jodie Slaughter is back to discuss Sought by Evangeline Anderson, a sci-fi alien romance from the Brides of the Kindred series featuring twin alien heroes, fated mates, dubiously consensual erotic worldbuilding, and a surprisingly useful framework for understanding what different readers…
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Julia Quinn on JQ Editions: Curating Historical Romance
Get the scoop on Julia Quinn's new venture straight from the source: JQ Editions is a subscription book box dedicated to curating historical romance to help new readers discover a love for the subgenre. Julia shares insights about the inspiration behind this project, her curation process, and the...
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Alchemised: Capitalizing Fanfic
Fangirl Jeanne, fanfic elder, is back to revisit the fan fiction formerly known as “Manacled,” now traditionally published as “Alchemised” by SenLinYu. Three years after our initial discussion about Manacled in episodes 116 and 117, we delve into the transformation of this Harry Potter/”Dramione”...
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Rewriting the Wallflowers: Revisionist History
Have you read Lisa Kleypas's neogothic duology: Devil in Winter and It Happened One Autumn? Tehyah Carver shares her provocative claims about Kleypas’s Wallflower series, including how St. Vincent is a gothic heroine. We also discuss the revisions the author made to the texts around 2021…
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Morbid Curiosity Meets Romance with Dr. Coltan Scrivner
Are readers of dark romance or bodice rippers more morbidly curious than those who read sweet romcoms? Is the allure of horror and scary romance similar. Dr. Coltan Scrivner joins Shelf Love to discuss his new book, “Morbidly Curious,” and its insights on why people are drawn to scary media. The...
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Dominate Your Desire
Listen...or don't. Shelf Love: NEW! Substack for original writing and stuff | Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube Email: [email protected]
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Feudal Fantasy: Devil's Bride
Impale yourself on your fate: marrying the Devil can be heaven. Semilore Sobande shares her all-time favorite romance, "Devil's Bride" by Stephanie Laurens. This book has it all: Honoria Prudence Anstruther-Weatherby, a heroine who balances strength and vulnerability, and a hero who might just be...
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Falling in Love with Your Monster
Morgan and Isabeau from the Whoa!mance podcast join to discuss the 2024 film “Your Monster.” We discuss how the movie explores female rage and personal discovery, drawing parallels with romance novel conventions. We are divided in our opinions: did the film succeed in merging romance and horror?...
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Beyond Ballrooms: Under-Appreciated Historical Romance Books with Alice Murphy
Alice Murphy, a historical romance author, joins to recommend and discuss under-appreciated non-Regency historical romance. The discussion touches on Alice's upcoming book, "A Showgirl's Rules for Falling in Love," and a rich variety of historical romance novels set in diverse time periods and...
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Jane Austen's Bookshelf with Rebecca Romney
Why do we read Jane Austen but not the authors Jane Austen read and loved? The answer is a BIT more complicated than just "sexism." Guest: Rebecca Romney, rare book dealer and author of the new book, Jane Austen's Bookshelf. Guest: Rebecca Romney Jane Austen's Bookshelf | Type Punch Matrix - Do…
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Horror Romance and Land of the Beautiful Dead
Can horror and romance coexist? Friend and author Laura J. Mayo joins me to discuss “Land of the Beautiful Dead” by R. Lee Smith. We explore the complexities of combining horror elements (zombies, staking, the apocalypse) with romantic themes, how this book makes us feel, and unlikable and…
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Sampling Secrets of a Summer Night with The Historical Romance Sampler
I join The Historical Romance Sampler podcast with Katherine Grant to sample a scene from Lisa Kleypas's Secrets of a Summer Night. We discuss how historical romance has changed since the 1970s and talk about bestsellers and airport books. Also, learn more about Romancelandia Holiday Fairies…
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Year of the Unicorn: Old School Romantasy
Year of the Unicorn by Andre Norton is a 1965 fantasy novel with subtle romantic elements. How does this vintage novel featuring outsider characters compare with today’s romantasy? Romance reader Kassi joins Shelf Love to discuss Gillan’s journey of identity, empowerment, and agency as she…
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Colonizing History: Historical Romance
Ever wondered why Regencies became all the rage? Or how historical romances shape and sanitize our perceptions of history? This episode delves into how Regency romances displace inconvenient historical truths. A critical look at older 'problematic' romances like Jennifer Blake's 'Fierce Eden'...
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Romantasy & Fourth Wing with Sarah Skilton
Some call it Romantasy, some call it Dragon Corn (except replace the C with a P). Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros is hotter than dragon’s breath, and so of course we have to see if we can figure out why it’s so popular. Sarah Skilton joins me to discuss “love triangles,” indescribable pain that we...
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Romance Adaptations & Genre Perceptions: Teaching The Hating Game
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...
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Cold Hearted by Heather Guerre
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...
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Consuming Desires: Cannibalism and Hunger in Romance
“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...
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Kiss an Angel by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
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...
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Evolution of Romance Novel Cover Design
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,...
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Harlequin Kiss & Collecting Category Romance on Categorically Romance Podcast
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...
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Covering Romance: John Ennis's Art & Thoughts on Fandom
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...
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Prison Planet Romance: Love in a Hopeless Place
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?...
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Romancelandia Holiday Fairies!
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:...
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Shame
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...
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A Lady of the West: The Rules for Good Women
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,...
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Erotic Romance: A Gentleman in the Streets by Alisha Rai
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...
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Bisexuality in Romance
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...
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The Agony and the Candlelight Ecstasy
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...
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Mistress of Mellyn: In love with the man or the house?
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...
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Heroines: Creating Identity in Romance
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...
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The Flame and the Flower (Flames on the Sides of my Flower)
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…
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Romance Scholars After Hours
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:...
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Romance isn’t for everyone
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…
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This Guy? "Dreaming Of You" By Lisa Kleypas [Whoa-llab w/ Shelf Love]
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…
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Dreaming of You: Justice for Joyce
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...
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Autistic Representation in Romance with Amanda Cinelli
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...
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The Problematic is Calling From Inside the House
"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...
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2 North, and 2 South: Romance Catnip
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...
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Look Back at Me: North and South with Helena Greer
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...
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When Your Lover Rips Your Father’s Heart Out
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...
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Cold(breath) Comfort Reads: January 2023
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...
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Anais Nin, writer of “Female Erotica”?
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...
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Arranged Marriage Trope in Contemporary Indian American Diaspora Romance Novels
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 |...
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Findom, Care, and the Submissive Billionaire: Preferential Treatment by Heather Guerre
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…
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The Vindication of the Rights of Man in Romance Novels
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...
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Black Romance and Historical Spaces
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....
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Harlequin’s New Sexy Contemporary Line: Breaking News!
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,...
About this show
Shelf Love is about romance novels and how they reflect, explore, challenge, and shape desire. Host Andrea Martucci invites experts from a variety of perspectives to critically engaging with romance novels. Listen for discussions of individual books, genre discourse, and scholarly topics.
Hosted by
Andrea Martucci