Welcome to spooky season, where we get ghosts in our brains that make us incapable of remembering the name of the book or half of the characters!  So so sorry, "Ted"!  OooooooOOOOOoooo spooooky!  We love Halloween here at Bodice Tipplers so we decided to give you not one but two Halloween books - the first is Devil May Care by Elizabeth Peters.  The second you'll have to wait to find out about - expect it at the end of the month. Ellie is a young... what does she do again?  Anyway a young lady engaged to a twit who housesits for her aunt.  Donald is the neighbor's son.  Some ghosts appear by various means and occupations.  THE DEVIL IS THE DEVIL.   I cannot stress enough how surprised I was by this - the actual devil makes an appearance in this book.  Yes, that is a spoiler.  Don't worry, I already told everybody I know.  THE DEVIL.  Ol' Splitfoot!  Lucifer!  The Adversary!  So, implied is that it has the kind of witchcraft that most of the modern witches I know would not appreciate.  Oh and there's some expected 70's homophobia and a lot of people talk about what's now the Washington Football Team.  Mostly it's the actual devil.  Just when you think these books hold no more surprises for you.  That's when they get you.  (And by they I suppose I mean Asmodeus and Beelzebub and Mephistopheles and....)

Bodice Tipplers

Devil May Care by Elizabeth Peters

 He's Brig McCord (no really), a Hatchet-scenario survivor, ex-soldier of fortune, and rancher.  She's Johanna something or other, hot redhead-in-certain-lights and general doer of nothing in particular (except for, of course, big game hunting with her dad.)  It's a tale of murder, mystery, and doing it - it's Ride the Thunder by Janet Dailey! Content warnings for this include big game trophy hunting which is super gross, including some skinning and stuff, mild ravishing, a guy who's just an asshole to women including sex workers and anybody over the age of 25, and a father daughter relationship that doesn't seem to be incestuous or anything but it just kind of pings your Bad Dad radar.  Oh and of course murdering murder.  On the other hand, anti-content-warnings: no horses die and there's a gay character who isn't evil or funny, comes out in a nice scene to his sister, and then does not die.

Ride the Thunder by Janet Dailey

We had the great pleasure of sitting down with Alison Cochrun to talk about her very buzzy book, The Charm Offensive.  If you'd like to purchase a copy, please consider buying from Alison's local independent bookstore, Vintage Books!  At this time there are signed copies available! Dev Deshpande has always believed in fairy tales. So it’s no wonder then that he’s spent his career crafting them on the long-running reality dating show Ever After. As the most successful producer in the franchise’s history, Dev always scripts the perfect love story for his contestants, even as his own love life crashes and burns. But then the show casts disgraced tech wunderkind Charlie Winshaw as its star. Charlie is far from the romantic Prince Charming Ever After expects. He doesn’t believe in true love, and only agreed to the show as a last-ditch effort to rehabilitate his image. In front of the cameras, he’s a stiff, anxious mess with no idea how to date twenty women on national television. Behind the scenes, he’s cold, awkward, and emotionally closed-off. As Dev fights to get Charlie to connect with the contestants on a whirlwind, worldwide tour, they begin to open up to each other, and Charlie realizes he has better chemistry with Dev than with any of his female co-stars. But even reality TV has a script, and in order to find to happily ever after, they’ll have to reconsider whose love story gets told.

Special Edition - The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun

If you're seeing two Navy Wife episodes in your aggregator, this is the one that doesn't have a bunch of weird audio problems!  We couldn't figure out how else to make sure that people set to automatically download episodes would get the corrected version once we replaced the file - our apologies. Life comes at you fast!  When we recorded this episode focusing on the military and talking a great deal about our choices abroad we had no idea it was going to come out at the exact same time as our withdrawal from Afghanistan. Here are some ways to help people in Afghanistan and refugees arriving in the United States. If you served in Afghanistan, know that we're thinking about you and about how hard and complicated this is. So!  Debbie Macomber's Navy Wife, first in her Navy series.  She's trying to cure her broken heart by moving cross country to sublet her brother's apartment!  He's in love with the sea but is cockblocked by mechanical issues on an aircraft carrier!  They get married after knowing each other for two weeks and guess what maybe that wasn't the world's best idea but USA! USA! USA!  No major trigger warnings here except of course for American hegemony and the military industrial complex. Oh and I promised you - military tiaras!  Full mess dress in the 50's had tiaras for female soldiers, sailors, and Marines and you can see one here, from the Smithsonian. Update: looks like the Navy just retired the tiara (along with the seriously cool boat cloak) as "optional" uniform accessories in 2016.  Which is crazy because I promise you I'd wear it all the time.  With the boat cloak.  I'd be the flyest lady admiral-type you ever saw. Update to update: looks like you can still tiara it up if you're wearing your NOAA Corps uniform!  This is a boring PDF but I offer it as proof. AND NOW FOR THE WEATHER!

Navy Wife by Debbie Macomber

Life comes at you fast!  When we recorded this episode focusing on the military and talking a great deal about our choices abroad we had no idea it was going to come out at the exact same time as our withdrawal from Afghanistan. Here are some ways to help people in Afghanistan and refugees arriving in the United States. If you served in Afghanistan, know that we're thinking about you and about how hard and complicated this is. So!  Debbie Macomber's Navy Wife, first in her Navy series.  She's trying to cure her broken heart by moving cross country to sublet her brother's apartment!  He's in love with the sea but is cockblocked by mechanical issues on an aircraft carrier!  They get married after knowing each other for two weeks and guess what maybe that wasn't the world's best idea but USA! USA! USA!  No major trigger warnings here except of course for American hegemony and the military industrial complex. Oh and I promised you - military tiaras!  Full mess dress in the 50's had tiaras for female soldiers, sailors, and Marines and you can see one here, from the Smithsonian. Update: looks like the Navy just retired the tiara (along with the seriously cool boat cloak) as "optional" uniform accessories in 2016.  Which is crazy because I promise you I'd wear it all the time.  With the boat cloak.  I'd be the flyest lady admiral-type you ever saw. Update to update: looks like you can still tiara it up if you're wearing your NOAA Corps uniform!  This is a boring PDF but I offer it as proof. AND NOW FOR THE WEATHER!

She's brought her masters' degree in performance piano and her new Trans Am to the bright lights big city Detroit to... engage in corporate espionage for her eighteenth cousin once removed.  He's a 36 year old high flying executive with the world and all the women in it at his feet.  Together they do crimes cry a lot have a gross 80's boss-secretary relationship.  This is obviously gonna have some content warnings.  In addition to the urrrrgh of the whole workplace romance thing, there's also some child abandonment, some chucking kids into the Doberman enclosure, some ludicrous it's-a me, Mario! Italian stereotypes, some sexual callousness - the whole thing is kind of a mess.  The biggest problem a lot of people will have with this is that she's presented as REALLY young.  Younger than her chronological age.  She keeps getting mistaken for a teenager.  It does have good outfits though! Check out our website for this one to see some international covers for this book, which are as usual amazing and also bananas! 

Double Standards by Judith McNaught

Banner O'Brien is the worst possible lady doctor in 19th century Washington State, which I guess also makes her the best lady doctor around (but no, she is not good at this doctoring thing.)  Adam Corbin is the biggest assholes in 19th century Washington State and he does have plenty of competition.  They yell.  They slap.  They do it, a lot.  He's always "plundering" her various underclothes businesses.  They keep truly amazing secrets from each other.  It's a ride! This book has some pretty serious content warnings - a pretty awful abusive relationship in the past, lots of slapping, disciplinary spanking, racist language and portrayals of racist attitudes towards indigenous and Asian people (the book doesn't condone it but does use some ill-considered words.)  Family gaslighting!  Secret leprosy!  (Yes I did say secret leprosy, keep up.)  It's got a lot going on, but it's one of those "turned up to 11" books where none of this seems particularly realistic.

Banner O'Brien by Linda Lael Miller

 She's a pilot and owns her own charter service!  He's an actor preparing for a role!  Together they are oh my god they are so boring you guys.  Welcome to a super short episode of Bodice Tipplers where our luck in series romance runs out!  It's got... well, it's got planes.  It's got a cute flight suit.  It's got a shuttle launch, which you would think would be exciting but don't worry, it isn't.  It's got rib-eatin'!  It's got getting caught in the rain!  And yet. There are no content warnings for this book - nothing in this book will upset or delight you.  Nothing about this book will stay with you.  Nothing in this book will change your life.

Fancy Free by Suzanne Michelle

Welcome to Robin Schone's The Lady's Tutor.  She's a wealthy Victorian politician's wife, proper in every way.  He's a halfbreed bastard... oh god I can't with this racist book, I just can't.  It's about a woman who asks for sex lessons with no lab component, and then she realizes her husband sucks and opts for the lab after all.   This is one Sara had very fond memories of that... did not necessarily hold up.  It has some major content warnings - it's got Evil Gays complete with political pederasty ring.  It's a sheik book - the kind where don't worry he's mostly white anyway.  It's got literal gaslighting (they threaten to have her institutionalized and when the threats don't work they try to murder her by blowing the gas lamp out.)  It's the first book we've read that's obsessed with penis size.  It's got some genuinely strange sex scenes in it.  (Pro tip to any aspiring romance writers - the word "cervix" is never sexy.)  It's got some seriously nasty body shaming directed at the heroine from her awful husband.  It's got attempted murder by Spanish fly.  It's a whole ass mess.

The Lady's Tutor by Robin Schone

Today we have a special treat for you - we got Henry from FireStarters  to read Grace Metalious' Peyton Place with us and let me tell you... it's a real Peyton Place in there. I honestly can't even describe the plot of this book so let me just give you the trigger warnings, I guess?  So this book is trying really hard to shock you, which shouldn't shock you - the stuff that isn't intentional in it, therefore, is... more shocking?  So on that front look out for rampant 1950's racism that thinks it's progressive including whoa n-word count and awful depictions of mental illness, including a character who dies by suicide.  The stuff you're here for, though - the Peyton Place stuff - includes but probably is not limited to because my god: incestuous rape and abuse, secret illegal abortion(s), an industrial carnival accident, a cat strangled in absolutely bizarre circumstances (I mean seriously usually I'm the one freaked out by animal cruelty but the dead cat barely registers it's like that), suicide by hanging, a hard ravishing, and oh yeah a murder. FireStarters is a podcast dedicated to discussing all the cultural references in Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire", and therefore they already did an episode on Peyton Place  - but they only watched the movie!  Henry had no idea what he was in for.

Peyton Place by Grace Metalious

Meet gentle Lady Madelyne, kidnapped by the studly Baron Duncan!  Meet a lot of people whose names we cannot recall!  Wonder why "honor" is spelled the American way but "splendour" got that extra u!  Thrill to dastardly deeds, "dastardly deeds" if you know what I mean, and last minute court intrigue for no reason!  It's Honor's Splendour by Julie Garwood, a special listener request! Trigger warnings include seriously dodgy depictions of mental illness, Evil Gays, offscreen-before-times sexual assault, awful abusive childhoods, and considerable historical inaccuracy.  Oh, and good old fashioned kidnapping.

Honor's Splendour by Julie Garwood

We have had all our shots and we are back in the same room so get ready for some seriously overexcited people!  (That would be us but it would also be the people in this book.)  Fancy Pants by Susan Elizabeth Phillips - she's a British socialite with big "See You Next Tuesday" energy, he's a hot redneck golfer with a self esteem problem, they slap each other in parking lots more than the average couple does!  Secret babies!  Imaginary Jack Nicklaus!  Real Jack Nicklaus!  Riches to rags to riches!  Found families!  The weirdest citizenship ceremony you have ever seen in a book! We ended up really enjoying this book but the content warnings are not a joke, y'all.  It's got dead toddlers, non-custodial kidnapping, sexual assault of underaged girls, a guy you previously liked being a complete monster to a nine year old child, the n-word, 80's homophobia, fat shaming perpetrated by Eva Peron, some ladies who may or may not even be sex workers getting called "semi-hookers"... it is a ride and it is not a particularly safe or sanitary ride.  This ride has not been inspected by anybody.  Not even that sketchy dude who smokes around the gas cans. Nobody has signed off on this ride and you are getting on it at your own risk.  It does, however, have a good heart and real emotional growth in it.  It's a lot.   

Fancy Pants by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

We're back with Martha Waters for her second book, To Love and to Loathe!  If you remember, Martha had the unique bad luck to release her first book the week the world ended last year, and it's been so long that she's back with a sequel. The widowed Diana, Lady Templeton and Jeremy, Marquess of Willingham are infamous among English high society as much for their sharp-tongued bickering as their flirtation. One evening, an argument at a ball turns into a serious wager: Jeremy will marry within the year or Diana will forfeit one hundred pounds. So shortly after, just before a fortnight-long house party at Elderwild, Jeremy’s country estate, Diana is shocked when Jeremy appears at her home with a very different kind of proposition. After his latest mistress unfavorably criticized his skills in the bedroom, Jeremy is looking for reassurance, so he has gone to the only woman he trusts to be totally truthful. He suggests that they embark on a brief affair while at the house party—Jeremy can receive an honest critique of his bedroom skills and widowed Diana can use the gossip to signal to other gentlemen that she is interested in taking a lover. Diana thinks taking him up on his counter-proposal can only help her win her wager. With her in the bedroom and Jeremy’s marriage-minded grandmother, the formidable Dowager Marchioness of Willingham, helping to find suitable matches among the eligible ladies at Elderwild, Diana is confident her victory is assured. But while they’re focused on winning wagers, they stand to lose their own hearts. It's out today, so get it wherever you get your books!  

Special Edition - To Love and to Loathe by Martha Waters

You guys you guys this is it!  This is the big one! We are fifty episodes old and we are going BIG!  We have gotten so many requests for this one - we read The Thorn Birds, you guys, and we're gonna watch the miniseries (check social media for upcoming details about watching it with us!) and we got a secret guest (spoiler: Courtney's secret brother Nate) all the way from Australia, and of course it was a whole ass thing.  We lost Courtney for half of it!  It was a beast, but we had a blast and we offer it up to you as our 50-episode birthday present to everyone. The Thorn Birds is one of those big family sagas they used to love to make a miniseries about.  There's a big house.  There's a spite will.  There's a million characters who mostly don't matter and a million things happen that also mostly don't matter.  There's Meggie, only daughter of the most ridiculously sterotypical Irish family to every Irish its way to New Zealand and then Australia.  There's Ralph (RALPH!), tormented priest and self-absorbed piece of crap.  There's other people who are related to these people but admit it, you're really here for Meggie and Ralph.   You should not read this book if you're sensitive to depictions of grooming (nothing sexual happens between Ralph and Meggie until she is an adult, but they meet when she is a child and he is clearly obsessed with her and behaves in a way that isn't sexualized but is deeply inappropriate), vividly described marital rape, stealthing (!) by a woman, priests breaking their vows... oh and for some reason these people castrate lambs with their teeth?  I cannot WAIT for all the furious YouTube comments about how we don't understand that "people were different back then".

50th Episode Blowout: The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough

 You guys.  We have done it.  We have finally gone so far down the rabbit hole of vintage romance that we have found one that is not on Goodreads.  Welcome to The Leopard Tree by Valerie Parv, reigning queen of Australian romance!  There's a UFO!  It's Australia!  He's a... he's an ex-military rodeo bronco buster and she makes ugly jewelry and has an awful fiancé and she'd like to pretend that he's from outer space but really there's a sad and sordid little crime story!  I dunno, all crammed into fewer than 200 pages! This book does have a kidnapping and threatened rape (although not by the hero) and a disabled character who stops needing his wheelchair because he finally realizes his daughter needs him.

The Leopard Tree by Valerie Parv

We're Courtney and we're Sara and we're Bodice Tipplers, the podcast where we read the romance novels we used to steal off our grandmothers' nightstands (and then we drink about it.) Join us each episode as we examine the good, the bad, and the throbbing of vintage romances.

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Bodice Tipplers

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