Well, I Did Some Research

[00:00:00] Hello? Did you lose me? Oh, that's a you problem. There we go. Can I hear you? Yes, I can. I can hear you. Welcome to The Incoherent Fangirl, where we get our podcast bestie, Breanne Randall back this week. We are so excited. Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. And love her so much. Oh, always forever.

[00:00:28] I'm Karin of Leithy Manor. And I'm Mandy of the Scolamance. Yeah. Okay, in our timeline, it is February 27th. And in y'all timeline, it is March 7th. We've made it to March. February, man. My goodness. I never thought we'd get out of January.

[00:00:51] And now we're basically in March. Wow. Wild. This is crazy. It'll be Christmas before we know it. Oh my god. No. I can say things to upset you too. I don't want it. I don't want it. This week in Fangirling, what did you do, Mandy?

[00:01:17] I'm still working on my beta read for Amber D. Lewis. I feel awful about it, but I'm taking forever. I don't know. The doom scrolling. My niece has moved back in this week, and we've got two of them, both of them in sports. So trying to get to games, and they're driving now, and get them moved back in. The world is on fire. And my husband left today to go to Missouri Paracon.

[00:01:42] And so I've been continuing my fitness journey. I'm so proud of you. I've been more audiobook than... Thank you. Thank you. I'm trying. I don't care how I look with it. I just want to be able to keep up with her if Patness Everdeen shows up and needs help. Or if I want to be able to keep up with dragon riders, if I need to.

[00:02:08] Like, I want to be fit enough that a dragon would be like, yeah, I'll claim that one. Honestly, at this point, we might all need to be fit for realsies, though. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. It's really rough living in the United States right now, guys. It's really rough. Speaking of... Speaking of... Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got ordained to perform weddings. Oh, yeah. I forgot about that.

[00:02:38] I can also perform funerals. So... Apparently, I could do it all. I read about HB 878 in Tennessee, which is a new bill that allows people who can marry others to selectively decide who they're going to join in matrimony and who they want to discriminate against.

[00:03:06] And I think it specifically calls out LGBTQIA plus and interracial couples. And that doesn't sit right with me. And so I read it on my lunch break. And I was like, well, how hard could it be? And within 10 minutes, I was ordained. So if you're in the Southeast and you need somebody who can legally confirm your union, I got you. Just let me know. I'm ordained. I love it.

[00:03:33] I just figured if there are people who can say no, then I wanted to make more people who would say yes. Yeah. So there's one more person on this earth who would say yes. So I'm going to try and balance the scales as much as I can as one single person. For sure. My nieces were like, can I? Can I get her? And I was like, I think it's 18. But I love the sentiment. I love that. I appreciate that you even ask because you care. Yes.

[00:04:01] I also read, I listened to mostly A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik. So we have Elle, who's a student at the Scholomance, which is basically Hogwarts with no teachers and monsters that are lurking around every corner to kill you. Okay. There's no holidays, no breaks. Once you're in, you're in and you're not getting out unless you graduate or die. Oh, well, that's comforting. So students start and it's all like magical kids. They start on like the lower, the lowest level.

[00:04:30] And every year like it rotates up and you're to the next floor, to the next floor until you're in the graduation level. So Elle is, I think she's one year from the graduation level. And she's made it. It's not safe to go anywhere in the Scholomance alone because of these monsters. So students travel in packs, but friendships aren't exactly advised. Like you can form alliances, but like friends is weird. People don't have friends because people are not currency, but people are there to your benefit.

[00:05:00] And that's it. So Elle is unfortunately, her name is Galadriel, but it's Elle, is unfortunately someone with an affinity for dark magic. So even minor spells, when she tries to like make a spell to clean her room, it just goes like chaotic and haywire and like dark magic tries to take over and it goes insane.

[00:05:20] So not only do you not like make friends there, but she's actively like shunned because of the potential to be a dark overlord. But you kind of spend the whole book like, girl, go dark wizard on them. Like get them, like do it. Just do it. Full send. People will walk with her to keep her from dying. But that's all because not only does she have this affinity for dark magic, but she's also an independent.

[00:05:49] So a lot of the kids in the Scholomance come from enclaves. So it's like a built in clique. So there's like the New York enclave. There's a Hong Kong enclave. There's enclaves all over the world. And most of the kids there come from those magical, like already established groups. The independent kids are rare. And so she's like, whatever. She doesn't have this clique except for Orion Lake.

[00:06:14] The first sentence of the book is I decided that Orion Lake needed to die after the second time he changed. He saved my life. So Orion is this incredibly privileged boy who grew up in the New York enclave who has all the combat magic you could need. He has the New York magic or the New York enclave that takes full advantage of that, as do most of the kids at school.

[00:06:39] He is saving everybody all the time, including Elle, which pisses her off. She cannot stand it, which in turn draws him to her because everybody else hangs off of him all of the time. And it's, oh, it's Orion, Orion, Orion. And he is like, I want to be around somebody who does not give a fuck about me and doesn't care about how I can be of use to them.

[00:07:05] So she's super annoyed by him, but she sees the advantage of going out with him because that's what the rest of the school thinks anyways. They're like, oh, they're going out. So she's like, I'm going to benefit because like you have this crew and like I don't have to worry about being able to walk to the shower alone, you know, or anything like that. And then he benefits by not having people hang all over him because he's got this grumpy girlfriend. And he like glares at them all the time.

[00:07:35] Nice. So unfortunately, the Maleficario, which is the bad monsters, are everywhere more than they have ever been. And the students have to come together or risk all of them dying. So when I was writing my notes today, I opened up Goodreads because I usually do that with it or Storygraph. And I don't really use Goodreads anymore, but I'm glad I used Goodreads today. I always want to like check against something to make sure I'm not missing a major plot point because I have a terrible brain.

[00:08:04] And I noticed some reviews that I'm going to preface this. I'm a white girl. I don't have a say. I'm just going to report some things. Okay. In the few minutes I spent this afternoon looking into it, the first thing I saw was a POC reviewer defending the author. I found quite a few lengthy posts of POC reviewers pointing out and then defending bits of this book that it sounds to me, and this is from five, 10 minutes of looking at Goodreads.

[00:08:32] And there are some white saviors out here speaking on behalf. So I'm going to give some examples that I read about. You can decide if you want to read it. If you were like, that doesn't sound like it's for me and that kind of pisses me off. I'm just here to report the news. Okay. All right. So first, a reviewer who says that they are a Middle Eastern discusses how Elle, I'm reading because I don't want to say anything wrong. She discusses how Elle refers to one of the characters as the Arabic speaker.

[00:08:59] So criticism of the book talks about how that's problematic because she's not using his name and it's like she's reducing him to the Arabic speaker. But as this reviewer points out, it's more about Elle being antisocial as a response to abuse that she's faced from 99% of the world, 99% of the people in her life. So now she views people as assets and doesn't take the time to care to know about them, their names, whatever.

[00:09:24] So the reviewer defending the author said, quote, this does not mean Novick endorses these views. She proves her thoughtfulness by proceeding to thoroughly tackle themes of injustice and privilege, end quote. There is a harmful comment on locks, which the author has thoroughly in this reviewer's case admitted the mistake, apologized and detailed a promise to fix it in the future.

[00:09:47] In the scene, Elle talks about how it's risky to have locks because you put yourself at risk of lock leeches, which are malificers. It's a weird word. Malificers are the monsters that attack and burrow into clumps of hair and then they can like go into your skull and eat your skull. While you can see what she was trying to do by just adding another annoyance of a monster, you could have gone with any other hair type. Right. And it would not have been problematic.

[00:10:15] I'm not here to say what is and isn't okay. I'm not here to forgive on behalf of anybody. But the author did apologize and vow to do better and readers can take that as they would like to. This one you could, I mean, you want to read the book first, but this one you could speak on. A Chinese reviewer spoke in great detail on their blog. I'm going to butcher the pronunciation. Naga of the Nusantara is the name of the blog if anybody wants to go look it up. About complaints about a character being named Yi Liu.

[00:10:45] Reviewers likened it to Cho Chang and Harry Potter and how that has racist negative connotations. However, this reviewer said that based on dialect, that is and could be a legit name. The reviewer talks about how Wikipedia lists 23 different variations of their own surname and said, quote, The correct way to write a Chinese name is to place the surname ahead of the given name. But in some countries practicing different naming conventions, Chinese persons often flip this and sometimes even drop the middle name.

[00:11:14] Sometimes some syllables of a Chinese name may be joined together or hyphenated. Then they say, another quote, many diaspora Chinese and Hong Kong natives adopt English or Christian names like Donnie Yen or Jackie Chan. Similar to how another character mentioned in a deadly education is called Jane Goh. I am just barely scratching the surface of how complicated this issue is. Yi Liu might be a given name in its entirety with an unknown surname or more uncommonly,

[00:11:41] a name with just two characters or syllables instead of three with either Yi or Liu as the surname. This cannot be considered Miss Novick's fault since the ambiguity and confusion exists in real life. And I can hardly imagine her dedicating an entire chapter of her book to explain all of the intricacies of a side character's name. So if I am inclined to be charitable, and I am, I would actually praise Miss Novick for having other characters correctly refer to Yi Liu as Liu,

[00:12:09] since that's where her given name would be, end quote. So, and there's one more. That same reviewer, oh, there's two more, I'm sorry. That same reviewer talks about conflicting criticism with Elle as she's a half white and half Indian girl and her skin is brown, but she's out of touch with her Indian side because she's raised by her hippie mother, her Welsh white hippie mother. And there's a criticism about a comment that is made about Elle being unhygienic or not showering that often.

[00:12:35] And people took that as a stereotype against Indian people when this reviewer points out that one could always also suggest that stereotypically hippies don't really shower that often. Again, stereotypically. And the reader points out, quote, And then I have one more.

[00:12:59] Lastly, this same reviewer points out that some people's, some people take issue with the use of mana as like the name of the magic energy and life force. And not specifically calling out that it's of Melanesian and Polynesian roots. And as this reviewer felt that that was unfair, given that mana has been used in fantasy books, video games, et cetera, for decades.

[00:13:22] And also points out that we use words like taboo and tattoo, which are of the same origin without explaining where they came from. So I didn't know any of this when I went into reading this book. I just had it on my shelf and it was free, like borrow now on Libby for an audiobook. And when I went to look up, you know, check behind myself on some notes, I saw that there was apparently some controversy. So I wanted to address it and like speak about it for a second.

[00:13:52] Obviously, again, I'm a white lady. I don't get, I don't have an opinion. I don't need one. I shouldn't have one. But all of the reviewers that I have referenced are people of color. And I obviously respect their views a lot more than I do white reviewers when it comes to problematic or racist potential in a book. If you've read it and you're like, girl, all of them are wrong. I would love to hear it. You can tell me that. But I would also love to know if more people are like, yeah, it really sucked or no, actually it was great.

[00:14:22] As a white person, I thought, wow, I thought it was, the cast was really diverse. Because once she gets to know characters and gets to befriend them, there were people from all over the world. And I thought it was so cool that like this person does speak Arabic and this person speaks seven languages. And this person is from Hong Kong and this person's from Australia. And like I thought as a uncultured American, there was a lot of like cool culture that I was getting to hear about.

[00:14:51] But I'm also an uneducated American. So here we are. So yeah, that was my long winded. I was like frantically typing all this because I was like, I don't want anybody to say like, oh, the incoherent man girl went on this, you know, sense of praising this book. And it's so problematic. And I'm like, I don't know. I'm more inclined to agree with the people who are potentially harmed and what they have to say about it than I am random white people.

[00:15:21] Right. Who have no stakes in the game. Right. Obviously, there's certain things that we can all agree on just because they're so bad. The locks comment. Like, yeah, it's wrong. And you can't you can't I can't know no one of either of our races can say the locks thing is OK. And even the author says it's not OK. Yeah, I can't believe I want to say one of the one of those reviewers said she admitted that she added it as like a quick. Oh, my gosh.

[00:15:50] I just thought of another monster after sensitivity readers had already read it. And she was like, this was so stupid. I have not personally because I was on a time crunch read what the author specifically said about how she plans to be better. Right. But some reviews that I read from people of color, it seemed to them to be sufficient. OK. So take that as we will. And I also really hurt my own feelings this week.

[00:16:19] Because and I'm going to mess it up now. Because. Was it this series? Was it this one? Yes. Oh, man. Oh, Mandy. I read A Deadly Education and I got the other two books on Everand because I was about to lose my credits. And I was like, it's not available on Libby. It's on a hold. And I want to know what happens. So I get them both on Everand. And then I start book three on accident instead of book two.

[00:16:47] And the first sentence, I don't even know how to explain it. It's like if an ACOTAR book ended. Spoilers, if you haven't read ACOTAR, don't listen for 10 seconds. It would be like if the book ended when Feyre died. Or a book started. You start this and you hear Rhysand say, you were my mate, my mate, my mate. And you didn't know. And you missed the whole thing with the games and him coming and bringing her music or whatever.

[00:17:16] And suddenly Rhysand's her mate. What? It was awful. I almost started crying. I was just like, watch this. And it's everything I want. It confirms everything I want. It confirms exactly what I thought was coming. But I wanted to live through it. And I still will. But man, does she know how to write like a first sentence of a book? Okay. So this is where the ability to throw away a memory would be really helpful.

[00:17:45] I would love to just take some scissors and just snip right through that one and hand it back. Oh, man. Oh, man. That was my week. I'm sorry. That got really long winded. But I just didn't want to promote a book that some people say is problematic without addressing the accusations and what people who are better equipped to judge that than me have said. I'm not covering everybody.

[00:18:13] Obviously, there will probably be people of color who are like, no, F her. But the few that I saw on Goodreads in the limited time I had to look were like, you guys could calm down a little bit on most of that. And it would be great. You don't have to be a white savior. Right. Right. That's fair. Okay. All right. What did you do this week now that I've talked your ear off? I read A Song to Drown Rivers by Anne Liang. It is inspired by the legend of Xi Shi, one of the famous four beauties of ancient China.

[00:18:43] Xi Shi is an emmian's beauty born in Yue, the kingdom on the losing side of a war with Wu. When she captures the attention of Fan Li, a famous young military advisor, he presents her with an opportunity to avenge Yue. She traveled to Wu as a spy disguised as the disgraced Yue King's concubine gift to the victorious Wu king.

[00:19:04] She's owned as a weapon by Fan Li and trained in everything from classical instruments to concealing emotion, etc. Once inside the Wu king's palace, she finds herself under scrutiny by all the king's advisors, while the king himself falls hook, line, and sinker for all of her deceptions.

[00:19:24] The higher she climbs in the court, aka in the king's eyes, the farther she has to fall, and being unmasked as a traitor could have dire consequences for both kingdoms. I read, those are the notes that I wrote, okay? I wrote those words. Thank you. Look at you go. I'm not reading Storygraph. I wrote notes, guys. I had a good time with this one. I really enjoyed it.

[00:19:51] It was, I can't remember if you read Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Su Lin Tan. Remember how that one was the, not pacing, but it was just kind of hard to grasp the timeline because it was over so many years. This one's kind of similar. It's not as many years as that one, but it does go over many years. And so it's discombobulating. Hard to keep up. Yeah. Right.

[00:20:15] So like a lot, not a lot happens, but it's so spread out over so many years that it feels like a lot has happened kind of thing. So it's like, what do you mean he's in love with her? Blah, blah, blah. It's been, they just met, but it's like, oh, it's been like three years. Like, oh, right. Yeah. That kind of thing. It's hard to, hard to remember that.

[00:20:39] And then the other part of it, and again, I really enjoyed this one, but I, for some reason, thought this was a fantasy. It is not a fantasy. I thought it was too. Didn't it come from Fairyloot? Don't we have that? It is. It was, it was a Fairyloot book. It wasn't in a box, but it was like a separate book that they did.

[00:21:01] I, there was like maybe a little bit at the end that could be considered like fantasy adjacent, but like nobody's got magical powers. There's no like magical beings or anything. So it was just, I don't know. Not what you thought. I was expecting like a high fantasy. Yeah. And I. That's what I would think too. And you look at the cover, it looks like a fantasy book, right? I can see it in my head. Right.

[00:21:30] Like it looks like a fantasy, but it's still really good, but just go into it knowing it's not fantasy. I, I don't know. That's good to know. I, because yeah, that could take people out of it. There are like, like I said, near the end, there's a little bit that could maybe be considered fantasy adjacent. But even that is not like this person has magical powers and is doing whatever kind of thing. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:21:56] So that was a little like off-putting for me, but I still, like the story itself, I still really enjoyed. And it was fun to kind of watch this basically peasant girl get plucked out of obscurity and put into the palace to act as a spot, like a concubine spy. Like that was kind of cool. So that. I read Truth Witch by Susan Dennard, which is the first book in the Witchland series because the last book of the series is coming out this year. So I am binging all of these.

[00:22:26] Totally binging them. So you have Safiya or Safi, who is a Truth Witch and can tell when people are telling a truth or a lie. This is a very, very super duper rare ability. So rare that the last Truth Witch was like hundreds of years ago. Like the last documented Truth Witch was hundreds of years ago. So it's very rare. It's a very obviously good ability to have. So she keeps it secret because otherwise people would try and use her.

[00:22:56] Then you have her thread sister, Isolt, who is a thread witch who can see the ties that bind everyone around her. But she can't see any of the threads that bind her to other people. But it is helpful because then she is able to kind of, the threads change color based on like emotions and things like that. Okay. It's kind of helpful. And they are not like blood sisters. They just met, they became friends and they are now.

[00:23:22] I don't know exactly what is the difference between like this is my person and this is my like thread sibling. I don't know that it was explained, but it seems like it's just a closer connection kind of thing. So they're very close. Safi is very like adventurous and wants to just do all the things. And Isolt is the one who kind of like brings her back down to earth and keeps her grounded. So after the inciting incident, which is not super spoilery, but I don't know how to explain it without being spoilery.

[00:23:51] So I'm just inciting incident here. The two of them find themselves on the run, essentially. But they find themselves on the run with Prince Merrick, who is a wind witch, so he can control the winds. And he has been hired to bring, is it one of the girls? I forget which one. You're like, which one? I forget which one. One of the girls to like some place to like save her from things that happened in the inciting incident.

[00:24:20] And so now they're on this like adventure to get to this other kingdom so that they can be safe. And Merrick has a lot to prove because there are three kingdoms and his kingdom is the one that has lost like most of the power in this. So it's just the two major ones that are balanced. So he's like, if I can do this, we can, we can start trade and we can start playing with the big guys. Right. And so he's got a lot to prove, but they are on the run from a blood witch.

[00:24:47] Blood witch is, are also very rare and have the ability to control like your blood. Right. They can smell, they can smell your blood so they can track you wherever you go and they have the ability to control. So like, obviously our bodies are filled with blood. So if they want to, he could just freeze you exactly where you are. Do whatever. Reminder. Yeah. Really fun. Right.

[00:25:08] And so this blood witch, again, is also trying, is trying to capture Safi at this point because she is a truth witch. And again, she's very powerful and anybody would want her on their side in order to fight in what is eventually going to become probably some war of kingdoms because everybody's insane.

[00:25:31] And so he's trying to capture her to curry favor for his like group of people so that they can have power when everything happens as well. So that is a very terrible explanation of it, but. You did great. I really enjoyed it. I'm really looking forward to reading the rest of the books. It's Susan Dennard. So like, yeah, how do you love her? You don't. You don't. Unless you read the first sentence of the third book, I guess. You could do that to yourself.

[00:26:00] Next up, I read Sing Anyway by Anita Kelly. You have non-binary history professor Sam Bell who has committed to this foolproof romantic strategy. No feelings, thirst only. It's foolproof because they have been burned in the past, right? So they're like, you know what? Just get thirsty. No more. We're just going to, I'm just going to thirst after people. That's fine. So they have like a crush for different parts of their lives. So there's a karaoke crush. There's the barista crush.

[00:26:29] There's, you know, just every part of their life. But one night when all of their friends unfortunately have to bail for one reason or another from karaoke night at the Moonlight Cafe, Sam finds himself invited to spend time at the table of karaoke crush. Dun, dun, dun. Dun, dun, dun. You know, it's a good night.

[00:26:52] Sam may or may not get a little more tipsy than normal, but really like opens up. And it's like karaoke crush, whose name is Lily, has described Sam as, you know, the sad Sam person in the corner because they get there before their friends because they want to be able to get their tables together. And so nobody else is going to get there on time. So Sam's like, no, I'm going to do it.

[00:27:19] And so Lily has noticed this and is like, oh, but they're also, they're kind of cute. And so one thing leads to another, which ends in some spicy time, which of course now like neither of them is like wanting to like admit that there may or may not be feelings there. And so they go their separate ways. But then it's like a note. It's like novella length. And so it's, it's a pretty quick read. And so it's a romance, you know, things happen. Yeah, you know what happens.

[00:27:47] It's one of my favorite things though, is that Lily one time. So they're both, both their groups of friends are regulars at the Moonlight Cafe or Moonies as it's colloquially known. So they're regulars at karaoke nights. So they've seen each other a few times and Lily one time saw that Sam had worn a they them pin.

[00:28:10] And so remembered that and not once throughout the night that they are at karaoke with her friends. Does anybody misgender them? I love that. Like, it's so sweet. And yeah, like Moonies is very like, it's not a gay bar or gay karaoke night or anything, but it's very, it is pronounced. And so like, yeah, there's that.

[00:28:40] But also like you still like they didn't misgender them, which is nice. And I love that. So and it's Anita Kelly. So it was a really fun, like quick read and super cute. And I loved it. We love Anita here. We do. They're awesome. And I read The Curse by Harper L. Woods, which is the second book of the what is the name of the series? I don't know the name of the series. The third one's The Coven, right? No, the first one's The Coven. So the first one's The Coven. The second one's The Curse.

[00:29:09] And the third one, which is not out yet, is The Damned, I think. So it just picks up where the first book left off. I can't tell you anything because I can't tell you anything because spoilers. But it really does just pick up right where the first book left off. And, you know, like it's fine. It's it's it's a good time. It's like not life changing, but like I'll read them. I probably would not reread them unless I was like I needed something that I have already read just so I don't have that anxiety of like what's going to happen. But like it's it's pretty good.

[00:29:39] The Ex-Vows by Jessica Joyce. You have give me a sec. I forgot their names. You're like, wait a minute. I know. I know. I know the story. So you have Georgia and Eli who were like best friends. They met when they were, I think, 15 years old at the house of their other best friend, Adam. And they have just been they were best friends and they got really close.

[00:30:07] And then eventually from best friends to lovers. And they were like so in love. And then they broke up. And it was very sad. First act breakup. Break up. First act breakup. And so and but they like they had this mutual agreement, this unspoken mutual agreement that they would pretend that everything is fine for Adam's sake because he's also their best friend.

[00:30:33] And he didn't they didn't want anything to be weird for him just because they broke up. So they like are cordial to each other whenever they see each other kind of thing. So there's no drama or anything like that. Fast forward to the present day. Adam is about to get married and they are the best people at Adam's wedding, obviously. Now, Eli has been kind of MIA and not participating in best person duties. And Georgia has been kind of carrying the bulk of it.

[00:31:02] And that's kind of what she expects, what kind of what everybody expects, because Eli has been so focused on like work and his work. And that's part of the reason why they broke up was that he put work before everything else. And so now they are come back together and everything that could go wrong with this wedding has gone wrong to the point where Adam is convinced that the wedding is cursed. Right. Convinced that it's cursed. And so their wedding venue burns down.

[00:31:31] It's gone. They don't have a wedding venue. It's a week till the wedding. The wedding venue burns down. No. So, yes, he believes it's cursed. The way I would have lost my mind. Oh, he does. He definitely does. Oh, my God. Luckily for Adam, his family owns a Napa winery. And so they didn't originally. Oh, this poor pitiful thing. They they didn't originally choose the winery because it was under construction. They were doing updates.

[00:32:00] They it wasn't going to be ready in time for the wedding. Now they're saying like, OK, the parts that you'll need, you can use. But it's still there's still going to be construction and updating and all of that. Yeah. But like the important parts you can you'll you can use. We're going to work around it. And so. Nepo babies. Life's a privilege. Listen. OK, but we love Adam. He's so precious. But yeah.

[00:32:27] So for reasons, Adam and his fiancee Grace aren't able to go up to the winery at the beginning of the week to coordinate everything and try and find all the vendors that they need and all that because all of their vendors have like dropped down because of one thing or another. Just everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. Oh, OK. And so, of course, Georgia, who is very like type A has lists for everything, blah, blah, blah, is like, yeah, of course, I'll help.

[00:32:56] But Eli is like, I have been slacking. I need you to let me do all of anything that comes up. I need you to let me help him. He says this to Georgia. And but of course, Georgia can't let it go. And so they both end up volunteering to go up to Napa and coordinate things. And we hate forced proximity, forced proximity, second chance romance. There is at one point only one bed.

[00:33:24] I mean, oh, terrible. You're a stars. It's God. And I love Jessica Joyce. Like, yeah, I'm obsessed. I loved it. I reread Five Broken Blades because I wanted to read Four Ruined Realms and I have the memory of Dory. So I needed to reread it. Obviously, we've talked about Five Broken Blades. I can't tell you anything about Four Ruined Realms because I know I still need to read it. But it's just as good as the first one.

[00:33:54] I I'm so ready. Like, I'm first of all, Mai hurt my feelings. She hurt my feelings. And I'm very upset about it. Um, and I just she's gonna hurt my feelings again in the third one. And I just know it. And I'm really scared. I'm legitimately so scared. Like, I I'm I don't like to hear that. I'm not okay. Okay. I'm not okay. It I'm just thinking about it now. And it makes me cry. High dies.

[00:34:23] I'm leaving this earth. I I don't want to think about it because it's gonna make me cry. I it's I'm never reading it. No, it's so good, though. It's so good. I don't want to. I don't want to. I don't want to. I don't want to. But where is it? Let me curse you. No, it's so good. But also, I'm just like, she hurt my feelings. She hurt my feelings. But it's so good. Everybody go read it.

[00:34:50] I need you to tell me exactly when you read it so that we can be sad together. Anyways, next up, I read Under Lock and Key by Lana Ferguson, which love, love, love. I mean, it's Lana. We love her. You've got Kiana who travels to. Oh, I hit something. Who travels to Scotland after her father has passed away because she wants to reconnect with the family that she has never known. And you've got Lachlan, who is working on the farm that her grandparents own.

[00:35:20] And surprise, he's the Loch Ness Monster. I loved it. Oh, my God. I loved it. It's so good. I listened to the audiobook and, my God, the accents. I can't. There's nothing like a Scottish accent. It's so good. It was so good. Nothing. Loved it. Loved it. Loved it. And I also read Spell Strings and Forgotten Things by Rian Randall, which we'll talk about shortly. That was my week. Yay, look, I did it. Go me. That was a good week. That was a great week. It was good. It was a good time.

[00:35:53] Speaking of a great week, do you happen to have a fictional boyfriend of the week? God, I'm supposed to pick. I'm supposed to pick. I don't want to pick. Why choose? Why choose? Truly. Why choose? Okay. So Adam from The X-Files would be like my fictional bestie. He's so precious. I adore him. It sounded like you said from The X-Files. And it took me a second. Like, how does she talk about The X-Files? Yes. Yes. You missed it.

[00:36:23] You threw that memory away. Apparently it wasn't that important. And then I was like, wait, The X-Vows. Okay. The X-Vows. Adam from The X-Vows, who is the mutual best friend of the main couple. He is just chaos. And also just like everything has gone wrong. And he just panics. But in like the cutest way. Like, oh my God. Everything's going on. And this is. And what are we going to do? And oh my God. I'm cursed. I'm cursed.

[00:36:53] I'm cursed. And it's so funny. I love him. Love him. So much. And then I'm going to say Royo from the Five Broken Blades series. Because like, who doesn't love Royo? Like, I'm sorry. I love him. And also Aerie. Like, I love them both. Honestly, I love all of the characters. Like, all of the main tasks. That's the problem. It's like. Yeah. And that is a big problem. I love it. I love them so much.

[00:37:23] You're making me sad. I can't think about it anymore. I'm going to cry. I really will. Okay. And also Calliope. Obviously from Spellstrings has forgotten things because like bisexual chaos. It's. Yeah. Bisexual chaos queen. Like, yeah. What about you? I'm going to have to go with Orion Lake.

[00:37:48] Because it is clear from the very first time that man is introduced. That he is off the deep end. Full send for Elle. And she is so mean to him. And it gives such. Stop being so mean to me or I swear to God. I'm going to fall in love with you. Carden Greenbrier energy. Where it's like, I am so obsessed with you because you are so awful. And usually the grumpy is the dude. You know?

[00:38:17] No. She. Elle is so grumpy. And he's just like. He takes it. And he's just like, whatever. Whatever. I love when she is the girl. Duck. Let me kill. You know? Let me kill this monster that's coming up behind you. I'm going to save you. She keeps a count. And he's like, I've saved you 10 times. And she's like, 11. Because this. It's 11. And he's like, I wasn't even going to count that. But you did. Oh, man. I love it. I love him.

[00:38:47] And then I'm going to go with Lucian from Spells. Because. Yeah. Daddy. That's a daddy right there. That is a daddy. Yeah. I'm pretty sure he is my fictional boyfriend when I read it last year too. But he's a repeat. So. I mean, that's fair. That's fair. Here we are. Yeah. It's a good time to repeat. A Turkish French speaking. Excuse me. Yeah. Give me. Give me that.

[00:39:18] Oh, man. Yeah. That means we have an intruder alert. My face already hurts. I'm so happy. We have another repeat offender. Y'all know her. It's Brianne Randall. Author of Spell Strings and Forgotten Things. We're so excited. Oh, my gosh. I truly feel like. I'm also so excited. It's been like a million years since we talked, even though it's not. But.

[00:39:47] It feels like it. It feels like it. Welcome back. We're so excited. I'm very, very. I've been looking forward to this. I've been literally counting down the weeks as they've gotten closer. Us too. Us too. Seriously. It's. Oh, my gosh. So exciting. So, of course, you know how it starts. Let us know the elevator pitch of the book. All right. Elevator pitch for Spells, Strings and Forgotten Things.

[00:40:12] It is a modern day Pride and Prejudice meets Charmed type of book about three sisters who own a magic tea and bookshop. And they are cursed, of course, because who doesn't love a good curse to sacrifice their memories in order to fuel their magic. And there's a dark ancient evil awakening in the woods. And the worst things get, the more memories the female main character has to sacrifice. And she ends up tying her fate to the arrival of the dark of the coven, the opposing coven.

[00:40:41] And, you know, shenanigans ensue. Shenanigans. You know what? My favorite thing is before we, like, got, like, forward facing for the podcast recording, you were like, you know, sometimes I don't remember every single word. And then you start talking about spell strings and forgotten things. It's on brand. Very on brand. Maybe I'm sacrificing my own memories. You might be. You might be.

[00:41:11] I was reading this book. You know, there's a lot of manifesting that actually, like, comes true. So maybe that's part of it. Maybe that's part of it. The whole time reading this, I'm like, maybe this is why my memory is so bad. Like, I just don't remember. I'm a witch. I'm a cursed witch. That's what it is. Oh, no. Is that what happens? Oh, man. Maybe. Oh, my gosh. I love it. So you are the queen of my X meets X book. Yes.

[00:41:40] How, like, I love it. I live for it. I feel like it draws people in because they're like, I love Charmed. You know, I love this. I love Practical Magic. I love this. Like, where did that come from? And like, I mean, obviously, I know it's done you well, but like. Yeah, yeah, it has. It has done me well. And my whole tenet with that is honestly that nostalgia evokes a sense of immediate connection

[00:42:06] where somebody's, I mean, like for me, when I'm scrolling, unless the cover is just like, wow, blow my mind or, you know, I already know the author and I already love their books. When I'm scrolling and looking at things, I'm not going to be immediately invested in the book. But if it's like, oh, it's this meets this with a hint of that. And it's things that I'm obsessed with. You know what I mean? That I'm going to be like, oh, wait, OK, I immediately need to know more because I love those things. And so this was very naturally just leaned into Charmed because it's three sisters.

[00:42:35] You know, they're witches. There's a sentient grimoire involved. And it is small town versus like city. But yeah, so that was definitely there. And then the Pride and Prejudice was also there from the very beginning when I first started writing it. It's that kind of like duality of shadowcraft versus lightcraft, which is the magic system in the book. And so it's, you know, he's like kind of highbrow and I'm better than my magic is better than yours. And she's like, screw you.

[00:43:02] Modern, you know, wouldn't say that. But so, yeah, so the X meets Y type of thing is I just think it's so valuable in marketing because it's an immediate touch point, which I love. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. So where did where did the idea for this story come from? I have no idea.

[00:43:24] Yeah, like I just wrote it and I, you know, so my husband and I got first got married. It was 2000 and wait for it. Hold on. It was 2011. Me too. Oh, look at that. Yes. I had to really think about that one. We, you know, were broke as a joke and we were like in bed one night and we were just

[00:43:54] we're so broke. We're like on the tightest budget. And he goes, if only memories were currency, then we'd be like so rich. I'm like, yeah, that's true. Ooh, memories is currency. I like that. Yeah. Actually, that was like the launch of my first book that I ever wrote, which was a young adult dystopian science fiction novel. It was horrible. Um, but I've always been fascinated by like memories because I myself am a very nostalgic person.

[00:44:23] Um, I'm not romantic in any sense of the word, but I am very nostalgic. So like, yeah, I won't remember my anniversary, but I will have like a napkin from our first date, you know what I mean? Or something like that. So I, yeah, I'm very, I love the nostalgia and memories are so important to me. And ultimately it really did kind of, um, get inspired by the fates, the, the moire, the Greek moire, because I, they're the, you know, they're the scissor cutters.

[00:44:52] Like they, they, they're the ones who cut, who control everything. And I got, I thought, gosh, you know, what if, what if it was the opposite? What if they didn't control anything? What if fate controlled them instead? And out of that was kind of born this like combination of the memory magic and this, uh, turning the fates on their head type of thing. So that was, that was pretty much where it started. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it.

[00:45:18] So I, um, read spells in September and I went back to my notes from when I talked about it on the podcast. And one of them was, is it calliope? Is that how you pronounce it? Yes. Yes. Okay. So calliope is our bisexual chaos queen who cannot sit still for 5.5 seconds. Talia is the mother. I don't know where that came from. That was, you know, uh, Talia, Talia is the mother mothering sister and Eurydice is the peacemaker between the two.

[00:45:47] The question was how much of all of the above is self insert. And do you have a sister you relate with the most, even though we already, I mean, you know, chaos queen. I love that you describe her as that because whenever I hear, you know, like, oh, the grumpy sunshine trope or whatever. I'm like, this is the, this is the grumpy chaos trope. She's not sunshine. I wouldn't say she is just, she's chaotic. Pure chaos. Yeah.

[00:46:14] She's annoying at times because you're like, get your shit together. Like, what are you doing? Um, and I've read actually a couple, like even five-star reviews that are like, you know, the, the main character really annoyed me, but then she grew on me and I'm like, yes. So I think I relate to all of them in a sense. I don't actually, I don't have any sisters. Um, but definitely, you know, um, the Talia, the oldest sister, for sure.

[00:46:44] I relate to the kind of like the mothering instinct of just wanting to like tell everybody what to do and take care of things because I know. Um, and then the middle sister, you're at a C, uh, peacekeeper. Um, I do not like contention. I do not like arguments. And so I will do just about anything to stop those from happening. Um, and I want to just keep the peace. So definitely identify with that. But for sure, I would say, I mean, if I had to choose Calliope. Yeah. Oh my gosh.

[00:47:13] I love her. I love her so much. And like, how do you relate to that? That's exactly like, just put me in the page. The chaos. My God. Okay. She was fun to write. I bet she was. Oh my God. I bet. Um, so your first book also had quite the long title that you were surprised that you got to keep. Was this the original title of the book as well?

[00:47:43] It was. Yeah. The original title. I know again, and I'm like, really? You guys want to keep it? You're fine. You're fine. For a second. But okay. So the first, this is, you know, there's, there are interconnected standalones. It'll be a series. Um, and the first one, Spell Strings and Forgotten Things. The second one, which hasn't even been announced yet, but it's going to be called Curses, Keys and Secret Societies. So I know. I love it. Wait, can we keep that in or do I have to cut that out? Yeah, for sure.

[00:48:13] Okay. I'm like, I need to know if this is a secret secret or just like a podcast secret. We got the scoop. No biggie. When I announced it on social media, just act surprised. And anybody who's listening. What? Oh my God. I cannot wait. Yes. Yes. Yes. I'm very excited. Oh. Yeah. It's going to be, it's going to be great. I'm, it's very like, um, takes a turn because it follows Lucian's sister.

[00:48:42] Uh, it doesn't follow one of the other sisters. It follows Lucian's sister, um, and her journey back to their home country of France and, uh, their chateau where all kinds of crazy things are happening. Oh my God. I can't wait. I can't wait. Phone ringing in the background. It's not mine. Oh, I can't hear it. We can't hear it. Okay, good. So how did your, your writing process change after being traditionally published and so

[00:49:11] like zero to a hundred with, you know, well, that's an excellent question. And I will tell you, it has changed drastically. When, I mean, the thing is, is that, you know, uh, when I wrote Unfortunate Side Effects, it was like seven years ago when I first, like the first draft of the book came to be and over the, you know, I edited it. I always hate saying that word because it sounds ridiculous. It's a terrible word. I edited it. I edited it. Um, you know, myself.

[00:49:39] And then I edited it with my agent. And then I edited it with my editor. Um, and so it just went through so many iterations, uh, where, you know, things that were in the first, second, or even third draft didn't make it to the fourth. And I, I wrote that book as a complete pantser. There was no outlining involved whatsoever. I was just like, sounds great as I went along.

[00:50:05] And so now being traditionally published and having a schedule and deadlines, et cetera, I have, have, have to be a planner. I have to be an outliner. And so it's totally changed the game in a good way, really, because it's so much easier, obviously, to see the plot holes and to see like the character arc and development kind of more of a high level. Um, and it helps me to plan things out and write way faster.

[00:50:31] So, um, actually when I wrote spells, I wrote it in like a month, a month, like a little over a month, the first draft of it. And so it, yeah, it just went really, it went really fast. Oh man. You're making me rethink my whole life. Like I'm not, I don't love it. Don't get me wrong. Yeah. There's an absolute joy of just sitting down at the computer being like, Hmm. And just going. This is what I feel. Yeah. This is what I feel.

[00:50:57] And this is where it's taking me, but there is still a lot of room for playing around within the outline and things obviously end up changing. Um, but yeah, I definitely, it has changed drastically for sure. Oh my gosh. That is so cool though. That makes sense. We get to see it in real time. Oh my gosh. Can you evolve? Oh my goodness. I actually am working on a proposal, uh, for my next series, which is going to be a high fantasy romantic.

[00:51:25] And that is everything I can want from you. I, can I just tell you though, that like, this is what my agent said to me when I pitched it to her. She's like, there's nothing like this in romantic right now. And I was like, I know, but I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. And she's like, I think it could be a very, very good thing. And I was like, yes, give it to me now. I'm give it to me. I posted on threads about it. Can I just read it to you? It's really, yes, please.

[00:51:54] I have not been on threads. The response has been like amazing me to my agent. So there's immortals and sea dragons and the male main character and female main character can't touch each other. My agent, I don't know because she, I was like telling her about it and she was like, but that's not like if they can't touch each other, that's not really romantic. That's more like traditional high fantasy. And I was like, Oh, but wait, his second in command can touch her and he wants him to. Here's the blurb and a spicy scene that I wrote. And she was like, Oh, super hot.

[00:52:26] And so the response on threads has been just like blowing up, like, give me this book, take my money. Take it now. But our inbox is always open. Oh my gosh. I am. I'm like so excited to write this. So it's good. It'll, well, you know, I just have to write the proposal, which is like the synopsis and the blurb and the first three chapters. Oh boy. I'm real. I'm chomping at the bit guys. Chomping at the bit. I'm so excited. You have no idea.

[00:52:53] Because first and foremost, my, my life's blood, my beat of my heart is romantic, romantic, romantic fantasy, fantasy, high fantasy, anything. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And then you writing it. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh, this is everything I want. I'm glad. Me too. Oh man. Yeah. It's going to be great. All right. All right. Let's continue talking about this book though. Yes. Also.

[00:53:23] Reel it back. Reel it back. Freaking excellent. Thank you. So, so, so the girls obviously have Greek heritage and you have a lot of characters from various cultures, various origins. What made you choose the specific ones that you did? And how did you, did you have to do any kind of research in order to incorporate certain parts of? I did. Yeah, I did. This is, I love this question. It's a really good question. Thank you for asking it.

[00:53:49] Um, I did do, I, my tagline for my whole life is I did some research, like any given conversation. I'll be like, well, I did some research and that's just because that's just who I am. I've got to, I got to know everything as much as I can anyway. Um, and so I chose particularly French and, uh, French, Greek and Turkish, because those are the three cultures I'm most familiar with because I've spent a lot of time there. I speak ancient Greek.

[00:54:17] Um, I've spent many, many, many months in Greece, same with, uh, Turkey. I don't speak Turkish, but I spent many, many months in Turkey. Um, and then same with France. I speak French and I've lived, I've lived like a very long time in France. And so for me, it was just like a natural kind of progression of, okay, this is what I know. And I don't want to like, obviously mess up on something like that. Right. Not that it's like super, um, you know, not, it's not that it's not important to the

[00:54:45] story, but, uh, yeah, I just wanted to like do a good job with, with those elements. Um, and then all the kind of minor ones are still from places that I've traveled to or just some like things that I'm at least familiar with. Um, but yeah, so it's, it was super fun though, because I took, you know, three years of ancient Greek in college and it was really fun to be able to bring that in, bring that into it. Um, and like, you know, the, the, some of the spells and things like that. So it was super fun. Oh, I can imagine.

[00:55:15] Yeah. Um, okay. So I, we know that you are one of us, one of us, one of us, but my God at the casual, like fangirl references. Yes. You hit me with the burden with glorious purpose. You have bewitched him body and soul. Did you write this for me? Yeah. I, there are so many like tiny little random references like that in there. And I, when I, when I write those things in, I just think whoever finds these, those are my people.

[00:55:45] Like, did you meet, like, did you know I'm going to add this, this, this, this, or did they just come to you in the moment with the Easter egg? They just literally come to me in the moment and like, you know, Taylor Swift song lyrics or just random like little things. I'm, I'm determined to add like a line from the mummy and my next one. I don't know how, what it's going to be or how it's going to work in there, but just like a little, you know, they're just little odes to all of these things that I've been obsessed with throughout my whole life.

[00:56:12] And so it's, it's, it's kind of like posting my memes on Instagram. I don't know if I highlighted them or not, but I was, when I was reading it, it was just like, I'm sure I text Karen and I was like, oh my God, she said this. Yeah. Oh my God. I think this is also, especially like the perfect book to do it in because it's so like,

[00:56:41] it's about memories and nostalgia and things like that. Right. So you're putting all of your own nostalgia into the book and it's so, it's just, how geeky can I be? The perfect amount. Thank you. It was the perfect amount. Never enough. Exactly. Have you guys seen, yeah, thank you. Yes, yes, yes. Regularly.

[00:57:07] Every now and every now and then I just sit down and I look at the TV and I'm like, I look at my daughter, I'm like, you want to watch The Greatest Showman? Yeah. I mean, it's like a solid choice. It's great. We were just downstairs jamming to Wicked while I was cleaning up after dinner. And I was getting my next question. I told my niece, I was like, hey, I bought Wicked because they just moved back in there. They're with me when their dad is overseas for work. I was like, hey, I bought Wicked. So if you guys wanted to watch it again, it's on Amazon. They could do that. Yes. Yeah.

[00:57:36] Just go in. Whenever somebody compliments me or like, oh my gosh, I love your shirt. Or like I was at Romantic BookCon last weekend and people would come up and be like, oh my gosh, can you sign my book? I'm so glad you're here. And I would go like this. Toss, toss. Toss. And the amount, like, I will say that the percentage of people who got the reference was pretty high. Good. People who didn't were just probably like, what the hell is wrong with her? First of all, what's wrong with them?

[00:58:06] Like, you guys are the problem here. Oh my gosh. Yeah. It was only the biggest movie of like the year. My God. Right. Like, even if you're not a musical theater person. Like, brains or knowledge. Oh my God. She put her whole, what did they say? She put her a whole grand dussy into that. Right. Right. Right. Oh my gosh.

[00:58:36] The way I wept in that movie. Just openly sobbing in the movie theater. Yeah. Listen, I, the way I shot up and almost screamed at the cameo and my daughter looked at me. She's like, what? What's happening? And I was like, I don't know how to explain this to you. I had no idea because I was like, I'm not going to know any spoilers. No clue. I want to know nothing. I don't know how they kept it.

[00:59:11] Like, secret keeping next level. Oh my gosh. So good. Yeah. It's amazing. Amazing. We are so off track. I know. I'm sorry. And then we're back. We're back. We're not. This is very. It's all strange. We've forgotten things. We've forgotten to talk about the book. Oh no. That's what happened. We were like, what were we talking about? Musicals. Musical theater. Constance.

[00:59:40] Oh my gosh. Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh, I love this. Sorry. My bad. My bad. I'm the worst. No, this is perfect. This is extremely on brand. This is us. The chaos. See, this is why we all relate to Calliope a little bit. It's the chaos. Yes. Chaos. In the best way though. Yes. Absolutely. Oh, she's my fave. I'm so glad. She really is. I love her so much. Oh.

[01:00:11] Gonna keep getting better. I mean, I don't know how you could, but. I will say in book to the, there's two male main characters and one of them is entirely, and I do mean entirely inspired by Dean Winchester. And so I am like real, real excited to start marketing that one. Because you're not going to have any trouble. People.

[01:00:41] My people. I mean, if I saw a book that was like Dean Winchester, MMC. Yep. Sold. Say nothing else. Say less. When that show started. I was, I think, I had to have been 16 because I could drive. 16 years old working at a subway and my sister, if I had to work on a Thursday night, my sister would have to go into my VCR and record it for me. And I would get home and sit in front of my little like 10 inch TV. Oh my God. Like the cube TVs.

[01:01:11] Yes. Those were the days. No, I am with you. I'll read a Dean Winchester, MMC book. I'm working on mine and Karen did like a Google doc read through and like edited. And she was like, she helped me edited it. Did she help you edit it? She edited it. But at one point it's talking about the male main character and she, she texts me or she wrote in the thing. I can just picture you frantically Googling how to describe Tom Hiddleston's face.

[01:01:39] That is exactly, exactly what I did. How do you accurately describe Tom Hiddleston's face? This is the best thing I've ever heard in my life. Your Google search history is like, what's up? I know my FBI agent is like, what is wrong with her? She got nothing better to do. No, we don't actually. No. FBI agent stalker. What did the, what did the Google history say about Lucian?

[01:02:09] Where'd he come from? You know, that is actually a really good question. And I, I actually don't have an answer for that. In my head, he just existed. I didn't like, what does he look like? Or do you know, what's his name? Cam Yaman, Cam, Cam Yaman something. He's a Turkish actor. He's super hot. And so he's kind of like giving that vibe. He's from this like really popular Turkish TV show because don't we all watch those?

[01:02:41] Well, I guess I will now. Oh my gosh. I think it's C-A-M is his first name. Y-A-M-A-N. Cam Yaman. I think. Pretty sure. But yeah, he's super good looking. Oh, holy shit. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yes. So those are, those are the vibes of Lucian and except like darker hair, more clean shaven. But yeah. So he just was like in my head.

[01:03:08] And then I actually, I didn't even know who this, who Cam Yaman was when I was writing this. I had never seen him or heard of him. And then a friend who had read some of spells sent me a post with him in it. And I was like, holy wow. Yeah. That worked perfectly. Love that for me. Yes. I'll take it. And we can go ahead and manifest a movie. Yeah. We're here for it. Yes. Well, TV show. TV show. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:03:36] Because it's in, it's, I can't say with who yet, but it spells is in development to become a TV show. Yeah. That's, that's pretty much literally all I can say. Oh my God. But things are happening. We love it. Good things are happening. Love it. So I'm like, Hey, what about him? Yes. Okay. So what would you do? What would you tell Brianne from 10 years ago?

[01:04:04] Because it's been, it's been a ride to get here. Oh my gosh. 10 years ago. Okay. So I'm 20. I would be 25 years old. A mere child. 25 year old Brianne. You did. I mean, you did it, I guess I think would be the main, the main thing like it happened because I, and I can't remember if we talked about this last time, but you know, I'm, I'm just such a by nature, positive outlook, silver lining type of person.

[01:04:33] And so I started writing, you know, 14, almost 13 and a half years ago ish. And when I would go on submission to literary agents, I would think, gosh, tomorrow could be the day that I get an, like a, you know, a full manuscript request. And then when I would get full manuscript requests, I would think, okay, tomorrow could be the day that I get an offer. And every, you know, it just, it kept moving. The benchmark kept moving until it was like, oh my gosh, okay. So I have an agent now.

[01:05:03] And then it goes out on submission to editors who maybe tomorrow could be the day that I get a book deal and so on and so forth. And it, it was that for so long. Like I would fall asleep with so much hope and excitement and then I would get the rejections. Yeah. The next day. But you're here. Look at where you are now. And it would, you know, most of the time when I got there, I was just talking to a friend, an author friend who's like, is going to start querying soon.

[01:05:30] And I was like, I would get excited by the nose, by the rejection. 98% of the time there were the two, there was a 2% where it would really get me down for sure. But for the most part, I would just be like, okay, one more down, like next one, because you want to obviously work with somebody who gets the vision and sees that. Right. And so you're just, you're aligning your path with the future and what's meant for you. And so, yeah, I would just tell myself, hey, like all those nights laying awake thinking

[01:05:59] tomorrow could be the day, the day came. You don't understand how inspiring you are. And like, I know, like, no, we repeat this to people. I quote you. Yeah. Like people, my, my husband made, he's created now his own streaming platform. But for a while he was pitching shows to networks and like would get upset if he didn't hear anything, not upset, but he would be like, man, I wish they could just like email you back. And last time we talked, you said every no led me to my, my yes.

[01:06:27] Like the more no's I got, the closer I was to my yes. And I like quote that to him. And now like people we talk to for the streaming platform and people working on book deals and querying and all that. Every no gets you closer to your yes. Thank you. That's so nice to hear. And yeah, I mean, it's this, I mean, I'm not good at math. Let's be very clear, but it is a statistics game. We don't, we don't math, but yeah, I don't math. That sounds like good math. We word here. We word. Yes. We word, we don't math.

[01:06:57] But it is, it is a statistics thing and you just don't give up. It's eventually, the eventuality of it. And again, it may take a decade or more like it did for me, but it, it, it is possible. And I think, yeah, that's the, that's the thing that I would be like, hey, good job. You, you, you stayed strong. You did it. There's a TV show coming. Yeah. And it's so crazy.

[01:07:24] Cause I still feel like, I don't remember who I was talking to recently, but I was like, I still feel like such a baby author. Like there's, I mean, I, I am still learning so freaking much. There's still so much for me to learn. So many nuances, not even like, let alone honing the craft of actually writing, but like about the publishing industry, about the film industry, about rights and sub rights and all the things. And so it's kind of like a really exciting thing to feel like, okay, yeah, great. Like you wrote two books. Awesome. Excellent.

[01:07:54] But it's really like, this is just the very tip of the iceberg. You know, a lot more to learn. And I love that because it's a, it's like a challenge. And also the, the process of it is just like really, really fun to me, but I am, I'm also a geek. I love how you share like so much of it on social media too, because it's very inspiring for like baby, baby authors who are still writing or are editing or are getting ready to query or in the middle of the trenches.

[01:08:24] Yes. Yeah. So it really, it's inspiring to people. Well, thank you. And I, somebody asked me like on a comment or DM or something a while ago, and they were like, how did you like, isn't it really vulnerable and kind of like scary to put your like, hey, yeah, I got rejected on a shit ton. Isn't that weird? And I'm like, not really. Because that's honest. Yeah. It's just part, I don't know. It's part of life. And I, it just, it is what it is.

[01:08:52] I, if it, if I'd rather share my story and be able to help someone and be like vulnerable about, yeah, like a lot of it sucked. But it was all, I think in my opinion, it's all been worth it. Then that's okay. I'm okay with that. Rather than pretend. Yeah. And like, there's, I know that there's so many people, um, uh, Hannah Nicole Mayer posted something the other day, uh, where somebody had commented on one of her videos and they're like, this is so cringe.

[01:09:20] I'm definitely not buying your book just because of this. I'm like, I would rather be cringe, um, any day of the week. Yeah. How miserable. Yeah. Right. Like what in the world? Like if you don't like someone's, you know, the way they do their social media or whatever, like it costs nothing to just scroll. Yeah. You don't have to watch it. Live your life, baby. Yeah. Go be miserable somewhere else. Indeed. Take that energy and get it out of my space.

[01:09:50] What the fuck do you want me? Yeah. People are the worst, man. Oh boy. Rough out there. Absolutely. Let me tell you. All right. Well, we've already kept you. It's over, but we have to ask you the required questions whenever you come here. Tell me what are they? Well, so as you know, we have a segment on the podcast where we called fictional boyfriend of the week, where we pick a fictional character that we love.

[01:10:19] So it doesn't have to be a boyfriend. It can be any fictional character. I've had a fictional granny. I've had two fictional grannies at this point. I've had a fictional son. So. So wait, are we picking people from actual fiction, like books that we've read? Books. Books, movies, TV shows. Whatever. Like Dean Winchester is one for you. Okay. Yeah. Well, clearly. I mean, that's like a, seems like a rhetorical question, Karen. It's the roles we have to ask. Okay.

[01:10:47] But yes, I mean, obviously Dean Winchester, but if you're like, okay, that's too obvious. I would say right now, Kingfisher. Yes. Yes. Yes. Check. Yes. I cannot. Oh, I'm obsessed. Yes. Kingfisher or Karen. Like I'll take either of them to be, to be fair. I freaking would die for Karen. I would tell them so much. I would tell them so much. Oh my gosh. Stop. So I read it when it was on Kindle Unlimited, like before she got traditionally published.

[01:11:16] And I need to go reread it now to see what's different. Like if they changed or edited anything. Oh my gosh. But yeah. Love Kingfisher. Yeah. I just got a copy in the mail and it's on my Kindle. So I will have it read before I come and see the two of you. Yay. So. It's so good. It's a fast, like, I think you'll get through it really fast because it's very, it's really fresh and it's really easy to, I would, I think it's like easy to, it's just so enjoyable.

[01:11:45] You just start devouring it. Yeah. Like really. I think I read it in two sittings. Yeah. And it was just because my nieces were like, they were 15 at the time. They were having a sleepover with like six girls in the house. And so finally I was just like, I'm going to stop trying with the book. And I went and hung out with them. They're cool. That's awesome. But then I finished it the next day. So it's, it looks chonky. It is. It doesn't look, it is chonky. It doesn't just look chonky. It is actually. It's just fast to get through. That's a weapon.

[01:12:15] It's a weapon. Oh, that's hilarious. Oh yeah. Okay. We also, obviously we love your books. We're obsessed. But when you're not writing our favorite books, what are you reading? What books can you recommend? Golly gee willikers. You're like, oh shit. You know, I will say honestly, truthfully, it's really hard for me to read when I'm writing.

[01:12:43] And that is because I'm, I'm somebody who's very easily influenced. And so if I do consume something, it's typically a show or a movie that I've already watched. So that I'm not being swayed any which way, because I'm somebody who, even though I do now outline, I'll still like, if I'm watching something or reading something, I'll be like, ooh, you know, ooh, I could, ooh, I could do this. Or ooh, I could add that. And then suddenly it's Grey's Anatomy that you're writing. Yeah, like dad.

[01:13:11] So I try to not read anything new, not watch anything new while I'm in the throes of writing. And I'm like, I just finished edits for a high fantasy trilogy, the first that sold. So that announcement will also be coming soon. That's fine. You don't have to cut that either. You are feeding my soul. And so I just, yeah, I just finished edits on that. That one is co-written with my best friend.

[01:13:42] And then I'm finishing edits for Spells book two. So yeah, so it's just like, I don't honestly have anything that I read. But when I do read, I love science fiction. And I love high fantasy and obviously romanticy. So those are definitely anything in that, in those genres. I will just eat it up. You're like, give me that. Yeah, give me that. I want it. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, that kind of answers our next question, which is what comes next? Oh, yeah, baby. What comes next?

[01:14:10] I mean, possibly the continue. This is a two book series. I mean, it's just like a duology right now. It's like they're interconnected standalone. So I don't even know how to phrase that. But it's all, you know, it's kind of like up in the air just with the way publishing works right now. So it could be another, you know, a third book in this series, but also working on the proposal for the romanticy series that I will be writing. So yeah, all kinds of fun, exciting things. Yay! I would say I love this for you, but I love it for us more.

[01:14:42] Honestly, it's more exciting for us. Oh boy. Oh boy. Yeah. I won't even say anything else about it because somebody was like, oh, can you post the spicy excerpt that you sent to your agent? And I was like, if you want me to get kicked off of the internet, yeah. Otherwise, nope. Yeah. Oh my God. I love that. I'm a tray excited. My agent's like, wow, you're really good at writing this stuff.

[01:15:12] And I was like, oh my God, it's awesome. The highest compliment I could possibly receive. Oh my God. I'm so happy. I'm so happy. That's what's next. And hopefully this bad boy spell strings forgotten things hitting the New York. No, I'm not even going to say hopefully. I'm just going to speak it into existence. It's going to. It's going to. It's going to. It's a time bestseller. We're manifesting it. Manifesting it. Listen, we did it last time.

[01:15:41] We did it last time. We're going to do it again. Round two. Round two. Every single book that comes out. You guys are going to hate me. Never. No, never. We could never. Never. No, ma'am. This is the perfect time to remind you that you are legally required to come back for every book. That's right. That comes out. You're going to be sick of us to write that in my next contract. Yes. Doesn't matter what's going on. Has to do the incoherent fangirl. Yes. It's part of it.

[01:16:11] Yep. That's the first thing. Pencil it into the world tour. You go into your marketing meeting. That's the first thing you say. I. Listen, guys. Have you heard of the incoherent fangirls? Yes. Because I have to go. It's. I'm legally bound. Oh, my God. And do not sacrifice this memory and forget. No, never. Because we will remember. It's very dear. It is. This is being recorded. Okay. We will play it for posterity. Posterity.

[01:16:40] Yep. Posterity's sake recording. Oh, my God. As we expected, this was amazing and so much fun. And we love you for being here. The best. Thank you. And I loved being here. I love talking to you beautiful women. Thank you. Thank you. Always so much fun. And, like, seriously, we can't wait for the next. Thank you. No. But in the meantime, when this episode is out, Spells is out in the world. So, go pick up a copy, everybody.

[01:17:10] And then come book club with us. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mabel. That's right. Woo. Yes. I need to do another post about that. I know. I posted in it just, like, trying to get people excited. And I don't know that people are, like, it's still early because the book's not out. So, they're like, I don't care. We don't have it yet. Stop running it. This is all down. Yeah. But now, when you're listening to this. It's out. Yeah. Start reading. Come talk to us. Come hang out with us.

[01:17:39] And if you are in California, there's a book event with Callie Hart in, is it Elk Grove? Sacramento. Fullsum. Fullsum. Fullsum. I was like, which city is it? There's a lot of cities, okay, in California. Ruby's Books in Fullsum, California. March 8th, 630. 630. I have the wrong time. To be fair, though.

[01:18:08] At least I have it earlier rather than later. That's good. That's good. Yeah. I have it for 4 p.m., which is clearly very early. Yeah. I'm going to change that real quick. Ruh-ro. I'm so glad I said that. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. I'm jealous of all of the West Coasters who could get to that event as she cries in Georgian. But we'll manifest like a U.S. tour for the next one. Sign me up. Yes. I would love that.

[01:18:38] As long as Atlanta's on the list. Oh, for sure. Requirement. Yeah. I'm in. I'm in. We'll have to get another photo where we can Photoshop Mandy into the photo. There we go. I love it. Oh, my gosh. Thank you, Brianne. This is... I love you so much. We're so excited. I love you both. I love you both. Stay quiet. I'm so excited. We're so excited to watch like this journey and to have been a teeny tiny part of it from the beginning. The best part. We love you.

[01:19:08] We'll talk soon. Yes. Thank you so much. Thank you. Bye. So much. People don't understand. Oh, no. To know her is to love her. Truly. Truly. My God. I really didn't do enough facial exercises. No. It hurts. It hurts right here. It hurts so good. It hurts so good. Oh, my God.

[01:19:37] I love her so much. That was so much fun. I'm obsessed. Oh, yay. All right. It's time for announcements. Okay. So next week, we obviously have another guest because we're awesome. Yay. We're going to be talking to, I think it's pronounced Shamiz Patel playing flirty. It's out now. So you can pick up the book, read the book, read the book, and then join the conversation. I'm so excited. Like, it looks so nerdy. I'm so excited.

[01:20:06] Like, this is going to be a book that was for us. I love it. I'm so excited. So that's going to be next week. I can't wait. Yay. Yay. Yay. And I think that's all we have, right? I'm like, nothing new. Well, Brianne and I talked about our... Babel Book Club. Babel Book Club. So come chat with us. I think we're talking all month. Yeah. We're doing kind of slow discussions as people read because not everybody can read a book a day.

[01:20:37] Facts. Yeah. I'm looking at my list. I'm like, oh, I read a lot. But that's because audiobooks and I disassociate from work. So not everybody has that issue. So that is next week. And now it's time for a spiel. Yeah, let's do a spiel. All right, friends. If you enjoyed this episode, please like, follow, and subscribe wherever you are listening to us. Follow us on social media. We are at TheIncoherent Fangirl on all the things.

[01:21:07] Visit our website, TheIncoherentFangirl.com, where you can also stream all of our episodes as well as read our blog. Subscribe to our Patreon for early access to podcast episodes, full video episodes, and bonus content. And of course, you can shop our merch store, TheIncoherentFangirl.com slash shop, where you can get super cute designs designed by a super cute girl. It's Mandy. It's Mandy. And if you have any questions, comments, concerns, suggestions, design ideas you want to tell us that we're pretty,

[01:21:37] we will accept all of that in our inbox. TheIncoherentFangirl at gmail.com. We love hearing from y'all. And of course, one last way to support the podcast is to rate and review on whatever platform you're listening to us on. You know we love words. Give us those words. Give it to us. She is at Mandy Perv on all the things. She's at Miss Made in China on all the things. And once you've followed us on social media and you follow the podcast on social media, you're going to go do some self-care because the world's on fire. And that is a requirement of life right now. Yes.

[01:22:07] First stop is going to be Here Comes the Nerd, where you're going to get all your cute, artsy goodies with pins and stuff like that. Go to HereComesTheNerd.com and use code Fangirl to get 20% off your first order. Then you're going to head over to OnceUponABookClub.com. You can subscribe. You can buy some stock boxes, standalone goodies. We have two codes that you can use. We love you no matter which one you use because they do not stack. Use whichever one your little heart desires.

[01:22:34] You're going to use code Mandy10 or Karen10 and get 10% off. But you have to spell Karen right or we are going to sacrifice the memory of you for magic. Exactly. Sorry, not sorry. We don't. Who are you? Never heard of me. I didn't know you exist. And then somebody we will never, ever forget, our dear friend Amber D. Lewis. You're going to head over to AmberDLewis.com, add like 10 of everything to your cart.

[01:23:02] Then you're going to use code Fangirl10 to get 10% off the 10 of everything. And math says you have officially gotten one of everything for free. Look at you go. Champ. I can do math. Championship shopper. Say that five times fast. Oh, I can't even say that one time fast. Championship shopper. Ew. I hate that. And last but certainly not least, you're going to go support the show, Husband. I have exciting news.

[01:23:28] We recorded some episodes of the podcast this past week. They are renaming it back like just a searcher's podcast for beacon reasons. I don't really know. It's not going to be called the paranormal mind anymore. Now it's just searcher's podcast. So you can follow at searcher's believe or at searcher's podcast on all the things. And if you go to searcher's believe.com slash shop, you can use code Fangirl10 to get 10% off of all of their merch.

[01:23:58] Most of which is designed by moi. And then you're going to go support beacon TV. So you're going to go to streambeacontv.com. Get all of the best horror, true crime, paranormal content. They are announcing and it's announced already. They got the crew of the Holzer Files back together, which is a big show in the paranormal world. And they are unveiling the trailer for the show this weekend. So it's out now. Now that you're listening to it, they're unveiling it at Missouri Paracon.

[01:24:27] So yeah, if you go to streambeacontv.com and use code Fangirl10, you can also get 10% off of your subscription. And who doesn't want to support the show husband? Yeah, he's all right. I think I'll keep him. It'd be a lot of paperwork to get rid of him. That's true. That's true. Yeah. Yeah, I guess we'll keep him. I'm lazy. And he's cute, so. He's pretty solid. We like him here. Yeah, we'll keep him. Oh, that was a witchy episode of. We'll be Hinko Hair and Panker.

[01:24:57] Oh, so much fun. My cheeks still hurt. I know. I love her. We love you so much. We love you. Bye. We are sponsored by our friends at Here Comes the Nerd. Pins, stickers, magnets, and more. Here Comes the Nerd has happy art for all fandom-loving hearts. New customers can use coupon code Fangirl during checkout for 20% off their first order at herecomesthenerd.com. Coupon applies to ready-to-ship items only.