Holidays are hitting different this year, what with all the plague, but we at Whoa!mance are pledging to keep our Christmas humor to the last. This week, Morgan and Isabeau shack up with this festive friends-to-lovers novella, One Bed for Christmas by Jackie Lau. Our hero, Wes Chang, a freelance artist and barbershop quartet mascot, is thrown by fate or meteorological happenstance into close proximity with his college friend, long time crush, and successful dating app CEO, Caitlin Ng, when a sudden snow storm leaves her stranded in Wes' modest working person’s apartment. What began as a convenience of warmth blossoms into a confirmation of long held desires, as Wes and Caitin are imbued with the magic of both holidays and snow days. Does capitalism prevent us from keeping the holiday spirit alive year round? Does the kaleidoscopic nature of Christmas belie a dragon chase of toxic nostalgia? Is the “one bed” a metaphor for our singular planet hurtling toward climate destruction, leaving us to grasp and cling to whomever happens to be closest? This one's dedicated to all the bars we wish we could close this holiday season. Stay home and stay safe.
Did you ever watch those Geico caveman commercials and think, “I bet that hoss can really lay some club?” This week, Morgan and Isabeau plow for answers in Transcendence, a prehistoric romp by Shay Savage. It opens with our heroine and unaccompanied minor, Beth, traveling tesseract-style through millennia to arrive in the welcoming and paternally minded arms of our hero, a Homo savage known only by the guttural proclamation of, “Ehd”. Beth, similarly truncated to just “Beh” for the ease of her new partner, must navigate a preverbal relationship, find footing in a vastly undeveloped world, and acquiesce to a blossoming love affair that only the threat of death can provide. Where would you journey to in a personal time machine? Does Beth being 15 make it weird? When you picture a prehistoric man, what do you see, and why is it a tan Brendan Fraiser? Tune in for questions and commentary guaranteed to make your bed rock.
Spooky season may be over y’all, but it’s gonna take more than a new month to get yr girls out of Scotland. This week, Morgan and Isabeau embark on a historical romp through the Highlands in The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie by Jennifer Ashley. Our titular character, Lord Ian, is shrouded in rumors and hearsay when he crosses paths with our heroine Beth, on the arm of her then fiance. As her fiance’s appetites wend beyond the scope of Beth, our heroine is thrown further into the orbit of the mysterious Lord. But as suspicions gather around Lord Ian’s potential role in a double homicide, our lovers are forced to question the very fiber of their beings. What helps ensure the successful portrayal of neuro non-typicality? How do we account for perceived limitations of accurate historical representation? Could this election finally be over? All this and more on your favorite pod sluicing app.
While the Ball rages on, yr girls have to refuel on angst and mood before another heavy bout of haunting. This week, Morgan and Isabeau journey to the edge of the Cornish cliffs in Mistress of Mellyn by Victoria Holt, a nom de plume of Eleanor Hibbert. Our heroine Martha Leigh is past her seasons. In lieu of a husband, she becomes a governess to the daughter of gaunt widower and lesser of two heroes, Connan TreMellyn. But as Martha gets closer to her aloof employer, questions surrounding his wife’s death disrupt their nascent arousal. In a mansion of lavish decor and furnishings, something lies rotten. What remains in the absence of a loved one? How should we remember roads not taken? What’s it like to trust and be trusted by a horse? Saddle up and stay shook y’all.
It’s officially spooky season y’all, and we’re jumping in with both feet. This week, Morgan and Isabeau explore the categorical and the supernatural in Angie and the Ghostbuster, by Theresa Gladden. When paranormal investigator Dr. Gabriel Richards is drawn to a mysterious home, what he finds there raises more than just his neck hair. There to greet him is the blonde and dream-eyed Angie, Gabriel’s high school crush, who has been living alongside the very same ghostly presence he’s come to eradicate. But when passion overtakes profession, the otherworldly isn’t the only thing getting a little exercise. What’s a category romance? Are ghosts just unresolved trauma? Does anyone ever get their affairs in order? We’ll be putting a little ectoplasm in your feed all this month, so stay tuned and live deliciously.
Everyone experiences the agonies and ecstasies of expanding a circle of friends, but what about the trials and tribulations of expanding a circle of lovers? This week, Morgan and Isabeau mix with the hoipolloi of Edwardian elite in Jude Lucens’ polyamorous historical Behind These Doors, Radical Proposals Book 1. When a gossip columnist stumbles on the harmonious throuple of a Lord and Lady, and an Earl’s second son, a delicate balance of lust and heart strings is shifted. But buttoned up cultural norms be damned as passion mounts, and all involved grapple with the implications of propriety and class. Is love a scarce commodity? How do we navigate an array of uncontrollable feelings? May we share in this wash basin? Live free and love wide y’all.