Game of Thrones may have faded behind the penumbra of popular culture, but there will always be ardent believers keeping the fires burning. This week on Whoa!mance, Morgan and Isabeau lurk on fanfiction message boards with one such crowd in Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade. When Marcus Caster-Rupp, heartthrob TV star of a GOT-esque show, asks regular person and superfan April Whittier out after her plus-size cosplay goes viral, the whole fandom erupts in excitement. But as Marcus and April break greater swaths of ice, Marcus realizes this is far from their first meeting: in the fan-fiction universe, they’re old, if anonymous, friends. How do we resolve schisms between adaptations and source material? What is proper fanfic etiquette? Is this the real life, or is this just fantasy? We may be discussing fiction about fanfiction this week, but please don’t flame us y'all.

Whoa!mance is a part of the Frolic Podcast Network.

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Well Whoa!mantics, we made it one more time around. We asked, and you graciously sent us your favorite titles and titillations. And in exchange for the DMs, we stitched them up into something nice we can all sprawl out and get crumbs on. This week on Whoa!mance, Morgan and Isabeau reflect on their arc of years behind the mic, wax poetic with the luxury of hindsight, and share which books still smoke and linger. A special thanks to all those who sent in recordings, and to all y’all for the continued support. It’s been a real cool time. Now go put on something comfy: we've got some lounging to do.

Whoa!mance is a part of the Frolic Podcast Network.

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Studies show that staying put is the number one cause of FOMO among freewheelers and ramblers. But the long term health benefits of deep roots and steady love are often, criminally, underreported. This week on Whoa!mance, Morgan and Isabeau clear their spit valves to hit the high notes with a selection from Decades: A Journey of African American Romance, in Sheryl Lister’s Love’s Serenade. Set primarily in Harlem in the 1920’s, Leigh Jones, our heroine, escapes the American South and an arranged marriage after being spurred by Miles Cooper, our reluctant hero and aspiring jazz great, to pursue a life of independence. Immersed in the cultural heights of the Harlem Renaissance, Leigh and Miles navigate their new found freedom and pen their own tunes in the stolen moments of a white-supremacist society. How does the present inform our depictions of the past? How does Romancelandia reward and reinforce white readership? How much historical detail is too much? Bust out your Victrola y'all because this one’s going straight to 78.

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ONE. HUNDRED. EPISODES. Can you believe it Whoa!mantics? When we started out we had two shitty microphones and a Mac desktop cobbled together from two different Mac desktops. Now, three years and 100 episodes later, we have slightly better shitty microphones, and that same computer is still chugging along like goddamn Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. But more importantly y’all, we couldn’t have done it without you and your continued support.

This week on Whoa!mance, Morgan and Isabeau are joined by producer Nick to reflect on the book that started it all, A Week To Be Wicked by Tessa Dare. What have we learned? What have we become? And what the fuck is up with this ending (seriously though, WTF is with this ending)? Tune in as we cover old ground with fresh eyes. I’m not crying, you’re crying.

ALSO - Send us your listener submissions so we can include your lovely thoughts and voices in our 3 year anniversary episode! Slide into our DMs or send us an email at whoamancemail@gmail.com - .mp3 or .wav files are preferable, but as long as it’s playable we can probably make it work.

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It’s a New Year Whoa!mantics, but early forecasts are projecting the same holocaust of emotions. This week, Morgan and Isabeau cut through the red tape in A Lady’s Guide to Mischief and Mayhem by Manda Collins. When our heroine Lady Katherine Bascomb hastily publishes overlooked evidence to a recent murder case in her newspaper, Detective Inspector Andrew Eversham becomes seriously butthurt. But when Katherine finds herself at a house party turned crime scene, Katherine and Andrew must put aside their differences before the killer strikes again. What happens when Romance tries on the tropes of True Crime? Why is every example of a good cop usually a fictional character? Who actually keeps us safe? This one’s for all the out of work editors out there - we need you now more than ever.

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We know the solstice is the real holiday y’all are out here getting wild for, but like any bird of prey, the Christmas-Industrial-Complex must be fed. This week, Morgan and Isabeau take aim at propriety with Cecilia Grant’s Blackshear Family novella, A Christmas Gone Perfectly Wrong. When the uptight and proper Andrew Blackshear ventured to buy a falcon for his sister’s impending marriage, the last thing he expected was to himself become the hunted. Our heroine and daughter of the falconer, Lucy Sharp, is anything but conventional; and when a carriage ride from Andrew results in calamity, they must assume the role of happily married, in order to share a bed in the home of some acquaintances below their station. But as passion creeps into Andrew’s waking life, the couple must decide between ardent love and social customs. What’s your preferred mode of hunting? Does convention handcuff progress? And does dry humping ever really solve anything? While we hope y’all are forever grabbing life by the scruff of its rodent neck, for fuck sake please stay home this holiday season. You deserve a break anyway.

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