Last year, yr girls Morgan and Isabeau spent the month of January, excuse me, JANEuary, celebrating all things Jane Austen. This year, get ready for another deep dive into a high priestess of the romance genre, because JOHANNAuary is coming. Every week this January, yr girls Morgan and Isabeau will be exploring a different novel by the indomitable Johanna Lindsey, a lioness in her field, and an ever enduring force in the minds of your beloved hosts. It’s gonna be big y’all! Tune in for the preview, and get ready for a full month of JOHANNA.
Abigail McKenzie felt like an outcast in her one train stop town. Yet when two men are wounded in the same train robbery, she agrees to take them in: David, the model of a gentleman, and Jesse, hot-tempered and alluring, vie for Abigail’s affections. But as she nurses them both back to health, intimacy and proximity push our heroine to explore her sensual side, and the true identities of her patients reveal a rich history beyond their injuries. This week, Morgan and Isabeau take a listener recommendation and fall in love with Hummingbird by LaVyrle Spencer. It’s got it all: gunfights, soup straws, mustaches, and above all, feet. Dust off a nice pair of something tall for this little ditty.
For this Boner, Isabeau guides Morgan through the waters of fated mates, blood scenarios, and the requisite comfort/suffocation of inevitably. What is the difference between fate and destiny? Does the trope of love at first sight still sparkle through the lens of affect theory? Is male “passion” just camouflage for latent male aggression? Bring your own beret for this one y’all and start perfecting those french inhales, this may be our most philosophical Boner to date.
Folie Hamilton thought nothing of corresponding with her husband’s cousin, Lt. Robert Cambourne, deployed across the world in the interests of the East India Company, on behalf of the English Crown. But when love creeps into their epistles, no distance or arrangement is beyond collapse. This week, Morgan and Isabeau swoon over My Sweet Folly by Laura Kinsale, a tale of passion, conspiracy, and unbalance depicting an England on the brink of turmoil. How should historicals reflect past atrocities? What makes good allyship? What does it mean to stay informed, and how do we enact change? Remember: sexy books can still pose serious questions.
Are we at a point in history where our passions have become our capital? And what are the repercussions, if any, that sometimes it might be totally worth it? For this lil’ Boner, Morgan and Isabeau explore how WebToon is contributing to the romance ecosystem, do a little self reflecting, and politely ask for more WebToon coins PLEASE.
Lucy Muchelney is in a rut. But when she’s commissioned to translate a celebrated astronomy text by the deceased husband of Countess Catherine St. Day, her professional demeanor is eclipsed by desire. This week, Morgan and Isabeau turn their sights to 2019’s Great Big Romance Read The Lady’s Guide To Celestial Mechanics by Olivia Waite, a dovetail of caste and scholarly love set in post-Napoleonic Regency England. Why the Regency period? What responsibility should the present have in depicting the past? And is our refusal to hold the past accountable inviting a cultural retrograde? Keep your eyes peeled toward the cosmos for this one y’all.