Shelf Love

Rewriting the Wallflowers: Revisionist History

Short Description

Have you read Lisa Kleypas's neogothic duology: Devil in Winter and It Happened One Autumn? Tehyah Carver shares her provocative claims about Kleypas’s Wallflower series, including how St. Vincent is a gothic heroine. We also discuss the revisions the author made to the texts around 2021, theories on why the changes were made, and how we feel about them.

What differentiates a villain from an interesting character in romance and how have contemporary romance readers' expectations evolved and what are the broader implications of rewriting problematic elements in historical romance fiction?

Tags

romance novel discussion, historical romance, romance discourse

Show Notes

Have you read Lisa Kleypas's neogothic duology: Devil in Winter and It Happened One Autumn? Tehyah Carver shares her provocative claims about Kleypas’s Wallflower series, including how St. Vincent is a gothic heroine. We also discuss the revisions the author made to the texts around 2021, theories on why the changes were made, and how we feel about them.

What differentiates a villain from an interesting character in romance and how have contemporary romance readers' expectations evolved and what are the broader implications of rewriting problematic elements in historical romance fiction?

Guest: Tehyah Carver

Discussed:

Transcript

Revisionist History in Kleypas Neo-Gothic Duology

Andrea Martucci: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Shelf Love, a podcast about romance novels and how they reflect, explore, challenge, and shape, desire. I'm your host, Andrea Martucci, and on this episode I'm joined by Tehyah Carver, a PhD student studying English education at Teachers College Columbia University.

Today we're talking about Lisa Kleypas's neogothic duology Devil in Winter and It Happened One Autumn and how we define a villain as contemporary readers. Tehyah, thank you so much for being here.

Tehyah Carver: I'm very happy to join you. Very happy to be here. I'm very excited.

Andrea Martucci: I'm excited too. How did we meet like in person IRL?

Tehyah Carver: Okay, so we met last year at PCA in Chicago. You came to my panel where we were talking about historical romances and I gave a conference paper about Lisa Kleypas's novels, specifically Dreaming of [00:01:00] You, Devil in Winter, and Tempt Me at Twilight and just focusing on capitalism, sexuality, masculinity, and villainy and how all these things are connected specifically through the pursuit of financial and social capital. That was what my paper was about, and it was really cool like having you there. Then we just saw each other constantly throughout the conference.

Andrea Martucci: That was a good conference. I don't wanna make it sound like other conferences don't have good people, but there was a really great group of people there and lots of good discussion time.

Tehyah Carver: yeah.

Andrea Martucci: Semilore was there. hung out with Semilore, it was great. We actually interacted casually on the internet before we met in real life.

So you've been around the romance space. Why don't you lay down your romance, street cred. Did you just wander into the room and say, I'm gonna write about romance or, I don't know, are you a true fan? Are you a real fan is really the question.

Tehyah Carver: I like to think so. Here are my credentials. I [00:02:00] was a quarantine reader, so I started April of 2020 and my first romance was actually Devil's Daughter by Lisa Kleypas. So

Andrea Martucci: Oh.

Tehyah Carver: 'Cause I saw it on my homepage on the Libby app and I was like, this cover looks a little wonky, but I'm intrigued by the premise.

Okay, let me just press play on this audiobook because I was like, I need something fun, we're gonna see what happens. And I got entranced. Truly just fell in love and I was like, well I need to read more of these. So I actually read the Ravenels out of order because it was really just based on what was available at my library throughout the time.

Devil's Daughter is such a wild place to start 'cause having the Wallflowers come in, I'm like, who are these people?

Andrea Martucci: Like, why should I care? Who are they

Tehyah Carver: it's like why do we just have like several moments of Evie and Sebastian by themselves? Why do I care about these two people who are around my parents' [00:03:00] age, like being cutesy.

Andrea Martucci: bathing a baby or something?

Tehyah Carver: Exactly. And I'm like, this is also no shade to older people in love. I love that. I love my parents who are deeply in love themselves. So I went with them very clear. It was just confusing when the protagonists are so much younger, but of course I read everything backwards.

And I read the Wallflowers out of order. So I read, It Happened One Autumn first

Andrea Martucci: Oh, okay.

Tehyah Carver: And then Devil in Winter, and then Secrets of a Summer Night. And then Again the Magic. Funnily enough as we are recording this, I have not read Scandal in Spring.

There is a reason why I won't read Scandal in Spring and that is because I want Daisy and Cam to be together. And when I found out they weren't going to be the couple in Scandal in Spring out of spite, I have not read that book.

I just refuse to read that book. But I'm actually making an effort by the next month or so to actually read Scandal in Spring.

Andrea Martucci: I like Scandal and Spring better [00:04:00] than I like Devil in Winter.

Tehyah Carver: okay.

Andrea Martucci: There's some good pining in it, which I appreciate. We just have to take a small sidebar. What do you think makes the relationship between Cam and what's her face? Daisy? Why do you think they should be together? Based on what you saw?

Tehyah Carver: They have like such a really intense magnetism in that one small interaction that they had through like the secret passageway. They were kinda like teasing each other in a really interesting way that I really loved where Cam is being charming and flirty and then Daisy is trying to have the upper hand or try that she's above it but she's also like, oh no. Even the kiss that they share is really cute. And that she's like, Hmm, it was fine. And he's like, oh, we can't have that.

We see Daisy in the other books being the plucky best friend, but seeing her in that moment get flustered and trying to be serious with [00:05:00] someone who is playful as well, but in a different way than her.

It's really interesting to watch where it's like, oh, I'm meeting someone who's at my level, but is also much better at this than me. That's weird. I wish we got to explore that.

Lisa Kleypas did explain why she didn't put them together. She likes writing opposites and Daisy and Cam in her mind were too similar, so that's why they didn't end up together. And I'm like, okay, sure.

Andrea Martucci: I feel like your explanation it's making me think of two things. Number one, that the premise of When Harry Met Sally is correct, that men and women cannot be friends without becoming lovers. Second of all, that if a romance novelist puts two characters together who are not the main characters, it just automatically sets our expectations up as readers that they are going to be a couple in the next book.

Tehyah Carver: Right.

Andrea Martucci: It's like the Bechdel test. Let's call this the Martucci test, with all due respect to the legacy of people who created tests before this moment.

If there's a [00:06:00] meaningful interaction between two members of the opposite sex in a heterosexual romance author's universe, and they are not just in service to the main characters of that book, that romance readers will automatically assume that they're going to be a couple in the future

Tehyah Carver: Yeah.

Andrea Martucci: To the point where authors have to explain why not. We'll continue to put this to the test after this point.

Tehyah Carver: Yeah. Marcus is a really great example because I also just reread Worth Any Price. The Bow Street Runners, for me, that was a fever dream. I loosely remember those books because after I got into like, historicals in April of 2020, I just could not stop reading romances at all.

Andrea Martucci: And that's also like Kleypas's copaganda era

Tehyah Carver: exactly, I'm like uh,

Andrea Martucci: before she went just like straight capitalist propaganda. First it was like feudal propaganda. Then it was like copaganda. Now it's capitalist aganda

Tehyah Carver: Yes.

Yeah, it very much so and so reading like Worth Any [00:07:00] Price, the last book in the Bow Street Runners, Marcus shows up in that book and I forgot Marcus was here. But a, a good chunk of the first, like third of the book takes place at Stony Cross Park.

And something I love about Stony Cross Park is just how magical and expansive it is. And it functions as, as Lisa's Garden of Eden in a way. Specifically, a lot of sin keep happening in the place, but it's also known as this beautiful paradise, this gorgeous country estate on the periphery of the sociopolitical nature of grimy, urban, contemporary London.

And the social mores, social conventions, even like the class and political conventions of London are gone. They evaporate when people are at Stone Cross Park. And so thinking about like what takes place at Worth Any Price, [00:08:00] Again the Magic and then at least until Devil in Winter, it's like, yeah, this is this paradise for both the landed gentry and those outside of it, whether it may be like working class or at least like wealthy, but not nobility to come together.

But I think that's also because it's tied to Marcus's own personal politic of him thinking that nobility is stupid.

Andrea Martucci: yeah, He's a hypocrite. Interesting 'cause I am just realizing that in the Wallflower Quartet, except for Devil in Winter, all of them essentially take place at Stony Cross Park, right? Devil in Winter is very much London based for the most part, but the rest of them, the romances happen at Stony Cross Park.

Oh, okay. No, I like that theory, and it's also the magic of the house party. But you're right that there's something in addition to that with Kleypas, with Stony Cross Park where it's not just the house party. Traditionally a house party, you're not interacting with the servants, you're not interacting with [00:09:00] people who are not your equals, This is a house party universe that breaks down the social classes and distinctions that are more important elsewhere, you're saying.

Tehyah Carver: Yeah. And so I think Eversby Priory is the next version of Stony Cross Park.

Andrea Martucci: And that's the Ravenel's home.

Tehyah Carver: Yes. So I think Eversby Priory serves like the same purpose. Similar yet different ways, but I understand why the Wallflowers are like connected. Marcus, Lillian, Evie, and Sebastian show up in the Hathaways, they're not like a priority in the Hathaways.

Andrea Martucci: Yeah.

Tehyah Carver: But that's 'cause the Hathaways are neighbors to Marcus and Lillian so,

Andrea Martucci: Right?

Tehyah Carver: it's like, okay, yeah, they're there, but the Hathaways have their own thing going on.

In thinking about like all these connections, that's really what has kept me in the genre. I'm still like a very dedicated reader of historicals.

I read contemporaries and paranormals and other things [00:10:00] occasionally, but historicals have my heart. There's just something about them that captures my attention in a way that sometimes contemporaries can't always do, or paranormal like can't always do. But I also think they have their place and they're doing really phenomenal things in ways of trying to create new phenomena and experiences for readers even if the premises feel too predictable or I would say a little too simple.

And when I say simple, this is not as a pejorative, it's really just oh, it feels like nothing happens. 'Cause it's unless it's like usually work or socially related. where like familial, like friend dynamics come in.

Fake dating in a contemporary setting, especially if it's like now it's like, I didn't know your friends cared that much. Like why would your family care that much? Unless there's like social status, unless they're like WASPY, that makes sense.

But they're like regular degulars and their community is pretty open and inclusive, the fake dating situation just really doesn't make [00:11:00] sense.

But like in a historical there are certain things that it yeah, the stakes are higher because of the antiquated ideas, or at least our understanding of what we perceive to be as antiquated ideas of heterosexual social conventions and partnership and things of that nature.

I love a good high stakes romance. I love that my romances have stakes. I think that's fun. I like being on my toes. So that just keeps me in the genre, but I'm also really interested in looking at it as an academic as well.

I have my bachelor's and my master's in English, both in writing and in literature. And I'm studying English education right now. And so I'm thinking about like, how do we teach literature? How do we teach writing? And thinking about both like creative, fictional, and nonfictional narratives. And there is something about the romance genre that I think is also textually rich in that way and looking at it through the lens of like different literary frameworks.

[00:12:00] When I was writing my conference paper last year, I was really thinking about reader response theory and how are readers responding? How are they taking in these stories? What are they getting from it? Just as much as what is the author putting out there and what is the author playing with, the history they're engaging with, the literature they have read, their references.

I know a lot people talk about like reheating nachos as a bad thing, but I don't think they're necessarily reheating the nachos. I think they're playing with their food and that's really fascinating to me. And that they're playing with the dish that they've been given or they've been fed for a long time, or that they think they know very well.

But it's also what other toppings can I add here? Or how can I like reconfigure the recipe? And that to me is really interesting because it's thinking about the past and also the present. Not only the present in okay, these are the readers that I'm writing to now. But also thinking about these sociopolitical events that are happening as these [00:13:00] books are being written and being published.

And so thinking about all of that and how time is a flat circle and how these things aren't as antiquated. Or people think about like wallpaper romances as potentially anachronistic in that way. But these things do keep coming up. It's just how do authors work with history and now, and how do their political beliefs come through and change?

And how do the reader's beliefs come through and change both in the understanding of the text and the construction of the text?

Andrea Martucci: So you said you're a pandemic reader, so you came in I don't wanna say late, but it's not like you started reading romances when you were like 14, you were a full adult, a young adult, but a full adult at the point you started reading romance.

And I'm curious, when you're talking about reader response and reheating the nachos or playing with the ingredients of the nachos, whatever I feel like what you're alluding to maybe, or at least what it makes me think of, is that so much of the [00:14:00] romance genre is playing with the conventions of the romance genre and relies upon a reader picking up these these things.

And that's not to say that the first romance you read, you can't enjoy, but it becomes a richer experience the more you start to understand the genre as a whole. Like if you have somebody who's incredibly prolific, let's use Nora Roberts as an example.

You've read 600 romances, but every single one of them is a Nora Roberts. And you have never read a romance by any other author. You quantifiably are a big romance reader. You could read a hundred percent romance. And I would still feel in that scenario that we're talking about somebody who is fairly naive about the genre

Because you can't actually understand the genre just by reading one author.

Right. It's really this collective thing that's happening. Phenomenon. So I'm curious, when you started reading and you think about your initial perceptions, like you loved it, but how was your reader response different at the beginning versus what you understand now that you've read [00:15:00] so much more?

Tehyah Carver: Ooh, okay. It's really interesting 'cause I look at a Devil's Daughter or even romances that are coming out now very differently in that I'm looking at how are they playing with tradition? Especially if I have the knowledge that the author themselves like grew up on these novels, are a really big fan of the genre, I'm like, okay. So I'm trying to pick up not only how are they talking about the contemporary moment but also who have they read, who are they referencing, and how was it coming through in these texts?

I talk about Scarlet Peckham all the time. Scarlet Peckham fills my Lisa Kleypas hole in that it feels like she too is in that gothic romance tradition which I find like really interesting. But I also do feel like I'm a little more critical in how I am consuming these romances, where I'm like, it's not just a good story that's gonna capture me. What else is being done here? And how is the story moving? How are we maintaining the reader's [00:16:00] attention? What are we doing? What are we not doing?

For me, something I've noticed is that to prevent a lot of conflict, they'll insert some slapstick shenanigans. And I love comedy so much. But I do not like slapstick or at least great amounts of slapstick in my books, especially my romances.

And so if I feel like a conflict that is actually quite serious and has stakes and has consequences is wrapped up or fixed with a joke, it does not land with me because I'm like, well now I just feel like it's very condescending as a reader to have that resolution be the way that it is to prevent me from feeling upset or prevent me from feeling anything other than happy or something that's in the category of enjoyable feelings and emotions.

I'm thinking a lot about like affect theory and the innate reactions we get, and I'm like, it's [00:17:00] okay if I do feel repulsed. I think that's actually doing something interesting because what a lot of people talk about is oh, these are my comfort reads. These are comforting. They make me happy, but I'm like, sometimes these things make me mad and that's good.

And it's why I love Devil in Winter so much because when I read it, I didn't like it. It made me mad. Sebastian to me was repulsive. I kept thinking about what exactly about him repulsed me.

And so it makes me sit with those feelings of what am I bringing? Why does this make me feel the way that I do? And I think that's a true testament to Lisa Kleypas's writing in that way.

That's what I'm thinking about now, reading so many romances, especially through a great span of time, not just sitting in everything that was published from like 2015 to now in the past 10 years.

[00:18:00] No, I read The Flame and the Flower. Woof. What a read. Yikes. As a descendant of enslaved people. Yikes. But I've read it and I understand why it is still talked about, why it's a part of the canon of like contemporary romances, or we can say like modern contemporary romances,

Andrea Martucci: Romances written in our time, not necessarily about our time.

We're gonna talk about the neogothic duology. So let's talk about gothic.

And I think that what you were just saying is the perfect jumping off point there because this idea that the things that make us think the most are not necessarily the most comfortable, and it's sometimes things that we're almost repulsed by, but the satisfaction is not because you're enjoying it every moment.

Tell me more about Gothics and what you mean by neogothic.

Tehyah Carver: When I'm saying neogothic it's like new gothic. [00:19:00] I'm thinking about in the Routledge Research Companion of Popular Romance- I'm going to be citing sources a lot.

Andrea Martucci: Do it. I assume you're talking about Angela Toscano's chapter, of course.

Tehyah Carver: And so like reading that and thinking about the modern gothic romance number one, how do we define it? What is in that category? The reason why I think these books really fit this specific category is really just like the explanation of what a modern gothic romance is in the chapter. And that it specifically engages with the anxieties of heterosexuality, specifically women's heterosexual experiences.

It's uncanny in the contradictory. And she also states "it narrates as much as it did in previous centuries as a threshold of male and female known and unknown, natural and supernatural feeling and reasoning. What distinguishes it [00:20:00] from its prior incitation is how the uncanny space produced in these texts work to highlight the central anxiety at the moment."

It is really interesting thinking about the home, but the reason why I think of it as a neogothic, or at least a neogothic in the 21st century, is that our understandings of social anxieties are changing and they look a little different. They're similar, yet different, where it's like, okay, now we have women who are not only autonomous beings who are financially independent and things of that nature

Andrea Martucci: theoretically

Tehyah Carver: theoretically, because woof what's going on right now? Yikes.

But at the moment there was I think a lot of like hope, but still fear. But I also think you have authors who came up at the time where the standard was very much writing what would be considered like passive heroines, just placed into situations.

Andrea Martucci: [00:21:00] Mm-hmm.

Tehyah Carver: now you have women who are active agents because readers are now even more active agents in their own lives.

Their lives are changing. So how do I work within the tradition I came up in where specific standard was established, but also understanding the new scenarios that my readers are in?

And it's why I think Lillian and Evie are such great heroines in that way because they themselves are great representations of that oscillation of an anxiety of autonomy and passivity.

The anxiety of finding a home, being in ideal marriage circumstances. But Lillian is not really interested in getting married. Her parents are interested in her getting married. She feels quite ambivalent about the whole thing. Whereas Evie is like, I'm not interested in getting married because of like love reasons. That'd be cool and all, but I'm interested in it because I need to get out of my abusive situation.

Andrea Martucci: Yeah. Marriage as escape.

Tehyah Carver: [00:22:00] Yes, so it's marriage as escape or like marriage as a duty.

But it's very much reflective of the waning interest of like marriage as a whole, as like, ooh, there's something I yearn and desire for in a way of gothics past.

Andrea Martucci: So Kleypas, first started publishing in the early eighties. And she's had an amazing career in that she has written throughout the evolution of the popular romance fiction genre where she started with those very passive heroines. And then she has evolved with her readership in a lot of ways, and as society has evolved which I find fascinating, but as you were saying, that was like, oh my God. It actually also mirrors when you think about her movements, like the feudal era: passive heroines, obey this strong, powerful Duke or whatever because he has that power. You can protect me with institutional power and hegemony.

And then the copaganda era was like the era of [00:23:00] I am in danger as a woman and you can protect me with your physical strength, copaganda era. Into capitalist era, you can protect me with money. Money is security. And so it's interesting because, It Happened One Autumn and Devil and Winter are both firmly in that capitalist era, but they're also the ones that have, as you're arguing, that neogothic feel to them.

So if we're thinking about Lisa Kleypas's evolution, where she theoretically as she's evolving with her readers, moving away from these toxic heroes who blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

What's going on there then with these books where there is potentially that mix of revulsion, yet excitement and there's a feeling of danger?

Tehyah Carver: Yes. And this is where I get like some of my more exciting ideas 'cause I actually did a Wallflower reread this summer. I read it Happened One Autumn about six times this summer.

Andrea Martucci: That's a lot.

Tehyah Carver: If any listeners who have [00:24:00] never read It Happened One Autumn picks it up now, the version you will get, either the digital or physical version, will be the revised version, and it was revised in 2021.

It's very important I talk about the revisions because that will change or alter one's understanding of Marcus, especially because certain things are taken out.

And a spoiler warning.

Andrea Martucci: How long have these books been out?

Tehyah Carver: These books have been out for 20 years. This year is actually the 20th anniversary of It Happened One Autumn, it was actually just like a week or two ago on September 27th.

Andrea Martucci: In autumn.

Tehyah Carver: Yes.

Andrea Martucci: It came out one autumn. That's so appropriate. So these books have been out for 20 years and the rewrites have been out for four years. I don't know. I feel like the moratorium of spoilers has passed. So please proceed.

Tehyah Carver: Okay. So the big thing that has been taken out or really altered is what I consider the climax of the book in that Lillian is juggling the possibility [00:25:00] between marrying Sebastian Challon, Lord St. Vincent, and Marcus Marsden, Lord Westcliff. And while everyone is out in the village in Hampshire, near Stony Cross Park, Lillian gets drunk in Marcus's library.

One of his servants comes in is like, Hey, we have an issue and takes him to a drunk Lillian. So Lillian is like giggly, making jokes, whatever. And Marcus finds this deeply endearing and he's like, oh my gosh, I'm so in love with her actually. I want you sleep with her. But he acknowledges this, in the narration, he's like, I would be taking advantage of her in this vulnerable state.

Andrea Martucci: We're still talking about the original,

Tehyah Carver: yes, it's the original version that was published in 2005.

He's talking with Lillian and they make out for a little bit. He like picks her up and he's like, oh, I'm gonna take you to my room. And she's like, yes, please. And so she's really excited. And then in the next chapter, they have sex for the first time. It's intimate, but the framing of the actual act is really vague [00:26:00] in that it is framed as if it's in a dream or in a dream-like state.

Andrea Martucci: For Lillian.

Tehyah Carver: Yes, so it's as if it's happening 'cause we know it's happening, but Lillian thinks that she's dreaming the entire thing. And like where ends with, oh, is this a dream? She asked that question. And so because of that framing and that language associated with that, the dream like state, it makes it seem like Marcus was actually taking advantage of Lillian.

And that doesn't sit right with readers, even though she did verbally consent in the previous chapter. She's also drunk. So of course there is that. And then afterwards she sobers up, comes to realization, oh, we actually were intimate. And Marcus is also freaking out and proposes to marry her.

He proposed to her in a very weird way. Marcus Marsden's weird. Love him. He's very weird though. He doesn't have a lot of tact at times. And that's one of those instances.

So in the revised version, [00:27:00] they actually are not intimate. They do kiss, but then he takes her up to his room and she just sleeps it off.

But then she wakes up in his bed and he's like, no, we didn't do anything. But I still have to marry you because you were in my room.

Andrea Martucci: I just made a face. Okay. Okay. Continue.

Tehyah Carver: So he's like, oh, I have to marry you because you were in my room and you could be seen leaving my room. Therefore, people would think you were compromised, even though you actually weren't. It would appear like you were. And then the rest of the events occur, but then the last third of the book reads as really wonky because they're contingent on Marcus and Lillian being intimate and actually having sex.

But because they don't

Andrea Martucci: what's so strange about that- I have a preference, but what I don't even understand is [00:28:00] in the rewrite, why not have her wake up in his bed sober and then they have sex? Like, If the problem is the being drunk and can't give consent, shift it to the point where she can give consent, but keep the plot point.

Tehyah Carver: Yeah. So I thought the same thing and I told my best friend that I was like, that's what should have happened. She should have sobered up, woken up, and then they're still deeply into each other. It doesn't change. And then they're just intimate then. But no.

And so the first time that they're actually sexually intimate is when they're making the negotiations for their marriage in his room, a couple nights after. And then she also takes out the second time that they do it for some reason, 'cause Marcus was talking about like a fantasy he had, and then she's like, oh, we should try it out. And then he's like, no, like you're tired. Just go to sleep. And that's when the chapter ends. But in the original version, Marcus is like, okay, cool.

Andrea Martucci: Because at that [00:29:00] point she already had lost her virginity, so I think that, the reason that one was changed is because that would not be suitable, quote unquote for the first sex scene, which has to be momentous and dramatic and like whatever. Okay.

So question for you as a reader, even leaving aside how these changes impact the rest of the book, which library scene do you prefer? If you're just reading up to that point?

Tehyah Carver: The original.

Andrea Martucci: Why do you like the original?

Tehyah Carver: I like the original in that Marcus and Lillian are both coming to terms with their feelings for each other. It's like really about Marcus in that, Marcus has been freaking out over his growing obsession with Lillian, but in that moment he's very chill. And even a little funny. I love when Marcus is funny he is like, this is adorable. You're so adorable. I'm in love with you.

And he's giving into his passion by kissing her, by holding her, by being physical with her. And [00:30:00] he's not agonizing over it afterward. He's just like, I want to love her. I want to hold her. I love touching her. And he is giving into that desire that he has been holding off because he knows it's illogical, he knows it's wrong, but in that moment, it doesn't feel wrong. It feels right.

And as long as we've known Marcus, he tries really hard to subdue because of family daddy issues and stuff. And the fact that he's able to give in to those passions is a really huge turning point for him. And we don't get that in the revised version.

I love the original for that in that they're both giving into each other and they're open to each other in a way that when they're both sober and in private and in public still have the expectations, the intense propriety in the back of their minds that [00:31:00] then comes to the forefront after they make out or something.

That all be gone, whether sober or inebriated, is really important to their character growth as individuals and also in the growth of their relationship.

Andrea Martucci: So Lillian being inebriated is making her more vulnerable in a way, but in a way that allows both of them to act on emotions and physical feelings that they both have.

Because this is fiction, when you're reading that scene in the original, do you feel Lillian is consenting?

Do you feel she has the ability to consent, and do you believe that this is a welcome experience for her?

Tehyah Carver: (Andrea cackles at awkard pause/Tehyah's heavy sigh) It's so hard to answer that.

Andrea Martucci: And I'm being very specific here. I'm not saying from a legal perspective in modern day or in real life. I'm just saying because you are in Lillian's experience, you understand how Lillian feels. You are in a safe space in [00:32:00] fiction. Do you believe in the original that the way it's written, you as a reader are supposed to believe that Lillian consented or that this was a violation?

Tehyah Carver: You're supposed to believe that she consented because when she says yes, Marcus doesn't force her hand. Like she's excited. He picks her up and she's like, oh, where are we going? It's like, I'm gonna take up to my room.

And she's like, oh, yay. He doesn't explain why. She is thinking about him in a sexual manner. Because she has similar feelings about him. So that is my understanding of the scene. And that no matter what, I get to go see his private quarters, I get to like, at least experience something with him.

Especially because the previous scene where they were intimate, Marcus stopped and then chastised Lillian for being into it. And it was like, see, look, you can let any man take advantage of you because you were giving it to your sensations too much. And so she's like really upset about it and he was like, oh, what's wrong?

And she was like, you need to figure out what you want to do with me.

[00:33:00] And in that moment he figures out what he wants to do with her. And so I think even though she's inebriated, something still clicks for her, where it's like he now knows what to do and I want to relish in that.

Andrea Martucci: And she was into it earlier, right? He's the one who's having second thoughts in the earlier scene or feeling conflicted about it. So we also have established in this story that Lillian, when she's completely sober, wants to do this. And she's like, when you figure it out, you gimme a call.

And then you're saying in this library scene, he figures it out.

A lot of people perceive having a conversation like this as saying oh, so you're saying that in real life, if somebody is inebriated that they can consent and this is the right thing to do.

The problem with putting real life onto this is because if you are Marcus in real life and Lillian in real life, Marcus doesn't know what's going on in Lillian's head. We are a reader of a fictional story, and we know exactly what's going on in both of these people's [00:34:00] heads and how they feel.

And also a writer is shaping the mood and the tone of this in a way that like it is a construction, right?

But it feels real. It's earned, it's not like we have two characters who are repulsed by each other. And then this scene happens and it's written like a horror scene. It is written as a deeply romantic moment, but you buy it as a reader because of everything else that has happened. It is constructed to earn that.

So, okay, why did Lisa Kleypas change this scene? Why do we think she changed it four years ago and rewrote it so that they don't, it's exactly the conversation we're having, right?

Because there is a reader response that like- it's hard to say like, where did this reader response come from?

Is there a vocal minority of people? Is it a sense that in general this is not okay anymore and Kleypas wants to make sure that, her backlist [00:35:00] represents modern, quote unquote values, whatever. Like what do you know or what do you think is going on there?

Tehyah Carver: So I actually was really fascinated by this phenomenon. I want to write something about it, but I didn't have enough evidence, at least to do something with it. But I noticed it because this isn't the only Wallflowers book that's revised. Secrets of Summer Night's also revised and the prologue is taken out completely

And for those who have never read Secrets of Summer Night in the prologue Simon and Annabelle do know of each other and they're at this theater. Annabelle is being very stubborn, is like, I don't want Simon to pay for my entry into this place. I just wanna be here for my little brother. He's really excited. He's home from school. This is for him.

But Simon's like, no, I'm gonna pay for your tickets. And that's that on that.

So as they're in this theater experience, Simon kisses Annabelle. He does not ask. He just does it he just plants one on her. And by the time, she opens her eyes and she is like deeply into the kiss in that moment. It's a very passionate kiss. She opens her eyes and he's gone, [00:36:00] she does not see him after that. But she's like really angry about it.

Andrea Martucci: Because she hated it so much. Wait. Or was it 'cause she liked it so much?

Tehyah Carver: That's like something that like, she has to acknowledge and fight within herself throughout Secrets of a Summer Night. It sets up her issues with Simon because Simon is still deeply into Annabelle, but Annabelle's like, oh, I can't stand this man.

And so that prologue got taken out because the kiss could be arguably seen as non consensual. And when I was looking into this, I was looking through Goodreads reviews. I was also looking through the historical romance subreddit and seeing reader reactions. A lot of people are actually mad about the revisions.

Andrea Martucci: I'm mad about the revisions. It's like all of my favorite scenes, and I don't, wanna say that just oh, I used to like this and now I can't, and I'm viewing it through rose colored glasses. I mean, my feeling, and maybe yours and other people's feelings, is it's like the problematic ness of it is what made it so interesting [00:37:00] and good.

Like I know it's problematic. I know. I don't care.

Tehyah Carver: Yeah. 'Cause when I read it, they weren't revised yet. I think the revisions were happening behind scenes, but they weren't published yet. So I read the fully unrevised versions and I was like, oh, love. I understood what was being conveyed. And I'm not saying this I'm a better reader than other people. I'm seeing the vision.

And when you look at the historical romance subreddits, even like the Goodreads reviews, a lot of people are picking up what's being put down. But the revisions make everything really clunky.

And it's also just the way in which now things are rephrased or reorganized, that's a really clunky read. And I actually didn't realize I was reading the revised version until my best friend actually read It Happened One A utumn last year for the first time. She was like, wait, that didn't happen in the library.

And I'm like, what do you mean? And then looking through the copy, I was like, that's weird. But if you look in the front matter on the [00:38:00] inside of the print copy it says it has been updated. And I noticed that too in the audiobook and in the description, at least on Libby, it will say it has been updated.

I was like, that's odd. If you get like the ebook on the Kindle store and anything like that Yeah. It's the revised version. Other things have been taken out, certain jokes or certain comments got taken out and I'm like, that wasn't bad or like problematic even now.

Something I noticed was when they were doing the negotiations between Marcus and Lillian. Lillian's tight laced. And she talked about how painful it is and there is like an, a comment thinking about her body and her weight.

But it's not visibly fat phobic or anything of that nature. She's very insecure about how her body looks. She's like, oh, my mom said that British men prefer this specific body shape. And he is like, no, I just want my women to breathe.

And that interaction is quite cute and funny, but the body related comments got taken out which is really interesting 'cause in, in Chasing Cassandra, those are still in, I know at Reformed Rakes they were [00:39:00] talking about that recently, even like the idea of body politics reflecting how readers are thinking about their bodies, especially if readers are viewing themselves through the eyes of the heroine.

If the heroine is body issues that she says is perfect. And then what am I? I understand why you would take that out, but for Lillian, it actually makes a lot of sense because earlier in the novel, after Marcus kisses her and they're making out, it's like the second time they do so, Marcus then goes on this whole entire diatribe 'cause he just spewing out word vomit about how he doesn't find her physically attractive

Andrea Martucci: Okay. Yeah. So now it's pinging her insecurity. She's assuming it's because she doesn't match the quote unquote ideal, but he's just, duh, like freaking out. Of course, she's like his physical ideal.

I wanna get to how we define a villain, but I think these revisions are really important because there's obviously the idea that some of the things that happened in the first versions perhaps are villainous, right?

So what was changed in Devil in [00:40:00] Winter? or that impacted Devil in Winter?

Tehyah Carver: Ooh. Actually, yes, there are things that were revised. So in Devil in Winter, the only revisions that you get, I think these are the only revisions that should be kept, and is that they changed the "G" slur into a Romany, which I appreciate. That's necessary. So I want to make that very clear.

But in It Happened One Autumn, when Lillian is kidnapped by Sebastian, in the original version when he takes her into the inn and ties her up, he fondles her chest. It has a reaction from her and she's like still angry at him and upset. But to him it's like, well, your body had this physical reaction, so I won't have a hard time being intimate with you and you won't have a hard time being intimate with me, but that's going to be a later problem.

I have the other thing sorted out first and then he leaves. That fondling scene got taken out.

Andrea Martucci: Okay.

Tehyah Carver: So it's just like, okay, I'm handcuffing you to the headboard and now I'm leaving. But I think that scene, as [00:41:00] gross as it is and as seedy as Sebastian is, I think it's necessary in that Sebastian conflates physical attraction and physical reactions to someone being romantically interested in him.

He is like, my understanding of love and romance is purely physical.

Andrea Martucci: Yeah.

Tehyah Carver: That's his priority. That's something that is acknowledged earlier in the book, and I think this is actually a really perfect segue into talking about like, villainy and what's considered villainous.

Because even with Lillian being drunk, that's not the first time we see her drinking as a way to cope in this book. When she's at the ball and she has a dance with Marcus and she's really upset. Sebastian comes over and he's like, oh, can I get you a drink? And she's like, some champagne.

Okay. He's thrown off by it but he gives her a glass champagne and then they're enjoying it outside, in the garden. And Lillian's also a little [00:42:00] flustered because she saw, Livia one of Marcus's younger sisters and her husband Gideon, being intimate. It's really adorable.

And so Sebastian teases her about that, where it's like, oh, you can't get flustered by that. That's nothing. Lillian's like, oh, I want another glass of champagne. And Sebastian's like, I don't think so. But you can see that she's so uncomfortable that she's trying to feel loose, at least through these means.

Right after that when he's like, I think that's enough. Then she's upset because she's like, I'm out here with this man who's known to, be this big lecher, who's supposed to like debauch me on gardens. 'cause that's what I've heard about him.

Why isn't he doing that?

Andrea Martucci: Mm.

Tehyah Carver: and so it's like, well, I've heard all these things about you and yet you aren't doing any of that. Is it me? And so she's really upset. And then he's like, fine, I'll give you something to like think about. And he kisses her and it's a little bit more passionate, but she is like, I'm not feeling anything. I'm not feeling it at all. And then he's like, alright, oh, I'll walk [00:43:00] you back.

And then she's like, it doesn't feel like the kisses I have with Marcus. The alcohol plus at least wanting to be seen as sexually desirable and receiving that affection or that response from someone that she's attracted to, it doesn't happen or it happens in one way where she understands that Marcus is attracted to her, but then he'll renege on it and then be like, actually I think you're ugly. And ah, this is a bad idea. It's not like he actually thinks that about her. He's talking himself out of it. But she doesn't understand that. We as the readers do, but she doesn't.

So she just thinks if I'm so ugly to you, why do you keep doing this to me? I'm confused. So there's that.

So Lillian already feels undesirable, the perfume being magic is also connected to that: that's the only reason he likes me. It's not 'cause he thinks I'm pretty.

But with thinking about villainy and sexuality and sexual intimacy in these two books, what I found really interesting, especially in the original version, is [00:44:00] when Lillian hears from Daisy that Marcus had talked to their dad and she burst into a study thinking that Marcus asked her dad for her hand, and she's really upset about it, 'cause you didn't talk about that with me first. And so she's in her nightgown and Sebastian is in there talking with Marcus and Sebastian's like, oh, I was just leaving.

And he knows that Marcus and Lillian have been intimate and he makes a snide remark in Marcus's direction being like, oh, I didn't know he was capable of debauching innocents.

And so in that moment, you're supposed to think that Sebastian and Marcus are six of one, half dozen the other. They are one and the same but if Marcus puts himself on this pedestal of morality and ethics, but Sebastian's like, at least I acknowledge my villainous nature. Marcus doesn't, which is worse. Marcus is actually the true wolf in sheep's clothing.

But in [00:45:00] that moment that seed of doubt is planted in your mind of like, wait, does he have a point?

Andrea Martucci: Yes. He starts out, quote unquote good. Heroic. He resists and then he doesn't become villainous, but he gives into more selfish desires and does things that could be considered villainous.

Whereas St. Vincent starts out as being perceived as villainous and like his actions are villainous and intentionally so, because he's like the villain who creates the conflict at the end of it Happened One Autumn, and then he's redeemed, becomes more heroic through a variety of things happening in Devil in Winter.

The changes are very interesting because - I'll just be clear. I don't like Devil in Winter. It's more just like personally I don't like blonde men.

Tehyah Carver: That's so real.

Andrea Martucci: It's true. I don't actually like blonde men. They remind me of bullies from 1980s movies.

St. Vincent is not the vibe of hero that I enjoy in a romance novel. Okay. I just don't like him. And so it's [00:46:00] very easy for me to be like, he threatened to rape Lillian, and I don't understand why this is the person that we're choosing to - Lisa Kleypas knew he was gonna be the hero of the next book, and she made decisions back in 2004, 200 5, whatever.

She didn't pull her punches in It Happened One Autumn. She had St. Vincent punch the reader in the face, and then she was like, okay, and now he's gonna make it all better and you're gonna like him. And for some people, she succeeded. Again maybe if he wasn't blonde, I don't know. Who could say, right? So again, I don't like St. Vincent. Evie's fine. I think she's a little boring. Whatever. It's not my favorite book, but I know a lot of people really like it.

And I think that the discourse around that book is like, oh, he fucking tried to rape Lillian. Oh, he's a bad guy. And then some people are like, but I love him,

Tehyah Carver: like, oh my gosh,

Andrea Martucci: But Daddy, I love him.

Tehyah Carver: Don't worry, I can fix him,

Andrea Martucci: Right. [00:47:00] I can fix him.

Okay. But he is a villain, but readers love the villain. Not me, but other readers love the villain, the redeemed villain.

Tehyah Carver: And what's really interesting about this, and I talked about this in my original paper and that what honestly make Sebastian uninteresting is his reformation. Like, he just becomes really flat and generic.

Andrea Martucci: Ugh, I'm gonna bathe your feet now. And it's like, ugh. Like, No, sorry, I don't have a problem with bathing feet. Or I don't even know if that happens, but flat is the word for it, right?

Like he, the only thing that was interesting about him was that he did wild things, but he's not actually an interesting person.

Tehyah Carver: That's like what's really fascinating about Devil in Winter is that you find out like this man, like he does not have hobbies, he does not have interests. And it's like you're already blonde. Why are you as a man blonde? But then you also don't have any hobbies and you're broke? Pick a struggle.

Andrea Martucci: And yeah, like, doesn't he have like family trauma too? There's so much. What [00:48:00] is it that is ultimately redeeming about him as a human other than treating Evie like a human being is, I guess, he's a really good CEO.

Like he's really good at delegating and managing and he can do every single job in his corporation. He can be the bouncer, he can balance the books, he can manage the human resource department. He can motivate employees to stay and reward high performance. He can, fill in count cards or whatever on the floor if need be.

It's literally just that what makes St. Vincent a good person is that he is like the ideal capitalist leader. He's the ideal master of means of production or

Tehyah Carver: Yes.

Devil in Winter is just Sebastian Challon, Lord St. Vincent's humiliation ritual. Like this man goes through it. He gets shot. And then when Evie gets kidnapped by the Maybricks and people that don't like her, then that's a whole thing.

He gets [00:49:00] upset, but then he has to break up a fight and then fight someone. He can do it just fine, but then Cam is like, you fight like a gentleman. We gotta fix that. So then it's like a good chapter of them just like beating up Sebastian

Andrea Martucci: Like a montage.

Tehyah Carver: kind of, it's like a training montage, but it's like he just keeps falling on the ground and,

Andrea Martucci: Let's get down to business to stop fighting like a gentleman.

Tehyah Carver: Exactly. And so he, this man is going through, and then he has the three month ban where Evie is like, we're not gonna be sexually intimate for- she wanted to be six months. And then he's like, that's not happening. Can it be three? And she's like, fine. 'Cause she was like, I don't wanna be intimate with you anymore.

Because even when they consummate their marriage, it wasn't fully consensual.

Andrea Martucci: Oh wait, wasn't she like asleep or something?

Tehyah Carver: Yes, she was asleep at the start of it. And then she's like dreaming -again, dream states, the connecting factor. And so she's asleep. She's thinking oh, it's the guy in her [00:50:00] dream.

And then she wakes up to Sebastian fondling her. And then she's like, whoa, whoa. And he's like, I let you sleep through the night. We still gotta consummate this marriage. And so then of course, she does eventually give in and it's really good in a way that it scares him. And he experiences something close to alarm.

Oh, this is weirder than other sexual encounters I've had previously.

Andrea Martucci: Something about this is different. Oh, I feel something deep in the cockles of my chest area. Did I work out my pecs a little too hard yesterday in the training montage?

I kicked that guy out of the club. Did I pull a muscle?

Tehyah Carver: This is like chapter four, like right after they like have the anvil marriage and stuff, they're still in Scotland. And there are moments where it's like, oh, there's potential for him where he is like, oh, he's actually quite adorable. I literally have an annotation in my notes of oh, he loves scritches.

Andrea Martucci: Like a dog?

Tehyah Carver: It's oh well. Evie does call him one.

Andrea Martucci: What kind of [00:51:00] dog would he be?

Tehyah Carver: Okay. So this is really specific because I have a little head cannon about Sebastian. And one of them is I feel like he's an English bulldog owner, but I feel like he's a prissier dog than that. In thinking about him as a dog. Ooh, I gotta think about that.

He's a very prissy, yet masculine dog.

Andrea Martucci: What are those dogs that are really long and thin, but they have big ears and they're golden colored.

Tehyah Carver: Oh I know what you're talking about.

Andrea Martucci: I think he's whatever that is, he's that and he's yappy. But then you cuddle up with him and he's like, oh, I'm just a sweet little.

Tehyah Carver: The way that people talk about Sebastian is that it feels like golden doodle propaganda and they're like no, you don't understand. I know they're a lot of work. They have to have this really intense grooming regimen and these food needs, but they're actually really cute and easy to take care of.

Andrea Martucci: And

They don't like anybody else but

Tehyah Carver: me, it's like,

Andrea Martucci: good to me.

Tehyah Carver: And for me, this is where I get lost in the like St. Vincent of it all [00:52:00] in that, I love Sebastian because of his villainous nature. It's why I love Lestat, in Interview With a Vampire. That's what makes him compelling. That's what makes him cool.

But when reading reviews, reading other people's perspectives, especially, a lot of people read Devil in Winter before It Happened One Autumn. So then they're just seeing the reformation and they don't understand the proceeding actions.

And so they're like, oh my gosh. Yeah. It couldn't have been that bad and in fact was I fear. And even when Evie asks him, would you have raped her? He's like, I could tell you an answer, but you would think that I would anyway. So it doesn't really matter what I say. So it doesn't really give a clear answer.

Andrea Martucci: You could just say no.

Tehyah Carver: And I think that's like what's really interesting too, where it's like Sebastian's a really great example of God is punishing me for my hubris. Um, and which why I said like, this book is a humiliation ritual for him.

But what makes Sebastian interesting is the fact that he's [00:53:00] so committed to these villainous acts. And even when he's pursuing Lillian, he's nice to her, but it's like, I don't trust it. Something feels wrong. Even Lillian is like, are you as bad as people say?

And he's like, yeah. And she's like, Uhhuh.

Andrea Martucci: So in essence, him saying you'd believe I'd do it anyways. He's actually just projecting the idea that he's bad. As opposed to saying, no, I would never do that, and she'd be like, oh, okay. He's like, Hmm, I don't know. I guess you think I'm just really bad.

Tehyah Carver: And then the thing is I think what's really funny is that Evie's not into it. Evie's like, okay, we consummated the marriage, I don't wanna have sex with you anymore. She was like, I think of you like a dog who goes sniffing at every door for scraps.

And I'm like, oh, that was a read. She ate. And I think that's what's really interesting about Evie is that, and this something I noticed too, rereading Devil in Winter, is that this is the only book where the heroine's in isolation.

Andrea Martucci: Oh yeah. She's not hanging out with her friends the entire [00:54:00] time or most of the time. Yeah.

Tehyah Carver: She's in isolation. Which is why I feel like these are gothic books, but in two similar yet different ways

Andrea Martucci: and then there's the intrigue about the house, meaning the um, gambling hell,

Tehyah Carver: Yeah.

Andrea Martucci: Where there actually is a very gothic conflict. What's happening? Oh, is there a ghost? What's happening?

In addition to the villainy aspect, I can definitely see the, Somebody's Trying to Kill me and I Think it's My Husband. Oh is Sebastian really a Baddie?

Tehyah Carver: It's really funny because in my outline I have "someone's trying to kill me and I think it's his gambling den." Yes,

Andrea Martucci: Yes. That is a hundred percent it. Okay, so then why do you think It Happened One Autumn is a neogothic?

Tehyah Carver: With It Happened One Autumn, even though there are other people there, you still have this ominous, vast estate with secret places. The secret places are just outside. It's like she's still within the confines [00:55:00] of Stony Cross Park as a property though.

Like the butterfly garden is where Lillian gets kidnapped. Yeah. Of the manor in the house where she's running outside and you're thinking running outside is a place of freedom, but it's still an extension of the constraints of that imprisoning nature of the house because she gets kidnapped in the Butterfly garden, which is the secret place.

Andrea Martucci: And Stony Cross Park is Marcus's. So you're not gonna get the gothic feel in anybody else's book because even if it's in Stony Cross Park, the love interests are not the owners. And then when St. Vincent becomes the man of the gambling hell,

Tehyah Carver: Right.

Andrea Martucci: that's his house.

Yes.

Tehyah Carver: like it's his house, but also isn't. Stay with me here. Walk with me. Walk with me. I'm about to make a huge claim. Walk with me here.

Andrea Martucci: As long as you back it up. I'm ready. Let's go.

Tehyah Carver: Sebastian is a gothic heroine

Andrea Martucci: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Tehyah Carver: and so I think Dev Devil and Winter is the tale of two heroines

Andrea Martucci: [00:56:00] Oh, okay. I'm intrigued.

Tehyah Carver: but it's like they're switching off roles at times because even though Sebastian is technically the legal owner of the house, it was Evie's home first.

Andrea Martucci: Yes.

Tehyah Carver: also bears her former name. It bears her family name.

And then also like this, the marriage of convenience where it's like, yeah, she's getting out of an abusive environment and that's really important. So she's literally fleeing one prison and entering another. But she also sees the gambling den as a place of freedom, even within the house, like the secret passageways and things of that nature.

Sebastian is a guest in her home. She knows this place in and out. And he is forced to reconcile with these fears about himself, about becoming an owner, becoming a husband, becoming a father in isolation. He is also away from his friends. Marcus is in Italy [00:57:00] on his honeymoon, but they're also going through it.

Andrea Martucci: I was gonna say also Marcus is like, I will punch you in the face for kidnapping and trying to rape my wife. Fair.

Tehyah Carver: Right.

So also he is being punished for his errant sexuality in the home. So it's in the attempts of trying to be intimate with Evie, even in private, even with the ban, they get interrupted. People keep like walking in. There's really no place of privacy to be intimate and there is this looming threat of someone, whether it be physical or metaphysical coming in and interrupting or dividing them in some way.

Even in that one scene where he is actually intimate with her in some way in that one, like billiards room, that's it. And, but then he has to get back to work. Also, you know how like usually gothic have that alluring, creepy Butler or servant. like service worker? That's Cam

And this is where it's like the racial elements make it very weird.

Andrea Martucci: Because he is the racialized other because is Romany.

Tehyah Carver: He's like [00:58:00] visibly brown though, so it's like that's really important. And that Cam is sneaking around through these secret passageways. He comes up then leaves. He's very quiet on his feet. No one knows what he's around. But he also is capable of all of these skills, like the mathematical skills, actual working skills of doing repairs for the place, things of that nature.

That serves as the person's right hand man, but the actual person that he is serving, and I hate using it and phrasing him that way, is Evie, because he and Evie have that previous connection of knowing other since they were other since he was 12.

He's gonna take Evie's side no matter what. And so it's like Sebastian is the interloper in this house, even though legally it is his house as Evie's husband. But it's when her father passes, Cam is the one consoling her. And Sebastian does too, but like Cam is holding her.

Cam is also simultaneously a threat just like how that creepy [00:59:00] servant worker is a threat, just as much as the master of the house is, because it's an extension of that power. Cam is an interesting threat in that he not only has the physical, mental, intellectual prowess over Sebastian. But he has the potential romantic power over Sebastian as well. And Cam notices that and thinks it's funny and he tells Sebastian this, if I wanted her I would've had her a long time ago.

Andrea Martucci: Yeah. I, I get that when every male in in a Lisa Kleypas book has to be the most virile, irresistible person on earth. I get that's like her lore, but this idea of, like, I can have whatever lady I want if I like it's so gross.

She would've wanted you back? It's just so gross. It's like the equivalent of the Freddie Prince Jr. bet in She's All That and I would expect nothing less of a blonde man, but Cam?

Tehyah Carver: Cam, but I think also another gothic element, and this is where it might get a little dicey [01:00:00] for people, the faux incestuous nature between Evie and Cam. Because even at her father's deathbed asks, is Cam my brother?

Andrea Martucci: yeah.

Tehyah Carver: That has been a doubt in her mind.

Andrea Martucci: And Cam's like, if I wanted to have sex with my half sister, I could've. I don't like it. Ew.

Tehyah Carver: So it's like it's still there and I'm like, oh, that's just weird. But it's also an integral part of the weirdness of gothic books.

Andrea Martucci: Do I love you 'cause you're my brother, or because I'm sexually attracted to you?

Tehyah Carver: And we do not know. Even though she does get confirmation that Cam isn't her half brother, it's still kind of like, he is objectively hot though, like

Andrea Martucci: yeah. So when you say that Sebastian St. Vincent is like a gothic heroine and that he and Evie switch back and forth. Other than the sort of positionality in the household, what else characterizes the gothic heroine that y ou associate with Sebastian?

Tehyah Carver: As we're bringing in sources [01:01:00] again. In the chapter as well. This is a quote. "These are often manifested in the space and dimensions of the house itself. The gothic heroine makes ventures not to deduce or reveal the secret, but rather to understand what is hidden. Thus, it is the heroine's curiosity that engenders the threat. And like the secret, the threat is ephemeral and unnamed, so there is even a question about whether or not the threat exists."

I think about this in connection to like the death and disease, not only haunting the house, but haunting Sebastian.

Because what we understand about Sebastian is that he was spoiled. He's the baby of the family, but he's also the only son. And his four sisters and his mother all died from cholera.

Andrea Martucci: Mm.

Tehyah Carver: So death and disease haunt at least the female members of his family. But he also jokes that he won't get his ducal title for a while because the men are extremely resilient in that way.

[01:02:00] They can just cheat death and escape death. Even the Ravenels, he's like in his fifties when he gets his ducal title.

And death does come for him. It's like he can evade disease when, that's why he talks about like science and stuff, which is like really cool and amazing. But he can't escape death or he narrowly escapes it

Andrea Martucci: Like he survives a gunshot

Tehyah Carver: Right. When he thinks it's the threat to Evie, the threat of her legacy and this place, the families legacy in general, and that degeneracy following the bloodline, and how she's getting kidnapped, or how a man who is arguably closer to being her actual half brother than Cam, Bullard, he is riddled with syphilis.

Andrea Martucci: And her father died of tuberculosis, right? Yeah. Which I think the current understanding is that it's both contagious, but also like some people are essentially naturally immune.

Tehyah Carver: Yes.

Andrea Martucci: So familial lines if her father dies of, oh, and [01:03:00] I love also that Sebastian, is like an early germ theory proponent or something, and he's like, oh, there's little things in the air and you should wash your hands and cover your mouth.

And I'm like, oh. I'm like, okay, alright, whatever. But anyways, he's like, I don't think you should be hanging out in your father's room, which to be fair, if she is not naturally immune you know now yeah, she is uh, liable to be just as riddled by disease as every other member of her family.

Tehyah Carver: yeah. And so he's trying to protect her, but in being a protector in this place that is defined by debauchery and disease, whether it be social disease in that this is a place ran by a working class man who was a great boxer. And of course Derek Craven's rival. So it's already a social issue where you have police raiding the place constantly. It's a social blight. And also physical one too. Even on like St. James Street where it's like, this [01:04:00] really opposing almost blemish in this very like wealthy area in London.

And then you have being isolated in that building, connected to the sins of his past and present. That is really the threat here. What is he bringing into the place? It's not Evie. Sebastian is simultaneously the threat and the victim of the threat.

He comes in there and he has to stay there, bring his baggage, but also bring his reputation because when he protects Evie by jumping in and getting shot to protect her, his reputation changes. Then he's considered heroic.

He's no longer a pariah. He is someone worth conversing with, worth doing business with. So he is no longer a blemish for other people's reputation.

When thinking about death, especially like feminine death, this is something that was mentioned and It Happened One Autumn, where [01:05:00] Sebastian rolls his eyes and finds the fact that one of his former lovers attempted suicide because of him as an inconvenience. Both to him physically, personally, and also socially. He's like, I conducted the affair and secret. She was the one who made it public by attempting to kill herself. It's her fault. He doesn't take the idea of death and dying even to himself. Like when Lillian was like, oh, what if I tried to murder you?

Andrea Martucci: Yeah,

Tehyah Carver: he's so nonchalant about death until it

Andrea Martucci: Non-Challon? Sebastian Non-Challon't?,

Tehyah Carver: That is, nonchalant,

it's like he's so nonchalant about death until it comes at him with a steel chair or in that case a steel bullet, and he can't evade it any longer. He can't evade his sins. He can't evade his kind of like disdain for living, in a way.

Like, He doesn't enjoy life. He doesn't find things enjoyable. We [01:06:00] don't know what he actually enjoys. We think it's sexual intimacy, but it's not. He's like, oh, I get bored and then I have to like move on.

Andrea Martucci: Yeah. He's constantly seeking some sort of thrill, and he doesn't find it until he realizes that the thrill in life is giving his redheaded wife orgasms and making money in a gambling hell and imbuing it with the respectability of his title and rank, bringing it up from being a low class establishment to a high class one by virtue of the fact that he now has responsibility,

That's the true evil, actually, a man without responsibility.

Tehyah Carver: And I also think too, his masculinity is questioned a bit his virility is never questioned, but he's pretty,

Andrea Martucci: Ah, and he's blonde.

Tehyah Carver: Yeah. Again, why are you as a man blonde? But Marcus is known as being like very virile and [01:07:00] buff and bull-like in stature.

has a working man's stature that is established every single time he shows up. And Marcus is known as a man's man. Men love him. So his masculinity is constantly reaffirmed by his stature and his hobbies. He's a huntsman, like he's also a sportsman. His interests also establish his gender.

But with Sebastian, he's known as being pretty. Even in the text when he's introduced in It Happened One Autumn, it's like if he had a propensity for fancier, more elaborate garments, he would be considered a dandy.

Andrea Martucci: Mm-hmm.

Tehyah Carver: And so he'd be considered like foppish and like feminine.

Andrea Martucci: He can't help that he's pretty.

Tehyah Carver: Exactly. He's just so pretty

Andrea Martucci: It's just his genetic superiority.

Tehyah Carver: Right. When Marcus is talking about how he and Sebastian became friends because they met when Sebastian was eight in school, he was like, I was defending Sebastian constantly. [01:08:00] I was getting into fights for him.

This is a man who isn't capable of defending himself.

How does Sebastian become a man if the one thing that cemented his masculinity is taken away from him? What must he do? He's not having sex with anyone, even though Evie's like you could be with other women, that's fine. Just not with me. I get it. Satiate yourself.

But I think the actual insatiable desire that Sebastian has is really gender affirmations and in finding actual gender euphoria and reaffirmation over actual sexual insatiability and like intense sexual desires.

That's just a part of it.

Because even with his family, he was like, I was extremely spoiled. My dad put us into financial ruin because he was too concerned with this elaborate way of living and its elaborate [01:09:00] appearance.

Andrea Martucci: So he was insecure. He was trying to project an image and using appearances to affirm. But there's also something there about monogamy, where he is not able to affirm his masculinity in promiscuity. Like promiscuous heterosexuality. It's not just being a man whore, it's being a husband.

Tehyah Carver: Exactly.

Andrea Martucci: Yeah.

Tehyah Carver: It's being a husband.

Andrea Martucci: That's what makes him a heroic man as opposed to a sissified villain.

And I mean that in the sense that is a stereotype and it's pejorative, right? That a man who is effeminate is a threat in some ways, and yet also laughable in other ways.

Tehyah Carver: Exactly. Which is why I was like, he is simultaneously like the heroine and the threat, but the threat is then discovered when he is shot, takes the bullet. And when he is attacked,

Marcus is the gothic master of the manor, but then has that moment of vulnerability because vulnerability unfortunately, is seen as a feminine trait.

Andrea Martucci: Right.

Tehyah Carver: even [01:10:00] like Lillian is characterized as this masculine shrew

Andrea Martucci: Yeah. She wants to play baseball in her bloomers. Rounders, as they call it. So in her undergarments, which is unfeminine, but also they're like pants and it's like a physical, she has just too much like vigor, which of course matches Marcus's manly vigor. But she's a woman. She's not supposed to have vigor.

Tehyah Carver: Or even just like how her frame is defined as coltish. It's like she even has this horse like frame, like her limbs are a little too long. She has a boyish frame compared to like, her, extremely curvy friends. Annabelle and Evie get described as like voluptuous, buxom and things of that nature.

And Lillian's, like flat as a board and boyish. Gender for her is weird. Just like how gender for Evie is weird. Gender for all these characters are weird. And that's where the gothic gender anxieties come in.

Andrea Martucci: Gender is weird, but by the end of the novel, it has all resolved into its rightful place, where the heroine is the woman [01:11:00] reaffirmed as gendered woman. And the hero. Is reaffirmed as masculine.

Tehyah Carver: Right. Because Lillian is put in a passive position and even though she's trying to fight back, she can't because that passivity is caused by both drugs and by physical restraints in the handcuffs. Marcus is the one who saves her in full and then rescues her and then takes care of her. And he's like, I'm gonna bathe you and clothe you.

Andrea Martucci: And rescues her reputation, by marrying her.

Tehyah Carver: And also they don't bring Sebastian to Bow Street about this. They don't raise any charges. He gets off scot free too.

Andrea Martucci: Mm-hmm.

Tehyah Carver: like he's still my friend.

Andrea Martucci: He like beats him up, right? So he metes out, quote, unquote, justice with his masculinity, but not in any sort of real cons-. You would really hate to like mess up his life. Like he's got a promising future ahead of him.

Tehyah Carver: I mean, viscount. And then later Duke,

Andrea Martucci: He just made one little mistake.

Tehyah Carver: [01:12:00] Okay, this this is in the historical romance subreddit for a lot of people like, why they excused Sebastian's kidnapping and that he did not orchestrate the kidnapping. He was carrying out an order from Marcus's mom.

Andrea Martucci: So it was a evil woman all along. He was being manipulated by a woman, which is a very effeminate thing.

Tehyah Carver: Yeah. Because he was like, oh, I'm just gonna leave and we're not gonna touch this. After it was established that Marcus stood his ground, it was like, she's my woman, and he is like, okay, this is a little embarrassing for me, so I'm going to go in the shadow of the night, and that's it.

But then it's the Dowager Countess who was like, I know you're in this situation. I have a deal for you. And I was supposed to get something out of it that didn't happen. But he just carried out the threat. He didn't make it.

And so that's why a lot of people are like that's why Sebastian actually isn't bad, because he was just responding to orders. He was just carrying out orders

Andrea Martucci: [01:13:00] Yeah, that's definitely what I appreciate about a romantic interest is somebody who will harm others to just carry out other people's orders.

Tehyah Carver: because he gets something out of it.

Andrea Martucci: That definitely... makes me like, oh wow, I can't wait for this guy's book. Ugh like, I'm sorry. Again, this is just my personal feeling.

We've just been talking about it. I've obviously talked about it before on this very podcast. I don't like it. That doesn't mean I don't have things to say about it. I was at Shelf Lovely Jess's house last night and we were talking, she's like, what have you watched recently?

And I was like, have you seen Materialists? And she's like, you know, I don't know if I think that's a good movie or what. I don't know if I liked it and I don't wanna re-watch it, but I can't stop thinking about it. And I was like, same. I don't like it.

Tehyah Carver: It is so funny you bring that up because Celine Song, the writer and the director of Materialists. So it was an interview that she did and one of the interviewers brought up a [01:14:00] Letterboxed review of Materialists and the review said "This is Broke Man Propaganda."

Andrea Martucci: Uhhuh,

Tehyah Carver: And I was what is Devil in Winter, if not broke man propaganda?

Andrea Martucci: Broke man propaganda. Yes. Yeah. But do you know what I mean? I don't like the book and I haven't read it in a while. I bet if I started rereading it, it's not like I would be bored.

I don't know if you heard the Shelf Love episode that came out last week, but it was with Dr. Coltan Scrivner who studies horror media he essentially studies it from a psychological point of view. And when we're talking about gothic and romance, the horror and the revulsion is also mixed in with the romantic in a way.

It's like, It's fascinating to us, and we don't actually want all of these romantic stories to just be good. Because that's actually really boring. There has to be an element of danger. That's what makes it exciting.

Also they're about something else other than modeling beautiful romantic relationships that we want in real life or [01:15:00] people that we should necessarily like.

On that note, what do you think of the revisionism happening in the Lisa Kleypas universe would it be fair to say to strip out some of the problematics and some of the conflict. I don't know, how would you characterize that?

Tehyah Carver: Yeah. In making these revisions, not only in fandom but also in the actual text, it's also rewriting its legacy and it's rewriting these characters' legacy. And also, quite frankly, Lisa Kleypas's legacy as an author where she made this change, whatever.

But I'm like, these changes are actually more gradual than that. And that's what makes these books really interesting. But in my understanding as a reader looking through the subreddit and other fandom spaces, it feels like there is a guilt

Andrea Martucci: yeah.

Tehyah Carver: in reveling in the fact that you like this man or like you find him intriguing and interesting because he's villainous. And so instead it's like, well, actually he's not that bad. He treats one woman well and that's his wife and that's what [01:16:00] matters.

Andrea Martucci: Actually, he is a good person and I'm not a bad person for liking him.

Tehyah Carver: Exactly. And so it's really just like making the reader themselves feel better about enjoying the novel and enjoying the narrative because it's like well, he's actually good and Evie is the one who made him better.

And I'm like, I love Evie down. Evie didn't really do much.

Andrea Martucci: She just was good withheld sex, like after they have great sex together, then she withholds sex. It's actually not that interesting.

Tehyah Carver: It's like a series of events happening to her. Just like how Devil in Winter is a series of things happening to Sebastian. It is just things happening to both of them, which is why I said it's a tale of two heroines.

And not in a mean way. And I really wanna make that very clear.

Andrea Martucci: It would only be perceived as weird if you are the kind of person who finds it I don't know, threatening to understand that gender roles and traits are artificially constructed, [01:17:00] and that we do assign meaning to characteristics that are gendered. Like being physically weak is gendered as being feminine. Being passive is gendered as feminine.

This is the gender construct that we live in. You know, if you wanna deny that, then yeah, you can pretend that saying a guy is taking the characteristics of a heroine traditionally found in this genre, you can see that as a slur of some kind. But again, only if you think being feminine is bad.

Tehyah Carver: Exactly.

Andrea Martucci: At which point I would say, maybe think about that a little bit

Tehyah Carver: Let's think about it. That's very much what's happening where he's reconciling with his villainous actions, and then we get the grand declaration.

What is really interesting is that when the grand declaration happens, he was like, "how could I be ashamed of you? I'm the one who's been an utter villain. You've never done a blame worthy thing in your life. And as far as drawing room errors and graces are concerned, I hope you never become what the [01:18:00] shallow fools who chatter endlessly without managing to say anything of interest."

I was like, huh, there it is.

You've never done a blame worthy thing in your life, but for Sebastian, all the blame worthy things that he's done are things that were asked of him or really bad gender ideas or really just like dopamine seeking behaviors.

I don't think this man likes sex as a way to engage intimacy. He likes it as a dopamine seeking coping mechanism.

Andrea Martucci: Well, and to affirm his masculinity when he does not feel very secure in it.

Tehyah Carver: Right. And there's another thing I highlighted in here where it was like "to dominate her, to force her to admit his ownership. The rush of primal lust was more than a bit alarming to a man who had considered himself civilized."

So this is right after they consummated their marriage. " Forcing her to admit his ownership of her," forcing her to see him as a man and the fact that she actually has [01:19:00] any ounce of sympathy toward him is a problem.

Andrea Martucci: Mm-hmm.

Tehyah Carver: It's like, oh, you're feminizing me in your head. Don't do that. But earlier through Evie's point of view there's a quote where it's like she found little in him that was worthy of respect.

Woof.

Andrea Martucci: What changed? What happened between then and their grand romance?

Tehyah Carver: And this is something I wish we got more of. For Evie, she sees him working within the confines of the manor and making the manor as his own and establishing his ownership and establishing his leadership qualities in the building as a business owner.

And it's like, wow, he really is capable. But then also through that, he's like, you can like sit and sort through mail with me and basically be my glorified secretary. But it's cute because we're bonding, he wants to spend time with me that's not in a sexual manner. It's like through office work,

Andrea Martucci: You know what I think, maybe this is part of the rub with Evie is like, what were [01:20:00] Evie's interests? Lillian and Daisy definitely have interests. I think Kleypas definitely goes full boar. You know what does Emma from Reformed Rakes call it?

What's it called? Cool girl hobby or something like that? Yeah. Annabelle seems busy at least. I don't know. She's got things to do. What does Evie do all day? I think Lisa, if I can call her Lisa, really struggles a bit when she doesn't have the prop of - is it Pandora and her games?

Or like, when she doesn't have something like that to latch onto. I think some of her characters, male and female, it's a bit like yeah, you can sort mail. Yeah you're really good at managing employee schedules and I admire that about you. And, you're loyal: and it's like a dog.

It's like they, the dog has never had an accident in the house. Always comes when I call it, really warm to cuddle with in bed. And very loyal. Will definitely bark at anybody who comes upon our property.

Tehyah Carver: Yes.

Andrea Martucci: Why do you love your dog? Because it obeys you. Because it's just tied to [01:21:00] you. 'Cause it knows that you feed it

Tehyah Carver: Yeah, and that's the thing with Evie, we know that she finds him like physically attractive, when she's trying not to ogle him after the marriage and he's about to like take a bath. I know he's physically attractive, but like personality. Woof.

Andrea Martucci: I like that you keep saying woof too. Woof woof

Tehyah Carver: But then it's like, oh, he's loyal to me. He like works to protect me. His strategies aren't always great, but at least he is like, thinking about me.

And so I think it's like the fact that he's like, oh, I never wanted anything more than this. I realize now I want to be a father. I want to be a good husband. Do I know what that looks like? Not really, no. Do I know what that requires? No. But I'm gonna figure it out for the both of us.

I want you to have my child. And that's why he phrased it too. I want you to have my child.

Andrea Martucci: Not, I want us to have a child together. I want you to have my child.

Okay, so Sebastian's biggest [01:22:00] fault, what made him villainous is that he had no interest in being a good, productive member of a patriarchal society who would adhere to monogamy, settle down, raise a family, be productive . He's a wastrel.

He doesn't have any productive endeavors whatsoever. He's literally just wasting his seed all over London or wherever.

Tehyah Carver: And that's confirmed.

Andrea Martucci: Yes. Oh my God. No, don't let, we're not even touching that.

Tehyah Carver: Oh. But I feel like we have to

Andrea Martucci: Okay I'll allow it in one second.

So he's literally just a wasted man. And then he becomes a real man when he reproduces sexually with his mate. When he settles down into monogamy, when he becomes a productive, commercially successful, valuable member of society, when he takes his place as a respectable member of the realm, but not like those other wasteful members of the realm who don't do [01:23:00] capitalist productive stuff, who are gonna be in debt when feudalism ends. He's one of the good ones because he's not waiting for his like ancestral dukedom to bear fruit. He's gonna bootstrap himself up. That's what makes him a good man and saves him in this neogothic from being a gothic heroine.

Tehyah Carver: Yeah. And even like the idea of reproduction, because in the Ravenels there is a quote. I have to read it verbatim. This is wild.

" While other men of his generation had become staid and settled, but Duke was more vigorous than ever, in part because his youngest son was only 11." Sebastian's 63 at this point, by the way.

"The Duchess Evie had conceived unexpectedly long after she had assumed her childbearing years were passed. As a result, there were eight years between the baby's birth, and that of the next oldest sibling. Evie had been, more than little embarrassed to find herself a child at her age, especially in the face of her husband's teasing claims that she was a [01:24:00] walking advertisement of his potency. And indeed, there had been a hint of extra swagger in Sebastian's step all through his wife's last pregnancy. Their fifth child was a handsome boy with hair the deep auburn red of an Irish setter."

Andrea Martucci: Okay. (Andrea laughs for an inapprpriately long time and chose to leave it in as this is the only accurate way to capture how she feels about this line)

Tehyah Carver: "He'd been christened Michael Ivo. But somehow the pugnacious middle name suited him more than his given name. Now a lively, cheerful lad, Ivo accompanied his father nearly everywhere."

Andrea Martucci: Oh my God, he's a dog.

Tehyah Carver: I think what makes us worse is the fact that Ivo Jenner, Evie's dad also was known for having sired children all over London. Evie guesses she probably has half siblings somewhere. And so then knowing that Sebastian has a child before marrying Evie, which I hate that retconning detail, moving [01:25:00] on. And you name the product of the virility that her father had and like that Sebastian has

Andrea Martucci: Her father was he Irish or was he just like low class English?

Tehyah Carver: I think he was Irish.

Andrea Martucci: Okay, so the red hair is Irish. And by the way, being Irish in this time

Tehyah Carver: Already has its own stuff.

Andrea Martucci: there's a lot there. So then this is the child that has the red hair, looks like an Irish setter, and then is pugnacious but follows around his Duke father, like a little maybe not a lap dog, but like a little obedient. Like, Ugh. I mean, just like everything about it makes me wanna vomit.

I find the whole idea that dudes think oh, I'm so virile. I knocked somebody up. I'm like, okay. What does this really say about you?

Ew.

I'm sorry. Everything about that worldview. Lisa, I'm sorry, Lisa Kleypas, but there's things you [01:26:00] write sometimes where I'm just like, girl, what?

Tehyah Carver: Right. Also, Also it's really interesting because even when he is introduced in Devil's Daughter and this goes back to the topic of what does man do well quickly? He is characterized as "dashing and ungodly handsome with the taut slim physique of a man of half his age, known for a shrewd mind and caustic wit, he oversaw a labyrinthian financial empire that included, of all things, a gentleman's gaming club."

Andrea Martucci: Of all things.

Tehyah Carver: " He was the holder of too many debts, the possessor of too many ruinous secrets. With a few words or strokes of a pen, Kingston could have reduced nearly any proud aristocratic scion to beggary."

Andrea Martucci: But what about Marcus? Could he do it to Marcus? He can't do it to any of the other Kleypas heroes. Only lesser. Okay. Anyways, sorry.

So I think you made a very compelling case about the Neogothic Duology of Devil in [01:27:00] Winter and It Happened One Autumn. We also covered the changes Kleypas made to her work.

I think this is part of a much larger discussion about, what is a villain, what is a hero, masculinity and femininity, and evolving connotations over time or maybe not so much evolving over time. And also revisionist history and retconning and does that make it better?

Part of it is the rewriting of it then becomes clunky, where if this was like written differently originally, maybe it wouldn't have been this bad. Plus we know the way it was originally. But also even if it was rewritten super elegantly, what does it say that we can't just let things lie.

And we can't just be like, okay, that came out and you can still have problems with it. You can talk about it, but like why do we have to, why do we, why did she have to revise the work? I think it actually makes me respect her less.

Tehyah Carver: And this is my theory, I think even though we understand like the time in which these [01:28:00] books are written, I think contemporary readers, especially those coming in during quarantine, during the pandemic, have an understanding of romance as an inherently feminist genre that is meant to have empowered heroines, or have heroines who become empowered or something.

It then complicates or even looks like a stain on that specific view of the genre. It then begs questions of, is this actually true? Is this actually as feminist as people are making it seem? Is it as liberatory as it's making it seem?

Andrea Martucci: Am I a bad feminist? Am I not a good person? And the initial problem there is it is a problem with an understanding of what feminism is.

You started with a false premise. Don't try to back your way into fixing it. Go back to the beginning, start at go. You know what I mean? That's the problem.

And you know what, I blame all of the people in this genre (small laugh) [01:29:00] who perpetuate ideas like that because it sets people up who want to do the right thing to have a misconception about the point of this genre.

Let's talk about stuff that's problematic, but let's also accept that books can be interesting and worth talking about and we can still not like the characters and not like the book. Believe me, I'm still buying it. I'm still reading it.

There's certain things where I'm just like, there's nothing productive about this. I don't find it interesting. I'm not gonna read that. But this whole idea that we have to like get everything and make it unproblematic, it is making extremely boring books and it's making an extremely boring culture.

And I just want people, I want everybody to just like, oh my God, I'm gonna sound like "let people enjoy things."

No, it's not let people enjoy things. It's stop trying to pretend like the things you like are better than the things other people like. Just like [01:30:00] the thing. Stop making the thing you like morally virtuous.

Tehyah Carver: It makes me think about the concept of an introductory romance or like what romances do you give people to bring them into the genre. And Chels made a really interesting video about this on TikTok and how historicals, you have to have an entryway or a gateway into it.

And even though like Lisa Kleypas gets brought up, I feel like the opposite is happening where a lot of people don't recommend her books because they don't want to scare people off. That's partially what feels like where these revisions are coming from as well, where we're gonna scare new readers off if these bad things are happening.

But I'm like, if they can sit with an evil mob boss in like 2020s New York running this underground organization, killing, maiming, this and the third, I think they can handle Sebastian kidnapping Lillian.

Historicals are already seen as [01:31:00] so archaic and boring as is, that you have to really bring them in in a way that will satiate their contemporary desires and needs.

And especially because I do feel like there is this underlying idea from romance readers and those outside of it who think of romance as morally reprehensible just by the nature of the genre, especially in the way we're understanding it after the seventies where it's like, sexual content is included in it, is this inherently gross, dirty thing.

And it's like, no, no, no, no, it's not that. But if you have anything that reaffirms or confirms those preconceived notions that people are coming in with, about the genre, then it's going to make the whole argument about it being liberatory, about it being empowering, about it being feminist, about it being sociopolitically aware and [01:32:00]

Andrea Martucci: Mm-hmm.

Tehyah Carver: even changing fall apart.

Andrea Martucci: It's much bigger than this, right? People are always gonna reduce romance down to being like, Ew, gross sex and emotions. As long as our society doesn't actually believe in healthy sexuality, particularly the sexuality of marginalized people, you know, either by gender or race, disability, whatever. You're not gonna change people's perceptions of romance until you change that larger thing.

We don't have to actually change the texts. People are gonna believe what they're gonna believe. It doesn't even matter how much sex you have on the page. People are gonna call Fourth Wing dragon smut when a very small percentage of the book, which people have done the math on this. As somebody who has been reading romance for a long time and has read a lot of older romance, the sex isn't the problem. It's people's concept of sex. It's people's concepts of women. It's people's concepts of what we should find pleasurable. Stop trying to rehabilitate the texts.

Tehyah Carver: Right.[01:33:00]

Andrea Martucci: Rehabilitate the society we live in.

Tehyah Carver: Exactly. Which is why I said I'm like, if you do love St. Vincent, like, I rotate him in the microwave that is my brain. I study him like a bug under a microscope. That microscope is pointed under the sun. I love Devil in Winter dearly because of Sebastian's villainous nature.

I love him because he is a villain, and even with Marcus, in It Happened With Autumn. I like the fact that he does lose control of his senses and engages in these sensations. These are sensation novels.

And that's what makes them interesting, which is why also like the gothic element, because some gothic novels are also sensation novels.

These two in this quartet are no different. So it's also fitting why like Marcus and Sebastian show up and Ravenels so much because, Simon does of course engage in sensations too, but these are two men who are both motivated and repulsed and scared [01:34:00] of their own desires, especially if it's towards someone they have greater feelings for.

And those sensations are just as intense for the men as they are for the women and even for the reader. It's why those scenes elicit such great reactions, whether it be arousal, excitement, whatnot. And that's what makes them worth loving in reading and rereading. I literal have two copies of both books behind me.

But I think we do ourselves a disservice when we try to rewrite the text and rewrite the history and make them seem like perfect men, or at least men that we perfectly molded.

Andrea Martucci: It is taking novels that we enjoy because they're sensation novels and trying to turn them into didactic or like a conduct manual or a moral tale.

We like 'em 'cause they're sensational. We like them because they're villains and they do weird shit. So you can't have your [01:35:00] cake and eat it too. You don't get to say, oh, people love the romance 'cause they're sensational. But now we need to like, mold them into be not sensational and so that they're like only doing proper right things all the time.

And nobody ever makes mistakes or nobody does anything weird or bad

Tehyah Carver: It's like not just the heroes, it's also the heroines. 'Cause people don't like Lillian because they think she's too masculine. They like her, once she's tamed, the shrew has been tamed and now she's fine.

But before she was seen as annoying shrill because she had the audacity to fight back or bark back

Andrea Martucci: Have a voice at all..

Tehyah Carver: Have a voice at all. Or even with Evie, no one talks about how she's doing the same thing. And how she is an active player in this story. I love the fact that she's snarky, but that gets taken out because she's quiet and she stammers.

And so they will then misrepresent her. The heroines get rewritten and misrepresented just as much as their male counterparts do. [01:36:00] Because of how many readers, especially those who have a lot of internalized misogyny, want women in their media and in general to behave based off social ideas that they have internalized and what they have been taught and made to understand as correct as morally just and ethically just.

And that just can't happen all the time 'cause we're all people and we're all different.

Andrea Martucci: I wish we could all just shut people up on TikTok. Uh, I was gonna say, like, I wish we could all just get along and then I was just like, no, I don't. Anyways.

Tehyah, thank you for sharing parts of the research you've done. I'm sure there is a lot more beneath the surface. Also definitely folks should check out the Routledge Research. Companion to Popular Romance Fiction, co-edited by doctors Hsu-Ming Teo Jayashree Kamble, and Eric Selinger. And the chapter in particular about gothic romance by Dr. Angela [01:37:00] Toscano.

Almost Dr. Tehyah Carver, where can peoples find you online or find more of your writings or thoughts on romance?

Tehyah Carver: So you all can can find me at the Instagram account, @Blushing_Bluestocking. It'll probably be linked in the post, but yeah, that's where I'm at. That's where I'm just talking about my Kleypas journey and historicals that I love. Just follow me there.

Andrea Martucci: Like, Follow, Subscribe. Isn't that what they say?

Tehyah Carver: Yes.

Andrea Martucci: Yeah. And listen, no haters or if you're gonna be a hater, like at least be an interesting hater. Don't be a boring hater. Geez.

Okay. Tehyah, thank you so much for speaking on Shelf Love today. And I'm so glad that we finally got a chance to talk about this.

Tehyah Carver: I know. Thank you so much. This has been wonderful and I'm just so happy and elated, that we finally got to do this.

Andrea Martucci: Hey, thanks for spending time with [01:38:00] me today. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate or review on your favorite podcast app or tell a friend. Check out Shelflovepodcast.com for transcripts and other resources. If you want regular written updates from Shelf Love, you can increasingly find me over at Substack.

Read occasional updates and short essays about romance at shelflovepodcast.Substack.com. Thank you to Shelf Love's $20 a month Patreon supporters: Gail, Copper Dog Books, and Frederick Smith. Have a great day. [01:39:00]

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Guests

Alice Murphy, Alyssa Cole, Amanda Allen, Amanda Cinelli, Amanda Diehl, Andrea Martucci, Andrew Piper, Angela Toscano, Arielle Zibrak, Ash Dylan, Becky, Bree, Bree Hill, Candice Ransom, Carter Sherman, Charish Reid, Christina Fattore, Coltan Scrivner, Copper Dog Books, Dani Lacey, Danielle Knafo, Denise Williams, Diana Filar, Dr. Margo Hendricks, EE Ottoman, Emma, Emma Barry, Eric Selinger, Erin Leafe, Esme Brett, Fangirl Jeanne, Felicia Grossman, Funmi B., Hannah Hearts Romance, Helena Greer, Hsu Ming Teo, Huike Wen, Jack Harbon, Jayashree Kamble, Jennifer Crusie, Jess, Jessica Lyn Van Slooten, Jhen, Jodi McAlister, Jodie Slaughter, Joe Martucci, John Jacobson, Julie Moody-Freeman, Karelia Stetz-Waters, Kassi, Kate Clayborn, Katee Robert, Katherine Grant, Katrina Jackson, Kelly Reynolds, Kennedy Ryan, Kianna Alexander, Kini Allen, Kit Rocha, Laura J. Mayo, Leigh Kramer, Lucy Hargrave, Lucy Score, Lynell, Margarita Guillory, Margo Hendricks, Maria DeBlassie, Megan Erickson, Mia Sosa, Nicola Welsh Burke, Nicole Falls, Norma Perez-Hernandez, Penny Reid, Philippa Borland, Rebecca Romney, Rebekah Weatherspoon, Reformed Rakes, Renee Dahlia, Rosie Danan, Ruby Lang, Sandra Kitt, Sarah Rutherford, Sarah Skilton, Scarlett Peckham, Semilore Sobande, Sionna Fox, Sri Savita, Steve Ammidown, Suzanne Jefferies, Talia Hibbert, Tamara Lush, Tasha L. Harrison, Tehyah Carver, The Swoonies, Tif Marcelo, Tina Benigno, Whoa!mance, Whoamance, fangirl jeanne

Tags

antagonist april, audience reception, baudrillard, book discussion, book recommendations, business of books, cannibalism, category romance, contemporary romance, crossover podcast, dystopian romance, fairy tales, fandom, fanfiction, film discussion, genre discussions, historical romance, horror and romance, joyful hag book club, joyful problematization, joyful problematizing, original scholarship, paranormal romance, pop culture in the classroom, problematic favorite trope, quarantine romance book club, queer romance, romance discourse, romance in pop culture, romance myths, romance novel discussion, romance novelist representations, romance novels, romance scholarship, romantasy, scholarly, scifi and fantasy romance, teaching popular culture, tell me about, tv show discussion, video available, young adult