Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
S3.E9 - Sports Romance
67 Plays6 months ago
This was a fun one! None of us have much experience with this genre and so it was a massive learning curve but I think it might have inspired us to pick up some Ice Hockey romance!
- Naomi Gibson, author of Every Line of You, Game Over Girl
- Melissa Welliver, author of The Undying Tower, My Love Life and the Apocalypse, Soulmates and Other Ways to Die
- Jamie Greenwood, creator & host of the Write and Wrong Podcast
Recommended
Transcript
Toxic Characters in Shows
00:00:00
Speaker
Do you reckon Christian Grey is different characters? Whoa! You had it here first. I'm so finished it. After every episode was like, oh my gosh, I'm so angry at these toxic characters. Like, she'll have more food in my mouth, press next episode because I loved it. But obviously I hate it. This is so much fun. Because this is my Malfoy Hermione family. She shouldn't have done that. I'm trying to make Neville happen.
Humor in One-Star Reviews
00:00:25
Speaker
It's too wholesome.
00:00:33
Speaker
I wanted to oh no I forgot to before we started I have a new favorite thing to do and it was something popped up on my Instagram and it's um I love looking up five star no one star reviews which are just so like nothing about the actual book itself it's so funny to me and the one I saw was let me see if you you guys might have seen this but I'm gonna read you the review and like
00:00:59
Speaker
See if we can guess the book. And these are all very famous. I've looked at loads and I always do just very famous books because it's way more funny to me. So here's the review. Just a bunch of people going to each other's houses. I've heard that one before. Is that Pride and Prejudice?
00:01:18
Speaker
I mean, it's not wrong. It's so funny. Yeah, it's like 100% accurate, but my God, it's the funniest way of describing that book. They did back there. They had no TV. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Also describes Downton Abbey. Yeah.
00:01:36
Speaker
That's true. Amazing.
Curiosity About Sports Romance
00:01:40
Speaker
Okay. Let's talk about what we're here to talk about. I think probably the single most alien genre of everything we've talked about this season, sports romance.
00:01:54
Speaker
I don't think any of us, we've all been texting before this being like, I've never, I don't think I've ever read sports romance before. I'm trying to think, we had to go really far back in the archives to think of movies with sports romance that we remembered.
00:02:12
Speaker
So let's just jump in at the deep end. This was very exploratory to me. I did a lot of research on this. So when we come to my thing, it's going to be much more of a like, these are things that I've researched and learned about. And I'm kind of still learning about if anyone listening does read sports romance.
00:02:27
Speaker
please feel free to message us and be like, oh, by the way, this is the thing or like, you got this wrong. We're so open to that. But let's kick things off with Melissa. Melissa, what part of sports romance did you jump in on?
00:02:40
Speaker
So
Rivals to Lovers in Sports Romance
00:02:41
Speaker
I really did jump in because, again, I also, I've actually, I realized, seen quite a few sports romancings, but I've not read many. So I jumped in because I was worried someone would take from me, from my cold, dead hand, rivals to lovers, which I know is very similar to enemies to lovers. But I think in sports romance, especially like rivals to lovers, because then I quite like it because they also have
00:03:03
Speaker
like a very big motivation to be doing something and also usually so in sports romance it might be that one person has to win the tournament and you want it to be this person but it might be the other but if they both win they'll hate like they can't both win and I love that kind of stuff.
00:03:19
Speaker
Can I just say as an aside, when I was looking up all of the really nice, so they have really nice covers, all the sports romance, they have really good names that are just like puns. My favourite was by Meryl Wilsner and it's called Cleat Cute about soccer players like becoming la veils. And I was like, that's
Creative Sports Romance Titles
00:03:41
Speaker
so good. Like Icebreaker and The Long Game. But yeah, Cleat Cute. I was like,
00:03:46
Speaker
Moi. Yes, Meryl. Thank you. I might get it just for that, Meryl. Thank you very much. It's like a queer romance. Did you see Pucking Around? That, look. That's classic. You guys will see what my trope is when we get to it, but like the number of, like, Pucked is a very famous one. Yeah, Pucked. There's a whole series of Pucked.
00:04:11
Speaker
That must be so, it's like a whole job in itself just coming up with these titles, but yeah, sorry, I got totally distracted by the titles. But yeah, I went for Rivals to Lovers. I think it's like very self-explanatory. So one I thought of, that this is going back a little bit, but there was a TV series out a few years ago called Spinning Out with Kaya Scaldalario. I think that's
TV Series 'Spinning Out' Discussion
00:04:33
Speaker
how you say it. From Skins. Yeah, from Skins. And The Gentlemen.
00:04:36
Speaker
Yeah, and the Maze Runner and like, yeah, all those things. Yeah. The only girl in Maze Runner. Yeah, the only girl in Maze Runner. And also from speaking of YA franchises, Willow Shields, who plays Prim Rose Everdeen.
00:04:48
Speaker
It's also in it. Yeah. And so it was about ice skating because like, I, so like, surprise everyone to know, I don't really play any sports, but I do love watching ice skating. Oh my gosh, I love it. It's addictive. Like figure skating. Yeah. Yeah. Like Torbel and Dean, Bolero. So beautiful. Oh my God, I love it. So I was quite excited about spinning out because it's about
00:05:11
Speaker
like ice skating and figure skating and stuff like that and that has a really strong rivals to lovers love interest where it dives into like the darker side of all sports I think a lot of them do this like the coaching this severe dieting that some sports people have to take on in order to do their sport and then also because it's a male female romance there's a lot about you know women and
00:05:36
Speaker
say if she's like on her period and so she can't perform maybe as best as she could do normally and she's furious because he doesn't have that problem but then of course they love each other because rivals lovers. So that was the first one I thought of that I did actually quite enjoy even though it was very very cheesy. I think it was cancelled after like one season I can't remember now but I did actually quite enjoy it. And then a more recent one
00:05:56
Speaker
But I don't know, I was going to ask you guys if this counts. So a couple of the ones I could think of were where it does revolve sort of around a sport, but only one of them plays the sport. So what I thought was beautiful disaster, which I believe was a fanficci or maybe like a serialized thing online.
Sports Romance Dynamics
00:06:14
Speaker
And then
00:06:15
Speaker
It's been picked up and it was on Prime and it was Dylan Sprouse. It was like his big return to the screen. Yeah, yeah. And so he's a boxer. He's an underground boxer, like an MMA fighter. I'm sorry. He's a boxer. He's tiny.
00:06:31
Speaker
Yeah. So he'd be like a tiny bit for this role. I can't lie. Imagination is required. Imagination is required. And then, of course, she is like his total opposite. But she, Abby, plays poker, professional poker, and her dad was getting her to do it like illegally and card counting, that kind of stuff. So she's run away from that life for a new life. And of course, bumps into this guy and he does underground fighting, which is also kind of an illegal sport.
00:06:59
Speaker
that it, I see it as like a sports romance. It did pop into my head because they do talk a lot about the two different, I know nothing about poker and I know nothing about illegal underground boxing for some reason. So it was like interesting. I also quite like that in sports romance because I'm not sporty. I do actually quite enjoy learning.
00:07:16
Speaker
I take it as an academic experience. I'm like, oh, interesting. I never knew that. Like there's loads of tennis films. Like I thought of, um, uh, what's it called? Challenges or challenges? Challenges, I think. Yeah. The new one. Yeah. The new one was Zendaya in it. And it's a love triangle, which I love a love triangle. She doesn't play.
00:07:36
Speaker
She does play at the beginning. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So she's coaching the two. Exactly. So she gets an injury and like, she used to play with these two lads. They were sort of on the same sort of similar circuits, very high level tennis when they were young, like junior tennis type stuff.
00:07:52
Speaker
or it's not properly junior. I don't know what I'm talking about as you know. And then she gets an injury and she ends up coaching one of them and she's married to one of them but the other one she used to date and so it's like a bit of a love triangle but it's massively a rivals to lovers thing because she is so jealous of them because they can carry on playing so I definitely think it still counts.
00:08:10
Speaker
their
Rivals to Lovers in Academia vs. Sports
00:08:11
Speaker
rivals, their best friends from school who are competing against each other. And she does things at various points, like without doing spoilers, where she says, if you lose the game, I'll leave you. And another one, if you throw the game to let so-and-so win, and she's living vicariously through kind of both of them, it's really interesting. So yeah, she was very good in it, Zendaya. She was very, very good in it.
00:08:34
Speaker
And it's also, which brings us back around to the book thing, it's very, it is spicy. It's not too hardcore because obviously it's on screen and it is like a film and it's not 18. So like, obviously it's not like two, I don't think it's 18. It's not too hardcore, but it is spicy, which I think is one of the first, we were talking about like older sports romances that I've seen that does try and bring the spice level up a little bit in a movie to match those books.
00:08:59
Speaker
that you see which obviously have I've seen the little chili pepper spice levels of various different books and they're not all spicy of course but a lot of them are and that's popular like it's popular in fantasy we've obviously talked about that so I did think it was interesting beautiful disaster is also quite spicy but also as I say I believe it was released online so it wasn't like to the constraints of a publisher saying what is allowed and what is not allowed and then of course they've made it into a film so they've probably like dialed it down a bit because it was a film but
00:09:27
Speaker
Yeah, so I like rivals to lovers. I think it's fun. I think you see it a lot in like Akidex because I may or may not read more academic stuff than sporty stuff. So you see it a lot in that as well. And also like workplace drama, like rom-coms, you see it a lot. But I do think it works really well in the sports dramas, especially if you're going to bring a romance element in because it adds to the plot because the plot is always about winning a particular championship.
00:09:53
Speaker
winning a particular title, isn't it? That's kind of the whole point and that they're competing against each other. And so it does add to the drama of the plot as well as being romantic. And it's like if you removed that bit, some of the plot wouldn't make sense. So it's like a true sports romance. It's not a B plot because it's intricately weaved in. So I like
Ice Hockey Romance Tension
00:10:11
Speaker
that. That's my favorite one.
00:10:12
Speaker
And you can it can be much more literal than some other rivals to lovers ones because I found this there's a there's a ice hockey sports romance called him by Serena Bowen and Elle Kennedy where these basically the the two romantic
00:10:33
Speaker
the romantic partnership, they're basically in different teams at one point, and they have to play against each other. So they are like, literally, you know, playing a sport against one another. But there is a romance in there. Whereas like, normally, it's a little bit less on the nose when you do rivals to lovers.
00:10:50
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I really like it. I just think it adds to and it adds to lots of romance genres that we've looked at. And I like it. But I think especially in the sport ones, I think it's almost a shame if you don't have it in a romance that they are on different sides of a team, or they are against each other one on one.
00:11:11
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Cause usually the rivals thing is like, um, more, it'll be to do with like a goal of where they're kind of heading versus like, I must score more points than you. Yeah. And it like adds to the tension. That's what's fun about it because it's like a very fine line between love and hate. And they have to be a certain way before the game and get your head in a certain head space. But if they really liked the other person, it just works. It's just good.
00:11:37
Speaker
Like on the very few, on my very limited experience of sports romance, I do like that one. Yeah. No, I agree with that. Um, and rivals to lovers is, I mean, it's an offshoot of enemies to lovers. It is. We all love enemies to lovers. So why not? Naimi,
Chess as a Mental Sport Romance
00:11:57
Speaker
what did you, I know you were wrestling with this one. What did you decide on?
00:12:02
Speaker
you guys. I thought cosy was hard. This is hard, okay. My version of sports romance is probably the Queen's Gambit. I like, I literally... Oh, I think that counts. Yeah, do you think? Yeah. Chess is a sport of the mind. Yeah, well it is, but like, you know, that's kind of more of a thriller. It's not really like a romance.
00:12:25
Speaker
Yeah, there is a nice romance in there. It's definitely a B or C plot. Yeah, so I was looking at what movies I have watched because I have definitely not read any. Sorry, everyone. I have added one to my TBR. I don't know if that redeems me in some way.
00:12:44
Speaker
So I was looking at what movies I've watched and there are only three. There are only three sports romance movies. What? One of them was Jerry Maguire. I'm not even sure if that counts.
00:12:58
Speaker
Uh,
Love Triangles in Sports Romance
00:12:59
Speaker
he's with his sport management. Yeah. So I was going to go for fake dating. Um, and then I realized I can think of absolutely no examples where that happens in a sports romance that I have seen. So I have gone for the love triangle.
00:13:24
Speaker
Love Triangle is good in sports romance, good in challenges. I'm hoping you guys are going to chip in a lot with this. I went for the Love Triangle, which I think we dissected pretty nicely in our last season when we went through all the romance tropes.
00:13:42
Speaker
I thought with sports romance in particular, it can have like a bit more of an edge to it because probably one of them is going to be on like the opposing team in a sport. So that adds like a nice little tension. And then I was trying to, I mean, you know, I don't, I don't love this trope because I think you love it. Don't you, Melva? Yeah. Yeah. I remember you don't love it. You don't normally. I do love it though.
00:14:11
Speaker
I'm not really a fan of it because usually of the two love interests, one of them is demonized at some point.
00:14:19
Speaker
So if it's across a series or across a long book, the author drags out the fact that these two love interests can be good options for the main character, and she could pick either of them, or he could pick either of them. And then at some point, one of them is going to act out of character in order for the main character to have a clear choice between them. And so when they pick that other person at the end, it's a clear resolution, and everyone's happy, and you get that HGA. So I don't love that.
00:14:47
Speaker
it just involves someone acting out a character and that really annoys me. But I was thinking of movies where this happens and I came back to She's the Man. Nice. And I love that movie so much and it's so good because I think one of the reasons I actually love it so much is that even though it has the love triangle, there's like several love triangles going on because it's like Shakespearean retelling and he loved the love triangle. He loved it in the bard. Rolling in his grave.
00:15:15
Speaker
But with She's the Man, it's pretty clear who the main love interest is, even though there's like a third party on all the love triangles, because the third party is someone who you automatically don't like. So you've got Amanda Bynes with her love interest, who's that guy? What's his name? Channing Tatum. Channing Tatum. Yeah. And she's obviously going to end up with him, that guy. Magic Mike. Little known.
00:15:41
Speaker
But then the third party to it is the guy from the opposing team who she used to be going out with at her old school. And he still wants her, but it's kind of like almost like an ownership thing. It's not like... Bad rivals could not love this. It is, but it is, yeah. But also Chani Tatum doesn't know her as a girl. Yes, I know. And then this is added whole thing. So it's so good. I love that movie. I think I watched it really recently, actually. I can remember it really clearly.
00:16:09
Speaker
He I don't like they I would have liked to have seen the parts where they they they show parts of him like questioning his sexuality. I know. Yeah. Yeah.
00:16:21
Speaker
I blew Ollie's mind about this, actually, when I started the Shakespearean retelling. He was like, no, it's not. And I was like, yeah, Duke Orsino, he's obviously an actual Duke. And he was like, oh, OK. So good. Yeah, so the love triangle, I thought, works really nicely. And my one example of sports romance, particularly, it's really obvious who she's going to end up with anyway. So yeah, I'm sorry. I really, really struggled with this, guys.
00:16:51
Speaker
But only when you think only when it's because in challenges without I don't want to do any spoilers because it's actually I usually like our whatever spoilers it's really old but challenges literally still out in cinemas so I do not want to do spoilers. Yeah, that's brand new. But you don't I don't think it's obvious in that maybe it was because I'm not used to sports romance and missed all the signs like with thriller etc cuz I'm stupid and don't know but I didn't think it was obvious.
00:17:13
Speaker
who she was going to end up with. And as I say, there are like several moments where she flips back and forth. She's a bit of like a Bella Swan about it. She's a bit of a Elena Gilbert. She likes to like dance around and like, you know what, like I might live your best life. You know, she's like a cool millionaire with like her knee and she can't do what she loves anymore. So I'm like, you know what, do what you want. And also she's NDA so she can do what she wants. She can. So she really can, yeah.
00:17:36
Speaker
But yeah, I didn't think it was obvious who she was going to end up with. And there's lots of bits where you're not quite sure. What I liked about it is the two blokes that are part of the love triangle. It's a straight love triangle with one girl and two boys, which is very, very common in YA, as we know. And a lot of people say it's the coward's way out because why can't they all just love each other? And it's like two ways each corner, which will be fun, but it's not like that. And they're friends from school and they were really, really close and they fell out basically over this girl.
00:18:06
Speaker
So what's quite nice is the love triangle does start to resolve in a way where they might rekindle their friendship as well, which I thought was quite nice. Although it was quite surprising, and I won't say it happens at the end because I was like, oh, okay, that's the role credits. Yeah, sure. That's the end. Okay. So it was quite surprising. But yeah, I didn't
Complex Love Triangle Exploration
00:18:28
Speaker
think it was obvious who she was going to pick. And she was even near the very end hedging them against each other because I think she didn't know.
00:18:34
Speaker
And it's not like it's kind of clear but not clear at the end who she's picked. So it's an interesting love triangle that I haven't seen that before but I thought it was nice emotional level especially with the friendship using the sport because obviously it's going to culminate this isn't a spoiler to say in a big it's a big like a title playoff that's the end of the
00:18:54
Speaker
It's not maybe as big as you might think it would be, but it's obviously the two lads. They're playing tennis. She's married to one of them. She's possibly coaching the other one. You're not quite sure. And you're not quite sure what's going on. So I thought it was quite a nice way to do it in a sports romance type of way, but it's not necessarily a happily ever after.
00:19:13
Speaker
Yeah, it sounds darker than the last one. Yeah, it's definitely darker as well, yeah. Yeah. It also plays into, when we've talked about love triangles previously, for me there's always an element of, like Naomi says, they'll usually just lean hard into villainizing someone so that it's an obvious, like, that person sort of removes themselves. Yeah, and that does annoy me actually. I don't like that.
00:19:35
Speaker
But there's also an element, and I think this is true of any love triangle. And Bellas one is super guilty of this. It's like if you're the person who the sort of point of the triangle where the other two people are both pursuing you as a love interest.
00:19:51
Speaker
like, you have a responsibility there. And it sounds like Zendaya does not use that responsibility. No, no, no, no. She uses it. Yeah, she is the villain. Yeah, but that kind of makes it fun. That's the kind of fun that she's the villain I didn't hate. I'm sure there's people who come out of that film and are like, that was ridiculous. And she was such an awful person. I mean, she's like, totally was. I totally right. But I quite liked it. Like, that made me like her more. And I was like, yeah, go on, play them against each other. Do it.
00:20:17
Speaker
From the trailers I've seen, it looks like that's the whole point. They're not trying to make her into the hero. When I say romance, it's not like the sorts of romances that I was looking up and reading over, especially books where it's clearly HEAs on every single one. It's not like that, but also it's not like a dark ending, which I quite liked.
00:20:37
Speaker
Uh-huh. Well, since I mentioned Twilight, there is a baseball scene. Oh, there it is. How did I not remember? Lives rent free in my head. Sports. Sports plus muse. Um, yeah, perfect. I mean, love triangle just makes sense with this, right? Also works really well with rivals to lovers. Yeah, it does. Yeah. Those two in conjunction, it's like, perfect.
00:21:03
Speaker
our detention, being on the opposite team, et cetera. Yeah. The hard thing being, if you're writing this in the romance with H happy ever after ending space, it is, if you do arrivals to lovers and love triangle, especially like together, you're going to, threading the needle of not like villainizing someone is going to be difficult. If that's something
Popularity of Ice Hockey in Romance
00:21:26
Speaker
you're, I mean, you can just villainize someone, but. Yeah.
00:21:29
Speaker
making it so that, for me, in an ideal world, you don't just have to sort of suddenly just paint someone as super evil for no reason. You don't have to make someone the prim reaper. Ha, they killed the disabled. Yeah, you don't have to murder your family members. Yeah, you don't need to do that. But yeah.
00:21:50
Speaker
Both great for this genre. So my one, again, I'm not experiencing this, but I went in on something which is we started talking about this because we're doing genres that we think have become really popular that are having like a moment right now. Sports romance is definitely one of those things. And within sports romance, if you have heard anything about this genre, you know that ice hockey is the one. So it's not really a trope, but
00:22:20
Speaker
I decided to just do ice hockey. That
Rise of Ice Hockey Romance Online
00:22:23
Speaker
was the trope that I went for and I did lots of research into it and I was looking at it. I've never read one of these, but it's really interesting actually to learn about this stuff. I think this first became popularized actually through like web comics and fan fiction. I think there's a web comic called Check Please.
00:22:47
Speaker
Which I don't know if this is still true but on the website it does say the printing campaign that they ran on Kickstarter is the most funded webcomic Kickstarter ever. Oh wow.
00:22:59
Speaker
So there's obviously like a passionate community around ice hockey and that there's apparently a large crossover with the romance community in that space. And I was trying to kind of look up why specifically people would choose ice hockey, but also this is largely just a sports romance thing. So I was like, this would be interesting to do anyway.
00:23:22
Speaker
So I think italki as a sport specifically is a very like high octane, high energy sport. Like it's very aggressive. You would say it's like a very sort of manly sport.
00:23:38
Speaker
trying
Ice Hockey's Appeal in Romance
00:23:39
Speaker
to go into like toxic masculinity at that point but it's like yeah they're all very muscular there's a lot of like i was gonna say the body shape is what you see typically if you pick up a mils and boom from 1990 look at the cover like a big muscly guy right and that's right that's very very common trope in romance yeah that's so true and it's a very physical game you know
00:23:57
Speaker
everyone's muscular. There's a lot of physical altercations. In fact, they do actually fight. I don't really understand the nuances of ice hockey, but sometimes I've seen clips where they just throw their gloves down and start fighting. And I'm like, oh, okay. I went to my first ice hockey game. Oh my gosh, you did. It was amazing. They are quite fun. It was the last one of the season. I'm so gutted. I got to wait till like September.
00:24:22
Speaker
And did you feel the romance? How many chilli peppers would you give the game? The fans are brutal though. They're so into it. And like, yeah, you're right. When a fight kicks off, the crowd goes nuts. It's quite fun.
00:24:41
Speaker
Yeah, so I think there's a certain attraction with the kind of like physicality of it all with the like, in quotes, manliness of the whole thing. And obviously, with any sport, watching people be very good at something is always going to be attractive. Like talent is, like if you see someone being really talented, no matter what the thing is, you're like, wow, that's cool. Yeah, that's so true. That's what it is. And like, you will think better of them. Yeah. And then, you know, fierce, like competition that
00:25:08
Speaker
when you bring sports into it, it's like that person, everyone here is really talented, but this person is the most talented, so you're like, wow, I attribute value to that, because I'm a simple human being. I am, but I may read it. Yeah, exactly. This person's the best, I should breed with them. Maybe I will. And now that we know you can do Shakespeare retellings with them, it's right at my wheelhouse.
00:25:38
Speaker
Bye!
00:25:43
Speaker
I also thought there's something that draws you to a lot of the people in sports is like the camaraderie and loyalty among teammates. And as a
Team Camaraderie in Sports Romance
00:25:55
Speaker
writer, it's kind of a shortcut. If you introduce a character who is part of a team, you don't really have to build up the fact that they are fiercely loyal and will defend their teammates and make sacrifices for their teammates because they are
00:26:10
Speaker
bonded like a family. Right. So in terms of writing, you have that kind of shortcut, but at the same time, it's like, you as I think as a reader, for me, at least if I, if someone makes like, if does something that is self sacrificing or very loyal to someone else, that would make me suddenly be like, that's a cool person. Yeah, family vibes. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you got the family and, and also like, they're so close.
00:26:35
Speaker
that they're willing to kind of like throw themselves under the bus for each other and you're like, respect, love that. Obviously, can't ignore the physical fitness. We're talking about sports here. Everyone will be in peak physical condition. There's going to be six packs everywhere. There's going to be, you know,
00:26:55
Speaker
Toned muscles all over the place. It just, you know, that helps. I think with romance, especially if you're adding chili peppers to the front of your cover. Most of the covers I saw for ice hockey were just six packs. Yeah, you know what? I actually have a note. I'm going to come into it.
00:27:15
Speaker
later on but I actually have a note about that which is quite interesting from a publishing perspective but just while we're on physical fitness the I think there's a deeper part of that though which is also because athletes obviously have to be in peak physical condition to do their thing and they also have to like train and like be with each other
00:27:35
Speaker
That's another facet which I think endears you to a character is it's like look how dedicated this person is. They have to be training physically as well as strategically and working with their team, which I think is a really good backdrop for a romance narrative because
00:27:55
Speaker
it means that they have to first of all balance that with the romance side of things but also it gives you as a writer an incredible excuse to be like right I need to remove them for a bit their training intensely or like the coach pulled them in for like an extra session or like
00:28:12
Speaker
they needed to, the whole team's going to do like a training course over in like another city or something. Like there's so many very legitimate and reasonable ways that you can be like, all right, just remove them for a bit to give this other character some space.
00:28:25
Speaker
Yeah. And it makes them, I think, more 3D. There are so many romances, especially in Haiti. I love YA, obviously. I love love triangles, but there are so many two-dimensional, like, we've just thrown in this love interest and they seem to have no friends. Like, where are, like, you know, come on, have some friends. Like, you know, I mean, Edward literally just has his brothers and sisters. It's weird. He has no friends. It's really weird. Whereas it's quite nice that they actually have their own life and their own friendship group and their own stuff doing. Yeah, I think that's good.
00:28:55
Speaker
Well, Bella has zero friends. That's true. She gets rid of them. She fights so hard to be her friend. I know she does. She even takes to that zombie movie when she doesn't want to go. And then Bella just goes off with some random guy on a motorcycle. No, Bella. Why don't you go on to some sports romances, find a man that has another life outside of you. I don't think she'd like that actually. Now I'm saying it.
00:29:22
Speaker
I don't want someone who isn't obsessed with me. They're mutually obsessed with each other. So all of that considered, that makes me feel like, yeah, so the setup with any sport, but in this case, I'm talking more specifically about hockey, which has just blown up.
00:29:44
Speaker
I think all other other sports I think are getting a look in, but hockey has just taken on the life of itself. It's almost its own genre at this point. This sits like alongside the rest of sports genre. But as
Common Tropes in Ice Hockey Romance
00:29:55
Speaker
like a foundational setting, I think it's like I said, all sports can do this. It's a great foundation for having classic romance tropes like the ones we talked about last season, just kind of alongside all of this because you have
00:30:10
Speaker
a kind of quite simple structure set up already. It's like there is an athlete or there are two athletes and it's like, now how else do you want to mess up and mess with this? So I've got, I did a lot of research for this and I found lots of a nice variety of different tropes. And bear in mind, this is entirely within ice hockey romance, just ice hockey romance. So just to give you an understanding of how much you can stretch this. So opposites attract is a really popular one.
00:30:37
Speaker
And within that, specifically for ice hockey, there's quite a few novels about an ice hockey player and a figure skater. Yeah, like Icebreaker. Yeah. And it's a fun combination because it's like not only, depending on whatever their characters are, but like
00:30:58
Speaker
externally, you can see how opposite those two things are, because obviously figure skating is about being delicate and fluid and kind of beautiful and things like that. And ice hockey is very much a rugged, brutish kind of, with a lot of skill, obviously. But like, it's a very physical, like, smashing things together kind of thing, whereas... Yeah, he was a punk, she did ballet. Exactly.
00:31:22
Speaker
Thank you, Avril Lavigne. She's Canadian, right? Yeah. She's probably secretly Hannah Grace. I'm sure she's not. Sorry, Hannah Grace. Yeah, so Hannah Grace, obviously the author of Icebreakers being, I think it was a big TikTok. Yeah, that was huge on TikTok. Another one I got is Forbidden Romance. I think it's quite popular in this genre. And it's usually between, it'll be like a member of the team.
00:31:49
Speaker
And you were saying, I don't think sports romance, both people have to be an athlete. One of them has to be in sports. Yeah, that's what I was wondering. I think that's true. So forbidden romance happens quite a lot and it'll be a player in the team and then often someone who's maybe involved with the management or some other connection.
00:32:12
Speaker
Always On You by Chloe Lees. The woman is part of the team's management and then she starts falling in love with one of the players and that's a problem and they shouldn't date because of their roles and stuff. Then there's another one I found called Breakaway, Grace Riley. I've seen that cover. This one is the coach's daughter.
00:32:38
Speaker
So it speaks. I don't know what the ages are because in theory that should be fine, right? Yeah, I was scared to say that. But I think he's a professional athlete and I assume that coaches are all older than the, like coaches are usually significantly older than the athletes. So presumably the daughter would be, if he was in his- They're usually ex-players, right?
00:33:02
Speaker
Yeah, but coaches are usually like 40 plus. Yeah. So you hope that he's a young player and his daughter was old. I haven't read the book, but forbidden. It's forbidden romance because it's, it's more like a, it's more like a line where it's like, Oh, it's not like it against company policy or like illegal or anything, but it's like, Oh, that's the coach's daughter. That's kind of like a line you shouldn't cross. Yeah. Um, fake dating.
00:33:30
Speaker
who couldn't find any. But these are books. I haven't read any. I felt like I couldn't talk about them.
00:33:39
Speaker
Uh, fake dating happens in ice hockey romance. Um, and it's usually based on the blurb that I read, it's usually a PR thing. So there's a couple of books. Um, there's one called the deal, uh, with Al Kennedy. And I think it's, I kind of remember that one was, but that, that ends up with fake dating. There was one called parental guidance by Avery Flynn and the, that fake dating, I thought this was funny because it's, um,
00:34:07
Speaker
What was something we were talking about recently? It's usually a movie, but there'll be an unusual punishment.
00:34:16
Speaker
And it's, oh, we were talking about a Walk to Remember. And the popular guy gets in trouble. So it's like, your punishment is you have to be the lead in the play. Yeah. By drama nerds. Get out. But in this one, the unusual punishment is that the player has to, as a PR thing for the team, he has to sign up to a dating app.
00:34:40
Speaker
And then he let go of the dating app and cause he doesn't want to do it anymore. He has to, he just ends up like making an agreement with someone that he goes on a date with literally they'll fake date. Um, but I'm like, yes, funny. I think it's, yeah, he, he like does like a.
00:34:57
Speaker
bad thing in public, I think is the premise. And then the team is like, you need to save face and you need to do some PR to get people to like you again. Because obviously, sports is only half of what sports sells. They sell people and brands and stuff. A couple more big ones.
00:35:17
Speaker
I thought were interesting, just to show kind of a bit more range in the themes inside it. And just
Diverse Themes in Ice Hockey Romance
00:35:25
Speaker
a reminder, this is just an ice hockey romance. We're not looking at other sports here. And I imagine we're going to see, because of the popularity of this, this is going to start moving into other sports. And I imagine it will be the other sort of large muscley men's sports, like American football, rugby. I can see those getting quite big in this space.
00:35:45
Speaker
I already mentioned him by Serena Bowen and Elle Kennedy because they end up being rivals, but that's also a queer romance, so nice to see some representation there. That one's like a friends to lovers to rivals
00:36:07
Speaker
to enemies, to lovers, I think. It follows these two, based on what I read, it follows these two high school who were best friends, and then they had like one steamy night, and then they never spoke to, they didn't speak to each other after that, and then they end up being in opposite college teams, and they end up having, that's when they like kind of see each other again for like the first time in years is because they play against each other in their college teams, and then they end up both coaching at the same summer camp after that.
00:36:35
Speaker
So it's like, ooh, back and forth, back and forth. The whole lives meant to be the fated. Yeah, exactly. Fated mates. Another Serena Bowen one I found the year we fell down, which is
00:36:51
Speaker
about two athletes, male and female, and they both end up with severe injuries after playing ice hockey. Obviously, we're only talking about ice hockey. One of them is in a wheelchair and one of them is in a broken leg. This is like forced proximity because
00:37:09
Speaker
they end up in the sort of players dorms. They have to go to the accessibility dorms because obviously they need an easier time getting into the dorms with their injuries. So interesting like twist showing some more range. I think it's slow burn. I don't know. But there's six books in that series.
00:37:30
Speaker
Oh my gosh. All of these seem to have huge series behind them. It's incredible. I think the authors just go around members of the team. Maybe. The main characters. Yeah. Keep it in the family. Exactly. Okay, so you were talking about how, when we look this up, and ice hockey, absolutely. When you go on Amazon, type in like ice hockey romance,
00:37:59
Speaker
And there's so many of those and you get it with a lot of romance genres and it's a lot of it's self published or like ebook only stuff. And it's usually a, there's a lot of six packs. So we'll just photography and suggestive photography at that I would say. But what I've noticed
00:38:18
Speaker
is, especially with a lot of these hockey romance ones, there does seem to be an overall rebrand happening across the genre.
Trendy Romance Book Covers
00:38:27
Speaker
And they're all kind of leaning, a lot of the new ones that I've seen are leaning really heavily into that heart stopper, colorful illustration. Yeah, animation. One of the big ones I saw was, we mentioned it earlier, because Great Pun is pucked
00:38:44
Speaker
by Helen Hunting. And Helen Hunting has been prolific in this space, especially ice hockey stuff. And she has a whole series of pucked and various plays on the word pucked. But I looked at the original release of it and it is, it's your classic kind of like shadowy muscular man. But then the new release of it is this very cutesy cartoon woman and man, side by side.
00:39:12
Speaker
It's so cute. It's a totally different take. If you put the two covers side by side, you'd think one was obviously smart and the other one's just this cute, innocent romance. One is secretly smart.
00:39:26
Speaker
You can take out in the public, you know, and read on a train and no one will judge you. You can put it in your bookshelf and proudly display it. Yeah. And then we'll be like, what's that cute book? But isn't that part of, especially with these things blowing up on TikTok, I think it does attract teens into the space because I know with my two books with Chicken House, with My Love Life and The Apocalypse and Soulmates and Other Ways to Die, they're both cartoony cupboards and it really, they came out and they were being designed as well at a time. So obviously it takes years for books to come out.
Attracting Young Readers with Covers
00:39:53
Speaker
when lots of those romance books came out, and I kept seeing them, you know, like in Smith, where they have like the charts and stuff, they had them all face out. And I didn't think I wonder if that was a little bit of a, I'm not asked, actually, Michaela Arquino, my designer, if it was, but I wondered if it was maybe a reference that they were thinking about because of how popular those cartoony covers were, no matter what they're about, have been on TikTok.
00:40:15
Speaker
And I do wonder if that's attracting teens into the space where they're not supposed to be, but I don't know how spicy these books are. So it might be absolutely fine for teens to be in that space. I'm not sure. And I would never like, obviously lecture someone on what they can read. Like you read what you think you want to read. No, of course not. But I think they are deceptively smutty. I think what we were saying about that Puckery brand, I think it's hard to tell what isn't and what is these days in which, like you say, you get audience members who maybe are too young for it. Yeah, interesting.
00:40:44
Speaker
It's just a testament to how popular this genre is as well, right? Because it's, like you say, you wouldn't be... If you have a book that has like just a sort of big muscular naked man on the front, you're going to be a bit self-conscious maybe if you take that out on the train or whatever.
00:41:03
Speaker
and like publishers know this so if these books are getting popular enough that at one point they were ebook only and there was no physical copy of it and now publishers are saying no no no we want to do it we want to do a print run of this we want to have this in bookshops you that you are going to have to realistically if you want to sell the book i mean could you imagine taking that to the till
00:41:26
Speaker
face out on tables. Sunglasses on, a big hat on, I'll have this one please. You have to buy like two more books to like put either side of it. I will also take The Universe by Stephen Hawking. Yeah, I read academically too okay. It's super interesting from like an industry perspective to see that kind of shift and I looked at a lot of these and like you see that yeah the older ones are all that that very
00:41:56
Speaker
It's yeah cuz you know what you're getting when you buy a book that has like a fireman on the front without his shirt yeah which is fine and like there's nothing wrong with that but at the same time yeah if if you wouldn't give that book to a younger person cuz you'd be worried about what was inside of it. Yeah yeah and what about the because of these in the cartoon faces that Alex Wenberg thing.
00:42:22
Speaker
which surely we have to talk about. It's just the one where she got obsessed with a real life happy player, so I've heard about this.
Real Ice Hockey Player Inspires Character
00:42:28
Speaker
Yeah, basically a lot of, which I totally get, like you always cast, even when you're just reading it, it's not a cartoon cover, you cast in your head, you might cast like an actor or something as one of the characters. So yes, I believe, from what I understand, for watching Read With Cindy, thanks Read With Cindy.
00:42:43
Speaker
So she said that it was a Seattle Kraken's player called Alex Wemberg, I don't know anything about the Seattle Kraken's, but essentially a lot of people thought he looked a bit like a couple of the cartoons on them, especially the one, I think Icebreaker was one of the big ones he looked a bit like. So they were kind of fan casting him in videos on TikTok and doing like sort of thirst videos and it was, I think it started off instantly enough.
00:43:06
Speaker
And then the Seattle Kraken started joining in with the hashtags and stuff. And apparently like attendance at their games went up and they were inviting TikTokers to come and get jerseys. And, you know, and then of course it went a little bit the other way and his privacy was breached. His wife had to reach out on social media and say, you know, we need, we have young children and there's a lot of very rude stuff about my husband online and she got taxed and stuff, not physically attacked. Well, I don't think so.
00:43:30
Speaker
but she was getting a lot of online abuse and it did turn really ugly from what I understand and obviously was affecting, which is in itself a plot for one of these. It was probably affecting his game quite badly because I think it was getting very intense, the sorts of fans that were turning up and stuff and it just became
00:43:49
Speaker
I think people are thinking of him as a fictional character and he's not his real person. So whatever you think about, whether the team fully supported him and whether they should have waded in and all that kind of stuff, it did definitely cross a line somewhere. I think a lot of it's very innocent, but it definitely crossed a line somewhere and some fans were a bit too intense about it. So I think sometimes
00:44:11
Speaker
That could be a toxic part of, I mean, it depends, as you say, it's going to go into other sports, probably, because they're so popular these, like they're so popular and you can do a whole series of them. So you've got like a built-in fan base. So I'm sure that can happen across all sorts, but I'm sure it's happened to other people. It's just the one that sticks in my mind. Yeah. Yeah, I've heard that.
00:44:31
Speaker
You'll see a lot of jokes online if you're on like, um, books to Graham or like book talk or whatever, where people are like the reality of like, you can have your book boyfriend and stuff, but the reality of if you met them in real life, you'd be like run for your life. You know, it's like Edward Cullen classic example. Yeah. Guys, terrifying guys are serial killer. Literally.
00:44:56
Speaker
And then, you know, Naomi, you could relate to this. Realistically, if you met a starry end in real life, you should run. I wouldn't.
00:45:06
Speaker
I sang Astarian, not Neil Newborn. No, no. Astarian. I would have run. I can change him, Jamie. I can change him. Yeah, but in all seriousness, yeah, it is when you're bringing in
00:45:28
Speaker
real life people. And the sad thing is it's like, if it was icebreakers or whatever it is, Hannah Grace, you know, the authors might be thinking of certain hockey players, but the reality is they're not right. They don't know these people. No, exactly. They feel like they know these people because they've read a character in a book that looks a bit like that person and imagined it as them. It's almost like in my head, it made me think of when I watched Catfish,
00:45:52
Speaker
and they say oh yeah i bumped into this person in real life and it wasn't actually them they were just using their pictures and this person is actually in danger because if someone's using your pictures online to pretend to be somebody else and you think you're in a relationship with them and in real life you're not and it made me think of that with this um case with alex wenberg but
00:46:10
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So it can turn ugly, but I think, I think it really is a very small percentage. Um, obviously that's enough to cause serious issues, but, um, I think a lot of the time it is innocent when we do these fan casts. I think they're called fan casts, right? Sports. Sports. Um, it's funny though, because yeah,
00:46:38
Speaker
I fully understand it. Like if you have watched a certain actor for a long time and you happen to meet that person in real life, you immediately, like you can't not in your head think that you know them as a certain way. I've forgotten his name, something Gleason.
00:46:54
Speaker
The actor that played Joffrey in Game of Thrones, I was reading that a large part of the reason that he quit acting was because obviously a lot of fans were supportive of him and stuff like that, but he got a lot of hate for playing that character.
00:47:11
Speaker
It's crazy to me that you can't separate the fact that this guy is an actor playing a role in a medieval fantasy from real life. Yeah. You know what I mean? He's obviously not Joffrey, but I understand people can't like, it's hard to think of that in a certain way. Like if you were to meet any actor who you'd spent a lot of time watching, you would assume they are a certain way. Yeah. You've got a lot of preconceived ideas about who they are, don't you? Yeah. Obviously they have no idea who you are.
00:47:41
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, which is which is a huge imbalance. I think it's you have to think about really scary. Yeah, you do have a glimpse into them, but they have no glimpse into you.
00:47:52
Speaker
And these people haven't like, I don't even think it was Alex Wemberg that even encouraged this. It was, I think his team was like buying into it as part of his publicity. So it wasn't even like, like you saying, Naomi, like, and those actors have curated that. Alex Wemberg didn't like, he just kind of fell into it. So it sounds really unfortunate, but I'm sure it's bound to happen elsewhere in the genre.
Celebrity Influence on Sports Viewership
00:48:13
Speaker
When there's very good looking, as you were saying, like lots of sports players are good looking and have deals with hair and skin commercials and stuff so that they can
00:48:22
Speaker
Yeah, so it's like part of the brand, isn't it? So of course people are going to fan cast that and think they know them. Wasn't there something, a book or a fanfic that came out with Harry Styles? It was clearly like based on Harry Styles. What do you mean after? Was it after? That was the one, right? Yeah, it is Harry Styles and then the other love interests. All the other bandmates are like other love interests.
00:48:50
Speaker
I mean not in the film version that most people have probably seen and I think they did publish the book like traditionally I could be wrong that I don't think it's probably still says Harry Styles but yes it is it is Harry Styles yeah I think the other love interest is Zayn Malik but I could be wrong I guess the difference there being that's probably just a normal Tuesday for One Direction
00:49:15
Speaker
I don't think that really changes. Yeah, they are like so famous already. So not that it's an excuse, but yeah, they are so famous already. It's a bit different, isn't it? Yeah. So it's interesting with sport romance that it could bring. I think it could bring good stuff though. I think I believe that Seattle Kraken's have still had quite good attendance and maybe it's got people into, like I said, I get really obsessive when I'm watching a sports like romance and I'm like, how does this work? Is that true? And especially when it's like gender roles and stuff, I'm really interested. So it's a good way to get like people outside of it into the thing.
00:49:45
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. I mean, um, what did they say? Like the viewership of, uh, the, um, because of Taylor Swift cause she put NFL on the map. No one had heard of it before. No, I've not heard a bit to be fair.
00:50:02
Speaker
And a nice young man, Travis, that she's made famous. That must be nice for him. Yeah. Good for him. He deserves it. He must be nice for him to be rich now. Anyway, we're so far off topic at this point. Let's round it off with, it's been a couple of weeks, so you guys have had plenty of time to find something new to add to your TBRs. What have you got?
00:50:31
Speaker
I added a sports romance. I was just thinking that. I was hoping you'd mention it when you said. Is it icebreakers? No, it's not actually. Although that's probably second on my list now. Check and Meet by Ali Hazelwood. It's a chess one. It's a chess one. Yeah. So I play chess. I got into it over lockdown. I'm not very good, but I play it. And I just saw that might be. Chess blew up in lockdown. Yeah, it did. So many people play it.
00:50:57
Speaker
And I might give it a go. So it's about chess. That's the limit of my knowledge. It covers cute, nice and cartoony, as we have just discussed. So we'll see. I'll tell you how much it is. How many chilies? I love that we're getting to a point where people are going to start rating books like they rate Nando's. Yeah. And I'm here for it because I love Nando's M books.
00:51:26
Speaker
Yeah. Nando should lean into this. Actually, yeah. Nando's book awards. And they can use their chilies. Oh my God. That's such a good idea, Nando. Missing a trick. Get on that book club hype.
00:51:41
Speaker
Well, that's funny that you, it was because you heard it was about chess, so you were like, oh, I'll be interested in reading this. I also, I've known about this book for, I mean, everyone's known about this book if they know publishing, because it's very, very successful. But someone told me the other day, I had no idea what it was about. I have to confess. And someone told me the other day, oh, yeah, it's actually like,
00:52:01
Speaker
Uh, it's actually has like a video game subplot and I was like, wow. Oh, I have to read it then because very big game of myself. And this book is tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Yeah. We read it book club.
00:52:14
Speaker
which I've heard is brilliant. So I was like, wow. It's huge, that book, isn't it? It is. It's a really, really cool cover as well. It is a book I like. It's like retro futuristic. Yeah. What's the voice like Malibu? Is it quite adult? So actually almost crossover. So a lot of it's like when they're at university and it's like two friends and they're making games and stuff and they play lots of games together and things. It's like female romance and it's not female romance, sorry, female friendship. Although, you know, the fan fiction,
00:52:46
Speaker
Yeah, it's good. I think the reason it's probably a good one for that TikTok space I did so well is it's definitely suitable for teens. I don't remember, or I could be very wrong now, anything that I would think would be unsuitable for teens in there. But also, yeah, I think it's technically an adult book.
00:53:04
Speaker
I'm pretty sure. She writes YA as well, doesn't she? Gabrielle Zevin? Gabrielle Zevin. It looked like an adult book to me. I was just curious about it though. It's definitely being marketed as adult and the cover is saying adult. It transcends category nicely then, you think? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I think a teen that's a bit more confident reader might want some more adult themes without being appropriate. I think they could read it.
00:53:27
Speaker
The cover to me says like literary. It is a bit literary. It's less plot driven and more character driven, yes. Yeah. Well, that was my pick. Melissa, what have you got?
00:53:40
Speaker
Well, how did I pick? I picked something. I don't think mine's the story. I'm not sure. Apparently it's, according to Amazon, the biggest novel for 2024 from an astonishing new voice in crime thriller fiction. That's right. I'm really a crime thriller. It's a book club pick, but actually I've seen it everywhere. I thought it looked quite interesting. And it feels a bit science fiction-y. So it's that Anna O by Matthew Blake. So I picked up a signed copy when I was at Topping St. Andrews. Shout out.
00:54:10
Speaker
I know, signed first edition. Toppings is great. I love Toppings. Yeah, Matthew Blake has a very clear signature. Matthew, if you're listening, it's very easy to copy. It's just like your name, which I appreciate because I can tell it's you, which I love. But yeah, it's very clear signature. That's probably his signing signature though. Yeah, hopefully. Oh my God, yeah. People have two signatures. Please tell me it is. Yes, it's true. Not his legal signature.
00:54:34
Speaker
We can commit fraud. It's just writing Matthew Blake, guys. That's all you have to do. So it's about this like woman called Anna Owen. She's like a suspect in a murder case. So it's a bit like it reminded me a bit of the plot of Pretty Little Lighters, if anyone's seen that or obviously Reddick is a book.
00:54:50
Speaker
series. And she's found in a deep sleep next to the bodies of her friends who have been murdered. And then there's this, like, doctor who's a forensic scientist, he was trying to wake Anna Oh, because it would like make his career. And he's an expert in sleep and like the chambers of the mind. You like it actually Naomi, because it's like, it's like game over girly in that sort of way. And then he like starts
00:55:12
Speaker
doing treatment where he's like trying to study the patient's dreams and like go through the memories and stuff and obviously trying to find out who like she murdered and also wake her up but obviously there's like a whole other mystery going on and it's not as simple as it seems and I am assuming she's not the killer but she might be.
00:55:28
Speaker
Um, but yeah, that's the one I added to my TBR and I have like a big old fat hardback. So I'm going to have to do some, do some sports before I read it. It's really heavy. It's not my Kindle. Do some sports with the book. Yeah, that's right. Which, which cover do you have? Is it the one with the person with the I closed? Yeah. And the circle as the O. Yeah. Yeah. It's cool cover. It's everywhere. I've seen that everywhere. It is everywhere. Yeah. Is that the, that one of those books this year?
00:55:57
Speaker
I feel like it is. Yeah, definitely. Like, funnily enough, interestingly, on Amazon, we were talking, weren't we, just before starting, about, like, how many reviews sometimes, like, even self-published books that don't have a huge marketing budget can get. This one has just shy of 2,000 reviews on Amazon. However, it is number eight in the Amazon overall charts.
00:56:16
Speaker
So, and it's got like a slew of like accolades and quotes at the beginning before they even tell you what it's about. It's like selected as times thrill of the month, observer thrill of the month, and then like, you know, guardians of times, even the sun has come wading in. So, you know, it's everywhere when the sun's bothering to actually read a book. So, you know, everywhere. Yeah. So that's one I added anyway. So it's one of my book club picks, but actually I added it because I thought, oh, I bet this is a good one to discuss.
00:56:44
Speaker
It looks very hooky. Yeah, it's really hooky, yeah. And I like that it's crime-filled, but it seems to have a science fiction element almost. Yeah. When you were talking about it, it reminds me of that movie, The Cell, where what's her face goes into someone's mind. Yeah, it sounds a bit like that. Yeah, that's why it made me think of Game Over Girl.
00:57:03
Speaker
because like no spoilers, but I was going for that. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. I guess talking about the Amazon review stuff, it's, it's, uh, most people don't leave reviews. It's, I'm sure it's something it's probably around one in 10 customers actually leave a review. I'd say, yeah, probably less.
00:57:23
Speaker
If you see something with lots of reviews, it's either so huge or they've been like, because obviously authors and just content creators generally, people online are always asking to review and stuff because it does make a difference. So anyone listening to this podcast should like, review, follow, subscribe and bump this podcast generally.
00:57:47
Speaker
Thanks for putting up with our nonsense for another episode. To stay tuned to everything we're up to, you can follow the podcast on all socials at The Chosen Tropes. Follow Melissa at Melva, Naomi at Naomi G. Wright, and Jamie at Jamie X. Greenwood. Don't forget to check out Naomi and Melissa's books as well as the Write in Long podcast. Thanks again, and we'll see you on the next trope.