Welcome to Plans Are Booked, a podcast for every reader. I'm Molly Geller. I'm Stephanie Blackburn. And I'm Caitlin Madison. Welcome. We're here on a very rainy afternoon. And what better way to chat books and spend the day than eating Steph's cookies and making her make me a London fog? Because why wouldn't I? I did, I feel like have a fair trade though, because I did bring over. various different animals. She was a side -off to all the actors that I had created.
She was a split -up and she had one child who was very close and I said, oh, I'm not in the office. So that's pretty cool. I assume that I'm now in the stand -up. No, I did. that I made out like a bandit in the trade. But we... sinus infections. When we were recording, that's how dedicated we are. The team was like, can we change things? Don't worry about it. Now I'm fully medicated on antibiotics. Spoiler alert to our on antibiotics. Spoiler alert to the Republicans, medicine works.
Um, and I'm feeling a lot better. Sassy, you know, the whole thing. Thursdays are my day off. I slept for 11 hours, woke up, made myself eggs. even know if I did anything, and went back to sleep. And just that was the day that things really turned around for me. So I'm feeling a lot better. my life was pretty bright.
My week was pretty much going to bed at like 830 at night so that I could go to work because my students just had a lot going on this week and like being absent was not really an option. And so I just like powered through it. own my brother's office. That is less tedious as long as the phone's not ringing off the hook, it's like pretty manageable at home. But the kind of time that we can really pass. and like... but the getting out of bed was really bad and like, you know, the raw nose.
I was like a faucet for like five days straight. It was just, that was my week. I don't really have anything exciting to report because, Oh, I had some really good pho. We went to my brother and I went to the pho place that I took you guys. Jump and all of Charlie Crispin and grabbed his leg out of field day and pulled his nose and he said, I'm scared. And it was like, because I had tried to get this out, and I had to get it and I totally I was just eating leaves.
I felt like I was eating 20 -odd leaves. It was depressing. So the fog was like really on the fence. Oh, the other day I missed that. is the important fact was that I thought that was interesting because I guess I didn't really that was anything I thought was really funny. But I did think that was funny. I thought that was interesting because I thought that was funny. I watched one day and before that we saw all of us strangers. And so I have both of those playlists saved on my Spotify.
a long, long, long time. I'm just in the car, walking around, to 80s heads. It's probably the best day of the summer, but it's fine. But that's it. 80s heads, one day of science fiction. Well, that's it. Oh yeah. phah. That's it. That's all I got. that I baked cookies last night is my anxiety was, I don't know. and made a quiche today no less. know, I anxiety bake. That's what I do. This week I was installing drywall. It was frustrating. Then I did two days.
very heavy you're underselling this heavy heavy stuff she's not just installing it's like she's the laborer and the installer My aunt is in the process. I've been helping her for the past year going through. She's going to knock down, rebuild her house, has been going back and forth with the architect on the drawings. And then she would send them to me and I'd be like, we need to change this, this and this. And she recently came to me and was like, is it true that drywall is 60 pounds?
And I was like, yeah, that feels about right. And time -lapse videos make it look like it's just a piece of cardboard that you're... holding up in the air, but that is not the truth. And then backer board, which is the thing that goes behind tile and the bathrooms is a cement board. So that's probably, I don't know, three times heavier. It's heavy, it's awkward. In order to cut it, you have to use a special type of saw because you're cutting through cement and dust gets everywhere.
I've had to wash my hair every single day and I feel like Kelly Kapowski, but like... single day, so I can't even tell the difference. It's okay, I have to wash my hands. It's an easy thing for me, so it's about... installed, although I did try my very best to get it done because the flooring starts on the first floor on Monday, which means we cannot be in the house for the entire week while they are gluing and installing the hardwoods. So it was sort of like a race to get this done.
then we have a lot of time for all of you to work. Okay, I wanna say though, we mentioned this last week, and for those who are following us on Instagram, hopefully you saw some of Steph's amazing video content that she does while she's at the house. But this week, you started doing these epic voiceovers. of the videos that I am obsessed with and now I just want you to do it every single time and I know it's more work and the timing is really intricate and hard but they're freaking amazing.
I think because I get so many like one -off questions from people that I realize I'm not like explaining things as I go. And while I would prefer to just stick a song over a time lapse video, I think it makes more sense going forward for me to be able to explain things to people. it should be on TikTok. Yep. No, that's, I can tell you the hashtags. It should be, you will get so many hits, DIY, house building. I'm not going to name all of them, but I know what they should be.
And it would be hits galore. fortitude strength time to also handle a TikTok. Okay. anywho, that's me. Since we last saw each other, I went to Miami and came back. I went for four days to visit my family. My sister and brother -in -law are planning on moving out of Florida and they took a little trip to investigate their potential new area. So I flew down to help with the kids. I hit the jackpot on the weather, full sun, 75, 80 degrees every single day. whole side of the 75, 80, 30, 70 day.
When he said that, he was a freaking artist. And he was a lot of this stuff, very little. And I said, I'm not gonna lie. It was a great time. And it's so fun to be with that, because I get to know it so much. There's a whole lot of We're really in the making of the night, which is very nice. And I had been there since the beginning. And I had to do this. it was nice to have just like a chill time. And as I always do.
on every one of your presentations, which might be a bit of head -to assignment. I told myself, I'm not going to I thought that was a little too thought was going to do that a little bit more. You know, I'm not going Just make it a little more. Sniffing them. Yeah, kind of. Yeah, it's like how I feel about Diet Coke now. Like I can't drink it, but I can be near it. But I have to say, my mom was with me and we went into the kids section first.
My cousin Tamar has a new baby and my mom wanted to buy some books to help build the baby's kind of first library. So I was helping with that. And then I found a children's book called Fearless, all about Taylor Swift. I took a picture of it immediately and I was like, Caitlin needs to see this. I'm sure that there are other children's books about Taylor Swift that just happened to be the first one that I've ever seen. So I felt like I was having a celebrity sighting out in the wild.
definitely never seen a children's book about Taylor Swift. Oh. No surprise, okay. What are those books called from when we were kids? A little golden charm book, a golden... with the gold spines. They made like a spoof of one of those and it's about Taylor Swift. A little golden book, is that what they're called? I'm gonna look it up. Sorry for the tapping. shout out to Books and Books, who is not only an amazing bookstore in Miami, but hosts this incredible book fair every year.
We mentioned that book fair when we talked about the romance authors event. Beverly Jenkins, the queen of sass was talking about being at that event and all of the. authors that she met, including one that sort of scoffed at her being in the developments channel. And she simply said, I have 60 books published. How are they? So anyway, folks, the links are available on your way to some form of other multiple divisions of entertainment.
So even if you don't have time to go to the store and get your job done. airport. very good. So Little Golden Books, they have an entire famous faces series that they've done to resurrect the childhood gem that it is. Taylor, Beatles, Bee Gees. Oprah, Betty - Bruce Springsteen, Oprah, Betty White, Dolly Parton, Harry Belafonte, Frida Kahlo and on and on and on. So they're back in biz. Little golden books have made a comeback. bookshelf for kids books like that.
There's also that series called Who Is? It's like, who is Albert Einstein? Who is Michael Jordan? While I was at Books & Books, I saw the one that's called Who Is Aretha Franklin? And it took an incredible amount of restraint not to purchase it. So many things about the kid. My student's after the character project on Courageous America. And I have this kid. I have this kid who I have been working on since the podcast. His name is Alessandro. And he is the blue eye on Harry's College.
is like blue -eyed, blonde hair. He's probably 20 by now. And he came up to me and he was like, there's somebody on the courageous characters list that I would like to do. do it. He said if you had it, I don't think you could pinch it to you. And I said, absolutely. Because a recent prank could be dead by now. Like, 100 % yes. I don't know why she's courageous yet, but I don't know if it is. I'm like, I'm from it. He did what I said.
And then he ran back to his desk and was like, she said I could do it. ran back to his desk group and was like, she said I could do Aretha. It like, it was hilarious. That means that I'm not going to be able focus on the course. And to do it better is not. But I think you are happy to start and finish. So I would be better. So I would be using it for like five minutes. than Wikipedia. So I let them use it for like biographical information only. fun.
I feel like if I am in a kid's section of a bookstore, I usually am going for a specific thing. Like I know I'm getting something for someone's baby shower or first birthday or whatever, but it was cool in this moment with my mom to just be like, okay, if we had like a totally blank slate, what would we add? And then I started noticing all of this other like celeb stuff, which is very fun.
So I know we are three of us in bookstores all the time, but that was like an especially good, almost like mental refresh of looking at stuff I hadn't noticed before. And how did they, like, where did they go? Germany? Germany? Carolina. Did they love it? They loved it. Oh, sweet. Yeah, so my brother -in -law, James, he's probably not going to listen to this, but that's his name. James went to Duke and loved Durham then. And Emma used to visit him there quite often.
She went to school in Savannah, so not too far a drive. And I don't think they had been back since he graduated, to be honest with you. don't think they have a good accent to graduate from GMC. So they stayed at the University of Wisconsin close to campus and they did. out to breakfast, they went to a farmer's market, they went to an art museum, they met up with friends for dinner. They just really loved it and they were very pleasantly surprised how comfortable they felt there.
And I think it's still in the South. And part of the reason that they're moving out of Florida is because the political environment is so awful. And they were looking for somewhere a little bit. calm. and they weren't quite sure how it was going to feel while they were there, but they were really pleasantly surprised. So now they're like actively looking for a rental apartment and they're going to like move forward.
Well, I guess that that's great for them and a win for you because it's closer to here. But maybe your parents maybe will be a little sad or follow them or. that was in the woods, or something else. I will say I lived at flights from Boston to California. And the cost, as compared to Boston, I am, is like, it's a whole different, it's a flight's $29 an hour, so I'm like six months out of here. And these flights, I tested them knowing that my date's on the most expensive combo, I got to was $250.
yeah, that's really great. That'll be that'll be really nice. restaurants in Durham on Instagram. I've never been there before, but when I get there, I will only be eating at excellent places. She comes to prepare people. If anyone ever needs a restaurant recommendation, Molly is a great person to... Like we don't need to care, message us, it plans or book, it doesn't matter, just be like, I'm looking for a restaurant, Molly.
And what her food dictionaries are in such and such a city and she will hook you. I mean, Vegas, Patel will leave to DC, whatever you need. Molly's previous blog, like... Molly's previous blog life. her spiritual reasons and all of the great spiritual reasons. And she also mentioned that she had three last moments where she was like, when I told her what I'd placed and I think that happened. I'm not gonna lie, I have fantasized about one day maybe being like a hotel concierge.
Especially if you're in Boston, I think it would be super -pervading, helping people figure out where to eat, what tracks to go, where there's not to pay for, not to pay for, and like... just kind of tested it all especially here. think that that could be like a really fun like retirement thing for you to do like two days a week Molly just goes in and there's like this boss concierge that'd be pretty cool. hotels that would like my expertise, this is a great show.
Well, that brings us to... that brings us to our topic today, which is a topic instead of a particular book. It's Angeline Buhle. Yeah, it's Angeline Buhle. We love her. I'm going to let Steph intro this because she's via her mom brought this lovely author and lady into our lives. to sit down here today, we were sort of scrambling trying to figure out who owns the copy.
And it turns out the Angeline's first book, Fire Keeper's Daughter was actually my mother's copy that got passed around to everybody back in 2021. The published story of a politician. of that book. It was a bidding war with 12 different publishing houses and she got a seven figure deal. And on top of that, the Obamas won the option to make it into, I believe, a TV series, although I was looking today and I can't find anything updated. It said it was gonna come out in 2023.
three, for now, it's four. So I'm going to stop. round of work. So I'm really excited this fall. I remember the voters coming to me and saying that it could be a good thing. I've seen the issue and I'm so excited to see this. And now, to the next thing. I was reading up on the first book. Did not know that. Yeah. So. premise of Fire Keepers Daughter, which is the first book, the characters do somewhat carry over into the second book, is about, is she 19 in that book?
Donnis is, she is half white, half native, and it takes place up in Michigan in the Sault Ste. Marie area. and she comes from a hockey family, but she's sort of straddling the line of not quite fitting into the white realm and not quite fitting fully into the native realm and kind of trying to find her place. And in the midst of it, there is, is it her best friend that ends up killed? And there's sort of like a discovery of underground drug.
dealing and I also read that Angeline somehow made it into a state cop training on how to make meth. This was her research for the project. this area of Michigan apparently has like a huge meth issue and she deals with it in terms of like the lens of young adults and teenagers and how it affects that population and like who sells it and how you get it and of this, they're in the woods and this is how they like to party and this is kind of like you can come across it pretty easily.
And there's a lot of like this is how to avoid it but also. lot of like, this is how to avoid it, but also it's a little bit unavoidable. Um, and I think one of the other things that needs to be said about Angeline is that she was part of Obama's administration. So she was the director of. Indian education within the department. Director of the Office of Indian Education at the US Department of Ed. So she was very involved with education and then. I think she is a great leader.
This is what she was. already in her 50s when this first book came out. This is her first book. but she conceived of the idea when she was 18 and I think it just sort of like nested in her brain until she fully worked it out. I forgot to say right off the bat that these are technically both considered YA books. I know we mentioned before that neither of them reads like a YA novel. home. The first book I read was Donna's. Donna's, I think, was really cool. It really cool.
She was brilliant, and she was really good at the game, so she was really happy. a struggle with like, am I more Hawaiian? Am I more indigenous? Where am I accepted more? Where do I feel more connected? And that kind of runs throughout the whole book. And part of her identity is like, well, you're Firekeeper's daughter. Like... identity is like, well, you're Firekeeper's Daughter, like... feel that? You don't feel honored. I can tell you. You know, she's like, how? What am feeling?
When does it happen? like, how, when do I feel it? When does it happen? Like, and so she's kind of, it's not until she faces some obstacles that she really like fully understands like, okay, this is where I come from, this is what I stand for, this is who I care about. So I think that that's really interesting. And I also feel like, Dogs, the TV show, came out. And so there's just this whole push of more indigenous people to read books and media.
a political party, and having to create a party that needs people and has to vote in the interest of all of us. and acted out by indigenous people. And I think that that was just like some really interesting timing. And also her first book won the Prince, which is basically the Newberry Award for Young Adult Lit. She won a book. I read some words for it. It was increases YA, both of them. This book was kind of a hit on me. And I don't know if anybody's ever actually recommended it to me.
I just liked it. I loved it. We made money. But you and I were at a time when brothers are number one. That's not how it's to be. There's a lot of people that are like that. A lot of those people. have read it and a lot of those people are people that don't typically read YA, which I think is really interesting. great that it's YA too. I love you so much in this box, and it doesn't feel like a loving experience. It's like a very beautiful experience.
Yes. Well, and I think that that goes along with the aspect of her identity because the reader learns a lot as she's learning a lot because she's trying to decide if she's like wanting to actually be like a member of an official member of her tribe. this isn't a book I would have ever picked myself. It has a very actually eye catching cover, I think.
But I don't think I would have grabbed it on that alone either because it would have been in the YA section where I actually saw it in a bookstore today in the YA section. And also she was an unknown author to me. Like there were just a lot of reasons that I wouldn't have gravitated towards it. And both of you loved it so much and I fully trust your recommendations. And I found myself being like, I'm so glad that I did do this because I learned a ton.
And also I felt like it was, um, like a topic that I would never have otherwise pushed into, if that makes sense. Like not just that part of the country or. the hockey part was pretty important for the identity of such a strong country. different than anything else that I would normally read. And I was really grateful for it. I felt like it shoved me into like another kind of education and learning and just made me think about things that I otherwise wouldn't have been able to think about.
And in both of the books, she oftentimes will write in the native language. And I've talked about this, I think on the podcast before that. but some of my friends also mentioned that she writes a lot of this content in Spanish. And... find that so meaningful because it's like his native brain and he's sharing things as the way that it feels most real and true to him.
And even though I don't intrinsically understand a lot of the things that she shares and she does put definitions of certain things. I was so glad that she pushed forward and did that. Even if 99 % of the people that read it do not understand upon first reading it, like it's real to her. And I thought that was a little especially. I feel like we should say that the second book, Donis is in it, but she's no longer a main character.
It's a couple years later and it's her nieces who are the main characters. Oh. Warrior Girl Unearthed. Her nieces are twins. They are Perry and... Thank you. Perry is the protagonist and there is a summer program where you have to work within... Oh my God, I can't even think. Yes. kind of the tribal association. like you try to, you give time to your community, essentially.
pick, but she waited too long, hoping that she wouldn't have to do it and got kind of dumped with this oddball slash amazing museum director type character, um, who is like the best sidekick, sort of like a fatherly figure, quirky. He was, he was absolutely the right character for this, um, to sort of steer her through her. deciding to learn about her own background and people.
And I have listened to a lot of podcasts that deal with MMIWG2S, which if you don't know what that stands for, it is, oh God. Thank you. Women, Girls, and Two -Spirit. I've been waiting for HBO or Netflix to come out with like a docu -series where they actually go into cases of missing people. And I don't know why. they haven't. It's imperative. So if you're all feeling bad, I'm not going to go into too much detail, so just with that, I'll just work on the topic.
is Blood Sisters by Vanessa Lilly. So if you're into that topic and just sort of interested in more books that have native words and sentences woven throughout, definitely pick those up. I wanted to read the... there's like a division of groups of chapters within this second book that they just struck me sort of like lightning to the point where I realized that I am completely ignorant of artifacts.
I don't know why, but when I go to museums and look at artifacts, I'm not thinking about the story of the people who lived with those items, like in this specific. sort of scenario, I want us to end this or at least ask it to the end. I want to think about who made them, who wore them. who made that, who wrote that. just sort of like objects that sort of exist in a glass case in a museum.
And so this book just made me feel so stupid for not actually thinking about those stories and how many items have been stolen or dub up. dug up. from their graves. And so there was this one section, I actually posted it on Instagram when I was reading it. This is at the sort of the beginning of the book and it says, this is not fiction at this point. These are quotes that are meant to sort of, I think they're meant to jar you, you know?
And this all has to do with areas in which we don't exist, or the museum guide. she does with this quirky museum guy who is... things go back to the way they used to be, including the title of the Victoria's Garden. There is a warrior in the world, she is able to get back to the proper place she belongs. As we know, indigenous burial grounds are in various different places and a lot of people have not enough in fact that they shouldn't. And honor... being back where they should be.
so this one says you have significantly more deceased Native people in boxes on your campus than the number of live Native students that you allow to attend your institution. This is from Shannon O 'Loughlin, chief executive of the Association on American Indian Affairs in a letter to Lawrence S. Bacow. president of Harvard University, February 18, 2021. That's the part that upset me the most is like, this is present day. This isn't like 100 years ago.
and I knew shockingly little about the laws around it and like the restorative practices that are like trying to happen and the arguments and fights that people are having all the time. Um, and I sort of knew a little bit about it, but in terms of the legality of it, I didn't realize that it had been way more outlined and like it should be an easier process for a lot of these people to get back what rightfully belongs to them.
So each of those chapters that has snippets of like, you know, either legal documentation or letters or, you know, declarations of like here are the facts and like we still don't have what we should have was really, I thought, compelling and also... I thought compelling and also I really want a lot more young people to read this because they They have a lot of power and a lot of followers and a lot of what not what have you on social media and I feel like
cause a conversation for the classroom and I feel like the second book would probably be a quote -unquote safer book to discuss in school because it's not talking about drugs like the first one is. So hopefully there's teachers out there listening to this that think about, you know, if you're teaching high school, picking that book as your summer reading or something because it would start so many important conversations.
also think the way that she chose to write the second one where Perry herself who is inside the tribe and is part of all these rituals and wants to honor her ancestors she herself didn't know many things about how this went down and what the laws are now in the US so I think as the reader you get sort of like You're going along with her. So even if you have that, like, you can't believe it, you know, because it's like, she also didn't know it.
And she's inside that culture, herself, which I think is for people who are totally new, to also think like, okay, I'm learning a lot more. I it makes you feel almost like you've invited into this world. And I know why, too, it's not part of the shame around it, but it's not part of the tenancy. like how far scaling this situation is. I think the way she's written it, it allows you to really hear all of those things that are very true without getting so disturbed that you stop reading.
Like you're definitely shaken, but you want to keep going because you want to understand how she's going to reconcile this with inside of herself and what kind of role is she going to take going forward. And there's a moment where she kind of has an opportunity to like, accelerate through the end of her time in high school and she's thinking about will she do that? Will she not? What kind of professional career will she pursue?
And she really wants to try to make things right for her own community. And I think it ends on a note where you as the reader have this sort of opening to be like, if there's anything I can do to get smarter about this or tell more people about this, I should do that so that more people fully understand what the situation is.
I also think that even though this isn't technically a series, I would recommend reading Firekeeper's Daughter first, which is the chronological order that the books came out, because Angeline Booly spends so much time with the setting in the first book, and you really learn what it's like to live in an indigenous area of the northern United States. And... I don't know a ton about Michigan, but the book takes place right on the Canadian border.
It's very much like, this is how we get through the winter. Hunting is still part of our everyday lives. Hockey is really big there because they have ponds. They don't have to wait for a rink time.
There's just a lot of niche things that I feel like you learn that in the second book, it's almost assumed that you know a little bit about it and you know a little bit geographically about... was so interesting to me is that you have to take a ferry to get from the island to like everything else like I can't even imagine one the cost to the time you have to make sure you're there for the time the ferry's gonna be picking you up.
And if you miss it, then well, guess you missed whatever you needed to get to on the other side. Just how inaccessible we have made transportation and movement for native people was sort of staggering to me.
And what's interesting is they do like a safe passage ritual every single time they come or go, which I thought considering it's like a barrier between them and the rest of their broader community, they still view it as a gift, like to travel safely back and forth, even though it's this thing that isolates them and makes them less capable of access to food, access to health care, all of those things. I did want to read one thing that I discovered at the very end of the book in the author's note.
which I thought was kind of interesting. She wrote, the story behind Warrior Girl Unearthed began in 2018 on Twitter. Someone tweeted an idea for a Lara Croft movie, quote, but she's native and returning artifacts that museums stole, end quote. It was a great movie idea, but that's all it was to me. My focus was on completing Firekeeper's Daughter and getting a literary agent for the indigenous Nancy Drew story that had been in my mind since I was 18 years old.
Flash forward a year, I now had an agent and spent the summer of 2019 revising Firekeeper's Daughter. Our plan was to submit the manuscript to editors that fall after 36 years of working on the story of my heart, I could tell there was a light at the end of the tunnel. But what next? Writing a sequel with Donnis's next adventure felt more exhausting than exciting. Perhaps all I had in me was this one story. I could be satisfied with that.
Then one Sunday while on a long walk, a voice popped into my head. I stole everything they think I did, even some of the stuff they don't know about yet. I stopped in my tracks. Who was this defiant girl and what else was she going to reveal? I ran into the nearest business and hardly asked for a pen, paper, and a chardonnay. For the next few hours, I wrote the inner monologue of a teen girl sitting in a police station waiting for her parents and wondering how she got herself into this mess.
can you say the number of years again? To any writer out there, that is a reminder to keep on writing and keep on trying until it gets made. I am so grateful for the writing for these books and also I want to ask a lot of questions and I want to know how you guys are doing. I want to know what it was like being part of the Obama administration. And I want to know how you get into that and like what it was that she was doing during that time. And because I'm like, I'm going to be totally honest.
I didn't even know that that was a position within these United States. Like I didn't know that we had somebody doing that work. just wanted to talk about the son of a business. just want to talk to her and ask her 100 things. Well, please let us know if you read these books, because we obviously are really passionate about them and we think that you'll like them. And I do think that these books are for men, women, boys, girls, non -binary, like young, old, whatever.
I think that if you maybe had like, a kid that was in fourth or fifth grade. I think if you read it to them, they can handle it. I honestly do. I don't think it's anything that they don't hear on the news. And I just feel like it's a part of American history that we don't really know a lot about and that it should be more present. And I think that this is a really good. kind of segue into learning more about it in like a, not family friendly is the wrong phrase, but like in an approachable way.
I mean, a lot of people are like, oh, I don't want to read nonfiction. And this isn't nonfiction, but it's historically accurate fiction. So I would recommend it to basically everyone. Should we talk about what we're reading right now? a couple weeks ago, someone brought up Ali Hazelwood had a new book out called Bride and I was in Target the other day and they had it 20 % off so I put it in my cart and then I read it in two sittings.
I have not read a vampire werewolf book I believe since the Twilight series which was... I don't know. 16 years ago? Is that how long ago Twilight came out? used to read those books when I was taking the bus to my advertising agency job, which was 2011 to 2014. So sometime around then. so this is an adult romance book or adult fantasy. Is this romantasy? Yes, let's say yes.
The protagonist, her name is Misery and she is a vampire and humans, vampires, and werewolves all know about each other but they live in very different areas. couldn't quite tell what city this was supposed to take place in.
But they have this sort of system where in order to not have any fights break out, higher ranking members of the government have to basically exchange a person from their cabinet or not cabinet, but like, so basically she was sent when she was a child to go live with the humans as like, if anything happens to her, then we get to kill your exchange, like an exchange student except not a student child. So she's never really had an agency over her life.
And she became friends with a human and the human has gone missing. She's a journalist, her best friend is a journalist. And so when a marriage of convenience is proposed between her and the alpha of the were werewolf group, and she finds out his name, which are the initials. that were left in her missing best friend's notepad. She's like, yes, I will marry him because she wants to figure out where the heck her missing best friend is.
So she marries him and has to go live in the werewolf territory. And there's some saucy stuff, which was a little bit weird because she's got pointy ears and he is werewolf. So. I'm just tried to speak and could not. I asked Steph. I mean, you read it in two synnims. I, before the podcast started recording, I said to Steph, am I going to like it? Because sometimes she says like, this one's not for you. Like it's too many fairies or whatever it happens to be. And, um, right. I tried, I tried.
I really tried. Cause everybody on the internet just peed their pants about that series. Um, and she said, yes, I think you will. So I am going to give it a whirl. and either or anything about this faculty, the closest I've gotten is working with practice and anything that you have to talk about. But I will not be centering toward either of them because it's also... into what I'm reading because it's also. you just tell the people how many pages are in this book? It's like 640 around that.
On the back, hold on, I just, I wanna get this right because I had never heard this term before. Fans of. not be disappointed. So these books, when they're like two to five hundred pages, are called doorstop epitancy. I get that. Who uses the book as a doorstop? I don't think it's decided. Nobody has. That's nice to hear. That's like, from the beginning. I think that's... I think one is best met. Anyway, so it's book one.
anyway, so it's Book one this author is another late in life author He had one other book series that I have not read This how do I describe this book? It brought it the beginning of it really reminds me of six of crows in terms of like there's an orphan and he's like And by the secret, it doesn't happen often. But now, it's a little scary. So six of crows, I would say. But his secret is that he's a prince.
And his parents were killed by people that, I don't know who they are, but his parents were killed. And so he's basically... killed. And so he's basically like out for vengeance and he's like undercover. Are people not looking for him? His whole family, he goes from this job to this job. Oh, okay. I would just say like, it's kind of like, you know, it's to say for everyone. Sometimes people who are sick, other people who are sick, it's like, yeah, I'm going to go look for a new doctor.
like the, at one point he's in like a hovercraft type of thing. And it's basically an airplane, but he's like in total awe of it. And so I'm kind of like, do they not have airplanes? Like it's like, And I think society is gonna be seeing this work well after the night. I know that's a key point to that. They have to... figure it out and they can see people's will. So depending on the criteria of what class you are in the society, you can actually benefit from other people's will.
benefit from other people's will. And so if you are lower class, you... will to upper class people. And people, they have to figure out different ways of managing this. Some of the people just like, come across your things, low class things, which is right, is being fueled by ill -mannered. And so... I think there's about to be a dark academia aspect to it because he's going to this academy. where he is just having a lot of matter.
where he is to spy on the head of the school because the head of the school was like the top of his class. And he basically could have been like a big time politician and he chose to be the head of this school instead, which is a very odd choice. And so the government... what's the word, great, of sorts on the campus of the school. of sorts on the campus of the school that he is trying to figure out how to harness and use.
And so this orphan kid who actually was a prince at one point in time is now being tasked with figure out why this guy chose to be like the headmaster of a school as opposed to like any other job within the society. me or not. OK, so, um. Okay, so I'm a really fast reader. This book, not only is it like 650 pages, but the font is like size nine or 10. Like it is dense. Like it is, and it is so detailed, like the world that this guy is building, like is jaw drop.
Like the ideas, like just the ideas alone, I'm sitting there and I'm like, this is so wild. Like that somebody's brain. invented this, you know what I mean? And like, if I think too hard about like Hogwarts and Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, like there are a lot of people in this world that have the ability to build worlds and this guy is one of them. And I'm very interested in what happens now that the main character is like about to be at the school.
But before I found out what his like mission was going to be, right here. this is the work of things, this is where this value kind of lands. In the work, this is how the society works. And that was like, well before he was first 50 years old, and now he's back now with like a rare moment in time. I know like where we're going with it and what he's going to be doing, I'm very interested. But it took a little bit for that to happen. Not really sure how to follow that up.
I'm not reading a doorstop fantasy novel. I just finished a few days ago, a love song for Ricky Wilde by Tia Williams. Steph talked about this earlier, so I won't get too much into it. And also we're hoping to do a Tia Williams episode coming up. But I will say, and I've said this before, I was obsessed with her previous book, Seven Days in June. So I was really, really eager to read this. It's very different, very different kind of story. very different, very different from how it's going.
It can almost sound really different, but just the experience is so different emotionally, and I guess I'll leave it at that for now, because it's a good picture to really compare it with the past. and Sensibility, which was written by... Hazelwood when we were at this romance author event. And we all had our phones open typing stuff into Goodreads so we wouldn't forget. And I happened to see it when I was in the bookstore in Miami. And I was like, OK, it's paperback. I'm going to get this.
like, okay, I'm going to get this. I am a male. of two sisters who are from Maryland, who upon their dad's passing, discovered that he has just kept a lot of secrets about another family, about his financial situation. And the only way they can access any part of their inheritance is if they move up to Maine and take over a rundown in that he had purchased and basically let go into foreclosure. So. in the part of the country, I mean, in the country America.
the part of the family that is actually an American tribe. no one, she begins to fall in love with one of the members of the tribe who was helping them get to know the local area and help them get introduced to everyone from contractors to accountants to whatever. It's very interesting because for those who have not been to the state of Maine, it is an extremely white place. And the main characters in this book, Nora, the woman is black, and then this guy, who everyone calls Bear.
and then this guy, who's kind of a spare, his name is American. So they're talking about that experience of looking a super white, super white, and he is the one who's trying to be both native and also high -sider. The man is excellent to the point where he's like, would be like, we're at the far side. And I would be like, we're at the far side. Oh my god, how does that come from someone's brain? because of the causes of the change. I would expect them to ask me, I would expect you to ask me.
this so heavily in front of an audience full of other romance readers, I'm like, this has got to be great. But also I was nervous. I was like, oh, go ahead. Like, don't go into it with too high expectations. But I'm really, really, really enjoying it. And Steph and I were talking about yesterday. It's meant to be like a modern day take on sense and sensibility, which I'm mortified to tell all of you I've never read. So I, oh, OK. So I might have to. neither.
to do like a classics episode and by classics I mean we're gonna do a Jane Austen episode I've read a lot of the classics. Great Expectations is my favorite book for many, many, many, many years. Great Expectations is a great book. That's why I mean, I'm happy to talk about that one. great books? Oh. I don't know, because I think I started one one time and was like, meh.
is this author sorry sex lies and sensibility by Nikki Payne her other book is called pride and protest Which is also a play on pride and prejudice so if you like those oh geez I think you will really really like these and I am loving this without having read the inspiration material But I sent a stuff that maybe I will watch the movie of sensibility in order to get us a sense pun intended of what it was inspired by. So anyway, that's my romance hole this week.
I don't know when I'll be done with this book. It's I really have to concentrate, which I know sounds so absurd. But when you are reading lighter books that are like more like if I'm reading a book and the majority of it is dialogue, that goes a lot. The pages just fly by. of this book and it's like a very detailed description of like what a contraction looks like in this society, or like.
looks like in this society or like, you know, there's a lot of like inner monologue of because this guy is basically undercover. And so like his, like he's going back and forth of like, do I play it like this? Do I play it like that?
Did he tell that I like blanched when he said this and you know, he has to do a lot of like, I mean, he gets caught up at one point because he flunches when somebody says his swear word in a language that he shouldn't know, because like, his upbringing was like, he was like, I like, had a... all these tutors and he knows all the languages. He's supposed to be the self -care kid. So there's a lot of that for him, Seth. And it just is way more challenging to make that book slide. I like that.
Thanks, Beth. I've been reading recently. time. hope that I am able to it for all of you. I would like to say one thing, Maria, that I'm always grateful for your response. Stephanie, or Marissa, you're the best. I love you guys. She's so good to us. She's a good person. her room anymore, so I don't think she's gonna read that. But it's a closed -door thing. True. It can't be. It can't. It can't. Well, that was a good point. I know. No? It's a problem for the president.
I mean, it's been that way for time. How many times has it been? You know it. No. Four or five times. So many times. And it's not accurate. They don't have a budget for it. How could they? but they don't have the budget for it. believe, and it's been dropped probably because of how much it would cost to sort of build that world up. So I'm not sure if another network is going to pick it up. things that we need to learn before you experience the whole thing.
And they should show us the whole lot of things. First I want to say for people who aren't as deep into the book world as we are, that stands for A Court of Thorn and Roses, if you're like Watson and Agatarr. It's an acronym for the series that is crazy popular. If you saw the book covers, I'm sure you would recognize it because they're everywhere. It's in Target. It's in all the bookstores. It's at... 4 ,000 words total, the whole series, and I've read the first four books.
I could see that the way that people can do, whether it's like GoFundMe or Kickstarter for products, that this could become something that happens in the future. If fans really feel strongly enough, I don't know what the budget would be to make something like that. I'm guessing like could be a hundred million dollars, but I think they could try. always, but anything that I will think of, I will. had ever had? And that was a hundred million? Wasn't it? that were so elaborate.
Yeah. I just think for a book series to be devoured in a way like that, that it would be silly not to make it. But I do understand needing to make it correctly with the, like with the money and the budget and the whole thing. on the dragons It's just gonna wreck it Right. So, yeah. Well, that's how we get to stuff. One thing, we used to be free from the experience of being free at loads. Not now. I love that. And it's been nice. My school's out of the way for you, but I'm happy for you.
students at one point screamed and rolled around on the floor because they at the in the wedding scene, they had Titania and they have something to pick up. Oh my gosh, the queen of the Amazons, what's her name? Not Helena. Oh my God, this is terrible. They had two of the women end up with each other at the wedding. And then they had one of the guys from Snout from Pyramus and Thysbe, they had him end up with like a guard from the wedding.
So there were like all these like gay couples all of a sudden. And I was like this and the kids are like, Oh my God, this isn't in the play. Do you think Shakespeare meant this? And I was like, I happy experience. So, thank you. And it wasn't so cool, cool, cool. But yeah, it was the fairies were not done well and the kids made fun of it. And so like, yeah, budget matters and, and all that jazz.
if you guys want to see what a doorstop fantasy novel looks like, I'm going to take a video of this book and post it on Instagram. So give us a follow at Plans Are Booked over on Instagram. And if you want to make a suggestion of a book we should read or a book we should talk about, please shoot us a note to plansarebooked at gmail .com. We love to hear from you. Thanks for watching. Until next time, our plans are...