Episode 319 – Summertime Reading Recs with Jay & Lisa

Jun 28, 2021

Support Big Gay Fiction Podcast on PatreonThe guys welcome back Jay from Joyfully Jay and Lisa from The Novel Approach to talk about what they’ve been reading recently. They discuss books by Paul Rudnick, Maria Ingrande Mora, Kate Hawthorne, Jason June, Joanna Chambers and M.A. Grant. Plus, they each share a book they’re looking forward to in the coming months, including titles by Annabeth Albert and David R. Slayton.

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Show Notes

Here are the things we talk about in this episode. Please note, these links include affiliate links for which we may make a small commission at no extra cost to you should you make a purchase. These links are current at the time the episode premieres, however links are subject to change.

Transcript 

This transcript was made possible by our community on Patreon. You can get information on how to join them at patreon.com/biggayfictionpodcast.

Intro

Jeff: Coming up on this episode, Lisa from The Novel Approach and Jay from Joyfully Jay are here with some book recommendations.

Will: Welcome to episode 319 of the Big Gay Fiction Podcast, the show for avid readers and passionate fans of gay romance fiction. I’m Will Knauss and with me as always is my co-host and husband. Mr. Jeff Adams.

Hello, rainbow romance readers. We are so glad that you could join us for another episode. of the show. The last episode as it so happens of pride month 2021.

Jeff: And let’s just get right into it. The two episodes we’ve got for you this week are actually going to help you bulk up your summertime TBR. And if you’re like us, of course, you may not need that bulking up, but there’s so many good books that we’re going to be talking about this week. We’re going to kick things off with another visit from Jay from Joyfully Jay and Lisa from The Novel Approach.

We talk about romcoms a range of young adult novels from dystopia into adorable contemporary plus we’ve got some historicals, some fantasy and a return visit to a very popular wine bar and bookstore. Plus, we’re going to find out what Jay and Lisa are looking forward to in the months to come.

Jay & Lisa Recommendations

Jeff: Lisa and Jay, welcome back. Happy pride month.

Jay: Thank you.

Lisa: Happy pride month to you as well.

Jeff: I’m so excited we get to talk about books again.

It’s one of my favorite things that comes up on the show is getting to hear what you two are reading. We’ll just dive right in cause I know there’s so much good stuff here. And, Jay, we’ll kick it off with you this time.

Jay: This month, I tried to branch out a little bit from some of my usual authors.

Playing the Palace by Paul Rudnick

Jay: And the first book I want to talk about is called “Playing the Palace” by Paul Rudnick. Did you read it?

Jeff: Loved it so much.

Jay: Yes. I loved it and thought it was completely adorable. The premise is that Carter is an event planner in New Jersey and, a little sort of neurotic and awkward and all of those things.

And he is helping to work an event where Prince Edgar is his Royal Highness of England is speaking and the two encounter each other before the event and they start talking and, makes enough of an impression that Edgar has his people sort of hunt Carter down afterwards and they end up, you know, sort of interacting and having series of dates and get togethers when Edgar is in New York.

Edgar is very sort of reserved and controlled as he has to be because of his position. And he always has to be thinking about the impression that he’s making and how he’s behaving, but he sort of holds everything tight and Carter is much more free and open, and there’s this great balance where he sort of helps Edgar, with that letting loose.

And they spend it part of the book in New York. And then part of the book, Carter goes to England. To sort of stay with Edgar and figure out, is there any way that this can all work between them? Unfortunately for Carter, he finds himself in a publicly embarrassing situation because he just has a tendency to fall into these awkward gaffes that embarrass him and the Royal family’s freaking out. But Edgar sort of stands by him throughout all of it.

And what I really liked first of all, was just the dynamic between the two of them and how they both really raise the other up. And they fall for each other fairly quickly and easily, but the conflict comes from the fact that, they need to figure out how this event planner from New Jersey and a prince of England can possibly make it work between them.

So, the struggle is sort of figuring out how to blend their lives, combining the fact that Carter keeps making all of these gaffes that, are full of the tabloids and how you deal with the media pressure, and the queen who I said, she’s like the cock blocking queen who stands outside of Carter’s door when he tries to sneak into Edgar’s room. There’s a lot of comedy in the story, which I really liked.

I mean, Carter has a very distinct voice. He is the narrator and I mean, you’re either going to love him or he’s going to make you nuts. I fell on the side of loving him and found the story just a lot of fun, very charming, funny.

Carter has a crazy family, but they love him. And Edgar has a crazy family and people who work for him who are all sort of irreverent because they love him. And so there’s a lot of crazy there, but people who are very sort of fiercely loyal and devoted to each other. So, I thought it was super fun.

Jeff, I know you said you read it as well.

Jeff: Yeah, I love the rom communist of it. I love how you know, this is a big splashy royal book, but it’s like the polar opposite of “Red, White, and Royal Blue” at the same time. And I loved everybody around the couple. Edgar’s security team, Carter’s family, the queen. When the two families ended up kind of meeting each other and hanging out together, that was tremendously. Awesome. I really loved everything about it.

Jay: A scene that I quoted in the review where they’re on the plane and, they’re talking about how shouldn’t the plane really be used for, all of this public service and charity. You know, Carter and Edgar’s sort of sneaking back to go have sex in the state room in the back.

And you know, his advisors like, well, aren’t, we have a dirty little mile high hoe your highness. And, you know, it’s just very playful and that sense that they’ll give each other a hard time, but are also very loyal to one another. So I thought it was a lot of fun.

Jeff: Yeah. It was really wonderful. One of my favorite books of the year, I think. We’ll talk about that book, again, probably in December.

Lisa: That’s going on the TBR.

Jeff: You won’t regret it.

Lisa: It sounds fun. I really need fun right now. I read a lot dark books this last quarter. I don’t know what got into me.

Jay: Definitely rom-com.

Jeff: So what’s up for you first?

Fragile Remedy by Maria Ingrande Mora

Lisa: Well, I will go first with. This is a YA book. It’s a dystopian. I don’t know why dystopian YA is just such a thing, but it’s a dystopian YA and it’s called “Fragile Remedy” by an author named Maria Ingrande Mora.

And this book takes place in a sci-fi kind of fantasy setting, called the Withers. And the Withers is just a place where hope goes to die. It’s dark, it’s filthy. It’s just the totally depressing place. And I say that as a compliment to the author, because she did such an amazing job of getting across just how dire everything was, how dire life was in the Withers.

So, the story follows a boy by the name of Nate. He’s 16 years old and he is a Gem. He is Genetically Engineered Meta-tissue. So. Basically Nate was created in a lab and his sole purpose in his creation was, and the other Gems who were created as well, was as a cure for a pandemic. And so they were basically created to keep the wealthy, rich folks healthy.

So Nate and the other Gems happen to have a shelf life, a literal shelf life, and that is 16 years. So, Nate’s parents, he considers them, his parents, but they were his creators, help him escape from the city into the Withers. So, that he can have some hope of survival, which is completely kind of ironic that they, they wouldn’t take him to this place to survive.

So he is in search of the drug or the cure or whatever, the serum called Remedy. And he takes up with a chem dealer, a drug dealer who is also an addict named Alden. And, Alden becomes, sort of a friend sort of a comfort to Nate, but the quid pro quo of their relationship is untenable. It’s just un-survivable for Nate.

So Nate runs away, from Alden and takes up with a group of scavengers and these scavengers all become sort of just friends and family for Nate. He finally finds a place where he wants to stay and he finds people that he wants to live for outside of himself. He wants to live obviously for himself.

So the story is just beautifully, beautifully drawn. It is about found family. It’s about friendship. It’s about survival in a place where you really wonder why people would want to survive there because it’s just so horrible.

And I ugly cried. I ugly, ugly, cried at one part in the book. It was an unexpected, ugly cry. Like I didn’t even, realize I was so emotionally invested in that part of the story until this event happened. I was like waterworks. But yet at the end, it was so dark throughout the book that at the end, this slight glimmer of hope and possibility feels so massive.

If you like dark dystopian books, I wouldn’t even say it’s necessarily geared toward a YA audience. Of course, it’s a YA book because the protagonists are all teenagers, but it really was just a really beautifully crafted world beautifully written, loved all the characters and, so “Fragile Remedy” by Maria Ingrande Mora. Really beautiful book.

Jay: You’re right. You are reading dark books.

Jeff: And it’s so great. When you get a book that gives you that visceral reaction to where the we’re like the cries kind of sneak up on you a little bit.

Lisa: Oh. Oh. I was just like, it was like, well, I didn’t see that coming.

It was, it was really, really good book.

Daybreak by Kate Hawthorne

Jay: All right. So my second book, is “Daybreak” by Kate Hawthorne. It is part of the, “Vino and Veritas” collection. This is part of Sarina Bowen’s “World of True North” universe.

I think there are four possibly, five series happening concurrently featuring different aspects of the town. This is Vino and Veritas, which is a bookstore wine bar combination. And this, track of the series is all LGBTQ leads.

So, “Daybreak” is about partway through the series. They’ve been releasing them in clusters. So I think there’s another four or five in August and that should close out the “Vino & Veritas”, which I think is somewhere in the 15 to 20 book range. So it’s quite a few. So all of them are meant to be standalones and this one stands alone as well.

It features Jasper Cunningham, who is a mechanic who lives in town and he is a widower, and really the past couple of years have been a lot for him. Facing the death of his husband, and he’s been a reserved guy anyway, and now has become even more so almost sort of a recluse. Into town comes Liam Luckett, who from California comes to Vermont.

His family is very controlling and has sort of mapped out his life for him, and he is at the breaking point. Has taken off from school. You don’t even know he’s gone and is doing this countrywide trip across the coast and back again. So he has a car breakdown in Vermont and ends up needing a mechanic and ends up with Jasper.

So, as only happens in romance, novels. He can’t get the part, and so Liam ends up, because there’s a giant snow storm, staying with Jasper in his mechanic next house. Because again, those are the things that happened in romance novels, and not in real life.

If you can get past that, the book really spends almost all of the book just following Jasper and Liam in Jasper’s house, as they’re getting to know each other.

So it’s not super plot heavy. It’s very character driven. And these guys are just so good together. I just loved their dynamic. The way that Liam is so full of life. And he really helps bring Jasper sort of out of this shell that he’s been in. And the way that Jasper returns sort of helps Liam find that strength to stand up for what he wants and what he wants to be and break out of that control from his family.

So the two main conflicts here are, Liam and his family, and the fact that they expect him to return and sort of take his place in their plans. And, for Jasper, figuring out if he’s really ready to move on and can he sort of make that jump over to now really pursuing something serious with somebody else.

It’s definitely, if you like sort of the grumpy one falls for the sunshine one trope, which I’m a total sucker for. Very much built in.

If you’ve read any of the other “Vino & Veritas” books, there is some overlapping side characters come in and out. So if you’re familiar with the world, it’s really a nice way they all sort of play with each other. But if you’re not, you can easily come into this one on its own. I’ve read probably half of them, and this was definitely one of my favorites that I read from that series.

Lots of fun, like I said, sort of a quiet character driven book. If you’ve read a lot of Kate Hawthorne’s other work, she tends to be, more on the kink end whereas this one is not. This one is sort of a quieter, more character driven story. I just liked the dynamic a lot between the two main characters.

Jeff: I need to get back to this series so desperately. I read some of the early ones and then because 2021 is unrelenting and the number of good books that I want to read. I have not been back. I’m glad that one sounds good. That one, in particular, because of the forced proximity that’s there a little bit, the snow storm having to stay there. I mean, that just ticks a few boxes for me.

Lisa: I love. Yeah. I love the forced proximity because then you get forced into them actually having to have conversation with each other, which dialogue for me is just huge.

Jay: Snow storms, road trips, all of those types of…

Lisa: Yeah. I love great dialogue in a book, so yeah. Good. Fun trope.

Jay’s Gay Agenda by Jason June

I want to pick up one thing that I didn’t mention in “Fragile Remedy” because it’s not a romance. And I was so focused on the world building and the darkness of it. There is a special someone for Nate. Reed who is the leader of the gang who, is very conflicting things happening with them because of, Nate situation. But there is a little romance angle there and that’s what brought all the sunshine and happiness at the end.

So my next book is , another YA completely on the opposite end of the spectrum. It’s light. It’s sweet. It’s airy. It’s delicious. I just thought it was adorable.

Jason June’s “Jay’s Gay Agenda” and that’s a lot of J’s. I watched the interview that you did with Jay when Emory Lee was on as well. I so wanted to see that because I had just very recently finished the book.

So, “Jay’s Gay Agenda” is a book about a boy who lives in Riverton, Washington, in the middle of nowhere, Washington. And he is getting ready to be a high school senior. And he happens to be the only gay boy in his high school that he knows of. At least he’s the only out gay boy in his high school.

And so he has spent years, through the last three years of high school, watching everyone else get to date and get to go to dances and do fun things and hold hands and fall in love and lose their virginity and all this stuff. And then here’s poor Jay, who, who has not gotten any of those experiences.

So, his mother gets a promotion at work and Jay gets the news that he’s going to be moving to Seattle for his senior year of high school to, of all places in Seattle Capitol Hill. And he’s going to be going to Capitol Hill High School. So Jay is supes excited about that because the number one thing on his list is to meet another gay kid.

So, so which he does on the very first day and in a kind of romcom, cute disastrous sort of way. So, the list, you know, of course on the list is, is many other things, too many things like maybe like, you know, seeing another boy’s penis, losing his virginity and stuff. But Jay starts, you know, is the new kid on the block senior year of high school, which is really hard to begin with.

And his first day he gets run over by Albert Wang, who is a robotics nerd. He’s kind of this geeky guy, but he is a V.S.B. Very Sexy Boy as Jay calls him. So, the story follows Jay, through many, many coming of age firsts. Sometimes just hilariously and sometimes in an, “oh my God. Jay stop now! The train is derailing! Stop! Hit the brakes!

So, Jay meets Max. He is a nonbinary student at this school and Max agrees to kind of be Jay’s gay guide. So one of the things that Max wants to help Jay with is losing his virginity. So, he is introduced to a college guy named Tony and Horny Tony is very happy to help Jay check of those things on his list.

But in the meantime Jay’s heart is getting very involved with Albert. It’s kind of going through all of these different events that Jay’s really excited to be experiencing for the first time, but yet he’s going about it in not the, best way, because he’s keeping things from Albert and, you know, he’s kind of on one hand, it’s like, Ooh, lust and on the other one is, Ooh love.

So it follows him, through all that and as a side kind of conflict, he’s also left his best friend, Lou behind in Riverton. So Jay is having a very hard time balancing his friendship with Lou who is hundreds of miles away, and then his new friendship with Max and all of the fun things that he’s doing. And how does he not ignore Lou? So he spends a lot of time trying to make everybody happy and then he just makes mistakes and makes himself unhappy, and everybody else unhappy too.

I just thought that this book was just so charming and, it was just so adorable, and it was refreshing to me to read a contemporary YA book in the LGBTQ+ setting where I absolutely adored Jay’s parents. I thought his dad’s role in the family as being, not that like the house husband or whatever. But his mom was the primary breadwinner and Jay’s dad was at home and he was the one who had the heart to heart talks with Jay.

I thought that the family dynamic with the three of them was really great and how loving and accepting they were. Then, like, it wasn’t even a blip on the radar when Jay came out. His dad grabbed a banana and a condom and said, okay, let’s talk. So I thought “Jay’s Gay Agenda” was just adorable.

Jay: I thought it was super cute as well. And one of the things that I liked, and then you made me nuts as a reader, but I also liked is that the author let’s Jay make mistakes and lets the other kids make mistakes. Like, I mean, obviously there’s sort of a romance novel gloss over everything where it’s not these not real life teenagers, but at the same time they made mistakes that real life kids would make.

You know, there’s a time that Max gives Jay advice and I was like, no, that’s the worse advice. Don’t listen. And you know, they do stupid things, he thinks with his hormones. He’s doesn’t tell, Albert things, you should tell him. Makes mistakes, dealing with his friends, his friends make mistakes dealing with him.

And so I appreciated that in even the sets that they let Jay have a romantic love interest and a sexual partner who weren’t the same for most of the book. And that’s something you so rarely see in romance in general, and especially in YA and that sort of acknowledgement that, you know, he’s this teenage boy, who’s just desperate to lose his virginity, and he has this opportunity right here.

And as much as he, likes Albert he can’t stop himself from sort of leaning towards this as well. So I liked that the author really let them make mistakes and let them sort of explore some of those real conflicts or decisions that, kids would really make. And it wasn’t sort of too perfectly smooth edges on everything.

Lisa: And the funny thing was that even the character of Reese who I wasn’t necessarily supposed to, like. I even liked him. I liked there was, Tony. Tony’s dead to me.

Jay: Tony we don’t like.

Lisa: I liked all the characters in the book. I thought they were just fun and funny and the emotions to me were very real. Even if some of the things and situations weren’t realistic. I felt like the emotions were really real. I just thought it was adorable.

Jeff: Yeah, I loved the book so much. I can’t wait to see what Jason June does next. It was his debut YA. And so to see what comes next all in for it. If you want to go back and hear that interview, you referenced, they could check that out and episode 314 with Jason June and Emery Lee. It was a great discussion we had there.

Jay: Funny that you picked a book all three of us have read, cause that doesn’t happen that often.

Jeff: I know, right? It’s kind of weird,

Jay: It’s something new by a newer author and that all three ended up picking up.

Lisa: Yup. The cover was so great. I saw that cover and I was like, oh, this cover. This is going to hold some good stuff. So yeah.

The Labours of Lord Perry Cavendish by Joanna Chambers

Jay: So my last one is a historical. It’s called “The Labours of Lord Perry Cavendish” by Joanna Chambers. It is part of her “Winterbourne” series. So the first two books feature the same couple and this fourth book is a new couple. So you can definitely start with this book if you haven’t read the others. Although we do meet Perry in the second book, “Winterbourne’s Christmas,” I believe it was the second book. And he is a friend of the main characters there and he happens to see them kissing in the woods.

And of course it leads to angst in that story because he’s worried his best friend is gonna sort of out him or cause trouble, but it ends up being this moment of sort of reflection, realization for Perry who has always been attracted to men, but never even considered the possibility that he could have an actual relationship and then seeing his best friend in this clearly loving relationship suddenly has opened his eyes to the idea that maybe this is actually possible. So that sort of happens in the background and actually Perry and Johnny who was best friends of the other main character meet at the very last scene of “Winterbourne’s Christmas”, which then sets up this book although the scene repeated this time from their point of view. So again, you don’t need to have read the other book.

So again, each best friends with respective couple and they have come to stay in their house as apparently you do when you’re rich and wealthy in these British historicals and you just come to stay with friends for, you know, weeks or months on end.

And so Perry has a, I would say a generally low opinion of himself. He sees himself as sort of dim and not particularly attractive or appealing, you know, for whatever reason he has this very low self-esteem and Johnny is an artist and he’s sort of bright and shiny and beautiful. And Perry really doesn’t think anybody like this would ever be interested in him.

And so the story is really at Johnny paints Perry at one point, which again, gets you that forced proximity where the two men spend some time together. And Johnny sort of definitely interested in trying to sort of lead Perry along to the possibility of something physical between them, which ultimately turns into, sort of emotional and physical, romantic relationship.

Both of these men are really lacking confidence. Perry, because again, he sort of thinks of himself as sort of slow and stupid and oafish, and that no one would be interested. And then Johnny on the other hand has been told in the past that he’s very needy and demanding and his partners have really made him feel like he’s too much work.

So his assumption is whatever this is with Perry will sort of be a fling to, introduce Perry to the wonders of men, but that Perry would never really want him long-term. And of course, Perry adores Johnny and Johnny adores Perry. And it’s so sweet because they so clearly just like adore one another and you know, particularly for Perry who Joanna Chambers describes him as a Chelsea bun versus a cinnamon roll. So he’s the British version of the cinnamon roll character.

But just the way that the, to just love one another and tolerate those sort of things that would annoy somebody else about one another. And they just they’re so patient with each other. They’re so loving and it’s really a fun story. If you read the first books, it brings you back in that circle of those characters. And if you haven’t, you can sort of start here and they appear in the background. So, I really enjoyed this one. I love Joanna Chambers. I mean, I read almost everything that she writes, but I was excited to jump back into this world and revisit this couple that we get a little taste of in one of the earlier books.

Lisa: And one of the things I loved that she didn’t like hammer the point home. But the point was very subtly made that Perry is fine, sitting quietly and entertaining himself or whatever, while Johnny gets so consumed with his art, like he gets so consumed with his painting, that the world around him disappears and Perry is just very, content.

Jeff: It sounds like Will need to read this. He’s having this historical kind of streak this year. And I don’t think he’s read any Joanna Chambers.

Lisa: Oh, he needs to read her.

Rare Vigilance by M.A. Grant

Lisa: I saved the most recent release for last I’ve kind of gone in release order. My last book is called “Rare Vigilance” by M.A Grant. It came out June 22nd, so very recent release. And for anybody who has heard me go on and on and on, about her writing, her “Darkest Court” trilogy was set in the world of the seelie and the unseelie. And so she is venturing out of, that world and venturing into a more modern alt reality. And so where the “Darkest Court” series, I thought her writing was just almost poetic. It was very literal and just very beautifully fit the world that she was writing in.

“Rare Vigilance” is more gritty. It’s dark fantasy. It’s another dark book and her writing has that tone, she just has such a way of drawing the aesthetic of her worlds with her words. I just think she’s a phenomenal storyteller. So “Rare Vigilance” takes place in modern day, Scarsdale, New York and Atlas Kincade is an ex Marine who is suffering from post traumatic stress. He is suffering a little, probably more than a little, survivors guilt. His platoon was in a battle that I don’t want to spoil anything and give anything away, but it’s a battle that you would not see in the real world. And so his platoon was basically decimated, but Atlas survived, but not without emotional and physical scars, both. So his sister Bea owns the Whitethorn Security Agency. And she asks Atlas to take a job for her as a bodyguard for a very wealthy, prominent businessman in Scarsdale by the name of Decebal Vladislavic. I’m sorry. That’s a hard one. That was just too much of a mouthful for me.

So, Decebal is in need of a bodyguard for his son, Christian Slava. So Atlas thinks this sounds like the ideal job. First of all, the pay is excellent and it’s an overnight gig. So he doesn’t sleep anyway. It’s quiet, which he has sensory issues where he gets very overstimulated.

So working overnight. Perfect. It’s going to be quiet for him. So he goes to Decebal’s home and runs into Christian who he doesn’t know is Christian at that point in time. And you understand immediately that this is probably going to be the worst job that Atlas is ever going to have.

Christian, he’s mouthy, he’s contentious, he’s combative, he’s dismissive, he’s snarky. He’s just everything you could imagine in someone who maybe might be a little spoiled. Atlas ends up taking the job and Christian proceeds immediately to really challenge Atlas at every turn and conversely Atlas goes ahead and just foils at every one of Christian’s, little tricks and, and whatnot to try to get away from Atlas.

So the friction in the relationship is there immediately. But then something happens one night that completely just blindsides Atlas. And he rebounds from that in, in such a way it causes a conflict of that he betrays Christian. You have to know his backstory to understand. It’s hard to talk about without spoiling it, because you have to understand his background in order to understand why he felt that this was the action that he needed to take. So, as he’s working with Christian and kind of going behind the scenes with this other entity, the relationship between Christian and Atlas kind of starts to morph and it starts to build, and Christian starts to reveal a little more of himself that he’s not the facade. That there’s so much more to him underneath.

So at that point, then Atlas is like, oh crap, what am I set in motion now? What have I done? I’ve how do I stop this? What do I do? So, there’s just a lot of underlying tension that the author just portrays so beautifully. As this very slow burn chemistry starts to boil between Atlas and Christian to the point where the end, you’re completely hooked and you are completely baited in by the ending. His sister Bea throws this ending to Atlas. That is like, okay, now what? What the heck?

Yeah, it’s not like, oh my gosh, somebody’s going to die or whatever. It’s like what the French toast is going to go on now? Cause how’s this gonna work out?

So, it’s a “Rare Vigilance” by M.A Grant. It’s the first book in her “Whitethorn Security” series. And it’s just some really, really fantastic fantasy. Good stuff. Good stuff.

Jay & Lisa Look Forward

Jeff: So, Jay what are you looking forward to in the coming months?

Jay: All right. So the book I picked to talk about was “Out Of Character” by Annabeth Albert it’s the second book in her “True Color” series, following “Conventionally Yours,” which came out, I don’t know, at least a year or two ago, I think.

And the series follows this group of gamers. So the first book it’s sort of a road trip, enemies to lovers series as they are traveling to this convention. And then the second book, if I am getting it correctly, features one of the other members of this sort of gamer group. And it is a friends to lovers, enemies, to lovers, forced proximity, which are all my buzzword topics so I’m really excited.

I love Annabeth writing. And for whatever reason, the first book really “Conventionally Yours really was right in my sweet spot in terms of the storytelling and the style. So I’ve been really eager for another book in the series. So I’m excited about that one. It comes out July 6th. So not too far from now.

Jeff: I’m excited about that one. It slipped my radar, that it was even coming, and I just heard about it again a couple of weeks ago, and I’m like, yes! Cause I loved “Conventionally Yours”, so, so much. So yeah, excited about that one too.

Lisa: My pick is the sequel to David R. Slayton’s “White Trash Warlock”.

Jay: Oh, I remember you talking about this when the book came in.

Lisa: I love that book so much.

And October 12th is the sequel is coming and it is called “Trailer Park Trickster”. And so it is going to follow the continuing story of Adam Binder who was in Denver helping his brother and sister-in-law out of, out of this fantastical dilemma that they found themselves in. And he will be going back to Oklahoma now and it is going to, I’m assuming his aunt who he lived with has recently passed away and he lived with her in Oklahoma in her trailer. So I don’t know if there’s going to be strange things a foot in the trailer park with “Trailer Park Trickster,” but I’m exceedingly looking forward to this book because I absolutely loved “White Trash Warlock” to bits.

Jeff: I love that title as a sequel to “White Trash Warlock.” It just connects so well.

Lisa: it’s how Adam sees himself as this white trash warlock, and he’s such a sweet, lovely character, I just fell absolutely head over heels for him almost immediately.

Jeff: Fantastic. Good stuff to look forward to and good things for people’s TBRs too if they’ve not caught some of these things, we talked about.

Jay and Lisa, so wonderful to catch up with you and talk some books and already looking forward to doing it again, as we roll into fall in September.

Jay: Thanks for having us again.

Lisa: Thank you as always.

Wrap-Up

Will: This episode’s transcript has been brought to you by our community on Patreon. If you’d like to read the conversation for yourself, simply head on over to the show notes page for this episode at biggayfictionpodcast.com. And don’t forget, the show notes page also has links to everything that we’ve talked about in this episode.

Jeff: And on the show notes page, you’ll find links to Libro.fm for the books that are available in audio from them. Of course, Libro.fm is the place, where you buy audio books, you’re also supporting a local bookstore of your choice. Listeners to the Big Gay Fiction Podcast have the opportunity to get a two month audio book membership for the price of one. All you need to do to take advantage of that offer is go to biggayfictionpodcast.com/librofm.

And thanks to Jay and Lisa for talking books with us. It’s always great when they come back to the show. And it’s always interesting to see where we align on books and “Jay’s Gay Agenda” was one of the rare times that we’ve had all three of us reading the same book and we can all talk about it together. There’s almost always moments where at least two of the three of us have read books, but for all three of us, it’s really the stars aligning just right. So Jason June’s YA debut is right there in an elite club.

Will: All right, I think that’ll do it for now. Coming up next on Thursday and episode 320, we’ve got a sneak preview of what we’re looking forward to in the month of July.

Jeff: And besides that look forward, we’re also going to talk about what we’ve been reading and watching during pride month.

Will: Thank you so much for listening. Until next time, please stay strong, be safe and above all else keep turning those pages and keep reading.

Big Gay Fiction Podcast is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. Find more shows you’ll love at frolic.media/podcasts. Production assistance by Tyson Greenan. Original theme music by Daryl Banner.

 

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