Bodice Tipplers
122 episodes - English - Latest episode: 16 days ago - ★★★★★ - 38 ratingsWe're Courtney and we're Sara and we're Bodice Tipplers, the podcast where we read the romance novels we used to steal off our grandmothers' nightstands (and then we drink about it.) Join us each episode as we examine the good, the bad, and the throbbing of vintage romances.
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Episodes
Shadow of the Lynx
October 01, 2019 00:21 - 1 hour - 51.3 MBI read this when I was a kid and it gave me VERY WEIRD KID IDEAS. Now I'm returning to it and it is... even more fucked up than I expected? Nora is one of those freshly orphaned smart Vicky Holt girls. Charles Herrick, aka the Lynx, is a... brilliant sex monster? It's hard to explain. There's another dude too. And a whole other family. Is this even a romance novel? Is this maybe a thriller? I DON'T KNOW ANYMORE. This is going to be okay for most people but there's definitely an ex...
Clan of the Cave Bear
September 15, 2019 19:47 - 1 hour - 48.1 MBAyla is an anatomically modern human (is it technically Cro Magnon? This is set in modern day Ukraine. To the Wikipedia!) orphaned and raised by a tribe of psychic Neanderthals. This one isn't the one with all the doin' it (evidently that is Valley of the Horses which also has a bunch of blonde dudes who shop at Cave-REI), it's the one with a ton of rape and abuse in it.
Guiding Light: Jonathan's Story
August 30, 2019 14:34 - 1 hour - 97.2 MBJonathan, allegedly hot bad boy of Springfield, fakes his death and flees with his also-fake-dead baby daughter to start a new life away from the clutches of bazillionare Alan Spaulding. Will he find love with Tammy, fellow Radiohound fan? Or will her Bad Dad literally fucking kill them all? LET'S FIND OUT in this, I kid you not, Guiding Light book which came out in hardback.
Fear Street: First Date
August 17, 2019 14:09 - 31 minutes - 36 MBChelsea is an ordinary high school girl, obsessed with boys and the saxophone and her diet.... until a new kid comes to school. Will Chelsea's first date become her last date?! Will the roving gangs of greaser punks take over the 90's? Why does this diner close at 7? Find out with this thrilling episode where we take on a Fear Street book! There is no sexual assault (and indeed no sex) in this book, but there is the constant threat of random violence from literally every guy in tow...
Wishes
July 05, 2019 20:23 - 1 hour - 73.3 MBY'all I don't even know, this is about an 80's lady with fake boobs who dies and gets stuck being a fairy godmother for an 1890's-era girl in Colorado. I swear this is the god honest plot of this book. This WOULD be delightful but in fact it's alarmingly full of some insanely intense fat shaming, plus some shockingly evil family emotional abuse, including hella gaslighting. Seriously, this is supposed to be a light and frothy book! And it is! But if any of that sounds like it's goi...
The Hood
June 07, 2019 00:47 - 42 minutes - 39.1 MBThe Hood by Carin Rafferty: It's 1992! She's a treasury agent! He's an... accountant! A white savior accountant! Just read it, okay? This white boy plays basketball in his Daisy Dukes in it, it is amazing.
Rogue - With Special Guests!
May 31, 2019 19:56 - 1 hour - 58.4 MBGuess what, y'all? It's a very special crossover episode! We got together with the ladies from Textual Tension and all four of us had to read this piece of crap that Fabio "wrote" so we hope you appreciate what we do for you. So. This book. Jesus fuck. He's named Ryder Remington (yes really) which is kind of all you need to know. She's masquerading as a tavern wench to investigate a disappearance. In, get ready, Charleston. You know we love it when these books go to South Carol...
Barnabas Collins
May 04, 2019 18:42 - 1 hour - 97.1 MBFor this episode we read the first Dark Shadows tie-in book about Barnabas Collins. It's weird and uncomfortable and very much unlike the show you guys like so don't @ us. Nobody get raped but lots of people get bitten and murdered and it's generally kind of unpleasant. This crossover is also our last episode as part of the Collinsport Historical Society podcast. If you want to keep listening to us, of course we'll always have our episodes here on bodicetipplers.com, but we'll be a ...
Flowers in the Attic: Part 2
April 27, 2019 16:00 - 1 hour - 130 MBSo here's part two of our epic Flowers in the Attic episode, wherein we invite a Very Special Guest to explain what happened in the rest of these bugfuck crazy books and then run out of tape.
Flowers in the Attic: Part 1
April 14, 2019 16:00 - 58 minutes - 81.1 MBNeither Sara or I had read this book as teens even though ALL of our friends had. We were the “too cool” girls which really meant we were painfully uncool. Both of us recall this book being proudly displayed in the halls of our middle and high schools. V.C. Andrews was the most popular girl at any school during the 80s and 90s. She could have been crowned queen at a 114 different proms. In terms of who could generate a loyal army of teen girls it went Johnny Castle from “Dirty Dancing” and ...
Star Trek: Imzadi
March 23, 2019 16:00 - 1 hour - 107 MBWe're going where we won't slut shame you if several men, a few women, and the odd salt vampire have gone before! We're talkin' bout Darmok and Jalad between the sheets! That's right - we read Imzadi!
Night Song
March 12, 2019 16:00 - 52 minutes - 72.3 MBNight Song by Beverly Jenkins - this is the first book by the First Lady of African American Romance, from 1994. Cara is a schoolmarm. Chase is a Buffalo Soldier. They do it. A lot. All over the house, y'all. All over the house. Also there are some murders. There is no sexual assault in the present of this book; however, several characters tell the traumatic stories of their pasts under slavery and one does include rape. There's also a romance novel-y rape threat by the villain but...
Silver Angel
February 17, 2019 17:00 - 56 minutes - 77.4 MBSilver Angel by Johanna Lindsey is evidently a book about a troll doll with boobs. There are, let's see. Twins. Harems. Corsairs. A public fight about pubic waxing. Assassins. Eunuchs. Poisonings. A vizier. As usual, you're definitely going to want to get a vintage copy with an older cover. What is it with these publishers reissuing these with the worst covers? The trigger warnings on this are... complicated. There is no sexual assault actually happening in this book, surprisi...
Adam and Eva
February 11, 2019 17:00 - 29 minutes - 40.1 MBSandra Kitt's Adam and Eva was the first Harlequin romance written by an African American author about a African American couple, in 1984. It's not the first black category romance - as far as we know that's Rosalind Welles' Entwined Destinies, which was published by Dell Candlelight in 1980. There's also a rumor that Anne Weale's Blue Days at Sea is a "stealth black romance" - evidently the protagonists' race just isn't mentioned but the people on the cover are even whiter than usual. (A...
Palomino
January 13, 2019 17:00 - 1 hour - 104 MBWe have a January treat for you: books we actually read as criminally young girls! Sara's is Palomino by Danielle Steel. Samantha is one of those hyper-competent insanely beautiful has-a-weird-nickname Steel women who is taking the advertising world by storm while simultaneously being abandoned by her ridiculously awful husband. She goes off to heal her broken heart on a ranch in California and meets a super hot ranchin' dude. If you were like me and you loved books about horses and boo...
Hearts Alight
January 01, 2019 17:00 - 18 minutes - 33.9 MBThis is a tiny little Bodice Tipplers Extracurricular Mini-Episode - we're going off the reservation and reading a modern book! Hearts Alight by Elliot Cooper is a cute little gay romance Hanukkah novella about a sad sack guy who falls in love with a golem. It's adorable and sweet and you'll read it in an afternoon and you should go do so.
Bewitching Hour
December 23, 2018 17:00 - 43 minutes - 80.6 MBCelebrate Christmas with us with Bewitching Hour by Anne Stuart, the kind of book where you know going in that there's gonna be a blizzard and the roads aren't the only things getting plowed. Sibyl is evidently a witch who's a secretary for other witches and Nick is a skeptic about everything except dowsing. There's also a haunted house that nobody ever mentions again and a late-game crime caper. I don't even know, y'all.
Captive Passions
December 11, 2018 17:00 - 1 hour - 117 MBSirena, foot stamping sword waving hellion, takes her sister's place as wife to the virile Regan van der Rhys, Dutch colonizer of Java in "Captive Passions" by Fern Michaels. By day she is his quiet pious wife, but by night she sinks all his shipping and taunts him with her tawniness and her thighs. It's 1977 and thighs are very in. Buckles are swashed. Also there is a lot of nutmeg.
Savage Ecstasy
November 21, 2018 17:00 - 55 minutes - 102 MBJoin us and commemorate the genocide of thousands of indigenous cultures by reading this boring-ass book about Lakota warrior Grey Eagle and how he's fucking wasted on this white woman who's improbably named Alisha. Definitely do not thrill to see her end every sentence with an exclamation point! You will absolutely fail to gasp with excitement as they have the same transformative sex over and over and over again and then misunderstand one another in the morning, many times! You may actua...
The Flame and the Flower
November 15, 2018 17:00 - 50 minutes - 91.9 MBBuckle up, buttercup –we’re doing this. This is happening. This episode we cover “The Flame and the Flower”, Kathleen Woodiwiss’ 1972 steaming cesspit. This is the face that launched a thousand sh!ts; the first bodice ripper. And it is awful. And we are furious at it. This book contains intense scenes of sexual assault (the worst kind, it thinks it’s a ravishment but believe me, it’s stone cold rape.) It’s also got emotional abuse and some truly weird expressions of racism. Also it...
The Ivory Key
November 14, 2018 17:00 - 40 minutes - 75 MBWHO YOU GONNA CALL?! Buckle your sheet belts for this special Halloween treat as we read Rita Estrada’s 1987 Harlequin novel “The Ivory Key”, a book about finding incontrovertible proof of an afterlife and immediately boning it.
The Pride of the Peacock
October 18, 2018 16:00 - 46 minutes - 86 MBWherein we read Victoria Holt’s “The Pride of the Peacock”, a book about opals falling in love with each other. This book contains NO sexual assault of any kind. Amazing.