Of Swords and Soulmates
Is this a kissing book? Of Swords and Soulmates features two couples (and sometimes more), with varying reading preferences and experiences, as they read, listen, and sometimes watch romantasy stories and discuss plot, fantasy elements, romance, spice, theories, and more. Join us for our non-expert opinions as we discuss, argue, rave, rant, and hopefully entertain. We may just help you find your next reading obsession or at least contribute to that TBR list!
Of Swords and Soulmates
Adventures at the Fabled Fantasy Romantasy Book Con
Ever wondered how literature can unite communities in times of need? Join us on an uncharted adventure at the Fabled Fantasy Romanacy Book Con in Orlando, where we explore the vibrant world of books and the heartwarming initiatives supporting hurricane-affected areas. Our journey uncovers the magic that happens when literary enthusiasts come together. From panels to vendor stalls, our first book-focused event is a whirlwind of connection and discovery.
We reflect on the intimate charm of the convention and its standout moments, like the spirited panel on monster romance. Meet the captivating storytellers who transformed our experience, including Rose Centuriello, TB Wise, Emma Hamm, Juliette Cross, Kendare Blake, Lish McBride, and more! Amidst the camaraderie, we humorously recount the need for a book rolly cart to manage our purchases and the not-so-necessary airbrush kit we couldn't resist. Our enthusiasm for future events is palpable, as we anticipate forming even deeper connections with authors and fellow book lovers.
Links from the News Segment and Show:
- Hurricane Relief
- Red Cross - redcross.org
- World Central Kitchen - wck.org
- For book specific: BINC foundation, Book Industry Charitable Foundation - bincfoundation.org
- Libro.fm - for audiobooks but you can pick an indie bookstore to support in an affected area.
- Fabled Fantasy Romantasy BookCon event
- Official Website
- What were our expectations?
- Our thoughts of how it went
- What we’d like to see/do next year?
- Tickets for 2025 on sale now!
Follow us:
Instagram - @ofswordsandsoulmates
Goodreads - http://www.goodreads.com/ofswordsandsoulmates
Views expressed in this podcast are solely those of the participants. The hosts make no claim to be literary experts and their opinions are exactly that opinions. All creative works discussed or reviewed are the intellectual property of the creators of said stories and is being used under the fair use doctrine.
Mari:Hello and welcome to Swords and Soulmates, a podcast where we read, watch and discuss romanticist stories. I'm one of your hosts, mari, and with me I have Kelly.
Kelly:Hey everyone, it's Kelly. We also have Ashley.
Ashley:Hi, it's Ashley. We also have Jonathan.
Mari:What's up? It's JP? Hi, it's Ashley. We also have Jonathan. What's up? It's JP.
Mari:So today we're not really reviewing anything any book. We're not really talking specifically about a book. We just thought we would get together and share with you guys a little bit about the experiences that we had at the Fabled Fantasy Romanacy Book Con event in Orlando that happened earlier this month. We were all there, so it was an event that happened on Friday and Saturday. Kelly and I were there Friday and Saturday, and Jonathan and Ash came on Saturday. We all went to panels. We all did the day stuff, like the talk to the vendors and, you know, walking around and seeing everything. We did not do any of the nighttime activities, so we're not really going to talk about those because we didn't have any real firsthand experience about that. I have heard good things about it from people who've gone, but none of us went, so I don't think it's fair to necessarily talk about that. Before we get into that, though, I did just want to say it's hurricane season.
Mari:Hurricanes have been affecting the Georgia, florida, south Carolina, north Carolina, all these areas, in addition to maybe other places that you're used to. If you wanted to donate or help there's, you know, red Cross is always a good one, world Central Kitchen, wckorg, is always a good one. There are a few like book specific charities and organizations that I've heard about that if you're interested you may want to look into. First one is called the BINC Foundation. It's B-I-N-C that stands for Book Industry Charitable Foundation, and they basically help out booksellers, comic book stores, book vendors, that kind of thing who've been affected with emergencies and they have helped people in situations like this. We found out about them actually at the con from Lish McBride, one of the authors there. She had been helped by that organization back during Katrina when she was in New Orleans and I know that the Bink Foundation is helping people in like Asheville Florida area. So that might be a way if you're looking to, if anyone is looking to donate to help out.
Mari:The other one that I heard about, also from Lish McBride, it was a video she did today. It was an interesting idea. It's Librofm, which some people use for audiobooks and listening to books, and you pay for the books and everything there, just like you would with Audible, but you can choose a local bookstore to support. She was saying if you wanted to help one of the bookstores or vendors in affected areas. You could always switch out the bookstore that you're supporting to one in an affected area for the month and then switch it back to your local one if you wanted to, which I thought was an interesting idea.
Mari:I hadn't heard anybody suggest, and then the last thing I saw was and this is an Instagram account it's a charity that several authors are looking to get together. It's called Romance for Florida and it's romance authors and they're accepting donations for, like, signed books and limited edition things, and they're accepting donations for signed books and limited edition things and then they're going to auction it off and the money go towards helping people in the Florida area. So if you're interested in finding out more about that, the Instagram account is Romance for Florida all one word, and it seemed like they had some interesting things they were trying to do. They're going to be accepting submissions from October 16th, I believe, through October 25th, but look at the account and get the full details from there. If you're interested, All right. Anything else about that before we get into the con? No, I think you covered it All right. So Fabled Fantasy Romanacy Book Con event. I know it was my first book convention book con, I think. Has anyone else ever been to any BookCon before?
Jonathan:No, no, I'm not, this is my first as well.
Mari:Okay, so I thought maybe we would talk about what our expectations were and then what we thought about it in general. So I mean, whoever, whoever wants to go first, I mean I'll go first.
Ashley:I couldn't be really honest. I wasn't expecting nearly as much as it was. I actually regret that we weren't there for Friday, as we, as mentioned, none of us have been to a book con before. I've been reading books. You know my whole, what feels, like my whole life. So this was a really fun event. I think I was just expecting, I think I was only expecting, like the panel part of it, cause that's really how the app that's really the only notice the app gave us. You know what I mean the advertising for it, the links for it, the app for it was not very like intuitive. So I wasn't, I'm going to be honest, I wasn't expecting much out of it. I thought it actually might be a little boring. I thought we might cut out early. I was certainly hoping for it to be, you know, as as great as it ended up being, but I I didn't expect it to be as cool as it was yeah, now I agree I didn't know what to expect.
Mari:The only convention kind of things I'd done before were sci-fi, fantasy type conventions and mega cons or maybe comic book and heavy cosplay and those sorts of convention-based things. So I wasn't really sure what to expect out of a book convention. And I know this is their first time hosting this event and so it's not like there was a lot of history that we could look up and see what other people thought of it or anything.
Ashley:I was expecting?
Mari:yeah, I was expecting like you. I was expecting panels and maybe like a little vendors area with like nothing major. I wasn't really sure what to expect out of it, but I I was definitely pleasantly surprised by by what it ended up being versus my expectations.
Jonathan:What'd you guys think? I thought it was okay. I was in that same boat where I was not sure what was going to happen. When we got there. I wasn't sure if I was walking into a very small, poorly managed venue or if I was going to walk into a very, extremely large operation. I really didn't know what to expect and I was. I was surprised. My convention experience is outdoor sports related, so it's like huge, lots of equipment, lots of vendors, so, and you need like a roadmap to get around. This was a little more intimate, but it was. It was definitely day and a half to two day kind of convention. For sure, if I had to like break it down in regards of that, in regards like that it was, it felt like if I had gone to the panels, I would not have. You couldn't, you couldn't do both the panels and conquer the expo area in one day. So, yeah, it was like pick, pick and choose, although I did see some videos from the ball and that looked interesting yeah, what do you think?
Ashley:does that mean it was not a no for you?
Jonathan:the ball, the ball. I'm not ball ready not ball ready yeah the ball the ball still up.
Kelly:There has not dropped down yet it sounds like it should be a warning sticker, not ball ready not ball ready not ball.
Jonathan:I'm not ball ready. I could be ball ready. I think it would take me like two years to get ball ready. Or I would be like a like hide out in a corner for a little bit and then like, maybe, slowly, I might need some liquid courage. You know, you know when you get to the end of a of an of an event, and if you would have told me that the videos would have hyped as many people being in that that ball as there were, I would not have guessed that, because as the event starts to close, people want to get out. They don't want to stay longer and it kind of it felt like it was like a 180, like people were just like it's over, yay, let's celebrate.
Kelly:You know, let let your hair down, put your dancing hooves on and go to town yeah well, I mean that's a common sentiment at conventions I've been to in other fields is that there's usually like some kind of party on the last night or whatever. But the conventions I've been to like in the medical field there's usually like big parties that are sponsored by some big company or vendor or merchant or whatever.
Mari:So what were your expectations of this con before you went, kelly or whatever?
Kelly:So, what were your expectations of this con before you went, kelly? I mean, I've been to a lot of different conventions related to fantasy, sci-fi gaming and stuff like that. I've been to small regional gaming conventions. I've been to Dragon Con. I've been to Dragon Con back before it was even called Dragon Con. I've been to Games Day. I've been to all those kind of big conventions, never really like a book-specific convention. It's always been more of like just general fantasy, general science fiction, whatever type conventions. So I didn't really have a huge amount of expectations as far as going in. I did think there was going to be. I thought there would be more vendors that were selling book merchandise. There were some, but I thought there would be a lot more.
Jonathan:Honestly, when you say book merchandise um, could you elaborate?
Kelly:well, like book at. J's not selling books themselves, necessarily, but like book adjacent stuff, like there were some that we saw that were selling. We had the people that were selling coffee that was inspired by some of the books or whatever. I expected to see a lot more merchants like that, selling book dust covers, book merchandise official and unofficial merchandise, homemade merchandise, all that kind of stuff.
Ashley:More trinkets.
Kelly:I really, yeah, I really expected to see like 10 booths of 10 or 12 booths of people just selling t-shirts, accurate.
Jonathan:Yeah, I would say that that was a. That was probably a very good assumption, like I feel like we should have seen a similar thing From what we saw. I was excited about it. Did you get good vibes from what you, from what we saw? I was?
Kelly:excited about it. Did you get good vibes from what you saw, kelly? Yeah, I mean, I think that it being fairly small, but then again my comparison is to large conventions like Dragon Con and stuff where there's thousands and thousands of people. So even though there was a good bit of people there, it was still small enough that you could go up to the author's table and actually have a you know, interaction with an author, which was really cool.
Mari:I agree, I think that was like the coolest thing for me, because my expectation was that it would be like a lot of other like sci-fi, fantasy, con stuff you go to, where if you're going to have any kind of interaction with and I'm doing air quotes here the talent which you know would be like the artists, the illustrators, the celebrities or whatever it's some it's behind you know, a big line or a paywall or a big scheduling thing. We have to schedule things ahead of time. But this wasn't like that, like you would just walk up and talk to the authors, either the ones that you, you know, have read about and you've heard about and you enjoy and you can tell them about that, or ones you've never heard of and let them tell you about what they have. And that was really neat.
Mari:I know that I feel like all of us probably discovered some new authors and maybe got interested in some new books to add to the TBR. Because of that, because we were able to have these interactions, tbr because of that, because we were able to have these interactions, and I think that because it's authors and you're talking to them like that, it works well, that it's a smaller expo area, smaller than you would have at something like DragonCon, because we were there two days and we did most of our time in the expo vending area. I mean, we did a few panels, but the majority of our time was spent talking to people and we still didn't get to talk to everybody. Yeah, it was cool. I thought it was really neat that you were able to have that personal interaction with the authors.
Jonathan:Is there an author that you would not have been turned on to that? Through that interaction, you found yourself saying you know what I think? I want to read this author.
Mari:Yeah, I actually have four in mind what I think I want to read this author? Yeah, I actually have four in mind. The first one was Rose Centuriello. She had the little monsterly cute stuff. So her books basically had, visually, as you walk by, it had a cartoony kind of covers on there and it reminded me of like Legends and Latte, so it was that kind of vibe. And so she does like monster romance, but like cute monster romance, like Legends and Lattes, but she does LGBTQ plus stories. Yeah, I ended up getting one of her books and I'll probably end up reading all of them, but I got one of them. It's the series is called the Augury University series. So she, that was kind of neat getting to interact with her. Oh, and she and I both have Princess Leia tattoos, so we bonded over that. And then TB Wise has a monster series that I had not heard of. It's called Monsters of the Divide and I believe you got her book too, jonathan. She has like the holiday monster books.
Jonathan:Oh, I think I did. Is that like Pain something?
Mari:Pain for the Holidays or something like that.
Jonathan:Yeah, I did, I was like that.
Mari:Yeah, I'd never heard of her before and so now I've got her books I'm interested in reading that. Emma Hamm I had kind of seen on TikTok but the big book that she's pushing is her most recent book is the Whispers of the Deep, which is like it's like a monster romance, whatever. It's like a mermaid kind of thing, which I'm generally not drawn to, mermaid stories just in general. Not that I'm against it, they just don't necessarily pull me in. But she also has like a Seven Deadly Sins series which is an older series and I bought two of those because they look pretty interesting.
Mari:And then Lish McBride, which we had a really good interaction with. She was upstairs, she has an interesting sense of humor, she was in the witch panel, the Spicy Spells and Sultry Tales and I bought her Hold Me Closer Necromancer book purely because of the cover and the title. And then we had a conversation and I think that's going to be interesting. She seems to have an interesting sense of humor in her books, conversation and I think that's going to be interesting. She seems to have an interesting sense of humor in her books. So I hadn't really heard of any of those and now I've got books from all of them to read. What about you guys?
Jonathan:Ash, how'd you make out?
Ashley:I'm actually more impressed by the entire shelf of books that Jonathan has now accumulated in the last week. I'm not sure where they all came from. He came home with almost as many books as I did, so that was fun for me.
Ashley:That part was really fun for me. I think I bought a lot of new authors and that was a conscious decision right, and I think you know the intimacy of the space really allowed for us to have that you know, one-on-one interaction and it really was kind of like a sales pitch and they were like, well, do you want to hear more? And I was like, absolutely, sign me up, is there a book club Like? And you know even the panels too. I think I was so impressed by Molly Tullis, just like as a human, in the way that she, you know she presented and communicated and, you know, really engaged on that panel. I'm I'm a fan of her, just as as a person. Although I will very much read her books. She's on Kindle Unlimited, so I'm excited. I I was not emotionally prepared for the amount of money that I spent on books there. Pleasantly surprised, yeah.
Kelly:I'm just saying there's an opportunity for a bank or a credit card company to offer a credit card that is for book lovers, that gets you a 3% cash back when you buy stuff at a book convention.
Ashley:I would have signed up like a sucker Absolutely Sucker, pack me all day. I would have signed up like a sucker, absolutely Sucker, pack me all day. Target audience yeah, I'll tell you what I you want to know. What I learned, however, is that I need a book rolly cart. Yes, yeah. I didn't know, I didn't know, I didn't know. That's what we needed.
Kelly:You guys, when we were there Friday, before you guys got there, I had a shoulder strap tote and Mari filled it completely up with books and I had to take it out to the car and put it in the car, gosh, instead of carrying it around the rest of the day had to unload, yeah, and then she filled up half of another tote later that day she's an overachiever.
Mari:I just have a hard time saying no and I'm just like this is completely going against my whole trying to work through my physical TBR.
Ashley:So yeah, Not today.
Kelly:I'm surprised my credit card company didn't call me and be like hey, I'm seeing charge after charge after charge in the same area of Florida. Is your credit card okay?
Ashley:No, Kelly, they've seen you drop money like that in Orlando before that's true, that was not a suspicious area.
Kelly:I guess not.
Ashley:They were like, we see you. So I was surprised to see the airbrush people oh, gosh everybody please so then I the amount of hobbies this man came home with so yeah, so yeah I'm proud to say that I am now an airbrush owner. It almost beat us home, you guys Wow.
Mari:He had ordered it before he left the building. Yeah, so do you guys plan on going next year? I think so.
Jonathan:Yeah. I had a good time I had a good enough time to want to go back for two days next year.
Ashley:Yeah, we were talking about it. We haven't booked anything just yet. I'm not convinced that the hotel dates have dropped just yet, because usually those are only a year out. But some websites show sold out, some don't, so I'm not sure. But it's later in the month, right?
Mari:Yeah, it's like October 25th next year, whereas it was like October 3rd this year, so it is towards the end of the month.
Ashley:That means it'll be busier.
Jonathan:Full-on Christmas season then, huh.
Ashley:No, you wish. But they're probably trying to avoid the intensity that is hurricane season.
Mari:We're lucky that it was last weekend, actually, right, they probably would have canceled yeah yeah, I, we booked out for for next year, so we're gonna go um friday and saturday. I agree, like I, I want to have like some of the books I have from these authors that I want them to sign. I'm gonna remember to bring them because I like I had a grace draven book I wanted to get signed. Um, and she had the same book there. But I'm like I'm going to buy another copy of the same book I have at home. I'm just not. So I got like another random book of hers, like the second book in another series of hers that I haven't read, but I will. I got that and had her sign it.
Mari:Yeah, so I would say for anyone planning to go next year who's never been to a book con event or has never been to this one, I would say, basically, it's in a hotel, it's very like enclosed. So once you get into like the con area, you're in romantic-y book land. Everyone there is there for the same thing you're there for. I thought the registration was super smooth, it was very easy. I was anxious ahead of time of how that was going to go, but I thought it was super smooth, it was very easy. I was anxious ahead of time of how that was going to go, but I thought it was super smooth. I would say bring the little rolly cart with whatever books you may have from these authors that you want to get signed, because you're going to be able to most likely walk up to them and talk to them and get them to sign it. But they will also have books there that you can buy and have signed. And yeah, I think the balancing act is like looking at the vending area and the books and the authors with, like, the panels you want to take and deciding where you want to go.
Mari:I would say one thing I would let people know about the panels is I know that ahead of time, some of those panels were like sold out or booked out, but if you just wait till right before the event, there were several empty chairs and so I think once they had everyone go in that was going to go in, you could, you could walk in. There were several panels we were at that were supposedly sold out but they were empty chairs there so they were letting people in. You know, like last minute, once it started, you could like walk in and get a chair. I don't think there was anything where they were turning people away from any panels that I saw? Yeah, I didn't see it. What did you guys think of the panels?
Jonathan:I could have passed on them. I'm not going to lie. It was good in the beginning of them where it was like, hey, I'm so-and-so and this is what I do, but then it was more like I thought we'd get to the first one that we all went to as a group. There was one question that was from the crowd, but that was the only one I heard throughout the panels.
Ashley:Yeah, they all ran long.
Mari:Yeah, I was hoping for more audience interaction, faqs kind of thing, too right, where you could ask questions. Is that what you're thinking? Yeah, yeah, I think that would have been good too. I'm about 50-50. I think about half the panels I went to were interesting and I would do them again. The other half I would skip. I think that that happens everywhere and that I will say it's completely okay to get up and walk out of a panel, like nobody takes that personally. They don't know why you're leaving. You may have a phone call you need to take, you may have something else scheduled, you know. Whatever, as long as you don't make a big production of it, there's nothing wrong with you know getting up and leaving if that panel isn't serving you, what you were there for.
Ashley:And you could do something else with your time. That's a wild thing to say, Mari. I couldn't. I had trouble walking away from a table, you know. Walk away from a panel of six or eight young, you know, women in their element, describing their life's work.
Mari:I challenge you. I challenge you to do that next year. If there's a panel, you're not.
Ashley:I would sit there and suffer, I mean and it wasn't suffering for me, I think it was one and done for me they kind of both felt the same, even though they were titled something different, and I think we got different things out of it. But I don't know that either of the things that we got were what the panel was supposed to be about as advertised yeah about her title as advertised.
Ashley:Yeah, so I mean it was a nice time. I think, personally, I would have enjoyed exploring the market a little bit more, although I think you know the other stuff that they were doing. You know, like the workshops and such were probably really great for the people who wanted to do it. I didn't have a desire to do it. It was interesting. I would not do it again. I just it wasn't my cup of tea. I'm not going to be a writer, I'm a reader, yeah, um, and I don't think we got anything out of them as as readers, other than to learn about some of those authors themselves, and you know their, their practices or you know their experiences, which is great. It just it wasn't overwhelmingly for me.
Mari:Yeah, anything else. Anybody want to talk about the con before we maybe good reason are using the little book roller carts.
Kelly:It does make it difficult to maneuver through the aisles when people are stopping at tables and they have their roller carts and stuff like that, so wider aisles would probably be a very good idea yeah, or if they can't do wider aisles, because if that's the only space they have, then maybe have the whole one direction.
Mari:You can only go this direction in this aisle, so it's a one-way thing. So it's a little bit less of a cluster. People aren't trying to turn around and go two directions at the same time.
Jonathan:So I think they had the space, they just didn't use it, the, the in that way. So on either side, oh yeah, the aisles. Uh, towards the end was a empty space, right, yeah, I agree they could have just you.
Jonathan:You know you don't have to have an extra aisle, but if you would have given every row every aisle, if there were four aisles and you gave them each 25 of whatever was not used, a little more, it would have made things just wide enough to avoid doing the the butt brush with the opposing traffic, you know that was my favorite part.
Ashley:Yeah, I had a great time. Listen, I'm not a super big people person. I everybody was so pleasant. I didn't have one complaint about that. And I've heard some horror stories about you know book cons and stuff before. There was something that happened out west last year that wasn't a complete and utter disaster people fainting from the lack of you know available water yeah, like that kind of stuff that was a taylor swift concert.
Mari:No, it was a book con yeah, it was like some really big one and it like people had to be in line forever and yeah, I heard really bad things about that it was, the authors had no assistance, like again, there was like limited to no accessibility.
Ashley:Um, you know, for people who needed it it was a real big. It made the the rounds on the socials really really bad, like off. Big. Big authors like rebecca yaros had really awful experiences that you would hope that no one would go through much less. You know these people who are just trying to make you know to do something for their fans, right? They?
Jonathan:didn't need to be there, it didn't feel underproduced, it felt maybe I thought it was very polite Adolescent. Yeah, it's not a mature event yet, and by mature I mean like it. It's not. It hasn't reached its full potential, right?
Ashley:yeah, yeah, I could yeah, I agree, but like also in the best way, like I thought it was so humble and again just so accessible.
Jonathan:I was not expecting that and it really was my favorite part, I agree it's one of those events that, like next year, we could be leaving it with a totally different outlook yeah and saying, man, I wish it was as intimate as it was last year.
Ashley:Oh, don't say that, I'll be sad. Oh me too Sorry.
Jonathan:Fabled fantasies if you're listening.
Ashley:Don't screw it up.
Jonathan:Maintain that intimacy no pressure.
Mari:That we're able to enjoy.
Jonathan:You know, use the available space that you have Awesome available space that you have awesome and we're hoping for for more. I didn't. I'll tell you what. I got confused by the upstairs me too.
Mari:I didn't realize there was upstairs until uh, our friend, my friend rachel, who was there, like randomly mentioned that there's an upstairs. I'm like, oh, there's more.
Kelly:Yeah and apparently the tattoo people that were there were booked the entire time, so maybe they should have more tattoo people. I don't know yeah interesting.
Jonathan:I would rather have the panels upstairs and the expanse I would rather the exposed space, yeah, it got a little confusing where to go. That's a good idea yeah, rooms and places to go for the, because then the panel would become more intimate. If you were, you know.
Kelly:Yeah, right, we all signed up for a panel and got there and 30 of the seats were empty yeah, it's hard to know, though, like with the layout of the hotel and because you know there was another convention going on in the same hotel, it looked like like a tech you know tech industry type convention or something. I bet they were surprised.
Ashley:Oh yeah, are there wings and fairy ears here today?
Kelly:Yeah, I'm sure the cyber security people showed up and were like oh my gosh.
Mari:I mean, you never know, we might have rocked their world. They might have, you know, come home and now be Romanticy fans. You never know what a fun time.
Kelly:What a time to be alive you guys, Right, I mean, I will say we did learn something very important and that was when we were at the panel about monster romance and everyone got into the divergent talking points about monster anatomy. Apparently the crowd went wild, the entire panel people that were there for the panel went wild when they started talking about characters with two dicks like yeah, like all the different, like appendages.
Kelly:So yeah, they were talking about people started standing up and whooping and cheering and clapping and I was just like what is going on here?
Mari:it's a fun time yeah, I mean you, these authors are writing all these monster. You know characters and and some of them are, you know, have been done before or whatever, but some of them they're like brand new characters they're making up. So they they were talking about how they like their search history. They're looking up like these, you know animal penis and getting inspiration.
Mari:Uh, it was a good panel. It was called monster in my bed. I want to say kendari blake was on that, and emma ham and rose centriello and tb tb weiss I think, and if I missed somebody I'm sorry, but they all were really interesting and like talking about how they come up with things and the different things that they would run into and not even use in their books because they're just weird things. For those that didn't know that this, this, this whole con, is 18 plus and it's a strict 18 plus, no kids, oh yeah no, not even the littles like the ones with barely any hearing, cognitive nothing, yeah all in all, it was a good time.
Mari:We definitely want to go again. So what we did? Um, as best we could, because we did not get a chance to talk to everybody, but we were trying as best we could. Because we did not get a chance to talk to everybody, but we were trying as best we could to get little snippets audio snippets from as many of the authors and tables and vendors as we could. So we went around and got little snippets from people. We asked them a little bit about themselves and then we asked everybody what their definition of Romanesie was, because this is RomanesieCon. So I was thinking we could maybe talk about some of those. I know you guys were there for some of those on Saturday, but some of them were just Kelly and me on Friday. Do you guys want to go through some of those? Heck yeah.
Jonathan:Absolutely.
Mari:We were able to talk to Abigail Owen. She wrote the Dominion series which we reviewed earlier this year, the Liar's Crown, and then she has just released the Games God's Play, which is the book that you guys bought third version of, and the third book in the Dominion series is coming out November 12th of this year. So we were able to talk to her and get her to do a little spiel about herself and then ask her what Romanticy meant to her.
Abigail Owen:Hi, I'm Abigail Owen. I write Romanticy and Paranormal Romance. I am the author of the Game's God's Play, as well as the Dominion series and the Inferno Rising series. You can find me on my website, abigaileowencom, and from there that takes you to all the different places to buy my books.
Mari:How would you define Romantasy?
Abigail Owen:That is a really hard question because I came up through Paranormal Romance, which is to me a different couple for each book, and you get your more traditional paranormal creatures the werewolves, the vampires, etc. Romantasy to me started out really more as high fantasy mixes with romance. But I think that is expanding and so we're getting a lot more real earth. You know, gods, for instance, my book, the Games Gods Play, I would say kind of fits both because it's set in a contemporary world but it's gods and so and the world building is more, I would say, epic fantasy feelings. So I think they cross over.
Mari:And for those of you guys that recognize her name. She is the author of the Liar's Crown that we reviewed. Way, way, way towards the beginning of our podcast days. All right, Thank you.
Abigail Owen:Thank you.
Jonathan:All right On day one did she wear as fancy a shirt as she did on day two.
Ashley:She did.
Jonathan:I think, I think that's her go-to uniform I've been looking at I don't remember I knew.
Mari:I do know she got super, super flashy the second day. It was very sparkly the second day, I know I was very overwhelmed, like going there the first day where it was like first day, new hotel, new con, new place, new event, and I had to like it was funny because I was telling kelly I was like I have to sit here for a minute, I've got to turn my extrovert on, I've got to turn the switch to talk to all these strangers. So to be honest, I know I was a little overwhelmed the first day for sure, so I could not tell you what she was wearing.
Ashley:That's exactly what it was. I was not, again, emotionally prepared for that. That was the most talking that I had done in days, in weeks, but again in the best way. Everybody was just so fun.
Mari:Yeah, very sweet, very kind, very welcoming and not just like in a smarmy salesperson way, Like even if you didn't buy their stuff, they were just happy to talk to you about stuff. They really were. Another author that we talked to was Emma Hamm and she's pretty active on TikTok right now Because, like I said, she's got that Whispers of the Deep book that's out and she was on the Monsters in my Bed panel. If you want to cue up her little snippet, kelly.
Emma Hamm:Hi, I'm Emma Hamm. I write monster romance and fantasy romance. If you like two dicks and fishmen, that would be me. You can find me on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, pretty much anywhere.
Mari:This question is going to be, if you feel like answering it. What would you say romanacy means to you? How would you define romanacy?
Emma Hamm:Romanacy would be for all the little girls who are obsessed with Beauty and the Beast that it's the best place to be accepted, because nobody's going to judge you for whatever your kink is.
Jonathan:Thank you, thank you hell yeah, I'm a ham right I've been thinking about this, uh, for the past like few days, like the whole of disney is romancy yeah, I'd say a lot of disney Romanacy.
Mari:Not all of it, but a lot is.
Jonathan:Correct, correct. Yeah, it was just an interesting realization. Like somebody turned the light switch on for me, I was like, oh, okay, I guess Romanacy isn't.
Ashley:So what you're saying is that we were conditioned to love monsters with two dicks and fish bodies?
Jonathan:I'm going to be honest, the beast only has one dick. Are bodies? I'm gonna be honest, the beast only has one dick. Are you sure you know that?
Mari:100 yeah I'm 100 sure I've seen a bull. You're convinced that he's a bull. I don't know that he is he's got horns.
Jonathan:He's furry, looks like a bull. He's got he's got.
Ashley:Didn't we talk about this last time we did? He could have been a minotaur.
Jonathan:I hope he kept. I hope he kept complementary elements. It'd be hard to have a, hard to have bull cock and not and they go to human cock. You know what I'm saying Andy Finiekel, finitial.
Mari:I'm sorry if I'm butchering her name. I did not recognize her by name and even when I walked up to her booth, like a lot of the books I was looking, I didn't really recognize them. And she was telling me about herself and her books and what all she writes. And then she mentioned the manicure's mate and I looked down. First of all I gave her this weird look.
Mari:So I'm like I've read a Manticore Romanticist romance book before and I was sitting there trying to remember if it was the one that she was describing, because you know, memory sucks. And then I looked down and it was like, oh my god, I read this book. I remember it, I enjoyed it, it was a fun book. So she wrote the Manticore's Mate. She wrote a bunch of other books monster romance, romancy, paranormal fiction etc. And I think she also writes standard romance and historical romance. But I ended up getting the Manticore's Mate book from her signed, which I completely did not realize that she would be there, just happened to walk up and talk to her and then realized that book that I'd read. I think we have a little snippet from her as well.
Andie Fenichel:I'm Andy Fenichel. I also write as AS Fenichel. Andy Fenichel name writes short monster romance and AS Fenichel writes paranormal full length demon hunters and witch romance. And oh, you can find me at asfenishallcom and, if you're comfortable with this.
Mari:What would you say? What would you define romanticism as? What is romanticism to?
Andie Fenichel:you. So I think romanticism is otherworldly romance in my opinion and I'm borderline, not romanticy, more paranormal, but it's more like alternate history. Especially the AS Fenichel books are kind of alternate history.
Mari:I would say there's definitely some overlap in a lot of these genres. We have kind of tiptoeing to both. It kind of can be multiple genres.
Andie Fenichel:I think the readers are mostly read both. So yes, thank you, thank you.
Mari:Yeah, so that was that was fun, that was unexpected, just because you know, like what you were saying earlier, jonathan, you read these books and it's not like you look at the pictures or even really look in depth into the authors of every book you read. So it was interesting seeing somebody there. I wasn't expecting to see there. She also writes a series called the Witches of Windsor, which sounds a little bit like it might have some touches of like stay a spell, but, but it's in London, in Windsor area. It's like a little historical, romantic-y kind of vibes. Have not read them but they seem intriguing and they're on Kindle Unlimited. Rose Santoriello is one that we talked to. That was like she was off in the corner and she's the one whose covers caught my attention because they looked like ledges and lattes. They were, they were cartoons and it was like, um, it was a sapphic romance. That's the cover I saw on the first book in the augury university series and it was like an orc chickie. So we talked to her.
Rose Santoriello:if you want to cue that up, kelly I am Rose Santorello and I write queer monster romance. That is monstrously cute. And where can people find you? You can find me at Rose Santorello on TikTok and Instagram, as well as threads.
Mari:And what would you say? Romancy means to you, or what? How would you define romancy?
Rose Santoriello:I mean, the most simple definition would be obviously romantic fantasy, but I think it is romance that uh surpasses the regular conventions of a contemporary setting and has magic and beautiful settings and elves and fae and all kinds of wonderful fun creatures that make it extra special thanks.
Mari:We're good. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Ashley:I like her. Yeah, I didn't get to meet her, but she sounds like a fun time.
Mari:Yeah, I think she seems pretty cool. I got her first book and there's several of these authors that I've talked to about maybe doing interviews with us, so she's one of the ones who would be open to it. So if we want to end up reading one of her books down the road, I think it'd be interesting to talk to her. I think she was in I can't remember if it was one or two, I think it was just one. She was in the Monster in my Bed panel that we went to and she seemed entertaining.
Jonathan:Any two dicks in there.
Mari:Oh, she does. Yeah, I think so, because one of her characters is a Naga, like a snake person. She's, I believe, of Middle Eastern descent and I think she said that her Naga character has some of those desert Middle Eastern descent kind of vibes. Like I said, I haven't read them yet, but that's just from her talking.
Jonathan:We may have to explore some double dick books.
Ashley:Not the snake dick books, that doesn't do it for you.
Mari:I'm just checking Sometimes some of the snake ones, like the Naga ones and some of the dragon ones, tend to have double appendages, yeah.
Ashley:Tentacles and there's tentacles. Two takes is okay, but not tentacles yeah.
Mari:Is that your hard line there?
Jonathan:There's a boundary guys, there's a boundary. Sorry, that's our safe word.
Mari:I didn't know we needed one, so you would be a hard no to Ursula, then Ursula would be like no for you.
Jonathan:Ursula might be the exception.
Ashley:Oh, he loves, ursula. I feel like.
Jonathan:Ursula got wronged in that whole story. She got the shitty end of the stick.
Mari:She's got tentacles. That's all I'm saying.
Jonathan:There's definitely a contract in place.
Ashley:Oh, so I think, female tentacles might be okay for him, just not male tentacles Okay.
Jonathan:Most tentacles.
Ashley:Do they?
Jonathan:remind you of toes. Is that what it is? No, they're.
Mari:I just think I don't like octopus uh, another interesting author we talked to was lish mcbride. She's the one who told us about the the bink foundation. She's got a book that just released called red and tooth and claw. It's Western horror, that's how she was describing it, and she was at the Spicy Spells and Sultry Tales panel and her and Juliet Cross was also at that panel. So her and Juliet Cross were like bonding about their New Orleans days, which is kind of interesting, if you want to cue her up, kelly.
Lish McBride:My name is Lester McBride. I write, I read a little bit of everything. I have trouble staying in my own lane. So I have books that are contemporary fantasy romance. I have a book Curses. It's a gender-swapped retelling of Beauty and the Beast. It's like a fantasy romp. Then I have the books like Hold Me Closer that are more kind of urban fantasy horror vibes, and the one coming out on Tuesday, redding Tooth and Claw, is a frontier era kind of like western horror with a romance thread but set with a fantasy element to it. So it's not set in our world. So again, I'm a little over the place.
Mari:Where's the best place for people to find you as far as like social media and what?
Lish McBride:not. I'm the most active on, I think, instagram and Blue Sky, but if you google Lish McBride because there's only one of me, it's a weird name, it works well you can find me on whatever social you're on. I'm not on threads, but I'm on pretty much everything else. And how would you define romanacy? To me, romanacy is romance first with a fantasy element, whereas a lot of us read fantasy with a romance element and sort of decided that those are the same thing, but the romance is forefront and then the fantasy is. You could take the fantasy away and it would still be romance, that kind of thing.
Mari:Yeah, so it was interesting seeing people's different definitions of romance and how they went about defining it. She had some interesting books that curses books that she mentioned is a gender swapped beauty and the beast. Where she's the beast and he is like this super charming, like prince charming kind of beauty interesting and then she had the other one that she talked about hold me closer, necromancer. I bought it. It looked interesting.
Mari:I'll let you know if it's any good, okay, yeah, give me posted on that yeah, oh, we also got to talk to kandari blake, who we read her three dark crowns series. We've done a episode on that. We got to talk to her a little bit and do a little mini interview with her.
Kendare Blake:Hi, I'm Kendara Blake and I write dark fantasy with a little bit of romance and also some very bloody books about murder. You can find me anywhere online, but mostly Instagram and Facebook. I'm on Twitter, but only if you add me at Kendara Blake and what's your definition of? Romance. So my personal definition of romanticism is any fantasy with some heavy romantic elements. So where the romance drives, the fantasy plot as well doesn't necessarily have to be the only driver, but it has to be one of the main ones.
Kendare Blake:Thank you so much, thank you.
Kelly:Yeah, she was pretty cool to talk to yeah.
Ashley:I didn't get to meet her. She wasn't at her table when we passed by on day two.
Kelly:Yeah, that was one of the things we didn't get to talk to all the authors is because it seemed like when we would make our rounds, a lot of the authors were gone from their table.
Mari:And then if we came back, they may be there, but then some other ones were gone, so it was definitely tough. Yeah, you had to do multiple passes and because some of them are doing panels, some of them are doing like signings and some of them are just like making their own rounds and talking to people, so we got to talk to Juliet Cross. Actually talked to her twice, because she was the first author that we talked to on Friday when we first got there and my extrovert hat was not quite on yet.
Mari:And so I was super shy, I got her to sign, or I bought a signed version of her Wraith King book, which I'm reading now. I'm like 80% through it. So I was very excited to do that because I wanted to do that, first off because I knew she had said she had a limited amount of them. Julia Cross is, you know, like we all know, but for listeners, she wrote Wolf Gone Wild that we reviewed earlier this year and liked the Stay a Spell series and we'll have a book coming out, a sequel to that series called Southern Charm Books. Rebel Without Claws is the first one, but her newest book that's out right now is the Wraith King series. Oh, I keep calling it the Wraith King series. The first book is called the Wraith King, the series is called the Rise of North Gull and she was at the Spicy Spells and Sultry Tales panel, if you want to cue her up, kelly.
Juliette Cross:Hi, I'm Juliette Cross and I write paranormal and fantasy romance and I write light stuff, dark stuff, spicy, all spicy, and, yeah, that is basically what I write.
Mari:And for people who have listened to us, she's the author who wrote the Wolf Gone Wild that we raved over a lot. So, Juliette, what would? How would you define?
Juliette Cross:romantasy. For me, romantasy is both an escape from reality, but also a way to even enjoy I don't know happiness and love in a different way, in an exciting way, and it also does touch on reality and just offers it in different, different environment, if that makes sense. Escapism is my favorite. Yes, thank you.
Mari:Thank you so much you guys have to talk to her too, right didn't you?
Jonathan:yeah, she was pretty much sold out like she was, I think I. I think did we catch her assistant going to Barnes Noble or something like that to re-up.
Ashley:Oh wow. So yeah, Julia Cross was actually, I think, one of the first tables when we walked in, Stuffed in a corner.
Ashley:Yeah they stuffed her, they did her dirty on day two, but she made the best of it and she had quite a lot when we started and I was like I like you, like my extrovert hadn't kicked in, so we passed by very quickly and I think that's when you guys did the interview. We circled back much later, like maybe after the second panel. She didn't do any panels while we were there, but she was almost completely sold out and so Jonathan really wanted, you know, something signed by her. So I, you know, I started up and I was like, hey, you know, we love you so much and my husband sent me over to get a book. And she's like your husband reads my books. And we all collectively laughed about it and I said, oh yeah, he's, you know, we're both big fans. He's a big fan and she goes, can I meet him? And so I had to drag him over so that they could chat. And she did, she very kindly signed a book for us and it was a very pleasant and happy experience.
Ashley:I was a little starstruck, I think, because she was the first table we passed by. Aside from my extrovertism, I was a little starstruck because we loved her book so much. I devoured that whole series. So, yeah, it was such a nice experience and she was so sweet and she, they, they did laugh while we were there about her being sold out, and I think what they mentioned was that she had some of the books in the gift shop and I think as we were leaving, we saw someone with us I don't know for sure, they were a stack of her books, but it looked like the colorful books that were her stay spell series and so I was like, oh my god, did they have to go to the gift shop of the hotel to buy her books?
Ashley:Oh wow, to bring them to the convention? It's very unconfirmed. It was something you know that we laughed about in the best way, right, because we were big fans and I would have liked to buy more of her books. But she was sold out of the Wraith King by the time we got there and most of the Stay a Spell series was sold out by the time we got there. Oh wow.
Jonathan:One thing I did learn from her is they read well as standalone books, so you don't have to read them all in a specific order. You don't have to read them all in a specific order, which makes me delighted for her holiday book.
Mari:Oh yeah, you can definitely like. I think you get enough out of having read maybe even just the first book that you would still enjoy the holiday book. It's short, it's like a novella and it's little, almost like short story vignettes of the different characters. It's a good, easy, little fun read. Yeah, it's a good holiday read for sure.
Kelly:So one of the authors that we did get to talk to was RL Perez, and we had the burning question that had been bothering some of us since we read Ivy and Bone. Ivy and Bone, and the listeners may remember, the main character was half covered in tattoos, which prompted Jonathan to wonder Some of us, yeah, some of us to wonder did that include everything? So here's what she had to say.
Mari:And this is a spicy question, okay, okay. So because we've got there's four of us on the podcast, it's two married couples and the dude, our friend, was like I need to know when you say he was tatted all the way down, is he tatted all the way down? Is it? Halfway.
RL Perez:He's. He chatted all the way down. He's in half way.
RL Perez:Yes and no. Not on like the appendage itself, but yes, on, like all the leg and the rear and everything. Yes, yes, you guys heard it here.
Mari:We got it from the source. We have our questions answered yeah.
Kelly:That sounds like a no, that he does not have a tattooed dick Right, not on the member.
RL Perez:Yes, because I truly would have noticed, would have been like huh, it would have been brought up.
Ashley:Yes, yes, got it, got it.
Kelly:So straight from the author's mouth, Jonathan.
Jonathan:I'm not going to lie, I'm a little disappointed.
Ashley:You were hoping for the tatted dick.
Jonathan:Yeah, I'm going to have to go and take. I have to go scrub it off now. I thought we had something in common.
Kelly:You guys know, Sorry, Jonathan, you're going to have to retroactively lower your rating on Ivy and Bone now.
Jonathan:No, I'm going to leave it the same. I still enjoyed it. I do wish it was there. You know what there's hope for a tactic in the future Like it? Just because he doesn't have it now doesn't mean they can't have it tomorrow.
Mari:So there's hope for Cyrus.
Jonathan:Yes, 100%.
Mari:Another one of the authors we talked to is Grace Draven, who wrote the Radiance, a book that we just reviewed. Her and her husband were there and we got to talk to them a little bit and tell them you know, we just reviewed the. Her and her husband were there and we got to talk to them a little bit and tell them you know, we just reviewed the book, the podcast and everything. But I think we got a little snippet from Grace Draven as well too didn't we, kelly?
Grace Draven:Hi, my name is Grace Draven. I am the author of Fantasy Romance. Probably my best known book and series is Radiance, which is the first in the Wraith King series, and you can find me on most of the usual spots, so Facebook, instagram, the grocery store. So come by and see me, even at the grocery store. Bye.
Mari:That sounds like an invitation to come and stalk you. So, we may take you up on that. How would you define romantasy?
Grace Draven:I think it's a marriage between fantasy elements and world building and, of course, the romance between the couple. And I think if you can do 50-50, you know, between the fantasy and the romance, where you can just hit that sweet spot, because those of us who loved fantasy want to have that additional couple interaction, and then those of us who love romance love the whole alter reality kind of thing, these wonderful fantasy worlds we can escape to. So I think it's this perfect blending of these two genres.
Mari:Yeah, so there were several other authors we talked to. We obviously didn't get to talk to every single author and we also got to talk to several vendors, which was interesting.
Kelly:Trim up all of these little interviews we had and we're going to attach them to the end of this podcast so you can listen to all of them. Most of them are short, about a minute or so, so it doesn't take too long to listen to all of them.
Ali Stuebbe:Hi, I'm Allie Stubbe. I have a duology called the Divide Duology. First book is Blood of Desiderium. Second book is Soul of Salvation. You can find me on my social medias at Book by Allie. Basically it's a fae princess whose father took her power and kind of keeps her hidden and she finds a way to break free and realizes there's all these lies and twisted truths and she doesn't know which way, like what is right and what is wrong. She stumbles upon a vigilante and a dark prince comes into play and she realizes there is these things called the corrupted that are trying to consume the land and she has to try and save her people and herself from this darkness. And yeah, it has a happy ending, I promise. Okay, that's also very good.
Mari:And what is your definition of Romanes?
Ali Stuebbe:of Romanesie is a very magical outlook on love and everything that kind of makes you feel warm and gushy inside, very nice.
Fabled Grounds Coffee:Yes, I have a small business called Fable Grounds Coffee. It is all book-themed coffee, fresh roasted in small batches. We have all of the I don't know all the different, like flavored coffee, non-flavored coffee, whole bean, decaf, everything. And we also do handmade stoneware mugs based around books.
Mari:And what's the best place for people to find you?
Fabled Grounds Coffee:On our website fablegroundscoffeecom. We are solely e-commerce.
Mari:And how would you define romantasy?
Fabled Grounds Coffee:I personally define it as fantasy, where the main plot point is romance. Thank you so much You're welcome.
Mari:Thank you guys. Thank you so much, you're welcome.
Haus of Fables:Thank you guys. Hi, we're House of Fables. We've come here all the way from Australia and you can find us at houseoffablescom, and we've got some bookish merch. We've got a lot on pre-order, including some officially licensed.
Haus of Fables:When the Moon Hatched. Designs.
Mari:We've got a great book club as well, so check us out. And then this part is voluntary. You can answer it or not. Um, what would? How would you define romancy? What do you think romancy is?
Haus of Fables:I'll give you this one sam is so the right person to answer this question. I know she's the best for this one yes, I think romancy is the perfect blend of a fantasy plot in a fantasy world, with achingly beautiful romance that brings it all together and gives the plot so much purpose and heart.
Mari:Beautiful, beautiful.
Mari:And then just to reiterate where people can find you it's at House of.
Haus of Fables:Fables. Yeah, so at HouseofFables.
Haus of Fables:Underscore PR at Instagram and TikTok. Yeah, and I think there's a period between house it's like houseoffables underscore PR.
Haus of Fables:You'll be able to find us, thank you very much.
Mari:Thank you so much Anything else about the con. Anybody wants to say or thoughts or anything.
Kelly:If you're interested in going, I would say think about booking your tickets sooner rather than later, because it did sell out pretty early the one we just went to, so I don't know when this one will sell out, but it could sell out within the next few months, since the tickets are already on sale.
Mari:And also pay attention when you're buying tickets, because the same company Fabled Fantasy Events.
Mari:they do an Orlando event and they do a Los Angeles event, so make sure you're buying tickets for the one you want to go to for the coast that you're going to be on. Thanks for listening to Of Swords and Soulmates. Before we go, make sure to check the show notes, rate review and subscribe to us on your podcast app of choice. It helps others to find us. Follow us on Instagram at of swords and soulmates, or join our Facebook page of swords and soulmates, or check out our website of swords and soulmatescom. We're also on YouTube and Tik TOK all same username everywhere. You can follow us on Goodreads and, if you'd like to offer a suggestion for future, read future rapid fire question. If you want to agree with something we said, disagree with something whatever, if you want to interact with us, please feel free to reach out to us at any of those options. We hope you'll join us for our next episode, where we're going to be talking about A Diary of Blood by ST Gibson. Bye, thank you.
