Mari 00:17 
Hello, welcome to of swords and soulmates, a podcast where we discuss romanacy 
stories. Today, we have with us Jonathan. 

Jonathan 00:27 
Oh, whoa, that was way too early in this. Oh my goodness, I'm Jonathan. Also with us 
is Kelly. 

Kelly
Hey, it's Kelly, and of course we also have Ashley. 

Ashley
Hey guys, it's Ashley. 

Mari 
And I'm Mari, and today we're going to be discussing Oak King, holly King by Sebastian Nothwell. But first, getting into some news, I had a few things to talk about. First thing is that Fairyloot just very recently announced they're doing a special exclusive edition of when the Moon Hatched, which I haven't read but I keep hearing really amazing things about. Have you guys heard of it? 

Jonathan What's fairy loot? 

Kelly
Sorry, in a video game, if you kill a fairy that's what they drop.

Mari 
So fairy loot is kind of like a lumicrate and owlcrate. They're basically subscription services, where you subscribe and every month you get like. They usually have different options. They have like a book only option or like a book and goodies option, so it could be like book related things you get in your mystery box and you don't know which book you're getting, you're just subscribing to it and they're like exclusive, really pretty additions. 
01:44 
A lot of times they're signed subscribing to it and they're like exclusive, really pretty editions. A lot of times they're signed with cool covers and and things like that huh, that seems interesting, is it so? 

Jonathan 01:52 
is this a subscription service? Yeah, yes how much is it? It can be costly like wine of the month club, except I don't think it's too much if you're doing just the book, like I want to say. 

Mari 02:02 
It's in like the 30 something or maybe 40 something at the most. But the problem with Fairyloot is the problem with a lot of these subscription services. There is a high, high demand and so you have to get on this waiting list to get into the subscription when they have one open. And then when they do have one open, you then have to be ready, like watching your email 247, and jump on getting into the subscription service as soon as it's open. 

Jonathan 02:26 
So what you got to do is Instagram stalk somebody who is in there and then call their boss and open a fake HR claim against them. So then they lose their job, they have to decide between food and fairy loot, and once they make that decision, you pounce. 

Mari
I mean, that's one way. 

Kelly
Today's episode is brought to you by unethical life hack tips. 

Ashley
Don't ask questions, yeah All right. 

Jonathan
Okay, that's cool. I'm going to start a subscription service. 

Mari 
02:44 
02:46 
02:52 
02:54 
02:57 
Well, I have. I have the Lumicrate service book only and I've got I forget the name of the other one it service book only, and I've got I forget the name of the other one. It's like book, book binding or something. It's a. It's a British one, but I've got two of them. 
03:09 
With Owlcrate I started off with the only subscription I get to get into which was like the whole box, so it was like the book, and then all these tchotchkes like mirrors and tea and like boxes and bookmarks and all this, which was fine, but not all of it was for stuff that I particularly liked and not all of it was stuff that I would particularly use. So, like, I gave some of it away to people I thought would enjoy it. But then when I was able to get into the book only subscription for Owlcrate, that's what I have now is just the book only. So I don't have Fairyloot. But they do a thing like a lot of these subscription services do, where, like, they have a, an edition that they announce and it'll be available to their subscribers and then after, like on certain day, and then after that, like the next day, it'll be available to the general public for whatever they have left oh see, we can just pick up the scraps right. 
03:56 
So starting june 7th at 4 pm bst, which I had to look up, is brit Summertime. You could subscribe. I mean not subscribe, but you can. If they have any left, you can get their special edition of when the Moon Hatched, which is a romantic story with dragons and magic. That is very well reviewed, but I've not read it yet so I can't say that it's great. I've just heard good things about it. 

Ashley
I downloaded it. It is on Kindle Unlimited. 

Mari Right, it is yes. 

Ashley 
04:21 
04:23 
04:25 
And I never. I didn't get past the. I'm such an idiot. What is it called when they're like explaining the names and the terms and things like is it the glossary? I think it is glossary. 

Kelly 04:33 The glossary is like a dictionary definition where the index is just like here's the page. 
This word or phrase was used. 

Ashley 04:40 
Oh no, no, so it was a glossary. I had it right on the first time. So the glossary was extensive. I feel like that guy was like six, seven, eight, ten pages long. It was long and I got so lost in trying to learn the glossary and there's chatter about it too. Like that it's not necessary to like dive into or learn it ahead of time, like you'll figure it out as you go. But yeah, there is a lot of hype surrounding this book and people love it. Yeah, I'm like book talk and everything. There's a lot of chatter. 

Mari 05:12 
I'll probably read it Kindle limited first and if I like it I'll probably buy the book. Sarah A Parker is the author. The addition that Fairyloot is doing is like blue and turquoise and white with like holographic foil. It's really pretty. The other news thing I had was T Kingfisher my favorite authors has a book coming out this year called A Sorceress Comes to Call. It's going to be released August 6th of this year and it's a fairy tale retelling of the Goose Girl from Brothers Grimm. If you pre-order it before it's released and then you submit to Tor Books a receipt that you've pre-ordered it, wherever you've pre-ordered it, so long as it applies last, you get a free art print, a free five by seven art print. That's actually really pretty. 
05:59 
It kind of looks like it's black with like a white unicorn that you see in a lot of places. I know it's a very probably a big art piece, but I can't think of the name of it. Do you know what I'm talking about? 

Kelly 06:10 About the unicorn resting in the garden. 

Mari 06:13 
It's like the unicorn kind of like sitting down, kind of yes, yeah With like yeah, so it kind of looks like that, but it's not a unicorn, it's a white horse. And I mean in the five by seven art print that they're doing it's a white horse but it definitely gives me the vibes of that unicorn tapestry. Anyways, it's free. If you're going to pre order, it might as well get the little free five by seven art print from the tour book, which I thought was really kind of neat, and I really like T Kingfisher. I recommend her. I like her fairytale retellings and I like her romancy books. This is a fairytale retelling kind of like. The last fairytale retelling she did was my god. I blanked out the name. Is it Nettle and Rose? Nettle and Thorn. 

Ashley
Is it? But that's a series, right, the Nettle and Bone series. 

Mari No. 

Ashley Or no. 

Mari 
06:53 
06:56 
06:57 
07:10 
Nettle and Bone is not a series and it is Ntle and bone. That's the name I was trying to remember and nettle and bone is a standalone. The saints of steel is the series, the romancy series nettle and bones, the one with, like the nun in the magical nun who's off to save her sister from the evil prince, and she creates a bone dog as her companion. It's a good book. It's weird and dark, like a lot of t kingfisher stuff. Are you laughing at the weird? 

Ashley
part like what which part? 

Jonathan was bone dog. 

Mari 
07:24 
07:27 
07:29 
At first I was like that sounds super disney yeah, she's got her companions are a bone dog, a possessed rooster and a witch, and they're all off to like save her sister I'm back to disney I'm just saying this is this sounds like moana or, as your sister says it, moana. 

Jonathan 07:49 
So the bone dog's in cocoa, but the rooster is and there is some witchery happening, yeah because that doesn't nana become like a stingray who can like guide your life or something like that? Yeah, there's some witchery yeah, is that a word? 

Ashley 08:05 
question, don't no question to the google spell it. Why are you not using the 
supercomputer that fits in your hand? 

Mari 08:12 
it kind of reminds me of kelly. What's that? Like the darker age of disney um. Was it 
the cauldron? 

Kelly 08:17 what was the name of the cauldron you're talking about the black cauldron, the black 
cauldron like. 

Mari 08:21 
I think it's kind of like a little bit of Black Cauldron vibes. If we're talking, if we're going 
to Disney-fy it, it would be like that era of Disney Interesting. 

Jonathan
How do you spell cauldron? 

Mari C-A-U-L-D-R-O-N. 
08:30 



Kelly
So you're telling me, Jonathan, as somebody who likes Disney, you have never seen 
the Black Cauldron. 

Jonathan 08:43 
I like Disney. I don't like everything that Disney does Like. I like my wife, but I don't 
like everything she does. 

Kelly 08:51 
All right well, the Black Cauldron was a Disney animated movie made in the 80s where Disney was attempting to break the mold that they only made super family- friendly, funny, funny, sing-along animated movies. So they made one that was a little bit darker. It was intended to be like a little bit more like pg rated, so it was from a book, a series of books about tarn, which was like a fantasy setting where the entire gist of the story is there's a lowly pig, assistant, pig tender, pig farmer type guy who is entrusted with this magic pig that can see the future, and the big bad evil force in the land is wanting to get that pig because of its oracle powers and so of course all kinds of crazy things ensue. But there was a lot of like very dark undertones and a lot kids, when they went and saw it, were scared out of their mind because it was so dark compared to other Disney movies. Kind of like think about like some of the scariest sequences from like the Dark Crystal, and that's kind of what you had. 

Jonathan 09:59 Kelly, we don't talk about Muppets in this house. 

Kelly 10:03 
So Disney took a big PR hit from that movie being dark and sinistery and for a while it got relegated deep into the vaults of disney with many people thinking it was never going to ever be re-released or seen from again. But eventually it did get back out. But yeah, for a while that black cauldron was thought of as a Disney mistake because of how it departed from their previous animated movies, which I liked it because it was such an interesting movie and all. But yeah, disney took a big hit on that one. 

Mari 10:37 Yeah, but if T Kingfisher wrote a Disney movie, it would definitely be that type of 
Disney movie. 

Kelly 10:43 
Yeah, I mean basically imagine a Disney movie. You had zombies and that kind of stuff, dark magic and zombies, and it was very disturbing, especially for the 80s. Like for kids in the 80s. That was something disturbing to see, especially coming from Disney. Was that the Michael Eisner era, right? So that was the whole him trying to break the mold of what the stereotypical, what Disney is and all that kind of stuff. 


And, yeah, so, like a lot of us that saw it as kids thought we'd never see it again because it was Disney, hated it so much and took such a big hit on it that they we thought they were, you know, most people thought they were just going to bury it and it would never be seen from again Because you know this was before you had wide release of vhs at home and stuff like that. So if disney had never re-released or dug it back out of the archives there would, it would never see the light of day again, um, except for maybe if you got some weird bootleg of it, kind of like song of the south. That is a disney movie that will never see the light of day again yeah, yeah, it looks like, yeah, it looks like. 

Jonathan 11:42 
Uh, that was like an movie. I think it's right around the turn when he took over yeah. 
When Eisner took over there like early 80s for him. 

Kelly
Interesting. Yeah, that was a very dark Disney animated movie for sure. 

Mari
But it's a good one. 
11:53 
11:57 

Kelly
It's worth watching because it is a good movie. It's just, it is definitely not a young kid 
movie. 

Jonathan 12:06 
Noted it is a good movie. It's just it is definitely not a young kid movie. Noted. We tried to watch I tried to get ashley to watch the mildly racist what's the one we tried to get with the donald duck and, uh, three caballeros, whatever oh three, yeah, three caballeros yeah, I, that's like we got through. 
12:20 
We didn't even get to the meat of that one and she was like you care if I go watch like the handmaid's tale in the bedroom? Uh, she was like already exiting. Uh, so I was like, all right, we'll just watch something else. 

Kelly 12:32 
Yeah, I can't even choke those things down anymore what's like trying to watch some of the old tom and jerry movies, even some of like the disney animated shorts that were made as war propaganda. It can be considered very offensive now but just like anything else, you have to remember the context of the time it was made. That doesn't make it right, but knowing the context of society and what things were going on gives a little bit more understanding of why it was made, how it got made yeah, it's good to be used as a tool for, like, talking about what was going on in the world at that time yeah, absolutely. 

Jonathan 13:07 
Um, I like the goofy shorts, like that's kind of like, that's my cup of tea, like yeah, we don't want to learn nothing in this house yeah, let me just figure out how not to smash myself with a tennis racket, hopefully. Yeah, you know, what we tried to watch the other day and I just couldn't do it was that was that cartoon about? Oh, duck tales, boom, yeah it. 

Kelly 13:32 
It was much cooler when I was like nine well, yeah, I mean everything was much cooler when you look back on it, I mean you don't, you don't appreciate, especially like the old, especially the 80s animated shows where they were all extremely formulaic and very uncreative when you think about it, like they all had the same exact plot. It's like he-man had the same exact plot for every episode. You know problem prince adam tries to solve it, can't solve it. He has to get the sword out, has to say the magic words, becomes he-man, solves the problem. 

Jonathan 14:01 
That was every episode and what did we learn from that? Or how you solve the problem, whatever, where you go silent, my headphones on, yeah, no one's talking. Nope, when you, you have the power and then it grows, and then you fix everything. That's how. Nobody's on board with that. Huh, okay. And Skeletor, which brings us right back to Bone Dog. 

Mari
Okay, moving on. 

Kelly
Yes, let's move on. 

Mari 

Moving on the only other little news tidbit I had, because so many of the books we've read have been because of the author list from that fabled fantasy romancy book event happening in october in orlando, they did announce that they are having a venue change. So they were going to be at the and it's still on their website. It's the b? B resort. Um is where everything had been, but it's going to be changing to another venue. I mean everything. That's been everything, all the tickets and everything is still the same. Everything is being honored, but people who had signed up for it got emails about that, so apparently it's a place closer to Disney Springs. All right, so, moving on from the news bit, on to the book that we picked to read. June is LGBTQ plus Pride Month and we opted to read a book by Sebastian Nothwell, who's an author who writes queer romance. Actually, let me start off. I did note that it was published February 14 of 2022. All right, so the synopsis Shrike the butcher of Blackthorn is a legendary warrior of the Fae realms. 
15:34 
When he wins a tournament in the court of the Silver Wheel, its queen names him her Oak King, a figurehead destined to die in a ritual duel to in the Court of the Silver Wheel. 
15:38 
Its queen names him her Oak King, a figurehead destined to die in a ritual duel to invoke the change of seasons. Shrike is determined to survive, even if it means he must put his heart as well as his life, into a mere mortal's hand. Wren Lofthouse, a London clerk, has long ago resigned himself to a life of tedium and given up his fanciful dreams. When a medieval-looking brute arrives at his office to murmur of destiny, he's inclined to think his old enemies are playing an elaborate prank. Still, he can't help feeling intrigued by the bizarre yet handsome stranger and his fantastical ramblings, whose presence stirs up emotions Wren has tried to lock away in the withered husk of his heart. As Shrike whisks Wren away to a world of wild hunts and arcane rites, wren is freed from the repercussions of Victorian society, from the repression of Victorian society, but both the Fae and mortal realms prove treacherous to their growing bond. Wren and Shrike must fight side by side to see who will claim victory Oak King or Holly King. So what did you guys think? 

Ashley 16:40 
me first I this book was. There was so much eloquence I thought with the care the author took in describing almost every single detail, it almost felt like poetry to. I don't know if you guys got but there everything was an adjective and she's a thick book, right Like this book was well over 500 pages, so I really enjoyed this book. It was a bit long for my taste just because all of our TBRs are so, so deep, right, and I thought there were a couple of corners cut that I really would have liked to have dived into. But overall I thought the story there were adventures, there was always something going on their care and feelings for each other. I just it was really poetic to me. I liked it. 

Jonathan
How many stars are you giving it? 

Ashley
I don't think we're there yet. 

Jonathan
I thought we were rating. 

Ashley
Are we there yet? 

Jonathan
I thought we were rating are we there yet, yeah, yeah, oh, boom, boom, boom. 
17:34 
17:36 
17:37 
17:38 
17:39 

Ashley
Pay attention, ashley guys, this was a three and a half for me um, whoa hold, what 
the? 

Jonathan 17:46 
what do you mean? Three and a half. What's wrong with you? 
I'd give it more, I'm how many stars I'm rolling with a solid four you're going with a 
four, I'm going with a four. 

Jonathan 17:55 
It had words, it had imagery, it had stuffs. I like I, from what I consumed. I wait, don't laugh. Don't laugh, it was. I shut your face, it was, it was, definitely it was. I like that story. It's a good story I'm getting. I'm gonna give it a four kelly, what do you think? 

Kelly 18:14 
I really enjoyed this book. I think it. The story was very well written. I think there was a lot of great imagery. I think overall, everything gelled really well together. The author did an amazing job of blending in real historical events into the background of the story, which helped make it feel that much more realistic. There was a lot of very clever use of imagery, some symbolism, I think, and a lot of tie-in to how society functioned in that time period. And then I liked how he brought in Court of the Fey and you got the two worlds effect. This book was easily a four overall. 

Mari 19:00 
I think for me I enjoyed this book a good bit. It was a chunky one but I very much enjoyed the prose, the writing style. I don't read a lot of historical fiction because I find that most authors write in a very modern voice and just put their characters in like old timey costumes and it feels like cosplay as opposed to like being really involved in the time or immersed in the time. And I feel like the way he wrote descriptions and the way he wrote the characters and how they spoke. It felt very much of the time that we were supposed to be in and how they spoke it felt very much of the time that we were supposed to be in. I liked the cozy, romantic kind of fantasy meets Jane Austen, meets like the dark fae, gobliny world of like Holly Black or Labyrinth, and I liked that there was equally as much interesting stuff going on plot-wise in the fae world as the quote-unquote real world world. 
19:57 
For me it was a 4.5 solid now I want to just have us go through the other topics that we generally rate on and just give our rating, with no real discussion, just kind of our rating, and then we'll get into the spoilery part and we can do discussions. That way people who haven't read the book and want a full rating before we get to spoil their part can have an idea of what we think you guys down for that. 

Kelly 20:24 


So for fantasy I think this was easily a solid four. The only reason I don't think I went 
So for fantasy I think this was easily a solid four. The only reason I don't think I went much higher than that would be because it did pull on some of the classics of other stories and other works about the fey realm. But overall I think it incorporated everything very well. 

Mari 20:41 
Okay, so for fantasy, I did 4.5, because I thought the world was very well fleshed out and I felt like I was in a fey world that had existed for a long time. I felt like there were stories within stories. 

Jonathan 20:56 For the fantasy, I'm going to give it a three. Yeah, I'll leave it at that, Ash. 

Ashley 21:02 Fantasy. I was immersed. I definitely felt the two worlds, the presence of the two 
worlds. I have questions, and so for that reason it's a four. 

Mari
What's the next category, Kelly? 

Kelly
So it'll be romance. And why don't you start, Maury? 
21:12 
21:14 

Mari
So for romance I went with a 4.5. I thought that there was strong devotion to each 
other. 

Kelly
I also went with a 4.5. 

Jonathan
I agree Same. I was on that 4.5 range as well, ash. 

Ashley
I would definitely agree with a 4. Agree with a four. I felt I've in that poetry mind 
21:16 
21:24 
21:27 
21:33 
frame, like I, I felt the, the devotion, the passion so that was a four for me as well. 

Mari 21:47 Yes, what's next, kelly? Is it spice, spice? 

Jonathan 21:48 all right, jonathan oh, I got a lot of thoughts on spice. We just need the number. Oh, 
five, kelly, what'd you think spice wise? 

Kelly 21:58 
give me your spice number, spicify me so I kind of went with a four. And the reason I went with the four is because I feel like I don't know what the, since I haven't read a lot of romanacy. I don't know what expectations are. Okay, okay, okay, I like it ash, what did you think? 

Ashley
um, I'm, I'm laughing because of the boys. 

Mari Yes. 

Ashley 
22:17 
22:21 
22:22 
But sorry, I thought it was all very appropriate, right. There wasn't anything super crazy that happened. It wasn't happening every other chapter kind of thing. It was very well paced. I'd say three and a half. 

Mari 22:38 There was definitely some spice happening that's exactly what I put 3.5 literally. I put 
about expected, about as expected is what I wrote down kelly, I think we're. 

Jonathan 22:49 I think they're trying to tell us that we're proved no, I think it's just no. 

Kelly 22:53 We don't have as much exposure to this Romanesie stuff as they do, so we have a 
different frame of reference. 

Ashley
You guys have a different benchmark. 

Jonathan
Yeah, apparently, yeah. 

Kelly 
23:00 
23:02 
23:05 
If all you've ever done is drive around the neighborhood in a 35 mile an hour zone, then 55 miles an hour seems excessively fast to you. But if you're used to driving nascar, then 55 miles an hour seems incredibly slow. 

Ashley 23:21 So it's all perspective I think well, so let's set that bar like a five, like a spice. 

Jonathan 23:29 
Rating of four or five has shocking analyzing, like I was going off of, like quantity and quality, that's a very male response I think You're just going off of shock and awe. 

Kelly
I think everything was appropriate and of a good quality. 

Ashley
It was well balanced. 
23:42 
23:47 

Kelly
I don't know that I have a good perspective not having read so much Romanesie of 
what's the normal amount of spice you would see. 

Mari 23:54 
I think this is about normal, it's about average. To me, like a five spice situation is like Katie Roberts books or like I can never remember if it's CM or CS Nascosta. Like those books are a lot of sex, a lot of descriptive sex, a lot of creative. It's a lot of monster romance kind of stuff. Like that's where the five thing is. It's like it is. That is a mainstay of what you're getting when you read that story. 

Kelly 24:23 
So what you're saying is, I mean, my thinking is something is too much when there's more sex than there is right, like that's just too much. Too much spice is when there's more spice than there is plot. 

Mari 24:34 and moving a plot forward, I think it depends on what you're there for and moving a 
plot forward, I think it depends on what you're there for, you know. 
24:40 
I think that if something is marketed as you know great, you know epic, fantasy or story or something, and it has more spice than it does actual plot, then yeah, that would be too much. But I think that if what you're getting into is a spicy story from the get-go, if it's described that way, if it's marketed that way and it meets, I think to me I guess it's about expectations. If it, if it meets the expectations of how it's marketed and you know what you're getting into, you know expectations are met. But if you're expecting something like Lord of the Rings, you know, and you get neon gods or something, it's going to be a little, a little too spicy. You know, if you're expecting white rice and you get that like high-end Indian food, it's going to be a bit of a shock to the system. But if you order that high-end Indian food, then you expect it to be spicy, you know. 

Kelly 25:29 
So, from this point forward, dear listeners, we will be discussing the book in question with spoilers. So if you do not wish to be spoiled, then you can stop the podcast here and go read the book, and then come back and listen once you have finished reading it. Or if you don't care about spoilers because you don't have any intention on reading this book, or you just don't care about spoilers in general, feel free to continue listening. Good job, kelly. 

Mari 25:54 So what did you guys? Do you want to go into any more detail on the the stars before 
we get into the other details? 

Ashley 26:00 
as far as, uh, spoilery stuff, I don't know, do the boys need more clarification on spice? How are you guys feeling about that talk, because I feel like we all explained it the same way with different word. I think mari voiced very similar perspectives that I did it. There's shock value. 

Jonathan 26:18 
There's there's what makes you like squirm in your seat, like you're excited for what's happening when it comes to spice, I may have a higher threshold, a different threshold than you, but you know I thought it was a very polite spicy book yeah, I mario and I gave it three. It made me want to play with some swords. 

Kelly 26:41 
And I think too, you know, like we had said, your opinion, your rating of something can change over time. You know, maybe you look back on this book after a year of reading other romantic books and you decide that maybe you would rate it differently now. 


Jonathan 26:56 Yeah, I am hoping to do a reread of this one in the future because I think he's doing 
he's. 

Mari 27:04 
He has plans for like, or kickstarter for like audio yeah, yeah, I was gonna say that, so he he didn't give me a date in the conversation we had, but he did say that, uh, sometime in late june that the audiobook should be available. 

Jonathan
That's good. Yeah, so are you saying that I missed this thing by like four weeks? 

Ashley 
27:18 
27:26 
Son of a, I would have liked this in an audiobook for concentration, yeah for the listeners who have not been on this entire podcast journey with us to date. Jonathan is our designated audio book, very strongly prefers audio books. He very much attempted to be clever with this novel and get it converted to audio and it just wasn't. It wasn't cohesive in the ways that in the programs that we had available to us in the time that we did so. 

Jonathan 28:01 I hopscotched around the book you know where it could work and I kept losing track 
of where I was. 

Kelly 28:07 
One of the things I really enjoyed about the book was, like I said in the non-spoiler section, was his use of real historical events that were occurring. So, like you know, 1816 was in fact the year without a summer. That was an actual historical event? 

Mari 28:23 Was it because of the smog and stuff? 

Kelly 28:24 
Maybe, but the characters alluded to it in the book and that was in fact a real thing, which was then explained in the context of the story. And you know, that whole concept of the rebirth and the winter king and summer king is a very old fey type of story. So that's been around, that idea of that, has been around for a while. 

Mari 28:45 
So there was nothing really new with that, it was just an interesting I was gonna ask that because it felt like I vaguely heard about stuff like that through, like pagan friends and things yeah, there's. 

Kelly 28:55 
There's a lot of different variations on it. You know the idea that the king and the queen of Fae die in the winter or hibernate in the winter and they're reborn in the spring, or that there's a winter king who slays the summer king and all that stuff. There's tons of variations on it, just like any fairy tale. There's also a lot of other interesting things that went on in the book that were, you know, historical, and a lot of allusions to different icons and things like the Green man Pub that they talked about quite frequently. That is a iconic UK pub. There's several of them, but it's a very iconic thing that has been around in London since God knows how long, probably the 1400s or something ridiculous. And of course the Green man is also pagan fae type issue too. 
29:41 
And then he tied in a lot of the legends of like Gawain and the Green Knight. He tied back into the Red Cross Knight or Sir Gregory and the Bear. So he tied in a lot of other Arthurian medieval fantasy legends and lore together. So we all tied a lot of that in together, which I thought was very interesting. And then it was just a very well thought out and crafted approach to everything. I mean, even like throwing in the Peasants' Revolt, which was a huge historical event that happened in the 1300s, late 1300s, during the plague years. That event in itself was a very. Some would say it's not as big of a deal, but some historians would say it was kind of a pivotal deal during the early reign of King Richard, you know, and it helped shape his rulership because he, you know, initially promised to give in to the peasants and their popular uprising, then turn around and betrayed them. So there was a lot of really cool things and historical things that he drew into it that I very much enjoyed. 

Mari 30:44 
I thought it was interesting how, in the parts where they're in the fae world, it makes you feel the danger of the fae world, the danger of death, the danger of you can't be careful what you say and what you promise, what you will do. But then also, equally, when they were in the real world, the fact that homosexuality was a death sentence made it feel just as dangerous, just as scary. 

Kelly 31:10 
Right, because we had a reference to Pratt and Smith, which was at the time, because I think it was Shrike talked about it or Wren talked about it, so it was the last two people who were killed or executed for sodomy. And of course, there's a lot now, looking back on it, historians have figured out there was a lot of shady things that happened with that whole trial and you know probably a lot of bogus things that went on and it may have not even happened and they may have actually not been guilty, you know, and one of the things too is like even dickens at the time, dickens went and saw these men in prison, so that was a huge deal. 

Jonathan 31:47 That was like a huge deal, kelly. You got a lot of like uk history is kelly's, one of kelly's 
jams I mean the history. 

Kelly 31:53 European history is not my forte by any means, but I did take quite a few classes on 
it. It's pretty cool. 

Jonathan 31:59 How did you feel about how the story kicked off and how the kind of like the 
introduction to the idea of murder season? 

Mari 32:14 
I thought that. I thought that it was a really pretty good introduction to the, to what type of fey story this was going to be, because there are different kinds of fairy tales. You know, there's fairy tales where everything is Tinkerbell and cute, or you know sexy dudes with wings or whatever. But then there's fairy tales where the tooth fairy will slaughter your entire family if you don't give it your teeth, where it is dark, and it pretty much sets up that there's a price to be paid and that price will be your life. Kind of story that it's not a clean and sparkling version of fairy, that there's darkness to be had. 

Jonathan 32:52 
One of the places that I kind of started to veer off course in this book was like, like how they came together. So, like I was when I was reading it, I was thinking like, all right, so here's dude, he's getting all kind of fighty, and then he comes across this regulation, dude, and and they like, realize an attraction. 

Mari 33:15 
Apparently I missed something with an acorn yeah, so shrike, basically, were brought together by fate or by magic, because Shrike did the acorn to try and find out what was going to help him, what was going to aid him in this task that he had to do, and it took him to Ren. Now for Ren. You have this. I very much like almost instantly identified with Ren. You have this bored cubicle worker longing for like fantasy and excitement, doodling in the you know sidelines of his, his numerical pages, and all of a sudden, in walks, you know this fae person bringing romance and fantasy and escapism and excitement into his life. Like. I understand why Ren fell, you know why he was intrigued right away. 

Kelly 34:07 
Well, of course I mean that's a classic, a very classic fantasy and just in fiction in general, the whole idea of the everyday person being thrust into the role of a, you know, extraordinary. 

Jonathan 34:20 Yeah, I like that. I like when there are pathways kind of carved out for transition from 
like a normie up into something a little more special I like too that ren wasn't anything. 

Ashley 34:32 
I mean nothing against the character, but he was ordinary, right he. He wasn't super buff, he wasn't extremely tall, he wasn't the best of his field. He was just an everyday guy doing an everyday job, just getting through it right. His dreams didn't pan out the way that he thought they would. His family wasn't supportive because of something that went down. He was on his own. He didn't have any friends. The friend group he thought he had you know, sold him out. They didn't support him when everything went sideways. 
35:11 
So it was a very realistic, you know, story of someone whose life is going to change dramatically, and that's kind of how, you know, most fantasy readers would hope it would happen. Right, Someone just walks in, but you're the one. You're the one that's going to help me solve this problem. What do you mean? This has got to be a joke right, you're the chosen one. 

Mari 35:30 There's no way. Yeah, you're the special one, absolutely. 

Ashley 35:32 
You're the special one, and all of that to say, there wasn't anything special about ren except that he was chosen and that they had this bond, and so I really loved that part of the story. There was a lot of very poetic world building, there was a lot of attention to detail for each individual character and how their relationship bloomed and and I don't even mean that in the romantic one that could just be the friendship one right. So I really enjoyed that part of the story. It's what convinced me to finish. 

Mari 36:10 
I think there were two things early on that kind of helped me get the taste or the vibe of the book that I thought was really cool. One was like when Shrike came into London and he talked about feeling like the, the poison of the iron in the air, and the idea that, like the really bad smog pollution situation that london had in that time period was so bad that the fey were affected because it's, you know, traditionally the fey have a weakness to iron. That's like a very traditional fey story thing. So like when shrike first came to london it said, he stumbled to his knees onto close cropped grass, his flailing hand braced against a sapling to keep himself upright as he dry heaved Iron hung in the air itself. Its heavy ache seemed to fly at him from all directions. It just definitely gave me that image right away. 
37:01 
That modern day or that time period, london was instantly hostile. The other thing that got me like right away I was so I was like I need to talk to somebody about this was like page 55 there was a reference to hieronymus bosch. Do you guys know hieronymus bosch? Do you recognize that name? Do you know who it is? 

Jonathan 37:22 
do you think I know who? It is just just a quick poll of the room. Like are we? I? Just want to see like if you were like hey, one of these people know who it is. Do you think that is me? I, I don't. I'll tell you. If you were like hey, one of these people know who it is. Do you think that is me? I don't know. I'll tell you if you're right or wrong. 

Mari 37:35 
You may have seen it, you may not know the name, but Hieronymus Bosch was an artist who did these crazy scenes like heaven and hell and like bird people and like during the time period when all the other contemporary authors were doing like Virgin Mary and angels and whatever Hieronymus Bosch was doing. This super crazy, surrealistic stuff, like it was like you're putting together people from two different eras, is the way it looks and it looks just as weird, just as crazy in person. It's got a lot of all his work, has a lot of detail. There's a lot of. I saw a lot of Heranimus Bosch's stuff in the Prado Museum and you could just stand there in front of that stuff and it's like a Where's Waldo? 

Jonathan 38:23 I was just thinking that I was like it's just like Where's Waldo, the Where's Waldo, Like 
a head and like a liver and like a pitchfork, like just weird, a whole bunch of stuff. 

Mari 38:35 
And when you look at what other people were drawing in that time period, nobody was doing stuff like that. So there's like a quote and it's just a one sentence thing. But, like, as soon as I read it, I had to, I had to put the book down and be like, oh my God, do you see what he did there? Do you see what he did there? 
38:53 
It was like 10 to the book I think it was like page 55 that all this wild abandon worthy of hieronymus bosch paled in comparison to the leader of the pack, and I'm just like that is a heck of a way to describe someone. You, you want to tell me that someone is super weird. Tell me that hieronymus bosch stuff you know, pales in comparison to them. The other thing that I very much liked about this was I kept trying to figure out because I know we've had this history now of every book we've read, there's like one side character that's are like oh, we love this side character. Oh, my gosh, like I have too many side characters that I really like in this book. 

Kelly 39:26 I just want a whole story about Nell. 

Ashley 39:28 Nell. I definitely have questions about Nell and I think actually we'll get some of that 
in the next book. I don't know if you guys have read the. 

Mari
No, haven't read the synopsis. 

Ashley
I think for me, I really liked the Ambassador. 

Mari
That was what Teterdemalion, Teterdemalion. 

Ashley 
39:36 
39:38 
39:42 
39:45 
No, so I liked the spider webfay, the one that was teaching Ren how to fight. He was just, he was a little feisty, and I think he's got a story and we didn't dive into that a lot. 

Kelly 39:56 
Although Tatar Damalion was super interesting, I'd like to see more of him little bit of detail and it makes them seem so much more fleshed out and realistic. Like the teasing about the spider fey being like somehow dishonorable or like his family didn't like him and that's why he was there. The same thing with nell. We got like this little teasing about you know the story with her brothers. Oh, it turns out she's maybe half fey and oh, her brother still lives in the mortal realm. And oh, you know, apparently some stuff went down at one of the wild hunts that forged a big bond between shrike and nell and you know. 
40:41 
So we're left with these. You know questions of. Well, what happened, what went down? I want to know. Agreed, it's an interesting thing because maybe it gives you more insight into some of the thoughts of the author. But one of the things that you know kept going on was Ren's relationship with his former friends the rest of Quills right. So there was a lot of play about how he used to be very much part of their group and then they sort of had a falling out. Part of it was because you know he left university or whatever out. Part of it was because you know he left university or whatever. And then, of course, we get more into the detail later is that even though he had fallen out of the university, he was still pretty tight with them and they appreciated his artwork up until he worked on this huge project of his own sort of illustration of Gawain and the. 
41:26 
Green Knight. Having taken some English literature classes many moons ago, gawaine and the Green Knight is a tale that's sometimes hotly debated about. You know, is there a element of homoeroticism in the tale of Gwaine and the Green Knight? And so we turn to find out that his former buddies and the rest of Quills had all decided that no, gwaine and the Green Knight was not at all. There was no homoeroticism in it at all, and so that was kind of the big falling out period. 
41:53 
And then what I thought was interesting was that Wren then goes on to talk about how his friends had changed right From their university days. As they had gotten older and gotten respectable jobs. They had become more rigid and conservative in their beliefs. And so that happens to most people, right. Like most people, the older they get, the more conservative their beliefs. And so that happens to most people, right. Like most people, the older they get, the more conservative their beliefs tend to be right. What is the author saying? Is that something that the author is trying to say about society in general, and that has a role in it? But I think it's actually a very 
23:47 
important part of the story itself and part of the reason why the Fae realm is so much more attractive to Ren is because the people there are not as conservative, obviously, but also the idea that they're not going to get older and become conservative in their beliefs. 

Mari 42:43 Yeah, yeah, it's an escape for him, escape from, like, the judgment that he that has 
shaped his life up to that point. 

Kelly 42:49 
Right, because that happens, right, people, as people and friends grow older, sometimes they grow apart. Right, because their life takes them in different directions. Absolutely, you know, like or was this was written not too long ago. Are we talking about how our own, some of our own friends and family members have turned out to be much worse people than we thought they were because of the current political situation in the United States? We've seen the politics break apart, friendships break apart, families, yeah. 

Mari 43:19 
There's a quote where, like Ren is talking about himself and he says and it kind of speaks to what we've just talked about it says this is Ren talking about himself. He says there's no measure to which I might dilute myself that will make my essence palatable to society. 

Kelly 43:36 
Right, exactly, and that's the thing you can't get around that the fact that the characters are homosexual or gay is a central part of the plot of the story and I think it's very well included into the way the story was structured, that that element was entwined in it very well and I think it really highlighted the way things were going on at the time. And it also some of it's relevant, even looking at it through the lens of today, like we talked about with the finding out your friends are way more conservative or they've grown more conservative because of the way politics in this country have gone. Or even the idea he talks about how Felix, you know, was a well- to-do, almost a dilettante. Like you know, wren said several times that you know he could get away with womanizing and treating people badly and society accepted him because of him being wealthy more than they would accept him and that's like today, right, If you're rich, you can get away with anything. 
44:36 
You know an interesting way to bring that into the story as well. 

Mari 44:39 
Yeah, lots of tangents. Yeah, I like the part where Shrike talks to the horse, to Rainscald the horse, and convinces him to take them to where they think Felix is and Rainscald is like I'll do it for the sake of adventure. I'm like all right, because it's interesting, because you talked about how, like Ren, was this kind of ordinary, every man kind of person and Shrike isn't. But I think in a lot of ways in the world of Fae, shrike is Shrike is just a knave, like okay, in our world it's cool that he can, you know, turn into a bird and use magic, but in the world of the fey, he's, he's not. You know, it's kind of surprising that he got to where he's, to the level he's at right, the biggest. 

Kelly 45:23 
The biggest thing about shrike is that apparently he was a very gifted leather worker, you know, and a little bit of like a craftsman. He wasn't known for being able to fight very well, hunt very well, any of those things. In fact, the reason he entered the tournament was because he wanted to try and get himself elevated a little bit to like, essentially, a position of nobility within the Fae court and man. 
45:46 
That didn't go as he thought it was going to go which is a great thing, because one of the classic things about the Fae especially when you talk about the Fae King and king to challenge Shrike is something very petty that a Fae queen would do, but not necessarily out of malice, just because she thinks it'll be more interesting. 

Mari 46:23 
Yeah, because it'll be entertaining. And I think it's interesting that when they are in Fae so many of the Fae are, and Shrike himself is very awed by the fact that Ren can write Like that's almost. His superpower in the Fae world is that he's literate. 

Kelly 46:38 Well, I mean, that still wasn't a very common thing in the 1800s for people to be 
literate. You were a learned person if you were literate. 

Jonathan 46:45 
I do like that they kind of they partnered up and there was definitely there was there was passion, but there was also almost like a sense of courtship yeah, like a flirtation I liked the daniel plot twist oh my gosh did anybody see that coming? 

Ashley
I didn't. I didn't see that one no, not at all. 

Mari
I thought it was cool. 

Ashley 
47:01 
47:05 
47:06 
That was well done and tasteful right, like it wasn't for it. It, you know it blended in that part of the story, like her questions, you know, to mr grigsby and to ren were very odd along the way and I didn't get the sense that she was trying to help felix. Not really, maybe she was trying to get herself out of out of dealing with felix any further than she already had. I really liked how her story panned out. 

Mari 47:33 Me too, like and it was foreshadowed. Like it wasn't in your face, you're right. But like 
after it happens, you think back and you're like, yeah, it was leading up to it. 

Kelly 47:40 
I honestly didn't expect the bam. Felix is dead. You know, bam the bones say he's. Not only is he not dead, he's no longer even on the earth, right, yeah, not only is he not dead? 

Ashley 47:50 he's no longer even on the earth, right? Yeah? Yeah, that was a little rushed for me. 

Kelly 47:53 I didn't expect a murder mystery twist in the middle of the book. 

Jonathan 47:56 I agree. What do you think the mindset was when they hit you with the plot twist to 
pit? 

Kelly
the two against each other. 

Jonathan Oh. 

Kelly 
48:07 
48:08 
48:08 
I saw that coming. I saw that coming as soon as the first time somebody said that the Fae Queen hadn't named the opponent. Yet I was like, oh, she's going to name him Just to mess with him. Right, because I've read so much stuff, so many stories with Fae and the Fae Queens and how they're fickle and stuff like that, I was like, oh, that's obviously going to happen. 

Mari 48:35 
Just because that's exactly what the fey queen would do. That I I definitely saw that one coming as well. What I did not see coming was that how they were going to resolve the issue was through like sex magic. 

Jonathan 48:40 
I'm like, oh, sex magic was not on my bingo card, all right. I think I was a little like oh, this is going down in front of everyone like there's no the exhibitionism of it, yeah but that was very much set up in that Fae world where it was like several places he went. 

Mari 48:54 Where it was like the exhibitionist was. It happened out in the open. There was no 
sense of it being wrong or whatever. 

Kelly 49:00 Right, because we already had talk about the Huldra. There wasn't a new concept, 
for sure. 

Jonathan 49:06 Yeah, and I get that For Ren. There was no sense of like I'm trying to think of a good, 
a good word for it. 

Kelly 49:13 
So it's like that was a huge leap for him as a character to go from being in a world where he couldn't even talk about being gay to, yeah, doing it in front of a public audience yeah, right, so was that almost like that was that was and and right. 
49:27 
That was him casting up, that was him casting off the last bit of being a person in the mortal realm he fully embraced being a fae at that point. Oh, I like that Because I mean, even when he left, like he told you know, he said several times he had no intention of coming back after the Midsommar right. He said that several times like there was no intention that he was ever coming back to the mortal world Right either way. It's true, yeah, intention that he was ever coming back to the world right either way, it's true, yeah. So that was like the final, that was like the final act of casting off that repressed mortal mindset and becoming a fey well, and it was his commitment, too, to the relationship right right he was essentially sacrificing that humanity part of himself, not that. 

Ashley 50:09 
Maybe that's the wrong terminology. Well, yeah, I think it was very symbolic on on both sides of that coin. I think it was to save the person that he loves as well as himself. I mean, though, I think he gladly would have died for shrike yeah you know, there there was a lot of of symbolism in his courage to commit to the ceremony, both for the relationship and and for their ability to survive right now exactly good point all right. 

Mari 50:42 What about the cover? What do you guys think about the cover? 

Jonathan 50:45 
it was pretty I was not entertained really entertain you. The cover didn't do. It didn't speak to me, it it, it just it felt like the cover of a coloring book. Oh wow, feelings yeah, there were definitely some like it. It didn't. It didn't feel mature, it felt juvenile, it didn't. I don't see the connection through the story. I don't even like the font. I like the font. I hate the font, um, but like I'm not and that's, and this is like that. You know, don't judge a book by its cover right. 

Mari 51:19 So how many paint brushes would you give it? You can give it one and give it a little 
paint drop low on that. 

Jonathan 51:25 Everything else is like high marks from me and I don't know who do we know? Who 
did the art? 

Mari 51:31 
yeah, actually. So the illustration for it was done by jan falc f-a-l-k of thistle art studio, and then the cover design was done by kelly of sleepy fox studio, so it was a collaboration apologize to them for my very rude opinion and that's what. 

Jonathan 51:49 It's just the opinion of one person who didn't click with, and you know my bad, but it's 
not. It's like it's not for you. It's not the cover isn't? That's not my kind of cover. 

Kelly 51:59 
So you are entitled to the cover may not have been for you, but was the cover? How would you think it portrayed what was in the book? Right, because we're not doing I can't get past. 

Jonathan 52:09 
The whole idea was we're not doing, you can't get past it, okay yeah, once it shuts, like visually, when it shuts down on me, that's kind of like y'all probably had different, I'm assuming, because the shock and awe, y'all probably had like a difference of opinion, which is let's hear it, bring it on. Who's going up? Ash, what did you think? 

Ashley 52:30 
I thought it was pretty. I don't think that it did anything extra, although now, obviously, reading it as an e-book right, I didn't have the cover in front of me all the time. So as I look more into it, I really like the backdrop of it I'm assuming that that strikes home right and the briars and everything. So having read the story, I have more of an appreciation for it. It's probably the most fitting cover for a book that we've read to date. I think it's the most relevant cover for a book that we've read to date. So for that I think it's super nice. I think it's polite. I thought Shrike would be taller. I don't see Ren's freckles. I have beef about that. So for that reason it's a three and a half. I needed to see the bespeckling. 
53:22 
There was so much talk about the bespeckled face of Ren and I'm missing that on this Three and a half. 

Mari 53:29 
So for me I thought the cover was a five all around. It caught my attention, it made me want to look more into the book and also I feel like it very much portrays the story of the book. I mean, it's got the two main characters in it. They're in an embrace. It's got this whole like uber romantic fairy tale vibes. I'm not super great with botany, but I'm pretty sure that the tree on the right is got holly on it with the red berries and the tree on the left is an oak tree. You're like in front of some stone type building which could be, you know, shrike's home. It's almost like if you take off the top part of the image and you just look like from their heads down, the left side is very gray, like it could almost be London, and then the right side is very green, like it could be Faye. The book cover drew me in and after reading the book I felt like it did a really good job of, you know, going with the story. So for me it was a five, kelly. 

Kelly 54:29 
So I would say a 3.5. I think it was very appropriate for representing kind of what was going to be in the book. I think there were some good elements, like there was an oak tree, there was a holly tree, I don't know that. It's one side was gray, like London, as much as it's supposed to be, more like. On Wren's side it's a wintry background and like snow underfoot, so because he was the winter king, and on Shrike's side it's more spring and summery because he was the summer king. But I think, you know, it's one of those things where I think the cover looked good. I think it represented things well. It could have been better, it could have been worse, but overall I think it did a good job and so I think a 3.5 is a pretty good rating for it. 

Mari
Are we ready for the hard question? 

Kelly
is it a kissing book? 
55:13 
55:14 

Jonathan
yes, yeah, absolutely 100 in agreement finally, oh, do we, do we have any um rapid 
fire today? 

Mari 55:23 how long do we want to do? Like a minute for each person oh, I've got a timer set. 

Kelly 55:27 
We're going to do each of us get one minute to give our incredibly brief and their yes or no. In our incredibly brief support, we're going to rapid fire. The Knight's Tale, starting with Mari To me Knight's Tale is absolutely. 

Mari 55:41 
It's actually romance for sure. I would say it's probably romancy because it's this romance, the fantasy of like a peasant being able to make it to the knighthood. But romance, yes, it's like this sibling or friendship romance. There's a little bit of love story in it too that kind of drives him. It's the romantic idea of being a knight, yes, absolutely. 

Kelly 56:01 So we'll switch over to Ashley. Ashley, you have one minute. 

Ashley 56:05 
I definitely agree with the romance. I'm struggling with the fantasy part of it. Outside of the ideals that you mentioned, right the the wanting to climb to a higher station, to to achieve more, to do better. It's a great story. It's very certainly a rom-com for which I'm a fan. I don't I don't the romanacy. It's a kissing book, but I don't know that it's romanacy for me okay, jonathan, you have one minute on the clock. 

Jonathan 56:34 
No, I don't think it's a kissing book. Here's why I think it's the. I think it's the saved by the bell of uh, a fake and bakes right. So, like you, you're just like zach morris gets busted before the second commercial break and then come, everything comes back together in the end. So that's a no for me, dog. What'd you think Kelly? 

Kelly 56:53 
It is absolutely not a kissing book, and the reason why is because Heath Ledger's character does not do. He does not enter those jousting tournaments with the intention of wooing somebody right. Initially that may seem what he's doing, but he's all about competition. He's about winning. He's about proving his rival that he's a better knight than him and all that kind of stuff. So that was going to happen. Whether or not there was a romance between him and the princess or whoever it was in that movie, it's been so long I forget. The only real romance that was worth anything in that was the bromance going on between the characters. So I would say no, it is not a kissing book. 

Mari 57:30 And there we have it between the characters. So I would say, no, it is not a kissing 
book. And there we have it Rapid Fire. 

Jonathan 57:34 Knight's Tale. I like it, that was pretty rapid. 

Mari 57:38 We've been lucky enough to be able to interview Sebastian Knothwell, author of Oak 
King Holly King, and we will be releasing that as a separate bonus episode. 
57:47 
So subscribe so you can get it. Thanks for listening to Of swords and soulmates. Before we go, make sure to check out the show notes, rate and review us on your podcast app of choice, and follow us on Instagram at of swords and soulmates, or join our Facebook page of swords and soulmates, or come visit our newly set up website of swords and soulmatescom, probably the easiest place to find everything. You'll see our episode pages on there, you'll see our little bios and you'll see a little bit about our rating system. If you'd like to offer a suggestion for a future rapid fire question, you can reach out to us on any of these methods, and if you'd like to read along with us as we prepare for next episode, you can follow us on Goodreads at Of Swords and Soulmates, when we will be reading the Last Storm by JD Linton L-I-N- T-O-N. We hope you'll join us in two weeks for our next episode. Thank you.