Have you read Lisa Kleypas's neogothic duology: Devil in Winter and It Happened One Autumn? Tehyah Carver shares her provocative claims about Kleypas’s Wallflower series, including how St. Vincent is a gothic heroine. We also discuss the revisions the author made to the texts around 2021, theories on why the changes were made, and how we feel about them.

What differentiates a villain from an interesting character in romance and how have contemporary romance readers' expectations evolved and what are the broader implications of rewriting problematic elements in historical romance fiction?

• 00:00 Tehyah’s Romance Credentials
• 03:57 Lisa Kleypas's Novels
• 07:07 The Magic of Stony Cross Park
• 11:23 Romance Genre and Reader Response
• 18:26 Neogothic Romance and Social Anxieties
• 23:52 Revisions in Romance Novels
• 51:18 What kind of dog is Sebastian St. Vincent?
• 51:55 Sebastian's Villainous Nature and Reader Perspectives
• 53:47 Gothic Elements in Devil in Winter
• 55:48 Sebastian as a Gothic Heroine
• 57:44 Cam's Role and Racial Elements
• 01:06:42 Sebastian's Masculinity and Gender Roles
• 01:15:01 Revisions and Reader Perceptions
• 01:27:01 Don’t be Boring: Concluding Thoughts on Romance

Guest: Tehyah Carver

• PhD student at Teachers College Columbia University, “real” romance fan and legit scholar
  • Instagram

Discussed:

• Lisa Kleypas Wallflower series: Devil in Winter & It Happened One Autumn: Neogothic Duology, plus Secrets of a Summer Night
• Routledge Research Companion to Popular Romance Fiction (2021): Edited By Jayashree Kamblé, Eric Murphy Selinger, Hsu-Ming Teo
  • Chapter 4: Gothic Romance by Angela Toscano

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