Romance can be fizzy fun. It can also carry the weight of culture, history and personal reckoning. This week’s pairing proves both can exist in the same breath.
Season 3 Episode 6: Recipe for Romance
In this week’s episode of Romance on the Rocks, we’re pairing Odd Girl Out by Ann Bannon with Savor It by Tarah DeWitt, mixing brambles and beer while we dig into jealousy, growth and the kind of love that forces you to choose who you want to be.
Book Review: A Bookish Story
A Bookish Story offers something a little different from Bell’s usual romances. Instead of ranches and small town love, we get a peek behind the curtain of the publishing world with ghostwriters, pen names and a romance novel that becomes unexpectedly famous.
Book Review: Every Version of You
It’s habanero hot but anchored in care.
Safe Words and Sinners
Romance can be fizzy, filthy, thoughtful and unexpectedly tender. Sometimes all in the same chapter.
Season 3 Episode 5: Safe Words and Sinners
What happens when a rugby surprise pregnancy rom-com collides with a lapsed Catholic love story? Season 3 Episode 5 of Romance on the Rocks dives headfirst into two contemporary romances that blend real-world complexity with serious heat.
Book Review: Book Lovers
The Official Blurb “One summer. Two rivals. A plot twist they didn’t see coming… Nora Stephens’ life is books—she’s read them all—and she is not that type of heroine. Not the plucky one, not the laidback dream girl, and especially not the sweetheart. In fact, the only people Nora is a heroine for are her clients, for whom sheRead More
Pergola Worthy
Romance works best when it balances chaos with sincerity. This week’s reads absolutely understood the assignment.
Season 3 Episode 4: Pergola Worthy
On this episode of Romance on the Rocks, Nicole Danielle and Meghan Leigh dive into two contemporary romantic comedies while attempting to keep their cocktails (and themselves) upright.
Reading Romance on the Road
“We travel for romance, we travel for architecture, and we travel to be lost.” – Ray Bradbury
Book Review: Fifty Shades of Grey
This book does not offer a healthy or even coherent portrayal of romance, kink or emotional intimacy. It confuses trauma with desire, control with care and repetition with depth.
Billionaires and Boundaries
We’re talking billionaire romances that promise heat but deliver control, and why cultural impact does not automatically mean a story gets intimacy right.
Season 3 Episode 3: Billionaires and Boundaries
If a book hooks the world but fumbles consent, can it still be called a great romance?
Season 2 Books
Season 2 of Romance on the Rocks Podcast was packed with swoons, spice and plenty of spirited discussion.
Nacho Average Season Finale
We popped into La Taqueria in Wausau, Wisconsin and ordered up giant trays of nachos and delicious cocktails for our end of your book feast and season recap.
Season 3 Episode 2: Nacho Average Season Finale
Season two wrapped up with everything we love: the reads that made us swoon, the ones that shocked us, and the moments that had us snort-laughing into our drinks.
Still Reading Smut
What started as a half-joking idea between friends — what if we read romance novels, drank cocktails and talked about it? — became a ritual that reshapes how we read, create and connect.
Season 3 Episode 1: Still Reading Smut
Pop the cork with us as we open season three and get real about how a half-joking idea turned into a ritual that changed our reading lives.
Good Spirits
If you love holiday romance with humor and heart — and don’t mind a little ghostly snow-globe action — this is a festive delight.
A Spirited Christmas
Holiday Romances: Cozy Vibes, Chaotic Choices & Ghostly Shenanigans Holiday romances promise cozy vibes, twinkle lights and just enough emotional whiplash to keep us awake between sips of our candy cane cocktails. They also reveal what we really want from love stories: joy but with a little bite. In Season 2 Episode 28: A Spirited Christmas onRead More
Season 2 Episode 28: A Spirited Christmas
Candy Cane Cocktails in hand, we dive into two very different holiday romances and come up for air with laughter, side-eye and a few hard truths.
Book Review: Find Me
This book comes out swinging. The heat starts early, stays consistent and absolutely works for the story.
A Whole Latke Love
Holiday romance season gives us two things we adore: comfort and surprise — preferably with cocktails in hand.
Season 2 Episode 27: A Whole Latke Love
Holiday romance should feel like stepping into a warm kitchen: familiar, fragrant and a little bit daring.
Meet the Author: A.C. Wonderland
In this week’s episode, we pull up a chair with A.C. to talk about how her childhood hockey crush and lifelong love of the game turned into writing slow-burn romances that hit as hard as a slapshot and melt just as fast.
Season 2 Episode 26: Meet the Author A.C. Wonderland
We pull up a chair with A.C. to talk about her books One Shot and Summer Shot, why golden retriever male leads deserve their flowers, and how to write intimacy that actually moves the story forward.
Book Review: One Shot
Let’s just say: the ice isn’t the only thing heating up.
Season 2 Episode 25: Double Shot
We’re pouring drinks, pulling on jerseys and diving into two hockey romances that deliver big feelings, bigger chemistry and the kind of character growth that lingers after the final buzzer.
Double Shot
Hockey romance is absolutely having its time to shine — and for good reason.
Book Review: That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon
A hot demon and a spicy lady team up to destroy a witch’s horcruxes … and end up being unable to keep their hands off each other.
That Time We Got Drunk & Did a Podcast
Monster romance thrives where campy fun meets moral ambiguity.
Season 2 Episode 24: That Time We Got Drunk & Did a Podcast
Let’s end spooky season with a clink: a neon-blue zombie cocktail meets a cozy Oktoberfest beer as we close our creature feature month and dig into two wildly different monster romances.
Book Review: Morning Glory Milking Farm
You can “churn” this one out in under 24 hours.
Got Minotaur Milk?
We have to balance the sex spectacle with scientific plausibility. It’s just who we are.
Season 2 Episode 23: Got Minotaur Milk?
We pour a drink (okay, a few), roll up our sleeves, and unpack two monster romances that are equal parts spicy, sweet and unexpectedly practical.
Book Review: How to Help a Hungry Werewolf
I’m a sucker for both witches and werewolves, so this book hit all my paranormal sweet spots.
Love Spells
Monster romance is having a moment — and not only because October begs for fangs, fur and folklore.
Season 2 Episode 22: Love Spells
Do monsters make the perfect mate?
Create Your Own Shadow Garden
How to Create Your Own Shadow Garden (Inspired by In the Shadow Garden by Liz Parker) By Nicole Danielle On our podcast, Romance on the Rocks, I recently reviewed In the Shadow Garden by Liz Parker (Season 2 Episode 21: I’m Also in Love with Mothman). In the book, the mystical “shadow garden” is filledRead More
Book Review: In the Shadow Garden
If you’re looking for a story filled with witches, bourbon, buried secrets, and a touch of Southern gothic mystery, In the Shadow Garden by Liz Parker should be on your TBR.
