Open-Door vs. Closed-Door Romance, Kate Goldbeck on Writing Under Reader Surveillance, and a Case for Cheating

Bring the steam: Sanjana and Tyler advocate that sex scenes count as character work and that too many books miss that opportunity. Then Kate Goldbeck—the author of You, Again and Daddy Issues—stops by to talk about what it's actually like to write romance in an era of chronically online readers and, well, Threads. To close things out, Sanj and Tyler make the case for messier, sillier plots: well-executed cheating and unhinged premises, please.

• Our two closed-door book picks are YA: Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute by Talia Hibbert and Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood.
• Kate Goldbeck is the author of You, Again and Daddy Issues, and her Substack is a great BTS look at being a romance writer right now.
• The wishlist for messier romance: the kind of emotional cheating brought to us by You’ve Got Mail and the sort of ridiculous set-ups Susan Elizabeth Phillips delivered with Nobody's Baby But Mine.

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