Love is all around! On podcasts as well as holidays… In this episode, Jacke talks to USA Today bestselling author Mimi Matthews about her love for the Victorian era and how that fueled her latest work, the historical romance The Siren of Sussex, in which an ambitious equestrienne teams up with a devastatingly handsome half-Indian dressmaker to take London society by storm – unless their professional plans are thwarted by their amorous propensities toward one another. Jacke also checks in with friend of the show Margot Livesey about her first reading of the classic biography Life of Johnson by her fellow Scot, James Boswell – does it still hold up? And finally, Jacke throws a bone to love’s wretched dogs, who might find some company in the misery of ancient Rome’s Catullus, whose love for “Lesbia” placed him on the knife edge between self-loathing and despair.

Additional listening suggestions:

• In love with love? Pain turns to loving pleasure in Episode 95 The Runaway Poets – The Triumphant Love Story of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning.
• Still in love with love? Try Episode 130 The Poet and the Painter – The Great Love Affair of Anna Akhmatova and Amedeo Modigliani.
• No one to love but yourself? Join us for a look at Oscar Wilde, Ovid, and the Myth of Narcissus (with novelist Natasha Joukovsky) in Episode 337.

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