How We Get Thru Podcast: Wellness, Healing & Spiritual Tools for Growth in Real Life · Jen Hershey

S2 Ep 74: Pleasure, Power & Page-Turners: Why Fantasy Romance is More Than an Escape with Meg & Marina

·1 hr 11 min·4 clips

These books center women's pleasure, consent, and ethical desire.

Jen opens the conversation by framing fantasy romance as the kind of reading that can leave women feeling changed. Meg and Marina join her to talk through their own reading journeys and the pull of these books. They keep returning to the idea that the appeal is not a guilty pleasure. It lives in magic, pleasure, healing, and self-discovery all at once. Their psychology backgrounds add another layer. They are interested in how stories can empower women, challenge familiar norms, and make room to explore desire, resilience, and the power of the body. The conversation stays personal. Jen and her guests swap favorite tropes and admit that enemies-to-lovers still has a very particular grip. They also laugh about the fact that these books can be emotionally meaningful and very explicit. Reading that mix, they suggest, can feel grounding. The deepest part of the episode turns toward trauma. Much of that stretch centers on A Court of Silver Flames and the way Nesta is often received. Some readers see her as selfish. The episode pushes back by reading her behavior as a trauma response that looks different through another lens. PTSD is discussed directly. Sexual assault is named too, along with the book's willingness to keep those wounds visible. Healing, they agree, is not linear. None of the characters walks away fully healed, and that unfinished quality is part of the book's power. A trigger like the crackling of fire becomes a clear example of what a trigger may look like. By the close, Jen, Meg, and Marina are still laughing, still thinking out loud, and still imagining book clubs, future writing, and more stories that celebrate the messy, complex, and beautiful lives of women.

As heard by us

Fantasy romance as a language for pleasure, healing, and self-discovery.

Fantasy romance is the entry point, but the episode keeps circling back to a bigger idea: these books give women a way to talk about pleasure, power, healing, and self-discovery.

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Why you'd press play

Fantasy romance becomes a map for desire, healing, and power here, too.

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