It's Juneteenth, and for the holiday, we're taking a pause from our usual news round up, but don't worry, we'll be back with the latest headlines next week.

Today, we wanted to talk about romance writing and love stories, because novels with love and sex at the center are among the

best-selling books year after year, and two novels out this summer are pushing the boundaries

of the genre as we know them. One of those novels, they all fall in love at the end, was written

by One A's own producer, Haley Blassing Game, and we're so proud of her. In it, a young black writer in D.C. explores

non-monogamy, while her city and the world deal with the fallout of the 2024 election.

And in the missed connection by Tia Williams, a casting agent tries to find the handsome

stranger who sat next to her on a flight while navigating past trauma and a shaky work-life

balance. I'm Jen White,

and you're listening to the One-A podcast. After a short break, we sit down with Haley and Tia

and talk about challenging the conventions of romance as a genre and bringing us well beyond

fairy tale endings. Stay with us.

Now let's meet our authors. Tia Williams is the best-selling author of Seven Days in June and a love song for Ricky Wild. Her latest is called The Mist Connection. And it's out now.

Tia, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you for having me. And also with us is Haley Blassing Game. Her debut novel is They All Fall in Love at the End. It's also available now, and you may recognize her name from the credits on this show. She's a producer here on 1A. Haley, welcome. Thank you so much for having me. So I want to start by talking about genre.

Haley, your book is about this 24-year-old in D.C., her name is Kat St. Clair.

She's a writer.

She's dealing with a lot of family stuff and relationship stuff and stuff that we will get into.

But the romance isn't really the main story throughout. So where do you

see your book falling into the romance genre at all? Yeah. So I'll start by defining what romance is,

at least how I define it. So the A plot, meaning the main storyline, must be the romantic

story, the love story. And it must have a happily ever after, usually meaning the characters

get together, or a happy for now. And so just like any genre, it's a contract between the

...