Are you ready to bust through the myth of the dreaded 'summer slump' in your business?
Hey, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach, and this is my podcast "The Weeniecast!"
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Now, back to this episode...
I'm setting the record straight on why the summer months don't have to be slow for your business.
You might be thinking, “But Katie, everyone’s on vacation, decision-making slows down, and business just naturally grinds to a halt between June and August.”
Well, I'm here to challenge that notion and get you to reframe your perspective.
Throughout the episode, we'll discuss the various factors that might be influencing this perception you have, including your own decision to slow down and how that impacts your business.
I'll walk you through the major external challenges – like clients being on vacation or school holidays affecting your schedule – and how to shimmy your way round them effectively.
We’ll also discuss the one critical mistake many business owners make.
So, why listen to this episode?
You'll learn how to maintain momentum in your business throughout the summer, why consistent marketing is essential, and how to adjust your workflow without sacrificing productivity or sales.
Timestamped Summary:
00:00:01 - Introduction to the Episode
00:00:24 - Common Assumptions about the Summer Slump
00:01:16 - Summer Scheduling Challenges for Parents
00:02:04 - Vacations and External Interruptions
00:03:06 - Marketing Mistakes During Summer
00:03:52 - Realistic Summer Productivity
00:06:28 - The Importance of Staying Top of Mind
00:07:12 - Balancing Work and Summer Enjoyment
00:08:02 - Adjusting Your SOPs for Summer
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In this episode, I'm busting the myth around this so called summer
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slump. Hi, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset
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coach. And welcome to the Weeniecast. I want to bust a
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myth. And that myth is that the summer months are slow for your
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business. Now, you're probably hearing that and thinking, but, Katie,
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like, it actually is slow for my business. Everyone's on vacation. Their kids
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are out of school. They take longer to make decisions. Like,
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business slows down between the months of
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June and August. And to that I say, yeah,
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but is it because it naturally slows down or because you slow
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down? And I'm sorry if that was rude. Actually, I'm not that sorry because
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we actually need to have a realistic conversation about what you're
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doing to cause this summer slump every single year.
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And before we get into this, I want to acknowledge
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that the summer is a scheduling
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nightmare for a lot of people. If you're a parent, especially throughout the school
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year, your children are sent off to a building where other adults
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watch them for the majority of the day. So you have time to get your
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work done, and then you only have to deal with them in the mornings and
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the evenings. You know, you can tell I'm not a parent, right? I'm sure your
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children are lovely, but you get a lot more done when they're away. Right? Whereas
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in the summer, you know, it's a little more sporadic. Maybe they're
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in summer camp. That's probably not going to be a full school day's worth of
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time. Maybe they're not in summer camp. Maybe they're just hanging around the house with
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you. Well, then you're the adult in charge. And it's not like
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kids are great coworkers. They're not going to respect the fact that
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you are in a meeting. They're not going to respect the fact that you have
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to get an email out. If they want a snack, they're going to ask for
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the snack because no one wants to be that mom. That has to explain to
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your child's best friends parents that, yes, you do, in fact, feed your
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child. You just didn't get them a string cheese right when they wanted it that
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one time. Can you tell I have friends who have kids? In addition to
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that, there are a lot of vacations that happen during the summer. People get
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married during the summer. I mean, people get married all year round. But summer is
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like prime time in a lot of areas. And even if you're not going on
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vacation, there are people that you're working with who are going on vacation.
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Maybe your graphic designer is taking two weeks off and
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then your copywriter is taking a week off here. Like, that is naturally
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going to slow down some of the stuff that happens in your business. And
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not to mention, depending on who your ideal client
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is, they may slow down in their decision making process.
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There are a lot of challenges to the summer season, and if
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we just kind of, like, threw in the towel every season, like, oh, well, it's
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hard to get clients right now for X, Y and Z reason, so
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let's just not even try. Well, things would not go
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well. They would not go well for your business, they would not go well for
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your finances, not go well for your relationships, because everyone be like, what
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the are you doing? You sure you want to run a business if it's always
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so hard and blah, blah, blah, and then you have to go back because you
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have adhd, you get bored of the job after a year, and then you have
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to go and find another job. And then after another year, you get bored, and
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then you have to go and find another job. That's just a lot of jobs.
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So when we talk about the summer slump, like, there's a part of this
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that is absolutely realistic. There are things that just go slower in the
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summer for a lot of different reasons. Just because
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people are going to be, are more likely to be
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distracted during the summer does not
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mean they're not paying attention.
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One of the things that business owners drop first when
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things are, like, assumed to be going slow
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is marketing. They figure, oh, well, people are at the beach,
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they're not looking at social media. Oh, you know, it's
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the holidays. People are with family and
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cooking and wrapping presents. Have you ever been to the
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beach since smartphones came out? And when they're not on their
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phones, they're getting shown by other people what's on their phones.
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And have you been to a holiday with family?
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Like, people are hiding in spare bedrooms, in the
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bathroom, hiding from the people that they love cause
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it's been too much. And they're on their phones, they're looking for a
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distraction. Uncle Paul sang something racist at the dining room
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table. How do you avoid screaming at Uncle Paul and
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creating a scene? You open LinkedIn. Hopefully you're not
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doing that. Hopefully you are doing some anti racist work and informing Uncle
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Paul why his words are problematic
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and guiding him to a better way of
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communicating and having more empathy for people who are different from him.
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And also, like, sometimes you're just too tired for that. But
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also, sometimes that just is not gonna work for Uncle Paul.
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And this is just gonna be the last time you invite him to dinner for
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the time that he's there. LinkedIn or Instagram is going to
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be your godsend to keep you from
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turning into a rage monster. I don't actually have an Uncle Paul,
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and my family, thankfully, doesn't have any racists.
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But for those of you who have your own variation of an Uncle Paul, my
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heart goes out to you.
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My point being is that just because people are distracted, just because they
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have other things going on, and just because whatever goal you help your
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clients with may not be top of mind for them in that moment, it
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doesn't mean they're not seeing your one of the best
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times to get in front of your ideal clients. Oh, what am I going to
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say next? Well, you'll have to keep listening to find out. But first, squirrel,
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squirrel, squirrel, squirrel.
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One of the best times to get in front of your ideal clients is
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when everyone else is writing off that they're not paying attention. Whatever it is that
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you help them with. Do not stop
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marketing because just because they're not in a
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buying mentality at this very moment and just want to own,
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that could totally be a story that you're telling yourself. You could
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totally be making up that they're not in a buying mode and
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therefore not inviting them to become your client. That could be a
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totally made up thing by you, and you'll never know unless you continue to
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market yourself. But even if they aren't in that buying mode, it
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doesn't mean that they're not paying attention. It doesn't mean that they're not seeing your
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content. It doesn't mean that they're not planning what they want to sign up for
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in the future. They're not going to forget that you exist. And
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remember, remembering that you exist is the only
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way that they're going to end up giving you money. And I do want to
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encourage you to dial back some of your work during the summer, especially
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if you love the season and you have fun things to do and you have
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loved ones visiting and your kids are off of school, and,
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you know, you enjoy doing the outdoors things that you can't do during the
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rest of the year. You only live once. And we don't start
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businesses so that we can just be a slave to our business
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and suffer through until we hit a certain amount of money and
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then. And then give up. We start businesses so that the business can
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support us living the life we want now. So, yeah, take a day off
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in the middle of the week during the summer. Go to the beach, go
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wakeboarding, do whatever it is that makes you happy.
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And dial back in ways that allow you to have more
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free time. But do not dial back on your marketing. In the last
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episode, episode 89, I actually talked about goals and how you can set them for
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yourself in a realistic way and how you set your
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goals for different seasons. You know, you need to follow the same advice.
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You need to be realistic about what you can get done in a day, in
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a week, and in a month.
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So just like you have an SoP for the rest of the year, the things
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that you need to do every single day and every single week and every
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single month, you get to augment that for the summer.
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And remember, you're the boss. You own this company.
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I mean, unless you have a very bossy dog. But Luna doesn't know what I
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do for work, so she can't tell me what to do specifically. In my business,
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the most important thing for you to remember throughout the summer is you need to
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stay top of mind, because if someone's ready to buy, they're gonna
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buy. And if they're not seeing you online and they're not being reminded
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about how you help people, they're gonna hire someone else
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who isn't taking the summer off. So
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whether it's like water sports, maybe like going kayaking, you can post a
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picture of that. You know, maybe you're going to Hawaii or somewhere
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tropical. You can absolutely share a picture from your vacation. You
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know, maybe you just want to sit in your backyard and read trashy
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fantasy romance novels. That would be kind of a fun thing for you to
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post once a week. You know, here's what I'm reading right now. It's a little
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spicy. Maybe don't read it. Like with your book club that involves your mom.
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Remember, people like to buy from other people who they feel connected to,
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who they feel like they have something in common with. I could absolutely
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share all the trashy fantasy romance novels that I'm reading this
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summer. Once a week, I could showcase. This is what I'm in the middle
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of. Don't listen to the audible version in the car with
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the kids. And someone may be a reader and think, oh, great,
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yes, I want to read that now. Or they could be not a reader and
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think, oh, that's so funny that, you know, this is Katie's hobby, but either
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way, they know something more about me, and knowing something like that
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about someone is kind of like the stuff that you would know about someone if
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they were a friend. And people buy from friends. Think
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about it. You're not friends with anyone that you don't trust. When we allow
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people to become our friends on the interwebs, what we're essentially letting them
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do is build trust with us. And people buy from people they
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trust, and they buy from people who they know exist, even if
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you have some ADHD side quests that you'd rather ditch your work for.
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And to prove my point, I'm going to share with you my top five
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reads that I recommend to you if you're into the
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fantasy romance genre. Okay, so we're going to start off
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with a clockwork angel. This is a trilogy.
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It's technically young adult, but it has a real, like, slow burn on
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the romance side. And it's a little Sci-Fi y,
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but there's a lot of action and there's a lot of, like,
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what's going to happen next. Okay? So don't start this late at night. I
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cannot talk romance fantasy without giving
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Acotar a court of thorns and roses by Sarah J. Maas
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a shout out. Now, this is the first of a five
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book series. There is a 6th coming out. It is very
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entertaining, great storytelling, lots of, well, not so much spice in this
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book. Lots of spice in the fifth book. Holy.
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Fourth wing. Holy. There's only two of these out. It
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has dragons, it has magic, it has deception
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and sex and all the things really, really good.
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But if you are reading the second one, don't be surprised if people are
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like, ooh, prepare yourself because the last
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few pages will stab you in the
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heart. Okay. The Red Queen by Victoria
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Aveyard. This is also a five part
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series. I'm actually not done with the series. It got
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intense and I needed a breather after the third
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book. It is a very, very slow burn, but, like, just
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the world building in. This is absolutely insane.
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Can't recommend it enough. And then for those of you who
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just like light, like young adult, I have to tell you, like, this
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series, I'm going to show you them all because they're just really short. By Tamora
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Pierce. This was like my first intro to romance
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fantasy. Alanna, the first adventure. It's about a girl
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who swaps places with her twin brother and goes to become
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a knight while he goes to the convent to become a
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sorcerer where she was supposed to be sent to become a lady. It's four
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parts, and it's actually in a series that has, like, God, like
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17 books. So you can really go into the tortol world
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and get fully immersed. But honestly, like, if you want to do, like, a little
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reading group and you have daughters who are, like, they're preteens and
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teenager, this would actually be a really cool thing to. To
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read and, like, talk about healthy relationships and girl
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power and all that sh t. So that is my
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reading list for you this summer. Enjoy.