Our Next Chapter: A Rom-Com & Romance Books Podcast
Sep 14, 2026 · 58 min · 14 segments
Before Laurie was the number one New York Times bestseller behind The Pumpkin Spice Cafe and the Dream Harbor series, she was writing werewolves under her own name, Melissa McTernan. Big Bad Wolf is…
Laurie GilmoreGuestAndreaHostAndrewHostYou know, sweetheart, some people would say that our love story is a fairy tale.
That's true.
You know, now that I think about it.
I agree.
It's been a good little story-
Mm-hmm
... for more than a quarter of a century.
Woo.
When... at what point do we say, like, [laughs] "A long time ago in a land-
Yeah
... far, far away."
Once upon a time-
Yes
...
there was a man who was beaten into submission.
That's not-
What?
... very kind.
[laughs]
It's not?
I don't think it's accurate either.
Oh, okay.
Well, it's fairy tales.
I decided, um-
It's made up stories, and we're gonna have a big fairy tale episode today.
Yeah.
And you know what that made me start to think?
What? Tell me about it.
I went and dug out my collection-
Oh, boy
Mm-hmm.
Does anybody remember watching these as children?
Where did you watch these?
Oh my gosh.
Well-
I don't even know
...
this goes back to supporting public libraries because-
Uh-huh
... my babysitter used to take us to the public library-
Okay
... and we would check out books, and we would check out the VHS-
Mm, okay
... uh, of these, these episodes basically, and so it was like back in the mid to... like early to mid-'80s.
Yeah, '80s.
Shelley Duvall rounded up like the most famous people, I mean, Robin Williams, Christopher Reeves, Susan Sarandon, like big names.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah.
There's so many.
I think I did.
[laughs]
Um, so many people, rounded them up, and famous directors.
Directors.
Yeah.
And like had them direct fairy tales, and so I've got...
I gotta show you what's inside my-
Okay, send me them
... collection.
... of all the fairy tales.
Strong hard media.
But it's like live action of all the fairy tales, and so the set also comes with a collector's book, collector's storybook-
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm
... that talks about like who the actors and actresses are-
What's on these seven-
...
in each of the...
so each-
Discs
... one, each disc has like three or four fairy tales, and it's like about a, I'd say a 30-minute-ish little movie, uh, show.
I mean, yeah.
And they reenact these fairy tales.
I mean, it is like full set-
... full cost-
Yeah, I mean-
... huge.
Uh, yeah, he was...
I think he's the, uh, genie in Aladdin.
My goodness.
Um, but also there's a playing card set that you can either play regular cards, you can do a memory match game, or do the trivia game, which I kind of want to quiz myself on the trivia.
But basically my babysitter would get these, and we would watch them like in the summer, and I just loved them.
They were just magical, and the actor...
I mean, like the acting is so good.
The, the sets, the costumes-
I mean, it's all stars-
... like it's so legit
... all the way down.
Yeah, the directing.
Okay.
And like of course as a kid I'm not thinking of all that, but like it felt so real, and so I had some favorites for sure.
Um-
Top three.
Go.
Well, my absolute number one is The Snow Queen.
Um-
The Snow Queen.
Okay
... which definitely created my obsession with the northern lights, the Aurora Borealis.
Mm.
I love it.
Um-
[laughs]
... 'cause that's like where she lives.
She like lives in the northern lights.
Mm-hmm.
Um, and so it definitely created my like bucket list obsession with going to see those.
Mm
... was so good.
It was like this king and, and he had these five daughters, and their shoes, their dancing shoes kept being worn out like every morning, and the cobbler couldn't figure out why their shoes were worn.
But they had like a secret closet they would go through, and they would go and dance all night long and-
Mm-hmm
...
it was this whole thing.
Um, oh, my third favorite, uh, probably-
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
And it's awesome.
It's just exactly what you would-
"I'm gonna huff, and I'm gonna puff."
Are we allowed to like show any clip of it on here? I don't know what the rules are-
Probably not
...
but you could imitate him pretty well.
It's like-
Oh, man
... "So, uh, little pig-"
"So, uh, little pigga," yeah
...
I'm gonna huff and puff.
Okay.
That's a good one, just because the like evil-
Okay
... witch lady was like, she was scary.
She had like lasers come out her eyes, and it was pretty good.
But ah, there's so many.
There's so many.
You know, in the first iteration-
...
Oh, really?
Yes.
I did not...
How did you know that? [laughs]
Because I've done some research for our show today.
Oh.
Have you been doing some fairy tale research?
I have.
Maybe we should do some music and introduce ourselves first.
Sure.
Do we have fairy tale music? It is fairy tale from our wedding.
I'll add some, I'll add some sparkles to it.
Oh, okay.
But it is our fairy tale theme from-
It's true
... our wedding.
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