Fated Mates - Romance Books for Novel People

So you watched the Bridgerton Netflix series and you've torn through the books, and now you're desperate for more historical romance while you wait for Season 2 of Bridgerton? Don't worry, dear readers, these podcasters have you covered. Tuck into our What to Read if You Loved Bridgeron episode for a massive list of historical romance recommendation based on what you might have loved in Bridgerton! Is it boxing? Is it I don't know how sex works? Is it the wigs? Is it the scene with the spoon?! Whatever it is...we've got you covered. And when you're done with this one, go check out our episode on romance series featuring big families!Whether you're new to Fated Mates this month or have been with us for all three seasons, we adore you, and we're so grateful to have you. Please join us next week to chat with the fabulous Kate Clayborn about retellings in romance and to celebrate the launch of her new book, Love At First, which you can preorder now or get wherever books are sold (even your local indie!) next Tuesday, February 23, 2021. In two weeks, we're back with a read along of Mary Balogh's A Matter of Class, which is one of Sarah's favorite historicals. We'll talk about why then. Get it for only $2.99 at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo or Google Books.Show NotesWe have some ideas about winter sports, which is that maybe they are best left to other people. But here are some photos of Chicago’s ice skating ribbon and the sledding hill at Soldier Field, which even has its own snowmaking machines! When the Obama Library is built, Michelle Obama requested they include a sledding hill because she remembered wanting to sled closer to home when she was a kid. In the 90s, they really let Hugh Grant do anything. The Luxe is a gilded age YA series, and the original covers were so gorgeous, as compared to the rejacketing. We are not taking questions at this time. We can't find the video Sarah talks about, probably because it was THIRTEEN YEARS AGO (lolsob), but you can watch this fun one about the cover shoot for Splendor, the final book in the series, here! The comedian who did the Bad TV Impression of Bridgerton is Kieran Hodgson. His YouTube channel was recently emptied of content, which makes us think he's got his own TV show coming, but in the meantime, you can watch the Bridgerton hilarity on his Twitter feed. We recommend you do this immediately. Speaking of rakes, Sarah explained them to Oprah Magazine. We aren’t the only ones who thought the Bridgerton brothers were indistinguishable.A collective noun is the name for a group of things. A Cache of Jewels is a very charming picture book about collective nouns if you’re into that sort of thing. If you love Queen Charlotte’s wigs, you can read this piece in Glamour about the hidden meanings in Bridgerton hairstyles, or follow the wig-maker on Instagram. Here’s a great timeline of the books in the Beverly Jenkins universe made by Scentsational Rynnie. Jen interviewed Ms. Bev on Wild Rain’s release day for Love’s Sweet Arrow.In Heart and Hand, Julie is a member of The Four Hundred, the most exclusive society families. She attended Vassar College, which opened in 1865. To watch Jen’s interview with Rebel Carter, KJ Charles, Caroline Linden, and Amalie Howard, join the Facebook group, The League of Extraordinary Historical Romance Authors.Gunter’s Tea Shop is a real place if you liked that scene with the spoon.Tell us about your historicals where there are duels: We've already got Nine Rules to Break when Romancing a Rake, The Lady Hellion, and The Serpent Prince on our list.Sarah didn’t know Jen was going to bring up Boxing, or she would have been ready to recommend Piper Huguley’s A Champion’s Heart, which is a beautiful inspirational romance. If you want to know more about the connection between writing and boxing, Sarah recommends the Library of America's At the Fights: American Writers on Boxing. Here's more about the fascinating history of boxing gloves.Jen enjoyed two movies about women who box: Girlfight with Michelle Rodriguez and Million Dollar Baby with Hillary Swank. Next week, we'll have Kate Clayborn on to talk about retellings and her new book, Love at First. Our next read along book is A Matter of Class by Mary Balogh.The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2021/2/16/s0326-bridgerton-read-alikes If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon?...

We are talking about Naima Simone this week — and honestly, we could have picked any of Naima’s series to read because she’s just. that. good. We chose the whole series so we could talk more about the complexities of category romances, about wild plots, about alpha heroes, and about how Sarah is absolute trash for a rich hero and the working class girl on the other side of the tracks. Don’t @ her. Next week, we’re back with an interstitial, and in two weeks, we’ve got Kate Clayborn joining us to talk about her upcoming book, Love at First! After that, we’re back to read alongs, but we’ll announce our next read on next week’s episode…see you then. Thank you, as always, for listening! If you are up for leaving a rating or review for the podcast on your podcasting app, we would be very grateful!Show NotesWe had such a great time on Derek Craven Day. Check out our dedicated Derek Craven Day page. On Derek Craven Day, Lisa revealed the cover of her upcoming release, The Devil in Disguise, which comes out summer 2021. The article in the New York Times about three mothers during the Pandemic was a hard, hard read. We are all experiencing the strange time warp of the pandemic, but some of us even lost a hot year. Maybe you would like to watch the Jem and Holograms movie. Here are some fancy places: The Main Line, the Gold Coast, Park Avenue, and Scarsdale. Lake Forest is fancy, but it was also an actual sundown town, so yikes to that. Here’s a quick primer about category romance from Love in Panels. Right now in February of 2021, Harlequin publishes 66 titles every month in 12 different series. We’ve had two previous episodes that were specifically about category romance: a fun one with bananas old school categories, and another with Steve Ammidown about how Vivian Stephens invented the American category. Check out Steve’s new blog about the history of romance.Pre-pandemic, Jen interviewed Tony Horvath from Harlequin about Harlequin’s branding and cover art. Light a candle for Harlequin Blaze.The Military Industrial Complex is a lot to unpack, but maybe you have the time.Jen is not the president and CEO of Great Lakes Cold Storage, but they are hiring. Heterochromia is a thing, but David Bowie just got punched in the face.Naima's newest release is Back in the Texan's Bed.Movies we mentioned: GI Jane, where Demi Moore becomes the first female Navy SEAL. Mystic Pizza, which is not only about dumping fish into a convertible. Four Weddings and Funeral, which has a woman everyone calls Duckface, which is not great!Music: Youngblood by Jem and The HologramsThe RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2021/2/9/s0325-the-blackout-billionaires-by-naima-simone If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It’s so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

Happy Derek Craven Day! We’re wearing our t-shirts and buttons, and spending a whole lot of time talking about what Derek Craven would and wouldn’t do with one of our very favorites — Kate Clayborn. Thanks to everyone who played our silly Derek Craven games this year — don’t forget to visit our Derek Craven Day page for charts, graphs and hilarious memes made from your submissions! Also, if you haven’t read Dreaming of You, now’s your chance to get it at a special Derek Craven Day price — $2.99! We love you, and we’re thrilled we can celebrate this, the best of all holidays, with you. Next week, we’re back to our regularly scheduled programming with Naima Simone’s Blackout Billionaires series (With a little Derek Craven Day excitement in there, too!) In order, the books are: The Billionaire's Bargain, Black Tie Billionaire, and Blame it on the Billionaire. Find them at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, or Apple Books.Show NotesHere's the history of Derek Craven Day in tweets, but also our mantra: there are 2 kinds of Lisa Kleypas readers.Jen was shitposting about Kleypas heroes. Mary Jane Wells and Rosalyn Landor are great audiobook narrators. It’s not Talk Talk, it’s TikTok. All About fabric and paper scissors.No one should test the patience of Nora Roberts, part 231.Kate has strong feelings about Irish Spring.Don’t ever reply all. In case you need an explainer of what happened with Reddit and the stock market last week. We think Derek Craven would enjoy this story. Why backup cameras were invented. They say you can't buy your way onto the Bestseller lists, but it's been done.Kate's question about romance heroes and Halloween.Lisa Kleypas revealed the cover for her new book, Devil In Disguise, today. Take a look!

This week, we’re releasing a new episode on Thursday with guest Kate Clayborn in honor of Derek Craven day, so today we’re rereleasing our Dreaming of You episode from Season 2 so that people can be all caught up before our extremely niche episode for the holiday itself! For full show notes, see: S02.3: Lisa Kleypas Does Spectacles Better than F. Scott Fitzgerald: Dreaming of YouNext week, we’re back to our regularly scheduled programming with Naima Simone’s Blackout Billionaires series (With a little Derek Craven Day excitement in there, too!) In order, the books are: The Billionaire's Bargain, Black Tie Billionaire, and Blame it on the Billionaire. Find them at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, or Apple Books.

Back in July we had a very fun crossover episode with Erin and Clayton of Learning the Tropes. It was a delight and you should absolutely listen to it. During the event, we received so many questions from listeners that we didn’t have enough time to answer them all…so here we are, answering them! We talk about the kinds of romances we love, Normal People, morality chain and villains turned heroes, COVID and Romance Novels, Ted Lasso, and romance main character names. And, of course, we talk about our mutual adoration for Lisa Kleypas, which is extremely timely, as next week, on February 4th, we will be celebrating Derek Craven Day 2021! So look for a very special episode on Thursday instead of Wednesday next week…and if you want to be a part of it, visit fatedmates.net and take our “Would Derek Craven?” poll (questions change every day until the 4th!). After that, we’re back to our regularly scheduled programming with Naima Simone’s Blackout Billionaires series (With a little Derek Craven Day excitement in there, too!) In order, the books are: The Billionaire's Bargain, Black Tie Billionaire, and Blame it on the Billionaire. Find them at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, or Apple Books.Show NotesSarah and Jen both adore Blackwing Pencils, but Sarah has really achieved new heights of nerd with her Carl CC-2000 Custom hand crank pencil sharpener.Tessa Bailey is a Fated Mates favorite, and has a new, very charming book out this week called The Sweetest Fix. You should read it.The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2021/1/26/s0324-fated-tropes-ama If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It’s so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

Nearly two years since our first Curvy Heroines interstitial, which was short and sweet, we’re back with another that is longer and more meandering, but absolutely chock full of recs! We love a curvy heroine, and so do you all, apparently, as our original Curvy Interstitial is our most popular episode of all time! Next week, we’ve got a special crossover episode with Erin and Clayton from Learning the Tropes, and the week after, we’re back to the deep dives with Naima Simone’s Blackout Billionaires series (With a little Derek Craven Day excitement in there, too!) In order, the books are: The Billionaire's Bargain, Black Tie Billionaire, and Blame It on the Billionaire. Find them at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, or Apple Books.Show NotesThis piece in Book Riot by Carole Bell argues that fat representation is different than fat acceptance, which is something we grapple with as we’re talking. She also wrote this list of romances with fat representation.If you haven’t read books by Charlotte Stein, you should. Which ones? ALL OF THEM. Fat Monica, if you don’t know, is a reference to the TV show Friends. Watch Olivia Dade talk about where we are now with fat representation in romance. Cult of Glory, a 2020 book about the true history of the Texas Rangers paints a grim picture of the storied law enforcement agents. In case you’re interested, last week Jen was googling “anal hook” and this week she landed on a bunch of Christian websites when she googled the Magi, so she got freaked out and just used a wikipedia link. It's fine. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯Thea de Salle is one of author Hillary Monahan's pseudonyms. Back in the day, Jen wrote about Catholicism in romance based on a later book in the series, The Lady of Royale Street.Luciana Barroso is married to Matt Damon, and she’s a regular person.In Get a Life, Chloe Brown, the heroine suffers from fibromyalgia., and so does the author, Talia Hibbert.We did a whole episode on Alisha Rai’s Serving Pleasure in season two. Jen recently read The Ravenels series by Lisa Kleypas. She’s obsessed with Rhys Winterborne, and West Ravenel is pretty great, too. Don’t worry, Derek Craven is still her favorite, and if you haven’t ordered yourmerch for our upcoming Derek Craven holiday, what are you waiting for?On the show Bridgerton, Penelope Featherington is a curvy girl; however, in the books, she loses weight in the 10 years between when she comes out and when she finally gets her HEA with Colin. Iman is one of the most famously beautiful supermodels in the world, and she married David Bowie in 1992. “That’s what he said” is a long running joke from the sitcom The Office. The Queen’s Gambit is a Netflix show about chess, and Crash Landing on You is a K-Drama about a woman who accidentally paraglides into the DMZ in a tornado.The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2021/1/18/s0323-curvy-heroines-redux If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It’s so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

It’s 2021, and we’re back on the reading train with one of Sarah’s favorite erotic romances ever, Alexis Hall’s For Real. We dig into sex on the page, how sex and identity work together to make an erotic romance an erotic romance, power dynamics, and the difference between fear & risk. Enjoy!You still have time to buy the Fated Mates Best of 2020 Book Pack from our friends at Old Town Books in Alexandria Virginia, and get the seven traditionally published books on the list, a Fated Mates sticker and a candle from the bookstore! Order here!Thank you, as always, for listening! If you are up for leaving a rating or review for the podcast on your podcasting app, we would be very grateful! Next week, we’re returning to Curvy Girls for an interstitial, and then we’re headed on to Naima Simone’s Blackout Billionaires series! In order, the books are: The Billionaire's Bargain, Black Tie Billionaire, and Blame It on the Billionaire. Find them at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, or Apple Books.Show NotesWe won Georgia, but then white supremacist terrorists attacked the Capitol. If you want to talk to your kids, here are some suggestions from Facing History and Ourselves, this is a resource for teachers but I think any parent with tweens and teens will find it helpful. If you have little kids, Jen’s friend Elisa is a children’s librarian and recommend the books When a Bully is President and What We Believe: A Black Lives Matter Principles Activity Book. Answering machines don’t exist anymore. (Well, they probably do, but no one we know uses them.) For Real won the 2016 RITA for Best Erotic romance, and Alexis Hall wrote a blog entry about it. Fear vs. Risk, the short version. Or maybe you want to read whole book about fear, called Nerve by Eva Holland. Jen knows Eva from another online space, but they've never met in person.Bluebeard’s attic had some things Jen had to google. Eric Selinger is a romance guy, but also a poetry guy at DePaul. Jen took a workshop with Eric a million years ago (before she started doing romance stuff), and the guy who said “poetry is a laboratory for sentences” was poet Baron Wormser, author of the best book Jen’s ever read about teaching and learning poetry, A Surge of Language. Jen was thinking about what happens when romance authors are forced to read the sex scenes instead of the feelings scenes, like when Stacey Abrams on Stephen Colbert. Sarah talked about chastity belts at the end, and we here at Fated Mates strongly advise against giving the internet the power over your chastity belts and cock cages. SAFETY FIRST! Derek Craven Day is coming, do you have you merch ready? T-shirts and buttons and listen to our discussion of Dreaming of You, of course.The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2021/1/12/s0322-for-real-by-alexis-hall If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It’s so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

This week, we’re thrilled to be joined by the fabulous Sophia Benoit, sex columnist for GQ magazine and romance novel lover! We talk about romance, about why it’s so hard to talk about sex in the world, about the books Sophia has written and is planning to write, and about Jimmy Butler. Because, obviously.Happy New Year! Next week is our first read along of 2021, Alexis Hall’s For Real! Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, or Kobo.Show NotesWelcome GQ sex columnist, Sophia Benoit. She’s absolutely great on twitter and writes an amazing advice column, which is available as a Substack. Her book of essays, Well, That Was Exhausting will be out in the summer of 2021.The Sex and the City reference, of course, it to Carrie Bradshaw’s job as a dating columnist. Captain Sit on my Face.America has a sex education problem. Lollapalooza is very fun and the music is great and every time she’s attended, it has made Jen feel like she’s a million years old. Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina has a famous first line, but the rest of it is very long. HoCo, FauxCo, and Prom is Cancelled. If you’re looking for paranormal, all of season one is a read-along of the Immortals After Dark series by Kresley Cole. The Tom Selleck and Burt Reynolds mustaches of the 80s were quite a thing. And if you look at the original covers of romances from that time, you'll see them in action.Wigs were big in the 1700s.Reddit’s Am I the Asshole (AITA) is a cultural touchstone for so many people. We are adding Jimmy Butler to our list of favorite athletes, which started with Jurgen Klopp. Here is a bunch of Jimmy Butler information for you: about the trade from The Bulls, about his minivan, about his love of country music, about his coffee company, about his teamwork, and about his fashion sense. The third member of the Fated Mates sports team is Ted Lasso.Next week, we’ll be reading For Real by Alexis Hall.The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2021/1/4/s0321-sophia-benoit If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It’s so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

WELCOME 2021!As is customary on Fated Mates, we’re releasing a special New Year’s Eve episode that requires headphones if you’re in mixed company! We brought some of our most favorite people together for a very special crossover episode of Fated Mates and Andie J. Christopher’s Instagram TV Juggernaut: Drunk Romance History, during which we drink a delightful mix of alcohol and talk about a delightful mix of erotic romance by the queen of the quick and dirty novella—Jessa Kane.We’re talking priests and daddy kink, mafia hitmen, billionaires, husky heroes, stepbrothers and what Joanna Shape refers to as the Kane-Trope-Wheel. Tracey Livesay has a mug with penises on it. Bring in 2021 right. (Also, if you, like Joanna and Jen have read all of the Jessa Kane’s, no worries! She released a new one today—BURLY—just in time for this episode! Shero!)Head over to Andie’s IGTV channel for the video version.NotesOne more chance for phone-banking is Monday 1/4/2021 at 5pm central.Listen to last year's New Year's Eve epsiode on Pegging with special guest, Sierra Simone!Have we mentioned Drunk Romance History on Andie's Instagram?We are joined today by our friends: Andie Christopher, Alexis Daria, Adriana Herrera, LaQuette, Tracey Livesay, Nisha Sharma, and Joanna Shupe.Get Tracey's penis mug here.Normalize sex toys. Today's guests are big fans of LELO products and recommend: The Ora2, The Sona2, and The Gigi2.The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2020/12/31/jessa-kane-new-years-eve-extravaganza If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It’s so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

It’s the Holidays and the end of 2020 and we don’t really know what’s happening, but Eric is keeping us honest with another AMA! This one was recorded during our Fated States postcard writing party for Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock — the Democratic candidates for the Senate Runoff in Georgia — answering reader questions that came in during the live recording! We talk about pen names, working class heroes, whether or not you should DNF books, and Rasputin’s penis. Come back tomorrow for a special treat, and get ready for our first read along of 2021, Alexis Hall’s For Real. Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, or Kobo. Show NotesOne more phone banking opportunity for the Georgia Senate runoff is coming up on January 4, 2021 from 5-7 central. Join us!You should watch Drunk Romance History on Andie's Instagram.If you want more romance novels made into TV shows, you should watch Virgin River and Bridgerton. But everyone is watching Bridgerton, so that's great. Jen thinks you should DNF. We rattled off a bunch of historical romances with working heroes. Dreaming of You, of course, and American-set historicals, like Indigo by Beverly Jenkins. In England, A Matter of Disagreement by EE Ottoman, The Lady's Guide to Mischief and Mayhem by Manda Collins, Thief of Shadows by Elizabeth Hoyt, The Lawrence Browne Affair by Cat Sebastian, Honeytrap by Glen Aster Gray. Almost every KJ Charlesbook would qualify, as well as many by Sophie Jordan and Anne Mallory. Also, don't forget Sarah's Bareknuckle Bastards series. Annika Martin writes all the best bananas books. Rachel Hawkins is writing contemporary adult witches under the name Erin Sterling. Some historicals with characters from Imperial Russia? That's tough, but Sarah suggests the Stokehurst Duology from Lisa Kleypas, the first is Midnight Angel. And if you have kids interested in this time period, check out The Family Romonov by Candace Fleming. There is nothing about Rasputin's penis in that book, be assured.

It's the holidays and we're talking family romances because many of us are with our families or thinking about them this week. No matter whether you have a perfect family life or one that's a bit more of a journey, romances focusing on families have been around from the beginning -- this week, we're talking royal houses like the Westmorelands and the Malorys, the LeVeqs and the Montgomeries, and the Holmeses and the Hathaways. We also talk a lot about our own families...which was unintended, but there it is.You still have time to buy the Fated Mates Best of 2020 Book Pack from our friends at Old Town Books in Alexandria Virginia, and get the seven traditionally published books on the list, a Fated Mates sticker and a candle from the bookstore! Order here!Thank you, as always, for listening! If you are up for leaving a rating or review for the podcast on your podcasting app, we would be very grateful! For the next week or so, we've got a lot of fun stuff in the hopper -- be on the lookout for a few extra episodes! And, if you're celebrating this week -- Merry Christmas!Show NotesRichard Gere wasn’t old when he filmed Pretty Woman, even though he was going gray.Samantha Jaxon posted a very upsetting TikTok, and that's all we have to say about that. The days of the big and small envelope in college admissions are over, but they do have the Common Appand that seems nice. Maybe, you too, would like a karaoke microphone for your future weather-person. The 1987 movie Roxanne with Steve Martin and Daryl Hannah is a Cyrano retelling, and it has lots of very funny jokes and one-liners. There is one more phone-banking opportunity on January 4, 2021. You should join us!Bridgerton drops on December 25th, along with Wonder Woman 1984. Virgin River is another Netflix show based on a romance series. Just a heads up about the photo array, I’m just including the first book of a family series because otherwise it will be overwhelming! 70s and 80s Old School romance series with families include: the Malorys by Johanna Lindsey, The Montgomerys and Taggerts by Jude Deveraux, and the Westmorelands by Judith McNaught. 90s families: the LeVeq family by Beverly Jenkins, The Cynster family by Stephanie Laurens, the Rocking M series by Elizabeth Lowell.2000s families: Brenda Jackson’s Westmoreland family, the Essex Sisters by Eloisa James, The Holmes Brothers by Farrah Rochon, and the Hathaways by Lisa Kleypas. 2010s families: The Blackshear family by Cecilia Grant, The Ravenels by Kleypas, the Duke’s Daughters by Megan Frampton, the Mackenzie series by Jennifer Ashley, the Greene sisters in the Uptown Girls series by Joanna Shupe, the Talbot sisters in Sarah’s Scandal and Scoundrel series, the von Hasenberg sisters in the Consortium Rebellion series by Jessie Mihalik, the Hidden Legacy series by Ilona Andrews, and the Sullivans by Bella Andre.Brenda Jackson was the first Black romance author to hit the New York Times bestseller list with the book Irresistible Forces in 2008. It's not a Westmoreland book, but the Westmoreland series is currently 30+ books and growing.

BRIDGERTON is nearly here! Make sure you have batteries in your remote and your Netflix subscription is up to date, because on 12/25, Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton series is coming to your TV courtesy of Shonda Rhimes! We are EXTREMELY EXCITED, and in honor of the series, we’re reading Sarah’s favorite Julia Quinn romance which, *surprise!* isn’t a Bridgerton book!If you want Bridgerton deep dives, do not miss the series at Learning the Tropes with our amazing friends Erin & Clayton. But we’re reading The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever, and we’ve got a LOT to say! Content note: This book and episode discusses miscarriage and pregnancy.You still have time to buy the Fated Mates Best of 2020 Book Pack from our friends at Old Town Books in Alexandria Virginia, and get the seven traditionally published books on the list, a Fated Mates sticker and a candle from the bookstore! Order here!Thank you, as always, for listening! If you are up for leaving a rating or review for the podcast on your podcasting app, we would be very grateful! Next week, we’ve got an interstitial, and the following week…honestly, who knows? It’s December! It could be ANYTHING! Show NotesCan we brag for a minute? Our #FatedStates phone bank appeared in the Washington Post this week! Also, if you're looking for phone banking opportunites, we have one tonight 12/16 at 5 central, and another on 1/4/2021. Join us. December 25th is going to be a great day. Bridgerton drops on Netflix and Wonder Woman 1984 will be on HBO Max. If you want a podcast tackling all of the Bridgerton books, check out Learning the Tropes. Sarah was on the episode for Sir Philip with Love, which is her favorite. Jen’s favorite is The Viscount Who Loved Me, and if it’s yours maybe you’d like a “mallet of death” t-shirt from Linda. Her shop is on hiatus right now, but she'll be back in the new year. Here’s the Ted talk with Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love. Does Olivia get her own book? Of course she does, it’s called What Happens in London. Sarah’s favorite Jane Austen is Emma. Jen’s favorite Jane Austen is none of them. If you want to see some house party games in action, watch Season 4 of the Crown.Megan Markle recently wrote about her miscarriage in the New York Times. Jen wrote about miscarriage back when she blogged for The Book Queen, and it includes discussion of Sarah’s book, Day of the Duchess.The book with all the former heroes sharing their childbirth war stories is...well, we don't remember. If you do, please tell us!The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2020/12/15/s0319-the-secret-diaries-of-miss-miranda-cheever-by-julia-quinn If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It’s so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

This week, we tried something a little different—recording a live interstitial episode! We’re talking about Jen’s formative queen, Julie Garwood, and we dig into dialogue, alphas who are instantly gone for their heroines, heroines who tame wild animals, arranged marriages between children, and why every Garwood historical feels medieval whether or not it actually is. We recorded this episode live during a Fated States postcard-writing party to get out the vote for the January 5th runoff election in Georgia. If you’re a Georgia voter, please vote for Jon Ossoff and Reverend Raphael Warnock, and let’s finish what we started with the blue wave! If you’re up for it, please consider joining us for a phonebanking session on the evening of January 4th!Next week, in advance of the launch of the Bridgerton series on Netflix (coming December 25th!), we’re reading Sarah’s favorite Julia Quinn novel, The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever. Get it at Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Apple or at your local indie via bookshop.org.Show NotesFated States is gearing up to phone bank on the evening of Jan 4 from 5-7 central time. Join us if you can! In Sarah’s OSRBC facebook group, there’s a longstanding search for a book where two people are on a beach and a wave throws them together, and then “oops they’re boning.” A few folks have suggested that maybe it was Pirate by Fabio. So check it out. His co-writer (a ghost writer is when they are unnamed) is Eugenia Rielly. A teenage horror/romance that both Jen and Kelly loved was called The Ghosts of Departure Point. Probably came from the Scholastic Book Club, if we’re being honest. In case you’re wondering, the copyright page will tell you if you’re holding a first printing or first edition. Here’s a bunch of people talking about why the edges of paperbacks were dyed. RT Book Reviews and the RT conference once had Julie Garwood and Jude Deveraux on stage at the same time, and YouTube has the video! When Coronavirus is over, I highly recommend going to KissCon. Nora Roberts is our Queen and last week a poor unfortunate soul named Debra learned that the hard way. Obviously, Luke grew up on Tatooine. Hoth was that ice planet place, which is why the women in the Ice Planet Barbarians series call their new home Not-Hoth. We’d be interested in hearing your interpretation of The Bechdel Test. Jen thinks the women can still talk about men AS LONG AS they also talk about other stuff, but Sarah thought it required no discussion of men at all which is pretty tough to find in romance. FWIW, Jen mentioned it in regards to The Bride because Jamie is so isolated and largely without women friends. We like prologues and epilogues here at Fated Mates, but we understand not everyone agrees. The feud between the families in The Gift is “like the Montagues and the Capulets, but worse.” Speaking of which, Kate Clayborn’s upcoming book, Love At First, is an homage to Romeo and Juliet.This isn't exactly about the life expectancy in Scotland was in 1100, but it's close enough. Vanessa Riley’s site has a great explainer about Black people during the Regency on her site. We talked about the Carribean in the Regency when we read Gentle Rogue.It wasn't a "rip off" of Home Alone, it was just an allusion. Similarly, Nathan's whip reminded Sarah of Indiana Jones.Are these books on audio? Why yes they are and Jen listened to The Bride in between recording and release of the episode and greatly enjoyed it. Boats vs ships.Next week, we're reading The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever by Julia Quinn

There aren’t many recent romances you can point to and categorically label as game changers, but Sally Thorne’s The Hating Game definitely fits this bill. We talk about all the ways we love it, about sparkling dialogue and witty writing and what makes a romcom and how this book changed the cover game for a generation of romance. Oh, and yes, we get to the bottom (jk, there is no bottom) of Jen’s issues with first-person present. You still have time to buy the Fated Mates Best of 2020 Book Pack from our friends at Old Town Books in Alexandria Virginia, and get the seven traditionally published books on the list, a Fated Mates sticker and a candle from the bookstore! Order before December 5th for Christmas delivery!Thank you, as always, for listening! If you are up for leaving a rating or review for the podcast on your podcasting app, we would be very grateful! Next week, we’ve got an interstitial, and the following week, in advance of the launch of the Bridgerton series on Netflix, we’re reading Sarah’s favorite Julia Quinn novel, The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever. Get it at Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Apple or at your local indie via bookshop.org.Fated StatesWe were really thrilled to be interviewed by Kelly Faircloth for her article about How Romance Novelists Are Mobilizing Voters in Solidarity With Stacey Abrams.Show NotesThe Hating Game was a juggernaut and will soon be a movie. Bridget Jones’s Diary came out in 1996 and the movie came out in 2001. Enemies to Lovers is a completely beloved romance trope. Rivals to lovers lives within the larger trope and is very fun because it is often a perfectly matched pair on an even playing field. Sarah wrote Brazen & the Beast after being inspired by The Hating Game.Here’s what we mean when we say situational comedy.What is the plural of arch-nemesis?Jen hates present tense, but of course everyone should write what’s right for them. Is it chick lit or is it women’s fiction? Why do these labels even exist? Just go back and read The Girl’s Guide to Hunting and Fishing or Good in Bed by Jennifer Weiner. We don’t talk about voice that much, but maybe we should. There was a short lived Harlequin chick lit line called Red Dress Ink in 2001. Here’s what Jen teaches her kids about characterization. The Slate article about interiors and a very thorough rebuttal from Felicia Davin. We talked about another hero who came up through Twilight fanfic. If you like a scene where one main character tells off the family on behalf of their beloved, you should read Her Naughty Holiday by Tiffany Reisz.In two weeks, we'll be reading The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever. We are getting ready for Bridgerton and Wonder Woman 1984. If you're interested in the Fated Mates Best of 2020 book pack and you want it delivered by Christmas, make sure you order it by 12/5.The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2020/12/1/s0317-the-hating-game-by-sally-thorne If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It’s so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

The Best Romance Novels of 2020! It’s the best and worst task of the year for us, because we read so many AMAZING books over the course of the year, and choosing ten and not one hundred is hard for us, ok? But here they are — ten gorgeous books that we adored—books with badass heroines, larger-than-life heroes, brilliant structure, and outstanding writing. Buy the Fated Mates Best of Book Pack in one fell swoop from our friends at Old Town Books in Alexandria Virginia, and get the seven traditionally published books on the list, a Fated Mates sticker and a candle from the bookstore! Support fabulous authors and a woman-owned independent bookstore all at once! Thank you, as always, for listening! If you are up for leaving a rating or review for the podcast on your podcasting app, we would be very grateful! Next week, we get back to doing what we do best: Reading Romance! We’re deep-diving on Sally Thorne’s The Hating Game. Get it at Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Apple or at your local indie via bookshop.org.The Best Romance Novels of 2020Fated StatesInterested in phone banking or writing postcards to voters in Georgia? Join us for our upcoming Fated States events: phone banking on 12/2/20 and 1/4/2021 and postcards on 12/5/2020.Show NotesConsider buying a Fated Mates pack of 7 of our 10 books (it doesn't include the self-published books) from Old Town Books in Alexandria, Virgina. You can also check out our Bookshop link.Can you believe that RWA debacle was 11 months ago? So you want to hear us talk about A Heart of Blood and Ashes, Like Lovers Do, Queen Move, or The Devil of Downtown? Cold War history is fascinating. Not only all the nuclear stuff, but Sarah's story about K Blows Top sounds fascinating. Some LitFic novels that play around with dual storylines are The French Lieutenant’s Woman, Possession, and the more romance adjacent Secret History of the Pink Carnation. All about danger banging. And of course there’s a button for that. Tammany Hall is often used as a historical example of total police corruption. Up next week, we'll be reading The Hating Game by Sally Thorne.

It’s getting colder out there, so we’re getting hot in here! We’ve got the fabulous Katee Robert with us to talk about ménage romance and why she writes them so well. We get to the bottom of why it always gets shoved into the taboo corner of romance, the fantasy of the trope, and why we like it so very much. Also, we topple the TBR (as usual)!Thank you, as always, for listening! If you are up for leaving a rating or review for the podcast on your podcasting app, we would be very grateful! Slight change of schedule to accommodate a fun thing we’re up to…next week, just in time for your Thanksgiving sloth, we’re announcing our best books of 2020! The following week, we’re reading Sally Thorne’s The Hating Game! Get it at Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Apple or at your local indie via bookshop.org.Show NotesWelcome Katee Robert! You can’t just make wikipedia pages about yourself. High fantasy has real meaning. When talking about romance, M and F (and NB for nonbinary) are used to inform readers about the gender identity of the main characters. This is an imperfect shorthand, but at this point in our understanding of sex and gender, it seems like the most respectful way to acknowledge that there is a huge range of sexual identities that exist for people of all genders. For example, if we call a book with two women “a lesbian romance” it might not take into account that one character is bisexual, which adds to bi-erasure. So if a romance is labeled M/F, we know there is a man and a woman in a romantic relationship, but that leaves room for the sexual identity of the characters to be fully explored in the book. In romance with more than two people, the order of the letters matters. A book that is MFM would mean that the two men do not have a sexual relationship with each other, while FMM or MMF means that they do. There is nothing taboo about polyamory. Jen liked the progression of menage in Elle Kennedy’s Out of Uniform series. The series starts with a non-swords crossing threesome, Hot and Bothered. The observing one was Heat of the Night (available in the Hot and Heavy anthology), where Ryan watches Annabelle have sex with his roommate. But as the series progresses, there is contact between the SEALs in Feeling Hot and a fully formed menage relationship in Hotter Than Ever. Ellora’s Cave and Samhain were two of the original (and now shuttered) indie publishers that specialized in erotic romance and/or taboo romance. That article in Harpers about how men don’t have friends. The Anita Blake series went through a lot of changes, so just go with Katee’s method and start with #9, Obsidian Butterfly.Katee will be back to talk about morality chain in 2021. Next week, we’ll be airing our Best of 2020 episode, and then the first week of December, we’ll be discussing The Hating Game.

ONE HUNDRED EPISODES! You’ve seen us through Immortals After Dark, through Books that Blooded Us, and through a presidential election, so if there was any doubt that you’re stuck with us, put that right out of your mind! We love you so much for listening…and we hope you have as much fun listening to this episode as we had recording it!Thanks to Tracey Livesay, Andie J Christopher, Kate Clayborn, Christina Lauren, Adriana Herrera, Nisha Sharma and Joanna Shupe for joining us, and to Steve Ammidown for popping in to say hi! Next week, we have an interstitial coming, and the following week, we’re back on read alongs with Sally Thorne’s The Hating Game! Get it at Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Apple or at your local indie via bookshop.org.Show NotesIn between when we recorded and when you're listening, something great happened. How did Hollywood Squares work? What did the theme song sound like? What does Whoopi Goldberghave to do with it?Fated States will be back! One of our dedicated phone bankers and the head of the OSRBC-IAD book discussion, Caroline, had an amazing experience when she was phone banking the week before the election. And we are not at all jealous about her amazing gift basket from Kresley Cole! Check out Milla Vane on the Wicked Wallflowers podcast. Andie Christopher hosts Drunk Romance History on her Instagram feed every Saturday and it’s hilarious. Sarah joined her Saturday after a full day of Election drinking to talk Suddenly You.Do you know the book where a wave causes accidental penetration for a couple on a beach? NEITHER DO WE! Here’s the link to all the slides for Fuck, Marry, Kill and Would Derek Craven. And here are all the Title Smash slides. We invented a holiday. No big. We love Philadelphia. Gritty was an unexpected hero of the 2020 election. Now you know all about the Philadelphia Left. The Danielle Steele thread from Steve Ammidown at the Browne Pop Culture Library. We really need to talk about the 80s blockbusters The Thorn Birds, Clan of the Cave Bear, and Flowers in the Attic (and powdered donuts).It was Buffy and Spike in the mausoleum, not Buffy and Angel.We can't find the TikTok of Paul Rudd and his son, but instead we'll discuss if anyone knows where Michael J. Fox got his cloning machine? We’ll leave you to contemplate the whole “hero pooping” theory on your own, but we all know for sure that Elvis poops.

The last six weeks have been rough, but Fated Mates listeners and a wild number of Romance Authors made them easier by being a part of Fated States, our weekly phonebanking initiative with Indivisible Action. We don’t know how yesterday went, but we know we are so incredibly proud to have worked alongside so many listeners who volunteered their time to phonebank, and so many amazing authors who donated books to phone bankers!On this episode, we rec books by every author who donated free books to Fated States — all 49 of them! Your TBR is going to be full for years after this one! We promise! Special shout out to Julia Quinn, Suzanne Brockmann, AJ Cousins, Carrie Ann Ryan & Cassandra Carr, who each donated books to EVERY phonebanker, once a week for five weeks.Below, in Show Notes, you’ll find a full list of the books we recommend, and links to Amazon. You can buy print versions of books and support independent bookstores at our bookshop.org shop!AND…thanks to our sister pods, Heaving Bosoms, Learning the Tropes and The Wicked Wallflowers, who donated podcasting swag, and to BestFriendKelly for stickers!IMPORTANT UPDATE: This Thursday, November 5th, we’ll be recording our 100th Episode LIVE on Zoom, and we want you to be there! Join us and special guests, for games, laughter, romance recommendations, and as much joy as you can handle. Sign up here.Next week, we’ll release the 100th Episode for those of you who can’t make it Thursday, and the following week, we’re back on read alongs with Sally Thorne’s The Hating Game! Get it at Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Apple or at your local indie via bookshop.org.

The fabulous Adriana Herrera is here for her fourth time to talk about Joy! We had a great time with one of the greatest people this week — talking about the American immigrant experience, how hope and bravery make for beautiful love stories, and listing a huge number of books that we love.IMPORTANT UPDATE: Next Thursday, November 5th, we’ll be recording our 100th Episode LIVE on Zoom, and we want you to be there! Join us and special guests, for games, laughter, romance recommendations, and as much joy as you can handle. Come on…you know you want something to look forward to next week! Let it be this! Sign up here.We’re putting read alongs on hold for a bit to spend the next few weeks hanging out with some of our favorite people and talking about books and tropes that give us joy, so we hope you’ll join us and keep a pen handy so you can add to your TBR list as needed!Thank you, as always, for listening! If you are up for leaving a rating or review for the podcast on your podcasting app, we would be very grateful!Fated States!Join us this Saturday, October 31st at 3pm Eastern to flip the country blue! It’s easy, not scary, and there will be prizes! Sign up at the link, watch the video, and come hang out!Remember: "Despair is not a strategy."Donate Donate Donate (if you can). We're thrilled to support "Get Mitch or Die Trying" via ActBlue -- donations to this are immediately split evenly between Senate candidates in electionsText bankPhone bankVote early by mail if you are planning to vote by mail. At this point, the USPS is so slow that your best bet is to drive/walk/bike/rollerskate your ballot to the nearest polling dropbox rather than put it in a mailbox.Vote early in person if your state has early voting.Stay fired up!Show NotesWelcome back, Adriana Herrera! She’s been on a few times so far: Wicked Deeds on a Winter’s Night, the food romance episode, and she and Jen talked about trauma in romance. This week, her March 2020 release American Sweethearts appeared on the Publisher’s Weekly Best of 2020 List.Normalize pegging at all costs.If you’re going to come to the phone bank this weekend dressed as a romance heroine, might we suggest you drape a mantilla over your head and carry a pistol? You’ll be a dead ringer for Jessica Trent from Lord of Scoundrels. Sarah was on a panel with Loretta Chase a few weeks ago, and I guess the only blessing of these Zoom times is watching these things online. IS THERE A LINK TO THIS?Adriana has written a few pieces about immigration in romance, one for Bustle and one for Remezcla.Just a quick primer, because we didn’t clarify these definitions on the podcast and it’s complicated, because both terms are widely used to describe the same group of people--American-born children of immigrants. While Sarah grew up thinking of herself as "first-generation," many modern academics & the Census label her as "second-generation." Here's a cool article on all the terms, and how they've evolved.Also, it’s useful to know the difference between push and pull factors that drive immigration.If you want to read a terrific immigrant superhero story, Jen recommends a graphic novel she teaches to her 7th graders, The Shadow Hero by Gene Yang. She’s also really loved his recent release Dragon Hoops.Adriana loves the podcast On Being, hosted by Krista Tippet. The episode with Ocean Vuong, author of On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, features some interesting discussion of his own immigrant story.We do not recommend reading American Dirt, but you should know the story of how and why it was published, some ideas about why publishing was so eager to sell this particular story from a variety of Latinx authors and thinkers.When Adriana mentioned “the fun kind of thrust” she is referencing Jenny Nordbak’s best advice for finding a sex scene in a book: search for the word “thrust.”Diacritical marks are symbols added to letters which tells the speaker how to correctly pronounce the word. In The Bride Test, the same words have diacritical marks when spoken by Esme, a character newly immigrated from Vietnam, but do not have them when spoken by Vietnamese-Americans. Also, language loss in the children of immigrant families is a well-documented phenomena.The Worst Best Man has recently been optioned as a movie!Take a look at the cultural iceberg.Nigeria and SARS and what you can do about it.Jeannette Ng’s piece, Critiquing Cultural Appropriation in Books That Are Kinda Meh, is about the pressure to research and how it undermines the lived experience of #OwnVoices authors.Jen mentioned a piece in Kirkus called 100 books by...

It’s comfort read week! What makes a comfort read, why do we turn to them, what do we want from them, and why on earth do blue aliens fit the bill?! This week, we all need a comfort read, and we’re joined by Dani Lacey, host of Ice Planet Pod and Black Chick Lit Podcast, to talk about all things comfort reads!We’re putting read alongs on hold for a bit to spend the next few weeks hanging out with some of our favorite people and talking about books and tropes that give us joy, so we hope you’ll join us and keep a pen handy so you can add to your TBR list as needed!Also! please join us for a Fated States phonebanking session with Indivisible.org on Saturday — it’s so fun! We love seeing so many of your amazing faces there, hanging out, and lifting each other up through absolute anxiety! Please join us, fellow Fated Maters, and special guests for Fated States Phonebanking Part 5 this Saturday, October 24th at 3pm Eastern to call South Carolina! It’s easy, not scary, and there will be prizes!Thank you, as always, for listening! If you are up for leaving a rating or review for the podcast on your podcasting app, we would be very grateful!Show NotesWelcome Dani Lacey, host of Ice Planet Pod and Black Chick Lit podcast. Black Chick Lit is a podcast Dani hosts with her friend Mollie, and the focus is books by and about Black women. Ice Planet Pod has different guests every week, and Jen has been on and Sarah will be on!Some of the specific Ice Planet Podcast episodes that Dani mentioned: she did one with her friend Mollie from Black Chick Lit, Jen talked about what would happen if Wedding Magazines existed on that world, and the latest release was with author Katrina Jackson.All about Hoopla and the difference between Hoopla vs Libby (Overdrive). If your public library doesn't have Hoopla, it's probably becasue they can't afford it.You, too, can have a banana phone. Don't tell Sophie, but Sarah's definitely getting her one of these.In the Ice Planet books, the khui is the magic thing that “resonates” to tell the two people that they are a destined to be together--it also allows these shipwrecked humans to survive the ice planet, and also to speak the same language.A couple of times, Dani mentioned “Harlow’s book, and the title of that one is Barbarian Mine.Jen's friend Julie was a little worried about Chuck Tingle being sad when he released Chuck Tingle Pounded in The Butt by a Knockoff Book that Glorifies a Deadly Tragedy and Doesn't Prove Love is Real Then Accepting This as a Sad Side Effect of Making Wider Positive Impact as an Author, but the following week it was Mike Pence Pounded in the Butt by His Handsome Werefly, so he’s probably fine.Magic Mike XXL is a pure, beautiful movie about men and their feelings. We highly recommend it.If you’re a fan of the Stage Dive series, there was a new novella that was released yesterday called Love Song. It’s the book about Adam Dillon, a character that the band mentored in later books in the series.How the Reddit forum AITA (Am I the Asshole) reveals the sexism of everyday life.The two audiobook companies are Tantor and Brilliance, but with the huge rise of popularity in audiobooks, lots of audio in now produced in house.When it comes to the Ice Planet audio, Dani loves the two narrators Hollie Jackson and Mason Lloyd. The Ice Home series, a spin-off of the Ice Planet Barbarians Series, has two new narrators Sean Crisdenand Felicity Munroe. But Jen recently listened to a book narrated by Sean Crisden and it was awesome. So we think you should give the Ice Home audio a try, Dani!Welcome to Night Vale is a podcast and also a book.Books and Series We Mentioned: Ice Planet Barbarians by Ruby Dixon Barbarian’s Mate by Ruby DixonThe Boyfriend Project by Farrah Rochon Grace Goodwin's Interstellar Bride Series Barbarian Mine by Ruby Dixon A Heart of Blood and Ashes by Milla Vane Sweet Ruin by Kresley Cole Lead by Kylie Scott Dreaming of You by Lisa Kleypas Again the Magic by Lisa Kleypas Forbidden by Beverly Jenkins A Chance at Love by Beverly Jenkins The AI Who Loved Me by Alyssa Cole Brothers Sinster Series by Courtney Milan Her Halloween Treat by Tiffany Reisz Love All Year a holiday anthology Halloween Boo by Sarah Spade A Winning Season by Rochelle Alers Hidden Legacy Series by Ilona Andrews Jack Reacher Series by Lee Child Welcome to Night Vale is a book <a href="http://www.welcometonightvale.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer"...

This week, as part of joy month, we’re joined by Nisha Sharma, author of The Takeover Effect and The Legal Affair, to talk about her favorite trope — Mafia Romances! We talk about why organized crime works in romance, fill your TBR to the brim…and share some real life mafia stories. Or, at least, Sarah does. It’s a lot.We’re putting read alongs on hold for a bit to spend the next few weeks hanging out with some of our favorite people and talking about books and tropes that give us joy, so we hope you’ll join us and keep a pen handy so you can add to your TBR list as needed!Also! please join us for a Fated States phonebanking session with Indivisible.org on Saturday — it’s so fun! We love seeing so many of your amazing faces there, hanging out, and lifting each other up through absolute anxiety! Please join us, fellow Fated Maters, and special guests for Fated States Phonebanking Part 4 this Saturday, October 17th at 3pm Eastern to call Iowa! It’s easy, not scary, and there will be prizes!Thank you, as always, for listening! If you are up for leaving a rating or review for the podcast on your podcasting app, we would be very grateful!Show NotesWelcome Nisha Sharma! She is the author of some of favorites: the YA romance My So Called Bollywood Life, and the Singh family trilogy.The Fifty Shades movies are lying about lipstick.Maybe you’d like to learn more about organized crime in Rhode Island, Cleveland, and Scranton. Sarah grew up in Rhode Island and recommends you listen to Crimetown if you're interested in learning more about how far-reaching the mob is there.How car crushers work.When it comes to Capone, we recommend the Chicago tour (if life ever returns to normal) but not the movie with Tom Hardy.Nisha mentioned a 1970s Bollywood movie. It’s called Sholay, and Nisha said, “Technically it was like this small village bad guy...think old westerns but he had like a gang of hoodlums.”The big Western movies seem to pop up every ten years, and Brokeback Mountain was 2005!The list of mafia romance from Goodreads is here, and the queer mafia romance list is here.Does your gender determine how you relate to mafia movies, books, and TV shows? Or if you participate in real life?Maybe you want to watch Weeds or Traffic and see some kickass women who are antiheroes?Erin from Learning the Tropes is on the hunt for books that have heroines that are named Erin, so let her know if you’ve read any. Jen’s list is Ivan and an old Loveswept by Barbara Boswell called Sharing Secrets -- the hero’s name is Rad Ramsey!Speaking of Ivan and Erin, while working on show notes for this episode, Jen discovered that a second story with these two is coming out in a few weeks!It is MMA fighting, which stands for Mixed Martial Arts.We did a deep dive episode on Kresley Cole's The Master in Season 1. Listen to it here.Jen’s love of Russian mobsters started with Viggo Mortensen in Eastern Promises.Sons of Anarchy actually does predate the MC romance. The TV show aired from 2008 - 2014, and one of the first MC romances was Motorcycle Man (2012) by Kristen Ashley. After Sons of Anarchy ended, the MC romance genre did grow exponentially, including books like Reaper’s Property by Joanna Wylde (2016).Jen said the Molly O’Keefe book with the mafia guy and the secret baby was Bad Neighbor, but it’s actually Baby Come Back. You should just go ahead and read them both.All about the myth of the minotaur.The Oscars released a diversity rubric.The big, bad Russians influenced American media for decades.Online Advertising is the new cement shoes.Sarah learned about money laundering because of pinball machines. Today's kids get to learn about it because of the President. Sure.Books Mentioned in the PodcastMy So Called Bollywood Life by Nisha SharmaThe Singh Family Trilogy by Nisha SharmaThe Professional by Kresley ColeThe Master by Kresley ColeThe Player by Kresley ColeThe Bastard’s Bargain by Katee RobertThe Marriage Contract by Katee RobertThe Corruption Series by CD ReissIvan by Roxie RiveriaLies You Tell by LaQuetteThe Fighter’s Prize by Jessa KaneBaby Come Back by Molly O’KeefeThe Devil of Downtown by Joanna ShupeDark Mafia Prince by Annika MartinLuca by Theodora TaylorJudgment Road by Christine FeehanTurbulent Sea by Christine FeehanThe RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2020/10/13/s0310-mafia-romance-interstitial-with-nisha-sharma If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about...

It’s joy month! We’ve got two of our very favorites with us — Christina Lauren is here with us to discuss fan fiction, romance, their romance origin stories, what they love about fic and how fic makes romance better! We talk about about a thousand books and authors, and do a little giggling too, so strap in!We’re putting read alongs on hold for a bit to spend the next few weeks hanging out with some of our favorite people and talking about books and tropes that give us joy, so we hope you’ll join us and keep a pen handy so you can add to your TBR list as needed!Also! please join us for a Fated States phonebanking session with Indivisible.org on Saturday — it’s so fun! We love seeing so many of your amazing faces there, hanging out, and lifting each other up through absolute anxiety! Please join us, fellow Fated Maters, and special guests for Fated States Phonebanking Part 3 this Saturday, October 10th at 3pm Eastern to call Wisconsin! It’s easy, not scary, and there will be prizes!Thank you, as always, for listening! If you are up for leaving a rating or review for the podcast on your podcasting app, we would be very grateful!Fated States!Join us this Saturday, October 10th at 3pm Eastern to call Wisconsin and make sure it turns up blue! It’s easy, not scary, and there will be prizes! Sign up at the link, watch the video, and come hang out!Remember: "Despair is not a strategy."Call Your Senators. Tell them you want "the McConnell Rule" enforced.Donate Donate Donate (if you can). We're thrilled to support "Get Mitch or Die Trying" via ActBlue -- donations to this are immediately split evenly between Senate candidates in electionsText bankPhone bankWrite postcardsVote early by mail if you are planning to vote by mail. Be sure to check that your ballot has all the correct information, and is returned accorting to the instructions (this goes double for people in NYC and Pennsylvania).Vote early in person if your state has early voting.Stay fired up!Show NotesChristina Lauren has a new, delightful holiday romance out this week! Find In a Holidaze at Amazon, B&amp;N, Kobo, Apple or at your local indie.When we recorded, the wildfire situation was particularly grim in California, and it’s still a huge problem facing many Western states. We hope you're all being safe out there.A brief overview of CLo’s story from fandom to bestselling authors. The first of their published books came from Christina's fic "The Office," and was published as Beautiful Bastard. Sarah loves it a lot.Wonder Woman 1984 has been postponed because of COVID, and according to the director the film is best seen in a theater. It is not because Robert Pattinson got COVID (He's back to business now). Sarah loves the preview of the new Batman movie.Our love of Days of Lives couples Jack &amp; Jennifer and Patch &amp; Kayla is eternal and everlasting. (Ps. Jen's favorite scene is not in that video, her search continues.)The Twilight fandom was vast, as we discussed in this episode. And there are important reasons why many folks are drawn to fandom. Last summer, Alexis Daria and Adriana Herrera talked about fanfiction and fandom on Instagram Live, and it's a great watch.Christina and Lauren mentioned “canon” and “AU” and AO3 and livejournal and fandom bootcamp and maybe you want a primer on some fanfic terms.Maybe you also need a primer on a cinnamon roll character.These hugely popular romance writers came up through fanfic: Sally Thorne, Alice Clayton, Nina Bocci, Tara Sue Me, Amanda Weaver, Rebekah Weatherspoon, Helena Hunting, Daisy Prescott, EL James, and Ruth Clampett. Present-tense, stream of consciousness flow, and intense character work are some of the hallmarks of fandom writing, and some of those stylistic choices have influenced mainstream fiction in multiple genres, including romance.Did you miss the community experience of The Submissive? Lucky for you, it's now available as a stand alone novel, and the next books in the series The Dominant and The Training also started as fic.Christina and Lauren and Nina Bocci worked on the Fandom Gives Back fundraiser to benefit Alex’s Lemonade Stand.Jen said she loves Beautiful Player, but honestly no one will be surprised that she got the title wrong and her real favorite is Beautiful Stranger. Just read all of them. You won't be disappointed.The question of who owns these stories and the legalities of fanfic is so interesting, and specifically the history of Fifty Shades of Grey as Fanfic.As promised, a list of CLo recommend fics:Tropic of Virgo by...

This week, we’re talking about a book and author who has given both of us a whole lot of joy — Alisha Rai! We’re reading Serving Pleasure, which is the story of the most relatable of heroines and the outrageously hot painter who moves in next door! Voyeurism, sex positivity and family in romance are all on the table here. We love it. We’re putting read alongs on hold for a bit to spend the next five weeks hanging out with some of our favorite people and talking about books and tropes that give us joy, so we hope you’ll join us and keep a pen handy so you can add to your TBR list as needed!Also! We had our first Fated States phonebanking session with Indivisible.org on Saturday — it was great and we loved seeing so many of your amazing faces! Please join us, fellow Fated Maters, and special guests for Fated States Phonebanking Part 2 this Saturday, October 3rd at 3pm Eastern to call North Carolina! It’s easy, not scary, and there will be prizes!Thank you, as always, for listening! If you are up for leaving a rating or review for the podcast on your podcasting app, we would be very grateful!Show NotesIt was March of 2015 (a kinder, gentler time) when Jen first Sarah Wendell talking about Alisha Rai on NPR. Later that summer, Sarah put Serving Pleasure in her Washington Post romance column. It was the first self-published book ever reviewed in the Post.Just this week, Carole Bell wrote about why readers don't pay enough attention to indie and self-published romance for Shondaland.Pregnant people don't actually get the greatest treatment in the workplace, so thanks Akira.Birth order seems like a real thing, but is it?Is it all that great to be an artist's muse?Alisha Rai loves a cute purse.The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2020/9/28/s0308-serving-pleasure-by-alisha-rai If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It’s so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

Two episodes in one week! We are doing what we can to take care of you, Fated Maters!This week, we’ve got Julie Moody-Freeman, professor, self-proclaimed romance nerd, and host of the new “Black Romance Podcast” with us! We’re freewheeling about the importance of oral history, Black romance, romance and academia, her life as a romance reader, her favorite books and authors, and her dream interviews. Subscribe to the Black Romance Podcast at Apple, Overcast, Spotify, or your favorite podcasting service.We’re back on our regular Wednesday schedule next week, and with a deep dive on Alisha Rai’s Serving Pleasure, a fantastic erotic romance. Find it at Amazon, B&amp;N, Kobo, Apple Books or Bookshop.org.Also, we had our first Fated States phonebanking session with Indivisible.org this week — it was great and we loved seeing so many of your amazing faces! Please join us, fellow Fated Maters and special guests for Fated States Phonebanking Part 2 on Saturday, October 3rd at 3pm Eastern to call North Carolina!Show NotesThis week, we interview Julie Moody-Freeman, a professor of African and Diaspora Studies at DePaul University. She's the host of the Black Romance Podcast. Julie wrote a chatper in the newly released Routledge Companion to Popular Romance Fiction.The Black Romance Podcast is an oral history podcast which has interviewed some of the greatest voices in Black romance both past and present.If you're interested readings some books of non-romance oral history, Jen recommends Voices from Chernobyl, Tower Stories, and anything by Studs Terkel. You might also enjoy the podcast Bughouse Square, which pairs interviews from the Studs Terkel Radio Archives and Eve Ewing interviewing poeple today. It's terrific.The era of the mall bookstore--Waldenbooks and B. Dalton-- is over. But then again, malls might be over.Vivian Stephens was the woman who revolutionized the American cateogry romance. You should listen to her two-part interview on the Black Romance Podcast, read this terrific profile of her in Texas Monthly, and listen to us read and discuss some of her early aquistions with Steve Ammidown.Julie teaches a class called Romance, Women, and Race at Depaul. On the reading list: Make it Last Forever by Gwyneth Bolton, Gabriel's Discovery by Felicia Mason, A Duke by Default by Alyssa Cole, Forbidden by Beverly Jenkins, and The Brightest Day Anthology.Although Season One of the Black Romance Podcast will be coming to a close soon, she listed some of the women she'd love to interview: Shirley Hailstock, Donna Hill, and Rochelle Alers.Rosalind Wells and Francis Ray are two Black romance trailblazers who are no longer with us.Next week, we'll be reading Serving Pleasure by Alisha Rai.The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2020/9/24/s0307-an-interview-with-julie-moody-freeman-from-the-black-romance-podcat If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It’s so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

This is a tough week for everyone, so we did what we could do to make ourselves feel a little bit more ourselves despite existential despair—we recorded a podcast. We’re all over the place (we promise this won’t be a theme for the whole season!), but we recommend a TON of books, which is basically all we can do.Next week, we’ve got an interstitial for you! And the week after, we’re deep diving on Alisha Rai’s Serving Pleasure, which is a fantastic erotic romance. Find it at Amazon, B&amp;N, Kobo, Apple Books or Bookshop.org.Also -- Sarah has a contemporary novella out September 15th! Preorder the Naughty Brits anthology, wherever you get your ebooks: Amazon, Nook, Kobo, Apple, or in print at bookshop.org.Show NotesGoodnight Stories for Rebel Girls is available wherever books are sold, and you can listen to the podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. The RBG episode is here.You can watch a documentary about RBG, or read the Notorious RBG book, or wear the RBG dissent collar now.RBG's "When there are nine," quote is: "When I'm sometimes asked 'When will there be enough {women on the Supreme Court}?' and I say 'When there are nine,' people are shocked. But there'd been nine men, and nobody's ever raised a question about that."Tom Hardy might be James Bond and we're fine with it. Melissa did some great work pairing pictures of Tom Hardy as Sarah MacLean covers. Here's a thread of Henry Cavill as Sarah MacLean covers, too. Let it be known Sarah has the best readers around.The Jurgen Klopp thread from comedian Laura Lexx is a thing of great beauty.These Fifty Shades movies are terrible but we can't stop watching them and we don't understand it either, you guys.Masquerades are great. We talked about how historicals do masquerades more than contemporaries, and we couldn't name any contemporaries with masquerades, but then Sarah immediately picked up the Dark Fairy Tales anthology, which is brand new, 99 cents, and in which all the stories are connected by a masque. You should get it. You deserve nice things.Also, the fact that we didn't mention Sweet Ruin is causing Sarah some pretty deep shame.You should wear your undies over your garters. Dita Von Teese confirms this. Apparently this is referred to as "The French Way."The lining is silver.Books mentioned in the podcast:The Notorious RBGThe RBG WorkoutGoodnight Stories for Rebel GirlsSweet Ruin, Kresley ColeMine Till Midnight, Lisa KleypasWarrior, Elizabeth LowellThe Raven Prince, Elizabeth HoytBlackout Billionaire series, Naima SimoneNaughty Brits AnthologyThe Blindfold Club series, specifically Three Little Mistakes, Nikki SloaneRun to You, Charlotte SteinThe Crossfire series, Sylvia DayHolt, Theodora TaylorThe Pleasure Principle, Jane O'ReillySlave to Sensation, Nalini SinghGood and Mad, Rebecca TraisterThe Seven Necessary Sins of Women &amp; Girls, Mona EltahawayThe RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2020/9/21/s0306-we-are-grateful-for-you-freewheeling-with-sarah-amp-jen If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It’s so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

This week, we begin the Season 3 read alongs, and we announce the first wave of work of romance we want to honor -- joy. Romance is supposed to be fun, and sometimes, especially now, as 2020 rages around us, it can be difficult to remember that.So, we begin talking about joy this week with a book that gave us both immense joy, Milla Vane's A Heart of Blood and Ashes. This one is a long one, y'all, so get ready. We're all over the place because we loved it so much, and it's a ride. Eric wants us to tell you that this is going to feel like an old-school IAD episode, so if you haven't read the book, good luck! We love you!Next week, we’ve got an interstitial for you! And the week after, we’re deep diving on Alisha Rai’s Serving Pleasure, which is a fantastic erotic romance. Find it at Amazon, B&amp;N, Kobo, Apple Books or Bookshop.org.Also -- Sarah has a contemporary novella out September 15th! Preorder the Naughty Brits anthology, wherever you get your ebooks: Amazon, Nook, Kobo, Apple, or in print at bookshop.org.Show NotesPlease listen and suscribe to the Black Romance Podcast, a fascinating oral history of Black romance authors. For more recent interviews with authors, check out The Wicked Wallflowers podcast. There are so many amazing romance podcasts for every type of listener.After her death, readers shared their memories of their first Johanna Lindsey novels using the hashtag #MyFirstJohanna.Alisha Rai, we demand to know the name of your hairdresser.California and the entire West Coast and experiencing the worst fire season in 100 years. Climate Change is real.Sarah asked for maps, and Jen said "reading strategies are for everyone" because they are! While we're at it, making mental movies, models, and visual images of what you read is one of the best reading strategies out there and if you have little kids, teach them to do this and it will help them be better readers their entire life.This amazing thread by Alexandra Erin is about how sometimes genre is determined by plot and sometimes it's determined by setting.The audiobook for A Heart of Blood and Ashes is great, but Jen really recommends you slow it down to .9 if you want it at "regular" speaking speed.Ilona Andrews writes amazing books, and Jen wants you to read the Hidden Legacy series. IN FACT, NEVADA AND ROGAN DO KISS in the first book, but they don't do the business until the second.If you missed our bodily autonomy episode, we were real mad about ridiculous anti-abortion laws and we talked about how romance taught us about birth control and our bodies.Some interesting thoughts about poison, and the myth of the woman as poisoner and who is likely to use it. This is realted to the idea that manipulation (or as Maddek might call it, "sly tongue") is often used by the powerless as a way of getting around patriarchal power structures that silence them."She rescues him right back" is, of course, a reference to Pretty Woman.Up next, Serving Pleasure by Alisha Rai.Buy Fated Mates swag by clicking on the Merch link at the top of this page.Did someone say map?Milla Vane's website had it!Lost Limb Count (SO MANY SPOILERS!)For those listeners who missed Season One of Fated Mates, Kresley Cole really enjoyed removing limbs from her characters (They mostly regenerated). She liked it so much, that we tracked the lost limbs from the books in what is now an epic lost limb counter.Also, if you missed Season One, it's our pure joy in your earholes. We recommend it.Legs &amp; FeetYears earlier, Yvenne attempted to escape with her mother. In retaliation, her father and brother shatter her knee. It never heals properly and she will never run again.At the end, Yvenne is trapped in her tower, and from that window she shoots her father Zhalen right through his knee and calf with her arrow, shattering his knee as hers had been.Arms, Hands, and FingersImmediately before the book begins, Yvenne used a bow and arrow to kill her brother Lazen. To punish her, her father cut off the first and second fingers of her right hand so she can never draw a bow again.Head, Face, and EyesYvenne throws a dagger at her brother Bazir’s eye. Although her aim is perfect, the handle hits him in the eye rather than the blade. Later that night, Bazir and his men attack, and Maddek rips out Bazir’s tongue, stabs and kills Bazir with his own poisoned sword.TorsoWhen Zhalen realized that Yvenne sent a message to Maddek’s parents, he whipped her back and left numerous scars.When Maddek kidnaps her from the wedding caravan, Yvenne stabs her brother Cezan in the back with her dagger.When Zhalen’s men come for her and kill Banek, she rips the arrows from the fallen bodies around her in order to shoot back at her father’s men.Total Body DestructionAfter Yvenne’s brother Aezil poisons Maddek, he is too weak to wield a weapon. He crawls to the edge of the cliff, drops his sword into the drepa (an evil bird dinosaur kind of thing) nest which causes them to attack and kill Aezil while Maddek and his wo

Two years in the making, we’re finally talking to one of our very favorites, Tracey Livesay, about friends-to-lovers romances! Ironically, for a group of people who say they don’t love friends-to-lovers, we sure had a lot of books to recommend! We’ll also peel back the curtain on Tracey’s feelings about Jamie Dornan, talk about the strangest places romance couples have sex, and get to the bottom of why this trope works so well when it works.Sarah wrote a contemporary novella during a pandemic, and it's coming out September 15th! Preorder the Naughty Brits (an anthology with Sophie Jordan, Sierra Simone, Louisa Edwards and Tessa Gratton), wherever you get your ebooks: Amazon, Nook, Kobo, Apple or Google, or in print at bookshop.org.Next week, we’re deep diving on Milla Vane’s A Heart of Blood and Ashes, which is a long fantasy romance. If you are a reader who needs content warnings, you might want to check out reviews on Goodreads.Find it at Amazon, B&amp;N, Kobo, Apple Books or Bookshop.org.Thank you, as always, for listening — we hope you’re having a great (and safe!) summer! While we’re apart, if you are up for leaving a rating or review for the podcast on your podcasting app, we would be very grateful!Show NotesLinda is keeping a calendar of romance events. You should subscribe.The Fifty Shades movies aren’t well reviewed, but really who cares. We definitely recommend the unrated version if you have the money (editorial note: would we say "recommend?"). Some interesting facts about the movies, including the director change from Sam Taylor-Johnson to James Foley. The soundtracks for the movies are terrific, especially two Beyonce songs: the remix of Crazy in Love and the song Haunted. May all of your contract negotiations look like this. Tracey said “we see more of Jamie” in the next two movies, so maybe she didn’t know about his modeling career. All further 50 Shades questions should be directed to Nisha Sharma.Unrequited love is way more stressful than friends to lovers.In Like Lovers Do, Ben's ex-girlfriend is racist to Nic in a way that Ben doesn't quite understand, including a reference to Courvoisier, which Ben thinks is referring to an SNL skit.Unsurprisingly, we adore Like Lovers Do, but we're not sure we can give it a better review than this one by LaQuette, who really hits the nail on the head with the promise of this particular premise (aka, hammock sex friends-to-lovers).Martha’s Vineyard is for fancy people.A New York Times article about Interracial romance in media in 2020.Handstand. Hammock. Horse.Are bachelor auctions even a thing?A history of taxidermy.Bruno Kirby and Carrie Fisher are amazing in all ways in When Harry Met Sally, and the "pesto is the quiche of the 80s" scene gets quoted more than anyone in Sarah's house would like.Up next: A Heart of Blood and Ashes by Milla Vane.Books discussed in the episode:Like Lovers Do, Tracey LivesaySweet Talkin' Lover, Tracey LivesayThe Navy Seal's Christmas Bride, Cora SeatonScoring off the Field, Naima SimoneTrust Fund Fiancé, Naima SimoneHis Until Midnight, Reese RyanGoddess of the Hunt, Tessa DareMy Fake Rake, Eva LeighAn Unseen Attraction, KJ CharlesJosh &amp; Hazel's Guide to Not Dating, Christina LaurenBeautiful Player, Christian LaurenBeautiful Stranger, Christina LaurenThe RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2020/9/6/s0304-friends-to-lovers-interstitial-with-tracey-livesay If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It’s so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

If we’re going to talk about the last 10 years of romance — what we’d call modern romance — it’s basically impossible to do that out in the world without someone who doesn’t know much about the genre asking about EL James’s Fifty Shades of Grey. This week, Fated Mates is talking about Fifty Shades. Or, rather, we’re talking about what we're really talking about when we talk about Fifty Shades of Grey.At no point in this discussion do we talk about tampons. You’re welcome.Next week, we’ve got an interstitial for you! And the week after, we’re deep diving on Milla Vane’s A Heart of Blood and Ashes, which is a long fantasy romance. If you are a reader who needs content warnings, you might want to check out reviews on Goodreads.Find it at Amazon, B&amp;N, Kobo, Apple Books or Bookshop.org.Show NotesThere are honestly so many articles about Fifty Shades that Jen couldn't possibly even link to them. But the one about the increase in ER visits, necktie sales up 23%, and Jen wrote about the history of romance between Fabio and Fifty Shades.Drunk Austen went through a rather spectacular break-up last week; we promise never to do this and swear we are full legal partners in our current venture.Fanfiction brought Christina Lauren, Tara Sue Me, Sally Thorne and so many others to us. And lots of great BDSM was written after Fifty Shades by too many authors to count, but many think of The Original Sinners series by Tiffany Reisz as being truly excellent.There's a reason why women hate dealing with car salesmen and mechanics. Jen wants you to know that if you're in Chicago and looking for a mechanic, the guys at Ashland Tire and Auto will never treat you like that.Perhaps you're interested in whether or not Fifty Shades of Grey was copyright infringement?The 2010 He-cession vs the 2020 she-cession.Sarah reviewed Grey for the Washington Post, and just a few weeks ago, Midnight Sun (Twilight from Edward's Point of View was released.Ope. We forgot to talk about Thomas Hardy, so just read this article from The Guardian instead.Mrs. Robinson refers to a character in the 1967 film The Graduate.Flat Stanley is a character in a children's book, but here we are talking about the theory that readers insert themselves into a book and become the main character. Many people believed that teenage girls reading Twilight imaged themselves as Bella, for example, but that's deeply rooted in misogny. In Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women, Laura Kinsale suggested that women reading romance imagine themselves as the hero rather than the heroine.Fifty Shades of Grey sold a lot of fucking copies. A lot. A lot!Lori Perkins was the editor of Fifty Writers on Fifty Shades of Grey. You can also check out Hard Core Romance: Fifty Shades of Grey, Bestsellers, and Society by Eva Illouz.Jen refers to Christian as the Marlboro Man, a symbol of a kind of gruff, male, American renegade loner.BDSM contracts are a thing!Where does Kink come from? And what Fifty Shades gets right and wrong about kink and BDSM.The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2020/9/1/s0303-fifty-shades-of-grey-by-el-james If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It’s so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

We’ve been gone for many weeks, as you know, and during that time we read a whole lot of books. In this, our first interstitial of Season Three, we’ll talk about some of those books…and also Jen will spend some really important time confirming that Sarah is, in fact, right. About everything. That’s canon now.Next week, we’ll read Fifty Shades of Grey. We'll talk fan fiction, Christian Grey, 1st person POV, billionaires, the early 2010s, why the book mobilized so many readers, why it made so many others angry, and what we talk about when we talk about Fifty Shades of Grey. It’s Season Three. We’re back on our bullsh*t. Find Fifty Shades of Grey at Amazon, Barnes &amp; Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, or at your local indie.Show NotesCats like boxes!&nbsp;Dogs like to chew things! Speaking of&nbsp;Rube Goldberg machines, if you're ever in Chicago, you should really see&nbsp;the one at the Museum of Science and Industry.Who is the&nbsp;CJ Craig of "Bless her cotton socks" fame, you ask?Speaking of Vivian Stephens...We mentioned&nbsp;our episode with Steve Ammidown on the books she aquired&nbsp;was one of our favorite episodes, but you should really&nbsp;read this terrific interview with her&nbsp;that was published in the September 2020 issue of Texas Monthly magazine.The iHeartRadio podcast awards&nbsp;are a thing, and Jen just wants to be recognized.Milla Vane also writes as Meljean Brook, check out The Iron Duke if you like steampunk.&nbsp;But all of us recommend against using blood as lube.John Cusack's starring role as a hit man was in the&nbsp;1997 movie Grosse Point Blank.LaQuette&nbsp;left&nbsp;a perfect review on Goodreads&nbsp;of Like Lovers Do in case you need more convincing.Subscribe to Linda's calendar of virtual romance events.Did we mention there are&nbsp;Fated Mates t-shirts&nbsp;now? Check out the shop at JenReadsRomance for&nbsp;Kelly's romancelandia buttons, stickers, and cards, and her Resistance Buttons shop for&nbsp;Biden Harris 2020 buttons.Next week,&nbsp;Fifty Shades of Grey. Our next read along book is going to be&nbsp;A Heart of Blood and Ashes. That's the way we want it.Oh, and this hadn't been announced when we recorded, but Sarah wrote a contemporary novella during a pandemic, and it's coming out September 15th! Preorder&nbsp;Naughty Brits&nbsp;(an anthology with Sophie Jordan, Sierra Simone, Louisa Edwards and Tessa Gratton), wherever you get your ebooks:&nbsp;Amazon,&nbsp;Nook,&nbsp;Kobo,&nbsp;Apple&nbsp;or&nbsp;Google.The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2020/8/25/s032-summer-reads-interstitial-the-sarah-was-right-edition If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It’s so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

SEASON THREE!It’s here, we’re back, and we’re back on our bullsh*t because it’s 2020 and it’s all we have, honestly.Season One gave us a full lAD deep dive (if you’ve never read Kresley Cole’s Immortals After Dark, pandemic anxiety is a really good reason to start), and Season Two gave us The Books That Blooded Us -- the books that made us the romance readers we are.Season Three will pick up where Season Two left off. This season, we'll tackle 15 (or so) books that did heavy lifting for the genre and for readers. Some of the books are transformative, some are juggernauts, and some are just truly excellent romance that shows how vast and magnificent the romance pool can get. All of them will show just how the genre works, and how it’s always changing the game.We’ve also got some great interstitials planned, including some fabulous, brilliant guests on deck…and when Munro is released, we’ll (obviously) be here for you!So...where do we begin? We begin in two weeks with a text that no one can deny transformed romance and the way the world looked at it: Fifty Shades of Grey. We'll talk fan fiction, Christian Grey, 1st person POV, billionaires, the early 2010s, why the book mobilized so many readers, why it made so many others angry, and the work it did to set the genre spinning in multiple directions over the last decade.Get reading, y'all, we've got a lot to say. You can find Fifty Shades of Grey at Amazon, Barnes &amp; Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, or at your local indie.Note: We are focusing on the first book in the trilogy, not the whole trilogy, though we will likely discuss the entire thing.You have two weeks to read, but in the meantime, sit back, relax, and let us give you a preview of what's to come! Don't forget to like and subscribe in your favorite podcasting platform!Show NotesDid you notice our new intro music?All about&nbsp;carbon dioxide,&nbsp;carbon monoxide, and&nbsp;nitrous oxide.In case you want to hear more about blood blow jobs (A Hunger Like No Other,&nbsp;Lothaire, and&nbsp;Sweet Ruin) and blood handjobs (A Heart of Blood and Ashes).Here are some things you can do if you want to save American democracy:&nbsp;make sure you're registered to vote&nbsp;(and keep checking),&nbsp;fill out the census, if you can&nbsp;sign up to be a poll-worker,&nbsp;text bank,&nbsp;phone bank,&nbsp;write postcards to voters,&nbsp;subscribe to the My Civic Workout newsletter,&nbsp;join a local Indivisible Group.If you're not following&nbsp;Celeste Pewter on twitter, you should.&nbsp;Here's her thread&nbsp;on what you can do to&nbsp;help save the Post Office.Shop your local indie bookstore! They need your support.Jen and Sarah met for the first time at the&nbsp;Printer's Row Lit Fest&nbsp;in Chicago.&nbsp;Catch up with season one-- a read along of Kresley Cole's Immortals After Dark series,&nbsp;and season two--the Books that Blooded Us.We love the&nbsp;Gaslighter album, the song&nbsp;Wet Ass Pussy, and&nbsp;Kamala Harris. All joking aside, there's nothing wrong with a wet ass pussy, and you can read The Vagina Bible to learn more about it.The Potentials&nbsp;were the pool of available women who might be tapped as Slayer.Jen's reading Jack Reacher&nbsp;books&nbsp;with her friend Ernie.&nbsp;Name is destiny.Katee Robert's taboo series is giving readers exactly what they want.You want Fated Mates&nbsp;shirts&nbsp;and&nbsp;buttons? Of course you do!Up next:&nbsp;Fifty Shades of Grey.The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2020/8/18/s031-season-three-back-on-our-bullsht If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It’s so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

Surely the silverest lining of the Pandemic is how many fabulous conversations are happening all around us. A few weeks ago, Jen had an incredibly important conversation about the work of romance and writing trauma and trauma survivors. You can follow Adriana on Facebook and watch the video of the conversation there!Representation of Trauma Survivors in Romance: Adriana Herrera and Jen ProkopFated MatesDownloadAs you know, Adriana is one of our favorite people…preorder her next book, Here to Stay—you deserve a treat!Thank you, as always, for listening — we hope you’re having a great (and safe!) summer! While we’re apart, if you are up for leaving a rating or review for the podcast on your podcasting app, we would be very grateful!Oh, and did you know Sarah has a new book out? Daring &amp; the Duke is officially here! Get it at Amazon, Kobo, Barnes &amp; Noble, Apple Books, Books-a-Million or from your local indie.We’ll see you next week, for the first episode of Season 3!

Since the start of the Pandemic, brilliant VE Schwab has been hosting authors from across the spectrum of genres on Instagram Live Saturdays at 3pm et for her No Write Way series, talking about books, writing, the world and whatever else comes at them. Several weeks ago, Sarah joined her, and they had a great conversation about romance and writing, and we’re thrilled to share the audio with you this week!Follow VE on Instagram, preorder her next book, The Invisible Life of Addie Larue, and don’t miss her lives on Saturday afternoons!Thank you, as always, for listening — we hope you’re having a great (and safe!) July! While we’re apart, if you are up for leaving a rating or review for the podcast on your podcasting app, we would be very grateful!Oh, and did you know Sarah has a new book out? Daring &amp; the Duke is officially here! Get it at Amazon, Kobo, Barnes &amp; Noble, Apple Books, Books-a-Million or from your local indie.

We're still on hiatus between seasons, but your earholes don't have to be! This week, the Deerfield Illinois Public Library turned the tables on us and interviewed us for their podcast! We had a great time talking about romance and why it's the very very best. Subscribe to the DPL Podcast for more great interviews!Thank you, as always, for listening — we hope you’re having a great (and safe!) July! While we’re apart, if you are up for leaving a rating or review for the podcast on your podcasting app, we would be very grateful!Oh, and did you know Sarah has a new book out? Daring &amp; the Duke is officially here! Get it at Amazon, Kobo, Barnes &amp; Noble, Apple Books, Books-a-Million or from your local indie.

We are on hiatus for the rest of July, but never fear! We're still bringing fun content to your earholes! In June, we recorded a live crossover episode of Fated Mates/Learning the Tropes, during which we played delightful games, talked about books, and got to the bottom (or maybe not) of Learning the Tropes's Clayton's interesting romance kinks. We are delighted to share that episode with you this week! If you subscribe to both of our podcasts, this will be a duplicate episode this week. If you *don't* subscribe to both podcasts...you definitely should. Find Learning the Tropes wherever you listen to podcasts! Erin and Clayton are two of our favorite people. Thank you, as always, for listening — we hope you’re having a great (and safe!) July! While we’re apart, if you are up for leaving a rating or review for the podcast on your podcasting app, we would be very grateful! Oh, and did you know Sarah has a new book out? Daring &amp; the Duke is officially here! Get it at Amazon, Kobo, Barnes &amp; Noble, Apple Books, Books-a-Million or from your local indie, or order it signed from the wonderful independent bookstore, Savoy Bookshop in RI, where she is through the end of July!

It felt fitting that our final episode of Season 2—during which we celebrated so many of the vintage romances that blooded us—would be with someone we could fully geek out with! We are thrilled to have Steve Ammidown, romance nerd and archivist at the Browne Popular Culture Library at Bowling Green State University, with us today to talk about Vivian Stephens and early category romances. To prepare, all three of us read some of the earliest American category romances, and wow were they a ride! We’re talking women who work, marriage in romance, older heroines, the impact of Vietnam on 1980s romances, and more. Strap in!We’re on hiatus for the next three weeks, but you’ll hear some great alternative content on Wednesdays — including crossover episodes and interviews we’ve done in other places. Thank you, as always, for listening — we hope you’re having a great (and safe!) summer. While we’re apart, if you are up for leaving a rating or review for the podcast on your podcasting app, we would be very grateful!Oh, and did you know Sarah has a new book out? Daring &amp; the Duke is officially here! Get it at Amazon, Kobo, Barnes &amp; Noble, Apple Books, Books-a-Million or from your local indie, or order it signed from the wonderful independent bookstore, Savoy Bookshop in RI, where she is through the end of July!Show NotesWelcome Steve Ammidown, the Manuscripts &amp; Outreach Archivist at the Browne Popular Culture Library at the Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio.Vivian Stephens was one of the original founders of RWA and one of the most important editors in romance. At the Browne Pop Culture library, there is a special Vivian Stephens collection. Vivian was instrumental in bringing category romance to America and created the Candlelight Ecstacy Romance line, which put sex on page in a new way. She also created the Harlequin American line.Vivian recruited a series of authors who changed the face of romance: Jayne Castle/Jayne Ann Krenz, Sandra Brown, and later Beverly Jenkins. Here is an early interview with Vivian about her work and the world of romance.At the last RITAs ceremony--in the future, it will be the Vivians!-- there was a great video of romance firsts. You should watch it.Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women was a 90s era collection of romance essays by romance writers to combat a lot of not great academic research on romance.The late 70s and early 80s were a tumultuous time in American history: the return of Vietnam soldiers, a finacial crisis, and a huge divorce boom.The mall bookstores, B. Dalton and Waldenbooks, were alive and well in the 80s. The buyers at these bookstores, including Sue Grimshaw, were powerful gatekeepers who had a great amount of power over the romance genre.Kathryn Falk and Romantic Times and Flavia Kngightsbridge was a famous RT columnist, and at RT conventions there was something called the Mr. Romance Competition, and everyone who has ever seen it is like...whoa.Marisa de Zavala, whose real name is Celina Mullan, also wrote as Ana Lisa de Leon and Rachel Scott. See more about Marisa on this great thread about her from Alexis Daria!Entwined Destinies was one of the first category romances with Black characters by a Black author, Elsie Washington writing as Rosalind Welles. Although it's very difficult to find a copy of Entwined Destinies, but BGSU has a great photograph of Vivian and Elsie together.The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2020/7/6/s0245-vivian-stephens-acquisitions-with-librarian-steve-ammidown If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It’s so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

We’re so excited to have Kennedy Ryan with us this week — someone who was blooded not once, but twice by old school historicals! Listen to us talk powerful heroines, her brilliant Queen Move, how so much romance is political and why those old romances are still worth reading — problematic and all. Summer is here, and next week is the final episode of Season Two, with a few others to come while we take a few weeks off. To read romance novels. Obviously. Season Three begins in August!While we’re apart, if you are up for leaving a rating or review for the podcast on your podcasting app, we would be very grateful!Oh, and did you know Sarah had a book out last week? Daring &amp; the Duke is officially here! Get it at Amazon, Kobo, Barnes &amp; Noble, Apple Books, Books-a-Million or from your local indie, or order it signed from the wonderful independent bookstore, Savoy Bookshop in RI, where she is for the. month of July!Show NotesWelcome Kennedy Ryan! You know what they say about pastors' kids. Just kidding, she was a late bloomer.Teacher Jen would like a moment to talk about vocabulary acquisition: Parents can help kids learn new words by modeling, but reading is really the X factor. You can take this vocabulary test to see the rough size of your own vocabulary, but this information about how kids acquire new words is actually pretty simple: read lots of fiction when you're young.Believe it or not, there was never a Carole Mortimer book titled Frustration. But perhaps you might be interested in her other single word titles: Untamed, Gypsy (yikes!), or Witchchild.Prince had lots of protégées, including Vanity (Rick James's ex-girlfiend! thank you for that info Cheris Hodges!), Sheena Easton, and so many others. Speaking of Sheena Easton, Prince wrote the lyrics for Sugar Walls and it is pretty dirty. Ava DuVernay was slated to direct a documentary on Prince for Netflix, but stepped down over "creative differences." And if you can ever travel again, Jen highly recommends going on the tour of Paisley Park.Jen mentioned that Iris Johansen, Fayrene Preston, and Kay Hooper wrote several series about a family called the Delaneys, and Kay Hooper tells the story of how it happened on her website. PS. the original covers for The Delaneys: The Untamed Years are amazing. And in case you're looking for a house to buy, maybe Iris Johansen's place might be to your liking?Going back to the archives, Candace Proctor (who also writes as C.S. Harris) and Penelope Williamson are sisters?So, in romances, being a wet nurse is just a plot device. But the history of wet nurses is, to no one's surprise, rather grim. Sunset Embrace is the Sandra Brown book with the wet nurse. In Vanessa Riley's newest-- A Duke, The Lady, and a Baby -- the heroine has to sneak in to feed her own son and manages to get herself hired as his wet nurse. In Romeo and Juliet the nurse said that Juliet was "The prettiest babe that e’er I nursed." In a pinch, Enfamil is the way to go.Mary Queen of Scots didn't come to a good end. So maybe just read Shadowheart?The Tragic Mulatto is a harmful anti-Black trope.Meagan McKinney defrauded the government during Katrina and landed in jail, which is why we are never going to read one of her books for Fated Mates.

Sarah has a new book out, so Jen is playing host this week, and Sarah is playing guest, and Jen is really outrageously good at it…move over Terry Gross! Find Daring &amp; the Duke wherever books are sold, including Amazon, Kobo, B&amp;N, Apple Books, Books-a-Million, or at your local indie via Bookshop.org.Show NotesYou can listen to all of our walk-up music suggestions on the Fated Mates Spotify playlist. But in case you've never seen The Music Man, the song Marian the Librarian is very cute.Sarah wants to be a guest on Fresh Air. (Jen obviously does, too, but has to actual cause to be interviewed. So #TeamSarah.) Do we know anyone who knows Terry Gross?If you can't wait, you can listen to us on the Deerfield Public Libary podcast, but we're going to drop it into our own feed later this month. So no worries.Jen thinks Sarah is in her imperial period--a phrase Jen learned from listening to the Hit Parade podcast.The past year have had some great books about rage and feminism: The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls, Good and Mad, and Hood Feminism are three we recommend.We put children in factories all day, so of course kids fought, too. Sarah recommends The Fair Fight, a historical novel, about bareknuckle fighting kids.Statler &amp; Waldorf are the two old dudes up on the balcony during The Muppet Show.The Victorian Age wasn't so great for women and other marginalized people.That Jeffrey Epstein documentary is on Netflix.Ewan's year-long break was inspired by The Player.The myth of Apollo and Cyrene, and also a little about neo-classicism. One of our favorite myth retellings of the past few years, is Circe by Madeline Miller. Jessica Avery presented a paper at the Popular Culture Association about mythology in Sarah's books.The Master's Tools will Never Dismantle the Master's House is the name of the essay by Audre Lorde. You should read it.The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2020/6/30/s0243-daring-and-the-duke If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It’s so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

This week it's one of our very faves, Joanna Shupe is back! Joanna has a new book out June 30th -- The Devil of Downtown -- which is basically perfection, so we're talking about why Gilded Age romance is the best, and why everyone should be reading unusual historicals (historicals set outside the Regency in England). Get ready, your TBR will groan after this one!Oh, and did you know Sarah also has a book out June 30th? Order Daring &amp; the Duke from Amazon, Kobo, Barnes &amp; Noble, Apple Books, Books-a-Million or from your local indie, or order it signed from her local indie, WORD Bookstore, and get a special edition Fated Mates sticker with your purchase!As summer approaches, if you are up for leaving a rating or review for the podcast on your podcasting app, we would be very grateful!Oh, and did you know Sarah also has a book out June 30th? Order Daring &amp; the Duke from Amazon, Kobo, Barnes &amp; Noble, Apple Books, Books-a-Million or from your local indie, or order it signed from her local indie, WORD Bookstore, and get a special edition Fated Mates sticker with your purchase!As summer approaches, if you are up for leaving a rating or review for the podcast on your podcasting app, we would be very grateful!Show NotesThis is Joanna's second time on Fated Mates. The first was to discuss the enemies to lovers trope in Prisoner of My Desire and Kiss of a Demon King.Speaking of IAD: ever seen the IAD spreadsheet of Wonder, created be Sarah Hawley from the Wicked Wallflowers Podcast? Oh, and if you haven't read it, why not do it this summer? There's a group read going on right now on a subgroup of Sarah's Facebook Book Club!All about Homage, allusion, and allegory in case it's been a while since you were in an English class.Modern Library! Where are our romances?Sarah has a bunch of online events this summer.Many of the old American historicals support an ahistorical white settler, Manifest Destiny, story of Westward Expansion. Savage Thunder was a particularly problematic one, and Jen only read it for the "sex on a horse" scene. Maybe watch some Deadwood instead?Which came first? Eurocentrism or the Anglophiles?Gone With the Wind is just Lost Cause propaganda. Don't at us. Speaking of wars: The Napoleonic Wars took place during the Regency, but no one ever really talks about them in Regency romances.Romance's Regency blueprint was created by Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer.Nipple piercing has been around for a long time. Look for it in Joanna's next book.Joanna's fascination with The Gilded Age started with Edith Wharton. The time period is the setting for the Uptown Girls series, but the Gilded Age also has lots of uncomfortable parallels to today. If you're looking for more information about The Gilded Age, you should know that Jack Mulligan was based on real life mobster Paul Kelly. Joanna also recommends the following books: Low Life, The Gangs of New York, and Incredible New York. If you want to hear Joanna talk about The Gilded Age, join her Facebook Group on July 9th, 2020 for a virtual tour!If you haven't ever been to Ellis Island, it's excellent. It's a dynamic museum with tons of interesting facts about European immigration to New York. Speaking of history, if you're interested in learning about The Great Migration, the setting of A Champion's Heart, you should read The Warmth of Other Suns.Food is everyone's love language until the jello molds and casseroles start to arrive.You actually can read lots of books about the 60s.What do you mean you haven't seen The Hudsucker Proxy?The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2020/6/23/s0242-unusual-historical-interstitial-with-joanna-shupe If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It’s so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, <a...

This one’s for you, audio readers! We’re thrilled to have a freewheeling episode this week featuring the fantastically talented Justine Eyre, who has narrated Sarah’s last seven books! Sarah &amp; Justine had never talked until this conversation, when we were able to ask all the questions we’ve always had about how audiobooks work, and what makes them so great. And stay tuned until the end of the episode, when you can hear the first two chapters of the audiobook of Daring &amp; the Duke, available wherever audiobooks are sold, June 30th!We might not be doing read alongs until August, but that doesn’t mean your TBR won’t still be groaning under the weight of our recommendations — we’ve got a bunch of rec episodes lined up for summer…Oh, and did you know Sarah has a book out in two weeks? Order Daring &amp; the Duke from Amazon, Kobo, Barnes &amp; Noble, Apple Books, Books-a-Million or from your local indie, or order it signed from her local indie, WORD Bookstore, and get a special edition Fated Mates sticker with your purchase!As summer approaches, if you are up for leaving a rating or review for the podcast on your podcasting app, we would be very grateful!Show NotesWelcome Justine Eyre! Justine has narrated all of Sarah's books since Never Judge a Lady by Her Cover.Join Sarah's Old School Romance Book Club (OSRBC) on Facebook.Is Jane Eyre really "our favorite Jane"? Jane Austen would like a word.Justine talked a lot about how audiobooks are made, but here's another great explainer about the role of narrators and audiobook production.We recorded this before J. K. Rowling's latest terrible TERF rant, so take Jen's praise of Jim Dale's narrationwith a grain of salt.Justine mentioned Scott Brick as a mentor, and his site has a guide for those interested in becoming narrators.The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2020/6/16/s0241-audiobook-interstitial-with-voice-actor-justine-eyre If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It’s so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

It’s the last read-along of Season Two! We’re reading Judith McNaught’s A Kingdom of Dreams, which is the actual book that blooded Sarah when she was wee. This week we’re talking old-school romance, what McNaught was doing with this book and this hero who is so unlike all the heroes who came before him, and why (book) Jennifer is the perfect namesake for (our) Jennifer.We might not be doing read alongs until August, but that doesn’t mean your TBR won’t still be groaning under the weight of our recommendations — we’ve got a bunch of rec episodes lined up for summer….oh, and did you know Sarah has a book out in three weeks? Order it from Amazon, Kobo, Barnes &amp; Noble, Apple Books, Books-a-Million or from your local indie, or order it signed from her local indie, WORD Bookstore, and get a special edition Fated Mates sticker with your purchase!As summer approaches, if you are up for leaving a rating or review for the podcast on your podcasting app, we would be very grateful!Show NotesMarty McFly, played by Michael J. Fox, was the main character in an excellent 1985 time-traveling movie called Back to the Future.Sarah's next book, Daring and the Duke, comes out at the end of the month. Preorder from WORD in Brooklyn and you'll recieve a limited edition yellow Fated Mates sticker.Whitney, My Love is an early McNaught historical romance that the author changed because in the original text, the hero rapes and horsewhips the heroine. The hero of A Kingdom of Dreams, Royce Westmoreland, is one of Clayton's ancestors, but we think he is McNaught correcting the record on the Alpha hero. In the IAD novella episode, we talked about the changes in Whitney, My Love. Whitney also came up in the Alpha episode that started the season, because it's impossible to talk about the primordial alphas without talking about the early Alpha.More on the four books that comprise the Westmoreland series.Who do we talk to get A Kingdom of Dreams on audio? Oh, you can email a request to Audible.Jen learned about 1497 on Wikipedia. As one does.Women could inherit a title in Scotland.Margaret Tudor was Henry VII's eldest daughter, married to James IV of Scotland to bring peace to the border. Fun fact, once James IV died (thanks for nothing, Henry VIII, you were the worst), Margaret acted as Regent until James V of Scotland, but when that didn't work out, she married two other dudes and also staged a coup, so we don't really know why we don't all sing her praise always. Yeah, we do. Patriarchy. Anyway. Sarah didn't learn about Margaret Tudor on Wikipedia, but you can.All about the bliaut. Sarah would like you to know she looked up bliauts on Wikipedia after we recorded and now she's an expert. High-fives to all Wikipedia editors. Nothing without you.Tinctures, tonics, and teas is Fated Mates shorthand for historicals where medicine women knew various herbal remedies for preventing or ending pregnancy. Or in this case, causing life-long impotence.We talked a little bit about the freedom of setting a romance in Medieval times on our Scottish Romance episode, so head over and listen to that if you're interested.Jen's obsessed with the idea of the Vietnam Hero, but doesn't know where to start. Probably with finishing the Ken Burns Vietnam documentary.Jousting. WTF.What would Jurgen Klopp say?While we're talking about Judith McNaught and Wikipedia, do not sleep on her page. Divorce celebrations, Coors Brewing Company tie-ins, the invention of the non-clinch romance cover, moving to Dallas after going there on book tour...it has it all.Support Black Lives Matter and bail funds in your city or state.Shop and support Black-owned Indie bookstores.Register to vote. Already registered? Double check.The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2020/6/9/s0240-a-kingdom-of-dreams If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It’s so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

One of readers’ very favorite tropes this week…sometimes it’s friends-to-lovers and sometimes it’s friends-to-enemies-to-lovers and sometimes it’s friends-to-attempted-murder-to-lovers….we’re talking childhood friends to adult lovers and we will get to the bottom of it! Get ready for way too much music from The Saint. But first things first….Black Lives Matter.Next week, we’re officially OFFICIALLY reading Judith McNaught’s A Kingdom of Dreams! Get ready for Sarah’s favorite historical of all time. It’s HAPPENING. Find A Kingdom of Dreams at Amazon, Barnes &amp; Noble, Apple Books, or Kobo … and don’t forget your favorite indie, which is probably shipping books right now and definitely needs your patronage!Also, if you love the music in this or any of our episodes, check out our Spotify playlist, which includes it all!Show NotesLooking to donate? Here's why supporting community bail funds is so important. The Minnesota Freedom Fund has raised millions of dollars for protestors who have been arrested, and here is an exhaustive list of other collectives and organizaions spearheaded by Black activists.Sarah donated to The Brooklyn Bail Fund and Jen to the Chicago Community Bail Fund. Find one in your city or state through the National Bail Fund Network.Bookshop.Org has a special link if you want to shop and support Black-owned Indie bookstores.Register to vote. And make sure you're still registered. You can also donate to Stacy Abrams's nonprofit, Fair Fight, which is dedicated to ensure voting access for all Americans..Jen's friend Susan is putting together a service to help parents keep kids busy this summer, it's called My Camp Box.Maybe you'd like to find some more unrequited love romances? And, by the way, Requited is an actual word.Jacob imprinting on a baby in the Twilight series was...a thing. But in the MG (middle grade) graphic novel Fake Blood, a bookish boy has a crush on the coolest girl in school, and she just happens to be a vampire slayer.Friend of the Pod @Bandherbooks led a read along of Again the Magic a few weeks ago.Sarah loves The Saint, a Val Kilmer classic. The author of that NYTimes profile, Taffy Brodesser-Akner also wrote a LitFic novel Jen loved called Fleishman is in Trouble.Next time you need details about the exact details of what's happening in a movie, TV show, video game, or book for your kids, check out Common Sense Media.Mulan II is a romance. Don't @ Sarah; Alvin and the Chimpunks is a not a romance. Don't @ JenPreorder Daring and the Duke from WORD in Brooklyn and score a special edition yellow Fated Matessticker.Next up, A Kingdom of Dreams.The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2020/6/2/s0239-childhood-friends-to-adult-lovers-interstitial If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It’s so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

We’re talking about one of the best writers in erotic romance this week—Join us for a deep dive into Nikki Sloane’s Three Little Mistakes, which is one of Sarah’s favorite romances. We’re talking about kink, kink shaming, how to make sex discussions less awkward with new partners and how erotic romance is doing some of the best work in the genre right now…and we’re also going to talk about fruity drinks.In two weeks, we’re officially OFFICIALLY reading Judith McNaught’s A Kingdom of Dreams! Get ready for Sarah’s favorite historical of all time. It’s HAPPENING. Find A Kingdom of Dreams at Amazon, Barnes &amp; Noble, Apple Books, or Kobo … and don’t forget your favorite indie, which is probably shipping books right now and definitely needs your patronage!Show NotesHere's Jen Porter on Twitter talking about erotic romance. But just this week, Robin Bradford (winner of the RWA Librarian of the year!) was also talking about why it's a problem that we don't have a clear definition for erotic romance.Getting RWA to recoginize erotic romance was such a struggle that there was actually a petition! But now we can (hopefully) all move on to bigger and better things with The Vivian.YA books with queer characters are some of the most challenged books in America.Sarah also mentioned Sordid, which has non-consensual sex and therefore needs a content warning.Ron Charles is cool.Nikki Sloane used to live in Chicago and now lives in Kentucky. Looks like Jen's friendship plans have just been foiled.Having sex in a porche sounds excruciating, and so does having sex with a porche (WTF!), but Men's Health Magazine to the rescue with this handy (lol) list of best cars to have sex in.If you're interested in breath play, please do it safely.RIP Tumblr. We miss you.Decriminalize sex work.Maybe when we can go places again, you might want to rent or buy a yurt in Hawaii.Avoid those sugary drinks for yourself and your kids. If you are in Chicago and looking for a dentist, Jen LOVES her dentist Dr. Deaver and Dr. Casimir at Classic Smiles on South Wabash. And she really buried the lede and forgot to mention that Dr. Deaver is not only an amazing dentist, but he was President Obama's dentist!Next time: A Kingdom of Dreams.Preorder Daring and the Duke from WORD in Brooklyn and you'll get a sweet limited edition yellow Fated Mates sticker.The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2020/5/26/s0238-three-little-mistakes-by-nikki-sloane If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It’s so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

It’s one of our favorite tropes this week — get your pens out, because we’re talking about about a thousand books that tackle Partner in Danger! You know what we’re talking about: “Oh no! This person I sometimes bone is in danger! WAIT! I am feeling feelings!!!” It’s great. We’re going to talk about why. Sarah would like to apologize in advance, because it was really hot in her house when we recorded, and it scrambled her brain.We love having you with us! — subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform and like/review the podcast, please!Next week, it’s erotica week! We’re reading a book that Sarah loves, Nikki Sloane’s Three Little Mistakes, which we’ve talked about before on the podcast, but we want to deep dive on. Get Three Little Mistakes from Amazon, Barnes &amp; Noble, Apple Books, or Kobo … and don’t forget your favorite indie, which is probably shipping books right now and definitely needs your patronage!Also, if you love the music in this or any of our episodes, check out our Spotify playlist, which includes it all!Show NotesAs of last week, going outside looks like a pretty safe thing to do.In fact, there is less central A/C in New York City. So watch out for the window units.Zoom fatigue is real.You know, there is quite a large assortment of "Dorothy in the Sheets, Blanche in the Sheets" merch on Etsy. In case you need to talk a call from your editor.We all struggle with the illusion of control.The trope of the damsel in distress has been around for a long, long time. So let's not fridge more women, mm'kay.Friend of the pod Adriana Herrera has some words of wisdom about writing trauma in romance. And also Jen and Adriana did a Facebook Live chat on the topic. (link &amp; audio forthcoming).Pour one out for planes. And cars. And alcohol from mysterious European lands.In case you missed Blood Blow Jobs: please refer to Fated Mates Season One, Lothaire and Rune.Jen looked it up a map. In Reborn Yesterday, the heroine is dropped onto the Belt Parkway, not the Long Island Expressway. Still seems bad.Edward saved Bella from a careening van in the school parking lot. And from a bunch of drunk guys.The Most Dangerous Game is a pretty great short story, classically used to teach person v. person conflict.Morality Chain is a great trope. Look for an upcoming interstitial on this topic soon!In Pretty Woman, she rescues him right back.Preorder signed copies of Daring and the Duke from WORD bookstore in Brooklyn and you'll get swag from Sarah and this special yellow Fated Mates sticker.Books referenced this week:Judith McNaught's&nbsp;PerfectLisa Kleypas's&nbsp;It Happened One Autumn,&nbsp;Devil in Winter&nbsp;&amp;&nbsp;Dreaming of YouJoanna Shupe's&nbsp;The Prince of Broadway&nbsp;&amp;&nbsp;The Devil of DowntownKresley Cole's&nbsp;LothaireMilla Vane's&nbsp;A Heart of Blood And AshesTessa Bailey's&nbsp;Reborn YesterdayEmmy Chandler's HunterClaire Kent's HoldStephenie Meyer's&nbsp;TwilightMolly O'Keefe's&nbsp;Everything I Left Unsaid,&nbsp;The Truth About Him, Burn Down the Night &amp; Wait for ItSarah's&nbsp;Wicked &amp; the Wallflower,&nbsp;Brazen &amp; the Beast,&nbsp;Daring &amp; the Duke,&nbsp;The Rogue Not Taken, and&nbsp;No Good Duke Goes UnpunishedSierra Simone's&nbsp;American QueenKati Wilde's&nbsp;Hellfire RidersHelenKay Dimon's&nbsp;The Secret She KeepsRobert Munsch's&nbsp;The Paper Bag PrincessNana Malone's&nbsp;Protecting the HeiressKresley Cole's&nbsp;The MasterThe RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2020/5/19/s0237-partner-in-danger-interstitial If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where...

It’s a Jen week this week! We’re reading Bet Me this week, the book many people put right on the top of Best Contemporary Romance lists — one of Jen’s favorite books and a book Sarah liked to tell people she loved but has now discovered she’d never actually read. Minerva and Cal are absolutely terrific, as is this book, and we’re having a rollicking conversation about fat rep, about friendships in romance, about food (Sarah’s love language), about shoes, and about why grown people at little league games are a weird thing.Show NotesWe're big fans of Carly Lane-Perry from SyFy Fangirls. We especially like her newsletter, Kissing Books--Jen wrote about grandmothers in romance.Is it criticism if it's all positive?Baby Foot is sold out, but there are lots of other terrifying alternatives you can try.Janet Dailey is famous for plagiarizing Nora Roberts. Before that happened, she wrote the Americana series, with one book set in every state. The one set in Ohio was called The Widow and the Wastrel, and Jen's twitter thread about the book unearthed several early covers for the book.Sarah asked if Jenny Crusie is from Ohio? She is.This was Sarah's first time reading Bet Me, just like it was Jen's first time reading Gentle Rogue.Minerva and Diana probably wish they weren't named after Roman goddesses.So: you want to be an actuary. You want to learn about chaos theory. You're wondering about the gender essentialsim of a book with a title like Men are from Mars; Women are from Venus. You want to learn more about the band Cake.Love Me Tender is a beautiful song.Penn and Teller explain the Cup and Ball trick. Oh, and did you hear Sarah mention it's going to appear in Daring and the Duke? Pre-order from WORD in Brooklyn, and you'll recieve a free limited edition yellow Fated Mates sticker.With these many characters, it might as well be a Robert Atlman movie.Learn about dyslexia, our understanind of which has dramatically changed over time. Erin McCarthy's Hard and Fast (2009) also has a dyslexic hero.Another utterly fantastic family dinner gone wrong scene is in Her Naughty Holiday by Tiffany Reisz.Jeanne Lin knows how to write some really sexy kissing.The fairy godmother is a hallmark of Cinderella, and Sarah's own magical modiste is Madame Hebert.There are so many homages to great rom-coms of the 90s. Diana loves the music from Julia Roberts movies. Elvis Costello's She appeared in Notting Hill, the lead up to the big wedding was like Four Weddings and a Funeral, and of course Diana turns into a Runaway Bride. Min's visit to the magical modiste is like one of the greatest makeover sequences in movies, Pretty Woman. The "I love your shoes" was like The American President. All the wolf references, of course reminded us of Moonstruck. Cynthie's sexy clothes at the little league game were reminiscent of this great scene in Bull Durham.Order buttons from Kelly in Jen's shop, and t-shirts from Jordan Dene.Next up, we'll be reading Three Little Mistakes from Nikki Sloan.Books We Mentioned This Week:Welcome to Temptation&nbsp;by Jennifer CrusieBet Me&nbsp;by Jennifer CrusieThe Widow and the Wastrel&nbsp;by Janet DaileyGentle Rogue&nbsp;by Johanna LindseyDaring and the Duke&nbsp;by Sarah MacLeanHard and Fast&nbsp;by Erin McCarthyThe RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2020/5/12/s0236-bet-me-by-jennifer-crusie If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It’s so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

Sophie Jordan is back again! She’s got a new book out, The Virgin and the Rogue, and she’s back with us to freewheel about old school romances, aphrodisiac plotlines and just what do we mean when we say “taking the finger?” It’s a delightful hour. You won’t regret it.We love having you with us! Subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform and like/review the podcast, please!Next week, we’re reading a book that blooded Jen, Jenny Crusie’s Bet Me! Which you can get bundled with Welcome to Temptation (get this one — it’s $2. cheaper than getting Bet Me alone!) from Amazon, Barnes &amp; Noble, Apple Books, or Kobo … and don’t forget your favorite indie, which is probably shipping books right now and definitely needs your patronage!Also, if you love the music in this or any of our episodes, check out our Spotify playlist, which includes it all!Show NotesWelcome Sophie Jordan, who was last on the pod talking about The Master. Come on five times and you get a Pink Ladies jacket.How are the Introverts faring during the pandemic?Chewy.com will deliver your cat litter and also massive bags of cat food.Annika Martin's Dark Mafia Prince inspired Sophie and Sarah to coin the phrase "taking the finger," which Jen has co-opted with glee. Not sure what counts as worthy of "taking the finger"? The Simone Scale TM is here for you.Jen's "control rods" metaphor is because she's a big old nuclear nerd.Aphrodesiac books we know of: The Virgin and the Rogue; Robin's Lovett's Planet of Desire series takes place on a planet where the atmosphere is an aphrodesiac; in A Taste of Her Own Medicine by Tasha Harrison, the grandmother whips up a "come to me" potion; Johanna Lindsey's Secret Fire sounds bonkers; Wild Card is one by Lora Leigh that Joanna Shupe recommends. Does the shortbread in How the Dukes Stole Christmas count? What else have you got?Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune taught Jen everything she needed to know about the backbone of good criticism, everything else she's making up as she goes along.We talked about bodily autonomy in season one.Sarah talked about watching the trailer for this very terrifying 60s movie The Lady in a Cage.Order Sophie's signed books from Katy Budget Books and Sarah's from WORD in Brooklyn -- including pre-orders for Daring and the Duke.Oh, you want to read Sophie's story about a stablemaster and a maid? No horses were harmed, so it's fine.The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2020/5/5/s0235-freewheeling-with-sophie-jordan-a-taking-the-finger-explainer-episode-W1FeR If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It’s so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

Sometimes there’s a writer who’s so transformative to your experience as a reader that you forget she even was a part of it until you remember, and then you remember every book she’s written. It’s Sandra Brown week here at Fated Mates, and we have loved so many of her romances that we just didn’t know what to read, so strap in, because both Jen and Sarah read Texas! Chase, and then two roads diverged, only to discover some real deep-rooted kinky stuff. Strap in. This one left Eric shellshocked!We love having you with us! — subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform and like/review the podcast, please!In two weeks, we’re reading a book that blooded Jen, Jenny Crusie’s Bet Me! Which you can get bundled with Welcome to Temptation (get this one — it’s $2. cheaper than getting Bet Me alone!) from Amazon, Barnes &amp; Noble, Apple Books, or Kobo … and don’t forget your favorite indie, which is probably shipping books right now and definitely needs your patronage!Also, if you love the music in this or any of our episodes, check out our Spotify playlist, which includes it all!Show NotesJen's been thinking about how we're going to archive the Quarantine Times and so are historians. Steve Ammidown was kind enough to make some videos about archiving for Jen's TikTok.Turns out that tweet about the Spanish epidimologist was not true! Blessed be the fact checkers.Lori Lightfoot is Jen's mayor and her Coronavirus memes are the best.Everyone knows who Tom Brady is, but not many people seem to like him.Sandra Brown was in the first class of authors acquired by Vivian Stephens. Her Loveswept #1 was Heaven's Price, and her Harlequin American Romance #1 was Tomorrow's Promise. Steve Ammidown was also kind enough to dig into the archives and pull out some early interviews with Sandra Brown and about the founding of Loveswept.Benjamin Dreyer definitely wants you to know the difference between the em dash, en dash, and the hypen.The Rana Look cover has the author and McLean Stevenson from MASH as the cover models. Whoa.You can still join the Doubleday Book Club. Who knew!Jeff Wright has a very funny TikTok (which he crossposts to Twitter and Instagram) and a very distinctive way of saying Oh Wow.Sheikhs &amp; Native Americans in romance are full of racist, harmful stereotypes.Jennifer Porter took the hit on Texas! Lucky for us.Oil Futures aren't looking good for the Tyler family; it's not looking great for the rodeo, either.The primordal 80s Don. Not him. That was the 70s.Sunny Chandler's job as a Mardi Gras costume designer seems pretty sweet. Here's a cool interview with Patricia Halsell-Richardson, a woman who designs Mardi Gras costumes in Mobile.A quick primer to the waves of feminism and what people thought about working women in the 80s.Sandra Brown's house was blown up for an episode of Walker, Texas Ranger. A show that is making a comeback, as it turns out.Ann Richards was pretty great, and so is her daughter Cecile.GQ has some instructions on how to be a DILF, but our current favorite is by Katee Roberts.Slow Heat in Heaven has a plot about dogfighting, but Sarah mentioned a romance where the dogs fall in love back when we talked about non-Sandra Brown category romances.The 80s Primetime Soap Operas were a force to be reckoned with.Next time, we'll be talking about Bet Me by Jenny Crusie. For some reason, it's cheaper to buy it bundled with Welcome To Temptation. /rolls eyes at eBook pricing on a 20 year old book.

Tasha Harrison is joining us this week to talk about an old reliable trope — enemies to lovers! This is one of those that we return to again and again — and of course, since it’s a Pandemic, we have to ask…if you’re into enemies to lovers and you haven’t read Kresley Cole’s Immortals After Dark, what are you waiting for? Season 1 is here for you! Otherwise, we’re freewheeling with Tasha on everything from the best Chris to the real inspiration for The Wire, so strap in. It’s a ride!We love having you with us! — subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform and like/review the podcast, please!Next week, we’re reading Sandra Brown! Jen and Sarah will be reading Texas! Chase, but it’s dealers’ choice! Pick your favorite old Sandra Brown or ask us for a rec on Twitter or Instagram! Maybe you want That Rana Look? Or Slow Heat in Heaven? Or French Silk? You can find them wherever books are sold (but the Texas! series isn’t in ebook format yet, sadly) — and don’t forget your favorite indie!Also, if you love the music in this or any of our episodes, check out our Spotify playlist, which includes it all!Show NotesThe internet is so slow.Remember that time when Michelle from Destiny's Child felland then got right back up?The Fraggle Rock Trash Heap.Jen wrote about Enemies to Lovers for Kirkus.Apparently, it's called a Proprietary Eponyms when a brand name becomes a verb or common noun.The question of whether or not fiction should be "timeless" is one that authors deal with in different ways.Robert Redford was a snack. Kevin Costner was named The Sexiest Man Alive, but Jen thinks the only time he was truly sexy was in Bull Durham.Can there ever be a definitive ranking of the Chrises? Jen likes Pine, Sarah likes "the Australian one," and Tasha isn't interested in any of them. Sarah has Chris Evans blindness, but Tasha points out that he's got a little of the wild one in him. Check him checking out this reporter's boots.We just had Christina Lauren on our show! Beautiful Bastard is better than Fifty Shades in a lot of ways, especially for that elevator scene. Either way, it's a good illustration of the myriad problems with a workplace romance.Speaking of Lucy Eden, she and Jen had THE STRANGEST thing happen at the 2019 RWA conference.Babies are complicated in romance and complicated in real life. Maybe what we're really going to see is a boom in "marriage in trouble" romance. Kids are complicated, too, especially if you buy the wrong poop bags.Tasha's dad inspired the character of Norman Wilson on The Wire! The Baltimore paper The Afro-American can be read online. The real life Baltimore Mayor he worked for was Martin O'Malley.These Italian Mayors want you to stay inside. If only all the American governors and mayors were the same. Cardi-B is worried about Coronavirus-- so stay home and stay safe!The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2020/4/21/s0233-enemies-to-lovers-interstitial-with-tasha-harrison-bwm6H If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It’s so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

We’re back to a more recent book that taught Sarah about contemporary romance, Victoria Dahl’s Taking the Heat. Use headphones for this one, because we’re talking about the best BJs in romance, the power of a great sex scene, and how we want you all to be in a sex pantheon. We’re also talking about flawed characters, true cinnamon rolls, and why Victoria Dahl is a fricken great author.We love having you with us! — subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform and like/review the podcast, please!In two weeks, we’re reading Sandra Brown! Jen and Sarah will be reading Texas! Chase, but it’s dealers’ choice! Pick your favorite old Sandra Brown or ask us for a rec on Twitter or Instagram! Maybe you want That Rana Look? Or Slow Heat in Heaven? Or French Silk? You can find them wherever books are sold (but the Texas! series isn’t in ebook format yet, sadly) — and don’t forget your favorite indie!Also, if you love the music in this or any of our episodes, check out our Spotify playlist, which includes it all!Show NotesSure, Sarah's new computer makes her feel like Lightning McQueen, but it's her new version of Scrivener that is the most exciting thing.Jen isn't the only one who likes Starburst jelly beans.Sarah has planner envy. We both love Blackwing pencils. If you also love Blackwing pencils, we highly recommend this video by comedian David Rees on Artisinal Pencil Sharpening. There's also a book! We don't quite understand washi tape, but we're happy for those who love it. If you want to talk planners, Nisha Sharma, Kate Clayborn, and Tracey Livesay are your people.RIP BEA 2020, we look forward to 2021.Jen is addicted to jigsaw puzzles, just like everyone else in the world.The city junk problem is actually pretty great.Victoria Dahl also writes as Victoria Helen Stone. Jen rediscovered contemporary romance with the Tumble Creek series, and also the Fast Track series by Erin McCarthy.Gabe's job was to introduce eBooks to the library. We've come a long way, baby.Jackson, Wyoming is the setting of this book, and apparently there's a lot to do there -- like skiing and rock climbing. It's all outdoorsy, so we can't really speak to it.The big city to small town trope is a cornerstone of romance. It's just not a corner we visit that often.The advice columnist is experiencing a huge resurgence these days, and in the age of the internet, everyone can give advice.Some useful resources if someone you know is sharing their thoughts of suicidal ideation.That Elizabeth Hoyt book with Winter Makepeace is called Thief of Shadows, and it also has a great blow job scene. In case you're into that sort of thing.Watch the Ending of Crocodile Dundee if you've never had the pleasure.If you are looking to try a new podcast app, we both love Overcast. Along with being a great listening device, you can use it to find and share any podcast clips online!Preorder Daring and the Duke! Support your local indie bookstore, Sarah's is WORD in Brooklyn and Jen's is 57th Street Books in Chicago. And everyone's is Love's Sweet Arrow or The Ripped Bodice.Next time, it's choose your own Sandra Brown adventure. We'll both read Texas! Chase, which believe it or not isn't on Kindle, but it is on audio! We'll also post a thread of some other Sandra Brown favorites. And if straight thriller is your thing, try OutFox, which is the one Sarah's mom enjoyed.The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2020/4/14/s0232-taking-the-heat-by-victoria-dahl If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It’s so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

This week, we’ve got two tremendous guests and we’re coming to you from four different time zones! Coronavirus silver lining — time has literally no meaning any longer. We’re talking to the brilliant duo Christina Lauren about their new book, The Honey Don’t List, and forced proximity romances — which is a crowd favorite…or at least was a crowd favorite until we were all forced into forced proximity!Next week, we’re reading Victoria Dahl’s Taking the Heat. We know it’s tough to get it in print, but find it in e at your local library or at: Amazon, Barnes &amp; Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, or in print, mailed from your local indie (which is probably still shipping!)We hope you’re staying safe!Show NotesWelcome Christina Lauren! Check out their new release, a forced proximity romance called The Honey Don't List. Perhpas, like Sarah, you need to understand the "honey do" list.If you're worried about zombies running, there's an app for that.Christina and Lauren said their cover reminds them of Lizzo's big inflatable butt at the 2019 AMAs.Jen wrote a Kirkus column about why "only one bed" is one of the most delightful subsets of the "forced proximity" trope.Amanda Diehl reviews for BookPage and also for Smart Bitches Trashy Books. Here is her inteview with Christina Lauren.Sarah mentioned the great New York City Blackout of 2003, but it turns out a field in Ohio caused the problem."He is poison to everyone but her" is of course a reference back to Sarah's favorite IAD book, Sweet Ruin.All about wheelwrights.Wondering what it's really like for scientists on Antarctica is no place you'd want to be trapped, and certainly no place for a danger bang.Outbreak and Contagion are the top movies on Netflix right now.You can order The Honey Don't List with signed bookplates from Books a Million, not sure directly how to order from the one in Hunstville, AL, but try calling the store. Check out the audiobook of the Honey Don't List, starring Patti Murin and Jon Root.While you're whiling away the hours in self-isolation, don't forget to check out our Spotify playlist, which includes the full versions of every song we've ever used on Fated Mates -- or head over and watch all the music videos of all those songs on our site!The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2020/4/7/s0231-forced-proximity-interstitial-with-christina-lauren If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It’s so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

We are feeling really proud of ourselves this week because Nobody’s Baby But Mine was the perfect isolation read for us both. The reread confirmed to both of us that this is, beat-for-beat, one of the best romcoms of all time. We’re talking problematic plots, the 90s, what we expect from jerk heroes and how Susan Elizabeth Phillips is better at flawed characters than anyone else in the game.We love having you with us! — subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform and like/review the podcast, please!In two weeks, we’re reading Victoria Dahl’s Taking the Heat. We know it’s tough to get it in print, but find it in e at your local library or at: Amazon, Barnes &amp; Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, or in print, mailed from your local indie (which is probably still shipping!)Show NotesAmericans are stress buying chickens. Yes, eggs are more expensive, but this is not a good idea.Speaking of chicks, now that Jen knows what happens to the chicks in the hatchery at the Museum of Science and Industry, she's back on Team Train Room.One day, we'll be able to visit the Butterfuly exhibit at the Museum of Natural History again.Nick Heath and Conor McGahey have figured out a way to keep those announcing skills sharp.Jen's interviewing YA authors on TikTok.When it comes to the SEP-Multiverse, we like the whackadoodle one at the circus (Kiss an Angel), the one with Bobby Tom (Heaven Texas), the one with the lazy golfer (Lady Be Good), and the one with Sugar Beth (Ain't She Sweet).What happened to the Lamont House romance collection?Charlotte Stein has a suggestion for authors of contemporary romance.Last year, Sarah wrote about technology in romance for the Washington Post.We talked about Prisoner of My Desire with Joanna Shupe, which is another book about a heroine who has done something very wrong.Maybe you're looking for actual secret baby books.The one with bad sex is Call Me Irresistible.After 9/11, Saturday Night Live and The Onion had to figure out how to be funny again.Our next book is Taking the Heat (aka Cunnilingus Gabe) by Victoria Dahl.