S05.37: Fated Mates Live
In March, we had the absolute best time with some of our favorite people at Fated Mates LIVE in Brooklyn! Here, for your enjoyment, is the recording of the wacky, wild night, which we spent with 250 Magnificent Firebirds, including: Tessa Bailey, Andie Christopher, Adriana Herrera and Joanna Shupe, who took the opportunity to announce that evening that she also writes mafia romance as Mila Finelli (*GASP!*)!
We cannot stress this enough: Headphones in!
We were also joined by Amanda Litman, the co-founder and co-executive director of Run for Something, and by Erin Leafe, the host of our sister podcast, Learning the Tropes! Special shout out to Producer Pat from Learning the Tropes, who helped Eric get the whole event recorded beautifully. You can read more about the whole event at Brooklyn Magazine! [PDF here]
We’re approximating the experience of Fated Mates Live every day over on the Fated Mates Discord, which you can access by becoming a Patron of the podcast! Find out more at: fatedmates.net/patreon.
Books By Our Guests
Books Recommended By Our Guests
Bonus! Fated Mates Live in Alexandria, VA
We're on hiatus until September 14, when we'll start Season 5, but you won’t miss us, because this week, we have the recording of Fated Mates Live, our first-ever in-person live! Headphones in for this one, y’all.
We were joined in Alexandria, VA by Kate Clayborn, Adriana Herrera, Tracey Livesay, Naima Simone, Ali Hazelwood, Diana Quincy, Andie J. Christopher, and Sophie Jordan, and we had the best time! This audio is imperfect, but there’s so much laughter here — we hope you’ll join us for the next one (which will hopefully be in the spring)…stay tuned on that front!
Be sure to subscribe to the podcast in your favorite podcasting app so you know the moment we return.
Thanks to Fox & Wit, creators of the Foxglove Special Edition Book Box of Kennedy Ryan's Before I Let Go, available for preorder now. The box comes with a special edition cover of Before I Let Go, a signed book plate, and a letter from Kennedy herself.
Season 5 starts in two weeks! Our first read along of the season is Lisa Kleypas’s Marrying Winterborne. Get it at Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, or at your local indie.
Show Notes
Our first in-person Live event was a smashing success! We welcomed Kate Clayborn, Adriana Herrera, Tracey Livesay, Naima Simone, Ali Hazelwood, Diana Quincy, Andie J. Christopher, and Sophie Jordan. Thank you to Old Town Books for partnering with us on this event.
Thank you to the audience for their participation! We used a platform called Menti, which turned the screen behind us into an interactive platform (like an Instagram Live) where our audience could respond and comment. If we all have a reaction to something you can't hear....it's because someone in the audience said something brilliantly funny using Menti.
The book Sarah accidentally interstitialed during the recording is C.M. Nascosta's Sweet Berries.
Sponsor
This week’s episode of Fated Mates
is sponsored by:
Fox & Wit,
Book subscription boxes delivered right to your door.
Get a beautiful, exclusive edition of Kennedy Ryan’s Before I Let Go
from their Foxglove series of romances at foxandwit.com
S03.51: Mistresses, Courtesans, and Cheating in Romance with Adriana Herrera
Adriana Herrera, a FIVE-TIMER, joins us this week to talk about the third-rail of romance…infidelity! We’re talking about cheating, and about all the other bits related to it: mistresses, courtesans, illegitimate children, sex work…and get your pencils ready because (of course) we’re toppling TBRs with this one.
Don’t miss Fated Mates LIVE! to celebrate the release of Sarah’s next book, BOMBSHELL! Join us and some of our very favorite people on August 24th! Tickets are a copy of the book, and available at five participating romance friendly bookstores. Get them here!
Speaking of BOMBSHELL, it is our next read along! Get it at Amazon, Apple Books, B&N, Kobo, or Bookshop.org, or at one of the participating romance-friendly bookstores hosting the Fated Mates Live/Virtual Bombshell Launch! Orders will come with a Fated Mates Sticker!
Thank you, as always, for listening! Please follow us on your favorite podcasting app, and if you are up for leaving a rating or review there, we would be very grateful.
Show Notes
Welcome to five-timer Adriana Herrera, our very own Rizzo, and her Pink Lady jacket is on the way. PS. It was only in working on these show notes that Jen realized that Rizzo’s first name is Betty.
The phrase “safe romance” is used in online spaces to describe books without a single molecule of infidelity energy.
Infidelity in evangelical christianity (and everywhere, honestly) often places the blame on the wife if her husband strays and also on “the evil other woman” -- in this model, you know who’s not to blame? Men. And that’s pure patriarchy.
Lavender wasn’t invented because it’s a plant and its known history dates back 2500 years.
Courtesan culture was inextricably tied to colonialism in India, in China, and in the USA.
Summer Brennan’s patreon about The Book of Courtesans. Hallie Rubenhold's Covent Garden Ladies, which is the book that inspired the Hulu TV show Harlots, is about Harris's List of London "working girls."
The Spanish word for wife is esposa, which means handcuffs or manacles, while the word for mistress is amante, which means beloved.
We have had some deep dive episodes where there is infidelity: Waking Up with the Duke by Lorraine Heath and Ravishing the Heiress by Sherry Thomas
There are so many bastards in historical romance, partly because it’s an easy on-ramp for creating a character who is an outsider.
Ethical non-monogamy is the practice of talking to your partner(s) about the boundaries of your relationship. Polyamorous and Open relationships would fall into this category.
On Maryse’s Book Blog, there was a 2015 post about cheating in romance, and most of the titles are self-published and indie.
Sarah talked about Lorenzo Lamas and Dynasty and Jen and her brother Mike talked about Santa Barbara on Adriana’s Instagram Live conversations about telenovelas and soap operas.
We are having a live episode of Fated Mates to celebrate the launch of Bombshell on August 24th at 7 eastern, to get a ticket, you'll need to buy a copy from one of these indie bookstores. (If you already pre-ordered from WORD in Brooklyn, you'll get log in details in an email.)
S03.27: Retellings in Romance Novels with Kate Clayborn
We are joined by the fabulous Kate Clayborn — the first in the Fated Mates five-timer club! — to talk about about retellings in romance and to celebrate the launch of her new book, Love At First, which you can get wherever books are sold. We talk about the difference between retellings and homages, about Shakespeare and mythology and retellings of classic texts versus modern ones. And of course, we fill your TBR.
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.
Next week, we're back with a read along of Mary Balogh's A Matter of Class, a short historical novel. Get it for only $2.99 at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo or Google Books.
Show Notes
Welcome Kate Clayborn, our first five-timer. She was with us for the Best Friend’s Sibling Interstitial, Kresley’s The Player, the Sickbed Scenes Interstitial, Derek Craven Day 2021, and today’s interstitial on Romance Retellings.
Texas and the rest of America got hit with some espically bad winter weather this February. This is climate change.
Kate released Love at First this week, which is an homage to Romeo and Juliet. Kate’s 2020 book, Love Lettering, is an Overdrive read. Get it today with no wait!
Dr. Jill Biden loves Valentine’s Day.
JK Rowling is a problem, and it’s changed the way many Harry Potter fans think about her books.
Yes, yes, the English Teacher memes are so funny. Well take that.
Tl;dr: archetypes are about character,while retellings are about plot.
In Where Dreams Begin, Zachary Bronson is a hero that follows the Beast archetype, and Jen saw it in the scene where Holly first enters his house.
Story can be a safe way to explore terrifying ideas about society and people. For example, both La Llorona and Medea are about mothers who kill their children, but have a kind of distance that the story of Andrea Yates does not.
Dr. Jennifer Lynn Barnes writes about storytelling and the universal ID.
Maybe you don't know about the story of Salman Rushdie and the fatwa against him for his novel The Satanic Verses.
Our next read along episode will be A Matter of Class by Mary Balogh.
Music
Retellings from Literature
Retellings of Fairy Tales
Retellings from Pop Culture
