S06.39: Summer 2024 Reads
School’s out for Jen’s summer and Sarah’s in the final stretch so we’re dreaming of romance beach reads and talking about our massive summer TBR piles! There’s something here for everyone — hot librarians, superheroes, heists, funeral homes, wedding planners and baseball players and F1 drivers and, of course, dukes.
Our next read along is Joanna Shupe’s The Devil of Downtown, from her Uptown Girls trilogy. It’s Jen’s favorite in the series. Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple or your local indie.
If you love a fire hose of romance recommendations, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where 1000 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 we do at patreon.com/fatedmates.
Show Notes
Maybe men shouldn’t cover the WNBA, tbh.
All about The electric slide.
You can follow DodoTheBookBitch on Instagram; follow Sarah there to see the scratch-off TBR poster.
Jacque is one our romancelandia faves, and she has a Pride reading challenge for you all. RomanticallyInclined is on Threads reading books with fewer than 100 reviews all through June.
For reviews in advance of publication, your best bet is Kirkus (Jen reviews for them), but you can also try Booklist or Publisher’s Weekly. We also talked about NetGalley and Edelweiss to discover upcoming books.
If you’re in NYC, don’t miss the launch event for Liana de la Rosa’s Isabel and the Rogue next week! She’ll be at The Ripped Bodice with Sarah and Adriana Herrera…and Sophie Jordan will be there, too! Tickets and info here.
Books Mentioned This Episode
Sponsors
Blue Box Press, publishers of Lexi Blake’s My Royal Showmance
available in print, ebook or audiobook from
Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo or wherever you get your books
Lotte R James, author of A Liaison with Her Leading Lady,
available at in print, ebook, or audiobook from
Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, or wherever you get your books
Ava Miles, author of A Very Un-Shakespeare Romance,
available at in print or ebook with
your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited
06.11: Rend by Roan Parrish & the Lift 4 Autism Auction
This week, we’re doing things a little differently! A while back, we donated an episode for bid in the Lift 4 Autism auction, arranged by friend of the pod, Kennedy Ryan. Listener Julie won (thanks, Julie!) and selected Roan Parrish’s Rend for a deep dive read along, which we were so happy to do! After a shocking amount of Bantr, here it is — we’re talking about POV, about sadness in romances, about the way romance represents loneliness, and more.
We’re also taking a bit of time to recommend a group of books that have autism spectrum rep on page and that we, members of our Discord, and other authors adore. Enjoy!
If you want more Fated Mates in your life, please join our Patreon, which comes with an extremely busy and fun Discord community! Join other magnificent firebirds to hang out, talk romance, and be cool together in a private group full of excellent people. Learn more at patreon.com.
Show Notes
If you’re looking to buy stuff, especially this weekend during holiday-sale-extravaganza, you should probably check out Wirecutter.
You should subscribe to the Bookbub daily email, choose what kinds of books you want and watch your wallet!
Order the best of the year box from Pocket Books Shop in Lancaster, PA. The Best of 2023 list comes out next week!
Books Mentioned This Episode
Sponsors
Sheila Masterson, author of The Lost God,
available at Amazon or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited
and
Carrie Clark, author of A Capacity for Falling in Love,
available at Amazon, or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited
and
Stephanie Rose, author of Raising the Bar,
available at Amazon, or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.
S05.38: Prologues & Epilogues in Romance
It’s hard to believe it’s taken us this long to do a prologue and epilogue episode! We talk about beginnings and endings and why they exist and why writers should ignore every piece of broad strokes nonsense advice people want to throw at them. Jen says “Prologues are plot and epilogues are character,” and blows Sarah’s mind with her genius (jk, Sarah already knew she was a genius). And yes, we talk about babies. Fair warning!
This interstitial idea came from the Fated Mates Discord, which all of our patrons have access to. Join other magnificent firebirds to hang out, talk romance, and be cool together in a private group full of excellent people. Learn more at patreon.com.
Show Notes
You know, Animal Farm is a good book and King Lear is a good play.
There is a very cute family of foxes living in Chicago’s Millennium Park
Apparently this dogs and rosetone thing is a known issue.
Here is an example of the hardline “Prologues are Bad” stance. || ed note: I’m not mad about it, since I have some known hardline stances myself. Ahem. ||
Our list of things good romance prologues do: provide needed backstory, historical information, an inciting incident in the past, an unusual set-up, and showcasing the relationship between the primary characters.
Our list of things romance epilogues do: fan service, bringing the whole gang back together in a series,providing a glimpse into the other character’s POV, The HEA fulfilled, the babylogue, and surprise motherfuckers!
A link to a folder with PDFs of links in show notes.
Books Mentioned this Episode
Sponsors
Adriana Herrera, author of An Island Princess Starts a Scandal,
available now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo
and your local independent bookseller.
and
Juniper Butterworth, author of Bewitched,
available now from Amazon, or with a monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.
and
The Noveltea Shelf Assured Book Box,
available at novelteabooks.co
S05.04: What to Read If You Liked The Love Hypothesis...
Today we start one of our new features for Season Five: If You Liked…Read This! We begin with Ali Hazelwood’s The Love Hypothesis, a book that took romance and BookTok by storm last year when it burst onto the NYT best seller list and hung out there for nearly a year, bringing so many new readers (and Reylos!) to romance.
This one is full of tropes romance loves, and we take them topic by topic, recommending read alikes for everything from grumpy/sunshine, to academic romance, to STEM heroines, to that spicy sex scene that was a delightfully unexpected surprise! That, and we’ve got a bunch of Reylo fic recommended from Ali herself (check the end of show notes)!
Notes
ReyLo is the ship name for Kylo Ren and Rey from the Star Wars movies. And the actor who plays Kylo Ren is Adam Driver.
All about Pansexuality.
Censorship on TikTok is so widespread is has its own wikipedia page, which makes it rife for misinformation about sex and sex education.
Small point of order, Jen was at the LPI (Lunar and Planetary Institute), which is close to the Johnson NASA Space Center in Houston. Obviously, she wasn’t at the JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), because that’s in California.
Ali Hazelwood’s Books
Pining Main Characters
The Professors
STEM Heroines
Great Banter
Microtropes
Reylo Fic recommended by Ali Hazelwood & Adriana Herrera
$15 New, $15 Used, Yours_Truly_Commander_Shepard
Abash the Little Bird, SecretReyloTrash
All Our Days, voicedimplosives
Can’t Turn Off What Turns Me On, audreyii_fic
Coarse and Rough and Irritating, frak-all
Composure, Skyelo_Ren
Count the Rings, lachesisgrimm
Cupcake Wars, crossingwinter
Embers, Sciosophia
The Girl in Terminal B, nightsofreylo
Juniper and Bergamot, SaintHeretical
Lascivious Weapons, CoraRiley
Let Go (Never Let Me Go), crossingwinter
Light Carries on Endlessly, lachesisgrimm
Misprint, JenfysNest
A Night for Firsts, TheAlchemistsDaughter
Shade on a Sunny Street, tigbit
Sharp Dressed Man, audreyii_fic
She Uses Tangerines, Yours_Truly_Commander_Shepard
So Long, My Adversary, Like_A_Dove
Something Beautiful but Annihilating, SecretReyloTrash
Why Don’t You and I Combine, Crossingwinter
Sponsors
This week’s episode of Fated Mates is sponsored by:
Blair Babylon, author of Twisted and Tangled,
available in print and ebook, wherever you get your romance,
and
Emjoy, your audio journey to female pleasure.
Visit letsemjoy.com/mates for your 14 day free trial.
S05.02: Romance Novel Beginnings: Starting With a Bang!
Not that kind of bang! We’re talking about beginnings today, on the first interstitial of Season 5! This one edges into a bit more writing shop talk than usual, but we’re still name checking lots of favorite books, many of which we’ve done deep dives on already! So consider this your nudge to go back and read some great books we’ve talked about! Also, Sarah has Covid, Jen’s on the mend, Fated States is back, and next week, we’re reading Marrying Winterborne.
Thanks to Lucy Leroux, Eva Moore and Torie Jean for sponsoring the episode. Read Making Her His, Caught a Vibe and Finding Gene Kelly now.
Next week, 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
When a book starts in the middle of the action, it’s called in medias res
If you’re in MA, check out the Rom-Con, a full day celebration of “rom”ance at the “Con”cord free public library this Satruday, Sept 24, from 10-3. Tickets are free!
Fated States has returned, and it looks like we’ll be phonebanking every Saturday starting Oct 1 through the election.
Books Mentioned This Episode
Sponsors
This week’s episode of Fated Mates is sponsored by:
Lucy Leroux, author of Making Her His, available in print,
in ebook and via Kindle Unlimited.
Visit authorlucyleroux.com
and
Eva Moore, author of Caught a Vibe, available in print and ebook
at Amazon, Kobo, Apple, and Barnes & Noble
Visit 4evamoore.com
and
Torie Jean, author of Finding Gene Kelly, available in print,
in ebook, and via Kindle Unlimited.
Visit toriejean.com
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
S04.46: Two Girls, One Microphone, Headphones In: Sarah and Jen at Apollycon
You’re getting the full banana this week, y’all, because we were together! Like, actually face to face, across a table in a hotel room! We’re talking Apollycon and Fated Mates Live, answering your questions, recommending fun books, and generally being delightful in your earholes (listen, if we’re not delightful, don’t tell us, we had a great time)!
Thanks to Grand Central Publishing, publishers of Farrah Rochon’s The Hookup Plan, Blair Babylon, author of Rogue, and Amazon’s Kindle Vella, publisher of Audrey Carlan’s The Marriage Auction series, for sponsoring the episode.
We’ve got interstitials and trailblazers coming your way this month, and we will finish out Season 4 as is traditional — with a deep dive episode on Sarah’s summer release, Heartbreaker! Get it at Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, at your local indie, or signed and with special swag (and a Fated Mates sticker!) from her local indie, WORD in Brooklyn!
Show Notes
You can check out The Steam Box, which is a great romance + toy subscription box.
A very funny twitter thread about what Mary Shelley might have to say to Joyce Carol Oates.
Speaking of Joe Manganiello, he was in the news this week after finding out about his racial ancestry on the TV show Finding Your Roots.
Sarah says the best feminist double feature is Magic Mike XXL and Mad Max Fury Road and you should try it and report back. You can not only watch Mad Max Fury Road, you can read about it, too.
Don’t forget to order signed copies of Heartbreaker from Word in Brooklyn.
Books Mentioned This Episode
Sponsors
This week’s episode of Fated Mates is sponsored by:
Forever, publishers of Farrah Rochon’s The Hookup Plan, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, and your local indie.
Visit farrahrochon.com
and
Blair Babylon’s Rogue, free digitally this week at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, and Kobo.
Visit blairbabylon.com
and
Amazon’s Kindle Vella, publisher of Audrey Carlan’s The Marriage Auction series,
available at amazon.com/kindlevella.
