S07.05: Some Light Kidnapping: Restraints are for Amateurs
An episode for the old school romance readers in the audience, we're talking about kidnapping this week! A trope that either absolutely works for readers (aka us) or absolutely doesn't, we talk about why that is, how the original romances of the 80s and 90s installed these buttons and how we still see the bones of old school kidnapping in delicious romances of today. That, and Jen reminds Sarah of books she wrote one time.
If you want more romance content, maybe you want to join our Patreon, where you get another episode from us each month, and access to the incredible readers and listeners and brilliant people on the Fated Mates discord! Support us and learn more at fatedmates.net/patreon.
Next week, our first read along of Season 7 will be Molly O'Keefe's Everything I Left Unsaid duology, selected by Jen which despite the first book being a cliffhanger should not surprise you because she contains multitudes. The second book is The Truth About Him. Read them both and get ready for Jen to talk to you for hours. You will thank us.
Also! We're back on the phonebanking train this election season! Join us Saturdays between now and Election Day to phonebank with fellow romance lovers. Jen & Sarah are joined by special guests who will knock your socks off! Learn more and register at fatedmates.net/fatedstates. If phonebanking isn't your thing, we're also raising money for downticket house and senate races, because state legislatures may not be sexy, but they sure hold all the power. Learn more, and give what you can at fatedmates.net/givingcircle.
Show Notes
Learning the Tropes has covered every Kleypas book if you’re in the mood for that.
Next week, our read along is Everything I Left Unsaid and The Truth About Him by M. O’Keefe, so get to reading.
Books Mentioned This Episode
The Sponsors
June Westwood, author of Grave Temptation, available in print, ebook, audiobook or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.
KL Parsons, author of Love By a Landslide, available in print and ebook, or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.
Jenni Bara, author of The Foul Out, available in print and ebook, or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.
S06.40: Siblings in Romance Novels
We’re talking about brothers and sisters as secondary characters in romance today — by popular demand from listeners, it’s our sibling episode! We get to the bottom of why we all love secondary siblings—the overbearing olders, the wild child middles, the delightful youngers, the equally handsome and broad shouldered boys, the snarky, stunning girls, and everyone else who’s ever caught our eye and made us say “now where’s there book?!” We tackled complicated relationships, shared history and the perfect fantasy of family that romance delivers so well.
Next week, we’re reading Joanna Shupe’s The Devil of Downtown, from her Uptown Girls trilogy. There are sisters! Also, it’s Jen’s favorite in the series and an absolute banger. Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple or your local indie.
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 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
We’ve done twins, and we’ve done siblings’s best friend, but this time we’re talking about plain old siblings in romance. We’re definitely not talking about anything Tangled Lies adjacent this time.
If you want the deep dives we mentioned, they are Preferential Treatment, Gentle Rogue and Devil’s Bride.
Illinoise is playing on Broadway if you’re in New York this summer.
They’ll be a meet-up at Steamy Lit Con for us with our listeners, details coming soon!
There’s a dark romance podcast called Trigger Warning you might want to check out, and in case you want to read that romance with mummification but no cheating, it’s Dead Love by Audrey Rush
The Orphan X book with the evil killer siblings is Prodigal Son.
In case you have ever wondered about the provenance of the beloved Fated Mates phrase, “take the finger” this is an episode where Sarah talks about the book that inspired it.
Books Mentioned This Episode
Sponsors
Frederick Smith, author of One and Done,
available at in print or ebook from
Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, or wherever you get your books
Aethon Press, publishers of SK Horton’s The Concealed,
available in print, ebook or audiobook, or with
your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited
Avon Books, publishers of Alexandria Bellefleur’s Truly, Madly, Deeply,
available at in print, ebook, or audiobook from
Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, or wherever you get your books
S04.38: These Books Bang: The Sexiest Romance Novels
Headphones in, y’all. We have sixty-nine (that’s right, 69, by pure unplanned luck!) recommendations for you this week — everything from bonkers to bloody to blazing hot…naughty bits that we believe deliver the whole banana (and sometimes no banana at all, if you know what we mean). Pencils ready…your time starts…now.
This week’s episode is thanks to Julie Block, the Fated Mates listener who won an episode of the podcast in the Romance for Reproductive Justice auction sponsored by The Meet Cute Romance Bookshop and Fizzery in La Mesa, CA. Julie made a generous donation to the Collective Power Fund at the National Network of Abortion Funds, and in doing so, got to pick the episode topic — Books that Bang!
Thanks to Melissa McTernan, author of Married to the Fae Queen, the second book in the Fairy Realm series, for sponsoring the episode. Thanks, also, to Lumi Labs, creators of Microdose Gummies. Visit microdose.com and use code FATEDMATES to get free shipping & 30% off your first order.
Show Notes
Thanks to Julie Block for suggesting this episode and donating to abortion funds for the Romancing for Reproductive Justice Auction, sponsored by The Meet Cute Romance Bookshop & Fizzery, opening fall of 2022 in La Mesa, CA. It is not too late to donate to the Collective Power Fund at the National Network of Abortion Funds.
While we name checked some Fated Mates classic recommendations like Tessa Bailey, Jessa Kane, and London Hale, somehow we recorded this episode without once mentioning the name of Charlotte Stein. So raise a glass to her and all the other authors writing super hot books that we forgot to mention.
Probably you want to see Jen Porter's illustrations of the drilldo. (PS. Protip: you might put "drilldo" in the search field of twitter thinking that Jen's tweets will come up, and that would be a mistake unless you want to see it real and in action. Ask me how I know.)
The WTF Bucket
Bold & Bloody
Fun & Toys
The More the Merrier
Bondage and (chastity) Belts
The Bad Boy Mystique
Hot Historicals
Just Add Milk
Consent & DubCon
Voyeurism & Exhibitionism
I Have Tremendous Upper Body Strength
Oh, no! Feelings!
Just F'ing Hot
Sponsors
This week’s episode of Fated Mates is sponsored by:
Melissa McTernan, author of Married to the Fae Queen, the second book
in the Fairy Realm series, available in print and through Kindle Unlimited.
and
Lumi Labs, creators of Microdose Gummies
Visit microdose.com and use the code FATEDMATES
for 30% off and free shipping on your order
S03.10: Mafia Romance Novels with Nisha Sharma
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 Notes
Welcome 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.
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 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 on the Podcast
S02.35: Freewheeling with Sophie Jordan: The "Taking the Finger" Explainer
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 & 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 Notes
Welcome Sophie Jordan, who was last on the pod talking about The Master. Come on five times and you get a Pink Ladies jacket.
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.
18.5 : Antiheroes in Romance
It seems only right that our final Season One interstitial be about antiheroes because we’ve pretty much been a fancast for antiheroes since the start of this podcast! Let us talk to your earholes about wicked heroes and why we love them!
Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in your favorite podcasting platform so that you know the moment we start Season Two (in early September)!
Next week, it’s the end! WHAT HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?! We’re talking Sian (HORNS HORNS HORNS HORNS HORNS HORNS HORNS) & Lila with Wicked Abyss, featuring the literal King of Hell, and the Queen who takes fully no shit from him. Get Wicked Abyss at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, or at your local indie!
Show Notes
What is the appeal of the antihero?
Fangirl Jeanne wrote a really interesting thread about why she ships villains and what it means to believe in an HEA for everyone.
The Sierra Simone Scale seems relevant here.
We here at Fated Mates love a grovel.
Morality Chain is a very specific trope.
Jen's goodreads search for books with criminal heroes versus criminal heroines.
Take a minute to donate to RAICES because we do have concentration camps on our border, and it's so hard to know what to do about it.
Jen and Sarah talked about female antiheroes in pop culture: Catherine Zeta Jones in Traffic and Mary Louise Parker in Weeds.
Jen's Rita thread about how white guys get to be anitheores.
Movie time references: Sarah is Italian, so since there are no Italian mafia guys anymore, watching The Godfather is the only choice. The "one armed man" reference is to The Fugitive.
What are we talking about when we talk about billionaire money.
Molly Fader, Molly O'Keefe, and M. O'Keefe are three pen names for one author who really knows her branding. #Blessed
Wicked Abyss in next and then...we're done with season one. Commence mourning.