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

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S03.13: Fated States Author Recommendations

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.


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