S07.01: The Magnificent (Season) Seven with Kate Clayborn and Adriana Herrera
Seven is heaven! Today, we are celebrating seven seasons of Fated Mates and this genre that we just can't get enough of with two people we just can't get enough of--Kate Clayborn and Adriana Herrera! We're talking about books, about the tropes we love, about the little bits of romance that make it the very very best. We're also thanking you for listening for seven seasons--and also being the very very best.
If you also love romance, 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.
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 on Saturdays between now and Election Day to phonebank with fellow romance lovers, Jen, Sarah, and special guests who will knock your socks off! Learn more and register at fatedmates.net/fatedstates.
Show Notes
Welcome Kate Clayborn and Adriana Herrera, we’ve had both of them on more episodes that we can count. Kate’s latest book is The Other Side of Disappearing, and Adriana’s is An Island Princess Starts a Scandal.
Books Mentioned This Episode
The Sponsors
Katelyn Brehm, author of The Art Collector and The Siren's Song, the first two books in the Demons Among Us series, available in print or ebook.
Blue Box Press, publishers of Kristen Ashley's Embracing the Change, available in print, ebook, and audiobook from Amazon.
Avery Maxwell, author of Love Notes and Lifelines, available in print or ebook or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.
Buns & Roses Romance Tea for Literacy, Sunday, October 20th, in Dallas, TX. Proceeds go to the Richardson, TX Adult Literacy Center. Get tickets and more information.
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.
S04.09: Best Romance Novels of 2021
It’s time for our favorite episode of the year — the one when we topple TBR piles! It’s our Best Books of 2021 episode — ten books that got us through this wild, not always great year—books with fabulous heroines, heroes who aren’t sure about feelings, delicious sexy bits, and stories that swing for the fences. You will not be disappointed.
Buy the Fated Mates Best of Book Pack in one fell swoop from our friends at Old Town Books in Alexandria, VA, and get eight of the books on the list, a Fated Mates sticker and other swag! Order the book box as soon as you can to avoid the snafus arising all over from supply chain issues.
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!
Our next read-alongs will be the Tiffany Reisz Men at Work series, which is three holiday themed category romances. Read one or all of them: Her Halloween Treat, Her Naughty Holiday and One Hot December.
Best Romance Novels of 2021
Show Notes
You can order the Fated Mates Best of 2021 box from Old Town Books in Alexandria.
The supply chain is a mess, especially for books.
Why does it always seem like cosmetics companies are discontinuing your favorite products?
“Big mistake, huge,” is a quote from Pretty Woman, of course.
Dario is a psychopath, but Jen wasn’t about to let that stop her.
Everyone loves Schitt’s Creek, but you don’t need to know about Alexis Rose to enjoy It Happened One Summer.
A Star is a Born has a truly terrible ending, no matter which version of the movie you watched.
Author Aviva Blakeman wrote some really thought-provoking threads about groveling and the grand gesture. Jen still loves the grovel, but Aviva's threads are a great reminder of how many ways there are to write a romance.
A Carl Sandburg poem about the fog. You know how Jen is.
Books From Our Friends
S04.01: Welcome to Season Four: Trailblazers and More
Season Four starts today, you Magnificent Firebirds!
Season One gave us a full lAD deep dive (if you’ve never read Kresley Cole’s Immortals After Dark, general existential malaise 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 was during a pandemic, so just let us live (but also, there was a Roy Kent episode)!
Now, Season Four is here, and we have — dare we say — a plan? We’re going to deep dive on books that are new and fabulous, old and transformative, and generally reveal how vast and magnificent the romance pool can get. We’ve got some great interstitials planned, including some fabulous, brilliant guests on deck…and when Munro is released, we’ll (obviously) drop everything and read with you!
But we’ve got something new and different to add to the mix — a collection of interviews with trailblazers of the genre—the people who have built the romance house over the last fifty years. We’re already blown away by who we have on deck, with many many more to come! Stick with us, it’s going to be a terrific ride.
We begin our read alongs in two weeks with a delicious book that did not bring romance the bluestocking, but definitely made sure we all knew who she was. It’s Amanda Quick’s Ravished—which Sarah describes as “Harriet, in a cave, with a rake.” It’s great. Get reading at: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, or at your local indie.
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 follow in your favorite podcasting platform!
Show Notes
The only Fated Mates episode where one of us was absent was back when Sarah was sick and Kate came on to talk about sickbed scenes--It was March of 2020 and we weren’t as Coronavirus-aware as we thought.
Keeping our fingers crossed that the FDA will approve the vaccination for kids between 5 and 12.
Health care workers are facing increasingly hostile and frightening aggression from anti-vaxxers.
We were ahead of the ball on calling Ted Lasso as a romance. You should follow Phil Dunster, the actor who plays Jamie Tartt, on Twitter. Last week, Roy and Jamie had a heartbreaking and perfect moment.
All about gaffing and scatting.
Hannah Waddingham is from the theater world, so maybe that’s why we didn’t realize her brilliance before this show. Apparently we just didn’t realize she was on Game of Thrones, which sounds terrible.
Kresley sent a newsletter and let everyone know that she might have news this month about Munro and the next book in the Arcana chronicles.
You can change the time zone of your Kindle, but I don’t think the books arrive any earlier.
The Flame and the Flower was published in 1972. We will not do a read along of the book, but we will talk about its influence on the genre.
Julie Moody-Freeman, host of the Black Romance Podcast, was a guest on Fated Mates at the end of season two.
Here’s a New Yorker profile of Nora Roberts from 2009, and a People magazine story on Danielle Steel from 2014.
Many of romance's writers and editors have already passed. Two we mentioned: Carolyn Nichols, the original editor for Loveswept, died in 2017, and legendary author Johanna Lindsey died in 2019.
Our first season four read-along will be Ravished by Amanda Quick.
