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
S06.36: The Romance Matriarchy: Moms, Grandmothers, and Aunties
We don’t often talk about secondary characters in romance, but this week, we’re talking about the women who provide wisdom, council and laughs in romance—moms, grandmothers and aunties! We talk about the shocking epidemic of orphaned main characters in romance, about how extended family provides nuance in the books, and about our very favorite mothers, grandmothers, aunties and adopted older ladies in books.
Thanks to all the women who provide care and sage advice out in the world. We appreciate you.
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.
Happy anniversary to our founding Patreon members — May marks one year of our Patreon and our Discord! We love you a whole lot. 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
Crush, the new apple ad is honestly so bleak, and the backlash was so extreme that they pulled the ad. Look how easily they could have made it cool, though.
The Matriarchy isn’t just a dream, as it turns out.
The Gaza Evacuation Fund Auction raised $160,000 and it’s not too late to donate to one of the funds of people trying to get to safety.
Books Mentioned This Episode
Sponsors
Elle Kennedy, author of The Dixon Rule,
available in print, ebook or audio from
Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo & your local indie
Sophie Sullivan, author of Love Naturally,
available in print or ebook from
Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo & your local indie
Aethon Books, publisher of A.N. Skye’s Keeper of Scarlet Petals,
available in print or ebook, or with
your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited
S06.27: Enemies to Lovers Romance
A classic among classics, we’re talking enemies to lovers this week! We get to the bottom of what we think of as “enemies,” and how it differs from “rivals-to-lovers” and “friends-to-enemies-to-lovers” and “friends-to-lovers” (jk, we’ll never understand friends-to-lovers). We revisit some of our very favorite romances, talk about stakes, about impossible situations, and about how sexy hating someone can be.
There are a handful of tickets left for Fated Mates LIVE in Brooklyn, NY, on March 23, at the gorgeous William Vale Hotel! Join us, along with Kate Clayborn, Lauren Billings (one-half of Christina Lauren), Nikki Payne, and a roomful of other romance-obsessed listeners for a night of romance shenanigans at a live taping of Fated Mates! While we’re never sure quite how it’s going to go, we can guarantee there will be books, booze and bantr…and you’ll leave full of joy from all the fun. We’ve even got The Ripped Bodice on hand to sell books, and the room will be available for hanging with other Firebirds after the live! Preorder Kate’s The Other Side of Disappearing three days early (and books from everyone else!) from The Ripped Bodice—links, tickets and more info are at fatedmates.net/live. Preorders for stickers and swag are available at the Romancelandia Shop
If you just can’t get enough of us, consider joining our Patreon! You get an extra episode of banter every month and access to the Fated Mates discord, full of people who love romance as much as we do. It’s pretty great, we have to say. Learn more at patreon.com/fatedmates.
Our next read along is Heather Guerre’s Preferential Treatment, one of Sarah’s favorite romances of 2022. Get it at Amazon, or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.
Show Notes
Pandora Ravenel owns a boardgame company, but I don’t think she made ouija boards. You should watch Only You (1994), directed by Norman Jewison who also directed Moonstruck! Don’t forget how charming Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is, a very different vibe from Ripper Street.
Jen thought about Kiss an Angel by Susan Elizabeth Phillips when she read an article about the updating of the gorilla enclosure at the Brookfield Zoo. IYKYK, and if you don't, listen to Jen on Learning the Tropes.
Sarah said there's only one friends-to-lovers romance she likes. It's Christina Lauren's Josh & Hazel's Guide to Not Dating.
Books Mentioned This Episode
Sponsors
Blue Box Press, publisher of Skye Warren’s Blue Moon,
available at Amazon.
and
Parker S. Huntington & L. J. Shen, authors of My Dark Desire,
available in audio, at Amazon, or with your subscription to Kindle Unlimited
Bonus! Fated Bosoms/Heaving Mates Crossover
We’re still on our break (back next week!) but this week we have two episodes coming to your earholes! Today, we’re releasing our crossover episode with the brilliant Melody and Erin of the Heaving Bosoms podcast to talk Burn For Me by Ilona Andrews!
Burn for me is a longtime favorite of Jen’s and the first book in the Hidden Legacy series and Sarah deeply regrets taking so long to read it because WOW IT IS GREAT. Here is one for the slow burn lovers in the group!
We get to the bottom of sexy times at the mall, whether or not slow burns and lawn mowing go together, and we talk a lot about waterbeds. You’re going to love it.
Head over and subscribe to Heaving Bosoms!
Season 5 starts 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.
S04.40: Royalty Romance #2
We were going to do a deep dive this week, but then we read the book and decided that was a hard pass! So, we do a very shallow dive and then get to the good stuff this week…talking about Royal romances! We talk about the strange fascination the world has with royalty, about the way fake countries hit the spot, and about why it’s so rare to see a gender-swapped Cinderella story. Sarah also offers a peek at her newest research project, preliminarily titled—Alexbastian: Is Name, In Fact, Destiny? It’s better than a deep dive, we promise.
Fated Mates Live, in person is happening — if you have tickets to the live show in Alexandria, VA on July 30th — let us know on our Twitter thread (and find friends!). If you didn’t get a ticket, but want to join the wait list, you can do that at Old Town Books!
Thanks to Adriana Herrera, author of A Caribbean Heiress in Paris, 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
Turns out we are not reading The Dragon and the Jewel…because yikes. Eleanor Plantangenet and Simon de Montfort were real people, but this 1991 romance is too problematic for a full discussion.
Yes, we talked about royalty in romance with Nana Malone back in season 1, but there’s always fresh content!
The Oprah interview with Prince Harry & Meghan Markle is worth a watch, if you can stand all the commercials.
The launch event for American Royalty will be in Richmond on June 28, 2022. Go check it out— Tracey will be joined by Kate Clayborn.
There is a real His Royal Highness Prince Sebastian in Luxembourg, if you’re into that kind of thing.
Order an avatar button from The Romancelandia Shop! This is a great way to announce your presence at in-person events and help people find you. It really works!
Books We Mentioned this Episode
Sponsors
This week’s episode of Fated Mates is sponsored by:
Adriana Herrera, author of A Caribbean Heiress in Paris, available at
Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo or your local independent bookseller.
Visit adrianaherreraromance.com
and
Lumi Labs, creators of Microdose Gummies
Visit microdose.com and use the code FATEDMATES
for 30% off and free shipping on your order
S04.31: Vampire Romance Novels
At the request of Instagram, we’re talking Vampires today! We’re doing some deep cuts, returning to Kresley Cole for a minute or two, and then digging into worldbuilding, morality chain, why these books lend themselves to massive series, and ultimately…why we love these big toothy jerks. If you’re a paranormal reader, get your pencils ready — especially if you’re new to it, because we’re taking everyone way back to the beginnings of the subgenre!
Thanks to Kelly Cain, author of An Acquired Taste, and Alyxandra Harvey, author of How to Marry an Earl, for sponsoring the episode.
Our next read along is Julie James’s Something About You. Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, or at your local bookstore.
Show Notes
We’ve talked about vampires on past episodes: Kresley’s IAD vampires (Conrad is our favorite); Dark Lover by JR Ward; and last fall, we had Jenny Nordbak on for a monster interstitial.
If you’re in Brooklyn and looking for a bookstore that carries lots of PNR, try The Bookmark Shoppe.
In film, after 9/11, the rise of the anti/superhero to reconcile America's participation in a war. After the economic downturn, it was the rise of zombies to justify the way America was leaving poor people behind. And in this TikTok by Virgolikebeyonce, she suggests we're about to see media that reconciles our obsession with work/capitalism. We at FM have been noting a rise of the regular, blue-collar hero, which would track with this.
A hegemony explainer.
Tessa Bailey hit #1 on both the USAToday and New York Times bestseller lists with Hook, Line, and Sinker.
The Sherilyn Kenyon situation is truly weird.
Even eBooks can go out of print, for example, The Faustian Brothers series by Evie Byrne.
Our next read along is Something About You by Julie James.
Vampire Romances
Vampire TV Shows
Sponsors
This week’s episode of Fated Mates is sponsored by:
Kelly Cain, author of An Acquired Taste,
available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo or wherever you get your ebooks.
Visit kellycainauthor.com
and
Alyxandra Harvey, author of How to Marry an Earl,
available at Amazon.
Visit alyxandraharvey.com
S04.20: "Break In Case of Emergency" Romance
Thanks to romance reading sisters Cait & Kara for their donation to the Romance for Haiti auction last year, and for this fabulous episode idea! We’re talking about the books we’re saving for the darkest of dark hours…the ones we know will be warm blankets of joy. What are the books we keep under glass, for serious break in case of emergency moments? We talk about them here. Also, Eric has informed us that this episode gave him big “up is down vibes” so here we go!
There are some big secrets here, too, so please share your own! Let us know which books you’re keeping in the vault by filling out the “What’s in the Vault” form on the main page of the website.
Our next read-along will be Kresley Cole’s Munro, Book 18 of the Immortals After Dark series. You’ve probably heard of this series because Fated Mates began as an IAD fan podcast. You can take the girls out of Monster Mash, but you can’t take Monster Mash out of the girls…so we’re reading Munro, obviously. Stay tuned for information on that episode…but also, if you’re inclined to go back to the beginning, here you go. Preorder Munro at Amazon, Apple, Kobo, or B&N.
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
The Romance for Haiti auction was last fall. You can still support Haiti relief efforts via:
- Ayiti Ademen: Haiti Tomorrow: providing disaster relief
- St. Boniface Hospital: providing medical relief
- Ayiti Community Trust: providing social services/long term recovery
How much does it cost to move your books?
Our next read along is Kresley Cole's Munro. Stay tuned for more information!
S03.52: Assassins and Hitmen in Romance Interstitial
Surprising absolutely no one, we love an assassin here at Fated Mates! We basically love any character who has been through the wringer and also can kill a man fourteen different ways before dinner. Even better if it’s a heroine, and she’s been hired to kill the hero (or vice versa). Anyway, we’re talking about why these books (and so! many! movies!) scratch that particular itch for us. Spoiler: It’s beautiful people blowing things up, obvi.
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
The game Assassin’s Creed first came out in 2007, and now there are so many different versions, and in many of them, you can garrote someone if you are so moved. Sarah's favorite is Assassin's Creed Syndicate, which is set in Victorian London.
We mentioned so many movies and TV shows with assassins: John Wick, The Bourne Identity, Gunpowder Milkshake (and its many weapons), Suicide Blonde, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Kill Bill, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, James Bond, Black Widow, Le Femme Nikita, The Saint, Grosse Pointe Blank, Desperado, and The Witcher.
More about some of the super camera angles we are seeing at the Tokyo Olympics.
Jack Reacher isn’t as assassin as much as he’s a vigilante. Also, he doesn’t know how to use a washing machine.
Rege-Jean Page signed up to make a remake of The Saint, and Donald Glover and Phoebe Waller-Bridge are remaking Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and we’re not sad about any of it.
Iocane powder is from The Princess Bride, of course.
Listen when you read Sweet Ruin you'll definitely want to go back to season 1 and listen to our deep dive epsiode. Because it is great.
We also talked a bunch about romances with paid killers in the Spy Romance and Mafia Romance interstitials.
As Jen was working on show notes, she discovered the book Killing Sarai was adapted into a Spanish language action movie called “En Brazos de un Asesino,” which translates to “In the Arms of an Assassin.” You can stream it on any number of services, including Amazon Prime Video.
Check out all the programming for Bookstore Romance Day, August 21-22, 2021.
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.)
S03.31: Morality Chain Romance
We’re so thrilled to be talking morality chain romance! We’ve owed this episode to Katee Robert for nearly a year, and we have no excuses for how long this has taken, except that time in 2020 was a flat circle. Here, we get down to business—we tackle the definition of Morality Chain, and how it differs from Dark Romance, how it connects with mafia, criminals, pirates, highwaymen, and the original Alpha.
Check all your Content Warnings before you begin with these books!
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. We hope you’re reading the best books this week.
Next week, we’re reading Alexis Daria’s You Had Me At Hola, one of our Best Books of 2020! Find it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, or Apple Books.
Show Notes
One very important note: we highly recommend doing a thorough search for content warnings for all the books and movies we mention this week.
We love Katee Robert, who we had on as a guest for the menage interstitial. Katee bid on this item at Kennedy Ryan’s Lift 4 Autism auction. It happens every spring, so keep an eye on this page for the 2021 auction if you’d like to pick the topic for a future interstitial.
This week, Katee released Seducing My Guardian, the 4th book in her SUPER HOT Touch of Taboo series. If you'd like to read a morality chain romance written by Katee, we recommend The Bastard's Bargain.
“In springtime, the only pretty ring time” is from Shakespeare’s As You Like It. It's also possible Sarah knows it from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. She would like you to believe that it's from the former, but we'll leave you to draw your own conclusions. Either way, “If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it,” is from Beyonce.
As it turns out, Chicago is a great town for beach volleyball.
It’s hard not to talk about morality chain & dark romance together, but we think they are inverse tropes. The internet definition of Morality Chain is “is a character who is the reason another character is Good.” Jen and Sarah’s current definition is that in morality chain romance, the Love Interest pulls a hero towards humanity and goodness, while in dark romance, the love interest is pulled down into the hero’s lawless world.
Some examples in pop culture are Spike from Buffy and maybe Barney in How I Met Your Motherr. Also, check out a movie called The Professional, where a child (played by Natalie Portman!) befriends the assassin next door. The Jason Statham one with a kid is called Safe.
The Hero’s Journey is very common character archetype in literature and pop culture, but Sarah and Jen are both very taken with Gail Carriger’s description of the alternative archetype, The Heroine’s Journey.
If you want more about morality chain, so many of Kresley’s books from The Immortals After Dark series will work, so please listen to season one! Our favorites are Dark Needs at Night’s Edge, Lothaire, and Sweet Ruin.
We were divided on whether the character has to be a danger to others in order to qualitfy as morality chain. In the Gamemaker series: The Professional is about an assassin who is a danger to others, while in The Player he’s only a danger to himself.
Jen Porter wrote a long thread about what she thinks of as PEA, or problematic ever after, romance.
Mickey is "kind of a Fagin-y" as a character, but without the antisemitism. In interesting historical facts, Dickens rewrote Oliver Twist later in life to remove all anti-Semitic characteristics from Fagin, after he'd been criticized for the portrayal of the character. Of course, it's not that simple. Read more about it from Deborah Epstein Nord.
Scottie is the main character of Managed, and is classified more as grumpy one/sunshine one, which we argue is just morality chain dialed down.
More about how most writers have a “core story."
Next week, we'll be reading You Had me at Hola by Alexis Daria
MUSIC: Cardi B - Money
