Jennifer Prokop Jennifer Prokop

S05.36: The Best Kisses in Romance

We’re talking kissing today! So simple and so powerful, there’s no doubt that that first kiss in romance is always an important one. This episode was inspired by our recent readalong of Her Best Worst Mistake, but we talk about some other great books (most of which we’ve talked about before) with truly excellent kisses. Enjoy…and tell us about your favorite kisses in books, movies, tv shows…wherever you get your superior smooching.

We have a Patreon now, and it 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

Kissing is the best, and we are obsessed with the first kisses from the following movies and TV shows: Maddie and David from Moonlighting, lots of Angel and Buffy kissing, jump in the wayback machine for Sam and Diane from Cheers, and more recently Jim and Pam from The Office.

The first gay kiss on network TV was on LA Law back in 1991.

In the 80s and 90s, we imprinted hard on movies with great kissing scenes: The primordial kiss that was Han Solo and Princess Leia in The Empire Strikes Back, the “No Kissing on the Mouth” from Pretty Woman and Jen forgot to mention another 90s classic, Poetic Justice with Tupac and Janet Jackson. Hello to that last scene from Never Been Kissed with Drew Barrymore. People have made entire YouTube videos of great movie kisses.

Why did people use a metaphor about [“Rounding the bases”][11] to discuss sex back in the day? Who knows!

Most of today's links are YouTube videos, but here are PDFs of the things that are text-based links. [11]: https://www.glamour.com/story/lets-settle-this-baseball-and

Books Mentioned This Episode

Sponsors

Meghan Quinn, author of Royally in Trouble,
available from Amazon, or with a monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.

and

Megan Frampton, author of His Study in Scandal,
available now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo
and your local independent bookseller.

and

Lumi Labs, creators of Microdose Gummies
Visit microdose.com and use the code FATEDMATES
for 30% off and free shipping on your order

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S05, if you liked, full-length episode Sarah MacLean S05, if you liked, full-length episode Sarah MacLean

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

Ali Hazelwood’s Books

 

Pining Main Characters

 

The Professors

 

STEM Heroines

 

Great Banter

 

Microtropes

Reylo Fic recommended by Ali Hazelwood & Adriana Herrera

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.

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Jennifer Prokop Jennifer Prokop

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

Get boosted!

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

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