S07.03: Wife Guys in Romance: Just look at Her!
There's a particular kind of romance hero who makes us feel all kinds of warm and fuzzy, because all he wants to do is stare in awe at his partner and tell everyone in the world to do the same. The Wife Guy is everything we love when it's done right, and we're so very excited to share a list of books that deliver this straight shot of serotonin every single time.
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 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
We are not the only ones just discovering what 6-6-6 means.
There is evidence that women in Georgia have died as a result of abortion bans, and it’s true in other states as well.
Some of our favorite wife guys: Doug Emhoff, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Tim Walz, and Hunter Woodhall.
The Jayne Ann Krentz trailblazer episode has a great discussion of core story.
Jen thinks the Julie Garwood book with the wolf is actually Honor’s Splendor, which we do not recommend due to very problematic inclusion of homophobia.
Books Mentioned This Episode
Sponsors
Sarah Chamberlain, author of The Slowest Burn, available in print, ebook or audiobook from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books or wherever you get your books.
Avery Maxwell, author of Late Nights & Love Lines, available in print and ebook, from Amazon.
Erin Langston, author of The Finest Print, available in print and ebook from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books or wherever you get your books.
S06.28: HEA or GTFO
The cornerstone of the genre. The one thing that, when thrown into question, is guaranteed to enrage every corner of Romancelandia. We’re talking about Happily Ever After (HEA). Its promise, its importance, its relevance to us as readers, writers and people in the world. We talk about what really makes it hard won and deserved for us — which means yes, we’re talking about grovels and yes, we’re talking about third act break ups, and yes, we’re talking about patriarchy. Because of course we are. You’ve probably heard us talk about all the books we’re mentioning here…greatest hits are hits for a reason, y’all.
There are some minor audio issues with this one. Sorry, folks! It does get better at about 15 minutes in. There are a handful of tickets left for Fated Mates LIVE in Brooklyn, NY, this Saturday, 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. Get 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.
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 subsc
Show Notes
Ope! Jen’s mic wasn’t fully connected for the first 10 minutes of the episode, so that’s why it sounds terrible. User error on her part, Eric would never. Hang in there, she figures it out!
Let John Green and the good folks at Crash Course teach you about European History and The Hundred Years’ War.
The 2024 Audie Award winners included The True Love Experiment for best romance.
Three more days until Fated Mates Live… a handful of tickets are left! Join us!
Looking for all kinds of perfect HEA stickers, check out the Romancelandia Shop!
UPDATE: The book Sarah was looking for when she was talking about Enemies to Lovers was Johanna Lindsey’s Prisoner of My Desire. All the content warnings, friends…but if you do wade in, don’t miss our chat with Joanna Shupe where we talk about it from Season 1.
Books Mentioned This Episode
Sponsors
Lorraine Heath, author of In Want of a Viscount,
available in print, ebook and audiobook, wherever books are sold
Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and your local indie.
and
P. Rayne, author of Moonlit Thorns,
available in print, ebook and audio,
at Amazon, or with your subscription to Kindle Unlimited
and
Avery Maxwell, author of Falling into Forever,
available in print, ebook and with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited
S06.24: All Dukes are Roofers: Renovation Romance with Nikki Payne
We’re joined this week by the fabulous Nikki Payne, author of Pride & Protest and this month’s new release Sex, Lies & Sensibility to talk about home renovation romance and why we all love it so much! Is it because of competence? Yes. Because we like it when characters have to walk through fire together? Definitely. Because of the metaphor for our lives and futures? Absolutely. We talk about all these things, and how Old School historical really did the business on this trope. And — a bonus! Sarah finally gets to talk with someone about Jane Austen!
Nikki is joining us at Fated Mates Live! Join us in Brooklyn, NY, at the gorgeous William Vale Hotel, on March 23rd, along with Kate Clayborn, Lauren Billings (one-half of Christina Lauren) 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.
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
Welcome Nikki Payne, author of Sex, Lies, and Sensibility. She’ll be at the Ripped Bodice on Feb 23, and at Fated Mates Live, along with Kate Clayborn, Lauren Billings from Christina Lauren, and a few hundred Magnificent Firebirds on March 23, 2024. You can get signed copies of her books at East City Books in DC.
Jen had to read A Separate Peace in high school and doesn’t have the best memories of it, to be honest.
The mid-90s were a real high tide for Austen adaptions: in 1995 the movies Clueless and Sense and Sensibility and a miniseries of Pride and Prejudice, and the following year the movie Emma.
A little bit more about the rights of American women to have their own bank accounts, but women’s access to fair credit is still unjust.
A few movies we discussed this week: The Money Pit, Something New, and Baby Boom.
Books Mentioned This Episode
Sponsors
Avon Books, publishers of Tessa Bailey’s Fangirl Down,
available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books or wherever you get your books.
and
Blue Box Press, publishers of Jennifer Armentrout and ’s
Visions of Flesh and Blood: A Blood and Ash/Flesh and Fire Compendium,
available in print and ebook from Amazon.
S05.42: The Bride by Julie Garwood: A Primordial RomCom
We were devastated to learn of the passing of Julie Garwood, honest to God romance doyenne, last month. Garwood installed many of our buttons, and the buttons of so many romance readers who came up reading “The Four J’s,” and, more importantly, paved the way for romcoms with her wonderfully funny historicals. She was, without question, a trailblazer. While we were unable to interview her for our trailblazer series, we couldn’t let her passing go without an episode, so please enjoy our read along of The Bride, which is a nearly perfect book even now, decades after she wrote it.
While our thoughts are with with Julie Garwood’s family, her friends, and the legions of readers she delighted over her long and legendary career, our endless gratitude is with Julie Garwood herself—for the laughter, the sighs, and the absolute bangers that were her books.
If you want more Fated Mates in your life, you are welcome at our Patreon, which 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
We were devastated to learn about the death of romance great Julie Garwood. You can read her obituaries in the New York Times and the Washington Post. In 2022, Julie Garwood was a guest on the Smart Bitches Trashy Books podcast.
Are we at the end of the usable internet?
A google folder with PDFs of this week's articles.
Books Mentioned This Episode
Sponsors
Trilina Pucci, author of Knot So Lucky,
available now from Amazon, or with a monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited
and
Jessica Martin, author of The Dane of My Existence,
available now in print, ebook and audio from
Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo,
or from your local independent bookseller.
and
The Smut Lovers Conference,
September 21-24 in Orlando, FL
Use the code FATEDMATES for 15% off all available tickets
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
ReyLo is the ship name for Kylo Ren and Rey from the Star Wars movies. And the actor who plays Kylo Ren is Adam Driver.
All about Pansexuality.
Censorship on TikTok is so widespread is has its own wikipedia page, which makes it rife for misinformation about sex and sex education.
Small point of order, Jen was at the LPI (Lunar and Planetary Institute), which is close to the Johnson NASA Space Center in Houston. Obviously, she wasn’t at the JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), because that’s in California.
Ali Hazelwood’s Books
Pining Main Characters
The Professors
STEM Heroines
Great Banter
Microtropes
Reylo Fic recommended by Ali Hazelwood & Adriana Herrera
$15 New, $15 Used, Yours_Truly_Commander_Shepard
Abash the Little Bird, SecretReyloTrash
All Our Days, voicedimplosives
Can’t Turn Off What Turns Me On, audreyii_fic
Coarse and Rough and Irritating, frak-all
Composure, Skyelo_Ren
Count the Rings, lachesisgrimm
Cupcake Wars, crossingwinter
Embers, Sciosophia
The Girl in Terminal B, nightsofreylo
Juniper and Bergamot, SaintHeretical
Lascivious Weapons, CoraRiley
Let Go (Never Let Me Go), crossingwinter
Light Carries on Endlessly, lachesisgrimm
Misprint, JenfysNest
A Night for Firsts, TheAlchemistsDaughter
Shade on a Sunny Street, tigbit
Sharp Dressed Man, audreyii_fic
She Uses Tangerines, Yours_Truly_Commander_Shepard
So Long, My Adversary, Like_A_Dove
Something Beautiful but Annihilating, SecretReyloTrash
Why Don’t You and I Combine, Crossingwinter
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.
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
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
S03.18: Julie Garwood Interstitial: Damnit, Sara! (Not our Sarah!)
This week, we tried something a little different—recording a live interstitial episode! We’re talking about Jen’s formative queen, Julie Garwood, and we dig into dialogue, alphas who are instantly gone for their heroines, heroines who tame wild animals, arranged marriages between children, and why every Garwood historical feels medieval whether or not it actually is.
We recorded this episode live during a Fated States postcard-writing party to get out the vote for the January 5th runoff election in Georgia. If you’re a Georgia voter, please vote for Jon Ossoff and Reverend Raphael Warnock, and let’s finish what we started with the blue wave! If you’re up for it, please consider joining us for a phonebanking session on the evening of January 4th!
Next week, in advance of the launch of the Bridgerton series on Netflix (coming December 25th!), we’re reading Sarah’s favorite Julia Quinn novel, The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever. Get it at Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Apple or at your local indie via bookshop.org.
Show Notes
Fated States is gearing up to phone bank on the evening of Jan 4 from 5-7 central time. Join us if you can!
Sarah mentioned seeing Berkley editor Cindy Hwang on a panel--it doesn't appear to have been recorded, but here is the description of the panel.
In Sarah’s OSRBC facebook group, there’s a longstanding search for a book where two people are on a beach and a wave throws them together, and then “oops they’re boning.” A few folks have suggested that maybe it was Pirate by Fabio. So check it out. His co-writer (a ghost writer is when they are unnamed) is Eugenia Rielly.
A teenage horror/romance that both Jen and Kelly loved was called The Ghosts of Departure Point. Probably came from the Scholastic Book Club, if we’re being honest.
In case you’re wondering, the copyright page will tell you if you’re holding a first printing or first edition. Here’s a bunch of people talking about why the edges of paperbacks were dyed.
RT Book Reviews and the RT conference once had Julie Garwood and Jude Deveraux on stage at the same time, and YouTube has the video! When Coronavirus is over, I highly recommend going to KissCon.
Nora Roberts is our Queen and last week a poor unfortunate soul named Debra learned that the hard way.
Obviously, Luke grew up on Tatooine. Hoth was that ice planet place, which is why the women in the Ice Planet Barbarians series call their new home Not-Hoth.
We’d be interested in hearing your interpretation of The Bechdel Test. Jen thinks the women can still talk about men AS LONG AS they also talk about other stuff, but Sarah thought it required no discussion of men at all which is pretty tough to find in romance. FWIW, Jen mentioned it in regards to The Bride because Jamie is so isolated and largely without women friends.
We like prologues and epilogues here at Fated Mates, but we understand not everyone agrees.
The feud between the families in The Gift is “like the Montagues and the Capulets, but worse.” Speaking of which, Kate Clayborn’s upcoming book, Love At First, is an homage to Romeo and Juliet.
This isn't exactly about the life expectancy in Scotland was in 1100, but it's close enough.
Vanessa Riley’s site has a great explainer about Black people during the Regency on her site. We talked about the Carribean in the Regency when we read Gentle Rogue.
It wasn't a "rip off" of Home Alone, it was just an allusion. Similarly, Nathan's whip reminded Sarah of Indiana Jones.
Are these books on audio? Why yes they are and Jen listened to The Bride in between recording and release of the episode and greatly enjoyed it.
Next week, we're reading The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever by Julia Quinn
S02.02: The Alpha in Romance Novels
As we lead into Season Two, and consider the fact that some of our faves are definitely going to be problematic, we’re talking about the alpha hero this week — we’re also tackling the beta hero and the cinnamon roll, and why these archetypes largely don’t work for us. We’re talking romance heroes who changed the game for us and the genre, about how hard it is to turn the alphahole around, and how satisfying it is to watch it happen. We’re also talking the female gaze (of course) and the patriarchy (like always).
Next week, we’re digging into one of our original alphas, Derek Craven! You can find Lisa Kleypas’s Dreaming of You at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, or at your local indie. It's currently $2.99 in digital everywhere, so snatch it up!
Show Notes
The alpha, the beta, and the cinnamon roll.
You should all follow Cora Harrington (lingerie addict) on twitter. It's all so beautiful.
Jen screams about first person a lot, but MOSTLY about first person present.
It was Demon Rumm by Sandra Brown that was all in the male POV, and this review is so great. Jen's going to follow Alaina, the author, on twitter. UPDATE: The Browne Pop Culture Library was able to find the descriptions of Demon Rumm, and as Jen predicted, they were in the back matter of the previous month's books! Thanks, Steve!
Alec Kinkaid, The Montgomerys, James Mallory, and the Westmoreland heroes.
Did you somehow miss us talking about The Professional?
It the Movie may or may not be your cup of tea, but this discussion of Jane Doe with Victoria Helen Stone has some really interesting points about horror and romance.
Bourne from A Rogue by Any Other Name is "Sarah's worst hero" by which she means it was just reall satisfying to break him.
You have to listen to our antiheroes episode if you want to know what it means to "take the finger."
P in V is great, but 2Ps in V is even better.
Hillary Clinton was wrong about romance novels, and Lisa Kleypas explains why.
Adriana Herrera's American Dreamers series is one of our faves.
What it means to be a Kinsey 2.
Romance for Raices has a few more days. Spend enough money and you can pick an upcoming interstitial topic!
TRANSCRIPT
Sarah MacLean 0:00 / #
Umm.....interstitial 2.1 is that what we call them? I don't understand.
Jennifer Prokop 0:05 / #
We're not doing point anything.
Sarah MacLean 0:08 / #
No, we're not using points anymore. That's what that we promised our producer that we would never label anything point anything. But isn't this like season, it's like 201, I don't know, there's like a TV numbering system. We're not going to use it. But it's season two, interstitial one is what it is. No more point five episodes. You guys are gonna have to pay attention to the titles now. I mean, do as we say not as we do.
Jennifer Prokop 0:38 / #
Obviously, you should just listen to everything and not even worry about it. That would be the ideal thing for all of us.
Jennifer Prokop 0:47 / #
So welcome to Fated Mates everyone. Are we rage interstitialing here Sarah?
Sarah MacLean 0:58 / #
I think we are. I'm pretty rage-y about this, and I want to have a talk.
Jennifer Prokop 1:03 / #
I know. Okay,
Sarah MacLean 1:05 / #
Maybe rage is too strong a word.
Jennifer Prokop 1:08 / #
We're unpacking.
Sarah MacLean 1:13 / #
You guys, here's where I'm at. Yesterday, I was walking in the park in Brooklyn, with my dog and my kid, and I had a thought that I didn't love about romance, and I wanted to unpack it. And so I texted Jen this thought, and she immediately called me. It was a Saturday morning at like, 10:30 / #. And she was like, it's too much to text, but these are my thoughts. And we had a whole conversation about patriarchy versus white supremacy versus anti-semitism in romance, and it was like 10:30 / # in the morning, on a Saturday, in my life, and I realized like, this is all I want out of life. Basically to have a thought about romance novels and then be able to fucking hash it out. Like, can we talk it out? And I said to Jen, we're not going to talk that out today, because we're going to talk that out many times over the next, however many episodes, but I said to Jen, recently, I really want to have a conversation about romance in 2019 and how we talk about the alpha. And like what the fuck that is, and why we are so weird about naming alphas and betas or cinnamon rolls or why we obsess over what the hero is in sort of a single word and also like why we resist so much of that character who, as I like to say, scratches an itch in fiction, but who of course we would never date in real life.
Jennifer Prokop 3:14 / #
And what this is really tied into and you and I talked have talked a lot about this, is the fantasy of romance.
Sarah MacLean 3:21 / #
Which is not just the fantasy of the romance novel, but also sort of packed into that is female fantasy, or women's fantasy or marginalized people's sexual fantasies.
Jennifer Prokop 3:38 / #
An example of this is, my favorite thing and romance. is that the heroine's underwear and bra always match.
Sarah MacLean 3:47 / #
Oh, I know. And they set the hero aflame.
Jennifer Prokop 3:52 / #
Yeah. And you know what, I don't think I actually own any matching bras and underwear.
Sarah MacLean 3:58 / #
I think one more time I wore a matching bra and underwear and Eric was like, whoa, what is this? I know. We hit the lottery today.
Jennifer Prokop 4:17 / #
One of my favorite Twitter feeds is that lingerie addict Twitter feed.
Sarah MacLean 4:20 / #
Oh, I don't know that. I'm going to subscribe to it.
Jennifer Prokop 4:23 / #
I think her name's Cora Harrington. I'm not sure. Anyway, and I'm always, these undergarments are gorgeous. I just want to admire them. And in no way in real life do I actually want to wear them. But I love them.
Sarah MacLean 4:44 / #
But also because you and I are, you know, our girls need a house man. They need to be, you know, engineered into clothing. And that sort of floofy frilly perfect underwear, it is not realistic in any way. But man, I love to read about it. I really do
Jennifer Prokop 5:11 / #
I think there's a lot of ways in which romance, and I think you and I agree on this. It's like real, but it's also fantasy. And the intersection of where those things work for some people and not for others is very fascinating to me. And I'm going to tell you, Sarah, I love an alpha. Whatever it is, we're defining that as...I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it.
Sarah MacLean 5:36 / #
And there are very clear reasons why I love it. I mean, you do. Here's the thing, like we've talked for the last I mean, for however many for 39 episodes we talked about, well, not for half of the episodes for 19 or 20 episodes. We talked about "Mine," right? And frankly when you're reading IAD like everybody's the fucking leader of the pack. Everybody's the best, the strongest, the most powerful, the king, the whatever, the primordial. Unbeatable in every way. And these things have often been marked as alpha traits. And I guess they are.
Sarah MacLean 6:27 / #
But that's not why we love them, I don't think. It's part of it. In the immortal words of Sierra Simone, "Power is sexy. I'm sorry, I don't make the rules." And every romance novel is about power, no matter what it is, no matter what kind of hero you're writing, romance novels are about power because relationships are about power. Everybody's relationship, in real life, any relationship you have with anybody else, is about power and parity. And when you have conflict in a relationship in real life or on the page, it's about power.
Jennifer Prokop 7:11 / #
And I would say that romance then to me really fundamentally, when I read it is about figuring outhow to navigate that, how to win at that.
Sarah MacLean 7:29 / #
That's the whole ball game. The navigation of power toward parity is the whole ball game in romance. And so we've talked a lot about the history of the genre on the podcast and as we move forward in season two, we're going to talk a lot more about the history of the genre, and the books that have established themselves as sort of Cornerstone texts in romance, right? How in many of these books, we're dealing with a hero who is in those early days so impenetrable, that literally his point of view is never on the page. We're going to talk about POV much more next week when we talk about "Dreaming of You." But--I'm not talking about first person versus third person here, which is what Jen likes to yell and scream about-- I'm talking about literally the narrator and the reader don't have access to the hero's thoughts at all in these early books.
Jennifer Prokop 8:41 / #
This is like a bit of an aside, It was the first time, and I think it was "Demon Rumm" by Sandra Brown, I was like trying to figure it out, where it was 'this book is only the hero's point of view.' And I'm kind of how did I hear about this? Because there was no Twitter and there's no social media. And it must have been in the back of the book, like coming next month. But I remember that being something worth, like something worth saying like, "Hey, this is happening and it's different and new."
Sarah MacLean 9:13 / #
Yeah. Interesting. But this is the thing right like when you are looking at a hero and those early books, the early Deverauxs, early Lindseys, early McNaughts, early Garwoods, Bertrice Small, we never ever saw the hero. We never saw inside his head. And so we were really dealing in those early days-- in my mind, like, this is me like I'm putting on my scholar hat, now-- in those early days we were looking at distilled patriarchy. The hero was representative of sort of a world that was not accessible to women, not accessible to the heroine, and not accessible to read the reader. And then the heroine starts to chip away at this rigid, stony character and unlocks Alec Kincaid or any number of the Montgomerys or James Mallory or any number of the Westmoreland heroes. And suddenly we have a ball game because we're able to see that the heroine ultimately lays out the hero. To the point, where in some cases, in a McNaught that we will read this season, the hero is literally dying on a battlefield because of the heroine. Because of a promise he made to her and he will not betray that promise because he loves her. So When we see a hero broken to that extent, and then rebuilt in this image of equality, it's delicious for us as readers who subconsciously are keenly aware of our lack of power in many of these relationships.
Jennifer Prokop 11:20 / #
And I think what's really interesting about that is it was so the way I read, I came into romance as a young reader. And yet now, when I read books that are heroine-only point of view, I have to pace myself with them. I can't do it all the time. I find it too hard to get to know the hero, It feels really like a like a bold choice on the part of the author to do such a thing. Because I'm really used now to having access to all of the characters in a romantic relationship in modern Romance and when people go another way it feels like a choice, and a risky one at that. You know, it's just really hard to sell me on the other character without me being able to see inside their head. Whether that be first person or third person it doesn't matter. I'm used to that being something that I get now in romance. I don't know if you feel the same way.
Sarah MacLean 12:29 / #
Obviously this is why one of my biggest challenges. As much as you're the one who, you know, goes to the mad about first person, the challenge with first person is that sometimes you don't get the important information from the perspective of the person that you need it from. So craft-wise one of the rules that we talk about all the time when you talk about POV and romance, and you talk about writing multiple POVs, is that when you are writing a scene, you should be writing the scene in the point of view of the character who has the most to lose. Interestingly, in these early romances, or in romances where you've got a big, bad impenetrable alpha, the character who has the most to lose in those early scenes, is the heroine because she's navigating this power structure and unable to gain enough footing to get herself into a position of power where he can lose something. However, in books like, well, last year when we talked about "The Professional" part of the challenge with "The Professional" is we never saw-- part of the challenge with all three of those books-- is that we never see the moment when the heroine is leaving from the hero's point of view. We just see him go animal. He goes feral. That first one, Alex, or Alexi, what's his name? I don't even fucking remember anymore. It's like those books are out of my head but in "The Professional," we don't see him go feral. In "The Master" we see Maxim run across the field and take the bullet and he's willing to do anything for her. And so we can sort of perceive his feralness. And I'm using feral in a very specific way here. I'm using it on purpose. That is an intentional use of the word feral. And then in "The Player" we see Dimitri punch the car. He can't control himself. And we talked about it in that episode. That's a problem moment. If that happened in real life, to your friend, you would be like, red flag, get the fuck away from that guy.
Jennifer Prokop 14:55 / #
Yeah. All the flags.
Sarah MacLean 14:57 / #
Holy shit. Call the police. That guy's horrible. But when it's happening on the page in a romance novel it's safer for us to love it. And what does that mean?
Jennifer Prokop 15:09 / #
I sometimes wonder if...you have a heroine-only point of view now, or maybe then, too. Maybe as we read some of these old books we'll dig into that. If you have to make that moment-- for the hero in this case, I feel like this really over time with the alpha hero. It's like, to me it's like very tied into MF romance, where it's like a heroine.-- I wonder if you don't have to make that low moment really over the top, because we have, it's the only way to signal to the reader, just how they really feel. Like you've [the author] cut them off from them [the readers]. And so in order for us to get it, does it have to be bigger, and I don't know the answer to that.
Sarah MacLean 16:00 / #
I think it does. I was looking online and somebody was talking about some book and how the low moment, the sort of dark night of the soul moment, was over-the-top. And we hear that a lot with romance like, oh, it's so over-the-top. I get that as a criticism for my books a lot, the the climactic scene is so over-the-top. And of course it's over the top, you have to break them. They have to be crushed. Look, I love every one of my heroes. Certainly I've written heroes who I've not loved most of the book, but by the time I get to that moment, which is usually, I don't know, 90% of the way through the book, I love those heroes. I really do and I don't want them to be broken, but they have to break. Because we have to see them laid low by the idea that they have lost everything, that they have lost everything of meaning. And the reality is, and you'll never convince me otherwise, that's because all I want is to see the patriarchy destroyed. If there's anything that is is a solid metaphor for patriarchy, it's this story. The fighting for power, the arguments about power, the back and forth about that power and the ultimate dismantling of a system and a man who is representative of that system, so that he can do nothing else but be a person who's looking for equality and a mate.
Jennifer Prokop 17:48 / #
I think a lot about--so what does that really mean in the books where it satisfies?
Sarah MacLean 17:56 / #
At some point I want to talk about the fact that you shouldn't be writing this consciously. That's the problem.
Jennifer Prokop 18:08 / #
Okay, so Darrell is a big horror movie fan. And he went to see "It" this weekend.
Sarah MacLean 18:15 / #
Did he enjoy it? It looks so scary. It looks so scary.
Jennifer Prokop 18:21 / #
He I think has a really high scary threshold, because he's like, it wasn't that scary. But what was really interesting is I was asking him about the ending, because I was like, Is there a way that horror movies always end that leave you-- as the viewer in this case-- right? Like, it's like that, like, what do you need to have a satisfying romance ending I feel like is I'm always interested in these like genre questions. But the thing I think a lot about in romance is that part of the breaking of the hero is that he has to say I love you. It has to be an emotional journey where part of it is this man admitting, "I have feelings."
Sarah MacLean 19:07 / #
Yeah, I'm human.
Jennifer Prokop 19:09 / #
Yes. "I have feelings. I'm human. I have to speak these feelings out loud." It is part of every romance that it's not just enough for a woman or heroine to say I can tell he loves me by the way he acts, part of the breaking of that hero has to be: I have to say it out loud. I have to feel those feelings. And it's different when they're soft cinnamon rolls the entire time.
Sarah MacLean 19:39 / #
Here's where I'm at. And this is going to be a controversial thing. I'm a little afraid to say it but whenever. When we talk about these soft books, and there is a place for them, because like I appreciate that that's part of the fantasy, too. I have so much to say. I have so many thoughts in my head. But here's the thing. When we talk about these soft books and these soft heroes and these cinnamon rolls and how much we love a hero which wants to hold the heroine, and cook for the heroine, and clean for the heroine, and be the heroine's, you know, person. So, okay, personally, this I'm not afraid to say. These books do nothing for me. I can appreciate them on a literary level, on a romance level. I can say that's a finely crafted book, I can say that's a finely written book, this person's a skilled writer, but they do nothing for me in a primal way. And there's a sort of primalness to romance that I will never give up. You will have to pry it from me.
Jennifer Prokop 20:47 / #
I think we are alike in that way.
Sarah MacLean 20:51 / #
Yeah, I mean, we just did a podcast about Kresley Cole, come on. So there is that, but also, from a craft perspective, from an intellectual perspective, if you start the book with two characters who are both fully realized, decent people, who live in the world and are feminist and anti-racist and perfect in every way, they're all dyed in the wool democrats who love each other and can cook perfectly, then where is there to go? I appreciate that as I say those words I can understand intellectually and emotionally that that's a problematic thing. But then I sort of think to myself, and literally I'm speaking my thoughts as they are coming into my head, but like, then I think to myself, but wait a second. Is it that problematic? Because I'm not saying I want to marry Alec Kincaid. I'm not saying I want to marry whatever. I don't know. Who's my worst hero? Borne. Right? But I am saying I want to read Borne breaking. I want to read Devil freezing to death, realizing that he's fucked everything up. Spoiler alert. But my husband is not those things like my husband is a proper cinnamon roll, like, and I love him for it. So why can't I have my cake and eat it too, Jen?
Jennifer Prokop 22:37 / #
I keep coming back to the question about what the fantasy is? The fantasy for you and me is that the patriarchy can be tamed. And that's what we want to read.
Sarah MacLean 22:51 / #
More now than ever before.
Jennifer Prokop 22:54 / #
More now than ever before. Now again, I feel like it's worth us saying that I think both of us are totally aware that taking the patriarchy out of context of capitalism and racism or whatever, that's what we're doing right now. So I think for me, like you, the cinnamon roll fantasy is just not what I personally really need right now. I read about one a year and really enjoy it but I don't want to read them nonstop. And I think part of it is because that fantasy which is the help-meet fantasy, maybe, maybe that's what it is or the we're going to team up together and already be so far advanced. I don't know. Maybe it's just a different fantasy. Maybe we needed someone on who does love those books to tell us what it is that is hitting that primal need in them.
Sarah MacLean 23:59 / #
It's interesting because I had this conversation with a friend not long ago about the fact that post election, all she wants to do is read beta heroes. And also, pause, because I want to say also that I sort of instinctively loathe the, you know, heroes are all either an alpha or a beta or cinammon roll, or whatever. I hate all that discussion. Any decent writer is writing a complex hero who is many things. So, you know, there's that, and I feel I have to have said that over the course of, you know, all those Wroth Brothers. So she was basically saying I just want to read happy, bantery, joyful, fun, soft heroes. And I was like, that's fair. In the wake of the election, all I want to do is read the most bananas stories. I want every author out there taking the finger, as we discussed last season, and I think part of it is because, basically, if your book isn't about dismantling the institutions of power and privilege and hate that we are living with right now, like, why? But this is the thing, I'm also saying I appreciate that that's not fair. Does that makes sense?
Jennifer Prokop 25:37 / #
I think it's something Kelly and I talk about a lot. The work you decide to do in the world--Everybody's work is different. The work of I'm going to tackle this head on by talking about how you break down the most virulent kind of the patriarchy versus other people's work is maybe not taking the finger. Other people's work is just different. And I think that it's okay to to say that. I think what worries me and you is that I don't want to be told that loving the breaking of the alpha makes me a regressive romance reader.
Sarah MacLean 26:26 / #
Yes. Yes.
Jennifer Prokop 26:29 / #
And I feel like that's the narrative, I'm like, Look, I don't understand your work. And you don't understand my work. I don't know. That's the part I think that's hard.
Sarah MacLean 26:42 / #
I think it's a very specific narrative that we're hearing in a very specific place. So I think this is the thing that we hear about a lot on romance Twitter, but interestingly, I run reading book club on Facebook and you don't hear that so much. I think it's a conversation that is happening in very specific circles, and I think it's worthy of happening, I think that often we lose sight of the idea that women's fantasy or the fantasies of people whose gazes are not traditionally presented as fantasy, or who are not often given like a space to fantasize publicly. Policing that fantasy is a terrible, frankly, regressive way of being. My concern is that when we police fantasy, specifically the fantasy of people whose fantasies are never given a place to exist and thrive, which is what romance has always been, it's been a place for sexual fantasy of people who are not given access to sexual fantasy in the world writ large. If you're not cis, het, white, and male--- your sexual fantasies are not on billboards and in movies. But they are in romance novels. And so if we are policing that fantasy, if we're policing the, I don't know, motorcycle club or the BDSM, or the I don't know, the alpha who is broken and then rebuilt, then are we progressing as a genre? Or are we regressing as one? It should be broadening. When I'm in a reading slump, cinnamon rolls are not the answer. But like they might be the answer to someone else and like, go with God.
Jennifer Prokop 29:02 / #
And that's that's exactly I think that's it, I love that we are broadening. I think it's really more expensive as a genre. We always joke with Kate. She's like, "I don't want to read two Ps in V" and I was like, "Yeah, I do!" And I think that part of it is, I feel like there's so many more places that romance is giving us access to so many more fantasies and so many more kinds of fantasies. But my fantasy still that alpha getting broken and crying and being like, I love you. I still want that one, too. I don't want to lose that as we move forward and have so many more fantasies. I still love that old school fantasy. I do. I probably always will. Because I grew up with it. And because of where we are in the world right now.
Sarah MacLean 30:02 / #
Yeah, I mean, and what's really interesting about it is, I don't think anyone would argue that in the early days, the writers I mean, I don't think anyone would argue that most of the writers of the genre are thinking about representing the smashing of the patriarchy in that moment. I don't think. I don't think Judith McNaught was, "All right, I'm gonna write 'Whitney, My Love' and Clayton's gonna be so much of an asshole. That then like when he is broken at the end, everyone will see that it's a metaphor for women's the women's movement." You would knock me directly over if you told me that that was what Judith McNaught was thinking about when she was writing "Whitney, My Love," I think she just opened up ID and poured it onto the page and we got what we got. And so like, I think this whole conversation should be taken in a sense of like, we're doing a lot of thinking about the work of romance in a way that I think does writers a disservice sometimes. And I say this as somebody who like has gotten in her head about, "well, what is the political ramification of this story?" And suddenly you think to yourself, "well now I'm in the weeds like, now I'm frozen, because I'm terrified that I'm going to do this thing wrong. That I'm going to tell the story of smashing of patriarchy wrong or I'm going to tell the story of whatever this political thing that I want to talk and I'm going to do it wrong." Versus like ultimately, writing with conflict and with pacing and with voice and with you know, character that just like is primal. It's fearlessness.
Jennifer Prokop 32:07 / #
I want to be really clear, when we talk about it being wrong, I think the fear is always, always, always, because it's always the charge right? Hillary Clinton talked about a hero to putting a woman over a horse and riding away with her. Here we are as a genre saying like, "no, it's feminist." And yet people outside the genre are looking at it and saying, "no, it's it isn't." And that is always the push pull. I think, a really primal push pull of romances is: Is it feminist? When is it enough? When is it feminist? When is it anti-racist? When is it, when is it progressive versus when is it regressive? And I think that that question is one that maybe we can't tell until 10 or 15 or 20 years later. Who knows, but you can't convince me it's not and yet I have such a hard time explaining to you why it is. And I don't know what to do about that.
Sarah MacLean 33:14 / #
Wait, why romance is feminist?
Jennifer Prokop 33:17 / #
Yeah, I mean, I are like, Why? I mean, I don't know where the line is.
Sarah MacLean 33:25 / #
Here's my thing. For, whatever, 45 years, the genre was accused of being regressive and anti-feminist. The women's movement was moving women forward and romance novels were taking us back. And I have never ascribed to that for all the reasons that you have heard me for many, many hours of expounding on that. Now, I think what we're hearing though, is from inside the house, we're hearing not all these books are feminist and I think that is where things start to get real dicey. Because I have always said that romance is feminist in two different ways: that, On the one hand, it's feminist because there are the texts that are doing something overtly feminist on the page, the breaking down of the alpha hero, the celebration of the cinnamon roll, these kind of moments where we start to see parity as a construct in the novel, like sexual parity or, you know, whatever. Again we're talking about a very specific kind of feminism here. But then on the other hand, you have the books that are written as one-handed reads, for pure pleasure for women, or for people who, again, have never had their pleasure centered by any form of media including pornography. Then you have an entirely different realm of romance that is doing the work of like identifying basic human pleasure beyond cis het white male. And that also has value.
Jennifer Prokop 35:24 / #
Or cis het white female for that matter.
Sarah MacLean 35:27 / #
It's like cis or het or white or Yeah, it's or AND and OR.
Jennifer Prokop 35:42 / #
When we talk about HEA for all, happily everyone after, to use your language. I think the thing that romance novels have taught me foundationally, and you will never convince me that this is an important, is that you deserve ultimate love and acceptance in your relationships with other people, whether they be romantic relationships or not. Whoever that person is on the page, they deserve people in their lives to say I love you the way you are. And that is right, to me is profoundly radical. And as we see more and more romances that are not just about white ladies, and by white ladies, we see a lot of expansion about what that looks like and what that means and I love those fucking books a whole lot.
Sarah MacLean 36:38 / #
Well, it's Adriana Herrera's American Love Story series. You know, it's that sense that she wrote these, that first book "American Dreamer" or like is a male/male romance, but so much of the love on the page is from families.
Jennifer Prokop 36:57 / #
And I think that's the part that I find, as a woman in the world, the ways in which I've tried so hard to fit into boxes and make people happy and take up less space and less room. And in a romance, the people in the romance are allowed to take up however much room they fucking want to. And that's all I want o read. Except for the patriarchy. They're the ones who can't exist the way they come into the storyl
Sarah MacLean 37:33 / #
And if you think about it structurally, if you think about them as a metaphor, if you think about the general arc of the romance novel, from disperate two or three or however many disparate people come together, experience conflict, and end up in happily ever after. If you think about that as a metaphor for like a larger battle in this in society that we are all fighting every day, then, of course at the end like we're Marvel movies, right? At the end, the good guys win, which means the patriarchy doesn't win. What I worry when you start to hear from inside the romance house like well, alphas are the problem. And it's like of course alphas are the problem. That's the point. Alphas are the problem. And then we see them dismantled on the page by the opposite of an alpha, and then restructured as men worthy of love, which, frankly, I mean, if anything is a fantasy.
Jennifer Prokop 38:56 / #
I mean, god, I love my husband, right? But man it's hard sometimes.
Sarah MacLean 39:05 / #
Over the last couple of months I have fired a lot of men in my life. It's misandry hour with Sarah. I have basically like, I have eliminated a lot of men from tangential roles of my life and, and hired instead smart, savvy women. And I said to my husband the other day I was like, I'm just I'm like, slowly, like eliminating men from my life and I was like, you're lucky I'm a Kinsey two, because you'd be out man.
Jennifer Prokop 39:54 / #
I think the thing though that I I really want to talk about is how much I as a reader need conflict. So you talked about a romance now, it's like the relationships puts these people on the page, and it doesn't matter who they are, but what I need is to see that conflict changes people. Conflict changes the way we relate to each other, it changes the way we think about ourselves, and the best romance to me is always going to be rooted in conflict. I think the cinnamon roll books, the reason I don't find them as primal is because the barriers, just the conflict is lower by design, and I get that, I get that how much I value my relationships right now that are sort of lower conflict. That really speaks to me, but in romance, I still really need to see this be The Clash of the Titans.
Sarah MacLean 41:00 / #
Because ultimately, and this is where I'm going to get nerdy about books, but ultimately, isn't the purpose of literature just sort of to mirror our own struggle. I was talking to Sierra Simone about all this not long ago and she said something really, I mean, she Sierra, so of course she said something really smart-- She said something so brilliant to me. And she was basically saying, "when you strip conflict out of a romance novel, what you're basically doing is setting up two people in some sphere of perfect transparent communication and trust from the start." And so as she said to me, and this is direct quote, "it doesn't mirror pain, it doesn't mirror growth, it doesn't mirror joy". I wrote it down because I was like, that's so smart. It's now sticking to my wall. And the reality is, is that , what conflict does is say to a reader, your pain, your growth, your joy is not abnormal. You are okay. This is real, and what you are feeling is real. And look at these two people who are experiencing pain and growth and joy. And frankly, nobody's exploded your boat. So, you know if these two can make it, so can you. And that's powerful.
Jennifer Prokop 42:30 / #
That's all I want.
Sarah MacLean 42:32 / #
Also, there is an argument to be made that like if you have two very, like lovely people on the page together l I don't know. Now I'm sort of thinking like, if you two lovely people on the page together and, are you writing for people who don't have that? Maybe this is...I don't know. Maybe my privilege is showing. I don't know. Maybe my My relationship is, you know, with a person who was kind and decent to me? So why do I want to read about my own life?
Jennifer Prokop 43:07 / #
But that goes back to the idea that different people need different things out of romance and different people need different things out of the media that they consume. When I think about why my husband loves horror so much, I have this theory that it's sort of serving the same function as romance. He's just like, I want to know that people are going to either band together or escape evil.
Sarah MacLean 43:31 / #
It's like mystery novels. A mystery novel where the mystery isn't solved is not a very good mystery novel.
Jennifer Prokop 43:38 / #
I love that there's all different kinds of relationships on page. I love it. I love it even though I still want to read about conflict because you know what, even though I we joke that I like to fight, that's something I really had to learn. It's something that still scares me. And so when I see people in a romance that are in high conflict, it's like, you can do this too. It speaks to me because of who I am. 20 year old Jen did not like to fight. 20 year old Jen was afraid of fighting.
Sarah MacLean 44:15 / #
Yeah. Yeah. And I think romance novels continually model that communication. That conversation that has to happen between two people who love each other, or who are working toward loving each other. Love is messy. Relationships are messy. I mean, I've spent a lot of years in therapy, man.
Jennifer Prokop 44:45 / #
I think that's part of the reason why one of the my favorite romances now is marriage in trouble.
Sarah MacLean 44:52 / #
Isn't that funny how that works. As you age and you age into marriage, you're like marriage in trouble is so much more interesting to me now than it was. When I was 20 I cared not a bit about marriage in trouble.
Jennifer Prokop 45:05 / #
No. And that's because of who we are right now. So when we talk about what's primal or foundational, it's always going to be the intersection of who we are as people and readers, where we are in our lives now, but also what we came up through in terms of our romance history. There's always going to be things that ring that bell because it's like Julie Garland's "The Bride" for me. Always.
Sarah MacLean 45:34 / #
And that's the thing. That takes us back to that sort of alpha question, which is, so now you all know how I feel about the alpha like what I feel that alpha is actually doing. But like, that's intellectual Sarah, like that's Sarah's brain saying the alpha represents patriarchy. If I were teaching and I do teach this class, when I talk about like, who is Christian Grey? Why does he scratch the itch? Because God knows Christian Grey scratched the itch for a hundred million readers. Okay? So I don't want to talk about the quality of the writing. I don't want to talk about the story. I want to talk about any of that. All I want to talk about is why Christian Grey worked. Because he did work and he launched 1000 million billionaires.
Sarah MacLean 46:34 / #
So Christian Grey, I can intellectually tell you why Christian Grey works. He is strong. He has immense power. He's incredibly wealthy. He takes care of her. He makes sure she has food in her fridge, that her car works, that she has money in her bank account. He literally buys the business she works for to fire her boss. She can have a happy job life. And then on top of all that, he manages her orgasms to perfection. All these things cognitively work on a specific level, but so to 1000 other billionaires and so do all the Dukes, so do all the vampires. We've seen a billion rich, powerful, great in the sack kind of heroes. But what is it about that that scratches the itch? I don't know. It's just there. It's built in. But I hate saying that.
Jennifer Prokop 47:52 / #
I mean, we grew up in this society. I feel like in a society where women's financial security is always so precarious, it makes sense that he's a billionaire, but it's not that she's gonna quit working.
Sarah MacLean 48:14 / #
Oh, and he's always around. He's never at work.
Jennifer Prokop 48:18 / #
Men don't have to work in romance. Only women do.
Sarah MacLean 48:22 / #
That's a different kind of interstitial. But truthfully, there's that too. It's the fantasy of he's a billionaire and we have all this, we have immense security, but he always there emotionally for me.
Jennifer Prokop 48:37 / #
And that what he wants is for her to be self actualized.
Sarah MacLean 48:43 / #
It's just id man.
Jennifer Prokop 48:46 / #
Of course it is.
Sarah MacLean 48:48 / #
And I think that's the problem. Look, I'm talking about Christian Gray as a sort of a placeholder for 1000 other heroes. I think 50 Shades worked for very specific reasons during the actual moment in history when 50 Shades was written, but it's so primitive that sort of idea that...it feels like it goes back to like days of hunters and gatherers. There's that sort of primitive itch scratch and I don't understand. I want to be evolved but I'm not there. I love "mine." I love that moment where Alec Kincaid says, what when the question is asked what what do we call her and he says "you call her mine."
Jennifer Prokop 49:47 / #
Here's the thing I think about in terms of 50 Shades and a lot of like the old alphas. You don't really see it as much anymore, but it was certainly part of IAD and it was like part of Twilight, I would say too, is that this extraordinary person would look and instantly recognize that this was the person for them. And there's something really appealing about being seen in a crowd by someone that you think is extraordinary. Christian Grey or Edward Cullen or whoever, and that they're going to pick you out. And I don't really read in the way that I'm like, I'm the heroine. But that idea of being seen immediately as you are extraordinary too, that there is
Sarah MacLean 50:44 / #
Fated Mates.
Jennifer Prokop 50:45 / #
Of course it is. There's a reason that we read IAD together.
Sarah MacLean 50:50 / #
But I've said 1000 times I actually don't really like Fated Mates. But even the opposite of Fated Mates feels like in some ways it's enemies lovers. But even in that moment, it's the being seen moment. Enemies to lovers only works if when the first moment that they interact, it just is explosive.
Jennifer Prokop 51:16 / #
And here's my other thing and I think this is similar for us. Enemies t0 lovers, I'm going to take a 999 times over friends to lovers because it's also really high heat. You can't have enemies to lovers at a low simmer. It is always explosive. And that's it. I love conflict. I want the gas turned up under that pot. Immediately. And that's the thing, all of those books really always come with, Come with the heat. They're comin in hot, and I that's what I want.
Sarah MacLean 52:00 / #
I also think that part of the challenge here, I said this earlier, when I said you know, I hate that we distill everything down to well, is it alpha? Is it beta? What is it? Because I do think I often struggle with the perception of the alpha as being incels. As being I hate women. I'm powerfulful. Women are weak. That's, that's not a good alpha. That's not a good alpha from the start and that alpha, the I hate women, women are weak, women exists for my pleasure, women exist for me to own, like, who's ever written that romance hero?
Jennifer Prokop 52:48 / #
No, I don't like that one.
Sarah MacLean 52:50 / #
But I don't think I've ever even read a book with a hero like that.
Jennifer Prokop 52:54 / #
I think it's a I think it's a misreading. Often those original 80s heroes, and we're going to read some of these, are I was a man who was profoundly hurt and it turned me into a misogynist, because I was so hurt by a woman. And I do not want to be hurt again. I fear being hurt again. That seems different to me.
Sarah MacLean 53:20 / #
Yeah, there's that classic trope in historicals where the hero the hero has had a string of mistresses or a string of relationships that mean nothing. And invariably, like that can be perceived as that can be read as he just he's a misogynist. He doesn't care about women and he doesn't care about women's bodies or women's feelings or anything. Then he meets the one. Yeah, and she's not like other girls. In my mind, I can totally see why that's a misread, meaning why people would read that as that's alpha and I hate it. You know, it's interesting because a lot of people have been talking about Whit, the hero of "Brazen and the Beast" as being an alpha and I'm like, wait, what? Because it feels like he's really not any of the things that people missread alphas as, but he's
Jennifer Prokop 54:21 / #
He's taciturn!
Sarah MacLean 54:22 / #
He's super big. And he doesn't really talk. And yeah, when he throws a punch, it lands hard. But he also lives in aapartment filled with pillows and books by women.
Jennifer Prokop 54:35 / #
He carries candy in his pockets! Look, you're not an alpha if you have candy in your pockets all the time! My God!
Sarah MacLean 54:45 / #
He's definitely submissive in the bedroom. And so I don't even know. I just feel like, be more discerning when you're using those words.
Jennifer Prokop 54:58 / #
Let's define the Alpha then like, let's have that be the thing we end this episode with, like, what does it mean when we talk about the alpha?
Jennifer Prokop 55:09 / #
Define it. So for me, like one hallmark of it is emotionally, not like--- they're going to start the book out of touch with their feelings and afraid of their feelings.
Sarah MacLean 55:22 / #
Yeah. I mean, if we have to define it, like I think that when we define it, like when we define it from IAD perspective, or from like, we're about to read "Dreaming of You," like from Derek Craven's perspective or from any of my hero'd perspectives? Yeah, they're like, emotional,
Jennifer Prokop 55:41 / #
toddlers.
Sarah MacLean 55:41 / #
I mean, yeah, they're like I was, yeah, they're like seedlings. and they just can't, they just have no frame of reference for like, the scope of humanity that they are about to experience and when they actually experience that humanity and that emotion They're fucking done for . And uniformly my heroes are done for.
Jennifer Prokop 56:09 / #
That's all I want, Sarah.
Sarah MacLean 56:14 / #
And I don't think that I mean, like, that's not me. That's all these women who I've read my whole life,
Jennifer Prokop 56:20 / #
I've been because, I've been thinking a lot about it right, I think another thing I often associate the alpha is that they are, and you say this all the time, that they are a King. In whatever it is that they have chosen to do, they are the best at what they do. But that they are always taking care of the people under them. At least like at least in a like a financial or security way, but not in an emotional way.
Sarah MacLean 56:51 / #
But what am i catnip scenes and any romance novel is the scene where the hero is like
Sarah MacLean 56:57 / #
befuddled By his feelings. It's like he just can't. He's like I think I'm having. It's like... Things are weird. Like my tummy is weird, and My head feels weird and she said a thing and it made me feel a thing and I don't, I can't identify any of the words, I have no words for any of it. And like a his servant, or his brother, or his Mom is like, What the fuck is wrong with you-- like you're having feelings?
Jennifer Prokop 57:28 / #
Yeah, hello, this is my favorite thing. My absolute all time favorite thing, Is the person who's like, welcome to the world of feelings.
Sarah MacLean 57:38 / #
What's wrong with you?
Jennifer Prokop 57:40 / #
Worthy! I just want to talk about Derek Craven. We're gonna do it next week.
Sarah MacLean 57:45 / #
But it's the best scene in a romance novel when everybody's like, Yeah, Hi. Welcome. And it's because, it just shows what emotional toddlers they are. And there is a joy to that, there's an immense fantasy like, it is an immense fantasy for so many people, including myself, to be able to say like, I'm whatever. Like, I love my husband a whole lot, but we have these moments. Sometimes I have a moment where I'm like, "I'm sad. And I don't know why." And he's like, "I don't, what does that even mean?" And I'm like, "I just, I'm just like, I need to cry. I need to have a cry." And he's like, "what is happening right now?" And I'm like, "I just help." He just can't like patriarchy is a hell of a drug and it has ruined them too.
Sarah MacLean 58:38 / #
and like the idea that you might have a hero who ultimately discovers that those feelings and is able to interact with them is really cool. And as I say that, I think like Well, that's what a cinnamon roll does from the start. But Then what else is happening? Are they on the run? Is there a murderer?
Jennifer Prokop 59:07 / #
Of course not they're cinnamon rolls.
Sarah MacLean 59:09 / #
Oh my god. I mean, what we really should do an interstitial about cinnamon roll heroes that we love because I do have some that I really love
Jennifer Prokop 59:18 / #
I mean, I feel like there's this joke I used to make, I don't really make it anymore because I think it's probably insensitive, I used to joke like, I need a wife. I need someone who's gonna take care of me. That is a very deep rooted fantasy that I think when I read a really perfect cinamon roll book, that's how I feel. o have someone who's going to take care of me, as opposed to like me taking care of them.
Sarah MacLean 59:43 / #
It's interesting because I do think this sort of brings up and we're obviously going over because we...welcome to Fated Mates everyone. But one of the things that I think is really interesting, I have this long conversation and she's going to come back on the pod this this season. Adrianna Herrera and I were talking about trauma and romance novels as you as you guys know who were listening last year. Adriana is a trauma specialist and she came she gave us a lot of really interesting insight about MacRieve. And she was a a guest on the Bowen episode. And one of the things that we were talking about in in terms of trauma we were talking about the end of "American Love Story," and I'm not going to spoil it but there the epilogue of "American Love Story" is like this really interesting. Or one of the final scenes of "American Love Story" is what is really interesting moment of marital of like, like marital idol like relationship idol, between the two heroes, where they are both doing serious emotional work, side by side as partners. And we were talking just about how There is room for the book that is telling this modern iteration of the romance, where it's a really authentic representation of the life, the struggles that we had in life, The heroes of this particular book are an activist and the lawyer. And so, they're just, they're never, it feels like these two people just have completely different worldviews. And so, that kind of relationship-- again, though, I've always said this in the hands of a tremendous author works really well--Also, so much conflict, so much emotional internal conflict in that story, because, ultimately, at their core, they have completely different views of like how life should be and, what their purpose is. Which is cool. So actually, forget everything. I Well, first of all, don't forget everything I just said because that's, that's it's a great book and it's a great read because you have these moments of this moment of, there is so much emotional conflict to unpack there. Unlike relationships where just two people who really super like each other, and which is like fanfic and that's a whole nother story but, we should have somebody on we should see if Cat Sebastian will come on, or somebody will come on who like, is really a fanfic lover. To talk to us about the way fanfic has an informed Modern Romance.
Jennifer Prokop 1:02:33 / #
I mean, I think that's it, like we're just trying to unpack all these different things. But for both of us, this question of the alpha and what it's doing and what it's done through time and why it's still it's always going to scratch that itch for us. Like, I don't, I don't want to lose that. There's something, those stories still really speak to me.
Sarah MacLean 1:02:54 / #
I mean, to be fair, Jen, I don't think you're gonna lose that. Those stories readers, I mean, a massive swath of romance readers, love that as a story. You know, I know that because I have a career. I want Sierra to come back on and I want us to talk about fearless romances this season because I think people I think a lot of writers are real afraid to write directly into ID. And I get that. Yeah, that's a scary, that's a scary thing to do. I have been there.
Sarah MacLean 1:03:39 / #
I'm there currently, you know, with the book that I'm writing. And I think, you know, harnessing, finding fearlessness is really difficult as a writer, especially in 2019, because you don't want to do it wrong. You don't want to harm anybody. But I think there are ways for us to tell the stories that have the Sort of high conflict explosive relationships that in a way that doesn't harm but actually you know, entertains and ultimately, pleasures, readers.
Jennifer Prokop 1:04:14 / #
That's all I want Sarah.
Sarah MacLean 1:04:16 / #
I know Same, same. Well, let's leave it there for today.
Sarah MacLean 1:04:21 / #
It was last ragey I think then it could have been I think we were really put together.
Jennifer Prokop 1:04:28 / #
I agree. I mean, I'm not I'm not mad at anybody. I want everyone to get what they want and what they need out of romance. That's all.
Sarah MacLean 1:04:36 / #
I just don't want anybody to feel like they're wrong for wanting what they want. you can't be both progressive and like an alpha. That's nonsense. Go read your books. That's fine. Like, yeah, you know, and so I think I think that's where I'm at. Like, let's not let-- women's bodies are getting enough policing these days, like let's not police their minds too.
Sarah MacLean 1:05:07 / #
This is Fated Mates everybody. It's the beginning of our new season next week we have our first book, "Dreaming of you" with our favorite, with Jen and mine..?
Jennifer Prokop 1:05:25 / #
With our
Sarah MacLean 1:05:26 / #
Our. I don't know. I don't know you guys I have a copy editor for that stuff
Jennifer Prokop 1:05:30 / #
This is the very reason why possessive pronouns were created.
Sarah MacLean 1:05:33 / #
Exactly why. With our one of our very, very favorite heroes. Top Five for me for sure. Definitely top two! It's Rune and Derek Craven. Anyway, so we will be back next week with a deep dive on that. you will no doubt have a lot of questions and a lot of concerns. If you've never read this book before.
Sarah MacLean 1:05:58 / #
Fine. Jen and I have a list. We're going to talk about it all. Don't worry, you'll be fine.
Jennifer Prokop 1:06:04 / #
We're gonna take care of you.
Sarah MacLean 1:06:05 / #
Yeah. Don't forget to like and subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform. You know, tell your friends about us and find us on Twitter at @FatedMates or on Instagram at @FatedMatesPod. What else? What else you want to say? We are both there's a romance for Raises fundraiser online. I think this is probably the last week of that. So you can head over to the link. We'll put it in show notes. I've got a manuscript critique up for auction. And Jen has a couple of really fun things including a Fated Mates book pack, which is great. So head over and bid on that. All the funds go directly to organizations working on the border. And we are really, really thrilled to be a part of that. Anyway, we love you guys, thank you so much for listening. Go read a book!
Jennifer Prokop 1:07:05 / #
See you next week with Derek Craven
7.5: Scotland Historical Romances
It’s Scotland week, Lads and Lassies! We’re talking about the great green jewel to the north of England, where the ladies are bold and the lairds are brawn, and we're all just wishing we could get wrapped in a plaid and cuddled through a cold Highland night.
Next week, we’re back with the Lykae with Pleasure of a Dark Prince—starring the FULLY DREAMY Garreth MacRieve and Lucia the Huntress, who just might be our favorite heroine yet. We’ll be talking wolf holograms, how Kresley is blowing the doors off the IAD world, and we’ll be starting Lothaire Watch!
Get ready for the PoaDP read along at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books or your local indie. Also, the Audible versions of IAD are on sale right now -- and WORTH EVERY PENNY! Listen on Audio!
Show Notes
Here's the twitter thread where Lillie talked about imprinting on Julie Garwood.
The Heaving Bosoms podcast is pretty great, and although this episode about Mastered by Her Mates by Grace Goodwin is not set during Highlander Times, it's profoundly hilarious.
Some brief explainers about why old paperbacks have dyed edges, but according to Sarah's research, the more popular an author, the more likely it was the pages would be dyed.
All about kilts. Also, it's never too late for a calendar of men it kilts.
Dirks and broadswords, oh my!
Goodreads has a few lists of Broken marriage romances, but Jen recommends Cherish Me by Farrah Rochan.
Here's a google folder with screenshots of the entries for cunt, cunny, pussy, quim, shit, and fuck from the Oxford English Dictionary. Jen mentioned a book called Cunt: A Declaration of Independence, but it's kind of Terf-y, so she does not recommend it.
Sarah does talk about the etymology of swear words a lot on Twitter, becuase fuck just isn't a new word. Don't @ us.
If you want to learn more about the etymology of swear words, Melissa Mohr's Holy Shit: A Brief History of Swearing is the book for you.
A thread about vaginas by friend of the pod S.S. Jaxon.
You definitely want to see the flying fuck image and read Jen's column called Who Did it Better on a Horse.
Lyrics to a song from 1657 that uses some very choice dirty words. Maybe you prefer to listen?
The Hangover is a 2009 comedy, so who knows if it's held up over time.
Sarah, Sophie Jordan, and a bunch of other amazing authors will be at Avon's KissCon in early April. Jen will be there as an attendee, and we'll definitely have some sort of Fated Mates meet-up!
Jen said she texted Sophie, but that's not true. She tweeted at her.
Katy Budget Books has a super-amazing romance section and if you want to order signed copies of Sophie Jordan's upcoming book, you should contact them.
Next week, we return to IAD with Garreth and Lucia in Pleasure of a Dark Prince.
