S06.02: The Full Banana
We’re so excited you’re with us for this season! The first interstitial episode of Season 6 drops today and it’s the full banana, meaning—here’s where we talk about the absolutely bonkers romance novels we’ve encountered over our decades of romance reading. Sentient doors, 24-ounces of liquid, gorilla attacks, kinky bank robbers, and Tarzan retellings are here…and so much more!
Our first read along of the season will be Laura Kinsale’s Flowers from the Storm, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo or from your local indie.
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 had a great time at the Popular Romance Fiction conference at Yale. We met Carole Bell, one of our favorite reviewers. We were also joined on our panel by Julie Moody-Freeman of the Black Romance Podcast and Kinohi Nishikawa from Princeton. Our moderator was Jeania Ree Moore, a PhD student at Yale and one of the lead organizers of the conference. It was spectacular, as were all the panels and classes at the event.
Jen has decided, a group of Magnificent Firebirds is a phalanx, it just rolls off the tongue: a phalanx of firebirds!
Check out the great selection of romances and book boxes at Pocket Books Shop in Lancaster, PA.
The drilldo book is called Laying Pipe by Kate Allure, and here’s a little illustration from our fave, Jennifer Porter. Don’t worry future Fated Mates listener, I took a screenshot for posterity once twitter is gone for good.
You can listen to Sarah do a deep dive on Gorilla Twins over at Learning the Tropes.
You should really watch the movie Lone Star starring Chris Cooper, Elizabeth Peña, and a young Matthew McConaughey, but we are less sure if you should read The Elegance of the Hedgehog.
Books Mentioned this Episode
Sponsors
P. Rayne, author of Vow of Revenge,
available at Amazon, or with a monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited
and
Andie James, author of Ruin and Redemption for the Earl
available at Amazon, or with a monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited
and
Rose Prendeville, author of Lady Len and the Mysterious Mac
available at Amazon, or with a monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited
S04.06: Monster Romance Interstitial with Jenny Nordbak
We’re talking minotaurs and spiders and orcs and gargoyles…it’s Monster Romance week at Fated Mates! Jenny Nordbak of the Wicked Wallflowers and Bonkers Romance podcast joins us to talk about this explosive, extremely popular genre that both intrigues and perplexes us.
Our next read along is Uzma Jalaluddin’s Hana Khan Carries On. Find it at: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, or at your local indie.
This episode sponsored by Radish: Bottomless content; one cute app. Visit radish.social/fatedmates for 24 free coins and to read your first Radish story.
Show Notes
Welcome Jenny Nordbak. Her first romance, His Leading Lady, was just released, (Jen did the final developmental edit!) and she just started the Bonkers Romance podcast with Melody from the Heaving Bosoms podcast. Check it out!
Although there is lots of crossover with paranormal or alien, Jenny defines monsters as: creatures who don’t shift into humans, you’d definitely scream if you saw them running down the street, but human enough to be able to bang. Although no one mentioned on the episode, here is the single greatest monster explanation ever seen on twitter.
The cartoon Sarah refered to is called The Harkness Test, and it's a reference to Dr. Who.
More about what it means to go into the Amazon dungeon--this, of course, is related to attempts to deplatform sex everywhere on the internet. Besialisty cartoon that Sarah is going to look for
Baby Jenny imprinted on Fantasia, specifically the centaurs and Chernabog. She also loved the Gargoyles TV show and the orcs in Lord of the Rings.
Here’s listener Alyssa Long’s terrific thread about monsters and disability. Often, writers use ableist tropes in their monster-creation, and Alyssa’s thread talks about how and why this is harmful. (Any mistakes in the summarizing of this thread are Jen’s!) In that thread, Alyssa shared a great article about ableism in the horror genre, and although we loved The Witcher, it reinforced some of the most common problems with putting disabilities on the screen.
Sarah is hosting a writing workship to kick of NaNo--register here!
S04.01: Welcome to Season Four: Trailblazers and More
Season Four starts today, you Magnificent Firebirds!
Season One gave us a full lAD deep dive (if you’ve never read Kresley Cole’s Immortals After Dark, general existential malaise is a really good reason to start), and Season Two gave us The Books That Blooded Us -- the books that made us the romance readers we are. Season Three was during a pandemic, so just let us live (but also, there was a Roy Kent episode)!
Now, Season Four is here, and we have — dare we say — a plan? We’re going to deep dive on books that are new and fabulous, old and transformative, and generally reveal how vast and magnificent the romance pool can get. We’ve got some great interstitials planned, including some fabulous, brilliant guests on deck…and when Munro is released, we’ll (obviously) drop everything and read with you!
But we’ve got something new and different to add to the mix — a collection of interviews with trailblazers of the genre—the people who have built the romance house over the last fifty years. We’re already blown away by who we have on deck, with many many more to come! Stick with us, it’s going to be a terrific ride.
We begin our read alongs in two weeks with a delicious book that did not bring romance the bluestocking, but definitely made sure we all knew who she was. It’s Amanda Quick’s Ravished—which Sarah describes as “Harriet, in a cave, with a rake.” It’s great. Get reading at: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, or at your local indie.
You have two weeks to read, but in the meantime, sit back, relax, and let us give you a preview of what's to come! Don't forget to like and follow in your favorite podcasting platform!
Show Notes
The only Fated Mates episode where one of us was absent was back when Sarah was sick and Kate came on to talk about sickbed scenes--It was March of 2020 and we weren’t as Coronavirus-aware as we thought.
Keeping our fingers crossed that the FDA will approve the vaccination for kids between 5 and 12.
Health care workers are facing increasingly hostile and frightening aggression from anti-vaxxers.
We were ahead of the ball on calling Ted Lasso as a romance. You should follow Phil Dunster, the actor who plays Jamie Tartt, on Twitter. Last week, Roy and Jamie had a heartbreaking and perfect moment.
All about gaffing and scatting.
Hannah Waddingham is from the theater world, so maybe that’s why we didn’t realize her brilliance before this show. Apparently we just didn’t realize she was on Game of Thrones, which sounds terrible.
Kresley sent a newsletter and let everyone know that she might have news this month about Munro and the next book in the Arcana chronicles.
You can change the time zone of your Kindle, but I don’t think the books arrive any earlier.
The Flame and the Flower was published in 1972. We will not do a read along of the book, but we will talk about its influence on the genre.
Julie Moody-Freeman, host of the Black Romance Podcast, was a guest on Fated Mates at the end of season two.
Here’s a New Yorker profile of Nora Roberts from 2009, and a People magazine story on Danielle Steel from 2014.
Many of romance's writers and editors have already passed. Two we mentioned: Carolyn Nichols, the original editor for Loveswept, died in 2017, and legendary author Johanna Lindsey died in 2019.
Our first season four read-along will be Ravished by Amanda Quick.
