S06.39: Summer 2024 Reads
School’s out for Jen’s summer and Sarah’s in the final stretch so we’re dreaming of romance beach reads and talking about our massive summer TBR piles! There’s something here for everyone — hot librarians, superheroes, heists, funeral homes, wedding planners and baseball players and F1 drivers and, of course, dukes.
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.
If you love a fire hose of romance recommendations, 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
Maybe men shouldn’t cover the WNBA, tbh.
All about The electric slide.
You can follow DodoTheBookBitch on Instagram; follow Sarah there to see the scratch-off TBR poster.
Jacque is one our romancelandia faves, and she has a Pride reading challenge for you all. RomanticallyInclined is on Threads reading books with fewer than 100 reviews all through June.
For reviews in advance of publication, your best bet is Kirkus (Jen reviews for them), but you can also try Booklist or Publisher’s Weekly. We also talked about NetGalley and Edelweiss to discover upcoming books.
If you’re in NYC, don’t miss the launch event for Liana de la Rosa’s Isabel and the Rogue next week! She’ll be at The Ripped Bodice with Sarah and Adriana Herrera…and Sophie Jordan will be there, too! Tickets and info here.
Books Mentioned This Episode
Sponsors
Blue Box Press, publishers of Lexi Blake’s My Royal Showmance
available in print, ebook or audiobook from
Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo or wherever you get your books
Lotte R James, author of A Liaison with Her Leading Lady,
available at in print, ebook, or audiobook from
Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, or wherever you get your books
Ava Miles, author of A Very Un-Shakespeare Romance,
available at in print or ebook with
your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited
S06:30: Preferential Treatment by Heather Guerre & Alpha Submissive Romance
We’re finally diving into alpha submissive romance novels during this deep dive of Heather Guerre’s Preferential Treatment, one of Sarah’s best romances of 2022. We’re talking about the way some romances do such immense work today—this one really digging into something that romance usually steers clear of…money. We know money and power are inexorably intertwined, but what does that really mean when relationships are budding, and when sex is on the line? How do power dynamics shift and move, how does money impact our ability to be honest in a relationship, and most importantly, should billionaires exist? All that and we finally get to the bottom of the Alpha submissive kink, why Sarah thinks it’s great, and why it just doesn’t move Jen.
Oh, and for those of you who’ve been asking for years, Sarah’s doing a mini interstitial in here about books that feature alpha submissives — enjoy!
Read Preferential Treatment at Amazon, or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.
Show Notes
Preferential Treatment was on our Best of 2022 list.
Preferential treatment is a word used to describe unfair labor practices.
Here are some of the most common financial problems in relationships and marriages.
Mackenzie Scott’s strategy for getting rid of money through her foundation, Yield Giving.
Sponsors
Sophie Jordan, author of The Duchess,
available at Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo.
and
Meghan Quinn, author of Bridesmaid for Hire,
available in print, ebook and audio,
at Amazon, or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited
and
Sophie Andrews, author of How to Ruin a Wedding,
available at Amazon, or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.
S03.51: Mistresses, Courtesans, and Cheating in Romance with Adriana Herrera
Adriana Herrera, a FIVE-TIMER, joins us this week to talk about the third-rail of romance…infidelity! We’re talking about cheating, and about all the other bits related to it: mistresses, courtesans, illegitimate children, sex work…and get your pencils ready because (of course) we’re toppling TBRs with this one.
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
Welcome to five-timer Adriana Herrera, our very own Rizzo, and her Pink Lady jacket is on the way. PS. It was only in working on these show notes that Jen realized that Rizzo’s first name is Betty.
The phrase “safe romance” is used in online spaces to describe books without a single molecule of infidelity energy.
Infidelity in evangelical christianity (and everywhere, honestly) often places the blame on the wife if her husband strays and also on “the evil other woman” -- in this model, you know who’s not to blame? Men.And that’s pure patriarchy.
Lavender wasn’t invented because it’s a plant and its known history dates back 2500 years.
Courtesan culture was inextricably tied to colonialism in India, in China, and in the USA.
Summer Brennan’s patreon about The Book of Courtesans. Hallie Rubenhold's Covent Garden Ladies, which is the book that inspired the Hulu TV show Harlots, is about Harris's List of London "working girls."
The Spanish word for wife is esposa, which means handcuffs or manacles, while the word for mistress is amante, which means beloved.
We have had some deep dive episodes where there is infidelity: Waking Up with the Duke by Lorraine Heath and Ravishing the Heiress by Sherry Thomas
There are so many bastards in historical romance, partly because it’s an easy on-ramp for creating a character who is an outsider.
Ethical non-monogamy is the practice of talking to your partner(s) about the boundaries of your relationship. Polyamorous and Open relationships would fall into this category.
On Maryse’s Book Blog, there was a 2015 post about cheating in romance, and most of the titles are self-published and indie.
Sarah talked about Lorenzo Lamas and Dynasty and Jen and her brother Mike talked about Santa Barbaraon Adriana’s Instagram Live conversations about telenovelas and soap operas.
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.)
