Jennifer Prokop 11/22/23 Jennifer Prokop 11/22/23

06.11: Rend by Roan Parrish & the Lift 4 Autism Auction

This week, we’re doing things a little differently! A while back, we donated an episode for bid in the Lift 4 Autism auction, arranged by friend of the pod, Kennedy Ryan. Listener Julie won (thanks, Julie!) and selected Roan Parrish’s Rend for a deep dive read along, which we were so happy to do! After a shocking amount of Bantr, here it is — we’re talking about POV, about sadness in romances, about the way romance represents loneliness, and more.

We’re also taking a bit of time to recommend a group of books that have autism spectrum rep on page and that we, members of our Discord, and other authors adore. Enjoy!

If you want more Fated Mates in your life, please join 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

If you’re looking to buy stuff, especially this weekend during holiday-sale-extravaganza, you should probably check out Wirecutter.

You should subscribe to the Bookbub daily email, choose what kinds of books you want and watch your wallet!

Order the best of the year box from Pocket Books Shop in Lancaster, PA. The Best of 2023 list comes out next week!

Books Mentioned This Episode

Rend

The Bride

Love Song for Ricki Wilde

Seven Year Slip

Version Control

Hollywood Roommates

This Could be Us

The Kiss Quotient

The Bride Test

Act Your Age, Eve Brown

Beard Science

Always Only You

With You Forever

Heavy

What Was Meant to Be

Wedding Night

Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie

Kiss of a Duke

Secret Service of Tea and Treason

An Unseen Attraction

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

Tattoos are expensive!
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.