Jennifer Prokop 9/19/23 Jennifer Prokop 9/19/23

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

Inheritance

Morning Glory Milking Farm

The Earl Takes All

Sweet Temptation

Mister Moneybags

Unhinged

Hot Touch

Hedging His Bets

Taken Hostage by Kinky Bank Robbers

Uncivilized

S05.29: Spring Romance Recommendations: Sarah & Jen fill your TBR

We were together for the first time in a while, so we decided to record on Sarah’s couch! We answer questions from the audience at Fated Mates Live, recommend Spring romance novels, fill your TBR pile and bantr. It’s nice.

Next week, we’re reading Tracy MacNish’s Stealing Midnight—we’ve heard the calls from our gothic romance readers and we’re delivering with this truly bananas story, in which the hero is dug out of a grave and delivered, barely alive, to the heroine. Get ready. You can find Stealing Midnight at Amazon, B&N, Kobo, or Apple Books.

Show Notes

We had a great time at Fated Mates Live! Thanks to everyone for coming, to The William Vale for being a great location, and to Word bookstores for selling books. Producer Pat from Learning the Tropes was Eric’s co-producer that night! A huge thanks to Grand Central/Forever, Sourcebooks, and Berkley Romance for donating books for us to give away!

If you are ever in Williamsburg, you should go ahead and order some pizza. Jen ordered from Mo’s General and it was delicious.

A primer on the Model Minority Myth.

Some real life examples of people dancing themselves to death. A Splash of Cream at the Alabaster Cafe came out 6 weeks after Morning Glory Milking Farm, but also correlation does not imply causation.