Jennifer Prokop 8/31/22 Jennifer Prokop 8/31/22

Bonus! Fated Mates Live in Alexandria, VA

We're on hiatus until September 14, when we'll start Season 5, but you won’t miss us, because this week, we have the recording of Fated Mates Live, our first-ever in-person live! Headphones in for this one, y’all.

We were joined in Alexandria, VA by Kate Clayborn, Adriana Herrera, Tracey Livesay, Naima Simone, Ali Hazelwood, Diana Quincy, Andie J. Christopher, and Sophie Jordan, and we had the best time! This audio is imperfect, but there’s so much laughter here — we hope you’ll join us for the next one (which will hopefully be in the spring)…stay tuned on that front!

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast in your favorite podcasting app so you know the moment we return.

Thanks to Fox & Wit, creators of the Foxglove Special Edition Book Box of Kennedy Ryan's Before I Let Go, available for preorder now. The box comes with a special edition cover of Before I Let Go, a signed book plate, and a letter from Kennedy herself.

Season 5 starts in two weeks! 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

Our first in-person Live event was a smashing success! We welcomed Kate Clayborn, Adriana Herrera, Tracey Livesay, Naima Simone, Ali Hazelwood, Diana Quincy, Andie J. Christopher, and Sophie Jordan. Thank you to Old Town Books for partnering with us on this event.

Thank you to the audience for their participation! We used a platform called Menti, which turned the screen behind us into an interactive platform (like an Instagram Live) where our audience could respond and comment. If we all have a reaction to something you can't hear....it's because someone in the audience said something brilliantly funny using Menti.

The book Sarah accidentally interstitialed during the recording is C.M. Nascosta's Sweet Berries.

Sponsor

This week’s episode of Fated Mates
is sponsored by:

Fox & Wit,
Book subscription boxes delivered right to your door.
Get a beautiful, exclusive edition of Kennedy Ryan’s Before I Let Go
from their Foxglove series of romances at foxandwit.com

Jennifer Prokop 9/9/20 Jennifer Prokop 9/9/20

S03.04: Friends to Lovers with Tracey Livesay: Handstand, Hammock, and Horse

Two years in the making, we’re finally talking to one of our very favorites, Tracey Livesay, about friends-to-lovers romances! Ironically, for a group of people who say they don’t love friends-to-lovers, we sure had a lot of books to recommend! We’ll also peel back the curtain on Tracey’s feelings about Jamie Dornan, talk about the strangest places romance couples have sex, and get to the bottom of why this trope works so well when it works.

Sarah wrote a contemporary novella during a pandemic, and it's coming out September 15th! Preorder the Naughty Brits (an anthology with Sophie Jordan, Sierra Simone, Louisa Edwards and Tessa Gratton), wherever you get your ebooks: Amazon, Nook, Kobo, Apple or Google, or in print at bookshop.org.

Next week, we’re deep diving on Milla Vane’s A Heart of Blood and Ashes, which is a long fantasy romance. If you are a reader who needs content warnings, you might want to check out reviews on Goodreads.

Find it at Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Apple Books or Bookshop.org.

Thank you, as always, for listening — we hope you’re having a great (and safe!) summer! While we’re apart, if you are up for leaving a rating or review for the podcast on your podcasting app, we would be very grateful!

Show Notes

Linda is keeping a calendar of romance events. You should subscribe.

The Fifty Shades movies aren’t well reviewed, but really who cares. We definitely recommend the unrated version if you have the money (editorial note: would we say "recommend?"). Some interesting facts about the movies, including the director change from Sam Taylor-Johnson to James Foley. The soundtracks for the movies are terrific, especially two Beyonce songs: the remix of Crazy in Love and the song Haunted. May all of your contract negotiations look like this. Tracey said “we see more of Jamie” in the next two movies, so maybe she didn’t know about his modeling career. All further 50 Shades questions should be directed to Nisha Sharma.

Unrequited love is way more stressful than friends to lovers.

In Like Lovers Do, Ben's ex-girlfriend is racist to Nic in a way that Ben doesn't quite understand, including a reference to Courvoisier, which Ben thinks is referring to an SNL skit.

Unsurprisingly, we adore Like Lovers Do, but we're not sure we can give it a better review than this one by LaQuette, who really hits the nail on the head with the promise of this particular premise (aka, hammock sex friends-to-lovers).

Martha’s Vineyard is for fancy people.

A New York Times article about Interracial romance in media in 2020.

Handstand. Hammock. Horse.

Are bachelor auctions even a thing?

A history of taxidermy.

Bruno Kirby and Carrie Fisher are amazing in all ways in When Harry Met Sally, and the "pesto is the quiche of the 80s" scene gets quoted more than anyone in Sarah's house would like.

Up next: A Heart of Blood and Ashes by Milla Vane.

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**Books discussed in the episode: **