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
Sponsors
Sheila Masterson, author of The Lost God,
available at Amazon or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited
and
Carrie Clark, author of A Capacity for Falling in Love,
available at Amazon, or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited
and
Stephanie Rose, author of Raising the Bar,
available at Amazon, or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.
S05.07: Spooky Stuff! Halloween Romance
It’s spooky season and that means we’re reading spooky stuff! We recommend some of our favorite recent witches and demons and incubii and ghosts and vampires and others…and then we try to get to the bottom of why paranormal romance and monster romance doesn’t feel like halloween romance to but these books do? This episode has it all: celebrity witch talk, a welshman named Rhys who isn’t the one you’re thinking of, a peek into Sarah’s past that reveals a painting that just might have installed one of her buttons…she had a beer before we recorded, so stuff happens! This one’s all treat, no trick…but headphones in, y’all. This one isn’t for the kids.
Thanks to Terri Green, author of The Swordmaster’s Daughter and Alyxandra Harvey, author of How to Marry a Viscount, for sponsoring the episode.
Our next read along is Claire Kent’s HOLD. It’s a prison planet romance, so…you know…enter at your own risk. Get it at Amazon or in Kindle Unlimited.
Show Notes
Spooky Shit Nitro Stout isn’t a brand, it’s a process.
Although we’ve never done a Halloween episode before, we did have a monster romance interstitial in season 4 with guest Jenny Nordbak. Also, all of season 1, basically.
We came up with a new rule for what makes something a paranormal, which is it’s about whether or not the main characters are immortals or humans. Or, you know, the patriarchy.
And now time for a celebrity gossip interlude: Are Gisele Bündchen & Olivia Wilde witches? It's possible. It has something to do with altars & healing stones, [the Don’t Worry Darling controversy], Jason Sudeikis under a car, and Nora Ephron’s salad dressing.
We have two more Fated States phonebanks! Register here for Oct 29 at 3 eastern to Kentucky for Charles Booker, and Nov 5 at 3 eastern to Pennsylvania for John Fetterman.
Did someone mention a Welshman named Rhys?
Gather round and look at the painting The Nightmare by Henry Fuseli. Here’s a cool explainer about the significance of the painting.
As of Oct 25, 2022, the United States has 1,090, 632 dead from Covid. Worldwide, at least 7.5M people have died. Get boosted. Wear a mask.
Books Mentioned This Episode
Sponsors
This week’s episode of Fated Mates is sponsored by:
Alyxandra Harvey, author of How to Marry a Viscount,
available at Amazon.
Visit alyxandraharvey.com
and
Terri Green, author of The Swordmaster’s Daughter,
available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, or Apple Books
Visit terrigreenauthor.com
S04.09: Best Romance Novels of 2021
It’s time for our favorite episode of the year — the one when we topple TBR piles! It’s our Best Books of 2021 episode — ten books that got us through this wild, not always great year—books with fabulous heroines, heroes who aren’t sure about feelings, delicious sexy bits, and stories that swing for the fences. You will not be disappointed.
Buy the Fated Mates Best of Book Pack in one fell swoop from our friends at Old Town Books in Alexandria, VA, and get eight of the books on the list, a Fated Mates sticker and other swag! Order the book box as soon as you can to avoid the snafus arising all over from supply chain issues.
Thank you, as always, for listening! If you are up for leaving a rating or review for the podcast on your podcasting app, we would be very grateful!
Our next read-alongs will be the Tiffany Reisz Men at Work series, which is three holiday themed category romances. Read one or all of them: Her Halloween Treat, Her Naughty Holiday and One Hot December.
Best Romance Novels of 2021
Show Notes
You can order the Fated Mates Best of 2021 box from Old Town Books in Alexandria.
The supply chain is a mess, especially for books.
Why does it always seem like cosmetics companies are discontinuing your favorite products?
“Big mistake, huge,” is a quote from Pretty Woman, of course.
Dario is a psychopath, but Jen wasn’t about to let that stop her.
Everyone loves Schitt’s Creek, but you don’t need to know about Alexis Rose to enjoy It Happened One Summer.
A Star is a Born has a truly terrible ending, no matter which version of the movie you watched.
Author Aviva Blakeman wrote some really thought-provoking threads about groveling and the grand gesture. Jen still loves the grovel, but Aviva's threads are a great reminder of how many ways there are to write a romance.
A Carl Sandburg poem about the fog. You know how Jen is.
Books From Our Friends
S03.52: Assassins and Hitmen in Romance Interstitial
Surprising absolutely no one, we love an assassin here at Fated Mates! We basically love any character who has been through the wringer and also can kill a man fourteen different ways before dinner. Even better if it’s a heroine, and she’s been hired to kill the hero (or vice versa). Anyway, we’re talking about why these books (and so! many! movies!) scratch that particular itch for us. Spoiler: It’s beautiful people blowing things up, obvi.
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
The game Assassin’s Creed first came out in 2007, and now there are so many different versions, and in many of them, you can garrote someone if you are so moved. Sarah's favorite is Assassin's Creed Syndicate, which is set in Victorian London.
We mentioned so many movies and TV shows with assassins: John Wick, The Bourne Identity, Gunpowder Milkshake (and its many weapons), Suicide Blonde, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Kill Bill, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, James Bond, Black Widow, Le Femme Nikita, The Saint, Grosse Pointe Blank, Desperado, and The Witcher.
More about some of the super camera angles we are seeing at the Tokyo Olympics.
Jack Reacher isn’t as assassin as much as he’s a vigilante. Also, he doesn’t know how to use a washing machine.
Rege-Jean Page signed up to make a remake of The Saint, and Donald Glover and Phoebe Waller-Bridge are remaking Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and we’re not sad about any of it.
Iocane powder is from The Princess Bride, of course.
Listen when you read Sweet Ruin you'll definitely want to go back to season 1 and listen to our deep dive epsiode. Because it is great.
We also talked a bunch about romances with paid killers in the Spy Romance and Mafia Romance interstitials.
As Jen was working on show notes, she discovered the book Killing Sarai was adapted into a Spanish language action movie called “En Brazos de un Asesino,” which translates to “In the Arms of an Assassin.” You can stream it on any number of services, including Amazon Prime Video.
Check out all the programming for Bookstore Romance Day, August 21-22, 2021.
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.)
