S05, if you liked, full-length episode Sarah MacLean S05, if you liked, full-length episode Sarah MacLean

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

Ali Hazelwood’s Books

 

Pining Main Characters

 

The Professors

 

STEM Heroines

 

Great Banter

 

Microtropes


Reylo Fic recommended by Ali Hazelwood & Adriana Herrera


Sponsors

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

Blair Babylon, author of Twisted and Tangled,
available in print and ebook, wherever you get your romance,

and

Emjoy, your audio journey to female pleasure.
Visit letsemjoy.com/mates for your 14 day free trial.

Read More
S02 - TBTBU, read along, full-length episode Jennifer Prokop S02 - TBTBU, read along, full-length episode Jennifer Prokop

S02.20: Managed by Kristen Callihan: Scottie!!!

Scottie!!!!!!! It’s Managed week here at Fated Mates — this is one of Jen’s favorite romances, and we’re talking about it and the next book in Kristen Callihan’s VIP series, Fall. We’re revisiting the rockstar romance and the found family trope, talking about the slow burn, and Jen’s talking about first person present tense narration and not yelling…so it’s a banner episode!

Don’t miss a single moment of our 2020 episodes — subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform and like/review the podcast if you’re so inclined!

In two weeks, we’re reading one of Sarah’s picks, Lorraine Heath’s Waking Up With the Duke, which was a tough choice because Lorraine is amazing and Sarah wants you to read all of her books. Read Waking Up With the Duke at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, or Kobo.

Show Notes

other books we mentioned

Read More
full-length episode, IAD, read along Jennifer Prokop full-length episode, IAD, read along Jennifer Prokop

7: Ghost Pepper Town: Warlord Wants Forever & Untouchable

We’re tackling the novellas this week, and finishing up the Wroth Brother Quartet with The Warlord Wants Forever (Nikolai) & Untouchable (Murdoch), as well as their incredible Valkyrie mates.

This episode, we’re talking about Myst’s weird chain, Danii’s loneliness, the responsibility of authors to readers, to themselves, to the text, and to literary history, and the way Untouchable hints at the enormous world that IAD is about to become.

Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in your favorite podcasting platform — and while you’re there, please leave us a like or a review.

In two weeks, we’re back to the Lykae, with one of our favorite books — Pleasures of a Dark Prince, the last book in the first arc of the IAD series (this begins at the same time as A Hunger Like No Other). Garreth MacRieve, prince of the Lykae clan and Lucia the Huntress — the greatest archer of all time.

Show Notes

The Wroth Brothers are dreamy, and here are the books the feature Nikolai, Sebastian, Conrad, and Murdoch.

Take a look at the IAD Ranking Spreasheet of Wonder from the Wicked Wallflowers Podcast.

Sarah refers to our novella episode, but she means the Holiday Romances episode where we had a long discussion of the novellas as a form.

Jen collected some comparison screenshots from the original (A) and revised (B) versions of The Warlord Wants Forever. The two versions of the scene after the chain is broken; The two versions of the first time they have sex; and the two versions of Nix naming herself.

Dubcon romances have main characters who agree to sex play featuring "dubious consent."

A little more about the versions of Whitney, My Love. You can still find original versions on eBay or Amazon, but you'll pay more for them.

Jen mentions Eric Selinger at DePaul. He teaches classes on Romance at DePaul, which is local for her. SADLY, they don't have PhD programs. But you can read more academic romance talk at a blog called Teach Me Tonight.

The Hello Stranger review at Smart Bitches calls out the Orientalism in the novel, and features Lisa Kleypas' response.

The Memory Hole is a reference to 1984 by George Orwell.

A little more about why sheikh and Native American romances are problematic.

A definitive list of the qualities, skills, and powers of vampires in literature and pop culture. At some point, Jen's going to add IAD.

Retcon stands for "retroactive continiuity" and here's a great primer about it from the best dictionary, Merriam-Webster.

In two weeks, we'll be discussing Garreth & Lucia in Pleasure of a Dark Prince.

Read More