06.32: Secret Babies, Friends-to-Lovers and More — Books we love with tropes we don’t
This is the first of three episodes inspired by the incredible time we had at Fated Mates Live in Brooklyn. During the event (which was so so fun we love every single one of you who came!), we asked guests Nikki Payne, Kate Clayborn and Lauren Billings of Christina Lauren to choose an interstitial topic they would like us to tackle on the show. Lauren chose a great one: Exceptions to our rules, meaning…tropes we don’t care for that are done really really well.
So! This one is for everyone who’s ever asked Jen for Secret Baby or Virgin Heroes and anyone who’s ever asked Sarah for Friends to Lovers or Spies. We talk about the books that make us go…not that…but maybe that?
We also want to thank the following publishers and authors for their incredible generosity in making sure that almost every attendee of the Live went home with a romance novel. We are so lucky to share Romancelandia with you: Avon Books, Ballantine Books, Blue Box Press, Dell, Grand Central/Forever, Gallery Books, Lauren Blakely, LJ Evans, Pippa Grant, Ana Huang, Parker S. Huntington & LJ Shen, Elle Kennedy, Avery Maxwell, Ava Miles, Max Monroe, Kathryn Nolan, Amari Nylix, Meghan Quinn, Piper Rayne, P Rayne, Stephanie Rose, Lucy Score, & TL Swan.
Photo credits: Stephanie Keith
Show Notes
We had the very best time at Fated Mates Live, and it wouldn’t have been nearly as fun without Lauren being there. Christina Lauren’s newest book, The Paradise Problem, is out May 14th. Preorder it now, and check out their tour schedule to go see them (they’re even more terrific in person) when they’re near you!
Solar eclipses are very cool, and Jen really should have gone home…. as it turns out, 95% is not anything like 100%! If you have the chance, you should go get in that path of totality. Jen’s brother Erik was at his office rooftop in downtown Cleveland and saw people getting married, and also took a very cool video at totality. New York earthquake twitter was pretty funny, too.
Jen, staunchly anti- virgin heroes since 2018.
Kevin Costner’s speech about luck from Bull Durham.
The book about women in the CIA is called The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA by Liza Mundy.
Books Mentioned This Episode
Sponsors
Pippa Grant, author of Until It Was Love,
available in special edition hardcover, paperback, audiobook, ebook or
with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited
and
Charis Michaels, author of Say Yes to the Princess,
available at Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, or
your local independent bookstore
and
Adriana Herrera, author of The Bootlegger’s Bounty,
available in print or ebook, or
with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited
S04.46: Two Girls, One Microphone, Headphones In: Sarah and Jen at Apollycon
You’re getting the full banana this week, y’all, because we were together! Like, actually face to face, across a table in a hotel room! We’re talking Apollycon and Fated Mates Live, answering your questions, recommending fun books, and generally being delightful in your earholes (listen, if we’re not delightful, don’t tell us, we had a great time)!
Thanks to Grand Central Publishing, publishers of Farrah Rochon’s The Hookup Plan, Blair Babylon, author of Rogue, and Amazon’s Kindle Vella, publisher of Audrey Carlan’s The Marriage Auction series, for sponsoring the episode.
We’ve got interstitials and trailblazers coming your way this month, and we will finish out Season 4 as is traditional — with a deep dive episode on Sarah’s summer release, Heartbreaker! Get it at Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, at your local indie, or signed and with special swag (and a Fated Mates sticker!) from her local indie, WORD in Brooklyn!
Show Notes
You can check out The Steam Box, which is a great romance + toy subscription box.
A very funny twitter thread about what Mary Shelley might have to say to Joyce Carol Oates.
Speaking of Joe Manganiello, he was in the news this week after finding out about his racial ancestry on the TV show Finding Your Roots.
Sarah says the best feminist double feature is Magic Mike XXL and Mad Max Fury Road and you should try it and report back. You can not only watch Mad Max Fury Road, you can read about it, too.
Don’t forget to order signed copies of Heartbreaker from Word in Brooklyn.
Books Mentioned This Episode
Sponsors
This week’s episode of Fated Mates is sponsored by:
Forever, publishers of Farrah Rochon’s The Hookup Plan, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, and your local indie.
Visit farrahrochon.com
and
Blair Babylon’s Rogue, free digitally this week at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, and Kobo.
Visit blairbabylon.com
and
Amazon’s Kindle Vella, publisher of Audrey Carlan’s The Marriage Auction series,
available at amazon.com/kindlevella.
S03.41: Spy Romance with Nana Malone
You are in the right place! Your eyes do not deceive you! We’re actually talking about spy romances this week and no Sarahs were harmed during the discussion, but that’s probably because it was a discussion with one of her favorite people, the fantastic Nana Malone!
We talk about Nana’s immense career, about how she took matters into her own hands and started making the covers she wished to see in the world, about her Brown Nipple reading challenge, about her latest book, a Kobo original, The Spy in 3B, and about porny ferris wheels. Real ordinary stuff. We also get to the bottom of why Sarah doesn’t like spy romances generally, but why she can’t get enough of Mr. & Mrs. Smith retellings.
Our next read along in some number of weeks (three? four?) is Kylie Scott’s Lead, one of our longtime favorites. Get it at Amazon, Apple Books, B&N, Kobo, or Bookshop.org!
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!
The Spy Books
Notes
Welcome Nana Malone back to the pod, and if you want to hear more about the Brown Nipple Challenge, check out her Instagram. She is an amazing author and recently became her own cover model after failing to find good stock photos for her books.
If you don’t know how stock photography works, here’s a brief primer on how they can be used to make book covers and teasers. The problems with finding stock photography that is truly diverse is a well-known problem. For most authors, custom photography is cost-prohibitive. Nana’s favorite photographer is Wander Aguiar.
If you want to hear more about romance covers and their history, Sarah was interviewed on an episode of the 99% Invisible podcast about covers this week. Head over and have a listen after you listen to this!
Just in case you need a quick review, there are currently three paths in publishing: self-published, indie, and traditional. It’s common to use “indie” and “self-published” interchangeably, which why Nana described an author as “their own business.” Strictly speaking, Indie means small, independent presses, such as Violet Gaze Press. And Trad, or traditional publishing, refers to the Big Five (Big Four?) New York publishing houses: Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster.
A little about the history of Kobo and why it’s worth supporting them.
No one likes it when the Mary Sue character has no idea what’s going on.
Turns out that Ferris Wheel sex is a real thing at Coachella. And Myrtle Beach. And Vegas. And Kindle Unlimited.
Daniel Craig jumps on a train. Pierce Brosnon catches a plane.
Faberge Eggs have a storied history and are very fancy.
The hero of Night Magic is not that John McClane. If you like a Cold War thriller, you might enjoy a bonkers 80s spy thriller, The Charm School by Nelson DeMille.
Jen did love Lies, but had some thoughts about the ending and unreliable narrators that you can read after you finish the book.
We also mentioned some movies and TV shows about spies: Mr. and Mrs. Smith, La Femme Nikita, Spy, James Bond, True Lies, The Americans, Kingsman, and The Scarlet Pimpernel.