S03.34: Captain of All Pleasures by Kresley Cole: There's Only One Bunk
Rounding the corner on Season Three, and we’re missing Kresley Cole! This week, we read a book neither of us have read before — Kresley’s Captain of All Pleasures. A Victorian pirate book about a ship race. We talk about the magic of the debut romance, why pirates are often times icky, and why setting a book on a boat is risky business.
Next week, we’re back with an interstitial, and in two weeks, we’re reading a romantic suspense—Whiteout by Adriana Anders. Find it at Amazon (free in KU!), Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, or from your local indie.
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!
Notes
The requisite coronavirus chat: Sarah was very sick in 2020 and Kate and Jen did a “sickbed scenes” interstitial without her. Jen said someone is going to make a jingle out of “Fauci Ouchie” and it already happened.
Sarah’s upcoming book is available for pre-order. The title is Bombshell and it comes out August 24, 2021. You can read this interview with Sarah when EW did the cover reveal.
Check out Season one, which is all about Kresley Cole’s Immortals After Dark series.
Quite a few of Lisa Kleypas’s earliest novels are out of print and not available as eBooks, but you can probably find them used on eBay or Amazon.
Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake is Sarah’s debut, you should read it.
Borders was a bookstore that closed in 2011. Goodreads was invented in 2007 but took a few years to become popular, but once it was bought by Amazon, it completely stagnated.
Sarah was probably talking about Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours of practice rule, but how many words would that actually be?
The Stephanie Plum series is now on book number 27, and all Jen has to say is #TeamRanger forever. Don’t @ her.
Here’s Kresley’s FictionDB page for a complete list of her books in order.
Ships vs. boats, if getting those names is important to you, I guess.
The Amazing Race arc of IAD takes place over two books, No Rest for the Wicked and Wicked Deeds on a Winter’s Night.
Again the Magic was actually published in 2004, a year after Captain of All Pleasures.
The golden age of pirates was between 1650 and the 1730s, and of course our actual knowledge of pirates and piracy is limited. But most recently, of course, there are the Somali pirates. The race in Captain of All Pleasures was probably based on the Great Tea Race of 1866.
Dr. Gunter has some information for you about the hymen.
Hattie ties Whit to a mast in Brazen and the Beast, in case you want more of that.
Next up, Whiteout by Adriana Anders.
S03.31: Morality Chain Romance
We’re so thrilled to be talking morality chain romance! We’ve owed this episode to Katee Robert for nearly a year, and we have no excuses for how long this has taken, except that time in 2020 was a flat circle. Here, we get down to business—we tackle the definition of Morality Chain, and how it differs from Dark Romance, how it connects with mafia, criminals, pirates, highwaymen, and the original Alpha.
Check all your Content Warnings before you begin with these books!
Whether you're new to Fated Mates this month or have been with us for all three seasons, we adore you, and we're so grateful to have you. We hope you’re reading the best books this week.
Next week, we’re reading Alexis Daria’s You Had Me At Hola, one of our Best Books of 2020! Find it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, or Apple Books.
Show Notes
One very important note: we highly recommend doing a thorough search for content warnings for all the books and movies we mention this week.
We love Katee Robert, who we had on as a guest for the menage interstitial. Katee bid on this item at Kennedy Ryan’s Lift 4 Autism auction. It happens every spring, so keep an eye on this page for the 2021 auction if you’d like to pick the topic for a future interstitial.
This week, Katee released Seducing My Guardian, the 4th book in her SUPER HOT Touch of Taboo series. If you'd like to read a morality chain romance written by Katee, we recommend The Bastard's Bargain.
“In springtime, the only pretty ring time” is from Shakespeare’s As You Like It. It's also possible Sarah knows it from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. She would like you to believe that it's from the former, but we'll leave you to draw your own conclusions. Either way, “If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it,” is from Beyonce.
As it turns out, Chicago is a great town for beach volleyball.
It’s hard not to talk about morality chain & dark romance together, but we think they are inverse tropes. The internet definition of Morality Chain is “is a character who is the reason another character is Good.” Jen and Sarah’s current definition is that in morality chain romance, the Love Interest pulls a hero towards humanity and goodness, while in dark romance, the love interest is pulled down into the hero’s lawless world.
Some examples in pop culture are Spike from Buffy and maybe Barney in How I Met Your Motherr. Also, check out a movie called The Professional, where a child (played by Natalie Portman!) befriends the assassin next door. The Jason Statham one with a kid is called Safe.
The Hero’s Journey is very common character archetype in literature and pop culture, but Sarah and Jen are both very taken with Gail Carriger’s description of the alternative archetype, The Heroine’s Journey.
If you want more about morality chain, so many of Kresley’s books from The Immortals After Dark series will work, so please listen to season one! Our favorites are Dark Needs at Night’s Edge, Lothaire, and Sweet Ruin.
We were divided on whether the character has to be a danger to others in order to qualitfy as morality chain. In the Gamemaker series: The Professional is about an assassin who is a danger to others, while in The Player he’s only a danger to himself.
Jen Porter wrote a long thread about what she thinks of as PEA, or problematic ever after, romance.
Mickey is "kind of a Fagin-y" as a character, but without the antisemitism. In interesting historical facts, Dickens rewrote Oliver Twist later in life to remove all anti-Semitic characteristics from Fagin, after he'd been criticized for the portrayal of the character. Of course, it's not that simple. Read more about it from Deborah Epstein Nord.
Scottie is the main character of Managed, and is classified more as grumpy one/sunshine one, which we argue is just morality chain dialed down.
More about how most writers have a “core story."
Next week, we'll be reading You Had me at Hola by Alexis Daria
S03.18: Julie Garwood Interstitial: Damnit, Sara! (Not our Sarah!)
This week, we tried something a little different—recording a live interstitial episode! We’re talking about Jen’s formative queen, Julie Garwood, and we dig into dialogue, alphas who are instantly gone for their heroines, heroines who tame wild animals, arranged marriages between children, and why every Garwood historical feels medieval whether or not it actually is.
We recorded this episode live during a Fated States postcard-writing party to get out the vote for the January 5th runoff election in Georgia. If you’re a Georgia voter, please vote for Jon Ossoff and Reverend Raphael Warnock, and let’s finish what we started with the blue wave! If you’re up for it, please consider joining us for a phonebanking session on the evening of January 4th!
Next week, in advance of the launch of the Bridgerton series on Netflix (coming December 25th!), we’re reading Sarah’s favorite Julia Quinn novel, The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever. Get it at Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Apple or at your local indie via bookshop.org.
Show Notes
Fated States is gearing up to phone bank on the evening of Jan 4 from 5-7 central time. Join us if you can!
Sarah mentioned seeing Berkley editor Cindy Hwang on a panel--it doesn't appear to have been recorded, but here is the description of the panel.
In Sarah’s OSRBC facebook group, there’s a longstanding search for a book where two people are on a beach and a wave throws them together, and then “oops they’re boning.” A few folks have suggested that maybe it was Pirate by Fabio. So check it out. His co-writer (a ghost writer is when they are unnamed) is Eugenia Rielly.
A teenage horror/romance that both Jen and Kelly loved was called The Ghosts of Departure Point. Probably came from the Scholastic Book Club, if we’re being honest.
In case you’re wondering, the copyright page will tell you if you’re holding a first printing or first edition. Here’s a bunch of people talking about why the edges of paperbacks were dyed.
RT Book Reviews and the RT conference once had Julie Garwood and Jude Deveraux on stage at the same time, and YouTube has the video! When Coronavirus is over, I highly recommend going to KissCon.
Nora Roberts is our Queen and last week a poor unfortunate soul named Debra learned that the hard way.
Obviously, Luke grew up on Tatooine. Hoth was that ice planet place, which is why the women in the Ice Planet Barbarians series call their new home Not-Hoth.
We’d be interested in hearing your interpretation of The Bechdel Test. Jen thinks the women can still talk about men AS LONG AS they also talk about other stuff, but Sarah thought it required no discussion of men at all which is pretty tough to find in romance. FWIW, Jen mentioned it in regards to The Bride because Jamie is so isolated and largely without women friends.
We like prologues and epilogues here at Fated Mates, but we understand not everyone agrees.
The feud between the families in The Gift is “like the Montagues and the Capulets, but worse.” Speaking of which, Kate Clayborn’s upcoming book, Love At First, is an homage to Romeo and Juliet.
This isn't exactly about the life expectancy in Scotland was in 1100, but it's close enough.
Vanessa Riley’s site has a great explainer about Black people during the Regency on her site. We talked about the Carribean in the Regency when we read Gentle Rogue.
It wasn't a "rip off" of Home Alone, it was just an allusion. Similarly, Nathan's whip reminded Sarah of Indiana Jones.
Are these books on audio? Why yes they are and Jen listened to The Bride in between recording and release of the episode and greatly enjoyed it.
Next week, we're reading The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever by Julia Quinn
S02.05: James Malory Gets Bangs: Gentle Rogue
Sarah picked this week’s read without having read it recently, and she shockingly doesn’t regret it! We’re talking Johanna Lindsey’s Gentle Rogue—arguably one of the most beloved texts of the genre, complete with a reformed pirate and a heroine who is having absolutely none of his nonsense. We’ll talk about heroines who are sex positive, about obvious references to the slave trade that are problematic and somehow utterly glossed over, archetypal brothers, and about the shocking lack of plot in this book (which we don’t mind a bit).
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 going back to paranormal with the first book in JR Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood series, Dark Lover. It’s a whole ride. Strap in. Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo or your local indie (it’s currently only $2.99 in ebook!).
Show Notes
Jen's the romance correspondent for Kirkus, and she recently wrote about Fabio who appeared on the original cover of Gentle Rogue. Also, this piece by Kelly Faircloth about romance covers is amazing.
When Sarah dreamed of Amy Schumer, I wonder if it was anything like this?
7th grade is awful for everyone.
The Magic of You is all about Georgie's brother Warren.
Here's some basic information about slavery in Jamaica and sugar plantations in particular. And the Slave Voyages site is an amazing and well-researched online archive you should also check out, which includes a searchable database of transatlantic boats and the numbers of enslaved people on board each ship.
Although we didn't mention it the podcast, if you're reading romances where white people have weddings, parties, or balls on plantations...that's terrible.
In real life, billionaires are always a problem.
For your consideration: a goodreads list of ugly duckling romances.
A thread from EE Ottoman about why pants are not the problem... or the answer.
We love Jen Porter.
Lord of Scoundrels will definitely be making an appearnce in season 2.
Sometimes we don't know if it's better to get bangs or just deal with our feelings.
Why are there so many YA love triangles?
The Bridgertons, in case you don't know.
Jen thinks James Malory is a Mary Sue.
Coming up in two weeks, Dark Lover by J. R. Ward.
An official Romancelandia poll on the best emjoi for pegging. I don't even know what to say.