S05.42: The Bride by Julie Garwood: A Primordial RomCom
We were devastated to learn of the passing of Julie Garwood, honest to God romance doyenne, last month. Garwood installed many of our buttons, and the buttons of so many romance readers who came up reading “The Four J’s,” and, more importantly, paved the way for romcoms with her wonderfully funny historicals. She was, without question, a trailblazer. While we were unable to interview her for our trailblazer series, we couldn’t let her passing go without an episode, so please enjoy our read along of The Bride, which is a nearly perfect book even now, decades after she wrote it.
While our thoughts are with with Julie Garwood’s family, her friends, and the legions of readers she delighted over her long and legendary career, our endless gratitude is with Julie Garwood herself—for the laughter, the sighs, and the absolute bangers that were her books.
If you want more Fated Mates in your life, you are welcome at 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
We were devastated to learn about the death of romance great Julie Garwood. You can read her obituaries in the New York Times and the Washington Post. In 2022, Julie Garwood was a guest on the Smart Bitches Trashy Books podcast.
Are we at the end of the usable internet?
A google folder with PDFs of this week's articles.
Books Mentioned This Episode
Sponsors
Trilina Pucci, author of Knot So Lucky,
available now from Amazon, or with a monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited
and
Jessica Martin, author of The Dane of My Existence,
available now in print, ebook and audio from
Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo,
or from your local independent bookseller.
and
The Smut Lovers Conference,
September 21-24 in Orlando, FL
Use the code FATEDMATES for 15% off all available tickets
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
ReyLo is the ship name for Kylo Ren and Rey from the Star Wars movies. And the actor who plays Kylo Ren is Adam Driver.
All about Pansexuality.
Censorship on TikTok is so widespread is has its own wikipedia page, which makes it rife for misinformation about sex and sex education.
Small point of order, Jen was at the LPI (Lunar and Planetary Institute), which is close to the Johnson NASA Space Center in Houston. Obviously, she wasn’t at the JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), because that’s in California.
Ali Hazelwood’s Books
Pining Main Characters
The Professors
STEM Heroines
Great Banter
Microtropes
Reylo Fic recommended by Ali Hazelwood & Adriana Herrera
$15 New, $15 Used, Yours_Truly_Commander_Shepard
Abash the Little Bird, SecretReyloTrash
All Our Days, voicedimplosives
Can’t Turn Off What Turns Me On, audreyii_fic
Coarse and Rough and Irritating, frak-all
Composure, Skyelo_Ren
Count the Rings, lachesisgrimm
Cupcake Wars, crossingwinter
Embers, Sciosophia
The Girl in Terminal B, nightsofreylo
Juniper and Bergamot, SaintHeretical
Lascivious Weapons, CoraRiley
Let Go (Never Let Me Go), crossingwinter
Light Carries on Endlessly, lachesisgrimm
Misprint, JenfysNest
A Night for Firsts, TheAlchemistsDaughter
Shade on a Sunny Street, tigbit
Sharp Dressed Man, audreyii_fic
She Uses Tangerines, Yours_Truly_Commander_Shepard
So Long, My Adversary, Like_A_Dove
Something Beautiful but Annihilating, SecretReyloTrash
Why Don’t You and I Combine, Crossingwinter
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.
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
7.5: Scotland Historical Romances
It’s Scotland week, Lads and Lassies! We’re talking about the great green jewel to the north of England, where the ladies are bold and the lairds are brawn, and we're all just wishing we could get wrapped in a plaid and cuddled through a cold Highland night.
Next week, we’re back with the Lykae with Pleasure of a Dark Prince—starring the FULLY DREAMY Garreth MacRieve and Lucia the Huntress, who just might be our favorite heroine yet. We’ll be talking wolf holograms, how Kresley is blowing the doors off the IAD world, and we’ll be starting Lothaire Watch!
Get ready for the PoaDP read along at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books or your local indie. Also, the Audible versions of IAD are on sale right now -- and WORTH EVERY PENNY! Listen on Audio!
Show Notes
Here's the twitter thread where Lillie talked about imprinting on Julie Garwood.
The Heaving Bosoms podcast is pretty great, and although this episode about Mastered by Her Mates by Grace Goodwin is not set during Highlander Times, it's profoundly hilarious.
Some brief explainers about why old paperbacks have dyed edges, but according to Sarah's research, the more popular an author, the more likely it was the pages would be dyed.
All about kilts. Also, it's never too late for a calendar of men it kilts.
Dirks and broadswords, oh my!
Goodreads has a few lists of Broken marriage romances, but Jen recommends Cherish Me by Farrah Rochan.
Here's a google folder with screenshots of the entries for cunt, cunny, pussy, quim, shit, and fuck from the Oxford English Dictionary. Jen mentioned a book called Cunt: A Declaration of Independence, but it's kind of Terf-y, so she does not recommend it.
Sarah does talk about the etymology of swear words a lot on Twitter, becuase fuck just isn't a new word. Don't @ us.
If you want to learn more about the etymology of swear words, Melissa Mohr's Holy Shit: A Brief History of Swearing is the book for you.
A thread about vaginas by friend of the pod S.S. Jaxon.
You definitely want to see the flying fuck image and read Jen's column called Who Did it Better on a Horse.
Lyrics to a song from 1657 that uses some very choice dirty words. Maybe you prefer to listen?
The Hangover is a 2009 comedy, so who knows if it's held up over time.
Sarah, Sophie Jordan, and a bunch of other amazing authors will be at Avon's KissCon in early April. Jen will be there as an attendee, and we'll definitely have some sort of Fated Mates meet-up!
Jen said she texted Sophie, but that's not true. She tweeted at her.
Katy Budget Books has a super-amazing romance section and if you want to order signed copies of Sophie Jordan's upcoming book, you should contact them.
Next week, we return to IAD with Garreth and Lucia in Pleasure of a Dark Prince.
