full-length episode, interstitial, S06 Jennifer Prokop full-length episode, interstitial, S06 Jennifer Prokop

S06.35: All About Dukes (in Romance)

This one is for our historical lovers! We’re talking about everyone’s favorite title — Dukes! We get to the bottom of many duke questions, including: Why so many? Why are they always dukes? What’s wrong with princes? How do these guys make their money anyway? What’s with all the normies inheriting dukedoms? What about duchesses? And more! Please remember that everything we are about to say is romance fact. Don’t @ us with real life fact. We don’t want it.

Happy anniversary to our founding Patreon members — it’s one year of our Patreon and our Discord today! We love you a whole lot. Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as we do at patreon.com/fatedmates.


Show Notes

The tree thing about pollen and allergens is called botanical sexism (god it’s everywhere) and this claim, like all things, is complicated. 

Defining the title of duke.  What are the corn laws or the laws about chimney sweeps? You don’t really care—it’s just fossils. 

The Reformed Rakes podcast had a recent episode about pregnancy.

The Unites States Congress is comprised of incredibly wealthy people

In 2009, Tatler got 10 of the 24 living non-royal dukes to sit down for lunch. There’s a photo. It’s exactly what you would expect. This 2021 article from Tatler lists the 4 living single dudes that either are or will be a duke. Shoot your shot, ladies.

Question: has Sarah really written more dukes than fewer?
A Duke: Eleven Scandals to Start to Win a Duke’s Heart, No Good Duke Goes Unpunished, The Rogue Not Taken, A Scot in the Dark, The Day of the Duchess, Daring and the Duke, Heartbreaker, The Duke of Christmas Present, and A Duke Worth Falling For (9)

Not a Duke: Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake, Ten Ways to be Adored When Landing a Lord, A Rogue by Any Other Name, One Good Earl Deserves a Lover, Never Judge a Lady by Her Cover, Wicked and the Wallflower, Brazen and the Beast, Bombshell, and Knockout (9)

Books Mentioned this Episode


Sponsors

Louisa Darling, author of
The Matrimony Trap available in ebook from
Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble & Kobo

Faye Delacour, author of The Lady He Lost,
available in print or ebook from
Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble & Kobo
or wherever you get your audiobooks.

Beth Gelman, author of Always Falling Behind,
available in print or ebook, or with
your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited

and

Stephanie Rose, author of Second Time’s the Charm
available in print or ebook, or with
your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited

Read More
Jennifer Prokop Jennifer Prokop

S05.36: The Best Kisses in Romance

We’re talking kissing today! So simple and so powerful, there’s no doubt that that first kiss in romance is always an important one. This episode was inspired by our recent readalong of Her Best Worst Mistake, but we talk about some other great books (most of which we’ve talked about before) with truly excellent kisses. Enjoy…and tell us about your favorite kisses in books, movies, tv shows…wherever you get your superior smooching.

We have a Patreon now, and it 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

Kissing is the best, and we are obsessed with the first kisses from the following movies and TV shows: Maddie and David from Moonlighting, lots of Angel and Buffy kissing, jump in the wayback machine for Sam and Diane from Cheers, and more recently Jim and Pam from The Office.

The first gay kiss on network TV was on LA Law back in 1991.

In the 80s and 90s, we imprinted hard on movies with great kissing scenes: The primordial kiss that was Han Solo and Princess Leia in The Empire Strikes Back, the “No Kissing on the Mouth” from Pretty Woman and Jen forgot to mention another 90s classic, Poetic Justice with Tupac and Janet Jackson. Hello to that last scene from Never Been Kissed with Drew Barrymore. People have made entire YouTube videos of great movie kisses.

Why did people use a metaphor about [“Rounding the bases”][11] to discuss sex back in the day? Who knows!

Most of today's links are YouTube videos, but here are PDFs of the things that are text-based links. [11]: https://www.glamour.com/story/lets-settle-this-baseball-and

Books Mentioned This Episode


Sponsors

Meghan Quinn, author of Royally in Trouble,
available from Amazon, or with a monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.

and

Megan Frampton, author of His Study in Scandal,
available now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo
and your local independent bookseller.

and

Lumi Labs, creators of Microdose Gummies
Visit microdose.com and use the code FATEDMATES
for 30% off and free shipping on your order

Read More
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
Jennifer Prokop Jennifer Prokop

S05.02: Romance Novel Beginnings: Starting With a Bang!

Not that kind of bang! We’re talking about beginnings today, on the first interstitial of Season 5! This one edges into a bit more writing shop talk than usual, but we’re still name checking lots of favorite books, many of which we’ve done deep dives on already! So consider this your nudge to go back and read some great books we’ve talked about! Also, Sarah has Covid, Jen’s on the mend, Fated States is back, and next week, we’re reading Marrying Winterborne.

Thanks to Lucy Leroux, Eva Moore and Torie Jean for sponsoring the episode. Read Making Her His, Caught a Vibe and Finding Gene Kelly now.

Next week, our first read along of the season is Lisa Kleypas’s Marrying Winterborne. Get it at Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, or at your local indie.


Show Notes

Get boosted!

When a book starts in the middle of the action, it’s called in medias res

If you’re in MA, check out the Rom-Con, a full day celebration of “rom”ance at the “Con”cord free public library this Satruday, Sept 24, from 10-3. Tickets are free!

Fated States has returned, and it looks like we’ll be phonebanking every Saturday starting Oct 1 through the election.

Books Mentioned This Episode


Sponsors

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

Lucy Leroux, author of Making Her His, available in print,
in ebook and via Kindle Unlimited.

Visit authorlucyleroux.com

and

Eva Moore, author of Caught a Vibe, available in print and ebook
at Amazon, Kobo, Apple, and Barnes & Noble

Visit 4evamoore.com

and

Torie Jean, author of Finding Gene Kelly, available in print,
in ebook, and via Kindle Unlimited.

Visit toriejean.com

Read More

S03.51: Mistresses, Courtesans, and Cheating in Romance with Adriana Herrera

Adriana Herrera, a FIVE-TIMER, joins us this week to talk about the third-rail of romance…infidelity! We’re talking about cheating, and about all the other bits related to it: mistresses, courtesans, illegitimate children, sex work…and get your pencils ready because (of course) we’re toppling TBRs with this one.

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

Welcome to five-timer Adriana Herrera, our very own Rizzo, and her Pink Lady jacket is on the way. PS. It was only in working on these show notes that Jen realized that Rizzo’s first name is Betty.

The phrase “safe romance” is used in online spaces to describe books without a single molecule of infidelity energy.

Infidelity in evangelical christianity (and everywhere, honestly) often places the blame on the wife if her husband strays and also on “the evil other woman” -- in this model, you know who’s not to blame? Men. And that’s pure patriarchy.

Lavender wasn’t invented because it’s a plant and its known history dates back 2500 years.

Courtesan culture was inextricably tied to colonialism in India, in China, and in the USA.

Summer Brennan’s patreon about The Book of Courtesans. Hallie Rubenhold's Covent Garden Ladies, which is the book that inspired the Hulu TV show Harlots, is about Harris's List of London "working girls."

The Spanish word for wife is esposa, which means handcuffs or manacles, while the word for mistress is amante, which means beloved.

We have had some deep dive episodes where there is infidelity: Waking Up with the Duke by Lorraine Heath and Ravishing the Heiress by Sherry Thomas

There are so many bastards in historical romance, partly because it’s an easy on-ramp for creating a character who is an outsider.

Ethical non-monogamy is the practice of talking to your partner(s) about the boundaries of your relationship. Polyamorous and Open relationships would fall into this category.

On Maryse’s Book Blog, there was a 2015 post about cheating in romance, and most of the titles are self-published and indie.

Sarah talked about Lorenzo Lamas and Dynasty and Jen and her brother Mike talked about Santa Barbara on Adriana’s Instagram Live conversations about telenovelas and soap operas.

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.)

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

S02.23: Waking Up with the Duke: Lorraine Heath Breaks A Lot of Romance Rules

This week, it’s one of Sarah’s favorites, and by an author Jen has never read! Lorraine Heath is a master of the historical, and this one is near-perfect. It’s complex and nuanced and it has an infidelity plot and THERE IS SO MUCH ANGST!

We love having you with us! — subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform and like/review the podcast if you’re so inclined!

In two weeks, we’re reading the Queen of Dirty Talk! Sarah and Jen both love Tessa Bailey — so we’ll be talking about our two favorites of her books, Asking for Trouble (Sarah’s) and Protecting What’s His (Jen’s). Find them at: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, or Kobo.


Show Notes

Read More