S02 - Interstitials, interstitial, full-length episode, guest host, romance recommendations Jennifer Prokop S02 - Interstitials, interstitial, full-length episode, guest host, romance recommendations Jennifer Prokop

S02.06: Cinnamon Roll Heroes with Andie Christopher

We heard you! You wanted to talk about Cinnamon Roll Heroes, so here we are, and we’re bringing in an expert on the topic (in real life and in fiction) — Andie Christopher. We’re talking about the evolution and popularization of the beta in the 90s, why they became such a powerful force then, why they’re back now, and why they work so well for some readers! We’ll also talk about dating in 2019, recommend some books (obviously), and talk about Andie’s upcoming, Not the Girl You Marry, which is out November 12!

Transcript Available

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Next week, 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

TRANSCRIPT

Sarah MacLean 0:00 / #
Okay, so we're just popping this in at the beginning of the cinnamon / # roll interstitial with Andie Christopher, give us a couple minutes, you guys Andie's on her way. But we have a plan and we're very excited about it.

Jennifer Prokop 0:13 / #
It's really exciting. Sarah made me try it. So we know it works.

Sarah MacLean 0:18 / #
It's true. So we have set up a voicemail box for you guys.For old school level, like you can basically page

Jennifer Prokop 0:30 / #
Oh my god, it's like A Tribe Called Quest song.

A Tribe Called Quest 0:33 / #
Enter your Telephone number or other numeric message.

Sarah MacLean 0:43 / #
So we're going to give you a telephone number, a United States telephone number for international listeners. And you're going to get to call and it's going to go right to voicemail. And you will hear my voice asking you to tell us about the book that blooded you, Jen, what do we want them to tell us?

Jennifer Prokop 1:03 / #
Okay, so I think here's the important thing. We are hopefully going to actually play these audio clips on future podcasts. Yeah,

Sarah MacLean 1:11 / #
you're by giving us voicemail, by leaving us a voicemail you are consenting to us putting it on the podcast.

Jennifer Prokop 1:18 / #
Yeah. So I think it's really important that you probably should just say you're like your first name. You don't have to give us your full name, address please or phone number. Please don't do that.

Sarah MacLean 1:26 / #
Please don't.

Jennifer Prokop 1:27 / #
None of us would like any of your data we we want you to be pleasantly anonymous. Anyway. So you're going to tell us your name. If you would like to-- where you live. That's kind of fun when you started reading romance, some small biographical details, I think to get the flavor. And then I want you to tell us the book and it's really great if its title and author.

Sarah MacLean 1:49 / #
Yes, please. And tell us why.

Jennifer Prokop 1:51 / #
Yeah, like Sarah story where she read Gentle Rogue her desk, right? I think what we're looking for is not like your review of the book, but your memory of the reading of it. right?

Sarah MacLean 2:02 / #
We're interested in like the prime on this of this book. Why this is the book that brought you to romance and kept you here? Um, so that is the story. That is what we're doing. The telephone number is [redacted]. And we are not putting this-- you have to write it down, you guys. We're not putting on the internet because the last thing I need is like cranky readers leaving me voicemail about my books. Don't leave me voicemail about my books.

Jennifer Prokop 2:41 / #
You know what I'll say? Yeah, it's if it's, if it's anything other than like, kind of what we described, we'll probably just delete it. And you know, we're not trying to be mean, but this isn't, you know, there's lots of ways to talk to us on Twitter or whatever. This is really specifically the books to blooded us hotline.

Sarah MacLean 3:01 / #
Okay, we're gonna give you the telephone number during episodes too, but like I said, we're not gonna put it in show notes. We're not gonna tweet it. It's really it's just between all us all US friends.Yeah, you know, 10,000 closest friends. So if you leave us-- pegging crew! Don't leave us messages about pegging.

Jennifer Prokop 3:32 / #
Oh my god. I'm excited about all of it.

Sarah MacLean 3:36 / #
I'm really excited to I can't wait. Tell us about the books that you love-- from the past from the present. Call multiple times. Tell us about multiple books.

Jennifer Prokop 3:48 / #
Sure. And you know, we're not sure exactly how we're how we're going to use this yet. So you know, we don't know exactly how it'll work. So it could be that we get inundated with calls and keep it up for a week or two and take it down. It could be something that goes on for a long time. So no promises anybody, maybe we don't, but we just think it'll be really fun to hear. Yes,

Sarah MacLean 4:09 / #
this could be a very big mistake to we haven't talked, but

Jennifer Prokop 4:13 / #
I don't think it'll be a mistake. I'm just worried it's too much. Like we won't be able to get everybody on right. I mean, you know, you guys seem cool though. I think

Sarah MacLean 4:21 / #
I think we're all gonna we're all grown ups. We're all going to be able to, you know, hold hold firm. I'm very excited that I'm making you all do something old fashioned, like pick up the phone and leave us a voicemail like a a civilized human being.

Jennifer Prokop 4:38 / #
No dick pics.

Sarah MacLean 4:41 / #
Note Yeah, impossible to leave us a dick pic.

Sarah MacLean 4:45 / #
Okay, And we can't wait to hear your voices in our ear holes.

Jennifer Prokop 4:55 / #
Yes, that's right.

Sarah MacLean 4:57 / #
Stay tuned for Andie Christopher and cinnamon / # rolls.

Sarah MacLean 5:02 / #
Well, we made a lot of people mad.

Jennifer Prokop 5:06 / #
They haven't even heard the Derek Craven episode yet, so I don't even know what the hell's going on Sarah

Sarah MacLean 5:13 / #
Well, welcome to Fated Mates everyone it is a beta cinnamon / # roll soft hero week. It's a little late Great British Bake Off.

Jennifer Prokop 5:26 / #
We actually just got an amazing-- someone tweeted us right now and was like, Is there a book where it's essentially set during the Great British Bake Off? Only I don't watch that show. And so it said #GBBO, and I didn't know what it was and I go look it up. So I'm like the wrong person to ask I guess.

Sarah MacLean 5:45 / #
I am the exact right person to ask about that. I don't know about a baking one. But Louisa Edwards did a like Top Chef style romance series which we will play in show notes. More importantly, we should introduce our guest.

Andie Christopher 6:02 / #
Hi.

Sarah MacLean 6:05 / #
Before we're too far down the rabbit hole. Welcome, Andie Christopher.

Andie Christopher 6:11 / #
Hi,

Sarah MacLean 6:12 / #
we are so excited to have you. I can't believe it's taken us until season two.

Andie Christopher 6:17 / #
It's it's taken a long time, but we did record that one episode that Just didn't make it.

Sarah MacLean 6:24 / #
It's actually not that it didn't make it. It's that someone was terrible at recording themselves.

Jennifer Prokop 6:31 / #
Wait, you have no idea everybody Sarah, I'm about to tell you a story you don't even know only Andie and I know-- which is I fucked up the recording the first time it was the three of us and actually accidentally had this master reverb thing on, which was essentially it made me sound like I was in a soccer stadium. And then-- here's what you don't know. I also recorded an interview with Andie because I interviewed her for Kirkus earlier this summer, and at literally 10 minutes before our scheduled phone call. My child-- who we were in Dallas for his volleyball tournament-- played volleyball day then ate a bunch of stuff and then literally barfed all over the hotel room. And I had to clean it all up, and then call and Andie and be like, "Hi, sorry. Thank God you're not in this room with me because it's disgusting." So I'm going to go with Third time's a charm.

Andie Christopher 7:22 / #
I hope so. I hope so.

Jennifer Prokop 7:24 / #
Nobody's gonna barf right now. And I'm not in a soccer stadium.

Sarah MacLean 7:29 / #
I'm really glad and also it's a good day, you guys. It's a really good day, because Nancy Pelosi finally got her shit together and was like, let's impeach the motherfucker.

Jennifer Prokop 7:45 / #
I mean, Yes. I need her to be hard as nails right now.

Andie Christopher 7:50 / #
She was bringing the Big Mom energy during that, during that press conference. She was bringing the "I told you once I told you twice. This is the third time and now we're done."

Sarah MacLean 8:05 / #
You don't get to go to prom. Yeah, if only we actually were prom. And, uh, but basically, what better thing for us to do tonight than to talk about soft, good, sweet heroes who make us happy to be in the world.

Jennifer Prokop 8:27 / #
So true.

Sarah MacLean 8:29 / #
So to a few weeks ago, we released our alpha episode. It was the first interstitial of season two because we decided it was time for us to come, we were going to come hard for all of you with season two. And Jen and I put our stakes in the ground on alphas. And we had, I think, a really thoughtful conversation about alphas and why they exist. And a lot of people on Twitter and in other places asked us a lot of really great questions about: why alphas? and Why not betas? and why not cinnamon / # rolls? And first of all, I just want to repeat something that I feel like we said a bunch on on that alpha episode but clearly needs repeating, and that is that at no point did Jen and I say that romance novels can't exist without alphas. And at no point did Jen and I say that alphas and betas are the only descriptors of heroes. In fact, I think at multiple points we said, this is sort of a dumb way of articulating heroes because they should be more right than one thing. They should have nuance.

Jennifer Prokop 9:43 / #
I don't even know if we said that. I mean, I feel bad. We say it to each other all the time. But on that particular note,

Sarah MacLean 9:48 / #
we definitely did. I went back and checked. I said like good writing requires the hero to be nuance,

Jennifer Prokop 9:54 / #
yeah. characters to be nuanced.

Sarah MacLean 9:57 / #
Exactly. So but what's really the reason why we're here So Jen and I had already started talking about Okay, we're going to have to do, we're going to do a second episode, and we're going to do an episode that'll be about kind of the softer hero. And I don't know, I'm really glad Andie's with us because I think one of the really valuable things for us to talk about, maybe at the very beginning of this, is what makes a cinnamon / # roll versus a beta. I'm not sure I understand all the terms. So can we do that first and really sort of establish what we're talking about? And then I want to talk a little bit about history. And then I want Andie to talk about her brilliant thoughts on why cinnamon / # rolls are working now in a way that maybe they weren't a year, a decade ago or five years ago.

Jennifer Prokop 10:44 / #
So I feel like we should talk about like the origin of that cinnamon / # roll like it comes from The Onion, right? Isn't that what it is? Like?

Andie Christopher 10:53 / #
It's like, it's like this sweet cinnamon / # roll of a human is too good and sweet for this world.

Jennifer Prokop 10:57 / #
Yes. And there's Also a really funny tweet. I should find that-- Yeah, I think it's funny because a lot of people like why cinnamon / # rolls? And I think it's actually a it comes from this Onion piece and I think it's just sort of pervasively became this really funny thing that everyone just really glommed on to as being a great way to describe a certain kind of character. And the fact that, I feel like one of, a pioneering person in terms of like defining it was Olivia dade. And we linked to her list of cinnamon / # roll heroes a bunch of times. But what she says is, "Cinnamon / # roll heroes are supportive, kind people who do their best even when they make mistakes." And so that is what it is that she defines as being a cinnamon / # roll hero. And then she made out, got a whole bunch of people to crowdsource the list and so if you're looking for heroes like this, after we talked about it today, we will link to this list because it is amazing and has, I don't know, 70 or 100 books on it that you might want to check out.

Andie Christopher 12:07 / #
Yeah, I think a couple of my books are on that too, but I'm not sure if those books are quite accurately as cinnamon / # roll-y as I thought they were.

Jennifer Prokop 12:14 / #
interesting.

Andie Christopher 12:15 / #
I mean, I think they are just not quite... I'm not going at.. I'm not on the Simone scale. I'm somewhere on the Claybourne curve.

Sarah MacLean 12:29 / #
I'm gonna go ahead and say that cinnamon / # roll heroes don't even make Simone scale. Her zero point on the access is Darcy, who is not a cinnamon / # roll. So,

Andie Christopher 12:43 / #
Okay, but I was thinking about this today. And I think Father Bell [hero of PRIEST by Sierra Simone] is in some senses.

Sarah MacLean 12:51 / #
What are you saying right now?

Jennifer Prokop 12:57 / #
You Gotta start over again. Time Out. Recalibrate.

Sarah MacLean 13:02 / #
Oh my god no

Jennifer Prokop 13:03 / #
Andie!

Sarah MacLean 13:04 / #
I'm pretty sure Sierra Simone is in London right now at Rare London, and I feel like she just woke up at like 5am and was like there's a disturbance.

Andie Christopher 13:15 / #
she would love me for saying something blasphemous...

Sarah MacLean 13:18 / #
But I will hear your arguments. Miss Christopher.

Andie Christopher 13:24 / #
Okay. For me, the cinnamon / # roll hero's number one priority is the heroine's emotional, mental, and or spiritual well being, physical well being. So that kind of overrides everything else and I think, Father Bell, because we're so in his head, expends a lot of the conflict of the book is trying to put the heroine's emotional, physical and spiritual well being over his own wants and desires that he has attempted unsuccessfully to sublimate.

Sarah MacLean 14:04 / #
Okay, so I think this is really interesting because I guess that all makes that all makes sense to me but what I don't understand is like how is that different than what any romance hero wants? Like? I think about Derek Craven, right? Who was our first book of the of the season or frankly most Kresley Cole heroes-- I mean not, okay, pbviously not Lothaire. But like, you know, there are others. Like all those werewolf heroes. I mean like werewolves...are they, are werewolf cinnamon / # rolls?

Andie Christopher 14:45 / #
I think the were-- of Kresley levels-- the werewolf in "A Hunger Like No Other" I'm his name is escaping me right now. He's not a cinnamon / # roll, I would say, and like MacReive is not a cinnamon / # roll

Jennifer Prokop 14:59 / #
See! Because I'm like, none of them are, Andie! What the hell are you talking about?

Sarah MacLean 15:03 / #
She's not wrong. Because what about about Lucia and...

Andie Christopher 15:06 / #
Declan.

Jennifer Prokop 15:07 / #
Declan! He's the vivisector!

Andie Christopher 15:11 / #
Sorry!

Sarah MacLean 15:15 / #
Well, we're the same way with all those heroes. Lucia and help, help me.

Jennifer Prokop 15:21 / #
Garreth.

Sarah MacLean 15:21 / #
in the Amazon

Andie Christopher 15:22 / #
Garreth. Yes,

Sarah MacLean 15:23 / #
Garrett?

Jennifer Prokop 15:24 / #
Garreth. Is it Garreth?

Sarah MacLean 15:26 / #
Yeah. Is he a cinnamon / # roll?

Jennifer Prokop 15:28 / #
No.

Andie Christopher 15:29 / #
I think he's a little bit of a cinnamon / # roll.

Jennifer Prokop 15:31 / #
I feel like I have to log off and go lay on a fainting couch. I don't understand anything anybody? Like, Oh,

Sarah MacLean 15:40 / #
All right. So this is really interesting-- somebody, but somebody else tweeted at us. A person named Charlotte, @romansdegare on Twitter, tweeted "I've still got that Fated Mates episode on the brain as I read "Damaged Goods" and starting to wonder if cinnamon / # roll conflict is often I'm caring for you emotionally so I can't lust after you. While alpha conflict is the reverse. I'm lusting after you so I can't care for you." And Jen and I sort of discussed this privately. And like there's something maybe here this, and you said it too. I think Andie when you said: you care about her like emotional and spiritual well being. Then you said, the third thing you said was physical, and I wonder if that's part of it. Like, where the relationship starts versus where it ends.

Jennifer Prokop 16:39 / #
So here's here's what I'm going to suggest, because I right now think-- as my blueprint-- is when I think of cinnamon / # rolls, to me, the pinnacle of cinnamon / # roll-dom is "Rafe" by Rebecca Weatherspoon. And I kind of felt, I literally was like, "I should reread part of it today to like, make sure I'm all on point." And I fell right back into the book. And I think there's a really interesting part. And there's also a really interesting thread someone tweeted us from her, a woman named Kat C, And what she said is cinnamon / # roll heroes are, not cinnamon / # rolls, but she "likes reading books where people are dealing with their baggage in not so aggressive ways." And I think what "Rafe" -- so there's this part in "Rafe" where he is essentially interviewing for the job to be her nanny, Sloan's nanny or her twin girls bailed-- literally, it's like horrifying as a mother-- she basically comes home and finds her six year old girls home alone. And the nanny left the keys to the car and the house keys with a note that said, "I quit. I just don't want to do this anymore." So she's really scrambling to find someone and she ends up getting Rafe, who's been essentially nannying, He's like in his early 30s, for like 10 or 12 years. And Rafe, at the interview says to her, "Um, I think we Have a problem. I've never, I've never nannied for a single mom I'm this attracted to before." And he just has, he's a grown up who can lay it out on the table and put it in front of her, as opposed to.... I don't know, like, stomping around and not admitting he has feelings. So to me a cinnamon / # roll is like, I have feelings, and I actually am aware of them. And I know what to do with them. I don't know you guys like. And the thing is, that to me is the it's because of course, alphas care for people! We talked about that. The difference I think, is

Sarah MacLean 18:36 / #
the emotion. The emotion sneaks up on an alpha.

Jennifer Prokop 18:39 / #
and a cinnamon / # roll person is like, Yes, I have feelings. Duh, who doesn't. And I'll tell you what, it's funny. I'm going to say one more thing. I there are parts of this book. I didn't do a lot of highlighting. There's this one part where they sort of like they kiss and she's like, "I'm not sure I really want to do this" and he's like, "okay, we're gonna leave it up to you." And then he's like, "What do you want?" And she says, "I want you to make this easy on me." And I was like, there you go. He was like, you're right. His communication skills are through the roof. That to me is what makes a cinnamon / # roll a cinnamon / # roll. Being able to communicate,

Andie Christopher 19:17 / #
yeah, can use this words as opposed to like, I want to punch someone.

Jennifer Prokop 19:20 / #
Okay. And in the case of brief, also his cock fine.

Andie Christopher 19:24 / #
I sort of reject the premise that any romance hero that I'm really going to fall in love with does not have a quasi-magical penis. Like, I want I want to be like, I'm vomiting out unicorns the next day thinking about the hero and what he can do with his magical member.

Jennifer Prokop 19:53 / #
I'm just giggling

Sarah MacLean 19:54 / #
I don't think you're alone in this.

Andie Christopher 19:57 / #
I just 100%... I hate, I don't like it when a book has an awkward sex scene between the hero and the heroine. That is the opposite of what my ID wants. Like my ID wants him to like, bang it out, make her see stars

Jennifer Prokop 20:14 / #
into next week!

Andie Christopher 20:15 / #
into next week, every single time. I need it. That's just it's a baseline.

Jennifer Prokop 20:24 / #
Rafe can get it, you guys! I just want you to know. I think part of the reason Rafe is particularly-- I don't read a whole lot of cinnamon / # roll books. This one really worked for me. And I think there are a couple reasons why. One is because I hate cooking and cleaning. And I did not like raising my child. I love my son, you guys, but I didn't... those years when he was really young were really hard for me. I still hate cooking and cleaning and always well. But the idea that a competent man is going to appear and like take over those tasks for me in my house. And also Fuck me into next week. Hello. Sign me up. I mean, I'm sorry. Maybe that's not everyone's fantasy, but I'm going to tell you right now. It is hot. It worked for me.

Sarah MacLean 21:11 / #
Okay, so here's my thing, right? So I was trying to come up with cinnamon / # rolls, who I have loved. And this obviously is a challenge for me. But I, here are two who I've loved. And ironically, it's the same trope, right?

Jennifer Prokop 21:31 / #
Okay, interesting.

Sarah MacLean 21:32 / #
I loved the hero and Helen Hoang's "The Kiss Quotient."

Andie Christopher 21:38 / #
Love him.

Sarah MacLean 21:39 / #
And I loved the hero in Claire Kent's "Escorted." And in both of those cases, we're talking about soft heroes, who are all the things that you are saying-- Able to vocalize emotion, able to understand like their emotional relationship with the world, They've been through therapy, or they have these big families. But at the same time, they're male escorts and highly-- Here you are, Jen--able to bang you into next week

Sarah MacLean 22:25 / #
But also I think there's something, but at the same time, like in that particular dynamic, I think the reason why both these heroes work well for me, is because there is sort of, there is a power structure here. Like they are deeply competent, and sort of teaching the heroine something. And so maybe they're not cinnamon / # rolls at all. I don't know are they?

Jennifer Prokop 22:53 / #
Clearly we're the three wrong people to be talking about this.

Andie Christopher 22:57 / #
I mean, I definitely think--I I haven't read "Escorted." But I definitely think Michael in "The Kiss Quotient" is a cinnamon / # roll. Um,

Sarah MacLean 23:06 / #
I mean, he's got that big family. He cares so much about his sisters and his mom. I mean, He's amazing.

Andie Christopher 23:13 / #
I think there's an interesting sort of layer of conflicts there because like, I think at first, he's not trying to let her into that part of him. So he is a cinnamon / # roll, but he has this, this sort of layer that he keeps between himself, his true self, and his clients. And so I think, you know, part of the conflict and part of them overcoming their conflict is she penetrates that. And the way I think, yeah, so it makes sense,

Sarah MacLean 23:43 / #
Jen!

Jennifer Prokop 23:44 / #
you guys, I'm doing my best.

Andie Christopher 23:48 / #
It's my... I think, penetrate is the right word, because like she's a little bit sort of the alpha in that, in that power dynamic. She really, she gets under his skin. You know, I think in a way, more quickly than... and then he gets under hers.

Sarah MacLean 24:11 / #
Yeah, it's just it's a really interesting question because... so it takes us, So that is the second piece of the question is, is a cinnamon / # roll and a beta the same? Or like is that even worth having -- like do betas even exist? But then I think they kind of do, right? So we talked a little bit about the history of the alpha when we talked about alphas, and we're doing a lot of conversational romance history as we do this season. And so I think it's valuable for us to talk about the history of the beta, right? And again, I think it's important and I just want to qualify when we talk about the history and we say like early books, or we say "the first" right, we're not obviously it's almost never the actual first

Jennifer Prokop 24:58 / #
Yeah, right.

Sarah MacLean 24:59 / #
Like the last six months of my life have been researching romance novels for the RITA award ceremony and Andie was doing that with me, and the most illuminating thing about it was that every time we thought we'd found the first like, five days later, we found an earlier first. So, I think we need to talk about betas and we need to talk about Julia Quinn because while she may not have written the first beta, she definitely is responsible for the popularizing of the beta. And that is because she wrote the Bridgerton series which, if you haven't heard of it, you soon will because Shonda Rhimes is turning it into a Netflix series literally as we speak. And the Bridgertons were this kind of, so Julia had written a couple of books beforehand, but sat down and sort of and wrote this really big boisterous family. Eight children who were named in alphabetical order, and they lived in, they were the children of a viscount. And they lived with their single, their widowed mother, in like a big house in London and they had a big country house and they sort of had these like, bright sparkling dialogue... scenes filled with sparkling dialogue and like, not a ton of plot happens in these books. It begins with a book called "The Duke and I." The plot of "the Duke and I," it's a very streamlined, straightforward plot. It doesn't have a lot of like, complex twists and turns and it doesn't have to because the dialogue is so beautiful and the characters are so bright. There's something very soft and wonderful about these books. But what's interesting is that prior to Julia-- historicals looked like, I mean, literally looks like Derek Craven, right? They, they look like, like these big bananas historicals. And then Julia came in and she wrote this family that was something very different. And the first Bridgerton book, which was "The Duke and I" was published in 2000. And I've spoken to I checked this data with Julia before we recorded because I wanted, I have a theory and I wanted to make sure that it checked out. And she confirmed that "The Duke and I" and "The Viscount Who Loved Me" and "An Offer From a Gentleman," which were published in 2000, 2000, and 2001, we're all very, did very well but like did not blow the doors off. "The Duke and I" did not come out like "50 Shades," although often we think about that as being one of those books now. In fact, the fourth book in the series, which is "Romancing Mr. Bridgerton" is the book that sort of really was the sort of leap into huge for that series. And that book came out in 2002. And I have a theory that, you know, we've talked on this on this podcast and I've talked a lot in the world about post 9/11. There being this kind of boom in paranormal because readers were looking for these like big, huge alphas who could literally save the universe. And they were like, that was safety in fear and sort of existential fear that Americans were feeling post 9/11. But I'm actually wondering if at the same time, we weren't also going through a period where books were getting softer. And there was room for these like soft heroes who were the antithesis of every romance hero we'd seen before. And I'm wondering if we're seeing that now, too. The sort of rise of dark romance on one side, these kinds of like, truly bananas books that are taking the finger on one side, and something else entirely that's happening now in the world.

Andie Christopher 29:13 / #
I -think you're right. I think that actually that jives with my theory of the cinnamon / # roll and why they're appealing

Sarah MacLean 29:21 / #
so do that.

Andie Christopher 29:23 / #
Okay, so I think they're particularly appealing to sort of millennial and Gen Z. single women, or women who have recently been dating, because the cis hetero men that we are dating are fucking terrible.

Jennifer Prokop 29:43 / #
I'm Sorry I laughed.

Sarah MacLean 29:44 / #
Break it down for us Andie

Andie Christopher 29:46 / #
all we want is a nice guy, who we don't have to raise, who doesn't hate us because we don't want to have sex with them right away. Or doesn't think we're a slut if we do who can use his words and cares about whether we have an orgasm-- in a larger sense of than what it says about his own ego. Someone who can actually be a partner instead of someone who is going to destroy your like--who's gonna take your finger. But I think on the other, on the other side of that, you also if you don't if you're dating a lot of, you know, softer gentlemen, who can't make a plan to save their lives. There's an appeal to reading about a man who wants you so much he will, he will plan an abduction. And I think this was like the first thing I said..

Sarah MacLean 29:56 / #
He will plan...nice

Andie Christopher 30:39 / #
..to Kristin Ashley and I did make her laugh. I was like, I think the appeal of like abduction fiction because I think she was talking about alpha heroes. Like, at least this guy can plan a date.

Jennifer Prokop 31:06 / #
Oh my god,

Sarah MacLean 31:08 / #
don't abduct women, male listeners!

Andie Christopher 31:12 / #
Do not, don't abduct women, but, you know, make a dinner reservation. Don't say, yeah, like where do you want to go? say I want to try this restaurant-- What do you think? it's all about the balance.

Jennifer Prokop 31:26 / #
Can I ask a question? I'm going to throw it out there. I, I do not read, I don't read much inspirational romance unless it's written by Piper Huguley. But I am wondering if the rise of Amish romance, and sort of Christian romance, around the same time-- because my understanding is it's also came about at the same time. If cinnamon / # rolls are essentially a secular version of of a like a more...Like a inspirational hero?

Sarah MacLean 32:05 / #
I don't know. I don't know and I don't know enough about inspirational to be able to speak really thoughtfully on it.

Jennifer Prokop 32:13 / #
I mean, well, maybe we'll just throw it out there for our listeners to do

Sarah MacLean 32:16 / #
if you do. I would love to hear that. You know, Andie thinks that Sierra Simone is out there writing betas.

Andie Christopher 32:24 / #
I didn't say he wasa Beta, I said he was like a little bit of a cinnamon / # roll.

Sarah MacLean 32:30 / #
He's the Conrad Wroth of...

Jennifer Prokop 32:32 / #
Yeah, yeah. He's gonna use that icing for Lub, I mean, I don't know.

Andie Christopher 32:37 / #
Can we talk about stern brunch Daddies.

Jennifer Prokop 32:39 / #
Oh, yeah, sure.

Andie Christopher 32:41 / #
Okay, so this is this is all Sarah's fault.

Sarah MacLean 32:44 / #
It's Andie's genius, though.

Andie Christopher 32:47 / #
Yeah, I did come up with the term. So Sarah posted this picture of Oscar Isaac sitting at like a table, at what looks like a restaurant, like holding a fork and like staring intently at the camera, and she's like, okay, Andie, I see him now. AI was like, Oh, I get what you like you like a stern brunch daddy. A guy who is gonna make sure your Mimosa never goes empty, but then he'll like spank you until you cry later.

Jennifer Prokop 33:11 / #
Sure, sure.

Sarah MacLean 33:13 / #
I mean, he would never allow you to be seated by the kitchen.

Andie Christopher 33:16 / #
Never. Like never he wants to talk to the manager.

Sarah MacLean 33:21 / #
It's true. This is only because I have Chris Evans blindness, meaning if he doesn't look Stern, I don't see him. I'm unable to see him and I have that problem with Oscar Isaac too, because I feel like if he doesn't look Stern, I don't even know what I'm looking at us like a blank face.

Andie Christopher 33:39 / #
Yeah, I mean, he has to serve up a little bit of Derek Craven for you to feel it.

Sarah MacLean 33:43 / #
Precisely. Which is why we're doing this podcast, this episode, because I don't I truly want to understand it. Because it's interesting and I think that what we're coming to is that it is in actual fact a exactly two sides of the same coin. Because everything that, you know, every way that we're articulating this in terms of like care and comfort and protection-- or not protection-- but care and comfort and like ease, right, like softness is ultimately what we want from the alpha on the other side. But it's it's almost like we're talking about when you get to see it in the book, like,

Andie Christopher 33:44 / #
Yeah,

Sarah MacLean 33:44 / #
do you see the transformation in the book? And if you do, it's like that. Then you've started as you know, I'm air quoting. You can't see it, but

Andie Christopher 34:40 / #
right.

Jennifer Prokop 34:41 / #
I don't know. I. I feel like because where

Sarah MacLean 34:45 / #
does the transformation come from the storm brunch?

Andie Christopher 34:47 / #
He just is

Jennifer Prokop 34:48 / #
I feel like cinnamon / # role heroes don't transform--- I feel like heroines do. Their romantic partners transform not them.

Sarah MacLean 34:56 / #
So when you think about Rafe, what's the transformation in the book?

Jennifer Prokop 35:00 / #
It's not, that's, okay. So I think the transformation in the book is for the heroine who in this case her ex husband is real dirtbag. And this is it's the only man she's ever been with. And so to be with Rafe to be with someone who respects, her who--she's this amazing surgeon, right? Who, who she can say, "I want you to make this easy for me" and he listens to her. I mean, it is just a transformitive-- like Andie was saying-- it's a transformative experience for her because she has been used to men disrespecting her and now she does not have to suffer that in her home. Right? And, and, and deep dicking into next week. I mean, this guy really knows how to take care of her in every way. So, but he, I do not see him as being a character who really undergoes change. He is--

Sarah MacLean 35:51 / #
Would we say like, they're, they're perfect from the start? Because Michael in "The Kiss Quotient" is pretty fucking perfect.

Jennifer Prokop 36:00 / #
Well, here's here's what I would suggest, because I actually don't know that I think they're opposites as much as I think it's just trying to achieve something different. And you're, as you were talking, I guess I would say this: to me, the alpha is like, I am pursuing what I want and that's also going to end up being what the heroine wants, we're going to figure it out together. But to me, a cinnamon / # roll hero-- if it's male, female romance-- is like, I know who I am. And I'm pretty happy and I'm wildly attracted to this woman. So my goal is to make sure she's getting what she wants. And I do think that those are different. That's, that's how it reads to me. When it works.

Sarah MacLean 36:41 / #
Yeah,

Jennifer Prokop 36:43 / #
I mean, that's what Michael wants, right for Stella in "The Kiss Quotient." He's like, what do you need from me? What what, how can I move you along this path that you're on? Now? I think he does undergo a journey.

Sarah MacLean 36:54 / #
Okay. But here's the thing, A lot of people came at us on Twitter about this and they were like, they were like, The problem with alphas, the problem with alphas is that they never want, they never want to hold up women and give women what they need. Right? They don't want women to have jobs. They don't want women to, you know, they don't want to support women in their careers or whatever. Right. And I think that that's a really interesting, and that's sort of what you're not saying, You're not in the extreme like that. But like, you're sort of dancing around that too. And that doesn't make very much sense to me in a modern role, like maybe the old romances? In a modern romance-- I've never written a hero who's like, "now you stay home, you don't get to keep running your bar" instead Haven has office in the bar now.

Jennifer Prokop 37:39 / #
So to me, if that's what an alpha is, I don't like it.

Sarah MacLean 37:44 / #
Yeah, well, if there's a parity issue that I think like gets lost in the argument here. Like,

Jennifer Prokop 37:51 / #
I just think alpha heroes if if we're comparing them and I don't even honestly know if it's that useful. Like maybe it's just different things entirely.

Sarah MacLean 38:00 / #
Maybe we're just spinning our wheels.

Andie Christopher 38:01 / #
I think it's hard to write like a really, really close to pure alpha in a contemporary romance Are you like you believe that you want, you would want to be in that same kind of relationship? And so to a certain extent, you know, there's still like alpha heroes and contemporary romance, obviously. But I think they're tempered to a certain degree. If your goal is to write a book that isn't like escapist.

Sarah MacLean 38:31 / #
right Right, right. Yeah. Fantasy right like if it's not you know, 50 shades like billionaire

Andie Christopher 38:40 / #
or like a motorcycle club. If it's not, it's not like um, you know, sort of a world you don't live in right?

Sarah MacLean 38:47 / #
It's not a Harlequin presents,

Andie Christopher 38:49 / #
Right. I mean, I think you can even write like, more pure alphas if you're writing sports romances. You're writing about like, larger than life.

Jennifer Prokop 38:59 / #
I want to go back to me like this really foundational moment in "Rafe" right? She says, "I want you to make this easy for me." And he as a cinnamon / # roll understands that what that means is I'm My job is to figure out what she needs and give it to her. I think if you said to an alpha, I want you to make this easy for me, he'd be like, "great, Just do what I want." And I don't think that means like, don't have a job. I think that just means like, Don't make me feel feelings. Right? Like let's just like have all the sex and stuff. I don't know!

Sarah MacLean 39:31 / #
I don't think it would be, "Don't." I don't think it would be "don't-- just do what I want." I think it would be like "Fine. Who do I pay to fix this problem?"

Jennifer Prokop 39:42 / #
Yes, Right.

Sarah MacLean 39:43 / #
Who do I punch to make you feel better? Like for an alpha he's he's a battering ram. He's like, "What do I have to break to make you happy?"

Jennifer Prokop 39:55 / #
When she says this to Rafe, and I like I said, I think this moment, To me it really spoke to, At its core what it was, when she said, "I just want you to make this easy for me." He understand that. That meant she meant,

Sarah MacLean 40:06 / #
emotionally

Jennifer Prokop 40:07 / #
I'm a little, I'm a little afraid of making decisions. I'm a little tentative, I'm not sure. And his response was, like, "come down here. We're going to figure it out together." Right, which I'm going to tell you it really works for me. I think it's really sexy at every level, but just in a totally different way.

Sarah MacLean 40:24 / #
Yeah, no, I mean, who doesn't want that?

Jennifer Prokop 40:26 / #
Yes. Right.

Sarah MacLean 40:27 / #
That's great.

Jennifer Prokop 40:29 / #
I'm just saying, I think how if I said to Derek Craven-- just make this easy for me-- He's like, good! Leave and go back to Greenwood Corners, so I don't have to think about you because you're freaking me out.

Andie Christopher 40:43 / #
And I mean, like St. Vincent would be like, maybe we should bone. An orgasm will make you feel better.

Sarah MacLean 40:50 / #
Right? But in real life, I mean, this of course, makes perfect sense. In theory, it's it's the moment where you say, I have words Or I have concerns or I have, you know, whatever. And the response is I want I hear that and I want to act to fix them. Like that's a, that's a noble thing. Like, I wish we all had that every day.

Jennifer Prokop 41:15 / #
Well, and I mean, maybe that's the fantasy: that they never tire of us being needy. I mean, I don't know, I mean, I think it's, I liked what Andie said a lot. It's not this idea that someone if we said-- I just want you to make it-- sometimes I literally say to Darrell, he's like, "what do you want for dinner" and I say, "I just want you to decide, that's what I want." Like, literally, that's what I want. I want you to decide I want you to make that decision. I just want you to make dinner appear in front of me. That is what care looks like to me right now.

Andie Christopher 41:48 / #
I mean, there's that there's that meme that you just say "I'm baby." So there's that like, you sometimes just want to like walk in the door and be like, I'm Baby, I get all of the like love and attention and coddling; as opposed to, I feel like, this like applies to some of my friends who you know are in relationships, especially hetero relationships that they feel like they're doing a lot more work.

Jennifer Prokop 42:23 / #
You know what this reminds me of. Okay, so back when I did TFA right after I was out of college, I had a roommate named Amy. And Amy would say the thing that, the first time she said it, I was like, that's the truest fucking thing I've ever heard. She'd had a fight with her boyfriend. And I don't remember exactly how it came up. She was fighting with him, she had this really tumultuous relationship. And she said to me, she's like, "you know, you can't ask for flowers." And like what it meant was if you have to ask for the flowers in order to get them, they mean less. A gesture-- a romantic gesture-- has to be driven by the other person. They have to know that what you need or want is flowers, or that right it comes out of nowhere. And I feel like you would never have to ask a fucking cinnamon / # roll for flowers. You would have to say though, to many alpha heroes: flowers are an actual sign of affection and every once in a while if you bring them to me, I will be happy

Sarah MacLean 43:29 / #
Well, it's it's interesting because there's also I'm sort of like dancing around in my I'm like playing over and over my head this idea that like there's something here about toxic masculinity. Which is these heroes lack that kind of toxicity. They are masculine without toxicity. I retweeted somebody today who was trying to explain, just because we don't want toxic masculinity doesn't mean we don't want masculinity. We don't want acid rain, but We still want rain. I think that's a really useful, Shit. What's a call from the SATs?

Jennifer Prokop 44:10 / #
An analogy?

Andie Christopher 44:12 / #
metaphor?

Sarah MacLean 44:14 / #
With the blank colon blank

Jennifer Prokop 44:16 / #
An analogy.

Sarah MacLean 44:18 / #
Yeah, whatever. It's a really useful one of those-- I think there's something there, essentially it's pure, it's and I do think it's contemporaries more than anything else that are doing, this because I mean, if Andie to Andie's point--- it's terrible out there, right? It's like that mement in "When Harry Met Sally" when You know, Carrie Fisher leans back and turns to Bruno Kirby and is like,

movie dialogue 44:52 / #
Tell me I'll never have to be out there again.

Jennifer Prokop 44:54 / #
Yes, that's right.

Sarah MacLean 44:57 / #
This is the moment

Andie Christopher 44:59 / #
I feel like there's all these studies that people, like millennials and Gen Zers or is are literally not fucking. Like Gen Z does not fuck

Jennifer Prokop 45:13 / #
Sad.

Andie Christopher 45:15 / #
I mean it's it's real sad, it's sad for me...on a personal level. But that's why I'm glad we have Sierra Simone in the world. Anyway, but it's real bad, and so it like you just want like a guy who is like, I was thinking-- I want a guy who's gonna open my door for me, and like smack my ass on the way out, but he's gonna know he has permission. Um, he's already he's gonna make sure that's okay. But not like in a needy or clingy way.

Jennifer Prokop 45:50 / #
Yeah, I mean, there are no consent issues with...

Sarah MacLean 45:53 / #
but this is such a fantasy. I mean, what you just asked for Andy is like fucking impossible

Jennifer Prokop 45:59 / #
That is more of a fantasy than anything else, right?

Sarah MacLean 46:01 / #
And that's more, that's more of a fantasy than any of these fucking alphas. The idea that-- well, I want him to get consent, but I want to make sure but he can't be too weird about getting consent, it can't feel needy or unsexy, right? You want it to be both sexy and also very clear. And you know, I wanted to smack my ass, but also respect me. And that's not to say that all of this isn't totally reasonable. But here's what's interesting. That takes, in real life, a long time to build with a partner. But like in these books, these guys just have it all.

Andie Christopher 46:38 / #
Yeah, that's what I mean. I that's when I went when I was like writing the hero in "Not the girl you Marry," I specifically set him up as he has been the perfect boyfriend his entire life, and he's failed at relationships. And that's kind of where he starts. So I tried to like have a cinnamon / # roll with a journey. But I still wanted him to be virtually perfect.

Jennifer Prokop 47:06 / #
Of course I think about um, you know, so many of Christina Lauren's recent heores have been this way-- this kind of truly perfect guy who just hasn't fit right.

Andie Christopher 47:21 / #
And I feel like a lot of Kate Clayborn's heroes are that way, they have either definitely flawed and human and layered, but they're not, you never question that they respect the heroine. That's never of question, and and see her as an equal.

Sarah MacLean 47:42 / #
I'm wondering if this is part of why we're seeing, that we've seen so so many fake engagement stories, too, recently? Yeah. Because you know, in our fake engagement episode, Jen and I talked about the fact that like the fan, the fake engagement is like Like, play acting that fantasy relationship. And in order for that to happen, well, cinnamon / # roll hero can do that.

Andie Christopher 48:11 / #
Yeah, and it's also like a cinnamon / # roll hero like you're faking that perfect relationship. Plus he acts like a human Flak Jacket at something like a wedding.

Jennifer Prokop 48:21 / #
Yeah. You know what I keep thinking? When we talked about alphas, the thing we said was it's the fantasy of the alpha is that the patriarchy can be tamed. I think the fantasy of the cinnamon / # roll is that the patriarchy does not have to be trained. They already come in, they're coming fully trained, but they're fully human. Right? Like, there's no way in which-- they have their feelings, they, they understand consent, like they help, you know, literal helpers around the home and whatever way. I mean, you know, maybe that's it. It's like taming versus training.

Sarah MacLean 49:00 / #
Or maybe I would go one step further maybe this fantasy is the patriarchy doesn't exist.

Jennifer Prokop 49:08 / #
They are still masculine.

Sarah MacLean 49:11 / #
Well, that doesn't mean that --it's not, Again, they're just not acid rain?

Andie Christopher 49:17 / #
It doesn't exist within this one human. It hasn't like it hasn't rotted that person to his core. You don't have to send them to therapy for 10 years before you can even talk to him.

Jennifer Prokop 49:28 / #
Yeah. Or that the Yeah, maybe that's right. The patriarchy has not ruined them.

Sarah MacLean 49:35 / #
No.

Andie Christopher 49:36 / #
Yeah, cuz like a lot of the ones you get you know, if you're just trolling on Tinder you're like, Oh, wow. Oh, wow, you're-- this is this is spoiled. I'm just so mean. I'm so mean. That that's why I'm single is because I mean. You're like, oh, your shirtless picture with like the, you know, sleeping tiger. Just show that you're dick is huge. That? That's rotted to the core. I'm not a cinnamon / # roll and not an alpha really either.

Sarah MacLean 50:09 / #
No Well that's the other thing right? There's this like, perception of alpha as incel. And like that ain't it either.

Andie Christopher 50:17 / #
So no, because an alpha wouldn't-- as opposed to an incel--an alpha would never tell like the heroine she's ugly in order to like, get her to like him, or to get her to care about...

Sarah MacLean 50:33 / #
Yeah, no negging allowed.

Andie Christopher 50:37 / #
Yeah, I think we solved it. You guys, I think.

Jennifer Prokop 50:40 / #
All right, fair.

Sarah MacLean 50:41 / #
Well, now Andie, you have a book coming out with a cinnamon / # roll hero.

Andie Christopher 50:46 / #
I do.

Sarah MacLean 50:47 / #
My favorite kind of heroine, the unlikable kind.

Andie Christopher 50:50 / #
She, so what Jen was saying earlier about like the sort of the cinnamon / # roll hero being A foil to a heroine and who has a bigger journey--. And so a lot of the people who've read early copies of "Not the Girl You Marry," which is out on November 12, have said, most people talk about the heroine, Hannah. And part of that is because I basically poured so much myself into that character. It's a version of the trope in "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" with the gender roles updated. The heroine is biracial, It's set in Chicago, which is a place that I've lived. And Jack is a cinnamon / # roll. He's always been the perfect boyfriend. He's a literal, honest to God, choir boy. And he like falls instantly in love with the heroine who is giving him the finger at a bar and He works for like a BuzzFeed like type publication. And he's like a video guy. And he does how- to's. And so his boss tasks him with how to lose a girl, and he, he, the only girl he's met of late is Hannah. And so he sets about losing her by doing all of the terrible things that guys who are spoiled by toxic masculinity do-- like sending dick pics, not being communicative, Trying to make her jealous, all of that dumb shit. And she's an event planner, and she wants to get into weddings, but she's very, very soured on romance and her boss is like, "you don't even believe in love." She's like, "Yes, I do. I'll show you. I just met a guy. I have a boyfriend." And so she like has to continue dating Jack to convince her boss that she's not completely soured on the concept of love. And then high jinks ensue. But her journey really is the more angsty emotional journey. She has to come to believe that she deserves love and belonging from not only jack but from her friends who have been trying to offer it to her. So she has to learn to make herself vulnerable. Jack, on the other hand has to learn to stand up for himself a little bit more and take into account what he wants and, you know, not just surrender to whatever like his girlfriend was. And in that way, he basically has to get Hannah to respect him in a way. Not that he's soft. He's like, I mean, he is soft, but he's not. He's a little like I described him as a cinnamon / # roll from the corner of the pan. He is crusty and

Jennifer Prokop 53:54 / #
that's actually amazing.

Sarah MacLean 53:56 / #
Perfect. Well, so not the girl you marry is out November 12. You can pre order it now from all your favorite bookstores. And we will put links to it in show notes. And Andie, what comes and after that? There's a companion.

Andie Christopher 54:21 / #
There's a second one. So they're both standalone. The second book, it's called "Not that Kind of Guy" has a character from the first book in it and it's actually a workplace romance between assistant State's Attorney in Chicago and her much younger intern who comes from an extremely wealthy, politically connected family. And she sort of just like thinks he's a twerp, like a very attractive twerp. Um, and he is madly in love with on first sight, which is a theme Because that's my id and they're working togethe

Sarah MacLean 55:04 / #
Fated Mates.

Andie Christopher 55:05 / #
It's Fated Mates. I love Fated Mates rope and yeah, high jinks ensue. There's there's a trip to Vegas you know there's a wedding. And yeah, so it's it's still more her journey because she has to like come to terms with the ending of her relationship with her childhood sweetheart and he really just, he needs to learn how to like stand up to his family. Um, so he's he's definitely another cinnamon / # roll because he just, you know, wants to take care of people and he you know, wants people to love him. Um, but he's, he's really hot.

Jennifer Prokop 55:45 / #
Well, that goes will Oh, I mean, that fixes a lot.

Sarah MacLean 55:48 / #
it goes without saying Yeah,

Andie Christopher 55:49 / #
yeah, no, I mean, I fall a little bit in love with him throughout the course of the book. Bridget, the heroine in then the second, in "not that kind of guy" is good friends with her, with the heroine-- becomes good friends with the heroine in the first book. And so there's also that friendship and a sense of found family, which is also it's an id for me in books.

Sarah MacLean 56:21 / #
Well, this is amazing. And I'm so glad that you texted me with your idea about why cinnamon / # rolls work. And I think because I do I mean like, I think you're right. I think Jen and I have been talking-- and not just us, we didn't invent this conversation. But for the last two years we've seen this sort of evolution and romance and it seems to be going so quickly. And there's this sort of sense of people are calling them you know, they're it's you know: is everything a rom com? What's happening with all these illustrated covers? What are we trying to say with these covers? What are we trying to say with the Books? And I think cinnamon / # rolls are somehow wrapped up in this conversation in a really interesting way. And I'm always interested, as you both know, and why things happen and what these books are doing the work that they're doing. And if it is about pure fantasy, first of all, oh, men do better.

Andie Christopher 57:24 / #
I mean, I think it's, I think it's about like convincing readers -- writing the book for me, "Not the Girl you Marry" is about convincing myself that love was possible in a world as broken as this. But my conclusion is, that thesis is, the guy has to be close to perfect. And I think it's like, we don't need to be in relationships. And so I think, why are we in relationships? And I think that's what I think that's what a lot of these books are asking. Like, what are we looking for in partnership? And why bother?

Jennifer Prokop 57:56 / #
You know, the thing I keep thinking about though, the fantasy part, I think is really powerful. And I think romance is really transformative, I think it's often very difficult to sort of, I think the best romances put both characters on a journey. And sometimes that journey happens together and sometimes the journey is a little stronger for one than the other. And I think what I really like about like I said in a cinnamon / # roll, in a male, female, where the cinnamon / # roll is the hero, what I really appreciate the most, is the sense that the heroine's journey is really highlighted. And that it his job to like showcase, what she is capable of and like make that possible. And that to me is--you know, not just that such a man exists but that you know, like self acculizatin, like finding yourself, and in a romantic relationship that your romantic partner makes you better and stronger. I mean, that's something we do all deserve. And I think that this is one really powerful way that romance shows that that can happen. I guess that's what I'd say.

Sarah MacLean 59:11 / #
Well, Andie, thank you so much for joining us.

Andie Christopher 59:15 / #
Thank you for having me. It was so much fun.

Sarah MacLean 59:17 / #
Andy, tell everybody where they can find you online.

Andie Christopher 59:21 / #
I am on I am on twitter @authorandieJ, and I'm on Instagram where you'll mostly see pictures of my dog. My Facebook is also @authorandieJ, and I there you'll see a lot of pictures of my dog. And you know, news about books. but I am I'm mostly shouting on Twitter.

Sarah MacLean 59:48 / #
Well, thank you for coming on Fated Mates. Everyone Next week, we'll be back with another deep dive read from season two, And you can find us on Twitter at Fated Mates or on Instagram at Fated Mates pod. You can buy Fated Mates pins from Kelly @resistancebuttons on Jen's website, jenreadsromance.com. Fated Mates is produced by Eric Mortensen and we will see you all next week. Enjoy your cinnamon / # rolls.

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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

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S02 - Interstitials, romance recommendations, guest host Jennifer Prokop S02 - Interstitials, romance recommendations, guest host Jennifer Prokop

S02.04: Novellas with Alyssa Cole

This week we’re talking about novellas with one of the best novella writers around—Alyssa Cole. Join us, along with Alyssa’s tree frogs, to talk about why she loves the novella format, the trick to writing a short romance, and her upcoming Audible original!

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.

We’re back in two weeks with Johanna Lindsey’s Gentle Rogue, set on a ship with a heroine-in-pants and a hero who really deserves everything she delivers him. Find it at: Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Apple Books, or at your local Independent Bookstore!

Show Notes

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full-length episode, read along, S02 - TBTBU Sarah MacLean full-length episode, read along, S02 - TBTBU Sarah MacLean

S02.03: Lisa Kleypas Does Spectacles Better than F. Scott Fitzgerald: Dreaming of You

We begin the exploration of The Books That Blooded Us with the one that probably least surprised listeners—Lisa Kleypas’s Dreaming of You! We tackle this fabulous, bonkers book (yes, we get to the bottom of the did-he-or-didn’t-he conundrum, and we spend some serious time discussing Joyce). We also talk about how we think Derek Craven changed the romance hero game, what might have been in the water in romance in the early-mid 1990s, and Sarah tells a few stories about her weekend with the queen herself, Lisa Kleypas.

Don’t forget to like & subscribe in your favorite podcasting app so you don’t miss a single second of us in your earholes!

Dreaming Of You - The Great Gatsby mashup billboard
DerekCravenWould

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S02.02: The Alpha in Romance Novels

As we lead into Season Two, and consider the fact that some of our faves are definitely going to be problematic, we’re talking about the alpha hero this week — we’re also tackling the beta hero and the cinnamon roll, and why these archetypes largely don’t work for us. We’re talking romance heroes who changed the game for us and the genre, about how hard it is to turn the alphahole around, and how satisfying it is to watch it happen. We’re also talking the female gaze (of course) and the patriarchy (like always).

Next week, we’re digging into one of our original alphas, Derek Craven! You can find Lisa Kleypas’s Dreaming of You at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, or at your local indie. It's currently $2.99 in digital everywhere, so snatch it up! 

Show Notes

TRANSCRIPT

Sarah MacLean 0:00 / #
Umm.....interstitial 2.1 is that what we call them? I don't understand.

Jennifer Prokop 0:05 / #
We're not doing point anything.

Sarah MacLean 0:08 / #
No, we're not using points anymore. That's what that we promised our producer that we would never label anything point anything. But isn't this like season, it's like 201, I don't know, there's like a TV numbering system. We're not going to use it. But it's season two, interstitial one is what it is. No more point five episodes. You guys are gonna have to pay attention to the titles now. I mean, do as we say not as we do.

Jennifer Prokop 0:38 / #
Obviously, you should just listen to everything and not even worry about it. That would be the ideal thing for all of us.

Jennifer Prokop 0:47 / #
So welcome to Fated Mates everyone. Are we rage interstitialing here Sarah?

Sarah MacLean 0:58 / #
I think we are. I'm pretty rage-y about this, and I want to have a talk.

Jennifer Prokop 1:03 / #
I know. Okay,

Sarah MacLean 1:05 / #
Maybe rage is too strong a word.

Jennifer Prokop 1:08 / #
We're unpacking.

Sarah MacLean 1:13 / #
You guys, here's where I'm at. Yesterday, I was walking in the park in Brooklyn, with my dog and my kid, and I had a thought that I didn't love about romance, and I wanted to unpack it. And so I texted Jen this thought, and she immediately called me. It was a Saturday morning at like, 10:30 / #. And she was like, it's too much to text, but these are my thoughts. And we had a whole conversation about patriarchy versus white supremacy versus anti-semitism in romance, and it was like 10:30 / # in the morning, on a Saturday, in my life, and I realized like, this is all I want out of life. Basically to have a thought about romance novels and then be able to fucking hash it out. Like, can we talk it out? And I said to Jen, we're not going to talk that out today, because we're going to talk that out many times over the next, however many episodes, but I said to Jen, recently, I really want to have a conversation about romance in 2019 and how we talk about the alpha. And like what the fuck that is, and why we are so weird about naming alphas and betas or cinnamon rolls or why we obsess over what the hero is in sort of a single word and also like why we resist so much of that character who, as I like to say, scratches an itch in fiction, but who of course we would never date in real life.

Jennifer Prokop 3:14 / #
And what this is really tied into and you and I talked have talked a lot about this, is the fantasy of romance.

Sarah MacLean 3:21 / #
Which is not just the fantasy of the romance novel, but also sort of packed into that is female fantasy, or women's fantasy or marginalized people's sexual fantasies.

Jennifer Prokop 3:38 / #
An example of this is, my favorite thing and romance. is that the heroine's underwear and bra always match.

Sarah MacLean 3:47 / #
Oh, I know. And they set the hero aflame.

Jennifer Prokop 3:52 / #
Yeah. And you know what, I don't think I actually own any matching bras and underwear.

Sarah MacLean 3:58 / #
I think one more time I wore a matching bra and underwear and Eric was like, whoa, what is this? I know. We hit the lottery today.

Jennifer Prokop 4:17 / #
One of my favorite Twitter feeds is that lingerie addict Twitter feed.

Sarah MacLean 4:20 / #
Oh, I don't know that. I'm going to subscribe to it.

Jennifer Prokop 4:23 / #
I think her name's Cora Harrington. I'm not sure. Anyway, and I'm always, these undergarments are gorgeous. I just want to admire them. And in no way in real life do I actually want to wear them. But I love them.

Sarah MacLean 4:44 / #
But also because you and I are, you know, our girls need a house man. They need to be, you know, engineered into clothing. And that sort of floofy frilly perfect underwear, it is not realistic in any way. But man, I love to read about it. I really do

Jennifer Prokop 5:11 / #
I think there's a lot of ways in which romance, and I think you and I agree on this. It's like real, but it's also fantasy. And the intersection of where those things work for some people and not for others is very fascinating to me. And I'm going to tell you, Sarah, I love an alpha. Whatever it is, we're defining that as...I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it.

Sarah MacLean 5:36 / #
And there are very clear reasons why I love it. I mean, you do. Here's the thing, like we've talked for the last I mean, for however many for 39 episodes we talked about, well, not for half of the episodes for 19 or 20 episodes. We talked about "Mine," right? And frankly when you're reading IAD like everybody's the fucking leader of the pack. Everybody's the best, the strongest, the most powerful, the king, the whatever, the primordial. Unbeatable in every way. And these things have often been marked as alpha traits. And I guess they are.

Sarah MacLean 6:27 / #
But that's not why we love them, I don't think. It's part of it. In the immortal words of Sierra Simone, "Power is sexy. I'm sorry, I don't make the rules." And every romance novel is about power, no matter what it is, no matter what kind of hero you're writing, romance novels are about power because relationships are about power. Everybody's relationship, in real life, any relationship you have with anybody else, is about power and parity. And when you have conflict in a relationship in real life or on the page, it's about power.

Jennifer Prokop 7:11 / #
And I would say that romance then to me really fundamentally, when I read it is about figuring outhow to navigate that, how to win at that.

Sarah MacLean 7:29 / #
That's the whole ball game. The navigation of power toward parity is the whole ball game in romance. And so we've talked a lot about the history of the genre on the podcast and as we move forward in season two, we're going to talk a lot more about the history of the genre, and the books that have established themselves as sort of Cornerstone texts in romance, right? How in many of these books, we're dealing with a hero who is in those early days so impenetrable, that literally his point of view is never on the page. We're going to talk about POV much more next week when we talk about "Dreaming of You." But--I'm not talking about first person versus third person here, which is what Jen likes to yell and scream about-- I'm talking about literally the narrator and the reader don't have access to the hero's thoughts at all in these early books.

Jennifer Prokop 8:41 / #
This is like a bit of an aside, It was the first time, and I think it was "Demon Rumm" by Sandra Brown, I was like trying to figure it out, where it was 'this book is only the hero's point of view.' And I'm kind of how did I hear about this? Because there was no Twitter and there's no social media. And it must have been in the back of the book, like coming next month. But I remember that being something worth, like something worth saying like, "Hey, this is happening and it's different and new."

Sarah MacLean 9:13 / #
Yeah. Interesting. But this is the thing right like when you are looking at a hero and those early books, the early Deverauxs, early Lindseys, early McNaughts, early Garwoods, Bertrice Small, we never ever saw the hero. We never saw inside his head. And so we were really dealing in those early days-- in my mind, like, this is me like I'm putting on my scholar hat, now-- in those early days we were looking at distilled patriarchy. The hero was representative of sort of a world that was not accessible to women, not accessible to the heroine, and not accessible to read the reader. And then the heroine starts to chip away at this rigid, stony character and unlocks Alec Kincaid or any number of the Montgomerys or James Mallory or any number of the Westmoreland heroes. And suddenly we have a ball game because we're able to see that the heroine ultimately lays out the hero. To the point, where in some cases, in a McNaught that we will read this season, the hero is literally dying on a battlefield because of the heroine. Because of a promise he made to her and he will not betray that promise because he loves her. So When we see a hero broken to that extent, and then rebuilt in this image of equality, it's delicious for us as readers who subconsciously are keenly aware of our lack of power in many of these relationships.

Jennifer Prokop 11:20 / #
And I think what's really interesting about that is it was so the way I read, I came into romance as a young reader. And yet now, when I read books that are heroine-only point of view, I have to pace myself with them. I can't do it all the time. I find it too hard to get to know the hero, It feels really like a like a bold choice on the part of the author to do such a thing. Because I'm really used now to having access to all of the characters in a romantic relationship in modern Romance and when people go another way it feels like a choice, and a risky one at that. You know, it's just really hard to sell me on the other character without me being able to see inside their head. Whether that be first person or third person it doesn't matter. I'm used to that being something that I get now in romance. I don't know if you feel the same way.

Sarah MacLean 12:29 / #
Obviously this is why one of my biggest challenges. As much as you're the one who, you know, goes to the mad about first person, the challenge with first person is that sometimes you don't get the important information from the perspective of the person that you need it from. So craft-wise one of the rules that we talk about all the time when you talk about POV and romance, and you talk about writing multiple POVs, is that when you are writing a scene, you should be writing the scene in the point of view of the character who has the most to lose. Interestingly, in these early romances, or in romances where you've got a big, bad impenetrable alpha, the character who has the most to lose in those early scenes, is the heroine because she's navigating this power structure and unable to gain enough footing to get herself into a position of power where he can lose something. However, in books like, well, last year when we talked about "The Professional" part of the challenge with "The Professional" is we never saw-- part of the challenge with all three of those books-- is that we never see the moment when the heroine is leaving from the hero's point of view. We just see him go animal. He goes feral. That first one, Alex, or Alexi, what's his name? I don't even fucking remember anymore. It's like those books are out of my head but in "The Professional," we don't see him go feral. In "The Master" we see Maxim run across the field and take the bullet and he's willing to do anything for her. And so we can sort of perceive his feralness. And I'm using feral in a very specific way here. I'm using it on purpose. That is an intentional use of the word feral. And then in "The Player" we see Dimitri punch the car. He can't control himself. And we talked about it in that episode. That's a problem moment. If that happened in real life, to your friend, you would be like, red flag, get the fuck away from that guy.

Jennifer Prokop 14:55 / #
Yeah. All the flags.

Sarah MacLean 14:57 / #
Holy shit. Call the police. That guy's horrible. But when it's happening on the page in a romance novel it's safer for us to love it. And what does that mean?

Jennifer Prokop 15:09 / #
I sometimes wonder if...you have a heroine-only point of view now, or maybe then, too. Maybe as we read some of these old books we'll dig into that. If you have to make that moment-- for the hero in this case, I feel like this really over time with the alpha hero. It's like, to me it's like very tied into MF romance, where it's like a heroine.-- I wonder if you don't have to make that low moment really over the top, because we have, it's the only way to signal to the reader, just how they really feel. Like you've [the author] cut them off from them [the readers]. And so in order for us to get it, does it have to be bigger, and I don't know the answer to that.

Sarah MacLean 16:00 / #
I think it does. I was looking online and somebody was talking about some book and how the low moment, the sort of dark night of the soul moment, was over-the-top. And we hear that a lot with romance like, oh, it's so over-the-top. I get that as a criticism for my books a lot, the the climactic scene is so over-the-top. And of course it's over the top, you have to break them. They have to be crushed. Look, I love every one of my heroes. Certainly I've written heroes who I've not loved most of the book, but by the time I get to that moment, which is usually, I don't know, 90% of the way through the book, I love those heroes. I really do and I don't want them to be broken, but they have to break. Because we have to see them laid low by the idea that they have lost everything, that they have lost everything of meaning. And the reality is, and you'll never convince me otherwise, that's because all I want is to see the patriarchy destroyed. If there's anything that is is a solid metaphor for patriarchy, it's this story. The fighting for power, the arguments about power, the back and forth about that power and the ultimate dismantling of a system and a man who is representative of that system, so that he can do nothing else but be a person who's looking for equality and a mate.

Jennifer Prokop 17:48 / #
I think a lot about--so what does that really mean in the books where it satisfies?

Sarah MacLean 17:56 / #
At some point I want to talk about the fact that you shouldn't be writing this consciously. That's the problem.

Jennifer Prokop 18:08 / #
Okay, so Darrell is a big horror movie fan. And he went to see "It" this weekend.

Sarah MacLean 18:15 / #
Did he enjoy it? It looks so scary. It looks so scary.

Jennifer Prokop 18:21 / #
He I think has a really high scary threshold, because he's like, it wasn't that scary. But what was really interesting is I was asking him about the ending, because I was like, Is there a way that horror movies always end that leave you-- as the viewer in this case-- right? Like, it's like that, like, what do you need to have a satisfying romance ending I feel like is I'm always interested in these like genre questions. But the thing I think a lot about in romance is that part of the breaking of the hero is that he has to say I love you. It has to be an emotional journey where part of it is this man admitting, "I have feelings."

Sarah MacLean 19:07 / #
Yeah, I'm human.

Jennifer Prokop 19:09 / #
Yes. "I have feelings. I'm human. I have to speak these feelings out loud." It is part of every romance that it's not just enough for a woman or heroine to say I can tell he loves me by the way he acts, part of the breaking of that hero has to be: I have to say it out loud. I have to feel those feelings. And it's different when they're soft cinnamon rolls the entire time.

Sarah MacLean 19:39 / #
Here's where I'm at. And this is going to be a controversial thing. I'm a little afraid to say it but whenever. When we talk about these soft books, and there is a place for them, because like I appreciate that that's part of the fantasy, too. I have so much to say. I have so many thoughts in my head. But here's the thing. When we talk about these soft books and these soft heroes and these cinnamon rolls and how much we love a hero which wants to hold the heroine, and cook for the heroine, and clean for the heroine, and be the heroine's, you know, person. So, okay, personally, this I'm not afraid to say. These books do nothing for me. I can appreciate them on a literary level, on a romance level. I can say that's a finely crafted book, I can say that's a finely written book, this person's a skilled writer, but they do nothing for me in a primal way. And there's a sort of primalness to romance that I will never give up. You will have to pry it from me.

Jennifer Prokop 20:47 / #
I think we are alike in that way.

Sarah MacLean 20:51 / #
Yeah, I mean, we just did a podcast about Kresley Cole, come on. So there is that, but also, from a craft perspective, from an intellectual perspective, if you start the book with two characters who are both fully realized, decent people, who live in the world and are feminist and anti-racist and perfect in every way, they're all dyed in the wool democrats who love each other and can cook perfectly, then where is there to go? I appreciate that as I say those words I can understand intellectually and emotionally that that's a problematic thing. But then I sort of think to myself, and literally I'm speaking my thoughts as they are coming into my head, but like, then I think to myself, but wait a second. Is it that problematic? Because I'm not saying I want to marry Alec Kincaid. I'm not saying I want to marry whatever. I don't know. Who's my worst hero? Borne. Right? But I am saying I want to read Borne breaking. I want to read Devil freezing to death, realizing that he's fucked everything up. Spoiler alert. But my husband is not those things like my husband is a proper cinnamon roll, like, and I love him for it. So why can't I have my cake and eat it too, Jen?

Jennifer Prokop 22:37 / #
I keep coming back to the question about what the fantasy is? The fantasy for you and me is that the patriarchy can be tamed. And that's what we want to read.

Sarah MacLean 22:51 / #
More now than ever before.

Jennifer Prokop 22:54 / #
More now than ever before. Now again, I feel like it's worth us saying that I think both of us are totally aware that taking the patriarchy out of context of capitalism and racism or whatever, that's what we're doing right now. So I think for me, like you, the cinnamon roll fantasy is just not what I personally really need right now. I read about one a year and really enjoy it but I don't want to read them nonstop. And I think part of it is because that fantasy which is the help-meet fantasy, maybe, maybe that's what it is or the we're going to team up together and already be so far advanced. I don't know. Maybe it's just a different fantasy. Maybe we needed someone on who does love those books to tell us what it is that is hitting that primal need in them.

Sarah MacLean 23:59 / #
It's interesting because I had this conversation with a friend not long ago about the fact that post election, all she wants to do is read beta heroes. And also, pause, because I want to say also that I sort of instinctively loathe the, you know, heroes are all either an alpha or a beta or cinammon roll, or whatever. I hate all that discussion. Any decent writer is writing a complex hero who is many things. So, you know, there's that, and I feel I have to have said that over the course of, you know, all those Wroth Brothers. So she was basically saying I just want to read happy, bantery, joyful, fun, soft heroes. And I was like, that's fair. In the wake of the election, all I want to do is read the most bananas stories. I want every author out there taking the finger, as we discussed last season, and I think part of it is because, basically, if your book isn't about dismantling the institutions of power and privilege and hate that we are living with right now, like, why? But this is the thing, I'm also saying I appreciate that that's not fair. Does that makes sense?

Jennifer Prokop 25:37 / #
I think it's something Kelly and I talk about a lot. The work you decide to do in the world--Everybody's work is different. The work of I'm going to tackle this head on by talking about how you break down the most virulent kind of the patriarchy versus other people's work is maybe not taking the finger. Other people's work is just different. And I think that it's okay to to say that. I think what worries me and you is that I don't want to be told that loving the breaking of the alpha makes me a regressive romance reader.

Sarah MacLean 26:26 / #
Yes. Yes.

Jennifer Prokop 26:29 / #
And I feel like that's the narrative, I'm like, Look, I don't understand your work. And you don't understand my work. I don't know. That's the part I think that's hard.

Sarah MacLean 26:42 / #
I think it's a very specific narrative that we're hearing in a very specific place. So I think this is the thing that we hear about a lot on romance Twitter, but interestingly, I run reading book club on Facebook and you don't hear that so much. I think it's a conversation that is happening in very specific circles, and I think it's worthy of happening, I think that often we lose sight of the idea that women's fantasy or the fantasies of people whose gazes are not traditionally presented as fantasy, or who are not often given like a space to fantasize publicly. Policing that fantasy is a terrible, frankly, regressive way of being. My concern is that when we police fantasy, specifically the fantasy of people whose fantasies are never given a place to exist and thrive, which is what romance has always been, it's been a place for sexual fantasy of people who are not given access to sexual fantasy in the world writ large. If you're not cis, het, white, and male--- your sexual fantasies are not on billboards and in movies. But they are in romance novels. And so if we are policing that fantasy, if we're policing the, I don't know, motorcycle club or the BDSM, or the I don't know, the alpha who is broken and then rebuilt, then are we progressing as a genre? Or are we regressing as one? It should be broadening. When I'm in a reading slump, cinnamon rolls are not the answer. But like they might be the answer to someone else and like, go with God.

Jennifer Prokop 29:02 / #
And that's that's exactly I think that's it, I love that we are broadening. I think it's really more expensive as a genre. We always joke with Kate. She's like, "I don't want to read two Ps in V" and I was like, "Yeah, I do!" And I think that part of it is, I feel like there's so many more places that romance is giving us access to so many more fantasies and so many more kinds of fantasies. But my fantasy still that alpha getting broken and crying and being like, I love you. I still want that one, too. I don't want to lose that as we move forward and have so many more fantasies. I still love that old school fantasy. I do. I probably always will. Because I grew up with it. And because of where we are in the world right now.

Sarah MacLean 30:02 / #
Yeah, I mean, and what's really interesting about it is, I don't think anyone would argue that in the early days, the writers I mean, I don't think anyone would argue that most of the writers of the genre are thinking about representing the smashing of the patriarchy in that moment. I don't think. I don't think Judith McNaught was, "All right, I'm gonna write 'Whitney, My Love' and Clayton's gonna be so much of an asshole. That then like when he is broken at the end, everyone will see that it's a metaphor for women's the women's movement." You would knock me directly over if you told me that that was what Judith McNaught was thinking about when she was writing "Whitney, My Love," I think she just opened up ID and poured it onto the page and we got what we got. And so like, I think this whole conversation should be taken in a sense of like, we're doing a lot of thinking about the work of romance in a way that I think does writers a disservice sometimes. And I say this as somebody who like has gotten in her head about, "well, what is the political ramification of this story?" And suddenly you think to yourself, "well now I'm in the weeds like, now I'm frozen, because I'm terrified that I'm going to do this thing wrong. That I'm going to tell the story of smashing of patriarchy wrong or I'm going to tell the story of whatever this political thing that I want to talk and I'm going to do it wrong." Versus like ultimately, writing with conflict and with pacing and with voice and with you know, character that just like is primal. It's fearlessness.

Jennifer Prokop 32:07 / #
I want to be really clear, when we talk about it being wrong, I think the fear is always, always, always, because it's always the charge right? Hillary Clinton talked about a hero to putting a woman over a horse and riding away with her. Here we are as a genre saying like, "no, it's feminist." And yet people outside the genre are looking at it and saying, "no, it's it isn't." And that is always the push pull. I think, a really primal push pull of romances is: Is it feminist? When is it enough? When is it feminist? When is it anti-racist? When is it, when is it progressive versus when is it regressive? And I think that that question is one that maybe we can't tell until 10 or 15 or 20 years later. Who knows, but you can't convince me it's not and yet I have such a hard time explaining to you why it is. And I don't know what to do about that.

Sarah MacLean 33:14 / #
Wait, why romance is feminist?

Jennifer Prokop 33:17 / #
Yeah, I mean, I are like, Why? I mean, I don't know where the line is.

Sarah MacLean 33:25 / #
Here's my thing. For, whatever, 45 years, the genre was accused of being regressive and anti-feminist. The women's movement was moving women forward and romance novels were taking us back. And I have never ascribed to that for all the reasons that you have heard me for many, many hours of expounding on that. Now, I think what we're hearing though, is from inside the house, we're hearing not all these books are feminist and I think that is where things start to get real dicey. Because I have always said that romance is feminist in two different ways: that, On the one hand, it's feminist because there are the texts that are doing something overtly feminist on the page, the breaking down of the alpha hero, the celebration of the cinnamon roll, these kind of moments where we start to see parity as a construct in the novel, like sexual parity or, you know, whatever. Again we're talking about a very specific kind of feminism here. But then on the other hand, you have the books that are written as one-handed reads, for pure pleasure for women, or for people who, again, have never had their pleasure centered by any form of media including pornography. Then you have an entirely different realm of romance that is doing the work of like identifying basic human pleasure beyond cis het white male. And that also has value.

Jennifer Prokop 35:24 / #
Or cis het white female for that matter.

Sarah MacLean 35:27 / #
It's like cis or het or white or Yeah, it's or AND and OR.

Jennifer Prokop 35:42 / #
When we talk about HEA for all, happily everyone after, to use your language. I think the thing that romance novels have taught me foundationally, and you will never convince me that this is an important, is that you deserve ultimate love and acceptance in your relationships with other people, whether they be romantic relationships or not. Whoever that person is on the page, they deserve people in their lives to say I love you the way you are. And that is right, to me is profoundly radical. And as we see more and more romances that are not just about white ladies, and by white ladies, we see a lot of expansion about what that looks like and what that means and I love those fucking books a whole lot.

Sarah MacLean 36:38 / #
Well, it's Adriana Herrera's American Love Story series. You know, it's that sense that she wrote these, that first book "American Dreamer" or like is a male/male romance, but so much of the love on the page is from families.

Jennifer Prokop 36:57 / #
And I think that's the part that I find, as a woman in the world, the ways in which I've tried so hard to fit into boxes and make people happy and take up less space and less room. And in a romance, the people in the romance are allowed to take up however much room they fucking want to. And that's all I want o read. Except for the patriarchy. They're the ones who can't exist the way they come into the storyl

Sarah MacLean 37:33 / #
And if you think about it structurally, if you think about them as a metaphor, if you think about the general arc of the romance novel, from disperate two or three or however many disparate people come together, experience conflict, and end up in happily ever after. If you think about that as a metaphor for like a larger battle in this in society that we are all fighting every day, then, of course at the end like we're Marvel movies, right? At the end, the good guys win, which means the patriarchy doesn't win. What I worry when you start to hear from inside the romance house like well, alphas are the problem. And it's like of course alphas are the problem. That's the point. Alphas are the problem. And then we see them dismantled on the page by the opposite of an alpha, and then restructured as men worthy of love, which, frankly, I mean, if anything is a fantasy.

Jennifer Prokop 38:56 / #
I mean, god, I love my husband, right? But man it's hard sometimes.

Sarah MacLean 39:05 / #
Over the last couple of months I have fired a lot of men in my life. It's misandry hour with Sarah. I have basically like, I have eliminated a lot of men from tangential roles of my life and, and hired instead smart, savvy women. And I said to my husband the other day I was like, I'm just I'm like, slowly, like eliminating men from my life and I was like, you're lucky I'm a Kinsey two, because you'd be out man.

Jennifer Prokop 39:54 / #
I think the thing though that I I really want to talk about is how much I as a reader need conflict. So you talked about a romance now, it's like the relationships puts these people on the page, and it doesn't matter who they are, but what I need is to see that conflict changes people. Conflict changes the way we relate to each other, it changes the way we think about ourselves, and the best romance to me is always going to be rooted in conflict. I think the cinnamon roll books, the reason I don't find them as primal is because the barriers, just the conflict is lower by design, and I get that, I get that how much I value my relationships right now that are sort of lower conflict. That really speaks to me, but in romance, I still really need to see this be The Clash of the Titans.

Sarah MacLean 41:00 / #
Because ultimately, and this is where I'm going to get nerdy about books, but ultimately, isn't the purpose of literature just sort of to mirror our own struggle. I was talking to Sierra Simone about all this not long ago and she said something really, I mean, she Sierra, so of course she said something really smart-- She said something so brilliant to me. And she was basically saying, "when you strip conflict out of a romance novel, what you're basically doing is setting up two people in some sphere of perfect transparent communication and trust from the start." And so as she said to me, and this is direct quote, "it doesn't mirror pain, it doesn't mirror growth, it doesn't mirror joy". I wrote it down because I was like, that's so smart. It's now sticking to my wall. And the reality is, is that , what conflict does is say to a reader, your pain, your growth, your joy is not abnormal. You are okay. This is real, and what you are feeling is real. And look at these two people who are experiencing pain and growth and joy. And frankly, nobody's exploded your boat. So, you know if these two can make it, so can you. And that's powerful.

Jennifer Prokop 42:30 / #
That's all I want.

Sarah MacLean 42:32 / #
Also, there is an argument to be made that like if you have two very, like lovely people on the page together l I don't know. Now I'm sort of thinking like, if you two lovely people on the page together and, are you writing for people who don't have that? Maybe this is...I don't know. Maybe my privilege is showing. I don't know. Maybe my My relationship is, you know, with a person who was kind and decent to me? So why do I want to read about my own life?

Jennifer Prokop 43:07 / #
But that goes back to the idea that different people need different things out of romance and different people need different things out of the media that they consume. When I think about why my husband loves horror so much, I have this theory that it's sort of serving the same function as romance. He's just like, I want to know that people are going to either band together or escape evil.

Sarah MacLean 43:31 / #
It's like mystery novels. A mystery novel where the mystery isn't solved is not a very good mystery novel.

Jennifer Prokop 43:38 / #
I love that there's all different kinds of relationships on page. I love it. I love it even though I still want to read about conflict because you know what, even though I we joke that I like to fight, that's something I really had to learn. It's something that still scares me. And so when I see people in a romance that are in high conflict, it's like, you can do this too. It speaks to me because of who I am. 20 year old Jen did not like to fight. 20 year old Jen was afraid of fighting.

Sarah MacLean 44:15 / #
Yeah. Yeah. And I think romance novels continually model that communication. That conversation that has to happen between two people who love each other, or who are working toward loving each other. Love is messy. Relationships are messy. I mean, I've spent a lot of years in therapy, man.

Jennifer Prokop 44:45 / #
I think that's part of the reason why one of the my favorite romances now is marriage in trouble.

Sarah MacLean 44:52 / #
Isn't that funny how that works. As you age and you age into marriage, you're like marriage in trouble is so much more interesting to me now than it was. When I was 20 I cared not a bit about marriage in trouble.

Jennifer Prokop 45:05 / #
No. And that's because of who we are right now. So when we talk about what's primal or foundational, it's always going to be the intersection of who we are as people and readers, where we are in our lives now, but also what we came up through in terms of our romance history. There's always going to be things that ring that bell because it's like Julie Garland's "The Bride" for me. Always.

Sarah MacLean 45:34 / #
And that's the thing. That takes us back to that sort of alpha question, which is, so now you all know how I feel about the alpha like what I feel that alpha is actually doing. But like, that's intellectual Sarah, like that's Sarah's brain saying the alpha represents patriarchy. If I were teaching and I do teach this class, when I talk about like, who is Christian Grey? Why does he scratch the itch? Because God knows Christian Grey scratched the itch for a hundred million readers. Okay? So I don't want to talk about the quality of the writing. I don't want to talk about the story. I want to talk about any of that. All I want to talk about is why Christian Grey worked. Because he did work and he launched 1000 million billionaires.

Sarah MacLean 46:34 / #
So Christian Grey, I can intellectually tell you why Christian Grey works. He is strong. He has immense power. He's incredibly wealthy. He takes care of her. He makes sure she has food in her fridge, that her car works, that she has money in her bank account. He literally buys the business she works for to fire her boss. She can have a happy job life. And then on top of all that, he manages her orgasms to perfection. All these things cognitively work on a specific level, but so to 1000 other billionaires and so do all the Dukes, so do all the vampires. We've seen a billion rich, powerful, great in the sack kind of heroes. But what is it about that that scratches the itch? I don't know. It's just there. It's built in. But I hate saying that.

Jennifer Prokop 47:52 / #
I mean, we grew up in this society. I feel like in a society where women's financial security is always so precarious, it makes sense that he's a billionaire, but it's not that she's gonna quit working.

Sarah MacLean 48:14 / #
Oh, and he's always around. He's never at work.

Jennifer Prokop 48:18 / #
Men don't have to work in romance. Only women do.

Sarah MacLean 48:22 / #
That's a different kind of interstitial. But truthfully, there's that too. It's the fantasy of he's a billionaire and we have all this, we have immense security, but he always there emotionally for me.

Jennifer Prokop 48:37 / #
And that what he wants is for her to be self actualized.

Sarah MacLean 48:43 / #
It's just id man.

Jennifer Prokop 48:46 / #
Of course it is.

Sarah MacLean 48:48 / #
And I think that's the problem. Look, I'm talking about Christian Gray as a sort of a placeholder for 1000 other heroes. I think 50 Shades worked for very specific reasons during the actual moment in history when 50 Shades was written, but it's so primitive that sort of idea that...it feels like it goes back to like days of hunters and gatherers. There's that sort of primitive itch scratch and I don't understand. I want to be evolved but I'm not there. I love "mine." I love that moment where Alec Kincaid says, what when the question is asked what what do we call her and he says "you call her mine."

Jennifer Prokop 49:47 / #
Here's the thing I think about in terms of 50 Shades and a lot of like the old alphas. You don't really see it as much anymore, but it was certainly part of IAD and it was like part of Twilight, I would say too, is that this extraordinary person would look and instantly recognize that this was the person for them. And there's something really appealing about being seen in a crowd by someone that you think is extraordinary. Christian Grey or Edward Cullen or whoever, and that they're going to pick you out. And I don't really read in the way that I'm like, I'm the heroine. But that idea of being seen immediately as you are extraordinary too, that there is

Sarah MacLean 50:44 / #
Fated Mates.

Jennifer Prokop 50:45 / #
Of course it is. There's a reason that we read IAD together.

Sarah MacLean 50:50 / #
But I've said 1000 times I actually don't really like Fated Mates. But even the opposite of Fated Mates feels like in some ways it's enemies lovers. But even in that moment, it's the being seen moment. Enemies to lovers only works if when the first moment that they interact, it just is explosive.

Jennifer Prokop 51:16 / #
And here's my other thing and I think this is similar for us. Enemies t0 lovers, I'm going to take a 999 times over friends to lovers because it's also really high heat. You can't have enemies to lovers at a low simmer. It is always explosive. And that's it. I love conflict. I want the gas turned up under that pot. Immediately. And that's the thing, all of those books really always come with, Come with the heat. They're comin in hot, and I that's what I want.

Sarah MacLean 52:00 / #
I also think that part of the challenge here, I said this earlier, when I said you know, I hate that we distill everything down to well, is it alpha? Is it beta? What is it? Because I do think I often struggle with the perception of the alpha as being incels. As being I hate women. I'm powerfulful. Women are weak. That's, that's not a good alpha. That's not a good alpha from the start and that alpha, the I hate women, women are weak, women exists for my pleasure, women exist for me to own, like, who's ever written that romance hero?

Jennifer Prokop 52:48 / #
No, I don't like that one.

Sarah MacLean 52:50 / #
But I don't think I've ever even read a book with a hero like that.

Jennifer Prokop 52:54 / #
I think it's a I think it's a misreading. Often those original 80s heroes, and we're going to read some of these, are I was a man who was profoundly hurt and it turned me into a misogynist, because I was so hurt by a woman. And I do not want to be hurt again. I fear being hurt again. That seems different to me.

Sarah MacLean 53:20 / #
Yeah, there's that classic trope in historicals where the hero the hero has had a string of mistresses or a string of relationships that mean nothing. And invariably, like that can be perceived as that can be read as he just he's a misogynist. He doesn't care about women and he doesn't care about women's bodies or women's feelings or anything. Then he meets the one. Yeah, and she's not like other girls. In my mind, I can totally see why that's a misread, meaning why people would read that as that's alpha and I hate it. You know, it's interesting because a lot of people have been talking about Whit, the hero of "Brazen and the Beast" as being an alpha and I'm like, wait, what? Because it feels like he's really not any of the things that people missread alphas as, but he's

Jennifer Prokop 54:21 / #
He's taciturn!

Sarah MacLean 54:22 / #
He's super big. And he doesn't really talk. And yeah, when he throws a punch, it lands hard. But he also lives in aapartment filled with pillows and books by women.

Jennifer Prokop 54:35 / #
He carries candy in his pockets! Look, you're not an alpha if you have candy in your pockets all the time! My God!

Sarah MacLean 54:45 / #
He's definitely submissive in the bedroom. And so I don't even know. I just feel like, be more discerning when you're using those words.

Jennifer Prokop 54:58 / #
Let's define the Alpha then like, let's have that be the thing we end this episode with, like, what does it mean when we talk about the alpha?

Jennifer Prokop 55:09 / #
Define it. So for me, like one hallmark of it is emotionally, not like--- they're going to start the book out of touch with their feelings and afraid of their feelings.

Sarah MacLean 55:22 / #
Yeah. I mean, if we have to define it, like I think that when we define it, like when we define it from IAD perspective, or from like, we're about to read "Dreaming of You," like from Derek Craven's perspective or from any of my hero'd perspectives? Yeah, they're like, emotional,

Jennifer Prokop 55:41 / #
toddlers.

Sarah MacLean 55:41 / #
I mean, yeah, they're like I was, yeah, they're like seedlings. and they just can't, they just have no frame of reference for like, the scope of humanity that they are about to experience and when they actually experience that humanity and that emotion They're fucking done for . And uniformly my heroes are done for.

Jennifer Prokop 56:09 / #
That's all I want, Sarah.

Sarah MacLean 56:14 / #
And I don't think that I mean, like, that's not me. That's all these women who I've read my whole life,

Jennifer Prokop 56:20 / #
I've been because, I've been thinking a lot about it right, I think another thing I often associate the alpha is that they are, and you say this all the time, that they are a King. In whatever it is that they have chosen to do, they are the best at what they do. But that they are always taking care of the people under them. At least like at least in a like a financial or security way, but not in an emotional way.

Sarah MacLean 56:51 / #
But what am i catnip scenes and any romance novel is the scene where the hero is like

Sarah MacLean 56:57 / #
befuddled By his feelings. It's like he just can't. He's like I think I'm having. It's like... Things are weird. Like my tummy is weird, and My head feels weird and she said a thing and it made me feel a thing and I don't, I can't identify any of the words, I have no words for any of it. And like a his servant, or his brother, or his Mom is like, What the fuck is wrong with you-- like you're having feelings?

Jennifer Prokop 57:28 / #
Yeah, hello, this is my favorite thing. My absolute all time favorite thing, Is the person who's like, welcome to the world of feelings.

Sarah MacLean 57:38 / #
What's wrong with you?

Jennifer Prokop 57:40 / #
Worthy! I just want to talk about Derek Craven. We're gonna do it next week.

Sarah MacLean 57:45 / #
But it's the best scene in a romance novel when everybody's like, Yeah, Hi. Welcome. And it's because, it just shows what emotional toddlers they are. And there is a joy to that, there's an immense fantasy like, it is an immense fantasy for so many people, including myself, to be able to say like, I'm whatever. Like, I love my husband a whole lot, but we have these moments. Sometimes I have a moment where I'm like, "I'm sad. And I don't know why." And he's like, "I don't, what does that even mean?" And I'm like, "I just, I'm just like, I need to cry. I need to have a cry." And he's like, "what is happening right now?" And I'm like, "I just help." He just can't like patriarchy is a hell of a drug and it has ruined them too.

Sarah MacLean 58:38 / #
and like the idea that you might have a hero who ultimately discovers that those feelings and is able to interact with them is really cool. And as I say that, I think like Well, that's what a cinnamon roll does from the start. But Then what else is happening? Are they on the run? Is there a murderer?

Jennifer Prokop 59:07 / #
Of course not they're cinnamon rolls.

Sarah MacLean 59:09 / #
Oh my god. I mean, what we really should do an interstitial about cinnamon roll heroes that we love because I do have some that I really love

Jennifer Prokop 59:18 / #
I mean, I feel like there's this joke I used to make, I don't really make it anymore because I think it's probably insensitive, I used to joke like, I need a wife. I need someone who's gonna take care of me. That is a very deep rooted fantasy that I think when I read a really perfect cinamon roll book, that's how I feel. o have someone who's going to take care of me, as opposed to like me taking care of them.

Sarah MacLean 59:43 / #
It's interesting because I do think this sort of brings up and we're obviously going over because we...welcome to Fated Mates everyone. But one of the things that I think is really interesting, I have this long conversation and she's going to come back on the pod this this season. Adrianna Herrera and I were talking about trauma and romance novels as you as you guys know who were listening last year. Adriana is a trauma specialist and she came she gave us a lot of really interesting insight about MacRieve. And she was a a guest on the Bowen episode. And one of the things that we were talking about in in terms of trauma we were talking about the end of "American Love Story," and I'm not going to spoil it but there the epilogue of "American Love Story" is like this really interesting. Or one of the final scenes of "American Love Story" is what is really interesting moment of marital of like, like marital idol like relationship idol, between the two heroes, where they are both doing serious emotional work, side by side as partners. And we were talking just about how There is room for the book that is telling this modern iteration of the romance, where it's a really authentic representation of the life, the struggles that we had in life, The heroes of this particular book are an activist and the lawyer. And so, they're just, they're never, it feels like these two people just have completely different worldviews. And so, that kind of relationship-- again, though, I've always said this in the hands of a tremendous author works really well--Also, so much conflict, so much emotional internal conflict in that story, because, ultimately, at their core, they have completely different views of like how life should be and, what their purpose is. Which is cool. So actually, forget everything. I Well, first of all, don't forget everything I just said because that's, that's it's a great book and it's a great read because you have these moments of this moment of, there is so much emotional conflict to unpack there. Unlike relationships where just two people who really super like each other, and which is like fanfic and that's a whole nother story but, we should have somebody on we should see if Cat Sebastian will come on, or somebody will come on who like, is really a fanfic lover. To talk to us about the way fanfic has an informed Modern Romance.

Jennifer Prokop 1:02:33 / #
I mean, I think that's it, like we're just trying to unpack all these different things. But for both of us, this question of the alpha and what it's doing and what it's done through time and why it's still it's always going to scratch that itch for us. Like, I don't, I don't want to lose that. There's something, those stories still really speak to me.

Sarah MacLean 1:02:54 / #
I mean, to be fair, Jen, I don't think you're gonna lose that. Those stories readers, I mean, a massive swath of romance readers, love that as a story. You know, I know that because I have a career. I want Sierra to come back on and I want us to talk about fearless romances this season because I think people I think a lot of writers are real afraid to write directly into ID. And I get that. Yeah, that's a scary, that's a scary thing to do. I have been there.

Sarah MacLean 1:03:39 / #
I'm there currently, you know, with the book that I'm writing. And I think, you know, harnessing, finding fearlessness is really difficult as a writer, especially in 2019, because you don't want to do it wrong. You don't want to harm anybody. But I think there are ways for us to tell the stories that have the Sort of high conflict explosive relationships that in a way that doesn't harm but actually you know, entertains and ultimately, pleasures, readers.

Jennifer Prokop 1:04:14 / #
That's all I want Sarah.

Sarah MacLean 1:04:16 / #
I know Same, same. Well, let's leave it there for today.

Sarah MacLean 1:04:21 / #
It was last ragey I think then it could have been I think we were really put together.

Jennifer Prokop 1:04:28 / #
I agree. I mean, I'm not I'm not mad at anybody. I want everyone to get what they want and what they need out of romance. That's all.

Sarah MacLean 1:04:36 / #
I just don't want anybody to feel like they're wrong for wanting what they want. you can't be both progressive and like an alpha. That's nonsense. Go read your books. That's fine. Like, yeah, you know, and so I think I think that's where I'm at. Like, let's not let-- women's bodies are getting enough policing these days, like let's not police their minds too.

Sarah MacLean 1:05:07 / #
This is Fated Mates everybody. It's the beginning of our new season next week we have our first book, "Dreaming of you" with our favorite, with Jen and mine..?

Jennifer Prokop 1:05:25 / #
With our

Sarah MacLean 1:05:26 / #
Our. I don't know. I don't know you guys I have a copy editor for that stuff

Jennifer Prokop 1:05:30 / #
This is the very reason why possessive pronouns were created.

Sarah MacLean 1:05:33 / #
Exactly why. With our one of our very, very favorite heroes. Top Five for me for sure. Definitely top two! It's Rune and Derek Craven. Anyway, so we will be back next week with a deep dive on that. you will no doubt have a lot of questions and a lot of concerns. If you've never read this book before.

Sarah MacLean 1:05:58 / #
Fine. Jen and I have a list. We're going to talk about it all. Don't worry, you'll be fine.

Jennifer Prokop 1:06:04 / #
We're gonna take care of you.

Sarah MacLean 1:06:05 / #
Yeah. Don't forget to like and subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform. You know, tell your friends about us and find us on Twitter at @FatedMates or on Instagram at @FatedMatesPod. What else? What else you want to say? We are both there's a romance for Raises fundraiser online. I think this is probably the last week of that. So you can head over to the link. We'll put it in show notes. I've got a manuscript critique up for auction. And Jen has a couple of really fun things including a Fated Mates book pack, which is great. So head over and bid on that. All the funds go directly to organizations working on the border. And we are really, really thrilled to be a part of that. Anyway, we love you guys, thank you so much for listening. Go read a book!

Jennifer Prokop 1:07:05 / #
See you next week with Derek Craven

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S02.01 Welcome to Season Two

We're Back!

We promised you we'd be back with Season Two in September, and here we are in September, back with Season Two!

We've said farewell to Season One, but we'll never fully be able to quit IAD, so Season Two will be The Books That Blooded Us -- that is, the books that made us the romance readers we are...books that taught us what the genre could be, books that scratched our itch, books that made us lifelong romance readers, books that set us on the path directly to your earholes!

Over the season, we'll tackle 10 (or so) books that blooded each of us -- we'll deep dive, discuss, and delight in each other's picks -- and we've got some fun ideas for how you all can share the books that blooded you!

So...where do we begin? We begin in two weeks with the primordial text for both of us...the one...the only...Dreaming of You. We'll talk Derek Craven's cockney accent, Sara Fielding's legendary novel, Lisa Kleypas's immense skill with talismans, and we'll get to the very bottom of some of the most controversial bits of this glorious book that the two of us love a whole lot.

Get reading, y'all, we've got a lot to say. You can find Dreaming of You at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, or at your local indie. It's currently $2.99 in digital everywhere, so snatch it up!

We'll be announcing the schedule for the first few reads later this week -- so you'll have time to read ahead, but in the meantime, sit back, relax, and let us give you a preview of what's to come!

Don't forget to like and subscribe in your favorite podcasting platform!

Show Notes

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Bonus Episode, romance recommendations, crossover episodes Sarah MacLean Bonus Episode, romance recommendations, crossover episodes Sarah MacLean

Fated Wallflowers/Wicked Mates Crossover Episode!

In July, at the Romance Writers of America annual conference, we had the extraordinarily good luck to record a crossover episode with Jenny Nordbak & Sarah Hawley of The Wicked Wallflowers podcast! We talked about our favorite books with a roomful of librarians & bloggers, and we had the best time. Now, you can, too!

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast in your favorite podcasting app so you know the moment we return! 

Subscribe to these other amazing romance podcasts, too!

Listen to the longer version of the conversation with Sarah (MacLean) that Jenny (Nordbak) talks about in her discussion of Brazen & the Beast.

Sarah's hometown library (complete with dark corridors for romance novels) is the Lincoln Public Library in Lincoln, Rhode Island.

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Nine Minutes with Jen

Yes, yes, we're on hiatus. But we can't stop, won't stop!

In this mini episode, Jen talks to her friend Elizabeth about what we can do when someone judges our romance reading.

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast in your favorite podcasting app so you know the moment we return!

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Six Minutes with Sarah

We're on hiatus until September, when we'll start Season 2, but here is a quick hi from Sarah, with a story from her trip to the UK that only Fated Mates listeners will appreciate.

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast in your favorite podcasting app so you know the moment we return!

Show Notes

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19: I don’t know; she’s a witch: Wicked Abyss

The final book of IAD (so far) is here! We’re talking Sian, Lila, why horns are the BEST, and why the king of hell is the very best hell-monarch…except for his queen. Also, we talk Disney properties, complicated thoughts on how it is possible that Kresley is still getting better with each book, and the fact that we’re probably going to start a new IAD reread right away because obviously we are.

Fated Mates returns with Season Two in September — don’t forget to like & subscribe in your favorite podcasting app so you don’t miss a single second of us in your earholes!

And more than all this — thank you for listening to us talk at you about vampires, valkyries, wolf holograms, horns & Rune for 39 weeks — there honestly aren’t words for how much we love you for listening!

Team Vertas 4eva! — xoxo Sarah & Jen

Show Notes

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18.5 : Antiheroes in Romance

It seems only right that our final Season One interstitial be about antiheroes because we’ve pretty much been a fancast for antiheroes since the start of this podcast! Let us talk to your earholes about wicked heroes and why we love them!

Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in your favorite podcasting platform so that you know the moment we start Season Two (in early September)!

Next week, it’s the end! WHAT HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?! We’re talking Sian (HORNS HORNS HORNS HORNS HORNS HORNS HORNS) & Lila with Wicked Abyss, featuring the literal King of Hell, and the Queen who takes fully no shit from him. Get Wicked Abyss at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, or at your local indie!

Show Notes

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full-length episode, IAD, read along, the dacians Jennifer Prokop full-length episode, IAD, read along, the dacians Jennifer Prokop

18: We Got to the Bag of Severed Heads! Shadow's Claim and Shadow's Seduction

We’re taking a turn into the world of the Dacians, and Jen and Sarah are having STRIFE because, as usual, Jen is wrong. We’re combining Shadow’s Claim and Shadow’s Seduction — talking about what it means to be a Kresley heroine, why writers tackle spin off series, the challenges of straight writers writing queer stories, and why we would appreciate receiving the heads of our enemies as tributes.

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. 

We’re getting down to the wire with Season One of Fated Mates — in two weeks, join us for Wicked Abyss, featuring the literal King of Hell, and the Queen who takes fully no shit from him. Get Wicked Abyss at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, or at your local indie!

Show Notes

Lost Limb Count

Arms and Hands (8)

  1. Conrad cuts off his own hand with a rusty axe so he escape the "witched" chains his brothers locked him in. (Dark Needs at Night's Edge)
  2. Cadeon has both of his hands burned off in the same scene where he loses an eye. There's description of what Cade's baby fingers look like as they are re-growing. It's...kinda gross. (Dark Desires After Dusk)
  3. Sebastian pulverizes most of his right arm during the Hie. He regenerates. (No Rest For the Wicked)
  4. Lucia peels all the skin off from her hand in order to free herself from some handcuffs. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
  5. In order to retrieve the ring from La Dorada , Lothaire cuts off her finger. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
  6. Lanthe and Carrow cut off Fegley's hand so they can use his thumb to unlock their torques. He's later killed. (Demon from the Dark)
  7. After receiving Lothaire's heart in a box, Ellie cuts off her middle finger and sends it to him. (Lothaire)
  8. Chloe's shoulder is dislocated in the escape from her auction (MacRieve).

Chest and Torso (7)

  1. Omort severs Rydstrom's spine and punches through his torso in a fight. Sabine saves him and enlists Hag to help heal him. (Kiss of a Demon King)
  2. Lucia's neck is broken. She regenerates. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
  3. On Torture Island, Regin,
  4. MacRieve,
  5. and Brandr are vivisected. It's pretty terrible. (Dreams of a Dark Warrior)
  6. Declan's skin is peeled off by the Neoptera as a child. (Dreams of a Dark Warrior)
  7. Lothaire rips out his own heart and sends it to Ellie in a box. (Lothaire)

Head, Face, and Eyes (6)

  1. Bowen loses an eye and most of his forehead during the Hie. Mariketa has cursed him and he can't heal until he returns to her. (Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night)

  2. Cadeon loses an eye and part of his forehead and hair when fighting. It all regenerates. (Dark Desires After Dusk)

  3. During a rugby match, Garreth has his teeth knocked out and swallows them. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)

  4. Lothaire kicks out La Dorada's remaining eye and throws her over a cliff. (Dreams of a Dark Warrior)

  5. In the Bloodroot Forest, the tree grows over Lothaire's lips and tongue. (Lothaire)

  6. After she gains her immortality, Chloe's hair grows, but she cuts it off every morning. (MacRieve)

  7. Lanthe agrees to have her tongue cut out to save herself and Thronos, knowing she can still use the power of persuasion telepathically. (Dark Skye) ** Horns (2)**

  8. Cadeon cuts off his own horns to prove to Holly that he is worthy of being her mate. She tells him to let them grow back (Dark Desires After Dusk)

  9. Malkolm is captured by his enemies in Oblivion and taken to the city of Ash. The publicly cut off his horns and then intend to kill him, but Carrow saves him. (Demon from the Dark)

Legs and Feet (3)

  1. Lachlain tears off his own leg to reach Emma. He regenerates. (A Hunger Like No Other)
  2. Mariketa's skull is fractured and her leg is torn from her body. She heals herself after Bowen lays on the ground. Ivy grows over her and heals her. (Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night)
  3. Thronos is chasing Melananthe and loses a foot when a portal closes on it. (Kiss of a Demon King)
  4. While in Pandamonia, Thronos is trapped in a Groundhog Day like trap, doomed to repeat his worst nightmare over and over again. When he believes that Lanthe is about to die, he repeatedly tears of his legs in order to reach her. He never actually loses a limb, but he was willing, so we're counting it. (Dark Skye)

Beheading as a Romantic Gesture (4)

  1. The first time Garreth spies Lucia, it's when she shoots an arrow and beheads a kobold. He notices that it's "a fantastical shot" and he's super into it. Later, he helps her pick up the head because he's a real gentleman like that. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
  2. Later in the book, they are under attack from vampires and Lucia asks him to help. Garreth promises to "give her their throats" and beheads two vampires. But she's upset about it because of a previous bad experience with cannibalism. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
  3. Malkolm beheads men that attacked Carrow in Oblvion, and he throws them to prove he's a worthy mate. (Demon from the Dark)
  4. Declan fights and beheads several creatures as they escape Torture Island, including squeezing one dude so hard his eyes pop out and then he twists his head off. (Dreams of a Dark Warrior)
  5. Thronos beheads several foes during fights, which impresses Lanthe; but he also beheads Felix, a sorcerer who once tricked Lanthe and stole her sorcery. (Dark Skye)
  6. The bag of heads, yo. This is the pinnicle of this category, obviously. (Shadow's Claim)

** Beheading as a Non-Romantic Gesture**

  1. Ellie cuts off Lothaire's head, leaving a slender 1/8 of an inch left. It was kind of an accident, but he deserved it. (Lothaire)

Maybe?

  1. Does Garreth's losing his connection with his mortal soul count? (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
  2. When Soroya inhabited Ellie's body, she subjected her to a full Brazilian wax. Ellie doesn't realize it's happened until she takes control of her body again. (Lothaire)
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17.5: This isn't a podcast; this is a Brazen and the Beast hype video

Sarah has a new book coming next week! Listen to Jen ask her all kinds of questions that she can’t answer…and also talk about why silent, grunting heroes are the best kinds. Preorder now, and get Brazen the second it is released into the world on Tuesday, July 30th!

Next week, we’re tackling the Dacians in two weeks with a two-for-one episode featuring both of these Lothaire spinoff stories, Shadow's Claim (featuring demon-sorceress Bettina and Dacian assassin Trehan) & Shadow's Seduction (featuring Caspion the demon and Mirceo the vampire prince)!

Show Notes

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full-length episode, Game Makers, guest host, read along Jennifer Prokop full-length episode, Game Makers, guest host, read along Jennifer Prokop

17: Sexclamation Points! - The Player!

Our favorite person, Kate Clayborn, is back with us to wrap up the Game Makers series with THE PLAYER! Join us as Sarah explains all the ways that the damaged hero works for her (Spoiler: It’s Every Single Way), Kate digs deep on Kresley’s liberal use of punctuation, and Jen admits that Sarah was right all along.

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. 

We’re getting down to the wire with IAD, but because we’re completists, we’re tackling the Dacians in two weeks with a two-for-one episode featuring both of these Lothaire spinoff stories, Shadow's Claim (featuring demon-sorceress Bettina and Dacian assassin Trehan) & Shadow's Seduction (featuring Caspion the demon and Mirceo the vampire prince)!

Show Notes

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interstitial, guest host, romance recommendations Jennifer Prokop interstitial, guest host, romance recommendations Jennifer Prokop

16.5 : Royals Romance with Nana Malone

This week we’re talking all things royal! Join us with the fabulously fun Nana Malone to talk about kings, queens, princes and princesses, royal weddings, royal gossip, why Nick Jonas married SO FAR ABOVE HIMSELF, and how we wish poor Kate Middleton could just have a cheeseburger with her friends.

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. 

Next week, we’re finishing up the Game Makers series with arguably Kresley’s most damaged hero, Dmitri Sevastyan! Basically, July is “Sarah’s favorite books” month, so settle in for that…we’ll be joined by one of our favorites, Kate Clayborn, who will reveal the name of our group text thread! Read The Player at Amazon, B&N, Apple Books, Kobo, or from your local Indie.

Show Notes

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

16: Was It as Good For You as it Was For Me? Sweet Ruin

IT’S HAPPENNNINNNGGGGG! Sweet Ruin, Sarah’s favorite book in the IAD series, is finally here and she is BEYOND EXCITED to talk about her favorite Kresley hero and the magnificent, perfect heroine who refuses to back down from their fated matehood. Listen as Jen and Sarah discuss Nix as Warrior Queen, make important demands of fan fiction writers in the IAD universe, and generally discuss why this book is one of the best of the series, without question. Block off some time and be sure to use the bathroom before you start, because this one clocks in at two hours (and we’ve already realized we forgot to talk about a few things — so prepare for updates in future episodes!)

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 finishing up the Game Makers series with arguably Kresley’s most broken hero (don’t worry, we’ll get to the bottom of this ranking on the episode), Dmitri Sevastyan! Basically, July is “Sarah’s favorite books” month, so settle in for that…we’ll be joined by one of our favorites, Kate Clayborn, who will reveal the name of our group text thread! Read The Player at Amazon, B&N, Apple Books, Kobo, or from your local Indie.

Show Notes

LIVE EVERY WEEK LIKE IT'S RUNE WEEK

TRANSCRIPT

Sarah MacLean 0:04 / #
It's RUNE WEEK and I'm so excited!

Jennifer Prokop 0:14 / #
Welcome to Fated Mates, everybody. For all of you who still claim to be confused about which one is Sarah, and which one is me, Jen. All you need to do is listen to this week's and really get to know intimately the sound of Sarah's voice, because I was like, I'm not really sure what my job is this week.

Sarah MacLean 0:33 / #
Okay, so wait, but literally this is the entire reason why we have this podcast, because I was like can we do a podcast about Sweet Ruin?

Jennifer Prokop 0:43 / #
And I was like -- let's, yes, but with a lot of other things, too.

Sarah MacLean 0:47 / #
Yes. And

Jennifer Prokop 0:49 / #
and let's do it. 30 episodes in.

Sarah MacLean 0:54 / #
You guys Sweet Ruin is, in my top five romance novels of all time. In my top-- one romance novel of all time.

Jennifer Prokop 1:04 / #
I know! I was like, top five? Sweet Ruin, part one. Sweet Ruin, the epilogue. Swee Ruin, the reread. Sweet Ruin, that chapter.

Sarah MacLean 1:19 / #
Yeah well, we're...Sweet Ruin, all the other times we see Rune in the whole series. Like just like for the 40 sentences.

Jennifer Prokop 1:31 / #
Sweet Ruin the Robert Petkoff edition.

Sarah MacLean 1:38 / #
Yeah, you guys, I love this book a whole frickin lot. A whole, whole lot.

Jennifer Prokop 1:47 / #
I love it but I feel like I'm tempering my love because I don't want to... I just feel like it's not my place.

Sarah MacLean 1:55 / #
I get it, I get it, it's too much.

Jennifer Prokop 1:56 / #
Yeah, I'm just gonna play the straight man this week. I'm going to play one who is asks questions.

Sarah MacLean 2:01 / #
I feel like I need to say, this is Episode One of 74 because there are 73 chapters of this book and an epilogue.

Jennifer Prokop 2:12 / #
There are a lot of chapters in this book.

Sarah MacLean 2:16 / #
So Kresley writes a short chapter and always has. But I feel like she really like crosses over into this like...

Jennifer Prokop 2:25 / #
It's staccato almost, right?

Sarah MacLean 2:26 / #
Yeah. Like it's so quick and I think that's part of why I love it so much because short chapters make the pacing so fast.

Jennifer Prokop 2:34 / #
Oh, absolutely.

Sarah MacLean 2:35 / #
You can tear through this book. And part of the reason why you tear through it is because, or rather, part of the reason why the pacing has to be so on point in this book is because there's so much happening in it.

Jennifer Prokop 2:49 / #
The "short chapters make for fast pacing" rule, I think is true everywhere. Did you read "All the Light We Cannot See?"

Sarah MacLean 2:57 / #
Yes, of course. Sure.

Jennifer Prokop 2:58 / #
Same thing, I think it's like a rule, I don't know made that rule but it's a rule.

Sarah MacLean 3:04 / #
It's actually rule that I've never really been very good at following, but in the last two books, the Bare Knuckle Bastards series of mine-- Wicked and the Wallflower and Brazen and the Beast--, I've been much more conscious of ending a scene where the scene needs to end, and then just-- new chapter. I used to write a scene and then do a decorative thing on the page, and then a new scene but in the same chapter, and I actually don't see why that's valuable. I think what's really interesting here and with a lot of the books that have short chapters, is it also moves the POV back and forth really fast. So you'll be in a scene with Rune and then instantly switch to Josie and you get the exact same scene really quick from the opposite point of view. And you just feel like you're really in it with both, and you feel deeply connected to both of these characters. So, this is the beginning of the Morior arc, right? The movement, the Morior movement,

Jennifer Prokop 4:13 / #
We don't know if the Morior movement continues or goes on hiatus with Munro because that book's not out yet. And I think that's a really big question for both of us, because Wicked Abyss is certainly part of the Morior movement, although we're going to pause and go to the Shadows books next time, right, we still are going to wait. And I think that's a really interesting question, just because I don't know. It's hard to believe the Morior movement is only two books-- that cannot be, right?

Sarah MacLean 4:48 / #
No, it surely isn't. Especially because she's laying the groundwork for a lot of other characters. But you never know because she also could be getting tired and she's doesn't want to do this anymore. Like that's real. But I don't like that. So let's just pretend that's not the answer.

Jennifer Prokop 5:07 / #
How did you speak that into the world? But OK.

Sarah MacLean 5:09 / #
OK, so our characters are Josephine Doe. Josie, young Josie, who is another one of our characters-- so everybody laughs at me when I say this, but I actually think Sweet Ruin is also a possible entry point into the series. And I know that sounds crazy, but we've talked before about how every time we have a mortal heroine, or heroine who is young, and did not grow up in the Lore. She has to learn everything and so as she's learning it, we're learning alongside with her. And it's a really smart-- I don't know if Kresley does it on purpose, although I think Kresley does everything on purpose, but it's a really smart conceit to leave, they're basically entrances to the highway, to the IAD highway.

Jennifer Prokop 6:05 / #
The other thing that I think about a lot and I think this is something that she has in common with Lila, is that they're both...

Sarah MacLean 6:13 / #
...who is the the heroine of Wicked Abyss.

Jennifer Prokop 6:14 / #
Yeah, is that they're both... the Valkyries have their coven. The Witches have their house-- But these heroines are both alone. And I think that that means there's also a sense that we can enter into their stories because we don't need all that other backstory about who they are and who they belong to. So I also think that Wicked Abyss could be an entry point, which I think is pretty interesting.

Sarah MacLean 6:42 / #
Yeah, I agree. And we'll talk about this when we do Wicked Abyss. But Lila, too, is very Earthbound. Even though she's a fairy. Or she's fey, she lives in the mortal world. She passes as a human. And so Josie, So Josie passes as a human, but she doesn't think she's a human. She knows--

Jennifer Prokop 7:13 / #
She's a freak.

Sarah MacLean 7:14 / #
She knows part of what she is. So the book begins and we are-- Josie is young. It is 14 years earlier. And she has, she is homeless. She has an infant brother, who came with her to...

Jennifer Prokop 7:35 / #
They're in Houston.

Sarah MacLean 7:36 / #
They're in Houston. And she like bums around the library. And the librarian has sort of taken her under her wing and gets her food and takes care of her. But she's homeless and she's running with her little brother. She doesn't want to get caught because she's afraid that if she gets caught they'll be separated, who knows what. So she falls in with a terrible crowd and ends up getting shot. And dying. Like, she sees herself come out of her body. She dies. And then she returns as a ghost. Well, she doesn't know what she is.

Jennifer Prokop 8:15 / #
She's a freak, that's is what she calls herself.

Sarah MacLean 8:21 / #
Her brother has now been adopted by the librarian. She goes back to that home. And the librarian sees her and is terrified-- rightly so because this child is dead-- and that is that. She sees that she's causing more trouble than

Jennifer Prokop 8:42 / #
Yeah, I think she sees that Thad doesn't quite remember her, and that Thad is really happy and-- I think he calls the librarian Mama. And and Josie had been his mother even though she was just really little and so I think what happens is she realizes, "I can't take care of him. I don't even know how to take care of myself." It's a painful, really painful moment.

Sarah MacLean 9:08 / #
Because she's dead, so she's obviously feeling alone. She's always been alone, she's always been taking care of both of them. And the only purpose she has is she realizes she has to let it go. So she lets Thad go, her baby brother, who is a toddler at this point. And then we flash forward to present day. And we discovered that Josie has been following Thad. Obviously, she's been keeping keeping up with Thad.

Jennifer Prokop 9:43 / #
I mean, it's been her life's work. I feel like I've said before, like, "oh my god, this heroine made me so sad" but like Josie made me so sad because not only is she completely alone, but she knows that she is different than other people, she knows that there's something out there that she cannot figure out herself. It's heartbreaking. The feelings I have for her so poignant and I think it's just the starting place for her-- like this love she has for Rune, all she wants is to find someone she can belong with. And he has belonged with the whole world, the whole worlds. And and He's so-- he's just so cold. It's a really interesting pairing.

Sarah MacLean 10:44 / #
Yeah. So Rune. So Josie is young, she's possibly our youngest heroine, I think. She might be-- Holly might be right around her same age.

Jennifer Prokop 10:57 / #
And Mariketa, maybe.

Sarah MacLean 10:59 / #
Yeah, but Mariketa has to be set aside as a young heroine because she's so badass, so powerful.

Sarah MacLean 11:11 / #
So anyway, Josie is our youngest heroine, our youngest sort of like human-esque heroine. Oh, and it's important to know Josie discovered she's vampire. She was young, so when she when she realizes that she is dead, she also realizes--oh, I could be hungry. And then she feeds. We know she's a vampire. She knows she's a vampire but never really gives language to it. And she can do this thing called ghosting, which we'll get to. So we have our youngest heroine ever in the universe, and Rune Darklight...

Jennifer Prokop 11:54 / #
Let's pause for giggling.

Sarah MacLean 12:04 / #
Rune is one of the Morior, or the Bringers of Doom. And we've been hearing about them for a few books.

Jennifer Prokop 12:12 / #
One of my favorite parts this book is when Josie at some point imagines them as being like the Superfriends, but evil. And I honestly kind of love it. it was a great.

Sarah MacLean 12:26 / #
They're like Bizarro Avengers. Right? We meet Rune in what I envisioned to be sort of a the Star Trek, you know, what's that ship called? The intrepid? No, that's not right. That's a big ship.

Jennifer Prokop 12:46 / #
The Enterprise?

Sarah MacLean 12:47 / #
The Star Trek Enterprise! So they're in a realm called Tenebrous. It's hurtling through space-time -existence. And we meet in like wandering around the empty halls of this what is not stop thinking about as like a spaceship style like, thing?

Jennifer Prokop 13:09 / #
Yeah, me too. It's like basically he's on the nightwatch but when you're immortal or like a god or whatever the nightwatch is like, hundreds of years. Everyone else is napping.

Sarah MacLean 13:21 / #
That's what it says like it's basically like everyone else is asleep. And poor Rune is like, bumming around for 500 years. Waiting for them to get close to Earth, because the head of the Morior, a man named Orion, who is we still don't know. And we'll get to Orion has amassed this-- it's basicallyArthurian legend--Like the Knights of the Round Table. There are 12 seats at this table, and each seat is reserved for a primordial of a species-- of an immortal species. The primordial is the first of its kind, important to know we already have a primordial Valkyrie on the page. Nix presumably has a seat at this table. And he is come for Nix, Orion is coming for Nix, who we know from the last book is working on being a goddess.

Jennifer Prokop 14:17 / #
I hope he is "coming" for Nix at some point and I am not the only one who thinks that.

Sarah MacLean 14:24 / #
My whole theory is that the only, well our whole theory.

Jennifer Prokop 14:29 / #
Everyone's theory.

Sarah MacLean 14:30 / #
Nix and Orion at the end right? In the last book. So Orion has amassed, has like put together this table full of people, who are: Rune, the primordial dark fay, we'll get to it. Alixta, Who's the primordial witch who I love so much she's such a bitch. I love her.

Jennifer Prokop 14:50 / #
She has a cat, she has a familiar--Curses.

Sarah MacLean 14:52 / #
She does. she fucking pissed at Earth's witches because they don't pay taxes. The witches all pay taxes, and they haven't paid their taxes. It's kind of awesome.

Jennifer Prokop 15:02 / #
Yeah, it is kind of awesome.

Sarah MacLean 15:04 / #
There's Blace. Blace-- is that how to pronounce it? The primordial vampire. And then there's some other creatures who I really love. There's like a dragon.

Jennifer Prokop 15:14 / #
Uthyr. He's permanently in his dragon stage.

Sarah MacLean 15:20 / #
He'll be magnificent in Wicked Abyss, so stay tuned for dragon excitement. And then there is the primordial wolf who is like one rage away from

Jennifer Prokop 15:34 / #
Permanently wolfing out. What's his name again? Something I can't remember. D maybe.

Sarah MacLean 15:40 / #
Oh yeah, Darach.

Jennifer Prokop 15:41 / #
There you go.

Sarah MacLean 15:43 / #
And that's where I think Monroe comes in. I think there's going to be a Darach. Because you know, in MacRieve, they said there were the primordial-- or not, they weren't called the primordial, the Originals or, I forget what they're called, but the reverse of a Lykae, the ones who live as wolves, and sometimes are men; versus the ones who live as men and sometimes are Lykae. So I think like, that's coming back around somewhere with this primordial wolf. So they all sit at this table. There's some empty seats at this table and Rune has been there for. I mean, he's been alive for 10,000 years. He's the oldest character we've met. Right? Because he's older than Lothaire. And Lothaire and Nix are...

Jennifer Prokop 16:34 / #
are like 3000 years old.

Sarah MacLean 16:36 / #
Yeah, yeah. So he's been around for 10,000 years. He's also the hunter of the Morior. He's the archer so he has incredible skill, all the skill that Lucia had as an archer, like, but with 10,000 years of experience. And Rune-- he specializes in runes, obviously-- and he has all these arrows that do cool stuff and Orion sends him to fetch, no, to kill, well Orion says go get Nix and there's a question as to whether or not Orion is saying like go kill Nix or what. We never spent much time with Orion we don't know his end game you get the very real sense that he is just as brilliant as Nix and has a like big plan in place.

Jennifer Prokop 17:27 / #
One of the things I caught on this reread was that he is a shapeshifter, where he can shape shift into human form. In beginning when they kind of all wake up, this time he looks like Thor, but last time he looked like dark haired or...

Sarah MacLean 17:50 / #
Typically he masks his eye color. Because at one point way late in the game, Rune sees his eye color and basically thinks to himself, oh, holy shit, I know what he is.

Sarah MacLean 18:06 / #
But we don't.

Sarah MacLean 18:07 / #
He doesn't tell us. Yeah, that's Kresley being a jerk.

Jennifer Prokop 18:14 / #
We love you Kresley, in case you're listening. And I think the thing that I found interesting about the Morior or I'm just gonna say this before we like move on to talk about, like what you love about like this romance. We've talked to extensively about like leveling up. And we have seen in the last couple books the introduction of other realms. Now we get that these primordials are, regardless of realm or worlds, I mean, so it's just like making the whole set. The whole stage just got so much bigger, and it also sets up an opposition force to Nix that actually feels threatening. So for 16, or however many books, she just kicks everybody's ass. And now we get the sense at least that these folks could be like a real threat to her. And that is interesting to me.

Sarah MacLean 19:16 / #
It has to be the setup for the end of the series. I'm sorry, everyone, but like, there's no way Kresly's writing these books forever. And this has to be the setup for the end of the series because of that. Nix just can't end up with Thad. Well, that's nonsense talk on the part of my friend Jen.

Jennifer Prokop 19:40 / #
I wanted to be clear I wanted Fury to...

Sarah MacLean 19:44 / #
Okay, well, Fury can't either but that's it. No, absolutely cannot

Jennifer Prokop 19:50 / #
Of course not.

Sarah MacLean 19:50 / #
For Nix to have a satisfying love story for any of us. She has to be. I mean, like she has to be matched in absolute parity. It has to be cat vs cat.

Jennifer Prokop 20:02 / #
Oh sure. And you know one of the things I thought a lot about is like we have speculated that it would be very hard to write Nix as a heroine because of what we know about how her brain works. And then if you pair her with a God who understands everything she understands. Her thought processes will be clear to him, and therefore, clear to us. So there's a lot of ways in which that seems so inevitable...

Sarah MacLean 20:27 / #
Well and it's already set up that she can't see him. He is the only thing she cannot-- she is ever knowing, but she is not all knowing-- and one of her blank spots is Orion. We don't have that kind of information about Orion though. We don't have really any information about a Orion which I think is actually just really smart. A smart move on Kresley's part, at the same time. So like, you know,you put Thrane's Key on the table. You can't give the readers too much about Orion because he's too powerful. You're going to need him to do all sorts of things and you can't limit him. So that's the Morior. We love them. But also what's really interesting, what I like the most about the use of the Morior is they're setup for multiple books as the Bringers of Doom--which Yeah, not a great name-- It doesn't doesn't know strike, strike, you know, it doesn't it doesn't lead to a whole lot of confidence on the partof ID readers right? But in they come, and the theory is like, and they're coming for Nix. That's the whole plot of this book is That-- we will remember from the Lotharie arc of the series-- that Thad is under the protection of the Valkyries at Val Hall. And so and he is there Josie knows he's there but doesn't know anything else. Does she know he's there?

Jennifer Prokop 21:50 / #
She comes to know he's there and that's why she essentially agrees to work with Rune because they now have the common foe even though they have different reasons for wanting to get her.

Sarah MacLean 22:02 / #
It's a really it's a very clean conflict. Josie wants Thad; Ruin wants Nix. Josie is too clever to reveal that she doesn't know things. She's very proud. Like she's written she's a great character. She's written a super proud, like, unwilling to bend. Her whole her whole mantra is like squeeze it till it breaks. And so like she's unwilling to bend but she so she's unwilling to sort of admit that she doesn't understand this world and she doesn't know where Thad is. And she doesn't know how this is all working. And that's but she sees that Rune is her entrance into this, and so they make a partnership, but they would have made a partnership anyway. Because Rune is dark fey and this is where it starts to get amazing.

Sarah MacLean 22:57 / #
Jen, tell everybody what a dark fey is.

Jennifer Prokop 23:00 / #
So, we've met one before if you'll remember Natalia right, who was like locked up in torture Island. But we didn't really know anything about her. But Rune's... Every secretion from his body is poisonous to everything and everyone.

Sarah MacLean 23:18 / #
except one thing.

Jennifer Prokop 23:23 / #
Not to Josie, right.

Sarah MacLean 23:26 / #
Josie!

Jennifer Prokop 23:28 / #
Sarah, you're so thrilled about this. I don't even want-- like. It's like you tell them and I'm like, "No, you tell them!"

Sarah MacLean 23:35 / #
It's so good. You guys he's so poisonous. Okay, so here's the thing.He has a monster cock. It apparently does like, well,

Jennifer Prokop 23:43 / #
he's like seven feet tall or whatever.

Sarah MacLean 23:46 / #
He's the tallest of all of all... well, He's primordial right? So of course.

Jennifer Prokop 23:50 / #
I mean, I guess

Sarah MacLean 23:51 / #
He's the most wonderful. He's Rune!

Jennifer Prokop 23:54 / #
And therefore his dick is the biggest. Fine.

Sarah MacLean 23:57 / #
He has a monster cock. And he needs this monster cock because he Literally he cannot kiss anyone. He cannot perform cunnilingus on anyone.

Jennifer Prokop 24:06 / #
You love that I first time for everything.

Sarah MacLean 24:11 / #
It's amazing, right? So we can't do any of these things. And he's half--so a dark fey is half-fey, half demon. Right so he has a demon seal. So he can come, but he can't ejaculate. But he never comes. But he is so good at sex...he's so good at sex you guys that the nymphs, he's a celebrity in the covey.

Sarah MacLean 24:39 / #
it's one point in this book, he walks into a covey and there is a standing ovation for Rune and his no cunnilingus monster cock.

Jennifer Prokop 24:51 / #
I know what that's an amazing thing.

Sarah MacLean 24:53 / #
He's so good. The nymphs give him a standing ovation.

Jennifer Prokop 24:56 / #
Oh, you guys are so many things that are like fascinating about Up to like, I feel like, now let's just stop and talk about this forever. But here's the couple things... one of the things I find really interesting about it is that... his emotional, he's so emotionally detached. Sex to him is all about power. It's just a weapon...

Sarah MacLean 25:22 / #
it's work, right? Because remember, we've met the nymphs before, and everyone goes to the covyes, the cocyes are like bordellos. So the nymphs hear everything, they get all, they're a great network of information. And that's going to be important. Like we talked early in this podcast about how we didn't love the way Kresley setup nymphs in 2004. By 2017, Kresley has figured out nymphs. They have power, They have their network of information of informants, They have information, They have important tools. They are essential to now the arc of the series. And in this particular case, Rune is so good-- he has learned to be excellent at sex so that he can service nymphs and be paid, basically get information from them.

Jennifer Prokop 26:20 / #
Right, right. Yeah. Now the part that's also really interesting about this though is this is another Kresley hero who has, who was literally sold into sexual slavery. Right? And so, and I promise we'll get back to talking about Josie because she's so fascinating.

Sarah MacLean 26:40 / #
Well, this is only we're only what like an hour into this.

Jennifer Prokop 26:44 / #
We're only on chapter seven of seventy.

Jennifer Prokop 26:49 / #
I literally was like, "Darrell, I'm gonna need you to bring dinner home because I'm recording with Sarah at, starting at four. And I have to leave at eight to pick up our child so I'm not going to be able to do Anything else for those four hours? And he just sent me a text that was like, "Okay."

Jennifer Prokop 27:08 / #
No. So here's the thing, like we've talked about. And I think what's interesting is that, I think his emotional scars from from being sold into slavery, essentially, because he did it to save his mother, he was sort of promised that by doing this, he could save his mother. And we all end, you know, we all know that's not going to work out. And so the fact that he then essentially turns it on its head, like I was forced to do this, literally every night, he had to please everyone. And if he didn't, they would, you know, threatened to kill him, is to then take those skills that he learned, essentially and say, Now I'm going to use them against the world to get what I want. It's very tied up in his psyche in a way that it's really tangled and really? Yeah, I just I found myself thinking about it a lot. It's really, it's really meaty, right. And I feel like there's just so much there...

Sarah MacLean 28:12 / #
And there really is. Because also he believes this is his whole purpose. Right? And there comes a point way later in the book, which we'll get to like we're gonna have to talk about the dark moment in this book and like how it all plays out right? Where he is basically like my only job, The only reason why Orion saved me from that horrible life, right? Yeah, from which I would have happily died to get out of it. The only reason why Orion did that is so that I could then fuck all these nymphs for him and then be the information Bringer. And Orion puts, like stops that, Finally 10,000 years later, Orion is like

Jennifer Prokop 29:04 / #
no you dumb ass I just thought you'd be good at getting information from people.

Sarah MacLean 29:07 / #
It's really magnificent because again that could be a moment where, in the hands of a lesser author I say all the time, somebody could have, a reader would read that and say, well this is dumb why didn't Orion say this 6000 years ago, but it makes perfect sense because Orion is so, he's operating on this like, universal plane, right? This is all just he does, This all this all feels very like messy and mortal for him.

Jennifer Prokop 29:41 / #
I mean, the thing that I think fascinating always about this is like these are immortals, but the ways in which they are human, like these are immortals, and recently I read a couple books where I just feel like like things happen, right? Like just a bunch of fucking things happen fine. But I feel like if you are not walking away from a book thinking about what it means to be human, or what it means to be part of the world, or be, right to like use that English teacher word, theme, right? And I feel like the ways in which Rune cannot escape his own interiority. That's what's going on here. I mean, it's literally when you're like, I think we've all had that moment where we're chugging along, doing shit the way we think it's supposed to be done, and someone's like, "why are you doing it that way?" And you're like, "wait, what do you mean?" I think that that there's something very real to me about that that he couldn't let go of thinking, "this is what I'm good at. So I'm gonna have to do it this way." Even though that was never ever said. Right. And and that I found to every time I read this, and every time I think about it, that self destructive element in him. That is all of us.

Sarah MacLean 31:00 / #
Yeah, so Rune also on top of all of this right on top of Orion and his time as a child being sexually abused, sexually assaulted, a slave, right as a sex slave like there's he has always been poison, right?

Jennifer Prokop 31:21 / #
Yeah. And not in that good Boys II Men way. Oh no, "That girl is poison."

Bell Biv Davoe 31:27 / #
Bell Biv Davoe. Now you know.

Jennifer Prokop 31:37 / #
It is sorry, it's fine, it's partly Boys II Men.

Sarah MacLean 31:46 / #
Don't at us.

Jennifer Prokop 31:47 / #
I know, I was like I know

Sarah MacLean 31:49 / #
So okay, so he he has bane blood, right? His blood is black, it is pure poison, like one drop of it will kill you. So kissing will kill you, one of our very favorite Twitter people, Aunt Angelique, who is a nurse, pointed out that this is worse than most of the sexually transmitted diseases that then all the transmitted diseases that we know about as humans, because usually saliva is so distilled, that is not distilled, It's so diluted, that you can't get a disease from saliva. You can die from Rune's saliva, right? So you just can't like he is pure poison. He doesn't get a mate. That's insane. He's a poison. If he broke his mate seal., his demon seal, and came inside someone. He would have immediately found his mate and then also killed them. Right? So this is all like he just and he's not, he's fucking all these nymphs, but it's not attempting, it's never described as attempting.

Jennifer Prokop 32:55 / #
No.

Sarah MacLean 32:56 / #
In the way that it is for all the other demons. For Rune It's a job he's never end he's in such control like he, he just he never even feels the urge to come, he doesn't come. so here

Jennifer Prokop 33:11 / #
He can experience pleasure, but there's no ejaculation, right?

Sarah MacLean 33:14 / #
exactly, but I get the sense from him that like he's been doing this for so fucking long like nothing surprises him and he's just not that into it right?

Jennifer Prokop 33:22 / #
Oh yeah well and in fact this is breaking one of the cardinal laws of romance which is the first time our heroine sees the hero. He is fucking someone else. And she is like,

Sarah MacLean 33:34 / #
Hey,he is a nice ass. So yeah, Josie is knocking around New Orleans, right? Yeah, like wondering about her brother. And she hears a nymph just losing her mind.

Sarah MacLean 33:47 / #
Screaming Rune the way I scream Rune, you guys.

Jennifer Prokop 33:54 / #
She's curious

Sarah MacLean 33:55 / #
You know, she's curious. She follows the the noise she gets to him like, you know, banging like multiple, multiple nymphs against a wall. And she smells. And she's like, Oh, he's not wearing Axe body spray. He smells delicious. And then, you know push comes to shove, and they end up meeting and Josie can't resist. She bites him to drink him. And he's like, you just signed your death warrant. That's exactly what he says. He's like, you die now.

Jennifer Prokop 34:32 / #
Well, he chases her down. She sort of goes, he follows here, there's a back and forththing. He knew she was a voyeur right? But yeah, I mean when he she just ...you fucking smell amazing. I am going to bite you and like the... It's hot. Right?

Sarah MacLean 34:48 / #
So I just got a puppy. And I so and Khalo, Our puppy, is learning not to bite, right? But he's a puppy. And so he, you can see on the His little face, he's like, I don't want to, I'm not supposed to bite that thing. I know I'm not supposed to, I'm not supposed to. And then he's like uh, I can't. It's too hard. And then he just like, this is Josie in that moment with Rune. Like, she just is like, I can't, I can't, I'm biting him. And so she has

Jennifer Prokop 35:16 / #
She has literally climbed him like a tree.

Sarah MacLean 35:19 / #
Well who Wouldn't? Oh, and then she bites him and he's like, you're gonna die. Except she doesn't. She's like, holy shit! This is amazing. And he's like, your body is a Wonderland.I mean, instantly. Instantly, he's like, what the fuck?

Jennifer Prokop 35:40 / #
And he like grabs her ass, and he unzipped his pants, and puts his cock in her underwear, like, he sneaks it up in there, and they, rub up against each other.

Sarah MacLean 35:48 / #
They dry hump on the wall. It's not dry.

Jennifer Prokop 35:53 / #
Well, not dry for her; dry for him.

Sarah MacLean 35:58 / #
So there's this whole, and then there's moment where he's like, holy shit. I've not poisoned her, which means I can lay her out on a bed and "torture"-- I'm using air quotes-- into giving me all the information that I need because this is how he gets information from an nymphs. He sexually tortures them, and edges them, until they can't bear it anymore. And then they tell him the secrets and then he lets them come. Right. So he's like, I can torture her and I can torture her for real. Now.

Jennifer Prokop 36:30 / #
but I would like to say before he has that moment of logic. He does come like a fucking fire hose. Oh, and he doesn't actually come, but except not, but he is so excited and he cannot believe he's coming and he's super into it. So I would like to say his first response is not logical--I can use this against her. His first response really is like, something miraculous has happened.

Sarah MacLean 36:58 / #
His first response is I'm Not his, his 130th response is not I can use this against her. Intellectually, it's like I can use this against her but, emotionally and physically and frankly, they're fucking fated mates if he would notice! like if he would pay attention! Like everything else in the whole world, like the universe is basically telling him like, this is yours, you belong to each other! Mine, mine mine mine. Except he doesn't say it. She says it. Mine, mine, mine.

Jennifer Prokop 37:30 / #
I mean, that's the thing, 10,000 years of training -- the universe has trained him to believe that he's poison, that he does not deserve a mate, that all these reasons emotionally that he could never have that. It's like he can't even see literally what's right in front of him. And we have talked about this, like the fact that she recognizes that he must be her mate. That she's the one who has that instinct in that calling. It really means something I think to have a heroine experience that and have to decide what to do with it, as opposed to a.... it's a different experience.

Sarah MacLean 38:11 / #
And you know what I love? It's such a it's actually really interesting. So this is the book that came after The Master. And there are a lot of echoes of The Master in this book in the sense that like, Josie doesn't take no, Josie is like you're my mate. I'm your mate. Like we figured it out. Yeah. And she says what real early and he's like no,

Jennifer Prokop 38:36 / #
but there are limits to it. Like I if we do this you have to be committed to me only it's got to mean something.

Sarah MacLean 38:42 / #
Right. And I take any of his shit like zero of his shit. And frankly, like, this is a guy who with a single arrow can can decimate the bones of everybody in hearing distance. No, everybody takes his shit because there's no option. But there's so many like little moments while I was doing the reread, because I don't think I've ever read The Master and then Sweet Ruin one right after another. And while I was doing the reread I was like, Oh my god, like so much with the birth control thing that happens. The you know, the the fact that Josie is basically like she is a lot like, um, what's her name? What's her name?

Jennifer Prokop 39:27 / #
Cat

Sarah MacLean 39:27 / #
In that she just won't, She doesn't care about his power. She's basically, She's like, I know how this is going to go and it's gonna break my way. Not your way. Yeah. And then the fact that they both are like cunnilingus virgins, but like, really excellent at itimmediately. Tremendously excellent at it. Which, you know, fine.

Jennifer Prokop 39:54 / #
It's fine for him and I'm excited for her. But I keep thinking the other way. Like, I was like, she's afraid to have sex with this thing but she's like...she took like a little Advil before to loosen up that jaw. I like....TMJ I don't even know.

Sarah MacLean 40:16 / #
Well, there's a there's this great tweet that we will put into the Twitter feed and also link to in show notes where someone was like, I'm gonna need an over under on the size of a rooster. It's like Foghorn Leghorn. it's me

Jennifer Prokop 40:42 / #
like oh my god. My brother like like my brother follows me on Twitter, everybody my other brother listens. I don't care.

Sarah MacLean 40:51 / #
It's this is it's one of those moments when people are like I read romance for the fantasy of it. Yes, in this particular case, this is pure fantasy. Nobody wants to face this down in real life, but there, there it is. Anyway, so this is happening right so there's torture and I want to talk about that torture scene. I mean torture again, I use air quotes. It's all edging right? brings so except it's not edging to begin with because he gets her back to his apartment or wherever the hell they are. I can't even remember. See, I don't even care. I've read this book 5000 times I have no idea where they are in this moment. Are they in the way they're in Tenebrous? Or in the apartment above the sex club?

Jennifer Prokop 41:35 / #
Are those the same thing?

Sarah MacLean 41:37 / #
Oh, wait, that's not the same. That's the same thing. I thought he kept an apartment above the sex club. With the glass bottom floor.

Jennifer Prokop 41:44 / #
Yeah, but I thought okay, same thing in my brain. That's like his apartment and tenebrous is the sex club. I don't know that. Now that I'm saying that. That seems clearly ridiculous.

Sarah MacLean 41:53 / #
Like Orion would not allowed a sex club to just hurtle through space and time with them. But maybe I mean, I don't know.

Jennifer Prokop 41:59 / #
Why not. Jesus, what else are you going to do out there and space,

Sarah MacLean 42:02 / #
somebody is going to comment and yell at us. And that's just fine. So whatever. Are they in that sex club apartment?

Jennifer Prokop 42:09 / #
They are in the sex club apartment for sure I don't, I have my book in front of me. And I'm now about to refer to it,

Sarah MacLean 42:15 / #
it doesn't matter. So they get back to his bed. And then she's, like, laid out on it. And he's like, I'm gonna edge you, I'm gonna torture you. And then he's like, but maybe I'll just let you come a few times first, because I love this. Like, he's in a candy store. Like, he's like, I've never been able to touch that or kiss that or do that or you know be with a person this way. And so like, I want to try all of this shit, which is amazing, because it's almost like Rune is the virgin?

Jennifer Prokop 42:43 / #
Yes. Well, yeah,

Sarah MacLean 42:45 / #
he kind of is

Sarah MacLean 42:46 / #
They kind of... he's never been able to do any of this stuff. And when he's done the like, normal stuff, which he's not allowed to do with Josie because she's made a sex deal -- and I love a sex deal. As we know..

Jennifer Prokop 42:55 / #
God, I know

Sarah MacLean 42:55 / #
Sarah loves a sex deal. Like she's basically said, we can't have sex. Until he realized that we're mates and so they can't do that part. So he is like he is a virgin and he's like, fumbling -- not fumbling--but he's like a 16 year old who's like I can't I gotta we gotta

Sarah MacLean 43:16 / #
Mind blowing MacRieve brain, right? Static brain.

Jennifer Prokop 43:24 / #
MacRieve brain.

Sarah MacLean 43:26 / #
So then he edges her a bunch and she's like, I don't fucking know anything about Nix. And he's like I can't break her. Except it's the truth

Jennifer Prokop 43:33 / #
I know. All right, it's Tortuta.A pleasure den.

Sarah MacLean 43:39 / #
Sure. Okay. So then cut to Josie basically being like, I don't know anything about Nix and it being true, but him believing that she's lying. And they like she's too good. I can't break her.

Jennifer Prokop 43:56 / #
It tells us something about his success at His job, this is the way I always get the information I need. But also his I think it's foreshadowing that this is also like his limit, right? Like, we're going to see that he he doesn't have any backup plans besides fucking. Which I mean, what a gentleman. But also--

Sarah MacLean 44:23 / #
in another way, that is another way is like my dog like... one move, which is just bite it.

Sarah MacLean 44:38 / #
So okay, but then there's this beautiful moment. Which is Josie saying, basically he realizes her restraints. She's pulling against the restraints there she's bleeding. That was never the intent. He releases her because he doesn't want to hurt her. And she's like, she like kisses him all over his face. And she's like, are you and he's like, Are you thanking me? And she's like, Yeah, I like you so much. You made me, you made me feel alive. And, and it's so magnificent because like this lonely baby. Who has just spent the last like 15 years knocking around New Orleans like, you know, imagining what it is to have a person care about her and this like lonely old man. Who spent the last 10,000 years knocking around the world like just wondering what it's like to have somebody care about him, and they finally are together. And it's so good, you guy. It's the best of the books you are all wrong if you think otherwise it's so good. It's so well done.

Jennifer Prokop 45:53 / #
Well, I think part of the reason I think that's true is In earlier books, it's like you're fated mate is wrong, right? Like you have to figure out how to work through this thing. And here we can see that they are absolutely fucking right for each other, but he can't see. He just can't see past like how entrenched he is, right? I mean, he's so fucking entrenched. He's down in like the Mariana Trench, right? And there's a part where he's basically like, she's going to be the one to have to change. Yeah, oh, completely.

Sarah MacLean 46:32 / #
Oh, we're gonna have to deal with me being me. I'm 10,000 years old I can't change. You're gonna have to change.

Jennifer Prokop 46:39 / #
And I kept thinking, this motherfucker is like toxic masculinity personified. And he's not even human.

Sarah MacLean 46:45 / #
Well, he's such a fucking asshole, too.

Jennifer Prokop 46:47 / #
Right. Oh, God. Oh, yeah.

Sarah MacLean 46:49 / #
There's all this piece and then he's like, I'm gonna find Nix, and she's like, I'm going to come with you. I want to be with you. I want to find my brother. And that's when it starts to get interesting.

Jennifer Prokop 46:57 / #
Yeah, because I want to talk about the vows to the Lore.

Sarah MacLean 47:00 / #
I know. Me too. You go.

Jennifer Prokop 47:03 / #
I think one of the things that's really interesting is vows to Lore remember-- we're on the whole "vows to the Lore" watch, right? And like when when does it really get codified into place and then it happens and we kind of get it like put on pause for a while occasionally people vow to the Lore, is this the book where or was it the last one-- Oh, where? What's his What's his face?-- Thronos says something really interesting about like a vow to the Lore was one one only a few could break. So we get this weird---

Sarah MacLean 47:35 / #
somebody said that, yeah.

Jennifer Prokop 47:36 / #
I think it's Thornos, says.... but it's the first time we've seen that anyone could break it. So it was all of a sudden interesting to me again. And then in this one, we get someone who doesn't know how really powerful those vows are making them willy nilly and freaking Rune out right? He's like, what the fuck? Yeah,

Sarah MacLean 48:02 / #
Because she doesn't get it and she won't tell him that she doesn't understand. Like her whole thing is I don't understand any of this, but I can't tell you and this is Josie's pride and I think Josie's pride is very important here, right? Because like, the whole dark moment of the book when we get to it, it's going to be the sort of clash between Josie's pride and Rune's self. He can't get past himself and she's just like, Fuck this. I'm not doing this work for you. So I really honor Josie as a character. Now I think more than ever, because like, Fuck this. I don't want to have to do your work for you. Like Get your shit together.

Jennifer Prokop 48:50 / #
Yes. Like, oh my god, I know

Sarah MacLean 48:52 / #
This is not women's jobs. Like your job is to manage your problems, in our relationship. Then like, we can sort of figure it out together, but like, I'm not in charge of you.

Jennifer Prokop 49:04 / #
Yeah, I'm in charge of Thad. I mean, and I would like to say that to like her whole thing all along is like, I'm into you. I think you're the man for me. I think you're my fated mate. But I've you, I've gotta go take care of my fucking brother. You I gotta get this shit figured out.

Sarah MacLean 49:21 / #
Like you clearly going through a thing. Yeah. And like, that's fine. But like, I don't have time for your business. And I love that. I love that. And I mean, like, I just want to be Josie when I grew up anyway. Josie, basically, like so. In part because of all that pride. She refuses to acknowledge what she doesn't know. Yeah. And then, because of that, she's like, well, I've vowed to the Lore we'll eat ice cream for dinner forever. And he's Like you are a complete mess. Like you are gonna ruin everything. You're gonna kill yourself and Probably other people, right? Like, he starts to behave and here's the thing, she kind of deserves it because he's like, Don't fuck with this, like, don't know this.

Sarah MacLean 50:09 / #
Ah, we haven't talked about the fact that she's illiterate because he hands her the book of the Lore. And he's like, read this shit. And like, collect yourself, child.

Sarah MacLean 50:20 / #
I mean like cuz he is a little bit like, you're 25 years old. I'm 10,000 years old. There is literally nothing you can teach me like I know everything. You know nothing, including anything about the lore.

Jennifer Prokop 50:34 / #
Yeah, right. So read this book.

Sarah MacLean 50:36 / #
And I'll be back in like two hours. She basically like creates, to continue this puppy analogy, He's like, stay in this apartment above a sex club. Right? Maybe that's the one in London. I don't know. He has a lot of apartments and he's like, Stay in this apartment, read this book. I'll be back. And she's like, Go fuck yourself. Because first of all, she's upset because she can't read And it's literally the only thing she really ever wanted to be able to do.

Jennifer Prokop 51:05 / #
I know

Sarah MacLean 51:07 / #
But she can't tell him that because she's ashamed of it. And then, and then she's like, you know what? I'm sitting in this fucking apartment. It's filled with priceless artifacts. Fuck this guy. Squeeze it till it breaks, right? the whole apartment. She's like flipping Greek statues and like smashing Ming vases and she's like, Fuck this. The only thing she doesn't touches is like Gutenberg Bible, like his Shakespeare folios like, all anything that is in printed word is safe from her. but she's just breaking all his shit because she's like, Don't leave me alone. Yeah, and he comes back and he's like,You're like a feral animal.

Sarah MacLean 51:46 / #
And she was like, Fuck you.

Sarah MacLean 51:49 / #
Let me break more stuff.

Jennifer Prokop 51:51 / #
She doesn't know how to read in English, but she very quickly starts memorizing the runes that He is drawing on himself for on right like, I just think it's like a really clever conceit. Right? Like, okay, I don't know how to read or write because I didn't go to school. But look at how fast I'm learning to read this other thing. And I think the other thing that's interesting is a lot of the runes are lost to Rune, right? His mother, she only taught him some, he didn't know all of them. He knows that there should be many more out there that he doesn't know

Sarah MacLean 52:28 / #
he has the talisman.

Jennifer Prokop 52:29 / #
And I think it's really interesting then that in some ways, they're both missing something by not knowing their whole, like written history, I guess I'd say.

Sarah MacLean 52:40 / #
Yeah. So she's then when she finds out that he's gone to find Nix. And her brother, which he doesn't he doesn't know Thad is her brother. She hasn't told him that either. Right. So right like, what do you into this guy? Like, what's your deal? Right? He's a preteen. What is your fucking deal? She finds out that he's gone and she's pissed. And so she vows to the Lore that if he does one thing to get to Nix without her, she will never drink again. Never drink blood again. And he's like, what the fuck lady? And it's kind of amazing cuz he's, I mean, as a reader, on the one hand, you're like this asshole. He treats her like garbage. He's treating her like a child. And then she does that and you're like,

Sarah MacLean 53:31 / #
this guy is one hundred percent Right, like, what the fuck, Josie. Haven't you read all these other books?

Sarah MacLean 53:40 / #
Don't you, know, about vows to the Lore?

Jennifer Prokop 53:43 / #
Yeah, well, vows, man, it turns out they're real serious.

Sarah MacLean 53:47 / #
Yeah.

Jennifer Prokop 53:48 / #
So and so he explains to her he's like now I have to take you with me like now I have everything I do. You have and and she's kind of like, that kind of worked for me then. So I don't know why you're pissed.

Sarah MacLean 54:01 / #
Because she doesn't 100% believe, like, I don't think Josie ever honestly gets to a point where she's like, Oh, I get it now,

Jennifer Prokop 54:10 / #
No. Well, why would she? Yeah,

Sarah MacLean 54:12 / #
Because it works out for her. So he has to take her all around the world. And Deshazior returns my favorite. Nix is like, fucking Nix, right? Like, Nix is amazing in this book, because she's like, follow me around the fucking world then.

Jennifer Prokop 54:30 / #
Like, she's giving them little clues,

Sarah MacLean 54:32 / #
it's a little scavenger hunt. She's like, Won't this be delightful?

Jennifer Prokop 54:38 / #
Rune's like, I'm gonna fucking kill her.

Jennifer Prokop 54:40 / #
So, she's like, I'm gonna go to the top of this mountain in China, right? And rune is like, well, I've never been Earth-- Gaia. He calls it Gaia-- Gaia is useless to me. Like I don't really hang out here ever. So I've never been to the top of this fucking mountain in China. And so That means I have to get us there but you're a vampire. And so I cannot, we cannot, fly like it is it needs to be at night and Josie is like okay. so they go to this place, they go to a barn in the Quarter and Deshazior is there, who we'll remember from earlier books. He's so great. my favorite of the demon

Sarah MacLean 55:24 / #
who talks like a pirate if you listen to the to the audio. Petkoff does him as a pirate. and there's actually an audio, that one of the recordings, one of the phone messages is Deshazior.

Robert Petkoff 55:38 / #
Ah, Lass. This is Deshazior. Answer the coal. Maybe I'll let you Touch me horns.

Sarah MacLean 55:46 / #
And he's delightful, and he's like, well, I'll take you wherever you wanna go to Josie and Rune is like I'm gonna kill this fucking guy, too. I'm gonna kill all these guys. But they make a deal and Deshazior brings them to the to this like shaded area at the base of a mountain, of the mountain in China where they're supposed to find Nix. That's when the vows of the Lore become clear. Because, like, so basically, Josie then traces. She traces into sunlight. And suddenly everybody realizes what she is. Which is, first of all, she's a day walking vampire. Yes, doesn't exist, like,

Jennifer Prokop 56:34 / #
and remember that female Vampires don't even really exist, right? So there's all these ways in which it's mind blowing to everybody, right?

Sarah MacLean 56:42 / #
And Deshazior is then like, holy shit, she's a daywalker. And then he's like, I won't tell anybody like that she exists and Rune-- And she says, we'll just do it. And Rune's like, No, you have to die. You have this information. It's gonna Kill her, you have to die. And he is like no I'll vow to the Lore. He makes this vow and Rune is like, you and I both know that's not enough of a vow. like there are others ways, like if a vampire, a cossas drinks you, they'll know. There all these ways that it could happen. It's not enough. And so they start to fight. Josie then goes fucking invisible, jumps inside of Rune's body, and punches him in the face with his hand.

Sarah MacLean 57:34 / #
never, in my lifetime wanted a book to be a movie so badly because all I want is that image. as Tom Hardy as a seven foot tall Rune punching himself in the face.

Jennifer Prokop 57:53 / #
Fine. It Sounds nice to me too. Actually. I deserve nice things.

Sarah MacLean 57:58 / #
and then she does she start to drag into the earth?

Sarah MacLean 58:02 / #
She ghosts him, too. So then she starts to make him invisible and he's like, What? What is happening? And then he's like, holy shit. You're not a vampire. You're a hybrid. You're half vampire. And half fucking Phantom. Which back in dark Conrad tied to a radiator. Naomi becomes a phantom. Like, by chance, and somebody like it takes thousands of years for a ghost to become a phantom. So suddenly, it's like, holy shit. What the fuck is Roseis. Is Josie? Who is Rosie? What the fuck is Josie?

Jennifer Prokop 58:52 / #
I told you Sarah was really excited everybody

Sarah MacLean 58:54 / #
you guys I'm so excited. I love this book so much. So then like they're like holy shit. Then she basically turns to Deshazior and she's like, uh, you're never going to talk about me. and then she turns around and she's like, and you're not going to kill him or I'm going to ghost you into the fucking ground and leave you there.

Jennifer Prokop 59:14 / #
yeah, it's amazing.

Sarah MacLean 59:16 / #
Oh my god and suddenly like this 25 year old nothing,

Jennifer Prokop 59:21 / #
gets the jump on both of them, right,

Sarah MacLean 59:23 / #
like, the queen of the book, of the series, right? Until we meet Lila.

Sarah MacLean 59:30 / #
Yeah.

Sarah MacLean 59:30 / #
And then you guys, here's the hard truth. Rune is my favorite hero. But Josie is my second favorite heroine.

Sarah MacLean 59:39 / #
Um, so then we so then and then it's just like fine Nix, it's like for next, right so we find we discover that Rune is afraid of heights. In order for me to properly be believed that this is my favorite book and I'm not like, you know, a shill for Kresley. I tell you the one thing that I have a problem with In this book

Jennifer Prokop 1:00:01 / #
okay, well then I'll tell you mine. okay I would like to know.

Sarah MacLean 1:00:04 / #
I bet mine is better. So they're climbing this mountain and China and they're like inching their way around like the narrow little wooden, Rune is afraid of heights he's basically like don't don't go anywhere near anything. you know that scene in Pretty Woman, where Vivian is sitting up on the balcony? she's up and she's like look no hands and he's like fucking stop! Richard Gere is like, stop! right now! and come back down--It's like that. And I had this moment and at one point she goes into him and then like, ghosts him and walks them out, like off the ledge into thin air. And he's like, stop it. Pretty fucking mean, but he deserves it.

Jennifer Prokop 1:00:51 / #
Wait, I was like, is that the part you don't like? because I liked that part. in that moment.

Sarah MacLean 1:00:54 / #
I was like, if this bitch doesn't ghost into this guy's body and like force him to give himself, like to actually masturbate himself. That is a missed opportunity Kresley Cole. And it doesn't happen.

Jennifer Prokop 1:01:08 / #
True, but it should.

Sarah MacLean 1:01:10 / #
Fanfic writers. You have your charge.

Jennifer Prokop 1:01:15 / #
Oh God, mine's gonna seem so much more churlish. But I, So I actually will tell you I I didn't love that they go to China and they go to Ayers Rock because of my whole like, all the immortals are white

Sarah MacLean 1:01:30 / #
Yeah, that too. And they call it Ayers rock...

Jennifer Prokop 1:01:33 / #
instead of Uluru.

Sarah MacLean 1:01:35 / #
I'm not I don't know how to pronounce it.

Jennifer Prokop 1:01:37 / #
Yeah. And I just was kind of like, you know, just you need to stop using it like places in the world for backdrops if you're not gonna include people from those placees.

Sarah MacLean 1:01:48 / #
Yes.I agree with that. I had I had a similar problem. I had a big problem with Ayers Rock.

Jennifer Prokop 1:01:57 / #
Yeah, Yeah, me too. Me too. Yeah. Like we're just gonna go there and fuck.

Sarah MacLean 1:02:01 / #
I know and we've said it 1000 times like I know, rep in this series is not great. Except for Loa, who is back in this book.

Jennifer Prokop 1:02:10 / #
Yes. Well and I think my thing too is like it had actually you know, when they were out going to other realms then it could be like just another thing. But now that they're back on Gaia, and they're just like popping for, backdrop I was like...ew. I didn't ike it. You know, take her to the top of Mount Rushmore. Fuck on George Washington's head, fine. How about the Grand Canyon? Like why do you need to go to Australia? Right. Like, that's the part that felt like, you know, Colonizer. She's a colonizer.

Sarah MacLean 1:02:43 / #
So there's that. So I'm glad we did that. I feel like mine was, you know, a little bit silly. I actually do have another, I have a plot thing to that I always question. So anyway, so they turn around, they go round and round and round and Nix sends them on a merry, merry Chase, and there's a part of me that's like is Nix doing all this because she wants Josie to be happy? and like she knows they're sort of falling for each other? and they are falling for each other. And he's like helping her understand her powers in different ways. Oh, and at one point Josie and Nix get into it, like they fight and they firght for real.

Jennifer Prokop 1:03:21 / #
and Nix kicks her ass

Sarah MacLean 1:03:23 / #
Yeah, like unabashedly and basically says, and what Nix does is she uses her Valkyrie lightning to create like a Thunderdome around them. And Rune is on top of a house trying to defeat them. And so he strings up his most powerful arrows and the lightning keeps, he can't penetrate the lightning.

Jennifer Prokop 1:03:44 / #
And it's a fascinating moment because we it's when we really see that Nix is more than just a crazy person who can like-- her power. It's really the first time we see her power, as opposed to her knowledge.

Sarah MacLean 1:03:58 / #
But like Nobody wants to meet Nix in a dark alley. And so she says to Josie at the end-- Josie has got like three broken ribs, and a broken leg, and it's the first time and Rune takes her back to his apartment and covers her and healing runes. Because he's so terrified. He goes to Loa to find a healing spell. But Nix says to her, you are the most powerful fighter, but you're not using your powers right. Because Rosie's-- Why do I keep calling her Rosie?-- Josie basically is just, I'm gonna hit it until it breaks right? I'm gonna squeeze it till it breaks. And Nix is like you are doing everything wrong. Because she is when she is ghosted when she's invisible. She's undefeatable.

Jennifer Prokop 1:04:48 / #
Yeah, and that's the thing. It's like you're using your power when you shouldn't.

Sarah MacLean 1:04:51 / #
And she has telekinesis! She can move things with her mind.

Jennifer Prokop 1:04:55 / #
And basically, this whole fight is Nix's way of showing her: You're, you know, it's like Float like a butterfly sting like a bee right? And you're not floating when you should be floating. You're always trying to sting. Yeah, right. And I think that it's just this like object lesson for her.

Sarah MacLean 1:05:12 / #
She doesn't learn it from Nix.

Jennifer Prokop 1:05:13 / #
She has to learn by brute force. That's there's this other thing. Right? It's like really fascinating.

Sarah MacLean 1:05:19 / #
So they get invited to at the end--

Jennifer Prokop 1:05:21 / #
We have to talk about the ball, right?

Sarah MacLean 1:05:23 / #
Yeah, so at the end, they at the end of this like wild goose chase, Nix sends a gondola down the Venetian canal. The Grand Canal in Venice, and on it is an invitation to a fairy ball. Now, the fairy half of Rune is royalty, of course, fairy royalty. Right. He is one of the surviving members of the royal fairy family and the person who currently--this is important for the next book, too-- the person who currently holds the power in This royal family is a horrible monster person.

Sarah MacLean 1:06:04 / #
Saetthan. Is that his name?

Sarah MacLean 1:06:06 / #
Yeah, maybe? I can't remember. But he's terrible. And he's Rune's half brother or cousin. It doesn't matter.

Jennifer Prokop 1:06:14 / #
It's his Brother. It's his half- brother.

Sarah MacLean 1:06:15 / #
Yeah. Same father. No, same.

Jennifer Prokop 1:06:19 / #
Same mother,

Sarah MacLean 1:06:19 / #
Same mother. So he's Rune's half brother. And he holds he like has this magical scepter like they're all these sort of magical fey things that will come into play in the next book, we'll worry about them then. But basically Rune has vowed on top of to serve Orion and Find Nix. He's also vowed to kill every member, every surviving member of this family over the last 10,000 years like this is the way that he has come to, he is bent on revenge for his mother's death. And like who wouldn't be?

Jennifer Prokop 1:06:51 / #
I did think there was like an interesting like meta commentary about like, like generational guilt, like Saetthan and of course, it I guess it's different when they're immortals, and they've been around forever and Saetthan really is terrible, but when he's like I'm killing every single last one of those motherfuckers, some of whom had nothing to do with it. It just goes to show you how his revenge is so, like, it's

Sarah MacLean 1:07:16 / #
stupid.

Jennifer Prokop 1:07:17 / #
Yeah. It is.

Sarah MacLean 1:07:20 / #
it's stupid. Revenge always is, that's why it's such a good plot. It's such a dumb plot. It's it because you never revenge is never what you really need.

Jennifer Prokop 1:07:33 / #
because you can't.

Sarah MacLean 1:07:34 / #
It's not going to solve the problem. It's not gonna bring mom back. Or like, it can't kill Magh again.

Jennifer Prokop 1:07:41 / #
Exactly. It's always going to be doomed to be disappointing.

Sarah MacLean 1:07:45 / #
They get invited to this ball. And Rune knows, he knows he's gonna get jumped. He knows it's a trap for him. So he's like, but fine, because I'm Rune Darklight. And I'm the greatest Archer who's ever been arched, And we're gonna go. And he's like and fuck, I have to take her with me because we made this stupid, she made that dumb vow to the Lore. So he's like, all right, listen, fairies are a thing. There's a scene. They were a lot of pastels. Everybody's gonna be in gauze. Josie is like, take me

Jennifer Prokop 1:08:24 / #
Take me shopping

Sarah MacLean 1:08:25 / #
Take me to the French Quarter to the second hand shops. Yeah, Rune is like, say what now? Rune is the embodiment of that gif of like the white guy shaking his head, confused.

Jennifer Prokop 1:08:43 / #
But I do love at that moment that he is worried she'll be embarrassed. Right? I love that He's a little like, oh boy. Right but I also want to point out I think he thinks he she will embarrass him.

Sarah MacLean 1:08:58 / #
Oh, of course he does. He's like, this is my chance to go back and show all of my horrible family that I'm going to crush them with my skills as Archer. I've been waiting 10,000 years for this moment. And now this what is she going to turn up in? Like she can she be trusted? She just she she ghosted into my body and made me punch myself in the face. Like who knows what's gonna

Jennifer Prokop 1:09:25 / #
happen, right? You know what though? You guys she comes out--

Sarah MacLean 1:09:28 / #
it's magnificent.

Jennifer Prokop 1:09:29 / #
And he

Sarah MacLean 1:09:30 / #
well first she asks him for blood.

Jennifer Prokop 1:09:32 / #
Yes, right give me a bottle of your blood and he doesn't know why. And when she comes out he I can't remember exact language but he basically staggers. Yeah, he almost falls over he is so blown away by how amazing she looks.

Sarah MacLean 1:09:45 / #
well what's funny is that she's in, my favorite part is she's in the dressing room, and this is another like kind of echo of Cat and in The Master, where she's like, are you ready? Cuz I look bananas good.

Jennifer Prokop 1:09:56 / #
Yeah, I look wicked hot.

Sarah MacLean 1:09:58 / #
He's like, I think I'll be fine.

Jennifer Prokop 1:10:01 / #
And then he's like, Oh shit, I was not fine. Yeah, it's amazing and I loved her confidence.

Sarah MacLean 1:10:06 / #
but she also inked her neck. she's cut a stencil and created a blood choker of the runes for like victory and something else. And he is

Jennifer Prokop 1:10:19 / #
good luck. I think victory and good luck.

Sarah MacLean 1:10:21 / #
And I mean, he just can't deal with it. It's the first time he's noticed that she like knows the runes enough to do it. It's, I mean, like, he sees his mark, it's his mark on her. Right,

Jennifer Prokop 1:10:37 / #
in his blood that no one else, that is poison to Everybody else.

Sarah MacLean 1:10:40 / #
you know, we said, we've asked people before, like, what's the hottest thing? Is it blooding? Is it? Is it the wolf bite, what is the thing that is the hottest? And this is all those things. It is both blood and demon seal, and he sees her and he's like mine. mine, mine, mine, mine, mine.

Jennifer Prokop 1:11:00 / #
Well and remember at this point they have not slept together. They fooled around a ton.

Sarah MacLean 1:11:04 / #
No. And he's like tonight Tonight it's on.

Jennifer Prokop 1:11:09 / #
And the part about, the reason I think, well and I would say from this point on this Kresley Cole has put her fucking foot on the gas and if it was like the Fast and the Furious like press like the the nos, and it's just like go. It's like a rocket. There is no, there's no stopping, and it is amazing.

Sarah MacLean 1:11:31 / #
The pacing is perfection at this point

Jennifer Prokop 1:11:35 / #
Because they walk into this ball knowing that they're going to get attacked. But they still dance and have this amazing time and everybody else is in these like frothy, frilly dresses and she is like wearing this black satin gown with this blood choker. And he is like this, he it's this amazing moment, and then what happens--

Jennifer Prokop 1:11:56 / #
and I remember when I first listened to this, I first read this book probably around a year ago last spring. And I was reading and listening because I literally couldn't stand to not be doing both right, because I, it was like one night, I was reading and I realized the next day that I was gonna have to drive and go up to Evanston. And I was like, I have to download the audio book I have, I can't not read for a day. And I was driving up to Evanston. And I literally stopped in my car, and had like, some time before I had to go into class and was just like, I'm just going to listen to the scene where these 50 swordsmen come out. What's amazing about it is she's like, Oh, my God, and he's like, this is insulting. There's only 50 of them. They're not even like trained killers. Like he's like so insulted that anybody would think that this would bring him down and she's terrified. And it is a really amazing moment. And it's one of the few moments I've ever liked in a book where the heroine gets sidelined. Right? She's like, I'm gonna fight too. And he's like, Look, let me show you what I can do.

Sarah MacLean 1:13:15 / #
Yeah, he's bragging.

Jennifer Prokop 1:13:17 / #
Yeah, at one point he's like, you know, nocking arrows and shooting them and he turns and winks at her. And she is so turned on by the whole thing and this and and it's really interesting because he has it firmly in hand he's got to kick everybody's ass when his evil stepbrother or half brother appears Saetthan, and he essentially gets Josie into a chokehold. And, or one of his assassins does, and he's up there and like, you know, they're doing that bad guy thing where they like, talk to each other and tell each other all their plans. But um, you know, it's like this amazing moment because Rune at that point, knows that she can handle her yourself. And that's why I didn't mind her being sidelined.

Sarah MacLean 1:14:02 / #
Well, because he says, release her. He says to the guy he's like, release her, or die a nightmare death. And everybody at that moment readers too. I remember that first. The first time you read it, you're like, oh, he's gonna kill him. And then you realize he doesn't mean him.

Jennifer Prokop 1:14:20 / #
He means Josie.

Sarah MacLean 1:14:21 / #
He means Josie is gonna kill him. And she slowly... and she does it so dramatically. She goes, half ghosts him so that everybody can see him flickering the like, bad guy. And then she sinks into the floor, like super slow and Rune is watching it like, oh my god. And she does it with such theatrical flair. And he's like, I am wild about this fucking woman. And she leaves and then she comes back up alone. Like she ghosts this guy into like the Earth. And then she goes, look anybody else?

Jennifer Prokop 1:15:01 / #
It's like when Captain America beats the shit out of everybody in the elevator. Like, Who's next? Yeah,

Sarah MacLean 1:15:06 / #
right.

Jennifer Prokop 1:15:07 / #
And I love that she that--what I loved about that scene is that she knows that she can do it and that he knows that she can do it. There is never a moment where he's like, Oh no, she's in danger. He's basically like, Oh, this poor motherfucker. She is about to kill him. And it's gonna be amazing.

Sarah MacLean 1:15:28 / #
I know. It's they are so perfectly matched. perfectly matched.

Sarah MacLean 1:15:34 / #
So um, one thing I want to just flag for the next read is that at the end of this scene Rune let's a one and done go, misses his brother, but hits the sword that is like the marker of, it's made with. It's not titanium, but something and some. What is it? What's that Captain America shield?

Jennifer Prokop 1:15:57 / #
Vibranium?

Sarah MacLean 1:15:58 / #
Vibranium right.

Jennifer Prokop 1:15:59 / #
Special IAD something something steel or whatever.

Sarah MacLean 1:16:04 / #
It's a special kind of steel. And basically the person who owns this thing, Who is a fey, is the king or queen of the fey. This is going to become important in the next book.

Jennifer Prokop 1:16:16 / #
Yeah, so absolutely.

Sarah MacLean 1:16:17 / #
That's like the fact that that has just been destroyed.

Jennifer Prokop 1:16:20 / #
Right? So,

Sarah MacLean 1:16:23 / #
So then she's like, this was fucking awesome. And he's like, Well, great. I'm glad you enjoyed it because now this whole place is going to be exploded. So we have to go like now. And so they run. And he takes them to

Jennifer Prokop 1:16:36 / #
Australia,

Sarah MacLean 1:16:36 / #
Australia, at where they bone on Ayers Rock. Yeah. And it's like his he loses his demon seal.

Jennifer Prokop 1:16:44 / #
The lead up to this moment is really fascinating because he's like, Look, I'm fine. We're finally gonna have sex. I want to have sex with her. And she--and he says that I want to have sex. And she is like, Well, I have been very clear with him about what exactly that's going to mean. So he is really ready to commit. And earlier in the night, instead of calling me dove, he called me love. And so it must be real. And he knows that if we do this, it really means that we are committed. So we can see all of the emotions and then he even gets like cold feet and she's kind of like, talks him back into doing it.

Sarah MacLean 1:17:17 / #
Oh, yeah, because he does, like suddenly he's, it's like, he's a virgin. He's like, I can't.

Jennifer Prokop 1:17:22 / #
it's great. She's like, oh, are we role playing and you're being Josie? I'll be Rune. Well, honey, you know. And then, of course, you know, it's like this epic sex but the, like, the emotional.... And it's all told in her point of view at that moment, like her.

Sarah MacLean 1:17:40 / #
She's so happy. It's happening. She's gonna be mated. She's gonna be able to have a family. Like she has said from the beginning. Like, we're gonna be partners. We're gonna have a family. Thad is going to be in our lives. He's basically said, like, I'm going to help you. We're going to get Thad back like everything. Everything is coming up roses for for Josie. Everything's coming up Joses. like

Jennifer Prokop 1:18:07 / #
I will say that getting her name wrong several times is taking our inability to get titles right to a whole new level and just want you to know, I appreciate it. I do. But I think that that's why this moment is so important. Yes, it's the sex, but it's her conviction that this means he finally realizes we're mated. Right?

Sarah MacLean 1:18:30 / #
But he does this thing that I don't love, the feeling, I don't love how it feels, and I don't think Rosie---Jesus Christ. Why do I keep saying it?

Jennifer Prokop 1:18:42 / #
I don't know.

Sarah MacLean 1:18:43 / #
Because it's basically it's their name. It's like

Jennifer Prokop 1:18:46 / #
Rune You're shipping them!

Sarah MacLean 1:18:48 / #
It's their ship name.

Sarah MacLean 1:18:51 / #
I don't think Josie likes it either. Truthfully, No, she doesn't that he inks himself with a contraception spell So that He won't come, right? And there is this sense that like, he's sort of like fucks around with her by saying like, well, we don't know -- my seed like, it's been so long and like, maybe the like train, like the bullet train of my semen will be too concentrated for you and you'll die.

Jennifer Prokop 1:19:19 / #
You'll shoot up into space.

Sarah MacLean 1:19:21 / #
Let's be fucking honest. It's because he still is afraid that she is his mate. Right?

Jennifer Prokop 1:19:26 / #
Absolutely.

Sarah MacLean 1:19:28 / #
So they're doing it on this rock and she like scratches him. And like, the contraceptions spell is wrecked and then his demon seal it breaks and he comes all over inside her and she did not die. And she's like, haha, I told you.

Jennifer Prokop 1:19:46 / #
It's also to me like the counter-argument to when Holly was sort of like it wouldn't have mattered how many contraceptions you use, you're definitely getting knocked up because you the vessel, right? I feel like I never really loved that moment. And so this moment where he essentially tries something similar and it doesn't work, but it's on him? It felt a little like as a reader, like, Okay, I'm getting the other side of that scene. And I did-- I was I was happy for Josie-- I really was!-- that his sort of attempt to like, keep her from knowing that... Because she needed, she, It's really important I think for her that he finally says: yes, you're my mate.

Sarah MacLean 1:20:31 / #
Yeah, of course it is. I mean, And who can blame her? So because that's the final? That's the final like nail in the coffin--it's a terrible metaphor. Yeah, like that's the final moment right? After That?Happily ever after.

Sarah MacLean 1:20:49 / #
it never, it doesn't get worse than this. Like it doesn't get better than this. literally, this is the moment this is moment where the book ends.

Jennifer Prokop 1:20:55 / #
Yeah, except Rune is a stupid motherfucker.

Sarah MacLean 1:20:58 / #
To the unassuming reader, this is the moment where the book ends. And this goes immediately to-- they've already been invited to Val Hall to meet with Nix and Thad. They go immediately to Nix and Thad, they fight together. They bone a little bit. And that's that. Scene.

Sarah MacLean 1:21:13 / #
Come meet us next week with Wicked Abyss. Except

Jennifer Prokop 1:21:20 / #
Except

Sarah MacLean 1:21:21 / #
Val Hall is protected by the wraiths. Right? Who now, and this is so smart, Kressley just, I mean, it all just like knits itself together perfectly right?

Jennifer Prokop 1:21:32 / #
Oh, god, it's amazing. It honestly is breathtaking. It is a

Sarah MacLean 1:21:36 / #
you. I say this all the time. People don't want to do the whole IAD series. They feel like it's too much. Sweet Ruin is a master class in plotting-- like, from the start to the finish every thing that happens on the page, and there is a lot of plot in this book. It leads toward this sort of masterful moment at the end. So we get to Val Hall and Rune has a plan. He has something in his back pocket which is there's a nymph who he's never slept with who swears she has something that will get them into Val Hall. So he's like well, all right. Worst case scenario, I have to go do my fucking job, and fuck this nymph, and then get whatever it is that she has, right? Obviously this is a terrible idea. The other option -- but he's like, I got all my arrows! I can do this, we can do this, between Josie being able to do telekinesis, me with all my arrows, we can get into Val Hall, no problem. So they start and it doesn't work. Josie's doing everything-- she throwing, she's doing her very best, the wraiths won't break. She can't trace in, she can't ghost in, there's nothing. can't do it. he's using his strongest arrows. The Wraith ring is like tilting, but not breaking. And so finally He's like, why? There's no choice?

Jennifer Prokop 1:23:07 / #
Yeah, I gotta go fuck this other lady.

Sarah MacLean 1:23:09 / #
She has a phoenix feather. and a phoenix feather will get me and I can make an arrow with it that will break the ring. So Josie is like you can, like you can't go sleep with this girl.

Jennifer Prokop 1:23:23 / #
Now I want to say there. This is the other way that the Vow of the Lore part pays off. Yeah, because he's like, well, you have to come with me. Listen, listen, you gotta come with me.

Sarah MacLean 1:23:33 / #
It's heartbreaking.

Jennifer Prokop 1:23:34 / #
And it harkens back to that opening scene where she did see him. Because you know that he's basically like, what we've been here before! No big deal, but you gotta come with me.

Sarah MacLean 1:23:44 / #
He's like, he says to her, you can ghost into me so you can feel what I'm feeling and you'll know I don't care.

Jennifer Prokop 1:23:50 / #
which is nothing.

Sarah MacLean 1:23:51 / #
And she's like, that sounds terrible. All of this is terrible.

Jennifer Prokop 1:23:57 / #
Yeah. And he says, I'll be thinking about You the whole time.

Sarah MacLean 1:24:01 / #
Whatever it's not a thing! It's my job. And then he does like the worst bit, which is like: I told you. I told you I wasn't going to change. You just want to reach through the page into his.. and just strangle him.

Jennifer Prokop 1:24:15 / #
I definitely put him in cold storage. I was so mad.

Sarah MacLean 1:24:23 / #
so they go into the covey and Dalli is there, Rune's friend Dalli, who runs the cove. This is where you know, I told you I wanted my Christmas novella with Deshazer and Dalli? this is it. Dalli runs the covey, Rune comes in, he gets a standing ovation. Josie is like fuck this nonsense. He's basically like, you can't go far, you have to stay here because I don't know how far your vow-- like we can't risk it.

Jennifer Prokop 1:24:50 / #
Right well and and Dalli's like. What in the fuck is wrong with you, bro.

Sarah MacLean 1:24:57 / #
She's like this is not good. This is not not working. So he's like, no, it's fine. It's fine. It'll be fine. And so he goes,

Jennifer Prokop 1:25:06 / #
it's so bad

Sarah MacLean 1:25:07 / #
and this woman is like, you better make it good for me-- it has to be long, it has to be good because you know, this is it. I'm giving you this Phoenix feather. and Josie starts to cry. And she cries black tears. She walks out and Deshazior is coming in, and he's like, Nix told me

Jennifer Prokop 1:25:29 / #
yes

Sarah MacLean 1:25:30 / #
three books ago, right that I would see-- She said, when you see the girl with the black tears tell her to surrender. And so he's looking at her and he's like, You're the girl with the black tears. Surrender. And Josie is like, fuck you, never. she gets her second wind and she goes back to Val Hall and starts throwing Lamborghinis

Jennifer Prokop 1:25:56 / #
like everything

Sarah MacLean 1:25:57 / #
she uproots fucking trees, she uproots A tree that has nymphs all in it and they all fall out. she's like, throwing shit at Val Hall and basically is like I will tear this house, I will break this house to the ground. So cut to inside were Lothaire is like, Jesus fucking Christ. Like, what is happening in here?

Jennifer Prokop 1:26:22 / #
Right right. What kind of fucking team Vertas thing Have you got going on here? Who is this bitch? Right? It's amazing.

Sarah MacLean 1:26:31 / #
And then you go back to Rune and Rune has decided: I can't do this.

Sarah MacLean 1:26:37 / #
He's found his, I mean, he's not able to do it. So he's like, I gotta quit my job. Anyway, Rune leaves, so he steals the Phoenix feather.

Jennifer Prokop 1:26:48 / #
But wait, I would like to say he has a conversation with Dalli first, right? Yeah. And this is important to me as a person who like loves graveling-- I really need to see the moment where you have been destroyed. And he looks like, this motherfucker stumbles out of this nymph's bed naked and is like trying to throw his clothes on, and Dalli is like, Oh my god, practically with-- like, I can't even describe how she must be looking at him right now. And he's like, Where is she? And she's like, gone, motherfucker. She is gone. And he is like, how? And she's like, well, she's with another man. And he freaks out and she's like, you don't get to do that.

Sarah MacLean 1:27:32 / #
Oh, because she said-- Oh Josie made another vow to the lore. Josie says I vowed of the Lord that for every time you fuck another woman. Yeah, I will fuck another man. And he's like, what? have you Done again?

Jennifer Prokop 1:27:49 / #
And it's like this really interesting way in which he like, like, that's not important to me. But it's important to her.

Sarah MacLean 1:27:55 / #
That's when he realizes Yeah,

Jennifer Prokop 1:27:57 / #
and then what he also realizes is She's.... because he's like I'm doing it for Thad, right? He's got this fucked up thing in his head. And what he realized is Is she still love Thad, but she loves me more. And she would never asked me to do this for him. And why am I asking and it's it really honestly now again I am not gonna lie to you I read this book and I was like, You need to be in cold storage overnight.

Sarah MacLean 1:28:25 / #
Oh, I mean right for another 10,000 years. See you in 10,000 years.

Jennifer Prokop 1:28:31 / #
I was still so pissed right there was not enough groveling for me in this book. Because even though, and and I will say he then goes to Val Hall, he figures out that that's where she,

Sarah MacLean 1:28:41 / #
But wait, can we talk about the fact that when he gets to Val Hall, all the Morior are there, like, okay, I want you to imagine this everybody, I'm going to paint you a picture. Okay? Your entire personal life is falling apart, like fucking falling apart because of you, asshole. Yes turn up to like, woo back your lady love. And everyone you work with

Jennifer Prokop 1:28:41 / #
is like, where have you been? And they all have telepathy so they all know what you did. They're like, are you a fucking dumbass?

Sarah MacLean 1:29:17 / #
talking in your head? Like, what the fuck have you done? And one of them is like, I'm pretty sure this is your mate. She's a total Kook

Jennifer Prokop 1:29:29 / #
maniac!

Sarah MacLean 1:29:33 / #
she's just destroying millions of dollars worth of cars.

Jennifer Prokop 1:29:38 / #
Yes.She's gonna be like literally like folding Louisiana in on itself in order to get rid of this house and get her brother back.

Sarah MacLean 1:29:44 / #
Somebody is like, she's magnificent. And he's like, no, don't even. Sian, who is the most Who is the most beautiful human, the most beautiful creature ever to walk the earth is like she's brilliant.

Jennifer Prokop 1:30:02 / #
So and and here's the part that I love then, like basically Thad is on the other side of this he doesn't know that it's Josie right? He, so they're having this moment and he finally realizes like Oh shit, this is my long lost sister who I thought was dead and he like picks her up and he's like cradling her in his arms and, okay, there's the whole flashback where we realize she's basically Supergirl. Then, which I like I was like, that's the other part I didn't love I just remembered. Anyway, she... and Rune, essentially is like, Give her to me. Give her to me.

Sarah MacLean 1:30:38 / #
Yeah, he's like, I love her. She's my mate. I give her to me.

Jennifer Prokop 1:30:41 / #
And That's like, Nah,

Sarah MacLean 1:30:43 / #
I don't think so. Bro.

Jennifer Prokop 1:30:44 / #
Yeah, yeah. Who the fuck are you? And Thad said since she was using her powers against you. You are not... you might feel that way about her, but she does not feel that way about you. And I really did love Thad in that moment.

Sarah MacLean 1:30:56 / #
Yeah, well, Thad's great.

Jennifer Prokop 1:30:58 / #
I haven't seen her in forever, but clearly You do not deserve... I'm not handing her over to you.

Sarah MacLean 1:31:03 / #
It's magnificent. So Thad takes Josie home to mom and grandma. and then suddenly this book gets real fucking weird but I love it like I love it.

Jennifer Prokop 1:31:16 / #
Well it's like chapter 71. We've been on a journey.

Sarah MacLean 1:31:21 / #
what's funny is Eric is gonna be like, this is where the book gets weird? They go home to the place where their mother and grandmother live

Jennifer Prokop 1:31:37 / #
and they like hang out for a week.

Sarah MacLean 1:31:39 / #
Yeah. Oh, so I mean, we don't have to we're not going to get into like how Kresley neatly like Sews up the wraiths versus the Valkyries, versus everything. But basically, at the end of this Nix is like, all right, you're on our team. Right? And the Morior are like, I guess this is over then. Oh, cuz Nix basically said to Rune, you can't kill me anymore because if you the second you kill me, she dies like she can't, she can't eat or whatever, because she's not with you anymore. Right? So So and then she makes Rune vow that none of the other Morior will kill her either right? he won't come from her and none of his brethrn will.

Jennifer Prokop 1:32:22 / #
Yeah, it's like it's a trap. And I think the other part that I I actually also want to say is you know, 800 books ago The setup is that the wraiths are going to protect the Val Hall, but that once the braid that the wraiths are collecting the locks of hair from is long enough, they'll be able to control every Valkyrie in the world for a certain amount of time. And then because things go sideways if this fight, she's like, You fucked up and now our contract is void and they were literally one lock of hair away. And again, And like you like you're like-- perfect it's perfect! because the whole time you've been like-- well shit what's going to happen when these wraiths and then you're like oh..

Sarah MacLean 1:33:10 / #
nothing. nothing's gonna happen with the wratihs.

Jennifer Prokop 1:33:13 / #
nothing's gonna happen. Nix is gonna fire those motherfuckers! you didn't do your job

Sarah MacLean 1:33:18 / #
exactly

Jennifer Prokop 1:33:18 / #
Look who got through. it's amazing.

Sarah MacLean 1:33:21 / #
it's perfect

Sarah MacLean 1:33:22 / #
it is perfect and this is also the scene where Allixta is like these bitches haven't paid their taxes and they threatened me. I love it. i love it. I have a pin you guys that Jen had best friend Kelly make for me that says what would Alixta do? Cuz I just I love her, I love her so much. Like I made a list of my favorite IAD characters it would go Loa, Alixta, Deshazior.

Jennifer Prokop 1:34:01 / #
Amazing,

Sarah MacLean 1:34:04 / #
So that's that. So then they go home, they go home to this house, where two old ladies like to take care of Thad. Just like everyone likes to care for Thad, like literally every person in the world including Jen and me. Careful want to care for Thad. Yeah. Um, and so they go home to this house. We're like people make fried chicken despite the fact that vampires only eat, drink blood and joy and basically like, they're like the librarian who adopted Thad a thousand years ago, says you can stay with us, your family, you stay with us. And she's like, Oh my god I have family. She's like, but I, but I loved that guy. ---Who was an asshole. So fuck him. Yes, I'll get over it. And she's like, I'll stay for a week. Yeah,

Jennifer Prokop 1:34:53 / #
I'll stay for a week and meanwhile Rune figures out where she is and just like, fucking eavesdropps, and watches From like the pool house. I was like, this would only be acceptable to me if he was like, had to lay on a bed of nails while he did, Or perhaps if like he constantly was slamming his fingers in the door or something like that I wanted him to be more tortured.

Sarah MacLean 1:35:16 / #
I know. And part of the challenge here is that we don't see his torture on the page. We don't. It goes back to that moment with MacRieve where like, you know, whatever. They're like, well, we could, you know, we have an incubi here who's happy to, you know, give her her sex medicine and he's like--- we're not in his head. We can't see it. And here we see Rune work quickly to protect and then we see but what we do see is Rune leaves to meet Orion to say I quit. Yeah, I'm not gonna be your you're like fucking informant. And Orion's like, Yeah, but you're my Archer.

Jennifer Prokop 1:35:59 / #
Wait, what are you talking about and what have you been up to?

Sarah MacLean 1:36:02 / #
And this is where I'm going to kick it to Rune-- Jen. Because I have a thing that I think you should talk about, which is dreams come into play in this book.

Jennifer Prokop 1:36:15 / #
Yeah,

Sarah MacLean 1:36:16 / #
Josie. How do we feel about Josie dreaming Rune's memories? Is it still achieved?

Jennifer Prokop 1:36:24 / #
You know, I was thinking about this today because we have talked about this so much. So basically what happens is she's been dreaming his memories of the beginning and then she accidentally gives it away when-- she said this before they have sex, right?-- When she says Good Warring. And he's like, how long have you known? And what do you know? And what was really interesting about this moment to me is in some of the previous books, I thought a lot about this and how I wanted to say it. I'm not sure I'm going to do it justice. In previous books, when the men like understand what has happened to their heroines? It's because we don't want the heroines to have to say it on page, we don't want to have to like essentially like traumatize them again. And so I ended up kind of coming around to liking it, although I did feel like it was a cheat, like with Lothaire, like whatever. But in this case, I ended up thinking that it was like we needed to see it on the other foot. And for him, he needed to see that she was not going to pity him. Right. And I think that that's like, again, it's just, what is the emotional response you want when you when you can hear someone's stories? and he just never wanted her to pity him and the fact that she doesn't, and that she knows what happened to him, And he very quickly understands that it means that he can still trust her, I guess. I do think it was really really important that that happened before they have sex. And not after. Hmm. Because they have to go into that sort of clean, so I think the timing of that reveal did happen at the right time. I think it didn't have the same weight it did, Because I think she already is so in tune to his emotions that nothing about it really shocked her. Whereas when male characters do it it's like a shortcut to understanding things that happened to women that they never really think about. Exactly.

Sarah MacLean 1:38:29 / #
I think that's accurate. I really like it. I also think that it's another look look Kresley writes, very difficult childhoods for so many of her heroes. This is another way of doing it. So that it doesn't feel so painful. to the reader.

Jennifer Prokop 1:38:47 / #
And I think after MacRieve, like okay, we've talked about leveling up-- you can't level up after MacRieve.

Sarah MacLean 1:38:53 / #
No, it's so awful. Well, MacRieve is so painful, too, the first like 60 or 70 pages or a lot Yes to

Jennifer Prokop 1:39:01 / #
And so we get the sense instead that he has like dealt with this, or is dealing this his own way and we're just where he is right now. Yeah. So I, I do think in that sense she's like I can just show this to Josie but I don't need to show it to you,

Sarah MacLean 1:39:18 / #
right. So I also want to talk about Josie beginnings, just briefly. So basically Josie is Superman.

Jennifer Prokop 1:39:28 / #
Supergirl.

Sarah MacLean 1:39:28 / #
Supergirl. Right.

Jennifer Prokop 1:39:30 / #
Have you watched Supergirl? The TV show with your daughter? Maybe she's too little.

Jennifer Prokop 1:39:34 / #
Well, it's essentially like the same in Supergirl, the TV show, which is the one I know, the one that's on right now. She essentially it's like is put in an escape pod at the same time that like Superman is and it's her cousin and she's supposed to like Watch out for him as a baby. Okay.

Sarah MacLean 1:39:52 / #
She's older than Superman.

Jennifer Prokop 1:39:54 / #
I think so. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Little Yes.

Sarah MacLean 1:39:57 / #
So anyway, there's an end of a world They go into stasis, Thad and and Josie go into stasis. And so it turns out Josie is like the primordial Phantom-vampire, right? Right. So here we are like our 24 year old heroine is actually like

Jennifer Prokop 1:40:20 / #
thousands of years old. Yeah.

Sarah MacLean 1:40:21 / #
Which is why Thad is so fucking powerful. And frankly why Josie is-- she hasn't reached the pinnacle of her power, but she will. So Rune overhears this, and it's like, Oh, that makes sense. It's a little bit of like a it's a work around, it is the single misstep in this book I think like the the kind of like suddenly he kind of gets where, he instantly understands everything that's happened but like, and we've never seen anything like this before. Like we've never seen. This is a brand new thing that's happening in IAD.

Jennifer Prokop 1:40:58 / #
My assumption was It's well established in this book that the Morior can read each other's minds. And so at this point in time, I just assumed it was almost like a new highway got was laid, down to her brain for the new telekinetic highway was basically just built.

Sarah MacLean 1:41:21 / #
Right.

Jennifer Prokop 1:41:21 / #
But yeah, I mean, I think

Sarah MacLean 1:41:23 / #
it's fine. It's fine. It's just not like I don't actually really care at all about it. I think that the challenge is, and it's partially because it has not-- I read spy novels-- It's partially because it has absolutely nothing to the romance, right. So like, you're sort of like, I don't care. I don't really care about this. So which is part of the challenge with that whole ending is he's watching from outside and there is a moment might one of my favorite moments in the whole book is when Rune finally reveals Himself, and she's like, you've been here for a week and I missed you. Where were you? And he's like, I was here. I was watching. And she's like why? You waited a week, Why didn't you come and talk to me? and he was like, because I wanted to put your needs before mine, which was the first, it's the first time Rune has ever ever done that, put anyone's needs before his own, with the exception of Orion, who he feels deeply indebted to because Orion saved him. It may not be enough of a grovel. And it's certainly not like an emotional grovel in the way that like, your favorite books of your favorite grovels are-- grovels that are deeply emotional. Yeah, Rune's gravel is very intellectual.

Jennifer Prokop 1:42:43 / #
I mean, the, again those classic Kresley: the grovel for her is action. so when she has her night drift, where she ghosts and drifts away

Sarah MacLean 1:42:53 / #
into the stars, which is her biggest fear.

Jennifer Prokop 1:42:56 / #
And his biggest fear is heights-- and he grabs onto her. And they are in lower Earth orbit.

Sarah MacLean 1:43:03 / #
Yeah, they're in the stratosphere, right.

Jennifer Prokop 1:43:05 / #
And there's point where she's like, oh, far we, and it's this amazing moment where he just shakes his head at her. She like, Oh, it's not good then. And she, essentially they plummet. It's like a freefall until she can materialize again. And then he traces them back to somewhere safe. And I did find myself thinking that in that way, it didn't surprise me.The grovel for him his action, which is I saw that you were drifting away. I knew that was your greatest fear. It's now hooking into my greatest fear. And I'm going to grab you anyway. Yep, wherever you're going, I'm gonna be with you.

Sarah MacLean 1:43:48 / #
I love it so much. and the he makes this magic room door in their house and Tortuga or wherever the hell they are. And if they open the door, they're like in the kitchen with it with her Mom,and it's just it's so sweet and perfect. And I love it. And I want them to have lots of babies.

Jennifer Prokop 1:44:07 / #
Hi, never that's not anything I ever want, but okay.

Sarah MacLean 1:44:11 / #
I want it at one point. He's like you could eat and we could, you know, try it.

Jennifer Prokop 1:44:15 / #
Yeah.

Sarah MacLean 1:44:17 / #
And she's like, I would have your babies and I'm like, I want you to have your babies.

Jennifer Prokop 1:44:23 / #
I don't want anyone to have babies. But I appreciate that I'm not-- like you know,

Sarah MacLean 1:44:28 / #
how do we go about the epilogue? You guys we are. It's two hours. It was a two hour episode.

Sarah MacLean 1:44:35 / #
We told them, we warned everyone. How do we feel with the epilogue? him teaching her how to read?. Oh, you're a teacher? Is that your jam?

Jennifer Prokop 1:44:47 / #
It is my jam

Sarah MacLean 1:44:48 / #
when he writes mine across her chest?

Jennifer Prokop 1:44:51 / #
Yes, please. Yeah, it's pretty sexy. Yeah, I think it's also here's the other thing. I would say. about him teaching her how to read... is. It's, it's You're so vulnerable when you have to put yourself in the position of learning, and it's also to be a teacher, you have to be so patient. And this is like a moment, I think. Yeah, so yeah, of course it totally worked for me.

Sarah MacLean 1:45:22 / #
Well, I also want to call it the fact that Kresley doesn't usually write an epilogue. Yeah, I know, right? There's this epilogue here. And part of what I love about it. Is that so the epilogue in a romance novel is it doesn't.... it does work. Like I yeah, a lot of people-- I'm gonna I'm gonna call out our Heaving Bosoms sisters. Because one of them I can't remember which one. I think it might be Melody doesn't read prologues or epilogues.

Jennifer Prokop 1:45:51 / #
Yeah, I know.

Sarah MacLean 1:45:53 / #
Right. It's like one I'm always like, that's not a thing. Like there. Those are words that we wrote for a reason. Yeah, so I know that. That's not actually uncommon A lot of people don't read epilogues Yeah, the epilogue does the work. Here's what the epilogue is doing for a True Romance reader. It gives you proof that happily ever after happened. And so this is why like I I know like you don't want anybody you don't wish babies on anyone and I don't either your body your choice ladies....but....but I love a baby in an epilogue because it sort of like flags that we're in the future, this couple will have a legacy, they'll have a legacy-- in 1000 years there will be more Josie and Runes right running around. But so that said, that's a weird and I get it I get the problematic nature of that. We can talk about that in another episode. But in this particular case, what Kresley is giving us is a glimpse of happily ever after these two, this is like four pages of pure domestic idle. Like, they're in this house, reading books. smooching, joking, getting a little frisky. And it's lovely. Even though outside the door. Something is brewing.

Jennifer Prokop 1:47:18 / #
And I think you know, what it reminds me of is, um, you know, the movie Speed which @bandherbooks swears is a romance and I'm kind of with her there-- there's a whole ongoing thing where he's always like, you know, relationships that start in intense circumstances never work out. And this is like this epilogue is like a little promise to us as a reader that even though so many intense things happen to these characters, and I would argue here this epilogue is like all of them. Right? That it's, it's it's like, okay, yes, but they still have these, These moments of domesticity where we see them together, doing things together, and so in that way it's unlike other epilogues, which are like wrapping up an entire book or series or looking to the future. This is just like a little outtake of their relationship. And yet, because we only saw them in action, we needed to see this too.

Sarah MacLean 1:48:21 / #
I agree.

Sarah MacLean 1:48:22 / #
I mean, like, there's no moment we I mean, it's pacing, right? there's just no time. None the whole book like the pacing is so fast. And like there's no time to see them quietly loving each other.

Jennifer Prokop 1:48:34 / #
And we need that!

Sarah MacLean 1:48:35 / #
We see them quietly loving each other in the epilogue, and it's beautiful. And I love it and I wish Kresley would write epilogues for all the characters.

Jennifer Prokop 1:48:44 / #
Yeah, yeah. So did you get it all out, Sarah?

Sarah MacLean 1:48:51 / #
Was it as good for you as it was for me.

Jennifer Prokop 1:48:54 / #
I want to tell you-- it was because I was really afraid that I would just be ...not have anything to offer but I do feel like I offered things for you.

Sarah MacLean 1:49:03 / #
You are Magnificent, magnificent I never worried about that at all.

Sarah MacLean 1:49:08 / #
I have some I have some outstanding questions like at one point Nix says to Rune Don't you want to know what the Runes on your mother's talisman mean? and she never gives them

Jennifer Prokop 1:49:20 / #
we don't know. Yeah.

Sarah MacLean 1:49:23 / #
I really really want Blace... I'm on record for wanting Blace and Fury to be a match. I know that Kresley has said Kristoff and Fury but who remembers who Kristoff is?

Jennifer Prokop 1:49:35 / #
Yeah, Kristoff is off. I don't think anybody cares about him anymore.

Sarah MacLean 1:49:39 / #
And then, Allixta, I want everybody to pay their taxes to Allixta.

Jennifer Prokop 1:49:44 / #
Yeah, I mean, a lot of things being set up here.

Sarah MacLean 1:49:49 / #
And I want that dragon to be a hero.

Jennifer Prokop 1:49:53 / #
Yeah, I think there was, god, there's something else for me and I just lost it. But I remember thinking.... Oh, There is one line when they're like kind of fighting and Team Vertas, including Lothaire was up on the porch or whatever, where there's this line about like how her carefully constructed Alliance already had cracks in it.

Sarah MacLean 1:50:15 / #
Whose? Nix's?

Jennifer Prokop 1:50:16 / #
Nix's, right. So there's a sentence that's like her carefully constructed Alliance was already showing cracks. And I'm so I'm really curious about that because of course at this point I'm so convinced that Nix anything we see is what she wants us to see.

Sarah MacLean 1:50:35 / #
Well, what's really interesting is we're about to move into Wicked Abyss, and there's virtually no Lore. It's so self contained. But it's really I mean, like I think Monro being next is a really fascinating choice because

Jennifer Prokop 1:50:50 / #
oh god me, too

Sarah MacLean 1:50:51 / #
I can't You know, I've said this from the start that like at the beginning of every Kressley book, I think to myself, like all right, what are the threads? How is it going to work itself out and I'm always wrong. I can not see any reason why Munro would be next. But it is yeah. And Kresley for sure has a reason. So

Jennifer Prokop 1:51:08 / #
yeah. Okay, so, Sarah Yes. Next time, we're going to The Player. Yay.

Sarah MacLean 1:51:19 / #
Also, we didn't really talk a lot about Rune as a broken hero but like we are going to do some real work on broken heroes with The Player.

Jennifer Prokop 1:51:27 / #
And then we're going to do Shadow's Claim and Shadow's Seduction together. And then we'll go to Wicked Abyss. And I you know what, don't ask us what season two fated mates is because yeah,

Sarah MacLean 1:51:40 / #
we have a season two plan but we're not ready to reveal it. But there I mean, that's kind of it right? Like there is a season two. Yeah, there is a season two. It's coming. either end of August, beginning of September. I don't know what the dates are. But we'll start there. You're not taking a break. We're going to leave we're going to jump right into it. It'll be fated mates. You know, Ruby Dixon?

Jennifer Prokop 1:51:48 / #
Yes. Fine. Hey, you know what

Sarah MacLean 1:52:07 / #
fated mates blue aliens. Yeah.

Jennifer Prokop 1:52:12 / #
So can I say something exciting that's happening in my life? Everybody? Yay. Yes. I think I'm kind of ready to announce it. So I'm in just a couple of days from when this comes out on July 6, Kirkus will be putting I've been asked to interview a bunch of authors and the first author interview goes up on July 6, it's going to be Reese Ryan. And this is like the kickoff of what looks like a kind of full time gig for me at Kirkus as their correspondent

Sarah MacLean 1:52:43 / #
Yay, romance correspondent. But she's not leaving the podcast, I would only allow her to takethis job if She's promised she's not leaving the podcast.

Jennifer Prokop 1:52:54 / #
I'm a little nervous because there's like a new editor in chief so who knows maybe he'll be like, man, she's terrible. But as of Right

Sarah MacLean 1:53:00 / #
now I'll be like, Wow, she's amazing. She should have my job.

Jennifer Prokop 1:53:03 / #
obviously.

Jennifer Prokop 1:53:05 / #
I already have like a bunch of jobs. This is the job.

Sarah MacLean 1:53:08 / #
I don't think you want to be editor in chief of Kirkus. Oh, yay, July is gonna be super exciting. I have a thing happening in July to

Jennifer Prokop 1:53:15 / #
you do have a thing happening in July. Tell us about it.

Sarah MacLean 1:53:18 / #
You guys have a book out. I've been talking to you about it a lot. I know. It's called Brazen and the Beast. It's out July 30. If you preorder from my local bookstore, which is Word in Brooklyn, we'll put the link in show notes and you say Fated Mates, you can get stickers, you can also get these amazing mirrors. Either preorder will be fine. And it will come with a mirror that says the year of you which will make sense when you read about Hattie. Fun fact for fated mates listeners. There are at least three points in this book, where my editor, circled a line and said this feels intense and it's basically because it was like a Kresley Cole line, like he would bring her the heads of her enemies.

Sarah MacLean 1:54:06 / #
So, I feel like anybody who loves IAD if they're willing to try a historical this might be a book that you would like it's gonna be a book that you like, trust me. It's amazing, but it's coming out July 30. And that's exciting. Jen and I are also doing a live episode of faded mates with the wicked wallflowers crew, Jenny and Sarah, we'll be doing that at RWA, which is the third week of July. I'm also hosting the RITAs, we'll put links to that that so you can watch online. The RITAs are a whole lot this year. Jen's been reading all the books will will connect to her thread also. And is that two hours it's a lot. This is fated mates everyone. We Love you. Thanks for staying with us for two hours. Thanks for letting me like screaming your earholes about Rune Darklight for two hours. I gotta say like, I feel like I have to like give a speech or something related to this episode, but like I've been waiting for this episode forever. I'm really excited that all of you are still with us. We started this for fun and like this is awesome. I'm super excited.

Jennifer Prokop 1:55:21 / #
Me too

Sarah MacLean 1:55:22 / #
subscribe if you haven't already. Although if you are listening to us what's wrong with you subscribe on your local podcast app.

Sarah MacLean 1:55:29 / #
We are free. If you haven't and you feel so inclined, please give us a review like us. And you can always look at show notes which are amazing. Jen puts them together and does so much work every week. And you can What else? What else can they do? They can comment on the website at fatedmates dot net, Instagram or Twitter, Twitter fatedmates, Instagram fatedmates pod.

Sarah MacLean 1:55:54 / #
We love you. We do love you. Bye guys. Bye, everybody.

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15.5: Epistolary Romances

Love letters are the best because they’re personal and honest and raw and beautiful, and this week—by request—we’re talking about all the different ways romance tells epistolary love stories! Leave us your own version of a love note in comments!

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. 

Next week, IT IS HAPPENNNINNNGGGGG! We’ll be talking about Sweet Ruin, Sarah’s favorite book in the IAD series, and she is BEYOND EXCITED to talk about her favorite Kresley hero and the magnificent, perfect heroine who refuses to back down from their fated matehood. Block off some time, as we can’t guarantee this will be anything near a normal length episode! Read Sweet Ruin at Amazon, B&N, Apple Books, Kobo, or from your local Indie. Also, we promise you won’t be disappointed by the audio of this one!

Show Notes

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Game Makers, read along, guest host Jennifer Prokop Game Makers, read along, guest host Jennifer Prokop

15: How Is She Even Able To Walk? - The Master

We’re back with The Game Makers Series this week — talking with the wonderful Sophie Jordan about her favorite book in the series, The Master! Starring Maxim Sevastyan and the first-time escort who lays him flat (in all ways), This one has all the insane sex stuff of the last Game Makers book, now with birth control insanity, and a sweet nod to holiday traditions…and a trip into the Internet to look at chastity belts.

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, IT IS HAPPENNNINNNGGGGG! We have reached Sweet Ruin, Sarah’s favorite book in the IAD series, and she is BEYOND EXCITED to talk about her favorite Kresley hero and the magnificent, perfect heroine who refuses to back down from their fated matehood. Block off some time, as we can’t guarantee this will be anything near a normal length episode! Read Sweet Ruin at Amazon, B&N, Apple Books, Kobo, or from your local Indie. Also, we promise you won’t be disappointed by the audio of this one!

Show Notes

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interstitial, romance recommendations Jennifer Prokop interstitial, romance recommendations Jennifer Prokop

14.5: Space Romance - There Are No Wallflowers in Space!

Well, it was destined to happen sometime—we’re taking the show intergalactic! This week we’re talking about space romance and why it’s totally. fricken. bananas. Discover the series that brought Jen and Sarah together, hear us talk about prison planets, sex planets, the Muppet Show and more. Series by Grace Goodwin, Emmy Chandler, Robin Lovett & Jessie Mihalik.

Transcript available

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. Also — if you have a romance loving friend, please let them know that we don’t just talk about vampires & valkyries, and maybe they’d like us, too?

We’re back to the Game Makers in two weeks with Jen’s favorite of the three books, The Master, and one of our favorites, Sophie Jordan! Get ready for chastity belts and string bikinis! Read The Master at Amazon, B&N, Apple Books, Kobo, or from your local Indie.

Show Notes

Transcript

Movie Dialogue 0:00 / #
And now another controvertable episode of

Jennifer Prokop 0:03 / #
Fated Mates. Welcome everybody. We're going to be talking about space romances. I'm Jen Reads Romance.

Sarah MacLean 0:13 / #
I'm Sarah MacLean. I write romance novels and I read romance novels. And all I want is for a pig's in space-style intro to this, where it's like, "Romance in Space!"

Jennifer Prokop 0:29 / #
Oh God, me too Miss Piggy was formative.

Sarah MacLean 0:34 / #
Man. "Pigs in Space" was the best. Also the -- I forget what it was called, but the General Hospital-style soap opera on the Muppet Show? We're super dating ourselves. Now. I'd like everyone to appreciate.

Jennifer Prokop 0:49 / #
I don't even care because it's amazing. She just, everything was so sparkly and silvery when she was in space. I loved it.

Sarah MacLean 0:58 / #
I know. I know. And it's making me want, I wonder if The Muppet Show's on Netflix? "The Muppet Show should be on something I would love to show my daughter The Muppet Show.

Jennifer Prokop 1:10 / #
Yeah, I'm, I'm pretty sure it's somewhere that's I remember going through that when our son was younger, and really being like, "We got to watch the Muppet Show, man." It's good times.

Sarah MacLean 1:19 / #
Well cause also, as a grown up, you come to Sesame Street with your kids. And then you realize all the good muppets are not on Sesame Street. The good smartass muppets, Miss Piggy, uh Gonzo, Fozzie Bear. None of them are on Sesame Street.

Jennifer Prokop 1:41 / #
One of my favorite Muppet movies is the one with Gonzo being from space. God, what was that one? Hold on. I gotta. I don't. Muppet Movie.

Sarah MacLean 1:54 / #
I don't know. But I do feel like this is giving Eric some meat food.

Yeah, there was a there was a movie that was all about Gonzo and you know who else had had? Okay? The guy from The Good Wife and Dead Poets Society that oh makes me bite my fist because he's still fucking handsome.

Are you talking about Robert Sean Leonard?

Jennifer Prokop 2:16 / #
No I'm not. I'm not about fuck that guy. I'm talking about the other guy. You know the one who was on the Good Wife?

Sarah MacLean 2:21 / #
Ethan Hawke.

Jennifer Prokop 2:22 / #
No. I'm talking about that the other guy. God.

Sarah MacLean 2:25 / #
How many other guys are there in Dead Poets Society?

Shut up. The best guy. The one...

Which one?

Jennifer Prokop 2:32 / #
The one who makes out in on The Good Wife, the one who makes out with her in the elevator?

Sarah MacLean 2:37 / #
You keep saying The Good Wife. It's not gonna make me have seen it.

Jennifer Prokop 2:40 / #
Ah, hold on. I'm like, "Google's my friend."

Sarah MacLean 2:46 / #
You guys, welcome to my life.

Jennifer Prokop 2:48 / #
No, stop it. I'm an amazing person. Just because I can't remember people's names.

Sarah MacLean 2:53 / #
Dead Poets Society is a seminal text for me. It's so. I'm confused by which guy, which boy you're talking about.

Okay, wait, I'm trying to find out. So Alicia, the one with Will Gardner. Okay, so Will Gardener is the name of the guy in The Good Wife. And ahhh I'm, you know.

Will Gardener is the guy.

Jennifer Prokop 3:16 / #
Max Overstreet! He's the guy plays Max Overstreet!

Sarah MacLean 3:19 / #
Wait a second. He's not good. He's a bad guy on ah, in a lot of things.

Jennifer Prokop 3:25 / #
Okay, but in this Muppet Movie with Gonzo he also is fine. I'm just telling you.

Sarah MacLean 3:29 / #
Well, he's fine everywhere.

Yeah, well, God, yes. Oh my God. There's a scene with him kissing Alicia Florrick in the fucking elevator.

Oh. Max Overstreet. You're right. And then.

Jennifer Prokop 3:39 / #
Max Overstreet!

Sarah MacLean 3:41 / #
He's the one that goes on the date and Dead Poets Society. And then what does he do? He brings, it's Josh Charles. Josh Charles night. It's from Sports Night.

Jennifer Prokop 3:51 / #
You know, I'm starting to realize that you and I not remembering names and titles is way deeper. There's a lot of layers to it.

Sarah MacLean 3:59 / #
I know. You guys so I know my faves are problematic but I have an obsession with Aaron Sorkin and the things that he writes and Sports Night is magnificent. And you have to appreciate that me saying that Sports Night is magnificent is it must be super magnificent because I know nothing about any thing involving balls. I mean blow up balls. Although. Wait. I mean, throw ball, kick ball.

Jennifer Prokop 4:04 / #
Sportsballs, Sarah.

Sarah MacLean 4:11 / #
Sportsballs. Although I will say that I was at a signing not long ago and a woman came up to me, a reader came up to me, and if you listen reader, please tell us who you are. Please say hi on Twitter or Facebook or somewhere. Um, she came up to me and she said, "Do you know the difference between you and Tessa Dare?" And I was like, "Well, I mean, we're not the same person. So I know a lot of things that are different about me and Tessa Dare." And she said, Tessa Dare writes about balls and you don't.

And I was like, "Oh," and I realized I really don't. I generally don't involve myself with testicles. Apparently Tessa does everyone. So you know if you've never read Tessa Dare and you're into balls she's for you.

Talk about a close fuckin read. I mean damn girl.

But I did come home and I put balls into that book. Cause I was like, "Well, I refuse to be bested."

Well, Sarah, I'll just circle back around to I'm real embarrassed to tell you the name of this fucking movie that you should watch with your daughter is called Muppets from Space. I's not even complicated. How the fuck could I not think of that? Muppets from Space. Jesus Christ.

Amazing. And is it Pigs in Space, but like a whole movie?

It's like a whole movie, Miss Piggy's for sure in it.

It's like the Wayne's World of the Muppet universe?

Jennifer Prokop 6:00 / #
They're trying to figure out where Gonzo's from, if I remember correctly, but it's really fucking cute. It's one of my favorites. It's really, really cute. So I would recommend it. I feel now, it almost feels dirty to somehow segue to romance from there, but you know, whatever.

Sarah MacLean 6:18 / #
Whatever. Romance and space and here's the interesting thing. It's real dirty in space. I feel romance off planet. It's like suddenly everybody's allowed to write whatever the hell they want.

Jennifer Prokop 6:33 / #
We've talked about this with, with paranormal, right, when you remove people from human society on Earth, you get to break a bunch of different rules. That totally makes sense to me.

Sarah MacLean 6:45 / #
Yeah, it, it actually really does. It's a interesting, because so I when we talked about doing this episode, my instant thought was like, 'Oh, well, we're gonna have to we have to talk about those early ones.' But I don't think there were that many super early romances, but they, there was a Jane Ann Krentz called "Sweet Starfire". The cover's pretty great. The heroine has the most perfect, they're basically just metallic boobs underneath there. They're weaponry.

They're they're very. It's not even perky. It's -- they defy gravity.

There very firm. They are incredibly firm breasts. Um. It's basic...so okay, so the heroine has telepathy, she's telepathic and um she is, well or no, I'm sorry she's not telepathic but she's from this world of people who are telepathic and she doesn't have it. There's some reason why she doesn't have it. And she has to figure it out, and then the hero is basically Han Solo. He's a delivery man in space.

Jennifer Prokop 8:08 / #
My theory, and I will get to this later in the show, is that every good character I love in a space romance is basically Han Solo.

Sarah MacLean 8:17 / #
I mean, it makes sense though, right? Especially, because so I don't know what date. I don't know what date this is, but it had to have been early days. Um, and well, I do know what date the other one is, the other one was written in the, so the other one that sort of is instantly imprinted on my mind is Johanna Lindsay's "Warriors Woman", which is in the Ly-san-ter series, which is spelled Ly dash san dash ter because I don't know dash.

That's how you show that you're an alien culture by having some real weird spelling. Gotta use a bunch of punctuation.

Add in punctuation to make it seem real to me, but I am gonna I know last episode I was like, "We're not gonna read the back cover copy" because it sucks but here's the thing: back cover copy has changed a lot over the years because if I had back cover copy like this, I would make everyone read it all the time. So, here it is. In the year 2139 fearless Tedra De Arr sets out to rescue her beleaguered planet, Kystran from the savage rule of the evil Crad Ce Moerr. Experienced in combat but not in love, the beautiful, untouched Amazon flies with Martha, her wise-cracking, free-thinking computer, to a world where warriors reign supreme--and into the arms of the one man she can never hope to vanquish: the bronzed barbarian Challen Ly-San-Ter. A magnificent creature of raw yet, disciplined desires, the muscle-bound primitive succeeds where no puny Kystran male had before--igniting a raging fire within Tedra that must be extinguished before she can even think of saving her enslaved world.

Jennifer Prokop 10:30 / #
That's a whole lot.

Sarah MacLean 10:31 / #
We're gonna read it y'all.

Jennifer Prokop 10:34 / #
I'm kind of ready to read it right now.

Sarah MacLean 10:36 / #
So it's like this is Conan the Barbarian fanfic. And then there's the you know, and it makes sense. Where Johanna Lindsay was an earthy, you know, Schwarzeneggery kinda lady. Jayne Ann Krentz is more of an intellectual. Uh. You know.

Jennifer Prokop 10:58 / #
Han Solo type of snark guy. We should I swear to God, I always say this but now it's summer so maybe I'm, I'm constantly like, "we should be making BuzzFeed quizzes that go along with this." Like, "Which 70s or 80s space hero Do you imprint on?"

Sarah MacLean 11:20 / #
So anyway, that is where so when I say there were space romance is not new. There were definitely I mean these are huge writers. These are the big names of the 80s writing these space romances 80s and 90s. And so certainly there was there, they appeared here and there, but there are more of them now. And there are more that are sort of well-known and respected and, um, real fucking entertaining, frankly.

Oh, God. Yeah. Well, that's, I think that's, I think what it is too. So here's a little secret about me as a reader, which is. Oh, are you okay?

I was just gonna say um, "Warrior's Woman" is was published in 1990.

Jennifer Prokop 12:11 / #
I am a more of a sci-fi person than a fantasy person. Just in general, right? When I move Back to the Future and movies I loved about space travel and aliens and Star Wars, Star Trek, all of that is way more my jam. And so one of the things about space romances is I um, I feel like there's there's world building but it's less maybe? You know, fantasy. I am not a good enough reader. I'm gonna own that. I'm just like, "Oh shit, who is this guy again?" You know what I mean? I feel somehow fantasy, it requires more of me as a reader in a way that I'm like, "Uhh I'm not good at this." So I do think it's that imprinting thing. When I think about Star Wars, Back to the Future, Star Trek, that whole decade where I was growing up and just I couldn't get enough of it. So part of me is like, "Of course I love these space romances. They're amazing." If Han, I mean all we ever get from Han Solo and Princess Leia is that one fucking kiss or whatever, right? We deserve more. We deserve better. We deserve space threesomes.

Sarah MacLean 13:27 / #
Yeah. laughing We deserve sex planets, so let's just make it so.

Movie Dialogue 13:34 / #
"Make it so. Sir? Do it."

Sarah MacLean 13:40 / #
Um, okay, so we're in. We're in a golden age. I would say.

Jennifer Prokop 13:45 / #
Yes. I love it.

Sarah MacLean 13:46 / #
Of space romance. Well, wait, where should we start? Should we just, should should we start with this series that...

Jennifer Prokop 13:53 / #
Brought us together!

Sarah MacLean 13:55 / #
Oh, well, we should start...laugh everyone thinks that it was IAD but it wasn't I mean Jen and I knew each other through the IAD you know universe,

Jennifer Prokop 14:05 / #
But our real bonding happened...

Sarah MacLean 14:07 / #
Yeah, but our real bonding came over Grace Goodwin

"The Interstellar Bride" series.

I'm so embarrassed by this whole episode.

Jennifer Prokop 14:18 / #
No. I'm not. They're fucking awesome.

Sarah MacLean 14:20 / #
They are.

Jennifer Prokop 14:20 / #
But you know what? I was. I was on a family vacation where there were more people than seats in cars. And so somehow I kept always getting left behind, which I swear didn't mean to happen, but it was get the kids and the grandparents there. And I was like, "Whatever you're going to a kid's movie, it's fine." And I read a ton of these fucking books you guys one after the other. I literally could not get enough of them.

Sarah MacLean 14:44 / #
What's the series name?

"The Interstellar Bride" series.

Yeah. Oh my God. So you guys. Okay, so Jen. Picture this. Let me paint you a picture. So Jen and I are not friends yet. I mean, we're friendly. We like each other on Twitter. We're follow, we follow each other on Twitter. But um, I don't know how it fucking happened. I think it probably happened because "Ice Planet Barbarians". So Sophie Jordan, who is joining us next week for "The Master", is a dear friend of mine and she loves a bananas book just more than anybody in the whole world. And she started reading those "Ice Planet Barbarians" books by Ruby Dixon. And we found ourselves down the rabbit hole, the two of us, and it was you know, we I looked up a week later and I've read like 17 of those blue alien books. It's, the whole week is a blur. And, um, and I would recommend the first, you know, however many you want to read until you're ready, you know, at some point, you'll just overdose on them and then you'll just be like, "Okay, I'm done with these blue alien books."

It's like when you're at a bar and you're drinking. It's the first real night nice of summer and you're drinking maybe some kind of frozen cocktail. They're going down real easy. And then all of a sudden you're like, "Whoa, I just did. Wait, I just overdid it."

Exactly. I imagine it's what, I've never done cocaine, but I imagine it's like coke. You're like, "This is great!" And then you're like, "Whoa, I need a nap."

Yeah, that was it. So we had to shift from that to another similar series, right?

Then we started, so then it was just one of those things where, anytime anybody asked, "What's the craziest thing you've read recently?" We'd be like, "Well, have you read Ice Planet Barbarians?" Because it's weird. I mean, a spaceship crashes. A woman out in this ice planet. She comes she stumbles upon a giant blue alien and he immediately goes down on her. And it's crazy. So whatever. Periodically the "Ice Planet Barbarians" comes up online, and like we talk about how crazy it is. Then Jen, DMs me, I think, "Have you read these Grace Goodwin books?" And I was like, "Well no, but obviously I'm in the mood for another drug." So the structure of these books are, first of all, these are not in KU. "Ice Planet Barbarians" are in KU so you sort of feel like it's free. Grace Goodwin has put her books not. You are paying $3.99 for each one of these books. And I mean, I'm not gonna lie. I gave that money to her for a long time. These are probably not in your library either, you guys. So the first chapter you're like, "Hello. Here's the heroine having sex with two men, or whatever it is."

Jennifer Prokop 17:48 / #
But they're aliens, right?

Sarah MacLean 17:50 / #
There's 4000 books in this series. And the first one, all you know is that she's having sex. She's in the middle of sex with this person and you're like, "This feels like a very jarring entry into a book. But okay, Jen recommended it." So. And then she wakes up and you realize that she has been in a machine. In a sort of, uh,

Jennifer Prokop 17:50 / #
An MRI sex machine.

Sarah MacLean 18:14 / #
An MRI sex machine.

Jennifer Prokop 18:18 / #
Sarah, that's what it is. Hello. Instead of it being a big doughnut, it's like a big vagina.

Sarah MacLean 18:28 / #
And then she wakes up and there's a doctor and the doctor's like, "Oh, hey, you've been matched" to an interstellar, a male of a species on another planet and you are a human. You're basically a fertile human, female, and you're basically going to be shipped off to this dude, wherever you are.

Well, and it's always this alien.

With sex compatibility.

Yeah, and the deal is that at least for the ones I've read, this interstellar bride program right, the other the alien planet, they have pairs of alien men essentially agreed to mate this woman or that's how it works on their planet because it's so dangerous that that way if one of them dies, the other one will be able to you know,

Protect her.

Jennifer Prokop 19:29 / #
Protect her and still be there for her. Now none of them ever die. So it's just these, polyamorous, super sexy threesomes.

Sarah MacLean 19:37 / #
But I will say, male female male.

Jennifer Prokop 19:40 / #
Oh always.

Sarah MacLean 19:40 / #
There's no crossing of the swords. Which is a big bummer for me.

Yeah, I think that's why you and I both are like, "Meh." Here's my other thing, is the the woman on earth who's part of the intake process. Her name is Warden A Gara. And as time went on, in these books, it became clear that she had some sort of backstory herself. And I was like, "It's like a year later, has she ever gotten her own book?" And I do not think so. But I bet we cannot be the only people who are like, "Warden A Gara, where is your book?"

Why doesn't she get herself in the machine?

Jennifer Prokop 20:16 / #
Well, I think she had a mate and something went wrong. And so now she's back in the pool and you know, not ready.

Sarah MacLean 20:23 / #
Sure, sure. So, take your time A Gara. Um, but here's what's really interesting because this is it. These really echo. So I'm really fascinated by the space books because I think they're doing some sort of interesting work, as part of the genre. I mean, this is welcome to Fated Mates everyone. We're gonna talk about, we're gonna try and figure out, why these

Jennifer Prokop 20:49 / #
What it's doing, right?

Sarah MacLean 20:50 / #
What, at first glance, feel like real one-handed reads, if you know what I mean, but I think doing some interesting work and what these books are doing is very similar to what medievals were doing in that they're telling a story about each one of these meetings in these Grace Goodwin books is intergalactic because intermarriage between the two cultures solidifies the relationship between the two planets. It's like your Norman female is sold to a Saxon warrior. Or vice vice versa. I don't remember my history. So I think whatever goes. So that's interesting, there's something going on there. But also then there's this very real sense of woman alone, in a world in a threatening world.

Jennifer Prokop 21:44 / #
Yeah, sure.

Sarah MacLean 21:45 / #
And there's something really compelling about that. In 2019 for me, I've been talking a lot about, you and I haven't talked in a ton about how it feels like now, in 2019, you have to options and romance you have the super soft, really gentle calm love story. Or you have like, space prison planet book. And we're gonna get to. The two. I feel like they're scratching the same itch, socially. Because I'm right now not really that interested in a soft book because I want to see threat. I want to see anger. I want to see women and people in marginalized communities triumphing over, you know, the worst. But I think a lot of people are like, "The world is horrible. And I just want to escape into my like, soft cinnamon roll of a book."

And I think that they're two sides of the same coin, which is how when, we think about like, "What does romance?" How does romance approach the patriarchy?" And I think one of the things we've talked a lot about is, we're excited about the way that it you know, I was reading really interesting thread this morning that was when we talk about romance being by women for women, that it that's that used to be true, but now it's also really trying, I think, at least the books I'm interested in trying to be a place for anyone who's on the downside of the gender spectrum, right? Anyone who's not a cis het male. And so therefore, opening up for non binary for queer people, right? And so I think that these books are really pushing against sometimes too gender dynamics, because one of the big differences I think of in these books is that women aren't always just receptacles or receivers. Sometimes they're fighting back. Sometimes they're the heroine. Sometimes they're saving their mate. Sometimes. I feel like there's a lot of ways in which it's, you put, you put people in space and then sometimes their roles. Whether they be gender roles or work related roles or marriage roles. Kind of, "get a chance to change because now you're in a different society." So I do think that that's, that's what it is too. So it's exploring like, "Who are we in relationship to this institution?" Maybe? Whether it be the prison planet, the meeting, the inter bride program, whatever.

Yeah, I agree. I think there's something really interesting to be said for, for just how these books are. It's weird because almost all of them sort of really solidify in some ways underscore that kind of physical difference between the sort of women as the weaker sex

Hmm, yeah right? Well, cause the aliens are always seven feet tall. It's like a monster dash, right?

Even in, so let's talk about let's talk about Emmy Chandler next. So, if you follow me on Twitter you know that I, about three weeks ago went through this massive Emmy Chandler phase. I was on retreat with a bunch of other authors, somebody recommended, we were talking about, I was with Sophie Jordan, Sophie loves a prison book, we're talking about these prison planet books. And now I can't remember the name of that series either. Anyway, and I had never read them. So I picked up the first of the Emmy Chandler prison planet books. The first one is called Guardian. Oh, it's just called Prison Planet, the series. And so the concept is people get shipped off from planet from, again, it's kind of a star trekky kind of futuristic society where there are many different planet many different planetary planets that are in part of some sort of planetary consortium. And if you commit a crime, you are sent to this prison planet where

Jennifer Prokop 26:22 / #
It's Australia.

Sarah MacLean 26:24 / #
Yeah, where there are sectors and each sector has a different kind of criminal in it. And women and men are sent to all the sectors and it's a very intense. Content warning on this. There's a lot of threat of sexual violence in this book. Because obviously, when you are in a position where women and men are imprisoned in a enclosed space, no matter how big the enclosed space like that sexual dynamic is that that dynamic of sex is going to be there between them. And it's overarching. There is a constant threat of sexual violence in these books. But what Emmy Chandler is doing here in that...so the first one is called Guardian and basically a woman is sent to this to this prison planet and then she discovers, she gets to choose her mate, like meat, she gets to choose the man who she is with for 30 days. And then his job is to protect and feed and clothe her and her job is, you know, to pleasure him and he of course, is very noble and heroic. And it all works out sort of fine at the end, although I want to talk about what fine means in the context of some of these books. The second one Hunter is my favorite of them.

Me too. And it's the most dangerous game basically, right?

Yeah. Yeah. So very rich people get to pay money to come down onto the prison planet and hunt killers basically in an enclosed space. So it's like Hunger Games, there's an enclosed space with lots of cameras and things that are monitoring you. In that one, the heroine gets herself put into this enclosed space too. So the hero and heroine are both being hunted by the same man. And the heroine is a technological genius. He is just physical, pure brute physical strength. She is mental. She's just a genius. And so to get so she saves the day in that book with her intellect,

Jennifer Prokop 28:50 / #
Right, and he keeps them safe when they're out in the woods essentially, right? I mean, so it's together they're this unbeatable team. Even against all of the ways in which they're ... the other hunter has weapons has technology as cameras can find them. There's these really terrifying metal dogs that essentially are just if they run into you, they're just gonna rip you to shreds. I mean, it's a classic, like "The Most Dangerous Game" is a classic, short story about a general who essentially creates his own island, right? And he's gonna hunt, the people who get shipwrecked on the island, and he sets up essentially a trap to shipwreck them. And have you read this?

Sarah MacLean 29:38 / #
No. But I mean I know the premise.

Jennifer Prokop 29:40 / #
You know, the trope, right? And it has to be an island the same way this has to be a prison planet, right? You have to be isolated. And even if you can defeat the hunter, how are you going to escape is always the meta question that's kinda underneath, right? There's no real escape from any of it even if you can beat this one, this one guy.

Sarah MacLean 30:04 / #
No. And so the third one, "Champion," is lady gladiator. She gets to choose her, she's sentenced to death, and she gets to choose the way she dies and she chooses fighting as a gladiator on the prison planet for TV. And the only woman who's ever done it. That's real Hunger Games-y. She gets a makeover and she has sponsors. If you loved the Hunger Games, and you wish there had been sex in it, and you are not scared and you are not triggered by sexual violence in any way. Nobody in these books actually, gets raped. But it's ... It's a threat constantly.

Jennifer Prokop 30:51 / #
Or it's happened in the past, right? I mean, in the second one, she's essentially been or no is it?

Sarah MacLean 30:57 / #
I think she kills him before. I mean, you should not, if that is triggering for you at all, you should not read these books. But that third one, "Champion," and you can read these standalone. You do not need to read them in order. But "Champion" is, if somebody said to me like, "I want Hunger Games, but a romance." It's "Champion." Um, anyway, and then they go on from there. But there's something really interesting about these books, especially now in that happily ever after in these books, can't really be happy.

Jennifer Prokop 31:35 / #
Cause the world is not righted.

Sarah MacLean 31:37 / #
They're still on a prison planet. Right? So it's a really odd. There's something very satisfying. They were incredibly satisfying for me as I was reading them. But I really I keep going back to why is because we talk all the time -- one of the big questions that -- I'm sorry, I know I'm talking a lot...One of the big questions we have a lot is it In historical, specifically, is, "Why don't people write poor characters in historical romances?" I mean, in contemporary is too. And the answer has always been well, because it's not, if you're poor, is it happily ever after? If you're more literally worried about where your next meal is coming from. Is it happily ever after? And these people are alone on a prison planet.

Here's what I think it's really about. I think this is the work right? We talk a lot about partnership, right? That's what a romance sort of delivers at the end is, these two individuals have become like a team, right? And now they're going to face whatever struggles to happen together. And I think that's why it ultimately works because even though they're still danger in their future, and we know that. We also know that they have come through something where we trust that whatever their future, right, whatever this future conflict is going to be for them, that they are going to tackle it together. And there's something really appealing about that. Right? And I don't necessarily, by the way, think that that's just a romance thing. I think that's a friendship thing. I think a lot of these books have, build communities of people together, right? I think going back to Ice Planet Barbarians, they all start to work together. And it's literally watching a new society form. Only it's one often where gender differences are irrelevant, or there's more equality. You know, people are essentially literally making a new world for themselves. So I think that's why that's really appealing.

Mm hmm. I agree. And it feels like if they could triumph over these really dark moments. If you can be a lady gladiator and survive, then what can't you do?

Jennifer Prokop 34:12 / #
You got this right? Well, and often I will also point out that almost always those external conflicts are human in nature. Right? So it's you got kidnapped and sent to the ice planet barbarians. These men who set up the the gladiator dome and you're in it or whatever. So they're beating humanity, and then forming something new on this new planet. I mean, I think really profoundly. It's this idea that we're starting over. We're going to do this better. We're not going to end up in 2019. We started there, but we don't have to end up there.

Sarah MacLean 34:53 / #
Yeah, well, what's interesting is that they're not all this kind of gendered? Funkiness and, and that's where I want to go next because I want to go to Robin Lovett's books. Um, Robin Lovett is writing a series called Planet of Desire. The first one is called "Toxic Desire." Fun fact. Johanna Lindsey. No, Johanna Lindsey, wrong. Fun fact, Sophie Jordan and Joanna Shupe both texted me about "Toxic Desire" within 18 hours of each other. I don't think you all have heard Joanna talk about bananas books. You will hear Sophie next week to talk about "The Master." But when they both recommend a book, I know it's gonna be special. So Planet of Desire is Robin Lovett series, where, again, it's futuristic, there's kind of an intergalactic Space Consortium, there's a big bad planet or bad guys.

Jennifer Prokop 36:05 / #
It's the 10 planets Consortium, I think or something right?

Sarah MacLean 36:09 / #
Yeah. Yeah, it's like the EU of space.

Jennifer Prokop 36:11 / #
And the thing that's really interesting, before you launch into this is, all of the, if you're working on one of the 10 planets ships, they demand that you be essentially gender neutral, but what that really means is that you are essentially disguising yourself if you're a woman to present more as a man. And so what happens is they land on this, this sex planet, and the reason it's a sex planet is because there's something literally in the atmosphere, the Desedre or whatever, I don't how to say it.

Sarah MacLean 36:43 / #
Aphrodisiac. The atmosphere itself is an aphrodisiac.

Jennifer Prokop 36:47 / #
And you can't get away from it right?

Sarah MacLean 36:50 / #
You're gonna die. If you don't have sex, you will die.

Jennifer Prokop 36:53 / #
Yeah, masturbating is not enough. It has to be a mutual thing, right?

Sarah MacLean 36:57 / #
Well, masturbating will help for a little bit. Yeah ultimately, you gotta have sex. And it doesn't matter it's can be there it can be. It can be any form of sex with, it's polyamory, queer, queer sex, whatever kind of sex you want.

Jennifer Prokop 37:15 / #
It does not have to be P in V.

Sarah MacLean 37:17 / #
It's about the emotional connection between the two, three, four, however many people.

Then what happens is, people there are as I mean, in the first one, there's an enemy. So the the alien kind of male of the species who's there hates the 10 planets people.

Enemies to lovers. Yeah. Cuz he was on. He was a prisoner on the ship or something? Anyway, he has gold skin. And, and when they when he when anybody has sex with this, this type of creature I mean, not creature but this type of being in the world. Yeah, they then turn gold.

Jennifer Prokop 38:06 / #
I know, it's amazing!

Sarah MacLean 38:06 / #
It's so crazy.

That sex is gonna make you golden.

But that's a really good one because he was this is again, it's a classic old school romance trope. "I was imprisoned by your people. I hate you by virtue of you being those people."

Jennifer Prokop 38:24 / #
And yet here we are together.

Sarah MacLean 38:26 / #
Here we are. We're forced. We are forced together and it's on. It's not only forced proximity, it's for sexual proximity, because if we don't do it, we're gonna die.

Jennifer Prokop 38:37 / #
And this is a whole series then plays around with a bunch of other things. And the second one, there's essentially a sex Olympics, of course.

Sarah MacLean 38:44 / #
Yeah. Well, that also again, we're back to if you like the Hunger Games. Hunger Games read alikes, with Jen and Sarah! Hey scholastic!

Jennifer Prokop 38:59 / #
We're like defiling your intellectual property.

Sarah MacLean 39:03 / #
Um, cuz that second one is sex in an arena. Not gladiators. Fucking.

It's performative. It's in public. It's a voyeuristic. I mean, because then there's...

I really like the whole community though.

Well, the, essentially the people, that alien race that lives on this planet then has developed a certain kind of culture based around this.

The need.

Jennifer Prokop 39:38 / #
I will say this, if you liked the idea of Feveris in Dark Skye. This is this is the series for you. This is your next book after that.

Sarah MacLean 39:50 / #
But I really love it because it's so sex positive. All the people are, "I don't understand. Why are you being so weird about sex?"

Jennifer Prokop 40:00 / #
You know, when we as people on earth travel, I think, at least I would hope most of us have this basic understanding that it's not our place to put our cultural mores on to that new place we're visiting, but to experience, what's going on here? To eat the food of the place, you're going. To try and speak the language, right? We understand that is sort of our responsibility when we choose to travel. But what if when we travel some other world, it really is fundamentally seems wrong with what you've either learned about who you are as a person or your culture. And it's kind of rules and morality. And then it really becomes, again, that conflict level really ramps up because now it's person versus society. And you're like, "Hey, this isn't how I'm supposed to act, but I have to do it in order to survive here." And those kinds of really strong internal conflicts are which are pressure from an external conflict -- that's always a real interesting. I like that. It's real meaty.

Sarah MacLean 41:10 / #
I agree. I mean and I think that's done very well in third book in this series which is just now out is it just out?

Or it, we both just got it from NetGalley let me look.

In the third book in the series, the hero is a person from the homeworld. This is his world. Yes. And because of by virtue of the sex requirement, all the time sex to stay alive on this planet, right? The the characters the people who live on this planet, they don't really believe in love. They don't believe in monogamy. I'm sorry, not love. They don't believe in monogamy. And so the concept of monogamy is incredibly foreign to them, and problematic for them because they're like, "Well, wait a second. Because what if something happens?" Right? Like what if?

You know, your mate has to leave you for a week. You're gonna die. It's just, it's impossible. It's impossible to be monogamous and live on this planet. Right?

Well, and this dude has a special gift.

He's a shaman or something.

Jennifer Prokop 42:20 / #
He's a sex god. He has to share it with the people.

Sarah MacLean 42:24 / #
So yeah. So basically his whole thing is, if you're sick on this planet, he has special energy that he can infuse in you but he has to do it via sex. It's all real bananas. Robin. I mean, what is happening in your head? PS: I love you, Robin. I met you a BA and you're amazing.

Jennifer Prokop 42:46 / #
No, but you know, this is one though, where instead of her just acclimating to his rules. She has. She he acclimates to sort of her culture, right? And she has this real concern about, "It's complicated," of course. But every single one of the conflicts that happens is really about again, "Who am I? Who do I want to be? Should having a sexual relationship with someone make it so that they're my mate for life?" I mean, essentially, it's her drama because of her. You know, she is not even entirely human. She's some other thing too.

Sarah MacLean 43:23 / #
But I think for him, his conflict is really interesting too, because if you're born into a destiny, do you have no other choice? His whole conflict is society versus self. In a very concrete way. "If I take if I do the thing that I want to do for myself, I have to turn my back on this responsibility that I have towards my society." I mean, it's very it is actually very Dark Skye, this kind of in you know if...

Well, Robin is reading Dark Skye right now.

But if Thronos didn't have such a stick up his ass about everything it would be very Dark Skye. So yeah I mean so I've really liked this. I like it for another reason to that I just want to shout out and this is not to say look, most people in romance, are not public about their entire persona. I use a pseudonym. I am Sarah in real life but you know names are all changed and it's funky but a lot of these sex planet books or space books are written under very private pseudonyms. I'm sure partially because they're there is something kind of salacious and scandalous about them at first glance. Robin is very public, she's a public figure. She uses her actual photo and I'm not dissing anybody who doesn't do that, but I just want to give an extra shout out to her for being brave.

She's great. And I think that's what it is, too. I think, fundamentally, you know, I think, sometimes erotic romance gets this really hard rap. "Meh. It's it's just porn." Obviously, no one listening to us thinks that. We don't think that. But I do think books that really examine our sense of self in conjunction with our sexuality and what that means when they aren't necessarily in alignment the way we want them to. That's, that's worth us digging into as a genre. And I think that when you a lot of the books that we've talked about so far already are really doing that and a variety of really interesting ways. And so, yeah, they deserve some credit for pushing against a, I don't know, a boundary that I think a lot of people don't really, it's harder to explore.

Yeah, I really want us to have, as a genre, I want romance, and I think this is something that places like RWA really need to sort, RWA has a lot to sort out, but someday when we get down the list from the really critical things that impact people's actual real lives in the world, I want us to have a real conversation about erotic romance. And, what it means. Why it's valuable. What the difference is between a sexy book and an erotic book. Why we need those books. Why we need to honor those books as as themselves. And I think a lot of these books are doing that work.

Jennifer Prokop 46:27 / #
Yeah, I think so. True. So I want to talk though, because sci fi / space romances aren't always just sex planet books. That's all true and interesting. But there are a couple other ones that I thought that we could talk about. Because I like science fiction so much, maybe I've read more of them. And there's a couple that have come out, in the past year, that I think are worth just mentioning. And then I want to talk about a couple that I just read that I really liked. So I want to talk about "Polaris Rising" by Jessie, is it, Mihalik? I'm not sure how I'm saying her last name correctly.

Sarah MacLean 47:12 / #
That's how I would say it but we apologize.

Jennifer Prokop 47:14 / #
This is a, now I'm gonna be really honest with you, I think this is the kind of romance light. There is a romantic arc. But I think the big arc is for our heroine, Ada von Hasenberg. And she is essentially and this is my catnip, right? So she is the princess essentially in the in the universe. There's three really powerful houses and house von Hasenberg is one of them. And she's the fifth of six children. And she has all these skills but her real job is going to be to marry somebody for her house. So this is the all the aristocracy stuff, but put in space. And a couple of years earlier she got told she was gonna have to marry somebody. And she was all like, "Fuck all y'all," and she takes off. And so she's on this space adventure and she, at the beginning of the book, has been caught kind of accidentally. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and someone picked her up who didn't really even know what they had and all of a sudden figures it out. And she gets put in a cell with a guy named Marcus Lock who is essentially the most wanted criminal in the galaxy.

Sarah MacLean 48:27 / #
And hey, Marcus. I wanna say this. He's known as the Devil of Fornax Zero. Which I mean everyone knows if they're called the devil then you definitely are gonna bone 'em. I mean, that's just gonna happen happen right?

And they pretty quickly figure out that they can use each other to essentially escape the ship and she promises like, "Look, I'll pay you a ton of money. If you get me out of here. If you help me get out of here," because she's crazy rich from this crazy rich family and they go on this massive space adventure. And the reason I say it's romance light is, there's a clear romantic arc but I don't think it's the A plot, right? It's like Princess Leia if she didn't have to be fucking dead weighted with Luke and everybody else, right? She is just on her own adventure and it's fucking great. And I loved it because I love, you know she's got blasters, and implants, and she has to go do all this crazy...

The cover. I know that we always joke about covers not being important and whatever read the book, but this covers badass.

And I'm going to tell you I also just read it does not come out till October 1 so maybe this is bad form, but I just read the sequel which is about Ada's sister Bianca. She has been previously married. She went through the house marriage thing. And part of the reason Ada was so sure she didn't want to do it, she saw what happened to her older sister's. Now Bianca's husband is dead. She's back in the house. And there's a big romance between her and the head of house security.

A bodyguard romance!

Jennifer Prokop 50:16 / #
Hello, exactly. And again, I feel like if you go into these books, thinking there's gonna be a romance but it's going to be kind of secondary to this Space Princess plot. Then you like me will be very happy. And I love them cuz they're about competent women.

Sarah MacLean 50:36 / #
I love it. So over the so just to confirm the series is how many books?

Jennifer Prokop 50:42 / #
It's going to be three. The first one is "Polaris Rising." It's out now. And "Aurora Blazing" comes up second.

Sarah MacLean 50:48 / #
And this plot. The meat of the plot is over three by books. It's like Game of Thrones in space.

Jennifer Prokop 50:58 / #
Yep. It sure is. House politics, right? So their house wants something from them. There's all this intrigue between them and the other houses. There's always competition, essentially.

Sarah MacLean 51:12 / #
And each of the books is a standalone romance. It's just the overarching series is the plot.

You know what, I think that people will like that. Because also I do feel like it's more common in science fiction to have the same characters over books, but I like that instead it's like the house. House Van Hasenberg.

Well it flips the script and it makes them more, it actually does make them more romancey. Because, yeah, a romance reader. Well, I mean, Jen, please, if you're recommending these, they have to be complete romances at the end. You're not gonna recommend them if at the end, you're like, "Well, are these two ending up together?"

Jennifer Prokop 51:49 / #
You're gonna get that HEA but what I really liked about it is, I think number two worked for me because they work together more. In "Polaris Rising," there's actually quite a few scenes where they split up and we follow Ada who does her own shit. Saves him a bunch of times. That worked for me too. But, I think if you need them to be on page together all the time, it's not quite the same. But I really like them a lot.

Sarah MacLean 52:20 / #
It sounds like Romancelandia really loves this book. It's on my desk because it's one of my next reads. I mean, it's on my desk with eight other books, but, and I got a puppy this week. I don't know what I'm doing.

Jennifer Prokop 52:30 / #
You're not reading space romances.

Sarah MacLean 52:31 / #
I'm also reading this book. I'm reading this puppy training book that's written by monks. I don't even know who I am.

That's real awkward. Sarah. Real awkward. Are we done?

I think so. No wait. You had a queer space romance.

Jennifer Prokop 52:48 / #
Oh, I do have one I want to shout out it's called "Treason of Truths" by Ada Harper. And it is essentially also a bodyguard romance except, so the queen or the empress, her name Sabine, so of course I was already really into liking her. And then her lover although it's real complicated at the beginning. You can't quite figure it out. Her name is Lyre. L Y R E, is that how you say it? And her job essentially is, she's the spymaster for the empress. But the book opens with her doing some negotiating and you definitely at first like, "Wait is this unrequited love?" Lyre's just super into Sabine but then they get back together and you could tell everybody thinks they're already lovers. It's kind of hidden but there's this great line at the beginning and I was all in where Sabine says something to someone in Lyre thinks, "When she says, 'Thank you,' she can make it sound like, 'Fuck you.'" And I was like, that's my kind of character right there. So that one is one that I I actually have not finished yet. But I've started once I knew we were doing this and I've been really enjoying it but I will admit I'm not there yet. I'm not done yet.

Sarah MacLean 54:08 / #
Oh great. Well I'm glad that we shouted it out. Tell us your favorite space romance because we want to read more of them. I downloaded "Warrior's Woman" like a lunatic earlier so I'm ready. I mean who am I kidding? I'm not reading this monk book. But we are very excited. I'm always jazzed when we can talk about a sub genre of romance that is feels new. Feels fresh. There are just there are only so many wallflower rakes that you know, I mean, I love a wallflower rake. God knows. But

There are no wallflowers in space, Sarah none. And maybe that's why I like it.

I don't think no. This is really fun. It's summer. It's time for space romances. If there were ever a time for space romance. It's summer.

Now, before we go, you wanted to try something new at the end of every episode.

Oh my gosh, I wasn't ready to do it today. But

Do you want me to start?

You start. Yeah. And I've got a thing that I'm yeah, I've got a thing to talk about.

So it's just sharing something fun that we had happened to us or that we did. Is that what it is?

I don't know. No, I'm thinking that it should be a like, "Is there a book that you just recently read that you think is great?" Okay, the recc. Either a book or a movie or show or thing?

Jennifer Prokop 55:38 / #
Oh, okay. So I have been watching Chernobyl on HBO to no one's surprise because everyone knows I know love a nuclear story. But you know, it's been really cool. I know.

Sarah MacLean 55:49 / #
That's so obscure and weird. Oh my god. Have you read Alyssa Cole's mixed signals?

Yeah, but wait, you didn't know that about me. You didn't know

I knew that you, vaguely but I didn't know that it was, you know, a thing you put in your bio. Send me your nuclear romances.

Okay. Actually, there are a few nuclear romances and I have not read them.

Well, that Mixed Signals one, isn't it?

All right. That's Listen, I read nonfiction nuclear books. I've read many, many books about Chernobyl. I know that's real fucking crazy, but I love it. Yeah, so I've read Actually, I'll take a picture. I put it on Twitter. You just don't follow me closely. Enough. I have a whole nuclear shelf anyway,

I have puppy now. I can't I just I can't. I can't Twitter.

Okay, here's what's really cool about if you've watched the show. They also have a podcast that goes along with it. And what's really cool about the podcast is, it's the guy from Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, which I was on one than once. I was on that once and won. But

You were on what?

Jennifer Prokop 56:55 / #
Wait, I'll tell you that in a minute. Wait, and he's interviewing the writer. And what they do is they kind of go through the episode and talk about what parts are true and where they came from and which parts he essentially wrote in. So it's a really cool way of experiencing the show. Kind of like, if you ever have that question when, you're watching something that's based on real events, you're like, "Which parts real which parts aren't?" The podcast is so fun to listen to, as you watch because that, or after you watch, because then you're like, "Oh, that's a composite character. Oh, that dialogue actually came straight from voices from Chernobyl," so I really recommend the podcast in the show.

Sarah MacLean 57:38 / #
Cool.

You can recommend puppy books, I guess.

Nope. No, I you guys, I so I really love the movies, but I don't go to them enough. And that is the thing that is real. But I went to see Book Smart.

Jennifer Prokop 58:00 / #
Oh, I want to see that!

Sarah MacLean 58:02 / #
My lovely friend Megan Frampton, and Megan and I live five or six blocks from each other and in between our houses - this is what's so great about living in a city - is a movie theater. So we met in the middle and we went to see Book Smart, which is, I said to my husband, "It is the greatest last night of high school movie I've ever seen." Basically if you loved all those high school coming of age movies, this movie is about the very last night of high school. Tomorrow morning is graduation. And the heroine is the valedictorian and her best friend, who is the salutatorian - is that how you say that? Salutatorian. And they are adorable workaholic. Well, the valedictorian is an adorable workaholic nerd. And the salutatorian is mega feminist nerd. And they've done nothing but be each other's friends and study to get into the best possible colleges and to do their amazing things after after high school. And then on the last day of school, she discovers that all the kids who she thinks like, "Well, they've just slacked off and not done anything. And they're all going to, you know, nowhere colleges and she's gonna end up being their boss," turns out, they're all going to Yale and Princeton, Stanford and big colleges, and she realizes in the very beginning of this movie, she's basically missed out on high school because she was so panicked for the rest of her life. So she had that one night to rectify it. It's like a buddy movie. And it has all the beats. There's a little there's a little bit of a romance in it. It has all the beats that you love in these movies. If you love these movies, which I do, and I just highly, highly recommend it. It's written by a woman. Produced, it's got a giant female, lots and lots of women working on it. The crew, and it's written by Olivia Wilde who's, you know, awesome talented. Jason Sudeikis, is in it.

Jennifer Prokop 1:00:30 / #
Hmm, that sounds so good.

Sarah MacLean 1:00:31 / #
So is Lisa Kudrow.

Well, it's summertime it's time for me to get my movie on so I'm here for it.

If you like a high school movie. But you teach high school you well you teach junior high.

I don't. I teach middle school but you know, my son is in high school and I am always telling him, "Just enjoy high school. Stop fucking falling for this crazy idea that your life will only matters."

I want you to watch it with him and then tell me what he thinks.

Jennifer Prokop 1:00:58 / #
I will report back to you.

Sarah MacLean 1:00:59 / #
Yeah, I want to know what real kids - kids on the street - feel. But I really loved it.

Kids on the street are still in bed at 11:30 / # in the morning, fine.

That's a great life.

Jennifer Prokop 1:01:10 / #
It seriously is.

Sarah MacLean 1:01:11 / #
It really is. I would be in bed if I didn't have you know, kids and a dog. And a husband.

Jennifer Prokop 1:01:18 / #
Self-inflicted!

Sarah MacLean 1:01:22 / #
All right, my love's. This was Fated Mates. Don't forget to subscribe, like and subscribe in your favorite podcasting app. Find us on Twitter at Fated Mates. Find us on Instagram at Fated Mates pod. Check out the show notes because Jen is amazing and does beautiful show notes. There will be cover images this year.

Jennifer Prokop 1:01:42 / #
Yeah. Oh yeah. Just a quick reminder everybody that the Moon and Mars are two different places. Have fun in space.

Sarah MacLean 1:02:31 / #
Well masturbating will help for a little bit, but ultimately, you gotta have sex.

Jennifer Prokop 1:02:37 / #
It does not have to be P in V.

Movie Dialogue 1:03:29 / #
Waiter all have with she's having only less pepper

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14: Thronos Should Get the Hell Over Himself: Dark Skye

We are back from vacation and Torture Island is back — surprising no one more than us! It’s Dark Skye week, Lanthe & Thronos are doing some weird stuff with holey-sheets, y’all. We talk about religion and romance, the work this book does in the larger series, and—as always—patriarchy. Friend of the pod, SS Jaxon joins us, too!

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. 

We’ve got an interstitial lined up for next week, then we’re back to the Game Makers in two weeks with Jen’s favorite of the three books, The Master, and one of our favorites, Sophie Jordan! Get ready for chastity belts and string bikinis! Read The Master at Amazon, B&N, Apple Books, Kobo, or from your local Indie.

Show Notes

Lost Limb Count

Arms and Hands (8)

  1. Conrad cuts off his own hand with a rusty axe so he escape the "witched" chains his brothers locked him in. (Dark Needs at Night's Edge)
  2. Cadeon has both of his hands burned off in the same scene where he loses an eye. There's description of what Cade's baby fingers look like as they are re-growing. It's...kinda gross. (Dark Desires After Dusk)
  3. Sebastian pulverizes most of his right arm during the Hie. He regenerates. (No Rest For the Wicked)
  4. Lucia peels all the skin off from her hand in order to free herself from some handcuffs. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
  5. In order to retrieve the ring from La Dorada , Lothaire cuts off her finger. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
  6. Lanthe and Carrow cut off Fegley's hand so they can use his thumb to unlock their torques. He's later killed. (Demon from the Dark)
  7. After receiving Lothaire's heart in a box, Ellie cuts off her middle finger and sends it to him. (Lothaire)
  8. Chloe's shoulder is dislocated in the escape from her auction (MacRieve).

Chest and Torso (7)

  1. Omort severs Rydstrom's spine and punches through his torso in a fight. Sabine saves him and enlists Hag to help heal him. (Kiss of a Demon King)
  2. Lucia's neck is broken. She regenerates. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
  3. On Torture Island, Regin,
  4. MacRieve,
  5. and Brandr are vivisected. It's pretty terrible. (Dreams of a Dark Warrior)
  6. Declan's skin is peeled off by the Neoptera as a child. (Dreams of a Dark Warrior)
  7. Lothaire rips out his own heart and sends it to Ellie in a box. (Lothaire)

Head, Face, and Eyes (6)

  1. Bowen loses an eye and most of his forehead during the Hie. Mariketa has cursed him and he can't heal until he returns to her. (Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night)
  2. Cadeon loses an eye and part of his forehead and hair when fighting. It all regenerates. (Dark Desires After Dusk)
  3. During a rugby match, Garreth has his teeth knocked out and swallows them. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
  4. Lothaire kicks out La Dorada's remaining eye and throws her over a cliff. (Dreams of a Dark Warrior)
  5. In the Bloodroot Forest, the tree grows over Lothaire's lips and tongue. (Lothaire)
  6. After she gains her immortality, Chloe's hair grows, but she cuts it off every morning. (MacRieve)
  7. Lanthe agrees to have her tongue cut out to save herself and Thronos, knowing she can still use the power of persuasion telepathically. (Dark Skye)

Horns (2)

  1. Cadeon cuts off his own horns to prove to Holly that he is worthy of being her mate. She tells him to let them grow back (Dark Desires After Dusk)
  2. Malkolm is captured by his enemies in Oblivion and taken to the city of Ash. The publicly cut off his horns and then intend to kill him, but Carrow saves him. (Demon from the Dark)

Legs and Feet (3)

  1. Lachlain tears off his own leg to reach Emma. He regenerates. (A Hunger Like No Other)
  2. Mariketa's skull is fractured and her leg is torn from her body. She heals herself after Bowen lays on the ground. Ivy grows over her and heals her. (Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night)
  3. Thronos is chasing Melananthe and loses a foot when a portal closes on it. (Kiss of a Demon King)
  4. While in Pandamonia, Thronos is trapped in a Groundhog Day like trap, doomed to repeat his worst nightmare over and over again. When he believes that Lanthe is about to die, he repeatedly tears of his legs in order to reach her. He never actually loses a limb, but he was willing, so we're counting it. (Dark Skye)

Beheading as a Romantic Gesture (4)

  1. The first time Garreth spies Lucia, it's when she shoots an arrow and beheads a kobold. He notices that it's "a fantastical shot" and he's super into it. Later, he helps her pick up the head because he's a real gentleman like that. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
  2. Later in the book, they are under attack from vampires and Lucia asks him to help. Garreth promises to "give her their throats" and beheads two vampires. But she's upset about it because of a previous bad experience with cannibalism. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
  3. Malkolm beheads men that attacked Carrow in Oblvion, and he throws them to prove he's a worthy mate. (Demon from the Dark)
  4. Declan fights and beheads several creatures as they escape Torture Island, including squeezing one dude so hard his eyes pop out and then he twists his head off. (Dreams of a Dark Warrior)
  5. Thronos beheads several foes during fights, which impresses Lanthe; but he also beheads Felix, a sorcerer who once tricked Lanthe and stole her sorcery. (Dark Skye)

Beheading as a Non-Romantic Gesture

  1. Ellie cuts off Lothaire's head, leaving a slender 1/8 of an inch left. It was kind of an accident, but he deserved it. (Lothaire)

Maybe?

  1. Does Garreth's losing his connection with his mortal soul count? (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
  2. When Soroya inhabited Ellie's body, she subjected her to a full Brazilian wax. Ellie doesn't realize it's happened until she takes control of her body again. (Lothaire)
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