S08.22: Chart Topping Songs and Their Perfect Romance Novel Pairings

Our old pal Billy Shakes told us that music is the food of love, and we’re taking that to heart this week! By request from Eric (who’s never requested anything before), we’re looking at songs that charted in February over the years and matching them with romance novels that suit! We’ve got a little bit of something for everyone here, from historicals to paranormals, motorcycles to mafia to magical realism. Eric’s put together a playlist, and you can find links to that and articles about a bunch of these songs in show notes, or you can just head straight to reading the books. We don’t judge!

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Our next read along (in March) is Sincerely, Your Inconvenient Wife by Julia Wolf. Find it in ebook or paperback, or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.

Notes

1. You can listen to the accompanying playlist on Apple Music and Spotify
2. You, too, may want to learn about this mahjong situation brewing in the Midwest with Barbara.
3. It’s the Olympics. Defector is covering all the news stories we want to know about, including the Curling Drama between Sweden and Canada, the ice dancers are super villains, and this Norwegian skier is an idiot.
4. Happy Black History Month! Jen did something cool at The Newberry Library. It was part of the Douglass Day transcribe-a-thon, transcribing information about the Colored Conventions. You can still participate using Zooniverse, and looking for the Douglass Day Project.
5. Sarah enjoyed learning about the Asking Dumb Questions class at Yale.
6. Tom Breihan writes a column The Number Ones at Stereogum, and Jen also enjoys a similar Slate podcast called Hit Parade.
7. Here’s the spreadsheet of February hits, and a playlist of songs we talked about today! The Macarena is a song about love triangles! Bad Romance by Lady Gaga is on this list, but we only talk about books we like.
8. The DJ book Jen couldn’t remember was Rival Radio by Kathryn Nolan.
9. The Stud Budz, WNBA players Courtney Williams & Natisha Hiedeman, did a long livestream during the 2025 All Star Weekend, and they sang and danced to Pink Pony Club. Check out Babes Sports Bar if you’re ever in Chicago. Jen did an event there, cohosted by 831 Stories & Off the Dribble Chicago, an organization for basketball-playing women and girls in the city.
10. Prince renamed himself as a symbol when fighting with his record label.

Sponsors

1. Blue Box Press, publishers of Dylan Allen’s Rivers Wilde rereleased paperbacks, available in print, ebook or audiobook. Get the redesigned paperbacks at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or wherever you get your books.
2. The Romantasy Letters, A new kind of romantic fantasy storytelling, delivered right to your door twice monthly. Use the code FATED to get 20% off your year's subscription. Learn more at RomantasyLetters.com.
3. MA Wardell, author of Peaches & Pucks, available in print, ebook and audiobook at Barnes & Noble, bookshop.org or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.
4. Jennifer Iacopelli, author of Game, Set, Match, available in print, ebook and audiobook at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books or wherever you get your books.

The Rest

• For even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net
• If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It’s so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates.
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• If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.