Fated Mates - Romance Books for Novel People

We were together for the first time in a while, so we decided to record on Sarah’s couch! We answer questions from the audience at Fated Mates Live, recommend Spring romance novels, fill your TBR pile and bantr. It’s nice. Next week, we’re reading Tracy MacNish’s Stealing Midnight—we’ve heard the calls from our gothic romance readers and we’re delivering with this truly bananas story, in which the hero is dug out of a grave and delivered, barely alive, to the heroine. Get ready. You can find Stealing Midnight at Amazon, B&N, Kobo, or Apple Books.Show NotesWe had a great time at Fated Mates Live! Thanks to everyone for coming, to The William Vale for being a great location, and to Word bookstores for selling books. Producer Pat from Learning the Tropes was Eric’s co-producer that night! A huge thanks to Grand Central/Forever, Sourcebooks, and Berkley Romance for donating books for us to give away!If you are ever in Williamsburg, you should go ahead and order some pizza. Jen ordered from Mo’s General and it was delicious.A primer on the Model Minority Myth.Some real life examples of people dancing themselves to death.A Splash of Cream at the Alabaster Cafe came out 6 weeks after Morning Glory Milking Farm, but also correlation does not imply causation.

Sophie Jordan is back again! She’s got a new book out, The Countess, the first in her Scandalous Ladies of London series, featuring a true Regency squad full of scandalous ladies and answering the question: What if the Real Housewives were actually Regency-era aristocrats? We talk about friendships in old school romances, about why groups of women are game changers in fiction and in real life, and fill your TBR with groups you will absolutely wish you could be friends with.In two weeks, we’re reading Tracy MacNish’s Stealing Midnight—we’ve heard the calls from our gothic romance readers and we’re delivering with this truly bananas story, in which the hero is dug out of a grave and delivered, barely alive, to the heroine. Get ready. You can find Stealing Midnight (for $1.99!) at Amazon, B&N, Kobo, or Apple Books.Show NotesWelcome Sophie Jordan. Her newest release, The Countess, is the first in the Scandalous Ladies of London Series. It’s loosely based on the reality TV show, The Real Housewives. Stay tuned at the end of the episode for the first two chapters of The Countess in Audiobook.In horror, “the final girl” is a trope about who survives.Check out the Pocket Bookshop next time you’re in Lancaster PA.Enid is a secondary character from several of Sophie’s books in The Rogue Files series.Check out the Ice Planet Podcast if you’re a fan of the series.The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2023/3/27/s0528-womens-friendships-in-romance-with-sophie-jordan 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. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

We’re talking about teachers and librarians in romance today, but don’t worry — not hot-for-teacher kinds of teachers and librarians (someday, Sarah will do that one on her own, maybe). Instead, we’re talking about romances with main characters who are teachers or librarians, in honor of the hardworking, committed teachers and librarians who are fighting book bans all across the United States right now. And speaking of book bans…we’ve got author, activist and our friend Jarrett Dapier back with us this week to talk about the upcoming Spring off-cycle elections that are taking place around the country in the coming weeks…and how book bans are on the ballot in so many places right now. We encourage you to check the dates of your local elections, and make sure that if school or library board positions are on the ballot, you’ve done some research before you head to the polls! You can still get tickets to Fated Mates Live! Join us this Friday, March 24 in New York City with Tessa Bailey, Andie J. Christopher, Mila Finelli, Adriana Herrera, and Joanna Shupe! Amazing stories will be told, many laughs will be had, terrific books will be on sale, and there will be a bar! Get tickets now!Our first read along of 2023 (soon! we promise!) is Tracy MacNish’s Stealing Midnight—we’ve heard the calls from our gothic romance readers and we’re delivering with this truly bananas story, in which the hero is dug out of a grave and delivered, barely alive, to the heroine. Get ready. You can find Stealing Midnight (for $1.99!) at Amazon, B&N, Kobo, or Apple Books. Show NotesWelcome Jarrett Dapier, author of Mr. Watson's Chickens, back to the podcast. He was a guest on our first book banning episode, click to listen and see the show notes. This is a time for action, not just being a keyboard warrior. Check our your local paper if you have one, your school district website, and your library’s website.Wondering if there are upcoming elections in your state? Check out Rock the Vote and click on your state. You can find information about off-cycle elections, which is what non-November election are called (not “off brand” as Sarah accidentally said on the pod.)Moms for Liberty is bad, actually. These groups trying to ban books continue to ramp up their efforts—they are specifically targeting books with any kind of queer characters, regardless of sexual content, books with people of color, and books that tell the accurate story of our history. Other states are looking to ban books with any kind of sexual content. If you are looking for the big picture, you must follow the censorship tag at Book Riot. Reporter Kelly Jensen has been on the front line of this story for years, and if you’re looking for resources this monster thread she keeps pinned to her twitter profile has ideas for how to take action. You should also check out this list to find an anti-censorship group to join in your area.The story about the library board in Niles, Illinois; an exciting new Right to Read law making it’s way through the Illinois state congress could be duplicated in your state! Call your local rep and senator and tell them you support the freedom to read. Author Laurie Halse Anderson is a model for how you can show up.As for book recommendations this week, check out the list of romances about librarians from SuperWendy, and this list from Jessica Pryde, Hot for Teacher (but not Mine). And last but not least, Jen’s list of Who Did it Better in the Library.

Pistols at dawn, y’all! We’re talking about duels today — what they are, why they exist, who fights them, their rules and why they’re so darn sexy when they are really just silly. We’re taking our twenty paces alongside Chels_ebooks, one of our favorite BookTokkers, who has a longstanding love of old school romances and their covers, and a substack that you should subscribe to immediately. Of course, we’re talking TikTok, too. This one is long and fun and full of book recs, so strap in! You can still get tickets to Fated Mates Live! Join us on March 24 in New York City with Tessa Bailey, Andie J. Christopher, Mila Finelli, Adriana Herrera, and Joanna Shupe! Amazing stories will be told, many laughs will be had, terrific books will be on sale, and there will be a bar! Get tickets now!Our first read along of 2023 (soon! we promise!) is Tracy MacNish’s Stealing Midnight—we’ve heard the calls from our gothic romance readers and we’re delivering with this truly bananas story, in which the hero is dug out of a grave and delivered, barely alive, to the heroine. Get ready. You can find Stealing Midnight (for $1.99!) at Amazon, B&N, Kobo, or Apple Books.We are thrilled to welcome Chels, the Reigning Monarch of Bodice Ripper TikTok, to the show today. You can also follow them on twitter and subscribe to their substack, The Loose Cravat.Wondering about those TikTok hit pieces we mentioned? Read the ones from British GQ and London Review of Books. It’s a few years old, but this Wall Street Journal video is a great look at the mysterious TikTok algorithm and how quickly it will rabbit hole you, and a more recent piece from Vox about TikTok’s recent promises to become more transparent, and another one from The Verge about how TikTok suppresses content from disabled users.The relationship between BookTok and bookselling is complex and difficult to parse because of the lack of transparency around book sales. Check out Where Is All the Book Data by Melanie Walsh, as well as how book-buying habits changed during the pandemic.Deloping is bad, actually! So If you’d like to learn more about duels, Chels recommends Pistols at Dawn by Richard Hopton and The Duel: A History of Duelling by Robert Baldick. Jen recommends this article about dueling from JSTOR Daily, or this one about American dueling in the Smithsonian, which led her to the Code Duello as one example for the rules of dueling.Speaking of moral panics, JSTOR Daily has a list of them! I told you it was a good site!Deuling in pop culture: check out The Duelists by Ridley Scott, this famous scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark, and of course, Hamilton.For some real historical duels, check out: The billiards balls duel, The topless lady duelers in Austria, additional ladies being badass, Humphrey Howarth the naked dueler, and Burr and Hamilton. Senator Brooks caning Senator Sumner on the Senate floor is another thing entirely.Glove Slap!Finally, check out this page from Loretta Chase’s website which describes and links to several videos about the Singing bird pistols from Lord Lovedon’s Duel.

We’re talking Masquerades! Is it the Phantom of the Opera? Is it Amadeus? Is it Jude Deveraux’s The Raider? We don’t know but man we love a masquerade in a romance novel. We talk about the 3 to 5 different types of masks in romances, about why they’re catnip, about what they mean, and recommend a full grip of romances (mostly historical) for you to read. Enjoy!You can still get tickets to Fated Mates Live! Join us on March 24 in New York City with Tessa Bailey, Andie J. Christopher, Mila Finelli, Adriana Herrera, and Joanna Shupe! Amazing stories will be told, many laughs will be had, terrific books will be on sale, and there will be a bar! Get tickets now!Our first read along of 2023 (soon! we promise!) is Tracy MacNish’s Stealing Midnight—we’ve heard the calls from our gothic romance readers and we’re delivering with this truly bananas story, in which the hero is dug out of a grave and delivered, barely alive, to the heroine. Get ready. You can find Stealing Midnight (for $1.99!) at Amazon, B&N, Kobo, or Apple Books.

It feels like you can’t turn around these days without stumbling into a story that’s a little unsettling about technology and how we’re all living our lives in this post (sort of) pandemic world. Between Twitter dramz, TikTok explosions and the rise of AI, it’s a lot. So, it’s probably to be expected that we are talking about how technology is impacting romance novels. We’re talking about texting, about FaceTime, about podcasting, and yes…even about robots. If you can use it to fall in love, there’s a romance using it…and we’re recommending a few we really enjoyed. You can still get tickets to Fated Mates Live! Join us on March 24 in New York City with Tessa Bailey, Andie J. Christopher, Mila Finelli, Adriana Herrera, and Joanna Shupe! Amazing stories will be told, many laughs will be had, terrific books will be on sale, and there will be a bar! Get tickets now!Our first read along of 2023 (soon! we promise!) is Tracy MacNish’s Stealing Midnight—we’ve heard the calls from our gothic romance readers and we’re delivering with this truly bananas story, in which the hero is dug out of a grave and delivered, barely alive, to the heroine. Get ready. You can find Stealing Midnight (for $1.99!) at Amazon, B&N, Kobo, or Apple Books.Show NotesThis New York Times article called When the Novel Swiped Right doesn't mention a single romance novel, of course. But don't worry. We've got you. Sarah wrote about tech in romance back in 2019 in the Washington Post.We are very excited about Ted Lasso season 3, which premiers on March 15, 2023. This is a very nice little teaser is a masterclass in character work, but here’s the trailer.Also in the New York Times, this creepy article about interviewing the Microsoft Bing AI. Maybe that thing has love on the brain because Microsoft fed the AI a bunch of romance novels at some point. Seems legit. But then this New Yorker article came out and said that ChatGPT is just like a blurry jpeg, so everyone calm down.Match.com was invented in 1995, but it was the invention of the dating app a decade ago in 2013 that really changed the game. And if you’re famous, you can get on Raya.Kevin Costner is relevant again! Everyone, time to reread Perfect.The pager situation was wild, but Sky Pager is a truly great song by A Tribe Called Quest, off of The Low End Theory, one of Jen’s all time favorite albums. Poet Hanif Abdurraqib has written an entire book about A Tribe Called Quest called Go Ahead in the Rain for the fans out there.Watch this cute video about the guy who built a house for the frog living on his fence. And when it comes to the internet, cats rule and dogs drool.

Every once in a while, we decide we’re going to do an episode about books we just really really really like. Books we want you to really really really like. Is that episode usually in February? Does it coincide with Sarah’s book deadline? Don’t worry about it. This one is for the bantr girlies. We’re talking about books we loved so much on the first read that we wish we could reread them again for the first time. Please let us know if you try reading any of them for the first time…and when you do, tell us on Instagram and Twitter. Or Tumblr, where Eric is making fun new friends.NotesThe ReadsRomance family loves Toronto and we where there one year when it was so cold the the falls were kind of frozen? Science! Speaking of the Great Lakes, Lake Michigan is really big, and if you’re around in Milwaukee in the summer, you definitely want to check out SummerFest.Do you say lightning bug or firefly? This is really fun dialect quiz if you’ve never taken it before.Jen reallllllly wants to go see this exhibit about the Mayans at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, especially since she missed this one about the Mayan Codex at The Getty Museum in Los Angeles.If you are ever at the Art Institute, you can check out American Gothic, Nighthawks, and Nightlife by Archibald Motley—all in one room!I don’t know, invest in an art fund, I guess.Should we plan a Fated Mates outing to The Museum of Sex?The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2023/2/21/s0523-books-we-wish-we-could-read-again-for-the-first-time 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. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

Today, we’re welcoming KJ Charles to Fated Mates for our next Trailblazer episode! Known for her work helping to bring queer historical romance to the modern genre, KJ joins us to discuss historical romance, how it remains relevant in the modern world, her work centering queer characters and communities in romance, and the start of her romance career as an editor of Mills & Boon medical romances. We also talk about the arc of her career through early small press publishing, indie publishing, and now, as a traditionally published author. We hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we did, and we are so grateful to KJ Charles for joining us.Thanks to Kylie Scott, author of End of Story, and Lumi Labs, creators of Microdose Gummies, for sponsoring the episode. Visit microdose.com and use the code FATEDMATES for 30% off and free shipping on your first order.NotesK.J. Charles is a RITA nominated author of over 25 historical romance novels. You can preorder her upcoming novel, The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen, which will be released on March 7, 2023. KJ worked as an editor at Mills and Boon, and her blog is an excellent source for romance readers and writers.If you're looking for the "romance with a body count" infographics, click here.Authors mentioned: Mills & Boon author Alison Roberts, Mills & Boon author Marion Lennox, author Jordan L. Hawk, author Alexis Hall, author Talia Hibbert, author May Peterson, author Jackie Lau, author EE Ottoman, author Penny Aimes, author Kris Ripper, author Therese Beharrie, author Jeannie Lin, editor Anne Scott.Don’t miss our Band Sinister episode from last December.The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2023/2/14/s0522-trailblazer-kj-charles 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. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

It’s happening LIVE, in New York City! Join Jen, Sarah, and an absolutely fire lineup of special guests for a Fated Mates LIVE recording, in person, in Brooklyn. Time to book tickets, flights, and make plans to spend the weekend in NYC with your romance loving friends!The recording will take place Friday, March 24th from 7-9pm at the William Vale Hotel in Williamsburg, Brooklyn! A live episode extravaganza, the whole Fated Mates crew will be on hand for an episode with book recs, chats with some of our favorite people!Click here for tickets. Tickets are $60 and include a $10 credit from WORD Brooklyn, to be used at the pop up romance bookshop at the event. There will be a cash bar and lots of time to hang with other Magnificent Firebirds! If you are interested in staying the weekend at the William Vale, there is a small block of rooms availalbe. You must use this link for 20% off the regular king size room rate.

It’s Derek Craven Day 2023—empirically the best romance holiday of February—and we’re celebrating in traditional fashion by talking about why there are two types of Lisa Kleypas readers: The ones who think Derek Craven is the best hero, and the ones who are wrong. If you’ve been with us for any length of time at all, you know we are mildly obsessed with Lisa Kleypas’s heroes, her writing, the way she writes objects into her books as talismans of emotion, and the way she injects excellent romance directly into our veins every single time. This year, to celebrate this most high holy of romance days, we asked all of you to help us by filling up a Google spreadsheet with things other Kleypas heroes do in their books…because while St. Vincent and Winterborne will never get a holiday all to themselves, they’re pretty great dudes. Enjoy, friends. It’s -11 degrees on the East Coast, so we give you permission to hang out in bed all day and read a book by Lisa Kleypas. Our first read along of 2023 (in February) is Tracy MacNish’s Stealing Midnight—we’ve heard the calls from our gothic romance readers and we’re delivering with this truly bananas story, in which the hero is dug out of a grave and delivered, barely alive, to the heroine. Get ready. You can find Stealing Midnight (for $1.99!) at Amazon, B&N, Kobo, or Apple Books.