Fated Mates - A Romance Novel Podcast

It’s 2021, and we’re back on the reading train with one of Sarah’s favorite erotic romances ever, Alexis Hall’s For Real. We dig into sex on the page, how sex and identity work together to make an erotic romance an erotic romance, power dynamics, and the difference between fear & risk. Enjoy!

You still have time to buy the Fated Mates Best of 2020 Book Pack from our friends at Old Town Books in Alexandria Virginia, and get the seven traditionally published books on the list, a Fated Mates sticker and a candle from the bookstore! Order here!

Thank you, as always, for listening! If you are up for leaving a rating or review for the podcast on your podcasting app, we would be very grateful!

Next week, we’re returning to Curvy Girls for an interstitial, and then we’re headed on to Naima Simone’s Blackout Billionaires series! In order, the books are: The Billionaire's Bargain, Black Tie Billionaire, and Blame It on the Billionaire. Find them at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, or Apple Books.

Show Notes

We won Georgia, but then white supremacist terrorists attacked the Capitol. If you want to talk to your kids, here are some suggestions from Facing History and Ourselves, this is a resource for teachers but I think any parent with tweens and teens will find it helpful. If you have little kids, Jen’s friend Elisa is a children’s librarian and recommend the books When a Bully is President and What We Believe: A Black Lives Matter Principles Activity Book.

Answering machines don’t exist anymore. (Well, they probably do, but no one we know uses them.)

For Real won the 2016 RITA for Best Erotic romance, and Alexis Hall wrote a blog entry about it.

Fear vs. Risk, the short version. Or maybe you want to read whole book about fear, called Nerve by Eva Holland. Jen knows Eva from another online space, but they've never met in person.

Bluebeard’s attic had some things Jen had to google.

Eric Selinger is a romance guy, but also a poetry guy at DePaul. Jen took a workshop with Eric a million years ago (before she started doing romance stuff), and the guy who said “poetry is a laboratory for sentences” was poet Baron Wormser, author of the best book Jen’s ever read about teaching and learning poetry, A Surge of Language.

Jen was thinking about what happens when romance authors are forced to read the sex scenes instead of the feelings scenes, like when Stacey Abrams on Stephen Colbert.

Sarah talked about chastity belts at the end, and we here at Fated Mates strongly advise against giving the internet the power over your chastity belts and cock cages. SAFETY FIRST!

Derek Craven Day is coming, do you have you merch ready? T-shirts and...

Happy Derek Craven Day!

We’re wearing our t-shirts and buttons, and spending a whole lot of time talking about what Derek Craven would and wouldn’t do with one of our very favorites — Kate Clayborn. Thanks to everyone who played our silly Derek Craven games this year — don’t forget to visit our Derek Craven Day page for charts, graphs and hilarious memes made from your submissions! Also, if you haven’t read Dreaming of You, now’s your chance to get it at a special Derek Craven Day price — $2.99!

We love you, and we’re thrilled we can celebrate this, the best of all holidays, with you.

Next week, we’re back to our regularly scheduled programming with Naima Simone’s Blackout Billionaires series (With a little Derek Craven Day excitement in there, too!) In order, the books are: The Billionaire's Bargain, Black Tie Billionaire, and Blame it on the Billionaire. Find them at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, or Apple Books.

Show Notes

Here's the history of Derek Craven Day in tweets, but also our mantra: there are 2 kinds of Lisa Kleypas readers.

Jen was shitposting about Kleypas heroes.

Mary Jane Wells and Rosalyn Landor are great audiobook narrators.

It’s not Talk Talk, it’s TikTok.

All About fabric and paper scissors.

No one should test the patience of Nora Roberts, part 231.

Kate has strong feelings about Irish Spring.

Don’t ever reply all.

In case you need an explainer of what happened with Reddit and the stock market last week. We think Derek Craven would enjoy this story.

Why backup cameras were invented.

They say you can't buy your way onto the Bestseller lists, but it's been done.

Kate's question about romance heroes and Halloween.

Lisa Kleypas revealed the cover for her new book, Devil In Disguise, today. Take a look!

There aren’t many recent romances you can point to and categorically label as game changers, but Sally Thorne’s The Hating Game definitely fits this bill. We talk about all the ways we love it, about sparkling dialogue and witty writing and what makes a romcom and how this book changed the cover game for a generation of romance. Oh, and yes, we get to the bottom (jk, there is no bottom) of Jen’s issues with first-person present.

You still have time to buy the Fated Mates Best of 2020 Book Pack from our friends at Old Town Books in Alexandria Virginia, and get the seven traditionally published books on the list, a Fated Mates sticker and a candle from the bookstore! Order before December 5th for Christmas delivery!

Thank you, as always, for listening! If you are up for leaving a rating or review for the podcast on your podcasting app, we would be very grateful!

Next week, we’ve got an interstitial, and the following week, in advance of the launch of the Bridgerton series on Netflix, we’re reading Sarah’s favorite Julia Quinn novel, The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever. Get it at Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Apple or at your local indie via bookshop.org.

Fated States

We were really thrilled to be interviewed by Kelly Faircloth for her article about How Romance Novelists Are Mobilizing Voters in Solidarity With Stacey Abrams.

Show Notes

The Hating Game was a juggernaut and will soon be a movie.

Bridget Jones’s Diary came out in 1996 and the movie came out in 2001.

Enemies to Lovers is a completely beloved romance trope. Rivals to lovers lives within the larger trope and is very fun because it is often a perfectly matched pair on an even playing field. Sarah wrote Brazen & the Beast after being inspired by The Hating Game.

Here’s what we mean when we say situational comedy.

What is the plural of arch-nemesis?

Jen hates present tense, but of course everyone should write what’s right for them.

Is it chick lit or is it women’s fiction? Why do these labels even exist? Just go back and read The Girl’s Guide to Hunting and Fishing or Good in Bed by Jennifer Weiner.

We don’t talk about voice that much, but maybe we should.

There was a short lived Harlequin chick lit line called Red Dress Ink in 2001.

Here’s what Jen teaches her kids about characterization.

The Slate article about interiors and a very thorough r...

This week, we’re thrilled to be joined by the fabulous Sophia Benoit, sex columnist for GQ magazine and romance novel lover! We talk about romance, about why it’s so hard to talk about sex in the world, about the books Sophia has written and is planning to write, and about Jimmy Butler. Because, obviously.

Happy New Year!

Next week is our first read along of 2021, Alexis Hall’s For Real! Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, or Kobo.

Show Notes

Welcome GQ sex columnist, Sophia Benoit. She’s absolutely great on twitter and writes an amazing advice column, which is available as a Substack. Her book of essays, Well, That Was Exhausting will be out in the summer of 2021.

The Sex and the City reference, of course, it to Carrie Bradshaw’s job as a dating columnist.

Captain Sit on my Face.

America has a sex education problem.

Lollapalooza is very fun and the music is great and every time she’s attended, it has made Jen feel like she’s a million years old.

Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina has a famous first line, but the rest of it is very long.

HoCo, FauxCo, and Prom is Cancelled.

If you’re looking for paranormal, all of season one is a read-along of the Immortals After Dark series by Kresley Cole.

The Tom Selleck and Burt Reynolds mustaches of the 80s were quite a thing. And if you look at the original covers of romances from that time, you'll see them in action.

Wigs were big in the 1700s.

Reddit’s Am I the Asshole (AITA) is a cultural touchstone for so many people.

We are adding Jimmy Butler to our list of favorite athletes, which started with Jurgen Klopp. Here is a bunch of Jimmy Butler information for you: about the trade from The Bulls, about his minivan, about his love of country music, about his coffee company, about his teamwork, and about his fashion sense. The third member of the Fated Mates sports team is Ted Lasso.

Next week, we’ll be reading For Real by Alexis Hall.

WELCOME 2021!

As is customary on Fated Mates, we’re releasing a special New Year’s Eve episode that requires headphones if you’re in mixed company! We brought some of our most favorite people together for a very special crossover episode of Fated Mates and Andie J. Christopher’s Instagram TV Juggernaut: Drunk Romance History, during which we drink a delightful mix of alcohol and talk about a delightful mix of erotic romance by the queen of the quick and dirty novella—Jessa Kane.

We’re talking priests and daddy kink, mafia hitmen, billionaires, husky heroes, stepbrothers and what Joanna Shape refers to as the Kane-Trope-Wheel. Tracey Livesay has a mug with penises on it. Bring in 2021 right. (Also, if you, like Joanna and Jen have read all of the Jessa Kane’s, no worries! She released a new one today—BURLY—just in time for this episode! Shero!)

Head over to Andie’s IGTV channel for the video version.

Next week, we have a special guest episode, and in two weeks, our first read along of 2021, Alexis Hall’s For Real. Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, or Kobo.

Show Notes

One more chance for phone-banking is Monday 1/4/2021 at 5pm central.

Listen to last year's New Year's Eve epsiode on Pegging with special guest, Sierra Simone!

Have we mentioned Drunk Romance History on Andie's Instagram?

We are joined today by our friends: Andie Christopher, Alexis Daria, Adriana Herrera, LaQuette, Tracey Livesay, Nisha Sharma, and Joanna Shupe.

Get Tracey's penis mug here.

Normalize sex toys. Today's guests are big fans of LELO products and recommend: The Ora2, The Sona2, and The Gigi2.