S03.36: Whiteout by Adriana Anders: You and Me Against the World

Explicit content warning

04/28/21 • 72 min

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Fated Mates - Romance Books for Novel People

This week, we’re tackling Romantic Suspense and reading one of our favorite books of 2020, Adriana Anders’s Whiteout! We talk about all the things romantic suspense has to nail (ha!) to knock it out of the park, why we would literally never be characters in a book set in Antarctica, and the wild feeling of reading a romantic suspense about a virus during a pandemic. Also Sarah talks about how much she loves Adriana Anders’s writing and recommends lots of backlist.

Next week, we’re back with an interstitial, and in two weeks, we’re reading Sarah’s favorite Sherry Thomas book —Ravishing the Heiress. Find it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, or Kobo.

Thank you, as always, for listening! Please follow us on your favorite podcasting app, and if you are up for leaving a rating or review there, we would be very grateful!

Show Notes

It’s tenterhooks, not tenderhooks.
Apparently Jen needs more sleep, or else it’s gonna be a real drag on future seasons of Fated Mates.
Jen tweeted about Whiteout a lot, put it on our Best of 2020 list, and even made a meme about it last week.
Reading a book about a virus during a pandemic is kind of wild!
Jen and Sarah are not campers, but we support you. We do like reading books about people doing extremely cold outside things: Into Thin Air, Into the Wild, and a new book on Jen’s TBR is The Next Everest by Jim Davidson.
Let Sandra Brown explain romantic suspense to you, and maybe you’d like to read Jack Reacher if you’re into that sort of thing.
We learned some things about Antarctica and staying warm while reading this book:
How cold did you say it was again?
Why are frostbite and hypothermia so dangerous?
How fast can you get hypothermia?
What would really happen to a penis in super cold weather?
What's the deal with the red puffy jacket?
What was all that other gear Angel and Ford had?

Thank you, as always, for listening! Please follow us on your favorite podcasting app, and if you are up for leaving a rating or review there, we would be very grateful!

Show Notes

It’s tenterhooks, not tenderhooks.
Apparently Jen needs more sleep, or else it’s gonna be a real drag on future seasons of Fated Mates.
Jen tweeted about Whiteout a lot, put it on our Best of 2020 list, and even made a meme about it last week.
Reading a book about a virus during a pandemic is kind of wild!
Jen and Sarah are not campers, but we support you. We do like reading books about people doing extremely cold outside things: Into Thin Air, Into the Wild, and a new book on Jen’s TBR is The Next Everest by Jim Davidson.
Let Sandra Brown explain romantic suspense to you, and maybe you’d like to read Jack Reacher if you’re into that sort of thing.
We learned some things about Antarctica and staying warm while reading this book:
How cold did you say it was again?
Why are frostbite and hypothermia so dangerous?
How fast can you get hypothermia?
What would really happen to a penis in super cold weather?
What's the deal with the red puffy jacket?
What was all that other gear Angel and Ford had?

Previous Episode

S03.35: Second Chance Romance Interstitial with Priscilla Oliveras

We’re thrilled to be joined by the wonderful Priscilla Oliveras to talk about second chance romance and her new book (out next week!), Anchored Hearts. We talk about our favorite second chance romances and dig into the Venn diagram of second chance, marriage in trouble, secret baby, childhood sweethearts, and one night stands. We also talk about the hard truths of face transplants, the way characters in romance have to do their own emotional work, and how we love it when they remember every bit of a kiss from a decade before.

Preorder the delightful Anchored Hearts at Amazon, B&N, Apple, Kobo or from your local indie.

Next week, we’re we’re reading a romantic suspense—Whiteout by Adriana Anders. Find it at Amazon (free in KU!), Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, or from your local indie. You can also get it along with our other picks for best books of 2020 as part of the Fated Mates pack from Old Town Books in Alexandria, VA!

Thank you, as always, for listening! Please follow us on your favorite podcasting app, and if you are up for leaving a rating or review there, we would be very grateful!

Show Notes

Welcome Priscilla Oliveras! Her next novel, Anchored Hearts comes out next Tuesday, April 27th. You can order signed copies (bookplates) with recipe cards from Love’s Sweet Arrow. The first in the series, Island Affair, has the fake relationship trope.

Key West things Priscilla mentioned: the half marathon in January, and the Cuban restaurant El Mason de Pepe.

This Goodreads list of second chance romance has over a thousand titles!

Operation Peter Pan moved over 14,000 unaccompanied minors from Cuba to the US between 1960-1962.

We think cliff diving might be a bad idea.

In Wild Card and The Highwayman, the heroine doesn't recognize the hero, but the absolute pinnacle of this is the 1997 movie Face/Off with John Travolta and Nic Cage. You honestly have to see it to believe it.

Theodosia is a name we all know from Hamilton. Aaron Burr married Theodosia Bartow Prevost, and it was an age gap romance! she was a decade older than he was. Their daughter Theodosia was their only child to survive to adulthood.

Here is a very nice video of NWSL players sliding on their knees after scoring goals.

That person you liked in high school? You're the one that got away, not the other way around.

Next week, we'll be discussing Whiteout by Adriana Anders.

Next Episode

S03.37: Widows in Romance

We’re toppling TBRs this week with widow romances! We’re talking widows of all shapes and sizes...from virgin widows who murder their husbands in old school historicals to modern-day widows who are looking for love because they know how good it can be. If widow romances are your thing, we’re about to make you very happy!

We’re also going to announce our next read along now, because it’s out of print (but available in audio!), so you will have to do a bit of a used bookstore hunt to get it! Get Anne Stuart’s truly bananas Tangled Lies at a used bookseller near you. We recommend checking Amazon, eBay & Thrift Books.

Thank you, as always, for listening! Please follow us on your favorite podcasting app, and if you are up for leaving a rating or review there, we would be very grateful!

Show Notes

Last week, we talked about Big Pharma, and if you want more of that, read Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe. It’s about the Sackler family and how they made billions on Oxycontin which was a huge factor in the creation of the opioid epidemic.

Daisy Jones and the Six is a great novel, and the full-cast audiobook is supposed to be amazing. The Reese Witherspoon book club is the definition of the full glow-up.

Sarah made some Maple Oatmeal Muffins, and maybe you want the recipe. Why food bloggers include some pre-recipe chatter.

The question of freshman year dorm room decoration is of new significance to Jen since Lil Romance will be heading off to college in the fall. Might we recommend a Pulp Fiction movie poster or some Absolut Vodka ads?

If we’re talking skyscrapers, meaning buildings over 150M (about 500 feet) tall, when this was recorded in April of 2021, Cleveland has 4, Denver has 7, Chicago has 127, and New York has 284. According to wikipedia, only nine cities in the world have over 100 buildings 150M tall. The other seven are Hong Kong (355), Shenzhen (289), Dubai (201), Shanghai (163), Tokyo (158), Chongqing (127), and Guangzhou (118).

Check out the Sassy Podcast and the Babysitter’s Club. No, not that kind of babysitter.

We love the movie Widows.

The merry widow is an opera and a kind of sexy lingerie.

We did an episode on Prisoner of My Desire with Joanna Shupe way back in season one.

Primogeniture laws are all about who inherits titles and money and estates, and wasn't changed in England until 2013.

Apparently there are lots of misconceptions about Arabian horses.

Mo...