Fated Mates - A Romance Novel Podcast

Jen and Sarah are together at last (again), and we’re taking your questions! Listen as we revisit some of our favorite past episodes of the podcast, as we discuss our favorite books with our least favorite tropes, and recommend a bunch of books that take the finger. We’re also talking about historical romance, and why it remains an absolute bop.

We're coming up on the end of Season 6 (what?! how!?), which means a deep dive of one of...

For the last few years, The Ripped Bodice bookstore has published a Summer Romance Bingo Card and this year, we're helping you win! With absolutely no prep, we're recommending books for every bit of the game, from Lost Treasure to Time Travel to the Olympics. Head to The Ripped Bodice's instagram feed to see the bingo card and get reading!

Books Mentioned

• Only and Forever by Chloe Liese
• A Novel Love Story by Ashley Post...

Who says it has to be Halloween to celebrate witches? It’s 2024 and frankly, we could do with a few more powerful, spell-casting women around here. We’re talking about our favorite witch romances, many of which (see what we did there) have nothing at all to do with spooky season! There are rumors of a new Practical Magic in the air, which (ope!) makes us extremely happy, and we’re just trying to decide which (!!!) of these fabulous...

We are talking about a full on banger this week — Joanna Shupe’s The Devil of Downtown, which is Sarah’s favorite of the Uptown Girls series (Jen is a The Prince of Broadway fan, but honestly, all three are basically perfect). We love this one so much, you’re about to get an hour or so of squeeing and sighing — Jack Mulligan is everything you could possibly want in a romance hero, Justine Greene is the do goodingest do gooder who e...

We’re talking about brothers and sisters as secondary characters in romance today — by popular demand from listeners, it’s our sibling episode! We get to the bottom of why we all love secondary siblings—the overbearing olders, the wild child middles, the delightful youngers, the equally handsome and broad shouldered boys, the snarky, stunning girls, and everyone else who’s ever caught our eye and made us say “now where’s there book...

School’s out for Jen’s summer and Sarah’s in the final stretch so we’re dreaming of romance beach reads and talking about our massive summer TBR piles! There’s something here for everyone — hot librarians, superheroes, heists, funeral homes, wedding planners and baseball players and F1 drivers and, of course, dukes.

Our next read along is Joanna Shupe’s The Devil of Downtown, from her Uptown Girls trilogy. It’s Jen’s favorite in the...

One of our most popular interstitial topics, we had to come back for a third run at Curvy Heroines this month in celebration of Bridgerton-mania online and our absolute delight that we finally get to see Penelope get that handsome man who is just back from his long trip to glow-up-land (we deserve nice things, and so do curvy heroines)! Sarah’s talking exclusively about historicals today, and Jen is bringing new-to-the-pod authors ...

Gather together your bouquets and boutonnières, wedding season is here! But, in typical Fated Mates fashion, we spend the first 20 minutes talking about Pulp Fiction (just go with it, these are the mysterious ways of the podcast and you just need to trust the process). Then, we’re talking weddings in romance novels—not the books where the main characters get hitched, but instead they are guests at a wedding. Maybe they’re fake dati...

We don’t often talk about secondary characters in romance, but this week, we’re talking about the women who provide wisdom, council and laughs in romance—moms, grandmothers and aunties! We talk about the shocking epidemic of orphaned main characters in romance, about how extended family provides nuance in the books, and about our very favorite mothers, grandmothers, aunties and adopted olde...

This one is for our historical lovers! We’re talking about everyone’s favorite title — Dukes! We get to the bottom of many duke questions, including: Why so many? Why are they always dukes? What’s wrong with princes? How do these guys make their money anyway? What’s with all the normies inheriting dukedoms? What about duchesses? And more! Please remember that everything we are about to say ...

For our forever favorite, Kate Clayborn, our third Fated Mates Live episode! During the absolutely delightful event (we had so much fun!), Kate selected an interstitial topic that we’ve never tackled, somehow? It’s time for Marriage in Trouble! We talk about the old school bones of the trope, with ingenue wives and the jaded heroes who have to crawl over glass for them, about marriages that...

Headphones in! This is not for beginners. Our second Fated Mates Live episode is live! During the event (which was so so fun we love every single one of you who came!), the fabulous Nikki Payne selected one of the most challenging interstitial topics we’ve ever tackled—Inanimate (and sentient!) objects! So! This one is very very odd, and filled with a number of recs that just prove that the...

This is the first of three episodes inspired by the incredible time we had at Fated Mates Live in Brooklyn. During the event (which was so so fun we love every single one of you who came!), we asked guests Nikki Payne, Kate Clayborn and Lauren Billings of Christina Lauren to choose an interstitial topic they would like us to tackle on the show. Lauren chose a great one: Exceptions to our ru...

This week, we’re talking about film adaptation and romance novels with Yulin Kuang, filmmaker and romance novelist. We discuss her work as both a screenwriter and director (she’s writing and directing the adaptation of Emily Henry’s Beach Read), and her debut romance novel, How to End a Love Story, set inside the writers room on a television show between the author of the books the show is ...

We’re finally diving into alpha submissive romance novels during this deep dive of Heather Guerre’s Preferential Treatment, one of Sarah’s best books of 2022. We’re talking about the way some romances do such immense work today—this one really digging into something that romance usually steers clear of…money. We know money and power are inexorably intertwined, but what does that really mean...

An absolute classic for a reason, we’re talking about Beauty & the Beast today — about the trope itself, about how the 1991 Disney movie brought it back to life (yes, we see you, Dain), and about why we love the vibe of scarred and broken men in a castle being found and renovated by whip smart, bookish heroines. Spoiler: It’s patriarchy.

If you j...

The cornerstone of the genre. The one thing that, when thrown into question, is guaranteed to enrage every corner of Romancelandia. We’re talking about Happily Ever After (HEA). Its promise, its importance, its relevance to us as readers, writers and people in the world. We talk about what really makes it hard won and deserved for us — which means yes, we’re talking about grovels and yes, w...

A classic among classics, we’re talking enemies to lovers this week! We get to the bottom of what we think of as “enemies,” and how it differs from “rivals-to-lovers” and “friends-to-enemies-to-lovers” and “friends-to-lovers” (jk, we’ll never understand friends-to-lovers). We revisit some of our very favorite romances, talk about stakes, about impossible situations, and about how sexy hatin...