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?!” We tackled complicated relationships, shared history and the perfect fantasy of family that romance delivers so well.

Next week, we’re reading Joanna Shupe’s The Devil of Downtown, from her Uptown Girls trilogy. There are sisters! Also, it’s Jen’s favorite in the series and an absolute banger. Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple or your local indie.

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 1000 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 we do at patreon.com/fatedmates.

Show Notes

We’ve done twins, and we’ve done siblings’s best friend, but this time we’re talking about plain old siblings in romance. We’re definitely not talking about anything Tangled Lies adjacent this time.

If you want the deep dives we mentioned, they are Preferential Treatment, Gentle Rogue and Devil’s Bride.

Illinoise is playing on Broadway if you’re in New York this summer.

They’ll be a meet-up at Steamy Lit Con for us with our listeners, details coming soon!

There’s a dark romance podcast called Trigger Warning you might want to check out, and in case you want to read that romance with mummification but no cheating, it’s Dead Love by Audrey Rush

The Orphan X book with the evil killer siblings is Prodigal Son.

In case you have ever wondered about the provenance of the beloved Fated Mates phrase, “take the finger” this is an episode where Sarah talks about the book that inspired it.

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 series. Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple or your local indie.

If you love a fire hose of romance recommendations, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where 1000 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 we do at patreon.com/fatedmates.

Show Notes

Maybe men shouldn’t cover the WNBA, tbh.

All about The electric slide.

You can follow DodoTheBookBitch on Instagram; follow Sarah there to see the scratch-off TBR poster.

Jacque is one our romancelandia faves, and she has a Pride reading challenge for you all. RomanticallyInclined is on Threads reading books with fewer than 100 reviews all through June.

For reviews in advance of publication, your best bet is Kirkus (Jen reviews for them), but you can also try Booklist or Publisher’s Weekly. We also talked about NetGalley and Edelweiss to discover upcoming books.

If you’re in NYC, don’t miss the launch event for Liana de la Rosa’s Isabel and the Rogue next week! She’ll be at The Ripped Bodice with Sarah and Adriana Herrera…and Sophie Jordan will be there, too! Tickets and info here.

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 to the table…all that, and we’re naming the six historicals Sarah’s written with curvy heroines (There’s also a contemporary! Check the photo array, below). This one is a lot of fun.

Our next read along is Joanna Shupe’s The Devil of Downtown, from her Uptown Girls trilogy. It’s Jen’s favorite in the series. Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple or your local indie.

Happy anniversary to our founding Patreon members — May marks one year of our Patreon and our Discord! We love you a whole lot. Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as we do at patreon.com/fatedmates.

Show Notes

You can visit the Sleeping Beauties Exhibit at the Met, which sounds pretty fascinating, is there all summer through September 2nd.

All about smelling salts, Kardashian levels of rib removal which is called tight lacing, Each and Every brand deodorant, and retinol. If you’re interested historical fashion and lingerie, follow Cora Harrington on twitter, she wrote about corsets on her blog back in 2012. If you’re interested it watching a guy talking about cologne, here is link to Joshua Godfrey, the guy with the labyrinth tattoo and his journey.

If you loved Fury Road, you should read Blood, Sweat, and Chrome, which is the story of how the movie was made. Here’s a supercut of Tom Hardy grunting.

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 older ladies in books.

Thanks to all the women who provide care and sage advice out in the world. We appreciate you.

Our next read along is Joanna Shupe’s The Devil of Downtown, from her Uptown Girls trilogy. It’s Jen’s favorite in the series. Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple or your local indie.

Happy anniversary to our founding Patreon members — May marks one year of our Patreon and our Discord! We love you a whole lot. Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as we do at patreon.com/fatedmates.

Show Notes

Crush, the new apple ad is honestly so bleak, and the backlash was so extreme that they pulled the ad. Look how easily they could have made it cool, though.

The Matriarchy isn’t just a dream, as it turns out.

The Gaza Evacuation Fund Auction raised $160,000 and it’s not too late to donate to one of the funds of people trying to get to safety.

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 is romance fact. Don’t @ us with real life fact. We don’t want it.

Happy anniversary to our founding Patreon members — it’s one year of our Patreon and our Discord today! We love you a whole lot. Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as we do at patreon.com/fatedmates.

Show Notes

The tree thing about pollen and allergens is called botanical sexism (god it’s everywhere) and this claim, like all things, is complicated.

Defining the title of duke. What are the corn laws or the laws about chimney sweeps? You don’t really care—it’s just fossils.

The Reformed Rakes podcast had a recent episode about pregnancy.

The Unites States Congress is comprised of incredibly wealthy people.

In 2009, Tatler got 10 of the 24 living non-royal dukes to sit down for lunch. There’s a photo. It’s exactly what you would expect. This 2021 article from Tatler lists the 4 living single dudes that either are or will be a duke. Shoot your shot, ladies.

Question: has Sarah really written more dukes than fewer?
A Duke: Eleven Scandals to Start to Win a Duke’s Heart, No Good Duke Goes Unpunished, The Rogue Not Taken, A Scot in the Dark, The Day of the Duchess, Daring and the Duke, Heartbreaker, The Duke of Christmas Present, and A Duke Worth Falling For (9)

Not a Duke: Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake, Ten Ways to be Adored When Landing a Lord, A Rogue by Any Other Name, One Good Earl Deserves a Lover, Never Judge a Lady by Her Cover, Wicked and the Wallflower, Brazen and the Beast, Bombshell, and Knockout (9)

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 carry enormous secrets, the grovel, the heir, and about the threat of divorce motivating men toward being their best selves. Is this good marriage therapy? It is not. Is it good podcasting? It is.

We also want to thank the following publishers and authors for their incredible generosity in making sure that almost every attendee of the Live went home with a romance novel. We are so lucky to share Romancelandia with you: Avon Books, Ballantine Books, Blue Box Press, Dell, Grand Central/Forever, Gallery Books, Lauren Blakely, LJ Evans, Pippa Grant, Ana Huang, Parker S. Huntington & LJ Shen, Elle Kennedy, Avery Maxwell, Ava Miles, Max Monroe, Kathryn Nolan, Amari Nylix, Meghan Quinn, Piper Rayne, P Rayne, Stephanie Rose, Lucy Score, & TL Swan.

If you want more discussion of banana-pants romance, join our Patreon and get access to our Discord, where a thousand other listeners are hanging out and giggling all day long.

Show Notes

Read Kate Clayborn’s The Other Side of Disappearing, which is a beautiful road trip of a romance that does not have a marriage in trouble but does have a hero who is pure fire.

Sarah used to work for Susan Miller of Astrology Zone, so when she tells you that Mercury is in retrograde, you better listen. Even if it’s about The 2000 election

Like Jen, you may have thought the superhymen was a myth! But now you know better because of romance, Fated Mates Live, and Megan Frampton.

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 there is literally something for everyone in this big, beautiful romance pool.

We also want to thank the following publishers and authors for their incredible generosity in making sure that almost every attendee of the Live went home with a romance novel. We are so lucky to share Romancelandia with you: Avon Books, Ballantine Books, Blue Box Press, Dell, Grand Central/Forever, Gallery Books, Lauren Blakely, LJ Evans, Pippa Grant, Ana Huang, Parker S. Huntington & LJ Shen, Elle Kennedy, Avery Maxwell, Ava Miles, Max Monroe, Kathryn Nolan, Amari Nylix, Meghan Quinn, Piper Rayne, P Rayne, Stephanie Rose, Lucy Score, & TL Swan.

If you want more discussion of banana-pants romance, join our Patreon and get access to our Discord, where a thousand other listeners are hanging out and giggling all day long.