Fated Mates - Romance Books for Novel People

• S07.47: Bodyguards

  It’s Bodyguard Romance week, which feels impossible, honestly, considering we’ve definitely done this before, haven’t we? According to Eric and also the internet, we haven’t, which means we get to talk for the first time in seven seasons about why Bodyguards work so well for so many romance readers, including us! We talk about the basics – the innate joy of having an Exasperated Man™️ willing to put himself in front of a bullet for you, the absolute delight of the books that turn the whole thing on its head and make the protector the protected, and yes, Whitney Houston. Also, Jen makes a brilliant observation on surveillance culture and how it’s impacting romance. We’re keeping you safe from the baddies this week. If you want more Fated Mates in your life, please join our Patreon, which comes with an extremely busy and fun Discord community! Join other magnificent firebirds to hang out, talk romance, and be cool together in a private group full of excellent people. Learn more at patreon.com. NotesIn a recent interview Kevin Costner talked about his feelings about Whitney Houston. Dolly Parton and Whitney Houston’s versions of I Will Always Love You, Whitney’s isolated vocals on How Will I Know, and Whitney sang the Star Spangled Banner at the Super Bowl in 1991 and the New Yorker article about it. Caroline has created a bodyguard collection featuring books across subgenres. The Big Easy is a movie with Dennis Quaid (he’s crazy now) and Ellen Barkin where he is a cop who uncovers corruption on the force. Everyone, it looks like this thing about not needing a PI license in the state of Wyoming is legit, go forth and spread the news. BooksPrincess by Galen FoleyHans by SJ TillyWyoming Bodyguard by Danielle HaasThe Wilde Ways Series by Cynthia EdenTough...

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• 07.46: Natural Born Charmer by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

  We're back with a deep dive episode on one of our favorite Susan Elizabeth Phillips books, Natural Born Charmer. Jen thinks this one marks SEP's Imperial Period, and Sarah looks askance at the term romcom to describe romance novels. We're back on our bullsh*t, is what we're saying. We're talking plot, character, risk-taking, and how romances can feel wildly expansive.This is our last deep dive of Season 7 -- more in Season 8, which begins in September. If you want to talk in depth about specific books, though, maybe you'd enjoy being a member of our Patreon, which comes with an extremely busy and fun Discord community! Join other magnificent firebirds to hang out, talk romance, and be cool together in a private group full of excellent people. Learn more at patreon.com. NotesYou can get Susan Elizabeth Phillips's Natural Born Charmer at Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Apple Books or wherever you get your books.In season 2, we did a deep dive of an earlier Chicago Stars book, Nobody’s Baby But Mine. We also did an episode with Susan in season 3. It’s the interview that made us realize we should keep interviewing romance trailblazers. Jen was on Learning the Tropes to talk about another SEP book, Kiss an Angel. In 2003, the song Hey Ya by Outkast was number 1 for 9 weeks at the end of that year and into early 2004. In 2018, Rolling Stone ranked the song #4 in the top 100 songs of the 21st Century So Far. This article from Spin describes what it means when an artist is in their imperial period. Sleazy Burt Reynolds guy.Almost Famous (2000) is amazing movie about the rise and fall of a 70s rock band. A great thing happened during the baby races halftime show last week at a Las Vegas Aces game last week. Also at the Indiana Fever game. SponsorsScarlett Xavier, author of Irish Fire and Forbidden

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• S07.45: Reading Down Under: Australian Romance Novelists

  By request (and because Sarah needed books for her upcoming trip), we're talking about romance novels by Australian authors this week, with a nod to some New Zealanders as well. We discuss how historical romance has much maligned Australia, recommend some absolutely terrific books, many of which we've actually done deep dives on, and we talk about why so many Australian romances hit the spot with American readers. If you want more Fated Mates in your life, please join our Patreon, which comes with an extremely busy and fun Discord community! Join other magnificent firebirds to hang out, talk romance, and be cool together in a private group full of excellent people. Learn more at patreon.com. Our next read along (next week!) is Susan Elizabeth Phillips's Natural Born Charmer. You can get it at Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Apple Books or wherever you get your books.NotesFrench Kiss is not available on streamers and it's very upsetting for those of us who know the deep magic of Kevin Kline & Meg Ryan.Australia is not the nation of criminals historical romance novels would like you to believe, but a lot of criminals did get sent there over an 80 year period from 1788-1868.Sarah is going to talk to the Romance Writers of Australia and the Romance Writers of New Zealand next month. Yes, she'll be going to Port Arthur in Tasmania to check out the place where all those criminals were sent.Victor Gadino illustrated the stepback for Dream Fever by Katherine SutcliffeMills & Boon is a British romance imprint, in North America these books are published under the name Harlequin. When Sarah talked about The Australians in the early years of Mills & Boon, she was wrong, and likely thinking of Diana Palmer's 1985 The Australian. The Australians series was a 12 book series in the early 2010s from Harlequin Presents. The book Raising the Stakes by Jess Dee is no longer available in Kindle, but maybe it is in other countries or maybe you downloaded it in the past? Check out her available titles here....

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• S07.44: Relentless Competence & Fixers in Romance

  It's been several years since the last time we talked about the allure of competency in romance, but it's a topic we adore, so here we are again, talking about characters with relentless competence and the characters who love them beyond measure. If you're new here, welcome! We're happy to have you!If you want more Fated Mates in your life, please join our Patreon, which comes with an extremely busy and fun Discord community! Join other magnificent firebirds to hang out, talk romance, and be cool together in a private group full of excellent people. Learn more at patreon.com. Our next read along is Susan Elizabeth Phillips's Natural Born Charmer. You can get it at Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Apple Books or wherever you get your books.NotesThe These Summer Storms tour is a wrap, ending with Sarah in conversation with Rebecca Baumann from the Lilly Library at the Mallow Run vineyard. That one movie with Keanu Reeves and a vineyard is called A Walk in the Clouds (1995). You can’t grow grapes anywhere, but you can grow them in a lot more places than you’d think. The Nora Roberts book about fossils called Birthright, and here’s the manga Dreaming of You. Look at all these editions of Wuthering Heights.The Airmont career series. Here’s a recent update on the search for Amelia Earhart’s plane from just a few weeks ago. Watch the video of Delta’s flight crew uniforms over time. Jen was interviewed by Lauren Sarner from the New York Post for an article about love triangles in pop culture because of the return of The Summer I Turned Pretty. Ranger vs Morelli has been going on for far too long, or maybe it’s over?We last...

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• RERUN: S06.09: Sports Romance with Jessica Luther

  In honor of tonight's WNBA all-star game, we're releasing our delightful Sports Romance episode from 2023: It’s another sports interstitial! We’re talking sports, balls & sports balls with the brilliant Jessica Luther, sports romance lover, podcaster, and author of Unsportsmanlike Conduct: College Football and the Politics of Rape and Loving Sports When They Don't Love You Back: Dilemmas of the Modern Fan. Everyone came to this one with their own strategy, so we’re talking everything from beach volleyball to hockey, surfing to F1. Of course, we talk about Beckham, but surprisingly, we don’t even say Jurgen Klopp one time. For the full list of books we discussed, visit fatdmates.net.NotesWelcome Jessica Luther. You can read her books, Unsportsmanlike Conduct: College Football and the Politics of Rape and Loving Sports When They Don't Love You Back: Dilemmas of the Modern Fan, or listen to her (on hiatus) sports podcast Burn it All Down. Her dissertation is about Retha Swindell and the first integrated women’s basketball team at UT, and she recently wrote about the 50th anniversary of "The Battle of the Sexes."WNBA stuff we talked about: Teresa Weatherspoon is the new head coach for the Chicago Sky, Allie Quigley and Courtney VanderSloot, Dawn Staley supporting her players, and the WNBA pandemic bubble, and that dumb man who thinks a high school boys basketball team could beat a WNBA team, which by the way dumb men have been saying this about the WNBA for a long time.Football stuff we talked about: Taylor Swift has caused a spike of interest in the NFL, the SNL skit with the football players, women on TikTok getting their husbands to say that Taylor Swift is putting Travis Kelce on the map, the

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