Fated Mates - A Romance Novel Podcast

By Sarah MacLean & Jen Prokop

Society & Culture Arts Education

What's Fated Mates - A Romance Novel Podcast about?

The most listened to romance novel podcast, Fated Mates is co-hosted by bestselling author Sarah MacLean and romance critic Jen Prokop. Weekly episodes include romance novel read-alongs and lively discussions of the work of the genre, highlighting the romance novel as a powerful tool in fighting the patriarchy…with absolutely no kink shaming.

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S05.37: Fated Mates Live

05.31.2023

In March, we had the absolute best time with some of our favorite people at Fated Mates LIVE in Brooklyn! Here, for your enjoyment, is the recording of the wacky, wild night, which we spent with 250 Magnificent Firebirds, including: ...

Fated Mates - A Romance Novel Podcast episodes:

05.31.2023 S05.37: Fated Mates Live In March, we had the absolute best time with some of our favorite people at Fated Mates LIVE in Brooklyn! Here, for your enjoyment, is the recording of the wacky, wild night, which we spent with 250 Magnificent Firebirds, including: ...
05.24.2023 S05.36: The Best Kisses in Romance The Trailblazers conversations continue this week with the brilliantly talented Loretta Chase, who we adore, and not only because she wrote one of our favorite romances of all time. We obviously talk about Lord of Scoundrels and Jessica and Dain, ...
05.17.2023 S05.35: Trailblazer Loretta Chase The Trailblazers conversations continue this week with the brilliantly talented Loretta Chase, who we adore, and not only because she wrote one of our favorite romances of all time. We obviously talk about Lord of Scoundrels and Jessica and Dain, ...
05.10.2023 S05.34: Her Best Worst Mistake by Sarah Mayberry This week, we’re talking about one of our very favorite romance novels, Sarah Mayberry’s absolute banger, Her Best Worst Mistake. We talk about how enemies to lovers works best, about how POV changes the whole game with this particular trope, ...
05.02.2023 S05.33: Bingeable Romance Series After a number of conversations and requests, we’re talking about the best long-running romance series today! We’ve got something for everyone — paranormal, historical and contemporary — and we’re getting your long, lingering summer reading TBR sorted! We talk about ...
04.26.2023 S05.32: Runaway Brides in Romance It’s runaway bride week here at Fated Mates and we’re delightedly traveling down memory lane to talk Julia Roberts, Sally Field, the importance of significant lips for a proper mustache, and all the ways we love cold feet on the ...
04.19.2023 S05.31: Stealing Midnight by Tracy MacNish: A+ Fresh Finally, the read along we’ve been promising! We’re so excited to talk about Tracy MacNish’s Stealing Midnight, a gothic romance from 2008 that delivers what we here at the pod like to refer to as “the full banana.” We talk ...
04.12.2023 S05.30: Christine Feehan: Trailblazer This week, we’re sharing our fantastic conversation with trailblazer Christine Feehan, an undeniable force in the rise of paranormal romance in the early 2000s. We discuss the genesis of her work, the way she builds her far-reaching worlds, her relationship ...
04.05.2023 S05.29: Spring Romance Recommendations: Sarah & Jen fill your TBR We were together for the first time in a while, so we decided to record on Sarah’s couch! We answer questions from the audience at Fated Mates Live, recommend Spring romance novels, fill your TBR pile and bantr. It’s nice.
03.29.2023 S05.28: Women's Friendships in Romance with Sophie Jordan Sophie Jordan is back again! She’s got a new book out, The Countess, the first in her Scandalous Ladies of London series, featuring a true Regency squad full of scandalous ladies and answering the question: What if the Real Housewives ...
03.22.2023 S05.27: Teachers and Librarians in Romance Interstitial We’re talking about teachers and librarians in romance today, but don’t worry — not hot-for-teacher kinds of teachers and librarians (someday, Sarah will do that one on her own, maybe). Instead, we’re talking about romances with main characters who are ...
03.15.2023 S05.26: Dueling Interstitial with Chels: Duels are Never Having to Say You're Sorry Pistols at dawn, y’all! We’re talking about duels today — what they are, why they exist, who fights them, their rules and why they’re so darn sexy when they are really just silly. We’re taking our twenty paces alongside Chels_ebooks, ...
03.08.2023 S05.25: Masquerades Interstitial We’re talking Masquerades! Is it the Phantom of the Opera? Is it Amadeus? Is it Jude Deveraux’s The Raider? We don’t know but man we love a masquerade in a romance novel. We talk about the 3 to 5 different ...
03.01.2023 S05.24: Technology in Romance Interstitial It feels like you can’t turn around these days without stumbling into a story that’s a little unsettling about technology and how we’re all living our lives in this post (sort of) pandemic world. Between Twitter dramz, TikTok explosions and ...
02.21.2023 S05.23: Books We Wish We Could Read Again for the First Time Every once in a while, we decide we’re going to do an episode about books we just really really really like. Books we want you to really really really like. Is that episode usually in February? Does it coincide with ...
02.15.2023 S05.22: K.J. Charles: Trailblazer Today, we’re welcoming KJ Charles to Fated Mates for our next Trailblazer episode! Known for her work helping to bring queer historical romance to the modern genre, KJ joins us to discuss historical romance, how it remains relevant in the ...
02.08.2023 Fated Mates Live! It’s happening LIVE, in New York City! Join Jen, Sarah, and an absolutely fire lineup of special guests for a Fated Mates LIVE recording, in person, in Brooklyn. Time to book tickets, flights, and make plans to spend the weekend ...
02.04.2023 S05.21: That's So (Derek) Craven It’s Derek Craven Day 2023—empirically the best romance holiday of February—and we’re celebrating in traditional fashion by talking about why there are two types of Lisa Kleypas readers: The ones who think Derek Craven is the best hero, and the ...
02.01.2023 S05.20: Shifter Romance Interstitial: Manimals! You’ve been asking for a shifter interstitial, and we like to give you what you want. Today, we’re talking manimals! We go back to the beginning and touch on all the shifter/Lycae business that we dealt with in Season 1, ...
01.25.2023 S05.19: Homecoming Romance with Kate Clayborn Seven-timer Kate Clayborn returns to the Fated Mates studio (lol, jk there is no studio) to talk about about going home again in romance and to celebrate the launch of her new book, Georgie All Along, which you can get ...
01.18.2023 S05.18: Harlequin Category Romance Interstitial: The Romance Industrial Complex We don’t talk enough about category romances, and that is a big mistake. This week, we’re changing that — discussing the power of the category romance, the skill it takes to write one well, and the love we have for ...
01.11.2023 S05.17: Catherine Coulter: Trailblazer We’re thrilled to share our next Trailblazer episode this week—we had a great time talking with Catherine Coulter about her place in romance history as one of the earliest authors of the Signet Regency line—and the author who many believe ...
01.04.2023 S05.16: Snowed-In Romance Interstitial Happy New Year, Magnificent Firebirds! Our first episode of 2023 leans into winter — we’re talking snowed-in romances! What makes snowed-in different than forced-proximity? Why is snow different from other situational nature stuff? Why are so many of these stories ...
12.31.2022 S05.15: Omegaversity: Class is Now in Session with Ali Hazelwood and Adriana Herrera As is customary, we’re celebrating New Year’s Eve here on Fated Mates with some of our favorite people in a fully headphones-in episode! Pour yourself a drink and pull up a chair, because Omegaversity is in session with professors Ali ...
12.29.2022 BONUS: Sarah's appearance on Failure To Adapt Sarah recently joined Red Scott and Maggie Tokuda-Hall on their excellent Failure To Adapt podcast to discuss the Jane Austen’s Emma and Amy Heckerling’s Clueless. We thought you'd enjoy listening to it here, and they were gracious enough to let ...
12.25.2022 Bonus: We Wish You a Merry Christmas...and a Happy New Year of Books Happy happy holidays — our gift to you this weekend is a little bantr, a lot of book recs, and a wish that you get everything you want this holiday season, and throughout 2023. We’re so grateful for all of ...
12.21.2022 S05.14: Band Sinister by KJ Charles It’s our final read along of 2022, and we’re so excited to be talking about KJ Charles’s Band Sinister — one of Jen’s favorite books (she won the coin toss when we picked which of KJ’s books we were going ...
12.12.2022 S05.13: Here Comes Santa Claus It’s the Holiday Season™️ and for some reason 2022 Holiday Season has brought romance a sleigh full of Santa romance, which may or may not be a thing you’re into…but either way, here we are! Santa is doing all sorts ...
12.07.2022 S05.12: Twinterstitial: Twins in Romance TWINS! For two romance readers steeped in 80s romance mythology, it’s hard to believe that it took us five seasons to have an interstitial on twins (a Twinterstitial?)! Jen has a theory about a romance twin continuum and Sarah jumps ...
11.30.2022 S05.11: The Best Romance Novels of 2022 The Best Romance Novels of 2022! It’s the best and worst task of the year for us, because we read so many fabulous books over the course of the year, and choosing ten is hard for us, ok? But here ...
11.16.2022 S05.10: The Diamond Dogs Book Club: Romance Novel Recommendations for the Ted Lasso Cast Two seasons ago we promised an episode where we recommend romance novels for each of the characters in Ted Lasso. Sarah’s brother is holding us to it! This week, we’re filling the TBRs of every single member of the Richmond ...
11.09.2022 S05.09: Hold by Claire Kent: There is Nothing Soft in this Book We’ve talked about this week’s read along so much it’s kind of impossible to imagine that we haven’t read it with y’all, yet! But here we are, finally cracking open Claire Kent’s brilliant novella, Hold. Set on a prison planet, ...
11.02.2022 S05.08: Iris Johansen: Trailblazer Our Trailblazer episodes continue this week with Iris Johansen, who began writing category romance in the heyday of the format at Loveswept. During her varied career, she’s written categories, historicals and now writes thrillers and crime novels. In this episode, ...
10.26.2022 S05.07: Spooky Stuff! Halloween Romance Interstitial It’s spooky season and that means we’re reading spooky stuff! We recommend some of our favorite recent witches and demons and incubii and ghosts and vampires and others…and then we try to get to the bottom of why paranormal romance ...
10.19.2022 S05.06: Redemption Romance Interstitial with Christopher Rice In the very best version of “third time’s the charm,” we are finally welcoming Christopher Rice to Fated Mates! A man of many talents, he writes fabulous contemporary romances as C. Travis Rice, and suspense, crime and supernatural thrillers as ...
10.14.2022 Stop Book Banning: A Special Episode of Fated Mates In 2022, book bans in United States schools and libraries are at their highest since the ALA Office of Intellectual Freedom started collecting data. Bans are happening around the country, in every state, and disproportionately affecting books by and about ...
10.12.2022 S05.05: Moonstruck: A Wolf Without a Foot Redux! It’s our 200th Episode and we’re finally doing the thing we’ve been talking about doing for 200 episodes! A full deep dive into one of our favorite — or possibly our favorite! — romcoms…Moonstruck! Moonstruck was released December 18th, 1987, ...
10.05.2022 S05.04: What to Read If You Liked The Love Hypothesis... Today we start one of our new features for Season Five: If You Liked…Read This! We begin with Ali Hazelwood’s The Love Hypothesis, a book that took romance and BookTok by storm last year when it burst onto the NYT ...
09.28.2022 S05.03: Marrying Winterborne by Lisa Kleypas: A Professional Driver on a Closed Course It’s official! Sarah has broken the glass and taken Marrying Winterborne out of the vault and she has exactly as much to say about it as you expect! We’re talking perfect heroes, heroines who deserve to be revered, brilliant writers ...
09.21.2022 S05.02: Romance Novel Beginnings: Starting With a Bang! Not that kind of bang! We’re talking about beginnings today, on the first interstitial of Season 5! This one edges into a bit more writing shop talk than usual, but we’re still name checking lots of favorite books, many of ...
09.17.2022 Fated States is back! Fated States is back! Join Romance readers, authors, editors and more to phonebank for Democratic Candidates, Saturdays until Election Day! Play games, win prizes, talk romance, meet new friends, and save democracy!
09.14.2022 S05.01: Season Five! Romance World Domination! Season One gave us a full lAD deep dive (if you’ve never read Kresley Cole’s Immortals After Dark, general existential malaise is a really good reason to start), and Season Two gave us The Books That Blooded Us -- the ...
09.05.2022 Bonus! Fated Bosoms/Heaving Mates Crossover We’re still on our break (back next week!) but this week we have two episodes coming to your earholes! Today, we’re releasing our crossover episode with the brilliant Melody and Erin of the Heaving Bosoms podcast to talk Burn For ...
08.31.2022 Bonus! Fated Mates Live in Alexandria, VA We're on hiatus until September 14, when we'll start Season 5, but you won’t miss us, because this week, we have the recording of Fated Mates Live, our first-ever in-person live! Headphones in for this one, y’all. We were joined ...
08.24.2022 S04.49: Heartbreaker: Meet the Hell's Belles Sarah has a new book out, so as is tradition for our last episode of the season, Jen is playing host, and Sarah is playing guest, and we’re talking about journeys vs. quests, how being a romance heroine is political, ...
08.17.2022 S04.48: J. R. Ward: Trailblazer The final Trailblazer of Season 4 is a very excellent one—we’re welcoming JR Ward to Fated Mates! Best known as the author of The Black Dagger Brotherhood (a series that blooded Jen), JR began her career writing contemporary romances under ...
08.10.2022 S04.47: Antiheroines in Romance Interstitial It's our final interstitial of Season 4 and we’re talking antiheroines! If she’s a criminal, a grifter, a villain or a generally bad dude, we’re here for her, we support her, and we’re rooting for her to fall in love! ...
08.03.2022 S04.46: Two Girls, One Microphone, Headphones In: Sarah and Jen at Apollycon You’re getting the full banana this week, y’all, because we were together! Like, actually face to face, across a table in a hotel room! We’re talking Apollycon and Fated Mates Live, answering your questions, recommending fun books, and generally being ...
07.27.2022 S04.45: Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert This week, we’re talking about one of our (and many of your!) favorite recent contemporary romances, Talia Hibbert’s Get a Life, Chloe Brown. We’ve talked about Talia on a number of episodes before, and we’re so happy that our final ...
07.20.2022 S04.44: Daddy Romance Interstitial Four seasons in, we’re just throwing caution to the wind now. It’s Daddy week! Yes, that kind of daddy. No, it’s not for everyone, but it is for us and we’re talking about the whys and hows and wtfs herein. ...

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