Fated Mates - Romance Books for Novel People

Why is photography so hot? We’re tackling this question this week, talking about why romance novels featuring photographers work so well and push so many sexy buttons. We’re talking about characters who notice, about characters who are patient, and about characters who carry sexy bags around the world. We’ve got storm chasers, nature photographers, CSI photographers, about darkrooms on boats and even historical nudes! You’re going to have a great time.
If you want to talk more about your favorite romances that feature photographers, or about romance in general, come join our Patreon! You’ll get an extra monthly episode from us and access to the incredible readers and brilliant people on the Fated Mates Discord. Learn more at fatedmates.net/patreon.
Our next read along is Sarah’s A Rogue By Any Other Name, the first in her casino series. This is one we’ve gotten a bunch of requests for, and so, it will be our final read along of the season. Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books or wherever you get your books.
Books
A Duke Worth Falling For by Sarah MacLean
Best of Luck by Kate Clayborn
Chase me if You Can by Heather Frances
Lay it Down by Cara McKenna
My Dirty Duke by Joanna Shupe
To The Ends of the Earth by Elizabeth Lowell
Taming Teddy by Lucy Lennox
Flight by Laura Griffin
Three Dirty Secrets by Nikki Sloan
Managed by Kriste

Notes
The WNBA all star game was pretty fun, and Sky player Sydney Taylor is both very beautiful and very good at basketball.
Wicker the movie trailer, and our Sentient Object episode.
Jen had a throwaway line about how “AI has ruined everything” in photography, but just like with everything else, that’s a real concern.
Up Close and Personal (1996) is a movie with Robert Redford and Michelle Pfeiffer about television journalists.
According to this timeline from Harvard about the history of photography, the first surviving permanent photograph dates back to the 1820s, but most people probably think of the daguerreotype, invented by Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre in 1839.
Um, in case you need to know what a darkroom is.
There is a chain of 7 barrier islands in Texas on the Gulf of Mexico, Padre is probably the most well-known.

The Rest
For even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2026/8/3/s0846-photographers-in-romance-books
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 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 you do at patreon.com/fatedmates.
Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough.
If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

Show Notes
Roy Kent screensaver video
Diamond Dogs Book Club

The Rest
For even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2021/12/30/s0417-roy-kent-redux#notes
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 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 you do at patreon.com/fatedmates.
Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough.
If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

We’ve been talking about the end (almost end) of this one since we started the podcast, so it seemed high time we did a deep dive on it! Judith McNaught’s Perfect is the most 90s thing we’ve ever read, so gird your loins for both the best all-is-lost scene in romance, and also Zach, Julie, prison breaks, illiteracy, the Coors corporation, Romance Cashmere, and so so many references to Kevin Costner. It’s the most 90s thing we’ve ever read, without question.
If you want to talk more about Perfect or Judith McNaught, or about romance in general, come join our Patreon! You’ll get an extra monthly episode from us and access to the incredible readers and brilliant people on the Fated Mates Discord. Learn more at fatedmates.net/patreon.
Our next read along is Sarah’s A Rogue By Any Other Name, the first in her casino series. This is one we’ve gotten a bunch of requests for, and so, it will be our final read along of the season. Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books or wherever you get your books.
Books
Perfect by Judith McNaught
A Kingdom of Dreams by Judith McNaught
Remember When by Judith McNaught
Double Standards by Judith McNaught
Tender Triumph by Judith McNaught

Notes
Jen said Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead but she meant Adventures in Babysitting, which was a 1987 movie where suburban kids go on a terrifying adventure in the terrifying big city of Chicago.
We did a deep dive of A Kingdom of Dreams in Season 2.
Kelly Faircloth sent Sarah an ad for the book from People Magazine. In print versions of the book, there was a letter from Judith McNaught explaining the literacy plot in the book.
Interestingly, the Coors literacy push was covered by the New York Times in 1992, discussing the push by big companies to adopt a cause and use it to burnish their image.
Okay, apparently fleece also had a bellwether year in 1993, but let’s be honest, it was Old Navy who made performance fleece happen for most of us and that was 1998.
In America, our access to Abortion is much worse than it was in 1993 and America still has a devastating epidemic of suicide among queer teenagers, as The Trevor Project explains “LGBTQ+ young people are not inherently prone to suicide risk because of their sexual orientation or gender identity but rather placed at higher risk because of how they are mistreated and stigmatized in society.”

Sponsors
Frayed Pages by Wattpad Books, publishers of EM Wilson’s Breakup for Two, available in print or ebook at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, or wherever you get your books.
Meghan Quinn, author of Just for the Plot, available in print, ebook and audiobook, or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.
Kylie Scott, author of Runaway Rockstar, available in print or ebook at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, or your local independent bookstore.
E.W. Andersen, author of the Midnights on the Square series. Available in print or ebook at at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, or wherever you get your books.

The Rest
For even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2026/7/28/0845-judith-mcnaughts-perfect-content-warning-the-90s
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 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 you do at patreon.com/fatedmates.
Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough.
If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

Just revisiting an old fav as we approach season four of Ted Lasso.
Show Notes
Diamond Dogs Book Club

The Rest
For even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2021/7/18/s0348-is-roy-kent-a-romance-hero-the-ted-lasso-interstitial#notes
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 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 you do at patreon.com/fatedmates.
Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough.
If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

The last few years have brought a wave of romances with magical elements—not really paranormal, not really witches, not really contemporary — books where something is just slightly ✨magic✨. Today, we’re talking about those books, how they work, what they’re saying, and how they work in terms of character, plot and POV. We’re also discussing how the books exist on the outer edges of the romance pool.
If you want to talk more about these speculative romance novels, or about romance in general, come join our Patreon! You’ll get an extra monthly episode from us and access to the incredible readers and brilliant people on the Fated Mates Discord. Learn more at fatedmates.net/patreon.
Our next read along is an old school contemporary, Perfect by Judith McNaught. Sarah says it has the greatest all-is-lost moment in romance history. Read it to find out if she’s right. Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books or wherever you get your books.
Books
A Love Song for Ricki Wilde by Tia Williams
My Date with a Pair of Gray Sweatpants by Cassie O. Peia
The House of Now and Then by Edward Underhill
Do Your Worst by Rosie Danan
Every Version of You by Natalie Messier
The Night Island by Jayne Ann Krentz
The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston
The Someday Garden by Ashley Poston
Losing Sight by Tati Richardson
Struck Speechless by Tati Richardson

Notes
This year’s men’s World Cup actually broke the Own Goal record with 14 of them. Get ready for the Women’s World Cup in Brazil next year in 2027! So these English fans made up a bunch of chants for a regular player, which is very charming. Speaking of soccer, Mamdani continues to show us all that politicians can just…help make people’s lives better?
Here’s a handout Jen uses to teach the three genres that fall under the speculative fiction umbrella, and why magical realism isn’t a catch-all or synonym for any writing with speculative elements.
The pink dress question: how do you decide if your characters need to heal themselves in order to fall in love, or if falling in love is what heals them?
Matthew Rhys and Matthew Macfadyen are in fact different people, but everyone’s watching Widow’s Bay.

Sponsors
Lumi Gummies. Go to lumigummies.com and use code FATEDMATES for 30% off your order.
Lucy Score author of The Dead Guy Next Door, the first in the Riley Thorn series, available in print, ebook and audiobook, or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.
Harpercollins, publishers of Sleuths, by Samantha Moody, available in print, ebook and audiobook at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, or your local independent bookstore.

The Rest
For even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2026/7/5/s0843
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 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 you do at patreon.com/fatedmates.
Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough.
If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.