We’re tackling the novellas this week, and finishing up the Wroth Brother Quartet with The Warlord Wants Forever (Nikolai) & Untouchable (Murdoch), as well as their incredible Valkyrie mates.

This episode, we’re talking about Myst’s weird chain, Danii’s loneliness, the responsibility of authors to readers, to themselves, to the text, and to literary history, and the way Untouchable hints at the enormous world that IAD is about to become.

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In two weeks, we’re back to the Lykae, with one of our favorite books — Pleasures of a Dark Prince, the last book in the first arc of the IAD series (this begins at the same time as A Hunger Like No Other). Garreth MacRieve, prince of the Lykae clan and Lucia the Huntress — the greatest archer of all time.

Show Notes

• The Wroth Brothers are dreamy, and here are the books the feature Nikolai, Sebastian, Conrad, and Murdoch.
• Take a look at the IAD Ranking Spreasheet of Wonder from the Wicked Wallflowers Podcast.
• Sarah refers to our novella episode, but she means the Holiday Romances episode where we had a long discussion of the novellas as a form.
• Jen collected some comparison screenshots from the original (A) and revised (B) versions of The Warlord Wants Forever. The two versions of the scene after the chain is broken; The two versions of the first time they have sex; and the two versions of Nix naming herself.
• Dubcon romances have main characters who agree to sex play featuring "dubious consent."
• A little more about the versions of Whitney, My Love. You can still find original versions on eBay or Amazon, but you'll pay more for them.
• Jen mentions Eric Selinger at DePaul. He teaches classes on Romance at DePaul, which is local for her. SADLY, they don't have PhD programs. But you can read more academic romance talk at a blog called Teach Me Tonight.
• The Hello Stranger review at Smart Bitches calls out the Orientalism in the novel, and features Lisa Kleypas' response.
• The Memory Hole is a reference to 1984 by George Orwell.
• A little more about why sheikh and Native American romances are problematic.
• A definitive list of the qualities, skills, and powers of vampires in literature and pop culture. At some point, Jen's going to add IAD.
• Retcon stands for "retroactive continiuity" and here's a great primer about it from the best dictionary, Merriam-Webster.
• In two weeks, we'll be discussing Garreth & Lucia in Pleasure of a Dark Prince.

The Rest

• For even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2019/1/13/7-warlord-wants-forever-amp-untouchable
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