Season Four starts today, you Magnificent Firebirds!

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 books that made us the romance readers we are. Season Three was during a pandemic, so just let us live (but also, there was a Roy Kent episode)!

Now, Season Four is here, and we have — dare we say — a plan? We’re going to deep dive on books that are new and fabulous, old and transformative, and generally reveal how vast and magnificent the romance pool can get. We’ve got some great interstitials planned, including some fabulous, brilliant guests on deck…and when Munro is released, we’ll (obviously) drop everything and read with you!

But we’ve got something new and different to add to the mix — a collection of interviews with trailblazers of the genre—the people who have built the romance house over the last fifty years. We’re already blown away by who we have on deck, with many many more to come! Stick with us, it’s going to be a terrific ride.

Notes

• The only Fated Mates episode where one of us was absent was back when Sarah was sick and Kate came on to talk about sickbed scenes--It was March of 2020 and we weren’t as Coronavirus-aware as we thought.
• Keeping our fingers crossed that the FDA will approve the vaccination for kids between 5 and 12.
• Health care workers are facing increasingly hostile and frightening aggression from anti-vaxxers.
• We were ahead of the ball on calling Ted Lasso as a romance. You should follow Phil Dunster, the actor who plays Jamie Tartt, on Twitter. Last week, Roy and Jamie had a heartbreaking and perfect moment.
• All about gaffing and scatting.
• Hannah Waddingham is from the theater world, so maybe that’s why we didn’t realize her brilliance before this show. Apparently we just didn’t realize she was on Game of Thrones, which sounds terrible.
• Kresley sent a newsletter and let everyone know that she might have news this month about Munro and the next book in the Arcana chronicles.
• You can change the time zone of your Kindle, but I don’t think the books arrive any earlier.
• The Flame and the Flower was published in 1972. We will not do a read along of the book, but we will talk about its influence on the genre.
• Julie Moody-Freeman, host of the Black Romance Podcast, was a guest on Fated Mates at the end of season two.
• Here’s a New Yorker profile of Nora Roberts from 2009, and a People magazine story on Danielle Steel from 2014.
• Many of romance's writers and editors have already passed. Two we mentioned: Carolyn Nichols, the original editor for Loveswept, died in 2017, and legendary author Johanna Lindsey died in 2019.
• 24 ounces is a lot of fluid.
• Our first season four read-along will be Ravished by Amanda Quick.

The Rest

• For even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2021/9/13/s0401-welcome-to-season-four
• 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.