Our favorite person, Kate Clayborn, is back with us to wrap up the Game Makers series with THE PLAYER! Join us as Sarah explains all the ways that the damaged hero works for her (Spoiler: It’s Every Single Way), Kate digs deep on Kresley’s liberal use of punctuation, and Jen admits that Sarah was right all along.

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We’re getting down to the wire with IAD, but because we’re completists, we’re tackling the Dacians in two weeks with a two-for-one episode featuring both of these Lothaire spinoff stories, Shadow's Claim (featuring demon-sorceress Bettina and Dacian assassin Trehan) & Shadow's Seduction (featuring Caspion the demon and Mirceo the vampire prince)!

Show Notes

• Wecome back, Kate!
• The Grassy Knoll isn't much of a knoll, anymore. But if you're ever in Dallas, check out the Sixth Floor Museum.
• This kind of teabagging does not appear on the Clayborn Scale.
• YA Author Carrie Ryan has smart things to say about first person and scary things to say about zombies.
• Famous for having a big reveal: The Usual Suspects, The Sixth Sense, and The DaVinci Code. Not famous for a big reveal: Meet Joe Black.
• We should have asked Adriana Herrera about Dimitri's trauma.
• Rocky was also a self-made man, and you cannot even convince Jen that the person who invented CrossFit didn't rapturously watch this a million times.
• Dryer's English is a book that all the writing nerds had a pre-order, and he has strong opinions about exclamation points, but absolutley nothing to say about sexclamation points.
• Everyone loves foreshadowing.
• But in romance, no one loves an unreliable narrator.
• Jen recommends the YA novel One of Us is Lying, or you could kick it old-school and watch Roshomon.
• Pre-order Brazen and the Beast! and Love Lettering! And read Jen's interviews with Reese Ryan and Marie Tremayne and Robin Lovett on Kirkus.
• In two weeks, we're back to IAD with the Dacian two-fer: Shadow's Claim & Shadow's Seduction!

The Rest

• For even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2019/6/27/17-the-player
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• If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.