3.5: Holiday Romance

It’s the Holiday Season™️, which means it’s time to talk about Holiday romances! Get ready because there are A WHOLE LOT of books in this show. Also, get ready, because next week, on December 26th, instead of releasing our Dark Needs at Night’s Edge episode, we’re releasing a bonus Ask-us-Anything episode as a special holiday present to you!

Our official IAD reread will resume January 2nd, with Néomi (ghost) & Conrad (vampire) and we have so. many. feelings. SO MANY.

Show Notes

- In case you're curious, here's where Jen learned to properly pronounce Therese Beharrie's name. Therese wrote 2 Christmas books this year: A Wedding One Christmas and Her Festive Flirtation, and Jen liked them both.

- Before Sunrise came out in 1995, a sequel Before Sunset in 2004, and a third Before Midnight in 2013. This New Yorker review is a perfect example of everything Jen hates when people review anything romantic, so hate-read it if you're in the mood.

- Jen completely got the name of that chapter book wrong, it's The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.

- Novellas are really common in romance, maybe more than other genres, and Jen anxioulsy awaits the think-piece explaining why.

- Speaking of novellas: The anthology of Chanukah stories that Sarah mentioned is called Burning Bright; Reindeer Games is an anthology of stories with the snowed-in trope; and in Silver Belles, all the characters are over 40.

- Sarah described the cover of A Holiday of Love as an example of a certain type of old-school book package. But just last year, A Christmas to Remember with Lisa Kleypas, Lorraine Heath, Megan Frampton, and Vivienne Lorret followed the same exact cover protocol.

- Epistolary novels are super fun to read (Jen's favorite is Where'd You Go, Bernadette, Sarah is--unsurprisingly--very pro epistolary romance; her favorite is Kleypas's Love in the Afternoon), but Jen's pretty interested in how they are changing in the age of the internet.

- All three of the books in the Men at Work series by Tiffany Reisz are delightful, but the Thanksgiving one is an absolute classic.

- Last year, Jen ranked Thanksgiving romances for The Book Queen.

- How the Dukes Stole Christmas is pretty great, and here's where Jen talked about Joanna Shupe's novella on twitter.

The Rest

• For even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2018/11/28/35-holiday-romances-interstitial
• 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.