Fated Mates - Romance Books for Novel People

As they say on the Discord, this year’s theme is…Themes! This week, we’re talking about hammers, nails, drills, pipes and more — literal characters who are wielding literal (and metaphorical) tools! We’re hopping in the wayback machine to talk about books from the 00s and early 10s, on a continuum of content from “oh this has a whole plot” to “here’s a great one-handed read.” We’ve got plumbers, blacksmiths, contractors and a sentient screwdriver…there is literally something here for everyone.
If you’d like to come over and talk about romances, with or without tools (jk, they all have tools), please join us on the Fated Mates Discord, where you’ll find a few thousand other listeners who love talking about these books we love. You also get one extra episode a month from us!
Fated States, our democratic phonebanking initiative begins this week! We’ll be calling Texas to get out the vote for James Talarico and Gina Hinojosa! There will be games, prizes and special guests! Learn more and register to phone bank with us at fatedmates.net/fatedstates.
Books
Roller Girl by Vanessa North
The Scoundrel Falls Hard by Sophie Jordan
Under Construction by Kate Cole
Laying Pipe by Kiki Clark
The Carpenter by Ramona Gray
Entwined by Kristen Callihan
Caulky by KM Neuhold
Hard Time by Cara McKenna
Kate’s Crew by Jane Rylon
Laid by Brill Harper
Screwed by CD Reiss

Notes
This Saturday, we’re calling Texas to get out the vote for James Talarico and Gina Hinojosa at 1pm eastern time! Learn more and register to phone bank with us at fatedmates.net/fatedstates.
Some books about unions and unionizing: Make Room for Love by Darcy Liao, and the 1984 Harlequin American Romance was The Third Time by Rebecca Flanders. Our listener Sylvia suggested two others: Don’t Forget to Smile by Katherine Gillis Seidel and Here Be Dragons by Jenny Redford. These titles are also in the photo array above!
We did have an episode about renovation romance with Nikki Payne back in season 6 and one on quick and dirty reads back in season 2.
Unfortunately, it seems Entwined by Kristen Callihan is no longer available for sale. Sorry, everyone!
Samhain and Elora’s Cave were two early erotic romance publishers that closed and we’ve lost a lot of information about these publishers and their backlist of titles and authors.

Sponsors
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, publisher of A.T. Qureshi’s Rider of Dragons, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, or wherever you get your books.
MJ Hastings’s Firstborn, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, or wherever you get your books.
LJ Andrews, author of The Stolen Crown preorder now in print, ebook or audiobook at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books 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/2026/9/21/s0903-carpenters-plumbers-and-other-metaphorical-romance-jobs
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.

This is a fun one! We’re talking romance novels with numbers in the titles today, a wide collection of books from zero to infinity! While we came prepared to talk about four or five books each, we ended up playing a little impromptu game where we name books for every number we can. We haven’t reread most of these, but you’ll hear that there are a few peppered through here that we were prepared to talk about. We had a great time, and hope you do.
If you’d like to come over and talk about romances, with or without numbers, please join us on the Fated Mates Discord, where you’ll find a few thousand other listeners who love talking about these books we love. You also get one extra episode a month from us!
Fated States, our democratic phonebanking initiative begins this week! We’ll be calling Georgia to get out the vote for Jon Ossoff and Keisha Lance Bottoms! There will be games, prizes and special guests! Learn more and register to phone bank with us at fatedmates.net/fatedstates.
A Number of Books
Below Zero by Ali Hazelwood
Zero to Sixty by Marie Harte
It Happened One Summer by Tessa Bailey
One and Only by Jenny Holiday
Party of Two by Jasmine Guillory
Goldie and the [three] Bears by Hannah Murray
Three Dirty Secrets by Nikki Sloan
Three Way Split by Elia Winters
Party of Three by C. Travis Rice
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
Five Brothers by Penelope Douglas
Six by Opal Carew
Holiday for Six by Kelly Finley
Seven Secrets of Seduction by Anne Mallory
The Seven Rings by Nora Roberts
The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston
Seven Days in June by Tia Williams
Chasin’ Eight by Lorelai James
Eight Nights of Flirting by Hannah Reynolds
Eight Seconds to Ride by Ashley James
The Hell’s Eight Series by Sarah McCarty
Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake by Sarah MacLean
Ten Ways to Be Adored When Landing a Lord by Sarah MacLean
Ten by Roxie Riveria
Ten Hammers by Liz Archer
Eleven Scandals to Start to Win a Duke’s Heart by Sarah MacLean
Twelve Nights by Hope Tarr
A Duke a Dozen by Shana Galen
Cowboys by the Dozen by Tina Leonard
Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler
Fifty Shades of Gray by EL James
52 Reasons to Hate my Father by Jessica Brody
99 Percent Mine by Sally Thorne
To One Hundred by Melissa Blue
The 1001 Dark Nights Series
3000 Reasons to Act by Jamie P Bradley
10,000 Hours with a Rich Menace by Jahquel J.
How to Marry a Millionaire Vampire by Kerrilyn Sparks
The Blackout Billionaire Series by Naima Simone
Infinite by Corinne Michaels
Love Times Infinity by Lane Clark
An Infinite Love Story by Chanel Cleeton

SPONSORS
Harpercollins, publishers of Laurie Gilmore’s Big Bad Wolf, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, or wherever you get your books.
Orbit Books, publishers of Rachel Gillig’s The Knave and the Moon, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, or wherever you get your books.
Little, Brown & Company, publishers of Elin Hilderbrand & Shelby Cunningham’s The Thoroughbreds, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, or wherever you get your books.
Union Square & Co., publishers of Morgan Elizabeth’s Meet Cute Magic, available in print, ebook or audiobook at Amazon,

Nine seasons of talking about romance, and no signs of quitting! We’re starting a new season, full of much of our same old nonsense, now with more nonsense, because who needs tropes when you can talk about microtropes! Today, in honor of Season Nine, we’re talking about Cloud Nine — both the WNBA star and the feeling you get when you fall in love. We’ve got a whole lot of books featuring romance in the sky — pilots, astronauts, plane crashes, astronauts and mile-high-clubs…and all of them featuring romance that won’t quit.
If you’d like to come over and talk about romances, both in the sky and on land, please join us on the Fated Mates Discord, where you’ll find a few thousand other listeners who love talking about these books we love. You also get one extra episode a month from us!
Fated States, our democratic phonebanking initiative begins next week. Learn more and register to phone bank with us at fatedmates.net/fatedstates.
Books
The Vegas Top Gun Series by Katie Porter
On Broken Wings by Chanel Cleeton
Wild Card by Elsie Silver
Beyond the Limits by Katherine Garbera
The Last Man on Earth by Shae Sanders
Puck Me Secretly by Odette Stone
Crash Landing by Annie McQuaid
Pregnant in the Italian's Palazzo
Turbulence by Whitney G.
The Skyland Series by Kennedy Ryan
The Professional by Kresley Cole

Notes
Fated States is back! We’ll be phonebanking every weekend on Saturdays starting September 19th, but the final weekend before the election, we’ll instead phonebank on Sunday Nov 1 to avoid Halloween.
The way to find a book club is to read River Town by Peter Hessler and then go to your nearest local indie bookstore and let the bookclub reveal itself to you.
Find out more about The Sunday Letter Project.
Pilots have been hot since Top Gun, and not just because of the volleyball scene.
Natasha Cloud is a baddie and she gave an irrelevant man the business for being transphobic, and Jen thinks she’s a literal hero.
The Spanish Space Program, the Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial was created in the 1940s and was replaced by the Agencia Espacial Española in 2021. According to Wikipedia, as of 2026, there have been Four Spanish astronauts.

Sponsors
Harpercollins, publishers of AT Qureshi’s Rider of Dragons, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, or wherever you get your books.
Rose Prendeville, author of The Unknown Birds, available in print, ebook or audiobook from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or with your monthly subscription to Kobo Plus. Use the code FATEDBIRDS at Rose’s website to get a signed print book and 30% off!
Isabel Sterling, author of With All My Haunted Heart, available in print, ebook or audiobook, from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo or your local bookstore.
Orbit Books, publishers of Louisa Carmody’s The Shadows that Listen, available in print, ebook or audiobook at Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, your local bookstore, or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.
Blue Box Press, publishers of Ashley Eckstein & Samantha Chase’s Lucky 22 and David Eckstein’s Just Enough, available in print, ebook or audiobook at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books 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/2026/9/6/s0901-cloud-nine-romance-in-the-sky
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...

Today we're revisiting a 2023 episode. It's a fun one. While the episode is unchanged, we did spend a full hour of our morning updating the Men in Fur Mood Board. (revA)
The Rest
For even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2023/11/14/s0610-men-in-fur-aliens-warlords-and-vikings
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.

It’s the end of Season 8 (what! how!), and we usually celebrate the end of the season with a read along of Sarah’s new book, but since there is no new book, we have no choice but to go back to the beginning of “The Casino Series,” which is what Sarah calls The Rules of Scoundrels. We’re reading A Rogue By Any Other Name, the first in the series focused on the rakish owners of The Fallen Angel, Sarah’s casino. We talk Bourne, turning around big ships, writing sexy stained glass windows, and what it means to look back on the early part of a career.
Next week, we’re taking a little break, and then we’ll be back with Season Nine of Fated Mates. As ever, we’re so grateful to you for listening, reading and being a part of this community. We’re nothing without you.
If you’d like to spend more time talking about romance novels, 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.
Notes
The jellyfish thing is a myth, you don’t have to pee on a jellyfish sting.
All about the amygdala, or Amy for short if you think of her as that messy friend who will definitely lead you astray.
JB Pritzker talked about the colors of school folders, and it’s A MESS. Feel free to report back on your preferences for folder colors if you, like Sarah, are outraged.
New York Times hosted a conversation with Tressie McMillam Cottom, Nadja Spiegelman, and Mary HK Choi called “Have We Turned Personality into a Diagnosis?” It’s worth the listen!
Is it true that Gen Z is this puritanical (the Puriteens!), or are they just worried that everything is cringe?
JK Rowling is a piece of shit.
Gambling has always been bad, but it’s especially bad on your phone. Please talk to your kids about sports betting and make sure these apps are not on their phones.
Crockfords moved a lot of money in the Regency.
One of the big influences for Bourne & Penelope was Alfred de Vigny’s poem Éloa, ou La sœur des anges about an angel who falls in love with a stranger who turns out to be Lucifer. English translations are tough to find, but here’s a website that has part of it in translation.
When you think of the The Fallen Angel (the club), you might think of the famous painting by Alexandre Cabanel, but that’s from 1847!

Sponsors
Megan Frampton, author of Demons and Diplomacy, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, or wherever you get your books.
Madison Score, author of Wild About You, available in print, ebook or audiobook at Amazon.
Tracy MacNish, author of Of the Ashes, available in print or ebook, or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.
Hachette Books, publishers of Jennifer Givhan’s The Sleeping Sisters, available in print, ebook or audiobook at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, 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/2026/8/25/s0849-a-rogue-by-any-other-name
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.