Fated Mates - Romance Books for Novel People · Fated Mates

S08.29: Jen & Sarah Answer Your Burning Questions

April 8, 2026·1 hr 25 min·7 clips

Fern Michaels started as two women who wrote an unpublished 'pornographic' novel called The Liberated Stud as creative liberation practice.

1. Fated Mates is a romance podcast, and this episode is an AMA recorded from Sarah McClain's Brooklyn couch with co-host Jennifer Prokop answering listener questions sourced from their Discord server. 2. Sarah McClain is a romance novelist and reader; Jennifer Prokop is a romance reader and editor; they host the show together and recorded this episode after several scheduling setbacks including a snowstorm and Easter timing. 3. The core of the first half is Sarah sharing gems from Catherine Falk's 1982 compendium Love's Leading Ladies, which profiles about 85 romance novelists and asks each for a recipe and reflections on their craft. 4. Jude Devereaux wrote her first novel The Enchanted Land, she says in the 1982 book, because she couldn't find a heroine who wasn't being raped, adding 'personally, I wouldn't want a kidnapper and rapist in my house.' 5. Fern Michaels was originally two co-authors — Mary Kutskit and Roberta Anderson — who named themselves after a plastic fern in one of their offices, according to Sarah's reading from the compendium. 6. Mary and Roberta's first unpublished novel, The Liberated Stud, was about five sexually frustrated housewives who advertise for a lover; they described it as 'quite pretty in its sexual passages' and used it as a guide for all future love scenes. 7. Rosemary Rogers, known for going to Studio 54 every night after her books made her wealthy, contributed only a note about brown rice and a description of dining at Maxim's or Regine's in Paris — no actual recipe. 8. Sandra Brown's entry includes a guacamole recipe and the detail that she drinks sangria almost every day. 9. For a listener who loved Joanna Wilde's Reapers motorcycle club series, Sarah recommends Joanna Wilde's Mafia series under the pen name Mila Fideli and Amelia Shea's Ghost Town East series, citing both authors' skill at differentiating their heroines across a constrained world. 10. For a Maryland and Delaware librarians presentation on romance, Sarah's three recommended talking points are: define the HEA contract (not just marriage and a baby), convey the genre's depth and breadth, and prepare for patron questions driven by TV adaptations like Bridgerton and Heated Rivalry. 11. Sarah explains that Berkeley editor Cindy Huang said at a 2019 Penguin Random House panel that Berkeley moved contemporary romance into trade paperback in the early 2010s because YA readers were aging up and willing to spend more money than adult readers. 12. Julie James and Kate Noble were among the first contemporary romance authors moved into trade, followed by The Hating Game under Avon and then Helen Hoang and Jasmine Guillory from Berkeley. 13. Sarah notes the trade paperback shift was personally meaningful because it was 'the first time my local indie bookstore actually had a romance, because it was worth putting on the shelf.' 14. The pandemic accelerated the end of mass market paperback because multiple printing facilities that handled mass market formats closed, making it increasingly expensive to print at the old price points. 15. Sarah warns listeners who want physical copies of older historicals — including her own title 11 Scandals to Start to Win a Duke's Heart — to source used mass market editions from eBay, library sales, and tag sales, because current printings are lower quality and many titles will not be reissued. 16. On book signing etiquette, Sarah says the awkwardness is mostly one-sided and that authors are 'so grateful to meet you'; she flags a thread trend of readers printing out Goodreads negative reviews to show authors as genuinely unwelcome. 17. Jen recommends approaching authors at signings by asking 'which book is your favorite and tell me about it' as a way to create a natural, author-driven conversation rather than fumbling for compliments. 18. The episode is conversational and digressive, moving freely between archival book reading, publishing industry analysis, and personal anecdotes, with frequent laughter and tangents. 19. Romance readers curious about the genre's publishing history, its most memorable vintage authors, and how to navigate subgenres will find this episode useful and entertaining. 20. Listeners seeking tightly structured episodes or those unfamiliar with romance fiction and its industry will likely find the references too dense to follow.

As heard by us

Warm, practical advice for meeting authors, with enough couch chatter to keep it easygoing.

Jen and Sarah answer a listener question about how to avoid awkwardness at book signings with plain, useful advice. They treat authors as people who are usually glad to meet readers, and they suggest a simple opener, like asking which of several books they would recommend.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

If you want a calmer way to meet authors, press play first.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Fated Mates - Romance Books for Novel People