I love podcasts 🙂
1: Fated Mates
If you haven’t heard of Fated Mates… I’m sorry, but you’ve been living under a rock. Hosted by author Sarah MacLean and critic Jen Prokop, the podcast initially began as a recap podcast for the Immortals After Dark series by Kresley Cole. Nowadays the podcast is a mixture of episodes about tropes, interviews with romance book legends, read-alongs, and book recommendations (and that’s not even all of it).
A good starting point is S04.38: These Books Bang: The Sexiest Romance Novels.
2: Heaving Bosoms
Heaving Bosoms‘ host Melody is joined in each episode by a romance-loving friend or two to recap a romance book (and sometimes a romance movie). Considering the podcast began in 2017, I haven’t listened to every episode. My favourite episode so far that I’d recommend is…
Ep. 279 – Through My Window (Netflix Movie) Part 1 (which only gets better in part 2; it’s so funny)
3: Not Your Mother’s Book Club
Easily the most unhinged podcast on this list, Not Your Mother’s Book Club is a podcast hosted by two friends, Dharma and Mikayla. One reads the book and selects a sex scene to read out. The other goes in cold with little context given. Each episode has about 10 minutes of banter and a ‘would you rather’ at the beginning that are always wild. Definitely wear your headphones for this one.
NYMBC is not just a sex-positive podcast but a sex-focused podcast. If you want to listen to discussion of the romance part of romance books, this isn’t the podcast for you.
A good starting point is The Edge of the Century. I’ve put the starting time to where the book discussion begins.
4: Smart Women Read Romance
The most tragic thing about this podcast is that a new episode hasn’t been published since December 2022. However, with four years’ worth of episodes, there’s a massive backlog to listen to. It’s hosted by a niece and aunt duo with the aunt being author Juliette Cross, and the vast majority of episodes are book recaps.
I love listening to this podcast because the love these two have for romance is palpable. It reminds you just how fun romance books are.
A good starting point is Lore Olympus V1 by Rachel Smythe | Episode 141.
13 July 2023 update: After a six-month hiatus, Smart Women Read Romance is back. I like to think I manifested it.
