It's deep dive day here at Fated Mates and we're reading an absolute banger of a historical -- Julie Anne Long's fifth Pennyroyal Green book, What I Did for a Duke. We talk about great romance kisses, about age gaps and how they operate in books, about house parties and art and sacrifice and how sexy it is when someone actually sees you for who you are. If you haven't read this one yet, do yourself a favor and do it right now. It's so great.

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The Books

• What I Did for a Duke by Julie Anne Long
• The Pennyroyal Green Series

Show Notes

• The main building you think of when you think of the New York Public Library with the lions is officially called the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. From what I can tell, it didn’t actually have anything to do with Andrew Carnegie, but he did donate $5 million to ensure that the New York Public Library had branch libraries in communities around the city. He also donated a lot of money to other things, that’s a fun thing billionaires used to do. Read more about doing the forbidden kind of “romance stuff” in the library. Jen talked to the New York Public Library's Best New Romance List Committee Co-Chairs Kate Fais and Grace Loiacon back in February.
• In 2022, we recorded our “Break in case of emergency” episode, and it was in fact two sisters, Cait and Kara who requested the episode. PS: We are in emergency. Feel free to break those out  now.
• Julie Anne Long’s The Beast Takes a Bride was on our Best of 2024 episode. What I Did for a Duke is the 5th book in her Pennyroyal Green series. 
• “It must have been a lie,” is what Jen’s grandma Betty used to say if you lost your train of thought and couldn’t remember what you were saying. 
• This is a good speech from Crash Davis, the pitcher played by Kevin Costner in the 1988 movie Bull Durham (also, Nuke says “what’s all that molecule stuff?” which is pretty funny considering the title of this episode).
• The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston had a Titian exhibition back in 2022 called Women, Myth and Power, and it seems like a thing Genevive would have liked it a lot. Titian’s Venus of Urbino is currently on display at The Uffizi Galleries in Italy. 
• If you’re in New York on March 31st, head over to the Astoria Bookshop to see Historical Romance authors TJ Alexander and Joanna Lowell in conversation, moderated by Sarah, in honor of Transgender Day of Visibility.

Sponsors

• Avery Flynn, author of Airhead: A Hartigans Totally '80s Hot RomCom, available in ebook or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.
• Lumi Gummies,. Go to lumigummies.com and use code FATEDMATES for 30% off your order.

The Rest

• For even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2025/3/18/0727-what-i-did-for-a-duke-this-gentleman-is-completely-composed-of-revenge-molecules
• 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.
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• If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.