S07.35: On the Shelf with Spinsters and Wallflowers

Fated Mates - Romance Books for Novel People

Fated Mates

Documentary, Arts, Society & Culture, Books

4.9 • 964 Ratings

🗓️ 14 May 2025

⏱️ 80 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

One of the og romance tropes is on the table today -- we're talking about heroines who are on the shelf! It's not quite wallflowers, not quite ruined, not quite spinsters...it's a very particular flavor of unmarried woman, and one we basically only find in historicals (can you tell Sarah is writing?). We're talking about the subtle nuances of heroines on the shelf and honoring some of the classics...but Sarah's got a batch of books we've never talked about before!

Also! It's that time of year again! Sarah has a new book out in July and is going on tour, and there is a real deal Fated Mates LIVE planned for July 8th in St. Louis, MO! Get tickets to any of these events (Jen will be at a bunch of them, and other pod friends will be popping up along the way) at sarahmaclean.net/tour!

If you want more Fated Mates in your life, please join our Patreon, which comes with an extremely busy and fun Discord community! Join other magnificent firebirds to hang out, talk romance, and be cool together in a private group full of excellent people. Learn more at patreon.com.

Our next read along is Cate C Wells's Run Posy Run, available right now in print or ebook, or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited at Amazon, Apple Books, and Libro.fm.

Books

Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake by Sarah MacLean
The Proposition by Judith Ivory
The Viscount Who Loved Me and Romancing Mr. Bridgerton by Julia Quinn
A Night to Surrender by Tessa Dare
An Earl Like You by Caroline Linden
Along Came a Duke by Elizabeth Boyle
One for the Rogue by Manda Collins
His Wicked Reputation by Madeline Hunter
Love is a Rogue by Lenora Bell
Taming His Viking Woman by Michelle Styles

Notes

Check out the The Collections Department for fun groups of books, organized by real people.
On the shelf, wallflowers, and spinsters.
What does being a spinster look like now?
- Louisa Darling suggested the French Guy who made a TikTok about “dating a girl who is used to being alone.”
- A contemporary example (other than Bridget Jones) is Gracie from Heaven, Texas by Susan Elizabeth Phillips.
Author Madeline Hunter died in April and was an important member of the romance community. A professor and historian, for many years, Madeline was chair of the RWA Academic Grant Committee, ensuring that researchers and academics had access to funds to research and write about romance. She wrote this piece about spinsters for USA Today in 2015. Our thoughts are with her family, friends and readers.

The Rest

For even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2025/5/12/s0735-on-the-shelf-with-spinsters-amp-wallflowers
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.

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's May, which is freaking me out, Jen.
0:04.8	May is a good time for a school teacher.
0:07.3	Yeah, you're like in the home stretch.
0:09.7	I'm in the final throes of a school year.
0:11.9	It was teacher appreciation week this week.
0:14.5	Did you get something nice?
0:15.6	Yeah, we like our parents association does like the little gifts like you know and some of them are cute like
0:21.9	one day it was like like a cookie for everybody and today they had like little notebooks and everybody
0:27.2	is really excited because everybody loves a little notebook.
0:29.9	Who doesn't love a notebook?
0:31.0	Exactly.
0:31.7	Nerds love a notebook.
0:32.7	Well, and those are my people.
0:34.7	And look, teachers are nerds and we love them for it.
0:38.9	So are we going to talk about your book tour, Sarah?
0:41.7	Oh, God.
0:42.6	Yeah, my book is out in less than two months, which feels impossible because it feels like I wrote this book 12 million years ago.
0:50.0	These summer storms, you guys, I'm going to be the worst.
0:53.3	I have to talk about it all the time now, and it's so annoying. I know, but I have a book coming out. And there's some cool stuff, though. I announced a bunch of cool stuff this week. Exactly. Well, I want you to talk about the ripped bodice cover edition. Okay. So this is really cute, and it actually ties into collections. So there's that too. So, um, first and foremost, podcast, some podcast. Welcome to fate of mates, everyone. This is our podcast. I'm Sarah McLean. I read romance novels and I write them. And I'm Jennifer Procop, a romance reader and editor. And we are revamping our website. Everybody knows this. We're rethinking just like how we can best be your discoverabilla buddy, which is a name that Kim only reads romance gave us.
1:46.3	She's out there listening.
1:47.6	Kim, thanks for listening and thanks for calling us.
1:50.1	Discover Billa Buddies because that is the greatest.
	...

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