Fated Mates
It's almost Halloweeeeeeeeeen
As a kid and teenager, I was ALL ABOUT magic and supernatural and fantasy and whatnot. For the longest time, my favorite author was Libba Bray (A Great And Terrible Beauty, anyone???? KARTIK!). But as with a lot of things in my life, when I make a hard pivot to something else, I tend to go full throttle. And if you’ve been following this newsletter for a while, you’ll probably have noticed a distinct lack of fantasy or paranormal romance, because I’m very much not in that mode at the moment. HOWEVER, sneaking under the radar were these three books, by authors who I’m a fan of outside of their magical experimentations, which I read and loved even though I’m not really in the mood for fantasy much these days. Also, they all feature the fated mates trope to one extent or another, and tis the season, and… alright. The intro is done. Please enjoy what will likely be one of my only paranormal romance roundups for a while!
How To Help A Hungry Werewolf by Charlotte Stein. This book hits all the Charlotte Stein classics- a former bully love interest, an anxious stream of consciousness heroine sole POV, a startling and overwhelming attention to small details, and an arc involving believing You Are Enough. So, what I’m saying is, it’s everything you want and love about a Charlotte Stein book, plus werewolves and witches and magic.
Cassandra is back in her hometown for the first time in years to clean out her late grandmother’s home, and it’s absolutely typical for her luck that the first person she sees is her childhood best friend turned childhood bully, Seth. We saw his worst infraction in the prologue, humiliating her in front of their classmates and invoking fat-shaming language to boot, so we’re Not On His Side. Though apparently he knew her grandmother pretty well? Hmmmm.
Shenanigans ensue for a while until Seth transforms in front of her and tries to maybe eat her, at which point, the next morning, he comes clean: he’s a werewolf, Cassandra’s grandmother was witch-adjacent, and the reason he’s been sniffing around is that her grandmother made him potions to help with pain, healing, etc. And after Cassandra whips up a potion on a whim that ends up healing him far beyond what he’s ever been healed for, it becomes clear that Cassandra isn’t adjacent to anything, she’s like… The Witch.
So as the two former friends mend personal fences and rediscover what they mean to each other, Cass embarks on a journey of magical self-discovery just in time to cure a mating frenzy between them and protect them both from the reemergence of the awful gang of bullies — who are also werewolves because of course they are — that tore them apart in the first place.
While I definitely prefer the non-supernatural, I can’t deny that I’ll definitely read any/all magical Charlotte Stein books in the future. This book is heart wrenching at times, but definitely more in the cozy category for spooky season.
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Bride by Ali Hazelwood. So if you’re a paid subscriber of my newsletter, you may already know a LOT about my feelings about this book. I even made that longer essay, about why I think this book is an extended asexuality metaphor, available for free subscribers too! Because once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it or shut up about it. Sorry not sorry to my husband for yammering his ear off before I remembered I had a romance novel newsletter I could spew to instead!
Definitely go read that other post (this book is totally a paranormal sexy asexual metaphor), but for the main feed, here’s the least insane way I can recap:
Misery Lark (lol forever at this name) is a professional Vampyre hostage, basically. In this world, there are three main species factions: Vampyres, Weres, and Humans. They live in a tenuous peace largely propped up by mutually assured destruction and hostage exchanges, and Misery has been one said hostage for many years to maintain the alliance between humans and Vampyres against the Weres. When she was a kid she was sent to live with the humans, because as the daughter of a Vampyre leader she’s valuable politically. She’s mostly cut ties with her Vampyre family who abandoned her to the human world, but when her human foster sister goes missing and the only clue to her disappearance points to werewolf society, Misery agrees to be a hostage AGAIN by getting arranged married to a powerful Were, Lowe. For INVESTIGATION purposes, and to keep the peace, because that’s all she’s good for apparently.
Life amongst the Weres, even with a husband that seems repelled by her scent leading her to take a LOT of baths (lol forever, Bella Swan eat your heart out and TAKE A BATH), isn’t what she expected, though. And for the first time, Misery might actually fit somewhere, if only she and Lowe can drop their guard and work together rather than separately for goals that aren’t so opposing, as it turns out.
The “fated mates” of it all is expanded on in my essay, linked above, so I’m not going to retread that ground, but suffice it to say: this book is bananapants. And very sexy. The world building is a little weak, we have yet another Ali Hazelwood heroine who can’t beat the “oblivious to obvious foreshadowing” charges, but for the Twilight winks, the Omegaverse nods, and the obvious love of the world and characters, this book is an extremely fun time.
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
A Love Song For Ricki Wilde by Tia Williams. Rounding out this list of books by contemporary authors I love who dipped their toes into the supernatural is a book that took me by COMPLETE surprise. I didn’t realize this book had magical realism and timey wimey shenanigans until it was literally happening, and by then I was so enchanted and impressed that my instinctual paranormal aversion didn’t even get a chance to protest.
Ricki Wilde is from an extremely serious, businessy rich family in Atlanta, but she’s never fit in. So when she meets a woman named Ms. Della who has the perfect storefront for Ricki’s dream flower shop available on the bottom floor of her Harlem brownstone, she jumps at the chance. And as she learns more about the history of her new neighborhood, that history turns out to not be as far in the past as she expects.
Ezra Walker is a man out of time… literally. He was a musician during the Harlem Renaissance who was cursed by a former lover to walk unchanged and unseen through time, until he meets the woman he loves to doom her to death, and then continue an endless existence without her. I think you can probably guess where this is going when he runs into Ricki in a community garden…
This is a book told initially in split chronology — Ricki setting up her shop and learning about Harlem’s history, Ezra moving to Harlem and trying to find his way — and then told with a doomed urgency as it becomes clear these two fated mates, for better or worse, can’t stay away from each other. If their love is enough to tempt the curse in the first place, could it be enough to break it?
A gorgeous book that’ll have you laughing as often as it’ll have you crying, which is par for the course for a Tia Williams story. This book is more magical than spooky, but its mates are fated all the same, and isn’t time plenty spooky anyways? My back hurts. Etc.
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥
Next week, I’ve got an amazing and in-depth interview with the incomparable Lorraine Heath!
What should I be reading next? Let me know in the comments!
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