S08.32: Paris Romance with Kate Clayborn

We Love Paris in the Springtime and we love Paris in The Paris Match by our very favorite, Kate Clayborn. Today, we’re talking about the City of Love itself, with Kate! We talk about the magic of the City of Lights, about the weight it has in romance, and about the mythology it carries with it whenever it’s included in a book. Yes, of course, we talk about Jessica and Dain, but we also celebrate Kate’s new release, The Paris Match! We’re also covering sex workers, chocolatiers, cigarette smokers and heroes who gnaw off their own legs, the Champs de Elysee be damned. Thanks, as always, to Kate for joining us and putting up with our shenanigans.

If you’d like to continue the conversation about Paris, please come join the Fated Mates Discord, which is accessible to our Patreon subscribers. By joining the Patreon, you meet other Fated Mates listeners and get an extra monthly episode from us. Support us and learn more at fatedmates.net/patreon.

Our next read along is The Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie by Jennifer Ashley. Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books or wherever you get your books.

Notes

• Welcome Kate Clayborn. Her first episodes way back in Season 1 were about Siblings’ Best Friends and then Sexclamation Points!, and since then, she’s been on about a million other times.
• Cormac McCarthy has some strong feelings about punctuation and Random House doesn’t like the interrobang, but Sarah’s a rebel.
• Green screen technology has come a long way. In this interview, Heated Rivalry cinematographer Jackson Parrell describes how he used the technology in the show, including the scene on the beach in Tampa. Cinematographer Valentina Vee did a really interesting set of videos talking about the use of green screen technology in the show.
• The Edna St. Vincent Millay sonnet about place that Sarah quoted is Time Does Not Bring Relief.
• Kate wrote a round up for People magazine about great books set in and about Paris.
• Jen heard about Puppets by Jenna Ryan after being tagged in an Instagram post by WendieReads. But in digging around, Jen discovered the Passages podcast did a deep dive of the book in 2025.
• You can read more about the puppet theaters of Paris in this New York Times article from 2019.

Sponsors

• Elle Kennedy, author of Love Song, available in print, ebook, audiobook and with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.
• Claire Wilder, author of Nailed, available in print, ebook and with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.
• Blue Box Press, publishers of Donna Grant’s The Dragon Chronicles, beautiful new print editions of seven books in the series, including Dragon King, Dragon Fever, Dragon Burn, Dragon Night, Dragon Claimed, and Dragon Lost. Available in print and ebook from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
• 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/2026/4/27/0832-the-paris-match-by-kate-clayborn
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• If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.