First Dates & Soulmates

About First Dates & Soulmates

First Dates & Soulmates is a romance podcast where craft meets culture, hosted by romance author Meg Casebolt and pop culture devotee Nikki McKnight. Expect trope frameworks, feminist film critiques, author interviews, and sometimes ridiculous readalongs.

Publisher

Meg Casebolt & Nikki McKnight

Category

arts · society & culture · tv & film

Language

en

Explicit

Yes

First episode

13 May 2024

Latest episode

7 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

130 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   7 Oct 2026

   I Licked It, It's Mine: Breaking Down Werewolf Romance

   Kicking off spooky October, Meg and Nikki tackle the second installment in their paranormal-archetype series (following last year's vampire deep dive). Nikki mapped werewolf and wolf-shifter romance onto three central archetypes — the Cursed Creature, the Big Bad Wolf, and the Alpha — plus two structural tropes that cut across all of them: Fated Mate and Pack/Found Family. Along the way: why werewolves keep winning the genre's search-volume war against vampires, the true (and very messy) origin story of the Omegaverse, and why "alpha" reads as a red flag in real life but a fantasy on the page. In this episode: The three core werewolf archetypes and what each one represents psychologically Why L. David Mech's "alpha wolf" research is scientifically bunk — and romance ran with it anyway Vampires vs. werewolves: hot/cold, family/solitude, and why the two species always seem to hate each other The Omegaverse's real origin (a 2010 Supernatural real-person kink-meme prompt) Google Trends data on werewolf vs. vampire search volume since 2004 What's coming next week: a queer werewolf readalong of Wolfsong by TJ Klune Deep dive on our website: Get the full show notes (https://firstdatesandsoulmates.com/episode/werewolf-romance) Read the werewolf archetype (https://firstdatesandsoulmates.com/werewolf-archetype/) Get our full list of 25+ werewolf romance books (https://firstdatesandsoulmates.com/werewolf-romance-books/) "The real alpha is a family man. Romance got that part right by accident." — Nikki "Why does alpha read as hot in romance, but is the ultimate red flag in real life?" — Nikki "The wolf is basically a very large, very hot dog... cuddly little werewolf becomes something that will protect us and sleep at the foot of our bed with extra benefits." — Meg, paraphrasing Nikki's research "It's the internet. Everybody's got a laptop with access to LiveJournal, to Fanfic.net... that also made a big difference in the speed at which this was adopted." — Meg Books & Media Mentioned Bitten — Kelley Armstrong Moon Called — Patricia Briggs (Mercy Thompson series) Slave to Sensation / Kiss of Snow — Nalini Singh A Hunger Like No Other — Kresley Cole The Tyrant Alpha's Rejected Mate — Kate C. Wells Enchanted (Hopeless Bless series, book 4) — Lark Taylor The Kincaid Pack series — Kiki Clark The Wolf Man (1941, 2025), An American Werewolf in London, Ginger Snaps, Teen Wolf (MTV), Twilight, Underworld / Rise of the Lycans, True Blood Harry Potter (Remus Lupin), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Oz) Referenced: the show's prior vampire-archetype episode; the show's episode with "Dr. Fandom" Katie Freund on fandom's role in modern romance Where We've Discussed This Vampire archetype deep dive (https://firstdatesandsoulmates.com/episode/73-love-at-first-bite-vampires-in-romance/) Twilight / Warm Bodies (https://firstdatesandsoulmates.com/episode/25-spooky-teen-romance-films-twilight-warm-bodies/): YA paranormal film study episode Ice Planet Barbarians / alien romance episode (https://firstdatesandsoulmates.com/episode/space-romance-explained-alien-abduction-fated-mates-and-why-the-genre-actually-matters/) What We're Shipping This Week Meg: The Tyrant Alpha's Rejected Mate by Kate C. Wells — a rejected-mate story that subverts the fated-bond consent problem by literally letting the heroine have the bond magically removed Nikki: Enchanted by Lark Taylor (Hopeless Bless series, book 4) — angel/seraphim romance, heavy angst, terminal illness and healing-powers premise

2. 

   30 Sept 2026

   The Love Hypothesis Movie: Believe Olive! But Also? Fire Tom.

   Meg and Nikki come back from a summer hiatus to dig into the film adaptation of Ali Hazelwood's The Love Hypothesis, starring Lili Reinhart as Olive and Tom Bateman as Dr. Adam Carlson. Both hosts loved it as a movie (Nikki: 9/10) while grading it more critically as an adaptation (Nikki: 8/10) — faithful through roughly the first half, then increasingly divergent in the back third, especially around the Tom subplot and how the story resolves it. Spoiler warning: this episode discusses the full plot of both the book and the film adaptation in detail. In this episode: What the adaptation gets right: Olive's competence-under-nerves characterization, the negotiation scene, keeping the "fake dating" trope named on-page Why cutting Adam's book-only decision that he's been quietly in love with Olive since the bathroom scene changes his arc The missing Holden subplot, and how much narrative work a best-friend character was doing to humanize Adam Casting notes on Lili Reinhart, Tom Bateman, and Rachel Marsh as Anh The FAKING IT framework's Agreement stage, and how well the negotiation-scene structure maps onto it Why the film's choice to remove the audio evidence of Tom's misconduct weakens the third act — and why "believe her" isn't the same as "there will be consequences" What's coming next: October's paranormal spooky season kicks off with werewolves and wolf-shifters Story Summary (Spoiler-Free) The film adaptation of Ali Hazelwood's The Love Hypothesis follows Olive, a PhD student at Stanford, who fake-dates standoffish professor Dr. Adam Carlson to convince her best friend Anh that she's moved on and isn't standing in the way of Anh dating Olive's ex. What starts as a mutually beneficial arrangement — negotiated, timelined, and initially very stiff — slowly becomes real, complicated by lab politics, a predatory colleague, and two people who are both much better at hiding their feelings than showing them. "It wasn't arrogance, it was just a fact. Arrogance would require a level of pride... but it wasn't. It was competence, not arrogance." — Meg, on Adam Carlson "What is it about Adam that Olive likes? Yes, he's gorgeous. Yes, he's helpful. Yes, he's kind of funny in a snarky way. But what about him as a human makes her go, 'I do actually wanna spend time with him'?" — Nikki "We live in the real world where we know nothing will fucking happen to Tom... We need evidence. We need irrefutable evidence." — Nikki, on the film's choice to remove the audio recording of Tom's misconduct "The solution was in the source material, and that's where it fell apart." — Meg Books & Media Referenced The Love Hypothesis — Ali Hazelwood (the book this film adapts) Ever After: A Cinderella Story (1998, referenced for comparison) Riverdale (Lili Reinhart's prior work) The Island — Briar Prescott (Meg's ship of the week) Tracking Wolf — Lucy Lennox, Maid Marian Legacy book 4 (Nikki's ship of the week) Where We've Discussed This Our original Love Hypothesis (https://firstdatesandsoulmates.com/episode/ali-hazelwood-love-hypothesis/) book episode (https://firstdatesandsoulmates.com/episode/ali-hazelwood-love-hypothesis/) Full book review: The Love Hypothesis — book review (/book/the-love-hypothesis-review/) The FAKING IT Framework (https://firstdatesandsoulmates.com/faking-it-framework/) Our favorite Fake Dating Romance Books (https://firstdatesandsoulmates.com/fake-dating-romance-books/) What We're Shipping This Week Meg: The Island (https://firstdatesandsoulmates.com/book/the-island-by-briar-prescott/) by Briar Prescott (https://firstdatesandsoulmates.com/book/the-island-by-briar-prescott/) (read from Nikki's earlier recommendation) — childhood-best-friends-to-lovers, bi awakening, stranded-on-a-desert-island survival romance Nikki: Tracking Wolf by Lucy Lennox (Maid Marian Legacy book 4) — dad's-best-friend age-gap romance with a road-trip chase Media we mentioned: "Newfoundland is an Island" video: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTyfMutnK/

3. 

   23 Sept 2026

   [Re-release] The Love Hypothesis Movie is Here! Let's Talk About the Book First

   We're pulling this one out of the vault because the movie's almost here — The Love Hypothesis hits Prime Video on September 23, with Lili Reinhart as Olive and Tom Bateman as Adam. Consider this your reread assignment before the adaptation drops. In this episode of First Dates and Soulmates, Nikki and Meg dive into The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood (https://firstdatesandsoulmates.com/book/the-love-hypothesis-review/)—a fan-favorite academic rom-com that sparked an entire wave of STEM heroines. Click play on this week’s episode to hear: Why Olive is a chronic overthinker and why Adam is a misunderstood grump (who totally has a soft side) How this book walks the line between swoony slow-burn and sexy payoff The balance of realistic vs. wildly fictional about academia The Title IX runner that starts as a joke and becomes the whole emotional throughline Why we're both so glad this book stayed in Olive's POV only — and what it would've lost with a dual-POV structure The recording that saves Olive from her worst moment in the book (f*ck Tom) The 12 stages of physical intimacy framework, and how this book uses it to build a slow burn Why Olive's demisexuality lands as specific and earned, not just a label The Deep End easter egg — yes, Dr. Adam Carlsen and Dr. Olive Smith show up in Ali Hazelwood's 2025 release too And if you loved the fake dating premise & you're looking for more like The Love Hypothesis, check out our 20+ favorite fake relationship books (https://firstdatesandsoulmates.com/fake-dating-romance-books/) and our list of professional-student romances that don't feel gross (https://firstdatesandsoulmates.com/professor-student-romance-books/). Books & Media We Mention * The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood (https://amzn.to/4frcTAk) * Deep End by Ali Hazelwood (https://amzn.to/4hyuo2O) * Reacher (tv show) * To Love a Psycho series by CF White (https://amzn.to/4x0ZAMB) (Dream a Little Dream, Kiss me Honey Honey) * The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang (https://amzn.to/3Tq24pt) * The 12 stages of sexual intimacy (https://writersinthestormblog.com/2018/05/using-the-12-stages-of-physical-intimacy-to-build-tension-in-your-fiction/) Follow the show: Instagram https://www.instagram.com/firstdatesandsoulmates/ (https://www.instagram.com/firstdatesandsoulmates/) TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@firstdatesandsoulmates (https://www.tiktok.com/@firstdatesandsoulmates) YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstDatesSoulmates (https://www.youtube.com/@FirstDatesSoulmates) Don’t forget to rate, review, and subscribe!

Who has been a guest on First Dates & Soulmates

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Olivia Carter
• Katie Freund
• DJ Jamison
• Jessica Topper
• Katie Milkman

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

19,452

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.9 / 5

7 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 68 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

95

Social presence

0

YouTube

72

Engagement

32

Contact First Dates & Soulmates

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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