Talking Scared

Send us a text Is it cold where you are? If so, do I have the book for you. Our guest is Ally Wilkes, whose debut novel, All the White Spaces was my pick for the most anticipated horror novel of early 2022. I was NOT disappointed. The book takes us to Antarctica in 1919, just months after the end of the First World War, in the dying years of the Heroic Age of Exploration. There, trapped in the frozen ‘overwinter’ the team of men are forced to confront a malignant presence that draws them out into the cold. Did that give you a shiver? The good kind? Yes! Ally’s book is the springboard for a great conversation about exploration and hauntings. We debate over what the thing in the darkness is. Is it a ghost, a god, an evil sense of anti-human geography? But beyond that we also get into all kinds of meaty, chewy topics, such as how her novel unpicks and deconstructs the long-celebrated ideas of masculinity, heroism, nationhood and empire. Yet, despite all that, the Daily Mail still gave it a good review. It’s THAT good a book. Enjoy!! All the White Spaces is released in the UK on January 25th by Titan Books, and on Mach 22nd by Atria in North America. Other books mentioned in this episode include: Tell Me I’m Worthless (2021), by Alison Rumfitt Dead Silence (2021), by S. A. Barnes Echo (2021), by Thomas Olde Heuvelt Road of Bones (2021), by Christopher Golden The Terror (2007), by Dan Simmons Dark Matter (2010), by Michelle Paver The Worst Journey in the World (1922), by Apsley Cherry-Garrard Who Goes There (1938), by John W. Campbell Jr. (basis for the 1982 movie, The Thing) Support Talking Scared on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, and TikTok or email direct to [email protected] Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text This week it’s time for good girls and bad girls to unite. Our guest is Kristi DeMeester whose new novel, Such A Pretty Smile sinks its teeth deep into the raised hand of misogyny. It’s a tale of violence and viciousness and vivid nightmares – and a whole new apparatus to explore the evils that men do. At this point I assume we’ve already weeded out the guys who roll their eyes at #metoo!? That’s for the best cos this is a feminism-heavy week. We talk about how horror treats women, from monstering menstruation to imagining female puberty as a threshold into hell. Along the way we cover the awful concept of the ‘lesser’ dead, the question of whether pretty girl privilege is a thing, and whether men really think women are too delicate to write such awful things. We also consider why dogs can be much scarier than wolves. This book started my year off right. Ambiguous, though-provoking, and ANGRY. Kristi is not f*cking around here. Enjoy!! Such a Pretty Smile is released January 18th by St Martin’s Press. Support Talking Scared on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, and TikTok or email direct to [email protected] Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text Kicking off the New Year right, by interviewing one of my favourite living writers. John Connolly is the author of the bestselling Charlie Parker series, a 19 book odyssey that takes us from the Maine coast to the darkest corners of the USA (and elsewhere), in the process, transmuting hardboiled detective noir into cosmic horror. After two decades of reading about Parker, you can be sure I have plenty to ask John – about writing American horror as an Irishman, Maine’s hostile spaces, the thrilling allure of literary violence, and whether he has an end in sight. But John is also here to talk about a whole other beast. Shadow Voices: 300 Years of Irish Genre Fiction is his mammoth attempt to map the contours of his native literature, and expose the snobbery that has suppressed it. We talk a lot about how genre works (and doesn’t work), and how Irish fiction is at the very bedrock of this horror thing we all love. I’m a fanboy this week, no point denying it. I just did my best not to embarrass myself – especially as we were both enjoying a festive drink! Enjoy!! Shadow Voices: 300 Years of Irish Genre Fiction was published October 2021 by Hodder and Stoughton. Other books mentioned in this episode include: Every Dead Thing (1999), by John Connolly – the first Charlie Parker book. Dark Matter (2010), by Michelle Paver All the White Spaces (2022), by Ally Wilkes The Art of the Glimpse: 100 Irish Short Stories (2020), by Sinéad Gleeson American Gods (2001), by Neil Gaiman The Godwulf Manuscript (1973), by Robert B. Parker (first appearance of Spenser) Support Talking Scared on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, and TikTok or email direct to [email protected] Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text It’s just me this week – sneaking one last episode in to talk about my own personal top-10 horror novels (or horror-ish) from the last twelve months. It’s been a stellar year, and picking just ten books was a nightmare all of it’s own. But these things must be done. The world MUST know what one more straight, white guy thinks about culture, or society will collapse. I hope you enjoy this as I get more and more animated as things go on. It’s a good job I’m taking next week off – I’m starting to sound manic. Have a great new year folks, and thanks for all your kindness and support this year. Here’s to 2022… it surely can’t be any worse. Support Talking Scared on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, and TikTok Or email direct to [email protected] Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text Well, we made it to the end of this nightmare of a year. And though there has been plenty of horrific stuff along the way – war, plague, corruption … literal armed insurrection, at least the fictional horror has been fun. To commemorate a special year in horror, I’m getting the band back together. Sadie Hartmann, AKA Mother Horror, and Emily Hughes of Tor Nightfire (and various other parishes) join me to talk about the stuff they have loved from the second half** of 2021. **if you missed our coverage of Jan-June, you can find it in episode 46. We pick the books that really stood out for us, plus many more that we enjoyed. We discuss the TV and movies that have shaken and stirred us since July, and we look ahead to the bright (dead)lights of horror to come in the New Year. We also pick apart some thorny issues plaguing the genre, like the ridiculousness of rating books by stars, and my own irritation at everything being compared to Get Out. Each of the books we mention is listed below, including an episode number if it has been previously featured on Talking Scared. Don’t look at that yet though; it’ll spoil the surprise. Enjoy, and well done for getting through the year. Books picked My Heart is a Chainsaw (2021), by Stephen Graham Jones **ep 54 Revelator (2021), by Daryl Gregory When Things Get Dark: Stories Inspired by Shirley Jackson (2021), ed. by Ellen Datlow **ep 66 Cackle (2021), by Rachel Harrison When the Reckoning Comes (2021), by Latanya McQueen The Spirit Engineer (2021), by A.J West **ep 71 Come With Me (2021), by Ronald Malfi **ep 49 The Deer Kings (2021), by Wendy N. Wagner **ep 69 Chasing the Boogeyman (2021), by Richard Chizmar **ep 52 Coming soon Manhunt (Feb 2022), by Gretchen Felker-Martin Such a Pretty Smile (Jan 2022), by Krist DeMeester All the White Spaces (Jan 2022), by Ally Wilkes Other books mentioned Reprieve (2021), by James Han Mattson Lunar Park (2005), by Bret Easton Ellis A Touch of Jen (2021), by Beth Morgan Flowers for the Sea (2021) , by Zin E. Rocklyn Nightbitch (2021), by Rachel Yoder The Last House on Needless Street (2021), by Catriona Ward **ep30 Certain Dark Things (2021), by Silvia Moreno Garcia Nothing But Blackened Teeth (2021), by Cassandra Khaw **ep 61 The Death of Jane Lawrence (2021), by Caitlin Starling **ep 60 Queen of the Cicadas (2021), by V. Castro ** ep 42 The Book of Accidents (2021), by Chuck Wendig **ep 48 Rovers (2021), by Richard Lange The Turnout (2021), by Megan Abbott Comfort Me with Apples (2021), by Catherynne M. Valente ** ep 62 The Glassy Burning Floor of Hell (2021), by Brian Evenson **ep 51 Support Talking Scared on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, and TikTok Or email direct to [email protected] Download Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text This week I bring you a ghost story, as befitting the season. Though it’s a little more lurid than Charles Dickens would have liked. The guest is A.J. West; the book is The Spirit Engineer. It’s one of my very favourites of 2021. Set in Belfast between the sinking of the Titanic and the outbreak of war, it’s a tale of science and the supernatural. Of William Crawford, a man who wants proof of the beyond, and will risk everything to grasp it. It’s actually based on real people and events, which I didn’t know, and still find incredible. A.J and I talk about spiritualism and deceit, about the links between sex and seances, and about the rare appearance of a truly unlikeable male protagonist. We disagree a little, AJ thinks William’s he’s an antihero, I think he’s an asshole, but that doesn’t change the fact that he is the standout character of the year for me. I hope you get chance to pour a drink, pull up a chair, and read this book over Christmas. Enjoy You can read more about the story behind The Spirit Engineer on A.J’s website, ajwestauthor.com Support Talking Scared on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, and TikTok Or email direct to [email protected] Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text This week I am going to utterly ruin your festive mood! My guest is Ross Jeffery – author of Juniper, Tome (for which he was Bram Stoker nominated) and numerous short stories. His work is grim, gritty, gory and other words beginning with G - but they are nothing compared to the sheer horror of his latest work, Only the Stains Remain. Yeah, this is one of those special episodes in which I feel duty-bound to roll out the trigger warnings. Only the Stains Remain is about child abuse, and it pulls no punches. Feeling festive yet, Ho Ho Ho, etc. The novella is a savage revenge-trip of blood and guts in which awful things happen – but thankfully – often to awful people. So, you’ve been warned. But also be reassured. Neither the conversation, nor Ross’s book goes into exploitative details – and we manage to talk about a surprising number of very jolly things - from why Ross is drawn to such extreme projects, why writing for shock alone never really works, what it was like to be Bram Stoker-ed out of the blue, and what the members of Ross’ church make of his writing. It’s a mix of the horrific and the wholesome this week. Which could describe most of my Christmases. Enjoy Books discussed in this episode include: Boys in the Valley (2021), by Philip Fracassi The Girl Next Door (1989), by Jack Ketchum Haunted (2005), by Chuck Palahniuk Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke (2021), by Eric LaRocca Ghoul n’ the Cape (2021), by Josh Malerman Support Talking Scared on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, and TikTok Or email direct to [email protected] Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text I know it’s the middle of winter but this week the book in question is taking us back to summer. And not our current plague-summer – but the halcyon days of 1989. Think kids on bikes, running wild, fights and first loves, demonic deer gods … wait … what? Our guest, Wendy N. Wagner is the editor-in-chief of the prestigious Nightmare Magazine, and the author of epic coming-of-age horror The Deer Kings, as well as the ‘Sawmill Gothic’, The Secret Skin. We talk about both books and how Wendy has transposed both the classic British Gothic and the traditional New England small-town horror story to a Pacific Northwest setting. Bigfoot doesn’t even show his face. We talk about the fervid popularity of coming-of-age horror right now, we plumb the dark, seamy underbelly of rural Oregon, we compare notes on the small towns of our childhoods, and I have the temerity to ask Wendy the best way to get published in Nightmare. There is even doughnut chat. Enjoy! Books discussed in this episode include: The Shadow Year (2008), by Jeffrey Ford IT, by Stephen King (1986) Boy’s Life, by Robert McCammon (1991) Summer of Night, by Dan Simmons (1991) Harvest Home (1973), by Thomas Tryon Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream (1990), by H.G. Bissinger Support Talking Scared on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, and TikTok Or email direct to [email protected] Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text If you are feeling depressed, what with OMICRON emerging like the worst villain in some direct-to-streaming video game adaptation, then do I have the tonic for you. Josh Malerman is back for his second bout of Talking Scared, only 6 months after he was last here. This time, more than ever, he brings joy, wonder, inspiration and a 700 page book that will work your triceps as well as your mind and soul. Ghoul n’ the Cape is Josh’s magnum opus, so far. So far! It’s the truly epic tale of two men fleeing a unique evil across the entire landmass of the United States. It takes in politics, violence, spectacle, horror, friendship, a nation-eating star and a man made entirely of blood. This is not your average horror paperback. Therefore, it gives us plenty to talk about. The Great American Novel™ and the quest narrative amongst much more. But again, and again we come back to the crucial, pivotal role of awe and wonder in our lives. And we talk about how horror, of all things, can help us achieve that. Oh, and at one point I make Josh teary. Win! Enjoy! Books discussed in this episode include: Yours Cruelly, Elvira (2021), by Cassandra Peterson Pearl (2021), by Josh Malerman (previously published as The Day of the Pig) Visions of Kody (1972), by Jack Kerouac and Brice Matthieussent The Talisman (1984), by Peter Straub and Stephen King Ghoul n’ the Cape is published in a limited run in December by Earthling Press. You can buy one of the remaining copies here. Support Talking Scared on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, and TikTok Or email direct to [email protected] Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text And now for something a little different. This is a show about scary stories and writing horror… but that doesn’t mean everything has to be on the page. Our guest this week is Richard Maclean Smith, host and producer of Unexplained Podcast, the best show out there on the creepy, mysterious and mystifying events that people like me spend hours reading about on Wikipedia. There is everything from true crime to strange disappearances, ghosts and demons, monsters and UFOs, as well as some more unique oddities, like a woman killed by the ‘little folk’ and a computer that may have communicated through time. God I love me some High Strangeness. Ok, I’ll throw you a bone, he also has a book to complement the podcast. That book – Unexplained: Real Life Supernatural Stories for Uncertain Times delves deeper into a selection of particularly weird events, whilst also giving Richard more room to expand beyond the mystery, into the areas of philosophy, psychology and humanism that really fascinates him. Cos that’s what set’s Unexplained apart – that reflection and interrogation of the human condition. We talk about all that, but I’m a mystery nerd, and I insist on simpler questions like, “what’s your favourite mystery” too, and we talk about vanishing hikers, cursed boxes and possessed murderers, as well as fear of the dark and dreams about Mikhail Gorbachev. I’m always there for you listeners, ready to dumb it down. Enjoy! Follow the link for Richard’s horror fiction podcast, The Fountain Road Files Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text For over three decades Ellen Datlow has been at the centre of the horror community. She is the queen of editors, the doyenne of anthologisers, the person who gets to declare what is the Best Horror of the Year. And she has come back to talk to me after I lost the conversation file the first time around…! That major mishap may have been a blessing in disguise, as since then she has published two standout anthologies, dealing with very different branches of horror. Body Shocks is a bumper collection of extremely nasty body horror; When It Gets Dark is a collection of stories inspired by the life and work of Shirley Jackson. One is icky, one is spooky, one makes you cringe, the other makes you shiver. And both are packed with stellar names. As well as discussing these anthologies, we talk about Ellen’s career in horror, how she does what she does, and what words like ‘horror’ and ‘scary’ mean to her. She talks about big names she worked with, and gives us some ideas on who the big names of tomorrow will be. Oh, and she also lets slip that she collects doll limbs … a perfect little nugget to season this mix. Enjoy. Body Shocks: Extreme Tales of Body Horror is out now from Tachyon Press When Things Gets Dark: Stories Inspired by Shirley Jackson is out now from Titan Press Other books mentioned in this episode include: “Shit Happens” (2018), by Michael Marshall Smith, in The Devil and the Deep: Horror Stories of the Sea, edited by Ellen Datlow Nothing but Blackened Teeth (2021), by Cassandra Khaw Flyaway (2020), by Kathleen Jennings The Only Good Indians (2020), by Stephen Graham Jones My Heart is a Chainsaw (2021), by Stephen Graham Jones And Then I Woke Up (2022), by Malcolm Devlin Echo (2022), by Thomas Olde Heuvelt The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Reporter (2022), by Daniela Tomova Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text This week I’m feeling warm and fuzzy (don’t worry it won’t last). Halloween is over, the weather has turned dark, we’ve all got the central heating on and are hunkering down for the end of the year. What better time for a slightly more cosy read? Our guest this week is Mark Stay, author, screenwriter, and one half of the quite wonderful Bestseller Experiment podcast. Usually Mark is in my chair, asking author’s all about how to be a successful writer – but this week I’ve literally turned the table on him. Mark’s latest novel – Babes in the Wood – is the second in his Witches of Woodville series. It continues the small village exploits of Faye, magical ingenue, budding witch, and all-round take-no-nonsense-from-nobody heroine. As the second world war rages over the sea, the tiny village of Woodville comes under attack once more from dark, sorcerous forces (this time it’s NAZIS!!) Told you it sounded cosy! No worries though. Aside from the inherent darkness beneath Mark’s whimsy, we also pack in enough nightmare fuel with a lengthy discussion of the most horrifying 80s kids’ TV characters, the all-too-real horrors of nostalgic nationalism, and I ask Mark for some gossip about the author’s he’s spoken to. There’s a lot to enjoy here. Get the kettle on! Babes in the Wood was published on October 28th by Simon & Schuster Other books mentioned in this episode include: Jack’s Game (2021), by Andrew Chapman Nella Last’s War: The Second World War Diaries of ‘Housewife 49’ (2006), by Nella Last, edited by Richard Broad and Suzi Fleming Trailer for Mark’s new horror-movie Unwelcome Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text Halloween is over for another year but there are still plenty of monsters to go around. Our guest this week is Kim Newman, the writer, critic and encyclopaedic authority on horror, pulp and the dark recesses of cinematic history. You may know him as the author of the Anno Dracula series, but that’s only the tip of his imaginative iceberg. Kim’s new novel, Something More than Night, takes all of that arcane knowledge and puts it to use – transporting us back to the Hollywood of the 1930s when fascism is on the rise and it’s hard to tell the movie monsters from the real madmen. Cue the pairing of horror-icon Boris Karloff and gumshoe writer Raymond Chandler, who unite to confront some very strange goings on behind the scenes. In between educating me on the finer points of Hollywood history, Kim talks about the enduring legacy of Frankenstein, imitating Chandler’s unique style, writing novels in a connected universe - and we realise just how similar he is to Quention Tarantino. This one is an absolute blast. Enjoy! Something More than Night was published on November 2nd by Titan Books. Other books mentioned in this episode include: Anno Dracula (1992), by Kim Newman Anno Dracula 1999: Daikaiju (1999), by Kim Newman Nightmare Movies: Horror on Screen Since the 1960s (1988) by Kim Newman. (latest expanded edition, 2011) The Dark Country (1982), by Dennis Etchison Hollywood the Haunted House (1967), by Paul Mayersberg An Illustrated History of the Horror Film (1967), by Carlos Clarens Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text Normally we talk books - but horror movies are a Hallowe’en staple. Turn the lights down, wrap yourself in a blanket, choose your snack of choice and then torment yourself terribly. It’s what we do. Now, Mark Kermode knows a thing or two about scary movies. The UK’s most prominent film critic has a special fondness for horror movies, as well as a grounding in the books that inspired many of the best. I asked him on the show for this Hallowe’en special episode, to talk about his favourite book-to-movie horror adaptations. No one who has ever heard Mark speak for more than ten minutes will have any doubt what his number one is – but the others may surprise you. At the very least, you’ll came away with suggestions for books to read and movies to watch over this most frightful of weekends. Oh, and if you like Mickey Rourke, then just hold out for the last five minutes… Enjoy! Books mentioned in this episode include: The Exorcist (1971), by William Peter Blatty Falling Angel (1978), by William Hjortsberg The Midwich Cuckoos (1957), by John Wyndham The Haunting of Hill House (1959), by Shirley Jackson “Don’t Look Now”, in Not After Midnight, and Other Stories (1971), by Daphne Du Maurier The Exorcist: BFI Modern Classics (1997), by Mark Kermode Ghost Story (1979), by Peter Straub Link to the Guardian Article on the state of the horror novel – https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/oct/29/chapter-and-curse-is-the-horror-novel-entering-a-golden-age Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text Perfect places breed hideous crimes – that’s my understanding at least. If you like The Twilight Zone, Black Mirror, or Twin Peaks (or anything by David Lynch) then you’ll get a kick out of Catherynne M. Valente’s Comfort Me with Apples. Despite being a novella of less than 130 pages, it crams in everything from the whole rotten tradition of awful things – from the book of Genesis, via fairytales and the Gothic, all the way up to the most cutting-edge dystopian sci-fi. This tiny tale of a perfect small town and a perfect marriage, all undercut with the sour tang of wrongness. Catherynne talks in detail about the various strands that she has knotted together into this story. We cover religion and the potential for evil within, Disney towns and cartoon police, and we discuss why Bluebeard and his locked cellar door is such a key and recurrent trope in domestic horror. And, as ever, I take the chance to go off on a frothing political rant. Enjoy! Comfort Me with Apples is published by Tor on November 9th Check out Mark Kermode’s rant about the movie Entourage – to prepare for the Hallowe’en special. Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text I’m on holiday but I still give you goodies. ‘Cos that’s the kind of all-round good guy that I am. And what a dark treat of a trick we have this week. The guest is Cassandra Khaw and their novella Nothing But Blackened Teeth will use it’s liquorice-stained smile to chew you up. The book transports us to a crumbling mansion in Japan, where a hideous spectre haunts a group of utterly loathsome tourists. Honestly, you’ll want them dead for their taste in music alone! Despite the slimness of the volume, Cass packs a lot into this book, just as we pack a lot into this conversation. As well as discussing the novella specifically, we also talk our fear and fondness for Ellen Datlow, the rich heritage of South East Asian ghost stories and the haunting house as colonised space. She also gives perhaps the best ever answer to the question “what really scares you?” It is a life lesson. Excuse my whining about my dog. Enjoy Nothing But Blackened Teeth was published on Tor Nightfire on 20th October Books discussed on this episode include: Queen of the Cicadas (2021), by V. Castro When the Reckoning Comes (2021), by LaTanya McQueen The Only Good Indians (2020), by Stephen Graham Jones Sandman Slim (2009), by Richard Kadrey What Moves the Dead (coming 2022), by T. Kingfisher Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text Hello kids. Wanna see a magic trick? Rather than pulling a rabbit from a hat, I offer you Caitlin Starling, author of The Luminous Dead and her new Gothic chiller, The Death of Jane Lawrence. Caitlin’s novel takes a familiar Gothic set-up and kicks it around until it is only recognisable from the colour of its blood. Dilapidated house – check. Deceitful husband – check. Magical rites, mysterious walls and ghosts that feed on shame – yeah that’s new! We talk all about magical rites and occult practices, but before things get too esoteric and in-the-weeds, we also discuss Hannibal the TV show, whether there is life after death, and how best to incorporate neurodivergence into a dark gothic fantasy. You’ll come out of this one, entertained, entranced AND with a whole new reading and viewing list. Enjoy The Death of Jane Lawrence was published on October 5th by St Martin’s Press. Unexplained podcast episode featuring Aleister Crowley: http://www.unexplainedpodcast.com/episodes/2016/6/18/episode-10-the-spaces-that-linger Books discussed on this episode include: Jane Eyre (1847), by Charlotte Brontë Wuthering Heights (1847), by Emily Brontë Under the Pendulum Sun (2017), by Jeanette Ng Vita Nostra (2007), by Marina and Sergey Dyachenko Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text Welcome to Hallowe’en ’21. If ever a year required us to find the fun in all things grim, dark and depressing then this is the absolute best year since last year. Appropriately for the lead-in to Spooky Season, our guest this week wrote a book all about fear as an attraction. James Han Mattson is the author of Reprieve – a mouthwatering prospect of a novel set in an extreme, full-contact, haunted house escape room. What could go wrong, right? Well, as you’ll hear, James’ novel is less interested in fake blood and rubber axes than it is in the very real damage caused by prejudice and discrimination. That’s what Reprieve has been likened, in yawn-inducing fashion, to Get Out. In fact, it’s something much more interesting than just another social horror satire. James and I talk about a whole lot of heavy stuff, from racial fetishization to the psychology behind liking to be afraid. Meanwhile, I repeatedly seize the chance to put my foot in my mouth with some untypically (according to you guys) dumb questions. Happy October. The fun starts here. Enjoy! Reprieve was published October 5th by William Morrow in North American and Bloomsbury in the UK. Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text Vroom vroom! This week’s book is automatic, systematic, highly dramatic … it’s G…G…G…G… Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo. That painful Grease reference is due to the fact that this book marries teenage angst with fast cars and hot boys – with or without the quiffs. In reality though, it’s closer to a Springsteen Song – all tortured youth, broken hearts, racing the in the street and darkness on the edge of town. It tells the tale of Andrew – a sexually confused young man who relocates to a Tennessee University town in the wake of his friend’s death. What, and who, he finds there changes his life and his understanding of who, exactly, he is. And it’s all haunted by a fearsomely possessive phantom that just won’t leave Andrew alone. Ghosts aside though, Summer Sons still packs a punch. Lee blends the two sides of southern gothic fiction. On one hand, there’s the supernatural, on the other the very real drama of history and violence that permeates the genre. It also showcases modern masculinity in all its ugliness, with a few strands of beauty, and refracts the whole thing through a dark version of the campus novel. Lee and I talk about how white masculinity often escapes critical appraisal, how academia is the perfect setting for horror, the thrill of living lives that span the class barrier, and we try to pin down exactly what we mean by ‘Southern Gothic’. Oh, and we both complain bitterly about the nightmare that is postgraduate study. Enjoy! Summer Sons was published September 28th by Tor. Other books mentioned in this episode include: The Secret History (1992), by Donna Tartt The Lecturer’s Tale (2001), by James Hynes Black Chalk (2013), by Christopher Yates The Devil All the Time (2011), by Donald Ray Pollock The Blade Between (2020), by Sam J. Miller Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text Oh eck! This week I get very northern and my working class roots come to the fore. It’s all my guest’s fault. Tina Baker, the author of Call Me Mummy, is an infectious presence. My typical transatlantic restraint falls away and I follow Tina down endless rabbit-holes – her time as a TV presenter, her childhood mishaps, her cats! Thankfully, her book is fantastic, and gives us something to focus on at least a little. Call Me Mummy is a dark psychological tale of stolen children, toxic media, mental illness and class warfare. That’s a lot to fit into one book but, as you’ll hear, I think Tina pulls it off with aplomb, and delightful black humour. A warning, this episode does feature discussion of infertility and miscarriage. Tina, of course, delivers her own personal experiences with typical good humour, but it is worth mentioning. We also talk about ideals of parenthood, social media trolls, alcoholism, welsh nuns, babies with horns, and the particular British disdain for the middle class Enjoy! Call Me Mummy was published in paperback on 2nd September by Viper Other books mentioned in this episode include: The Last House on Needless Street (2021), by Catriona Ward Shuggie Bain (2020), by Douglas Stuart Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text Growth is good, right? That’s what they tell us. Our guest this week might have other ideas. Aliya Whiteley’s is a novelist, short story writer and poet, whose writing is all about growth. In her strange worlds people, plants, entire worlds sprawl and mutate, but often the change is anything but wholesome. In her new collection, From the Neck Up she introduces us to disembodied heads, fleshy scarecrows, parasitical towns, dark ecology and violent agricultural rites. These stories sit on the cusp of a world gone sour, and peel back the curtain to show us how the past and the present may (ahem) grow into an awful future. Before you go thinking these are just run-of-the-mill apocalypses though, be warned and reassured that Aliya’s writing is anything but normal. She blends horror, science-fiction, fantasy, the surreal and absurd and even a sprinkling of dark comedy – all transmuted into something she calls the strange. We try (and fail) to pin her stories down. We talk about how she crafts her stories, where they start and why the often end where we least expect. Along the way we take in the climate crisis, ecology and evolving change, the history of science fiction, the future of folk horror, and the legends of her native Devon. Enjoy! From the Neck Up was published by Titan Books on 14th September Other books mentioned in this episode include: The Beauty (2014), by Aliya Whiteley Memoirs of a Survivor (1974), by Doris Lessing Annihilation (2014), by Jeff VanderMeer The Glassy Burning Floor of Hell (2021), by Brian Evenson Day of the Triffids (1951), by John Wyndha The Bloody Chamber (1979), by Angela Carter Rebecca (1938), by Daphne du Maurier Lorna Doone (1869), by R. D. Blackmore Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text Our show this week is part interview, part homage, all zombie! Daniel Kraus, the author of zombie magnum opus, The Living Dead is in the hotseat. But he isn’t alone. Both he and his novel are accompanied by the spectral presence of the master himself, George Romero. When Romero passed in 2017, he left behind years of work and ambition in telling the whole story of his zombie uprising in novel form. It’s a project that was passed on to Daniel, and he joins us to talk about that book, how it came to be, and what it was like collaborating posthumously with his idol. We also get DEEP into zombie ethics. What they are, how they work, and what they mean! We talk about the pleasure and pressure of playing in Romero’s sandbox, how to integrate detailed research without ruining the flow of story, and I start to sound a bit paranoid in my theories on zombie’s as cultural propaganda. It’s a great chat. Insightful as hell. And I think George would be delighted with how Daniel talks about their work. Enjoy! The Living Dead was published September 7th by Tor Nightfire Other books mentioned in this episode include: The Plague Dogs (1977), by Richard Adams The Cipher (1991), by Kathe Koja Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text Talking Scared is a whole year old today, and to celebrate I’ve brought you one of the brightest stars in the horror sky, someone who is getting bigger, better and badder with each book he releases. It’s Stephen Graham Jones! Stephen is here to discuss My Heart is a Chainsaw – his oh-so-meta revision of the slasher movie and the final girl. The book starts dark and gets darker, with references to every single slasher that you’ve seen, as well as plenty you haven’t. If you say you’ve seen them all, you’re lying. This isn’t just a rehash of Wes Craven’s Scream, though. As well as the tricks and references, My Heart is a Chainsaw has… well … HEART. Plenty of it. Just as Stephen says in this conversation: sincerity matters. The story matters. Stephen and I talk about our favourite slashers, the joy of childhood horror viewing, the pros and cons of the final girl trope and how you blend irony and sincerity in a work of fiction. I take him to task for always killing animals in his stories and he DOES not make it better by telling me why. Oh, and we both spend a bit of time idolising Joe R. Lansdale. Thanks to everyone who has listened this past year. I can’t believe how far we’ve come and this show wouldn’t be what it is without you. Thanks so much. Ok, sweetness over with. On with the bloodshed! Enjoy. My Heart is a Chainsaw was published August 31st by Gallery / Saga in North America and Titan in the UK. Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text Morning campers! This week we’re off to the great outdoors for a hike, a night under the stars and a spot of psychological terror. Our guest is Zoje Stage. In her previous novels, Babyteeth and Wonderland she took us to dark houses and interior spaces. Her new novel, Getaway, does the opposite, dragging us on the adventure of a lifetime. A week hiking in the Grand Canyon. Just the ticket to blow away the covid claustrophobia. Shame it all goes so horribly wrong! We talk a lot about characters in this conversation – how to build them, how to make them interesting, and why no-one ever thinks they are the villain of the story. Zoje also relates the eerie incident in the Great Outdoors that inspires her novel, and I go on a rant about Thanos and Negan from the Walking Dead (keeping it highbrow!) What we learn, most of all, is that a tent is only a psychological barrier against whatever else is roaming the wilds. Enjoy! Getaway was published August 17th by Mulholland Books Other books mentioned in this episode include: Babyteeth (2018), by Zoje Stage Wonderland (2020), by Zoje Stage Jaws (1974), by Peter Benchley Deliverance (1970), by James Dickey The Ritual (2011) by Adam Nevill The Road (2006), by Cormac McCarthy Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text This week the walls between reality and fiction begin to break down. What is truth, what is a lie? Can a story be both? These are the kinds of questions my guest, Richard Chizmar, has become an expert at answering. His new novel (if we can call it that) is Chasing the Boogeyman and it’s a unique beast. Part memoir, part true-crime, part horror fiction – it takes the streets of Rich’s boyhood home, colours them sepia and then lets a serial killer run loose. We talk about the illusion of storytelling, about true-crime and false memories, and the golden-hued horror that we both love. Stephen King, Ray Bradbury and others loom in the background, but Chasing the Boogeyman is uniquely Chizmar, in all the ways a book can be. If that all sounds gorge-risingly poetic then, well, first of all, sod-off, it’s my podcast and I’ll rhapsodise if I want to. Secondly, don’t worry we also talk about monsters and mayhem and the time Rich’s friend crapped in his own hand. In short, something for everyone. Enjoy!! (I really did!) Chasing the Boogeyman was published August 17th by Gallery Books in North America and Hodder & Stoughton in the UK. Other books mentioned include: Gwendy’s Button Box (2017), by Richard Chizmar and Stephen King Gwendy’s Magic Feather (2019) by Richard Chizmar I’ll Be Gone in the Dark (2018) by Michelle McNamara True Crime Addict (2016), by James Renner Lunar Park (2005), by Bret Easton Ellis From a Buick Eight (2002), by Stephen King It (1986), by Stephen King Boy’s Life (1991), by Robert McCammon Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text This week’s guest couldn’t be better timed. In a week when we find out the world is not only screwed, it’s REALLY screwed, our guest is Brian Evenson, with his new collection, The Glassy Burning Floor of Hell – which could be a description of many places on the globe right now. These stories transport the reader to strange, deformed, blasted landscapes. Like the worlds they depict, Brian’s tales are harsh and dark and frightening but, as you’ll hear me say, they are also a surprising amount of fun. As well as the end of all things, there are also cults, flying cities, terrifying feathered men, and a murderous leg. So read them and enjoy them – but heed the wakeup call. These monstrous worlds could all too easily be our own (if you want some light relief, here’s the wiki on the Human Interference Task Force – cats and cults and wizards-a-plenty) Enjoy.Other books mentioned in this episode include: “Solution” (2020), by Brian Evenson - Read it Here Altmann’s Tongue (1994) by Brian Evenson Father of Lies (1998) by Brian Evenson The Open Curtain (2006) by Brian Evenson Last Days (2009) by Brian Evenson The Turnip Princess and other Newly Discovered Fairy Tales (2015), by Franz Xaver von Schönwerth The Book of the New Sun (1980), by Gene Wolfe The Dying Earth (1950), by Jack Vance. Full series collected as The Compleat Dying Earth (2000) A Canticle for Liebowitz (1959), by Walter M. Miller Jr. Thin Places (2020), by Kay Chronister Age of Blight (2016), by Kristine Ong Muslim Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text Sisters are doing it for themselves – literally! Our guest this week is Sara Flannery Murphy, author of Girl One – which is either a feminist dystopian nightmare or a superhero origin story, or both. It is an alternative history of genetic science that asks the question of what would happen if women no longer needed men to conceive a child. The answer is simultaneously complex and chilling. Sara and I talk about writing as a feminist in the time of Trump (and living in a Red State), and whether her characters are witches in any sense of the word. We discuss how pathogenesis has always had a home in the horror genre. And I demand to know why, if she was going to rewrite history, she didn’t save poor Kurt Cobain. Enjoy! Girl One was published by on 1st June by FSG in the US and on August 5th by Raven Books in the UK. Other books mentioned in the show include: Carrie (1974), by Stephen King Firestarter (1980), by Stephen King The Return (2020), by Rachel Harrison Marilou is Everywhere (2019), by Sarah Elaine Smith Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text Why isn’t there more horror about marriage? Think about it. You marry someone. Spend your life with them. But do you really know them, or what they are capable of. Ronald Malfi’s Come With Me pries open these secrets, sending the protagonist on a tailspinning road trip in pursuit of the truth about the woman he has loved and lost. It’s a big, satisfying, chunky summer novel packed full of murder and monstrosity and motel-stays in the creepier corners of the country. You’ll love it. Ronald joins me to talk about the book, about writing grief and the very real tragedy that underpins Come With Me. Despite the absurd heat at either end of the conversation, we soldier on heroically, taking in local lore, the link between leaded petrol and serial killers, and why ecology may be the new haunting. And yes, we talk about how marriage should be a bigger theme in horror! Next time your wife, or husband, or significant other gets up in the night – think about that. What are they up to in the bathroom? Could be the usual. Could be something evil. Mwah ha ha! Enjoy. Come With Me was published by Titan on 20th July. Other books mentioned in the show include: December Park (2014), by Ronald Malfi Snow (2010), by Ronald Malfi The Only Good Indians (2020), by Stephen Graham Jones I’ll Be Gone in the Dark (2018) by Michelle McNamara Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text Weather this hot demands the cool balm of a book, and do I have one for you. The Book of Accidents is the latest horror-epic from Chuck Wendig – the seeming literary successor to King, Straub, McCammon and Barker. Wendig’s books take you in their embrace and say “you’re mine now” or maybe “we all float down here.” Here, in this case, being a mineshaft in the rural vacancy of Pennsylvania. There is plenty of hype around The Book of Accidents and I’m delighted to say it’s all earned. This is quite simply the kind of big, bombastic storytelling you don’t get much of anymore, a steak-and-lobster-with-ice-cream for after sort of novel that fills you up and leaves you satisfied. The book is so big, and the ideas so grand, that Chuck and I end up forgetting to talk much about the actual story. Instead we discuss what it has to say about society – good and bad – about kindness, and love and the comfort of horror that we all-too often ignore in favour of the viscera. In short, it’s a wholesome conversation about a wholesome book, about a very unwholesome scenario. Oh – and Chuck tells us all about the very real haunted house that inspired it. A house he happens to have grown up in. Enjoy! The Book of Accidents was published by Del Rey on 20th July. Other books mentioned in the show include: Blackbirds: Miriam Black #1 (2012), by Chuck Wendig Wanderers (2018), by Chuck Wendig The Three (2014), by Sarah Lotz Road of Bones (coming 2022), by Christopher Golden Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text Hello fellow horror-fiends. This week we’re going retro, to the heyday of horror, when men wore masks and women checked basements in their negligee. Our guest is Grady Hendrix, a writer perpetually interested in taking tropes, only to stab them, kill them, and resurrect them as something new. He’s done it with exorcisms, vampires, the devil and … erm .. IKEA. Now he’s taking on the slasher and his counterpart, in The Final Girl Support Group. A novel that takes the bloody, weary body of the female heroine, and gives her the chance to kick the hell out of the monster chasing her. It’s meta, funny, wry and ironic – but it’s also a story with heart. I enjoyed it immensely. Grady and I talk about our favourite slashers (and final girls), why we’re obsessed with nostalgia, what it means that we enjoy films about killing women, and I – once again ­– give away too much of my own psychological frailty. This time it’s my all-consuming terror of Freddy Kruger. This is a book and conversation that will REALLY please the true horror lovers. Enjoy! The Final Girl Support Group is published July 13th by Berkley in North American and Titan in the UK. Books mentioned in this episode include: Paperbacks From Hell (2017), by Grady Hendrix We Sold Our Souls (2018), by Grady Hendrix The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires (2020), by Grady Hendrix Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film (1992), by Carol J. Clover The Last Final Girl (2012), by Stephen Graham Jones Final Girls (2017), by Riley Sager The Tribe (1981), by Bari Wood When Darkness Loves Us (1985), by Elizabeth Engstrom Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text This week we’re doing something different. No author and no single book. Instead it’s a roundtable discussion, with Sadie Hartmann (AKA Mother Horror) and Emily Hughes, the genius loci behind Tor Nightfire. Together we look back over the last six months – the highs, the not-so-many-lows and all the endless twitter controversies – to address the state of the horror nation at the midpoint of 2021. All three of us talk about the books we have loved the most so far this year, what else we are looking forward to in the months ahead, and what our hopes are for horror writing in general. We also address the concerns around trauma, trigger warnings, twitter subtweeting and the endless, vice-like grip of Goodreads. If you want to get a true sense of the breadth and depth of the horror being created right now, then this is designed for you. Also, if you just want to listen to three horror nerds talk about scary stuff whilst you do the ironing, then it’s also for you. Basically, it’s for everyone. Cos I’m a giver. Enjoy! Emily Hughes’ list of horror books to be excited about in 2021 is HERE. The (huger-than-normal) list of books mentioned in this episode includes: The Picks Hearts Strange and Dreadful (2021), by Tim McGregor Goddess of Filth (2021), by V. Castro Last One at the Party (2021), by Bethany Clift Children of Chicago (2021), by Cynthia Pelayo Star Eater (2021), by Kerstin Hall Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke (2021), by Eric LaRocca Unfortunate Elements of My Anatomy (2021), by Hailey Piper In That Endlessness, Our End (2021), by Gemma Files Coming Soon Immortelle, by Catherine McCarthy - July The Book Of Accidents, by Chuck Wendig – July Come With Me, by Ronald Malfi - July Revelator, by Daryl Gregory – August The Glassy Burning Floor of Hell, by Brian Evenson – August Chasing the Boogeyman, by Richard Chizmar - August My Heart is a Chainsaw, by Stephen Graham Jones – August Cackle, by Rachel Harrison – October Reprieve, by James Han Mattson – October Nothing but Blackened Teeth, by Cassandra Khaw - October Something More Than Night, by Kim Newman - November Assorted Others The Library at Mount Char (2015), by Scott Hawkins The Last House on Needless Street (2021), by Catriona Ward Rawblood (2015), by Catriona Ward A Head Full of Ghosts (2015), by Paul Tremblay The Twisted Ones (2019), by T. Kingfisher Starving Ghosts in Every Thread (2020), by Eric LaRocca The Family Plot (2016), by Cherie Priest Boy’s Life (1991), by Robert McCammon Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text This week I have been forced to up my game. Our guest is Carmen Maria Machado, and her works is not for the lazy or faint-hearted. From her dizzying collection of short fiction, Her Body and Other Parties, to her one-of-a-kind memoir, In the Dream House, Carmen’s writing forces a humble interviewer such as me, to question how we talk about books, author, character, truth, fiction and all the messy space in between. In the Dream House deconstructs what a memoir is and can do, and I had to really think about the questions I wanted to ask, and how to ask them. It is, nominally, a narrative of domestic abuse in a same-sex relationship, but Carmen chooses to tell that story using every literary tool in her (and everyone else’s) toolbox. The result is electrifying. We talk about privacy versus public, what it’s like to write about sex you’ve actually had, hypochondria, double-standards and the lure of horror and gothic as a way to tell a real-life story of violence and trauma. It’s not all dark though. We laugh a lot. Mostly at my awkwardness. Enjoy! Her Body and Other Parties and In the Dream House are both published by Greywolf Press in North America and Serpent’s Tail in the UK. Other books discussed in this episode include: The Argonauts (2015), by Maggie Nelson The Ghost Variations (2021), by Kevin Brockmeier A Few Seconds of Radiant Filmstrip: A Memoir of Seventh Grade (2014), by Kevin Brockmeier Proxies: Essays Near Knowing (2016), by Brian Blanchfield Monster Portraits (2018), by Sofia Samatar The Hot Zone (1994), by Richard Preston The Haunting of Hill House (1959), by Shirley Jackson The Bloody Chamber (1979), by Angela Carter Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text It’s a dirty, grim, glorious time on Talking Scared this week. After a last-minute schedule reshuffle we have Eric LaRocca, here to talk about his word-of-mouth sensation of a novella – Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke. Gotten worse is quite the understatement. This book goes so far beyond the pale in terms of horror’s usual comfort level these days. It’s a simple tale of online love, BDSM and self-mutilation, all tinged with some wonderful early noughties nostalgia. This book does for MSN messenger what the Blair Witch Project did for the woods. Eric and I talk about all of that, as well as transgressive fiction, the beauty to be found in disgust, and our shared love of books and movies that have achieved legendary status as things that you probably shouldn’t experience (if you know what's good for you)! Enjoy!!Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke is out now from WeirdPunk Books. Other books discussed in this episode include: The Sluts (2004), by Denis Cooper Crash (1973), by J.G. Ballard Haunted (2005), by Chuck Palahniuk We Need to Do Something (2020), by Max Booth III Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text Pour yourself a whisky, grab a seat and listen to the best voice in dark fiction tell you some stories. Our guest is Joe Lansdale author of so many books I can’t even begin to list them. Oh, ok, I will. Edge of Dark Water, Paradise Sky, The Bottoms, The Thicket, Fender Lizard … “Bubba Ho Tep”, Cold in July … the entire Hap and Leonard series. And he joins me to talk about his newest, Moon Lake. A tale of dark nostalgia, small town politics and murder set on the banks of a drowned village. It’s a sun-soaked, shadow-tinged summer read of the best, and most twisted kind. As much as Joe is nominally on the show to talk about Moon Lake, he’s a hard man to pin down to mere self-promotion. He has tales to tell and opinions to offer and you’d better goddamn LISTEN!! We discuss blue collar youth, Texas attitude, and whether having some hardship in life makes you a better writer. He tells me how he comes up with his unique metaphors, and why he defended Stephen King when twitter turned against him. All in all, it’s a friendly conversation about the perils of tribalism, why we should all be a little bit more tolerant, and why choosing stupidity is scary as hell. This is a bucket-list interview for me. Enjoy! Moon Lake is published by Mulholland Books on June 22nd. Other books discussed in this episode include: Edge of Dark Water (2012), by Joe R. Lansdale The Thicket (2013), by Joe R. Lansdale Paradise Sky (2015), by Joe R. Lansdale “Tight Little Stitches in a Dead Mans Back,” in High Cotton: Selected Stories of Joe. R. Lansdale “On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert with the Dead Folks”, in The Best of Joe R. Lansdale (2010) “The Night They Missed the Horror Show”, by Joe R. Lansdale – originally published in Silver Scream, (1988) ed. By David Schow Great Expectations, (1860), by Charles Dickens The Only Good Indians (2020), by Stephen Graham Jones Mongrels (2016), by Stephen Graham Jones Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text Maybe it’s the heat but this week we’re getting angry on Talking Scared. Our guest is V. Castro – author of Goddess of Filth and her newest, Queen of the Cicadas – and she’s full of rage. Thankfully, it’s not directed at me, despite my hideous attempts at Spanish pronunciation. Queen of the Cicadas is about identity, folklore and the residue of a decades-old crime that stands as representative of all crimes against Latinx people by an uncaring world. The death of a young girl brings forth the wrath of a violent goddess from the Aztec past …. and stuff goes DOWN!! V (short for Violet) and I talk about rage, and hate and blood and myth, which all sounds deeply profound. However, we also talk about sex and Candyman, and we put the boot into some other books, so rest assured we don’t take ourselves too seriously!! But yeah, this is one to get your blood up. Enjoy! Queen of the Cicadas is published by Flame Tree Press on June 22nd. Other books discussed in this episode include: Goddess of Filth (2021) by V. Castro Sed de Sangre (2020), by V. Castro “Cucuy of Cancun” (2020), by V. Castro, in Worst Laid Plans: An Anthology of Vacation Horror, ed. Sam Kolesnik. 2666 (2004), by Roberto Bolaño American Dirt (2019), by Jeanine Cummins Camp Slaughter (2019), by Sergio Gomez Coyote Songs (2018), by Gabino Iglesias Into the Forest and All the Way Through (2020), by Cynthia Pelayo Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text It’s not often you speak to the author of a book that EVERYONE has heard of. This week I got the chance. Max Brooks. Max-freaking-Brooks, author of global bestseller World War Z is here. But rather than the undead, we’re talking hairy things in the woods, technological dependence and woke hipsters being eaten. Max’s latest novel, Devolution, regales us with the lives (and deaths) of an eco-community living deep in the forests of the Pacific Northwest. Stranded by a disaster, they fall prey first to their own inadequacy and then to the very adequate hunger of roaming sasquatch, We’ve talked Bigfoot and cryptozoology a lot on this show in recent weeks. But this is the big bad daddy of them all. A satire, a found-footage document, an adventure story, but also a blood, guts and claw-filled horror novel. It’s much grimmer than you may expect. As well as monsters, Max and I discuss hokey documentaries, primate research, driverless cars, the cursed legacy of Steve Jobs and skewering our own liberal echo chamber. But it all centres on how patently unprepared our society really is for crisis. Enjoy. Devolution is published in paperback on June 10th by Del Rey. Other books and documentaries discussed in this episode include: Bigfoot: The Mysterious Monsters (1976) directed by Robert Guenette Night of the Crabs (1976), by Guy N. Smith World War Z (2006), by Max Brooks The Harlem Hellfighters (2014), by Max Brooks My review of Devolution in the UK Guardian can be found HERE. Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text If you’re returning to the office any time soon and you’re really bummed about it – this week’s guest will make you feel better …. cos it could be so much worse. Zakiya Dalila Harris is the author of the much-anticipated debut, The Other Black Girl. It’s been touted as Jordan Peele’s Get Out meets The Devil Wears Prada and that’s true, there is white conspiracy and awful bosses aplenty, but I’d also suggest more than a little of the paranoid frisson of Rosemary’s Baby and the toe-curling embarrassment of The Office. Basically, it’s a big, fun book all about workplace prejudice, micro-aggressions and the thin veneer of equality – but, this being Talking Scared, rest assured it’s more than the sum of those everyday parts. It also goes into some weird and wicked places. Zakiya and I talk about her own career as the ‘only black girl in a publishing house’, the way well-meaning comments can do the most damage, and I express my anxiety about asking her ALL the questions about Blackness, like the awkward white guy at the party who insists he’d have voted for a third Obama term. Oh, and we get into hair care. Something that’s more than a little important in this book … and y’know, in life I love this book and insist you all read it. Enjoy! The Other Black Girl is published June 1st by Bloomsbury in the UK and Atria in North America. Other books discussed in this episode include: All Her Little Secrets (2021), by Wanda M. Morris Rosemary’s Baby (1967), by Ira Levin The Stephen Graham Jones open letter “from the Indians no longer in the background of a John Wayne movie” can be found HERE. Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text Josh Malerman, bestselling wunderkinder of horror, author of Birdbox, Malorie, Unbury Carol and now Goblin, has graced Talking Scared with his presence. We’re talking about Goblin specifically, his new ‘novel in six novellas’ detailing the lives and losses of people in the weirdest small-town west of Castle Rock. It’s got monstrous owls and more monstrous police, an impossible hedge maze, things in boxes that MUST NOT BE OPENED, and the fear of fear itself. As Josh points out (and I hadn’t noticed) the book is about all the different kinds of obsession that make up a life and a town. And we get into Josh’s own obsession with writing, from his ridiculously prolific output, to writing whilst touring with his band. We talk about how he got published, an odd route involving a friend from school and a stoned conversation with a lawyer. Plus, he tells me all about the time he saw a ghost or something in his house after listening to his mom’s taped sessions with a psychic (scary story!). He’s a little bit rock n roll and a little bit culture-geek, and the conversation follows suit – with me essentially trying not to gush “thank you for talking to me” over and over again. I love this interview. Enjoy! Goblin is published May 18th by Del Rey Other books we discussed include: Unbury Carol (2018), by Josh Malerman Birdbox, (2014) by Josh Malerman The Loney (2014), by Andrew Michael Hurley Wanderers (2019), by Chuck Wendig Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text This week the Queen of black horror is Talking Scared. Tananarive Due is bestowing her patronage on little ol’ me and I’m not quite sure what to do with myself. Tananarive ranks amongst the most respected horror writers of the 21st Century, from her breakout effort, The Between, to her British Fantasy Award winning collection, Ghost Summer and her magnum opus (so far at least) The Good House. She took the time to talk me through her career, from breaking free of the MFA fixation on white guys and their naval-gazing, to the time she used good old rock ‘n’ roll to coerce Stephen King into blurbing her book. We also take in the volcanic impact of Jordan Peele and why black horror lit is ready to follow in film’s footsteps. If you are interested in horror generally then this is not a conversation to miss. Especially when Tananarive gets into her forthcoming novel, The Reformatory – seven years in the making, and inspired by her own ancestry and the bloody history of a brutal prison. Enjoy Books mentions in this conversation include: The Between (1995), by Tananarive Due The Good House (2003), by Tananarive Due Ghost Summer (2015) by Tananarive Due My Soul to Keep (1997) by Tananarive Due Dark Dreams (2004), edited by Brandon Massey “The Comet” (1920), by W.E. Dubois Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text Do you ever feel you’re being watched? Ever caught a flicker from the corner of your eye that you can’t explain? Do you run out of milk more than you think you should? Maybe, just maybe, there is someone living in your house. It’s a worldwide phenomenon (just check google) and this week’s guest has turned it into a genre-bending novel that’s tipped as one of THE Gothic reads of 2021. A.J. Gnuse’s debut, Girl in the Walls is a literary chiller about grief, loneliness and what the word HOME really means. He joined me to talk through how the book came to be, why a conclusive ending was needed and how the spectre of Hurricane Katrina haunts his fiction. He also tell an especially creepy anecdote about a hidden door in his own home. Oh, and I tell a story about a woman who lived inside a stranger’s kitchen cupboard for a year. You can see the chilling footage of her reveal HERE. Enjoy! Girl in the Walls is published in the UK Fourth Estate and in North American by Ecco Books Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text Jeff VanderMeer is our guest. Need I say more? First things first though, rest easy, the episode title doesn’t refer to either me or Jeff. We both make it out alive. Not everything does though. Listen on for the most on-the-nose display of savage nature, so perfect a backdrop to a conversation about animals, ecological crisis and the horror of extinction. What starts with the brave little hummingbird could end up killing us all. Jeff’s new novel, Hummingbird Salamander is an eco-noir, an accelerating ride to a point “ten seconds in the future” at the end of the world. It’s a deeply challenging book, both in style and message, and in a rare moment of seriousness, it brought our shared ecological plight and our wrongdoing home to me like nothing before. Jeff and I talk about how humanity can live with the peril of ecological disaster hanging over our heads, and how fiction can help bring that reality home. In lighter moments Jeff also tells me about how he thinks up stories involving giant flying bears, gives a lot of info on his upcoming collection of horror novellas, and horrifies me with the reason behind his phobia of cockroaches. Seriously … JESUS CHRIST JEFF!! Oh, and I introduce my new Patreon membership perks. Trust me, you wanna! Enjoy! Hummingbird Salamander was published in the UK by Fourth Estate Books and in North America by Farrar, Straus and Giroux on 6th April. Books discussed include: Annihilation (2014), by Jeff VanderMeer Borne (2017), by Jeff VanderMeer The Rain Heron (2020), by Robbie Arnaut Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text This week, I bring you MOAR monsters!!! Our guest is Christina Henry, whose new novel, Near the Bone fits so nicely as the unofficial second part to a cryptozoology-inflected series that began with Danielle Trussoni last week. Don’t worry, I’m not talking about the Loch Ness Monster for an hour, but the novel does feature a monster, some cryptid hunters and the very violent evils of both man and beast. Christina does manage to get me off the subject of monsters for a while, to give some insight into her surprisingly relaxed approach to writing, to her love of the outdoors and running (and how that provides a backdrop for her horror stories. And we even dip a toe into the pressing question of the age – CAN HORROR TAKE PLACE IN SPACE?? We ask who determines what a horror novel is, and whether YouTube and the discovery channel have changed monsters forever. Oh, and I get the chance to reminisce about the time I nearly got eaten by a bear (sort of. It looked at me at least!) Enjoy! Near the Bone was published by Titan Books on April 13th. Other books discussed in this episode include: Ghost Tree (2020), by Christina Henry The Girl in Red (2019), by Christina Henry Leave the World Behind (2020), by Rumaan Alam Earthlings (2018), by Sayaka Murata The Girl With All the Gifts (2014), by M.R. Carey Christine (1983), by Stephen King Eyes of the Dragon (1984), by Stephen King Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text When was the last time a story took you completely by surprise? Danielle Trussoni’s The Ancestor ambushed me into loving it. What seems a standard Gothic fiction turns into something wholly weirder … and wilder … as a young American woman inherits a creaky European castle, and the monstrous baggage that comes with it. Dani came on the show – somehow finding time between writing her new novel and being the New York Times’ horror columnist – to talk about The Ancestor’s paperback release. We tiptoe around the book’s many, many secrets, and somehow find ourselves all the way to a discussion about Bigfoot. It’s that kind of chat. We also discuss how her own roots and heritage inspired the novel, why there are so many double standards about women authors and horror, how she fits existing myth and lore into her stories so well … and I regale her with one of my favourite pieces of British legend. She’s kind enough to pretend that she doesn’t obviously know more about horror than me – and she also exposes me as someone who mentions that I have a degree a little too much. It’s interesting, enlightening, and more than a little bit shocking. Enjoy! The Ancestor is out in paperback from Custom House on April 13th. Other books we discussed include: Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places (2016), by Colin Dickey The Unidentified: Mythical Monsters, Alien Encounters and our Obsession with the Unexplained (2020), by Colin Dickey Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011), by Yuval Noah Harari Flowers in the Attic (1979), by V.C. Andrews The Historian (2005), by Elizabeth Kostova Support the show by donating: https://ko-fi.com/talkingscaredpod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text Welcome to the Green Mountain State, lovely, liberal . . . haunted!! Our guest is to ghost-stories what Ben and Jerry are to ice cream – Vermont’s resident ghost-writer-in-chief, Jennifer McMahon. Her new novel, The Drowning Kind takes us back to the small towns, local stores and eerie histories typical of her fiction, but with an added turning of the screw – it’s not the house that’s haunted, it’s the pool out back. If that sounds cheesy, it ISN’T. The Drowning Kind is an alternative type of ghost story – how alternative, and whether what lurks in the pool is even a ghost – are both subjects we dive into. Jen tells me about why she finds such darkness in Vermont’s pleasant green hills, and I get very excited to talk to someone about the state’s folklore! Oh, and there are index cards. Many, many index cards. For the technique-geek, or the aspiring novelist, this is some serious insight into the creative process of a master plotter. As promised in the show, here is some further detail on her system. Enjoy! The Drowning Kind is out from Gallery Books on April 6th. Other books we discussed include: The Invited (2019), by Jennifer McMahon The House Next Door (1978), by Anne River Siddons The Haunting of Hill House (1959), by Shirley Jackson We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962), by Shirley Jackson “The Monkey’s Paw” (1902), by W. W. Jacobs Come Closer (2003), by Sara Gran Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text Does your child draw pentagrams? Have you noticed the neighbours hanging their robes over the washing line? Worst of all, have they started listening to …. HEAVY METAL?? You may be experiencing a satanic panic. Worry not, our guest, Clay McLeod Chapman can diagnose this for you. Clay’s new novel, Whisper Down the Lane is both a homage to the horror of the 80s, and an exploration of how that decade's battle with truth, memory and Satan(!!) lives on today. His story riffs on the very real scandal at the McMartin Preschool, as well as the wider hysteria that led to people being sacked, vilified and even imprisoned based upon absolute bulls*t. As you’ll hear, it’s a darker tale than I had imagined, but it’s also jam-packed with references, easter-eggs and allusions to the horror that made the decade. Along the way Clay talks to me about how the satanic panic never really went away, how it ties into our very modern sense of ‘truth’ and he tells me why he never wants his kids to read his stories. On my part, I tell him the world is ok and other unconscionably optimistic things! Oh, and I’m convinced that Clay orchestrated Lil Nas X’s ’Satan Shoes’ to help him sell more copies. Enjoy! Whisper Down the Lane is published by Quirk Books on April 6th 2021. Other books we discussed this week include: Rosemary’s Baby (1967), by Ira Levin Geek Love (1989), by Katherine Dunn Nothing But Blackened Teeth (2021), by Cassandra Khaw Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text We’ve covered our share of plagues on this show during our all-too-real year of sitting indoors and waiting for the pandemic to sod off. Do you have the guts for one more? You should, but you may empty them. Our guest is V.L. Valentine and her debut novel The Plague Letters transports us to London in 1665. The Great Plague is scouring the population, with only the barest medical expertise to hold it at bay. Into this ghastly furnace comes a killer, hiding in plain sight. It’s a fantastic premise for a novel and Vikki does the idea great service. In this episode you’ll hear my general dislike of historical detective fiction – and how The Plague Letters is a very different beast. We also talk Ebola, c-sections, lockdown ethics, and the problem with passive characters – as well as wondering what the serial killers are doing during social distancing. This is not for the faint-hearted, or the weak of stomach. Enjoy! The Plague Letters is published by Viper Books on April 1st, 2001. Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text This is a big one. The Last House on Needless Street may be the best pure horror novel I’ve read this decade. Okay, the decade is only 3 months old, but check back with me in 9 years and I may still be saying the same. I’m delighted to speak to the author of this latter-day classic, Catriona Ward, about secrets and lies and how the hell you begin to describe a book that is one big spoiler! Once Cat and I work out how to even talk about the novel without ruining for everyone, we then spend a happy hour navigating the nooks and crannies of the book and its titular house. We start with Ted Bundy, end with Ed Gein, and in between we cover why cats are inscrutable, how you write mental illness responsibly, and Cat tell us about the times a ghost pushed her out of bed. It’s been a long wait to discuss this book, and I’m delighted I finally can. If you have read it get in touch. I’m dying to know what other’s think. Enjoy! The Last House on Needless Street is published by in the UK on Mrch 18th by Viper Books. It will be published in North America on Septmeber 28th by Tor Nightfire. Other books discussed in this episode include: Rawblood (2015), by Catriona Ward Little Eve (2018), by Catriona Ward The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper (2019), by Hallie Rubenhold Spider (1990), by Patrick McGrath Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text Once upon a time in a land far, far away, there was a young woman, bad men, and some homicidal mermaids. It’s fairy tale time. Our guest is Angela Slatter, who’s new novel All the Murmuring Bones turns the fairy stories that comforted you as a child, into a horrid tale of murder, inheritance, death, sex and entrapment. In this world Hansel and Gretel would be a very tasty pie-filling. Angela has spent years studying the fairy tale tradition and turning it against her readers. All the Murmuring Bones is her first full length novel taking place in the dark world he has created. This conversation is half about her book, and half about the tradition as a whole. Think of it as a compact university course without the fees, the homework or the risk of STIs. We talk about the darker versions of old tales, why all fairytales seem inherently feminist, and why they are coming back into force. I also make a big mistake about mythical creatures that makes me sound more than a little creepy, until rectified. Enjoy! All the Murmuring Bones is published by Titan Books on March 9th in Australia and North America, and on March 29th in the UK. Other books mentioned in this episode include: Sourdough and other Stories (2010), by Angela Slatter The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings (2014), by Angela Slatter The Once and Future Witches (2020), by Alex Harrow Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins (1993), by Emma Donoghue The Bloody Chamber (1979), by Angela Carter The Faery Handbag (2004), by Kelly Link From the Beast to the Blond: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers (1994), by Marina Warner Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text Isolation is a bitch, but it could be worse! Our guest is Bethany Clift and her debut novel is Last One at the Party – a pandemic novel that reminds you that at least we have Netflix, facetime and the chance to call our friends. Beth’s novel follows an unnamed woman, the last survivor of a global plague that has emptied out the world in just a few weeks. As she struggles through the ruins of a posta-apocalyptic Britain, she also confronts the wreckage of her life in the ‘before times’. If that all sounds dreadfully grim, and not at all what you want to read in our current plight, then remember three things: 1) WE have a vaccine (and it’s working) 2) This book is also laugh out loud hilarious 3) There is a dog called Lucky that you will love with all your heart. Beth and I have a bit of laugh on this one – perhaps inappropriately so considering we’re discussing the end of the world – but we also cover what it’s like to actually write about Covid-19 in retrospect, why ‘stroking the dog’ is not a euphemism, but a very clever trick, and whether we still have space for apocalyptic glee in our reading. Forgive the title of the episode, all will make sense when you listen … and read the book. Enjoy! Last One at the Party was published in the UK by Hodder on 4th Feb 2021 and will be published in other territories soon. Other books discussed include: The Stand (1978), by Stephen King The Long Walk (1979), by Stephen King I Am Legend (1954), by Richard Matheson The Road (2006), by Cormac McCarthy Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text If you’ve been homeschooling, in labour, or generally responsible for the life of a small human during lockdown, then this episode is for you. There are people out there, writers with great skill and empathy, who share your pain, and know how you feel. This week’s guest is Julia Fine, the author of Bram Stoker Award Nominated What Should Be Wild, and now the postpartum nightmare, The Upstairs House. Julia’s novel is about new motherhood, societal expectation, the horror of lost self, and ghosts. Really weird ghosts, of literary figures who demand she write their story, or else they may take her child. During our conversation we cover a whole host of things, from the lack of literary representation for postpartum sufferers, to the haunting legacy of famous children’s authors … oh, and I also inadvertently compare Julia’s child to my puppy – and I await the rage of any listeners with a new baby. But yeah, this is a good book that raises a lot of questions, and a good chat that answers some of them really well. Enjoy!The Upstairs House is published on February 23rd by Harper. Other books discussed in this episode include: The Bloody Chamber (1979), by Angela Carter The Yellow Wallpaper (1892), by Charlotte Perkings Gilman House of Leaves (2000), by Mark Z. Danielewski Fever Dream (2014), by Samantha Schweblin Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design. Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices