The Monster She Wrote Podcast

Join Mel and Lisa as they welcome author Alma Katsu in speaking about her newest book, Incarnate.  Alma Katsu is the award-winning author of nine novels that have made best books lists at Apple, Goodreads, Barnes & Noble, and more. She is most known for The Hunger, a reimagining of the story of the Donner Party, which was named by NPR as one of the 100 most loved horror stories and won the Western Heritage Award for best novel. Her story The Wehrwolf won the 2019 Stoker award for long fiction. She also writes spy thrillers, drawing on her career in intelligence. You can find out more at almakatsubooks.com.    Recommended in this episode: Sarah Langan's Trad Wife NEWS: We have a Bookshop.org shop now! Find all of our favorite books at our shop–and help out small businesses.  UP NEXT: Alma Katsu's Incarnate Buy our books here, including Monster, She Wrote and our newest Toil and Trouble.  SOMETHING IN THE WATER is out March 2, 2027. Preorder now!  

Mel and Lisa cordially invite you to a wedding as we discuss Rachel Harrison's Kiss, Slay, Replay. This wedding weekend was already a disaster: Willa is stuck in a social nightmare watching her ex-fiance with his new girlfriend while she tries her best to be happy for her best friends at their nuptials. But the awkward situation turns deadly when a masked killer begins slashing their way through the crowd. Willa thinks she might be the final girl–until she is slain as quickly as the others. But in a twist, she wakes up the same day again and again, trapped in a time loop until she can figure out how to survive the wedding from hell. Recommended in this episode: Jen Julian's The Winter Folk and Alex North's The Whisper Man NEWS: We have a Bookshop.org shop now! Find all of our favorite books at our shop–and help out small businesses.  UP NEXT: Alma Katsu's Incarnate Buy our books here, including Monster, She Wrote and our newest Toil and Trouble.   SOMETHING IN THE WATER is out March 2, 2027. Preorder now!  

Join Mel and Lisa as we discuss Octavia E. Butler's Kindred.     In 1976 California, Dana is a writer, navigating love and life with her husband Kevin. But Dana's life is complicated when she begins to spontaneously time travel back to 1800s Maryland. These trips are dangerous–especially for a black woman traveling back to the slavery-era antebellum South. And with little control over when she travels, Dana must learn to survive–whatever time she finds herself in.     Recommended in this episode: Love Never Dies by Emma Cole and How to Kill a Guy in Ten Dates by Shailee Thompson  NEWS: We have a Bookshop.org shop now! Find all of our favorite books at our shop–and help out small businesses.  UP NEXT: Rachel Harrison's Kiss, Slay, Replay Buy our books here, including Monster, She Wrote and our newest Toil and Trouble.  SOMETHING IN THE WATER is out March 2, 2027. Preorder now!  

Join Mel and Lisa as we discuss Gwendolyn Kiste's Great Gatsby reimagining In These Gilded, Ghostly Hearts. In 1955, Daisy Buchanan is found dead in the mansion in West Egg that used to belong to the infamous and enigmatic Jay Gatsby. Attempting to grapple with her unhappy relationship with her lost mother, Daisy's daughter, Mel, visits the mansion and becomes entangled in ghosts of the past, leading her to uncover secrets kept by her parents and Gatsby. Now she wonders what responsibility, if any, she should have for those dangerous events that occurred when she was just a small child.       Recommended in this episode: Sarah Langan's Trad Wife  and Muñeca by Cynthia Gomez NEWS: We have a Bookshop.org shop now! Find all of our favorite books at our shop–and help out small businesses.  UP NEXT: Octavia Butler's Kindred Buy our books here, including Monster, She Wrote and our newest Toil and Trouble.  

Today, we welcome Gwendolyn Kiste back to the podcast to discuss her new novella, In These Gilded Ghostly Hearts.  Gwendolyn Kiste is the four-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Rust Maidens, Reluctant Immortals, The Haunted Houses She Calls Her Own, Pretty Marys All in a Row, and The Haunting of Velkwood. Her short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in outlets including Lit Hub, Nightmare, Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, CrimeReads, Titan Books, The Lineup, and The Dark. She's a Lambda Literary Award winner, and her fiction has also received the This Is Horror Award for Novel of the Year as well as nominations for the Shirley Jackson, Premios Kelvin, Ignotus, Dragon, and Ohio Book Awards. Originally from Ohio, she now resides on an abandoned horse farm outside of Pittsburgh with her husband, their excitable calico cat, and not nearly enough ghosts. Find her online at gwendolynkiste.com Recommended in this episode: Cyanide Constellations by Sara Tantlinger, Cracks by Kristy Park Kulski and Liz Kerin's How to Disappear Completely NEWS: We have a Bookshop.org shop now! Find all of our favorite books at our shop–and help out small businesses.  UP NEXT: A discussion of In These Gilded Ghostly Hearts.  Buy our books here, including Monster, She Wrote and our newest Toil and Trouble.  

In Jennifer McMahon's newest novel Stay Buried, brother and sister Ashley and Malcolm inherit their grandmother's property in Boone's Ferry, Vermont. They know the property has its quirks–including a resident that they've now inherited too–but what they weren't expecting was a generational curse that has come back with full force.      Recommended in this episode:  Alma Katsu's Incarnate (out 9/22) and CJ Leede's Headlights NEWS: We have a Bookshop.org shop now! Find all of our favorite books at our shop–and help out small businesses.  Lisa's next book SOMETHING IN THE WATER had a cover reveal recently with Fangoria. It's available for preorder now. UP NEXT: We will be back in two weeks with a brand new episode, when we talk to Gwendolyn Kiste about her upcoming novella In These Gilded Ghostly Hearts.  Buy our books here, including Monster, She Wrote and our newest Toil and Trouble. 

Jennifer McMahon is the New York Times Bestselling author of thirteen novels including The Winter People and Stay Buried. She's written about ghosts, demons, serial killers, shape-shifting monsters, an evil fairy king, a terrifying swimming pool, and more. She lives on the Gulf Coast of Florida with her partner, Drea. When not writing, she spends time growing tropical fruit, exploring the wilds of Florida and seeking out haunted places, real and imagined.  Recommended in this episode: Stay Buried by Jennifer McMahon, Why I Love Horror by Becky Siegel Spratford, Hear the Dead by Ann Dávila Cardinal and Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu NEWS: We have a Bookshop.org shop now! Find all of our favorite books at our shop–and help out small businesses.  UP NEXT: Stay Buried by Jennifer McMahon Buy our books here, including Monster, She Wrote and our newest Toil and Trouble.   

In Linda Hamilton's The Fourth Wife, Hazel Russon finds herself in an arranged marriage to Jacob Manwaring, a man who lives in the Utah wilderness in the crumbling Manwaring manor with his three other wives and their children. Hazel doesn't know what to expect of her new life, but she never expected a manor home full of mysterious sounds, specters of women, and a terrifying attic that holds too many secrets.  For more from author Linda Hamilton, including her research into Mormon history, check out her Substack. Recommended in this episode: Neil McRobert's Good Boy and Pretty Evil by Rebekah and David Ian McKendry  NEWS: We have a Bookshop.org shop now! Find all of our favorite books at our shop–and help out small businesses.  UP NEXT: An interview with author Jennifer McMahon! Buy our books here, including Monster, She Wrote and our newest Toil and Trouble.   

In Darcie Little Badger's "The Scientist's Horror Story," three friends at a scientific conference meet up and tell ghost stories. One is pure fiction and one is not: which one is scarier?  This short story can be found in the anthology Never Whistle at Night. (The sequel Never Whistle at Night: Part 2 Back for Blood is available for preorder now and will be out in bookstores this August.) Recommended in this episode: Becky Spratford's Why I Love Horror and T. Kingfisher's The Hollow Places NEWS: We have a Bookshop.org shop now! Find all of our favorite books at our shop–and help out small businesses.  UP NEXT: The Fourth Wife by Linda Hamilton Buy our books here, including Monster, She Wrote and our newest Toil and Trouble.   

TW: This novel includes depictions of death by suicide and harm/death to an animal. We mention it in this episode but do not discuss in depth. Be advised. What happens when a horror author moves into the suburbs? Murder, of course. In Lindy Ryan's novel Dollface, new resident Jill finds herself at the heart of a slasher plot, straight out of one of her novels. Recommended in this episode: the Veronica Speedwell series and Bitter Karella's Moonflow NEWS: We have a Bookshop.org shop now! Find all of our favorite books at our shop–and help out small businesses.  UP NEXT: "The Scientist's Horror Story" by Darcie Little Badger (found in the anthology Never Whistle at Night) Buy our books here, including Monster, She Wrote and our newest Toil and Trouble.