Reading Banned Books

Author of WORDS MADE OF FLESH, the eco-horror YOU WILL SPEAK FOR THE DEAD, and the Stoker-nominated story “Ten Thousand Crawling Children,” R.A. Busby spends her spare time running in the desert with her dog and thinking about weird things to write about.    Recommended in this episode: “Ten Thousand Crawling Children” and WORDS MADE OF FLESH by R. A. Busby   NEWS: We have a Bookshop.org shop now! Find all of our favorite books at our shop–and help out small businesses.    UP NEXT: Summer HIATUS! Buy our books here, including our newest Toil and Trouble.

Every year, two children from one of twelve districts in Panem are chosen to participate in the Hunger Games, where they will fight each other to the death for the entertainment of the Capitol–and the chance to bring undreamt of wealth back to their poor families. When young Primrose is chosen as one of the tributes, her older sister Katniss sacrifices herself to go in her place. But now, 16-year-old Katniss must learn how to survive–and how to kill.  Recommended in this episode: Julia Bartz’s The Writing Retreat and Paulette Kennedy’s The Devil and Mrs. Davenport    Thanks to Fox and Wit for sending us their Nightshade Fox and Wit book box.   NEWS: We have a Bookshop.org shop now! Find all of our favorite books at our shop–and help out small businesses.    UP NEXT: Summer HIATUS! We will be back with new episodes soon! Buy our books here, including our newest Toil and Trouble.

Please enjoy this re-run of a classic Monster, She Wrote episode.  Author of the novella Corporate Body and the Shirley Jackson Award-winning story "Not the Man I Married," R.A. Busby spends her spare time running in the desert with her dog and finding weird things to write about.

Tracy Cross is a dealer in dark fiction, her gripping stories featured in a range of podcasts and anthologies. Her debut novel, the gripping "Rootwork" (Dark Hart Publishing, November 2022), explores the strong bonds of family and draws on her own heritage in hoodoo. This is followed by "A Gathering of Weapons" (October 2024), the second book of the Rootwork series. Tracy resides in Washington, DC, where she is an active member of the Horror Writers Association. When she's not busy writing scary stories, she's dancing to disco. Keep up with her news and musings at her blog: tracycwritesonline.com. You can also follow her on Instagram @tracycrosswrites, on Bluesky @tracycrosswriter.bksy.social, and on Threads: @tracycrosswrites.    Recommended in this episode: Rootwork and A Gathering of Weapons by Tracy Cross   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 Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins Buy our books here, including our newest Toil and Trouble.

Banned Books Week (launched in 1982) is normally in September/October, but given the state of things, we thought it was a relevant topic. Buying physical copies of books, when you can, seems to be a smart thing to do.   PEN estimates that book bans have doubled in the past year; here’s where to fight that by sending a letter to state lawmakers.    Some of our sources: Data from the ALA; Unite Against Book Bans; National Coalition Against Censorship; PEN America; Authors Against Book Bans    Recommended in this episode: B.R. Myers’s The Third Wife of Faraday House and Clay McLeod Chapman’s Wake Up and Open Your Eyes   NEWS: We have a Bookshop.org shop now! Find all of our favorite books at our shop–and help out small businesses.    UP NEXT: Tracy Cross Buy our books here, including our newest Toil and Trouble.

We are rerunning the classic episode to celebrate the upcoming release of Moths through Valancourt Books as part of their Monster, She Wrote series. Preorders open now, shipping in July 2025! Rosalind Ashe’s Moths was marketed as a book for fans of Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca. And there are some similarities: a beautiful old estate with a crumbling wing. A young wife who moves in determined to make it her own. And a dead woman haunting the home that was once hers. But what would happen if Rebecca had possessed the body of the new wife? That’s what Ashe’s book posits. So join us as we discuss Moths. UP NEXT: an episode on banned books and then an interview with horror author Tracy Cross  

In “The End of the Voyage,” a short story in Bora Chung’s collection Your Utopia , a group escapes a pandemic here on Earth by jumping into a spaceship. As they search for a safe place to live, their trip takes a dark turn.    Recommended in this episode: Beach Read by Emily Henry   NEWS: We have a Bookshop.org shop now! Find all of our favorite books at our shop–and help out small businesses.    UP NEXT: Banned Books   Buy our books here, including our newest Toil and Trouble.   

In So Thirsty by Rachel Harrison, Sloane Parker HATES birthday celebrations, but her husband and best friend Naomi conspire to give Sloane a weekend away at a posh lakeside cottage. The girls’ weekend away takes a dark and bloody turn, however, after a wild night out with some mysterious strangers.    Recommended in this episode: Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Canas and A Perilous Undertaking by Deanna Raybourn 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 End of the Voyage” in Your Utopia by Bora Chung Buy our books here, including our newest Toil and Trouble.   

Linghun by Ai Jiang is set in the mysterious HOME, a suburb of Toronto, where the residents live among the ghosts. Winqi, a high school senior, must navigate her new town, where grief cuts everyone off from the rest of the world.  Recommended in this episode: “The Center for Immortality Research” in Your Utopia by Bora Chung) and Mike Chen’s Here and Now and Then NEWS: We have a Bookshop.org shop now! Find all of our favorite books at our shop–and help out small businesses.  UP NEXT: So Thirsty by Rachel Harrison  Buy our books here, including our newest Toil and Trouble.

Last episode, we read the Gothic horror You’ll Like My Mother by Naomi A. Hintze, which was recently re-released with Valancourt Books. In it, a pregnant widow named Francesca is trapped in her mother-in-law’s home and must escape. This episode, we are discussing  The 1972 film adaptation of You’ll Like My Mother, starring Patty Duke.  Recommended in this episode: Barstow by David Ian McKendry and Rebekah McKendry, Forget This Ever Happened by Cassandra Rose Clarke, and The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older NEWS: We have a Bookshop.org shop now! Find all of our favorite books at our shop–and help out small businesses.  UP NEXT: Linghun by Ai Jiang Buy our books here, including our newest Toil and Trouble.