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I’m on a break – but couldn’t resist releasing something. 

Especially on today of all days, when lovers of democracy require audio sustenance whilst they wait in line to preserve America.

For the first From the Vault episode, I’ve gone back to December of 2020, for an interview with Michael Marshall Smith. We talk about his 30 years of writing horror, fantasy, science fiction and assorted dark imaginings – captured in his career-spanning Best Of collection.

Michael gives us all the good stuff about where ideas came from, why he writes the way he does, and all those details that literary voyeurs like us, want to know.

It’s also a trip back into the weirdness of the pandemic, and the dying days of the Trump presidency. Have your trauma shields up just in case. 

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Halloween has finally arrived. I’m marking it in grim, macabre style.

For this Off Book Samhain Special, I’m joined by Kaelyn Moore, host and creator of Heart Starts Pounding – a podcast for the darkly curious, which offers up a new true-story of horror, hauntings and mystery every week.

Kaelyn is a treasure trove of haunted anecdote and freaky facts. We only touch the tip of her knowledge in this conversation, but still manage to cover the grimmest deaths at Disneyland, a South American Nazi cult, the most cursed book in history and Kaelyn’s own family history with an early American serial killer.

All that, plus a lot of recommendations for movies and the gruesome true-crime reading.

Stick around for the afterword, and plenty of updates on the future of Talking Scared,

Enjoy! Happy Halloween. 

Books mentioned:

• The Man From the Train: The Solving of a Century-Old Serial Killer Mystery (2017), by Bill James and Rachel McCarthy James
• The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine (2017), by Lindsey Fitzharris
• I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer (2018), by Michelle McNamara
• The Devil’s Rooming House: the True Story of America’s Deadliest Female Serial Killer (2011), by M. William Phelps

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Things are heating up as we approach Halloween.

I’m joined by a good friend of Talking Scared – Rachel Harrison – to talk about the hot kind of immortality

Her new novel, So Thirsty, does much more than that though. It weighs the weaponization of beauty culture, it asks how women can navigate a world in which youth seems to be everything, and it illustrates the sheer social awkwardness of immortality.

Plus – it prompts a frank reckoning with just how badly I would cope in an orgy. 

This is a fun episode, a deep episode, the perfect kind of bookish sign off for a few weeks whilst I take a break. And maybe a good hour of respite from the manic news cycle.

Enjoy.

Other books mentioned:

• The Return (2020), by Rachel Harrison
• Cackle (2021), by Rachel Harrison
• Such Sharp Teeth (2022), by Rachel Harrison
• Black Sheep (2023), by Rachel Harrison
• Nestlings (2023), by Nat Cassidy
• Reluctant Immortals (2022), by Gwendolyne Kiste
• The Militia House (2023), by John Milas
• The Unsuitable (2020), by Molly Pohlig

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As we gear up for Halloween, we get all gussied up in Gothic.

Del Sandeen joins me to talk about the curses, colorism, and all the many influences in her Southern Gothic debut This Cursed House. It’s a novel that twists the sub-genre’s typical reliance on race, for a more subtle, pernicious form of prejudice. 

But it’s also chock full of all the haunted house–cursed family–secret rooms–and weird incest that you could want from a truly Gothic novel. It’s a damn good time, as is this conversation.

We talk about New Orleans hauntings, the inspiration of Del’s grandmother, forgiveness as a theme, and the relative ickiness of incest.

Consider this your starting gun for spooky season.

Enjoy.

Other books mentioned:

• Voodoo Dreams (1993), by Jewel Parker Rhodes
• The Good House (2003), by Tananarive Due
• Beloved (1987), by Toni Morrison
• The Vanishing Half (2020), by Brit Bennett
• Sing, Unburied Sing (2017) , by Jesymn Ward
• When the Reckoning Comes (2021), by LaTanya McQueen
• “A Rose For Emily,” (1930), by William Faulkner
• “Jordan’s End,” in The Shadowy Third (1923), by Ellen Glasgow
• The Elementals (1981), by Michael McDowell
• The Conjure Woman (1899), by Charles W. Chesnutt
• The House Behind the Cedars (1900), by Charles W. Chesnutt

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Things get disinhibited on Talking Scared this week, when CJ Leede joins us for a conversation about her new novel, American Rapture.

The novel plunges middle America into a torrid apocalypse, as a sexual plague spreads across the nation, creating “lust hell on earth.” In this framework, C.J crafts a story of sexual awakening, sacrifice, found family, hypocrisy and cruelty.  It’s a book that is both extreme and comforting in equal measure.

We talk about that crazy balancing act, about the threat of fundamentalist thought, the terror of demons, the delights of Americana, and the cathartic power of killing your characters. 

Oh…and gear up for some very forthright opinions on religion. 

Enjoy.

Other books mentioned:

• Maeve Fly (2023), by C.J. Leede
• American Gods (2001), by Neil Gaiman
• Bury Your Gays (2024), by Chuck Tingle
• Camp Damascus (2023), by Chuck Tingle

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Hold hands, we need to stick together.

This week’s episode plunges us into the impossible and endless dark, with Sofia Ajram and her experimental, existential headf*ck of a debut novella, Coup de Grâce. It’s the tale of a man who gets lost in an endless subway station – and the monsters inside (and inside himself)

We talk about everything from the mythical history of mazes, to legends of the early internet,  the mystery of Elisa Lam and what Sonic the Hedgehog has to tell us about the readers role in a story. Plus, a fair bit of chat about mental health, depression and suicidal ideation.

That makes it sound a lot less fun than it is, but only fair to warn you.

This is an episode for the adventurous and terminally online.

Enjoy.

Other books mentioned:

• I Am the River (2018), by T.E. Grau
• Water Statues (1980), by Fleur Jaeggy
• Misery (1987), by Stephen King
• House of Leaves (2000), by Mark Z. Danielewski

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I started Off Book so that I could speak to some of the brightest dark stars in the wider universe of horror.

This week that plan comes to absolute fruition – ‘cos Kate Siegel is Talking Scared!

Yes, Kate Siegel, scream-queen of our generation, horror maven, acting superstar and now director of extraterrestrial found-footage nightmare (!!) ”Stowaway.” (a segment from the new V/H/S Beyond)

Kate talks to me about the steep learning curve of making that short, the camera techniques she uses to disorientate, bewilder and horrify. She talks about her approach to finding character, especially in her collaborations with her husband, Mike Flanagan – and she talks about the horror stories she loves most in the world.

She also calls me out very early on. How the hell did I recover??

Enjoy!

V/H/S Beyond is streaming now on Shudder

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Release your inner child! 

…I mean through reading, not by letting it burst out of your stomach like some horrible sugar-coated xenomorph.

Lora Senf can help. Her Blight Harbor Trilogy is a piece of magic, an umbilicus of imagination between the tired old grump that you’re halfway to becoming, and the wide-eyed wonder you once were. 

Lora and I talk about the challenge and reward of writing horror for kids, we talk about the influence of M.C Escher and his mad architecture, we talk about Bradbury and King and other inspirations (including the tiny role that I played in this story). And we also talk about the profound heartsick sorrow of loneliness.

Enjoy.

Other books mentioned:

• The Hike (2016), by Drew Magary
• The Library at Mount Char (2015), by Scott Hawkins
• “Kaleidoscope,” (1949), by Ray Bradbury 
• All Summer in a Day (1954), by Ray Bradbury
• “There Will Come Soft Rains” (1950), by Ray Bradbury 
• The Foghorn (1950), by Ray Bradbury 
• Pet Semetary (1983), by Stephen King
• Misery (1987) by Stephen King
• Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962), by Ray Bradbury
• Coraline (2002), by Neil Gaiman
• The House With a Clock in its Walls (1973), by John Bellairs

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More devilish fun on Talking Scared this week when an old friend returns to talk about god, angels, demons and other things out there in the cold reaches of the universe.

Johnny Compton is the author of The Spite House, one of my most admired books from 2022. In his newest, Devils Kill Devils, he starts with a compelling question – “what if your Guardian Angel was a murderous threat” – and then heads off in grander directions. 

We talk about how Johnny’s childhood religious confusion played a role in this book, what we both love about world-building and fan-theories, and our shared enthusiasm for the Alien universe. And Johnny gives my current favourite answer to the questions “what really freaked him out recently?”

Enjoy.

Other books mentioned:

The Spite House (2022), by Johnny Compton

Carrion Comfort (1989), by Dan Simmons

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Keith Rosson is our first guest to be personally recommended by Stephen King! 

And the praise doesn’t stop there. Keith’s Fever House was one of the biggest hits of 2023, and now he’s back with the sequel, The Devil By Name, which takes the contained punk-rock fury of the first book in a whole different, nation-spanning direction.

This is an epic tale of occult magic, diabolical messages, punk rock, political machinations and, eventually, apocalypse. So there’s a lot to talk about. And I hope you enjoy the following. Especially the part where I crowbar Stevie Nicks into the conversation, because I’ve developed the world’s most belated obsession with her.  

Enjoy.

Other books mentioned:

• Mercy of the Tide (2017), by Keith Rosson
• Spiral (1995), by Koji Suzuki
• The Stand (1990), by Stephen King
• Knockemstiff (2008), by Donald Ray Pollock
• The Low Desert: Gangster Stories (2021), by Tod Goldberg
• Controlled Burn: Stories of Prison, Crime, and Men (2005), by Scott Wolven

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Laird Barron is on the podcast. This feels like cause for celebration. 

Not only is Laird Barron a phenomenal writer. Not only is it wonderful that he’s back to writing and talking about writing. Not only am I lucky to be able to speak to him…

We also talked about DOGS! 

Granted, a cybernetic, immortal monster hound called Rex – but a dog nonetheless. That’s just one of the crazy concepts that make up the stories in Laird’s new collection, Not a Speck of Light… and I mean crazy. These stories involve evil fathers, strange invasions, billionaire bird-women and a disaster-addicted monster – and we talk about how Laird balances the bizarre and brutal, the cosmic and the cynical, the horrific and the hardboiled.

Plus a lot of info on a very exciting project he’s currently working hard on.

Let’s all just be happy, Laird Barron is back. He’s writing. And he’s Talking Scared.

Enjoy. 

Join the Laird Barron Reddit Read-along 

 Other books mentioned:

• When Things Get Dark: Stories Inspired by Shirley Jackson (2021), edited by Ellen Datlow
• The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All (2013), by Laird Barron
• Blood Standard (2018), by Laird Barron
• The Fisherman (2016), by John Langan
• “On Skua Island” – in Mr Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters (2009), by John Langan
• The Children of Old Leech: A Tribute to the Carnivorous Cosmos of Laird Barron (2014), edited by Ross E. Lockhart and Jason Steele
• The Delicate Prey, and Other Stories (1950), by Paul Bowles
• The Sheltering Sky (1949), by Paul Bowles

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Are you a Weenie? Don’t be offended. I am. 

Weenies are the curious-but-nervous. Those of us who love horror, but who never feel safe from its power to ruin our sleep (and a week of our life). If that’s you, or if you know someone who suffers from Weenie-ism, then Emily Hughes is here!

Emily’s new book, Horror For Weenies: Everything You Need to Know About the Films You’re Too Scared to Watch is a public service for the scared. It will save relationships, help ease you into horror and hopefully teach you a thing or two about fear along the way.

In this conversation, we talk about how Emily came to write this most particular of books, and how she chose which films made the grade. We also hear about her own relationship with horror, from the film that haunted her as a child all the way to her grown-up reintroduction to scary movies. 

And I finally try to back up my dislike for Hereditary.

Enjoy.

Other books mentioned:

• Birdbox (2014), by Josh Malerman
• Nightmare Fuel: The Science of Horror Films (2022), by Nina Nesseth
• Tampa (2013), by Alissa Nutting
• Come Closer (2003), by Sara Gran
• The Family Plot (2016) by Cherie Priest
• Camp Damascus (2023), by Chuck Tingle
• Cuckoo (2024), by Gretchen Felker-Martin
• Manhunt (2022), by Gretchen Felker-Martin

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Anna Bogutskaya is one of the UK’s most prominent film critics, with a penchant for horror. She knows her scary onions. And in her new book, Feeding the Monster, she asks an important question (well, important to the likes of you and me) – Why does horror have a hold on us?

In concise but free-ranging essays, she looks at the prominent themes that sets the horror oft the last decade apart, peeling back the skin of the genre to see how it’s muscle flex and grip, and also give you tons of films to watch in the process.

We have a similarly freewheeling conversation in this episode, talking about everything from our primal horror movie experiences, to the meme-ification of monsters and why Mike Flanagan is both outlier and heart of the genre.

Also… Anna introduces me to the concept of Vecnussy, which may ruin Stranger Things for you, like it has for me.

Enjoy

Other books mentioned:

• Death of a Bookseller (2023), by Alice Slater
• Penance (2023), by Eliza Clark
• Danse Macabre (1981), by Stephen King
• Red Dragon (1981), by Thomas Harris
• Coup de Grace (2024), by Sofia Ajram

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Send in the clowns. Tell them not to forget their crossbows and chainsaws.

This week our guest is Adam Cesare, who’s Clown in a Cornfield trilogy reaches a climax (I won’t say end) in Book 3: The Church of Frendo. I read all three books in one mad rush and they confounded all of my horror-savvy, slasher-weary expectations. These books are a State of the Nation story for the ages – think George Orwell’s Animal Farm, but with fascist clowns rather than Bolshevik swine.

Adam and I have one of those very Talking Scared conversations. We get into the political and the personal, touching on his time as a teacher, the challenge of empathy, the role of guns in fiction and the rural/urban divide in America. 

But also… clowns! Horrible face-painted bastards that they are.

Enjoy.

• The Indian Lake Trilogy (2021-2024), by Stephen Graham Jones
• “The Lottery” (1948), by Shirley Jackson
• Influencer (2024), by Adam Cesare
• Rest Stop (2024), by Nat Cassidy

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Literary or genre fiction? Dumb question.

This week’s guest showcases just how dumb! With her debut collection of stories, Mystery Lights showing that horror is literary and literary is horror. These tales of the American desert are full of hauntings, monsters, killers, and other oddities, yet they take a non-typical approach to the strangeness. They care more about the human in the mix than the weird thing in the corner.

I loved them – and they proved that every time I think I know my own reading tastes, I find an exception to the rule.

Lena and I talk about her literary allegiance to the desert, about the literary establishment’s appetite for strange things, about women treating women poorly, and about how she writes stories that don’t need to “click.”

Enjoy.

• The Shining (1977), by Stephen King
• “Lamb to the Slaughter,” (1953), by Roald Dahl
• The Garden (2024), by Claire Beams

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This week’s guest on Talking Scared: Off Book scares children.

I mean… that’s not his main job or intent (I don’t think) but he does it anyway. Trevor Henderson is the internet’s favourite horror artist. He creates digital nightmares that have become the fuel for a new generation of nightmares. Trust me, in the few moments that Gen Z aren’t being terrified by climate change or the slide into global racism… it’s Trevor’s “Cartoon Dog” or “Long Horse” – or his iconic Sirenhead – who are capering through their minds.

But his pictures are just the start of it. He works in movies, in video games, in podcasting and he’s even written a book. He’s horror’s renaissance man, and he joins me to talk about it – from how he started, to the secrets of great monster design.

And then we spend the end of the show just talking about some awesome movies you may not have seen or heard of.

This is a fun episode. Trevor is at the beating heart of horror.

Enjoy!

Movies mentioned:

• The Ritual (2017)
• Arcadian (2024)
• Horror in the High Desert (2021)
• Horror in the High Desert 2: Minerva (2023)
• Late Night With the Devil (2024)
• History of the Occult (2020)
• Fake Documentary Q (YouTube Channel)
• StopMotion (2024)
• The Cat With Hands (2001)
• Infested (2024)
• Loop Track (2023)
• Savageland (2015)
• The Tunnel (2011)

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Finally, Gabino Iglesias is on the show. 

I tried, and failed, to get him for his break-out Stoker-winning smash, The Devil Takes You Home. Now he’s here to talk about his brand new barrio-noir, House of Bone and Rain. It’s an amalgamation of brutal street violence and Lovecraftian otherness – all taking place in the sweltering eye of a Puerto Rican hurricane.

Gabino and I talk about the parts of the book that reflect his own life and youth. We talk about his rapid rise, and follow-up nerves. We talk about reclaiming Lovecraft. But mostly, we talk about violence – the horror of it, the reality, the sheer awful immediacy, and how the real thing is nothing like the stuff on a movie screen.

It’s a good chat, about the right kind of manhood.

Enjoy.

The Devil Takes You Home (2022) by Gabino Iglesias

Hungry Darkness (2015) by Gabino Iglesias

Zero Saints (2015), by Gabino Iglesias

The Ballad of Black Tom (2016), by Victor LaValle

Woodworm (2021), by Layla Martinez

Lost Man’s Lane (2024), by Scott Carson

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Remember those books you read in the summer when you were young? Kids fighting evil in their small town? Bikes, and blood brothers and promises to keep? 

If you love those kinda stories then you’re in good company. This week Jonathan Janz joins me to talk about the coming-of-age horror in his ongoing epic, Children of the Dark. Book One was rereleased earlier this year, just in time for the sequel The Nightflyer’s to continue the story of Will Burgess and the monstrous secrets in his backyard. 

As well as a whole lot of chat about favourite movies, a million book recommendations and Jonathan’s beautifully wholesome horror movie bond with his daughter – we also discuss the canon of coming of age horror, how to write honestly about childhood, the role of theme in a story, and where Jonathan’s monsters originated.

Climb up to our treehouse. Bring snacks.

Enjoy.

• Savage Species (2013), by Jonathan Janz
• Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962), by Ray Bradbury
• Dandelion Wine (1957), by Ray Bradbury
• The Body (1982), by Stephen King
• The Wind Through the Keyhole (2012), by Stephen King
• Boy’s Life (1991), by Robert R. McCammon
• The Dark Valley (1998), by Joe Donnelly
• The Deer Kings  (2021), by Wendy Wagner
• The Reformatory (2023), by Tananarive Due
• Summer of Night (1991), by Dan Simmons
• Ghoul (2007), by Brian Keene
• The Beast House (1986), by Richard Laymon
• The Girl Next Door (1989), by Jack Ketchum
• Incidents Around the House (2024), by Josh Malerman

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Why is Adam Nevill so scary? 

I don’t know. Do you? He’s a nice guy – as you’ll hear in this episode. Yet he tells stories that crawl under your skin and stay there. Stories that squat in your subconscious.

His latest novel, All the Fiends of Hell is no exception. Same elusive nightmare mystery, but expanded to a whole epic end-of-the-world canvas. And when Adam says end of the world, he means it.

In this conversation we talk about apocalyptic fantasy, about angels and demons, about the sea and its endless hope, and about his own unique style when it comes to fear and monsters. 

Oh… and about a certain prog-rock masterpiece that plays a big part in this story and in each of our childhoods.

Enjoy.

• The War of the Worlds (1898), by H.G. Wells
• The Road (2006), by Cormac McCarthy
• Nuclear War: A Scenario (2024), by Annie Jacobsen
• Apartment 16 (2010), by Adam Nevill
• Last Days (2012), by Adam Nevill
• Banquet for the Damned (2004), by Adam Nevill
• Invasion: The Inside Story of Russia’s Bloody War and Ukraine’s Fight for Survival (2022), by Luke Harding
• The Turn of The Screw (1898), by Henry James
• The Exorcist (1971), by William Peter Blatty

Here is the link for Adam’s story - “Where Angels Come In” at Nightmare Magazine

And the link to the Shadows at the Door Kickstarter for EARWORM

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Part One was epic. Part Two is just as good. In that way, it’s much better than the adaptation of IT!

In the second part of this celebration of King short stories, a whole other roster of Constant Readers come along to talk about their favourites. We have writers for all ages, a fellow podcaster and a filmmaker with important updates. 

All of them united by one thing – their love of these little twisted word-worlds that Stephen King has given us over the years. 

This was a blast, but god I’m glad it’s finally done.

Enjoy!

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What’s your favourite Stephen King story? Everyone has one.

Hot off the back of the recent interview with the man himself, it seemed a neat idea to get a few friends on the show to talk about their own preferences from King’s huge back-catalogue of short fiction.

I am the architect of my own doom!

What was supposed to be a small side project grew, like Grey Matter, or unnatural mist, into FOUR HOURS of top-notch King chat, with some of the best and brightest constant readers. I’m not telling you who they are… why spoil the surprise.

But in this first of a double-bill you can hear old and new friends of Talking Scared talk about the King short that lights their fire, freezes their marrow, or breaks their heart. It’s a whole lot…and it’s only half.

Enjoy!

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Stephen King is back!

What other intro do you need?

Okay, fine. He talks to me about the stories behind the stories in his new collection, You Like it Darker. I had the audacity to ask him “where he got some of his ideas.” 

He also updates us on the potential of a third Jack Sawyer book, to follow The Talisman and Black House. He hints at what’s next from him, and Holly Gibney. He gives a perspective on his view from the top of the horror pyramid, and I finally get to ask him about a beloved-yet-underappreciated novel.

Is that enough for you, or do I need go on?

Thought not…

Thanks for listening – and enjoy.

Other books mentioned:

• Waiting for Winter (1966), by John O’ Hara
• Horror Movie (2024), by Paul Tremblay
• A Head Full of Ghosts (2015), by Paul Tremblay
• Survivor Song (2020), by Paul Tremblay
• Fever House (2023), by Keith Rosson
• Nestlings (2023), by Nat Cassidy
• Come With Me (2021), by Ronald Malfi
• American Rapture (2024), by C.J. Leede

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200 episodes! Madness. Who knew there could be so much to say about horror? 

I knew. You knew. And here we are.

It turns out that the real cursed treasure was the friends we made along the way – and how better to celebrate the bicentennial, than by inviting some of the Talking Scared nearest and dearest, to tell us their scariest story?

I called, they answered – with tales of voyeuristic ghosts, horrifying roadside encounters, disappearing witches, whispering demons, damaged eyeballs, lost children and ….Richard Simmons!!

Enjoy this. You deserve it. Thank you so very much for your ear, your attention and your support over these last four years.

Onward. 

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My unpaid cohost returns. Josh Malerman ladies and gentlemen.

Josh has been on the show many times before, but never have I been so excited to speak to him. His latest novel, Incidents Around the House is about as good a horror book as I’ve ever covered on this show… or possibly read in my life. It’s the story of a young girl, her family, and the entity pursuing them, but – as you’ll hear – it goes a whole lot deeper (and unforgivingly darker) than that.

Josh tells us about the unique process of writing this book. We discuss the challenges of child narrators. I beg insight into the demons and half-glimpsed horrors of his story… and I assault him with odd comparisons.

It’s all very freewheeling and fun. As the 199th episode should be, before we tip over the edge into a whole new century.

Enjoy – and read this damn book!

Other books mentioned:

The House of Last Resort (2024), Christopher Golden

Coraline (2002), by Neil Gaiman

The Exorcist (1971), by William Peter Blatty

Good Night Sleep Tight (2024), by Brian Evenson

Nightmares and Dreamscapes (1993), by Stephen King

From a Buick 8 (2002), by Stephen King

11/22/63 (2011), by Stephen King

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In the second Off Book episode we get out of our armchairs and go on a real adventure. Well, not really – but we talk to two people who do.

Danielle and Cassie are the hosts of National Park After Dark – a podcast catering to the “morbid outdoor enthusiast.” They have skyrocketed to success, with well-researches stories of murder, maulings and mad incidents out in the world’s national parks. 

I’ve listened for years now and I’m delighted to finally get the chance to ask them all the questions… what is their favourite flavour of outdoor macabre? Is there a particular unsolved mystery that burns a hole in their brain? What’s the scariest thing they’ve encountered out there… and should we reintroduce wolves to the UK? (Yes!)

You don’t need to like the outdoors to enjoy this episode. Danielle and Cassie do the hard work for us. 

Just enjoy!

Books mentioned:

Wolfish: Wolf, Self and the Stories we Tell About Fear, Ferocity and Freedom (2023), by Erica Berry

A Bolt From the Blue: The Epic True Story of Danger, Daring ad Heroism at 15,000 Feet (2012), by Jennifer Woodlief

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (1999), by Stephen King

Where the Dead Wait (2023), by Ally Wilkes

Fire in the Sky: The Walton Experience (1997), by Travis Walton

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Paul Tremblay returns to Talking Scared on a long orbit, like that fabled Planet X that’s going to kill us all. 

He’s back after two years for another discussion of horror aesthetics, introspective terrors and mixed-media nightmares – this time in Horror Movie, his meta-take on cursed cinema and lethal creativity. 

Horror Movie is about young filmmakers and the shoot that marks them all, even unto death. It’s also about the making of art, the machinery of fear and the cynicism of Hollywood. But beneath all that self-reflexive interrogation, it’s also just a damn creepy story. And Paul talks to me about all of it.

Note – there is jet lag aplenty in this episode. An arms race of confusion and forgetfulness. It makes for a good time. Bear with us.

Enjoy

Other books mentioned:

• The Pallbearer’s Club (2022), by Paul Tremblay
• A Head Full of Ghosts (2015), by Paul Tremblay
• “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” (1966), by Joyce Carol Oates
• Greasy Lake and Other Stories (1985), by T. C. Boyle
• The Stand (1978/1990), by Stephen King
• A Better World (2024), by Sarah Langan
• Curdle Creek (2024), by Yvonne Battle-Felton

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Elle Nash’s Deliver Me ruined my week. In the best possible way.

This book, about a woman so desperate for a child that she does truly terrible, no-good things, contains some of the bleakest, most brutal scenes I’ve read in a while. And it’s not even really being treated as a horror novel. 

Elle and I talk about that.

We also talk about the hot-button topics of the novel, the patriarchy, the toxic Christianity, the… insect erotica! But we also discuss her wandering heart and the empathy and provocation that drives her work.

It’s a lovely, laid back conversation about a challenging book.

Enjoy

Other books mentioned:

Geek Love (1989), by Katherine Dunn

Violent Faculties (2024), by Charlene Elsby

Frisk (1991), by Dennis Cooper

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Todd Keisling can write the hell out of a short story. So well, in fact, that they may convince you to resist a bully, stop going to church, or tell your boss to f**k off! 

Cold, Black and Infinite is full of liminal tales of the between-places. Cosmic “Otherness” that defies religion or belief. Corporate soul-hells that take everything you have…and more.

Weird then, that they are so fun.

Todd and I talk about all of that connective tissue between his stories. Plus, we map The Southland, this “pocket cosmos” of weird Appalachia that is destined to be the stage for the next era in his career.

It’s a blast. And this conversation is the anti-corporate, anti-fundamentalism, anti-bully screed you’ve been waiting for.

Enjoy.

Cold, Black and Infinite was released September 2023, By Cemetery Dance 

Other books mentioned:

• Ugly Little Things: Collected Horrors (2017), by Todd Keisling
• The Final Reconciliation (2018), by Todd Keisling
• Devil’s Creek (20200, by Todd Keisling
• In the Lake of the Woods (1994), by Tim O’Brien
• The Raw Shark Texts (2007), by Steven Hall
• ‘Salem’s Lot (1975), by Stephen King
• The Bad Book (2021), ed. by John D. Taff (contains “Gethsemane”)
• The Cheese Monkeys: A Novel in Two Semesters (2002), by Chip Kidd
• The Ceremonies (1984), by T. E. D. Klein

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Something new for me this week. A bold venture into uncharted territory. 

The graphic novel!!

As is proper, I’ve started with one of the best. Emil Ferris joins me to talk through the creation of her landmark epic, My Favourite Thing is Monsters. Volume 1 came out in 2017 to rapturous acclaim, and now, Volume 2 picks up exactly where that story of cute werewolves and cherished monsters let off. This is an EVENT!!

Emil talks me through this alternative form of storytelling. She tells me about the laborious process behind the books, and how it saved her life (literally). Most of all though, we talk creativity, and how art and monsters are the things that will preserve humanity.

Enjoy.

My Favourite Thing is Monsters is released May 28thth from Fantagraphics 

Other books mentioned:

Maus (1986), by Art Spiegelman

The Talisman (1984), by Stephen King and Peter Straub

The Shape of Water (2018), by Guillermo del Toro and Daniel Kraus

Whalefall (2023), by Daniel Kraus

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Believe it or not, there is more to life than just books. Very little, granted… but there is more.

Talking Scared: Off Book is a chance for this show to spread its wings a little. To fly further, wider, deeper into the world of horror and come back carrying different kinds of guests in our bloody beak! 

(ok, I may have stretched that metaphor too far).

Basically, I’ll be talking, now and then, to other kinds of horror creatives. Filmmakers, actors, musicians, podcasters, designers, comic book artists, whoever the hell takes my fancy. I hope you’ll enjoy it. 

This first episode features Phil Nobile Jr. Editor-in-Chief of Fangoria, and a man with his finger on the bloody pulse of the genre. We talk about films, journalism, how to market horror and, yes, of course, a few books.

This is a good episode for the hopeful journalist.

Enjoy!

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We return to Australia for the second time in a month, to find that (once again), home invasion isn’t the worst thing to happen on a typical day.

Alan Baxter’s Blood Covenant is a violent, thrilling story of a threeway battle between an innocent family, a nasty criminal gang of bogans (see, I’m learning!) and an otherworldly force that is even worse! Think, what if The Strangers took place in the Overlook Hotel.

It’s a hugely enjoyable book that prompts a conversation about the influence of 70s and 80s paperback classics, the overlap of horror and crime in Australian fiction, some extreme horror movies and a whole long celebration of unpretentious storytelling.

Enjoy!

Blood Covenant is released May 24th from Cemetary Dance 

Other books mentioned:

The Gulp (2021), by Alan Baxter

Hidden City (2018), by Alan Baxter 

The Fatal Shore: The Epic of Australia’s Founding (1986), by Robert Hughes

“Devil” by Glen Hirshberg, in Screams From the Dark: 29 Tales of Monsters and the Monstrous (2022), edited by Ellen Datlow

The Fog (1975), by James Herbert

The Hunted (2021), by Gabriel Bergmoser

Terra Nullius (2017), by Claire G. Coleman

Dirty Heads (2021), by Aaron Dries

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A charming man approaches. With dark secrets to tell you.

Yeah, that L.P. Hernandez. Author of the novella In the Valley of the Headless Men and the forthcoming collection, No Gods, Only Chaos. Both are great; both are entirely different. One of them will expand your horizons. One of them will shrink you in horror. 

I’ll let you find out which. 

We talk about both books in this episode, digging into the real historical mystery behind the novella (it’s fascinating) and the craft and commitment that went into the collection. How to write emotion and character concisely, using action within metaphor, the presence (or lack of) military vets in horror, and when, exactly, LP knew he was becoming a better writer.

If you are starting out as a storyteller, I think you’ll find this episode enlightening and inspirational. I did. Kudos to L.P. for that!

Enjoy!

In the Valley of the Headless Men  was published on January 29th by Cemetery Games

No Gods, Only Chaos is published on June 4th, by DarkLit Press

Other books mentioned:

Stargazers (2022), by L.P. Hernandez

The Militia House (2023), by John Milas

Mr Shivers (2010), by Robert Jackson Bennett

Bound Feet (2022), by Kelsea Yu

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Opinions are like assholes, they say. Everybody has one.

The subtext of that, is that you shouldn’t show them to people.

Well my guest and I don’t hold back on ours this week. Robert Ottone joins me for a conversation about his debut novel for adults, The Vile Thing We Created, which is almost exactly one year old. 

I loved it, which is more than either of us can say for the one-year old little boy that it is about. This novel skewers the impulse to procreation – presenting a horror story of parenthood that will make the child-free sweat and the happily en-familied nod sagely (though hopefully your child isn’t a cosmic-horror menace.

Robert and I wade into the controversy over not having children? We ask, how people summoj the courage to do it in such a frightening world, and we also hold forth on other topics, such as why most colleagues are boring and some ill-advised movie opinions. I blame Robert, I’m usually so shy and retiring.

Seriously though, this is a great conversation. More disorganised and discursive than usual. Though for once, that is no bad thing.

Enjoy!

The Vile Thing We Created was published on April 18th 2023, by Hydra.

Other books mentioned:

The Triangle (2022), by Robert Ottone

Less Than Zero (1985), by Bret Easton Ellis

Lunar Park (2005), by Bret Easton Ellis

Imperial Bedrooms (2010), by Bret Easton Ellis

Sefira and Other Betrayals (2019), by John Langan

Watchmen (1987), by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

Filthy Creation (2023), by Caroline Hagood

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Ah the madhouse. The loony bin. The ASYLUM!!

A classic horror location. One of my favourites, but problematic as hell in the wrong hands.

Thankfully, I have the right author for the topic. Christ Panatier has the talent and the sensitivity to ensure that his novel, The Redemption of Morgan Bright can engage with the tropes without perpetuating them. He brings something as old-as-time but very new to asylum horror, and the results are dizzying, terrifying, awful.

We talk about the perils of research for an empathetic horror writer, we discuss some hideous medical practices from the past, and we look hard at the desecration of rights that we all grew up assuming were here to stay. 

Plus, the way to make friends in the horror community...

Enjoy!

The Redemption of Morgan Bright was published on April 23rd by Angry Robot Books

Other books mentioned:

• The Phlebotomist (2020), by Chris Panatier
• Stringer (2022), by Chris Panatier
• Annihilation (2014), by Jeff VanderMeer
• The Haunting of Hill House (1959), by Shirley Jackson
• Never Let Me Go (2005), by Kazuo Ishiguro
• Mad Wives: Schizophrenic Women in the 1950s (1988), by Carol A. B. Warren
• Full Immersion (2022), by Gemma Amor
• The Grip of It (2017), by Jac Jemc
• The House at the End of Lacelean Street (2024), by Catherine McCarthy
• The Spite House (2023), by Johnny Compton
• The Day of the Door (2024), by Laurel Hightower

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We all love a good spooky house. And most of us enjoy a terrifying home-invasion ordeal (or at least, I know I do).

What happens when you put them together? Kaaron Warren’s The Underhistory is the answer, but it’s nothing at all like what you’d expect.

This new novel by the award-winning Australian writer is a story of memory, of rooms and architecture, of violence and misogyny, and of a very unusual old lady. We talk about all of that and more. It’s a great conversation, one in which we go hunting for the secrets of her book together.

Enjoy!

The Underhistory was published on April 11th by Viper

Other books mentioned:

• Slights (2009), by Kaaron Warren
• The Grief Hole (2016), by Kaaron Warren
• Any Human Heart (2002), by William Boyd
• The Measure of Sorrow (2023), by J. Ashley-Smith

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I bite off a lot this week, in a five-way conversation with editors and contributors to the ever-so-of-the-moment anthology The Black Girl Survives in This One. That’s a promise right there on the title page, but as you will find out, survival is not always the same thing as living happily ever after. 

Saraciea J. Fennell, Desiree S. Evans, Monica Brashears & Eden Royce talk to me about the vision (and necessity) of the project and where their stories came from? We discuss the role of urban and family legend, authentic dialogue, writing for younger readers and how horror’s treatment of Black writers and characters has changed. 

Enjoy!

The Black Girl Survives in This One was published on April 2nd by Flatiron Books

Other books mentioned:

• Beloved (1987), by Toni Morrison
• 60 Black Women in Horror Fiction (2014), by Sumiko Saulson
• Of One Blood (1903), by Pauline Hopkins
• Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror (2023), ed, by Jordan Peele and John Joseph Adams
• The Vampire Huntress Legends Series (2003-2009), by L.A. Banks

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I’m in literary hero territory again … at least this time it’s sunny!

My guest is Scarlett Thomas, the groundbreaking writer of PopCo, Oligarchy, The Seed Collectors and the (post)modern speculative classic, The End of Mr Y. She’s one of my favourite writers, who has never seen five or six separate genres she can’t mash together.

This time around we are talking “Hot Gothic” in The Sleepwalkers, a darkly playful tale of a vacation–and a marriage–gone horribly wrong. 

We cover accidentally arriving at a structure, the many ways to build characters from scratch, the dark consequences of sex and desire taken too far – and we agree on how hotels are just inherently creepy.

Great book. Great guest. 

Enjoy!

The Sleepwalkers was published on April 9th by Simon and Schuster

Other books mentioned:

• The End of Mr Y (2006), by Scarlett Thomas
• The Seed Collectors (2015), by Scarlett Thomas
• Oligarchy (2019), by Scarlett Thomas
• Open: An Autobiography (2009), by Andre Agassi
• The Woman in White (1860), by Wilkie Collins
• The Moonstone (1868), by Wilkie Collins
• Gone Girl (2012), by Gillian Flynn
• The Talented Mr Ripley (1955), by Patricia Highsmith
• Hangsaman (1951), by Shirley Jackson

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Carrie White turns 50 years old today!

April 5th, 1974 – the day King’s debut came out, and the world of horror we know live in changed forever. 

To celebrate such an auspicious anniversary, there are only two people I could invite to this party. Step up Nat Cassidy and Ally Malinenko – writers who understand King and that bitter, brutal world between childhood and adulthood.

We talk about empathy and monsters, about the horror of high school, the abject and the menstruation taboo and about how we are all living in Margaret White’s America now…

Raise a glass to the prom queen of horror. She can light her own candles.

Enjoy!

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Alas, we come to the end!

Stephen Graham Jones’s The Angel of Indian Lake brings the most important horror trilogy of the century to its conclusion. For one last time we return to Proofrock, Idaho – to watch Jade Daniels do battle with monsters in the wood and the demons in her head. 

SGJ also comes back to Talking Scared to finish our adjacent trilogy of conversations about these books. We talk about slashers and final girls for sure, but as ever with Stephen, these are windows onto something more profound – and he gives us his insight into how horror, justice, violence and luck operate in fiction.

This all sounds very profound. It is. But in the coolest way possible. The man is a rock star….

… but I STILL manage to freak him out with a ghost story.

Enjoy – it’s been a ride!

The Angel of Indian Lake was published on March 26thth by Saga Press and Titan Books

Other books mentioned:

• Where the Red Fern Grows (1961), by Wilson Rawls
• Marvel Superheroes Secret Wars #10 (1984), by Jim Shooter
• In Cold Blood (1965), by Truman Capote
• Morphology of the Folktale (1928), by Vladimir Propp
• The Red Badge of Courage (1895), by Stephen Crane
• The Gulf War Did Not Take Place (1991), by Jean Baudrillard
• The Name of the Rose (1980), by Umberto Eco
• The Hollow Kind (2022), by Andy Davidson
• Piranesi (2021), by Susannah Clarke
• A Tale of Two Cities (1859), by Charles Dickens
• The Art of the Ridiculous Sublime: On David Lynch’s ‘Lost Highway’ (2000), by Slavoj Žižek
• The Warm Hands of Ghosts (2024), by Katherine Arden
• The Bear and the Nightingale (2017), by Katherine Arden
• The Others of Edenwell (2023), by Verity Holloway
• “A Fish Story” (2002), by Gene Wolfe

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Chi-Town!!

We’re heading to the midwestern metropolis this week, for a conversation with Cina Pelayo – all about murder, mystery, history and strange things in the water.

Her new novel, Forgotten Sisters is a heady, dreamlike concoction of Chicago lore and much older horrors. It features a pair of very wyrd sisters and a house by a river that holds nothing good. 

As well as all of that, we talk about Cina’s personal journey with the paranormal, mermaid sightings, writing law enforcement, and wrestling with weird voices in fiction. 

Oh, and the abject horror of social media!!

Enjoy!

Forgotten Sisters was published on March 19th by Thomas & Mercer

Other books mentioned:

• Children of Chicago (2021), by Cynthia Pelayo
• The Shoemaker’s Magician (2023), by Cynthia Pelayo
• Loteria (2023), by Cynthia Pelayo
• Into the Forest and All the Way Through (2020), by Cynthia Pelayo
• The Reformatory (2023), by Tananarive Due

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Never mind the floor is lava. This week the ground has teeth.

Joshua Hull is our guest, to talk about his obsession with dangerous, weird holes. He wrote one into his hilarious, grisly horror movie, Glorious (on Shudder) and now he’s given a hole a whole personality in his debut novella, Mouth. 

It’s a grindhouse, b-movie celebrations, with larger than life characters, grisly death, and the most lovable monster of the year. 

We talk about writing endearing creature features, about forgotten American serial killers, about the difference between writing for books and writing screenplays and, yes, about HOLES!

Enjoy!

Mouth was published on March 15th by Tenebrous Press

Other books mentioned:

The Day of the Door (2024), by Laurel Hightower

Frankenstein (1818), by Mary Shelley

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Time to get liminal and haunted. 

Gwendolyn Kiste comes back to Talking Scared for another high-concept twist on the Gothic. In The Haunting of Velkwood, and entire street turns ghostly overnight. Yeah, I can’t explain that any more clearly, we’ll leave it to Gwendolyn.

Despite this being a book centered on trauma and angst, we do a whole lot of laughing. Amongst the chuckles we also sneak in conversation about the many meanings of the word haunted, child-free horror fiction televisual references, and just what makes the American suburbs so damn creepy!

Enjoy!

The Haunting of Velkwood was published on March 5th by Saga Press

Other books mentioned:

• Reluctant Immortals (2022), by Gwendolyn Kiste
• Suburbia (1973), by Bill Owens
• Twilight: Photographs (2002), by Gregory Crewdson
• The Daughters of Block Island (2023), by Christa Carmen

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Sometimes you meet someone who just gets you.

Like Tim Lebbon. A man who writes riotously good adventure-horror novels, and also likes running outrageous distances up big hills. What a pleasure it was to speak to him.

The main topic of conversation is his new novel eco-horror novel, Among the Living. A story of ancient buried history and ‘intelligent’ infection, it blends the paranoia of The Thing with the ragtag group heroism and intensity of Aliens. In short, it’s good!

Tim and I talk about eco-horror, about the biological menaces facing mankind in the future, we discuss how writing action helps with writing character, and I tell him why this book freaked me out so much.

Oh, and we do spend some time talking about running up big hills. But we try and keep it relevant to the horror and the writing… Give me a break, how often do I meet a soul-brother like this?

Enjoy!

Among the Living was published on February 6th by Titan Books

Other books mentioned:

• Eden (2020), by Tim Lebbon
• The Last Storm (2022), by Tim Lebbon
• The Hunt (2015), by Tim Lebbon
• Come Closer (2003), by Sara Gran
• The Bang Bang Sisters (2024), by Rio Yoeurs 

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Back from a too-short break, but ready to delve into the greatest haunted house of them all! Shirley Jackson’s Hill House. The place where the scary things walk alone.

Thankfully, I am not alone. I’m joined by my own group of creepy ghost-hunters: Paul Tremblay (A Head Full of Ghosts, Cabin at the End of the World), Johnny Compton (The Spite House) and Catriona Ward (Last House on Needless Street, Looking Glass Sound). I can think of no better collective to explore the corridors of this book and house.

We get INTO it. The crafted magic of that infamous opening paragraph, the long legacy of creepy houses in American fiction, the choice between the haunted void and hideous, mundane reality. Plus, a raft of film recommendations, and a few brief forays into our favourite real haunted places.

This one was necessary. Hope you enjoy it.

Other books mentioned:

House of Leaves (2000), by Mark Z. Danielewski

Carrie (1974), by Stephen King

‘Salem’s Lot (1975), by Stephen King

The Shining (1977),  by Stephen King

The Spite House (2023), by Johnny Compton

The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers (1983), by John Gardner

The Letters of Shirley Jackson (2021), edited by Laurence Jackson Hyman

When Things Get Dark: Stories Inspired by Shirley Jackson (2021), ed. by Ellen Datlow

“Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad” (1904), by M.R. James

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Yes I put sex in the title to make you download it. Did it work?

It shouldn’t be necessary, ‘cos this week’s guest is an absolute literary icon. Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club, Haunted, Lullaby, Choke, and last year’s Not Forever, But For Now – a writer who helped shape the nihilism and extremity of 90s and noughties fiction. The man who makes people faint with his short stories. 

He’s here, talking to us!

In this conversation Chuck and I roam all over the blasted map of his fiction. We talk about transgression and provocation, about extremity in life and story, about bad reviews, toxic interviews and toxic masculinity. And yes, we talk about “Guts.”

This was a privilege. I hope you are shocked and appalled.

Enjoy!

Other books mentioned:

• Fight Club (1996) by Chuck Palahniuk
• Haunted (2005), by Chuck Palahniuk
• Lullaby (2002), by Chuck Palahniuk
• Diary (2003), by Chuck Palahniuk
• Rant: The Oral Biography of Buster Casey (2005), by Chuck Palahniuk
• Adjustment Day (2018), by Chuck Palahniuk
• Cold Comfort Farm (1932), by Stella Gibbons
• Rosemary’s Baby (1967), by Ira Levin
• “The Lottery” (1948), by Shirley Jackson
• Interview with the Vampire (1976), by Anne Rice
• Geek Love (1989), by Katherine Dunn
• Most Delicious Poison: From Spice to Vices – The Story of Nature’s Toxins (2023), by Noah Whiteman
• Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke (2021), by Eric LaRocca

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Are you hungry? 

If so we have a chewy, salty, deeply flavoured feast for you this week. Ally Wilkes returns to Talking Scared to discuss the icebound horrors of her new novel, Where the Dead Wait. It’s a tale of Arctic exploration gone very wrong, complete with haunting, human suffering and the morbid fascination of cannibalism!

Don’t pretend that hasn’t whet your appetite.

Ally and I get into the raw details of consuming human meat, we talk about queerness in historical horror fiction, we discuss the nature of haunting and how a historical horror novel can have links to a sci-fi horror classic, and we talk reminisce about the time Ally nearly died on a Himalaya in an appalling coat.

Jolly good fun wot wot!

Enjoy!

Other books mentioned:

All the White Spaces (2022), by Ally Wilke 

The Shining (1977), by Stephen King

What Cares the Sea (1960), by Kenneth Cooke

The Secret Sharer (1910), by Joseph Conrad

Frankenstein (1818), by Mary Shelley

Ice Blink: The Tragic Fate of Sir John Franklin's Lost Polar Expedition (2000), by Scott Cookman

Sundial (2022), by Catriona Ward

Dead Silence (2022), by S.A. Barnes

Ghost Station (2024), by S.A. Barnes

Indianapolis: The True Story of the Greatest Naval Disaster in US History (2018), by Lynn Vincent and Sarah Vladic

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The first new book coverage of 2024 – and it starts us off on suitably horrific footing.

Jenny Kiefer’s debut novel, This Wretched Valley, has been getting a huge amount of early buzz in horror circles. It’s the story of four unlucky adventurers, who head into the Kentucky woods and meet all manner of nasty sh*t. 

It’s a tightly wound tale of misadventure, that takes at least some inspiration from the Dyatlov Pass mystery. And if you don’t know what that is… boy have you got a wiki hole to disappear down.

Jenny and I talk about writing and selling a brutal debut, arthouse horror influences, the terror of climbing and research serendipity… plus, what she thinks happened to those poor Russian hikers over 60 years ago.

Enjoy!

Other books mentioned:

• The Ruins (2006), by Scott Smith
• The Laws of the Skies (2019), by Grégoire Courtois
• Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident (2013), by Donnie Eichar
• The Marigold (2023), by Andre F. Sullivan

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To kick off a new year of Talking Scared, I’ve gone and hooked us a big guest, with a whopper of a story.

John Langan is the author of The Fisherman. It’s one of the great works of supernatural fiction written this century, but its story doesn’t end at its back-cover. The strange mythology of The Fisherman extends beyond, swimming further downstream, to pop its monstrous head above the surface in John’s wider universe of short stories and novellas.

In this special episode, we talk at length about The Fisherman – about the classic books, real-world legends and cultural beliefs that inspired it, and about the process of building a  whole new mythos.

John is the poet-scholar of horror. This is the class you wish you’d taken in college. 

Enjoy!

Other books mentioned:

House of Windows (2009), by John Langan

“Mother of Stone”, in The Wide Carnivorous Sky and Other Monstrous Geographies (2013), by John Langan

“Bor Urus”, in Sefira and Other Betrayals (2019), by John Langan

Our Share of Night (2023), by Mariana Enriquez

The Croning (2012), by Laird Barron

The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All (2013), by Laird Barron

Pet Sematary (1983), by Stephen King

“The Monkey’s Paw” (1902), by W. W. Jacobs

Absolom, Absolom (1951), by William Faulkner

“The Call of Cthulhu” (1928), by H.P. Lovecraft

The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony (1988), by Roberto Calasso

“Development” (1889), by Robert Browning

Ironweed (1983), by William Kennedy

Come Closer (2003), by Sara Gran

Motherless Child (2012), by Glen Hirshberg

Screams From the Dark: 29 Tales of Monsters and the Monstrous (2022), edited by Ellen Datlow (contains “Glen Hirshberg’s “Devil” and John Langan’s “Bludzuger”)

Furnace (2016), by Livia Llewelyn

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Another year done. We squeaked through without another plague or a nuclear apocalypse (don’t tempt fate Neil!!) and along the way, oh the stories we read! 

The only thing left to do after mopping away the chalk pentagrams, is to run you through my very favourite books of the year. The so-called Best Horror Novels of 2023, as chosen by me. Ten of them to be precise, cos humans are obsessed with round numbers. Mwaha, in fact I talk about thirteen!!

Thanks again for listening and supporting the show. You give my addled rants a semblance of purpose, and it’s appreciated.

Onward into 2024 and its multitude of horrors!!!

Enjoy.

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Dickens said that Christmas Eve was a time for ghost stories, and who am I to argue?

It is my show though, so I get to pick the ghost story – and I picked Peter Straub’s classic novel of the name. A tale of old men with horror in their youths, seductive evil and a town besieged by winter and… worse things.

It’s a slippery beast though, this novel. So to really help pin it down, I needed help. I called and help came, in the form of Alan Baxter (author of Sallow Bend, The Gulp and many more), Lauren Bolger (Kill Radio) and John Langan, whose novel, The Fisherman, continues what I think is Straub’s American gothic legacy. 

We talk about the book in granular detail – it’s monsters, it’s politics, it’s storytelling and, of course, it’s ghosts. It’s about as jolly a time as you can have talking about ancient evil visiting small towns. But enough about Santa.

Light the fire, pour a drink, enjoy! You’ve earned it.

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And so we come to the end of another year in horror. Time to look back at the best that 2023 has had to offer, as determined by three of the best in the business.

My trusted horror chancellor, Emily Hughes joins me ­– alongside C.J. Leede, the author of this year’s gloriously transgressive Maeve Fly, and the maestro of the macabre himself, Victor Lavalle. Together we cover the year’s freshest nightmares in the macro and the micro, looking at wider trends and picking our own favourite horror fiction from this year’s epic crop.

This is a blast. We laugh, we yell, and we declare that the nation is strong, and good, and frightening. 

Enjoy!

Books Picked:

• Our Share of Night (2023), by Mariana Enriquez
• Boys Weekend (2023), by Mattie Lubchansky
• Black Sheep (2023), by Rachel Harrison
• The Reformatory (2023), by Tananarive Due 
• Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror (2023), ed. Jordan Peele and John Joseph Adams
• Fever House (2023), by Keith Rosson
• Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology (2023) ed. Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.
• Red Rabbit (2023), by Alex Grecian
• Whalefall (2023), by Daniel Kraus

Books Anticipated:

• Horror For Weenies: Everything You Need to Know About the Films You’re Too Scared to Watch (2024), by Emily Hughes
• American Rapture (2024), by C.J. Leede
• Ghost Roots (2024), by Pemi Aguda
• A Mask of Flies (2024), by Matthew Lyons
• The Z Word (2024), by Lindsay King-Miller
• Your Shadow Half Remains (2024), by Sunny Moraine
• First Light (2024), by Liz Kerin
• Bury Your Gays (2024), by Chuck Tingle
• I Was a Teenage Slasher (2024), by Stephen Graham Jones
• The House of Last Resort (2024), by Christopher Golden
• The Book of Love (2024), by Kelly Link
• King Nyx (2024), by Kirsten Bakis
• Moon of the Turning Leaves (2024), by Waubgeshig Rice
• In the Valley of the Headless Men (2024), by L.P. Hernandez
• Island Witch (2024), by Amanda Jayatissa
• The Haunting of Velkwood (2024), Gwendolyne Kiste
• The Redemption of Morgan Bright (2024), by Chris Panatier
• Horror Movie (2024), by Paul Tremblay
• You Like It Darker (2024), by Stephen King

 
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We’re going up in the world this week – longitudinally and latitudinally, with the GOAT of endurance, adventure Gothic, Michelle Paver.

Michelle joins me for a big conversation about her novels Dark Matter and Thin Air – two of the most effective ghost stories of the 21st century. One takes us to the Arctic, the other to a Himalayan peak, both places littered with the dead… who may still be around.

We talk about how ghost stories work, their tradition and what perhaps differentiates them from horror. We consider the challenge of writing heroes with imperial perspectives, and Michelle relates her own, eerie, dangerous experiences out in the frozen wilds.

This is perfect winter listening, even if we did record it in July. 

Enjoy!

Books mentioned:

Wolf Brother (2004), by Michelle Paver

The Abominable (2013), by Dan Simmons

30 Days of Night (2002), by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith

The Others of Edenwell (2023), by Verity Holloway

“The Kit Bag” (1908), by Algernon Blackwood 

Cold Earth (2009), by Sarah Moss

Number 90 and Other Ghost Stories (2000 rpt) B.M. Croker

A Beleaguered City (1871), by Margaret Oliphant

The Long Tale (Tail) of Dogs in Fiction (Esquire)

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Last time Gemma Amor came on the show we had a good ol’ chinwag about our haunted brains. This time around we get to some other ghosts, in her new novel, The Folly.

It’s a sharp slice of coastal Gothic; Cornwall’s answer to The Shining if you will. The story follows Morgan and her aging father to the weird structure of the tital, where they find hauntings of many stripes, some uncannily familiar. 

It wouldn’t be a Gemma Amor episode if things didn’t get personal – and we talk about anxieties of identity, father/daughter dynamics and the trauma of the Covid years. But it doesn’t get too real or heavy, cos we the nature of cursed buildings and twists on possession to deal with.

Enjoy our rural Britishness. I think we hide our inner yokel well. 

The Folly was published by Polis Books on in December 2023 (US) and January 2024 (UK)

Books mentioned:

• Full Immersion (2022), by Gemma Amor
• Six Rooms (2021), by Gemma Amor
• Rebecca (1938), by Daphne du Maurier
• My Cousin Rachel (1951), by Daphne du Maurier
• “The Birds,” (1952), by Daphne du Maurier
• Annihilation (2014), by Jeff VanderMeer
• The Lamplighters (2021), by Emma Stonex
• The Dark Between the Trees (2022), by Fiona Barnett

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We’ve had Cowboys versus Aliens but have you ever considered a threeway fight between gunslingers, vampires and weird cosmic cultists to an Elder God? 

If not why not? What do you even think about when you are washing the dishes? But fear not, C.S. Humble has you covered. His weird western trilogy, That Light Sublime is packed with all of the above and more. In The Massacre at Yellow Hill and  A Red Winter in the West Seth introduces a cast of lovable rogues and the stakes of their battle against the worst that this and other worlds can offer. Now, in the concluding volume, The Light of Black Star, he brings it all home, with honour, humour and shattering heartbreak.

We talk about broadening the scope of the western, how That Light Sublime links with Seth’s Black Wells series, and he explains his fundamental disagreement with the tenets of cosmic horror. We cover what Mister Rogers has to oteach us about horror writing…and how to write stories that, in Seth’s words… “attain the high romance that the human heart is reaching for.”

He’s a poet and a raconteur. I’m also present.

Enjoy!

The Massacre at Yellow Hill, A Red Winter in the West and The Light of Black Star were all published in 2023 by Cemetery Dance.

Books mentioned:

• East of Eden (1952), by John Steinbeck
• Lonesome Dove (1985), by Larry McMurtry
• Merciless Waters (2023), by Rae Knowles
• Midas (2023), by Tyler Jones
• Lone Women (2023), by Victor Lavalle
• Red Rabbit (2023), by Alex Grecian
• The Legend of Charlie Fish (2023), by Josh Rountree
• The Demon of Devil’s Canyon (coming 2024), by Brenna LeFaro
• “Pigeons From Hell” (1938), by Robert E. Howard
• The Thicket (2013), by Joe R. Lansdale
• Cold in July (1989), by Joe R. Lansdale
• The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All (2013), by Laird Barron
• Moby Dick (1851), by Herman Melville
• Fevre Dream (1982), by George R. R. Martin

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Sometimes two words can make a jaded horror reader sit up straight. 

Ghost is one, Dinosaur is another.

Ghost. Dinosaur.

Have you ever heard a more beautiful combination, a sweeter symphony of syllables.

If “Ghost Dinosaur” doesn’t make you go squeeee and shake your fists in excitement, I don’t know how to help you.

Anyway, that’s the focus of Luke Dumas delightful new novel, The Paleontologist. It’s a story about a haunted man, a creepy museum, institutional intrigue, murder and GHOST GODDAMN DINOSAURS!!

We talk about all of that and lots more, including humour in horror, how far a book can stretch a reader’s empathy, and why privilege is such a complex issue to tackle. 

But yeah. Also Ghost Dinosaurs.

Enjoy!

The Paleontologist was published 31st October by Atria Books 

Books mentioned:

• A History of Fear (2022), by Luke Dumas
• Children of the Fang, and Other Genealogies (2020), by John Langan
• The Lost World (1912), by Arthur Conan Doyle
• Jurassic Park (1990), by Michael Crichton
• Tyrannosaur Canyon (2005), by Douglas Preston
• The Resurrectionist: The Lost Work of Dr Spencer Black (2013), by E.B. Hudspeth
• The Bonus Room (AKA Bedbugs) (2023) by Ben H. Winters
• Nestlings (2023), by Nat Cassidy

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Horror is about finding light in darkness.

That’s the mission statement of this podcast, at least. And it’s never been truer than in this week’s episode. Tyler Jones re-joins us on Talking Scared to talk about his new novel, Midas. We cover its original mix of western tropes, Gothic fantasy and cult horror, but it’s family that lies at the heart of both the book and the conversation. Tyler talks us through the real life emotional rollercoaster that inspired this story.

It’s a personal conversation. Upsetting in parts, but lit through with love and life and all the good stuff. 

And if I’m sounding a little pompous and portentous here, don’t worry – we also slide seamlessly into some nerdy chat about biblical mysteries and ancient alien nonsense.

This is an important episode, for me and for Tyler. I hope you enjoy it.

p.s – here’s to Goliath the horse!

Enjoy!

Midas  was published in October by Earthlings Publications 

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History is haunted. Ghosts are injustice persevering.

So many horror stories hinge on that idea, but for Tananarive Due it’s more personal than that. Her new novel, The Reformatory, is borne from the ghosts hidden in her own family history. 

The story takes place in a hideously cruel juvenile correction facility, in a racist town, in the 1950s. As you can imagine, very few good things happen to her child protagonist. 

We talk about the link between horror and history, about writing from her family tree, about the very real reformatories that persisted into the modern era, and about looking cruelty full in the face and wrestling it into story.

This conversation is the perfect context for a near-perfect novel. 

Enjoy!

The Reformatory was published October 31st by Saga and Titan Books 

Books mentioned:

• The Only Good Indians (2020), by Stephen Graham Jones
• The Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America (2012), by Gilbert King
• Kindred (1979), by Octavia E. Butler

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Sometimes when you’re doing something scary good company can be a blessing. 

Nat Cassidy is good company. And this week he talks me through the haunted hallways and avenues of his New York horror ode, Nestlings – but he also helps me tackle the very real world horror that is turning our newspapers into nightmare-fodder and the Middle East into a tinderbox.

But have no fear (well, always have a little fear!) this is no mere despairing, depressing look at reality. We also talk about gargoyles and vampire-adjacent things, about New York winters and longing for home … and of course, about Stephen King. 

Enjoy!

Nestlings was published October 31st by Tor Nightfire

Books mentioned:

Mary: An Awakening of Terror (2022), by Nat Cassidy

Nightmares in the Sky (1988), by Stephen King and F-Stop Fitzgerald

‘Salem’s Lot (1975), by Stephen King

The Shining (1977), by Stephen King

From a Buick 8 (2002), by Stephen King

Rosemary’s Baby (1967), by Ira Levin

The Keep (1981), by F. Paul Wilson

I, Claudius (1934) by Robert Graves

The Guns of August (1962), by Barbara W. Tuchman

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Some stories are just too big for one podcast. Some stories should be too big for one book. 

Sam Rebelein’s Edenville is one such story. This 300-something page novel has more crammed into it than your average fantasy trilogy. There is backstory upon backstory, a cosmic framework, and enough different monsters to fill Guillermo del Toro’s minibus. Yet somehow Sam corrals it all into a whimsical horror romp – a well-organised riot.

We talk about ideas… about thinking them up, letting them evolve and, most crucially, getting them on paper. We talk narcissistic writers, the power of dreams, the unique eeriness of the Hudson River Valley and the questionable nature of curses.

This conversation is a call to arms for writers. It’s a weary acceptance that maybe, just maybe, sitting your arse in the chair is the most important thing you can do all day.

Enjoy!

Edenville was published October 3rd by Titan Books and HarperCollins

Books mentioned:

• Echo (2022), by Thomas Olde Heuvelt
• Camp Damascus (2023), by Chuck Tingle
• Hannibal (1999), by Thomas Harris

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Some stories are too short, some are too long, but some stories are just right. It’s the Goldilocks zone: the novella.

What is the secret to crafting a longer story but not letting it run away from you? How do you sustain the terror beyond the shortest form? How do you know what to keep in and what to cut out?
 
This is the art of the novella, and I’m joined by a pair of expert practitioners to talk it through. Josh Malerman and Ronald Malfi have both published novella collections this year – Ron’s They Lurk and Josh’s Spin a Black Yarn contain multitudes. From motel-lot self-mutilation to deathbed serial killer confessions, via the Oregon backwoods and the core of Saturn(!!), these stories take us to places without wasting a word.

Josh and Ron provide a masterclass on the art of the novella, as well as ALL the enthusiasm you could ever pack into an hour of conversation. This one will put a smile on your face and inspiration in your typin’ fingers!

Enjoy.

They Lurk was published was published on July 18th by Titan; Spin a Black Yarn was published August 15th by Del Rey

Books mentioned:

Daphne (2022), by Josh Malerman

Goblin (2021), by Josh Malerman

Ghostwritten (2022), by Ronald Malfi

Pet Sematary (1983), by Stephen King

The Long Walk (1979), by Stephen King

Mrs Dalloway (1925) by Virginia Woolf

Houses Without Doors (1990), by Peter Straub

Bloom (2023), by Delilah S. Dawson

The Turn of the Screw (1898), by Henry James

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This week is a special roundtable episode. An exciting, challenging and very very thought-provoking tour of contemporary Black horror, in the company of three writers at the bleeding edge. 

Nnedi Okorafor, Maurice Broaddus and Lesley Nneka Arimah are just three of the contributors to Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror. It’s curated by Jordan Peele, who knows a thing or two about that particular landscape, and these three authors present a fantastic cross-section of how versatile Black horror is right now.

We talk about their stories, about the anthology as a whole and the broader topic of Black horror. What does that even mean? What is the role of history? Of trauma? And of the future? At times, these guests turn the interview around on me, asking me to reflect on my own presumptions and the baggage I bring to these stories.

Like I said, challenging and exciting. Hope you enjoy it.

Out There Screaming was published on October 3rd by Picador and Random House

Books mentioned: 

• Dark Dreams: A Collection of Horror and Suspense by Black Writers 92004), ed. Brandon Massey
• King Maker (2010), by Maurice Broaddus
• How High We Go in the Dark (2022), by Sequoia Nagamatsu
• Demon Copperhead (2022), by Barbara Kingsolver
• The Changeling (2017), by Victor LaValle
• No Gods, No Monsters (2021), by Cadwell Turnbull
• The Nesting (2020), by C.J. Cooke
• Leech (2022), by Hiron Ennes

“Africanfuturism Defined.” (2019), by Nnedi Okorafor

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Come home!! We have to come home!! The House is calling us. 

Yep, this week we are going back to the most haunted house of all. Hill House. Shirley Jackson’s classic bad place. And we’re going in the company of three-time Shirley Jackson Award Winner, Elizabeth Hand, whose new novel is the first ever sanctioned sequel to Jackson’s classic.

A Haunting on the Hill submits four new unwitting victims to the horrors of Hill House. But that’s where the stories diverge. Liz’s take on this soured ground is a whole different thing, full of witchcraft, theatre-drama and weirdness even Jackson didn’t dream up.

We talk about Jackson’s huge legacy, the pressures and pleasures of playing in her sandbox, treating Hill House as a character and murder ballads. 

Enjoy! Welcome home. 

A Haunting on the Hill was published on October 3rd by Mulholland Books and Sphere

Books mentioned:

• When Things Get Dark: Stories Inspired by Shirley Jackson (2021), ed. by Ellen Datlow
• The Shining (1977), by Stephen King
• Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain's Visionary Music (2011), by Rob Young
• The Magic Box: Viewing Britain through the Rectangular Window (2021), by Rob Young

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This week on Talking Scared we are joining hands with Chuck Wendig to take the fight to Big Fruit. They have been lying to us about apples all our lives.

Chuck’s new novel, Black River Orchard is all about apples. Tasty, evil, corruptive. The book grows from the fertile soil of American small-town horror, and we talk about some texts in that storytelling style, as well as how Chuck himself approaches writing such big books with so many character arcs. We also cover apple-lore, how politics fits into horror fiction, the appeal of violent characters and a whole lot of books we think you should read. 

Enjoy. This book is a great way to say goodbye to summer.

Black River Orchard was published on September 26th by Del Rey

Books mentioned:

• Fever House (2023), by Keith Rosson
• Ring Shout (2020), by P. Djèlí Clark
• The Fisherman (2017), by John Langan
• The Tommyknockers (1987), by Stephen King
• ‘Salem’s Lot (1975), by Stephen King
• Mary: An Awakening of Terror (2022), by Nat Cassidy
• Swan Song (1987), by Robert R. McCammon
• Maeve Fly (2023), by C.J. Leede

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Clay McLeod Chapman returns to Talking Scared to answer some serious questions, the first being what the holy f**k Clay?!

Clay has never been a writer to shy away from a high concept challenge (haunted mushrooms, anyone?) but his latest novel, What Kind of Mother goes into the uncharted regions of the mind and soul, dredging the craziest of horrors from the murky waters of his native Chesapeake Bay.

We talk the terrors of both adolescence and parenthood, the terrible power of imagination, why Virginia still beckons his storytelling home … and crabs. Ohhhh we’ll get to the crabs!

Clay is a great writer, a wonderful person and a good friend of the show. I hope you enjoy this episode. 

What Kind of Mother was published on September 12hth by Quirk Books

Books mentioned:

• Spin a Black Yarn (2023), by Josh Malerman
• They Lurk (2023), by Ronald Malfi
• Graveyard of Lost Children (2023), by Katrina Monroe
• Delicate Condition (2023), by Danielle Valentine
• Just Like Mother (2022), by Anne Heltzel
• Pet Sematary (1983), by Stephen King
• The Return (2020), by Rachel Harrison
• Razorblade Tears (2021), by S. A. Cosby
• Conjuring Up Philip: An Adventure in Psychokinesis (1976), by Iris M. Owen and Margaret Sparrow
• Superstition (1997), by David Ambrose

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I’m back, partially rested and with some romance lingering in my soul. Good timing, cos this week’s episode focuses on the heart as well as the blood that it pumps. 

Isabel Cañas returns to the show to talk about her second novel, Vampires of El Norte – a sweeping historical love-story set against a backdrop of class tumult, war and … yeah… vampires. It’s not a spoiler guys – it’s in the title!

Isabel speaks so eloquently about the relationship between vampirism and cultural legacy, about how it isn’t only the undead who invade your space and drain your essence. She describes the intense, insane schedule of writing the book, how landscape invites the supernatural, Mexican boogeymen and boogeywomen, and historical fiction as feminist conundrum.

Enjoy. With heart, soul and viscera. 

Vampires of El Norte was published on August 15hth by Berkley

Books mentioned:

• The Hacienda(2022), by Isabel Cañas
• Mexican Gothic (2020), by Silvia Moreno Garcia
• Lone Women (2023), by Victor Lavalle
• Island Witch (forthcoming 2024), by Amanda Jayatissa

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Why do we keep heading back to the woods? WHY?? Nothing good ever happens there.

Alexander James would argue otherwise, but he’s clearly made of sterner stuff than me. In his debut novel, The Woodkin, Alex parlays his love of the wild outdoors into a story that heads toward a familiar backwoods nightmares, before veering far off the beaten trail into something stranger and even scarier. 

In this episode we talk about his love for the woods of the Pacific Northwest (and yes! I ask him about Bigfoot of course). We cover the controversy surrounding an earlier title choice, the influence of D&D on his writing and the trick to realistically depicting fear in fiction.

It’s a happy hike into darkness. 

Enjoy

The Woodkin was published August 22nd by CamCat Books

Other books mentioned in this episode include:

• Dark Mountain (1992), by Richard Laymon
• Offseason (1980), by Jack Ketchum
• Mexican Gothic (2020), by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
• The Hacienda (2022), by Isabel Cañas

I'm a Search and Rescue Officer for the US Forest Service, I Have Some Stories to Tell

CritStupid Podcast (Alex's D&D podcast)

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If you thought The Last House on Needless Street was tricksy, just wait until you hear about Looking Glass Sound. This is Cat’s ode to the Maine of Stephen King, the enigmatic narrators of Shirley Jackson and… well, a host of other comparisons that I foist upon her in the next hour.

Above all that though – the book is so typically, inimitably Catriona Ward. It’s a destined Gothic classic that takes the genre, crumples it into a ball before rewriting the whole thing. 

We cover the purpose of metafiction in horror, how writing a book is like falling in love, the eeriness of the Maine coast and her fascination with the Neverland Ranch. If that isn’t enough Cat also tells us a ghost story that happened to her just the night before.

Tricksy, very tricksy…as Gollum would say.

Enjoy

Looking Glass Sound was published April 20th by Viper Books in the UK and 22nd August by Tor Nightfire in the US.

Other books mentioned in this episode include: 

• Lunar Park (2005), by Bret Easton Ellis
• The Rules of Attraction (1987), by Bret Easton Ellis
• The Secret History (1992), by Donna Tartt
• My Other Life (1996) by Paul Theroux
• Any Human Heart (2002), by William Boyd
• The Haunting of Hill House (1959), by Shirley Jackson
• Death of a Bookseller (2023), by Alice Slater
• Mrs March (2021), by Virgina Feito 

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We’re off to La La Land this week, to talk cursed films, 90s horror nostalgia and Winona Ryder(!!) 

Our guest is Josh Winning – who has parlayed his years of writing from and about film sets into a horror novel. Burn the Negative is set in the backlots, soundstages, cutting rooms and dank motel rooms of Hollywood. It features a film with a fatal jinx and a whole lotta love for the 90s teen slasher. 

Amongst all of that, Josh and I also tick off the uncanny creepiness of child stars, the validity of fun in horror and the power of the silhouette in making a really scary horror villain. 

Enjoy

Burn the Negative was published on July 11th by Penguin Random House

Other books mentioned in this episode include:

• The Shadow Glass (2022), by Josh Winning
• The Final Girl Support Group (2021), by Grady Hendrix
• My Heart is a Chainsaw (2021), by Stephen Graham Jones
• House of Leaves (2000), by Mark Z. Danielewski
• “N”– in Just After Sunset (2008), by Stephen King

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Sorry not sorry this week. Yes I’m going to destroy your wallet and your bookshelves…but you LOVE IT!!

Our guest is Sadie Hartmann, AKA Mother Horror to the likes of us. One of the most influential horror reviewers in the world. The editor in chief of Dark Hart Books and the co-owner of the Night Worms horror subscription service. She knows a thing or two about this haunted library.

And she’s written a book to guide the unwary, or the just-plain curious. Or anyone who wants a new book to read. 101 Horror Books to Read Before You’re Murdered is Sadie’s guide to the horrid books that she loves – the ones that chill her blood, warm her heart and turn her stomach. 

We talk about her selection process, her blogging origin story, the gatekeeper problem in horror, our shared fear of certain kinds of book and the joy of scary stories featuring kids on bikes. 

Renew your library card or get ready to buy some books!

101 Horror Books to Read Before You’re Murdered was published on August 8th by Page Street Publishing

Other books mentioned in this episode include:

• The Devil All the Time (2012), by Donald Ray Pollock
• Knockemstiff (2008), by Donald Ray Pollock
• Come Closer (2003), by Sara Gran
• Lord of the Flies (1954), by William Golding
• Boys in the Valley (2023), by Philip Fracassi
• The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore (2018), by Kim Fu
• Devil’s Creek (2020), by Todd Kiesling
• Gather the Daughters (2017), by Jennie Melamed
• The Girl Next Door (1989), by Jack Ketchum
• Along the Path of Torment (2020), by Chandler Morrison
• Apartment 16 (2010), by Adam Neville
• Last Days (2012), by Adam Neville
• The Reddening (2019), by Adam Neville
• Lonesome Dove (1985), by Larry McMurtry
• A House with Good Bones (2023), by T. Kingfisher
• Number One Fan (2020), by Meg Ellison
• House of Leaves (2000), by Mark Z. Danielewski
• Let the Right One In (2004), by John Ajvide Lindqvist
• Betty (2020), by Tiffany McDaniel
• On the Savage Side (2023), by Tiffany McDaniel
• Whalefall (2023), by Daniel Kraus

 
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Our guest this week is Stephen King.

That’s it. That’s the intro.

Stephen King. The architect of modern horror and the creative north star of my life, and many of yours. He’s on the show, talking about his new book, Holly and why the central character just won’t let him go. We cover his attitude to academia, horror and hope, how his worldview sits with a fractured reality, and we even hear some exciting, exclusive details about some upcoming books.

I lack the words to convey my delight.

Enjoy

Other books mentioned in this episode include:

• The Boy on the Bridge (2017), by M.R. Carey
• DMV (2023), by Bentley Little
• Mary: An Awakening of Terror (2022), by Nat Cassidy
• The Clackity (2022), by Lora Senf
• The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926), by Agatha Christie
• “Beyond the Wall of Sleep,” (1919), by H.P. Lovecraft
• The Passenger (2023), by Cormac McCarthy
• Light Perpetual (2021), by Francis Spufford
• The Deluge (2023), by Stephen Markley 

Holly is published on September 5th by Hodder and Scribner 

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We’re off on a Goth pilgrimage this week folks, to the motherland, Transylvania, to talk folk-horror and more with Alex Woodroe.

Alex is a Romanian writer of dark fictions, the Editor in Chief of Tenebrous Press, and the debut author of Whisperwood. The book brings the monsters of Romanian myth and legend to the fore in a battle of wills with an isolated village. There isn’t a vampire in sight. Bram Stoker didn’t know what he was talking about.

Alex does! And we get into lots of things, from the difference between fantasy and folk-legend, political allegory and the recent history of dictatorship, to the very real undead myths in her own family tree.

I learned a lot from this conversation.

Enjoy!

Whisperwood was published by Flame Tree Press on July 11th 

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This week we’re joined by the man, the myth, the mystery that is Chuck Tingle. 

Who knows the truth of this enigmatic figure? What visage lies beneath the pink bag that forever encases his face? Does he really have a PhD in massage? Puzzles abound…

The one thing that’s certain is the brilliance of his new novel. Camp Damascus is a full-bloodied horror novel set in that most hideous of environs: a religious community and a gay conversion camp. Sounds triggering. It may well be … but Chuck has also invested this story with such hope and joy and yes, LOVE, that it more than salves all the human horror and demonic jump scares.

We cover tons in this episode – the stoic seriousness of fictional sex, the maligned trinity of genres, rattling the religious right, the simple trick to writing effective jumpscares and the final, full declaration of why love is real. 

Enjoy!

Camp Damascus was published by Tor Nightfire on July 18th and Titan Books on July 27th 

An article about Chuck – worth reading

Other books mentioned in this episode include:

Straight (2021), by Chuck Tingle

Revival (2014), by Stephen King

Dark Matter (2010), by Michelle Paver

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This week I’m recording very close to home with Andrew Michael Hurley. 

Andrew burst onto the folk-horror scene with subtle aplomb (can one burst subtly?) back in 2014, with The Loney. That slice of weirdness was set in the very town in which I spent my wet, dismal childhood holidays. It conjured shivers in more ways than one. 

Now he is here to talk about the reissue of his 2019 novel, Starve Acre. It’s a bleak, bitter, wintery tale of isolation, grief and ritual, set in the Yorkshire Dales. Where I also spent some holidays – does Andrew know something I don’t? Hmmmm?

We talk about his relationship with folk horror, and how it helps us express our communal British angst. We make comparisons to some unexpected movies, discuss authorial freedom, and talk about deep knowledge, invented lore and horror as replacement for spirituality. 

It’s all a good excuse to yell about the government. 

Enjoy!

Starve Acre was re-issued by Penguin on July 4th.

Other books mentioned in this episode include:

• The Loney (2014), by Andrew Michael Hurley
• Elmet (2017), by Fiona Mozley
• The Gallows Pole (2017), by Benjamin Myers
• Waterland (1983), by Graham Swift
• Cold Hand in Mine (1975), by Robert Aickman

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War, what is it good for? Absolutely noth…. well actually, it is quite good for horror stories.

Our guest this week doesn’t plumb the usual horrors-of-war route, though. Verity Holloway’s The Others of Edenwell is a supremely subtle, slow-burning excavation of trauma and national nightmares, set in a (supposedly) idyllic spa-cum-convalescent-hospital as battle rages elsewhere.

Of course, there are horrors much closer to home.

It’s possibly my first foray into the First World War on this podcast and Verity and I talk about her family connection to the story, her physical connection to the hospital setting, and her inspirations in the literature of the time. We also discuss cryptozoology, ghost stories, and why German helmets have such a creepy design. 

Enjoy!

The Others of Edenwell was published by Titan on July 4th.

Other books mentioned in this episode include:

• All the White Spaces (2022), by Ally Wilkes
• “Still Falls the Rain” (1944), by Edith Sitwell
• Negative Space (2020), by B.R. Yeager
• Ghost Eaters (2022), by Clay McLeod Chapman

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This week Danielle Trussoni arrives at Talking Scared in a rush. She has a meeting to get to, and we have LOTS of things to talk about in less than an hour. Her new novel, The Puzzle Master crams in enough for a whole Discovery Channel series on conspiracy, mysticism and esoteric history, plus dolls, Golems, quantum computing and a cute little Dachshund named Conundrum. 

How is a host supposed to cover all that at a rush. The answer, drink more coffee and don’t pause to breathe!

We manage it. We talk about all of the above, plus depictions of altered mental states, the curse of a Dan Brown comparison, and Danielle’s search for the perfect haunted house.  

Enjoy!

The Puzzle Master was published by Penguin Random House on June 13th.

Other books mentioned in this episode include:

• Angelology (2010) by Danielle Trussoni
• Nestlings (2023), by Nat Cassidy
• The Long Shalom (2023), by Zach Rosenberg

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Thrust your fists against the post and still insist you see the… 

…oh hello. You came back. Thank Gan. We have a monster to defeat this week. 

Yes, this is the second part of the Talking Scared dive into Stephen King’s IT. This time we are getting weird. 

Joined by stalwart friends, Ally Malinenko (Ghost Girl, This Appearing House) and Nat Cassidy (Mary: An Awakening of Terror), I’m delving below ground and into the cosmic tangle that underpins all of King’s fiction. We’re asking what is Pennywise? Where did he come from? What does he want and what the hell is that giant turtle doing? 

It has been a labour of love, talking for hours with friends about my favourite book. Thank you so much for listening, and remember… we’re stronger together. 

Enjoy!

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Come get a balloon, bring your slingshot, let’s float…it’s here!!!

Yes, finally we’re off to Derry, to do battle with that goddamn clown. But as everyone knows, we can’t fight Pennywise alone. That’s why I’m taking my trusty, loyal, brave band of Losers with me. Nat Cassidy (Mary: An Awakening of Terror) and Ally Malinenko (This Appearing House) are joining me for a tour of the sewers, subtext and sociological horrors at the heart of King’s IT. 

Halfway through we realised this would to be a two-parter, ‘cos there is just too much to say. The horrors will follow in Part Two, this time we focus mainly on the heart. We talk about the characters, the depictions of childhood… and yes we get into that  scene (with possibly surprising opinions). 

I so hope you like this episode gang. I want to finally take the chance to explain what this book means to my enduring boyish heart. 

Enjoy!

Read Grady Hendrix's essay HERE

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I’ve rarely been more excited about an episode – for you to hear it or, indeed, about its very contents.

We’re joined this week by Mike Flanagan. Yes, that Mike Flanagan. The genius loci of modern visual horror, the writer and director behind Midnight Mass, The Haunting of Hill House, Doctor Sleep, The Midnight Club and Oculus. Our most literary horror director and a man who understand that horror is where the heart is. 

If you think my praise is too gushing then… we’ll just have to disagree.

He may be a filmmaker, but he sure does love books. In this conversation we talk about Mike’s deep love for horror stories, how his childhood reading continues to influence his career, and what he’s still loving about the genre. We discuss his upcoming take on Fall of the House of Usher, his next Stephen King adaptation, and a certain tower that looms in the distance.

Yes, Mike’s career – like all great things – follows the Beam.   

• The Fall of the House of Usher is out on Netflix later this year. 
• Other books mentioned in this episode include:
• The House with a Clock in its Walls (1973), by John Bellairs
• It (1986), by Stephen King
• Gerald’s Game (1992), by Stephen King
• “The Life of Chuck,” in If it Bleeds (2020), by Stephen King
• Echo (2022), by Thomas Olde Heuvelt
• Blackwater (1983), by Michael McDowell
• If You See Her (2019), by Ania Ahlborn
• This Appearing House (2022), by Ally Malinenko
• The Clackity (2022), by Lora Senf 

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 If horror is indeed a broad church, then our guest this week is preaching from the darkest of pulpits. 

Paula D. Ashe is the author of We Are Here To Hurt Each Other – a collection of short stories that has accrued infamy and acclaim in equal measure over the last 12 months. Her stories are cruel. They present a depraved world of man (and woman’s) direst excesses, a world that rubs against the numinous and the cosmically amoral. 

Can you say ‘trigger warnings needed’!

We talk at length about the allure of extreme horror, about whether an author can truly consider their readers’ feelings, about horrendous crimes and the difference between the horror of imagery and action. We also give a lot of love to Clive Barker and his influence on Paula’s own mythos-building.

This may be the most extreme episode of Talking Scared ever recorded.

Enjoy (whatever that means!) 

We Are Here To Hurt Each Other was published on 21st Feb 2022, by Nictitating Books 

Other books mentioned in this episode include:

• Where I End (2022), by Sophie White
• Stephen (1991), by Elizabeth Massie
• The Hellbound Heart (1986), by Clive Barker

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What if the house that shaped you was a broken, haunted place?

That’s one of many questions we explore this week, in the company of Sarah Gailey. Their 2022 hit, Just Like Home is out in paperback and … hell … do we get our fingers right into its dusty, cobwebbed corners!

 We talk about serial-killing fathers and monstrous mothers, the power and pitfalls of descriptive prose. We discuss Freudian metaphors and the profound fears of childhood, offer a fresh take on the thorny question of unlikeable female protagonists, and I present my ‘possession’ theory on the crimes of Ted Bundy (it’s bullsh*t.)

This is a lovely conversation about dark things.

Enjoy!

Just Like Home was published in paperback on May 30th by Tor and Hodder & Stoughton

Other books mentioned in this episode include:

• River of Teeth (2017), by Sarah Gailey
• The Echo Wife (2021), by Sarah Gailey
• Maw (2022), by Jude Doyle
• Monstrilio (2023), by Gerardo Sámano Córdova
• The Sickness (2023 –), by Jenna Cha and Lonnie Nadler

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In the immortal words of Creed’s Scott Stapp, “can you take me HIIIGHER?”

Yes, I can.

Our guest this week is Nicholas Binge, author the new buzzy, horror-sci-fi novel, Ascension. It’s about a very weird, very big mountain that appears out of nowhere to lure the unwary upwards. Nothing good occurs, of course. Again…much like a Creed concert.

This is where the comparison’s to terrible post-grunge rock ends (thankfully) cos Nick and I have much more fun making comparisons to the likes of Conan Doyle, Bram Stoker and H.P. Lovecraft… to the classic Gothic and Adventure stories that Nick mixes with his oh-so-modern science-fiction themes. Ascension is a treat for fans of both traditions.

We also talk about the place of mountains in our literature, the shattering chaos of quantum mechanics, recontextualising neurodiverse characters and the occasional shoggoth!

Enjoy!

Ascension was published on April 25th by HarperVoyager and Riverhead Books.

Other books mentioned in this episode include:

• Annihilation (2014), by Jeff VanderMeer
• The Lost World (1912), by Arthur Conan Doyle
• At the Mountains of Madness (1936), by H.P. Lovecraft
• House of Leaves (2000), by Mark Z. Danielewski
• Fever Dream (2014), by Samanta Schweblin

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We are paying tribute to the best of us this week. The booksellers. Keepers of the flame, beacons in the night, purveyors of meaning in a cold, dark universe … usually.

Alice Slater used to be a member of that celebrated guild, now she’s written about the light and dark side of the trade in her debut smash, Death of a Bookseller. It pulls back the curtain on an industry we all care deeply about, to reveal the obsession, madness and … murder(?) behind the chai lattes and instagram posts.

In this conversation we cover a lot of ground… from the problems inherent in True Crime, book-fetishization, and the weird empathy we feel for serial killers’ pets. Plus, I get to talk about my favourite things (see: everything mentioned so far) with someone who genuinely once worked in my local bookshop.

This was a blast.

Enjoy! 

Death of a Bookseller was published on April 25th by Hodder and Scarlet

Other books mentioned in this episode include:

• Savage Appetites: True Stories of Women, Crime and Obsession (2019), by Rachel Monroe
• The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper (2019), by Hallie Rubenhold
• You (2014), by Caroline Kepnes
• Gone Girl (2012), by Gillian Flynn
• The Last House on Needless Street (2021), by Catriona Ward
• The Sluts (2004), by Dennis Cooper
• Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke (2021), by Eric LaRocca
• Echo (2022), by Thomas Olde Heuvelt 

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No book has ever made me so painfully aware of my nipples as Katrina Monroe’s The Graveyard of Lost Children. And I won’t ever have to breastfeed. 

Katrina’s novel is a full-treatment of the horrors involved in motherhood. Yes there is love, but there is also social pressure, paranoia, loneliness and chafing! And that’s before we even get to the spectral Black-Haired Woman who haunts the unlucky mothers of Katrina’s second novel. Parenting horror has seen a lot of great titles in recent years, but this may be my favourite.

In this episode we talk about changeling lore, about asylums, about the motif and metaphor of wells, and the creepiest mental health condition i’ve ever heard of.

And I guarantee this is the only horror lit podcast of the week to feature the phrase “stool sample.”

Enjoy!

The Graveyard of Lost Children was published on May 9th by Poison Pen Press

Link to The Burning of Bridget Cleary

Other books mentioned in this episode include: 

• They Drown our Daughters (2022), by Katrina Monroe
• If We Were Villains (2017), by M. L. Rio
• Such a Pretty Smile (2022), by Kristi DeMeester
• The Good People (2016), by Hannah Kent
• Last to Leave the Room (forthcoming 2023), by Caitlin Starling

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You will know Justin Cronin as the author of the landmark The Passage. That trilogy set the world of horror and science fiction (and all points in between) alight in the early 2000s and he’s back after eight long years, with The Ferryman. This time he’s swapping vampire plagues for something wholly more subtle … but no less terrifying. I can’t tell you what ‘cos that would ruin it for everyone, but it may shake the very building blocks of your reality.

Justin and I discuss all manner of existential worries, from the nature of reality to the malign impact of ‘wellbeing’ lifestyles. We talk about Kazuo Ishiguro, Planet of the Apes and myriad other influences that flow into the wonder, horror and awe of The Ferryman. Don’t worry, we cover The Passage too… 

And he also explains how telling any story is just like telling a joke really, really well.

Enjoy! 

The Ferryman was published on May 2nd by Ballantine Books and Orion

Other books mentioned in this episode include:

• The Earth Abides (1948), by George Stewart
• Lonesome Dove (1985), by Larry McMurtry
• Never Let Me Go (2005), by Kazuo Ishiguro
• The Remains of the Day (1989), by Kazuo Ishiguro
• Netherland (2008), by Joseph O’Neill
• Planet of the Apes (1963), by Pierre Boulle
• Shotgun Lovesongs (2013), by Nickolas Butler

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What if the world ended, not with a bang, but a slow squelch? 

That’s sort-of the premise of The Marigold, the brand-new novel from Andrew F. Sullivan. In this book a slow apocalypse is corroding Toronto. Above ground, urban development is driving ecological disaster, whilst in the basements and dark places a new fungal menace is squirming from the shadow. You may never look at your own athlete’s foot the same way.

Andrew and I talk about many things, mushrooms and mycology, the weird ‘third life’ of fungus and the cosmic horror to be found in the soil and loam. We also look at how grimy 80s exploitation movies influenced his book, and I discover an awful lot about raccoons.

A great conversation about a unique book. 

Enjoy!

The Marigold was published on April 18th by ECW Press

Other books mentioned in this episode include:

• Annihilation (2014), by Jeff VanderMeer
• What Moves the Dead (2022), by T. Kingfisher
• The Deluge (2023), by Stephen Markley
• Follow Me To Ground (2018), by Sue Rainsford
• Night Terror: Troubled Sleep and the Stories We Tell About It (2023), by Alice Vernon

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This week we’re dissecting spectres and excavating the haunted house in Ai Jiang’s word-of-mouth smash, Linghun.

Ai’s novella is a blast. A read-in-one-sitting tale of grief and greed and ghosts and what the word HOME really means. We go deep, talking about different cultural iterations of the supernatural, the impact of location on writing style…and the horrors of the Edinburgh vaults. 

Enjoy!

Linghun was published on April 4th by Dark Matter INK

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Back to the Island this week! With Rachel Eve Moulton and The Insatiable Volt Sisters.

Rachel sophomore novel is the weirdest island story since Lost, or Brexit. It features a strange family with a stranger secret, curses, killer quarry ponds and the wearing of other people’s skin. And yet you probably still want to visit Fowler Island (I did). 

We talk about working with surrealism, about writing volatile sisters and gendered monsters, and about the wonderful horror-lure of island life. 

It’s worth noting, we also spend time discussing famous suicide hotspots – this seems like something you should know in advance. 

Enjoy!

The Insatiable Volt Sisters was published on April 4th by FSG 

Other books mentioned in this episode include:

• Tinfoil Butterfly (2019), by Rachel Eve Moulton
• Hurricane Girl (2022), by Marcy Dermansky
• Diary (2003), by Chuck Palahniuk
• The House of Dies Drear (1968), by Virginia Hamilton
• “The Raft”, in Skeleton Crew (1985), by Stephen King

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Fairy tales are the first horror stories, right? Kids being eaten by witches, narcissistic imps who steal your babies. That’s the good stuff. 

Kelly Link knows a thing or two about the darkness inside fairy tales, and how to (re)tell them for maximum effect. She is a superstar of the short story, a Pultizer nominee and someone who just plain knows a lot of interesting stuff. 

Her new collection, White Cat, Black Dog takes some of your favourite stories and twists them into new shapes. Some you’ll recognise, most you won’t (unless you have a degree in folklore or just run to Wikipedia to look smart). We talk about how and why she reinvents stories, why she wishes every story was a ghost story, and how she controls the extreme weirdness in her fiction. 

Oh, and she also indulges me as I ask her lots of questions about my favourite story in years. One she wrote. You’ll be sick of me saying the title by the end.

Enjoy!

White Cat, Black Dog was published on March 28th 

Other books mentioned in this episode include:

• The Women Could Fly (2022), by Megan Giddings
• Get In Trouble: Stories (2015), by Kelly Link
• When Things Get Dark: Stories Inspired by Shirley Jackson (2021), ed. by Ellen Datlow
• Our Share of Night (2022), by Mariana Enriquez 

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Terrible times and awful words await us this week. Thankfully, on this show that’s a good thing!

Our guest is Max Booth III, the wizard behind Ghoulish Books and the author of bathroom-set apocalypse, We Need to Do Something. He’s here to talk about his new collection of uber-dark stories, Abnormal Statistics.

These tales are pitch black, treacle-thick pieces of clotted nastiness. Bad things happen to lots of people, most frequently children (but never dogs). Many a mind is tortured and many a tooth is sucked (!!) 

Max and I talk about how these stories reflect his own disjointed childhood. We talk about awful true crimes and why he’s addicted to information that is bad for him. We also try to pin down precisely what it is about human teeth that seem so universally unnerving… plus some references to my favourite creepypasta stories.

This is the best bad time you’ll have this week.

Enjoy!

Abnormal Statistics was published by Apocalypse Party on March 23rd 

Other books mentioned in this episode include:

• The Haunting of Camp Winter Falcon (2022), by Jonathan Raab
• This Appearing House (2022), by Ally Malinenko
• “The Whimper of Whipped Dogs” (1973), by Harlan Ellison

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Wagons West this week, with a guest I’ve been trying to get on the show since the early days. It’s Victor Lavalle.

I had always wanted to speak to him about The Ballad of Black Tom in the dream that we could join together to call Lovecraft names. As it turns out, that will have to wait, cos he’s brought out a brand-new novel … and it’s a Weird Western. 

Cue squealing!! It’s one of my favourite sub-genres.

We talk about homesteading and wilderness, about bad neighbours and New York City, about family and fidelity to truth and the need for happy endings … and there’s an awful lot of chat about monsters. 

This is one of the best episodes of the year so far. You’ll learn, you’ll laugh, you’ll almost certainly cry. Why aren’t you crying? What’s wrong with you? Are you heartless??

Enjoy!

Lone Women was published by on March 28thth by One World

Other books mentioned in this episode include:

• The Ballad of Black Tom (2016), by Victor Lavalle
• The Changeling (2017), by Victor Lavalle
• The Devil in Silver (2012), by Victor Lavalle
• Montana Women Homesteaders: A Field of One’s Own (2009), by Dr Sarah Carter
• The Autobiography of My Mother (1996), by Jamaica Kincaid

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There is no cool and collected way to introduce this week’s episode. Our guest is Margaret Atwood.

Yes, that Margaret Atwood. The author of The Handmaid’s Tale. One of the few writer’s who genuinely deserves to be called an icon (though she may be tired of the term).  She published her first novel in 1969 and now as she enters her seventh decade of writing, her stories are no less challenging or surprising. 

Her new collection, Old Babes in the Wood is a feast of darkness and light. It swerves from myth to sci-fi, to body horror, all bookended by stories about love and loss and grief. And she came on this little show to talk about it.

We unveil the inspirations behind some of the stories. We talk about disease and dystopia through history, the dangers of Canadian wilderness, men who turn into bears, the relationship of horror and slapstick, and her own haunted house.

It was a privilege. 

Enjoy!

Old Babes in the Wood was published by on March 7th by Vintage and Doubleday

Other books mentioned in this episode include:

• Bunny (2019), by Mona Awad
• Carmilla (1872), by Sheridan Le Fanu 
• The Handmaids Tale (1984), by Margaret Atwood
• Oryx and Crake (2003), by Margaret Atwood
• Alias Grace (1996), by Margaret Atwood
• Lady Oracle (1976), by Margaret Atwood
• Black Water: The Book of Fantastic Literature (1983), ed. Alberto Manguel
• Dark Arrows: Chronicles of Revenge (1985), ed. Alberto Manguel
• On Writing (2000), by Stephen King
• The Death of Grass (1956), by John Christopher

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Vampires, finally! After years of recording a horror podcast, I’ve finally recorded a conversation about the first thing you all probably think of if I said “horror monster.” Actually, at this very moment, maybe you’d name a Floridian politician but you get my drift…

I’m delighted to be joined by Jacqueline Holland, to talk about her new novel of bloodsucking and cursed immortality, The God of Endings. As with so many books featured on this show, it’s an offbeat look at an old trope, with a vampire that has no problem with garlic and who is not at all horny! She’s also a pre-school teacher in the 80s. That’s REALLY hardcore!

Jacqueline and I talk about horror imposter-syndrome, the history of New England vampires, monstrous mothers, the terror of living forever, and how she has always been…in her own words… a dark weirdo.

Enjoy!

The God of Endings was published by on February 7th by Flatiron Books

Other books mentioned in this episode include:

• What I Didn’t See, and Other Stories (2002), by Karen Joy Fowler
• We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves (2013), by Karen Joy Fowler
• Food for the Dead: On the Trail of New England’s Vampires (2001), by Michael Bell
• Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962), by Ray Bradbury
• The Martian Chronicles (1950), by Ray Bradbury
• The Shining (1977), by Stephen King
• Just Like Mother (2022), by Anne Heltzel – Episode 92
• The Upstairs House (2021), by Julia Fine – Episode 27

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This week I take a road trip with Matt Ruff, into the more monstrous corners of the universe. Sure, some of them are alien planets… but some are here on earth, with the racists! 

Matt is best known as the author of 2016’s Lovecraft Country. He never planned to write a sequel, yet here it is. The Destroyer of Worlds picks up several years later, when Atticus, Letetia, Montrose and Hipolyta et al are still battling malign forces both human and otherworldly.

I went into it nervously, thinking surely a white author can’t pull of a story about Black characters in Jim Crow America without really sh***ing the bed. I was wrong! 

Matt and I debate the responsibility and potential pitfalls of the project, and what his books get right that other ventriloquised stories get wrong. But we also talk about monsters and comic horror and the terror and joy of a wide-open universe. And of course, Lovecraft. Though, not kindly. 

Enjoy!

The Destroyer of Worlds was published by on February 21st by HarperCollins 

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I like my ghosts like I like my podcasts – weird and slightly furious. 

Thankfully, this week delivers on both counts – with Johnny Compton’s The Spite House delivering more ghosts than you think you could fit into 250-pages … and none of them are anything less than fuming! 

Johnny talks us through the odd, off-kilter history of spite houses, we trace the legacy of the American haunted house novel, discuss ghost lore and dismiss orbs. We talk about complex father figures and I have my smuggest ever moment of being accidentally right about something.  

It’s a blast. Johnny is a joy to talk to and his book gives great ghostliness.

Enjoy!

The Spite House was published by on February 7th by Tor Nightfire.

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It’s a Valentine’s day episode and what better to celebrate today than a conversation about cruelty, brutal folklore, political terror and black magic? Don’t tell me I don’t understand my audience.

I’m beyond delighted to welcome Mariana Enriquez to the show to talk about her massive novel, Our Share of Night. It features all of the above ingredients, in a 700+ page roam through decades of Argentinian history, demonic misconduct.

This ranks amongst the most unstructured conversations I’ve had on this show. I just say some words and then let Mariana let rip. But to give you a taster – we cover her current boredom with the short story, the double standard of harming kids in fiction, houses that eat people, Freddie Krueger and Heathclife and why horror is inevitable in Argentinian fiction

Enjoy!

Our Share of Night was published by Granta in the UK in October, 2022 and in the US on 7th February, 2023 by Hogarth

Other books mentioned in this episode:

• The Black Maybe: Liminal Tales (2022), by Attila Veres
• The Dangers of Smoking in Bed (2009), by Mariana Enriquez
• Things We Lost in the Fire (2017), by Mariana Enriquez
• Shuggie Bain (2020), by Douglas Stuart
• In Patagonia (1977), by Bruce Chatwin
• Mary: An Awakening of Terror (2022), by Nat Cassidy

READ: Smithsonian article about Chiloe and the imbunche

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Are you ready for another bloody confrontation? Same rules, different setting (actually still my attic bedroom) and more gore?

Stephen Graham Jones AKA Professor Slasher, returns to Talking Scared to discuss Don’t Fear the Reaper, the sequel to his zeitgeist-blasting slasher-ode, My Heart is a Chainsaw. Reaper takes us back to Proofrock, Idaho for a freezing night of rage and bloodshed, with returning favourites and a whole new killer who reads like the distillation of American carnage.

That all sounds suitably epic. Hopefully this conversation matches. Stephen and I talk about favourite slasher sequels, minority monsters in fiction, getting to know Jade Daniels even better, and the importance of writing yourself into a corner.

This is an episode a lot of you have been waiting for. Enjoy. And watch out for hook-handed men.

Enjoy! 

Don’t Fear the Reaper was published by Saga and Titan Books on 7th February, 2023 

Other books mentioned in this episode:

• Maeve Fly (2023), by C.J. Leade
• My Heart is a Chainsaw (2021), by Stephen Graham Jones
• The Final Girl Support Group (2021), by Grady Hendrix
• Moon of the Crusted Snow (2018), by Waubgeshig Rice

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It’s not even the end of January and we’re already dealing with the second apocalypse of the year.

This one is written by CJ Tudor, whose new novel, The Drift, moves her out of the crime chillers she is best-known for, into a whole other world of horror.

It’s a series of locked room mysteries, occurring in the hideous aftermath of global pandemic. And if you are a little sick of global pandemics (who isn’t?) then at least this one has rage zombies and lots of murder.

CJ and I talk about many things, from genre expectations, to failed novels, grief to TV adaptation – but the pandemic is a dominant theme. We talk about about some personal loss, so if that would be a trigger for you, go in pre-warned.

But mostly, it’s a lovely chat with “Britain’s answer to Stephen King.”

Enjoy!

The Drift was published by Penguin on Jan 19th in the UK and Jan 31st in the US. 

Other books mentioned in this episode:

The Burning Girls (2021), by C.J. Tudor

The Chalk Man (2018), by C.J. Tudor

Sign Here (2022), by Claudia Lux

To contribute to Laird Barron’s GoFundMe, visit https://www.gofundme.com/f/laird-barron-hospital-costs-medication-costs.

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When it comes to stress, they say selling a house is up there with divorce and death. Now imagine that house is haunted… by demonic puppets. 

Yeah – that’s the premise of Grady Hendrix’s brand-new horror novel, How to Sell a Haunted House. It combines Grady’s trademark humour, genre-knowledge and playfulness, with a genuinely frightening story about homes, and all the things they contain, both comforting and downright nasty.

Grady and I dive into the economics of haunting, the value of earnestness in a world of irony, and we discover the difference between marionettes and hand puppets … which is more frightening that you would expect.

It’s a fun conversation, about a joyfully creepy book.  

Enjoy!

How To Sell A Haunted House was published by Berkley on Jan 17th 2003. 

Other books mentioned in this episode: 

• The Final Girl Support Group (2020), by Grady Hendrix
• Horrorstör (2014), by Grady Hendrix
• We Sold Our Souls (2018), by Grady Hendrix
• My Heart is a Chainsaw (2020), by Stephen Graham Jones
• The Pallbearer’s Club (2022), by Paul Tremblay
• Moth Manor (1978), by Martha Sherman Bacon

To donate to the fundraiser for Laird Barron, visit https://www.gofundme.com/f/laird-barron-hospital-costs-medication-costs, and thanks SO much.

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…AAAND WE’RE BACK! 

I hope you’re slipping into 2023 like it’s a warm bath, but either way this week’s episode will be a cold, sharp system shock. 

The guest is Stephen Markley; the book is The Deluge – a 900-page beast of ecological and societal disintegration, and the best book I have read in decades. Imagine The Stand was based on rigorous scientific research and was, y’know, about to happen to us all for real. 

Yeah! This is a scary one, even if it would never be listed in the horror part of the bookshop.

Stephen and I talk about (re)considering apocalyptic fiction, choosing characters, how real events outpaced the writing of the book, and how the climate crisis forces us to ask some uncomfortable questions about social issues.  

Like the book I question, this episode is heavy and challenging and frightening, but maybe… just maybe… it will give you some hope.

Enjoy!

The Deluge was published by Simon & Schuster on Jan 10th 2003.

Other books mentioned in this episode:

• The Big Fix: Seven Practical Steps to Save Our Planet (2022) by Hal Harvey and Justin Gillis
• World War Z (2006), by Max Brooks
• Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet (2021), by Thich Nhat Hanh
• The Stand (1990), by Stephen King

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The year is almost over. What is left to do except offer you my last-minute ranking of the best books I’ve read and enjoyed in 2022.

I will warn you – I am poorly and my voice sounds like ten miles of bad gravel. This sounds like the Reba McIntyre book club. I am HUSKY!!

Hang around for the afterword when my voice finally gives out as I labour over a long and elaborate thank-you for listening and supporting the show this year. At times 2022 has felt like a waking nightmare, but here in Spookybooklandia, we’ve kept things ironically nice.  

Love to you all.

Happy New Year. Here’s to the next.

Books mentioned:

•  A Child Alone With Strangers (2022), by Philip Fracassi
• All the White Spaces (2022), by Ally Wilkes 
• Mary: An Awakening of Terror (2022), by Nat Cassidy 
• Burn the Plans (2022), by Tyler Jones 
• The Hollow Kind (2022), by Andy Davidson
• Screams from the Dark (2022), ed. Ellen Datlow
• House of Hunger (2022), by Alexis Henderson
• Reluctant Immortals (2022), by Gwendolyne Kiste
• Then I Woke Up (2022), by Malcolm Devlin
• The Clackity (2022), by Lora Senf 

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It’s that time of year again. A time to reflect, to look back over a tumultuous twelve months, and to talk about the horror books that helped us survive them.

2022 has been a helluva year for the good kind of horror. Far too much for one man to cover. So I’ve drafted in some highly qualified friends – Emily Hughes and Janelle Janson. They have their fingers right on the arterial spurt of the genre – and they have each read far more than me.

Together we deliver this year's State of the Horror Nation – talking about big issues in horror, the key books we’ve adored…and the dozens and dozens of titles we’re looking forward to in 2023.

We raise a glass to a late and beloved horror icon, we make some new year’s resolutions, and Janelle and Emily get a bit squeaky about their big horror crush. Bet you can guess who (it’s not me!)

Thanks for all your support this year.

Books picked:

• Ghost Eaters (2022), by Clay McLeod Chapman – ep. 110
• A Child Alone With Strangers (2022), by Philip Fracassi – ep. 120
• Echo (2022), by Thomas Olde Heuvelt – ep. 78
• Our Share of Night (2022), by Mariana Enriquez
• All the White Spaces (2022), by Ally Wilkes – ep. 76
• We Are Here to Hurt Each Other (2022), by Paula D. Ashe
• Mary: An Awakening of Terror (2022), by Nat Cassidy – ep. 101
• Burn the Plans (2022), by Tyler Jones – ep. 81
• Just Like Home (2022), by Sarah Gailey

 Books anticipated: 

• Don’t Fear the Reaper (2023), by Stephen Graham Jones 
• Silver Nitrate (2023), by Silvia Moreno Garcia
• Vampires of el Norte (2023), by Isabel Cañas
• Pinata (2023), by Leopoldo Gout
• Tell Me I’m Worthless (2023), by Alison Rumfitt (already out in UK)
• Spite House (2023), by Jonny Compton
• Lone Women (2023), by Victor Lavelle
• Everything Darkness Eats (2023), by Eric LaRocca
• Episode 13 (2023), by Craig Dilouie
• House of Good Bones (2023), by T. Kingfisher
• Nights Edge (2023), by Liz Kerin
• The Edge of Sleep (2023), by Jake Emmanuel
• The Drift (2023), by C. J. Tudor
• Bad Cree (2023), by Jessica Johns
• Maeve Fly (2023), by C.J. Leade
• A Light Most Hateful (2023), by Hailey Piper
• Looking Glass Sound (2023), by Catriona Ward
• The Beast You Are (2023), by Paul Tremblay
• The Salt Grows Heavy (2023), by Cassandra Khaw
• Burn the Negative (2023), by Josh Winning
• How to Sell a Haunted House (2023), by Grady Hendrix
• Abnormal Statistics (2023), by Max Booth III
• The Insatiable Volt Sisters (2023), by Rachel Eve Moulton
• Camp Damascus (2023), by Chuck Tingle
• Extended Stay (2023), by Juan Martinez
• House of Cotton (2023), by Monica Brashears