This week, I catch up with Halley Sutton who just got back from her trip to Egypt. She shares highlights from the trip, and books she read while there, including one with Egypt as a setting. We talk about bookish news and some 2025 books we are excited for, and dive into the movie Strange Darling, the movie Oddity and the TV show Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. We basically cover it all!

Books We Talked About

The God of the Woods

What the River Knows

The Favorites

Say Nothing : Memory and Murder

This Book Will Bury Me

Trial By Ambush

This Girl’s a Killer

The Astrology House

House of Hunger

TV Shows We Talked About

Secret Lives of Mormon Wives

Movies We Talked About

Strange Darling

Oddity

My Old Ass

This week, I talk with Lauren Ling Brown about her debut dark academia thriller Society of Lies! We dive into the inspiration for the idea, the moral dilemma at its core, and how her personal experiences influenced the novel.

Society of Lies Synopsis

Maya has returned to Princeton for her college reunion—it’s been a decade since she graduated, and she is looking forward to seeing old faces and reminiscing about her time there. This visit is special because Maya will also be attending the graduation of her little sister, Naomi.

But what should have been a dream weekend becomes Maya’s worst nightmare when she receives the news that Naomi is dead. The police are calling it an accident, but Maya suspects that there is more to the story than they are letting on.

As Maya pieces together what happened in the months leading up to her sister’s death, she begins to realize how much Naomi hid from her. Despite Maya’s warnings, Naomi had joined Sterling Club, the most exclusive social club on campus—the same one Maya belonged to. And if she had to guess, Naomi was likely tapped for the secret society within it.

The more Maya uncovers, the more terrified she becomes that Naomi’s decision to follow in her footsteps might have been what got her killed. Because Maya’s time at Princeton wasn’t as wonderful as she’d always made it seem—after all, her sister wasn’t the first young woman to turn up dead. Now every clue is leading Maya back to the past . . . and to the secret she’s kept all these years.

In "honor" of National Podcast Day on September 30, Gare, Steph and I share some of our favorite thrillers with podcasts in the plots!

Books We Talked About

The Night Swim

Don’t Forget the Girl

Things We Do in the Dark

Listen for the Lie

Penance

Girl, 11

Truth Be Told

Margo’s Got Money Trouble

Sadie

All the Dangerous Things

The Last Housewife

Almost Surely Dead

None of This is True

The Weight of Blood

Six Stories

This week, I talk with Damian McCarthy about his genre-mashup, paranormal horror thriller Oddity. We dive into how he crafted plot around visuals, and how he brought together multiple ideas into Oddity's fabric.

Oddity Synopsis

A psychic medium attempts to uncover the truth behind her sister's murder at the site of the crime.

This week, I talk with Audra McElyea about her newest thriller Hush Dear Sister. We dive into the inspiration behind the story, the Gothic mansion as its own character, complex sister dynamics and the freedom of self-publishing.

Hush Dear Sister Synopsis

After a tragic accident she can’t quite remember, forty-something-year-old beloved Hollywood actress Annette Taylor finds herself bound to a wheelchair with several injuries. Living in Crawford Manor, the Gothic Hollywood mansion from the film that made her famous, has become too much for her to handle alone, so she must rely on her estranged, child-star sister, Sophia, to help take care of her.

Shortly after a serial killer targeting actresses emerges, the sisters agree to be filmed in the house together for renowned producer and director Frank Baxter’s new documentary about their life. Only Annette seems to be getting worse, and the rumored hauntings inside Crawford Manor prove to be more than just Hollywood legend.

When Annette’s ex-fiancé, Charlie, and her actress best friend, Monroe, grow suspicious of Sophia’s motives, they plan to remove her from Annette’s house, but more trouble ensues when they're faced with accusations of their own. Everyone finds themselves at odds with one another in a race against time and a serial killer, but trying to figure out what happened the night of Annette’s accident and how it’s connected to the Red-Carpet Killer could give them all the answers they’re looking for.

This week, I talk with Marjan Kamali about her beautiful novel about friendship, The Lion Women of Tehran. We dive into how the book covers the nature of childhood friendships, the vast spectrum of being a Lion Woman, and the jarring aftermath of women losing their rights almost overnight to religious fundamentalists in Iran.

The Lion Women of Tehran Synopsis

In 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move to a tiny home downtown. Lonely and bearing the brunt of her mother’s endless grievances, Ellie dreams of a friend to alleviate her isolation.

Luckily, on the first day of school, she meets Homa, a kind, passionate girl with a brave and irrepressible spirit. Together, the two girls play games, learn to cook in the stone kitchen of Homa’s warm home, wander through the colorful stalls of the Grand Bazaar, and share their ambitions for becoming “lion women.”

But their happiness is disrupted when Ellie and her mother are afforded the opportunity to return to their previous bourgeois life. Now a popular student at the best girls’ high school in Iran, Ellie’s memories of Homa begin to fade. Years later, however, her sudden reappearance in Ellie’s privileged world alters the course of both of their lives.

Together, the two young women come of age and pursue their own goals for meaningful futures. But as the political turmoil in Iran builds to a breaking point, one earth-shattering betrayal will have enormous consequences.

This week, Gare, Steph and I share books to read if the sleazy, sexy, toxic, dark academia of Tell Me Lies has you in a chokehold!

Books We Talked About

Ladykiller

We Love the Night Life

Only If You’re Lucky

An Academy for Liars

A Lovely Lie

The Favorite Sister

None of This Is True

Like You Hate Me

Emily Layden joins me to talk about her new contemporary fiction novel Once More From The Top! We dive into her inspiration for the book, and our shared obsession with the many facets of fame.

Once More From The Top Synopsis

Everyone in America knows Dylan Read, or at least has heard her music. Since releasing her debut album her senior year of high school, Dylan’s spent fifteen years growing up in the public eye. She’s not only perfected her skills when it comes to lyrics and melody; she’s also learned how to craft a public narrative that satisfies her fans, her label, and the media. In the circles of fame and celebrity in which she now travels, the careful maintenance of Dylan Read pop star is often more important than the songs themselves.

And so lots of people think they understand everything about Dylan Read. But what no one knows is the part of her origin story she has successfully kept hidden: her childhood best friend Kelsey vanished the year before Dylan became famous. Now, as Dylan’s at the height of her career, Kelsey’s body is found at the bottom of their hometown lake—forcing Dylan to reckon with their shared past, her friend’s influence on her music, and whether there’s more to their story than meets the eye.