This week, I got to talk with Emma C. Wells about her stunning debut serial killer thriller This Girl's a Killer! We dive into her inspiration for the book, how Cordelia was unavoidable for her, and the way women have to consider violence in ways men don't.

This Girl's a Killer Synopsis

Ask Cordelia Black why she did it. The answer will always be: He had it coming.

Cordelia Black loves exactly three things: Her chosen family, her hairdresser (worth every penny plus tip), and killing bad men.

By day she's an ambitious pharma rep with a flawless reputation and designer wardrobe. By night, she culls South Louisiana of unscrupulous men―monsters who think they've evaded justice, until they meet her. Sure, the evening news may have started throwing around phrases like "serial killer," but Cordelia knows that's absurd. She's not a killer, she is simply karma. And being karma requires complete and utter control.

But when Cordelia discovers a flaw in her perfectly designed system for eliminating monsters, pressure heightens. And it only intensifies when her best friend starts dating a man Cordelia isn't sure is a good person. Someone who might just unravel everything she has worked for.

Soon enough Cordelia has to come face to face with the choices she's made. The good, the bad, and the murderous. Both her family, and her freedom, depend on it.

Check out Bitter Southerner where Emma got her Hell Hath No Fury shirt

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This week, Gare, Steph and I share backlist books we really want to read. We also manage to sneak in two that aren't even really backlist, but we still want to read them too!

Comfort Shows

English Teacher

Insecure

Top Chef

How to Die Alone

Law & Order: SVU

Books We Talked About

Godshot

The Year of the Witching

The Lake of Lost Girls

The Lighthouse Witches

Beautiful People

Playing Dead

Black Sheep

The Memory Police

Return to Midnight

Her Pretty Face

The Bright Lands

Eleven

American Psycho

The Cipher

The Final Act

This week I got to talk with writing duo Katherine Greene, made up of A. Meredith Walters and Claire C. Riley. We dive into how they became friends and writing partners, the initial image that was the inspiration for this story, and how they approach writing thrillers together.

The Lake of Lost Girls Synopsis

It's 1998, and female students are going missing at Southern State University in North Carolina. But freshman Jessica Fadley, once a bright and responsible student, is going through her own struggles. Just as her life seems to be careening dangerously out of control, she suddenly disappears.

Twenty-four years later, Jessica's sister Lindsey is desperately searching for answers and uses the momentum of a new chart-topping true crime podcast, Ten Seconds to Vanish, that focuses on the cold cases, to guide her own investigation. Soon, interest reaches fever pitch when the bodies of the long-missing women begin turning up at a local lake, which leads Lindsey down a disturbing road of discovery.

In the present, one sister seeks to untangle a complicated web of lies.
In the past, the other descends ever deeper into a darkness that will lead to her ultimate fate.

This propulsive and chilling suspense is a sharp examination of sisterhood and the culture of true crime.

This week, Halley Sutton and I talk about scandals both fictional and non-fictional!

Books, Movies, Docs We Talked About

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

The Sin Eater: The Crimes of Anthony Pellicano

Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood

Once More From the Top

Did You Hear About Kitty Karr

Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara

Thought Crimes: The Case of the Cannibal Cop

Mommy Dead and Dearest

I Love You, Now Die: The Commonwealth V. Michelle Carter

Hollywood Babylon

Missing White Woman

The Two Mrs. Grenvilles

La Cote Basque, 1965

You're Wrong About

The Favorites

On the Surface

Picnic at Hanging Rock

The Hurricane Blonde

The Lady Upstairs

This week, I talk with Danielle Trussoni about her new installment in The Puzzle Series, The Puzzle Box! We dive into how she created this genre-mashup of a series, what piqued her interest in puzzles, and the puzzle masters she works with for her books.

The Puzzle Box Synopsis

It is the Year of the Wood Dragon, and the ingenious Mike Brink has been invited to Tokyo, Japan, to open the legendary Dragon Box.

The box was constructed during one of Japan’s most tumultuous periods, when the samurai class was disbanded and the shogun lost power. In this moment of crisis, Emperor Meiji locked a priceless Imperial secret in the Dragon Box. Only two people knew how to open the box—Meiji and the box’s sadistic constructor—and both died without telling a soul what was inside or how to open it.

Every twelve years since then, in the Year of the Dragon, the Imperial family holds a clandestine contest to open the box. It is devilishly difficult, filled with tricks, booby traps, poisons, and mind-bending twists. Every puzzle master who has attempted to open it has died in the process.

But Brink is not just any puzzle master. He may be the only person alive who can crack it. His determination is matched only by that of two sisters, descendants of an illustrious samurai clan, who will stop at nothing to claim the treasure.

Brink’s quest launches him on a breakneck adventure across Japan, from the Imperial Palace in Tokyo to the pristine forests of Hakone to an ancient cave in Kyushu. In the process, he discovers the power of Meiji’s hidden treasure, and—more crucially—the true nature of his extraordinary talent.

This week, Gare, Steph and I share some of our auto-buy authors and rank the top 3 books we've read of theirs!

Books We Talked About

Amina Akhtar

Kismet

Almost Surely Dead

#fashionvictim

Catherine Ryan Howard

The Trap

The Liar's Girl

The Nothing Man

Julia Heaberlin

Black Eyed Susans

Night Will Find You

We Are All the Same in the Dark

J.M. Cannon

This Family Lies

Blood Oranges

The Flash Girls

Chevy Stevens

Those Girls

Still Missing

Dark Roads

Sally Hepworth

The Good Sister

Darling Girls

The Mother-in-Law

Susan Walter

Over Her Dead Body

Lie By the Pool

Running Cold

Lucinda Berry

Saving Noah

If You Tell a Lie

Off the Deep End

Simone St. James

The Broken Girls

The Sundown Motel

The Haunting of Maddy Clare

This week, I talk with Alexis Henderson about her new dark academia, psychological magic thriller An Academy for Liars. We dive into her initial idea for the book, how she explored consent in the context of psychological magic, and the intricacies of free will.

An Academy for Liars Synopsis

Lennon Carter’s life is falling apart.

Then she gets a mysterious phone call inviting her to take the entrance exam for Drayton College, a school of magic hidden in a secret pocket of Savannah. Lennon has been chosen because—like everyone else at the school—she has the innate gift of persuasion, the ability to wield her will like a weapon, using it to control others and, in rare cases, matter itself.

After passing the test, Lennon begins to learn how to master her devastating and unsettling power. But despite persuasion’s heavy toll on her body and mind, she is wholly captivated by her studies, by Drayton’s lush, moss-draped campus, and by her brilliant classmates. But even more captivating is her charismatic adviser, Dante, who both intimidates and enthralls her.

As Lennon continues in her studies, her control grows, and she starts to uncover more about the secret world she has entered into, including the disquieting history of Drayton College. She is increasingly disturbed by what she learns, for it seems that the ultimate test is to embrace absolute power without succumbing to corruption...and it’s a test she’s terrified she’s going to fail.

Time for a bonus episode!! I've had so much fun talking to so many of you about Tell Me Lies, and I just had to do an episode on my thoughts now that we've all seen season two. I recap all the key moments of each episode, and share what I thought was happening in the moment I watched it verses how I view it now with the context of the whole season. DM me with any of your thoughts and reactions!