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When your guest calls herself the “Master of the Bitch” you do wonder what you’re getting into. Courtney Summers, by her own admission, wants to upset people. 

Yet she’s a delight! To kick of Women in Horror week we discuss her new novel, The Project, which follows a young woman as she investigates the New York based cult that has swallowed up her sister. 

This is FAR from your standard cult novel. As Courtney explains, she wanted to get away from the exploitation and the obvious horrors and instead consider why people search for belonging in such dark places, and whether we would be impervious to The Project’s allure. 

We also talk about her penchant for ‘unlikeable’ female protagonists, and whether there’s a double standard in how fiction treats challenging women. We celebrate Biden’s inauguration, I tell her about my worst ever spider encounter, and she takes me to school for dissing YA fiction. 

Enjoy!

The Project was published by Wednesday Books on February 2nd 2021.

Other books mentioned include: 

Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].

Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.

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