Bookwild

In this episode, Gare and I chat with Tessa Wegert about her new thrill The River Runs Black!

Listen to hear about:

• How the Thousand Islands and North Country become characters themselves, creating the perfect mix of cozy fall atmosphere, isolation, and underlying dread.
• Why Tessa set The River Runs Black around Halloween and how trick-or-treating, pumpkin festivals, orchards, and other seasonal details actually play into the mystery.
• How she uses multiple POVs, secrets, cliffhangers, and carefully timed reveals to keep readers guessing—and why she changed one major character’s perspective while writing.
• The real-life inspiration behind the novel’s drug trafficking storyline, including a late-night police encounter on the St. Lawrence River and the uniquely porous U.S.–Canada border.
• How the novel explores the impact of drugs, boredom, isolation, and vulnerability among teenagers in a small community, plus what’s next for Tessa’s North Country series and her hopes to eventually publish a standalone thriller.

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Gare Billings @gareindeedreads

Steph Lauer @books.in.badgerland

Halley Sutton @halleysutton25

Brian Watson @readingwithbrian

MacKenzie Green @missusa2mba

Erin Ashley @bellametaphor

This week, I talk with Sarah Langan about her novella Bloody 13 and her horror novel Trad Wife!

Listen to hear about:

• The inspiration behind Bloody 13, and the conflicting reactions to it when she initially published it.
• How Sarah Langan turned the trad wife movement into horror, using the seemingly idyllic online lifestyle to explore control, gender roles, motherhood, and the systems operating beneath the aesthetic. 
• Why accusations of “selfishness” can be so powerful against women, and how Trad Wife examines the difference between selfishness, agency, and basic survival. 
• How neglect, isolation, and high-control environments affect mothers and children, and why Langan uses supernatural horror as a way to make those less-visible forms of harm tangible. 
• Why Langan loves ambiguity in horror, how The Yellow Wallpaper and other classic horror influenced Trad Wife, and why she’d rather leave readers thinking than explain every mystery.

All the Bookwild Links:

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Gare Billings @gareindeedreads

Steph Lauer @books.in.badgerland

Halley Sutton @halleysutton25

Brian Watson @readingwithbrian

MacKenzie Green @missusa2mba

Erin Ashley @bellametaphor

In this episode, I chat with Chital Mehta about her literary mystery Have You Seen Romit?

Listen to hear all about:

• How motherhood, an MFA, and a lifelong love of reading led Chital to pursue her dream of becoming a novelist.
• The real-life missing-person article that inspired Have You Seen Romit? and why shifting the story's focus from a father to a mother changed everything.
• How adoption, sibling resentment, and parental expectations, create the complicated challenge of loving your children equally.
• How Usha's search for her missing son becomes a journey of self-discovery, challenging patriarchal traditions and finding agency later in life.
• The extensive research, discarded drafts, alternate endings, and character development that helped Chital turn a missing-person mystery into a deeply human family drama.

All the Bookwild Links:

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Gare Billings @gareindeedreads

Steph Lauer @books.in.badgerland

Halley Sutton @halleysutton25

Brian Watson @readingwithbrian

MacKenzie Green @missusa2mba

Erin Ashley @bellametaphor

In this episode, I chat with Marcia Chatelain about her new non-fiction book How Bright the Path Grows: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the March on Washington.

Listen to hear about:

• How Marcia Chatelain’s love of storytelling, journalism, and deep historical research shaped her path to becoming a Pulitzer Prize–winning historian and narrative nonfiction writer. 
• Why How Bright the Path Grows reframes the civil rights movement by centering the Black women whose organizing, artistry, advocacy, and sacrifices are often overshadowed by figures like Martin Luther King Jr. 
• The complicated, deeply human lives behind historical icons like Rosa Parks, Josephine Baker, Marian Anderson, and Anna Arnold Hedgeman—and why understanding their struggles and contradictions matters.
• How misinformation about women at the March on Washington inspired Marcia to investigate who was actually there, who was recognized, and whose contributions have been left out of our collective memory. 
• What researching these women revealed about sexism, class, celebrity, competing strategies within the movement, and the many different ways ordinary people can contribute to social change.

All the Bookwild Links:

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Gare Billings @gareindeedreads

Steph Lauer @books.in.badgerland

Halley Sutton @halleysutton25

Brian Watson @readingwithbrian

MacKenzie Green @missusa2mba

Erin Ashley @bellametaphor

This week, Cassie Goodwin and I chat with Deesha Philyaw about her fiction debut The True Confessions of Lady Freeman!

Listen to hear about:

• How The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman evolved over nearly 20 years, and why Deesha had to become a different, more experienced writer before she could finally tell Sharice’s story. 
• Why Deesha transformed Sharice from a character modeled on herself into a woman who genuinely loves being a First Lady—and therefore has something meaningful to lose. 
• How embracing satire, humor, and an actual First Lady beauty pageant unlocked the novel and allowed Deesha to interrogate church culture without making the story overly earnest. 
• A nuanced conversation about Black church culture, respectability politics, patriarchy, white supremacy, and the tension between what people profess to believe and how they actually behave. 
• Why Deesha wanted her characters to be contradictory rather than simply good or bad, and how she explores shame, desire, marriage, family, faith, power, and the complicated reasons people stay connected to institutions that may also harm them. 

Books Deesha Recommends:

Good, God by Kiese Laymon

Friends and Family by Natalie Baszile

These Girls Out Here by Dawnie Walton

When It Gets Cold in the South by Exodus Oktavia Brownlow

Desperate Bodies by Lydia Mathis

All the Bookwild Links:

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Gare Billings @gareindeedreads

Steph Lauer @books.in.badgerland

Halley Sutton @halleysutton25

Brian Watson @readingwithbrian

MacKenzie Green @missusa2mba

Erin Ashley @bellametaphor

This week, I talk with Deena Helm about her debut literary horror novel Our Cut of Salt!

Listen to hear about:

• How Deena Helm turned a haunted house into a living embodiment of history, memory, and inherited trauma.
• Why Our Cut of Salt follows three generations of Palestinian women, and how trauma changes the relationships between mothers and daughters across decades. 
• The tension between preserving family history and being consumed by it—and what happens when younger generations want answers their elders may not be ready to give. 
• Why Deena chose horror to explore real historical violence, and how genre fiction can make readers connect emotionally with experiences far outside their own. 
• How Deena approached the novel’s most painful scenes, balancing the need to show the reality of violence without sanitizing it or turning suffering into spectacle. 

All the Bookwild Links:

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Gare Billings @gareindeedreads

Steph Lauer @books.in.badgerland

Halley Sutton @halleysutton25

Brian Watson @readingwithbrian

MacKenzie Green @missusa2mba

Erin Ashley @bellametaphor

This week, Gare, Steph and I share books we wish we could wipe from our brains and reread!

Kate’s Books

Never Saw Me Coming by Vera Kurian

The Ursulina by Brian Freeman

But Won’t I Miss Me by Tiffany Tsao
 

Gare’s Books

Fruit Fly by Josh Silver

The Last Winter of Dani Lansing by P.D. Viner

A Density of Souls by Christopher Rice

Steph’s Books

The Push by Ashley Audrain

Madwoman by Chelsea Bieker

Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance by Allison Espach

All the Bookwild Links:

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Gare Billings @gareindeedreads

Steph Lauer @books.in.badgerland

Halley Sutton @halleysutton25

Brian Watson @readingwithbrian

MacKenzie Green @missusa2mba

Erin Ashley @bellametaphor

This week, I talk with Kristin Kobes Du Mez about her new book Live, Laugh Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women
and the World They Made.  Listen to hear all about:

• How Live Laugh Love grew out of Kristin Kobes Du Mez’s Jesus and John Wayne, shifting the focus from evangelical masculinity to the history and culture surrounding white Christian women. 
• The surprising roots of “biblical womanhood” and hyper-femininity—and how ideas presented as timeless Christian gender roles have actually changed dramatically over time. 
• How Christian romance novels, music, bookstores, mommy blogs, influencers, Hallmark movies, and other seemingly harmless pop culture helped create an entire ecosystem of Christian values and messaging. 
• The fascinating overlap between evangelicalism, MLMs, capitalism, and positive-thinking culture—including why Kristin sees striking similarities between MLM structures and high-control religious systems. 
• Why “I’m not political” can itself mask deeply political beliefs—and how ideas about faith and family quietly shape views on everything from education and immigration to welfare and economic policy. 

All the Bookwild Links:

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Gare Billings @gareindeedreads

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Halley Sutton @halleysutton25

Brian Watson @readingwithbrian

MacKenzie Green @missusa2mba

Erin Ashley @bellametaphor

This week, Kayla Hardy - screenwriter, reader, and author of The Quarter Queen - and I talk about horror books we are excited to read this year!

Kate’s Upcoming Reads

The Unhaunting — Micaiah Johnson

Nightjars — Michael Wehunt

Incarnate — Alma Katsu
 

Kayla’s Upcoming Reads

Runner — Ashton Lattimore

Horror Movie — Paul Tremblay

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter — Stephen Graham Jones

Other Books We Discussed

The Quarter Queen — Kayla Hardy

The Night and the Moth — Rachel Gillig

Between Two Fires — Christopher Buehlman

Blood Slaves — Markus Redmond

Blood Rising — Markus Redmond

Ring Shout — P. Djèlí Clark

Black Leopard, Red Wolf — Marlon James

The Reformatory — Tananarive Due

Fiend — Alma Katsu

Perfect Victims — Mohammed El-Kurd

Our Cut of Salt — Dana Helm

The Disappearers — Marlon James

The Hunter’s Daughter — Nicola Solvinic

The Sleeping Sisters — Jennifer Givhan

Salt Bones — Jennifer Givhan

Blood Sisters — Vanessa Lillie

Truth to Power — S.A. Cosby

All the Bookwild Links:

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Gare Billings @gareindeedreads

Steph Lauer @books.in.badgerland

Halley Sutton @halleysutton25

Brian Watson @readingwithbrian

MacKenzie Green @missusa2mba

Erin Ashley @bellametaphor

This week, Gare and I talk with Amy Chozick about her suspenseful literary debut With Friends Like You!

Short Synopsis

Emily, an exhausted new mother in Manhattan, becomes obsessed with finding her long-lost college roommate Daisy, whose mysterious disappearance has haunted her for years. When Daisy suddenly reappears and pulls Emily into a seductive new world of friendship and community, their reunion begins to crack, forcing Emily to question whether Daisy is saving her—or unraveling her life.

Listen to hear about:

• The real-life experiences that inspired With Friends Like You — including Amy Chozick’s journalism career, new motherhood, and the college roommate who helped inspire Daisy’s story. 
• Why female friendship is really the heart of the novel, from intense, almost romantic bonds to codependency, friendship breakups, and those friends you never completely stop thinking about. 
• Motherhood, identity, and the pressure to rediscover yourself during the major transitions that can make you wonder who you are now. 
• The book’s sharp critique of capitalism and the motherhood industry, including why all those over-the-top baby product names were a deliberate commentary on consumerism and the loss of community. 
• How Amy crafted the book’s voice, twists, and upcoming screen adaptation — including her “if it sounds like writing, I rewrite it” philosophy and how adapting the novel actually influenced the finished book.

All the Bookwild Links:

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Gare Billings @gareindeedreads

Steph Lauer @books.in.badgerland

Halley Sutton @halleysutton25

Brian Watson @readingwithbrian

MacKenzie Green @missusa2mba

Erin Ashley @bellametaphor