In this episode of Short Stories we are joined by special guest Miles Spencer, adventurer, tech investor, and co-author of ‘A Line in the Sand.’ We talk with Miles about the inspirations behind his story, the underlying message he hopes to share, the writing process, and best of all, his escapades across the Middle East! Having grown up in Saudi Arabia, we particularly enjoyed talking to Miles about his adventures in the Kingdom, and hearing his perspective on certain issues that hit close to home. 

Find out more about Miles at milesspencer.com and check out ‘A Line in the Sand’ on Amazon!

In this Short Stories episode, we are delving into the behind-the-scenes of our podcast journey! We discuss the birth of our podcast idea, managing everything from editing to marketing, and balancing it with our personal and professional lives. To end, we reflect on the podcast’s challenges, growth, and our hopes for future episodes. 

00:54 Full Moon Reflections and Tarot Readings

04:42 Podcast Journey and Friendship

08:35 Starting the Podcast: The Origin Story

11:18 Podcast Growth and Future Plans

22:23 Podcast Goals

From “It Girl” celebrity book clubs to sneaky senators and questionable government bills, this episode of Short Stories is all about who gets to influence the books that we read. With the new wave of celebrity book clubs popping up, it looks like reading itself, and particularly the types of books we read, is becoming a status symbol. On the other hand, representatives in Oklahoma are trying to clamp down on the distribution and even creation of romance books (of the spicy variety). Why is everyone so obsessed with what we are reading? The message we leave you with: reading is political!

For our third short stories episode, we have something a little different (and super exciting) to share with you guys: our first guest interview with poet Caitlin Kent-Halliday! We talk with Caitlin about her writing process, inspirations, our favourite poems in her collection, and much more. We hope you enjoy this heartfelt conversation with Caitlin about her debut poetry collection 'Peace of Mind' as much as we did.

To find out more about Caitlin and her poetry, you can visit her website at www.caitlinkenthalliday.com.

In this episode of Short Stories, we continue the conversation around "Onyx Storm" as we discuss the controversial social media discourse surrounding it. In the second half of the episode we talk about the drama surrounding author Neil Gaiman’s sexual misconduct allegations which leads to further questions about other problematic authors.

Welcome to Short Stories with the Hot Girls Read Podcast! In addition to our regular seasons that include longer episodes, we are coming to you hot with some shorter segments that will cover bookish news and recent updates.

In our first episode of Short Stories, we talk about the US Tiktok ban, how booktok dealt with it, and the highly anticipated fantasy read, “Onyx Storm.”

Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hotgirlsreadpodcast 

Check out our website: https://hotgirlsreadpodcast.com/

Part II of our 2024 Wrapped starts off exactly where we left off in Part I and we get straight into our top Non-fiction reads of the year. We continue on to our most memorable books across the categories of Poetry, Overhyped Booktok Books, Unexpected Top Read, Cozy Read, Spicy Read, and last but not least, or top read of 2024! 

After all the fun of delving into the books that have accompanied us throughout 2024, we end the episode talking about our reading plans for the end of the year and what 2025 has in store for the Hot Girls Read podcast.

As always, we loved creating this episode for you guys and we look forward to many more in the New Year!

After our short and sweet season 5, we’ve decided to end the year with one last episode: our 2024 wrapped! We had ambitious goals for this episode, namely sharing our top books of the year across 12 different categories and ending with our top read of the year. So in typical fashion, we went on for so long that we had to break the episode into two parts.

In Part I of our 2024 Wrapped, we start out by dissecting our reading habits and trends over the past year, which seemed to differ quite a bit! This became even more clear as we got into our top books for each category, starting with Adult Fantasy and covering YA/MG Fantasy, Fiction, Romance, and Mystery.

Catch the rest of our top 2024 reads and some updates about the Hot Girls Read podcast in Part II!

S5E6: For our final episode of the season, we chose a topic recommended by one of our listeners: interracial romance reads.

The Romance genre is a refuge for many readers – it offers lighthearted storylines with plenty of passion and intrigue that are easy to escape into, as we have done countless times. However, the genre can be found lacking in its offer of interracial relationships.

We decided to  delve further into the world of interracial romance, and tasked ourselves with finding and reading a variety of interracial romance demographics. 

In this episode we are excited to share our list of interracial reads, and of course, our honest thoughts about them. We truly went on a journey of discovery here, and in some cases, even found new favorites to add to the TBR! 

Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meetme_atthebookstore/ 

Books Mentioned:

Party of Two by Jasmine Guillroy

That Time I Got Drunk and Yeeted a Love Potion at a Werewolf by Kimberly Lemmings

Twisted Love by Ana Huang

King of Wrath by Ana Huang

The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang

Dust Child by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai

The Dating Plan by Sara Desai

First Love, Take Two by Sajni Patel

Forbidden Jewel of India by Louise Allen

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna

His Road Home by Anna Richland

S5E5: Greek Mythology retellings have always been popular, most memorably during our middle school days, but never have they seemed more widespread than they are right now. Greek retellings fill up the ‘New In’ shelves and people just can’t get enough of them – us included!

In this episode we not only talk about the Greek myths and retellings we’ve read and loved (or didn’t love), but we also get into what drew us to Greek myths in the first place, as well as the differences we see among retellings, particularly between books geared towards adults versus young adults.  

Content warning: Rape, Sexual Assault.

Books Mentioned:

Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan

Ariadne by Jennifer Saint

Elektra by Jennifer Saint

Circe by Madeline Miller

Galatea by Madeline Miller

Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Ithaca by Claire North

House of Odysseus by Claire North

Neon Gods by Katee Robert

Electric Idol by Katee Robert

Wicked Beauty by Katee Robert

Iliad by Homer

Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes

Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meetme_atthebookstore/