In this spellbinding and suspenseful debut, a young woman haunted by the past returns home to care for her ailing mother and begins to dig deeper into her sister’s unsolved murder.

Sixteen years ago, Sylvie’s sister Persephone never came home. Out too late with the boyfriend she was forbidden to see, Persephone was missing for three days before her body was found—and years later, her murder remains unsolved.

In the present day, Sylvie returns home to care for her estranged mother, Annie, as she undergoes treatment for cancer. Prone to unexplained “Dark Days” even before Persephone’s death, Annie’s once-close bond with Sylvie dissolved in the weeks after their loss, making for an uncomfortable reunion all these years later. Worse, Persephone’s former boyfriend, Ben, is now a nurse at the cancer center where Annie is being treated. Sylvie’s always believed Ben was responsible for the murder—but she carries her own guilt about that night, guilt that traps her in the past while the world goes on around her.

As she navigates the complicated relationship with her mother, Sylvie begins to uncover the secrets that fill their house—and what really happened the night Persephone died. As it turns out, the truth really will set you free, once you can bear to look at it.

The Winter Sister is a mesmerizing portrayal of the complex bond between sisters, between mothers and daughters alike, and forces us to ask ourselves—how well do we really know the people we love most?

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OH LAWD, WE TALKING SHIT AGAIN, Y'ALL! This episode has it all: cats, oopsie-doodle-incest, Ash going on a rant about how the Cancer Mom (TM) character of the book should just go DIE ALREADY!!!!! and also we ponder if masturbating hotter than fucking (in this case, definitely yes).

Mentioned Links

Ready for some 90s nostalgia? Here's the video for Tonight, Tonight by The Smashing Pumpkins. For added whimsey, here's Billy Corgan on the cover of the kitty-cat magazine, PAWS Chicago.Megan Collins is her name, being the author of The Winter Sister is her game. Need more info on the myth of Persephone? Here ya go!Compassion fatigue, Ash has it. (Hence her wanting Cancer Mom to die in this story, eek!).

Goodreads

We'd love to have you join us in opining over on Goodreads. You can find this book over there: The Winter Sister by Megan Collins, and of course join our discussion group here.

Spotify Playlist

Ash mixes up playlists for our books - here's a sample for this week. You can check out our Spotify profile for like, all of them if you want to see more.

Another Sideshow, so you know what that means: no books, all bullshit! Holiday shopping ideas from Goop ($3,490 for a gold-plated dildo? Sure, why not), pretentious moms, miscellaneous birth control chatter, and a friendly reminder that IUDs have strings that need to be checked regularly so you know it's still in place! Also, tarot, tennis coach-word association, and all kinds of other nonsense. Listen and weep, bitches.

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Don't Shoot Me Santa by The Killers is Ash's new fav Xmas song, you'll like it too (maybe?)Are you an angel, or a demon? Take the quiz and let us know in The Ask Hole--inquiring minds need to know!Word association time! Tennis coach makes Candace think of this, and Ash thinks of this. What does tennis coach make your brain dream up?Ahoy-hoy! It's Candace's favorite show Below Deck!Will you accept this link? ➡ The Bachelor is coming back this January and Ash is losing her mind.

All her life, curvy Dara Jenkins has dreamed of a White Christmas. But when she drives into the mountains for the holidays, what she finds instead is a snowstorm that threatens to claim her life. To Dara's amazement, she's rescued by an ice dragon - who turns into a sexy, charismatic man who hasn't left his snow castle in twenty years.

Henrik Drakeson is a dragon shifter who lost his parents long ago in a terrible accident. For most of his life, he has carried that burden with him, choosing loneliness over the happy visitors that once came to the family's snow castle every winter. He's promised himself he'd stay forever alone, so he'd never hurt anyone again - until his mate suddenly appears on his doorstep in a snowstorm, bringing all the joy and cheerfulness of Christmas to his lonely home.

Can Dara heal the pain of his wounded heart? And can they uncover the truth about his past - and defend each other against the ruthless enemy behind the old tragedy?

This is a sizzling hot, standalone BBW dragon shifter holiday romance. No cliffhangers!

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Mentioned Links

Wanna know more about Zoe Chant and her many books? Cool, here's her site.Heartbreak: this book contained not a single cloaca. Also, is it clo-AY-cuh, or clo-AH-cah???? Dara Jenkins is basically Rita Leeds. Oh no, the last 30 seconds of Ash's audio disappeared! You'll have to just imagine her saying "Merry Fucking Christmas, assholes" along with Candace. What are ya gonna do??

Goodreads

We'd love to have you join us in opining over on Goodreads. You can find this book over there: The Christmas Dragon's Mate by Zoe Chant, and of course join our discussion group here.

Spotify Playlist

Ash mixes up playlists for our books - here's a sample for this week. You can check out our Spotify profile for like, all of them if you want to see more.

A veteran activist's guide to direct action and strategic civil disobedience as the most radical and rapid means to social change

For decades, Lisa Fithian’s work as an advocate for civil disobedience and nonviolent direct action has put her on the frontlines of change. Described by Mother Jones as “the nation’s best-known protest consultant,” Fithian has supported countless movements including the Battle of Seattle in 1999, rebuilding and defending communities following Hurricane Katrina, Occupy Wall Street, and the uprisings at Standing Rock and in Ferguson. For anyone who wants to become more active in resistance or is just feeling overwhelmed or hopeless, Shut It Down offers strategies and actions you can take right now to promote justice and incite change in your own community.

In Shut It Down Fithian shares historic, behind-the-scenes stories from some of the most important people-powered movements of the past several decades. She shows how movements that embrace direct action have always been, and continue to be, the most radical and rapid means for transforming the ills of our society. Shut It Down is filled with instructions and inspiration for how movements can evolve as the struggle for social justice continues in the Trump era and beyond.

While recognizing that electoral politics, legislation, and policy are all important pathways to change, Shut It Down argues that civil disobedience is not just the only action that remains when all else fails, but a spiritual pursuit that protects our deepest selves and allows us to reclaim our humanity. Change can come, but only if we’re open to creatively, lovingly, and strategically standing up, sometimes at great risk to ourselves, to protect what we love. 

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Wowza--this episode was a teensie bit tough for a couple reasons. Candace has personal experience with an action/protest from the book, which was traumatic and the memories carry a lot of feelings with them. Ash didn't finish the book because figured out midway through recording that she's stressed AND depressed (surprise!) and that's why she never wants to read anymore. Woof! But no fear: we also talk possumkratom69 and Tiny Toons, so it ain't all a bummer.

Mentioned Links

We mentioned possumkratom69 and their cool memes. Turns out we aren't the only fans, either, Vox wrote a lil' bit about them.Info on the Standing Rock dickbag who fired a gun at a protest and drove his truck into a crowd of protesters.We're fundraising for the Osage Nation Foundation through our Facebook page. The donation link is posted to the top of the PMAB page, so you can't miss it! It's the season of giving so consider donating to a worthy cause, yeah?Want some levity? Wanna know which Tiny Toons character you are??? DUH don't be dumb, of course you wanna know! (Psst...Ash is Buster Bunny. Candace's results are still pending.)

Goodreads

We'd love to have you join us in opining over on Goodreads. You can find this book over there: Shut It Down by Lisa Fithian, and of course join our discussion group here.

Spotify Playlist

Ash mixes up playlists for our books - here's a sample for this week. You can check out our Spotify profile for like, all of them if you want to see more.

In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian Nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe.

Then, one by one, they began to be killed off. One Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, watched as her family was murdered. Her older sister was shot. Her mother was then slowly poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more Osage began to die under mysterious circumstances.

In this last remnant of the Wild West—where oilmen like J. P. Getty made their fortunes and where desperadoes such as Al Spencer, “the Phantom Terror,” roamed – virtually anyone who dared to investigate the killings were themselves murdered. As the death toll surpassed more than twenty-four Osage, the newly created F.B.I. took up the case, in what became one of the organization’s first major homicide investigations. But the bureau was then notoriously corrupt and initially bungled the case. Eventually the young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to try to unravel the mystery. White put together an undercover team, including one of the only Native American agents in the bureau. They infiltrated the region, struggling to adopt the latest modern techniques of detection. Together with the Osage they began to expose one of the most sinister conspiracies in American history.

A true-life murder mystery about one of the most monstrous crimes in American history.

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Mentioned Links

Here's more info on the author, David Grann.Instead of blowing money on Black Friday, hows about you make a charitable donation? The Osage Nation Foundation is a great place to start. Another great organization is Adopt-a-Native-Elder, which provides support to elderly Native Americans.Henry Grammer, the ex-rodeo star/murderer/moonshine runner that got Ash feelin' feisty. Is he hot? No. Would she have had sex with him in 1910 in Oklahoma? Oh yeah, baby!Pete Davidson, yikes!

On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold walked into Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Over the course of minutes, they would kill twelve students and a teacher and wound twenty-four others before taking their own lives.For the last sixteen years, Sue Klebold, Dylan’s mother, has lived with the indescribable grief and shame of that day. How could her child, the promising young man she had loved and raised, be responsible for such horror? And how, as his mother, had she not known something was wrong? Were there subtle signs she had missed? What, if anything, could she have done differently?These are questions that Klebold has grappled with every day since the Columbine tragedy. In A Mother’s Reckoning, she chronicles with unflinching honesty her journey as a mother trying to come to terms with the incomprehensible. In the hope that the insights and understanding she has gained may help other families recognize when a child is in distress, she tells her story in full, drawing upon her personal journals, the videos and writings that Dylan left behind, and on countless interviews with mental health experts.Filled with hard-won wisdom and compassion, A Mother’s Reckoning is a powerful and haunting book that sheds light on one of the most pressing issues of our time. And with fresh wounds from the recent Newtown and Charleston shootings, never has the need for understanding been more urgent.

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Mentioned Links

Here's the ABC Interview Friend of Mine by Jonathan and Stephen Cohen, survivors of the Columbine shootingFor more info on the Columbine massacre, here's a website where Dave Cullen, author of Columbine, compiled his research. Are you or someone you know struggling with depression or suicidal ideation? The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is a great resource for residents of the U.S.International listener? Here's a list of international suicide prevention resources.

Sue Klebold's TED Talk

Goodreads

We'd love to have you join us in opining over on Goodreads. You can find this book over there: A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy by Sue Klebold, and of course join our discussion group here.

Spotify Playlist

Ash mixes up playlists for our books - here's a sample for this week. You can check out our Spotify profile for like, all of them if you want to see more.

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We're still getting on track from the shit-show that was October, so here's November's sidehow! We're back to books next week though, really, truly, we promise. In the meantime, this sideshow is all about the books that Ash picked up on her trip throughout the U.S.--oh gawd there's so many. (⌐■_■)

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Wow, October was a wash! So instead of an episode about a book we're gifting you another sideshow that was recorded while we were TOGETHER IN THE SAME ROOM! You're welcome! ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ

Two mothers—a suburban housewife and a battle-hardened veteran—struggle to protect those they love in this modern retelling of Beowulf.

From the perspective of those who live in Herot Hall, the suburb is a paradise. Picket fences divide buildings—high and gabled—and the community is entirely self-sustaining. Each house has its own fireplace, each fireplace is fitted with a container of lighter fluid, and outside—in lawns and on playgrounds—wildflowers seed themselves in neat rows. But for those who live surreptitiously along Herot Hall’s periphery, the subdivision is a fortress guarded by an intense network of gates, surveillance cameras, and motion-activated lights.

For Willa, the wife of Roger Herot (heir of Herot Hall), life moves at a charmingly slow pace. She flits between mommy groups, playdates, cocktail hour, and dinner parties, always with her son, Dylan, in tow. Meanwhile, in a cave in the mountains just beyond the limits of Herot Hall lives Gren, short for Grendel, as well as his mother, Dana, a former soldier who gave birth as if by chance. Dana didn’t want Gren, didn’t plan Gren, and doesn’t know how she got Gren, but when she returned from war, there he was. When Gren, unaware of the borders erected to keep him at bay, ventures into Herot Hall and runs off with Dylan, Dana’s and Willa’s worlds collide.

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Mentioned Links

Wanna know more about Maria Dahvana Headley? Of course you do, she's awesome!

Goodreads

We'd love to have you join us in opining over on Goodreads. You can find this book over there: The Mere Wife by Maria Dahvana Headley, and of course join our discussion group here.

Spotify Playlist

Ash mixes up playlists for our books - here's a sample for this week. You can check out our Spotify profile for like, all of them if you want to see more.

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OOOOF it's a weird one today, we don't talk books because we literally CAN'T right now--our brains are scrambled and life is weird. We do, however, talk about eels, mom probs, menfolk, and rollercoaster fingerings. (☉‿☉✿)

Mentioned Links

Mark Wahlberg...fingering...rollercoaster...movieDid you know, you never step in the same river twice?EEL JAWSWanna talk shit about your mom? Great, us too. Go to the Ask Hole and send us your stories!