Revisiting a true highlight this week!

Will Dean’s The Last Thing to Burn is one of very few 10/10 books i've ever featured on this podcast. It’s a flawless study of isolation, survival, exploitation and the most toxic of masculinities – all about a Vietnamese immigrant, trapped in the home of her ‘husband,’ the monstrous

Will is an amazing writer, with an amazing life. He’s creating classics like this, as well as the ongoing Tuva Moodyson series, all from the depths of a Scandinavian forest. We talk about his journey from small town UK to his fairytale present, the role of landscape and isolation in his work, broken psyches and much more…

Trust me, this book will stay with you!

Enjoy!

Other books mentioned:

Tickets for the Northern Weird event at Blackwells, Manchester.

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This flashback episode takes us to early 2021, when I was joined by Courtney Summers – the boundary-pushing author of dark YA fictions for a corrective lesson.

Courtney came on the show to discuss The Project, a novel of sinister elite cults, evil charisma and radicalisation. At the time Trump had just been kicked out of office, so those things seemed safe to talk about.

Alas… they are maybe scarier now.

Enjoy!

Other books mentioned:

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Time for a classic haunted house.

I’m on a short break from the show, to recoup, read without pressure and generally try not to implode. So we’re heading into the vault for some older conversations that new listeners may have missed and long-termers may enjoy anew.

Where better to start that in a haunted house with a Queen of 21st century horror – Ms Tananarive Due!

This was our first conversation together, back in May of 2021 – and we explored her bad-place archetype, The Good House, the elegiac horror of her collection, Ghost Summer, plus forays into her scholarship, film and TV work, and her relationships with Stephen King and Jordan Peele.

It’s a lot of fun.

Enjoy!

Other books mentioned:

Dark Dreams (2004), edited by Brandon Massey

“The Comet” (1920),  by W.E. Dubois

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Here be dragons!

I’m celebrating Halloween week on Talking Scared with the very cream of the bucket list. Joe Hill is finally on the show!

The author of Heart Shaped Box, NOS4A2, “The Black Phone” and Lock & Key is back with his first novel in nearly a decade, and it’s a beast!

King Sorrow is an epic of dragons, diabolical deals, decade-spanning friendships, love and hate and everything in between. It’s bloody brilliant!

Joe talks about the triple inspiration of The Hobbit, The Secret History and Friends. We tackle tech-bros and trolls (literally), and the formidable role of his mother, Tabitha King. And if we disagree on certain characters in King Sorrow, we’re certainly on the same page when it comes to the role of love in life and writing.

This is a special one for me. A special book and a special conversation.

Enjoy!

Other books mentioned:

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In our fifth Let Us Palaver, Nat and I dally a little longer in ‘Salem’s Lot to hunt down a few more vamps and follow up some threads mentioned in the main episode.

This is where we get spoilery, so this is just for those who have been to the Tower already. But we talk about Chris’s predictions for Father Callaghan, discuss the moral arc of King’s entire fictional project (no big thing right!) and even congratulate the man on his steadfast marriage.

Also, my wife makes an appearance bearing tea.

Enjoy.

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‘Salem’s Lot is FIFTY years old this month. Hellfire, how did that happen? We’re gonna celebrate the bloodsucking and small town shenanigans for all they are worth!!

But some of you know that the Lot sits just to one side of the Path of the Beam – so this is also a key zig in our endless zagging towards The Dark Tower. You may just not know why yet? And neither does Chris, so no one tell him.

So in this two-fer episode we honour a true horror classic of 20th century

Enjoy.

Other books mentioned:

As mentioned – here is my Vulture list of the Best Horror Books of 2025 (so far).

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Joe Lansdale is here to give us all a smack upside the head.

We are talking about The Essential Horror of Joe R. Lansdale – his brand new career-retrospective, collecting the stories that have defined him for decades as one of the most edgy, provocative writers of the grim and grotesque.

We cover some of the classics, like “Bubba Ho Tep,” “Mr Weed Eater” and “On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert with Dead Folks” – asking where the craziness came from, and finding the roots in Joe’s colourful life.

But we also discuss more serious matters, such as the hatred depicted in “The Night They Missed the Horror Show,” and what it means in our current puritanical, easily-outraged era.

Enjoy! Beware!

Other books mentioned:

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Mine isn’t the only Good Boy released into the world this week. You may have heard of a little film that shares my books name.

I joke – Ben Leonberger’s Good Boy is everywhere, and rightly so. It’s a haunted house movie told from the POV of Ben’s dog Indy (playing himself). It’s a magic trick of filmmaking and puppy eyes.

Ben came on the show for a generous chat about making the movie. He tells us about the technical hurdles to be jumped, the mammoth 400 day shoot, the portrayal of fear through a dog’s eyes… but mostly we talk about his bond with Indy and why we both believe dogs are the ultimate horror movie heroes.

This is a dog-lover’s delight. Happy Friday!

Enjoy

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Ah the arrogance of writers. Now I am one, officially, I thought I’d better do something fitting.

So I set up a whole episode of my podcast to talk about my own book – Good Boy! My debut novella about small English towns, the bonds between men and dogs, and a battle between bravery and monsters.

Thankfully, I have friends who will facilitate this type of nonsense, so thanks to Nat Cassidy and Rachel Harrison for asking me questions and flattering my ego.

We talk about literary and personal inspirations, about what I’ve learned from 5 years of interviewing authors, about local folklore and the composition of monsters… and of course, about dogs!

This was the greatest pleasure for me. I hope you enjoy it half as much.

Other books mentioned:

Support Talking Scared on Patreon

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Another day, another episode about the weird-arse end of nowhere!

We remain in the North of England for this second part of a weeklong celebration of the Northern Weird Project – six novellas published by Wild Hunt Books (including one by yours truly!).

This time it’s conversation with Matt Wesolowski, about his train-bound folkloric horror, Don’t Call Mum, Jodie Robins, with her magical seaside lament for lost youth, The Off Season, and Stephen Howard, who has sent the uncanny home into a whole new paroxysm of sorrow, withThis House is Not Haunted But We Are.

We moan about the weather. About trains. About southerners. It’s all very northern and grim.

But there are also ghosts, monsters, mad circuses and VAMPIRE RABBITS!!!

Other books mentioned:

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Come talk books on Bluesky @talkscaredpod.bsky.social on Instagram/Threads, or email direct to [email protected]

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